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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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gseattle at 01:15 AM on 11 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
By the way here are some credentials for Dr. Edwin X Berry if anyone is interested.
On topic is Greta, extinctions numbers:
Greta says 200 per day, or 73,000 per year.
IUCN says 869 since year 1500. That's 1.67 per year.
Eclectic called the numbers a distraction.
Perhaps that means, in this case, nevermind science, the exact numbers don't matter, so long as they are sufficiently scaring everybody into action.
Do the rest of you hold that basic viewpoint?
Wouldn't her message be mocked less if it were not imaginary? She could talk about the actual threatened species currently, a high number, wouldn't that be good? Would it not help round up more people into the cause who simply could not buy into her non-science claim? Wouldn't Greta Thunberg's reputation be better that way when people look back on this time from the future if we have one?
Moderator Response:[DB] Off-topic and sloganeering snipped. Please stay on-topic.
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Dawei at 14:18 PM on 10 September 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #36, 2020
Thanks Doug! Would be cool to see the 'highlighted paper' feature every week.
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roflkopter at 11:58 AM on 10 September 2020Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable
How neat is that, Mark was wrong about the global GDP growth into 2020, its actually significantly higher than what he said!
Moderator Response:[JH] Please provide the source of your information.
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scaddenp at 10:13 AM on 10 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
gseattle - "It was said Berry's arguments are "plainly wrong". Name one?"
"The IPCC agrees today’s annual human carbon dioxide emissions are 4.5 ppm per year and nature’s carbon dioxide emissions are 98 ppm per year. Yet, the IPCC claims human emissions have caused all the increase in carbon dioxide since 1750, which is 30 percent of today’s total."
Well the IPCC does not report emissions in ppm per year (that is weird and comes from what the IPCC actually reports which is in Gt per year). However, it is true that FF emissions are a fraction of natural emissions so what gives?
Notice that Berry doesnt directly reference where in the IPCC reports that his numbers come from. (Hard to imagine a peer reviewer that wouldnt insist on that). I wonder why? Well they come from Chpt 6 of the IPCC, nicely summarized in Fig 6.1.
Immediately obvious from the diagram is that not only are there natural emission, but there are natural sinks and they balance. ie Berry omits the important detail. CO2 (whatever its origin) is cycled naturally too, however our emissions overwhelm the balance. Man's emissions are responsible for of the Increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. His statement is a misrepresentation of the IPCC argument. If you had got your information from the IPCC or bothered to check his claim, then you would see that. As others have pointed out, there are independent ways (O2 depletion and isotopic composition) to verify that FF emissions are responsible for the increase.
So I read only half a paragraph of Berry. That was enough.
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Bob Loblaw at 07:11 AM on 9 September 2020Pro Truth: A Pragmatic Plan to Put Truth Back Into Politics
Some aspects of government simply must be kept secret - battle plans, undercover agents, etc. Government must have a clear indication of what each security level means, though - and a willingness to be open about that which is not really secret. Too often, Access to Information regulations are designed to help keep information away from people. An uninformed public is an easily-manipulated public.
OTOH, the media as a business enterprise is driven by what people want, and if people feel more comfortable with lies, that's what they'll seek out. A good read is over at the Baffler: "The Long Con"
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-long-con
An older, long and mainly academic read on why people believe what they believe is available online from another person with years of study in this area: The Authoritarians provides a very interesting read. The initial web page currently displays a short article on "Why Do Trump’s Supporters Stand by Him, No Matter What?", but on the right of the page are links to the original book (from 2004) and a few follow-up articles.
From the "About" page:
Bob Altemeyer is a retired professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba, where he studied authoritarianism for forty years.
...and on the main page, one of the statements that I think applies to the topic here is:
Compared to most people, studies have shown that authoritarian followers get their beliefs and opinions from the authorities in their lives, and hardly at all by making up their own minds. They memorize rather than reason.
Honoring truth and encouraging truth can only work when the audience is willing and able to call out the lying authority figures in their lifes. Liars lie because it works - they can achieve their goals that way.
From a T.A.'s desk when I was an undergrad:
"To accept everything or reject everything is an equally-convenient solution: it disposes of the necessity of thinking about the issue."
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:20 AM on 9 September 2020Pro Truth: A Pragmatic Plan to Put Truth Back Into Politics
Part of the problem is the lack of awareness and lack of acceptance that there is a significant difference between "Belief" and "Understanding".
Anything can be Believed. Understanding requires evidence and the pursuit of the best explanation for all of the evidence.
