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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Scientists have found warm water beneath Antarctica's "doomsday glacier," a nickname used because it is one of Antarctica's fastest melting glaciers. While researchers have observed the recession of the Thwaites Glacier for a decade, this marks the first time they detected the presence of warm water – found at a "vital point" beneath the glacier.
A news release on the findings called it an alarming discovery.
"The fact that such warm water was just now recorded by our team along a section of Thwaites grounding zone where we have known the glacier is melting suggests that it may be undergoing an unstoppable retreat that has huge implications for global sea-level rise," David Holland, director of New York University's Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and NYU Abu Dhabi's Center for Global Sea Level Change, which conducted the research, said in the news release.

Scientists alarmed to discover warm water at "vital point" beneath Antarctica's "doomsday glacier" by Sophie Lewis, CBS News, Feb 1, 2020

Eclectic at 02:00 AM on 3 February 2020

CO2 lags temperature

Yes, David Kirtley, quite so. An excellent article.

Map , there is no denialist research. (If there were a chance of such denialists producing anything valid . . . then Exxon and others would pour vast sums into "anti-AGW" research But that doesn't happen, because the hard heads at Exxon know that the basic climate science is correct. Instead, they spend that money on propaganda to confuse & bamboozle people who haven't bothered to learn any of the science. (Sound familiar?)

Educate yourself, Map. Takes some time, but it's easily done ~ follow the links from the SkepticalScience Home Page, or select some of the Most Used Climate Myths. No-one wishes to spoonfeed you, if you have a dismissive attitude. Or simply accept the experts' advice ~ something which you normally do in almost every aspect of modern life. Be honest!

Seriously Map, would you dismiss the consensus opinion of a panel of leading surgeons & and medical researchers . . . because you didn't like their "tone" or because you read some flakey alternative view on a Homeopath website?

Map, it's hard to credit that you're not joking around. (Some call it being an agent provocateur ~ which sounds better than the T-word.)

Eclectic at 00:45 AM on 3 February 2020

1934 - hottest year on record

Map , you are being mysterious.

<" multiple outcomes that support and contradict the basis of global warming ">

This needs some explaining from you! It doesn't fit in with the general mainstream science of climate. The world's scientists have spent a great deal of time & effort (over many decades indeed) and have produced a coherent description of the physics of it all. The science is demonstrated in many thousands of scientific papers published in respected peer-reviewed journals.

They are pretty much unanimous in their findings. Yes, there are a few "contrarian" papers ~ but all of these show major faults ( e.g. Lindzen's Iris Hypothesis; Svensmark's and Shaviv's Cosmic Rays Hypothesis; Salby's Ocean-outgassing of CO2 Hypothesis ).

In short, Map, the evidence is wholly one-sided. There is no valid alternative.

Map, I think you are playing a joke. (But why do you bother?)

Moderator Response:

[JH} Notwithstanding his crocodile tears, Map's own words tell us that he is not posting comments on this site with an open mind and in good faith.

Map at 00:42 AM on 3 February 2020

CO2 lags temperature

Denialist websites will create noise in research when the internet is used, that's why I turned to a page that debunks excuses from 'nonbelievers'. I myself haven't made a decision as to my belief of it because I question why there is so much contradictory research when "90% of the science community agrees". Ok onto my next question, can u explain where I am misinterpreting milankovitch's theory? The data I have read on it mentions global orbit and axial tilt as having a significant bearing on ice ages ~ every 20k years with major events happening ~40 k years. If our last ice age was indeed around 20k years ago, then where is the earth currently positioned in milankovitch's theory? Have we just passed a 20k minor ice age or are will still supposed to be approaching it? If instead you choose to lean on the contradiction that iceages occur every 100k years, then was the last one truly 20k years ago? If it was then how were we in a slight cooling trend leading into the 1900s when the globe should be warming for the next 80000 years building into that next ice age?

Moderator Response:

[JH] Please document "The data I have read." If you do not and cannot, you will forfeit your right to comment on this site. Global statements with documentation is sloganeering which is prohibited by this site's Comment Policy.

David Kirtley at 00:36 AM on 3 February 2020

CO2 lags temperature

Map, you may want to look at my post on Abrupt Climate Change in Greenland, from which Eclectic pulled the quote from Richard Alley. (I thought I recognized that quote. :) )

Map at 00:17 AM on 3 February 2020

1934 - hottest year on record

My original question had started closer to the topic but as I receive a response to that the questions naturally shifted, as most research does. The reason i chose this page to ask these questions is because the article above specifically attacks cherry picking of time and place, much like how my questioning had turned to other data that could be consider cherry picked by mainstream climate science. The problem I have had in my breif research is that all the papers I've read want to force the finished puzzle on you without examing the pieces, and when I research the pieces the information tends to lead to multiple outcomes that support and contradict the basis of global warming.

Moderator Response:

[JH] If you continue to make unsubstantiated global statements they will be summarily deleted because they violate this site's Comments Policy — specifically the "no sloganeering" provision. You will also forfeit your privilege of posting on comments on this site.

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Eclectic at 22:50 PM on 2 February 2020

CO2 lags temperature

In reply to commenter "Map" , from the other thread :-

Map, we must be careful to avoid semantic problems/confusions, so it is best if we all communicate in the standard scientific language (i.e. meaning of terms). You will mislead yourself if you use terms such as "minor ice ages" every 21000 years and "major ice ages" every 43000 years. For that is not what the well-established Milankovitch theory indicates. (See ice-albedo , CO2 feedback, etcetera.)

