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Comments 9101 to 9150:

9101. One Planet Only Forever at 08:38 AM on 11 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      markpittsusa @22,

      I will start my response by presenting a clarification of the frame of reference (the context) for the discussion. It should then be obvious what the responses to your points are, but I will also respond to your points consistent with that frame-of-reference. The wording may be able to be significantly improved, but I am not inclined at this time to put more effort into 'improving the presentation'. The thoughts should be clear enough.

      Getting into debates about discount rates distracts from what needs to be understood. What is being discussed is the Future of Humanity. And the quality of that future depends on there being a robust diversity of humanity that sustainably fits into a robust diversity of other life on this amazing planet. This is not a dollar and cents thing. Dollars and cents fail to make sense of impacts that are outside of the made-up economic games that people play. The Sustainable Development Goals cover all of it rather well, and they are open to improvement based on input from anyone - including you and me.

      Back to the cost evaluations regarding climate impacts and the application of discount rates. The climate impact costing comparative evaluation is incorrectly comparing the 'perceived lost opportunity for benefit by people today' with the 'negative impacts on Others in the future due to the competitions in pursuit of personal benefit by people today'.

      That is a Negative-Negative evaluation. And it is understandably unethical. It is unethical to distract the discussion into an evaluation claimed to Fairly Balance such a Negative-Negative evaluation rather than admitting that one group must stop producing negative consequences that others will have to deal with. And those who are more fortunate can still have decent lives while leading that required correction and helping the less fortunate sustainably improve their lives. That basic understanding was established in Kyoto and has remained, because it is fundamentally ethically defensible.

      Even with a zero-discount rate the climate cost evaluation can be understood to be incorrect. In the past I have presented an example of neighbours to clarify the understanding. The neighbour example is a case where an individual has been doing something on their property that is not essential to their basic existence and that can be understood to have real negative impacts on their neighbour (not a perceived harm to their developed sensibilities, but a real negative impact). To defend continuing to do that undeniably unacceptable thing they evaluate 'their perceived loss of personal benefit if they had to stop doing that thing' and compare it to 'their evaluation of the negative impact on their neighbour' and then declare that they are justified in continuing to do their thing as long as 'their perceived loss' is a match for or greater than 'their evaluated impact on their neighbour'. That is obviously a repugnant argument (they should have no excuse for continuing to negatively impact their neighbour).And that is the result of using a zero-discount rate. Discounting part of the impact on the neighbours to reduce the 'perceived impact on the neighbour' makes it even easier to justify doing the undeniably unacceptable thing (and is more repugnant).

      In case you are wanting to claim that fossil fuel use is 'essential to basic existence' my response is that only the poorest could make such a claim. And since fossil fuels are non-renewable, and their use causes negative consequences to Others, everyone more fortunate should be helping the poorest sustainably improve their lives in ways that are not dependent on fossil fuels.

      Back again to climate change costing done with discount rates. Using a positive discount rate on the climate impact evaluations does the same thing as the neighbour example. It is worse than repugnant. However, politically, lots of opportunity exists for populist regional tribal misleading marketing to be appealing, because the starting point is 'the unacceptable thing that has developed'.

      What is required is the end of causing the negative impacts. The political argument is about not doing the correction, or how slowly can that correction be done, how much more harm 'is acceptable', most important how do the more fortunate get to maintain their status relative to Others. The actual ethical requirement is 'Stop the negative impact activity'. The lack of leadership action by 'all of the supposedly more advanced people' through the past 30 years has made the required correction more urgent while also causing more future harm to have been done, and increasing populist support to resist the corrections (manipulation of the citizens deciding how much they are willing to sacrifice, how much they will like unethical misleading marketing from harmful wanna-be-leaders).

      A related example to address the poverty issue is the example of a family situation evaluation where some members of the family have benefited and currently continue to personally benefit from actions that undeniably result in negative poverty consequences for other members of the family. Like the neighbour example, it is obvious that it is unacceptable for some members of the family to have been doing that. And it is worse if they try to excuse it and continue doing it by doing a similar negative-negative comparison. And it is even worse if they try to discount the negative impacts on the other family members. And the concept extends without any actual change when the frame of reference changes from Family to Community or Business of employment or Nation or Global Population. In spite of the reality that there should be no change of that understanding as a result of the change of the Group it is applied to, there is undeniably political actors appealing to greed and dislike of, or lack of concern for, Others who are different or far away, or in the future.

      Poverty does need to be ended. But perceptions of success on that front that are based on unsustainable and negative actions like the use of fossil fuels are not real. The following is a related understanding I developed through improved Fair Trade understanding. It is unethical to claim that a person has been lifted out of poverty if they have been forced from a subsistence farming/foraging life into new-age slave employment in operations like the Free Trade production zone in the Philippines that operate 'outside of the Philippine labour laws. Earning more than $2.50 a day that way rather than being able to live sustainably on a farm is not 'raising a person out of poverty'. And it is worse if they were forced out of their previous life by fossil fuel operations and if the need to end fossil fuel use would worsen their slave employment.

      Understanding the need to end the production of negative consequences cannot be allowed to be compromised by 'incorrect developed beliefs, actions and perceptions being maintained or protected from significant correction'. The related understanding is that the limit of 1.5 C impacts is already a compromise of that requirement that was established decades ago. And the establishment of a 2.0 C limit was a pragmatic political additional compromising of the future due to the lack of responsible leadership through the past few decades. Truly sustainable improvements of life for the least fortunate must be achieved and improved on. That means the already more fortunate must lead the correction. The most fortunate should be required to prove they deserve to be most fortunate by truly being seen as the leaders of the correction, as well as being seen to actually be most helpful to the less fortunate, helping them have lives that are at least considered 'neutral basic decent lives, not negative lives'.

      That understanding becoming 'popular' would compromise the ability of many of the wealthy to maintain their wealth. And it would make it more difficult for future wealthy people to be wealthier than others because it would limit how they can become wealthier than others. That would be a helpful sustainable compromise.

      With that clarification of the context, frame of reference I will respond to your 5 points:

      1. Poverty: Any perceptions of poverty improvement that are only due to fossil fuel use are not sustainable. And much more can be done to end poverty, but the developed socioeconomic-political systems resist making the obvious corrections, because they are harder and require a personal sacrifice of developed perceptions of status and opportunity for personal benefit. The most fortunate have to prove they deserve to be more fortunate by actually being the most helpful to the least fortunate.

      2. A zero, or near zero, interest rate makes no sense: The discussion is the use of a discount rates when determining how much negative impact can continue to be inflicted on Others in the future. See above.

      3. The 1.5C limit: The original established level of warming impact before the results become questionable has always been 1.5 C. The 2.0 C is actually the political number. It was 'pragmatically established'. The 1.5 C value was brought back because it is the real science based recommended limit, not 2.0 C (or 3.5 C that supposedly gets justified by Nordhaus).

      You should review the “Landmark United Science Report Informs Climate Actions Summit” OP 3rd item below this one on the SkS home page which includes the following:

      “The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C states that limiting warming to 1.5ºC is not physically impossible but would require unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society. There are clear benefits to keeping warming to 1.5 ºC compared to 2 ºC or higher. Every bit of warming matters.

      Limiting warming to 1.5ºC can go hand in hand with reaching other world goals such as achieving sustainable development and eradicating poverty.”

      4. Continued world economic development: This is the first time in history that evaluators of economic activity have been forced to figure out what to do about a new developed understanding that a major part of the developed global economy is actually unsustainable and harmful. Their models are of no merit without sustainability as governing criteria. Any perceptions due to fossil fuel use are not sustainable.

      5. Regarding “I understand how the engineering approach of “fix the old problem” before starting a new project makes sense in most first world applications”:

      That is not what I said. It appears that you have been selectively reading what I shared (even attributing other people's comments as if their personal extrapolations of my comments were what I said - at no point in my comment did I use the word “Bridge”.

      The climate problem is more like “fix the developments of the fatally flawed socioeconomic-political system that is hurting people today and will cause more negative consequences the more it is left uncorrected” or “There will not be a sustainable and improving future for humanity”.

      Hopefully improving awareness and understanding will become popular enough to sustainably win everywhere, the sooner the better.

9102. markpittsusa at 07:54 AM on 11 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      Yes, Nigel, I think we should agree to disagree.  In the end, the citizens will decide how much they are willing to sacrifice, not you or I.

9103. nigelj at 06:48 AM on 11 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      markpittsusa @20

      "About 63% of all US families say they would have trouble coming up with $500 in an emergency, but you say spending $4000 would be no problem since they spend that much on entertainment, alcohol, and flash cars. Who’s right?"

      I think I'm right on this one. It's a fact people generally have a lot of discretionary spending, and of course its a fact that many have nothing much in the bank for emergencies. Its the way people live today sadly. It's equally a fact they could cut back on some of their discretinary spending if they wanted to. I have economised at various points in my life when I have had to find money for priorities.

