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Comments 6601 to 6650:
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Philippe Chantreau at 10:51 AM on 16 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
I object to the term "debate." A debate can happen when participants are arguing in good faith. That is clearly not the case with deniers.
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nigelj at 07:30 AM on 16 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Keithy @9, I am struggling a bit to understand your point of view. I do not think Al Gore chose drama over facts. His book and movie sounded very facts based to me. Did you mean he emphasised drama over just a dry delivery of the facts?
I think Al gores book was good, but over simplified a few things. It could have better explained why CO2 lags temperature in the ice age cycles and generally how the thing worked.
But either way, I do concede there was a big element of drama and theatre in Gores book and movie, and that this would attract the denialists. But I'm not sure we really needed the denialists involved to advertise the climate problem. The problem speaks for itself.
Like PC says the climate change denialism is just misleading rhetoric and assorted nonsense. I think we can live without this frustrating public debate that seems to never end.
However Gores book and movie would probaly grab public attention. I read Al gores book and it did focus my attention on the climate issue because it was well presented. However it probably didnt go down well with the right wing in America, given Gore is a rich democrat. But whats done is done.
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nigelj at 07:02 AM on 16 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Steve @5, yes clearly industrial civilisation is harsh on the planet. Green technologies would at least improve that situation, along with eliminating or drastically reducing waste. Going further would mean we have to stop using things like computers and cars. Are you prepared to do that?
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:25 AM on 16 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Keithy "without them there is no conversation in the public square."
Well then it's a catch22 because there is no conversation possible with them either. They deny, they mirepresent, they mislead, refuse to acknowledge evidence, portray minor issues as if they could distract from the weight of the evidence, etc, etc. They are so dishonest that there is really no communication possible. They do, however, have good techniques, inherited from various industries who practiced denial before them, and are advised by experts in mind manipulation techniques, so they are convincing for the masses with little scientific literacy and limited critical thinking skills. That does not make them right or legitimize the so-called "conversation."
Deniers do not "advertise" (whatever that may mean) the "whole problem." They fool their audiences with methods in comparison to which Al Gore's small shortcomings are essentially negligible. They make an argument, shown to be entirely wrong, only to turn around and then pretend that the initial argument was not applicable anyway, not acknowledgeing that they initiated it. The list of their dishonest behaviors is almost as long as the myths listed on this site, or the the catalog that can be found in Wikipedia under "logical fallacies." Calling their participation a conversation would be a joke, if it was funny.
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Nick Palmer at 02:40 AM on 16 September 2020My Climate Story: Coming full Circle
Good to see Greg Craven getting a mention and the Manpollo crew of whch I was a small part which involved staying up late to ridiculous times researching for Greg's book which is an underappreciatede masterpiece.
Of course, denialist propaganda has moved on since then and Greg's clever 'assess who's the most credible' argument probably wouldn't help much today - even if we could claim that every single scientist in the world fully endorsed the science it still wouldn't shake their rhetoric much! -
michael sweet at 01:39 AM on 16 September 2020Wildfires are not caused by global warming
Atrain1906:
I saw a report (sorry no cite) that compared fires in large areas of the USA where no fire supression is done with those areas where high fire supression is done. These were high elevation areas or areas where the trees were not valuable for timber. They found that the natural areas are burning more today than 100 years ago. That could be the basis of the conclusion that cliamte change is theprimary driver and not fuel density since in the natural areaas fuel density would not have changed.
In general scientists have measured most everything. If you want to claim that they did not include fuel density in their models you need to provide data to support your claim.
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Eclectic at 00:19 AM on 16 September 2020Wildfires are not caused by global warming
A-Train @1 , in the above quote from the Fourth NCAR, the "burnt area" studied was for 1916 to 2003. Presumably the pre-1916 data would be too skimpy & poor to provide real value ~ and the assessed period itself contains major changes in population/settlements and multiple other factors.
