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Comments 14151 to 14200:

14151. One Planet Only Forever at 04:21 AM on 9 July 2018
       2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
       

       More climate science related reading regarding discount rates, in The Economist.

       That 'less breezy' more 'Yawn Inducing' item highlights other reasons that many evaluations regarding climate change are underestimating the harm being done. But it also fails to clearly bluntly make the point I believe undeniably needs to be made: It is simply unacceptable for any portion of humanity to benefit by creating negative consequences Others have to deal with.

14152. MA Rodger at 21:09 PM on 8 July 2018
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       jesscars @337,

       CO2's main absorption wave-length is at 12 microns. This is at the peak of the Earth's IR emissions but is an irrelevant part of sunlight. Thus a High-CO2 bag would be pretty-much transparent to sunlight as well as to the Earth's IR except at that 12 microns wavelength.  This transperancy is because in the bag world, the CO2 has purged all the other GHGs and thus reducing the warming from those other GHGs. This one-step-forward-one-step-back doesn't happen under AGW. Indeed, a CO2-warmed world results in elevated water vapour, another GHG. AGW is operating day & night but the night-time temperatures will be boosted more than the day-time ones.

       The actions of CO2 as a GHG is not that of a simple insulation layer (although the circulations in the atmosphere are far less leaky than the leaks in any greenhouse). One (simplistic) mode of warming concerns the altitude at which the IR at 12 microns can get a clear-shot out into space. As more CO2 enters the atmosphere, the clear-shot altitude increases and the temperature at that clear-shot altitude drops. The lower the temperature, the less IR energy the clear-shot gases can shoot out into space. The bag world cannot demonstrate such AGW mechanisms.

       One mechanism (the significnt one, we are told) concerns the breadth of the 12-micron band. At the flanks, only whizzy-whizzing CO2 molecules can catch the IR and as CO2 levels increase, so the whizzy-whizzing CO2 becomes denser & the flanks expand. This is the logorithmic 1ºC of warming for double CO2 (without feedbacks). With the High-CO2 bag, there are perhaps 10X doublings? and if we run with this back-of-fag-packet calculation, that would suggest the High-CO2 bag would see 10X 1ºC warming while the Atmosphere bag would have the planet's GHG warming which is usually reckoned to be about 30ºC. This suggests that the extra warming from the High-CO2 bag would not compensate for the GHG warming purged relative to the Atmosphere bag. Mind, the humidity will play a big big part in any such calculation.

       And under the bag? was simply to mirror the atmosphere being above the AGW-warmed surface. In the bag? would do as well if the position of the thermometer can be precise.

       Hope this blather has addressed your queries.

14153. jesscars at 20:54 PM on 8 July 2018
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       Hi Glenn,
       
       Thanks for your response. 
       
       >When the CO2 is released from the spritzer, the gas will come out somewhat cooled, so that may explain the lower CO2 temperature in the bag. How good an insulator is the plastic, that may impact how easily any temperature difference due to this corrects?
       
       The temperature did drop immediately (by about 1 degree) as you suggested as the CO2 comes out colder. I monitored the two bags for probably an hour or so so I imagine that would have corrected - also, when I took them outside, the temperatures of each rose by about 5 degrees, so I assume this would not have happened if the bags were good insulators.
       
       >Next, although CO2 absorbs infrared, most of that absorption in the atmosphere takes 100's to 1000's of meters to be 100%. How much will be absorbed over inches?
       
       Do you mean that it takes 100s to 1000s of meters at present CO2 levels to absorb all of the radiation available to it? I don't think this should matter. I am simply increasing the amount of CO2 in one particular point which will have a given amount of radiation, this should theoretically have a temparature effect (if the mechanism is as simple as add more CO2, absorb more radiation, get more heat).
       
       > Next, what is the transmissivity of the plastic - how much radiation passes through the bag? The bags may be transparent to visible light (very high transmissivity) but most materials behave very differently for infrared light. Most naturally occuring materials have extremely low transmissivity to infrared. You would need to research the properties of the plastic involved. Otherwise you are effectively carrying out the experiment with an opaque (to infrared) bag.
       
       Here is the infrared spectrum of polyethylene:
       https://azom.com/images/Article_Images/ImageForArticle_12386(1).jpg
       
       As you can see, here:
       https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Spec=C124389&Index=1&Type=IR
       The infrared spectrum of CO2 is different, there may be some overlap, but the bulk of what CO2 absorbs should pass thorugh the polyethylene plastic.
       
       > The greenhouse effect depends on the behaviour of the entiure atmosphere over vertical distances of many kilometers. Extra absorption by CO2 at the surface is only a small part of any change in the GH effect. The big changes involve how much emission by CO2 changes at high altitude - 10 km or so. It is very hard to model the GH effect with small, surface based setups.
       
       I can see that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere would have an overall effect if CO2 causes temperature to change. For example, if CO2's primary source of heat-producing radiation is terrestrial IR, and you add more CO2 to the atmosphere generally, the CO2 might absorb more of the IR closer to the Earth's surface, leaving less to be absorbed at higher altitudes, so temperatures might be warmer at low altitudes and cooler at high altitudes (at, say, 10 km up). But this is a prediction of how the atmosphere would respond given that CO2 has this effect. It's jumping the gun because I'm trying to prove the effect to begin with. I don't see why a pocket of air with more CO2 (as in the experiment) would not generate any noticable heat difference. The radiation available to it is the same, you are simply adding more CO2, which should theoretically result in a higher temperature locally (just as if you added CO2 at any particular point in the atmosphere, you should generate a higher temperature locally).
       
       Thanks for your response,
       
       Jessica
       
       

14154. jesscars at 18:37 PM on 8 July 2018
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       Hi MA,
       
       FYI, I am repeating the study again, at night, as you suggested. So far there is no noticeable difference.
       
       Thanks for the advice,
       
       Jessica

14155. jesscars at 18:33 PM on 8 July 2018
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       Hi MA and Bob,
       
       Thanks for your responses re. my "plastic bag" study.
       
       I have a few follow-up questions:
       
       MA:
       
       I agree with the general point that there is no calibration. It is backyard science - I did it to try to understand what the effect is at all, not to measure it accurately.
       
       > However, to expect the High-CO2 bag to absorb more radiation is asking a bit much. ... while sunlight-in & IR-out will balance over a 24-hour period, sunlight operates for a shorter time than IR so at midday the sunlight could be four-times more powerful than the IR.
       
       Let me clarify that what you're saying here is that the other gases are better absorbers of sunlight, but CO2 is a better absorbed of terrestrial IR. Does this mean that you believe that the effect of adding CO2 would be a negative effect on temperature in the day and a positive effect at night?
       
       > While the experiment isn't ever going to properly reproduce the mechanisms that result from higher CO2 in the atmosphere, as a measure of CO2 absorbtion of IR, the experiment would have a better chance if conducted at night with the thermometers under the bags.
       
       Can you please explain why the effect would be different with the CO2 in the atmosphere as opposed to in the bag? Is there more to it than simply more CO2 content in the air in a specific location? Are there additional macro-effects whe the CO2 is in the atmosphere that the bag experiment would not be able to emulate?
       
       Also, please clarify "under the bag", not "in the bag"?
       
       Bob:
       
       Would the fact that both thermometers are enclosed in the bag act as a control?
       
       If there is a difference to the thermometer reading itself, due to it's being enclosed in CO2 rather than air, how significant do you think that would be? I.e. How many degrees influence?
       
       Also, if there is an influence, isn't it highly unlikley that it would be exactly equal to the influence that the CO2 is having on warming the bag, resulting in a net zero reading?
       
