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Comments 73101 to 73150:

  1. Philippe Chantreau at 14:47 PM on 8 October 2011
    CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    I don't remember where that fantasy hypothesis about contrails came from. Contrails are a fairly well investigated and well understood phenomenon and, as a long time pilot and flight instructor, I am yet to read about any link between them and cosmic rays (?!?). Any scientific reference discussing this would be welcome. The burning of kerosene in an airplane's engine yields CO2 and H2O, i.e. water vapor. Contrails form because the addition of water vapor pushes the air past its saturation point. The most important factor, indeed the only factor of demonstrated importance in the formation of contrails, is the relative humidity at the altitude where the gases are released. In very dry air, contrails do not form at all, or dissipate shortly after their formation. Interestingly, aiplanes can also leave distrails, in which the increased temperature has the effect of decreasing relative humidity and returning water to the gaseous state. And they do this even when there is already plenty of CCN available, since clouds formed in the first place. Contrails are somewhat different from the condensation that can be seen forming in the cores of vortices generated by airfoils. They are due to a locally decreased temperature (pulling the air to its dew point) caused by a decrease in pressure due to the high angle of attack of the airfoil. These can be seen when airplanes fly slow in air that is very humid. High performance airplanes pulling high G maneuvers will sometimes create fog in the resulting area of low pressure, most often near the upper surface of the wing. Supersonic airplanes will create a cloud of fog at the boundary of the shock wave when passing the sound barrier, once again because of pressure drop. Interestingly, there is another fruitcake variety of conspiracy theory, postulating that contrails are some sort of "gubmint chemical spraying operation." It got way more attention than it deserved, as is usually the case with that kind of crackpottery.
  2. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    118, Dikran,
    ...but it does show in hindsight that it has warmed since 1998.
    It also shows that his choice of 3rd order polynomial fit doesn't fit, unless that brief foray into La Nina land continues non-stop for about a half a decade.
  3. Understanding climate denial
    Lloyd, Yes, absolutely, the American denial machine is it, and it is founded on the right. But you have the source wrong. It's founded, I'm pretty sure, almost entirely on the recent trend towards equating wealth with liberty, prosperity, and happiness, and a 100% free, unregulated market as the only path towards wealth. Anything, from taxes to regulations, that interferes with the free market is interpreted to be a harbinger of doom. Climate change implies the need for regulation, which the American right has been programmed to believe will destroy the economy, which will cost jobs, which will hurt everyone, even if you're not a member of the 1% of the population that qualifies as wealthy. Corporations must be free to fire employees, hold wages down, drill for oil where ever they find it, build coal plants, and to compete entirely without interference from the government. Somehow, though, billions a year in subsidies and tax breaks for already immensely profitable fossil fuel companies is okay.
  4. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    tblakeslee - "If it gets hotter you win." No, if it gets hotter, we all lose. This isn't a contest, tblakeslee, it's life, it's reality. Not a rhetorical contest, not a "who's hypothesis is bigger" comparison. Unfortunately, it gets hotter is what we can expect if you actually look at the data.
  5. Understanding climate denial