      For example, if taxes go up people obviously have to economise. Now would they do this for the sake of the climate? The majority of Americans support a carbon tax according to some polls, (not all I admit) so they might cut some discretionary spending on this basis, and if you accept its going to be less than $4,000 then its not an insurmountable issue. 

      "The Sander’s program was for $16 trillion over 10 years, not 30. So, we’re talking about more than $12,500 per year for 10 years for each family."

      Correct, but you talked about a 30 year commitment therefore I talked about a 30 year commitment. Sanders time frame looks too short to me.

      “Government income support” for the poor is not free. Who pays for that? Where have you accounted for those costs?"

      The tax payer pays for it. It's old fashioned income redistribution from high to low income earners, and you already have this with things like food stamps, the in work tax credit etc. I think such schemes are useful provided rich people are not pilloried. Please excuse me I'm not American, so I'm hazy on some of the details, but I'm certainly right in principle.

      "Their is no evidence that families can save $4000 a year by “clever budgeting and wasting less.” If they could, why aren’t they doing it already? (I.e., Average people are not stupid.)

      I didn't say they could save all of the $4,000. I said clever budgetting and wasting less could make some big savings.There is massive evidence easily googled that better budgetting can solve financial problems because people waste a lot of money (I've been there). I agree people aren't stupid and dont always budget well, but if people really want to they will, and if they have to save a little money by better budgetting, say if there was a carbon tax scheme, they would probably seek budgetting advice.

      Carbon tax and dividend is another option that is gentle on people.

      "Average families do not have flash cars or spend that much on alcohol. (I.e., Average people are not degenerate."

      I think you are missing the point here a little. I picked a couple of random examples. Average families have pretty nice cars in America generally beyond what they really need, a lot of technology that is not essential, large screen televisions, eat out regularly and so on. The list is endless. And theres nothing inherently wrong with that, but some small economies would go a long way to helping the climate problem.

      "If government spending could be trimmed, then why do they never do so?"

      But 'they' do trim government spending when they want. Both Obama and Trump cut numerous programmes and so has congress. ( I do understand your point and your cynacism!)

      "Who pays for those higher corporate taxes? Families will."

      Yes but mostly it will be wealthier familes who end up paying most, so it will help poorer people. It's a similar thing with government borrowing programmes.

      "You say “quantitative easing” could be used to pay for the programs. This is more or less a subset of the idea of paying for things with borrowing. It’s like a money printing program, but does not create any goods and services that can be used for green projects."

      Quantitative easing is not borrowing. They are polar opposites unless specific arrangements have been made that the QA money be paid back. ( I think it does have to be paid back in Americas QE programme). Quantitative easing is money printing as you correctly said yourself, and it  has been used in America and Europe recently, and was used in my country to build housing for poor people in the 1930's. It is appropriate in a low inflationary environment ,and right now we have a low inflationary environment bedded in.

      Money printing can be used to fund anything you like, including green projects. This is self evident in the way the sun rises in the morning.

      Thank's for the polite issues based discourse and reasonable questions, but I probably won't pursue this issue much more. Most of your objections and questions have been made and answered many times before. We all need to listen better.

9104. markpittsusa at 02:24 AM on 11 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      @One Planet

      I appreciate your comments and approach, but let me explain why “luke warm environmentalists” like myself disagree.

      In no particular order (and with some possible duplication) here are my initial observations:

      1.
      Poverty kills. We know this. The poor do not get the medical care they need. The poor do not get adequate nutrition, or have sufficient housing or minimal sanitation. We also know that economic development is what cures poverty. In 1980 about 70% of the world’s population lived at or near subsistence. Today, it’s about 10%, and declining fast. That’s due to industrialization and economic growth.

      So, we have a choice to make: (1) Put the brakes on development and/or divert massive resources to replace one form of energy with another, or (2) Keep moving ahead, limit carbon emissions, plan to adapt to some environmental changes.

      My assessment (which you may not agree with) is that we eliminate more poverty and save more lives with the second approach than the first.

      2.
      A zero, or near zero, interest rate makes no sense. Here’s why:

      We all agree that many investments made today will more than pay for themselves in the future.

      Ethically, with a zero interest rate, people in the world today should live at a bare subsistence level. After all, $100 of goods and services consumed today deprives the future of more than $100 (because of all those good investments we could have made with that $100). So how can we ethically consume $100 and deprive the future of more than $100, since the present and the future are more or less “equal.”

      Also, a zero interest rate ignores uncertainty. If you look at expert forecasts of the future over the last 50 years, you’ll have to agree there’s been plenty of errors, and thus uncertainty.

      3.
      You say the 1.5C limit is “pretty well established.” That’s not true. It’s not in the 2018 IPCC reports, or the 2018 US government report, or the Lancet report. (Those are the recent scientific reports that I have mostly read.) Please explain why 1.5C is so important.

      The 1.5C limit was a last minute political concession made to the island nations. The original idea was to state the objective at 2C.

      You go on to use expressions like “acceptable” climate impact, and limits being “well established,” and “required.” But those are opinions, not facts. Obviously, most people don’t agree with those opinions. (Look at their actions, not their words.)

      4.
      With continued world economic development, today’s poor nations could be as rich in 2100 as Europe or the US is today. That has been the result of economic development in the last 100 years, so that is what we should expect.

      Thus, those nations will have the economic wherewithal to adapt to many of the climate problems coming their way.

      (And if those nations don’t continue to develop, their carbon footprint will be low, so there will be much less climate change.)

      5.
      I understand how the engineering approach of “fix the old problem” before starting a new project makes sense in most first world applications. But that’s not applicable to the climate problem.

      The climate problem is more like “fix that old bridge that might hurt people in the year 2100” or “build a new bridge so we can take food to people who are starving on the other side today.”

      It’s a tough decision, and one answer is not necessarily more ethical than the other.

      I’d appreciate your perspective on my comments.

9105. markpittsusa at 01:24 AM on 11 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      @doug

      Very insightful comment.  I think I sometimes over-react because so often people dismiss perfectly good analysis because they don't like the source (e.g. the Koch Brothers, or the DNC, or whoever they disagree with.)

       

9106. markpittsusa at 01:18 AM on 11 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      Nigelj 16

      Thanks for your comments. I think many people agree with you, so let me explain why many people disagree.

      From my perspective, there are a lot of small and medium sized errors in your numbers:

      About 63% of all US families say they would have trouble coming up with $500 in an emergency, but you say spending $4000 would be no problem since they spend that much on entertainment, alcohol, and flash cars. Who’s right?

      An upfront payment ($P) over x years, is Not the same as $P/x per year. It’s much more.

      The Sander’s program was for $16 trillion over 10 years, not 30. So, we’re talking about more than $12,500 per year for 10 years for each family.

      “Government income support” for the poor is not free. Who pays for that? Where have you accounted for those costs?

      Their is no evidence that families can save $4000 a year by “clever budgeting and wasting less.” If they could, why aren’t they doing it already? (I.e., Average people are not stupid.)

      Average families do not have flash cars or spend that much on alcohol. (I.e., Average people are not degenerate.)

      If government spending could be trimmed, then why do they never do so?

      Who pays for those higher corporate taxes? Families will. People own corporations, so people pay those taxes. (Roughly half of the US stock market is held in pension and retirement accounts. About another quarter in individual accounts, and the rest in “other”, like sovereign wealth funds and quasi-government owned institutions - owned by all citizens.)

      You imply that “borrowing programs” do not impose a cost on families. Who pays back those loans? Who pays the interest on that debt? What other programs get crowded out by that debt? If borrowing is free, why not borrow enough to make everyone rich?

      You say “quantitative easing” could be used to pay for the programs. This is more or less a subset of the idea of paying for things with borrowing. It’s like a money printing program, but does not create any goods and services that can be used for green projects.

      These are the questions your “opposition” would like answered.

9107. sgbotsford at 00:57 AM on 11 October 2019
      How the Greenland ice sheet fared in 2019
      

      @william In #6:  

      You could also get increased snow too however.  Some years ago, there was a pre-computer model of ice age triggering that was based on an open arctic ocean.  
      
      * Increased evaporation led to increased snow fall on surrounding land.

      * Ungava penninsula has later springs and earlier falls.

      * Increased albedo makes Ungava area cooler.

      * Two randomly cooler summers in a row result in not all the snow melting.

      * Because ground is pre chilled, snowfall accumulates faster.  

      * Cold air moving from the snowfield to surrounding area prepares that area for snow pack.

      At the time they figured a permanent snowfield could advance at about 200 km per year.

      No idea if this notion is still credible.

      But:  An arctic ocean will evaporate whenever it's open — slower winter, as I assume at least pan ice will form.  But if the arctic is open while greenland is still 2 miles thick (and high) then soggy arctic air will cool and drop lots of snow.  

