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John Hartz at 01:42 AM on 8 May 2019It's Urban Heat Island effect
Recommended supplemetal reading:
Urban Heat Islands Don't Explain Climate Change - Here's The Bigger Problem by Marshall Shepherd, Science, Forbes, May 6, 2019
The lead paragraphs of Sheperd's essay:
A recent flurry of activity on social media last week centered around a new study published in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology. According to the abstract, it found that "temperature observations (in an experiment with four observation sites) were warmest for the site closest to the built environment." This finding is not "News." We have known about the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect for many decades, and I have previously described it in Forbes.
I suppose the novel caution in this new paper is that urban "creep" is possible at some temperature stations used for overall climate change assessment like the U.S. Climate Reference Network. My colleague Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. has a deep body of work on land changes and climate impacts so I suspect he is very pleased to see studies like this as am I. However, this essay is written as an antidote to wild claims spouting the "cliche" or "zombie theory" that climate warming is caused by urban heat bias. Not only is that flawed, there is a greater danger that many have overlooked.
One of my favorite climate scientists to follow on social media is Zeke Hausfather. A 2013 study published in Geophysical Research Letters by Hausfather and colleagues examined the urban bias on the U.S. Historical Climate Reference Network (USHCN). According to the NOAA website,
The U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) data are used to quantify national- and regional-scale temperature changes in the contiguous United States (CONUS). The USHCN is a designated subset of the NOAA Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) Network with sites selected according to their spatial coverage, record length, data completeness, and historical stability.
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SirCharles at 22:31 PM on 7 May 2019Former climate 'denier' regrets 'how wrongheaded but certain I was'
nigelj: "John Kaiser is to be applauded for changing his position, something that does take courage, however if he thinks the solution to climate change is the free market plus private sector acting alone he is mistaken, because by the time the free market solves the problem the Earth will be getting like Venus. Free markets have an absolutely awful record of fixing environmental problems."
I can only second that. Well said. I think it started with Reagan who said, government would be a bad thing. But in a democracy, government is the elected representation of the people, corporations aren't. So if one values the "free" market more than government regulation then s/he doesn't value democracy.
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cpske at 22:19 PM on 7 May 2019Former climate 'denier' regrets 'how wrongheaded but certain I was'
Is the US ready to address climate change? To do so, we need to realize that we need to leave Carbon in the ground. You can't rely on capitalism at all if you intend to put the complete fossil fuel industry out of business.
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michael sweet at 21:22 PM on 7 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #18
The Guardian has an article that says Climate Change is a key issue in current Australian elections. Apparently polls are close but advocates of action about AGW are currently ahead 52-48%.
I am interested in comments from Oz. (I lived in Brisbane for three years). How do the Greens look?
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nigelj at 19:10 PM on 7 May 2019Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’
Environmental degradation and species decline is deadly serious, and is caused by high consuming culture and population growth, but this is a dilemma because people are unlikely to willingly embrace some hair shirt lifestyle, and to revert to horses and carts, and poor people must have a chance to improve their circumstances, and most of us want decent healthcare. The best we can work towards is asteady state economy, less waste, renewable energy and smaller population. So harm minimisation.
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nigelj at 17:55 PM on 7 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #18
Adding a bit on this question of status seeking.
Human beings are materialists, who always want better things and we are status seekers, and we use material goods as a status symbol. It's probably in our dna to seek status. While the top 1% of modern humans take this to extremes and are causing a big problem almost everyone wants more things and seeks status. (Although huter gatherer culture minimised this).
However for modern humans the impacts of all this on the environment have become very damaging.
Conservatives resist acknowledging this because it means they have to embrace change in levels of consumption, and change is not in conservatives dna, but if they don't change, even worse environmental change will be the result so its a catch 22. But liberals are also status seekers as well, so also need to confront this and its wider implications.
It's going to be hard work changing attitudes in my generation, the so called baby boomers. Of course we should try, but I have an ominous feeling our best hope is educating young people to try to be less materialistic and to express staus is other ways. At the same time we have to recognise people are entitled to fulfill basic needs and top grade healthcare.
I feel there are no ideal answers. The principle to apply is harm minimisation. Get consumption levels down, waste less, try to minimise inequality, and get population size down. Stop listening to people who deny environmental problems, and problems of over consumption, and who demonise the UN and new ideas. If not, future generations will face a bleak future. The evidence for this is mounting fast.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:18 PM on 7 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #18
Correcting the ways of living of the least sustainable, highest consuming, highest impacting portion of the global population would produce more benefit for the future of humanity than 'more' attempts to limit population growth (though both are important for the sustainability of humanity). The end of this comment is a point connected to limiting population.
Biodiversity loss and climate change are both harmful results of a higher level Crisis facing humanity.
That crisis is the developed diversity of ways that the developed institutions of supposedly more advanced nations tend to promote a lack of interest in the future of humanity. Harmful results include claiming that correcting one sub-problem is more important than correcting a different sub-problem. That is an attempted divisiveness hoping to distract attention from the higher-level root-cause of many problems that requires correction. Many of the developed institutions can be seen to resist the required corrections of developed preferred beliefs and behaviour.
