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Comments 8651 to 8700:
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BaerbelW at 23:17 PM on 22 December 2019Getting involved with Climate Science via crowdfunding and crowdsourcing
Updatd the post to include David Borlace's "Have a Think" Patreon project.
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RedBaron at 19:36 PM on 22 December 2019Holistic Management can reverse Climate Change
Preliminary results from Dr David Johnson
and a better video lecture explaining a holistic mitigation strategy that includes this ecosystem service.
Managing Soils for Soil Carbon Sequestration: Dr David Johnson on Engineering Microbiology
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Doug Bostrom at 05:13 AM on 22 December 2019Scientists plan year locked in ice to unlock Arctic climate change data
The article Dr. Seismo mentions failed peer review so it's instead published in Medium.
Peer review: "evaluation of scientific, academic, or professional work by others working in the same field."
In other words, the paper is not sufficiently useful as an advancement of our understanding of global warming to merit publication, as assessed by people with expertise and ability to discern that.
Please don't waste our time.
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drseismo at 04:01 AM on 22 December 2019Scientists plan year locked in ice to unlock Arctic climate change data
One isolated analysis does not define a trend. Global analyses show no threat of out-of-control global warming.
Moderator Response:[TD] Off topic for this post. Find an appropriate post through the Search field at the top left of this page, or the View All Arguments link below that. And read this thorough debunking of the article you linked.
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There is no consensus
PatrickSS - WRT those three you mentioned:
Dyson is a brilliant physicist - but not a climate scientist. Lindzen, who has worked at the CATO Institute, is well known in the field for a series of papers claiming a strong negative feedback; he has never actually addressed actual (and numerous) criticisms of the first 'Iris effect' paper, simply repeating his claims over and over. In the last version I'm aware of he directly invoked 'cloud forcing', when clouds are, rather, a short lived (hours) feedback to temperature and humidity. And as for Happer (also not a climate scientist), he has been documented as writing climate science for pay, with fossil fuel money routed through nonprofit organizations for anonymity. Happer is more properly a lobbyist, not a researcher.
You might want to look for better references.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:13 AM on 21 December 2019It's the sun
scaddenp,
I share your skepticism regarding the motivations of PatrickSS.
They do not appear to be interested in expanded awareness and improved understanding.
Instead of starting with a detailed understanding of the subject, they appear to be seeking excuses to not expand their awareness or improve their understanding (though they sound interested by 'asking questions').
As an example, in previous comments they present their summary understanding of presentations of understanding by "“consensus” climate scientists" (their term of reference) as "...sunlight comes in, heats the Earth, and the heat escapes from the Earth via IR. Increased CO2 absorbs and blocks more IR, so the Earth gets warmer." They then compare that with what they consider to be more believable presentations by Lindzen, Allen and Curry (they are more impressed by these people than they are by the "consensus" climate scientists that they present an extremely poor level of understanding of).
In addition they appear to have summarized my previous comments to them regarding pursuit of expanded awareness and understanding of climate science matters as "... assertions that there is "masses of evidence" out there that shows that the Connollys are completely wrong and that I should go and look for it":
"There is a massive diversity of evidence supporting the climate science consensus understanding that human activities, particularly fossil fuel use, are significantly impacting the global climate in ways that are detrimental to the future generations."
"Seek out detailed explanations of the incorrect aspects of the claims made by Lindzen, Alley and Curry. There are many sources for the corrected expanded understanding (and a vast amount is available right here on the SkS site)."
I believe you are correct to suspect that PatrickSS has not read, and is unlikely to read, any IPCC document. I would add that I suspect that PatrickSS filters information for its 'ability to impress them, suit their preferred beliefs'. My comments were an attempt to make them aware of that.
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Evan at 01:34 AM on 21 December 2019SkS Analogy 21 - Snow on a Hot Tin Roof
Darinscoop@2 The ice-Albedo feedback describes a spontaneous change in Albedo with time, whereas the heat-island effect describes a contrast of Albedo (i.e. cities have lower Albedo than surroundings areas), which does not spontaneously change with time, unless we deliberately cause a change through development or other urban planning.
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MA Rodger at 20:14 PM on 20 December 2019There is no consensus
PatrickSS @868,
My appologies for not spotting @856 your referencing of Question 12 in the Climate Science Survey which sets out the data used within Verheggen et al (2014). Your complain was that this Q12 was not featured within Verheggen et al (2014). Were the responses to Q12 as you set out up-thread @856 it may perhaps be considered an omission. You wrote:-
Now we discover that only 33% of climate scientists are more than "somewhat concerned", and 8.5% are "not very concerned" or "not concerned at all".
This is completely incorrect. The more than "somewhat concerned" figure (so "very concerned") is not 33% but 67%. More exactly, if the data for the "respondents with more than 10 climate-related peer-reviewed publications" reported by Verheggen et al is gleaned from Figure 12.2, it is 71% who are 'very concerned', 22% 'somewhat concerned' and just 7% who are less concerned than this. To me, here is a 93% concensus.
Those who may be inclined to peel off the 22% 'somewhat concerned' from this concensus should consider how the question would be answered in 2012. "How concerned are you about climate change as a long-term global problem?" For a climatologist in 2012, a 'somewhat concerned' response could result from a belief that mitigation measures will arrive to to prevent AGW becoming a serious crisis for humanity, or that in the "long term" AGW is not a serious crisis because, whatever the damage through the next century, in the "long term" humanity will survive, the natural world will survive. We are not taking about a humanless or lifeless planet by the end of the millennium.
The additional comment @868 that various swivel-eyed denialists would have been included in the headline 91% result of Verheggen et al (2014) is firstly incorrect as three of them are not qualified as authors and secondly, while Dickie Lindzen & Judy Curry sometimes try to argue that they would be part of such a consensus gathered from such surveys, their position is not entirely sincere and they surely could not honestly feature in the Q12 result.