       Thanks for taking the time to return your answers.
       
       Regards,
       
       Jessica
       
       P.S. If someone caould confirm what the expected temperature change per increased unit of ppm of CO2 (or "doubling of CO2") is, that would be great. Thankyou.
       
       

14156. Glenn Tamblyn at 18:30 PM on 8 July 2018
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       Tristan, adding some points.
       
       When the CO2 is released from the spritzer, the gas will come out somewhat cooled, so that may explain the lower CO2 temperature in the bag. How good an insulator is the plastic, that may impact how easily any temperature difference due to this corrects?
       
       Better would be to set up the entire setup outside in the same environment, and take measurements before you add any gas. Then look at how the temperatures change immediately after you add the gases. Then monitor how they change subsequently after that.
       
       Next, although CO2 absorbs infrared, most of that absorption in the atmosphere takes 100's to 1000's of meters to be 100%. How much will be absorbed over inches?
       
       Next, what is the transmissivity of the plastic - how much radiation passes through the bag? The bags may be transparent to visible light (very high transmissivity) but most materials behave very differently for infrared light. Most naturally occuring materials have extremely low transmissivity to infrared. You would need to research the properties of the plastic involved. Otherwise you are effectively carrying out the experiment with an opaque (to infrared) bag.
       
       The greenhouse effect depends on the behaviour of the entiure atmosphere over vertical distances of many kilometers. Extra absorption by CO2 at the surface is only a small part of any change in the GH effect. The big changes involve how much emission by CO2 changes at high altitude - 10 km or so. It is very hard to model the GH effect with small, surface based setups.

14157. nigelj at 17:48 PM on 8 July 2018
       2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
       

       Easy to read article on climate change and discount rates here. Have to agree its very hard to see how a high interest rate is justified, and how we can morally restrict our economic and social evaluation to just this generation.

14158. Tristan at 16:07 PM on 8 July 2018
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       Thanks a ton MA And Bob. I appreciate it. I don't have the physics comprehension to address queries regarding that aspect of climate change.
       
       Hopefully my friend pops in herself if she has any follow-ups to your repsonses.

14159. nigelj at 06:50 AM on 8 July 2018
       2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
       

       Regarding the tragey of the commons issue, the good news is societies do want to implement renewable electricity. Opinion polls by Pew research and others show quite good public support, even although people appreciate there will be costs.

       What has slowed the process down is not so much lack of reasonable agreement on cooperation but 1) the denialist campaign has persuaded a significant minority to be obstructive,  and 2) money in politics and political campaigns: He who pays the money calls the tune.

       And 3) we have some powerful people dedictated to maintaining the curent situation where they have prospered and gained personal status, and sadly many of these people fail to see the opportunities of a renewable energy based economy, and seem to have little regard for the wider intrests of society and future generations of people, other than their own immediate family. This will only change with push back from society as a whole.

       But despite this, lower costs of wind and solar power are now gaining an unstoppable momentum anyway. This will be hard to resist, as its partly due to free market forces, the very thing the climate denialists tend to value. So we see the White House making well known absurd decisions to try to stop the use of renewable electricity and "bring back coal",  things that conflict completely with their alleged  economic ideology of free markets. If it wasn't so serious, it would be hilarious.

       You then come to our personal carbon footprints, and issues like electric cars, and reducing use of concrete, and energy inefficient appliances and so on. The tragedy of the commons would suggest we "should"cooperate for the public good, however this isn't happening, except for a few people and relatively small things like led lightbulbs.

       The problem is nobody wants to make lifestyle changes, unless everyone does, because its not going to make much difference to the climate for just one person to do something,  and its not in their personal self interest, so because everyone doesn't make changes, nobody does. The only way to practically resolve this impass is a carbon fee and dividend scheme that creates pressure for everyone to change more or less in unison.

       The Ozone issue was a relatively simple issue compared to climate change, and didn't have such a concerted pushback from industry. I think the slower ressponse with climate change is just thhe scale and complexity of the issue.

       I have always said it might take an abrupt climate change to galvanise people. Hopefully it doesn't require this, but I'm reminded of the way governments only moved to clean up the Thames River in London when the stench was so vile that it reached the Houses of Parliament, and MP's held handkerchiefs to their noses and vomited.

14160. BaerbelW at 04:53 AM on 8 July 2018
       Getting involved with Climate Science via crowdfunding and crowdsourcing
       

       Heads-Up: The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) is currently running its summer fund raiser where its trustee Charles Zeller is matching all donations up to $50K. If you'd like to contribute, you can do so via their donation page.

14161. One Planet Only Forever at 02:36 AM on 8 July 2018
       2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
       

       This updated application of game theory is not a new understanding for policy makers regarding climate science and the required corrections of what has developed.

       The fundamental understanding of the problem was clearly presented in the 1987 UN Report “Our Common Future”:
       “25. Many present efforts to guard and maintain human progress, to meet human needs, and to realize human ambitions are simply unsustainable - in both the rich and poor nations. They draw too heavily, too quickly, on already overdrawn environmental resource accounts to be affordable far into the future without bankrupting those accounts. They may show profit on the balance sheets of our generation, but our children will inherit the losses. We borrow environmental capital from future generations with no intention or prospect of repaying. They may damn us for our spendthrift ways, but they can never collect on our debt to them. We act as we do because we can get away with it: future generations do not vote; they have no political or financial power; they cannot challenge our decisions.
       26. But the results of the present profligacy are rapidly closing the options for future generations. Most of today's decision makers will be dead before the planet feels; the heavier effects of acid precipitation, global warming, ozone depletion, or widespread desertification and species loss. Most of the young voters of today will still be alive. In the Commission's hearings it was the young, those who have the most to lose, who were the harshest critics of the planet's present management.”

       And that understanding can be understood to be explaining the developed result of the failure of the winners of the competitions among humans for wealth and power to ensure that all members of humanity are well educated about what really matters, about how to help develop sustainable improvements for all of humanity far into the future.

       John Stuart Mill included a warning in “On Liberty”.
       “If society lets a considerable number of its members grow up mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame for the consequences.”

       So the problem is not that policy-makers are not well aware of what is going on. The problem is that the socioeconomic-political system has encouraged people to be more egoist than altruist. Competition to appear to be better off measured by materialist consumption, with popularity and profitability being deemed to be proof of acceptability, can completely ignore the ethical need to responsibly act to be helpful to the future generations understanding the limitations of the system (the system undeniably being this, or any other, amazing planet that humanity should be striving to sustainably enjoy thriving on for hundreds of millions of years).

       A related developed problem is the incorrect thinking of economists. They are incorrect in their evaluation of the acceptability of a portion of the current generation of humanity continuing to try to benefit from activities that are undeniably creating negative consequences for others, particularly the harm done to future generations by:

       • reducing the ability of future generations to benefit from non-renewable ancient buried hydrocarbons (developing sustainable ways to use them, or having them available for an emergency)
       • the environmental degradation caused by current day actions in pursuit of benefit from burning up that resource
       • the challenges and costs of the climate change impacts of burning fossil fuels

       Economists evaluating the acceptability of the burning of fossil fuels pretend that Others negatively impacted by the activity are not actually Others. They pretend that all of the impacts are experienced by the same person or group. They need to do that to justify an evaluation that balances the negative impacts with the positive impacts.

       And most economists perform even less correct evaluations by 'discounting' the future negative impacts. Even Stern did that in his evaluation which used a lower discount rate than Nordhaus, but still balanced the future negatives with the current day positives.