A-Train1906 , one extra point you may not have considered, is that prior to 1916, going back 70 years to the Gold Rush times (and earlier, too) . . . what was the natural state of the vegetation? Natural wildfires occurred, even with the much lower human population. But what would have been the "natural" level of fuel density in those times of little or no actual fire suppression efforts? Would the untouched/unmanaged fuel density have been much different than the fuel density of recent decades?
To some extent, for climate-factor purposes, we would somehow have to compare (apples to apples) the 2000's with the 1800's rather than with (say) the 1950's or similar period of "unnaturally" lower fuel density.
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Keithy at 23:42 PM on 15 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Nick, Al Gore chose drama over facts because in the end the people lead and governments follow.
Governments are designed to work slowly and so only the voting public will be able to make any difference when push comes to shove.
He invites the deniers to the conversation in the public square because without them there is no conversation in the public square.
The deniers advertise the whole problem,... so Al Gore played a very good hand by making vague and sweeping statements that made the deniers have to take a stand... and the conversation began!
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Brainspin at 19:58 PM on 15 September 2020Clouds provide negative feedback
To this layman, a new report (Saint‐Lu et al 2020) seems to support Lindzen's "Iris effect" (that high cloud cover in the tropics diminish with increased temperature), but at the same time finds that high clouds have a neutral effect on global warming:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL089059
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A-Train1906 at 18:59 PM on 15 September 2020Wildfires are not caused by global warming
I didn't see any reference within this explanation to the main driver of increased fire intensity as well as acreage burned: Anthropogenic alteration of the historic fire regime. 100+ years of aggressive fire suppression has created significant carbon loads well above historical levels. We now see much larger fires now that burn with greater intensity than in the past with the primary driver being fuel density. I didn't see any study sited, or any evidence given as to what proportion of these increases in fire frequency or intensity is created by climate change and which proportion would be attributable to our altering the natural frequency of burn cycles. I'm not really sure how the fourth national climate assessment report could conclude twice the amount of acreage has burned that otherwise would not have because of climate change when fuel density wasn't used as a primary driver within their model.
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Lachlan at 17:52 PM on 15 September 2020Five science questions to be asked at the debates
Q4 is a yes/no question, which isn't good for debates. I'd have suggested "How will you use this opportunity..."
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Lachlan at 17:51 PM on 15 September 2020Five science questions to be asked at the debates
@Keithy, Trump didn't just do nothing. He went backwards by undoing things like vehicle mileage requirements (which help consumers in the short term, as well as the environment).
Can you think of another POTUS who has done as much damage?
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Steve19771 at 11:04 AM on 15 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
This is my first post and I really enjoy the complex explanations involved in climate science provided by this site. While all the science behind man induced global warming seems sound the crux of the problem will remain elusive to all politicians. I fail to see any one tackle the real problem and that is our wanton lifestyle that disregards and disrespect our only home in the univese. All I can see are politicians talking a good game about actions but yet do nothing about developments in wildland urban interface. People seem to think we can develop green technology to engineer the planet so that we can bake the cake and eat it too. Sadly if we don't change our ways and lifestyle then no force except for nature itself will aright the kilter.
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Eclectic at 09:16 AM on 15 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Govanguitar ~ if you haven't already seen it, then you might enjoy the video on Youtube by (science reporter) "Potholer54". Title is "The cause of Australia's bushfires" ( number #52 in the climate series ) regarding the major wildfires of early 2020 there. Duration 36 minutes - rather longer than Potholer's average - but very good value as an example of logical analysis.
The parallels are strong. Of course there are differences, some in climate, some in vegetation & management. And the western USA has also had a multi-decadal alteration in spread of plant types (versus mostly "old growth" in Australia's southeast).
But a similarity is the Murdoch media & friends, who reflexly front up with every possible excuse . . . except climate change.
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Govanguitar at 06:36 AM on 15 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
"forestry management" not "forestry mana", putting aside any Old Testament apocalyptic allusions
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Govanguitar at 06:33 AM on 15 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
I'm a longtime followe of this site, first time commenter.