    DSL, Sphaerica, I know that Australia seems to have the next worst denialist machine or possibly being an Australian it is particularly visible to me. Even so it is considerably weaker than the corresponding American movement. Also it seems to me to take its cues from the American denialists. Granted this is partially numbers. What I was trying to get at is that denialism's main home seems to be in the American right, not so much the right in other countries. And that perhaps it is in interaction between right wing ideology and values that are more influential in the whole of the US than they are in other countries. Perhaps it is the downside of American anti-authoritarianism and egalitarianism.
  6. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    Wow! That's a lot of words you are putting in my mouth. I never said that CO2 doesn't contribute to warming but I have consistently been saying the same thing: The sun's magnetic field influences cloud formation and clouds affect temperature more than CO2. Cosmic rays are affected by the sun's field. Contrails and ships trails show that conditions exist for cloud formation with a little help from a nucleus or ion. You will soon see who is right when the effect of the change in sun activity shows itself even more dramatically with cooling climate. If it gets hotter you win.
    Moderator Response: [DB] All unsupported assertions. You have been repeatedly shown the errors of your ways yet you continue. That is your choice. As is the choice of all here to disregard those selfsame unsupported assertions in favor of science and physics.
  7. Clouds Over Peer Review
    It seems a lot of the published research by the Sceptics floats there own alternative hypothesis. Im not seeing much that actually tries to specifically refute mainstream published work. One assumes they simply cant. I admire Lindzen, but I dont think its possible to take Spencer seriously, not given the comments in item 4 above.
  8. Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
    SkS - Here are answers to several of your questions: 1. Regarding "the global energy imbalance must be able to explain the change in surface temperature. There are also some good paleoclimate analogues to the current climate, like during the Pliocene and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM).' I disagree. These events occurred with vastly different land distribution, ocean current etc. 2. Regarding "However, Santer et al. concluded that a minimum of 17 years is necessary to identify human effects in the temperature of the lower troposphere (TLT), so why look at the 13-year trend? Moreover, as Pielke notes, there was a very strong El Niño in 1998, and TLT data is very sensitive to changes in ENSO. We wonder, will Dr. Pielke will acknowledge that 1998 was a poorly-chosen start date for this analysis?" I did not start in 1998 because it was the warmest in the record. I started after that when the MSU LT became ~flat. We can wait 4 more years to see if the LT starts to warm. Then lets revisit. :-) It certainly has to warm up quickly if Santer's signal will be seen. 3. Regarding "will Dr. Pielke agree that his previous assessment of zero Joules accumulated during this period was incorrect, and that the timeframe (since 2003) and depth (700 meters) is insufficient for a suitable assessment of the climatological trend? I agree it is positive from http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/ but relatively small. In my Waterloo talk, I used a value of 1/4 of the rate in the early decade. I would, however, like to also convert this to the heating rate in Watts per meter squared and assess how close it is to Jim Hansen's estimate from GISS of o.6 Watts per meter squared [see http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/1116592hansen.pdf]. This is a short time period (~7 years). Nonetheless, I hope you will support me in recommending the adoption of this metric as a primary assessment tool to monitor global warming.
  9. Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
    Yes, I have seen comment #2. There was a subsequent reply indicating that the NRT report under discussion was part of a larger series. In addition, I now see that the rest of the NRT reports are linked to in the OP. So is your objection that the OP is still cherry-picking? I expect this objection has been addressed with the additional links.
  10. Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
    Composer99, See post #2.