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bozzza at 17:21 PM on 20 December 2019SkS Analogy 21 - Snow on a Hot Tin Roof
Darin, the basically understood idea by the world Government departments is that, yes, the big ice block of the antipodes acts as the worlds airconditioner... and when it's hot we all know that we would prefer to be as close as possible- give or take a few hundred thousand miles lol! Merry Christmas Everyone....
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Darinscoop at 13:47 PM on 20 December 2019SkS Analogy 21 - Snow on a Hot Tin Roof
Evan, I enjoyed your use of a hot tin roof imagery to explain your thoughts about the urban heat-island effect.
Anyhow, what answers can we speculate on as far as how the northern hemisphere, having a larger amount of heat absorbing land-mass, having faster melting occur today than the Antartic region? Does the albeto feedback seem to hold its integrity by the presence of the giant continent of ice - to where the North Pole is nothing but ocean water?
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scaddenp at 10:31 AM on 20 December 2019It's the sun
This particular paper is execrable. You can look at takedown here but also note that Soon simply ignores any dataset that doesnt fit what his fossil fuel funding masters want. eg marine data (no urban heat sources there). Hard to believe this is still circulating in denier land.
It seems you are frantically on a search for anything that might indicate a problem in the science, no matter what the cesspool. Good luck. Have you actually looked at IPCC WG1 summary of climate science instead?
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PatrickSS at 09:32 AM on 20 December 2019It's the sun
Hi All
I have some questions that I'm sure people here can help me with.
I read a paper by Ronan Connoly and colleagues:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825215300349
Preprint:
They say that the temperature graph on this page above is wrong because it does not take urban heat islands into account. They seem to show on graphs that rural temperatures are more or less flat since the 1950s. They seem to have looked very carefully at the data, starting with Valencia in Ireland. Are they wrong?
Secondly, I heard a talk by Richard Alley on youtube. He says that the ice ages were driven by 100,000, 41,000, 23,000 and 19,000-year Milankovitch cycles. He shows a convincing Fourier transform. If the sun can drive ice ages (approx 10C change), it should certainly be powerful enough to drive a temperature change of around 1C.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujkcTZZlikg
There seem to be many different models for solar irradiation - see the Connolly article above. Which one should we pick? They pick one that almost exactly matches the temperature fluctuations that they report. Are they wrong?
Thx to all and I'd be very interested in comments and explanations (but not so interested in assertions that there is "masses of evidence" out there that shows that the Connollys are completely wrong and that I should go and look for it).
Moderator Response:[DB] Just because the climate changed naturally in the past does not mean that human activities are unable to change the climate today. Logical fallacy snipped.
Urban heat islands are dealt with here. Put all questions and responses to them there, not here.
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PatrickSS at 06:51 AM on 20 December 2019There is no consensus
Estoma I will check out the Iris Effect
Rodger, did you read the summary of the raw data that I pointed you to? Here's the link again:
https://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/climate-science-survey-questions-and-responses
What do you think of the responses to Q12?
Isn't it very odd that Bart V and colleagues didn't mention Q12 in their paper?
And do you realize that the "91%" quoted on this page includes Lindzen, Happer, Dyson, Curry and Ridley?
Thx for all your responses. I'm going to the "It's the sun" page.
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Estoma at 22:22 PM on 19 December 2019There is no consensus
I don't make many posts but as far as my knowledge of Lindzen, he's always been a luke warmer who believes the doubling of CO2 will only produce a temperature rise of 1 degree celcius, ignoring any type of feedbacks. We've already risen 1 degree and we've increased CO2 less than 50% of a doubling.
In addition, his Iris effect theory, that as temperature increases they'll be less moisture and fewer clouds that will cause more infrared radition to escape has been shown by several studies since then, to not be the case.
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MA Rodger at 21:16 PM on 19 December 2019There is no consensus
PatrickSS @862,
You present three names in response to my request @858 for the scientists you tell us "think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 1C," a position you appear to set as equal in importance to "those who think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 3C." It's not much of a list. Do note that two of these are not climatologists and further, I do not see that any of them present substantive reasons to support their bold claims. This is evidently not two sets of scientists arguing. It is sadly science under attack from a handful of swivel-eyed lunatics.
In support of my own rather bold statement, I would share with you my view of the one climatologist you name - the veteran climate denier Richard Lindzen. He has been at this game so long that he has lost entirely his grasp on the science he is supposed to be practising and now resorts to bare-faced-lies/deluded-foolishness [delete as applicable]. He has certainly ventured far beyond the science of climatology with his nonsense. See his 2017 version here and tick off the numerous examples of untruth he presents. (And to keep us on-topic, note his first attempt to refute AGW is "The 97 Percent Meme".)
I note you cite Dickie Lindzen when you say "Increasing CO2 causes the IR to be emitted at slightly greater altitude. This warms the surface because the temperature at which the emission takes place is the same, so when the lower atmosphere is chaotically mixed the air reaching the surface is hotter (because it gets compressed as it comes down)." I am not sure where Lindzen explaining this mechanism but the way you phrase it is subject to vast misinterpretation.
You add that Judy Curry has had difficulty getting published yet if she has anything worth publishing she only has to post it on her website to get it into the scientific/public domain. Yet there is complete absence of any substantive comtribution from Curry, an absence that speaks volumes.
@862 you say you do not feel your "main argument" has not be "really engaged." You appear to be arguing that the scientific view of AGW is not truly reflected in the 97% consensus and specifically that Verheggen et al (2014) is 'obviously not' fairly summarised by the 91% value. I find this difficult to accept. Perhaps we are reading a different paper.
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nigelj at 12:13 PM on 19 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
I do sympathise with the intent of Johnb, but even if climate change was renamed something like the "the greenhouse effect" or "the increasing greenhouse effect" the denialists would just attack the greenhouse effect anyway. Plenty of junk science already does this. The list of most used climate myths has a couple of relevant items.
