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Comments 70101 to 70150:

  1. The Debunking Handbook Part 1: The first myth about debunking
    This will undoubtedly prove useful in other fields of work. I think I'll end up sharing this with co-workers. Thanks.
  2. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
    Mango @98, I'm not sure where you are going with your questions. What is your end game or goal with this line of questioning? Thanks.
  3. There's no tropospheric hot spot
    Hello Mango @5, Re "stratospheric cooling". My apologies, I was looking at the "intermediate" page, not the "advanced page and reference is made to stratospheric cooling in the latter. Your questions about the stratosphere are more suited and more likely to be answered on the other page though, and I see you have posted there. Thanks.
  4. There's no tropospheric hot spot
    Mango @6, This is not WUWT or BH. So no need to be paranoid, and please stop alluding to nefarious conduct by me. I have seen your posts at WUWT and on Richard Black's "skeptic" riddled blog, simple as that. So pardon my prudence.
  5. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
    few questions (apologies if they've been answered already) "Therefore, these excited CO2 molecules will deexcite and emit IR radiation (Step 4) which, in the rarefied stratosphere, will simply be radiated out of the stratosphere. The net result is a lower stratospheric temperature." Has any additional radiation out of the stratosphere been measured? What else could cause stratospheric cooling other than the enhanced greenhouse effect? Also, can you point me to an image showing what the actual temperature change profile looks like? TIA
  6. The Debunking Handbook Part 1: The first myth about debunking
    This might be the most important thing you've ever published. Bravo.
  7. The Debunking Handbook Part 1: The first myth about debunking
    I had no idea about this, this will be a fantastic resource. Thanks to John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. As others have noted above, SkS continue its tradition of developing innovative tools for communicating climate science and for refuting myths parroted by those in denial about AGW and "skeptics".
  8. There's no tropospheric hot spot
    apologies albatross but the article does talk about cooling in the stratosphere - i'll try the other thread didn't know i was being watched so carefully! what nake do you post under at the BBC and WUWT? just goes to prove that i do read the opposite view and links that people suggest, and i really am open to other views. A little shame that others on the BBC website are less prepared to look at both sides of the argument
  9. There's no tropospheric hot spot
    Hi Mango @3, You must have changed your spots, posting at a real science web site like SkS ;) This thread is about temperatures in the upper tropical troposphere, not the stratosphere. Your questions are on the wrong thread. Try here. The search engine on the top LHS of the page is very useful for finding the relevant thread, as I just did. I would help answer your questions, I have a paper in mind, but I do not wish to embark on a fool's errand by engaging you given your history at BBC and WUWT.
  10. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    apiratelooksat50 - "for now, it needs to be treated as a cyclical anomaly" Actually, I would opine that this should be treated as inherent variation in the climate system. A 'cyclic' phenomena would have a repeating period and amplitude, whereas the rather chaotic variations in weather which lack such characteristics (as does ENSO, for that matter) are better described as aperiodic variations. Calling it a 'cyclic anomaly' ascribes more regularity to the variations than they actually possess.
  11. Cardinal Pell needs to practise what he preaches on climate change
    Cardinal Pell exceeds his majesterium by making pronouncements on scientific matters. On scientific matters his views weigh as much as any other non-scientist. That is: nil.
  12. There's no tropospheric hot spot
    What else could cause stratospheric cooling other than the enhanced greenhouse effect? Also, can you point me to an image showing what the actual temperature change profile looks like? TIA
  13. Dikran Marsupial at 23:58 PM on 16 November 2011
    Cardinal Pell needs to practise what he preaches on climate change
    Bernard J Jesus said (Luke 13:4) "Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them— do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?". The reason the 18 died was probably that the tower of Siloam was badly built by human beings, so the idea that God will protect us from the consequences of our actions is perhaps not that well supported by scripture anyway.
  14. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    As it is related to this topic, and for the benefit of those who haven't seen the series, the indefatigable Albert Bartlett crunches some numbers on the resource side of things. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY It'd be nice to see it updated and polished, but Bartlett's style is compelling in a Sumner-Miller fashion. Sadly, given some of the clueless comments on those pages, it seems to be a law of human nature on the internet that no matter how carefully facts are arranged for the ignorant, ignorance trumps enlightenment in the population in direct proportion to the prgamatic urgency and the moral challenge of the matter. Cue The Debunking Handbook Part 1: The first myth about debunking...