Just want to mention what seems to be a popular broken arrow in the rhetoric quiver of climate change denialists; they are all quite eager to suggests that the conflagrations in the western USA are due to bad forestry mana practice. This may play a part, but many of them suggests it's the only thing. Hopefull, your team and a number of your readers who are forestry experts can smokejump into this location where the fire of irrationality are spreading and put this fire out. The John Batchelor show (#407) is one of these flareups. Guest is a Chicago finance academic, not a forester. Should be easy to put out.
Good work y'all.
Cheers
GG
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Doug Bostrom at 03:37 AM on 15 September 2020My Climate Story: Coming full Circle
Time to make some ears burn: It's not really possible to choose and identify a major component of an efficiently operating engine as "the most important." But it's a plain fact that without Bärbel installed into the mechanism of Skeptical Science, delivered horsepower and torque would be much diminished.
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Eclectic at 01:02 AM on 15 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
KR @45 , yes the WUWT blog and the Curry blog are an entertaining read, IMO.
The Curry blog is a somewhat upmarket version of WUWT , with notably less frothing-at-the-mouth . . . but only marginally less of the super-selfish political extremism (see the recent "Politics Only" thread, where the regular commenters flaunt their underlying philosophies).
Willis Eschenbach is one of my favorites ~ a guy with a high IQ and a sense of humor . . . but a bad case of Motivated Reasoning, and a sad lack of insight & common sense. Crackpot, but at least not one of the "bad actor" Shills, I think.
As you probably know well, WUWT has not only hordes of climate-deniers of the ultra-lukewarmer type and wingnut type, but also a goodly share of CO2-greenhouse deniers plus a few super-wackies who are even more extreme in their anti-science beliefs.
Pretty much all commenters there have a bad case of "We Are The Only True Scientists Remaining In The World". And it is indeed amusing to see the mutual contradictions and squabbling. But ~ they unite as one pack, to pile schoolyard vitriol onto the rare commenters (Nick Stokes and a few other brave souls) who occasionally try to fly the flag of rational scientific thinking.
The Curry blog ~ nowhere near as bad, mostly. On the surface !
Sadly, I get the impression that the Host (Hostess?) at ClimateEtc has for many years been gradually veering into less and less rationality re climate science. Perhaps her Geothermal advocacy is a single aberration of the ultra-wacky type? Or just a bigger Red Flag?
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2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Re: Eclectic and the reference to bad arguments at Judith Curry's blog:
I'm greatly amused in that article on the Ethical Skeptic and the attempt to claim global warming is due to geothermal effects to see Willis Eschenbach (long time contributor to WUWT, primarily with ad hoc and unsupportable math) as a major dissenter, pointing out that the blog post is simply unsupportable.
When other climate denialists weigh in loudly noting your argument is bad, it's really bad.
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2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), responsible for much of US weather prediction, has hired David Legates as new deputy assistant secretary of Commerce for environmental observation and prediction, a position that would report directly to acting NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs.
Legates has a long history of climate denial, including a series of poorly written papers coauthoring with Willie Soon. This is likely another move by the current adminstration to put climate denialists and industry boosters into environmental posts, and to influence science reports with political oversight.
DesmogBlog write-up on David Legates
Washington Post article on his hiring
The next administration, assuming it's not Trump and company, will have a great deal of work to do reversing this dismantling of the US environmental and climate frameworks.
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Keithy at 17:34 PM on 14 September 2020Five science questions to be asked at the debates
I don't think Trump was the first POTUS to do nothing about Climate Change...
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:24 PM on 14 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Nick Palmer @5,
BaerbelW's reply @6 deserves to be reinforced.
A reason(s) for the validity of: "not sure if any presentation by anybody about climate change can be made completely "denialist proofed"!" was presented by Al Gore in his 2007 book "The Assault on Reason".
Trump anti-truthism is not a new thing, and it is not a Trump thing.
In the introduction to the book Gore states "Why do reason, logic, and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?" That was published in 2007 and was about the Republican pursuit of dominance and power over all Others.