You haven't said exactly, but you seemed to be referring to Greenland ice cores (such as GISP2 from central Greenland). Their data comes from local conditions ~ not from global temperature changes.

There have been interestingly large/rapid swings in temperature shown in GISP2 data, but these are are mostly around the unusual event of the Younger Dryas . . . and do not reflect a basic global climate change (nor the inflow/outflow of heat energy which is the underlying cause of climate change).

For the sudden rise you mentioned, please permit me to quote climate expert Richard Alley :- "[temperature increase was] for Greenland, and applies moderately well around the North Atlantic, primarily as a wintertime change because there was a rapid shift from wintertime sea ice to wintertime open water in important regions. ... I can provide lots of chapters and verses on all of this, but the skinny version is that when the abrupt shifts happened, they primarily involved circulation rather than greenhouse gases, they didn't do a lot to global mean temperature, but they did do a lot to regional climates in many places, with large, rapid changes in North Atlantic temperatures, rapid shifts in monsoonal rains and in the edges of the tropical rain belts, smaller shifts in northern temperatures away from the North Atlantic, and lagged and opposite shifts in southern temperatures (so northern warming was followed by southern cooling)".

Map, I hope that provides you somewhat of a help. Please note that the big swings in the GISP2 proxy temperature data . . . are often displayed in the Deniosphere (of science-denying websites) ~ where it is implied that it's a world temperature chart. Worse, the GISP2 graph ends at 1855 (yes, eighteen fifty five ~ quite before the modern AGW temperature rise began) . . . and the chart scale is so compressed, that the casual reader is misled into believing past temperatures were much higher than modern times.

Denialist websites, such as WattsUpWithThat [WUWT] are well-known for these types of deceptions & falsehoods. Map, if that's where you've been getting some of your information/misinformation . . . then you have been handicapping yourself. WUWT contains all sorts of propaganda ~ and a lot of mutually contradictory crackpottery . . . and the comments sections there are half-filled with people who are still in complete denial of the basic physics of CO2 radiational properties. Really a snake-pit of intellectual insanity !

Eclectic at 21:38 PM on 2 February 2020

1934 - hottest year on record

Thank you Michael Sweet ~ that would be a better thread.

To finish up here :- in defense of commenter "Map" , I must say that his [now deleted] phrasing was a little clumsy: <" ... it took nearly 10,000 years for the Earth to totally emerge from the last ice age and warm to today's balmy climate, one-third to one-half of the warming--about 15 degrees Fahrenheit--occurred in about 10 years. "> [unquote] . . . but could reasonably be taken as meaning around 5 to 7.5 degreesF.

OTOH, the actual global warming into the Holocene was close to half of the 15F ~ so that should have alerted Map to the strong possibility that he had misinformed himself.

And as for a large slice of that temperature rise to occur - globally - in about 10 years . . . well, that would require an absolutely colossal influx of heat energy to occur. The sort of heat influx provided by a gigantic asteroid strike : far exceeding the wimpy little asteroid strike which which finished off the dinosaurs. Not to mention the subsequent plunge into Nuclear Winter. All of which, would definitely have shown up in the GISP2 ice core record. (Along with the concurrent extinction of all higher lifeforms on Earth !! )

I shall ponder, and likely make a post on the other thread (CO2 Lags Temp).

michael sweet at 20:29 PM on 2 February 2020

1934 - hottest year on record

MAP and MA Rodger,

I have responded to your posts here where it is on topic.

michael sweet at 20:27 PM on 2 February 2020

CO2 lags temperature

MARodger,

Thank you for the reference to the 2006 report in NASA's Earth Observatory, they do say 15F in 10 years. When I found their referenced source of the GISP2 temperature and accumulation data (file did not open on this computer, sorry for no link), the data is all sectioned off in 50-80 year sections so a 10 year claim is not supported. In addition, 15F would be about 8C and there is no change anywhere near that magnitude (in 50 years not 10) in the record. It seems to me that the NASA report has a typo in it.

To address Map's question, this is data for a single location on Greenland and not global data. The temperature change in Greenland was over 20C since the last ice age while Earth average was 4C according to the data in the OP. In addition. there is much more noise in data from a single location than from an average for the entire Earth. Conflating Greenland data for the Earth's average is simply incorrect.

You ask several questions in your last post. It is difficult to respond to several questions separated only by a question mark. Please ask one at a time. Start with the one that is most important to you.

MA Rodger at 18:55 PM on 2 February 2020

1934 - hottest year on record

For the record, the "one-third to one-half of the warming—about 15 degrees Fahrenheit—occurred in about 10 years." quote mentioned @111/112 originated at NASA's Earth Observatory back in 2006.

michael sweet at 17:46 PM on 2 February 2020

1934 - hottest year on record

Map:

If you want to continue to discuss ice age temperatures I suggest you post on the CO2 lags temperature thread. The moderators will delete posts here about the ice age since it is off topic.

michael sweet at 17:41 PM on 2 February 2020

1934 - hottest year on record

Map:

Accepted science is that total heating since the last ice age is about 4C (7F) over about 20,000 years. In your deleted comment you make the unsupported claim "one-third to one-half of the warming—about 15 degrees Fahrenheit—occurred in about 10 years." That would be a total of 30-45 F obviously grossly too much heating. Since your unsupported claim is completely contrary to science is was deleted. You could link to where you heard this deliberate falsehood and we could explain why that site is misleading you.

In additioin, this thread is about the hot year 1934 in the USA (worldwide it was not an especially hot year). Your comment about ice ages is off topic.