  15. Cardinal Pell needs to practise what he preaches on climate change
    The Great Flood myth tells that God sought to remove the sinful from the face of the planet, and after so doing promised that He would not do it again. I know many Christians who take this as meaning that God would not permit the planet to warm so that it would harm humanity. It would seem to me that such faithful folk entirely miss the point - in the story, God promised not to wipe out humans again, but He said nothing about permitting humans to do so themselves. Also, the Revelation myth tells of the End Time, and there is nothing inconsistent with human-wrought climatological/ecological destruction heralding humanity's end-time. Christians who think that God won't permit climatological harm to come to them seem to be missing the enormous holes in their arguments, provided not by science but by their own mythology.
  16. The Debunking Handbook Part 1: The first myth about debunking
    And so Skeptical Science rockets to the stratospheric top of must-read sites providing reliable and objective scientific analysis in the quagmire that is scientific denialism. Kudos, and kudos again.
  17. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    Chris : concerning your point, I agree and that is part of the carbon cost. But on details, when you suffer a heatwave, you cannot attribute all the losses to CO2 : you must evaluate the usual cost of heatwave without anthropogenic change (something like baseline cost under natural variability), then attribute the overcost to the GHG-related overheat. For your information, French heatwave of 2003 had not generated much cost to agriculture, because of its timing (august). To the contrary, spring drought of 2011 has been very costly (but I didn't find a global estimate).
  18. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    Philippe, Tom : my first point was that biofuel « partly » (not solely) caused the food crisis 2007-2008. And most importantly that there are risk associated with our energy choices, whose probabibilty should be assesed in the same way we estimate climate risk. There are some risks, costs and debates among expert, as you can read on page 11 of the report of World Bank : "The contribution of biofuels to the recent price boom, and especially the price spike of 2007/08, has been hotly debated. Mitchell (2009) argued that bio‐ fuel production from grains and oilseeds in the US and the EU was the most im‐ portant factor behind the food price increase between 2002 and 2008, accounting, perhaps, for as much as two thirds of the price increase. Gilbert (2010), on the other hand, found little direct evidence that demand for grains and oilseeds as biofuel feedstocks was a cause of the price spike. FAO (2008) compared a baseline scenario, which assumes that biofuel production will double by 2018, to an assumption that biofuel production will remain at its 2007 levels; it concluded that in the latter case grain prices would be 12 percent lower, wheat prices 7 percent lower, and vegetable oil prices 15 per‐ cent lower than in the baseline scenario. OECD (2008) arrived at similar conclu‐ sions for vegetable oils, finding that their prices would be 16 percent lower than the baseline if biofuel support policies were abolished; eliminating biofuel subsi‐ dies would have smaller impacts on the prices of coarse grains (‐7 percent) and wheat (‐5 percent). Rosegrant (2008), who simulated market developments between 2000 and 2007 (excluding the surge in biofuel production), concluded that biofuel growth accounted for 30 percent of the food price increases seen in that period, with the contribution varying from 39 percent for maize to 21 percent for rice. Looking ahead, Rosegrant found that if biofuel production were to remain at its 2007 levels, rather than reaching its mandated level, maize prices would be lower by 14 percent in 2015 and by 6 percent in 2020.10 » Banse and others (2008) compared the impact of the EU’s current mandate to (i) a no‐mandate scenario and (ii) a mandate whereby the US, Japan, Brazil al‐ so adopt targets for biofuel consumption. They estimate that by 2020, in the base‐ line scenario (no mandate), cereal and oilseed prices will have decreased by 12 and 7 percent, respectively. In the EU‐only scenario, the comparable changes are ‐7 percent for cereal and +2 percent for oilseeds. By contrast, under the “global” scenario (adding biofuel targets in US, Japan, and Brazil) oilseed prices will have risen by 19 percent and cereal prices by about 5 percent. The European Commis‐ sion’s own assessment of the long‐term (2020) impacts of the 10 percent target for biofuels (i.e. that renewable energy for transport, including biofuels, will supply 10 percent of all EU fuel consumption by 2020) predicts fairly minor impacts from ethanol production, which would raise cereals prices 3‐6 percent by 2020, but larger impacts from biodiesel production on oilseed prices; the greatest pro‐ jected impact is on sunflower (+15 percent), whose global production potential is quite limited. Taheripour and others (2008) simulate the biofuel economy during 2001‐06. By isolating the economic impact of biofuel drivers (such as the crude oil price and the US and EU biofuel subsidies) from other factors at a global scale, they estimate the impact of these factors on coarse grain prices in the US, EU, and Brazil at 14 percent, 16 percent, and 9.6 percent, respectively." Side-effect on price is not the sole problem for biofuel of firt ou second generation, there are also debate among specialists concerning the true carbon budget (clearing of tropical rainforest for palm oil or sugar cane, more emission than agricultural crops for their production, poor energy intensity for methanol maïze in Northern Hemipshere, etc.). As you know, there is still 1 billon of humans suffering from hunger, and there will be another 1 billion humans to feed between now and 2035 (end of AIE scenario). So the question is : can we ensure the doubling of biofuel production in AIE scenario is the good choice ? Of course, you can grow biofuel and try to limit beef consumption... Everything is possible, but the more complicated your energy reform, the less probable its success.