The pursuit of expanded awareness and improved understanding restricts the available realm for Belief. But many people do not like "Being Restricted" in any way. Many people are growing up in societies based on 'Strict beliefs' or the 'Belief in increased freedom to believe what you want and do as you please' (Liberty without the responsibility to helpfully learn and self-govern to limit the harm done - which is Anarchy - which is not Helpful).
A significant part of that problem is due to people growing up trained (ideologically indoctrinated) to believe things that evidence contradicts. Their lack of interest in giving up on developed preferred beliefs can be seen to be a harmful resistance to many required corrections. One of their last-ditch actions is discrediting anyone who presents helpful expanded awareness and understanding - the denigration of "Real Knowledge Elites" - because in the made-up minds of harmful believers All Opinions are Equally Valid.
Clearly 'Better Understanding of how to help achieve and improve important objectives like the Sustainable Development Goals based on the evidence' Trumps any Alternative Belief. But some people refuse to accept that because it will not be to Their Advantage.
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JWRebel at 02:04 AM on 9 September 2020Pro Truth: A Pragmatic Plan to Put Truth Back Into Politics
Maybe there's a problem with the gate-keepers?
A lot of people are re-evaluating their trust in authorities in the light of conflicting reports, some of which seem a lot more plausible and probable than the spin we’re accustomed to.A big step up in confronting fake news would be to make secret services like the CIA and all the millions (yes) hiding behind ‘security’ claims as well as most other government/corporate memo’s public & transparent as soon as a policy is enacted. Secret government is a far bigger threat to ‘democracy’ than are internet whacko’s.
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nigelj at 18:21 PM on 8 September 2020Pro Truth: A Pragmatic Plan to Put Truth Back Into Politics
I can't help but wonder if all this post truth problem is largely the internet giving a free voice to all the morons, extremists, ideologues and cranks in the world, resulting in one giant cacaphony of insanity.
However thank's for the good advice. It will however be challenging. Group loyalty is prized, so criticising your fellow group members comments or your own groups dogma can get a hostile reception.
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John ONeill at 16:35 PM on 8 September 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Preston Urka - post 202
..claims nuclear process heat could be supplied from 250 to 1200 degrees C, whereas solar can only manage to ~650 C.
Current lightwater reactors operate around 330C, which is too low for most industrial use. Waste heat has been used for district heating though, for example in Switzerland from the Beznau reactor, in Czechia, and in Russia.
Simpler, lower pressure reactors operating at only about 90C and used solely for district heating are being built in China, and could make a big difference to winter air quality in cities like Beijing. LINK
The BN350 reactor in Kazakhstan operated for 26 years providing both electricity and desalinated water. ( It closed mainly because, after the Soviet Union broke up, Kazakhstan could not afford the fuel.) This was a sodium cooled reactor, and so could operated at 200C hotter than a light water reactor. Bill Gates' Terrapower sodium-cooled reactor company has recently developed a variant on their design which would directly heat molten nitrate salts, as used in Concentrating Solar Power plants. This would give about the same temperature salt as solar, but with the advantages of not needing to be in a desert, not needing natural gas to heat the boilers up in the morning, and giving 24/7 heat regardless of cloud or season.
Moderator Response:[RH] Shortened and activated links.
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Tom Dayton at 02:55 AM on 8 September 2020It's internal variability
New article 2020/9/7, Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?
Human-induced atmospheric composition changes cause a radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere which is driving global warming. This Earth energy imbalance (EEI) is the most critical number defining the prospects for continued global warming and climate change. Understanding the heat gain of the Earth system – and particularly how much and where the heat is distributed – is fundamental to understanding how this affects warming ocean, atmosphere and land; rising surface temperature; sea level; and loss of grounded and floating ice, which are fundamental concerns for society. This study is a Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to update the Earth heat inventory and presents an updated assessment of ocean warming estimates as well as new and updated estimates of heat gain in the atmosphere, cryosphere and land over the period 1960–2018. The study obtains a consistent long-term Earth system heat gain over the period 1971–2018, with a total heat gain of 358±37 ZJ, which is equivalent to a global heating rate of 0.47±0.1 W m−2.
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Bob Loblaw at 01:28 AM on 8 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Rather than just deleting most of geattle's post a little up=thread, I accidentally delted the entire thing. Most of it was inappropriiate complaints about moderation, etc. This is what should have been left:
What would happen if....
[deletion]
It was said Berry's arguments are "plainly wrong". Name one? I'm not asking as a gotcha. I might be convinced too that he's bad if you can just give me some content. But all you do is say he's plainly wrong, oh yeah, very bad. That's not how science works my friends.
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Tom Dayton at 01:01 AM on 8 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
MA Rodger, thank you for the link to the Dave Andrews paper! Moderators, will you please invite Dave Andrews to write an SkS post summarizing his paper?
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