Climate change is a major item that is an Inconvenient Truth for the wealthy powerful people who try to defend their Status as 'deserving wealthy and powerful people' (losing that status would devastate them in may ways).
Moving beyond Gore's book, a review of actions taken by the Republicans, and many similar political parties in other nations, indicates that they are likely responding to, and resisting, the successful robust improvement of understanding what is required to achieve a Sustainable improving future for humanity. The required corrections of many harmful unsustainable things that have developed are very robustly established. The only way to resist them is a successful Assault on Reason.
Once it is decided that Logic, Reason, and Truth is The Enemy the rest is all downhill.
Tragically, as Jonathan Haidt presents in "The Righteous Mind" many people are powerfully inclined to be subservient to Their Identified Authority and believe whatever that Authority tells them. And they fear not continuing to be part of that group. They can easily be made to fear being Governed "By Reason".
The core support of the Republicans are easy targets for efforts to Assault Reason. There is likely no way to make anything that will be 'bullet-proof' to Assaults on Reason that appeal to that core group.
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Bob Loblaw at 01:50 AM on 14 September 2020Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Luiz @ 343:
The 29Gt is misleading? No, it is not. It is not a net flow. None of the arrows in figure 1 represent net flows. That's why there are two arrows in two directions between atmosphere and land, and atmosphere and ocean. One arrow for one flux in one direction.
There is no flow from atmosphere to fossil fuel, so there is no arrow. Any transfer from atmosphere to vegetation, etc on land is contained in the middle arrow (450 Gt). The "land use" part of the left-most 29 Gt arrow is only that portion of anthropogenic activity that causes carbon flow into the atmosphere.
There is precious little that humans have been doing that removes carbon from the atmosphere, unless you want to claim credit for crop growth, etc., that largely repsesent a replacement of natural systems, not an addition.
There are agricultural practices that can potentially increase soil carbon, etc., but on a global scale they are a drop in the bucket at this time. Agricultural practices have tended historically to lead to increased atmospheric CO2.
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Eclectic at 00:48 AM on 14 September 2020Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Luiz @344 , the Spanish regional study you have mentioned, is stating that the temperatures were cooler during 1600 - 1800 and have been warmer since 1800 (approximate date).
Why do you mention temperatures declining? Please explain.
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Luiz19760 at 00:19 AM on 14 September 2020Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
High-Resolution Temperature Variability Reconstructed from Black Pine Tree Ring Densities in Southern Spain This article received in June/2020, revised, accepted and published in July/2020, shows that temperatures are declining.
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Luiz19760 at 23:07 PM on 13 September 2020Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
According to figure 1, "The Global Carbon Cycle", vegetation, land and the ocean absorb more carbon than they produce, 17 gigatons more. Where those extra tons come from? They have to come from somewhere, or someone. The answer is fossil fuel burning and land use. Nature is not seletive when it comes to carbon, it will absorb whatever is available. And by the way, part of the 29 gigatons produced by human actions, are absorbed as result of other human actions, technologies and materials. So the figure is misleading because the net result is not 29.
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Nick Palmer at 10:47 AM on 13 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
That's great. I'm sure you realise how many problems we denialist fighters face when we have to deal with countering the rherotic generated by political figures who spin a story that will appeal to their political base whch is not necessarily the complete scientific truth
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nigelj at 07:48 AM on 13 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
I do agree with Gseattle to the extent that Greata could fine tune her message on extinctions. Maybe to "modelling shows 200 species are dying each day". Or "Many species are dying each day". Or "we are at risk of huge biodiversity loss." However it doesn't keep me awake at nights. The underlying principles and message is what counts most.
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nigelj at 07:43 AM on 13 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
People like Gseattle appear to need very precise and proven numbers of extinctions, however we probably wont ever get this because of the huge challenges involved. We know its significantly more than 1.67 per year but can't be precise. We know with much better certainty that a large number of species are on the endangered list because its easier to measure actual populations than measure whether every last individual has died off.