       That type of evaluation is only valid if the same person or group of people will experience all of the positives and negatives. When a business or individual wants to compare optional actions it is appropriate for them to use discounting of future costs or benefits to determine the best option, for them. However, corporations and individual investors should only compare options ethically/altruistically. They should only be considering the options that do not create negative consequences for Others.

       Governments need to do a different evaluation (governments should not simply be run like businesses). And detailed comparisons of the climate change economic evaluations like “The Choice of Discount Rate for Climate Change Policy Evaluation” by Lawrence H. Goulder and Roberton C. Williams III perpetuate the misunderstanding by only comparing the business magnitude discount used by the likes of Nordhaus to the lower rate used by Stern.

       The power of the Stern evaluation was not that it used a discount rate 'more appropriate for government evaluation' than the higher business-style discount rate used by Nordhuas. The Stern evaluation showed that even though it is simply unacceptable for the current generation to be negatively impacting the future generations, even an evaluation that balanced discounted future negatives with current day positives proved the unacceptability of what was going on.

       Governments, and everyone in the chain of support for policy making, must ethically strive to guide the development of a sustainable better future for their regions in ways that do not negatively affect any other region. That cannot be done if future negatives can be discounted or be excused because of the 'amount of benefit (perception of prosperity) obtained today that would have to be given up to not be creating those negative future consequences'. Without clear proof, not some made-up model analysis results, that what is beneficial today will continue to be a benefit into the distant future, there is no justification for leadership failing to aggressively acting to end the damaging ultimately unsustainable activity.

       Many economists fail to incorporate the reality that unsustainable pursuits of benefit will not last as future benefits in their evaluations. Unsustainable activity may be regionally temporarily popular and profitable. But that is only a temporary perception of prosperity. As long as new unsustainable developments can develop 'All is Good', until it inevitably isn't. Tragically, the ones who enjoy 'The Good Time' the most are seldom the ones to suffer severely in the inevitable damaging future reality. And when the reality that too much unsustainable damaging activity is occurring, it is already 'Too Late'. The popularity and profitability of the damaging undeniably unsustainable activity resists being corrected. And it can result in understandably undeserving winners getting significant power to do even more damage to the future of humanity, regressing progress that humanity had been making, before the unacceptability of their unjustifiable but popular false advertising loses its ability to significantly influence/impress people.

       Policy makers have little excuse to be unaware of all of this. Their only excuse is to claim that leading more responsibly would be less popular and less profitable. And that is a poor excuse, not a rational justification. The fact that so many of them continue to pretend that they can excuse 'what they understand is harmful to the future generations of humanity' is proof of the damaging power of the developed socioeconomic-political systems to harm the future of humanity (and the debilitating ability of false advertising appeals to basic emotional instinctive desires to over-power human thoughtful consideration).

       The 'legality' of false advertising in politics, the lack of consequences for failing to most fully inform everyone and failing to help everyone better understand what is really going on and what corrections are required to develop a sustainable better future for humanity (including developing truly sustainable perceptions of prosperity) is the real problem. It is the reason so many policy makers choose to be unreasonable. It is the reason so many people 'grow up mere children' to the detriment of the future of humanity.

       All of this has been unwittingly exposed by climate science. Many other unsustainable harmful developments have occurred. But climate science has undeniably exposed the way that the developed socioeconomic-political systems have tragically encouraged more people to choose to become competitive egoist rather than collaborative altruists, to the undeniable detriment of the future of humanity, all for the benefit of a portion of the current population.

       The socioeconomic-political systems that like balancing the benefits that a portion of current day humanity gets from burning fossil fuels with the negative consequences that Others have to try to live/deal with need to be corrected. The unacceptability does not need modifications of complex game-theory modelling in order to be understood. It is common sense that no one can justify doing something that harms another person by balancing 'the benefit they think they get' with 'the harm they think they are doing'. And it is even less acceptable to 'discount' the harm being done to the other person when evaluating the acceptability of a choice of action.

14162. Bob Loblaw at 23:03 PM on 7 July 2018
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       I will try to add to MA Rodger's commentary.

       Tristan:

       Keep i mind that the only thing that the thermometer tells you is the temperature of the thermometer. Although this may seem a triviality, it is essential to start with this understanding. The next stage in trying to use the thermometer for any practical purpose is to try to get the temperature of the thermometer to match the temperature of the thing you are really interested in. In your experiment, you are interested in the gas inside the bag (comparing air-filled vs. CO2).

       A good way to think of the behaviour between the thermometer and its surroundings is to describe the energy balance of the thermometer. What are all the energy flows in and out of the thermometer, and under what conditions will the temperature of the thermometer match the gas in the bag?

       The thermometer can have three methods of energy exchange with its surroundings:

       1. Radiation. It can absorb visible (solar) radiation, absorb IR radiation, and emit IR radiation. The end result can be either a net gain or a net loss, or zero if all radiation terms balance.
       2. Exchange of thermal energy with its surroundings. If warmer than its surroundings, the thermometer will lose heat. If colder, it will gain heat. The goal is to get this term to zero, to match the gas in the bag.
       3. Loss of energy through evaporation. Changing liquid water to gas requires energy (latent heat of vaporization). That energy has to come from somewhere, and it will tend to cool the thermometer (energy loss). This is easily avoided by keeping the thermometer dry.... keeping it wet turns it into a psychrometer.

       So, in your experiment, you want terms 2 and 3 to equal zero to make sure you have the thermometer at the same temperature as the gas in the bag. This only happens if the radiation term is also zero.

       If the radiation term is positive, and the evaporation term is zero, then the positive radiation input will make the thermometer warmer than its surroundings. It will heat up until the radiation input is exactly matched by the thermal loss (energy moving from warm thermometer to cooler gas).

       Now, how can you get the radiation term to zero when your goal is to see the effect of increased absorption due to CO2? If the CO2-filled bag is absorbing IR radiation in greater quantities than the air-filled bag, then initially it will warm, but after it has warmed the bag/thermometer will also be emitting more IR - which you hope will balance the extra absorbed IR.

       There are two catches to this:

       1. The bag also has an energy balance. It's really the bag absorbing more IR that you want to detect, so you need to double-up on the energy balance description, tracking both the thermometer and the bag.
       2. The radiation term also includes absorption of sunlight (visible light). In order to isolate the IR effects, you need to make sure that the two bags/thermometers are not absorbing different amounts of solar radiation. Any solar absorption messes up the energy balance, creating an error (higher temperature) in the thermometer, but at least if the two bags are exactly the same, the error will be the same in both and you can still make a comparison.

       Catch #2 is the experiment-killer. You said you performed this out "in the sun". You haven't mentioned a time of day or location, but direct beam solar radiation usually approaches 1000 W/m² on a nice clear day, and very slight differences in absorbed solar radiation will overwhelm the IR effect you want to see (maybe 1 W/m²?). My guess would be slight differences in the angle of the thermometers, or reflectivity of the system. Perhaps the plastic bag surface reflects a bit of sunlight at certain angles, so slight differences in shape or orientation alter the amount of solar radiation hitting the thermometer.

       Controlling for solar radiation error is a critical factor for weather observations of air temperature. Thermometers are usually housed in a Stevenson Screen or other radiation shield. They are also typically well-ventilated (strong air circulation).

       You can't "well-ventialte" the air and CO2 in your bags, because that defeats the purpose of getting the elevated CO2 to absorb IR. That leaves a very large factor of solar radiation error, which makes it difficult in your experimental setup to know if you are looking at an IR effect. (You are most likely not.)

14163. MA Rodger at 20:31 PM on 7 July 2018
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       Tristan @331,

       I'll hav a bash at an explanation for you.

       If we ignore problems of calibration & measurement errors (hearing of the shading of one of the samples is a bit of a worry), the flaws in the as-described experiment are surely quite profound.

