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Daniel Mocsny at 02:36 AM on 30 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #30
#6 billev at 10:21 AM on 29 July, 2018
U.S. history records many large forest fires throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
Of course, but you are sampling from a long period of time (centuries) to find exceptional events, which you then compare to exceptional events from a much shorter period of time (the last few years).This is like comparing the heights of men in a professional basketball team to the heights of men in the general population. If you search through billions of men, you will find a few exceptionally tall ones. If we were to apply your reasoning about forest fires, we might erroneously conclude there is nothing unusual about the heights of basketball players.
The name for what you are doing is: selection bias.
It's hard for a basketball team of just 12 men to have taller individuals than the general population of billions. But that ignores what is special about the basketball team: its extraordinary concentration of tall men.
To conclude nothing has changed weather-wise since the 19th and 20th centuries, you'd need to wait for the 21st and 22nd centuries to play out so you could compare equal spans of time. But we only have a small sample of the 21st century so far. And so far that brief span looks unusual compared to most of the similar spans within the last two centuries. What's more, climate scientists have a well-developed theory to account for what is different, giving us good reason to believe we're not just seeing an anomaly, but part of an ominous trend.
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Daniel Mocsny at 02:25 AM on 30 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #30
Those worst-case scenarios are still quite unlikely, since they require both that we do nothing to alter our emissions path, which is still arcing upward, [...]
And the first step in "altering our emissions path" would be to start speaking about it plainly and directly, instead of using stilted distancing language constructed specifically to obfuscate reality and reinforce inaction. "Emissions path" is a euphemism to distract people from the behavior changes necessary for a sustainable civilization. If we can't even speak honestly about what a low-carbon lifestyle looks like, how can we adopt one?
The only "action" that matters for reducing emissions is behavior change by individuals. Namely, individuals must become moral. Morality is the force that takes the fun out of behaviors that are otherwise enjoyable to the actor but inflict harm on other people, other species, and the shared environment. A moral person may be forced through circumstances to inflict harm on others, but a moral person cannot enjoy doing inflicting harm, and will constantly look for ways to defeat those circumstances. Neither does a moral person use the kind of stilted distancing language which has become standard in the climate change community to deny personal responsibility for causing climate change.
As long as people remain immoral enough to actually enjoy doing all the things that account for their personal carbon footprints that remain 5, 10, 20 or more times higher than the carbon fair share, we absolutely remain on pace to burn all the world's economically extractable fossil fuels.
To see what has to stop or scale back by at least 90%, we need only look at where the bulk of a typical modern household's greenhouse gas emissions come from: driving, flying, heating, cooling, eating meat, owning meat-eating pets, and proceating. There are thousands more sources of emissions, but each person's focus needs to be on the largest sources of his or her emissions, not on some abstract world of huge numbers and other people and nations beyond his or her control. Until we control what we can control, how will we control what other people control?
As long as people lack the moral development to stop them from experiencing pleasure when they rape the climate - for example, by flying on holiday - then they will continue to rape the climate and enjoy doing it. No amount of policy tinkering can substitute for morality, thanks to the iron laws of economics. As long as people are willing to spend money to buy things they enjoy, their money concentrates into the hands of whoever can give them what they want. The money then buys politicians, churns out disinformation, or whatever else is necessary to continue meeting the demand for climate-raping goods and services. The election of Trump shows the folly of imagining policy can substitute for individual morality.
In contrast, a moral person cannot be lobbied. A moral person does not have to worry about getting re-elected. A moral person cannot be bought. He or she does what is right because it is right. For civilization to survive, it needs the vast majority of its constituent citizens to become moral.
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sailrick at 16:19 PM on 29 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #30
Billev
Fire season in much of Western U.S. has increased by two months since 1970.
In California it has increased by 70 days. -
One Planet Only Forever at 14:30 PM on 29 July 2018Facebook video spreads climate denial misinformation to 5 million users
Al Gore's "The Assault on Reason" is a detailed presentation of what has been happening in the USA.
Essentially, the acquisition of wealth or power is becoming less constrained by good reason. And wealth has been getting an increased ability to purchase power.
People are more easily moved by appeals to selfish fears than by appeals to be more caring altruists. They believe simple claims from demagogues rather than determining if the claim is made for good reason. The Sustainable Development Goals are a compendium of Good Reason.
Climate science presents a threat to unjustified wealthy and powerful people. And those unjustified rich and powerful people can easily get support from people who sense that they would personally lose their currently developed perceptions of prosperity and opportunity if burning of fossil fuels was limited or made to be more expensive.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:30 PM on 29 July 2018Comprehensive study: carbon taxes won't hamper the economy
nigelj and scaddenp,
The basis for my position is the need for good reason to limit or govern what is done.