       

      If the latent heat comes from the formation of dew/frost, then your figures are correct.  But it may form in the air, which means it's heat that ends up being radiated to space, no?  If it comes down as snow, it melts nothing.  If it comes down as rain, it melts some ice depending on the rain temperature.

9108. Eclectic at 22:54 PM on 10 October 2019
      There is no consensus
      

      MA Rodger @842 ,

      thank you for the link to Doran & Zimmerman (2009).  My memory of it had faded ~ so it was good to see it freshly.

      It was an online survey, and managed by a third party, and had a 30% "return rate".   So, a respectably large return for that sort of thing.  Large enough to make it highly unlikely (from what we already know of the minuscule numbers of contrarian scientists, even back in 2009) for the survey to be severely distorted by "random omission" of contrarians.

      Yes, the Doran survey was not as unassailable as the subsequent "gold medal"  two-in-one consensus study carried out by Cook et al., in 2013.   Even so, the Doran study leaves no leg for (upthread) poster CThompson to stand on.    Notably, Doran gives much the same result as Cook ~ indeed, all the consensus studies confirm the very high level of consensus.

      CThompson's claims are clearly out of touch with reality.  And he seems to have abandoned the idea of demonstrating the "large" and consensus-busting number of climate experts who are truly contrarian.

9109. nigelj at 19:19 PM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      Postkey @18, while it's fair comment that mineral reserves are of course limited, the numbers you quote on mineral reserves do not describe the complete picture, and they vastly underestimate reserves. The information you quote is  based on known land based reserves of these materials at current prices and current quantities extracted.

      It's almost 100% certain more discoveries will be made, and there are many more known reserves that are not currently economic to extract, and the data you quote omits billions of tons of each of these metals dissolved in sea water (and several have already been extracted in experimental operations at reasonable cost).

      We are not going to run out of metals this century or next century, even at higher use rates than presently, and of course metals can be recycled almost forever. There are enough minerals for  solar and wind power and electric vehicles etcetera and other applications. List of some of the minerals in sea water and their concentrations.

      "Altogether, there are some 50 quadrillion tons (that is, 50 000 000 000 000 000 t) of minerals and metals dissolved in all the world’s seas and oceans. To take just uranium, it is estimated that the world’s oceans contain 4.5-billion tons of the energy metal."

      Of course we have to be sure not to waste resources and to get population growth rates down, but population growth is falling in many places anyway.

9110. Postkey at 18:10 PM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      'The problem for the various proposed green new deals – in which massive state investment in the deployment of non-renewable renewable energy-harvesting technologies halts global carbon emissions while simultaneously ushering in a forth industrial revolution – is that those same precious metals (and many more rare resources) are an integral part of the technologies that are supposedly going to save us. Indeed, platinum and palladium are not even particularly rare (although they are expensive to extract). At today’s rate of consumption there is more than a century of reserves of these metals. However, deployed at the rate required to electrify transport and decarbonise electricity generation and we will run out of reserves in just twenty years. Not that this will ever happen – although not for the reason mainstream economists believe. Other mineral resources essential to the green new deal would be gone long before the platinum and palladium are gone. For example, reserves of zinc, chromium and gold will be gone in just two months at GND levels of use; with silver, nickel, copper and cobalt reserves being consumed within a year at GND levels of consumption. As a group of scientists at the UK National History Museum warned earlier this year:
      “To replace all UK-based vehicles today with electric vehicles (not including the LGV and HGV fleets), assuming they use the most resource-frugal next-generation NMC 811 batteries, would take 207,900 tonnes cobalt, 264,600 tonnes of lithium carbonate (LCE), at least 7,200 tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium, in addition to 2,362,500 tonnes copper. This represents, just under two times the total annual world cobalt production, nearly the entire world production of neodymium, three quarters the world’s lithium production and at least half of the world’s copper production during 2018. Even ensuring the annual supply of electric vehicles only, from 2035 as pledged, will require the UK to annually import the equivalent of the entire annual cobalt needs of European industry.
      “The worldwide impact: If this analysis is extrapolated to the currently projected estimate of two billion cars worldwide, based on 2018 figures, annual production would have to increase for neodymium and dysprosium by 70%, copper output would need to more than double and cobalt output would need to increase at least three and a half times for the entire period from now until 2050 to satisfy the demand.” '

      consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2019/09/21/the-petty-crime-that-kills-the-green-new-deal/

9111. nigelj at 16:08 PM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      Sorry I have repeated some points by DB. His comments were not there when I pushed submit. But we appear to see it somewhat the same way.

9112. nigelj at 16:05 PM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      markpittsusa @13

      "Take the cost estimates for going carbon neutral by 2050 coming out of the UK and the US. For the US, (emitting about 15% of world carbon), Sander’s price tag is $16 trillion. "

      I tracked down your numbers to this article:

      https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/22/climate/bernie-sanders-climate-change.html

      (Excerpt)"Mr. Sanders said in an interview that his proposal would “pay for itself” over 15 years and create 20 million jobs in the process.

      This cost estimate of $16 trillion is the cost for the GND in total. Spread over 30 years to meet the Paris Accord 2050 deadline you mentioned this is approximately $500 billion per year and this is 2.5% of Americas gdp per year (not far off the numbers I quoted elsewhere from The McKinsey report). You say we have to pay for the third worlds mitigation so this would be double this so make it 5% of gdp per year which is still quite a small number.

      You mention  mitigation costing $100,000 - $125,000 being the median family income, so dividing it by thirty years and splitting the difference equals approximately $4,000 year. The  median income in America is $60,000 year to give some context (and remember this will be increasing year on year). For you to then suggest mitigating climate change would " For the median family, that means home foreclosures, kids not going to college, medical care foregone, no vacations, and night jobs to supplement family income" is  obviously not correct. $4,000 year is what average people routinely spend on discretionary spending on entertainment, alchohol, and flash cars etc. There is no need for the draconian cuts you suggest, although some sacrifices would be needed - but some clever budgetting and wasting less could mean little real impact on people.

      Now it would be tough on low income people, but we could compensate them with some governmnet income support.

      Please note: you have made a huge assumption that all of this cost of mitigation would be paid for by families by cutting their spending. Much of it could be paid for in trimming government spending slightly across the board, or a tax on the corporate sector. Other alternatives include borrowing and programmes like quantitative easing. So it would certainly cost families less than $4000 per year.

       

9113. Doug Bostrom at 14:52 PM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      Further to Mark's remarks, I'll just point out that $112,500.00 divided by 30 years is about $4,166 per year.

      Due to the bulging inequality problem described by Piketty and others, for many in the developed world that's quite a bit of money and the problem bodes to become worse failing some changes in policy. But for a lot of others it means no more than repairing rather than purchasing a bit more often, thinking hard about whether $600 every two years for a phone upgrade is more important than making the world safer and more habitable,  whether it's truly necessary to change televisions to the latest model etc.  It's not an existentially threatening amount of money.

      Meanwhile, comparisons with what underdeveloped nations can and should pay are problematic, considering that (for instance) there's a single coal plant in Europe that emits as much CO2 in a year as does the entire country of New Zealand in a year. Responsibility for this problem varies widely. Portraying the burden of paying for the mess we in the developed world have made (and have very much enjoyed making) as somehow unfair because bystanders can't afford to participate in the cleanup job is maybe not a useful approach. Analogies abound.

9114. markpittsusa at 14:22 PM on 10 October 2019
      2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #40
      

      @nigelj 4

      Two major problems with the Our World in Data analysis you mention, as I see it:

      The first problem is that the analysis is very partial. Take the example of electric cars and their potential associated carbon savings. No where in the analysis do they include the cost of the zillion solar panels needed to power those cars, or the major upgrade in the national electrical grid, or the hundred of millions of lithium batteries that must be created (then disposed of). All these omitted, but necessary, associated activities are hugely carbon intensive. A similar argument could be made for most of the other items on their list. It you leave out important factors, you can get any answer you want.

      The second problem is exactly the problem that the authors themselves point out: “To do this [create abatement cost curves], we first have to assume a ‘baseline’ of what we expect ‘business-as-usual’ policies and investments would be. This is done—for both costs and abatement potential—based on a combination of empirical evidence, energy models, and expert opinion. This can, of course, be challenging to do; the need to make long-term predictions/projections in this case is an important disadvantage to cost-abatement curves.”

      In English, this means that a hand full of experts at a consulting firm using various models and historical data calculate what potential savings are available to families and businesses from various energy savings investments, and net then those against the upfront costs. This of course is ridiculous. No committee of experts knows enough about hundreds of millions of families and businesses to make this assessment, and their models and historical data aren’t going to help much.

      People and businesses don’t make green investments simply because they Don’t pay off. People and businesses understand their own situation a hundred times better than any group of experts ever will.