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LKL at 11:26 AM on 19 December 2019Underground temperatures control climate
I just encountered a new one: 'cosmic rays are increasing due to decreased solar activity, and this is increasing tectonic activity and warming the earth from below
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:51 AM on 19 December 2019There is no consensus
PartickSS @864,
Expanded awareness and improved understanding are based on all available evidence, not bits of it.
A person who makes a solid sounding science statement but then also makes an unscientific claim that is contrary to aspects of 'all of the available evidence (makes an illogical leap that is happily followed by someone who was impressed by the earlier Sciency Show and likes where the leap takes them thought-wise), is not helping to expand awareness and understanding. They are potentially corrupting efforts to expand awareness and improve understanding by the use of misleading marketing.
Seek out detailed explanations of the incorrect aspects of the claims made by Lindzen, Alley and Curry. There are many sources for the corrected expanded understanding (and a vast amount is available right here on the SkS site).
You should find many explanations that are 'even more compelling than the claim made that you liked', unless you choose not to become more aware (don't seek out the expanded awareness and improved understanding), or not want to develop improved understanding (do not wish to accept that fossil fuel burning has to be rapidly ended).
That understanding should clarify my comment regarding Curry.
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PatrickSS at 07:49 AM on 19 December 2019There is no consensus
DB, can't I say that it's incredibly unfortunate that climate science has become political?
One Planet, when I listen to “consensus” climate scientists, they say that sunlight comes in, heats the Earth, and the heat escapes from the Earth via IR. Increased CO2 absorbs and blocks more IR, so the Earth gets warmer.
When I listen to Richard Lindzen he says that CO2 and H2O already absorb all the IR emitted at the Earth's surface, and that the IR that escapes is actually emitted high in the atmosphere. Increasing CO2 causes the IR to be emitted at slightly greater altitude. This warms the surface because the temperature at which the emission takes place is the same, so when the lower atmosphere is chaotically mixed the air reaching the surface is hotter (because it gets compressed as it comes down).
That seems to me to be "expanding awareness and improving understanding". He seems to be a good communicator and a good scientist. It seems unlikely that he invented the whole thing.
Then I watched Richard Alley on youtube. He is a very good communicator, and at first I found his argument very convincing. He said that the ice ages were driven by cycles of the sun at 100,000, 41,000, 23,000 and (I think it was) 19,000 years. Then he said that the sun cycles (periodically) released CO2, and the CO2 drove temperature. So we have sun -> CO2 -> temp. But the sun can only act through temperature. So we have sun -> temp -> CO2 -> temp. Suddenly it seems much less plausible. What's wrong with sun drives temperature?
One Planet, I don't get your point about Curry's reviewer. Surely we can agree that his or her comment was extraordinary, and showed dishonest thinking? Curry's other reviewers may have been good and rational, but one at least was not. Of course she could have made that comment up – but I have no reason to believe that. It seems more likely that she is sincere because she has put her career on the line.
None of this means that the “consensus view” is wrong. But it makes it very difficult to know who we should listen to.Moderator Response:[DB] Moderation complaints snipped.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:25 AM on 19 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
Johnb,
"different things" does not necessarily mean "independent." See above.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:44 AM on 19 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
A clarification of my comment @5,
Talking about 'Human impacts on The Greenhouse Effect' is actually impossible because the Greenhouse Effect is an aspect of physical reality that humans cannot alter.
All that humans can do regarding the Greenhouse Effect is try to determine a fair comparison of the way to count the climate change impacts of a unit of one ghg vs. another.
An example is the scientific efforts to establish the proper understanding for the political arguments about how much global warming and climate change impacts a tonne of methane released due to human activity (including farming and livestock activity, and including feedbacks of human caused warming like melting permafrost) should be assigned compared to a tonne of CO2 released due to human activity.
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John Hartz at 01:17 AM on 19 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
From SkS's handy-dandy Climate Glossary:
Climate change
Climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. Note that the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Article 1, defines climate change as: ‘a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods’. The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and climate variability attributable to natural causes. See also Climate variability; Detection and Attribution.
Definition courtesy of IPCC AR4.
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John Hartz at 01:13 AM on 19 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
From SkS's handy-dandy Climate Glossary:
Greenhouse Effect
Greenhouse gases effectively absorb thermal infrared radiation, emitted by the Earth’s surface, by the atmosphere itself due to the same gases, and by clouds. Atmospheric radiation is emitted to all sides, including downward to the Earth’s surface. Thus, greenhouse gases trap heat within the surface-troposphere system. This is called the greenhouse effect. Thermal infrared radiation in the troposphere is strongly coupled to the temperature of the atmosphere at the altitude at which it is emitted. In the troposphere, the temperature generally decreases with height. Effectively, infrared radiation emitted to space originates from an altitude with a temperature of, on average, –19°C, in balance with the net incoming solar radiation, whereas the Earth’s surface is kept at a much higher temperature of, on average, +14°C. An increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases leads to an increased infrared opacity of the atmosphere, and therefore to an effective radiation into space from a higher altitude at a lower temperature. This causes a radiative forcing that leads to an enhancement of the greenhouse effect, the so-called enhanced greenhouse effect.
Definition courtesy of IPCC AR4.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:12 PM on 18 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
Johnb,
The term 'Greenhouse effect' is related to what is being understood to be altered by human activity.
But everything simply getting warmer by 1.5C degrees or 2.0C or 3.5C or 5.0C is 'not what is happening'.
What is happening is rapid difficult to deal with changes of: climate, sea level, ocean temperature, ocean acidification, magnitude and extent of glaciers, ...
Talking about 'Human impacts on The Greenhouse Effect' misses very important concerns, and can even be welcomed by claiming 'A little warmer would be better'.