  11. Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
    It would be nice if there was a point to all this, Jonathon. Is your point that Canadians in general or Ontarians in specific ought to advocate against taking action to mitigate (or even reverse) CO2 emissions in order to save a few dollars on heating (on account of savings in heating potentially outweighing increases in cooling)? Because if it isn't, then I put it to you that you are wasting your time arguing it and everyone else's time reading your posts.
  12. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Arctic Sea Ice Extent
    Suggested reading: “Young and Thin Instead of Old and Bulky: Researchers Report On Changes in Arctic Sea Ice After Return of Research Vessel Polarstern” ScienceDaily, Oct 6, 2011 To access this article, click here
  13. Graphics for Sea Ice Minimum 2011
    Suggested reading: “Young and Thin Instead of Old and Bulky: Researchers Report On Changes in Arctic Sea Ice After Return of Research Vessel Polarstern” ScienceDaily, Oct 6, 2011 To access this article, click here
  14. Dikran Marsupial at 05:10 AM on 8 October 2011
    It hasn't warmed since 1998
    From Roy Spencers blog, here are the most recent UAH lower trophosperic temperatures Spencer describes the 3rd order polynomial fit to the data as being "for entertainment purposes only, and should not be construed as having any predictive value whatsoever.". It may not have any predictive value, but it does show in hindsight that it has warmed since 1998. Many thanks for debunking this one for us Roy! ;o)
  15. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    tblakeslee: Pick a position. First it was low cosmic ray counts, then it was contrails and ship trails, then the sun's magnetic field - all responsible for most of the observed warming. Now you've switched to its cooling. There is a somewhat dated (mid-2010) thread for that (see the 'Most used arguments' panel). On that note, the existing 'its cooling' thread needs an update, especially with the fact that it's not cooling.
  16. Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
    Here is the report again: http://www.mei.gov.on.ca/en/energy/conservation/?page=heating-and-cooling-your-home_chapter-13 Whether one lives in a small townhouse or large detached house, the energy costs are proportionally; the average resident spends about nine times more on heating than cooling when using natural gas (the most popular). Different energy sources result in different costs as propane, oil, and electricity result in higher heating costs, while wood-burning stoves and Earth energy systems costs less. Do not get hung up on the $900/$100 scenario. As I said previously, it was arbitrary. Bottom line: heating is a significantly higher expense than cooling.
  17. Clouds Over Peer Review
    MarkB @12, Yes, their paper did not state that there was a strong negative cloud feeback. They did not have to. They just had to have a paper that spoke the the could feedback and then the dog whistling could start. The press release from UAH was part of that. In that press release, Spencer misrepresented and overstated his findings. He also stood by quietly while people James Taylor (a lawyer) from the Heartland lobby group even further misrepresented and distorted his research in a ridiculous article in Forbes. There is a term for "skeptic" papers like this-- Trojan Horse papers, and they are used by the misinformation machine to confuse and fabricate debate. This fiasco has all been covered at SkS and elsewhere. I suggest reading Dr. Wagner's letter in the link provided in the previous sentence.
  18. Understanding climate denial
    GEP, search SkS for "nuclear," and find the most appropriate thread. It sounds like you're trying to argue for nuclear power as a solution.
  19. Understanding climate denial
    Ref 162. I apologize if the point was not made sufficiently clearly. The point of the comment is: there is no form of energy accessible to human society which is not previously derived from a nuclear reactor, whether that nuclear reactor is sited in our own back yard or in the sun. Should I repost it to another thread?
    Response:

    [DB] It was most appropriate where you initially posted it, on the "It's the sun" thread.  That being said, in it's construction you give no context to why it was relative even there, as you make no "given this information, this _____ is _____" statement to close off the comment.

     

    Unless you are disputing the evidence behind the forces causing the waming of the climate observed.  If so, depending on which part you are disputing, use the Search function in the upper left of every page to find the most suitable thread to continue the discussion there, not here.

    But first read that thread (and the comments therein) before posting your comment.

  20. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    tblakeslee, you say that with such confidence, yet you do so while failing to address the radiative physics of CO2. How do you explain away the warming that must be occurring with increased atmospheric CO2. I'm not saying you can't; I'm saying you aren't, and it's a major gap in your position.
  21. Understanding climate denial
    Actually, it's quite the opposite, Lloyd. People in the U.S. like rules and order, but only if those rules and that order fits their individual, self-defined interests. External authority is almost always seen as tyrannical, unless it is carefully circumscribed and limited into uselessness. In the U.S., there is a love-hate relationship with the traditional forms of authority in religion, representative democracy, and capitalism, mechanisms which offer freedom and individual empowerment and at the same time impose an external authority.
  22. Understanding climate denial
    165, Lloyd, Note to moderators: This comment skirts very close to violating the comments policy, because it wanders somewhat into politics. I feel that Lloyd's observation deserves a response, and it is still focused on the current subject (Understanding climate denial). I see a pretty vocal Aussie denial machine. Admittedly, other countries do not seem as bad, with the exception perhaps of an occasional Lord Viscount Confabulator or two. As far as Americans and rules... Americans are instinctively (historically?) distrustful of any government, including their own. The want power to rest with the people, but know that the powerful and influential will always warp the system, so the people's only true control is through strict, inviolable rules. It is very true that we will make a rule to an extreme, such as protecting free speech, even if doing so facilitates neo-nazi hatred, predatory commercial practices, and terrorism. The same applies to the right to bear arms, even though allowing that right also increases accidental deaths and criminal acts. It's very, very hard for us to bring ourselves to invite exceptions that could later be used against us. Those aspects of strict, axiomatic rules are absolutely are a part of the American psyche. [It is actually abhorrent and absurd to us that the Brits could live with an unwritten constitution. How crazy is that?] But my own read on it is that American denialism is founded in a twisted version of conservatism that has arisen only in the past decade. It is supported by the Fox News mouthpiece, which is the first truly political-party controlled (or might as well be) national media outlet this country has ever seen, and it has no opposite number, no matter how much they might give lip service to the supposed left-wing media. The current brand of American conservatism has shifted its focus from true individual liberties, fiscal responsibility and limited federal power (to which they now only give constant contradictory and hypocritical lip service), to one of a focus on Christian morals (to the detriment of personal liberties), excessive federal power in matters of security and common defense, and a deference to business, corporations, and a 100% regulation free market system as the main ingredient to prosperity and happiness. This last element is the key to everything. It is a recurring theme in how to tax people, social entitlements, and controlling climate change. Let the market decide all. That is the current conservative credo, and leads to serious myopia on every single issue. All in all, today sees a very twisted version of conservatism when compared to anything from the Federalists and Antifederalists of 1787-1791 to the Republicans of the 1860s, 1940s, 1960s or 1980s. I just wish more conservatives would study history to understand that they are something new, different and very, very dangerous. They are not their father's brand of Republican.
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] "it wanders somewhat into politics"

    Unfortunately, climate denialism and politics are an inseparable duo, joined at the hip like Siamese twins.  Leeway is allowed on threads of this nature, as long as things don't go too far.

  23. Clouds Over Peer Review
    Sorry, I should have stated that Carter's paper was published in Economic Analysis and Policy - the journal of the Queensland branch of the Economic Society of Australia.
  24. Clouds Over Peer Review
    Speaking of Bob Carter, and as an example of a paper published in a journal outside the subject area, I offer this travesty: Knock, Knock: Where is the Evidence for Dangerous Human-Caused Global Warming? (PDF)
  25. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    tblakeslee@126 seriously? you think that the only connection between CO2 and warming is circumstantial correlation? You should inform yourself more if you are going to spout off. Or this is Olde Fashioned Trolling.
  26. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    The observed warming isn't happening anymore. The panic about global warming came near the end of the published graph. It was such a scary rise that we panicked and attributed it to the only thing we could think of that was increasing dramatically: CO2. That was an honest mistake but now that warming has stopped we should reexamine the evidence and realize that it wasn't CO2. It was the sun, which we cannot control. The ocean slows down the effect but we are already seeing the cooling trend. The last four July PDO readings were -1.67, -.53, -1.05 and -1.86. We have already had to start calling global warming "climate change." Soon we will be calling it "global cooling." It's OK for science to make an honest mistake but it is time to reexamine the decision to blame CO2 for all that the sun did and start rethinking the climate models.
    Response:

    [DB] "The observed warming isn't happening anymore."

    Now you are simply trolling.  Perhaps you missed the announcements about 2010 being the hottest year on record?

    "It was the sun, which we cannot control."

    Waaay off-topic and very wrong as well.  Debunked and rebunked.  Use the Search function to find the "It's the Sun" thread for a more appropriate thread for this discussion. 

    Please note that this is a science-based discussion forum.  As such, unsubstantiated opinions, like those in your comment above, are given little credence.

