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BillyJoe at 07:29 AM on 25 January 2020Waking up to climate change | Australia's Bushfires
Nigel,
My thought as well except I was thinking "critical mass". The number of people frustrated with political inaction has reached a "critical mass" for getting out on the streets and protesting. But, of course, natural disasters, politicians coming out and voicing their ongoing denial of climate change in the face of these natural disasters, and the Greta Thunberg phenomenon are probably all factors behind the numbers reaching "critical mass".
I still have my reservations about Climate Adam's style, but horses for courses and whatever helps, but I can't help recommending Potholer again. His latest video is in response to the misinformation spread by the climate denying media about Australian bush fires. You might not want to watch 36 minutes of low key sarcasm though :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0x46-enxsA
Whatever you may think of his style, he puts a great deal of work into those videos. In this latest video, he lists the 45 references. And it's had nearly 120,000 views, so it actually gets watched despite its length.
Moderator Response:[JH] Link activated.
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nigelj at 07:25 AM on 25 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
Ive read Hayeks book "A Road to Serfdom. Its really just a short treatise (thank god for that) arguing central planning of the soviet sort doesn't work because the planners can't possibly have enough information and computing power to process it (the book was back in the 1950s I think) and so free markets with decentralised private ownership work best. I've read quite good arguments that with our better knowledge today centrally planned economies could work as well as private markets, although I think it just goes too much against our natural instinct for private ownership. It would put a lot of trust in a very powerful government.
But I don't recall Hayek arguing that goverment had no role in economic affairs such as environmental regulation. Laissez faire economics like this has a poor record, eg early Victorian England. Economic growth was good but human suffering was terrible, until they slowly introduced child protection laws etcetera.
Scandinavia has a nice model that combines the best of free market capitalism and state control and ownership where this makes sense. There's a reasonable balance between freedom and control. I doubt we will do much better. Their economic and social data is good, and climate mitigation is quite good, and this is the ultimate test of the model. But I phlosophise too much...
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John Hartz at 06:43 AM on 25 January 2020Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate
Is the Australian federal government singing out of the same hymnal as detailed in this article?
‘Blatant manipulation’: Trump administration exploited wildfire science to promote logging by Emily Holden & Jimmy Tobias, Environment, Guardian, Jan 24, 2020
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nigelj at 06:40 AM on 25 January 2020Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate
Put it this way I assume Australia's temperatures at 1.52 deg c are land temperatures, but Im not absolutely 100% sure. Do they include the oceans to the extent of their economic zone?
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nigelj at 06:27 AM on 25 January 2020Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate
"Globally, 2020 was 1.2°C above pre-industrial." Yes, but of course this is just an average. Australia was 1.52 degs c above even the 1960 - 1990 baseline in 2019. Canada was 1.7 degs c above this baseline.
www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/
But I believe these numbers are combined land / ocean data, (?) which would make Australia's land temperatures more than 1.52 degress above the baseline. Obviously this is where people live so its the more relevant number. But I'm not sure of what the 1.52 deg c number is, combined land and oceans, or just land.
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SirCharles at 06:10 AM on 25 January 2020Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate
I mean 2019, not 2020. Sorry.
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SirCharles at 06:08 AM on 25 January 2020Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate
This "new colour" can now be seen more often and longer. We have to act BEFORE all becomes irreversible!
Globally, 2020 was 1.2°C above pre-industrial.
Global Temperature Jazz - Paris Climate Accord Into the Twenties
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_dySw3kP_Q -
Steven Sullivan at 06:04 AM on 25 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
Nic Palmer @ 4: " It does tend to be US types who most have that particularly extreme notion of 'freedom' though."
Yet is was Europeans like von Mises and Hayek who were its founding fathers.
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SirCharles at 05:57 AM on 25 January 2020Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate
This was 7 years ago: "Australia adds new colour to temperature maps as heat soars"
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Eclectic at 20:42 PM on 24 January 2020Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Paul @131 ,
if you consult Wikipedia more closely, you will see that you have forgotten to add in a vastly greater living mass ~ plants , fungi, and various types of mono-cellular microbes.
They all respire CO2. And even though their metabolic rate is slower than warm-blooded humans, the sheer enormous size of their biomass means that they exude CO2 at a total rate enormously higher than humans.
So there's that.
Worth consideration !
I wonder why the expert scientists are not the slightest concerned about that?
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PaulRittmann at 19:05 PM on 24 January 2020Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
I believe breathing is a good thing and should not be interrupted for very long.
Let me summarize what seems to be relevant to people adding CO2 to the atmosphere. First, an adult produces about 1 kg CO2 each day, or 365 kg CO2 each year. Second, there are about 8 billion adults & children doing this. So how much CO2 does human respiration add each year? Here comes the math:
(8 billion people)*(50 kg/person average) = 0.4 GT live biomass
(365 kg CO2 per year)/(62 kg person) = 6 kg CO2 per year per kg live biomass
(0.4 GT)*(6 GT CO2/yr per GT live biomass) = 2.4 GT CO2 per year
For comparison, motor vehicles generate about 3 GT CO2 per year. All fossil fuels (& cement making) generate maybe 40 GT CO2 per year. It looks to me like respiration should not be discounted or ignored. Especially when livestock, earthworms, and marine critters are added.