9115. markpittsusa at 13:42 PM on 10 October 2019
      2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #40
      

      @nigelj 5

      Take the cost estimates for going carbon neutral by 2050 coming out of the UK and the US. To decarbonize the UK (emitting about 1% of world carbon) the estimates are £0.8 to £1.0 trillion. For the US, (emitting about 15% of world carbon), Sander’s price tag is $16 trillion. Scaling these up to the world level, gives at least $100 trillion in costs. That’s more than one full year’s world income (at about $88 trillion).

9116. One Planet Only Forever at 13:38 PM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      nigelj@9,

      Further to your observation that the use of a discount rate is partially based on the unjustified belief that the future will be better with increased wealth (unjustified because the current global economy is clearly unsustainable, and unsustainable things have no future). That is correct. But there are other considerations in the building of a discount rate. It can also be unethically based on evaluations of people's willingness to wait for personal benefit or sacrifice personal potential benefit to help others.

      And your observation that the expectation is that the future will always be better by some means including new technological development is also correct. But it is essential to be aware that Technological Development has produced a lot of harmful unsustainable activity. And that was starting to be very clearly understood by global leadership in the 1960s, triggering the global collaborative pursuit of improved awareness and understanding that developed into the 1972 Stockholm Conference and everything that has followed.

      The fact that much of the current global economic activity has developed through the past several decades to be reliant on undeniably harmful and unsustainable activity, in spite of global leadership understanding that it is harmful and unsustainable, has to give any serious ethical person reason to doubt their developed methods of evaluating the future of things.

      The people still trying to hold onto unsustainable beliefs about the future, and their related unsustainable perceptions of deserving their way of living and status relative to others, are destined to not have much of a future for their beliefs. But, tragically, the stories made-up by people under the disguise of being Helpful Ethical Authorities and believed by easily impressed people can compromise and delay the understood to be required corrections (it has for more than 30 years).

9117. markpittsusa at 13:23 PM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      Let’s be realists. The real climate issue is cost. Everything else (including the discount rate) is just talk.

      Take the cost estimates for going carbon neutral by 2050 coming out of the UK and the US. To decarbonize the UK (emitting about 1% of world carbon) the estimates are £0.8 to £1.0 trillion. For the US, (emitting about 15% of world carbon), Sander’s price tag is $16 trillion. Scaling these up to the world level, gives at least $100 trillion in costs. That’s more than one full year’s world income (at about $88 trillion).

      But, the third world really can’t afford to forego a year’s income. So the first world (meaning roughly North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia) must pay a lot more - 2 to 2-1/2 times their proportionate share relative to GDP and carbon emissions.

      So, now we’re talking about the first world spending about two to two and one-half years income. For the median American family, that’s $100,000 to $125,000 .

      For the median family, that means home foreclosures, kids not going to college, medical care foregone, no vacations, and night jobs to supplement family income.

      This is why most people are not clamoring to solve the climate problem.

9118. nigelj at 12:27 PM on 10 October 2019
      2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #40
      

      markpittsusa @3

      "The real issue is Not whether or not there is climate change. The real issue is where to get the $100+ trillion to fix it. And what other goods and services are we going to do without."

      You dont say how you arrive at that number and over what time period it applies.

      I found this interesting study on the issues:

      ourworldindata.org/how-much-will-it-cost-to-mitigate-climate-change

      "If we utilized all of our <€60 per tonne abatement opportunities to their full potential (which is an important assumption), McKinsey estimates the total global cost (to fully mitigate the climate problem) to be €200-350 billion per year by 2030. This is less than one percent of the forecasted global GDP in 2030."

      I'm not sure what that number would be for this year, but assuming the global economy doubles in size by 2030 it would be around 2% of gdp right now and falling as time marches on to less than 1% by 2030. Anyway its a number to think about as a starting point.

      Now obviously 2% of the worlds total economic output suggests not all that much has to be sacrificed. Small cuts spread over everything and you would hardly notice, particularly in rich countries. We could do without so much military spending, luxuries, large homes and cars, air travel, etc and this alone would obviously get us our 2% per year without needing to cut the essentials like sufficient food (half the population is overweight anyway), and health and education services. Obviously this is a rough analysis and ignores poor countries, but I trust the point is clear. It is a rough first approximation at the problem. I challenge you all to do better, and show your work.

9119. One Planet Only Forever at 09:46 AM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      nigelj@9,

      No worries. I appreciate how challenging it can be to swim through the stories being told, especially with the powerful biases that the developed socioeconomic-political systems promote. My guiding principle through, and safely getting back out of, that murky endeavour is attention to actions that help to achieve and improve on the Sustainable Development Goals (like the great work done by SkS, a sincere statement, not looking for likes).

      My objective is improving awareness and understanding. Though my MBA gives me a reasonable starting point for issues like the discount rate, as I mention, it is actually my interest in Fair Trade and the establishment of understanding like the Sustainable Development Goals that most significantly improved my awareness and understanding. And my thoughts and concerns regarding the future of humanity are open to improvement, but not compromise, by anyone's input (no MBA required to share helpful understanding regarding discount rates).

9120. nigelj at 09:18 AM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      markpittsusa @7 , I don't know enough about that group of 100 economists to know whether they are truly representative. Anyway my response to OPOF shows some of my concerns about the use of discount rates. And as others point out, let's stick with what Picketty says and not his political leanings. Most economists will have political leanings and strong ones.

9121. One Planet Only Forever at 09:06 AM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      markpittsusa@7,

      I take issue with being dismissive of presentations of information by the likes of Piketty because they have a "...political agenda that goes far beyond climate control."

      The issue is limiting the harm done to the future generations and developing sustainable improvements, not climate control. And it is actually part of the collective of requirements that have been globally accepted as the current best understanding, open to improvement (not compromise), of what is required for the future of humanity - The Sustainable Development Goals.

      The identified acceptable climate impact limit appears to be pretty well established at 1.5 C (including that level being understood to be the required impact limit by global leadership though the lack of corrective action through the past 30 years has made a 2.0 C impact limit appear to be 'more pragmatic - Political speak for compromising what is understood to be required'. Beyond that value, 1.5 C, the science is entering the realm of significant potential for feedback leading to unexpected higher levels of warming impact and less certainty regarding the nature of the consequences.

      The likes of Nordhaus doing an evaluation 'to determine that the Fair amount of warming is higher than 1.5 C' is ethically flawed because it compromises the required correction.

      In addition to being ethically compromising, those evaluations claiming acceptability of warming above 1.5 C are done without acknowledging the uncertainty of potential for higher warming and more significant consequences (which become less relevant as they happen further into the future because that is what discounting does - they are very real in the future, but incorrectly less relevant in the minds of people today).

      Without rigorous science establishing a solid understanding of it being acceptable to have warming impacts that would be projected to create a 2.0 C warming (or warmer) it is very questionable to state that the discount rate evaluation 'done rigorously - whatever that can possibly mean' has determined the proper/fair level of acceptable warming.

      To make the case another way, if the evaluation was done with the same discount rate 30 years ago, it would have established a lower level of acceptable warming because of the different starting point. And if it is done 10 years from now with a less than sufficient level of corrective action between now and then the 'acceptable level of warming impact' would be deemed to have "increased - magically - wonderfully - absurdly".

9122. nigelj at 09:06 AM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      OPOF, please dont take my comments on the discount rate as meaning I'm comfortable with it in principle because I'm not. I share your concerns. The use of a discount rate to put a price on carbon looks crude to me.

      I think your dangerously faulty bridge structure analogy makes some sense. Using your analogy you shouldn't discount the cost of fixing a bridge and do a rough patch up job, on the belief advances in medicine will reduce the impacts of an accident. There is a difference in applying discount rates to encourage the best use of funds and assuming the economy will grow etcetera, and life safety issues especially when long future predictions are needed.

      As far as I can see, a discount rate assumes the wealth generated by future generations will allow them to both adapt and mitigate climate change by some future enhanced technological process, and a high discount rate assumes a lot of wealth. We cannot assume either of those things, so any discount rate should be zero or very low. I admit I'm a little out of my depth because I haven't formally studied economics so stand to be corrected.

9123. Doug Bostrom at 08:42 AM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      Timh, thanks for that great reference:

      Should Governments Use a Declining Discount Rate in Project Analysis?

      And it's open access. :-)

      Mark, I think it's arguably the case that economists set boundaries on acceptable notions of discount rates; too far from conventional wisdom raises eyebrows. With the sensitivity we're speaking of (measured down to 1/100ths) their hypotheszing (as in the case of Nordhaus and Stern with alternative offerings based on conjecture) may well affect the "real" world. 

      For what it's worth, reading Pikkety suggests that he's political only inasmuch as he's got a policy agenda, or that is to say his arguments are not politically motivated. Operational policy is determined largely in the political arena, so it's possibly easy to confuse a disagreement over effective policy as being political disagreement. We probably all agree that everybody should be fed, clothed, housed, given a fair go, these ideas transcending politics. Piketty illustrates a path of reasoning leading to different policies in support of those goals. Changing policy means changing arenas from research to practicum, hence politics. With "politics" seemingly being overly equated to "partisan" in the public mind, it's too often the case that policy proposals are evaluated based on who is speaking rather than what is being said. We must be careful to listen. When we do, we often obtain useful synthesis of ideas, aka "bipartisan agreement."