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Johnb at 10:45 AM on 18 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
I had hoped to acknowledge that Climate Change is dependent on but different to the Greenhouse effect. I understood that the additional heat/solar energy retained in Earth's atmosphere increased turbulence which in its turn disrupted established weather patterns, transferred some of that additional,energy into the planets oceans to allow for thermal expansion, ice melt, stronger cyclones etc. etc. it is the work of Fourier, Tindall & Foote and Arrenhuis that provided the basic science for the retention of a quantum of solar energy in the planets atmosphere. I'm obviously missing something if they are independent of each other.
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Johnb at 09:10 AM on 18 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
I suspect it would have been better policy to have continued using the tag 'Greenhouse Effect' rather than move to 'Climate Change'. Climate Change doesn't arrive with a label round its neck of a tag in its ear so allows for obfuscation, denial and 'tobacco isn't harmful' style funding to create confusion. The Science of the Greenhouse effect was established in the 19thC and remains predictive and can readily be understood by the person in the street. This is how the atmosphere retains heat, vary these parameters and as day follows night global mean temperature will vary. Increase CO2 equivalent and the planet warms over a lag period to a new equilibrium. Add heat to a gas or liquid increases turbulence in direct proportion to any such increase, Climate Change is a variable of any change and by definition events are unpredictable beyond the fact they will occur.
Moderator Response:[DB] The terms Greenhouse Effect and Climate Change describe different things.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:27 AM on 18 December 2019There is no consensus
Patrick$$ @862,
It is well established understanding that expanded awareness and improved understanding are easily compromised by misleading marketing that is based on carefully prepared fictions that are based on minimal factual evidence and designed to appeal to a person's developed preferences.
There is a massive diversity of evidence supporting the climate science consensus understanding that human activities, particularly fossil fuel use, are significantly impacting the global climate in ways that are detrimental to the future generations.
Revisit the claim-making by the people you list from the context of that understanding. They may sound reasonable. But are they Really helping expand awareness and improve understanding?
Apply the same context of understanding to the criticism of Currie's story, and any 'concern' about her 'concern' is likely just another part of the fiction she is making-up in an attempt to appeal to learning resistant believers who are easily tempted to prefer poor excuses for harmful behaviour rather than expand their awareness and improve their understanding in ways that would require them to change their mind about how they like to live.
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PatrickSS at 05:58 AM on 18 December 2019There is no consensus
Thx so much for your replies.
It’s incredibly unfortunate that climate science has become political – on both sides IMO.
Actually I don’t feel that any of you have really engaged with my main argument: does this page give a fair summary of scientists’ views? E.g. does sticking up the percentage “91%” give a fair summary of Vergehhen’s data? (Obviously not.)
Science is IMO very subject to fashions. When authors, reviewers and the people who award grants all have the same point of view it can all go wrong. E.g. a few years ago almost everyone believed that fat in the diet was a kind of poison – which we now know is nonsense.
What I notice is that most scientists who are contrarians are either old and retired, or else somehow supporting themselves on private means or as consultants. That doesn’t seem like a good situation. It could mean that only crazy old men and women believe this nonsense, or it could mean that young climate scientists would damage their careers if they expressed contrarian views. MA Roger @857, I've listened to Freeman Dyson, Richard Lindzen and William Happer on youtube and none of them seem crazy, they seem to be good scientists. Judith Curry said that she couldn’t get her work published. I’ve just checked what she said – in fact she did publish one reviewer’s comment:
“Overall, there is the danger that the paper is used by unscrupulous people to create confusion or to discredit climate or sea-level science. Hence, I suggest that the author reconsiders the essence of its contribution to the scientific debate on climate and sea-level science.”
Hmm. That’s definitely a very dangerous argument. In fact it's very worrying indeed.
Scaddemp, most lukewarmers that I've listened to (including Judith C and Matt Ridley) definitely want to protect the environment, and they propose the expansion of research into new energy systems, but they worry about taking it to an extreme.
But . . . . although the process looks bad, there could be a real problem here. I find it incredibly hard to know. Unfoortunately we all have this thing called confirmation bias, and that makes everything tricky.
Moderator Response:[DB] Sloganeering snipped.
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nigelj at 05:09 AM on 18 December 2019SkS Analogy 21 - Snow on a Hot Tin Roof
The warming arctic is also increasing carbon emissions from the permafrost tundra, so this is another feedback: "Rising emissions are turning arctic permafrost into a carbon source, research shows"
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growide at 03:40 AM on 18 December 2019Climate Science blogs around the world
Carbon emissions and India's efforts
As we know, India comes third in the world, in carbon emissions. China is at number one, America at second. Both of these also come in developed nations, and India comes in the list of underdeveloped countries. But India's efforts also show the sharpest will to overcome this crisis.https://www.growideindia.com/2019/12/climate-change-and-its-impact-on.html
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:01 PM on 17 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
nigelj @17,
Mo worries about the difficulty in being brief ut clear. I appreciate the challenge of being clear while being brief.
My response was more for the benefit of the likes of Wol, who I agree misunderstood the comments that were provided in response to the ones they made.
It is pretty well established that attempts to be clear on an issue will struggle to be understood by people who are determined to resist expanding their awareness and improving their understanding in ways that are contrary to their developed personal interests.
The popularity of harmful limited awareness and misunderstanding is a tragic development, especially when it happens to people in supposedly more advanced nations.
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nigelj at 05:23 AM on 17 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
OPOF @16, fair comments in the main. I was really just annoyed at Wol saying I was promoting that people have "a much lower standard of living". I said no such thing, and I just wanted to make a brief response on that point. I was not really setting out to write a treatise on the lifestyle issue.
My main focus in my comment was the population issue. Only so many hours in the day, etc.
When someone comments on the climate issue in a general way on an international website, it should be assumed they are talking globally unless they indicate otherwise. I was always talking globally. But yes I agree wealth is concentrated in western countries so they can do more to change lifestyles without serious compromises than poor countries would have.
Yes people need to be considering whether they really need large ICE powered cars. In fact if EV's were subsidised people wouldn't even need to compromise their lifestyle significantly.