Powerful proof of how damaging many of the supposedly more advanced nations have become is the response of leadership and popular belief in those nations to the improving awareness and understanding of climate science and diversity of life through the past 30 years. An associated proof is the actions (or lack of helpful corrective action) by many of the wealthiest people in all nations. The harmful results include active denial or making up poor excuses like the need to compromise the future of humanity because of current economic interests (the so-called 'need' to balance economic and environmental interests that fatally fails to acknowledge that unsustainable economic activity has no future).
Every improvement of awareness and understanding can be seen to reinforce the following Theory: The only viable future for humanity is a robust diversity of humans living in ways that sustainably fit into the robust diversity of life on this or any other amazing planet.
There are many alternative claims about possible futures for humans. But those claims lack convincing presentations of sustainability. The lack of attention to sustainability is a fatal flaw. As examples:
- Many technological innovation promoters claim that constant improvement will occur. To do that they must presume a 'sustainable?' development of fixes or repairs or replacements to correct the problems created by unsustainable and harmful technological developments being allowed to compete for popularity or profitability, unless harmful unsustainable developments are not allowed.
- Many enlightenment promoters make similar unsustainable. They fail to acknowledge that any claimed improvement of circumstances for the poorest is not sustainable if the systems and actions that provided those 'perceived improvements' have not been proven to be sustainable. It is especially flawed thinking to claim that perceived improvements for the poorest due to the undeniably harmful and unsustainable use of fossil fuel is 'sustainable' because it 'Feels Good to think of it that way'.
Governing and limiting actions to achieve sustainable improvements for the future for humanity is required. And that required Altruism to govern over Egoism. And the developed institutions and systems are not effective are not effective at producing that result. Those systems develop powerful Regional and Tribal resistance to the required increase of altruism and the associated corrections of what has developed. Global institutions will probably need to be developed to help achieve the altruistic improvement of the future for humanity.
Many people have been writing about this, and for a very long time. It is not a recent or novel understanding. It is improved understanding that has been very powerfully resisted by many in the developed status-quo. A very good presentation of the problem is made by Stephen M. Gardiner in “A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change”.
Competition for status in games where success is measured by wealth or popularity encourages the development of Egoism and its related harmful attitudes that ignore, dismiss or discount concerns about Others or the future of humanity.
Competing for popularity and profit needs to be restricted to sustainable and helpful (or at least long lasting and harmless) options. It is now undeniable that competitions for status based on perceptions of popularity and profit are not ethically self-governing systems. Popularity or profitability can clearly develop powerful resistance to correction. For the benefit of future generations, the resistance to correction among any portion of any current generation cannot be allowed to get “too big to be corrected”.
Tragically, many people, especially the Conservative ones, are easily tempted to be fearful about corrections of developed beliefs and preferences. They struggle to accept understanding that contradicts things they developed a liking for. And they will support leadership that harmfully resists a broad diversity of incorrect beliefs that need to be corrected. The result can be a tragic divisive push away from sustainability. And the further that the resistance to correction takes a society away from sustainability the worse the ultimate end correction will be (more harm done and a more jarring correction).
The real problem is, and always will be, the ethical challenge from the tendency for people to be easily impressed into passionately and even fearfully caring about “maintaining Their Current developed perceptions of status and opportunity for status” more than they care about “how their actions affect the Future of all of humanity”. Everyone's chosen actions do add up. Claiming that 'one person's actions' are of little consequence is a very poor reason for a person to not learn to correct how they live.
The future of humanity requires increased awareness and acceptance of the understanding that all of humanity needs to be governed and limited by the objective of developing “a robust diversity of humans living in ways that sustainably fit into the robust diversity of life on this or any other amazing planet.”
New global institutions that people like Stephen M. Gardiner are working towards the development of are clearly needed to support Regional and Tribal efforts to effectively identify and correct harmfully Egoist people who have been winning popularity and profit competitions to the detriment of the future of humanity. The people leading the resistance to correction have understood that for a long time. That is likely a major reason they have been trying to discredit or impede UN initiatives. They do not want any UN success that would be detrimental to their developed interests. The anti-abortion division of the correction resistance team have recently attacked a UN women's rights conference with a disruptive text-barrage on the vice chair of the conference (see the CBC Report "U.S. investigates spam barrage on UN diplomat at women's rights conference")
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Doug Bostrom at 11:37 AM on 7 May 2019Former climate 'denier' regrets 'how wrongheaded but certain I was'
It needs a well-integrated, self-confident personality to change one's mind and do so in a public way, regardless of what o'clock on the political dial one occupies.
Let's hope that Kaiser is not too exceptional, or at least that his fresh perspective is infectious.
Pretty sure there's --something— I'm wrong about. I'll work on that. :-)
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scaddenp at 08:25 AM on 7 May 2019Heatwaves have happened before
There is another element to this. The WMO defines a heatwave as 5 or more consecutive days of maximum temperatures 5C above average. The common way to set this up is a blocking anti-cyclone (which is also the setup for a coldwave). For temperate regions, this is controlled by the jet stream. There is evidence that the decreasing temperature gradient poleward is resulting in more "loopy" jetstream and more blocking highs. See here for more discussion.