I suggest you read a thread about ice core temperatures. The graph of ice core data looks like this:

ice data

Note the time scale on the bottom is in hundred thousands of years. Here is the most recent data going back to the last ice age:

ice data

There is no jump in temperatures over any 10 year period as you describe. You are reading material from people who are deliberately misleading you.

The data come from this SkS post: CO2 lags temperature.

You should note that we have already increased temperature over 1C and are heading for 4C. 4C colder means a kilometer of ice over New York. What will the changes be from increasing temperature 4C??

Moderator Response:

[DB] Reduced 2nd image width

Map at 15:52 PM on 2 February 2020

1934 - hottest year on record

I was not trying to imply, I am imploring. How is one supposed to learn when a question is deleted as "gosh gallop"? The quote that I had posted was listed in a few diffent sources that I have looked at. I do believe eclectic is correct that they were mostly in reference to Greenland's ice core analysis, however they are still prevelant in this discussion as they refer to a previous time of global warming because excess co2 was found in the core samples with an unknown source of why the co2 was that high. How is that not relevant to today's global warming if we are again seeing a rise in temperature due to co2? Why should that question be dismissed? What caused the rise in co2 to balance out 20000 years ago and slow the global warming back then without humans?

Eclectic at 12:26 PM on 2 February 2020

1934 - hottest year on record

Philippe ~ yes, sorry about that effort on your part.

Our good commenter "Map" was perhaps referring to the local regional temperature changes shown in Greenland's GISP2 ice core during the transient fluctuations of the Younger Dryas . . . and he was trying to imply that they were global climate changes "inexplicable by mainstream climate science". My first thought was that he might have been a newbie, grossly uninformed on the topic . . . though there was a wiff of sly science-denialist argumentativeness in his wording. And the latter case has become more evident (only much less sly! ) .

I am sure I am not telling you anything new in all this, Philippe. I just wished to put it on the record, for later readers who come along.

Philippe Chantreau at 10:02 AM on 2 February 2020

1934 - hottest year on record

Comment 111 was in response to a comment by Map that is now no longer visible in the thread. ????

Moderator Response:

[DB] The comment in question was removed for being a Gish Gallop collection of off-topic and grandiose claims. Thank you, for attempting to answer it.

nigelj at 09:56 AM on 2 February 2020

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5

A useful book is "The Tipping Point, by M Gladwell". It describes how trends simmer way for years with little or no momentum then theres a tipping point where change is rapid often exponential. One new factor comes along that can hugely invigorate the trend. That new factor doesn't have to be huge, but it does has to have the right characteristics, be at the right time, and have a popular connection with the public.

They use examples from fashion, epidemiology of disease spread, spread of new educational ideas and some other stuff I think. One amusing example is hush puppy shoes that were never really fashionable until a group of kids started wearing them as an anti fashion statement. Sales increased over a couple of years then exploded with youth, as the idea became popular. it was the idea that connected.

So Greta Thunberg could potentially fit the description of the start of a tipping point but only time will really tell.

Right that's me done for the day.

Philippe Chantreau at 09:55 AM on 2 February 2020

1934 - hottest year on record

Map,This: "one-third to one-half of the warming—about 15 degrees Fahrenheit—occurred in about 10 years." Requires citation. Where does it come from?

Over the past million years, the 100,000 years cycle has been the most consistently present in the record. Not entirely clear but it sounds like you may be referring to the Mid-Pleistocene transition

One Planet Only Forever at 07:31 AM on 2 February 2020

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5

The Vox article regarding Social Tipping Points research efforts is very helpful in spite of the admission of serious limitations and uncertainty.
Although specifics regarding social tipping points are not easy to evaluate, any expanded awareness and improved understanding applied to help develop sustainable corrections and improvements for the benefit of the future of humanity is helpful. And every step of expanded awareness and improved understanding that way is essentially an irreversible increment towards helpful social tipping points. Once someone has expanded their awareness and understanding that way they will likely make personal helpful corrective actions.

The effort to achieve and improve on the Sustainable Development Goals is only going to increase. It will not go away no matter how much the resistance to the required changes appears to temporarily regionally Win.

Everyone’s actions add up. And though it may be difficult to get a rather fundamentally harmfully self-interested made-up mind to expand its awareness and understanding, there is no reversing the thoughts of a mind that has expanded awareness and understanding to help others and be less harmful to others. Such a mind is almost certain to develop further improvements in that direction. And other characteristics of the expanding and improving thoughtful helpful mind do not matter. Things like political-leaning have very little influence, except for some tribes trying to limit expanding awareness and understanding among their ideological political or otherwise made-up cults even though that is undeniably a harmfully unsustainable way to play the game that has a declining ability to sustain its perceptions of winning that way.

In many ways the efforts to resist correction and limit awareness and understanding may accelerate the development of helpful social tipping points of expanded awareness and improved understanding governing over those trying to resist correction.

Hopefully the harmful efforts to resist correction do not get pushed to the point of developing a powerful over-corrective social tipping point reaction. But history is full of examples showing that is a possible future result if the resistance to correction does not give up on their efforts to be as harmfully incorrect as they can get away with.

Eclectic at 16:18 PM on 1 February 2020

1934 - hottest year on record

Map @109 , the chart at Figure 2. shows a very strong warming from about 1975. In the early part of that century, there were some colder years around 1910 ~ but no strong trend 1880 - 1930.

I think you would need to do some careful statistical analysis, to demonstrate a trend there. AFAICT, there's nothing much. Taking a wider swathe of data, pre-1910 , shows a gradual & slight warming trend from mid-Nineteenth Century, but it's rather weak. There are of course fluctuations, from clusters of large volcanic eruptions, or from slight variations in solar output or from El Nino events. All part of the natural random variations . . . plus possibly (and dubiously) some multidecadal oceanic overturning currents (but these are only very slight in their effects ~ if they exist at all, and are not simply figments of imagination as humans indulge their tendency to see "shapes & patterns" in random data points).

