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One Planet Only Forever at 08:09 AM on 4 July 2018Republicans 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).
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Bob Loblaw at 06:58 AM on 4 July 2018Increasing 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.
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nigelj at 06:33 AM on 4 July 2018Republicans try to save their deteriorating party with another push for a carbon tax
OPOF I meant abductive reasoning!
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nigelj at 06:31 AM on 4 July 2018Republicans 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.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:13 AM on 4 July 2018Republicans 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).
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michael sweet at 04:25 AM on 4 July 2018Increasing 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.
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davidbennettlaing at 03:53 AM on 4 July 2018Increasing 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.
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Bob Loblaw at 00:09 AM on 4 July 2018There'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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Philippe Chantreau at 23:28 PM on 3 July 2018There's no empirical evidence
Drawing a line between any arbitrarily chosen points will likely show exactly wat you want to see and is useless for figuring out what is happening in reality. Flat lines can be drawn at multiple time periods in the record, yet the overall trend is painfully obvious. There is not and there never was a pause, only variations around a trend that is resolutely up. Temperatures after the 1998 El Nino did not settle back to the pre-Nino level, the same thing is happening now following the 2016 El-Nino. The current US heat wave is showing us what the new normal is, as have all the extreme weather events accumulating everywhere in the world. The radiative properties of CO2 are very well known and the measured values for all altitudes match MODTRAN as well as one could wish for. Look it up.
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MA Rodger at 23:24 PM on 3 July 2018There's no empirical evidence
billev @360.
I think you need to explain what you mean by "If a horizontal line is drawn forward from the mean temperature for 2002 it can be seen that there is about as much temperature activity below that line as above it to the present."
If a horizontal line is drawn from 2002 through the NOAA data, only three of the fifteen following years lie below the 2002 average. So the "activity" is surely pretty-much all above that line. Of course, you may have a different definition for what you mean by "activity", or you could have drawn your line less than accurately.
Your other point about CO2 "heat retention capability", the radiative forcing of CO2 is well understood and evidentially based, experiments including atmospheric measurement (eg Feldman et al 2015).
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billev at 22:36 PM on 3 July 2018There's no empirical evidence
The NOAA published record of global temperature change since 1880 shows two thirty year periods where global mean temperature did not rise beginning in around 1880 and around 1945. The recent record shows that another period of probable pause in global warming began shortly after 2000. There has been argument over the existence of a current pause, however, if a horizontal line is drawn forward from the mean temperature for 2002 it can be seen that there is about as much temperature activity below that line as above it to the present. The obvious question is why a pause in temperature rise during the continual rise in atmospheric CO2 level? Another point: have there been any experiments that measure the heat retention capability of the atmospheric level of CO2 rather than CO2 at a 100 percent level?
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Postkey at 17:44 PM on 3 July 2018CO2 was higher in the past
Poholer54 discusses this from about 3:32.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBF6F4Bi6Sg&t=966s
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nigelj at 14:04 PM on 3 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #26
Some interesting news relating to Scott Pruitt:
"Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt was confronted while eating at the Teaism restaurant Monday. Teacher Kristin Mink, who was with her son, 2, said: 'I urge you to resign, because of what you're doing to the environment in our country'. Pruitt said nothing during the showdown and left shortly."
Love it. Exactly what he deserves. Some push back. But keep it civil.
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rogerfjellstadolsen at 10:38 AM on 3 July 2018CO2 was higher in the past
LETS DEBUNK THE GRAPH:
What sceptics think it shows:
There is no correlation between temperatures and C02 and that c02 levels was higher in the past, like hundreds of millions of years ago (thus arguing that todays c02 level is nothing to worry about).
____________________________________
But why is there no correlation between c02 and temperature on the graph? Are there another major driver of temperature than C02? And this is so ironic; Deniers favorite mantra is "Its the sun", but what do they do? LOL..
They use a graph which do not include the sun.
The assertion that only CO2 drives temperature it's as much a logical falacy as the sun being the only driver of temperature though science considers both. Its amusing that deniers, who say it's the sun which drives the climate, do not consider the sun when they try to demonstrate there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature.
(The effects of today's global warming are felt by societies and existing ecosystems adapted to the Holocene climate in OUR TIME - NOT the climate and CO2 levels that existed hundreds of millions of years ago.)
But anyway, can you see the name in the bottom left corner?
It says C02 after Robert A Berner 2001. Hmm...OK..it refers to a study.