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nigelj at 06:04 AM on 7 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #18
Sir Charles @2, I have already heard climate denialists saying we have our priorities wrong, because they claim insect decline is more serious than climate change! I was just putting it in perspective.
However I think you are generally right these problems all go hand in hand and have some similar causes. And our rates of growth are clearly unsustainable. Worse still our current population of around 7 billion if all living middle class lifestyles would be unsustainable. A lot of things have to change, starting with doing more gently promoting lower fertility rates.
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michael sweet at 02:51 AM on 7 May 2019Heatwaves have happened before
Andy,
Climate change changes the distribution of the temperature. This causes there to be more heat waves and less cold waves. Tamino (an on line statistician) posted this graph to illustrate heat waves:
The blue line is the temperature from the 20 th century for Zagrab, Croatia. The black line is expected temperature n 2040. The change is global warming. Tamino has colored in the increased heat waves. You can see that the cold waves have decreased proportionately.
You can look at the NCDC record temperature data. There are two hot records and two cold records for every day. For the USA daily records there are about 51,000 hot and 30,000 cold records set in the past year. For monthly records (harder to achieve) there were 2205 hot records and 1184 cold records in the past year. For all time records there were 181 hot records and 104 cold records (there were more than normal cold records last winter, the previous winter there were only 9 records set).
For global all time records there were 613 hot and 146 cold records. Larger areas have less noise in the data.
Does this data answer your question?
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andy-bamford at 22:41 PM on 6 May 2019Heatwaves have happened before
Can someone please show me how global warming predicts more and hotter heat waves, and less cold waves? Simplistic common sense says that more and hotter heat waves and less cold waves measured will result in higher average global temperatures, and therefore global warming.
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SirCharles at 22:40 PM on 6 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #18
Climate change and mass extinction are going hand in hand, Nigel. Both are caused by unsustainable growth.
One out of the estimated eight million species are already in jeopardy. Including worms we need for a healthy soil, 75% of insects which are also food for birds, and 25% of all kinds of mamals. Not to forget that species are dying out BECAUSE of climate change. But we also need to stop poisonning our planet with chemicals like the total herbicide Glyphosate.
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nigelj at 17:45 PM on 6 May 2019Former climate 'denier' regrets 'how wrongheaded but certain I was'
John Kaiser is to be applauded for changing his position, something that does take courage, however if he thinks the solution to climate change is the free market plus private sector acting alone he is mistaken, because by the time the free market solves the problem the Earth will be getting like Venus. Free markets have an absolutely awful record of fixing environmental problems.
Most of the existing renewable energy achievements have been driven by government subsidies or carbon tax schemes etcetera.
People need to appreciate that government is by definition about intervention and rule setting, starting with the criminal law codes. The environment is just another issue that falls in the category of needing something from government. Not everything does, but some things do. So given most people accept the need for criminal law, its not inconsistent for the government to play some role of some sort in the climate problem with environmental laws and / or carbon fees etcetera.
The tragedy of the commonse problem means free markets and the private sector are not good at resolving environmental problems. That's just the reality.
Mitigating climate change is just going to have to be turbocharged with some level of government intervention, designed to be light handed, so perhaps carbon fee and dividend. Write a clause into the law that requires the fee to terminate when the problem is solved or reaches some appropriate level. This should alleviate worries about government excesses.
I'm not going to get down on our knees and beg people to see sense. It's time for everyone on both sides of politics to acknowledge basic realities of what works in terms of promoting change, and it has to be a blend of government and private sector and free markets.
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nigelj at 13:27 PM on 6 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #18
Regarding the biodiversity crisis, specifically the decline of pollinating insects. This is of course serious, but some have hyped it to the same level as the climate crisis which doesn't look justified. Basically I have read a lot of claims that decline in insects would literally wipe out agriculture, and to satisfy my curiosity a quick google search shows a more nuanced picture.
Approx. 30% of food crops depend on pollinators mostly bees, and this is typically fruits etc not staple food products. General article here. Research article discussed in Nature Journal here.Hand pollination is also possible. This is not to downplay the problem but it looks like climate change is the more pressing concern to me.
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scaddenp at 07:01 AM on 6 May 201910 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Published in "Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics", home of Scarfetta's astrological mathturbations. That should have been a red flag. Thanks MAR.
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Eclectic at 09:57 AM on 5 May 201910 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
MA Rodger @101 ,
Quite so. The Varatsos paper is a fine lot of nonsense !
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MA Rodger at 02:56 AM on 5 May 201910 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Wilmer_T @100,
The paper you refer to is Varotsos & Efstathiou (2019) 'Has global warming already arrived?', the latest serving from a pair of nonsense-writers. Concerning increased height of the tropopause (fingerprint #9), this is found occurring in climate models and within atmispheric measurements, as shown by Santer et al (2001) cited by the OP above and this finding continues to be observed (eg Xian & Homeyer 2018).
Varotsos & Efstathiou ignore this serious work entirely and instead use UAH TP satellite data to assert there is no increase in tropopause height because there is no increasing trend in UAH TP. The use of such data is mind-blowingly stupid, as worthless as using a twelve inch ruler to measure the width of a human hair. UAH TP does not measure tropopause temperature. It measures a wide range of temperatures from the surface up to 24 km. Thus it is measuring the cooling stratosphere as well as the warming troposphere, two strong signals which will overwhelm entirely any tropopause tempoerature trend. The figure below is sourced from Spencer at UAH.