I admit that such a position will never connect with someone who will allow personal unjustified beliefs to overpower their inherent ability to understand good reason and the importance of limiting what people do based on good reason.
Democracy can only develop sustainable good results if it is limited or governed by good reason. The same goes for capitalism or any other system, including communism.
Al Gore's book "The Assault on Reason" is a very comprehensive presentation of what is going on in the USA. It includes the observation that concentration of wealth and power has repeatedly developed damaging results.
The problem is people abandoning the responsibility to learn and reason, choosing instead to idolize the simplistic appealing claims of demagogues offering prosperity and protection in exchange for more power for leaders to do unreasonable things, things they cannot reasonably justify.
I consider it to be necessary to change the way that unreasonable people think about things before attempting to help them by use of good reason. Without changing how they think they will do what elected Republicans have done 'remained dogmatically immoveable'.
That means talking past a person who claims to be a conservative but who is actually an unreasoning faithful fan of dogma with no interest in developing good reasoning as the basis for what they consider to be just and fair.
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scaddenp at 13:24 PM on 29 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #30
Right, and the establishment of fire servise and massive increase in their fire fighting capability could not be relevant? Of course you could look at some peer reviewed research. I dare you.
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michael sweet at 11:44 AM on 29 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #30
Billev,
Yes there have been fires in the past. It also has rained in the past. Records conclusively prove that the area burned in the past decade is much greater than it was in any past decade. The increase in fires is caused by climate change.
I note that you have provided no links to support your wild claim that past fires compare to current fires. That is because current fires are much greater in extent than any past fires and you cannot find any citation that support your claims.
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billev at 10:21 AM on 29 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #30
U.S. history records many large forest fires throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Link to forest fires of the 1930's and you will be led to descriptions of many large fires throughout this country over the years.
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Sunspot at 08:54 AM on 29 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #30
nigelj - I certainly don't disagree, but I'm sure anytime the local news or weather even barely mentions Global Warming, they get bombarded by the deniers. And given the number of death threats Climate Scientists receive, I can't blame them for dancing around the subject. People like you and me have to just keep speaking the truth. Unfortunately, as things deteriorate, we will be heard more.
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michael sweet at 07:49 AM on 29 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #29
JimKirk,
Apparently I was mistaken about the heat waves and British concern about food. This article in the Guardian discusses both the drought affecting food yields and Brexit affecting food supply.
Other sources say that Russian wheat is suffering. We will have to wait a few weeks to find out how food yields across the world have been affected by the heat waves.
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nigelj at 07:44 AM on 29 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #30
The media have done a bad job, by not reporting well enough on climate issues and connections between heatwaves and climate change.
Heatwaves have already become more frequent. The media could at least have mentioned this, while awaiting expert opinion on this specific northern hemisphere heatwave.
Imho there may well be a non linear sort of response where heatwave problems could accelerate if we do nothing. There are many examples of abrupt change in the past climate record.
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michael sweet at 07:23 AM on 29 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #30
Anecdotal story:
I live in Tampa, Florida. Some of the city is very low lying (less than 3 meters or 10 feet) but most is higher than 20 feet. My son wants to buy a starter house. We went to look at one that was a nice, small house and the neighborhood looked OK. It was priced about $40,000 below comparable houses he had looked at.
Then I noticed that there were mangroves at the end of the street and the house was much less than 10 feet above sea level. The neighbors across the street had recently raised their septic system, which means their old system flooded from sea level rise.
I think the price of the house was lowered because of the flood risk. We did not bother to find out what flood insurance would cost but the newspaper says it is a lot.
Last summer I was in the Chesapeake Bay and in a neighborhood near where I stayed the houses were unsellable due to sea level rise.
Perhaps as more houses lose their value from sea level rise politicians will start to notice.
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Sunspot at 05:07 AM on 29 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #30
Two new things I just ran across: The Russian wheat crop might fail again, along with crop failures in other countries. And fresh water sources are warmer than normal, which limits their cooling ability for nuclear power plants. It's all connected...
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:13 AM on 29 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #30
I'd like to add to that list the severe thunderstorms that happened at the end of the spring in France, flooding multiple regions. France has been experiencing exactly the alternance of drought and flood that was predicted by multiple studies as a resut of the warming climate.