Lets check this study and see what it says about c02 and temperatures:
GEOCARB III: A REVISED MODEL OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 OVER PHANEROZOIC TIME - ROBERT A. BERNER and ZAVARETH KOTHAVALA 2001
citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.393.582&rep=rep1&type=pdf
On page 201:
"Thus, exact values of CO2, as shown by the standard curve, should not be taken literally and are always susceptible to modification. Nevertheless, the overall trend remains. This means that over the long term there is indeed a correlation between CO2 and paleotemperature, as manifested by the atmospheric greenhouse effect"
WOW. The man behind the C02 graph says there IS a correlation between temps and c02, which is the opposite of what Patrick Moore claims and what deniers thinks of the graph. Berner also confirms the greenhouse effect, which is basic physics many deniers refuse to believe in.
Full debunk of the graph:
Can we make better graphs of global temperature history?
YES, THERE IS A CORRELATION BETWEEN C02, THE SUN AND TEMPERATURES:
stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/shaviv-veizer-03.pdf
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nigelj at 10:36 AM on 3 July 2018Republicans try to save their deteriorating party with another push for a carbon tax
A perfect example of how useless Fox are: Maria Bartiromo’s embarrassing Trump interview.
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nigelj at 07:12 AM on 3 July 2018Republicans try to save their deteriorating party with another push for a carbon tax
What an accurate article, complete with an attention grabbing summary (ha ha).
Carbon tax and dividend makes sense environmentally, ethically, politically and in terms of the constitution. The Constitution allows the government to tax: (Section 8. Clause 1) .The GOP is always talking about the value of the constitition, and its various amendments so why do they have blinkers over their eyes when they read this part?
Climate change is a consumption problem and a classic "tragedy of the commons" problem, where markets don't automatically recognise and correct the problem, thus requiring a push from something like a carbon tax. The tax and dividend scheme overcomes the potential for the money to disappear into general government spending, by giving it directly to the citizens, and when the climate problem is resolved the tax obviously self extinguishes, so this should ameliorate concerns that taxes become embedded and permanent, potentially increasing government over reach.
The racism, or perhaps xenophobia about immigration is probably partly a result of exaggeration and deceit coming from the media. The impression is created that America is being buried with vast numbers of immigrants, terrorists, and criminals, when this is all nonsense.
The facts are that on a "per capita" basis dozens of countries take in more immigrants than America. Numbers of illegal immigrants coming into America have been falling for years.
In addition immigrant communities tend to have low rates of crime, add value to the economy, and tend to be motivated and hard working.
Americans are such gullable people. They take the utter drivel coming from people like Fox and various conspiracy theory websites at face value, and can't even be bothered to fact check it.
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nigelj at 06:01 AM on 3 July 2018New research, June 18-24, 2018
D Crickett, hmmm the link works ok on my computer. The paper is as follows. Perhaps try using google search or google scholar.
"Why We Resist the Truth About Climate ChangeA paper to the Climate Controversies: Science and politics conference
Museum of Natural Sciences,Brussels, 28 October 2010
Clive Hamilton1"It has a lot of detail on aryan physics, and draws comparisons with how climate denial is currently attacking scientists. I think it is pretty much what you are looking for.
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Dcrickett at 05:09 AM on 3 July 2018New research, June 18-24, 2018
#3 nigelj ― thanks for your efforts! (By the way, I was unable to reach the research paper thru your link.) So far, my search for serious scholarly study of similarities and differences among different episodes of denial of yet-unfalsified but falsifiable theories (not hypotheses!) concerning objective reality (whatever “reality” is!) has been a dead-end street. Such episodes, some more significant than others, have arisen amazingly often (amazing to me, at least) in the past few centuries.
So I will try to concoct some home brew on my own. Bearing in mind that he who drinks his own fixin’s is at elevated risk of being struck blind.
And again, thank you DB! It’s been a while since I read that Scientific American article, which led me to wonder about the matter, which has moved from back-of-the-stove to front-burner in my aging brain.
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scaddenp at 09:00 AM on 2 July 2018The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download
I cant speak for Sks on this, but in my experience, graphics and figures dont do well on ereaders and Sks handbook makes heavy use of them.
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jessehouwing at 23:46 PM on 1 July 2018The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download
Any chance these could also be released in an e-book format like mobi or epub? The PDF is hard to read on an e-reader.