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Eclectic at 12:33 PM on 4 May 2019There is no consensus
Philippe Chantreau is quite correct that the question of the Consensus has become trivial and largely irrelevant. The science (of AGW) is settled enough for practical purposes [the practical purposes being the political policies for dealing with the climate situation]. And the "numerical consensus" is well over 99% and climbing ever closer to 100%.
Nevertheless, this thread here stays open for those who wish to split hairs about what are nowadays irrelevant trivialities. ;-)
Pl , you are correct in stating that AGW is "a thing" in the sense of a reality. But the "A Thing" phrase is so widely applied to all sorts of abstract concepts & ephemeral fashions, that it becomes quite ambiguous and unhelpful in our discussion here.
The surveys assessing the state of the (climate) science show that the (scientific) consensus, as measured by the published scientific papers in recent years, is in effect 100%. Over the years, there's been a tiny (and reducing) number of "contrarian" papers ~ and these papers have been mutually contradictory in their expressed concepts, and have utterly failed to present any valid evidence to support themselves.
In the far looser terminology of the Consensus in the form of an opinion poll of scientists . . . surely the only worthwhile poll can be made of scientists who are well-informed on climate science and who have definite expertise in this field.
Even rather old studies [such as the Cook 2013 study] show that the greater the climate expertise of the scientists, the closer to 100% is their "consensus of opinion".
And surely the whole concept of numerical consensus loses any useful meaning if the assessments include more and more of the ill-informed and the deliberately ignorant. Surely there can be no real value in a consensus that includes the opinions of blowpipe-toting hunters in the upper Orinoco River or iPhone-toting hipsters in the upper Missouri River.
Pl , the "non-binary" question you mention, is one that has been much discussed in years past. This, and your "original points", are all examples of imprecision of expression; and I must yet again beg you to clarify what you are driving at.
.
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william5331 at 05:58 AM on 4 May 2019What's Earth's ideal temperature?
The ideal temperature is the one in which we have built our cities, to a large extent where the sea meets the ocean, the temperature in which we have developed our crops and the infrastructure to grow them. If the world had been three degrees warmer as we developed into a modern society, that would be the ideal temperature. Our cities would now be further upsteam from where they are today (on the higher sea shore) and our agriculture would have been developed over the years to fit this higher temperature and different climate zones. Read Plows Plagues and Petroleum by Ruddiman for a pretty convincing argument why this present interglacial period has been so much more stable than past ones.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:47 AM on 4 May 2019What's Earth's ideal temperature?
nigelj,
"The backfire effect seems to happen mostly when people are challenged over ideas that define their worldview and sense of self..."
Improved awareness and understanding of climate science leads to awareness and understanding of the required corrections of developed human activity, which cannot be isolated from the realization of the related corrections of perceptions of status that are required.
Trying to improve understanding of climate science can directly challenge people's ideas that define their worldview and sense of self. People willing to improve/expand their worldview and correct their sense of selfworth are not the problem. The socioeconomic-political systems encouraging people to be more Egoist are undeniably developing people who want to be as big a part of the problem (benefiting as much as possible from harmful unsustainable actions) as they can get away with.
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pl at 01:06 AM on 4 May 2019There is no consensus
Philippe Chantreau @795,
assuming you are commenting my "nitpicking" here. I believe I already stated I don't consider these considerations critical to the actual topic of AGW and I don't claim it has high priority on any related to-do list. However, I also consider the question how a consensus in measured and how the resulting "numerical level" is adjusted for apparent systemic biases to be relevant - both in general (as some kind of methodological best practice, regardless of the field) and also in the field of climate science, if not for anything else, at least to prevent possible attacks from deniers. I'm afraid people waste time on many less useful things than that.
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pl at 00:54 AM on 4 May 2019There is no consensus
Eclectic @794,
first, you must excuse some inaccuracy in my text, English is not my strongest skill. By "AGW is a thing" as a simplified statement of the consensus proposition I simply mean "GW is happening and human influence on it is significant" - or similar statement where I don't expect any disagreement.
You did not address my original points though - you expressed your view and opinions - which BTW I don't have many reasons to disagree with - but what I was looking for was to see, how these variables (and maybe I added another one in later comments) were controlled for in studies establishing the level of consensus - I haven't seen that in the study I linked to, nor in the comments.
Also, I wouldn't call it "objections" - I'm simply interested in some details of the "consensus measurement" methodology.
Regarding the "non-binary nature", it's rather trivial, see final paragraph of @793. No true scientist can claim something with absolute 100% confidence, despite human brains have tendency to use such heuristic. It's not an off-topic here, because - let me quote myself: We would probably agree that it's something completely different to claim "90+% of scientists agree, that the probability of AGW is above x" when the x is 50% compared to say x=99%.
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greyowl at 23:32 PM on 3 May 2019Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry
Thanks very much, Rodger, your explanation exactly answers myquestions.