To me Wols statement of "a much lower standard of living" can only be interpreted to mean fairly serious deprivation in the basics of life. I took him at face value because of what he said. Its absurd to expect anyone to do this. But all of us can make at least some lifestyle changes without it hurting, and often these have benefits. I did actually point that out, so you need to read things in context a bit.
I think its about whats reasonable. It's reasonable to expect people to fly a bit less, buy EV's, drive smaller ICE cars if they cant afford an EV, and buy energy efficient appliances and do home recycling, and things like that. It's not reasonable to expect people to go cold in winter, go without televisions and fridges etcetera and they are unlikely to do so anyway. Its not reasonable to expect working class people even in rich countries to spend a lot of money insulating homes, unless they were to get a government subsidy. And of course subsidies change the picture quite a bit.
Rich people could do more. Nobody needs multiple homes often left empty, and a fleet of cars etc but we have to be careful not to demonise the rich. Most of their wealth is invested and this does feed back into society in useful ways, in some cases anyway. In others not so much.
So getting to the point, I think lifestyle changes are a very significant part of the answer to the climate problem, but there will be realistic limits, so renewable energy is the biggest single priority.
Lying people who want to resist correction. Yes calling people liars and names is unlikely to change their minds or win over sane people in the middle of this debate. Psychology 101. I think we need very solid proof before calling people liars, and that proof is not always easy to get. I prefer to just refer to inaccurate statements or words like that, and be a bit subtle about it while making sure its clear I don't accept what they are saying. I have no problem with your approach.
If we can get the middle ground to shift it will push the intransigent, unhelpful entitled minority groups to shift a bit, or at least marginalise them.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:52 AM on 17 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
nigelj @14,
Thanks for clarifying. Those are indeed very different positions from the way your comment was presented.
I have no major issue with the clarification that "Agreed. I've argued for a global population of 2 billion people myself..." was meant to be about the minimum practical smaller population.
And I agree with the need for 20% of the global population to face significant corrections of how they developed to like to live, with half of that group facing significant losses of perceptions of superiority relative to others.
However, I disagree about what that means for the "average person".
The highest consuming and impacting portion of the total global population is heavily skewed to the supposedly more advanced nations. The top 10% of the global population is 750 million. The top 20% is 1.5 billion. Total population of the G7 is 800 million.
Significantly more than half of the population of the G7 nations and other supposedly more advanced nations are in the top 20% group. There are high consuming and high impacting people in nations outside of the G7, but they are a smaller portion of the population of those nations.
That means that the "average citizen of a supposedly more advanced nation" likely faces a significant change of the way they live, especially those who have not significantly corrected how they live through the past 30 years.
New Zealand is likely a very different situation, but examples of required correction I see in Alberta are "average people" needing to give up driving big vehicles. And many of them need to give up driving big over-powered vehicles as their regular commute. Commuting in a city using a big pick-up truck or SUV or over-powered inefficient sports car has got to become a thing of the past.
Places like Alberta have been built to require people to drive everywhere. And there is a large number of people who drive big trucks as their personal use vehicles. And many are impressed by the speed they can drive (over-powered vehicles), and the size of their vehicle (over-weight), rather than how efficient their transportation is. And there are many who enjoy fossil-fueled recreation (something that definitely needs to be ended).
Selling the idea that those "Average people" do not need to significantly change how they are enjoying their life is misleading marketing. It is lying to get people to support the required corrective action.
And telling such lies can easily, and correctly, be exploited by people who wish to gather popular support for resistance to the required corrections. The political reality that misleading marketing telling lies about climate science can be successful does not justify telling lies about the required corrections. Shooting down the absurd claims like "the required corrections mean everyone has to live in caves" can be done without lying.
Saying that meeting the required corrections to limit impacts to 1.5 C will not require the "average person of the more developed nations" to significantly change how they live is more damaging than pointing out the extreme possible future outcomes of the lack of responsible correction leadership by the G7 and other supposedly more advanced nations. That claim may have been valid 30 years ago. But a lot of over-development in the wrong direction has occurred since then.
We are now tragically in a world where the ease of achieving the required correction has been deliberately ruined by the lying people who want to resist the correction.
Simply calling them liars will not work. I am just using it in this case for brevity. Pointing out that they are deliberately trying to benefit from fighting against expanded awareness and improving understanding and its application to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals is harder for people to claim to be incorrect. They have to understand that they are choosing to be part of that harmful group and believe liars, or change their mind.
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scaddenp at 18:34 PM on 16 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
takamura - the conference aimed to be carbon neutral. See here for details.
At a conference I attended recently (and no, I didnt travel), the conference opened with a picture of where everyone came from, the estimate for carbon emissions, and the methodlogy they used to calculate no. of trees required to offset. They had purchased the trees and given them to a local re-afforestation project. Local delegates were invited to join the voluteers planting them on day x. Good approach.
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takamura_senpai at 18:10 PM on 16 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
How many CO2 conference in Madrid produce ? Aprox 100 000 men moved on long distance, millions news in internet, millions newspapers, + staff + police+ many others. How many resources, electricity was spent?And so on and so forth.
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takamura_senpai at 16:32 PM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
1. Population will not rise above 10 billion.
2. USA CO2 emission larger than 4 billion poor men in the World. So, all talks, that problem is in the population - is a racism, nothing else.
3. Problem in human egoism . That why all climat agreements useless.
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nigelj at 16:12 PM on 16 December 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #50
The UN climate talks are like Nero fiddling while Rome burns, with a bit of rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic thrown in for good measure.
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nigelj at 15:48 PM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
OPOF @13, when I said that its unrealistic to expect people to "massively reduce their standard of living and use of energy and technology" I was thinking of the average global citizen, who would have an income something like the typical working class person in America, and I contend it would be unrealistic to expect them to make huge changes to lifestyles Could have been clearer I guess. The top 10% - 20% globally have room to make much larger changes to their patterns of consumption without significant problems
Global population of 2 billion people was my educated guess at the smallest possible global population that would minimise environmental impacts and resource use, but still have reasonable economies of scale and specialist skills. Looks like it wasn't a bad guess!