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sauerj at 14:24 PM on 1 July 2018Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess
@ villabolo #20 and nigelj #21:
Thanks for the feedback! ... The part I like about the atom bomb analogy is that it 1) scales the rate of warming with respect to how much energy man consumes (a type of yard stick they can relate to) and 2) that it puts the warming into units that may help people better relate on the sheer magnitude of it. ... You are probably very right that it is not nearly as effective on most people compared to what it was on me when I first derived the numbers on my own. But, certainly for some people that have read it on-line & that I have verbally explained or emailed it to, it has shown to be helpful & effective in giving them a perspective of scale to how much the globe is warming. ... And, yes, it would only be effective (like any sort of climate change apologetics) on people with open minds, that is a given across the board. ... Thanks for the feedback! -
william5331 at 08:36 AM on 1 July 2018What happened last time it was as warm as it’s going to get later this century?
We should be going into the next glacial period of this 2.75m (so far) ice age but have put it off. For the far future, it is sad that we are wasting our ability to put off another glacier advance so prfligately. Our far distant decendants will need this carbon to hold off a slide into glaciation until the Milankovitch cycle puts us natually into the next interglacial. Now we have no choice but to prepare by retreating from flood areas both by the sea and by rivers, working hard on developing new agriculture for areas that are continually warming and so forth. We seem to do best under pressure and this will certainly test us out. We would have a much better chance if vested interests didn't finance our politicians. Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune.
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nigelj at 07:28 AM on 1 July 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26
High night time temperatures are horribly uncomfortable, and will become more prevalent with climate change. People in Oman can afford air conditioning, but other countries may not afford it so easily. I find anything above 23 degrees celsius at night makes sleeping very difficult, so Omans temperatures are almost unimaginable for me.
In addition, when tempertures becomes very high combined with moderate to high humidity, it can be lethal. Climate change will expose large areas of the planet to potentially lethal temperature and humidity combinations. So not only is air conditioning going to become more and more essential, people will live in constant fear of power cuts. Some areas may become uninhabitable, creating more migrants to deal with, and we already know how difficult that becomes. Ask Europe.
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nigelj at 06:51 AM on 1 July 2018Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess
The atomic bomb analogy is interesting, but perhaps too complex and long for most people. Some people may not understand it, and If you try to explain a complicated process with a complex long analogy, you will probably lose peoples attention. I would only use it if someone is open minded and well educated.
Blankets are a good analogy, because it's a simple analogy using something everyone has experience with, so is easy for almost anyone to grasp.
Analogies have a long and interesting history.
However analogies are easy for stupid politically motivated people to attack and ridicule. The longer they are, the more open they are to attack. You can explain the greenhouse effect in a simple way by describing the effects of clouds at night compared to a clear sky and how its colder with a clear sky.
I think only use analogies when you have to. They are of no use trying to convince hard core denialists, who in my experience just pick them to bits and ridicule them. They seem to work more for open minded people.
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villabolo at 02:17 AM on 1 July 2018Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess
@ sauerj #19
I just came up with a much simpler comparison to illustrate the thermal imbalance.
Imagine you're sleeping at night and a single blanket is enough to keep you comfortable. Then another blanket is added, then another and another. Eventually, you'll feel uncomfortably hot.
Then a skeptic tells you, "If you remove those blankets you'll feel cold." Then you respond by saying, "One is good enough."
Simple enough analogy. Otherwise, with the nuke analogy, you end up having to explain the analogy itself and thus lose track of what the point is in the first place. An analogy should be of utmost simplicity and intuitively obvious to the person hearing it without having to give any further explanation.
That is why I strongly suggest removing the Hiroshima analogy counter to keep the uninformed public from getting confused and turned off by what they would erroneously but understandingly perceive to be an absurd comparison.
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MA Rodger at 20:35 PM on 30 June 2018Arctic sea ice has recovered
Bees Knees @97,
The lack of rogour encompassed by the DMI modelling is perhaps best seen in that they wind-the-handle once a day to update their results while PIOMAS (who are ever conscious that their modelling could be deficient and thus checking for corroberating data from the likes of CryoSAT) run a monthly update. And in that regard, this means we cannot yet compare the DMI 2018 results that hae "crossed the line" with their PIOMAS equivalent as this "crossing the line" has only occurred through June.
However we can compare the June to August 2014 DMI graphed results with the equivalent PIOMAS results, this relative to a 2004-13 mean. The DMI graph shows June 2014 somewhat icier than the 2004-13 average and July & August both some 2,000 cu km icier. PIOMAS shows a meltier 2014 relative to the 2004-13 average with only August 2014 marginally icier than that 2004-13 average. Jun -1,500 cu km, Jul -600 cu km, Aug +100 cu km.
So the upshot is we have a situation handed the denialists by DMI's light-weight modelling (who won't be the least bothered) providing a less-embarassing-than-normal excuse for them to troll their nonsense through the media. Yet denialists are not shaken by the embarassment of being continually wrong so it isn't something to be too exercised about.