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nigelj at 08:09 AM on 3 May 2019What's Earth's ideal temperature?
And of course I recognise that vested interests and political ideology lead to denial of science, but the research seems to suggest convincing at least some of these people to reconsider may not be impossible.
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nigelj at 07:39 AM on 3 May 2019What's Earth's ideal temperature?
Well said. Something related: It's often been said that facts don't convince doubters , (like pointing out the ideal temperature is what we have right now and relatively rapid change is what causes problems).
According to my paper copy of Scientific American dated march 2019, in an article called "why we believe in conspiracy theories" (paraphrasing) research has traditionally suggested facts, logic and evidence don't convince doubters, and just causes doubters to "dig their heels in deeper", the so called "backfire effect", but more recent research suggests this effect is rare.
New research finds pointing out logical inconsistencies in conspiracy theories, and facts about political issues does have persuasive effects on people. The research concludes backfire effect is more tenuous than previously thought. The backfire effect seems to happen mostly when people are challenged over ideas that define their their worldview and sense of self, so this is something to avoid doing.
The article also showed how encouraging analytical thinking helps.
So perhaps countering climate denialists with facts is not such a waste of time afterall. I have always had a strong instinct this is the case. Imho there will of course be a few people that will never change their minds on climate change (there is an actual flat earth society, and these guys are serious) but I would suggest this is a pretty small minority of people.
And personally I think pointing out logical falacies is important as well, and sadly something that was not well executed by media in general and the science community in the earlier days of the debate, but is better now thank's to things like John Cooks work.
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ilfark2 at 04:55 AM on 3 May 2019Rebellious Times
Nick Palmer and SkS generally: While Beckwith and McPherson seem a bit out there, there does seem to be an evolving concensus that many things are happening much faster than expected, esp. in the arctic (and, per Beckwith, and you can track down the paper he mentions) they just strated tracking arctic Nitrous Oxide.
Combine this with Richard Alley's work (among others, I'm sure) that abrupt climate change very likely happened before plus the idea in the 1990s that 1.5 might lead to feedback loops and 2 degrees certainly would, wouldn't it be better to err on the side of 0 emissions by tomorrow (which would save lifes via air quality among other causes) ?
Last I checked, methane is increasing in a quite an unexplained, unaccounted for clip (of course Beckwith et al point to the vast area of perma frost not monitored)...
Point being, yes many of the studies of feedback systems in the arctic are in first stages, can we afford to wait the decade it would take to verify their findings?
As Richard Alley said in his presentation to the AGS years ago, there might only be a 5% chance, but there is a 5% the climate flips.
If that happens it very likely could be PETM or post Siberian Traps.
Or am I missing something? Did you guys update this site to include studies that explain the increases in methane and CO2 above the arctic? That wamer soils are starting to be become carbon sources? That warmer oceans are beginning to become a less effective sink possibly leading to a source?
Even if all this is inaccurate, there are something like 122,000 coal fired plants being built around the world now. Tars sands, fracking... all this has to be stopped. How can we get the world to pull together in a democratic way other than deposing market systems and aknowledging we have to plan our resource use and help each other to live sustainably on the planet via changing energy and agriculture?
In terms of material necessity (food, shelter, healthcare), the proportion off the population that does anything is miniscule. If we shared these jobs in a democratic way, expanded education and research, created walking cities we could drop emissions drastically in a day.
Free Catalonia of the 1930s is a good model (among others).
And as XR points out, fear can lead to freeze, flight or fight.
But, again, if you've debunked all this, point me to the article and I'll happily sleep better.
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Wilmer_T at 03:46 AM on 3 May 201910 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
It would be inteeresting to hear some comments to this more recent paper related to (9)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682618305030?sf207293750=1#bib9
/Wilmer T
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed link. Please learn to do this yourself with the link tool in the comments editor.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:47 AM on 3 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
nigelj@16,
I agree that the article could have added clarifying points regarding the statement that only a small protion of impacts are estimeated. But the following statements in the article indicate that the costs determined by study were based on a limited evaluation.
"examines 22 different climate economic impacts related to health, infrastructure, electricity, water resources, agriculture, and ecosystems."
"The challenge is that humans tend to most easily visualize and focus on economic impacts, but it’s difficult to quantify the costs of many climate change consequences like lost health and lives, trauma and suffering, or species extinctions and reduced biodiversity."
"The Martinich-Crimmins report does not take into consideration impacts of worsening extreme weather events on crops, and it therefore underestimates agricultural losses. The research anticipates that although yields will decline for most staple crops – especially for barley, corn, cotton, and rice, but with the exception of wheat – farmers will adapt by using more farmland, changing the crops they grow, and increasing prices. As a result, most of the climate change impacts on the agricultural sector would be passed on to food consumers, in effect, to everybody."
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nigelj at 07:41 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
Regarding the article is not entirely clear why "only a small portion of the impacts of climate change are estimated". Its also not clear if infrastructure damage includes more extreme weather as only sea level rise and associated flooding is mentioned.
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nigelj at 06:48 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
JW Rebel @11, capitalism is defined in my dictionary as private ownership of the means of production combined with the profit motive. Limited liability companies are a typical although non essential component. I have no quibble with that definition, and its probably reasonably universally understood.