  19. The Debunking Handbook Part 1: The first myth about debunking
    This could be a very important handbook, particularly for people like me who find themselves engaged with the misinformed from time to time. I already see myself mentioned in the statements above about providing more evidence, better theories etc while rubbishing their, now probably strongly held beliefs. It is very frustrating to try and explain that people's beliefs are in error only to come away thinking that you have gotten nowhere or even feel they are even more entrenched. I hope the advice here will help change that.
  20. Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
    Norman @ 37 - yup, I'm aware of the draft. Rather than focus solely on the issues raised by Rahmstorf and Coumou, I'd also like to see them (Dole [2011]) cast their net much wider in terms of detection & attribution. They were heavily criticized by Kevin Trenberth here. Be nice if they addressed these.
  21. Cardinal Pell needs to practise what he preaches on climate change
    As an atheist I don't subscribe to divine guidance. However there comes a point as is clearly voiced in the Declaration above where the direction as posited and evidenced by scientific discipline then requires an ethical position to be formed and appropriate action to be taken. The debate about the science should be over...too much energy is being spent on myth busting. The debate should now be about what we value....is it how much a carbon tax will impact on my household budget in Marrickville Sydney or is it about something much, much more important? Pell's diatribe is bereft of an ethical position. This is some ironic given his position and his moral and ordained responsibilities as a leader of his flock.
  22. The Debunking Handbook Part 1: The first myth about debunking
    Great effort - this site just continues to break new ground and provide excellent links to real science to help us understand the implications of AGW. It's a pity that so much time has to be spent establishing the scientific reality of AGW to deal with the denialism that is so rife as it robs time and energy from the very necessary debates that are needed about what is/are the least cost/most effective actions to take. Perhaps the most contentious of those issues is the nucelar question - but that's a different forum. In the meantime I look forward to more in this series. Great work by John and Stephan
  23. Cardinal Pell needs to practise what he preaches on climate change
    Note: the Pope and the Catholic church endorse the scientific consensus position on climate change, which is why Pell's speech was originally named "One Christian View on Climate Change". It's definitely not the view of the Catholic Church and I would argue is not the view of Scripture either. One important Christian value is stewardship - we were appointed as stewards of creation, not marauders. Even more core Christian values are the "weightier matters of justice, mercy and faithfulness". The fact that the poor and vulnerable countries are most impacted by climate change, while contributing to it the least, means climate change is a justice and mercy issue that should concern all Christians.
  24. Cardinal Pell needs to practise what he preaches on climate change
    oneita, I cannot access http://www.vatican.va at the moment but will check with interest. Thaks for that news, it's very encouraging! And, apparently it puts Cardinal Pell on lost position unless he starts learning the facts and "removes log from his eye".
  25. The Debunking Handbook Part 1: The first myth about debunking
    Looking forward to your "Mythbuster" manual!
  26. Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
    Paul Middents @ 36 - I don't find John Nielsen-Gammon's blog post particularly enlightening. He trying to apply Rahmstorf and Coumou (2011)'s work to something it is clearly not intended to do. Using the dice analogy, Rahmstorf & Coumou's analysis can only tell you the probability the weather dice will roll a six, it cannot tell you which throw will result in a six, that's where detection & attribution studies (looking at physical changes) come into the picture.
  27. Incredible time-lapse video of Earth from space
    gorgeous ... Auroras, Lightnings ... I am impressed well made
  28. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    Pirate, and unlike at other times, we have the Grace satellite measurements to tell us where that water has gone. Not trapped in ice, but onto land.