9124. markpittsusa at 08:12 AM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      @nigelj 5 . Thank you for your thoughtful comments. You are absolutely right in that I should have said “the discount rate is chosen by economists among market-determined rates.” There are several market-determined rates, and economists choose among them. My point was that discount rates do come from market sources; they are not the result of somebody’s economic research (as many people seem to believe).

      As for the right rate, the median opinion of the experts you cite is 2.0%. The Stern report uses an average rate of about 1.4%. So, the economists you cite are closer to Nordhaus than Stern.

      Finally, it is useful to note that many of the economists strenuously arguing against Nordhaus (e.g. Piketty) have an openly stated political agenda that goes far beyond climate control.

9125. markpittsusa at 07:41 AM on 10 October 2019
      2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #40
      

      The real issue is Not whether or not there is climate change.  The real issue is where to get the $100+ trillion to fix it.  And what other goods and services are we going to do without.

      Everything else is just talk.

9126. One Planet Only Forever at 07:04 AM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      The way I presented my thoughts @4 is what I am working on. The ethical unacceptability of applying discount rates to evaluations of the acceptability of future negative consequences to Others has been written about by many people through the past several decades.

      One of the clearest ways to present the thought is the risk of nuclear waste containment failure. Nuclear waste remains very harmful for thousands of years. The failure of such a feature resulting in future deaths is equally bad no matter how far into the future the failure occurs. But many people believe that the failure happening during their life-time would be worse, and it happening near them even worse.

      In addition to that flawed short-term geographically limited, but to be expected, way of thinking, a 'discount rate' evaluation would say that as long as the containment holds together long enough to reduce the discounted future cost to something near zero, the point in time when the evaluation essentially determines that future deaths are irrelevant (almost certain to be beyond the end of life of grandchildren), there is no requirement for the containment to last longer than that, which is obviously absurd.

      The same goes for discounting the future costs of a failure of the current generation to act in a way that is "almost certain to achieve" the understood required correction (1.5 C maximum impact). The future costs of failing to achieve the required limit of impact is unacceptable, no matter what a discounted evaluation indicates "Is Fair".

      Of course the real challenge is that it is the combined actions of the current people that make the future. The future people have no say. Getting people to sacrifice a developed perception of status can be hard work. It is easier to be Popular and more profitable by making-up appealing excuses, even though that is undeniably a highly unethical thing to do.

      The global resurgence of Nationalist Populism and its reliance on misleading marketing appeals to passionate self-interest (greed and intolerance of Others) can be seen to be a reaction to the development of the understanding of the required corrections and changes of direction of development that have been so robustly established and presented in the Sustainable Development Goals.

9127. nigelj at 06:53 AM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      markpittsusa @3, thank's for the comment. Now you mentioned the market sets the discount rate, yet a simple search on this issue shows economists 'choosing' a discount rate related to the climate issue, so I'm not sure what to make of your statement, other than to say it sounds like you are wrong. The following is most interesting. Its from WUWT which is not my preferred source of information, but is worth listening to in this instance. In summary its clear the discount rate can be chosen, and Nordhaus discount rate is too high according to numerous economists.. Make sure you read all the excerpt I have copied and pasted.

      wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/04/is-nordhaus-discount-rate-really-too-low/

      (excerpt) "In reference to the co-winner of the 2018 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, the earlier WUWT article states that “Dr. Nordhaus’ model suggests a ridiculously low discount rate of about 2.5%”. This critique is motivated by comparison with the rates of return offered by fixed income securities (“The minimum discount rate is currently usually 3%, about what you can get in US 30-yr Treasuries”) and other corporate rates (“In the oil & gas industry, we use a 10% discount rate when valuing proved reserves”). Using a higher discount rate would lead to a lower Social Cost of Carbon, meaning that fewer mitigation initiatives would receive policy support.

      "My co-authors and I have recently published (Drupp et al., 2018) the results of a survey of almost 200 economists who have expertise in intergenerational social discount rates (discount rates to be used by governments when, for example, determining climate change policy). From this we can conclude that, as far as most economists in the field are concerned, Nordhaus’ rate is too high and not too low."

      "First, it is important to note that the 2.5% rate that is attributed to Nordhaus in the earlier WUWT article is a growth-corrected discount rate, which “equals the discount rate on goods minus the growth rate of consumption” as given in the caption to the figure in that article. For a non-growth-corrected rate, Nordhaus recommends a much higher value. In a related article he states that “I assume that the rate of return relevant for discounting the costs and benefits of climate-sensitive investments and damages is 5% per year in the near term and 4.5% per year over the period to 2100” (Nordhaus 2014, p.280). Yet in our survey, the median response from our participants for the appropriate very long-term social discount rate is just 2%."

      The following are also higly relevant and discuss problems with Nordhaus's approach in general, and rather high discount rate. The third article is by Thomas Picketty:

      liu.se/en/news-item/liu-forskare-riktar-skarp-kritik-mot-ekonomipristagare

      www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/business/14scene.html

      theconversation.com/thomas-piketty-climate-change-and-discounting-our-future-30157

      Clearly Nordhaus is but one economist and it would be unwise to rely on the views of but one economist regardless of what prizes he has won.

9128. One Planet Only Forever at 06:06 AM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      I have an MBA as well as being a Professional Engineer. However, my experience with the Sustainable Development Goals and Fair Trade have given me a perspective that I believe few share, but everyone should seriously consider. (These thoughts are still works in progress, but I am retired now and I am investigating University level engagement on this issue - but admittedly more focused on the need to limit and correct misleading representations regarding all of the Sustainable Development Goals - not just the Climate Action Goal).

      Discount rates are valid when comparing "alternative opportunities". The key concept is "opportunity". It is misleading to apply them to evaluations of corrections of developed activity. They should apply to improvement opportunities, not correction requirements.

      Engineering is full of this type of evaluation. The consideration of future maintenance costs vs. up front costs of different ways of building "a new opportunity" is one of those applications.

      But the climate science identified issues are mainly "Corrections of what has already developed" as well as some "New Opportunities to consider and compare".

      In the engineering world, something already built that has been discovered to be incorrect "gets corrected rapidly". And only the options that achieve the required correction rapidly (with items being kept from being used until the correction is completed) get compared. A less expensive fix that does not achieve the correction objective does not get considered and no discount rate gets applied. And the cost of the correction is whatever it is. There certainly is no expectation that the correction will be obtained "at no cost". And any attempt to compromise the required correction to 'save costs' gets justifiably laughed out of the room.

      Another way to say that is that all of these climate impact option evaluations that are "correction scenarios" incorrectly apply the discount rate by claiming it is an attempt to be fair. It is actually an attempt to compromise the required correction in order to reduce the cost today". In engineering, when something is harmfully incorrect there is no balancing of the Owner's costs with the future impacts of a less than required correction. That same rationale would be the only rational way to evaluate the required corrections of what has currently developed.

      The discount rate has a role, maybe applied to the evaluation of alternative ways of achieving less than 2.0 C impacts. However, I believe the science says that the required objective is 1.5 C impact limit. That would limit the use of discount rates to evaluating the merit of alternative actions that would result in impacts being less than 1.5 C.

      The result of the above understanding is Powerful Political Resistance to acceptance of any information that indicates a Correction is required. That is what has now developed. Powerful misleading marketing to resist the improvement of awareness and understanding of the harmful unacceptability of the developed Status Quo. Applying discount rates is part of that misleading marketing game, getting popular support for the idea that the actually required correction can and should be compromised - to be fair.

9129. markpittsusa at 05:33 AM on 10 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      @nigelj. Discount rates enable us to compare costs and benefits that occur at different points in time. It doesn't make sense to have one discount rate for bond payments, another for investments in education, another for investments in health care, and another for investments in clean energy. They are all really the same future that we are discounting, and so should be the same (risk-adjusted) discount rate.  And thus, different investments and different returns over different periods of time can all be compared. The market (not economists) set these rates.
      
      The most recent economist to win the Nobel Prize (William Nordhaus) won it for his work on climate change. He rejects the low interest rate (used for example in the Stern report.)  He also thinks the target should be 3.0 to 3.5C of warming; not 1.5C.  I don't see how we can start now rejecting the views of the experts.

9130. RedBaron at 02:21 AM on 10 October 2019
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      @327 hedron,

      You said, "But humans do remove co2. It's called farming."

      It is true that some kinds of farming remove CO2 from the short carbon cycle, which does indeed offset some emissions. However, as an average, most farming is actually a net source, and those who do offset emissions a decided minority, especially when it comes to cropping.

      We could change that and many have recommended it.