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sauerj at 14:34 PM on 30 June 2018Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess
@ villabolo #10
Thanks for the feedback. Very good point! Yes, from one person, I did encounter the reaction you describe.
Outcome of a small sample of verbal reactions: I have verbally given my "atom bomb" story to about 10 people (though I think it works better in written form, as in my FB note, linked above). Side Note: Most of these 10 people are either technical people (chemical engineers), or else folks already immersed in climate science & action (so, a very skewed slice of the overall population). It did "move" about half of them; "ho-hum" for another 1/3. But, for one notable person, my wife, it caused the exact same reaction that you described. She adoringly said, "You don't mean for me to believe that there are actually 10,000,000 atom bombs exploding all over the world every hour?" (so she got hung-up, right away, on step #1 of the story; without even getting to step #2, the thermal imbalance part (18k/hr); or step #3, man's consumption part (1k/hr)).To clearly describe the steps of this story (if you haven't yet read the FB note):
Step #1: The sun delivers to the earth 10mm hiro atom bombs of incoming energy per hour. All of this energy must leave for temperatures to remain constant [This latter part is another sticky, somewhat technical point, that I had to figure out for myself, as I was hung-up on the photosynthesis chemical energy (no-heat) part. But, eventually it dawned on me that even this chemical energy does become thermal energy, assuming equal bio-mass over time [when the chemical energy is converted to thermal energy by biological processes]. Presently, my write-up doesn't address this photosynthesis part of the energy balance story.]
Step #2: 18k hiro atom bombs per hour of the sun's incoming energy is restricted from getting out due to the increase in GHG's (primarily CO2). This part is easy to understand.
Step #3: 1k hiro atom bombs of energy is all of the energy that man consumes in 1 hour. … This puts #1 and #2 into perspective (which my write-up then goes on to give examples of perspective). This #3 perspective part is usually what gets a reaction out of people; here they start to put the scale of the thermal imbalance story into mental terms that they can viscerally relate to. And if they follow along so far, then, all of a sudden, the science becomes not just dry non-visceral words on the page, but a real, tangible kick in the gut, hopefully enough to ignite more impassioned energy toward climate action.My wife's reaction was not something that I had anticipated; it was completely different compared to my reaction in how this sequence (#1, #2, #3) profoundly (viscerally) affected me.
To fix this, I could try to explain the scale of what real, point-concentrated hiro atom bombs going off would be like. One option: Proportionally scale the sun's energy (10mm/hr bombs over the sunny side of the globe, 1/2 of its surface) down to 1 sq mile (the coverage of 1 real hiro bomb) and also down to 1 second (its blast duration, being conservatively long). How many hiro atom bombs of energy is the sun delivering to that 1 sq mile in 1 second of time? Answer: 0.0000283 equivalent bombs (or, maybe better said, 1/35000 of a real hiro bomb).
Another wording (I might try to figure out how to wiggle this into the document): "The sun delivers to a sq-mi plot of land in 10 hours what a real hiro atom bomb would deliver to that same sq-mi plot in 1 second." For me, that makes the sun's energy density sound like a lot; but, quite frankly, it is! But, obviously, NOT enough to decimate the land.Until I came up with the #1,#2,#3 atom bomb story, I was a bit foggy in having a deep technical understanding, in a visceral way, of the thermal imbalance, which is the fundamental basis for understanding what is causing global warming. I understood it in my head, but not in a scaled perspective sort of way, and also not in a way that I could convincingly explain it to others. Hansen has a picture of his grandchild (in his 'Storms' book) holding a 1-watt xmas tree light bulb, and he points out how this amount of thermal imbalance per sq meter is enough to cause huge instabilities to climate change. … This was a very endearing & tender picture, but this really didn't help me put the scale of the total thermal imbalance into clear perspective of scale. Was he trying to say that it was a lot of energy per meter, or that it wasn't a lot of energy per meter? … Now, with the help of the epiphany of my atom bomb story, I now know that 1-watt/sq-meter is not a lot of energy for that sq-meter, but is a lot of total energy over the whole globe (18k atom bombs/hr, and, more so, is 18x more than all the energy that man consumes) … [NOTE: 18k atom bombs is technically 0.6w/sq-meter (which I am getting from HERE).] But, without this, the lack of scale of perspective made it hard to put Hansen's story into relatable, useable or meaningful terms for me.