From what I saw in Wikipedia on Biomass, the total livestock mass is about 0.7 GT. Also, the total for ants, worms, and termites is maybe 7 GT. Marine adds 2 GT. All these are rough estimates, so the total is roughly 10 GT living biomass.
If all the living things generate CO2 at the same rate we do, then the total respiration rate is 60 GT CO2 per year. This exceeds all the fossil fuels & cement production.
In conclusion, I'd say respiration is a significant source of CO2.
Moderator Response:[DB] Scientists know through due diligence that the rise in atmospheric concentration of CO2 is from the human combustion of fossil fuels due to the unique and characteristic isotopic nature of that rise and because it occurs in lockstep with the decline in atmospheric oxygen levels. Because they've done the research demonstrating both.
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Markoh at 18:55 PM on 24 January 2020Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate
PS @16. Here is how the Victorian Government has ignored the Black Saturday Royal Commission recommendation of 5% control burned each year up from the then current 2%.
www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-07/black-saturday-fire-fuel-threat-planned-burns-needed/10787050
"In the past three seasons, the number of hectares burned nosedived from 185,000 down to 65,000."
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nigelj at 17:30 PM on 24 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
Nick Palmer says " If the world had perfect information about the actual rigidly defined results and timescales of climate policies and the definite results if such policies were not employed, I think it would be very easy for the people of the world to decide what to do"
Yes, but I'm inclined to think plenty of people would still kick the can down the road and have a big party and to hell with the climate problem. There is nothing to suggest market economics and the invisible hand will lead to sensible environmental outcomes. The market works reasonably well to allocate resources, and encourage innovation and as a mechanism to avoid the problem of dictatorships and communism. That's all it really does. It can't replace sensible government functions. It can't fix every problem. And I'm a fan of free markets in a general sense, but I'm not blinkered about their limitations.
Imho looking after the environment is a complicated value judgement sort of thing that requires a set of laws, or more informal agreements and a lot of complicated trade offs, and analysis, although a lot of its commonsense as well. Personally I like the Obama doctrine "dont do stupid stuff" :)
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Eclectic at 15:59 PM on 24 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
JohnMashey @14 , thanks for that. The picture has been bleak for a long time.
Nick Palmer @13 , it would become a can of worms, to properly define economics (just as it would, to properly define democracy ).
The modern "science" of economics (think Friedman . . . and worse) tends to dismiss externalities and the bigger picture in general. As you are well aware, I'm sure. To a large degree it is divorced from evolutionary darwinism (except social-darwinism !!) and from human neurology . . . and from human compassion.
I am too cynical to accept your "perfect information" hypothesis. The basic problem is that the selfishness aspect of our human nature does override our altruistic tendencies, when we live in the anonymous conglomerates of mega-cities and mega-towns. The healthy sense of community gets diminished.
The old "Invisible Hand" concept worked well at the village level of long ago, but - as history shows us - works poorly in more modern circumstances. Today, the real Invisible Hand is cartels and Facebook and the likes of Cambridge Analytica . . . and insider-trading . . . and the newer forms of the Tragedy of the Commons.
Yet it is the standard economist "religion" that the bus will follow the best road if we push down on the accelerator and take our hands off the steering wheel.
That's a crazy religion. Realistically, we should take a giant lesson from the control systems within the biological creatures that have survived & flourished over millions of years. ~But that would go against the entrenched religious dogma of capitalism & communism & and other -isms.
Ah, getting too philosophical. Sorry.
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JohnMashey at 15:20 PM on 24 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
nigelj@11
Dark Money: Excellent suggestion for all! Jane is one of the very best investigative journalists in US, honest, fearless and a relentless digger and teller of truth.
As it happens, I've been looking at Kochs for a long time: search for Koch in Crescendo to Climategate Cacophony(2010)
or look especially at p.47 and then pp.93-95, that shows which funders give money to which organizations that do climate denial. p.96 has summaries: the 3 main Koch-related foundations (there's a 4th, but small) gave much more than Exxon. Of course, at that point I didn't know about the Kochs+allies' money anonymizer DONORS TRUST/CAPITAL FUND, which I only figured out in early 2012, updated later in Fakery 2. See pp.68-76. See also Robert Brulle's more extensive research, summarized in Study Details Dark Money Flowing to Climate Science Denial(2013). Over time, Koch direct funding down, DONORS way up as seen in graph there. Charles Koch always hated having to report recipients of money from his private foundations. Lately, Donor Advised Funds are increasingly used by some to obscure what they're doing, i.e., N donors give money to a DAF, which then writes the checks, but without identifying the sources. Occasionally one can figure that out, but only with luck.
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Eclectic at 14:01 PM on 24 January 2020Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
Barb @46 , please don't feel any heat (metaphorically speaking). You are most welcome to post.