So we know we have a problem. I dont understand the mentality of people that demand absolute precision before acknowleding we have a serious problem, and taking action. It just doesnt seem very realistic or very smart to me.
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BaerbelW at 05:22 AM on 13 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Nick Palmer @5
Nick - not sure if any presentation by anybody about climate change can be made completely "denialist proofed"! However, judging from the detailed speaker notes accompanying each of the slides Climate Reality Leaders get access to for their own presentations, I think that the answer is yes. The slides I thus far "sampled" all have references back to the sources and - where applicable - peer-reviewed literature.
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Nick Palmer at 04:02 AM on 13 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Has Gore 'denialist proofed' his slides and presentation, by paying attention to whether they can be easily misused?
When he did 'An Inconvenient Truth', the denialosphere was nowhere near as sophisticated as it is today and the ambiguities in his words back then gave them fertile ground to misrepresent the science in future by shooting the messenger - indeed, those weaknesses of expression helped the denialist ideology to grow... -
BaerbelW at 03:19 AM on 13 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
michael sweet @3
Mike - there are no special requirements to participate in the training. You'll however have to apply to join one and provide some reasons of why you'd like to participate. They have the following text about people participating in the training on their website:
"Who attends a Climate Reality leadership training?
Everyone. Seasoned community leaders, first-time activists, and business executives. Concerned parents and curious middle-schoolers.
Climate Reality Leaders come from all walks of life. But they all share the same desire to make a difference and help create a sustainable future for the Earth."
You can sign-up on their homepage to get a notification when the next trainings (in person and/or virtual) have been scheduled, most likely for 2021.
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Eclectic at 01:30 AM on 13 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle , it seems you are failing to think sufficiently rationally about planetary ecosystem degradation. Yes, your "gofundme campaign" suggestion to rescue a few species . . . is flippantly amusing. But you seem to mistake an accountant's numerical approach as being adequate for an overall assessment.
You are right that the IUCN has looked at only 120,000 species for extinction risk assessment ~ with 30,000 marked as "threatened". Yet the IUCN has still to assess a million species. Perhaps several million. If it ever gets around to completing such a large project.
The whole situation has a fuzzy uncertainty of numbers, but it would be moronic to take a complacent view of extinctions and worldwide ecological balance.
In this and other matters, I recommend you visit Dr Judith Curry's "ClimateEtc" blogsite [judithcurry.com] for both good & bad examples of rational/irrational thinking. ( I advise you avoid Curry's recent "Open Day" comments column devoted to political commentary ~ where The Usual Suspects really opened up in mouth-frothing form, almost reaching the depths of a typical average WattsUpWithThat commentary.)
And possibly you may wish to avoid a new article of Curry's , where she praises "The Ethical Skeptic" blog and its proposition that our modern global warming has been caused by an increase in geothermal heat. I hope this is a giant leg-pull by Curry . . . for if it is not, then she is veering even further from the path of scientific sanity.
But the main value in Curry's blogsite, is the appearances of Nic Lewis. Gseattle, you can learn a lot from observing how Nic Lewis confuses statistics versus realities.
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michael sweet at 01:26 AM on 13 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Baerbel:
I looked into Gore's training several years ago and it appeared to require a PhD in science to attend. Since I only have an MS I was not qualified.
What are the current requirements to take the course?
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Joel_Huberman at 23:27 PM on 12 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Thanks, Baerbel, you've inspired me to take Gore's training, but I'm going to wait until after November 3. Until then, the most important climate action that I--and all other climate activists--can take is to persuade our American friends to get out and vote--either on November 3 or by absentee ballot prior to November 3. For the US and for the world, for the climate and for democracy, this is the most important election of my 79 years on this planet.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:06 PM on 12 September 2020Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Slarty Bartfast @ 155:
What you forgot to include was any relevant science. Your numbers are mere fantasy in the world of carbon cycle descriptions and science.
"Pumping capactiy" is a meaningless term.