  29. Bert from Eltham at 18:30 PM on 16 November 2011
    Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    I woke up this morning and measured my height accurately. I did it again the end of the day I found I had gotten shorter by 15mm! I carefully noted this appalling shortcoming and then proceeded to extrapolate this trend and found that within a year I would be about five metres shorter! Shirly I was wrong! Bert
  30. Cardinal Pell needs to practise what he preaches on climate change
    chriskoz, The Pontifical Academy of Sciences released a paper in May this year by one of its commissioned working groups. Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene "Declaration by the Working Group We call on all people and nations to recognise the serious and potentially irreversible impacts of global warming caused by the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, and by changes in forests, wetlands, grasslands, and other land uses. We appeal to all nations to develop and implement, without delay, effective and fair policies to reduce the causes and impacts of climate change on communities and ecosystems, including mountain glaciers and their watersheds, aware that we all live in the same home. By acting now, in the spirit of common but differentiated responsibility,we accept our duty to one another and to the stewardship of a planet blessed with the gift of life. We are committed to ensuring that all inhabitants of this planet receive their daily bread, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink as we are aware that, if we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us. The believers among us ask God to grant us this wish." Pretty strong stuff and a long way from Pell's "articles of faith" it seems.
  31. Cardinal Pell needs to practise what he preaches on climate change
    As one of the commenters in abc site noted: Cardinal Pell is living in his anthropocentric paradise I cannot agree more. Christianity have been developed on top of the dogma that: "God created the world for man to have domination over". Irrational and transcendental denialism in a form of "God is almighty so he cannot let the destruction of the world he created" is the typical stance of conservative clergy. Pell, by repeating the long rebutted Monckton-like trivialisms such as "I have discovered that very few people know how small the percentage of carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere..." confirms that his conservatism prevents him from learning the true nature of AGW. IMO, the religions, especially christianity need some change and it's important because they influence lots of poeple. Will see what Vatican would say about AGW, if anytime soon. Hopefully something better than what we've heart from Pell. We don't need to look far for good examples: the geo-centric model of James Lovelock's Gaia is enough, I would gladly see it adopted by this or next generation of theologians.
  32. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    The US state I live in posted $1.8 billion in lost agriculture yields due to drought; the US drought hit us lightly in comparison to Texas and Oklahoma. The surface area of the world affected by extreme heat (and I presume heat and drought often go together) is growing, and growing rapidly over the last decade. I wonder how much alternative energy we could have put into production for $1.8 billion. I suspect that economic losses in yields (and damages) will quickly overtake economic losses in pursuing more expensive energy; never mind that it is easier to live with using less energy than eating less food. Oh, I searched on Texas; it looks like losses there were about $5.2 billion this year. How much did France loose in 2003? How much did Australia loose in 2009? (Yes, I'm hinting that the costs of these events are not just economic and not just related to agriculture.) These are not individual events; they are part of a growing trend. Sure, we had heat waves and droughts before, but now they are many times more common. I wonder if you could correlate the losses under Dr. Hansen's 3-sigma warming events, and show an increasing economic loss over time. Might be an effective counter to any argument that mitigation will cost too much. Too much compared to what? Should we wait until 3-sigma anomalies cover 15-20% of the land mass, and then start making a transition which will take decades?
  33. Cardinal Pell needs to practise what he preaches on climate change
    Wow, you mean that's an actual biblical quote? Thought I knew the bible, but must have missed those lines!
  34. Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
    Norman: He has left a large amount of wiggle room. Despite a strengthened GHG warming signal, the intrinsic variability of observed western Russia temperature during July is too large to permit detection of a change in temperatures, with high confidence, at this time. That sounds like the evidence isn't statistically significant, which can be translated to 'there's no evidence that it isn't GHG warming.' R and C (here) and the Hansen paper present evidence that we can indeed be seeing an effect of GHG. If you choose to read Hoerling as an absolute, please say so. That way we won't start going in circles on this again.
  35. Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
    Rob Painting, I am not sure if you have seen this draft. Dr. Martin Hoerling of NOAA is working on a draft paper concerning the 2010 Moscow heat wave. Dr. Hoerling's Draft paper on the Moscow 2010 heat wave. He is not as convinced that the Moscow heat wave was caused by GHG's. In his draft he asks this question: "3. What role did GHG warming play in the 2010 Russian heat wave?" The conclusion he has formed at this time: "3. Figure 5 indicates that the 2010 observed heat wave magnitude is greatly different from that expected by GHG forcing alone (compare black and blue curves). While recognizing the presence of a moderate amplitude GHG signal, the majority of the event's magnitude was very likely due to internal variability."
  36. Cardinal Pell needs to practise what he preaches on climate change
    "2 Tim 4:4 They will reject the truth and chase after myths." Indeed they are.