I think this is a very valuable article. We had countless discussions on this site recently with a former lawyer going by the handle of NorrisM and one pivotal argument of his was that causing economic transformations of any kind for climate risks was unjustifiable because these risks were possibilities that could materialize in the future, or not, with unclear probabilites and unclear severity. This already was disonest at thie time, but now has become a completely obsolete line of argument.
Climate change is happening now, its predicted manifestations are happening all over the world, including the rather catastrophic types. Arguing that we can't launch any significant action because potential problems are diluted in an uncertain future is downright stupid.
But the Japanese floods and heat waves carry little weight in the public minds compare to Meghan Markle lates dress or other distractions. We'll eventually get what we deserve, and earn, as a species.
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shoyemore at 07:57 AM on 28 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
Funny ... read a few books on the Oak Island mystery when I was a kid & retained a lifetime's curiousity. Sometime before 1800, somone dug elaborate tunnels on Oak Island, Nova Scotia, with passages connected to the sea, possibly to hide pirate treasure (one theory). Generations of explorers have ripped up and added new layers of confusion to the whole elaborate network. Lovers of a mystery will love Oak Island.
The Laginas (Marty and Rick) returned to the island a few years ago, as the latest generation of explorers. Cannily they made their exploration a Reality TV show, so their research and drilling at least partially pays for itself. The show is watchable & (I think) fun, with a lot of red herrings and cliffhangers (some fake, imho). Personally, their favoured theory of a treasure buried by pre-Columbian Templars is wacko (again, imho).
In the UK, there are repeats on Sky, and I believe a new series in the offing, the 6th. The Laginas, by the way, come across as pretty hard-headed and practical, not starry eyed romantics.
Just enjoy suddenly finding out Marty Lagina is a renewable energy guy. I had wondered where he made his money.
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nigelj at 07:55 AM on 28 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
Lachlan @14, I believe in subsides in general principle, but you have to be careful that you dont get political conyism to buy votes, tax payer funds are limited, and its impossible for countries to be self sufficient in everything, and you don't want to distort free markets and free trade excessively. So subsides need to be limited to things that really make sense, and mostly have time limits applied.
I'm not sure Australias car industry makes sense because Australia is just too small to maintain a viable car industry. Poor countries subsidising food doesn't make much sense for example, and it would be better just to give people financial assistance. Subsidising millionaire farmers doesn't make much sense and is cronyism.
Subsidising renewable energy development makes sense, to help get it established. Subsidising new pharmaceutical drugs makes sense, as industry is reluctant to develop drugs for rare conditions and to develop new antibiotics.
I'm a free trade advocate, But I do agree about the problems of relying on imported energy. Opec has been an ongoing headache, so renewable energy would free us from this although please note countries in Europe already trade in renewable energy surpluses!
And nobody would want to be reliant on imported water for example. And some economic diversity is a good thing, so that countries aren't reliant totally on exporting just a couple of products.
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nigelj at 06:23 AM on 28 July 2018Upcoming webinars on turning misinformation into an educational opportunity
Thank's for doing this work. I don't know how much impact it will have on the climate issue, hopefully as much as possible, but the general principles of recognising logical fallacies, logical reasoning, and identifying reliable evidence are applicable to analysing any field of knowledge or current affairs issue, and are such an important way of understanding whether somebodies claims are valid or not. It also helps us identify our own biases.
The sooner young people are given a good grounding in this the better, especially in the age of the internet with its alternative facts and conspiracy theories. It should all be compulsory in schools, up there with equal importance with the core basic subjects.
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ubrew12 at 03:33 AM on 28 July 2018Facebook video spreads climate denial misinformation to 5 million users
The internet has been really useful in getting some truths, like how to get the water out of your headlights and seal the seams again: Just 'youtube' it. At the same time, its become filled with misinformation about less personal, general interest topics, like climate change, where the moneyed-interests are free to broadcast their lies. As SkS repeats, if you don't innoculate people against these viral lies, they catch the disease and its difficult to dislodge. Commerce is global. The internet is global. Some kind of global governmental watchdog is needed to counter these diseases. I know that sounds like 'one world government', but in the absence of global regulation, we have unregulated global capitalism. This is a place where a gangster like Vladimir Putin can realistically expand his vision from ripping off mere Russia, to ripping off the whole world.
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Lloyd Flack at 00:03 AM on 28 July 2018Facebook video spreads climate denial misinformation to 5 million users
Morano gives me the impression that a major part of his motivation is the thrill of conflict and the pleasure of thinking he has ut down an adversary.
If I am right then he cannot admit that he is wrong and there is an element of bad faith in all his arguments.
Now I think most of us know there is little chance of getting an ideologue to understand. You have to make your aguments for the benefit of bystanders who are willing to try to understand.