  27. True Cost of Coal Power - Muller, Mendelsohn, and Nordhaus
    Mercury - Epstein may have included mercury impacts in their Apalachian health estimate. I don't recall offhand though. The first step needs to be some sort of emissions pricing system. Once the system is in place, the price can be adjusted as necessary. The problem is the political resistance to putting the system in place to begin with.
  28. Clouds Over Peer Review
    Respectfully, I do not understand how the claim in the article that 'They, too, insisted on clouds working as a strongly negative feedback on global warming.' is supported. I've read the paper, and I understand their point to be that feedback cannot be accurately 'diagnosed' from the observed data. This is quite different than saying that coulds work as a strongly negative feedback on global warming. Now, if the article is not correct on this point, there is a problem with the rest of the argument made here about Spencer 2011 ignoring the prior literature as well.
  29. Understanding climate denial
    Denialism seems to me to be mostly an American attitude. There are denialists in other countries but they seem to be mostly influenced by the American denialists. While most denialists in Australia and the UK are on the right, most of the right are not denialists. Might I suggest that there are some attitudes that are particularly common in the US that encourage denialism. The question is what are they? Any suggestions that I make here will be speculative. But these are my impressions. It is my impression that Americans tend to think about authority differently to most other nations. Americans are I think reluctant to see authority as residing in people. They want it to reside in rules. I wonder whether this contributes to many thinking that they know better than scientists. Any authority that a scientist could be seen as having is personal. Could it be that many are reluctant to defer to another person rather than the holder of an office. And I wonder whether this emphasis on rules contributes to the pursuit of inflexible principles framed in terms of rights. Could this contribute to various freedoms being protected no matter what the cost. Morality being thought of as inflexible principles rather than approches and guidelines. This approch allows them to try to deny any discretion to those in power reducing them to carrying out rules. Could this contribute to the market becoming sacred and protected at all costs? As I said these are impressions and speculations not claims of fact.
  30. Clouds Over Peer Review
    And let us not forget the ongoing train wreck that is Wegman and Said (yes, more plagiarism). That is the same Wegman who tried to discredit Mann with the help of McIntyre.
  31. Clouds Over Peer Review
    "McLean, de Freitas and Michaels (2009) on the other hand..." Shouldn't that be McLean, de Freitas and Carter (2009)?
  32. Mercury Scientist at 00:42 AM on 8 October 2011
    True Cost of Coal Power - Muller, Mendelsohn, and Nordhaus
    CBDunker: Excellent points. Some have argued that the best place to tax carbon is the point of extraction. We know where oil, coal, and natural gas is being extracted; tax it there based on amount extracted, and let the costs flow downstream into the economy.
  33. Mercury Scientist at 00:38 AM on 8 October 2011
    True Cost of Coal Power - Muller, Mendelsohn, and Nordhaus
    This analysis ignores mercury emitted from coal-fired power plants, and its associated external costs due to numerous health effects. Some good reviews on the topic were published in Ambio, 2007, vol 36, no 1. See especially papers by Mergler et al., "Methylmercury Exposure and Health Effects in Humans: A Worldwide Concern" (p. 3-11) and Swain et al. "Socioeconomic Consequences of Mercury Use and Pollution" (p 45-61). Good starting point if you're unfamiliar with the topic. The U.S. supreme court has mandated that the EPA regulate emissions from coal-fired power plants, so like CO2, those costs will be priced into electricity sooner or later.
  34. Clouds Over Peer Review
    Nice, Jörg. "Gerlich & Tscheuschner attempted this, but the topic was outside their area of expertise, and the polemical style of their contribution is so remote to a serious scientific discussion of the topic that it leads to doubts regarding their basic scientific competence." You could have been a little firmer on G&T, though. Science of Doom stomped on it/them extensively a while back.
  35. Clouds Over Peer Review
    May I add another factor: 8. Tunnel effect. If you submit your paper to enough journal, it is likely that it will pass simply because their is a low probability the editor and the reviewer did not spot your error.
  36. Clouds Over Peer Review
    adelady wrote: "Not so sure, alan. Roy's also been known to make some pretty out there statements on political orientation as well." For a large segment of the 'right' in the United States politics = religion = science = economics; God said, 'be fruitful and multiply' and gave Man stewardship over the Earth ('religion'). Ergo, it is impossible that exercising our stewardship by burning coal in order to improve our quality/quantity of life would have any negative consequences ('science'). We are commanded to grow our numbers and this can only be done by allowing unfettered growth in industry, therefor all regulation on industry is harmful ('economics'). Those who oppose these obvious truths and God's plan are thus inherently on the wrong side ('politics'). Seem implausible? I've seen many, including Roy Spencer, make those arguments. Unfortunately, these people have never understood that 'separation of church and state' was meant to protect religion from politics as much as the other way around. By insisting on merging the two they've allowed their religion to be re-written to serve political ends. The problem is that Spencer and others like him >ARE< scientists... but with impenetrable ideological blinders. They have the training and the ability to do scientific work, but they will NEVER be able to see the truth of things they 'know' to be false. Thus, they end up doing a sort of 'pseudo science' as described in the article. It is a mistake to think that these people are being guileful. They BELIEVE that their absurd papers have really disproven significant AGW. They BELIEVE that there is a vast conspiracy suppressing this fact. That is WHY their arguments are so often ridiculous... because they cannot see the flaws in their position because they 'know' a priori that it must be correct. That is why they make predictions which turn out to be so spectacularly wrong. If they KNEW that their position was incorrect they'd take care to make their arguments difficult to prove one way or the other. Their predictions would all be very long term or vague enough to allow 'wiggle room'. In short, if they were deliberately trying to deceive others they'd do a better job of it. The problem is that they've already deceived themselves, and thus have no way of seeing how wrong they are... even when it is pointed out to them. Of course, this isn't true of ALL the deniers. Some of them certainly do know they're full of it. Just alot fewer than you might tend to think.
    Response:

    [DB] Please refrain from the usage of all-caps.  Thanks!

  37. True Cost of Coal Power - Muller, Mendelsohn, and Nordhaus
    Hyperactive, I don't see the difficulty. Pick any point on the line. Let's say we decide to 'tax' coal at the point of sale to power plants. In your example above that'd drive up costs for the people generating the power, who'd therefor charge the Chinese factory extra for their electricity, the factory would then charge their US customers more for the end goods. Ergo, the added cost is inherently passed down to those getting the final benefit of the fuel use.
  38. Hyperactive Hydrologist at 21:25 PM on 7 October 2011
    True Cost of Coal Power - Muller, Mendelsohn, and Nordhaus
    Do people think emissions should be regulated and taxed at source or by the end user? And should the emissions be regulated at national or company level? Think about the following problem: If a Japanese company owns a factory in China producing goods to sell to customers in the US, using Australian coal and Iranian oil, produced by corporations based in Europe and Singapore, owned by shareholders from around the world, then whoso emission are they?
  39. Eric (skeptic) at 21:09 PM on 7 October 2011
    Understanding climate denial
    Scaddenp, I certainly appreciate your perspective on the interaction between science and politics in this thread. To some extent it doesn't whether or not there is rhetoric like "capitalism has failed" here or not. If rhetoric like that were a problem, it would be trumpeted all the time at sites like what's up. But try googling that site and sks and socialism and there really aren't many hits. It's pointless to deny that right wing politics has a certain synergy with an anti-science element. But the generalization is probably stretched too far to equate American right wing politics with capitalism. Your "challenge for the right" thread is a constructive attempt to address a particular political problem, the various dimensions of which may not be always adequately appreciated.
  40. Clouds Over Peer Review
    People like Spencer and Lindzen seem to be a strange version of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. From Wikipedia : The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. (My emphasis) Perhaps they just suffer from a Superiority Complex ? Or is it Self-Serving Bias ?
  41. Eric (skeptic) at 20:37 PM on 7 October 2011
    Understanding climate denial
    #161 GEP, no politics is the rule on all threads with only a few exceptions. This thread is one of those exceptions but there are still some rules: avoid generalizations, avoid labeling people, avoid implying there are ulterior motives behind the science, etc.
  42. Clouds Over Peer Review
    One common trick is to put non-peer-reviewed papers to arXiv (a well-known preprint server for papers that already have been peer-reviewed and waiting to be published) to achieve a status of scientific publication. Gerlich & Tscheuschner paper was there ages before it was published. McIntyre & McKitrick have used this trick too.
  43. Graphics for Sea Ice Minimum 2011
    On september 22 the Platform Communication on Climate Change posted a (Dutch) message on this topic on their website I wrote this message (as an employee of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, PBL). I also reported the decline in volume, but I could not find the value of the uncertainty range. The message above indicates it is 1.35 m3 km. Where can I find this number on the PIOMAS website and what it the meaning of this interval? (one sigma, 2 sigma?)
  44. True Cost of Coal Power - Muller, Mendelsohn, and Nordhaus
    I think some economists (may be many) are ahead of politicians in including externalities. I hope eventually some of these economics memes will move from academia into governments. It may be as simple as waiting for the old school to retire, but that might not be soon enough.