Map, I suspect you are "seeing" trends that don't exist.

Weather tends to vary around the cyclic seasonal changes, because it is small-scale fluctuations against a global (hemispheric) background . . . but climate change requires major alteration in global-level gain (or loss) of heat energy over a sustained period of time.

The important point with climate, is that climate does not change unless something causes it to change. That's why the often-seen idea that our modern period of warmth is just a "rebound" from the Little Ice Age . . . is a complete nonsense.

Map , if you wish to step back and look at temperatures of the entire Holocene period, then it becomes apparent that the world has been in a gentle cooling trend for roughly 5,000 years ~ which would have continued (owing to the Milankovitch orbital change) but for the modern strong warming from AGW. The LIA and Medieval Warm Period were only very slight alterations of the underlying cooling trend. But that long term cooling trend has been so gradual as to be invisible on the scale of a few decades or a few centuries.

Your "2030 speculation" is baseless. Even the idea of a possible Grand Solar Minimum is (if it were to occur) something that would be swamped by the ongoing warming effect of rising Greenhouse Gasses.

Map at 14:59 PM on 1 February 2020

1934 - hottest year on record

Looking at the basic chart, it appears that a cooling trend was occurring at the star of the twentieth century. Is there any data showing the beginning of the nineteenth century to compare where that cooling trend started? The chart leads me to question at very quick glance if the globe doesn't just constantly fluctuate in temperature on a doublerise rate meaning that once the average temperature breaks +2 (if I'm reading the degrees right) then it will slowly start dropping until it breaks the -1 and starts warming again.. which based off the flow and consistent rise in your chart would lead me to speculate that the next cooling trend could in fact start around 2030 whether humans do anything to fight global warming or not, meaning that if they do start now "science" will get to claim that they single handedly "fixed" global warming within 10 years..

One Planet Only Forever at 09:41 AM on 1 February 2020

With the En-ROADS climate simulator, you can build your own solutions to global warming

Another way to conclude my comment@13, and expand on it, is to point out that what is needed is expanded awareness and understanding applied to correct harmful unsustainable attitudes and actions that undeservedly became popular or profitable, and to develop new sustainable improvements.

Any attempts to stifle or misdirect the development of legitimate outrage regarding the collective lack of responsible leadership by higher status people will, and should, develop a bigger angrier outrage and correction. It happens often in developing nations. And it can happen in supposedly more advanced nations.

Anger regarding being legitimately sustainably corrected is not sustainable. But it can be unjustifiably prolonged and grown by misleading marketers.

The SUSTAINABLE solution "Will Require" system corrections that rapidly identify and effectively correct any and all deliberate and persistent attempts at misleading marketing.

One Planet Only Forever at 09:23 AM on 1 February 2020

With the En-ROADS climate simulator, you can build your own solutions to global warming

John Hartz,
I identify at least two weaknesses in the Yale Connections article you linked:

The article presents “A Pet Solution of The Technology Savior – discounting or dismissing Other Helpful actions and missing the fact that Technology Development created The Problem”
The Nuclear Weapons Solution that the “Pet Solution” is based upon is not a success. Nuclear weapons proliferation would not have occurred if it was a success. If it truly was a success then Canada’s Candu system that is safer against meltdown and cannot be used to make nuclear weapons, and other nuclear power generation systems like it, would have become the only acceptable nuclear power generation systems. The better nuclear solution was actually available, as have the better alternatives to fossil fuel always been available.

The solution to the Nuclear threat was similar to the solution to Ozone impacts. The solution did not require a significant sacrifice by the average person, and the solution reduced the fears and potential for outrage by the general population at the lack of responsible corrective actions by leadership. But, as pointed out in my numbered point 2., the solution to nuclear weapons was not actually a sustainable solution. And the ozone solution also appears to be in question (recent evidence of foamed plastics in some regions of China creating the banned CFCs because the Central Chinese Government, as effective as it can be at making required corrections happen, cannot police everything).

What is required is the global achievement of Sustainable Development. And a key part of that is the need to rapidly correct the harmful unsustainable things that have developed. The 1972 Stockholm Conference regarding a sustainable future for humanity was justifiably concerned about Nuclear Weapons and the Ozone Layer. But it included the need to address all other issues related to sustainable development. And the need to limit human impacts on climate change has been a significant focus starting in the 1980s because it is undeniably a significant factor in the success of sustainably reducing poverty and developing other sustainable improvements for humanity.

Technology development is important for achieving Sustainable Development. But, generically, technological development “Is Not The Solution”. Not even converting all energy generation and energy use to renewable is “The Solution” because materials are consumed by any system. Reduction of consumption is required, along with population limits. And undeniably the richest should be challenged to live better by consuming less, including consuming less energy. And that limited consumption needs to be a focus until virtually eternal artificial technical systems get developed, because that magic solution may never be developed and humanity potentially has 1 billion years to continue to thrive on this planet.