But how do you deal with someone like Morano who is probably in part doing it for kicks? How do you make this behaviour recognizable to bystanders?
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Lachlan at 16:59 PM on 27 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
nigelj @12, the Australian car industry was subsidised and not competitive, but only in the way that the army is subsidised and not competitive. Having a manufacturing capability is an important part of any country's national security, and especialy an isolated island nation's.
Similarly, freeing ourselves from imported fossil fuels should be seen as just as worthy of subsidy as maintaining the military is. Russia has a strong hold over Europe because they buy its gas. The Middle East has a strong hold over US policy because of oil.
Until we are energy-independent, we should subsidise the shift to a sustainable electrified economy. That may or may not involve subsidising wind directly, but certainly will involve subsidising energy storage, which is an indirect subsidy to wind.
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michael sweet at 05:15 AM on 27 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
Drivingby,
As pointed out in the video, currently fossil fuels receive much more in subsidies than wind does. Why do you think new technologies like wind should have to work without any subsidies when established industries like coal, gas, oil and nuclear don't?
It seems to me that everyone says they don't like subsidies. In the real world fossil fuels receive huge subsidies. Those will not end. To level the playing field new technologies need to receive a comparable subsidy or it makes it too hard to crack into the market.
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michael sweet at 05:01 AM on 27 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #29
JimKirk,
While you and I am concerned about crop failures due to heat waves, I doubt that the British government is. I think they really are concerned that their food distribution system could have severe problems from Brexit, especially a no-deal Brexit. Since no-deal is looking more likely it might be prudent to stash away some food.
Brexit issues would be something that would be ironed out in a few weeks or months. If there are severe crop disruptions they will affect the food supply for longer and in different ways. The poor would suffer the most.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:33 AM on 27 July 2018Facebook video spreads climate denial misinformation to 5 million users
Indeed it is a bleak time, in the middle of unprecedented material wealth, and security from the traditional chief killers of humans (infectious diseases, by far).
The climate aspect of it is only one side. The true damage is the diminishing ability of the population to distinguish between what's real, or at least a sincere attempt at approaching it, and what is thrown around only to serve the interest of a few.
There is no doubt in my mind that smart phones and social media are quite likely at this point to have a much more negative overall effect on humanity than positive. As of right now, they are having an overall negative effect by quite a margin. Democracy is receeding all over the World. Fascists and populists are gaining ground everywhere because their propaganda finds an ear in attention deficient populations completely unable to think critically, who have forgotten even the recent history of the 20th century. Traditional tyrants have been overthrown only to be replaced by religious fanatics. Long held bastions of freedom become overtly friendly to such ideologies as white supremacism, nazism, and neo-nazis. Even countries that have suffered tremendously in WW2 like Poland are sliding toward the ideology that was unleashed on them only a human lifetime ago.
The people who are in the best position to enact progress, westerners, are obsessed with material things that are of no interest and react like capricious children at the simple thought that they may not have what they're made to want by the enormnous burden of advertisement that have invaded our entire lives. Despite being richer, more secure and more comfortable than ever, they can't contemplate having less and they're full of fear: fear of terrorists that kill minuscule numbers compared to diabetes and other avoidable diseases, fear of having less stuff, or simply of not having in the future all the stuff they have envisioned. It's really sad.
The super rich, except for a few running significant charitable work, seem to have no other drive than getting always richer, without concern to the price of doing so. The new dominant western religion is profit, at any cost, by any means. Large interest groups are so powerful that most nations are too small to do anything against them and essentially are their vassals. African nations can not warn their populations against the danger of tobacco because tobacco companies sue them and they can't defend effectively. Drinkable water supplies are being bought by profit driven private interests everywhere. A new feodal order of money is emerging.
Reality will win eventually, as it always does. Whatever form that takes will likely be a surprise.
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John Hartz at 23:40 PM on 26 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #29
@ Jim Kirk #8
Re your third point, check out:
The Global Heatwave Is About to Hit Your Wallet by Rachel Morison, Marvin G Perez & Nicholas Larkin, Climate Changed, Bloomberg News, July 25, 2018
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JimKirk at 16:41 PM on 26 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #29
Thank you for your response.
(1) Yes, it seems some further articles have come out being more firm in attributing climate change to this northern hemisphere ‘heat wave’ via citation of the jet stream fragmentation (already attributed to climate change via arctic warming) and the warmer north Atlantic (also attributed to climate change). There have also been some articles stating we should perhaps expect summers like this to become the norm.