       If we consider that a bag of gas in a transparent (to visible light) plastic bag will be heated through radiative transfer and thus measuring its temperture will give some indication of that radiative transfer, we are this comparing an Atmosphere bag heated both by sunlight plus terrestrial IR with a CO2 bag containing predominantly CO2. If one bag absorbs more radiation than the other, if the experiment is sensitive enough to show the effect, the more absorption would therefore register a higher temperature.

       However, to expect the High-CO2 bag to absorb more radiation is asking a bit much. The sunlight will be warming the oxygen/ozone and any water vapour in the Atmosphere bag. And additionally terrestrial IR will also be warming the atmosphere's CO2, CH4, N2O and again any water vapour in the Atmosphere bag. With the CO2 having replaced pretty-much all these absorbing gases and with all but a small part of sunlight absorbed by CO2, the comparison is asking whether the narrow CO2 IR absorption band when saturated with CO2 will absorb more or less than the atmospheric gases. In full sunlight, I would be surprised if CO2 was that absorbent. This graphic (usually 2 clicks to 'download your attachment') gives some indication of the absorbtion of various atmospheric gases. (I'd doubt whether the scales allow the various areas to be totted up.) But note that, while sunlight-in & IR-out will balance over a 24-hour period, sunlight operates for a shorter time than IR so at midday the sunlight could be four-times more powerful than the IR.

       While the experiment isn't ever going to properly reproduce the mechanisms that result from higher CO2 in the atmosphere, as a measure of CO2 absorbtion of IR, the experiment would have a better chance if conducted at night with the thermometers under the bags.

14164. BaerbelW at 18:30 PM on 7 July 2018
       10th run of Denial101x starts on July 10!
       

       aemilius89 @3

       Thanks for your feedback - happy to read that you liked our MOOC!

       I don't have a defnite answer to your question but at a guess, Denial101x is fareing as well (or bad!) as many other MOOCs where the average completion rate is just a fairly low percentage of around 5% according to various articles a quick Google-search brings up. It also depends on how you define "complete" as it's quite possible for students to work through the material like watching the videos or reading forum threads while never really leaving a trace as far as surveys, quizzes or other activities counting towards completing a course goes. Even participants who just poke around a bit, watch some of the videos or read some of the materials will - hopefully - learn something, which is also important as far as I'm concerned.

14165. nigelj at 14:28 PM on 7 July 2018
       Declare energy independence with carbon dividends
       

       Dcrickett, thank's for the comments. I agree about exports.

       I will support carbon fee and dividend (all given to consumers) because it's the only thing likely to get enough political support in America, and its at least a good scheme.

       However I still have some doubts about how the carbon fee is ideally best spent / handed back, and whether it can totally substitute for regulations, but as I said different countries can and probably will fine tune the scheme. I have just done a google search, and my views are not unique. I think you guys are wrong to dismiss subsidies in principle, or philosophically.

       Some interesting debate on J Hansens carbon fee and dividend scheme. I I just found this with a random search, and I don't support all that's written there.

14166. Dcrickett at 07:56 AM on 7 July 2018
       Declare energy independence with carbon dividends
       

       #9 John S ― Your points are all well taken. In particular, regarding embedded carbon emissions.

       nigelj ― Like others, I value your thoughts, how you express them, and the regularity of your offerings. This time I disagree heartily… but respectful disagreement and debate are famously effective.

       Separately, there is another (and major) advantage to a wisely implemented US carbon tax (I prefer to call it a "tax" instead of some euphemism). It has to do with worldwide CO₂ emissions. Refund the carbon tax embedded in US exports. Apply this to imports, in proportion to what the foreign exporter's country has NOT  CO₂-taxed and hence is NOT embedded in the cost of his product. In view of the massive imports entering the US, foreign countries would certainly find themselves loath to see money they could collect as revenue ending up in the US Treasury and not in their own.

       Thus (shades of Iosev Jughashvili!), we could have "Control of Global Warming in One Country!"

14167. nigelj at 07:04 AM on 7 July 2018
       Declare energy independence with carbon dividends
       

       John S @9, ok I accept adding subsidies for electric cars wasn't a great idea. I'm planning on purchasing one fairly soon, and perhaps this was subconsciously colouring my view.

       Just to be clear on my position: I completely 100% support carbon 'fee' and dividend, and have done for some considerable time, more or less for the reasons you have outlined, and it was just the details of how it is implemented that concerned me on whether all or some of the levy should go into the dividend.

       But I would add these points to think about:

       Theres also the psychological issue with electric cars. Carbon fee and 100% dividend makes them pretty viable if you do the maths, but who does the maths? I suspect electric cars will need to be more competitively priced to really take off.

       Maybe its best to keep the carbon fee and dividend scheme simple and with a 100% dividend for practical and political viability purposes. But it could also be a decision for individual countries, and in America a purist scheme would probably be the only politically acceptable thing, but Alberta in Canada appears to have a scheme that uses part of the levy to fund a range of projects, and perhaps this is what the population wanted?

       And heres a problem for you. Electric cars rely on a network of recharging stations, and the economics of recharging stations rely on a significant volume of electric cars, so implementation of recharging stations has sometimes been slow. A carbon levy would resolve this over time, but I suggest it would be a slow process. It still seems it would need some form of subsidy, perhaps funded in another way other than from the carbon levy?

       I'm aware of the danger of governments subsidising things and picking winners, however there's a pretty obvious economic case sometimes, provided the decisions are kept out of the hands of politicians as such, and are made by some state agency, and are based on recognised market failures. We subsidise science research for example, and the film industry to attract projects to our country, and it has worked well. I confess I'm a bit of an "economic pragmatist".

       Much of the wind power in the UK and Europe has been funded with subsidies. I doubt it would have been built without something like this. However the base prices of wind and solar power have dropped so much I suppose subsidies are not as necessary now, and a carbon levy and dividend could possibly replace this. It would however need to be carefully analysed.

14168. aemilius89 at 04:48 AM on 7 July 2018
       10th run of Denial101x starts on July 10!
       

       What are the amount of students that actually have completed the course? I have done the course and completed it and I noticed that the people starting the course where a lot more than those completing it. Which is a whole lot more important than the people who started it. 
       
       The course btw was awesome and I learned what I wanted to learn from it.

14169. sauerj at 23:18 PM on 6 July 2018
       Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
       

       @ wideEyedPupil #4: Your points remain unchallenged. I read thru the ZCA report (linked HERE), and I was unable to find any statement that substantiates your text from #4: "The Zero Carbon Australia Land Use Report found that a proper and full accounting of GHG emissions pegs Land Use at 55% of emissions using 20 year GWP". In fact, when I read the summary to this report in the 1st paragraph of the site linked above, I read the following text: "The UNFCCC National Inventory Report suggests that sources of land use emissions, such as land clearing for agriculture and enteric (intestinal) fermentation from digestive processes in livestock, contribute 15% of national emissions." If I am reading this correctly, this seems to disagree with your statement. In addition, I glossed over the body of the whole ZCA report, and was not able to find any text indicating that land-use & agriculture accounts for "55% of emissions". The ZCA report link you provided in #5 no longer works. Could you provide an updated link with location of page to back up your "55% of emissions" text. Thank you very much!

