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

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Comments 89351 to 89400:

  1. Upcoming book: Climate Change Denial by Haydn Washington and John Cook
    Well scientist to me who someone who investigates nature via the scientific method. For an amateur to get some notice would require publishing some peer-reviewed research. However, that said, I would trust someone with deep education and practice in climate science over an amateur, but hey, if your disagreement is based on sound, consistent science and backed by data, then go ahead and publish. I'd read it.
  2. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Gilles#171: "I was in Denmark last year and I didn't see any electrical vehicles, and I don't think there are a lot in Israël" Sadly, you are running fact-free once again. Israeli Batteries Will Charge Up Mia Electric Vehicles in Europe Europe-wide Green eMotion Initiative To Pave the Way for Electromobility Please bear in mind the following are rhetorical questions, as I have no particular interest in your replies. And discussion of these items is clearly off-topic for this thread. If you insist on turning every conversation to the world oil supply, you really should find another forum. "Laherrère and Campbell in 1998. I was very impressed by the visionary prediction that prices of oil should climb to the sky ten years after ... that's facts !" Climb to the sky? Is that an inflation-adjusted sky? Where the current price is only $20 more than the 1979 peak? "And that oil would peak around 2010" How did you establish this peak so quickly? "the natural depletion of cheap fossil resources" Yes, we should just wait and see. A sound economic and social policy, guaranteed to let the haves continue to have and the have-nots disappear from view.
  3. How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    I would hope that the Australian government would learn from the BC experience - and not introduce a Carbon Tax. It is true that a Carbon Tax can and will reduce FF consumption if it is set high enough. It will stimulate development and use of energy produced from renewable sources and it will encourage more efficient use and reduction of energy produced from FF, thereby curbing GHG pollution. No less importantly it can be targeted so that it applies only to those who are directly responsible for GHG pollution. Maybe that will be the experience in BC? The problem is that imposition of a carbon tax does not result in these outcomes being assured – only encouraged and then only to a limited, poorly targeted extent. The Australian government proposes to introduce a Carbon Tax in 2012 – but only as a temporary measure pending finalisation of the design of an ETS. Presumably this is to demonstrate to the electorate that pricing Carbon does not cause catastrophic damage to the economy, our standards of living and end of the world as we know it, as Opposition Leader Abbott and vested interests would have us believe. The Australian Prime Minister has told us that a Carbon Tax will be applied in a way which ensures that monies raised by it will be applied to compensating lower income households, export vulnerable businesses and, importantly, stimulating the development and use of new technology aimed at producing energy with low and no GHG emissions. The PM also tells us that she intends to follow the example set by most European countries and move to an ETS, though not as rapidly as most would like. Why the move to an ETS? Because, unlike a Carbon Tax where the price of carbon is determined by government in the hope that emissions reduction will follow, an ETS enables the market to determine, review and continually revise the price of carbon in response to GHG reduction targets specified by government. The result is that the outcomes encouraged by a Carbon Tax are guaranteed by an ETS and, no less importantly, the price of carbon is determined by an informed market rather than a less informed bureaucracy. In summary, an ETS is more cost efficient and effective in achieving emissions reduction and development of clean energy technology. For these reasons one would hope that in both Australia and BC, the transition from Carbon Tax to ETS will be rapid and smooth.
  4. Upcoming book: Climate Change Denial by Haydn Washington and John Cook
    Bruce Frykman - Scientist refers to someone who has invested time and effort in education and study on a particular subject, with the intent to extend the knowledge in that field. Please see your favorite dictionary. I'm sorry I cannot find the exact quote at the moment, but: There are lots of bright people in the world. If you, as a bright person digging into a field of study, conclude that everyone else who has studied the subject for >100 years is wrong, you may be correct. But it's far more likely that you've simply missed something... The same holds for the commentators (and I would include many on the various blogs) - the commentators not working in the field may be correct in asserting that the experts are wrong, but again... they may very well be incorrect, and those who listen to the experts are right after all. I'm reminded of one of the posters John posted from the Brisbane rally:
  5. SeaMonster: an awesome new blog about the oceans
    Steve L: perhaps when it starts eating the bottom out of their tinny? ;-) But seriously, good luck with the blog. It'll be nice if you can build a communication channel with the general public.