My principal objection to your initial comments was that you urged climate scientists to expand their advocacy into the simultaneous advocacy of veganism. IMO, such action by them (or by anyone linking climate matters and veganism) would be wrong because counterproductive (to the point of self-sabotage) in the urgent tackling of AGW.
Your economic arguments are good ~ their main weakness being because based on the assumption that the current methods of "meat production" would continue at present levels (or higher, worldwide). For all sorts of reasons - some touched on, earlier - it is likely that "farm meat" consumption per capita will decline in the latter half of this century. But it need not go down to zero, to be ecologically sound.
Your health/medical arguments are weak in their science ~ but they are a "Motivated Reasoning" consequence of your veganism . . . and there would be little point in me firing torpedoes at them. Plus, it would be off-topic.
I shall submerge to 20 fathoms, and switch to electric motors.
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Markoh at 13:23 PM on 24 January 2020Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate
John @15 my understanding is that bushfires do not count towards a country's emission commitments, only controlled burns add to the Paris commitment. Hence the reluctance by states to do controlled burns.
Moderator Response:[PS] what is your evidence reluctance by states to do back controlled burns? Seems to be contradicted in this factcheck.
A reminder yet again to back assertions with references.
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John Hartz at 11:27 AM on 24 January 2020Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate
Recommended supplemental reading:
'It's heart-wrenching': 80% of Blue Mountains and 50% of Gondwana rainforests burn in bushfires by Lisa Cox & Nick Evershed, Environment, Guardian, Jan 16, 2020
Australia's bushfires to push global emissions to new high: Met Office by Peter Hannam, Environment, Sydney Morning Herald, Jan 24, 2020
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BarbNoon1 at 11:23 AM on 24 January 2020Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
I made the decision take the heat for returning when I said I was done, because facts matter to me, and “winning” in a discussion is not why I wrote in the comments section in the first place. I was not happy with the continuous “regenerative farming” fallacies that are here in the comments, so I am copying some of my source’s article (that I posted earlier and below).
“On the smallest scale, one cow requires a minimum of 2 acres of pasture land and 20–30 gallons of water daily. That is, assuming the two acres are fully covered with good grazing land (in some places, cows require more acreage because the pasture isn’t filled out with healthy grass for grazing). Additionally, in the winter months, grain will often have to be purchased. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume optimal efficiency, or 2 acres per cow, assuming no change in the total number of cattle and swine currently consumed in the United States, we would need more than 2.5 billion acres of land. The problem, as it happens, is that there are fewer than 2.3 billion acres in the entire United States, including all the mountains, swamps, deserts, and otherwise unsuitable land areas you can imagine. Alaska alone accounts for 17% percent of the United States’ total acreage. And remember, that 2.5 billion required acreage is only for cattle and swine. Would you like to include the 250 million grass raised turkeys, 7 million sheep, and 8 billion chickens currently consumed each year?
On the farm neighboring me [author], here in the Dominican Republic, there are 82 head of cattle on 200 acres. The farmer has told me that these 200 acres have reached maximum capacity. That’s about 2.44 acres per cow. It takes two years for a grass-fed cow to reach full maturity, at which point it can be slaughtered for about 450 pounds of flesh. That means my neighbor can expect to produce approximately 36,900 pounds of meat, every two years (82 x 450 = 36,900). He projects that we will have at least 100,000 pounds of organic produce, from our two acres of land, after two years. On two acres of land, over a two year period, one can produce 450 pounds of animal flesh or 100,000 pounds of plant produce, using almost no water, compared to the 20–30 gallons required for each cow, every day.
Can something be sustainable when it isn’t even feasible?
https://nutritionstudies.org/grass-fed-beef-a-sustainable-alternative/Eclectic, you are skilled at debating and at casting doubt on evidence. When I said you “mansplained,” I was aware you might not be male, but in my fatigue, it was the only word to describe how you treat sincere people.
I originally said I felt environmentalists should be vegan. I stand by my opinion, and all of you concerned only with CO2 can still be vegan and just talk about CO2. When animal agriculture poisons our waterways, land and air and is not an efficient way to feed the world. It’s not time for a “distribution” excuse - meat is terribly inefficient, and as many as 25,000 people lose their lives every day due to hunger; we need a better system and only veganism will feed the world and allow us to re-wild many areas.You claimed that the fertilizer spray of pig waste would be taken care of with regenerative farming, but pig waste (and all animal waste) on the ground also causes environmental issues. https://mission-blue.org/2015/02/whats-the-role-of-mass-animal-agriculture-in-ocean-degradation/
Here is a video and transcript about heart disease in children. This talks about fatty streaks in arteries. https://nutritionfacts.org/video/heart-disease-starts-in-childhood/ This next video talks about how heart disease may start in the womb. They looked at the arteries of fetuses from mothers with normal cholesterol levels and from pregnant moms with high cholesterol, and fetal arteries from mothers with high cholesterol contained dramatically greater lesions. https://nutritionfacts.org/video/heart-disease-may-start-in-the-womb/
Last, this article, from the BMJ, tells the harm of dietary cholesterol. 395 ward feeding studies. This is “not too new” or “too small.” And I did post the Framington Study earlier which was large. This study shows that whether you are genetically inclined to have low cholesterol or high cholesterol, the cholesterol you avoid in your diet is important for your health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2125600/
I am sure you will find everything unworthy. However, I showed why every environmentalist should be vegan (unless you live with no access to grocery stores, or are some rare exception), because eating vegan is the healthy diet that helps the environment the most and I definitely showed why “grass fed, grazing or regenerative farming will not work to feed the population and will still greatly pollute.