14170. John S at 23:13 PM on 6 July 2018
       Declare energy independence with carbon dividends
       

       Nigelj: I usually enjoy your (admirably frequent) comments and find myself in agreement with you 90% of the time. On this occasion, Vector@2 was justified in saying you are missing the point about carbon fee and dividend. I’ll try to explain it. You noted people could spend the dividend on petrol and that would cancel the point of the scheme and that problem could be resolved by using part of the revenue to subsidize electric cars (EV’s).
       But the point of the scheme goes way beyond end consumers buying petrol. It would affect every nook and cranny of the economy. And not returning all the revenue to citizens would undermine long-term political viability. As an illustration of the latter problem, here in Ontario we have a new government that says the first thing it will do is scrap the Cap-and-Trade scheme that was brought in by the previous government. Alberta, in fact the whole country, may soon face the same as there are opposition leaders who say they will “axe-the-tax” (their words). I believe a carbon tax in Australia was rescinded.
       Do I even have to ask why a carbon tax is almost universally unpopular? (Hint: it includes the word “tax”). To further make this point, let me give you my perspective. Like many city dwellers, I don’t even own a car and rent an apartment. These are my preferences; but, in any case, I can’t afford to buy a house, or run a car, on my meagre retirement income. So how do you think I would feel about my tax dollars subsidizing much more affluent individuals who can afford EV’s or put solar panels on their lovely big houses? It’s a reverse Robin Hood. Plus, EV’s don’t necessarily help in areas where the grid is high carbon and solar panels don’t in areas where the grid is low carbon (like here in Ontario).
       In the words of George Shultz, “it’s not a tax, if the government doesn’t keep the money”. You’re wrong to suggest that ear-marking the funds for specified green projects will satisfy a lot of people. It doesn’t alter the fact that the government is still making the decision about what to spend the money on and a lot of us simply don’t trust it to make sensible decisions (in this area), and with good reasons, which are obvious from a review of the Ontario Auditor General’s critique of Ontario’s Climate Action Plan to be funded from the proceeds of selling allowances under Cap-and-Trade.
       Let investment decision be made by those who know their industries, who have (figurately speaking) dirt beneath the finger-nails type experience of actually making physical things work, who have skin in the game. These are those who will be encouraged to invest in making available low carbon products and services when they see how high the carbon fee is going to go because they’ll see they have a chance of competing with fossil fuels when the carbon fee is high. And it can’t, politically, go high enough if it is a tax.
       It’s a truism that, initially, motorists will continue buying more or less the same volume of petrol, especially if they use the car mostly for commuting to work. They’ve just got to get there and in the early years the carbon fee doesn’t increase the pump price to an extent that will overly bother many people. But a large part of the point is the affect of increasing prices not so much on the short-term purchasing decisions of end-consumers but rather on the long-term planning decisions of the commercial interests planning what type of cars to manufacture. As a case in point, Sweden has a carbon tax of about $200/tonne. Can it be totally unrelated that Volvo will not manufacture any more petrol driven cars?
       A broader point I’m glad you’ve given me the opening to express is that reductions in greenhouse gases will be to a large extent the result of commercial, not consumer, decisions. For example, what type of car to manufacture, how to make steel, how to make cement, how to make fertilizers, whether to develop a district heating system, how to design a major commercial building complex. These include public-sector decisions like whether to expand transit, how to handle solid waste etc. Long-lead time, capital intensive decisions will be affected not only by the contemporaneous carbon fee, but much more so by the carbon fee expected in future years.
       Hence the value of continually increasing the fee every year. For example, currently, in Canada the fee increases 10$ per tonne each year. But there is so far no commitment to continue increasing past $50/tonne. That’s a crucial mistake. $50/tonne will still not get the gas (petrol) guzzlers off the road (although it will shut-down coal fired power stations). The fee should continue to increase until the goal of near zero emissions is achieved. And such future increases can be virtually carved in concrete politically by way of the popularity of the dividends. Once those Electronic Funds Transfer amounts start appearing every month in everybody’s bank accounts or debit cards, people will build their household budgets on them and no future politician will dare to mess with them. We will enjoy policy stability. That, above all, is what is craved by business, to get on with the transformation. That’s the point.

14171. sophiewilson0191 at 22:04 PM on 6 July 2018
       2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #26
       

       Some people consider climate change a big threat .

       Do you think it is better to fix Earth than exploring space and using billions of cash just to have a picture of some planets. It is not like we can easily build an empire of than planet.

       We still lack technology to explore more of that planet.

       Climate Change May Have Claimed A Significant Victim – The Barents Sea

14172. Tristan at 17:08 PM on 6 July 2018
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       (Thanks to anyone with the time to respond)

14173. Tristan at 17:08 PM on 6 July 2018
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       One of my friends conducted this backyard experiment.
       
       Could anyone explain what the error was with her approach, and whether or not there is a backyard-style experiment that she could do to observe the reradiating properties of CO2.
       
       "So, what I did was take two clear 6L ziplock bags, two cheap thermometers, 2 CO2 cartridges, and a seltzer bottle.

       The first bag, I taped the thermometer to the upside of the bag, then filled with normal air using a balloon pump, then measured the temperature (19.4 deg).

       The second bag, I taped the thermometer to the upside of the bag, then measured (19.8 deg - remember, they're shit $2 thermometers - note slightly warmer than "control"), then I filled it by releasing two CO2 chargers into it. I then measured the temperature again (19.0 deg) and again a few minutes later (18.7 deg).

       I then took them outside and placed them in the sun and measured each over a ten or so minute period. The bag containing CO2 was always colder - between 0.4 to 1.0 degree (it measured 1.4 colder, but I reject that because I was blocking the sun just before I measured).

       Each of the two CO2 cannisters has 7.8 g. The density of CO2 at STP is 1.98 kg/m3. For the 2 x 7.8 = 15.6 g, this equates to a volume of 7.88 L. The seltzer bottle holds 1.25 L. So total 7.88 + 2 x 1.25 = 10.38 L Total. The proportion of CO2 in that mix is 7.88/10.38 = approx 76%.

       So as you can see, I significantly increased the CO2 content of the air, and the results came back slightly negative re. its effect on temperature."

14174. scaddenp at 14:44 PM on 6 July 2018
       Declare energy independence with carbon dividends
       

       OPOF, I approve of Alberta's plan on whole and long term I would think more effective than subsidies on buying electric cars. I think the rich are more of problem than poor, because while they can afford to buy electric cars and poor cant, they can also afford SUVs, diesal central heating, regular air travel etc. The old I=PAT formula.  When carbon pricing bites, its the low-carbon version of anything that should be the cheap affordable option.

       The other way I like making the expensive capital items associated with property affordable (solar heating, PV, insulation etc), is loans paid back through rates.

14175. One Planet Only Forever at 14:28 PM on 6 July 2018
       Declare energy independence with carbon dividends
       

       scaddenp,

       Review the Alberta plan in the link I included in my comment. It indicates what the non-dividend levy is directed towards, including spending on transit and the reconfiguring of roads to reduce car lanes to include safer bike lanes. It is not trying to 'pick winners'. It is supporting the transition to alternatives to burning fossil fuels and improving energy efficiency.

       However, I would support a version closer to what you are indicating. A larger portion of the collected levy rebated, but still only given to the lower income portion of the population.

       The richer people can afford to behave better. They always have been able to behave better. Many of them just choose not to, because doing so would reduce their ability to be richer (they would still be richer, just not as richer as they could be). Their lack of interest in leading the transition to better behaviour needs to be corrected. They need to be encouraged to change their minds.

14176. scaddenp at 13:47 PM on 6 July 2018
       Declare energy independence with carbon dividends
       

       Well I have close to ideological objection to subsidy. Picking winners when several horses in the field. Carbon tax and dividend gives wins to all competitors against carbon including public transport, cyclists and who knows what tech down track.

14177. nigelj at 13:03 PM on 6 July 2018
       Declare energy independence with carbon dividends
       

       OPOF, yes thats exactly the sort of thing I mean. A carbon tax, but with some of the levy as targeted encouragement.  