  6. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    164 : Murphy i'm skeptical about predictions that don't seem to be confirmed by facts, and I believe in predictions that seem to be confirmed by facts. Example of the first kind : "Certainly both Israel and Denmark are investing in the battery changing technology which I think will revolutionise road transport as the problem of range is now solved." Well I was in Denmark last year and I didn't see any electrical vehicles, and I don't think there are a lot in Israël - also I admit that Israël could be one of the best places since nobody can travel a long distance with a car - fortunately not a lot of places in the world like that. So for the moment - no facts. Example of the second kind : "the end of cheap oil" - written by Laherrère and Campbell in 1998. I was very impressed by the visionary prediction that prices of oil should climb to the sky ten years after - a fact that no agency had predicted. And that oil would peak around 2010 - no SRES scenario said that - and yet it seems to happen. Yes, that's facts ! Spherica : "His position there is that a tax won't work, and nothing will work, so don't do anything." Nothing will work for what ? it it is to reduce CO2 emission, yes, something will work : the natural depletion of cheap fossil resources - and no swallow, either african or european, will have to experience a 750 ppm CO2 atmosphere. And generally, I appreciate the kind of answer you try to bring - seems you don't really have something else in your pockets - I assume again that this post will be considered as unacceptable given the general quality of the previous ones !
  7. Bruce Frykman at 09:45 AM on 12 April 2011
    Upcoming book: Climate Change Denial by Haydn Washington and John Cook
    Which authoritarian body conveys the title of "scientist" and decides whom may or may not speak with authority regarding the concept called man made climate change? Would the word of a big shot at the IPCC count for more than some mere amateur who dares to disagree with him? I would really like to get this clarified
  8. Zebras? In Greenland? Really?
    First in real terms if you have ever been on the same ice covered pond on a -10 C day and on a 0 C day you will notice a difference in the hardness of the ice. Ice is hard in both cases, but is more deformable the warmer it gets. Ice that is -20 C is found to be 10-15 times as hard as ice that is at 0 C. This does not mean it falls apart, just that it deforms more easily. Now since most ice motion occurs near the base on an ice sheet and for the GIS this ice is mainly close to or at the pressure melting point, the impact is not as large as you might first think. The cold ice is more in the middle of the depth profile where because of much reduced pressure, deformation forces are less. In the basic Glen's flow law of ice there is a parameter (A) that is really a measure of the hardness of ice. This parameter depends on temperature, impurities in the ice and the degree to which crystal orientation is preferential to the main stress direction. The law is Strain rate=A(shear stress)3rd. For a further detailed discussion with examples of the depth velocity profile and the depth temperature profile see Copenhagen Universities Centre for Ice And Climate
  9. How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    "the lack of cheap energy in the near future" Its worth noting that, even without a carbon tax in place, the above comment is becoming increasingly untrue. I've looked at a number of estimates for energy generation costs from *new* power stations, & they always look remarkably similar. Coal & Nuclear are about $0.04c to $0.07c per kw-h; Hydro is about $0.03c to $0.05c per kw-h; Wind is around $0.05c to $0.08c per kw-h; Sewer/Landfill gas is around $0.08c to $0.10c per kw-h; Solar Thermal is around $0.08c to $0.12c per kw-h; Geothermal is around $0.06c to $0.12c per kw-h-& Solar PV is the only outlier-at around $0.22c per kw-h. Of course, that's generation cost *only*, & doesn't include the costs of transmission & distribution or-to the best of my knowledge-the cost of various externalities (not even including CO2 emissions). These are all costs that impact coal & nuclear far more than the other energy generation technologies I've mentioned-as the other technologies are more scalable &-therefore-can distribute energy over a much smaller distance, & with little or no harmful emissions. Even so, a fairly moderate carbon tax *should* make the already cost-competitive renewable energy technologies even *more* attractive, as would removal of some of the many subsidies that the fossil fuel sector have enjoyed for close to a century.