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:35 PM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
Wol @11,
I generally agree with nigelj's comment in response to your comment. But on some points I disagree, and not just a little bit.I am not as generous as nigelj about people deserving to be able to keep and increase their developed perceptions of comfort, convenience, or status relative to others. What has developed, especially through the past 30 years, is an unsustainable mess of people who have over-developed their ways of living in incorrect and unsustainable ways. The highest per-capita energy users and material consumers have to reduce their rates of consumption regardless of the total population number.
In response to a claim that pointing out the reality that some developed perceptions of success and superiority deserve to be lost is “... emphasis on exactly the target that the deniers' aim at - being sustainable means living at a much lower standard of living.” Re-read my comments, all of them. I said things that are very different from the interpretation you, and the correction resistance promoters, try to create. And that can be seen without me revising what I wrote.
In particular I said “Everybody has the right to behave as harmfully as others get away with.” That does mean that as everyone develops to be as harmful as everyone else there is an equalization. The difference in perceptions of status is reduced. And harmful behaviour has to be limited.
A correct understanding is that there will only be a reduction of perception of standard of living for those people whose ways of living are significantly based on harmful unsustainable activity. And it is absurd to claim that 'only some people' should be allowed to be benefit from behaving in ways that are unsustainable and harmful (except for the poorest in the context that I included in my comments). Everybody has the right to behave just as badly, which will not work out well for anyone, particularly not for the future of humanity.
As for the claim that “most authorities - and I have no reference here - would probably not argue that a population of a couple of a billion would be long-term sustainable even if all had our own standard of living.” Thank you for agreeing that even a small total population would be unsustainable if the way that people lived continued to be unsustainable and harmful. That is my point about some standards of living, over-developed in the wrong directions (away from sustainable), needing to be lost. But the rest of your comment implies that that is not what you meant to say. I believe nigelj misinterpreted what you stated, probably because it fits his belief that people living high consumption lifestyles is OK as long as the total population is limited. There is far more to correct about what has developed than the climate impact problem. All of the Sustainable Development Goals need to be achieved and improved on.
Limiting the discussion to climate impacts (only one of the SDGs), for global humanity to be sustainable many of the perceptions of status developed through the decades of fossil fuel use will actually have to be given up, lost. It is happening to coal barons world-wide. And it will happen to many correction resistant oil barons and natural gas barons. It can also happen to everyone else who resists correcting how they live now.
The past 30 years are a good example. For the past 30 years everyone had adequate warning about the need to be smarter about their choices. People who bet on continuing to get away with relatively cheap fossil fuel, and bought a larger or poorly insulated home, or bought a larger less efficient vehicle, deserve to lose some of their current perceived status.
You are correct. People who want to harmfully resisting being educated and corrected are the target audience of the climate science arrogant igore-ance brigade. But there is no future for that way of thinking, no matter how popular or profitable it appears to be.
As for “However we are at present in the 7 1/2 Bn regime and growing daily - clearly long-term unsustainable” I completely disagree. There is adequate capacity for Sustainable living by that total population. The only reason it would not be sustainable is the resistance to helpful correction by the over-consuming and over-impacting (and harmfully opposed to sharing and caring), portion of the population. This is presented in many reports, including the 2016 BBC Earth article by Vivien Cumming “How many people can our planet really support”. It includes the following “A 2012 UN report summarised 65 different estimated maximum sustainable population sizes. The most common estimate was eight billion, a little larger than the current population. But the estimates ranged from as few as two billion to, in one study, a staggering 1,024 billion.” That means niglej's 2 billion is at the bottom edge of the evaluations, and a population of 11 billion is potentially sustainable. But crying "population is the problem" will likely remain popular for a long time among the harmfully correction resistant looking for any excuses they can find.
As for “Look through a thousand random articles and papers on climate change and see how many references you can see to population numbers - hardly any.” That is because the science is focused on the total impact of the total population. The total acceptable impacts, 1.5 C warming, are in no way affected by a population number. And the reality of the need for correction of development in order for human activity to be sustainable and sustainably improve also does not really depend on the total population, as long is it peaks at about 12 billion and settles down to about 8 billion.
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John Hartz at 13:59 PM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
scaddenp @859: You asked:
Anyone else notice that while climate scientists come in all political colours, climate science deniers seem to be overwhelmingly right wing?
Actually, many are Russian BOTs.
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ERRATA at 12:06 PM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
Why my comment wasn't published?
Moderator Response:[PS]There is no sign of a deleted comment from you in our moderation database. Last comment showing up from you was 12 Dec and it is visible (no 854). If you have posted since then I suspect a technical glitch. Sorry about that. Try again.
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scaddenp at 12:03 PM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
A further comment. I see most "lukewarmers" as too honest as to deny physics, but unable to imagine a policy response that is compatiable with their values/identity, hence work hard to try and deny the need for action. A pity because coming up with an acceptable and effective response is something the right wing badly need. The political debate should be about best policy not science denial.
However, I also acknowledge that there are people who frankly see the threats posed by climate change as an excuse to beat a different political drum and like the hard right, they are more interested in pushing their ideology than science. Most scientists dont appreciate being lumped with them simply because they do exist.
A good question to ask, "if we knew for sure that ECS was 2.0, then would you still be arguing for same policy response as if we knew for sure that ECS was 4.5?" My answer would be no way. Yes, it is still highly desirable to get off FF if no other reason than they are limited and sooner or later will run out anyway, but the urgency of the time frame is different and the scope for damage much less.
Reality is that we dont know ECS with certainty and evidence would have it closer to 3 than 2. Reducing the uncertainty is extremely difficult so the precautionary principle applies.