      Why Farmers Are Ideally Positioned to Fight Climate Change

      But it is not the current reality we face today. Right now there just are not enough regenerative organic farmers to counterbalance even the industrial farmers, much less the rest of the industrial world's emissions.

9131. Tom Dayton at 02:13 AM on 10 October 2019
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      hedron, the crops resulting from farming quickly are consumed by people or animals, and if animals then those animals are consumed by people, and whatever is not consumed decays. The carbon taken up by those crops thereby quickly returns to the atmosphere, minus an inconsequential fraction that gets buried essentially forever. Note that most of what gets buried decomposes and releases carbon back into the atmosphere.

9132. hedron at 01:12 AM on 10 October 2019
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      >humans add extra CO2 without removing any.

      But humans do remove co2. It's called farming.
      

9133. MA Rodger at 21:01 PM on 9 October 2019
      There is no consensus
      

      Concerning the claims up-thread by CThopmspn of the basis for a 97% consensus being "all cherry-picking, symmatic gymnastics, inconsistent methodologies and all pretty dishonest," I note the main object of his criticism Doran & Zimmerman (2009) is only linked to its 'abstract' (or actually its first paragraph. The full (but brief) paper describing the survey is on-line here.

9134. Eclectic at 20:18 PM on 9 October 2019
      There is no consensus
      

      CThompson ,

      insight is not your strong suit, apparently.  Your claim of familiarity with carbon isotopes etcetera, is not congruous with your dismissal of mainstream physics & biology.

      Just as (by analogy) someone who claims familiarity with mathematics . . . yet who alleges that 2+2=3 . . . is someone who is a tad less expert than he supposes.

      But perhaps, CThompson, you can achieve some credibility by staying on topic.  [Short musical interlude here, while orchestra plays Pride of Erin B  . . . and readers wait for you to also mention Galileo, as well.]  You have been repeatedly asked to say something substantive about the scientific consensus, to back your "beliefs".  But you have produced nothing, so far.

      A good start would be, if you can name a list of some credible scientists who have produced some evidence that the mainstream science is  seriously incorrect.  (And you must show what that evidence is ~ not just handwave at something unspecified.)  If at all possible, please list a sufficiency of names to demonstrate that these alleged contrarians exist in numbers way beyond 1% of climate scientists.  Would 20% "climate-skeptical" genuine climate scientists be achievable for you?  Otherwise, surely your consensus claim falls flat on its face.

      Hint: don't bother to use the delusional citizen-scientist  crackpots, such as Lord Monckton, Dr Tim Ball, or (the late) John Coleman . . . 'cos they ain't no scientists !

      And bear in mind, that the evidence is even more important than the exact percentage of contrarians.  And that is where the contrarian scientists make a double Fail ~ their numbers are shrinking and their hypotheses [cosmic rays; 100-year oceanic cycles; Lindzen's "Iris" ; etcetera] have failed the reality test.

      CThompson, the consensus exists because the evidence is clear.

       

      I can see that you believe what you want to believe ~ and I was never under the illusion that you would be convinced by anything factual.

       

      BTW, CThompson, you can educate me on one point ~ what is the meaning of the word "symmantic"  which you use so often  e.g. the "symmantic gymnastics" you mention in your last paragraph of #841 .   The OED failed to list the word.  Is it a new term for the latest display trick by that amazing young gymnast Ms Simone Biles ?

9135. CThompson at 16:23 PM on 9 October 2019
      There is no consensus
      

      Even though I know this comment likely won't even see the light of day as it will be construed as "inflammatory", even though yours is likewise and remains, by making assumptions about my education and knowledge, I'll give this a try anyway.
      

      Eclectic at 12:42 PM on 9 October, 2019

      CThompson ,

      Interesting, that you don't recognize your own anger. Anger is the underlying emotion in almost all "contrarians" ~ anger that the mainstream science shows that the Earth is Round rather than the politically-correct Flatness which the contrarians desire.

      Actually, I believe the "politically-correct" description would apply to the Earth is Round crowd, in your analogy. Further, there was never even such thing as anyone believing the world was flat and, that is a myth, just like the 97% claim.

      Perhaps the isotopes Carbon-12 and Carbon-13 are not so very obvious to you, CThompson, but that is all the more excuse for you to go inform yourself - educate yourself - about carbon sources, carbon dioxide, the carbon cycles, photosynthesis & enzymatic affinities, etcetera. Then you will see why you are wrong, and the climate scientists are right.
      
      Actually, I'm quite familiar with carbon-12 and carbon-13, as well as carbon sources, carbon dioxide, the carbon cycles, photosynthesis and enzymatic affinities. But, this is exactly why I can never take seriously those who advocate global warming/climate change. Their condescending, smug attitude which makes them believe they're the most brilliant people on the face of the planet and no one should even dare challenge them. I thought this discussion was supposed to be about the so-called "consensus", rather than your assumptions about my level of education or my knowledge. You have no idea what my level of education is or what level of knowledge it is I have. And, while my one comment is snipped and flagged as being "inflammatory", your assumptions concerning my education and my knowledge, which could also be construed as "inflammatory", is allowed to remain. But, what can I expect? If one is all for the global warming/climate change hysteria, one can be as inflammatory as one wants. If one isn't, they're shut down.

      Now, why don't you elaborate a little further on what it is carbon-12 and carbon-13 have to do with anything? If you're suggesting someone can determine what carbon dioxide it is that comes from the tailpipe of a Dodge Dart or that which comes from a decaying tree or that which comes from a forest fire has anything to do with carbon-12 or carbon-13, I believe you are mistaken.

      How many climate scientists are there? Certainly more than 79. Depending on definition, there are hundreds . . . thousands . . . tens of thousands . . . even more. There is no precise cut-off between climate scientists and "non-climate" scientists. There is a spectrum ranging from the most expert (who do climate research & publish papers in reputable scientific journals) through to scientists whose area of expertise is only distantly related to climate. And on through to the almost-famous "wood engineer" who, many years ago, signed the laughable Oregon Petition of 19,000+ people possessing a science degree, who denounced AGW. (Denounced AGW, based on almost zero expertise in the field of climate science.)

      Relevantly, CThompson, the consensus studies show that the more climate science expertise a scientist has, the more likely he is to agree with the consensus.

      That is why, CThompson, you have failed to present an impressive list of names of (sane and credible) climate scientists who are not in the 99% consensus. Because they are way less than 1%. And if, from such a potential list, you subtracted :- the "Emeritus" elderly dodderers, the political extremists, the fundamentalist religious extremists, and the delusional citizen-scientist crackpots . . . then you would have close to zero real scientists left on your list. That's why the consensus is more like 99% than 97% .

      Actually, I find the term "climate science" and "climate scientists" to be a misnomer in the first place as I don't believe for a second they know as much about the climate and those mechanisms which drive it as they THINK they know. I don't think "climate scientist" even fits. I believe, for one to be a "climate scientist", one would have to be proficient in almost all, if not all, principles of science. And, I don't believe there's anyone in the world who's smart enough to be proficient in ALL principles of science. They'd have to know how cosmic forces impact our climate, they'd have to know how plants and animals impact our climate, they'd have to know how the many forces that shape this planet impact our climate and, multitudes of other things. That they simply average out temperatures for a 30 year period or precipitation levels over a 30 year period and call themselves "climate scientists" doesn't seem to shed true light on what is needed to understand the climate and what drives it. Now, lastly, your anger is quite clear. Anger is what compels you to make assumptions about my education and knowledge and anger compels you to make smug and condescending statements and acting like no one should even dare challenge you because you're a brilliant know-it-all and there's absolutely no way you're wrong. You know who else believed they were know-it-alls? People who challenged Erin Brockovich. She had no formal legal training and everyone else thought they were so much smarter than her. But, of course, we all know how that turned out.

      (P.S. Just so you know, I don't have to present to you anything, to believe what I believe. But, you're certainly going to have to do better than presenting symmantic gymnastics, as demonstrated in the Doran study, to convince me. See, things are the way they are and, if you want people to believe you in order to initiate change, it's you that has to convince them, not the other way around. I don't have to present anything to believe what I believe, you've got to present something convincing to me, to make me believe differently. Thanks.)

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9136. Tom Dayton at 13:45 PM on 9 October 2019
      There is no consensus
      

      CThompson: Your six-step definition of science is naively simplistic, narrow, and exclusive. To support it you need to show us photos of astronomers experimentally creating alternate versions of neutron stars. Experimentation is but one useful tool in the toolbox of science. Climatologists have done a huge number of experiments on thousands of aspects of climatology, going all the way back, for example, to Eunice Foote in 1856. 

9137. Eclectic at 12:42 PM on 9 October 2019
      There is no consensus
      

      CThompson ,

      Interesting, that you don't recognize your own anger.  Anger is the underlying emotion in almost all "contrarians"  ~ anger that the mainstream science shows that the Earth is Round rather than the politically-correct Flatness which the contrarians desire.