Your "efficiency" calculation is meaningless.
You are now talking about "returning to equilibrium" when in post 152 your were claiming that equilibrium was not a valid concept to use (and erroneously claimed that the existing science only describes the steady state).
Frankly, you have no idea what you are talking about. You are asserting meaningless claims with no reference to any reputable source to support your position.
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Postkey at 20:25 PM on 12 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
“Biodiversity collapses by two thirds in fifty years”
theecologist.org/2020/sep/10/biodiversity-collapses-two-thirds-fifty-years
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dkaroly at 15:50 PM on 12 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Thanks for your feedback on the Climate Reality training online. I helped with the in-person training in Australia in 2019. You can connect with Australian-based Climate Reality leaders and your new contacts from Sydney through the Australia-Pacific node of the Climate Reality project, based at the University of Melbourne http://www.climatereality.org.au/
Just note that the web site is in the process of changing. -
John Hartz at 09:22 AM on 12 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
The following statement is contained in the press release, Strategy for halting and reversing biodiversity loss revealed, posted on the UN Environmental Programme/WCMC website yesterday, Sep 10. 2020.
Today, over 1 million animal and plant species are threatened by extinction and many of the world’s ecosystems are at risk of collapse. In this major study led by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), involving 58 experts from across 46 institutions including UNEP-WCMC, scientists use futures modelling to consider seven different scenarios to explore how we can bend the curve on biodiversity loss from habitat conversion and feed a growing population.
The study projects that without further efforts to tackle habitat loss and degradation, global biodiversity decline will continue at a rate close to or greater than that for 1970-2010.
“We wanted to assess in a robust manner whether it might be feasible to bend the curve of declining terrestrial biodiversity due to current and future land use, while avoiding jeopardizing our chances to achieve other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” explains study lead author and IIASA researcher David Leclère. “If this were indeed possible, we also wanted to explore how to get there and more specifically, what type of actions would be required, and how combining various types of actions might reduce trade-offs among objectives and instead exploit synergies.”
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sailingfree at 08:45 AM on 12 September 2020It hasn't warmed since 1998
to Philippe at 405:
Thank you so much for the updated temperature plot. It is the best "Hiatus Killer" I've seen.
For years I have been waiting to see the SKS escalator brought up to date, showing 2019.
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gseattle at 08:41 AM on 12 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Although this was around 2008, they say, quote: "There are 869 recorded extinctions" and mention 'year 1500' six times. So that would be around 1.67 per year.
Could you provide a link to IUCN where they say what you said they say? I'm not saying it isn't true, they may have changed their approach since 12 years ago, it's just that IUCN has around 178,000 webpages so it would be handy to have it narrowed down to one.
Critical thinking is what caused me to look into Greta's claim of 73,000 per year, and to be wanting to look at the extinction model formulas. A relevant Yale article.
I think Greta will have a fine future and be received well by more people now if she simply switches the message over to the number of currently threatened species like this:
Jul 9, 2020 "The IUCN Red List has today surpassed [...] 120,372 species now assessed.
Of these, 32,441 are threatened with extinction." [source]
We could, for example, have gofundme campaigns to help rescue some.
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Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Slight correction to comment @152
I forgot to include the farm livestock in some of the numbers in my previous comment (@152). So the penultimate paragraph of that comment should read as follows:
The carbon pumping efficiency of the soil is only 4%. The soil contains over 1500 GtC but emits 60 GtC per annum. Humans store only 0.1 GtC but emit 0.8GtC per annum. That is an efficiency of 800%. It also means that the increase in CO2 production from humans and livestock (2.4 GtC per annum) is the same as that produced by about 4% of the Earth’s soil. That means that the total volume of soil must reduce by 4% over time as the volume of carbon entering the soil decreases and its pumping capacity is replaced by animals, if the ecosystem is to return to equilibrium. So 63 GtC will be lost from the soil while only 0.3 GtC will be transferred to the animal reservoir and none to plants. There is only one other place that most of the remaining 62.7 GtC can go: the atmosphere. This 62.7 GtC will increase the atmospheric CO2 concentration by about 30ppm.