14178. One Planet Only Forever at 12:28 PM on 6 July 2018
       Declare energy independence with carbon dividends
       

       nigelj,

       I share your understanding that making fossil fuels more expensive through a 'levy that is fully rebated to the entire population' would not bring about the required rapid end of their use, particularly among the wealthier portion of the population. The already more fortunate humans, the ones who can afford to just keep on buying fossil fuels (and can actually afford to most responsibly transition away from benefiting from burning fossil fuels - can afford a Tesla), know they would get some of the extra cost back in a rebate.

       What was done in Alberta (Alberta Carbon Levy and Rebate) is more effective. About half of the total collected Carbon Levy (a more appropriate term to use when the collected money does not go into General Revenue) is rebated to everyone earning less than a middle income (household earning less than $95,000, individuals earning less than $47,500.

       The remainder of the collected levy is used to do targeted encouragement and support of the type of changes that need to be developed (what you indicate also needs to happen).

       That program makes the wealthier people more wary of just carrying on the way they want 'because they can afford it'. As the levy increases they would appreciate they would get significant personal benefits from behaving more responsibly (dumping the Hummer).

14179. nigelj at 12:20 PM on 6 July 2018
       10th run of Denial101x starts on July 10!
       

       Breaking news: Scott Pruitt resigns from EPA. One less denialist in a position of power.

14180. nigelj at 10:19 AM on 6 July 2018
       Declare energy independence with carbon dividends
       

       Vector @2, yes I appreciate all that, and  I didn't say a carbon tax and dividend idea was a bad thing. I was simply making the point that we could resolve the problem I mentioned  by making electric cars more attractive with a subsidy. Currently they aren't "cheaper" than the alternatives. Do you have any ideological objection to a subsidy, or something? 

14181. Johnny Vector at 08:36 AM on 6 July 2018
       Declare energy independence with carbon dividends
       

       nigelj: You're rather missing the point. The important bit is that the petrol will cost more than it does now.  Yes, people can just spend the dividend on the petrol, but this means people who can't afford the capital expenditure currently needed to buy solar panels or whatever other type of clean energy are not penalized. Those of us who can, will. And with a reasonable sized carbon tax, renewable energy will be cheaper than fossil energy in all cases, without further incentives. Thus anyone who has the ability to make the choice will choose renewable. 

       Sure, you can just go about as you were, getting money back and using that to offset the higher cost of petrol. Or you can switch to renewable energy, which is now cheaper than fossil, and spend the rest of your rebate on whiskey and chaw (or however you prefer to spend your extra cash).

       The idea is this will drive investment in renewable energy, which of course it will, and that will accelerate the continuing drop in cost of renewables. It may or may not be sufficient, but given how fast the costs have dropped recently, I'm willing to believe it would be.

14182. nigelj at 07:06 AM on 6 July 2018
       10th run of Denial101x starts on July 10!
       

       "Occam's razor (also Ockham's razor or Ocham's razor; Latin: lex parsimoniae "law of parsimony") is the problem-solving principle that the simplest solution tends to be the right one. When presented with competing hypotheses to solve a problem, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions. The idea is attributed to William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), who was an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, and theologian."

       Let's apply this to understanding climate denialism. Many things are correctly "implicated" in climate denialism:

       1) Everyone has at least some healthy scepticism of new scientific findings, but with some people the scepticism becomes absurd and stubborn, they don't learn or won't learn, and the end point is they resort to  conspiracy theory ideation.

       2) People who have vested interests in fossil fuel companies or other businesses who could be impacted by reduced use of fossil fuels, so they perhaps deny the science as a strategy.

       3) You have political, ideological and tribal influences who resent carbon taxes and similar  government solutions,  so they attack the science.

       4) Dunning Kruger, confirmation bias.

       Yet if you look at the common factor here, its stupidity, and often deliberate stupidity, because its educated people who are often in denial.

       So the fundamental cause of climate denialism is stupidity.

14183. nigelj at 06:38 AM on 6 July 2018
       Future projections of Antarctic ice shelf melting
       

       Riduna, I think what they are saying is in the past we typically had lot of sea ice so a very salty top layer of water, but with less sea ice typically forming now the surface is less salty compared to the previous historical pattern, so the circulation pattern has changed for part of the year at least. I could be wrong, its complicated to get ones head around.

       I think Hansen is talking about something different about ice shelves around the base of glaciers and glacier flow, so a different mechanism that is also ultimately producing a fresh surface water layer.

       Fwiw I think there is a substantial risk of this glacier discharge producing accelerated melting in the Antarctic with multi metre sea level rise this century, maybe 2 metres is my pick. The paleo climate record shows its happened before at similar warming to what we expect this century, so I ask people, why wouldn't it happen now?

14184. Riduna at 04:21 AM on 6 July 2018
       Future projections of Antarctic ice shelf melting
       

       The author, Dr Naughten, states that: ‘In our simulations, warming winters caused a decrease in sea ice formation. So there was less brine rejection, causing fresher surface waters, causing less vertical mixing, and the warmth of Circumpolar Deep Water was no longer lost to the atmosphere. As a result, ocean temperatures near the bottom of the Amundsen Sea increased.’ If there is less brine rejection how can this produce fresher surface water? Surely the converse would be true.

       I am inclined to the view held by Dr Hansen et al 2016, that a combination of ice-shelf disintegration producing faster glacier discharge and increasing ice sheet surface temperature at its margins produces a fresh water lens on the sea surface, inhibiting overturning circulation, as the cause of warming bottom water formation.

14185. Cedders at 08:41 AM on 5 July 2018
       Climate's changed before
       

       In my comment 594, I suggested that 'the climate's changed before' or 'climate always changes' is really only half an argument, with two possible misleading inferences, and only one of these is really covered in depth here (although they are both enumerated in the blob points of the intermediate article). I'm hoping this comment might be useful if revising, clarifying or expanding these pages.

       Dr Richard Milne, University of Edinburgh biologist, makes exactly this point and puts these fallacies more clearly and entertainingly than I can in his lecture 'Critical Thinking on Climate Change: Separating Skepticism from Denial', covering both in two minutes, before employing the Scotese graph of temperature over geological time(!), and moving on to his next myth, http://sks.to/chaos.

       The first implication is 'the climate's changed before... therefore it must be natural', is covered a bit in the intermediate article, and the logical fallacy is deconstructed in very similar terms by John Cook, Peter Ellerton and David Kinkead in their fun video. (By the way, does the assertion that there's no lag actually run counter to the usual explanation of lag but feedback? Probably mentioned elsewhere in these comments.)

       Their paper on critical thinking could equally be applied to the second  implication: 'the climate's changed before ... so it's nothing to worry about'. Milne characterises this as 'A didn't harm B, when B was not present, therefore A cannot harm B'. I'm suggesting that as some people move from 'phase 1' dismissal (it's not happening), through 'phase 2' (it's not us), most dismissives are moving to 'phase 3' (it's not bad), so this second implication is worth clarifying.