  10. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    Nice post, but I'm not sure I agree with condone innumeracy and asystemicity and flatter the public by offering a "popular science" explanation. I mean, nobody feels belittled because they say he or she cannot perform that brain surgery with delicate hand and in full knowledge, so why a decent innumerate would complain? The energy budget deals with figures, and the figures given tell us about a net absorb of 0.9W/m2. A quick calculation tells us that if absorbed only by the oceans, the temperature of waters would raise some 0.003°C by year. That's why part of the imbalances of a whole score could hide unless systematic and exhaustive records of deep ocean waters' temperatures are kept -that is the travesty; that is what Trenberth was talking about-. On the other hand, if the same net absorption of 0.9W/m2 was dealt only by the atmosphere, temperature would raise 0.007°C by day! That's the key buffering effect of Earth oceans that together could add to a moon with more than 1100km of diameter. It's the stirs and shakes of such inertial mass which allows to speculate with decadal oscillations and reversals of trends by using any measurement, correlating any pair of variables and letting that any central limit theory do the trick. Our resident fifth columnists --dressed in day-glo clothes-- simply put the important aside and start their duels of nouns -glaciers and canaries- or adverbs -nobody knows "exactly"-. Words like a waterfall, designed to hide the total lack of figures.
  11. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    LJ, Thank you for taking the time to detail and formalize your thinking. There are several things wrong with your logic (none of which follow from standard GHG physics): One big issue is you are incorrectly defining the time to equilibrium. You wrote here: When the input flux 235 W/m2 SW to the surface equals surface output flux 235 W/m2 LW the earth SURFACE is at equilibrium (not the entire system) This is incorrect. Equilibrium only exists when there are no longer any temperature changes. The fact that the surface is emitting the same flux as the overall system input is not particularly relevant in this example, since equilibrium is not reached at that point. Nothing in the system will be in equilibrium until the net output of the system matches the net input of the system. That should be intuitively easy to understand, if input and output are different, then energy will either be accumulating or depleting. Nothing is changing if input and output are the same. Using your terms, you are looking for the point in time when AU = I. The other problem is that you are mixing up the effective emissivity model with a simple grey slab model as depicted in Prof Yu's lecture. These two models are describing the system in very different ways, and cannot be mixed and matched in the simple fashion you are attempting. The grey slab model assumes that each component in the system is a blackbody (among other assumptions) and describes the flow of energy between individual components in the system. The effective emissivity model completely abstracts away the internal exchanges of energy that are illustrated in the grey slab model. When someone says that the effective emissivity of the earth is .612, the value .612 already captures all the internal behaviors of the system. It applies to the system as a whole, it would not make any sense to insert this back into the grey slab model as the emissivity of the atmosphere. I would suggest starting by clarifying exactly which model you are using to draw your conclusions. If you're using effective emissivity, then it is simply a matter of plugging the emissivity into the Stefan-Boltzmann law and computing the temperature that results. If you are using the grey slab model, then you would calculate the result as given by the equations in professor Yu's lecture slides.
  12. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    Jay Cadbury, we can conclude that only in the same way that I can conclude that because philosopher's cannot show that inductive evidence cannot lead to deductively certain conclusions, I may be a brain in a vat. Or for a more modern reference, that we can conclude that we may live in the Matrix. There is a technical possibility that the consensus theory on global warming is in error; but showing that it is cannot be done by simply ignoring the mountain of evidence showing the theory to be true.