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Nogapspermitted at 23:06 PM on 11 September 2020Pro Truth: A Pragmatic Plan to Put Truth Back Into Politics
Thank you to the leadership who have the integrity to start the ball rolling and let real understanding begin. The pure scientific logic to the endless lies cannot be underestimated!
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Eclectic at 19:16 PM on 11 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle @35 ,
it is important to think logically & scientifically about the problems being examined ~ without having the numbers distract you away from critical thinking.
Go to the IUCN website, and you will read that the IUCN does not state the total & absolute numbers of species extinctions as being 869 (or similar number). The IUCN gives various caveats about why the true number of extinctions must be far larger than the number you have mentioned. Which should have been obvious to you !
To examine the "distractions" further, I strongly suggest the examples to be found on Dr Judith Curry's blogsite ClimateEtc. Go to ClimateEtc and look up Nic Lewis as a salient example. Lewis is a good statistician but a poor scientist.
A contrast (found elsewhere) is "Tamino", who is good at statistics and good at scientific thinking.
The proper purpose of statistics is to illuminate the science of the underlying realities of this universe ~ not to obfuscate the scientific approach to understanding nature.
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gseattle at 15:24 PM on 11 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
"whether you accept or deny these statements about the modelling"
I searched for an equation for awhile. Without understanding the models, I don't know. Closest was this at Harvard by two who developed a model. I can't easily show their equation here, it would require an image.
Does anyone have a link to one of the extinction models used showing their equation?
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Bob Loblaw at 11:20 AM on 11 September 2020Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Slarty Bartfast @ 152:
So many basic errors.
- No carbon cycle descriptions or modelling do not assume steady state or equilibrium. They iinclude reservoirs of carbon, and fluxes between reservoirs, and all can vary with time.
- "Pumping capacity" is a meaningless term. All reservoirs have multiple fluxes in and out of them, and those fluxes are the result of a variety of factors. There is no single "pumping capacity".
- Fluxes are not the result of the size of the reservoir. For example, soil carbon is lost to the atmosphere by decomposition, and this is highly dependent on temperature and biological activity. In tropical forests, carbon added to the soil by dying vegetation is rapidly decomposed and retruns to the atmosphere. The soils reservoir has little carbon because the flux is so high. In contrast, colder climates like the boreal forest accumulate large carbon stores because decomposition is very slow.
- MA Rdoger has already pointed out your egregious logic error in claiming that a 70 kg person is a carbon source of 100 kg/year. If a person remains at 70kg, then whatever flux of carbon to the atmosphere is being exactly balance by an uptake in carbon from other sources.
- An increase in the human population means an increase in carbon storage. See point #4.
Your post is a distorted, misguided, uninformed outpouring. It bears little resemblance to reality.
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nigelj at 08:10 AM on 11 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle @35, the 200 per day are based on modelling, because its known that its very difficult to pick up true numbers of extinctions by observation alone. The modelling is probably too high but the true numbers are likely much higher than 1.67 per year. All this has been explained to you up thread.
You do not indicate whether you accept or deny these statements about the modelling. You say you are interersted in science but one of the principles of scientific process is you have to be specific about what things you agree with and what you disagree with and why and with what evidence. If you cannot do this you have no place in the discussion. So shape up or go away.
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MA Rodger at 02:57 AM on 11 September 2020Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Slarty Bartfast @152,
Perhaps you don't understand the concept of a 'cycle' when you talk of the 'carbon cycle'. Let me explain. The carbon moves from A to B to C to D and then, likely back to A again. That is a 'cycle'. It goes round and round.
Now you are saying that a 70Kg human emits 100kg carbon a year. Given the weight of the annual carbon emission is greater than the weight of the human emitting, it should be telling you that the carbon must be coming from somewhere and into the human to allow the human to emit such a quantity. Within the waffle you present @152 I fail to see where you account for how humans source all this carbon. And until you do account for it, your attempts to analyse the impact of an increasing human population on atmospheric CO2 levels will remain no more than waffle.