Moderator Response:[DB] In the absence of confounding factors like associated fat intake, there's no clear relationship solely between dietary cholesterol intake and cardiovascular risk:
"Evidence from observational studies conducted in several countries generally does not indicate a significant association with cardiovascular disease risk"
Even interventional studies, while showing mild improvements in some markers, showed no significant outcomes benefit:
"the findings were not significant for the stronger predictor of CVD risk, LDL cholesterol, or HDL cholesterol concentration"Should people make healthier eating choices? Yes.
In the scheme of things, is that action bigger than switching global energy usage from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources? Not even close.
Let's keep this closer to the topic of this post, please.
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Markoh at 10:21 AM on 24 January 2020Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate
PS @9 if a bushfire is measured by severity rather than hectares, the 1851 Black Thursday fires are hard to beat.
After Melbourne having a record 47 degrees, 25% of Victoria burnt in one day. a ship 30 km off the coast was under ember attack. One million sheep died.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Thursday_bushfires
Moderator Response:[PS] The only "unprecedented" claim referenced by this site refers to NSW and the claim is from Rural Fire Service. " The scale of the bushfires is “unprecedented” for this point in the season, RFS spokeswoman Angela Burford said."
We like fact-checking; we dont like strawman arguments.
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Markoh at 09:49 AM on 24 January 2020Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate
PS @9 Yes 1973 1974 was the worst on record and burned 117 million ha. Ref Australia Institute of Disaster Respurces.
I am surprised it is not common knowledge in Australia, given the number of people claiming 2019 2020 is the worst (egged on by MSM) it is clear it is not common knowledge. I wish people would fact check.
knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/bushfire-new-south-wales-1974/
as a reference, 2019 2020 has burned less than 20 million ha
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Nick Palmer at 09:45 AM on 24 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
Eclectic #9 "The idea of Rational Economic Man is a fiction from the Eighteenth Century"
I think what is left out of economic considerations is that economics assumes that markets work best, and most efficiently, if everyone has 'perfect information' to make decisions with. I can see that if that happened, then markets really would be effective at providing for needs and avoiding dangers. If the world had perfect information about the actual rigidly defined results and timescales of climate policies and the definite results if such policies were not employed, I think it would be very easy for the people of the world to decide what to do -
One Planet Only Forever at 09:40 AM on 24 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
Mbryson and others,
It may be more accurate to declare that the pursuit of expanded awareness and improved understanding and the application of that learning to develop sustainable improvements for the future of humanity is not governing human behaviour.
During the enlightenment it could have appeared likely that better understanding would govern. But the competition for status based on popularity and profitability has produced the opposite result. It has developed many harmful unsustainable pursuits that end up being very difficult to correct.
The resistance to correction can be attributed to a variety of things including the concept of Loss Aversion. Loss aversion is the reluctance to accept or pursue a change even if it may be beneficial. But it is more likely that the power of resistance is a desire to not lose any developed perceptions of status or opportunity for benefit even if it can be understood that the status and opportunity are from a harmful unsustainable pursuit.
And it is even more likely that the lack of rapid significant penalty for misleading marketing is the root of the problem. The current winners are not interested in going onto the slippery slope of having harmful unsustainable pursuits excluded from competitions for popularity and profit. And they want to keep more of any winning. They would not like to see Their downward spiral of correction of undeserved status and a future where Their pursuits would be effectively limited to helping develop sustainable improvements for humanity.
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nigelj at 09:33 AM on 24 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
Regarding JM @10, the book to read is Dark Money about The Kochs and others. This review allows you to read some interesting excerpts for free, click on look inside.
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JohnMashey at 09:19 AM on 24 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
Over decades, Big Tobacco did denialism directly, via entities like Tobacco Industry Research Council, but over time moved to use more and more "independent" entities like front groups, think tanks and most of all, the Tea Party, a joint creation of Philip Morris & Kochs, via Citizens for a Sound Economy. In the 1980s, they also created a network run by GMU's Robert Tollison of academic economists across the USA to writeopeds and testify to local legislatures. That progression is detailed in the peer-reviewed paper I summarized & linked (open access) at Desmog.
Big Fossil has followed the same path. The Kochs seed-funded a large network of thinktanks, have spent much money on academics. Most fossil funding is usually invisible, except for accidents and ExxonMobil Foundation, whose use was silly, because it was publicly visible in IRS Form990 reports and the numbers were rounding error in daily profits. They took flak, which must have amused the Kochs, as they were spending more, so they mostly quit using EMF in the mid-2000s ... but in fact, kept funding some, like ACSH (Desmog, Sourcewatch). Latest numbers I have are $75K each year 2011-2016, for example.