  13. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    Daniel, kind of the reason why we have the IPCC. So experts evaluate the evidence. Actually debate about a contradictory economic report would be a very good thing. I'm prepared to be convinced. Its just that I havent seen any so I make my judgement on the basis what studies have been done on the subject rather than just guessing. Now where is the contradictory scientific analysis by the way? (But please tell me about it in a appropriate thread). So far I see peer-reviewed published science in one corner and blog disinformation in the other.
  14. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    DB, KR, I was actually thinking, in the end, more along the lines of this: Internet Bridge Troll
  15. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    RSVP @30, your statement is factually incorrect, but I'll interpret that as a dig at the fact that, ignoring precipitation, most heat transfer from the atmosphere to the surface is via back radiation rather than via collisions between molecules (conduction). (None is via convection.) Well, I'll happily concede that my phrase, "Glaciers are warmed primarily by ambient air temperature" misses the point. The rest of my comment stands, however, and you are still wrong.
  16. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    Well - since you guys love papers, here's one from a Yale University person who shares my concerns about the Stern report and who specifically states that he lists only harmful effects, exactly what I was complaining about. http://environment.yale.edu/files/biblio/YaleFES-00000260.pdf
  17. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    168, KR, Funny (to me)... but probably too off-color for SS. The unwary should be forewarned...
  18. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    Scaddenp, I make my own judgements, just as you and others do - because you can't believe ALL of the contradictory scientfic analyses. If I was to dig out a report that said the benefits of global warming would outweigh the costs, woudl you believe it, even if produced by an eminent economist? Of course not. You'd argue every point, just as I have argued points Stern makes. But I wasn't really arguing that the cost benefit analysis of global warming was positive, it was that Stern was sloppy in his approach. I think you and others here just underestimate the complexity of the problem here. This is not say something like the link between air pollution and lung diseases or between CFCs and the ozone layer.
  19. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    daniel maris @94 - sea level rises over the last century have averaged around 2 to 2.5 mm a year, which over a century is about 200 to 250 mm, or only 10 to 12.5% of typical tidal variations and less than variations in high tide levels due to the relative position of the sun and the moon. For most peoples life time, the differences is about a third of that. Just how observant are you claiming to be that you expect that to have a discernible effect? Particularly in Britain, most of whose coastline is rising as a result of isostatic rebound, so would have experienced a smaller rise, and potentially a local fall in sea level? In contrast to the slow rises of the 20th century, however, those of the coming 100 years will be significantly faster - 4 times faster by your preferred estimate - and potentially twenty times faster (if Hansen is correct).
  20. Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
    johnd @134, actually they are. The temperature is a physical property at a variety of locations. An individual instrumental record is a number of readings of an instrument designed to measure temperature - but those reading also measure other things as well. They measure the level of inebriation of the record keeper, their aptness to make readings, their punctuality in taking readings. If you are interested in changes in the global mean temperature, they also measure other things as well. They measure the UHI effect, and the less mentioned urban particulate emission cooling effect. They measure changes in site location, and poor site location. They measure relative differences in distance between sites. And they measure changing capabilities and techniques of measurement over time. These are all measured because the instrumental record contains information about all these things, just as it contains the information about the global mean surface temperature. In principle, all of these factors could be predicted from a careful statistical analysis of the temperature record. In practice, most of them cannot be because the effects are too small relative to the background noise. But that makes all of these confounding factors when it comes to measuring the global mean surface temperature. It is because of these confounding factors that the various indices of GMST never quite agree on what it is. So, for both "reconstructions" and "instrumental record" you have a series of actual measurements of dO18 concentrations, or lengths of a column of mercury or alcohol, or of changes in resistance in a wire. All these measurements are highly correlated with temperature - some more so than others; but all have confounding factors. And all are given a statistical treatment to determine a target measure. For the instrumental record the measured values are much more highly correlated to temperature than is typical of historical reconstructions; and the locations of the records more numerous and more widely spread. That makes the resultant reconstruction far more accurate than those in historical reconstructions, but that is a practical difference, not an epistemological difference. So, John, you are wrong. Unless you where trying to make only an empty semantic point. (Even then you are wrong, but the point is so empty as to not be worth disputing.)
