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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 91351 to 91400:

  1. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    dana#15 I never stated that no country should go to zero FF before Iceland, if some of them succeed in doing that, that's fine for me! I'm just expecting that countries with zero FF and a lot of renewable electricity would be in a much better condition and should be the first ones to achieve that - so i'm eager to look at the speed at which they'll do the transition.
  2. The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    I don't know if you in Skeptical Science, being largely down in Australia, know about The Washington Times. They are nowhere near as good and reputable a paper as the New York Times and the Washington Post. Rather, they were founded by the 'Moonies' (supporters of 'Reverend' Sun Myung Moon), to support his peculiar world view -- which includes some very conservative ideas: so a lot of neocon propaganda has found its way into print through the Washington Times. This poor and biased coverage of AGW issues is only one example of this trend.
  3. Rob Honeycutt at 08:55 AM on 25 March 2011
    The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    graphicconception... That would be true but it's a bit of a red herring. If there is too much CO2 in the atmosphere life also can't exist on Earth. If you would like to watch a really great lecture you should try this one by Richard Alley called The Biggest Control Knob. And definitely keep cruising the articles here on SkS. There's a lot of material.
  4. The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    Earth, CO2 free? But the argument isn't really relevant to anything discussed for reducing emissions. The idea is to find suitable CO2 levels that stabilize the climate to which humans are all adapted to.
  5. The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    graphicconeption, with 0% atmospheric CO2 most green plants would die. Without those plants most herbivores would starve. Without those herbivores most carnivores and omnivores would starve. Yet life (even human life) would survive in drastically reduced numbers. Of course, on the other hand, with 15% atmospheric CO2 most animals on the planet would collapse bleeding from every orifice and die within a matter of seconds. Most plants would suffocate and die within a matter of days. And the climate impacts would be unimaginable... possibly sufficient to wipe out all life. That said, neither of those scenarios is remotely possible... making the skeptic argument just a red herring.
  6. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Djon, you (like the articles you and les have cited) are making unwarranted assumptions about 'motives' behind citing Jevons paradox. I'm all for energy efficiency improvements. My position is just that they should be tied to price controls such that the efficiency improvement leads to a matching decrease in fuel usage rather than the efficiency change essentially being 'wasted' as people react to the decreased price with increased usage. The plan above proposes that we will be able to reduce all fossil fuel usage by 50% while realizing dramatic reductions in costs. Does that seem realistic to you? If costs go down that significantly why wouldn't people use more energy? We shouldn't go into a massive redesign of the underlying foundation of modern society looking to get the job done on the cheap. Keep prices level (or raise them if you need to) until the conversion is nearly complete and then if you find that costs are lower than is being charged for you can start decreasing costs... provided you are ready to ramp up generation if needed.
  7. graphicconception at 08:42 AM on 25 March 2011
    The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    I have heard it claimed by skeptics that without CO2 in the atmosphere life on earth as we know it would cease. Is that true? I looked in your list of skeptical arguments but could not find anything that seemed to be relevant.
  8. Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
    A search of the literature reveals that well over 99% of writers since the Ancient Greeks support the theory that the Earth is round. It is obvious that dissenting argument has been quashed, else THE TRUTH would have long since been known. I am still trying to discover who is keeping the secret time travel papers. After all - how could all those people have reached a consensus without a time travel machine? I guess that the same argument holds for the global warming theory: how else did they get Fourier, Tyndall, Arrhenius and others to sign up to the IPCC consensus that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? /end feeble attempt at humor. ( Sorry for the CAPS. )
  9. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    I posted an hour before, and my post disappeared; OK it was in French, but I hope this was not the reason to delete it; so what was the reason?
    Moderator Response: [DB] Pretty much. You may try the French version of this site linked at top. Or, seeing as your English is pretty good, repost it in English here.
  10. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Rob #20 - thanks, I'm using that Chu reference in my next post.
  11. The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
    I promised a while back to comment further on this story about mass extinctions. Anything I might have to say now pales into insignificance compared with Oliver Knevitt's article on this topic: beware_metastudies_example_whale_evolution ------ Daniel: thank you for linking to my Arctic ice article. A further update is nearing completion. idunno: I mentioned in my blog that I agree with what Daniel Bailey has to say in reply to your comments above. I repeat that agreement here for the benefit of Skeptical Science readers. This is an area of Arctic -related science that warrants urgent study.
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] You're welcome & look forward to the next update. In the meantime, interested readers might like to see this:

    Global Distribution of Methane Hydrates

  12. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Re Jevons etc. This article, and it's predecessor - linked there in - is a good read. Rebounds and Jevons: Nobody Goes There Anymore. It’s Too Crowded Even more amusing to note that Jevons him self, 1865, went into a wiled tizzy at the though of peak-coal ... ... turns out we're pretty inventive species. I don't see why we can't substitute to avoid the bad affects of oil, as we did to avoid the limitations of coal and, before that horse power.
  13. Teaching Climate Science
    rhjames, you might want to look at the global cooling bet for a very particular set of model runs that predicted global cooling. What Keenlyside et al 08 were attempting to do was interesting but as the article discusses, the model arent there yet. (And real data isnt backing the prediction). At the article on Realclimate -what the ipcc models really say you will see a graph of many individual model runs. Each is a possible future. It shows many possible short term (10-20 year) possibilities with no way to say one is more likely than another. However, the long term trend for all these possibilities is unequivocal.
  14. Wrong Answers dot com
    cloa513 - response here
  15. Temp record is unreliable
    Responding cloa513 from here If someone was averaging temperatures in the way you seem to think they are, then you would have a point. However, if you see Hansen 2008, the keepers of temperature record would agree and so that is NOT how it is done. It has been pointed out to you before with the links to the actual method, so why are you persisting with this erroneous strawman?
  16. Preventing Misinformation
    dana1981 at 07:25 AM, can you provide some references that quantify the change in such events globally.
  17. Preventing Misinformation
    CBDunkerson at 21:39 PM, I believe it is even much more complicated than what you indicated. Whilst changes to the total amount of cloud coverage is yet to be adequately quantified, and historically probably impossible to determine, there is also the matter of geographic distribution. If the distribution changes over a varying surface then the solar radiation either being absorbed or reflected by the soil or water will also change. Human influence on the landscape causing deforestation, particularly through the era of wooden boat building obviously changed the landscape generally in coastal regions which in turn changed the cloud coverage pattern as reflected in the known changes in precipitation patterns.
  18. Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
    Gilles, as far as I can see your modus operani here and at RC is like a high school debating team, marshalling any argument possible against the idea of any action to reduce CO2 omissions. This includes pontificating with sweeping unsupported statements. Now, the political debate needs to be informed by the best science not disinformation and this site provided invaluable support to this by countering skeptic disinformation with well-referenced supporting science. Serious skeptics can counter with other science and data. As far as I can see, you do neither. If you arent interested in the science, then I suggest your debating style is more appropriate to likes of Climate Progress.
  19. Rob Honeycutt at 07:46 AM on 25 March 2011
    A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Yes, boys and girls, that is the critical point, the point where the falling cost of renewables crosses the rising cost of fossil fuels (coal really). That is the inflection point where we have a whole new ballgame. Get your chips on the table. Where you gonna place your bets? FF or renewable? (Remember, the market rewards those who bet early and often if they turn out to be right.)
  20. Rob Honeycutt at 07:37 AM on 25 March 2011
    A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    As if on cue, Energy Secretary Steven Chu states that, "Before maybe the end of this decade, I see wind and solar being cost-competitive without subsidy with new fossil fuel."
  21. Preventing Misinformation
    johnd - it's well established that climate change "loads the dice" and makes floods and a number of other extreme weather events more likely to happen. What used to be a 1 in 100 event may become 1 per decade, for example.
  22. Preventing Misinformation
    dana1981 at 06:27 AM, can you clarify how you think we should view the labeling of these extreme events. You have it correct in recognising them as weather events, and thus right in attaching them to a particular location. However when talking in terms of climate, particularly global climate, can you show that whilst the 2010 Tennessee floods may be able to be deemed as a 1 in 1000 year event for that particular location in that particular state, did it alter the total number of those deemed 1 in 1000 year events that occur periodically world wide? We expect weather patterns to constantly shift, so we need to be certain that we aren't being held hostage to merely shifting weather patterns.
  23. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    I should add, I suppose the conclusion "the plan above calls for cost savings from energy efficiency... which means that they don't intend to keep costs artificially level" would make sense if Jevons paradox actually effects in the real world as strong as CBDunkerson originally asserted.
  24. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    CBDunkerson, No one, that I know of, denies that Jevons paradox exists and has some effect. What's at issue is whether it completely wipes out the effects of gains in efficiency. As to the black hole which you say you don't believe energy taxes go into, your belief in it seemed to be implied when you said "the plan above calls for cost savings from energy efficiency... which means that they don't intend to keep costs artificially level". That conclusion ignored the fact that society as a whole could realise cost savings from energy efficiency despite the monetary cost of, for instance, controlling the temperature of a particular house staying the same due to energy taxes.
  25. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Djon #14 - good point about Jevons paradox. I still think Ecofys is too optimistic about energy efficiency gains though.