What is needed is the growth of public awareness and improved understanding of what is going on and its application to the pursuit of achieving Sustainable Development. And the solution will be achieved more effectively and more rapidly the more fear and outrage there is regarding irresponsible leadership by the richest and most powerful failing to do what needs to be done (failing to disappoint people who need to be disappointed while continuing to help develop sustainable improvements for those who need to be helped). The supposedly more advanced who are supposedly more deserving of being leaders need to prove they deserve their status. And the “Promise that technological development will magically make everything better without any sacrifice of perceptions of status and opportunity” is, to quote the authors of “Good Economics for Hard Times” (see my comment @4), likely just another case proving that “…we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of yesterday. Ignorance, institutions, ideology and inertia combine to give us answers that look plausible, promise much, and predictably betray us. As history, alas, demonstrates over and over, the ideas that carry the day in the end can be good or bad. … The only recourse we have against bad ideas is to be vigilant, resist the seduction of the “obvious”, be skeptical of promised miracles, question the evidence, be patient with complexity and honest about what we know and what we can know.”

nigelj at 07:18 AM on 1 February 2020

With the En-ROADS climate simulator, you can build your own solutions to global warming

ilfark2 @9, and all systems whether carbon taxes or war time mobilisations are at equal risk of being rorted by elites and contractors. So its a spurious argument.

nigelj at 06:59 AM on 1 February 2020

With the En-ROADS climate simulator, you can build your own solutions to global warming

ilfark2 @9

I do appreciate your view on this, and partly agree with you on some points. Firstly I agree to the extent that the problem needs tackling fairly urgently like the next 10 - 30 years, not over the next 50 - 100 years. And I've said before on this website that it looks like we are at risk of running out of time to make carbon taxes work, because they would have to be ramped up so quickly it will really hurt.

If we dont have robust carbon taxes in place soon, we will be forced to consider a huge government infrastructure programme. Or it might end up being both.Whether we call infrastructure projects a war time mobilisation or a new deal might be beside the point. They both require focused government spending and urgency, that's the key point.

However you get some things wrong and make a few unsubstantiated claims. Im not going to wade through everything because I think its your basic message that counts, but one thing deserves a mention. You said "Let's look at other taxes for the moment. Gasoline tax has increased gas prices substantially yet 60 to 70% of US emissions are from it's citizens driving around in large, useless circles." In fact America still has very low gasoline prices even with a tax, so of course its not an incentive to change behaviour much, and In fact transport accounts for 23% of total CO2 emissions according to The WHO. Carbon taxes would work as a device, its a question of whether theres enough time left to make them work sensibly, and what mitigation policies the public will run with.

One Planet Only Forever at 06:54 AM on 1 February 2020

With the En-ROADS climate simulator, you can build your own solutions to global warming

Ilfark2 @9,
You have not presented any evidence that a Carbon Tax cannot help achieve the required limit of global warming harm to the future of humanity (the 1.5 C limit).

Your opinion appears to be based on evaluations of a Carbon Tax as the only action taken, and not even an evaluation of a Carbon Tax that increases as required to achieve the result.

What you have presented is a distrust that government would behave responsibly, which is a related, but very different, matter.

Regarding the request for a quote in support of Carbon Taxes from “Good Economics for Hard Times” about the benefit of higher taxes (and other policy interventions) I provide the following:
- The entire Chapter 6: In Hot Water. Understanding a specific economic issue can require thorough reading, not “A Tweet Quote”
- The following quote extract from Chapter 6 regarding action on climate change raises potential questions about your identified Preferred Presentations of economics.
“…Mitigation through better technologies may not do the trick; people’s consumption will need to fall. We may have to be content not only with cleaner cars but also with smaller cars, or no cars at all. This is not what our colleagues in economics like to hear. First, because of economists’ ongoing love affair with material consumption as a marker of well-being, and second because they are suspicious of attempts to change behavior, especially when changing preferences is involved. …Economists typically assume most people would not voluntarily sacrifice anything to affect (help, not harm) unborn people or those who live far away (from them)… (However) Many of us (including economists) probably do care about a whole range of outcomes that don’t affect us directly, even if we have a hard time assigning money values to them.” (I added the inserts in brackets because the entire section the quote is from is too large to present in full, but the idea is clear with my inserted brackets – read the book to see what I mean, and that I have not presented it in a misleading way)
- The Book includes the observation that the USA and many others nations had very successful growth with substantial improvements for the poor when the top tax rates on the rich were very high (the 1950s through the 1970s). Rather than try to build a similar quote to the one above, this is a matter that can be independently verified any way you choose.

Taxes can be Good, or Bad.

takamura_senpai at 06:25 AM on 1 February 2020

Too late to stop Climate Change?

"Too late to stop Climate Change?" never be to late.

2. In my the very first post here i wrote: "...6. We have to speak NOT about sea level, but about forest fires, droughts, health, economic....locusts.... Forest fires produce smoke, enough to destroy health, even kill millions....."
And today read about big/ unprecedented threat/problems with locusts in Africa. The biggest in last 25 years.
"A typical swarm can contain up to 150 million locusts per km2, and its daily consumption of crops can correspond to the daily consumption of 35 000 people. The current swarms represent an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods in the Horn of Africa." http://www.fao.org/3/ca7557en/ca7557en.pdf
But i am waiting more: the locusts in Europe, Noth America and even Asia in .......biblian numbers. Global warming in all its shine. .. censored

PaulRittmann at 05:00 AM on 1 February 2020

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #4

I've learned that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing a half percent a year. I've also learned that the major sources, like fires, are estimated with considerable uncertainty, with ranges of a factor of 10.

So why should I believe, as you evidently do, that my vehicle is responsible for the increase? Perhaps governments should manage their forests better.

Moderator Response:

[TD] See this post, and put further comments there please.

ilfark2 at 03:04 AM on 1 February 2020

With the En-ROADS climate simulator, you can build your own solutions to global warming

I've read a few surveys on carbon taxes that you can find if you're interested.