       So I think having articles from knowledgeable people on the following would be great, and then they could be hold the findings and be linked from a general page about the fallacies:

       • Previous warming during the Holocene hasn't adversely affected civilisation (in some cases it did, warming was smaller and slower and local, the Optimum was before settlements, we caused some of it through deforestation, the pattern of warming was different, larger future warming is projected to adversely affect ecosystems, food supplies etc.)
       • Previous hyperthermal events like the PETM (or P-T boundary) didn't necessarly lead to mass extinctions or runaway climate change and the Earth was 'resilient'. (Sometimes it does lead to mass extinction, depending on rate of change as well as absolute temperature, weathering will reduce CO₂ only over millennia, most extinctions involved climate change, solar radiation has increased, and our perturbations are on the scale of these extinctions, tended to wipe out megafauna, we have some idea of the extinction and range shift rates, this is a long-term change; much as in the basic article here)

       Tangentially related because I can't think where else to suggest it, probably under 'it's not bad' or 'it's too hard':

       • The projections are imprecise and there are lots of uncertainties about impacts, therefore we shouldn't act until these are resolved, or it might turn out OK (risk management principles; uncertainty means range, not doubt; some range is inevitable; we know more than might be thought; climate change is non-linear and affects some regions more severely than others)

       Finally, I note there's nothing under the 'it's too late' heading in the taxonomy, which is related to the opposite idea, that size of warming is completely unprecedented in the Cenozoic. I occasionally meet overstatements of the kind 'boreal forest will collapse; there will be a permanent El Niño', although these seem individual and not as repetitive as the climate dismissives. Climate Feedback deals with these when they happen, and if there's time, it may be worth seeing how a sceptical analysis looks at those.

14186. nigelj at 07:46 AM on 5 July 2018
       Declare energy independence with carbon dividends
       

       A carbon tax and dividend scheme clearly has huge merits. But what's to stop people spending the dividend cheque on petrol, cancelling the point of the scheme? I think you have to use part of the tax revenue to subsidise electric cars and renewable electricity generation, to make this as attractive as possible, and this should be acceptable to conservatives, as it keeps the money away from general state spending.

       It's rather hard to see how a carbon tax would deal with creating agricultural carbon sinks or new forests. So no sorry I dont see a carbon tax as a "stand alone solution",  but at the same time you would not need many additional measures, possibly just a few limited subsidies. If fossil fuel subsidies were cancelled, this would pay for part of electric car subsidies anyway.

       But subsidies should be spread equally over all forms of clean energy, and generating companies should make the choice on the best form of generation rather than government. This would presumably resolve conservatives worries about government over reach.

14187. nigelj at 06:39 AM on 5 July 2018
       Republicans try to save their deteriorating party with another push for a carbon tax
       

       OPOF @8, yes I hear you. Legal documents often use long sentences as its the only way of being precise. By nature I have used very long sentences in the past, but have been criticised for this, and hence I have adopted a slightly more "clipped" style.

       As with many things its probably about the right 'balance'. Long sentences are sometimes absolutely essential, but using too many, or if they are too long make things a little hard to read.

       I think your choice of sophisticated words is about right actually,because you use them appropriately and you dont go overboard. Some people use less common words to sound impressive. And too much 'jargon' can be confusing but I definitely dont see this with you.

       If anything its your use of simple words like troublemakers that  seems unusual, -  although to be honest, I cant think of a better one in the context!

       The reason I'm ranting about this is more that so much trouble in internet discussions comes from bad writing, and people missinterpreting what each other say and this applies to so many different people. So I'm talking to everyone not really just you. One of the main problems is lack of clarity, but you don't have that problem. 

       The other suggestion is  when analysis becomes long, it's best to take a historical approach, so define the problem, analyse it and its history, suggest solutions, etc. A summary at the start helps.

       I'm thinking of writing a book on climate denialism, so I'm speaking partly to myself, and if people think my comments on communications are wrong tear them apart.

14188. One Planet Only Forever at 01:19 AM on 5 July 2018
       Republicans try to save their deteriorating party with another push for a carbon tax
       

       nigelj,

       I appreciate the feedback.

       Condensing statements is a little tricky for me. I have seen many cases where a briefer statement was more ambiguous,more open to interpretation. That is usually the result of using a 'term' instead of using more words to say what is intended.

       Taking extra time to create a longer message using shorter sentences, still being careful to not use terms that result in the statement being more open to interpretation, is part of what I will do. John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" opens with a 45 word sentence. And Noam Chomski's writing is full of long statements. However, my long statements are not as well crafted as theirs are (and 70 word strings can easily be divided into a pair of statements).

       What is more relevant is that writers like Naomi Klein effectively use shorter statements with more common words. So, I will also work towards using more basic language (but I will continue to sprinkle in relevant less common, and not more open to interpretation, terms in the hopes that people will take the time understand how to expand their vocabulary).

       Unfortunately many people struggle to comprehend statements made using less familiar words. I have read that news writers try to use Grade 4 level English (That was years ago. It may be down to Grade 3 Level by now). So I will be working on using a diversity of writing styles, with the more basic styles used for writing that is intended for broader public consumption.

14189. michael sweet at 21:09 PM on 4 July 2018
       2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26
       

       Sorry, I mispelled Maximiliano Herrera's name (I need my glaswses in the morning).

       His web site is here.

14190. michael sweet at 21:06 PM on 4 July 2018
       2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26
       

       MarkD:

       Official records of highest minimum temperature are not kept.  Maximiliano Hermano is a private weather researcher who everyone cites.  Jeff Masters has a post here about this record.

14191. Mark D at 15:47 PM on 4 July 2018
       2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26
       

       Could you tell me what data you have used to conclude: "most likely the highest minimum temperature ever observed on Earth."?

14192. nigelj at 09:55 AM on 4 July 2018
       Republicans try to save their deteriorating party with another push for a carbon tax
       

       OPOF @6, I'm semi retired myself.  I lack clarity at times, and I'm too dry, and I'm working to improve this.

       Some hopefully constructive advice: I wouldn't say that you should use more basic language! Sophisticated, elegant writing is fantastic and you have an element of this.

       But one of your sentences above was about 70 words long (!) so too cumbersome, and  I'm not sure "troublemakers " is the right sort of term, and is if anything too basic. However your style is also what makes your posts rather compelling and interesting, so I'm suggesting a  "trimming up" rather than a different basic approach. 

       Yes libertarians are like that. They reluctantly accept having a government at all, and only to the extent of criminal and very basic property law to protect their interests while they do what they like and walk over everyone else.  I think libertarianism probably has some sort of genetic basis, or at the very least they are at the extreme end of the spectrum of human behaviour.

       Unfortunatlely these people are cunning and influence politics sometimes behind the scenes, and are diametrically opposed to the very things that can make a difference on the climate issue in terms of state policies eg carbon taxes, and subsidies. Their ideology is one of deep resentment of any rules, impositions, taxes, or constraints. I'm more in the middle on the issue, as it appears you are. 

14193. One Planet Only Forever at 08:09 AM on 4 July 2018
       Republicans try to save their deteriorating party with another push for a carbon tax
       

       nigelj,

       My thoughts and how to best express them are definitely a work in progress.

       I have recently retired from my career as an ethics-guided Professional Engineer. I plan to work on improving my writing, learning to present things in more basic language.

       And I also owe SkS an article, or series, about the required correction of economic evaluations that currently ignore the unacceptability of a portion of humanity benefiting from activity that is unsustainable and that develops/creates negative consequences that others, especially future generations, will have to try to live/deal with. Those evaluations compare 'the benefit that has to be given up by some of humanity today to reduce the negative consequences faced by others, especially by future generations' with the negative consequences for others and argue that as long as the 'negative future consequences' are figured out to be less than the 'opportunity that has to be given up today' then it is OK to enjoy today's opportunity. Which is like claiming it is OK to hurt my neighbour as long as I think I get more benefit than the harm I think I am doing to my neighbour.

       I learned about the concept of abductive reasoning from Sean Carroll's book "The Big Picture" (which is a non-political-ism biased book - it promotes naturalism - I highly recommend to anyone wanting to be as understanding as possible about what is going on).