      Anger is an emotion leading to Motivated Reasoning  ~ where even some very intelligent people (such as yourself) manage to bamboozle themselves with rhetoric & false logic & semantic confusion . . . and manage to deny the "bleeding obvious".

      Perhaps the isotopes Carbon-12 and Carbon-13 are not so very obvious to you, CThompson, but that is all the more excuse for you to go inform yourself - educate yourself - about carbon sources, carbon dioxide, the carbon cycles, photosynthesis & enzymatic affinities, etcetera.  Then you will see why you are wrong, and the climate scientists are right.

       

      How many climate scientists are there?  Certainly more than 79.  Depending on definition, there are hundreds . . . thousands . . . tens of thousands . . . even more.  There is no precise cut-off between climate scientists and "non-climate" scientists.  There is a spectrum ranging from the most expert (who do climate research & publish papers in reputable scientific journals) through to scientists whose area of expertise is only distantly related to climate.  And on through to the almost-famous "wood engineer" who, many years ago, signed the laughable Oregon Petition of 19,000+ people possessing a science degree, who denounced AGW.  (Denounced AGW, based on almost zero expertise in the field of climate science.)

      Relevantly, CThompson, the consensus studies show that the more climate science expertise a scientist has, the more likely he is to agree with the consensus.

      That is why, CThompson, you have failed to present an impressive list of names of (sane and credible) climate scientists who are not in the 99% consensus.  Because they are way less than 1%.   And if, from such a potential list, you subtracted :-  the "Emeritus" elderly dodderers, the political extremists, the fundamentalist religious extremists, and the delusional citizen-scientist  crackpots . . . then you would have close to zero real scientists left on your list.   That's why the consensus is more like 99% than 97% .

9138. CThompson at 10:45 AM on 9 October 2019
      There is no consensus
      

      Estoma at 21:29 PM on 25 August, 2019

      I've been lurking here at Skeptical Science and Real Climate since their inception. One of the first things I learned was about the natural carbon cycle. Put that part aside. The emmissions being talked about are the ones created by fossil fuels. That CO2 has a different signature from the natural CO2.

      Uhmmm...emissions by fossil fuels ARE natural CO2. Emissions from fossil fuels are being released in many different forms. When a field is plowed, emissions (CO2) from fossil fuels are released. When a street is being paved, emissions (CO2) from fossil fuels are released. When tree leaves deccompose, emissions (CO2) from fossil fuels are released. Emissions (CO2) from fossil fuels aren't released exclusively when someone punches the gas pedal on an automobile or runs an engine in an industry. There are likely a limitless number of mechanisms for which emissions (CO2) from fossil fuels are released. All carbon has to do is mix with oxygen and you have CO2. When a dust storm happens, there's like emissions (CO2) from fossil fuels being released. So, I don't know where you're getting this CO2 from fossil fuels as being somehow different than so-called "natural" CO2. And, no, there is no different signature between CO2 from fossil fuels and so-called "natural" CO2. CO2 is CO2, whether it comes from the tailpipe of a 1972 Dodge Dart or out of a volcano or, out of the smokestack of industry or, from a forest fire. It's all carbon and oxygen. CO2...carbon atom, two oxygen atoms. There's no distinctive markers that describe where it comes from.

      Moderator Response:

      [DB]  "there is no different signature between CO2 from fossil fuels and so-called "natural" CO2"

      Incorrect.  Scientists know conclusively through its distinctive isotopic signature that all of the postindustrial rise in atmospheric concentration of CO2 is from human activities.

      Per Rubino et al 2013,

      "as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in the ice go up after 1800 AD, the carbon isotopic composition of that same carbon dioxide goes down. The change in the isotopic composition is somewhat startling - the atmosphere is happily chugging along at around -6.5‰ and then nosedives to -8.5‰ by 2012"

      And

      "There is really no way around it. Since the dawn of the industrial age, humans have taken carbon locked in organic material and released it into the atmosphere. That burning added huge volumes of carbon dioxide (in 2014, 44 billion tonnes) that all has highly negative carbon isotopic composition. Carbon dioxide goes up, the carbon isotopic composition goes down, all recorded in the ice at the poles."

      

      http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate/2014/

      https://skepticalscience.com/From-eMail-Bag-Carbon-Isotopes-Part-1.html

      https://www.skepticalscience.com/From-eMail-Bag-Carbon-Isotopes-Part-2.html

      https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jgrd.50668

      "These declines in δ13CO2 and Δ14CO2 (called the Suess Effect; Keeling, 1979; Suess, 1955) are linked to the burning of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels, such as the vast coal deposits of the Carboniferous period, are composed of the organic remains of organ-isms (mainly plants) that lived millions of years ago. Plants preferentially take up 12C over 13C so have low δ13C (e.g. Farquhar et al., 1989), with most oil deposits having values of −32‰ to −21‰ and coal deposits −26‰ to −23‰ (Sharp, 2007). Consequently, CO2 from fossil fuels contains on average 2% less 13C per mole than atmospheric CO2 (Keeling, 1979). Extraction and burning of these fossil fuel reserves releases this 12C-enriched carbon back into the atmosphere, leading to a decline in δ13CO2. Old carbon from fossil fuels is also virtually free of 14C (Keeling, 1979), since the time between being deposited in the fossil record and burning is many thousands of half-lives of 14C, so the release of this old carbon will lead to a decline in Δ14CO2 in the atmosphere. δ13C changes in the atmosphere have been vital in allowing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to conclude there is a ‘very high confidence’ that the dominant cause of the observed increase in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere since the 19th century has been the human burning of fossil fuels (IPCC, 2013)."

      https://www.researchgate.net/figure/d-13-CO-2-from-Antarctic-ice-core-record-Rubino-et-al-2013-d-13-C-record-from_fig1_274469390

9139. CThompson at 10:15 AM on 9 October 2019
      There is no consensus
      

      Eclectic @834
      
      Why get myself angry about the Doran study?
      
      First, who says I'm "angry"? Second, if they have to overstate the reality with symmatic gymnastics with respect to the Doran study to try and make it appear more dramatic than what it really is, why should I not believe all the rest of them aren't doing the same? They come off with this "97%" figure, hoping people won't actually look at the study and realize that only 79 climate scientists were actually participating in the study and that is pretty much an infinitesimally small number compared to the total number of climate scientists that are in the world. I call that dishonesty and shady. And then, other people take that 97% and try and make it out as if that 97% is indicative of the opinions of the total number of climate scientists in the world when, in reality, it's only the opinion of 75 out of 77 climate scientists in the world. Third, I'm not buying your claim that it's 99%, that there is overwhelming consilient evidence nor, that there are hardly any "climate-skeptical" scientists remaining. Again, this is all likely derived from the same shenanigans pulled in the Doran study. We know they pulled something similar in going through supposed "peer-reviewed" abstracts in the Oreskes, 2004 study which was criticized for overstating the level of consensus acceptance within the examined abstracts so, this pretty much seems to be a pattern and I just don't find myself taking it seriously. It's all cherry-picking, symmatic gymnastics, inconsistent methodologies and all pretty dishonest.

      Moderator Response:

      [DB]  Sloganeering and accusations of impropriety snipped.
      
      

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9140. Daniel Bailey at 09:47 AM on 9 October 2019
      There is no consensus
      

      There has long been a consensus among climate scientists, based on multiple types of scientific evidence, that greenhouse gas emissions are altering the Earth’s climate. The strength of the scientific consensus on climate change has been established by numerous research studies employing a variety of methods, including surveys of scientists (Carlton et al., 2015; Doran & Zimmermann, 2009; Rosenberg et al., 2010; Stenhouse et al., 2014; Verheggen et al., 2014), analysis of public statements in scientific assessment reports and multi-signatory statements about climate change (Anderegg et al., 2010), and analysis of peer-reviewed studies about climate change (Cook et al., 2013; Oreskes, 2004). These peer-reviewed studies demonstrate a consensus among climate science experts that humans are causing global warming. Estimates of the extent of the consensus among experts—climate scientists who publish peer-reviewed climate research—vary between 90 to 100%; as of 2016 the best estimate, based on a number of studies, was 97% (Cook et al., 2016).