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Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
You can’t use the carbon cycle to prove that human respiration isn’t increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere because the carbon cycle only describes the steady state. As others have already noted, the human population has grown exponentially over the last 100 years. It has almost quadrupled since 1920. That is not a system operating in the steady state or at long-term equilibrium.
To put it simply, the carbon cycle describes five carbon reservoirs (vegetation, animals, soil, the ocean and the atmosphere) all of which also act as carbon pumps. Moreover, these five reservoirs are all interconnected, and the pumping capacity of each depends on their size. Generally, the bigger they are, the more carbon they pump. That means that changing the size of one will change the size of all the others in order to balance pumping rates and conservation of mass. This will happen as the system seeks to find a new equilibrium position. So an increase in the human population affects everything else. It changes the pumping rates and it changes the relative size of the other reservoirs. And the thing is, we can estimate what size this change might be.
As the average 70 kg person generates about 1 kg of CO2 per day, that means they transfer 100 kg of carbon to the atmosphere every year. With nearly 8 billion people on the planet that equates to about 0.8 GtC per annum (GtC = gigatonne of carbon).
But that is not all. The average person probably eats their own bodyweight in meat every year. So the growth in the human population since 1920 must be reflected in the growth in the number of farm livestock. If we assume 2 kg of livestock per 1 kg of human (i.e. a 2 year supply of meat in production), then the overall CO2 production from both is 2.4 GtC per annum. This is about a quarter of our fossil fuel CO2 output. So is this directly increasing atmospheric CO2 levels as some climate deniers might claim? The answer is no, or at least not directly.
Some people have suggested that the increases in human and livestock CO2 emissions are offset by increased crop production. Their argument is that, as all the carbon we breathe out comes from crops, any increase in the CO2 produced by the human population will be offset by a commensurate increase in crop production required to feed the extra humans and their livestock. This is not true either.
Increased crop production comes at the expense of other types of vegetation (e.g. forests). The total area under human cultivation may increase, but the total amount of land and vegetation won’t. Deforestation in the Amazon region to grow crops and farm cattle does not increase the rate of CO2 capture in the region. If anything, it decreases it.
Increasing the number of animals does not increase the amount of vegetation or its growth rate. Instead it decreases the amount of carbon going into the soil. Animals eat plants before those plant can die and before they can decay in the soil. This means that animals replace the CO2 producing capacity of the soil. That is where the substitution occurs. And if the pumping efficiencies of both animals and the soil were the same then nothing much would change as the animal population increases. But they aren’t the same.
The carbon pumping efficiency of the soil is only 4%. The soil contains over 1500 GtC but emits 60 GtC per annum. Humans store only 0.1 GtC but emit 0.8GtC per annum. That is an efficiency of 800%. It also means that the increase in CO2 production from humans and livestock is the same as that produced by about 4% of the Earth’s soil. That means that the total volume of soil must reduce by 4% over time as its pumping capacity is replaced by animals and as the volume of carbon entering the soil decreases. So 60 GtC will be lost from the soil while only 0.1 GtC will be transferred to animals and none to plants. There is only one other place that most of the 59.9 GtC can go: the atmosphere. This 59.9 GtC will increase the atmospheric CO2 concentration by about 30 ppm.
So the human population increase could have increased atmospheric CO2 levels by up to 30 ppm over time, and about 20 ppm since 1920. Is this an upper estimate? Yes, probably. It assumes that the growth in the human population and farming livestock is a net gain and does not merely substitute for loss of other species. But we know this is not true. Humans and their livestock do displace other creatures to some extent. It also omits any additional loss of CO2 to the oceans and changes to vegetation volumes through loss of soil and increases in CO2. But what it does demonstrate is that when the human population changes, everything else changes.
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Doug Bostrom at 02:01 AM on 11 September 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #36, 2020
Duly noted, Dawei. :-)
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