  37. Cardinal Pell needs to practise what he preaches on climate change
    Excellent article and reposte John. I am astounded that Pell an expert in things theological should have fallen for the false prophets of Monkton et al. Maybe he should read his bible: "2 Tim 4:3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."
  38. apiratelooksat50 at 13:35 PM on 16 November 2011
    Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    DB, in the short time frame provided in the graph, there have been patterns of increased and decreased SLR. This current decline in SLR appears greater than the historical declines. That, in and of itself, means nothing at this point, but bears monitoring. There is still an upwards trend in sea level.
  39. apiratelooksat50 at 13:20 PM on 16 November 2011
    Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    As a degreed scientist (M.S.) and a science teacher and a practicing environmental scientist and an AGW skeptic: I don't see anything significant in the 2-year or so dip in SLR. It doesn't really have an affect on the overall SLR rate. On the other hand, give it a few more years like that, and we may have another discussion on our hands. But, for now, it needs to be treated as a cyclical anomaly.
    Response:

    [DB] "it needs to be treated as a cyclical anomaly"

    Please share with us the scientific basis for this assessment.

  40. Philippe Chantreau at 12:45 PM on 16 November 2011
    World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    Revisiting the 1st link, cited about the influence of biofuels, I find this in the conclusion section: "We conjecture that index fund activity (one type of “speculative” activity among the many that the literature refers to) played a key role during the 2008 price spike. Biofuels played some role too, but much less than initially thought. And we find no evidence that alleged stronger demand by emerging economies had any effect on world prices." All quite speculative, but nonetheless interesting.
  41. Cardinal Pell needs to practise what he preaches on climate change
    Great article, John. The baby in the bathtub (lets call him Enso) analogy from you rebuttal was brilliant.
  42. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    skept.fr @15, it is a mistake to attribute high food costs to just one use of agricultural production as you are doing. If the only market for agricultural production was biofuels given 2008 production levels of each, prices would have plummeted. It is the total consumption that drives the price up, not just one item. In that context, the largest single discretionary item of agricultural consumption is no biofuels, but grain feed for animal stock. Some of that is necessary for animal production (chickens), but much is not (beef). If there is genuine concern about food shortages due to current consumption patterns of agricultural products, the single biggest problem is, therefore, not biofuels, but high meat consumption, and in particular high grain fed meat consumption in western societies - particularly the USA and Australia. Picking on biofuels as the problem is therefore, cheap and dishonest politics at best. (I make no imputation that you are the one being dishonest.)
  43. Philippe Chantreau at 12:32 PM on 16 November 2011
    World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    I'm not sure I see how any of those links support your argument. The first link's introduction goes like this: "The paper also argues that the effect of biofuels on food prices has not been as large as originally thought, but that the use of commodities by financial investors (the so-called ”financialization of commodities”) may have been partly responsible for the 2007/2008 spike." That amounts to saying that speculation by financial operators on commodity markets is a far worse influence than the push for biofuels. Nothing new there. I haven't read the whole thing, but it looks interesting and certainly not very supportive of your original assertion. The 2nd link expands at length on how oil prices have a far less severe effect on economies than generally thought, even oil importing economies: From the concluding paragraphs: "Our recent research indicates that oil prices tend to be surprisingly closely associated with good times for the global economy. Indeed, we find that the US has been somewhat of an outlier in the way that it has been negatively affected by oil price increases. Across the world, oil price shock episodes have generally not been associated with a contemporaneous decline in output but, rather, with increases in both imports and exports. There is evidence of lagged negative effects on output, particularly for OECD economies, but the magnitude has typically been small." Once again, quite interesting and not very supportive of your argument. One can easily infer from these 2 links that the world economy can quite safely absorb both more development of biofuels (as long as the financial industry's crooks are kept away from these markets) and higher oil prices.
  44. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    Eric (skeptic) @13, figure 3 is certainly worth attention, as is this similar figure (which I have presented because it indicates energy use in familiar units rather than in kg oe, ie, kilograms of oil equivalent): The simplest interpretation of this graph is that per capita energy use is a limiting factor of HDI. That is, you need a certain amount of energy use per capita to achieve a given level of HDI, but using that amount of energy in no way guarantees achieving the HDI gain. Further, and very clearly, HDI gains for increased energy use above 4,000 kWhours are very limited for very large gains in energy. I suspect that there is still some gain, however. Further, changes in technology will no doubt shift the point beyond which gains are minimal with increased energy use. As to your question, I think it is the wrong question. If energy use sets a limit on HDI, that limit exists regardless of education standards in a country. Education, however, is probably a significant player in how closely a nation approaches the limit of a restricted HDI index based on life expectancy and GDP alone. (Educational standards represent 1/3rd of the potential scoring of HDI, so it is trivial, and uninteresting that education and HDI are correlated.)