  21. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    Currency bills have to be individually measured in heigth, length & width before it can be determined that one is missing? DNFTT.
  22. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    invicta at 06:50 AM, you surely underestimate how big a corporation can be run with an abacus.
  23. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    CBDunkerson at 06:20 AM, in the manner money is used as a analogy, the $ are mere numbers used to, well, enumerate. If making the analogy to measuring physical properties then that would require the measuring of the length, breadth and thickness of each note, then each bundle, then each stack, before being able to determine whether it can all be accounted for or not.
  24. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Actually, DB, Sphaerica; I had something something more like this come to mind.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Warning: Mature content.
  25. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    Surely when this statement was made Dr Trenberth was actually commenting on the lack of a global system that could adequately track and account for the heat he knew to be entering the system. The travesty was the lack of resources /funding on a global scale to properly monitor what has the potential to be among the most serious disasters the human race has faced. Rather like the accountant trying to run a billion pound company with a 100k system.
  26. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    My idea of a precautionary approach is to work with the information and science available and do risk assessment both ways. As far as I can see your position is largely uninformed and I have no faith in arguments from personal experience, including my own. Someone else pointed you to relevant section on Stern, but my point was that it was one of many in WG2. By contrast, you have not produced any report that suggests cost of climate change is less the cost of restricting emissions. However, I am glad that you are that do support actions that will reduce CO2 emissions which is the point of being interested in such debates.
  27. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    johnd #32: "Trying to use money as an analogy is completely inappropriate. Try using something physical that can be measured." Like, say.... money?
  28. Dikran Marsupial at 06:04 AM on 12 April 2011
    Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
    johnd@134 The waves in the tea cup are getting up a bit. ;o) On a more serious note, yes, they are different, but not in a way that matters in the context of a pretty picture for the cover of a report, especially when the caption gives you the information you need to find out everything you want to know if you can be bothered to look.
  29. Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
    Despite the convolutions that need to be performed to justify the act, by definition, instrumental data is not reconstructed data.
  30. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    DB - Influenced by discussion here I misread 880 mm as 8800mm. :) I have indicated why I opt for the lower end estimates - because the reported increases to date over the last century seem to have had no discernible effect whatsoever on life around the UK, which makes me wonder whether the data is correct or possibly overestimated. But as far as I am concerned 0.8M over 100 years is not a catastrophe for reasons I have already been through.
  31. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    Trying to use money as an analogy is completely inappropriate. Try using something physical that can be measured. The litre of fuel that one receives from a service station is only a nominal litre. Try measuring it on a cold day and then a hot day. The 650 grams of a loaf of bread, or the 500 grams of a slab of butter are only accurate within a certain range pertaining to the applicable allowances. Are any departures from the nominal measures real even if they are not normally accounted for?
  32. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    Jay, Your bank balance is steadily decreasing, but you don't know where the money is going and that is a travesty. Does that mean you aren't losing money after all?
  33. SeaMonster: an awesome new blog about the oceans
    I often thought that ocean acidification would get some traction with snorkelers, SCUBA enthusiasts, sea kayakers, other boaters, sport fishers.... Best of luck!
  34. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    Tom Curtis 26 "Glaciers are warmed primarily by ambient air temperature" ...otherwise known as heat transfer via convection...
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] When you are wrong, it is generally better just to accept it with good grace. It happens to us all evey now and again. Replying with another error usually just makes things worse.
  35. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Anyone know the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, in an atmosphere raised to 750 ppm CO2?
    Moderator Response: [DB] Which kind, African or European?
  36. Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 05:16 AM on 12 April 2011
    The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    So we can conclude that since Trenbirth cannot account for the lack of warming it may not exist at all, correct?
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] No.