Anyone else notice that while climate scientists come in all political colours, climate science deniers seem to be overwhelmingly right wing?
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nigelj at 11:39 AM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
Wol @11
"I note the replies. They seem to put the emphasis on exactly the target that the deniers' aim at - being sustainable means living at a much lower standard of living."
I made no reference to adopting a much lower standard of living. In fact I've argued the opposite on this website, namely that expecting people to make large reductions in the use of technology and energy look completely unrealistic to me, so I do agree with you to a point.
The solutions to the climate problem that seem most plausible to me are zero carbon energy and negative emissions technologies, notwithstanding the political challenges. Lifestyle changes will help as a minor wedge measure. There are some things that can be done that would not hugely lower standards of living, like flying less and eating less meat, and both reduce expenditure so have a positive side.
I see population policies helping a bit as well, but you need to be realistic about what can be achieved, and they are also a wedge issue.
"Look at it from the other end: most authorities - and I have no reference here - would probably not argue that a population of a couple of a billion would be long-term sustainable even if all had our own standard of living. "
Agreed. I've argued for a global population of 2 billion people myself over at realclimate.org, but this is a long term plan. Business as usual population policies are a fertility rate of 2.2, taking us from 7.6 billion now to 11 billion by 2100, then stability. If we were to get fertility rates down to about 1.5 over the next couple of decades we would hit about 9 billion by 2100 and 2 billion by year 2300. I worked it out with a population calculator, you can google these.
But achieving a fertility rate of 1.5 globally over the next few decades is about as realistic as making "huge lifestyle changes". Ie not very realistic. A few countries in Europe have this number, but it took a lot of policies to get there and a lot of wealth and economic security, and they are already worried it is causing too many elderly people in proportion to young people.
Africa has scope to reduce population growth but I repeat they are not a big source of emissions and what is it you propose to do? We can lead a horse to water but cannot make it drink. You can't force them. Their population growth will still fall over a longer time frame anyway, as they become weathier and have better primary healthcare and access to contraceptives as has happened elsewhere. This will help keep temperatures from climbing to ridiculous numbers, but has little bearing on immediate goals and problems.
Even if by some miracle we got global population down faster, it won't change much by 2050, because of the demographics, so clearly won't do much to stop temperatures getting over 2 degrees! At most it will help stop temperatures getting over 4 degrees.
It is important to encourage slower population growth, and for both the climate and other reasons, but I'm just saying the world mostly already is doing this, and you have to be realistic on time frames and what can be achieved. We can talk a whole lot about it, but it distracts from the key issues of zero carbon energy etc and short to medium term Paris Accord goals.
"However we are at present in the 7 1/2 Bn regime and growing daily - clearly long-term unsustainable even without bringing the third world up to Western consumption. That statement has nothing to do with attitudes of superiority or whatever,'
Agree totally.
"Trying to contain emissions without addressing the fundamental issue - numbers - is the equivalent of running up the down escalator. A down escalator which is constantly speeding up, moreover."
The fundamental issue in terms of the climate is not population. It's the type of energy we use.
"My point is that the world is unlikely to accept the restrictions that are being debated at the moment "
The world is just as unlikely to accept radical population policies. We have to just work away at all the issues so zero carbon energy, population, and lifestyle.
"Look through a thousand random articles and papers on climate change and see how many references you can see to population numbers - hardly any."
True. I suggest there are obvious reasons. The IPCC and other authorities probably don't want yet more distractions from renewable energy goals, and they dont want to be accused of social engineering or blaming Africa for the climate problem etc.
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Wol at 10:23 AM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
I note the replies.
They seem to put the emphasis on exactly the target that the deniers' aim at - being sustainable means living at a much lower standard of living.
Look at it from the other end: most authorities - and I have no reference here - would probably not argue that a population of a couple of a billion would be long-term sustainable even if all had our own standard of living. (Whether such a number would be workable with capitalism as we know it needing constant growth is another argument.)
However we are at present in the 7 1/2 Bn regime and growing daily - clearly long-term unsustainable even without bringing the third world up to Western consumption. That statement has nothing to do with attitudes of superiority or whatever,
Trying to contain emissions without addressing the fundamental issue - numbers - is the equivalent of running up the down escalator. A down escalator which is constantly speeding up, moreover.
My point is that the world is unlikely to accept the restrictions that are being debated at the moment and even less likely to begin talking about overall numbers - the heart of the sustainability problem.
Look through a thousand random articles and papers on climate change and see how many references you can see to population numbers - hardly any. Plenty about holidaying in Scunthorpe instead of Magaluf, and eating crickets instead of steak yet the fact that twice the number equals twice the emissions (all else being equal) seems unable to be discussed.
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michael sweet at 07:43 AM on 16 December 2019New paper shows that renewables can supply 100% of all energy (not just electricity)
Nigelj,
I thought this was a better thread to discuss renewable energy. At RealClimate it takes several days for posts to be readable and you post both places.
I read your reference on "three weeks of storage". Original paper here (Shaner et al). I recognized at least two of the authors (Davis and Calderia) as constant nuclear proponents.
Although I am not a researcher, I notices several obvious problems with this paper.
1) The paper only looked at the electrical system. Renewable energy researchers showed at least 5 years ago that the bigger the system the less relative storage is needed. Thus electricity only requires the most storage, electricity + transportation requires much less and electricty + transportation+ heat + industry requires the least. All North America requires less storage than the USA only. The finding of Shaner that storage is required for this system is similar to what I recall from old articles.
We cannot compare this result to Jacobson et al 2018 or Connelly 2016 because both those articles look at ALL POWER.
2) Shaner et al use only solar pv and wind in their simulations. Why would anyone care about a system that leaves out existing hydro, geothermal and pumped hydro (originally built to balance nuclear power)?? Obviously, no one will tear down existing resources. The "three weeks of storage" is for a system that has no hydro, geothermal or pumped storage, not for any concievable system built in the USA. This seems like a fatal error to me. Certainly "three weeks" is not relevant. Hydro alone would significantly reduce this storage.