  26. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Djon, no actually I don't think energy tax values would 'go into a black hole'. You'll notice I didn't say anything of the kind? Rather the logical thing to do with them is to try to keep the overall cost of energy use level by taking 'savings' from efficiency improvements and funneling that money into the start up costs inherent in converting over to other methods of energy generation, offsetting higher costs for some forms of energy, et cetera. As to Jevons paradox not being a sure thing... I'll read the article you link to, but I've never seen a case cited where it didn't come into play unless regulations/price controls were deliberately implemented to prevent it.
  27. The Climate Show Episode 9: Nuclear power and hot spots
    No, you cannot. If the mechanism cools the troposphere, it must warm the ground. There may be other feedbacks that result from that warming (eg clouds), but increased CO2 will, even with no feedback, increase radiation to ground. I notice you choose to ignore the other fingerprints as well.
  28. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Gilles - your point was not that it should be done first in most favorable countries, your point was that it has not yet been achieved. Since this report is about future actions, that point is irrelevant. And arguing that most countries should not implement renewable energy and energy efficient technologies until Iceland has reduced its emissions to zero makes no sense whatsoever. I refer you to Rob's comment #2.
  29. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    CBDunkerson, Leaving aside that you are asserting as fact that Jevons paradox has real world effects much greater than are accepted by people who actually study such things - see, for instance, http://climateprogress.org/2011/02/16/debunking-jevons-paradox-jim-barrett/ - you seem very confused about the effects that would be expected if energy prices were "artificially inflated", i.e. if energy taxes were imposed to prevent energy consumers from increasing their consumption in response to efficiency improvements. The energy tax revenues wouldn't go into a black hole - they would presumably either get spent on some new public good or taxes on something other than energy would be decreased. Or maybe we could even use the revenue to pay down the public debts that so many people profess to be so worried about.
  30. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Re my comment #11 - indeed, Jacobson and Delucchi use the EIA estimates that global energy consumption will increase 36% between now and 2030, whereas Ecofys has them roughly equal. I prefer their plan to Ecofys, so I'm looking forward to writing a post about it.
  31. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    dana#9 : I'm right on topics, that's precisely what I'm saying ; if it is possible, it should be achieved first in countries where the situation is most favorable - that is those producing already 100 % renewable electricity, since they "only" have to switch the other uses (the other have to do both !). So I will first wait to see if these countries achieve that, before believing that the whole world can do it. Personally, I live in France where electricity is mainly nuclear and I'm heated by a combination of heat pump+ wood - I think I'm rather fine in this respect.
  32. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    CBD #10 - I think that's a valid criticism. I think the projections of decreased energy consumption are probably the most unrealistic part of the report. Bear in mind to achieve them, we need to upgrade the efficiency 2-3% of buildings every year. I don't think that's realistic either. Part of that can be solved by assuming higher energy use, and meeting it by accelerating wind and/or solar power generation, for example. Currently the report has wind and solar growth rates flat and decelerating by 2050, respectively. I suspect Jacobson and Delucchi are more realistic about energy demands in their study.
  33. Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
    Gilles #69 - I'm not sure where you get 50% from. The only time I referenced 50% was to say that roughly half of the early 20th century warming was from CO2. The Transient Climate Response is approximately 66% of the equilibrium climate response. That's why we've seen about 0.8 of the 1.4°C equilibrium warming from CO2 thus far. That's why approximately 0.1 to 0.15°C of the 1910 to 1940 warming was from CO2.
  34. Preventing Misinformation
    RSVP #61 -
    "Should cloud coverage go up or down with global warming?"
    See "What is the Net Feedback from Clouds?".
  35. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    A potential problem with this analysis is that it puts so much emphasis (50%) on energy efficiency... while Jevons paradox has repeatedly shown that increasing energy efficiency actually results in greater energy use. How this works is basically that as something gets more efficient the cost to power it per unit time goes down and it gets more usage. The original example was how making coal powered trains more efficient led to much more extensive railroads and greater total coal consumption. However, the same thing has been observed many times since. The most recent example I can think of would be energy efficient light bulbs... since the cost of powering the lights has dropped more locations now are less concerned about energy prices and leave the lights on all the time. A similar effect can be seen with gasoline prices... when the cost goes down people drive more. This effect can be avoided by offsetting the efficiency improvements with artificially inflated prices... if you are paying as much to run the appliances in your house as you did before then your behavior doesn't change even if you are using half as much energy as before. However, the plan above calls for cost savings from energy efficiency... which means that they don't intend to keep costs artificially level and Jevons paradox could come into play and trash the whole plan. Think about it... energy efficiency sufficient to reduce usage (and thus cost) by 50%. Why not get air conditioners for every room and run them full time in the Summer? It won't cost any more than having one or two to keep a couple of rooms bearable did in the past. Ditto on burning more heating fuel in the Winter. Car gets twice as much gas mileage? Road trip! Improving energy efficiency does not (by itself) reduce energy consumption, and any plan which assumes it will is bound to fail.
  36. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050