  37. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Actually, Dan, while I do not intend to feed him further, I do think it important for people to clearly see a troll for what he is finally and ultimately, with any veil of pretense removed. After devouring and defecating endless piles of steaming data and graphs and assertions, giving his position and his logic and his evaluation apparent depth and substance and meaning, his position is, in the end, merely to stand on the bridge and announce that "none shall pass."
    Moderator Response: [DB] Understood.
  38. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    There is not much doubt that when Trenberth says we cannot account for the lack of warming, he is tacitly agreeing that there is a lack of warming *in the places we can measure*. The warming may be sitting somewhere we can't measure or it could be lost to space. Likewise, if our accountant were to see sales receipts of $100 and only see $90 of deposits in the bank, he might say that he cannot account for the $10 lack of funds in the bank. The lack of funds in the bank is real even if it turns up in someone's briefcase. Cheers, :)
  39. Zebras? In Greenland? Really?
    Terminus calving events of a floating tongue the size of the Petermann Glacier are not expected to be related to a flow change over the period of time observed by Rigot and Steffen. This is not one of the rapid outlet glaciers of the Jakobshavn type with a small floating tongue that is less than a few months worth of movement long. Petermann instead requires many decades for ice to get from the grounding line to the terminus. Sweet Question in #7, I will have time to address it five hours hence.
  40. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    163, muoncounter, 164, JMruphy, These are interesting, based on the comment I just made to Gilles on the How I lived through a carbon tax thread, where he basically says the same thing. His position there is that a tax won't work, and nothing will work, so don't do anything. In fact, in the year of long, blathering, bombardments of posts by Gilles here and at RC, that has in fact been the recurring theme. He says he believes in climate change, and that we must ween ourselves from fossil fuels, so in that way he sounds like a concern troll, but his final position always comes down to the fact that nothing will work, so why try, or at least why not wait and see? I equate him to the man who jumped from the skyscraper and was heard to say, every time he passed an open window, "so far, so good!"
    Moderator Response: [DB] Yet by giving him the attention he so craves we feed into the trolling. In the spirit of living well being the best revenge, DNFTT. ;)
  41. Daniel Bailey at 03:46 AM on 12 April 2011
    SeaMonster: an awesome new blog about the oceans
    Thanks, John! I look forward to having this in my regular blog rounds. The Yooper
  42. How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    150, Gilles, So in the end your answer is that now tax will work, and there is no solution, because it's not possible to get off of fossil fuels until civilization is destroyed, and that every attempt to do so will simply result in more use, and we are bound by a system of global supply, demand and competition in which intelligence, scientific knowledge and social responsibility are of no value. Your position is that governments and peoples are unable to work in their own self interests because they are so wedded to capitalism, in one form or another, that they won't do what's good for them, even when facing the effective end of civilization as we know it. And since fossil fuels must inevitably run out and will do so precipitously rather than gradually, the end of (our) civilization is inevitable in that sense, regardless of the realities of climate change. And since people will further be unable to effectively adapt to climate change without adequate power, and in your paradigm fossil fuels are the only adequate power source, we are doomed in that sense as well. So your position amounts to "don't try to tax fossil fuel use now and attempt to get out of the corner we're in, because it won't work, and I'm just as happy to see the world end after I die, as long as it means I get to live the high life now, and with a clean conscience to boot because in my own mind there was never anything I could have done about it." My, how convenient.
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] I have told Gilles that his idea of the real issue is off-topic. I have left this post as is, but (i) Gilles feel free to reply to only the issues that relate to the topic of the thread and (ii) please can we all be careful not to tempt Gilles to revisit off-topic issues.
  43. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    DB - I suggest you re-read my post. I wasn't seeking to substantiate a position - I was merely pointing to the variety of scientific interpretations of the data. All the references for the papers were set out in the Wiki link. I registered a personal preference for 0.8M but really that is no different from people who state a preference for 8M, despite that not being backed by the majority of scientists. I could have stated a preference for the study showing a reduction in sea level.