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John Hartz at 07:53 AM on 24 January 2020Waking up to climate change | Australia's Bushfires
Recommended supplemental reading:
Scientists hate to say ‘I told you so’. But Australia, you were warned by Will Steffen, The Conversation AU, Jan 22, 2020
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John Hartz at 07:32 AM on 24 January 2020It's CFCs
Recommended supplemnental reading:
Closing the Ozone Hole Helped Slow Arctic Warming by Chelsea Harvey, E&E News/Scientific American, Jan 22, 2020
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John Hartz at 07:29 AM on 24 January 2020It's ozone
Recommended supplemnental reading:
Closing the Ozone Hole Helped Slow Arctic Warming by Chelsea Harvey, E&E News/Scientific American, Jan 22, 2020
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Eclectic at 06:54 AM on 24 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
Mbryson, you are very correct, I think.
The idea of Rational Economic Man is a fiction from the Eighteenth Century, pre-dating the insights from Darwin, Freud, and modern psychology / neurology.
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Doug Bostrom at 06:38 AM on 24 January 2020Waking up to climate change | Australia's Bushfires
Maybe the answer to Adam's question is "all of the above."
Anecdotes:
- Skeptical Science experienced a substantial surge of usage disproportionately sourced from the US beginning the latter part of 2016 and through most of 2017. This could certainly be attributed to political events in the US.
- During January 2017 January Skeptical Science was used by 69,980 persons in Australia. This current January— so far— the site has been used by 139,371 persons in Australia, with Australia moving from fifth to second largest country traffic source for the respective periods.
- Each time Greta Thunberg gave a major address in 2019, Skeptical Science saw dramatic daily traffic surges in the immediately following period.
- Earlier in 2019 when the "XR" movement began to generate headlines of various kinds, Skeptical Science saw a correlated rise in traffic.
Our traffic overwhelmingly arrives via search on climate topics. Increased public curiousity about and awareness of the climate issue for any sufficiently conspicuous reason could be expected to result in more search leading to Skeptical Science. It's unlikely there's any single factor driving this.
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mbryson at 04:14 AM on 24 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
It's crazy-stupid that some apparently bright people deny there can be negative externalities: externalities are real, as any serious economist will acknowledge. Moreover, sometimes they aren't exactly external (that is, they affect the persons who ignore them, but later in time). I suspect, as Nigel says, that psychological issues underlie / contribute to the absurd conviction that actual human choices are always rational in the economic sense of that word--in particular, a gut-level desire to go on with BAU.
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michael sweet at 21:14 PM on 23 January 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Nigelj:
On your last post without citations you add the comment:
"Electricity grids need reactive power as you probably know. Solar and wind power are poor at providing reactive power although it may improve"
If you had read the peer reviewed paper by Brown et al I have cited for you several times you would know that this is another example of a deliberate falsehood that nuclear and fossil fuel advocates tell to make everyone think renewable energy will not work. In the past grid operators said reactive energy was not needed. There are many ways to provide ancillary services (including reactive power) cheaply in a renewable grid. In many cases if the controls are reprogrammed ancillary services can be provided for free.
The Tesla battery in Australia currently provides better quality reactive power at a lower cost than fossil generators are capable of providing. I am surprised that you are not aware this facility provides the reactive power you claim is missing from renewable energy systems.
If you read the citations you are provided you will post less obvious deliberate falsehoods. Reactive energy was not discussed in this thread before your post. It was not necessary for you to make this false claim. I hope that you are simply uninformed and not repeating claims you know are false.
Moderator Response:[PS] Your tone here is unhelpful for constructive discussion. Please keep it polite. Furthermore, please note the comments policy.
"No accusations of deception. Any accusations of deception, fraud, dishonesty or corruption will be deleted. This applies to both sides. You may critique a person's methods but not their motives."
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nigelj at 18:53 PM on 23 January 2020Waking up to climate change | Australia's Bushfires
Good video.
"What changed in 2019?"
My take. Nothing all that special about 2019, just that young people have seen Kyoto fizzle out without achieving much, and probably thought give Paris a go, now that looks ineffective so they have had enough. Same with plenty of Adults. Its not just climate that reaches tipping points, so do social phemomena. Things like attitudes and desire for change take time to develop and for silent agreement to spread, then reach a tipping point. Theres a good book on this called "The Tipping Point."
Maybe this was reinforced by bad weather, but that seems secondary. There was nothing spectacularly bad about last years weather was there? Trump may have been more of a factor with his bluster and craziness.
"And what will it take to start reducing global CO2 emissions?"
So many things have to change, and so many psychological barriers have to be removed its going to need a miracle. That or truly terrible weather lasting a solid 5 years, something thats a real step change and impossible to ignore or make excuses for like the denialists try and do. These bushfires might prove to be a big motivation.