  45. Incredible time-lapse video of Earth from space
    Not sure about your other question Eric, though angles from an orbiting satellite can be deceptive - you're seeing a relatively tiny fraction of the Earth's surface, but the eye is fooled by the circular horizon into thinking you're seeing a whole hemisphere. My guess is that it is not windows (the orange colour is often telltale of low pressure sodium and its twin bright orange emission lines), and that it is an effect of looking hundreds of miles sideways through the atmosphere? The camera view doesn't otherwise look very 'fisheye' to me too.
  46. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    Philippe : For biofuel and food crisis, see for example the p.11 of this document from World Bank, for the impact (less than announced in 2008 by WB, but real, debate among specialist) and expose the concern for future (in AIE 450 scenario, we must double the production of biofuel). http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2010/07/21/000158349_20100721110120/Rendered/PDF/WPS5371.pdf For oil price and recession, this document shows the sensitivity of national economies to oil volatility 1970-2010. Surprisingly, most countries GDP are not affected (either they export or they have tax-regulating system like France)… but it is not the case for USA. So I suppose the third shock of 2005-2008 (fivefold increase up to 145$ !) had a role in the economic recession. http://voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/6905 Of course, I’m skeptic of economic models (much more than of climate models !). Shadow banking, financialisation, ideology-based deregulation, runaway private and public debts play the central role for the crisis of 2007-2008 and 2011. But it’s hard to imagine that intensive and importer economies are insensitive to energy and commodity price trends in the last decade. I think that our poor economic models (as you say) also tend to underestimate the physical (energetic and material) basis of wealth, so the limits of this planet. Thereafter, two analysis of these trends and the 'new paradigm' (second link). http://www.steeldistributors.org/portals/0/NewsAndViews/Q32011/credit-suisse.pdf http://www.scribd.com/doc/53865070 Eric : yes, beyond approx. 110GJ/hab/y (mean), you do not observe any correlation between energy and HDI (or specific data like infant mortality, woman mortality, food availibility, etc.). As far I as know, USA overconsumption do not translate in overperformance in these indicators of the quality of life. But for the majority of countries under 50GJ/hab/y, the problem is clearly inverse. And as climate is a global challenge, so is energy.
  47. Incredible time-lapse video of Earth from space
    Bern and skywatcher, thanks for the info (skywatcher now I know where your name comes from). I am lucky enough to live in a dark county in Virginia. Another question, looking the time lapse there seemed to brightness at an angle (although lights got brighter as they got closer). Are we seeing lights from windows at that angle? I suppose it could also be a fish eye lens effect and we are mostly looking straight down.
  48. Incredible time-lapse video of Earth from space
    #9 Eric, you might find a lot of information at the International Dark Sky Association. They specifically do not advocate against lighting for safety. Most of the light you see in images like the ones above come directly from the lighting source. That is, it is light from fixtures designed to light the ground (the street, parking lot, whatever), but that have a significant proportion of their energy uselessly pointing sideways or upwards. You can effectively put a lower wattage bulb in each light if you have a simple shield to prevent light being wasted upwards, and that shield reflects the extra light downwards to where it is wanted, not sideways or upwards. The IDA suggest that 8% of US energy use is in outdoor lighting, so the saving may be measurable in numbers of power stations. Obviously as an astronomer that would have really good consequences, but the saving in energy is also considerable, with no loss in safety.
  49. Incredible time-lapse video of Earth from space
    Eric(skeptic): no, most of that light is coming directly from the lights themselves - comparatively little bounces off the ground, especially roads & parking lots that are (usually) almost-black asphalt. Different light fittings, that direct the light a bit better, can actually result in higher illumination levels on the ground, while also significantly reducing the amount of light going upwards. The same applies to many buildings & dwellings - many, many light fittings are very poorly designed, and actually result in most of the emitted light not ending up where it's needed. But they're oh-so-fashionable... (I was astounded, in the time I lived in the US, to find a room in my apartment with no less than three 200-watt light globes, which nevertheless appeared dimly lit to my eyes, compared to what I achieve with a single 60w globe here in Australia)
  50. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    13, Eric (skeptic),
    ...does more energy use per capita lead to more education, or does more education lead to more energy use?
    Or do they feed off of each other, leading to a death spiral, a runaway energy-education effect, if you will... :)

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