    Gilles #6 - we've talked about this. Just because presently we rely on fossil fuels for transportation doesn't mean we will indefinitely. This issue is addressed in the Ecofys report (and again, I will address it when I discuss Jacobson and Delucchi). We're talking about the future, you're talking about the past and present. Please, stay focused on the topic at hand.

  37. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    perseus #5 - I disagree. Nuclear and carbon capture and storage technologies are as or more expensive than most of the technologies in the Ecofys report. There are other reasons to exclude nuclear as well, as I'll discuss in my post on Jacobson and Delucchi, who find that we can meet all energy needs with just wind, water, and solar power.
  38. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    [1and0nly] #4 - I'm going to discuss Jacobson and Delucchi's work in my next article, as it so happens.
  39. Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
    " I don't believe #2 can be answered properly unless the word "significant" clarified, or a quantitative element is added." I agree - may be they should have added "anthropogenic component contributes between 1.5 % and 98.5 % of the warming" to justify the 97 % of "yes" ?
    Moderator Response: [muoncounter] Your opinion of what 'should have been added' is entirely irrelevant. The survey was taken, the results published. If you disagree with the results, perhaps you can cite the results of a survey of your own.
  40. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Gilles - Iceland has the highest per capita energy consumption of any country, yet it's among the lowest in per capita CO2 emissions. almost twice as much as the world average can hardly be called "the lowest in per capita CO2 emissions" ! it's surprising that they still need so much FF with so much electricity ! " The only reason their emissions are still significant is that they need so much energy (because the country is so cold). If Iceland had a more average energy consumption, their emissions would be extremely low." actually not : the main reason is the presence of huge aluminium and ferrosilicon factories that require a lot of electricity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iceland Curiously it's not so cold - it's bathed by the Gulf Stream and polar ice pack doesn't reach it even in winter - which are much milder than in Siberia for instance. http://notendur.hi.is/oi/climate_in_iceland.htm But they still need oil for cars, ships and planes - hydrogen is still a dream. And of course they must also import a lot of goods and don't include the corresponding CO2 in their budget.
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Please do not copy others' comments in their entirety when quoting them. Either a short 1-sentence quote of the pertinent verse you wish to respond to is sufficient or (better yet) simply link to the comment (right-click on the time stamp & select Copy Link Location). Hotlinked URLs. Thanks!

  41. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #814 your comment (as mod) was:- "Response: [muoncounter] Perhaps you should have checked the link in my response to #784. Unless you are a different damorbel, you gave us the parable of your disdain for textbooks some months ago. Do try to keep track of your own words; they are there for all to see." If you look at #784 carefully. I wrote :- "But I don't know which textbook I am suppose to read or whether it is a requirement for scientists to read text books. Personally I recommend original works, textbook contents are at least 2nd hand if not much more; at university my tutors always advised original texts, they had a low opinion of published textbooks." - I was responding to DB's comment in my #783 where he links to scaddenp #753. I responded to scaddenp's remark in 753 where he wrote:- "I asked if the experiment didn't go your way, whether you would be prepared to abandon your view and read the textbook. (ie, behave like a scientist)." This is of course a personal attack on me and I usually avoid responding to them. But, since you are in a special position as a moderator, I thought it would be a good idea to let you know the origin of these remarks that I, for one, see as highly irrelevant.
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] The comment is not an attack on you personally; that would be ad hominem and would be disallowed. The remark in question was directed to your very own words. Please be consistent and do not feign ignorance. The definition of "is" has already been debated.