(2) By way of an easy accessible data point the met office histograms have all had temperatures peaking early evening time for July with variation of peaks between 1700 and 1900 hours. This has met with what many have experienced on the ground in the South of the UK and has been a topic much discussed around the dinner table. Not a scientific analysis but the night temperatures have also been high (accepted) and heat dissipation has not been as intense (by virtue of the accepted hotter nights)
(3) When I read articles about farmers saying their crop yields across not just the UK but Europe and elsewhere too have already been significantly effected and one counts growing weeks until Spring (March), then how can one not consider the stockpiling of food as unrelated to that too?
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nigelj at 16:39 PM on 26 July 2018Facebook video spreads climate denial misinformation to 5 million users
Yes it may be hard work getting Zuckerberg to do anything about Morano. Even this material isnt serious enough to be banned: "Facebook on Tuesday said that Infowars founder Alex Jones’s monologue threatening special counsel Robert Mueller is not a violation of its platform rules. In his rant, Jones accuses Mueller of covering up sex crimes, challenges the special counsel to an imaginary gunfight and pantomimes shooting the former FBI director."
Phew! If that doesn't violate facebook rules what does? Well apparently nude artworks by the painter Rubens are a terrible violation. Some websites have pretty unusual priorities....
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nigelj at 14:35 PM on 26 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
Driving By @9, yes in many places subsidies on wind power have probably served their purpose and should be phased out. The cost of generation is now low enough that new projects won't need subsidies. However it will vary from place to place.
I think the vast majority of subsidies generally should have time limits built in so industries don't become dependent. The Australian car industry had subsidies for decades and never became truly competitive. Subsidies should be help to get started, then companies have to stand or fall on market conditions. Creative destruction and all that.
I think the newer wind farms are not so noisy. Most are away in rural areas in New Zealand.
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nigelj at 14:20 PM on 26 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
Scaddenp @10, you are probably right that economics is the driver of wind power in NZ. I would just add there were growing environmental concerns about new dam projects as well as cost concerns.
I just had a look at the Te Apati wind farm by Meridian Energy, the first large wind farm, and it did get given carbon credits under the new cap and trade scheme as an incentive, but this was after construction had already started. So it looks like the basic decision to build was economic.
The ETS may have helped encourage later projects, who knows. I get the sense the effect would have been minimal.
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scaddenp at 12:44 PM on 26 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
nigelj, I dont think wind power developed because of climate change policy. Looks to be a purely economic, market-based decision. FF doesnt get much of a subsidy here so cost per MWh is comparitively expensive especially compared to hydro. The advantage for coal/gas was always minimal dependence on weather/season (well Huntly was limited in summer generation by the extent they could heat the river).
I think more of case that electricity demand increased and hydro options got scant. Wind power was demonstrated (Brooklyn) as a technology that could compete in the NZ market. It might be intermittent but the wind still blows in dry years. However, it has done it tough since 2013 against new geothermal.
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DrivingBy at 11:33 AM on 26 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
@nigelj
I agree that wind is worth subsidizing, up to some point in time. Wind is no longer a new technology so in my humble opinion that point in time is now. Subsidies should not be cut all at once, but they should start diminishing today. They should also be in aready industrial or noisy areas, as they make a contant background noise the ruins the silence of otherwise quiet areas, where ppl who need silence go to get away from constant noise.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:22 AM on 26 July 2018Facebook video spreads climate denial misinformation to 5 million users
I doubt Zuckerberg cares at all - it's just business.
As for "science and reason": remember that Mother Nature Bats Last.
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nigelj at 09:24 AM on 26 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
Correction. The first wind farm in New Zealand was built by Genesis Energy in 1997. It was relatively small, and I had forgotten about it.
I don't recall any specific government climate change policies from that period, but it must have been a result of emerging climate change concerns, because we have coal and gas reserves.
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bjchip at 09:05 AM on 26 July 2018Facebook video spreads climate denial misinformation to 5 million users
It would be good if there were a method by which we could complain to Zuckerberg personally about this clown. Banning him and his ilk would be a start. Facebook should start taking a stand for truth, since it is being used as a source of information (news).
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scaddenp at 08:28 AM on 26 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #29
Not a high profile science bod, but I will attempt.
1/ Caution is required. Climate change obviously make heatwaves hotter, but proximal cause of actual heatwave is in the behaviour of jet streams. There is evidence to link climate change to this (see here and here) but it would be a brave person to call this settled science. Trying to explain how the media behaves though it well outside the scope of this site.
2/ Hmm. I dont see any evidence for this. Peak temperature is usually 3pm and a quick perusal of UK weather data doesnt suggest any obvious change in that. Do you have an analysis to back this up?