      NASA’s climate change website presents the state of scientific knowledge about climate change.  This includes a webpage on the scientific consensus about human-caused climate change, which captures the robust nature of the scientific consensus by citing multiple peer-reviewed studies from research groups across the world. This approach for assessing and portraying the veracity and consensus of a research result, in this case the scientific consensus on climate change, is consistent with NASA’s scientific research portfolio – namely the reliance on up to date peer-reviewed scientific literature.

      https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

      Here’s a recap of the published research articles appearing in peer-reviewed refereed journals examining the ever-strengthening, consilient consensus present in the primary literature:

      A. Oreskes et al 2004 - The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
      Science 03 Dec 2004, Vol. 306, Issue 5702, pp. 1686; DOI: 10.1126/science.1103618
      https://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686

      B. Doran and Zimmerman 2009 - Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
      EOS, Volume 90, Issue 3, Pages 22–23, doi: 10.1029/2009EO030002
      https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2009EO030002

      C. Anderegg et al 2010 - Expert credibility in climate change
      PNAS, vol. 107 no. 27, 12107–12109, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1003187107
      https://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107.full

      D. Rosenberg et al 2010 - Climate change: a profile of US climate scientists’ perspectives
      Climatic Change, August 2010, Volume 101, Issue 3–4, pp 311–329; DOI 10.1007/s10584-009-9709-9
      https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-009-9709-9

      E. Cook et al 2013 - Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature
      Environmental Research Letters, 15 May 2013, Volume 8, Number 2; doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024
      https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024

      F. Verheggen et al 2014 - Scientists’ Views about Attribution of Global Warming
      Environ. Sci. Technol., 2014, 48 (16), pp 8963–8971, doi: 10.1021/es501998e
      https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es501998e

      G. Stenhouse et al 2014 - Meteorologists' Views About Global Warming: A Survey of American Meteorological Society Professional Members
      Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2014, Volume 95 No. 7, pp 1029–1040, doi: 10.1175/ BAMS-D-13-00091.1
      https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1

      H. Carlton et al 2015 - The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists
      Environ. Res. Lett. 10 (2015) 094025, pp 1–12, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/9/094025
      https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/9/094025/meta

      I. Cook et al 2016 - Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming
      Environ. Res. Lett. 11 (2016) 048002, pp 1–7, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002
      https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002/meta

      Also linked from NASA’s Scientific Consensus page, but worthy of repeating, a list of scientific organizations that hold the position that Climate Change has been caused by human activities and actions.

      https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
      http://www.opr.ca.gov/facts/list-of-scientific-organizations.html

      In essence, there aren’t any (as in none, not even one) national or international scientific societies disputing the conclusion that most of the warming since 1950 is very likely to be due to human emissions of greenhouse gases.

      To sum: the science underlying and affirming the human-causation is based on over 170 years of research, research integral to the science forming the structural framework of our modern world today.

      From weather balloons to airplanes, from Pershing-2 to cruise missiles guidance and delivery systems, from CD & DVD players to microwave ovens, and from cellphones, GPS locators, HD TVs and the Internet, the radiative physics of CO2 pervasively form the bedrock underpinning our technology today.

      And the ever-strengthening, consilient consensus present in the primary literature merely acknowledges that.

9141. Eclectic at 09:33 AM on 9 October 2019
      There is no consensus
      

      CThompson @833 ,

      Why get yourself angry about the Doran study?

      Any online survey, taken strictly on its own, is not necessarily worth much.  However, the Doran study is not an outlier :- all of the ["non-online"] consensus surveys give pretty much the same result of overwhelming consensus.

      Even a 97% figure is a bit out of date in 2019, and is now actually well over 99%.

      As I mentioned in a couple of posts [above] : the thread here about consensus is really just an indirect way of examining the mainstream climate science.  There are hardly any "climate-skeptical" scientists remaining.

      Forty years ago, there was space for scientists to be skeptical about AGW ~ but the current state of "overwhelming consilient evidence" is so clear-cut that "contrarians" have nothing left apart from empty rhetoric to support their so-called position/positions.

      That is why hardly any "contrarian" scientists remain.

9142. timh18468 at 08:52 AM on 9 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      There seems to have emerged a near-consensus among economists that a declining discount rate should be used--going toward zero over time, that is. https://academic.oup.com/reep/article/8/2/145/2888825

      Helpfully, with a declining discount rate, the results are not quite as sensitive to the initial rate chosen. 

9143. CThompson at 08:12 AM on 9 October 2019
      There is no consensus
      

      That you guys bring in the Doran study and this 97% BS is just laughable and renders any of your claims irrelevant and not to be taken seriously.

      This Doran study was an online survey in which 10,257 earth scientists were asked to participate. Of those 10,257 asked to participate, 3,146 actually completed the survey. And, out of those 3,146, 79 were climate scientists that had also published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change . And, this is where they get their "97%" from, that 76 of 79 had answered "risen" to question 1, "When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?" and, 75 of 77 answered "yes" to the question 2, "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?" So, apparently, not even all of the 79 individuals in that category even answered question 2 but, instead, only 77 answered it. Also, surely, since I'm quite positive there are WAY more than a total of 79 climate scientists in this world? What's 76 out of 79 climate scientists saying anything even really mean? That's like taking a town that has 500 people in it and saying the opinions of three people in that town is relevant and of significant importance.

      And, since I'm sure all the other studies cited are essentially the same as the Doran study and consist of, likely, essentially the same scientists that participated in the Doran study? I find the only "myth" here is the 97% claim.

      Moderator Response:

      [DB] Inflammatory snipped.

9144. nigelj at 07:52 AM on 9 October 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
      

      Ecomomists obviousy do useful work, but how do they come up with a 5% discount rate related to the climate issue? How can anyone confidently predict such a high and optimistic rate so far ahead in time? Reliable long term prediction has not been the economist's greatest strength.

      Interest rates are very low currently with little sign this is going to change. High returns have been in speculative assets, a thing that cannot be guaranteed longer term. The physical realities suggest it's going to be very difficult maintaining an ever expanding economy that would support high returns.

      While I'm no economist, some things start to scream out as being dubious even to laypeople. Perhaps some expert can put me right. Perhaps I'm naive, or missinterpreting the discount rate, or haven't seen the light.

      Of course as the article suggests there is also merit in deliberately choosing a lower discount rate. Heavens above are we allowed to do that?! Will it offend some economist?

9145. william5331 at 05:08 AM on 9 October 2019
      How the Greenland ice sheet fared in 2019
      

      I wonder if, in the future, as the Arctic Ocean accumulates more heat and more open water, if we might see a sort of Walker cell develop between the ocean and the ice sheet.  Warm moist air rises off the ocean, bathes the ice sheet, causing the water vapor to condense out in dew and cooling the air which rushes down the slope back to the sea.  Remember water vapor is lighter than air (60%) so the removal of the water vapor from the air augments the cooling to make the air in contact with the ice even heavier.  Then you have latent heat.  From vapor to water it is 540cal/g while from water to ice it is 80cal/g.  In other words, a kg of water condensing out of the air gives out enough heat to melt a little over 6 kg of ice.

9146. Brockagh at 19:02 PM on 8 October 2019
      The science isn't settled
      

      Regarding the plane falling out of the sky analogy... If you had to get on one of two planes, would you pick the one with a tem percent chance of survival or the one with a 90 percent chance of survival.

9147. nigelj at 10:24 AM on 8 October 2019
      How the Greenland ice sheet fared in 2019
      

      OPOF @4, yes its always worth a try rebutting climate denialism and explaining the bigger picture. Of course denialists will never or rarely change their minds in public in an internet discussion, because nobody likes to loose face, and this creates an impression denialists never change their minds, but some of them probably  do change their minds. Here is an example of some who have:

      www.theinertia.com/environment/heres-how-the-evidence-changed-a-climate-change-skeptics-mind/

      www.theguardian.com/science/2012/jul/29/climate-change-sceptics-change-mind

      Of course PC is also quite right. You get a lot of that.

9148. One Planet Only Forever at 10:10 AM on 8 October 2019
      How the Greenland ice sheet fared in 2019
      

      nigelj and Philippe,

      My response is: By being aware of the fuller story you can respond quicker to anyone who tries to use the cherry-picked claim (or any other misleading marketing tactic). Rapidly correcting someone by introducing them to information they were unaware of, or did not want others to be aware of, can be very effective.

      Of course, some people will just get angry. That is a common response to being corrected. But, as is often pointed out in comments here, others may be watching who benefit from the interaction. They get to see who can be more trusted to tell the fuller story and who tries to promote or maintain a misleading made-up belief.

      That knowledge of the fuller story can also be used to determine how much an information provider may have been influenced by Edward S. Herman's Propaganda Model presented in the book and movie "Manufacturing Consent".

9149. Philippe Chantreau at 09:18 AM on 8 October 2019
      How the Greenland ice sheet fared in 2019
      

      There is no answer because there is no good way to deal with those who argue in bad faith and whose only guiding principle is "anything goes." 

9150. richieb1234 at 08:48 AM on 8 October 2019
      It's the sun
      

      MA Rodger:  Thanks for the additional information.

      My only point is that the "myth" thermometer on the left of the front page is a key part of the SS website's message.  When a viewer clicks on one of those myths, they should find a blatant statement of the myth from a climate denier.   The BBC quote doesn't pass that test.

      The quotes above from Whitehouse also don't show he is claiming that "it's the sun."  In these quotes, Whitehouse is apparently claiming that the sun was a big factor in past climate changes, but not recent changes.  That is an accurate claim.

      I just think there must be a better quote somewhere to illustrate this myth. 

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