But definitions are indeed so important, and where we often end up talking at cross purposes where people are working with different definitions.
I think what you have done is given a good description of the serious problems capitalism can cause at least regarding capitalism in its pure, "laissez faire" form. This is less well understood. At the very least one could see this as the toxic side effects of capitalism. Monopoly capitalism seems like another problem to me, aka the giants like facebook.
The trouble is collective ownership of capital and the means of production does not have a great history. (fwiw I tend to favour a middle way version of capitalism as in Scandinavia that combines capitalist and socialist ideas in a practical way. I'm all ears if anyone has a better idea that is actually realistic.)
I also agree with Nick Palmers suggestions on full environmental cost accounting. There are many things like this that could bring some sort of private ownership based free market (as in free trade) economy into some fort of balance with the environment, or at least "minimise harm". It does mean a regulatory approach, but regulation makes sense in areas like environmental impacts where companies don't adequately self regulate. Of course its very hard work to get such ideas adopted, or into legislation, but alternative more radical economic reform, building completely new economic systems etc, is also hard work as well and carries risks and may not work.
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nigelj at 06:29 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
Jef @9, I respect your opinions normally, but its none too clear what you are saying here. I have to guess that you are saying everything humans do leads to climate change and other forms of pollution, and so more of the same can only make the problem worse, so we are all doomed?
But isn't that a gross generalisation? Some things impact the environment more than others. For example industrial farming is harsher on the environment than organic and regenerative farming, although both have impacts and nothing is likely to be perfect. So don't we at least have choices? For example, renewable energy is less destructive to the environment than fossil fuels?
Or are you saying people are so short of money nothing is left to combat climate change?
And given what you say (whatever it is) what are your solutions?
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nigelj at 06:27 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
M Sweet @5, surely you realise from the context that I meant by "throwing money at the problem" I loosely meant building out new and/ or replacement infrastructure? I said nothing to suggest it would be an expensive exercise, with no economic benefits. I agree with your other points.
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william5331 at 05:50 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
In the run up to the recent presidential elections in America, when all the Democratic candidates were asked "What is the most important issue today", the only candidate that replied "Climate Change" was Bernie Sanders. He is running again this time.
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JWRebel at 05:03 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
@2 NigelJ
You never defined "capitalism", a concept first coined by Marx, which is often bandied about as though it is self-evident what it means. Some think free markets (didn't ancient Egyptian farmers have pretty free markets?) whereas others hear "free markets" to mean legalized racketeering by favoured "legal persons" (incorporated collectives with special legal immunities). I will take a stab at a definition to start the thought process.
Capitalism is a historical development in human economic organization and production where all the surplus value created by various social partners accrues only to the private owner, thus fostering scarcity amid plenty in a ruthless competition between businesses involved for even more capital intensive efficiency, where social costs, ecological burdens and other "externalities" are artificially compartementalized outside of the profit and balance accounts, e.g., think of the paint factory that costs (the community) more to clean up once defunct and bankrupt than all the profits generated over the last 100 years of its existence.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:34 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
Money is, and is not, the problem. Behaviours and developed preferences, because of money games, are the problem. Examples of the problematic preferences and behaviours are:
- What people develop a willingness to try to get away with to 'get money'
- What people develop a desire to spend money on
- How easily people can become slaves because of desires to appear superior relative to others (either becoming debt slaves or immoral harmful work slaves)
The socioeconomic-political systems driven by competition for perceptions of status through power, popularity or profit are the problem, especially when the powerful science of misleading marketing can be successfully abused by people who harmfully immorally win undeserved perceptions of status.
The developed results of those fatally flawed socioeconomic-political systems are harmful unsustainable Egoism rather than helpful sustainable Altruism. The fatal flaws of the systems must be corrected in order for Altruism to effectively govern and limit what is going on. That is the only way to achieve the required corrections for the benefit of the future of a robust diversity of humanity fitting into a robust diversity of other life on this, or any other, amazing planet.
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MA Rodger at 03:13 AM on 2 May 2019Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry
greyowl @25,
To answer your second question first, while the atmosphere consists of gases that are transparent for the IR radiation emitted by the earth (the dry atmosphere comprises 78.08% N2, 20.95% O2 & 0.93% Ar), the important consideration is how far an IR photon can travel before encountering a GHG that will absorb it. Bascally, air has masses of molecules and even at 400ppm (or 0.04%), a photon in the 15 micron waveband will encounter a CO2 and be absorbed in a matter of a few metres. It thus has 12,000m of atmospheric depth to negotiate in some very short steps.
And the first of your questions, the importance of CO2 is two-fold. Firstly it is a very long lived GHG and will persist in the atmosphere for tens of thousands of years. CO2 differs from H2O in this respect which is quickly lost from the atmosphere if the temperature drops. Secondly, CO2 is by far the most abundant long-lived GHG. It provides roughly 20% of our planet's GH effect. Much of the rest of the GH effect results from H2O in its various atmospheric forms but the level of H2O is dependent on that 20% CO2 GH effect. With no CO2 there would be trivial levels of H2O.