Let's look at other taxes for the moment. Gasoline tax has increased gas prices substantially yet 60 to 70% of US emissions are from it's citizens driving around in large, useless circles.

Look at the effect of tobacco tax.

Better still, do the arithmetic on how long carbon taxes would take to reduce carbon output substantially. Others have done it.

Taxes as such were introduced arguably, by the Romans. They proved that all you need is a printing press. They mined gold (using slaves), gave this to their soldiers and told subjects they had to give a certain amount of official gold coin every so often. They only way to get the gold was to supply Roman soldiers. This was an easy way to supply Roman troops. Hudson and Graeber cover this.

If we took a New Deal approach to the problem, it will take at least 50 years, more likely 100.

The vast majority of infrastructure, not to mention top to bottom means of production change, happened from 1940 to 1943, and 40 to 60% of the money was printed to do so.

There are quite a few books on the scope and scale of the New Deal vs. WWII mobilization out there now.

Instead of me reading "Good Economics for Hard Times", why don't you find a referenced quote in the book that describes a time in history a society was massively changed via tax policy on the order of ten years (other than the French and Bolshevik revolutions). If they found that, I'll happily grab the book and start reading, because I've never read of such a thing.

In short I challenge readers to point to one instance where massive, short order, societal change occurred from tax policy.

We have many examples of what happens to revenues that are supposed to go to the people. Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Alaska among others I'm sure. In these cases, various amounts at varying times of the proceeds were skimmed off the top by elites. This is always the case. It is obvious it will be unless you have real democratic accountability which hierarchies never ever do. Look at the massive sums that are skimmed off by gov contractors... somehow the CCL crowd will magically create a separate Carbon Tax department that will successfully sequester and judiciously allocate all they are supposed to? Large organizations have never operated for any substantial time period this way unless they were run by direct democracy.

But again, if you think we have 50 or a 100 years to get to zero, maybe this would work, but likely not.

Look at the US congress now vs. in the 1930s.

Then, they passed the 30 page Glass-Steagal act. You can look it up and easily read it. It's very simple. Banks can't buy stocks. Savings and Loans can only do a very limited number of things. Gamblers and speculators have to go to hedgefunds. Hedgefunds were a vanishingly small part of the financisphere until Clinton repealed Glass Steagal.

Then there was the crash, then you got Barney Frank and i forget who else, write a bill to reign stuff in. The thing was added to, amended, changed, until it became the useless 2 to 5 thousand page batch of monstronsity, that has done very little to safe guard the financial system.

Ditto the heritage foundation's Affordable Care Act.

That is what will happen in the US with a Carbon Tax.

It might start out useful, but by the time it's done, it will be filled with exemptions, grandfather clauses etc...

Years will pass until the next better version is considered.

No one knows how much time we have, but it's possibly too late and even the IPCC talks about 10 years, which depends on untested, unscaled carbon removal.

The safest path would be massive structural, societal change in less than 10 years.

The only time we've seen that is with massive government supervision and planning. Sometimes using markets (as in US WWII mobilization), other times not.

But again, if you think we have 50 plus years and would rather not risk the status quo, there's an off chance tax/subsidy of the current system might work.

Trust me, I'm not a fan of a WWII mobilization. The one in the US led to one set of elites prevailing over another. It hyper-rewarded capitalists that played ball and left many (especially women, African-Americans and Latinos) behind. It led to the horrible system we currently have. Hopefully a Green New Deal would be more just, but I remain skeptical.

Some nice books to get anyone interested on how economies have been planned by governments or corporations, see "The End of Reform", by Brinkely, "The Visible Hand of Management" and "Scope and Scale..." by Alfred Chandler Jr., the first few chapters of "Destructive Creation..." I forget the author, "Debt: The First 5000 Years..." by Graeber, "Economics: A New Introduction" by Hugh Stretton... and of course Richard Woff, David Harvey, Yanis Varoufanukis. For a more mainstream take on taxation see Stephanie Kelton, Michael Hudson (the MMTers).

You might be right, we might have 30 to 100 years to get to negative emissions, but the Arctic, Antarctic, Australia, Amazon, Siberia, permafrost, methane levels, droughts, deluges (among many other "oh shit that wasn't supposed to happen for another 70 years" scientific papers) suggest otherwise.

David Hawk at 02:48 AM on 1 February 2020

Too late to stop Climate Change?

Based on a two-year research project done in Sweden 1975-77, and the 40 years since, its too late, really, for business as usual.

Business as unusual has yet to show up.

"Too Early, Too Late, Now what?" 2019, David Hawk, ArthorHouse

MA Rodger at 19:53 PM on 31 January 2020

Too late to stop Climate Change?

alonerock @1,

I added a comment replying to you on that thread suggested by the Moderator Response.

MA Rodger at 19:50 PM on 31 January 2020

CO2 measurements are suspect

alonerock from elsewhere,

Articles describing the measurement of the vertical profile of CO2 through the atmosphere include Abshire et al (2010) 'Pulsed airborne lidar measurements of CO 2 column absorption' who measured CO2 levels to 6km (their fig 10 below),

and Foucher et al (2011) 'Carbon dioxide atmospheric vertical profiles retrieved from spaceobservation using ACE-FTS solar occultation instrument' who measured from 5km to 25km (their fig 7 below).

alonerock at 14:29 PM on 31 January 2020

Too late to stop Climate Change?

Can anyone please suggest any good articles describing CO2 levels in the various layers of Earth's atmospher ? I recently read an argument that since CO2 is heavier than air, almost all of the CO2 is at surface level, which is wrong.