  45. True Cost of Coal Power - Muller, Mendelsohn, and Nordhaus
    Actually, free market mechanisms should work once we include the environment polution and climate change into it, i.e. emmission trading scheme. Once the incentives for SO2,CO2-less energy sources (photovoltaic, windmills, geothermal, tidals) kick in, they will be more competitive with coal and the more they are developed, the more their prices drop, until tipping point is reached when coal becomes more expensive and dies. The main trouble is: it's hard to put a correct price on environment and enforce it. Wide discrepancy in numbers above (50-300%) means we really don't know how to do it. Or we don't understand the consequences to put the right price. The next trouble is: biggest CO2 pollutters (like US) are usually not the nations who pay the consequences of climate change. AGW has the worst consequences for the poorest nations in Africa or Pacific Islanders. So trying to set the price off CO2 pollution within the context of a single economy is not correct. That must be set within the context of global economy.
  46. Clouds Over Peer Review
    We'll have to keep repeating this until it's common knowledge at every local bar: Spencer and McKitrick are signatories to the Cornwall Alliance Declaration: Signatories which has as two of its statements of faith: 1.We believe Earth and its ecosystems—created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence —are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history. and 1.We deny that Earth and its ecosystems are the fragile and unstable products of chance, and particularly that Earth’s climate system is vulnerable to dangerous alteration because of minuscule changes in atmospheric chemistry. Recent warming was neither abnormally large nor abnormally rapid. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human contribution to greenhouse gases is causing dangerous global warming. Spencer places his faith before science. He's not a scientist....he's a wolf in sheep's clothing.
  47. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Arctic Sea Ice Extent
    rand 15 @28, good call and my bad. I used similarly sloppy (ie, downright wrong) language regarding area where the decline is 5.7%. Mea culpa, and I hope no-one was confused.
  48. Clouds Over Peer Review
    Not so sure, alan. Roy's also been known to make some pretty out there statements on political orientation as well. I'd be more inclined to see him as picking and choosing which (kinds of) organisations to align with given his personal propensities. (Whatever they may be.) There are plenty of conservative religious and political organisations. It's a personal matter which ones to accept, acknowledge, agree with or espouse. And, once chosen, also a personal matter whether to be one of the crowd or to put yourself out there. Which got us very quickly into realms best left to sociologists or psychologists or whatever.
  49. Harald Korneliussen at 17:29 PM on 7 October 2011
    True Cost of Coal Power - Muller, Mendelsohn, and Nordhaus
    It's a right-wing doctrine that markets are absolutely necessary to set a fair price for something. From a bottom-up analysis, you estimate the fair price of pollution to be 50-300% higher than the current cost of power, and that may be true - but it's also a very broad range! And the cost would have to be estimated and imposed politically. Right wingers hate that, and they hate to admit that there are prices that can't be easily estimated with markets, so they prefer to believe the price is 0! Or more precisely: polluters assert the price should be 0, and right-wingers are deeply uncomfortable contesting it, since it would mean abandoning a core right wing belief, trust in markets over political control.
  50. Understanding climate denial
    No politics?
    Moderator Response: [DB] Please review the Comments Policy which clearly spells these things out.

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