    Moderator Response: [DB] I re-read it. Again, you are lacking in properly substantiating your position: Upon what basis - other than guesswork and arrangement of internal organs - do you opt for 0.8 vs the latest best estimates of 1.2-2.0 meters SLR (the highest scientific estimate I've seen is from Hansen 2011, about 5 meters, so I have no idea where you get your 8 meter estimate)? The Hansen paper is in press, so it has not yet entered into mainstream consensus.
  44. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    muoncounter wrote : "Nice. Take the easy way out; rather than endorse any course of action. Guarantees that you will hardly ever be wrong, at least in theory. However, like the broken clock, you're hardly ever right." Gilles's comment seems to be even more insidious than you may have noticed at first glance : he wrote that he wants to wait until he sees ("wait until I see"). This seems to mean that he can deny and discard anything unless he actually sees it personally for himself, i.e. projections and forecasts will not be accepted until they actually happen, and can be seen to happen to his own satisfaction ! Or is this just another case of Gilles's use of English as a second language creating a barrier between himself and the rest of us ?
  45. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Gilles #162: "Sorry for being irremediably skeptical, but I'll wait until I see." Nice. Take the easy way out; rather than endorse any course of action. Guarantees that you will hardly ever be wrong, at least in theory. However, like the broken clock, you're hardly ever right.
  46. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    LJRyan @997, the atmosphere has an upper side and a lower side. Because thermal radiation is the same in all directions, if the atmosphere were 303 K, then it would radiate 480 w/m^2 up, and the same down. That would violate conservation of energy. However, with an atmosphere at 255 K, it will radiate 240 w/m^2 to space and 240 w/m^2 towards the surface. It follows that there is no violation of conservationof energy, and I did not double count.
  47. Christy Crock #1: 1970s Cooling
    Wow. The primary site my office is cleaning up is contaminated with PCBs and dioxins. I've never seen anybody actually try to claim that their toxicity is due to "environmentalist scaremongering". Not surprisingly, Mastalerz is also a global warming "skeptic". It always makes me wonder where the "skeptics" dig these guys up.
  48. How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    @Gilles "the lack of cheap energy in the near future" I shouldn't but here goes anyways. And that is exactly what a carbon tax aims to solve. By making FF use more expensive, and providing a clear price signal going forward. This gives the free market the ability to get creative and find solutions to the problem. And before you go on about extraction costs, please read my comment #127. I would also recommend you so some research into the different signals sent by a tax increasing at a known rate and the wild price fluctuations we have seen over the past few years. And finally I recommend again that you listen to the Jaccard interviews, because he directly answers the question why higher extraction costs are NOT a solution to lowering GHG emissions. (hint it was the high cost of oil which spurred a massive development in the Alberta tar sands)
  49. How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    sorry dan, I asked you to make clearer what you mean by "reducing emission", you didn't answer, so I gave 3 different answers for each meaning - what more do you want ? concerning "And are you opposed to policy which looks to internalize externalalities?" really : I don't care, it won't change the real problem - the lack of cheap energy in the near future. It's not that we disagree about solutions - it's that we disagree about the true issue.
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] It should be obvious to you that carbon taxes are intended to reduce the use of fossil fuels by those who are subject to the tax. If you are unable to work out what that implies for your A B and C criteria, perhaps you don't understand the issues as well as you think you do and perhaps should read a bit more and post rather less.

    The availability of cheap energy is clearly off-topic. If you want to discuss that, please do so elsewhere, and allow the discussion of the topic of this article to continue uninterupted. You have made your point.

  50. How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    Muoncounter : ( -Snip- ) Now I don't care about revenue neutral taxes. Actually I don't care about taxes - it's a normal way of smoothing inequalities and favoring good behaviors. I am *not* fighting against the principle of taxes. I'm just saying it won't reach the goal you seem to assign to it.
    Moderator Response: (DB) Off-topic thread derailment meanderings and moderation complaints snipped.

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