Moderator Response:

[TD] See this post, including the comments.

scaddenp at 07:17 AM on 31 January 2020

With the En-ROADS climate simulator, you can build your own solutions to global warming

The whole point of a carbon tax, any pigovian tax, is that people will avoid it. Industries will be created to avoid it - ie energy production that doesnt emit carbon.

nigelj at 05:20 AM on 31 January 2020

With the En-ROADS climate simulator, you can build your own solutions to global warming

ilfark2

"Taxes are always convuluted, avoided, re-directed, sabotaged and distorted. "Serious Economist" is largely and oxymoron."

Sure, but taxes still work. Our civilisation has been based on taxation and this has provided a vast range of public good and services for literally centuries now.

"They first few versions of any carbon tax in capitalist countries will rest heavily on the middle and lower classes. The argument that you can have a public trust that will be re-distributed is fantasy."

There are already carbon taxes in several countries. I suggest read up on them before speculating. Start with carbon taxes on wikipedia. It's also very easy to give tax rebates or similar assistance to poor people, and that is already done in many countries in respect of general income taxes, so it could be done for a carbon tax. Please explain why it couldn't be done.

"Even if, by some a-historic miracle you got a Citizens Climate Lobby like plan through, it would take years to be effective. Likely decades. "

No taxation has immediate effects, even at low levels. The sum of the effects depends on how strong the taxes are.

"If the taxes are high enough to force a quick change, companies would try to pass that on to customers, resulting in a supply side shock depression."

This is a valid concern but 1) you can phase things in to soften the blow and 2) carbon fee and dividend neutralises this supply shock.

"The only way we'll substantially lower carbon output in a useful timeframe is either a WWII style mobilization, which means heavily controlled markets and means of production, or a complete replacement of capitalism and markets with a rational system of production and distribution."

No. You don't need to control markets in a complete sense or abandon capitalism. All you need is something like the New Deal of the 1930's where government funded some new infrastructure out of taxes at that time.

Governments could fund green infrastructure today out of taxes, deficit financing (interest rates are low so this is ideal) or quantitative easing. It requires directing how some things are done, but this falls well short of a total control of markets. This is all a valid alternative to carbon taxes.

nigelj at 04:56 AM on 31 January 2020

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #4, 2020

nivekvb @1, good responses to the denialists. Concise, just the key facts. I have always liked that. No point wasting too much time on these guys. Do be aware they are trolling you to some extent.

The points they make are so transparently stupid that their scepticism cannot be just intellectual curiosity, and can only be driven by emotion or politics or conspiracy theory ideation.

One Planet Only Forever at 04:54 AM on 31 January 2020

With the En-ROADS climate simulator, you can build your own solutions to global warming

ilfark2 @3,

The first step of the Paris Agreement, the initial commitments, have been confirmed to be inadequate to achieve 1.5 C limit of impact.

But that is why the Paris Agreement was built to include regular updates of the status of the actions to date with the need for increased corrective actions as required to achieve the objective. The next step being the 2020 update.

That is a very fundamental understanding of the Paris Agreement. Anyone unaware of it hasn't actually been paying attention.

But I agree, the lack of responsible corrective action today to undo the harmful popular and profitable socioeconomic-political activity that has developed today will require more forceful corrections of undeserved perceptions of superiority if humanity is to develop a lasting improving future.

Whether responsible leaders will act to correct popular and profitable activity that has incorrectly over-developed through the past is an open question, as is the future of humanity.

All that any individual can do is try to expand and improve awareness and understanding of the urgent need to stop supporting groups that have desires that are contrary to rapidly achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and apply that learning to be as helpful as possible.

One Planet Only Forever at 04:41 AM on 31 January 2020

With the En-ROADS climate simulator, you can build your own solutions to global warming

ilfark2 @3,

Read "Good Economics for Hard Times" and then respond with specific criticisms. As my comment @4 shows the authors are open to the possibility that are are incorrect on some points.

One Planet Only Forever at 04:39 AM on 31 January 2020

With the En-ROADS climate simulator, you can build your own solutions to global warming

In my previous comment @1 I meant to add that the authors of “Good Economics for Hard Times” recommend that the most helpful way to implement Carbon Taxes is to rebate the collected money to everyone except the richer people. That allows the Carbon Tax policy implementation to limit the negative impacts on middle income and less fortunate, and help assist the less fortunate. It also becomes a more powerful motivation for the richer people to reduce their impacts (they get no pay-back. For them it is a Tax that is used for actions they personally do not benefit from, like any other assistance for the less fortunate).

I provided a brief summary of “Good Economics for Hard Times” to encourage it to be read by people who are interested in better understanding the challenges of expanding awareness and understanding regarding climate science and the related required changes of human activity (Jeffery Sachs and Sustainable Development need no ‘summary description’).

In case some are reluctant to check out “Good Economics for Hard Times” , the following edited extracts from the book may help better understand the authors and their intentions and the value of reading the book (economic academics and climate science academics have similar challenges):

From the Preface:
“…Inequality is exploding, environmental catastrophes and global policy disasters loom, but we are left with little more than platitudes to confront them with.
“We wrote this book to hold on to hope. To tell ourselves the story of what went wrong and why, but also as a reminder of all that has gone right. A book as much about the problems as about how our world can be put back together, as long as we are honest with the diagnosis.
“…Many of the issues plaguing the world right now are particularly salient in the rich North, whereas we have spent our lives studying poor people in poor countries. It was obvious that we would have to immerse ourselves in many new literatures, and there was always a chance we would miss something. It took us a while to convince ourselves it was even worth trying.
“We eventually decided to take the plunge, partly because we got tired of watching at a distance while the public conversation about core economic issues – immigration, trade, growth, inequality, or the environment – goes more and more off-kilter. But also because, as we thought about it, we realized the problems facing the rich countries in the world were eerily familiar to those we are used to studying in the developing world – people left behind by development, ballooning inequality, lack of faith in government, fractured societies and polity, and so on. We learned a lot in the process, and it did give us faith in what we as economists have learned best to do, which is to be hard headed about the facts, skeptical of slick answers and magic bullets, modest and honest about what we know and understand, and perhaps most importantly, willing to try ideas and solutions and be wrong, as long as it takes us towards the ultimate goals of building a more humane world.”