3) The model uses wind speeds at 50 meters for their analysis. It is well known that wind is stronger and more consistant the higher above the ground you get. Jacobson 2018 uses wind speeds at 100 meters. Current 1.5 MW turbines have hub heights at 65 meters. Blades reach to 100 meters. Design specifications for new 5 MW turbines is 88 meters to the hub. The blades reach 64 meters higher (to 152 meters). I am not sure what the best height to use is for future turbines but 50 meters is obviously much too low. This is a fatal error to me.
It seems to me that Shaner et al is designed to find the most expensive renewable energy system. This makes nuclear look better since it is so expensive. The paper suggests using nuclear to reduce system costs in the conclusion.
Most people are interested in finding the cheapest system cost. Shaner et al is not interesting to those who seek the lowest cost.
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scaddenp at 06:46 AM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
Just a minor point - anyone saying "they cant get their papers published" - in any field, let alone climate science, - ask them to publish their reviewers comments. I will bet that most wont, largely because I think the "papers" are mythical and simply a rhetorical point, but others would be embarrassing. If they are prepared to do so, then sure, you can read the comments and see whether you think the reviewers have a point.
As to sensitivity, someone who thinks ECS is 1 degree is frankly a denier not a skeptic. This requires the existance of unobserved negative feedbacks and really only "exists" in the statistical evaluation of error not in the physics. Against this is the overwhelming evidence of net positive feedback.
You need speculative processes to drive the ice-age cycles with a sensitivity of 2.0 or less. On the other hand, an ECS of 2.5 or higher fits well with known physics, observations and models. That is where the evidence is pointing. Lukewarmers are generally trying frantically to magnify unquantified uncertainties to support a ideologically or identity based positions. Wishful thinking not evidence-based thinking. -
nigelj at 06:19 AM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
In answer to Wols comments on human population. Certainly population growth has been rapid and is obviously problematic for the planet in multiple ways, but its slowing quite dramatically in many places anyway, particularly Europe and the Americas. The fastest population growth is in Africa but they are not a major source of emissions and are unlikely to be for some considerable time.
There's probably not much more that can be done to slow population growth rates more dramatically. Europe would end up with too many dependant elderly people. Africa are slow to do anything.
Even if we could slow growth more quickly, it wouldn't be in enough time to have huge implications for the Paris Accord targets of 2 degrees. Zero population growth will however help the climate problem longer term so its important countries do whatever they can to slow growth. Refer to "projections of population growth" on wikipedia and think it through.
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MA Rodger at 03:14 AM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
PatrickSS @856,
You say that there is "an argument between the people who think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 1C ... and those who think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 3C ..." Do you consider the folk saying that Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (from 2 x CO2) is about +1.0ºC to be more than just a few contrarians and that their supporting evidence is well-founded? And if you do consider them to be thus, providing a serious scientific position, perhaps you should name their leading members so their position within the 'consensus' can be properly adjudged along with showing how numerous they are and how well-founded their arguments.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:03 AM on 16 December 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
Paul Krugman's Dec 12th NYT Op-Ed "The Party That Ruined the Planet", provides an expansion of awareness and understanding related to the push for Carbon Loopholes (and many other nasty aspects of developed reality).
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:29 AM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
Wol @7,
The population problem can be better understood as increased individual behaviour that is not governed by the pursuit of expanded awareness and improved understanding applied to achieve necessary goals like all of the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Everybody's actions add up
- Everybody has the right to behave as harmfully as others get away with.
- That spiral of increasing harm is a dead-end
- Competition for popularity and profit with people freer to believe whatever they want to excuse behaving in ways that are understandably potentially, or actually understandably, harmful to Others, especially to the future of humanity, will not achieve a sustainable and improving future for humanity.
- To deserve perceptions of superiority relative to Others a person would need to be self-governing and self-limiting their actions to expand awareness and improve understanding and apply the learning to achieve and improve the goals necessary for the future of humanity which include all of the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Anyone of perceived higher status who is not self-governing and self-limiting of their actions to expand awareness and improve understanding and is not applying that learning to achieve and improve the goals necessary for the future of humanity needs to be taken down a few Status Notches until thy change their mind.
- Only the neediest have an excuse to behave more poorly, more harmfully to the future of humanity. And the the more fortunate, least 'needful', would prove being worthy of higher status by being more helpful to sustainably improving living conditions for the poorest, helping them develop toward the higher status of responsible considerate helpful self-governing.
Even a very small global population that fails to develop that type of Governing of behaviour can be understood to have no future. And that understanding can be extended to apply to any subset of a total global population. Even businesses that do not achieve that type of Governing of their behaviour will not have a future.
Any pursuits contrary to achieving and improving on the Sustainable Development Goals Do Not Have a Future. And it is harmful for anyone to try to defend developed perceptions of Status that would be reduced by the achievement of the SDGs.
The problem is the way that temporary perceptions of winning higher status can be gotten away with by people who wish to personally benefit by defying that understanding. Misleading marketing has been proven to lead many less fortunate people to support competitors for status who do not actually want to help the people of lower status they want to get support from.
The observable reality is that many of the supposedly more advanced nations actually cause people to become harmfully defiant of expanded awareness and improved understanding because they do not want to be governed or limited by the need to help achieve the goals necessary for the future of humanity to be sustainable and improvable.
Sustainable corrections have to be the governing priority. Any perceptions of superiority, or improvement of conditions for the poorest, that are developed unsustainably, without serious pursuit of the required sustainable corrections, are tragically popular and profitable dead-end misunderstandings.
The Real Population Problem is the temporary regional or tribal success of misleading marketing in defiant resistance to the corrections of attitudes and actions required by improving awareness and understanding in pursuit of a sustainable improving future for humanity.
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