Perahps I should add that these are direct answers to your two questions and may not hit the nail-you-were-seeking entirely squarely on the head.
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greyowl at 01:53 AM on 2 May 2019Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry
How is it that CO2 has such a dominant effect athough its concentration in the atmosphere is so small? Why doesn't the low-energy radiation from the earth's surface simply escape through the atmosphere (N2, O2) into space?
Moderator Response:[PS] You might also like to look at the "CO2 is just a trace gas" myth for more understanding.
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jef12506 at 00:58 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
Nigelj- I never said capitalism or singled out any economic system.
Money, which is what every person on the planet needs so as not to suffer and die, is what 99% of the population spends most if not all of their waking hours doing everything and anything they can to get.
This simple fact is what accounts for 99.9% of all polution.
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Nick Palmer at 00:33 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
@nigelj 3
"The solution looks to me like we have to modify capitalism enough to make it less harsh on the environment. It's certainly clear enough that neoliberal capitalism is problematic and has to change"
Yup. A carbon tax would go a long way towards sorting out emissions and if the revenues were all fed back to the taxpayers, that would keep the right wing happier. For things beyond 'just' climate change, sorting out the whole 7-billion-people-want-a-good-lifestyle impact on the planet, I think 'full cost accounting', 'ecological economics', environmental 'economics' or some other variant of the idea which states that in a monetised transactional economy, things will only get valued enough if a price is put on them. A business will, indeed be forced to, pollute the environment external to its operations if it costs it nothing to do so. Put the cost of polluting 'externalities' onto the accountant's bottom line profitability of a company and free market pressures will steer companies to try and minimise those external costs to maximise their profitability. Far more efficient than passing laws to control pollution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_full-cost_accounting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics -
One Planet Only Forever at 00:17 AM on 2 May 2019Rebellious Times
nigelj @15,
Agreed. Describing the behaviour in detail is better than just using a label. However, Neo-Liberal is a better label than the far more generic Conservative.
And the solution can be fairly simply described.
Altruistic helpful improvement of awareness and understanding and its application to correct harmful unsustainable developments and pursue and improve on the Sustainable Development Goals is what is required.
However, the hard task is getting everyone to understand that any activity or institution, not just capitalism, needs to be governed and limited by that Helpful Altruism. And that the higher the status a person has the higher the requirement for them to be helpful that way. There would be no expectation that the poorest and least fortunate would be helpful or have any influence. So anyone of higher perceived status not wanting to be more helpful can justifiably be claimed to be choosing to be less influential and be relegated (penalized if necessary) down to the lower levels of the poorer and least fortunate. They do not deserve any perceptions of higher status than their chosen level of helpfulness.
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wideEyedPupil at 23:11 PM on 1 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
@nigelj activist works as Greta says. changing the system is as important as actiing within the system, we need both, at the same time, in short order. All of the above when it comes to cliamte and even then who knows how bad it will get b/c of tipping points we may have already crossed, no cliamte scientist can be sure we havent. We just must do the best each of us can as limited humans in limited orgs and systems.
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wideEyedPupil at 23:08 PM on 1 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
sorry, was their any confirmation analysis that the USA as a political and economic enitity will exist in 2090? I agree this kind of analysis is overly conservative and fails to be cognisation of the inabililty to responded (even rich antions) when a nation gets hit by compounding catastrophic event i.e. health epidemic + crop failure/food scaricty + infrastructure collapse + population movement + hostilities/civil unrest/civil war + governece failure + new exrteme weather events on the back of all that.
There was an online futurecasting thing called "superstruct" IIRC many years ago at they had people look at extreme events in five or six seperate areas like health, farming/food, climate, population movments, war, resource scarity and even just a few combined could paralys many countries abililty to respond to new events. But when CC was put in the mix many professions in these fields and disaster responce were saying it was potentially catastrophic in major ways, serious break down of law and order, millions of deaths etc etc -
michael sweet at 22:32 PM on 1 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
Nigelj,
I think you are wrong that "the only realistic way of mitigating climate change is probably to "throw money at the problem".
Many of the power plants in the USA are old and nearing the end of their lifetime. New ones need to be built to replace tehm. We have the choice: build new fossil plants or we can build renewable plants to replace them.
Many researchers have shown that it is cheaper to build out renewable energy than to build out fossil fuels. Our chice is to build out fossil plants and line the pockets of current oligarths like Rex Tillerson or build out renewable energy and all be much healthier since air pollution will be so much lower.
Sometime in the future the fracking industry will go belly up and gas prices will skyrocket. If we build out renewable energy it is already cheaper. In the future fossil energy can only go up in price as less remains in the ground. A significant part of coal's problem is that they have mined all the easy to mine coal and remaining coal is more expensive to mine. Mines in the American west and Australia are lower grade coal which is more expensive to mine for the same amount of energy.
Argue "Save money, build renewable energy" not "throw money at the problem".
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Mentor at 22:29 PM on 1 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
If climate change will cost the US only hundreds of billions US$ by 2090, this is peanuts and nothing will be done. It must cost hundreds of trillions, only then something will be done probably.