From the first chapter:
“…The answers to these problems take more than a tweet. So there is an urge to just avoid them. And partly as a result, nations are doing very little to solve the most pressing challenges of our time; they continue to feed the anger and mistrust that polarizes us, which makes us even more incapable of talking, thinking together, doing something about them.
“…Economists have a lot to say about these big issues.
“…What the most recent research has to say, it turns out, is often surprising, especially to those used to the pat answers coming out of TY “economists’ and high school text books.
“Unfortunately, very few people trust economists enough to listen carefully to what they have to say.”

From the Conclusion:
“…Good economics alone cannot save us. But without it, we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of yesterday. Ignorance, institutions, ideology and inertia combine to give us answers that look plausible, promise much, and predictably betray us. As history, alas, demonstrates over and over, the ideas that carry the day in the end can be good or bad. … The only recourse we have against bad ideas is to be vigilant, resist the seduction of the “obvious”, be skeptical of promised miracles, question the evidence, be patient with complexity and honest about what we know and what we can know. Without that vigilance, conversations about multifaceted problems turn into slogans and caricatures and policy analysis gets replaced by quack remedies.
“The call to action is not just for academic economists – it is for all of us who want a better, saner, more humane world. Economics is too important to be left to economists.”

ilfark2 at 03:17 AM on 31 January 2020

With the En-ROADS climate simulator, you can build your own solutions to global warming

Taxes are always convuluted, avoided, re-directed, sabotaged and distorted. "Serious Economist" is largely and oxymoron.

Many have shown elsewhere, Paris won't get us to 1.5, more likely will result in 3 by 2100. Likely articles are metioned on this very website.

They first few versions of any carbon tax in capitalist countries will rest heavily on the middle and lower classes. The argument that you can have a public trust that will be re-distributed is fantasy.

Even if, by some a-historic miracle you got a Citizens Climate Lobby like plan through, it would take years to be effective. Likely decades. Think of all the plant and equipment relying on fossil fuels. Unless the taxes are incredibly high, companies will continue to use that equipment for years. Ditto households.

If the taxes are high enough to force a quick change, companies would try to pass that on to customers, resulting in a supply side shock depression.

If taxes and markets were used to make the change in 1859, when Tyndall discovered the way molecules absorb infra red radiation, it might have worked.

The only way we'll substantially lower carbon output in a useful timeframe is either a WWII style mobilization, which means heavily controlled markets and means of production, or a complete replacement of capitalism and markets with a rational system of production and distribution.

Carbon taxes have no place or use in either scenario.

It's like saying, "alright, the Fascists might be coming across the ocean in a couple of years... let's raise taxes on consumer items in order to fund war production..."

nivekvb at 01:47 AM on 31 January 2020

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #4, 2020

I debated with Tony Heller on Twitter. I've only been debating with the deniers for 2 weeks on twitter and I've learnt everything I know from that. I expected to lose my debate with Tony Heller, but I think I run him over the cliff. Part 1 is short and hilarious. Part's 2 and 3 are longer.

Part 1

https://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2020/01/kv-vs-tony-heller-tweeter-debate.html?m=1

Part 2

https://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2020/01/kv-vs-heller-twitter-part-2.html?m=1

Part 3

https://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2020/01/kv-vs-tony-heller-twitter-part-3.html?m=1

Moderator Response:

[DB] Activated hyperlinks.

MA Rodger at 21:36 PM on 30 January 2020

CO2 effect is saturated

dien @579,

I will be more wide-ranging with my questioning of you than Bob Loblaw @580 although I perhaps understand what you are trying to say.

Can you tell us which "explanation" you are describing as being "much too complex"?

When you use the term "molecule density", to which molecules are you referring, all air molecules or just CO2?

Are you referring to Arrhenius (1896) 'On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground'? and if so, where doe he use the term "radiating layer"? Arrhenius talks of an "emitting layer" but this is not the CO2 emitting layer and thus not what you term "the top layer."

You will note that I don't ask about your meaning of "saturated" although this does not directly apply to CO2's GHG effect being saturated. I feel your overly awkward explanation is essentially correct. That is, if by 'saturation' you meaning that all radiation emitted by CO2 is absorbed and fails to escape to space, this is mainly true in the lower atmosphere. From there, an increase in CO2 (which is well mixed within the atmosphere to a height of perhaps 50km) will increase emission/absorption in the lower atmosphere as well as the upper. (So it is not just "in the highest layer" where there is "ample room to increase absorbtion there by increasing CO2 density.") In so doing, the altitude where all CO2 radiation is absorbed (thus in your words "saturated") does have "ample room to increase" in altitude and, if that increase is still within the troposphere, it will thus to decrease in temperature. It is this decreasing temperature (or to be more exact, decreasing net temperature) which determines whether the GHG effect from increasing CO2 is saturated or not.

John Hartz at 13:52 PM on 30 January 2020

Waking up to climate change | Australia's Bushfires

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