    [muoncounter] You repeated the substance of a prior comment, which adds nothing to the current discussion. You've done the same thing a number of times. If you find the instruction to stop that particular behavior a personal affront, so be it.

  42. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    For many countries I believe it is practically feasible to cut carbon emissions by 70-80% by replacing coal with a combination of natural gas, nuclear and renewables, without to much pain. However to attempt 100% reduction through renewables alone, especially without nuclear, carbon capture, or a large reserve of hydro is vastly more expensive and technically very challenging. If a 100% reduction has to be made, I wonder if alternative scenarios such an 80% reduction in carbon emissions combined with say a 10% biomass offsetting and 10% geoengineering might be more practical? I can't help but think that more practical approaches are being marginalised through extreme ideologies. On the one hand: we have our present course of 'business as usual' and striving for exponential growth, and on the other a 100% carbon reduction through renewable sources alone.
  43. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Hot-linked URL. Note: It is considered good form to include some accompanying text with links to help provide context. Thanks!

  44. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Gilles - Iceland has the highest per capita energy consumption of any country, yet it's among the lowest in per capita CO2 emissions. The only reason their emissions are still significant is that they need so much energy (because the country is so cold). If Iceland had a more average energy consumption, their emissions would be extremely low.
  45. Rob Honeycutt at 04:18 AM on 25 March 2011
    A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Gilles... Snoozers are losers. That's like waiting to see how fast someone else can run the first lap before you get into the race. You put yourself at a distinct disadvantage.
  46. Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
    actually FF and hydropower haven't to be centralized. Historically , people began to develop small thermal and hydro power plants everywhere - they just realized after that it was better to build large networks to stabilize the grid and to gain on scale factors by building larger plants -but it is by no ways necessary. Note also that water- and windmills were abundant before : if the main plants used hydro and not windmills, it was for obvious reasons of intermittency. Water , FF and nuclear have an obvious advantage : they can have tanks. Now you can think that it is easier to do it differently - I just don't know any case where developing countries didn't increase their FF consumption. When reality contradicts principles, who is wrong? reality, or principles ?
  47. Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
    Harry, Your general criticism has been made before and addressed by the author. Also note Anderegg 2010 which found the same conclusions using very different methods. You also have Oreskes 2004 and the positions of nearly all leading national and international scientific organizations, all of which is discussed in the is there consensus main post.
  48. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    As I said before, a country like Iceland has already much more renewable electricity than what is needed for its population (most of it being used in big aluminium and other plants). It is totally deprived of any fossil fuels (for the very good reason that the whole country is not more than 30 millions years old). So in some sense it has already achieved most of this program and has absolutely no interest in importing FF that will become more and more expensive. Yet they're producing around 9 tCO2/cap/yr, much like Germany or other countries. I don't understand very well why they don't have already applied this beautiful program - they don't even have to care about smart grids, geothermal and hydroelectricity doesn't suffer from intermittency. So before believing it's applicable to the whole world, I will wait first to see if it's applicable to the easiest cases - such as Iceland.
  49. Understanding Solar Evolution Pt. 1
    Actually the extreme ultraviolet was probably greater in the distant past, even with a fainter sun, so that does matter.
  50. Harry Seaward at 03:07 AM on 25 March 2011
    Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
    From the post: "Second, we know that burning fossil fuel releases CO2 into the atmosphere. The properties of CO2 were first studied by John Tyndall in the late 1850s. Tyndall was an experimental physicist interested in how different gases absorb heat. John Tyndall's observations were remarkable. His pioneering work eventually inspired physicists to develop the theory of quantum mechanics, but his results about CO2 also led Arrhenius in 1896 to the conclusion that burning fossil fuel will result in global warming. So climate science is a very old science indeed; we have known about CO2 for more than 150 years." The question asked of the climate scientists was "do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor...". The author makes a leap to focusing on CO2. That was certainly not the question asked.

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