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Eclectic at 17:41 PM on 23 January 2020It's magma
Cpske ~ check out the Myth #196 of the Most Used Climate Myths (top left corner of page).
The short story : climate is changed by alterations in the 240 watts/squ.meter absorbed by the planetary surface. The 240 figure changes somewhat with solar changes ~ alterations in solar output, over the longer term or over the 11-year solar cycle) . . . or is changed by ice-albedo alterations . . . or is changed by major volcanic eruptions throwing aerosols into the stratosphere . . . or is changed by man-made industrial pollution aerosols . . . or is changed by alteration in the levels of Greenhouse gasses (of course).
OTOH, the flow of heat from the depths of the Earth is at an average rate of 0.09 watts/squ.meter ~ so very tiny that it is rightly ignored in climate measurements & calculations. This geothermal heat flow data is determined from temperature measurements take at a range of depths in deep boreholes. There's no evidence of significant variation in this geothermal flow, nor any reason to believe it could alter the climate ~ even over thousands of years. Yes, there are magma plume hotspots (such as formed the Hawaii islands) but they are fairly steady . . . and any new hotspots are too small in area to change the planetary average (the Earth's surface area being 510 million square kilometers).
Cpske, if it's not too much trouble for you, I would be interested in having a look at the "static" you mentioned. I regularly have a look at some of the Deniosphere blogs ~ such as WattsUpWithThat [WUWT], which does occasionally (well, rarely!) have articles of minor scientific interest. But mostly the WUWT articles are rather childish propaganda . . . and the comments columns are 95% full of crackpot ideas & political ultra-extremism & more general intellectual insanity & recycled long-debunked climate "theories". WUWT can be amusing, if you find amusement in Schadenfreude. But I haven't noticed any "geothermal nonsense" there recently.
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Norm Rubin at 16:37 PM on 23 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
nigelj, you may be thinking of "the bystander effect"? The more people know about a problem and COULD do something to solve it - whether they actually are or not - the less likely any individual is to step up.
International conferences and treaties and accords are a closer fit to the Tragedy of the Commons, IMO.
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cpske at 15:03 PM on 23 January 2020It's magma
Hey, could you guys offer a refutation argument that it's magma pockets that are heating the earth, not CO2? I am seeing a lot of static about it recently and would like to post a counter-argument.
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scaddenp at 08:26 AM on 23 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
Blueball. A number of things. Firstly, Canada gets that headline because it has significant area in the arctic and that is the portion of earth that is warming the fastest. (eg see the video graphic at https://climate.nasa.gov/). Not a lot of cities up there.
Secondly there a couple of issues with the graphs at your link. They show monthly average daytime highs not average temperature. The mechanism of AGW warms night faster than day (eg see this paper of observations). They also present the temperatures with a range that covers all of Canada. This is good for looking at temperatures between places but given large year to year variation, it makes trends difficult to spot. You can make any trend disappear if you make the y axis big enough.
I dont know of any website that will give you quick graph of any weather station, but this website shows how to download and graph any station you like.
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Blueball at 08:00 AM on 23 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
Sorry, I meant for this to be one post...
I am uncertain about this claim "twice as fast", shortly after this declaration, the Liberals announced a climate emergency. I am not sure what this amounts to but the rhetoric has certainly notched up recently.
When I visit Www.yourenvironment.ca I can look at the recorded temperature of any city in Canada dating back upto 150 years and I was expecting the hockey stick graph I see so regularity here, there and everywhere. But the graph is completely flat. No discernable rise in temperature in any city in any province.
What am I to believe? Who am I to believe?
Moderator Response:[DB] The accuracy of the climate temperature station record in Canada is verified and affirmed, here:
"One last point from this CCC analysis of temperatures: it's also worth noting the magnitude of recent Arctic warming. The slope of the 30-year trend in this region is 5 to 6 C/century — a rate of warming that's much higher than the rest of the world."
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Blueball at 07:51 AM on 23 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
In Canada, there is a media campaign declaring that Canada is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world.
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nigelj at 05:15 AM on 23 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
There's another psychological / political factor. The climate issue has become politically tribal. Once the tribe takes on a position on climate, so peoples views become stubborn. Dissension is not tolerated.
I also think that ideally we dont wan't to over do the big government component, because there are some legitimiate concerns there. Yet its very difficult to see how you resolve this mess without things like a carbon tax. So I'm completely stumped over this.
But this is the thing. There are literally a dozen psychological, ideological, political and cost factors that are impediments to change. Plus the climate problem is huge and requires multiple changes. Taking all this together, I don't see mitigation and lifestyle changes adequately fixing the climate issue, or even coming close.
We might be heading towards dangerous experiments with geoengineering, or sucking CO2 out of the air with fans and neutralising it chemically. However I will continue to advocate for the more usual solutions.
Nick Palmer, similar to the tragedy of the commons but theres another name for it.
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Jim Eager at 00:43 AM on 23 January 2020Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate
John exhibits exactly the kind of uncritical thinking that those seeking to intentionally disseminate climate misinformation and disinformation rely upon. 117 million hectares of dry open grass/scrub savanna simply does not compare with 10 million hectares of dense temperate forest, much of which has never burned before in recorded history.