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nigelj at 17:27 PM on 1 May 2019Rebellious Times
OPOF @ 8 neoliberalism is probably a preferable term to pointing at conservatives, but is still not ideal because it means different things to different people. It loosely includes deregulation, privatisation and free trade etc. I think neoliberalism gives the private sector excessive power but we should not go back to protectionist trade.
What we really have to do is articulate an alternative system. Countries like Finland and Norway have quite good socio economic systems, although its hard to sum it up briefly. Most problems have been solved somewhere in the world. It's no coincidence that Scandinavia are doing ok on climate change mitigation.
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nigelj at 16:54 PM on 1 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
So in conclusion, therefore the only realistic way of mitigating climate change is probably to "throw money at the problem". The problem is fossil fuels, and realistic alternatives do actually exist, and that means spending money and working within the capitalist system, more or less. Not easy of course, but I would contend probably more likely to happen than everyone abandoning capitalism completely, or making radical reductions in energy use.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:46 PM on 1 May 2019Rebellious Times
I agree that claiming something horrible will be happening much sooner than it actually will happen is unhelpful. However, it is important to point out the most horrible collective result that could develop as a result of everyone's lack of interest in corrective actions, or their belief that only those people who care should solve the problem themselves (expecting others to solve a problem while you make it worse is worse than irrational).
Socioeconomic-political systems are harmfully and insidiously encouraging people to develop:
- Less concern for things that will happen further in the future. It is not rational to consider a harmful event to be less of a concern if it is further in the future (a broken leg is a broken leg). But many people tend to react and think that way.
- less concern for things that will happen to people they are unlikely to know or care about. Something bad happening to a person cannot rationally be diminished in severity based on 'how well acquainted you are to the person who is suffering' (a person harmed is not less harmed because you do not know them well).
- less concern for things that an individual can think they are only contributing a small amount to. The collective total of actions is the reality. It is not rational to think that individual contributions to an accumulating problem are irrelevant. Every bit adds to the problem.
Issues like climate science (and there are many issues like it), suffer a lack of corrective action because the status-quo socioeconomic-political systems develop harmful irrational ways of thinking that resist correction.
Developing an effective ethical solution within a status-quo that encourages unethical attitudes to develop may not be possible. It may be like that classic description of Insanity. Presenting shocking claims (shock therapy) may be required to bring about the required corrections of thinking that have developed in the status-quo.
As an example it is incorrect to talk about the temperature increase that will occur by 2100. That may be meaningful to scientists, but what really matters politically is the highest temperature that will be created by the accumulated harmful human impacts. It may even be politically appropriate to present what that future would look like with an RCP far exceeding 8.5, combined with the statement that everyone reasonably wealthy today who is resisting correction of their way of life, demanding no loss of perceptions of prosperity or status because of the required correction, is immorally contributing to the creation of that horrific harmful future. The wealthier they are, the more immoral their resistance to correction is.
That change of perception, increased perception that the resisters of 'climate science and its identified corrections of what has developed' are harmful immoral actors, may be required to effectively rapidly reduce the amount of harm being done to future generations.
The past 30 years seem to indicate that compromising to accommodate everyone's personal sovereign interests, no ruffled feathers among the peacocks, will not achieve the rationally required result of rapidly ending the individual contributions of harm to future generations.
Connecting the worst of the possible futures to the worst of the wealthiest is not wrong. Rhetorically tarring and feathering the worst of the wealthy peacocks by pointing out that they are the most immoral and least deserving of respect in the population should not be required, but that depends on how resistant to helping others, especially the future of humanity, they choose to try to be.
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nigelj at 12:51 PM on 1 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
Jef, I have also considered whether money and the established economic system is the cause of the climate problem, and whether more of the same is capable of fixing the problem. However its simplistic to say capitalism is the cause of the problem. Taking just one example the soviet union still burned oil and used money. Even if we argue that the "industrial economy" is the cause of climate change, and this can be obviously argued, the alternatives like agrarian communities are not without their own problems.
And the trouble is radically different alternatives like alternative communities based on self sufficient living, bartered goods, and shared ownership have been tried for decades and have a history of failure, and it's clear few people want that sort of life. In addition, if you are suggesting we try to fix the climate problem with mostly just drastic reductions to use of energy, we will impoverish people and again its not realistic to me that it would ever happen even if we wanted it to.
The solution looks to me like we have to modify capitalism enough to make it less harsh on the environment. It's certainly clear enough that neoliberal capitalism is problematic and has to change. Finland's socio economic system is a viable alternative in some ways. Perhaps more use could be made of not for profit companies. We obviously need to accept the state has a legitimate, useful role in legislating environmental protection.
And obviously there is a realistic case to waste less energy, recycle more, and to be less materialistic. Anything else might sound nice, but you have to ask yourself can you seriously see people embracing it?
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michael sweet at 09:35 AM on 1 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #17
This article at Thinkprogress describes a poll from CNN that claims 95% of Democratic or Cemocratic leaning voters consider climate change was very important or somewhat important for a candidate to work on.
A similar poll in December indicated 56% of Republicians supported a carbon tax.
Thinkprogress is a liberal news site and sometimes stretches the data but it is a great sign that climate is on the political radar. There are rumors that the Trump campaign is putting together a list of "climate change victories"!!!
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