       If we could get people competing to be 'more ethical' and be rewarded for being more ethical, more helpful to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, there would be less need for laws or means to enforce laws to protect desired interests.

       Regarding the libertarian-right dislike of taxes: My understanding is that they believe the only value of taxes is to protect 'their' developed private interests. They support taxes for military offensive/defence capabilities (the ability to threaten external parties more than those external others can be a threat), and support taxes for policing (but not for keeping the peace in their region, more for threatening and acting to protect private interests with military-style policing for their benefit being something they are OK with).

14194. Bob Loblaw at 06:58 AM on 4 July 2018
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       davidbennetlaing:

       You are thinking in terms of "CO2 changes, but nothing affecting emission else does". This is not correct.

       Temperature is also a factor. As the temperature profile changes, cooler temperatures tend to cause less IR emission. Also, as the increase in CO2 increasing emissivity, you can get the same emission with a cooler temperature.

       At any point in the atmosphere, the upward flux of IR is a combination of what is emitted locally, plus whatever was emitted upwards from lower layers that has not yet been absorbed.

       What is seen from space is a rather complex integration of emission from all atmospheric layers, less any absorption by overlying layers. You cannot think of it as a single "emit half up, half down" event. In mathematical terms, it is not a single equation, but a rather large system of equations.

       Doing the full math indicates that the lower atmosphere will warm, and the stratosphere will cool, and the view from space will be affected as indicated by the observations michael sweet has indicated.

14195. nigelj at 06:33 AM on 4 July 2018
       Republicans try to save their deteriorating party with another push for a carbon tax
       

       OPOF I meant abductive reasoning!

14196. nigelj at 06:31 AM on 4 July 2018
       Republicans try to save their deteriorating party with another push for a carbon tax
       

       OPOF, thank's for the tip on inductive reasoning. I confess it's a new concept I haven't come across, although I did the other forms of reasoning in maths at university. It seems a little like Occams Razor. 

       And your analysis of society is very convicing. It is difficult for humanity, because we are 'hardwired' to be somewhat competitive and status seeking, which needs acknowledging,  and this can have both positive and negative implications. I don't have a problem with business competition between firms, but when individuals turn this into something self aggrandising this can become toxic for humanity as a whole. This is what D Trump does.

       On a personal level, I  think we have to push our competitiveness into areas that are less materialistic in nature, and less harmful to others, and  disrespectful of the welfare of others and more helpful to others. Its a challenge, but I doubt humanity has any other real choice in the long run. Humanity is capable of greatness, and needs a stable ethical platform and agreed rules if it is to achieve this.

       You have an individualistic interpretation of matters and of expressing them that is probably your strength. Yet I would avoid being "too" idiosyncratic in terminology.

       I must pick up more on the themes you explore, and write something on it on this website when appropriate as a fully stated analysis / philosophy. I tend to be more a person who is reactive to what other people say, and just pick up on points they make. But I feel if they have taken the trouble to write them, its polite to acknowledge them.

14197. One Planet Only Forever at 05:13 AM on 4 July 2018
       Republicans try to save their deteriorating party with another push for a carbon tax
       

       nigelj,

       Applying abductive reasoning (using inference to come up with the best explanation of everything that you observe or are aware of - not Deductive or Inductive reasoning), I consider the following to be what is happening:

       • Competition to appear to be superior to others, with popularity and profitability as measures of success, is unjustifiable being won by people who choose to behave less ethically than Others.
       • The unjustified winners use false advertising in the form of political claim-making and published political Opinion pieces because there are no rules requiring honest efforts to educate (to more fully inform or to help correctly understand) when it comes to political matters.
       • That winning by less ethical people, and the associated bad law making and bad law enforcement, create an environment where more people develop similar desires to win by being less ethical.

       And that is what John Stuart Mill warned about in "On Liberty" with the statement “If society lets a considerable number of its members grow up mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame for the consequences.”

       But the reality is that the damage done by too many people in a nation like the USA 'growing up mere children' is that the rest of humanity, in particular the future of humanity, suffers the consequences while the undeserving Winners temporarily enjoy their unjustified damaging spoils (feeling superior by getting away with harming others, ruining things for everyone else).

       And that was explained in the 1987 UN Report "Our Common Future" stating that "... We act as we do because we can get away with it: future generations do not vote; they have no political or financial power; they cannot challenge our decisions." The reality is even worse than that. The undeserving winners act the way they do because they do not believe that the people they harm can effectively get even with them, and they strive to be as threatening as possible to All Others (those they do not care about and are willing to harm).

       That group of trouble-makers have figured out ways to create false advertising triggering primitive reactionary instinctive responses that over-power a person's innate human ability to use their frontal lobes to considerately thoughtfully evaluate and understand what is actually going on. They promote Egoism to the detriment of Altruism.

       And that is what has happened to Ethics, it is being Trumped by Selfishness, and not just in the USA, and not just recently.

       And that is a major reason why climate science has not been more broadly accepted, why it is so aggressively irrationally successfully opposed. Undeserving winners do not like the corrections of what has developed that have been identified and justified by climate science. The burning of fossil fuels is not the only undeserved unsustainable harmful way of winning that has developed popularity and profitability (and those Uniting greedier and less tolerant people and claiming they are Right and hoping to be believed to be Conservative understand all of that, and how to unjustifiably win).

14198. michael sweet at 04:25 AM on 4 July 2018
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       davidbennettlaing,

       Your argument is an argument from increduility.  You need to provide data to support your claim.  Since experienced atmospheric chemists and physicists agree that increasing CO2 results in lowered emissions at the CO2 emission bands, it seems more likely that you are incorrect than they are.

       The Earth emits black body radiation upward.  CO2 absorbs in the same bands that it emits.  Energy is re-emitted upward and downward (as you state).  The energy emitted upward is reabsorbed at a higher altitude.  Energy is re-emitted up and down.  Eventually the energy emitted upward escapes to space.   This is called the escape altitude.  The satalite measures the energy that escapes.

       The energy that escapes is emitted from much higher in the atmosphere  that the original energy that was emitted from the surface of the Earth.  Since as you increase in altitude in the atmosphere it is colder, the energy is emitted from molecules that are colder than the surface molecules.  When molecules are colder less energy is emitted.  This difference in energy is what the satalite measures.  It relates to the difference in temperature between the surface and the atmosphere at the escape altitude.

       Increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere causes the escape altitude to increase.  That results in lower emissions of energy since it is colder at higher altitudes.  The change in temperature with altitude is called the lapse rate.  The lapse rate is about 6C per kilometer of altitude.  Thus an increase of 100 meters in altitude results in a shift of about 0.6C in emission temperature.

       Since this decrease in energy has been measured, it makes no sense for you to object to measured data.  An explaination for the change is required.

14199. davidbennettlaing at 03:53 AM on 4 July 2018
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       It makes no sense that satellites should record a lessened flux of radiation to space within the emission band of CO2 when the concentration of CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere. If half of all emissions from CO2 go upward to space, then a higher atmospheric CO2 concentration should result in a greater, not a lesser, flux of radiation to space. The latter should not be at all affected by the storage of IR within Earth's atmospheric system. That only involves the half of radiation that is directed downward. A decrease in flux recorded by satellites is most likely due to an error in recording outward flux. I'd welcome some comments on this. Tx.

14200. Bob Loblaw at 00:09 AM on 4 July 2018
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       Indeed. Billev's non-scientific "draw a line where I want to" approach does not replace proper statistical analysis. Tamino has recently posted yet another examination of the zombie "pause" meme.

       https://tamino.wordpress.com/2018/06/30/weak-sauce-from-climate-deniers/

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