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Nick Palmer at 23:55 PM on 22 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
My view nowadays is that increasingly since 2007, Big Fossil Fuel no longer directly sponsors denialism. It's not in their corporate material, in their reports or websites. They do, however, contribute to organsations which use denialist memes and rhetoric when lobbying politicians etc but I think this is a separate thing.
My opinion is that the giant energy companies do accept the mainstream science these days but are, justifiably, worried about some of the solutions put forward by extreme environmental activists and some progressive/left leaning politicians which, to 'big business', look like 'communism by the back door'. Professor Katharine Hayhoe is recently actively using the term 'solutions averse' to describe such behaviour. She is now using an approach of researched and justifiable optimism that, without crushing capitalism or using heavy handed Big Government that we can do this - we can solve it.
Nowadays, when tackling a denialist who has proved to be 'solutions averse' I have taken to saying something like:
'If you so scared of the Big Government solutions, carbon taxes etc, why don't you get busy coming up with efficient, economical freemarket solutions to the problme instead of spreading denialst memes and propaganda just because they have been shown to sway the minds of the the voting masses?' -
Markoh at 23:39 PM on 22 January 2020Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
Scaddenp @2 I totally agree. The number of people I know who boldly and loudly advertise their green credentials and then frivolously get on a plane for a holiday, astounds me. Worse still, some go business class which is nearly 3 times the emissions (eg 737 Max 9 has 220 seats for all economy and 43 economy seats are removed to create 16 business class seats for a 2 class service. Refer 737 Max specs)
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Nick Palmer at 23:33 PM on 22 January 2020How did climate change get so controversial?
"This ideology holds that capitalism and personal freedom are inextricably linked. Even a small action like a tax on tobacco could be the start of a slippery slope of ever-increasing regulation, leading to government controlling every part of our lives."
It's good to see this in the book. It does tend to be US types who most have that particularly extreme notion of 'freedom' though. Not all freemarket or libertarian types do, for example the wonderful Potholer54 (Peter Hadfield) who has done a couple of videos on freemarket solutions to climate change.
I have to say that I think the 'fossil fuel lobbyists are behind denialism' argument is getting outdated. The truth I think is more nuanced despite what the Oreskes' of this world insinuate.
nigelj #2 I think you might mean 'the tragedy of the commons' -
Markoh at 23:19 PM on 22 January 2020Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
Barbnoon1 @39. Coming from a farming family, of course grass fed cattle are sustainable. As long as the paddock is not overstocked the cattle can feed on the grass forever whilst fertilising the paddock.
if what you really meant is relative productivity per unit area of land compared to other forms of meat production, then that is a different issue.
However comparisons of beef to pork and chicken is not a like for like comparison due to vastly different animal husbandry standards. Most chicken is produced in tiny cages, whereas most beef is to use the chicken term "free range" in a paddock. A relevant comparison is free range chicken to beef.
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pawanranta at 20:53 PM on 22 January 2020Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate
Solar & wind power can definitely solve half of the problems caused by greenhouse gases emission and resulting in climate change. The second issue that needs to be addressed is adopting energy-efficient techs at the consumer level. The Victorian state government offering free/discounted LED replacement for residential and commercial establishments. I think its a great initiative. Energy efficient systems coupled with the renewable power source is the way forward.
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Eclectic at 16:47 PM on 22 January 2020Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
Thanks, BarbNoon1 . . . yes, we are getting well off-topic, and should close our conversation. Though it has had topical relevance, in that it's emphasized the importance of "climatism" and "veganism" keeping out of each other's way.
And it has given me some worthwhile mental exercise . . . as well as some amusement ~ e.g. your "mansplaining" comment. Surely, Barb, you aren't as very non-PC as to presume you know my gender?! And in my "low key, subtle" suggestion, was there any allusion by me to women rather than to vegans generally? Hummmph !
You stating "I will not return" ~ is often a poor move. You may very well not comment further . . . but everyone knows you are very likely to return to see if I have replied. Which gives me the last word. As now :-
Cholesterol in the diet is unimportant compared with the cholesterol innately produced by the liver ~ and you ought to know that. All that business of liver enzymes / genetics / high-density & low-density lipoproteins, etcetera. Let's call it "personplaining" !
The absorption of B12 is rather more complex than you seem to think : not merely a matter of "how many micrograms went into my mouth today." Young children need very careful attention to nutritional requirements to avoid developmental damage as they grow on a vegan diet ~ sadly, some parents think it's just a matter of a shovel plus "X" number of calories / total protein. If the parents are klutzes, then it's safer to go ovo-lactarian for the children. Which the prudent parent will do anyway (keeping human evolution in mind ~ and keeping in mind we probably still don't know everything we ought to, about human nutrition and gut biome). And the children like it.
And I refer you back to the general criticism I made of medical research. Anecdotes are even worse !