3/ Seems unlikely to me. The 2016 requests in Germany for stockpiling (not just food and water) were issued by CD during spate of attacks. Guessing reasons for government behaviour can be as difficult as for media. Not an area where any physical science has much to contribute.
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nigelj at 07:54 AM on 26 July 2018Facebook video spreads climate denial misinformation to 5 million users
People like Morano promote ignorance. They abuse the right of free speech.
Social media does create a global platform for ignorance. Sometimes I wonder if the internet is doing more harm than good.
The climate denial and general internet nonsense shows little regard for dispassionately examining the evidence. It is clearly politically motivated and based on self interest, when you listen to peoples rhetoric, and people are reluctant to back down from this position by looking too closely.
People get locked into beliefs because they are reluctant to admit they have been fooled. This is why people adhere so rigidly to conspiracies like the nasa moon landings thing, even when presented with obvious evidence otherwise.
I agree I hope science and reason prevail. I wish they would prevail a little faster.
It's hard countering an endless gish gallop of myths, and I think the one to focus on most is that climate change is being allegedly caused by solar cycles, because this will be in most peoples minds as a possibility. Show people good evidence that solar cycles don't explain recent warming. But yes, the consensus is very important as well and well proven to be above 90% by numerous studies.
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nigelj at 06:54 AM on 26 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
The first windfarm in New zealand was buit in about 2005 by Meridian Energy, and without government subsidies. It was a great success.
The Labour government had been talking about a carbon tax for several years before then, and I recall reading opinion was that Meridian built the scheme because they could see a carbon tax coming anyway. In reality that legislation was never passed and a the next government introduced an emissions trading scheme around 2008. More windfarms were subsequently built.
It looks like these various mechanisms including a carbon tax and ETS have helped promote wind farms, although our very windy climate is obviously a significant factor giving them good economic viability, so its hard to know what the main reasons were.
Clearly the bottom line is we need a price on carbon by way of a carbon tax or cap and trade, and if this is sufficient to incentivise renewable energy in a 'timely' way this would be great. If not you will need subsidies as well, or some form of regulatory control. And I suspect you will need something like this.
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Sunspot at 04:36 AM on 26 July 2018Facebook video spreads climate denial misinformation to 5 million users
How is it not a crime for Youtube to post all those videos about how The Earth is Flat, or NASA is fake? "Social Media" couldn't care less about what is true and what isn't. When the internet started I thought, great, now people will have the tools to find out the truth about the world. I was wrong. It just gives people a way to find other people who don't care about truth and evidence and concoct even more bs. And now it has penetrated to the very highest levels of our government. I don't think there is much we can do now. Just hope that science and reason can win the day eventually.
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John S at 03:41 AM on 26 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
Nigelj@4
“they were priced too high when first introduced. Just what specific finance options would have overcome that?”
I agree they probably tried and there weren’t any, or else they wouldn’t have needed the subsidies. With hindsight we can be thankful for these particular subsidies (for wind power).
Notwithstanding, I’d still say the principle of subsidies in general is bad because it involves politicians giving away other people’s money for projects that have not been able to convince lenders they are worth the risk. Since some of the tax-payers would be on low income (we still pay a fair chunk of tax) and the benefits would go to entrepreneurs who are likely wealthier than low income people, it could also be a reverse Robin Hood.
Then, how else can we get projects and technologies off the ground that appear to have future promise and, in any case, climate benefits?
One alternative is regulation. I don’t like that either in general because again it gives too much power to government. However, for particularly difficult problems like how to get the transportation sector off fossil fuels I’d support it. For example, I don’t think it’s an unreasonable imposition on auto makers to require a greatly increased average fleet efficiency – they are still left a lot of flexibility on how to do it. Ditto for all kinds of other mobile equipment (trucks, busses, trains, planes, ships, mining, agriculture, construction and forestry.)
I’d go with regulation of efficiency in the transportation sector partly because my favourite policy - carbon pricing - is challenged to make a big difference quickly simply because gasoline and diesel are such great fuels (except for their environmental impacts) and so cheap. For example, the scheduled 2022 carbon price in Canada of $50/tonne will increase the price of gasoline by less than 12 cents/litre, which is less than what we’ve seen from the natural volatility of world crude. Not only does it make little marginal impact, I.e. how much people drive (because they just have to get to work and back somehow) but also it has little impact on the capital decisions if low and zero emission vehicles cost a lot more than gas guzzlers.
But then even here a constantly rising carbon price locked in so that over 20 years it would be over $200/tonne and still rising will surely have an impact even today on decision makers who have a longer planning horizon, like those who decide what type of cars to make in future. Sweden is at about 200 Canadian $/tonne and Volvo has announced it will make no more gasoline cars.
I know of a certain district heating project that would have a present value several tens of millions of dollars more if the Canada’s carbon price kept rising 10$/tonne per year.
In the video, the Wind Developer pointed to the advantage that wind could offer a fixed price for 20 years because the cost is mostly capital. He contrasted that with gas where no-one can know its future cost exactly.
In like manner, a carbon price rising predictably even at only 10$/tonne/year should make investors think twice even about gas power generation because the carbon price alone would be going up every 5 years by more than the current rate for gas quoted by one of the major distributors in Ontario (9.7 cents/litre versus 9.2 cents) – this carbon price would be on top of whatever the delivered gas costs.
The prices paid to all other forms of generation and hence their finance-ability would be enhanced by the higher cost of what is today, perhaps their next best alternative – natural gas.
OK, that was not the situation when wind was in its early years, but by lobbying for carbon fee and dividend we can create this situation for the future.
And the same principle applies across all sectors, not just power generation. And this is a better way to give new technologies a leg up than either subsidies or regulation.
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RickG at 02:40 AM on 26 July 2018Facebook video spreads climate denial misinformation to 5 million users
How is it not a crime to do what Marc Morano does?
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JimKirk at 17:38 PM on 25 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #29
I have three questions and I really hope Dana or some other high profile science bod can answer them.
(1) Why are media outlets in the UK avoiding the use of the term Climate change to explain this heatwave and where climate change is cited doubt is offered by lines such as 'its not just down to climate change'. For example, two Guardian articles in particular took this approach offering the fragmented phase shifting jet stream and a warmer Northern Atlantic as reasons in addition to climate change. However, many other articles have attributed both the changing jet stream and warming oceans to climate change!
(2) During this heatwave and for sometime now I have noted that the hottest part of the day has shifted to early evening time and noted that the heat is not just dissipating at night like it used to. Is this down to increased CO2 levels and perhaps an up tick in methane levels too?
(3) Recently media outlets in the UK have been stating that the Government is planning for emergency food stockpiling and provision in the UK and even the RAF has been asked to plan for food distribution. BREXIT has been cited but I would like to ask for opinions on this; to what extent is this heatwave and the impacts to crop yields a more likely explanation for such emergency planning? Germany too has issued warnings and asked citizens to stockpile food and water and the same is true for a number of other EU countries.
Thanks for reading.
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scaddenp at 13:12 PM on 25 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
I would note that while people have argued that wind power get "subsidied" by free backup, NZ windfarms do not receive subsidies. The alternative to subsidies (which to my mind is government picking winners with tax payer money and is horribly prone to corruption/distortion), is to tax the undesirable (FF) at a level which reflects the externalities that FF generators are not currently paying. This helps not just wind but any other alternative energy competitor.
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nigelj at 12:20 PM on 25 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
DrivingBy @3
"Wind farms are not the Internet."
So? Same principle of subsidies, same emerging and pomising technologies.
"Politicians demanded and got that taj mahal station....The net useful value of the designer station, topped with something called "The Occulus" (an odd looking spiky thing) is more than zero but certainly far less than its cost. "
This sort of thing annoys me as well (a lot), but your example of failed, money wasting project and cronyism doesn't invalidate the principle of subsidies. No doubt there are failed projects, but I can think of vast numbers of successes. It just shows bad execution, and applying it to the wrong things. Is pork barrelling the right term? There appears to be a lot of this pork in America!
I think the answer is to restrict subsidies to certain classes of projects such as technology. I think the case for subsidising buildings and farming is mostly very weak. And let technocrats decide, not politicians.
"Subsidies are more attractive to bad projects than good; "
You don't provide any real evidence for this.
"good (productive) projects have other options, bad projects depend on subsidies and politics to exist at all."
But wind power has obvious technical and climate change benefits, but were of no interest to generators because they were priced too high when first introduced. Just what specific alternative finance options would have overcome that? I would think they tried, and this is why subsidies were used.
I don't mean to be too criticial. We are on the same wavelength on plenty of things.
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DrivingBy at 10:48 AM on 25 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
@nijelj
Wind farms are not the Internet.
Some projects are worth doing, some are not. Here (USA, NYC) we had a subway station rennovated at a cost of several billion - that's billion with a B - US dollars. The subway system you ride to get to that fancy station is exactly the same as ever, execpt less reliable. Politicians demanded and got that taj mahal station, as it was a photo op for them and round-trip vote buying and payoffs for the many contractors, developers, third cousins and cronies involved. The net useful value of the designer station, topped with something called "The Occulus" (an odd looking spiky thing) is more than zero but certainly far less than its cost.