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Eclectic at 15:09 PM on 22 January 202097% consensus on human-caused global warming has been disproven
Andrew Strang @70 :
The short answer is . . . No, it's not.
There's been endless talk downplaying "the 97% consensus" ~ just as there's still endless talk (mostly within the Flat Earth Society) that the Earth is not really Round.
Regarding climate aspects, much of the naysaying has been like the speech delivered by the Defendant's lawyer trying to minimize his client's guilt. Rhetorical sophistry, distortions, cherry-pickings, and outright misleading information. (The only difference here is that the lawyer won't utter a 100% mendacity . . . yet there are many prominent climate-change deniers who routinely do cross that line.)
But some lawyers will go up pretty close to the line. Sort of :-
"Yes the victim died later in hospital, but my client is not actually guilty of murder because it was a flesh-wound and my client's knife only made an entry wound and the blade did not come out the other side of the body. The whole thing is really a case of poor treatment by the surgeons."
Andrew, it's a sad fact that the "op-eds" in Forbes are aimed at the reader who knows the business/financial field and is not easily fooled there . . . but who knows so little about science, that he is easily fooled in the science & climate field. (And there are some Forbes readers who want to be fooled because, consciously or subconsciously, they have a guilty conscience about fossil fuels . . . and here we might justifiably point at the very author of the article and his role with fossil fuels or "energy" as prefers to call it. Motivated Reasoning at work, eh. )
Why does Forbes publish op-eds / articles which are little short of morally criminal? Perhaps it's their politics . . . or what they suspect is their reader majority politics . . . or perhaps they fear losing major advertisers.
Andrew , consider three important points :-
(A) What is happening in the real physical world.
(B) What are the causations acknowledged by the expert scientists when you speak with them or survey their personal opinions.
(C) What does "the science" show ~ and in essence, modern mainstream science is what is published in the respected peer-reviewed scientific journals (tens of thousands of scientific articles).
(B) and (C) together or separately, can be called the consensus. In practice, (B) is the result of (C) . . . but you will find science-denialists bending over backwards to say: "Ignore (C)" and: "Let's do some creative accounting with the figures & definitions in (B)". ~Hence the Forbes article, amongst others!
Andrew, the consensus "(C)" is well over 99.9% . . . and there are some rare contrarian scientific papers ~ but they've all been shown to be very faulty.
(B) is well over 90% (the small remnant usually due to personal political extremist views, rather than any actual scientific evidence).
(A) is simply a rapidly warming world ~ ice melting, seas rising & acidifying. The more you educate yourself on the subject, the more starkly obvious it all is.
And yet there are still denialists busily denying the facts. Go figure !
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BarbNoon1 at 14:44 PM on 22 January 2020Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
Forgot this source:
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-the-egg-board-designs-misleading-studies/
I take cherry-flavored B12.
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/omnivore-vs-vegan-nutrient-deficiencies-2/ -
BarbNoon1 at 14:34 PM on 22 January 2020Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
Yes, I really want to get out of this conversation, and we are off-topic, but I can't believe you don't know that cholesterol is bad for you!
When study results, funded by the dairy industry came out in 2010, Dr. Jeremiah Stamler immediately criticized them, followed by other prominant doctors such as Dr. John McDougall. Of course, Time Magazine writers did not know that, and they put "Butter is Back" on the cover. However, the science has not changed. Marketing is just more skillful. The huge industries repeated the same studies in 2014 in order to look like they had more "evidence," but the truth is, cholesterol still can cause heart disease.https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2014nl/apr/saturatedfat.htm
We have to be "very scientific" about following a vegan diet? Really? I have many friends who have been vegan for over 40 years (I guess I have to show my sources, Hope Bohanic, Kim Stallwood, Fiona Oakes and Butterflies Katz are a few.) Fiona Oakes runs and holds about 7 world records in ultra marathons and eats once a day, at the end of the day after training and then taking care of an entire animal sanctuary - she is 50 and has been vegan since about age 4. Source? Running for Good documentary.
39% of Americans are deficient in B12. You'd better be careful about that deficiency! We can get B12 from plants - there is new evidence that duckweed has tons of B12 and there are four plants found so far that have B12. The few vegan parents who had children who died starved them! Just being vegan was not the problem.
https://www.parabel.com/plant-based-nutrients-parabels-water-lentils-found-to-be-rich-source-of-vitamin-b12/
If you want the article for Dr. Jeremiah Stamler it is called, "Diet-Heart. A problematic revisit." However, I can no long access it - scientific document.
https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2000/b12-deficiency-may-be-more-widespread-than-thought/
Back to topic:
Population, what we eat, and how we live are all intertwined in the climate change problem. If you want a march specifically for fossil fuels, do so. But most people don't even know the solutions to bring fossil fuels under control, and most people cannot do anything about it themselves, except hold signs in marches or write their representatives.
Your opinion differs from mine on what is important. Eclectic, you made your points and I made mine. I will not return. Please try to refrain from "Mansplaining," telling women to be low key, subtle, and repeatedly saying things like, "You really SHOULD know this!" Obviously, there are things you do not know about as well.
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