Unfortunately, public money is considered "someone else's money, therefore free". Thus the massive amounts of time, talent, materials and labor sunk into that hole are considered "free". The same resources could have been put into tracks, signals, switches and train yards, but politicians and activists don't give a warm spit about those, unless equal or greater graft and photo ops can be had. (The system in question is known as PATH, operated by the Port Authority of NY/NJ, for the morbidly curious).
By contrast, the original NYC subway system was constructed by issuing a public bond and contracting with a private builder. The result was cost-effective and quickly created far more benefit than it cost to build. It was intended to maximize the value of land in NYC and relieve massive congestion at the surface level. The value of goods, services and housing newly within reach of work created by building the subway was greater (many times greater) than the cost of buliding it.
Subsidies are more attractive to bad projects than good; good (productive) projects have other options, bad projects depend on subsidies and politics to exist at all. What, when, exactly how, how much and to what extent are essential when deciding to subsidize the building of something. We in the USA have not done an Erie Canal project since the Internet, which started in the late '60s. Now it's cronyism and burning cash.
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Bob Loblaw at 07:45 AM on 25 July 2018Comprehensive study: carbon taxes won't hamper the economy
nigelj@23:
Come to think of it, the Alberta government that introduced "user fees" in the early 1990s was using NZ as a model.
Some user fees make sense: driver's licence and car registration, recreational facilities, sewer and water utilties, etc.. It's when they get applied to essential government services that they start to look like taxes. Alberta was one of only a few (the only?) provinces that charged health care premiums, rather than funding health care out of general revenue. Low or zero-income families could get a waiver, but the premiums added up and were deducted at source for employees in the same manner as income tax.
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Bob Loblaw at 07:37 AM on 25 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
Marty Lagina? I know that name. Clearly a successful businessman - has enough money, along with his brother Rick and their partners, to be spending a lot of it searching for Treasure on Oak Island:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_of_Oak_Island
Subsidy is a bad word for many, unless it is for their own industry. Then they'll call it something else and say it is good.
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nigelj at 07:12 AM on 25 July 2018Wind Energy: What About Those Subsidies?
Wind power subsidies are a great idea that has worked. I think subsidies make sense to help new businesses get started, if they are stuggling to get finance, and have a clear and substantial public good like wind power. Of course there should be time limits on subsidies written into them.
The internet was developed by universities out of taxes and government grant money. Where would we be if the libertarian ideological free market purists had shut that down?
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michael sweet at 22:49 PM on 24 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #29
Lachlan:
Summer in Winter was March, 2012. The current weather forcast (link will only be good today) shows extreme heat across most of Australia for today. It will not make the news because it is hot in winter so no all time heat records will be broken (daily heat records will be broken).
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michael sweet at 22:34 PM on 24 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #29
Lachlan,
Nobody notices heat waves in the winter. Since it is currently winter in the southern hemisphere heat is not mentioned.
Can you recall the amazing "Summer in Winter" which destroyed existing heat records across North America? That is because it was a heat wave in winter. In several locations the low temperature at night was higher than the previous highest daily temperature ever recorded for that location. Heat records were shattered but it was not reported that much in the mainstream mnedia.
This article talks about the heat records set during the recent Australia summer.
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MA Rodger at 22:14 PM on 24 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #29
Lachlan @2,
The NH has had some impressive hotspots through July. ClimateReanalyser.org give daily maps of temperature anomalies (but not kept up-to-date. At-time-of-writing they stretch to 5th July) as well as the today's anomaly map. Also there is the 17th July anomaly map cut&pasted here. These graphics also give NH & SH average anomalies so we can see that through July 1st-5th the SH had a cooler anomaly than the NH but as of (the today anomaly map at-time-of-writing) 24th July the NH & SH anomalies were similarly hot (NH +0.5ºC, SH +0.4ºC). We could perhaps speculate with a possible reason for a cooler SH anomaly by suggesting that the latitudes with the hotspots which are boosting that NH anomaly are mainly land but the equivalent latitudes in the SH are mainly ocean.
As for comparing this month's anomalies with the MWP, I don't think such momentary events can be compared with multi-century tempurature averages, even if they were similar in form.
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Lachlan at 14:38 PM on 24 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #29
The article mentioning a "global heat wave" lists places that are all in the northern hemisphere. Is there really a heat wave in the southern hemisphere too, or is this like the mediaeval warm period?
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