Although the atom bomb story (as stepped thru above) may not be effective for everyone, I have hope that it is effective for some people (maybe even many people). Enough so that it is one possible viable tool to help viscerally explain the fundamental science of global warming, yet still in a very scientific, factual way (no hyperbole). If it does work for anyone, it does so by giving people a meaningful scale of perspective that they can tangibly relate to and therefore internalize. … However, your constructive concern is very valid and is probably more of an issue than my small sample bias (w/ a skewed population) would lead me to believe. Thanks for the feedback!
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michael sweet at 10:06 AM on 30 June 2018Arctic sea ice has recovered
Bees Knees:
Neven at the Arctic Sea Ice Blog discusses PIOMAS sea ice volume every month when the data comes out (link is to a discussion of the May data). Neven is not a scientist but is very well informed. His posts are easy to read and generally even handed. See if his post answers your questions about why the ice melt has been below average this year.
At the Sea Ice Forum there is a free wheeling discussion of sea ice data.
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michael sweet at 07:20 AM on 30 June 2018Arctic sea ice has recovered
BeesKnees,
I looked at your reference. They provide this graph:
The Danish Polar Portal is a legitimate science data source. It seems to me that there are several issues with using their graph.
Ice volume is very difficult to measure. The PIOMAS model is generally considered the best. It agrees fairly well with satalite measurements of sea ice volume. While the Danish site is OK, it seems to me that the people you are talking with selected it thinking that it supported their point. That is cherry picking.
Reading the tags I see that the baseline volume is the average from 2004 to 2013. I see from the PIOMAS graph that the sea ice volume started decreasing before 1980. If you go to the Arctic Sea Ice Graphs page, they have this graph:
Close examination of this graph shows that sea ice extent started to decrease in about 1950 when it was 8 million km2 and in 2000 was about 6 million km2. The thickness and volume would also have decreased over that time period but I could not find any data. Current forecasts suggest a minimum of about 4.6 million km2 this year.
The baseline your graph uses of 2004-2013 includes the record setting low years. It is really not much of a claim that the sea ice has returned to the level it was at 8 years ago when it has been in a long term decline for 70 years.
Even accepting that the current volume is similar to the average from 2004-2013, the PIOMAS data shows that from 1980 to 2017 volume at the minimum decreased from 17 million km3 to 4.5 million km3. This year is similar to last year so it is about 1/3 of the volume from 1980 which was lower than 1950.
I would like to say that I am in the best physical shape of my life because my average weight for the past 10 years is 8 pounds more than I weigh today. Unfortunately, 35 years ago, when I was in good shape, I weighed 40 pounds less than I do now.
In summary, your source data is OK but PIOMAS is usually used. The baseline is not the "long term average", it is a recent average. Sea ice volume has been decreasing for 70 years, a little noise does not mean a recovery.
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nigelj at 07:16 AM on 30 June 2018New research, June 18-24, 2018
DCrickett, I didn't know anything much about Aryan Physics, so I did some reading out of curiosity, and a search in google scholar. This research paper talks about climate change denialism in general and mentions aryan physics.
Having said that, I think its unlikely you will find much research, because the issue was anti semitism, and there isn't much of a direct modern religious or race based comparison. It's liberal and scientific elites in general being demonised, and much has been written on this. It's become tribal. Climate change denial on wikipedia has a lot of research.
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Dcrickett at 06:34 AM on 30 June 2018New research, June 18-24, 2018
Thanks! It certainly describes Deutsche Physiks.
I am unsure of where to look for comparisons, so I will try to concoct some home brew.
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BeesKnees at 04:47 AM on 30 June 2018Arctic sea ice has recovered
Sorry I wasnt clear, I meant sea Ice.
this is the source I have been using
http://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/sea-ice-thickness-and-volume/
My concern is that this information is being misused to deny climate change and wondered if the reason for the difference this year was easily explained.
Moderator Response:[DB] In addition to Scaddenp's comment earlier, Arctic sea ice volume continues its long-term decline in both minima and maxima:
While year-to-year variations exist, the long-term trend in volume and extent nevertheless continues to decline, despite the focus by some on those short-term periods:
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Dcrickett at 01:55 AM on 30 June 2018New research, June 18-24, 2018
On the matter of research: can somebody direct me to research that compares the political and economic climate denialism of our times to the Aryan physics (Arische Physik, Deutsche Physik) of my parents' times?
Thanks!
Moderator Response:[DB] That's not really suitable for this thread. However, I found this article interesting.
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Postkey at 17:39 PM on 29 June 2018Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess
This is why H.R.C. 'lost'?
“And it’s deadly. Doubtless, Crosscheck delivered Michigan to Trump who supposedly “won” the state by 10,700 votes. The Secretary of State’s office proudly told me that they were “very aggressive” in removing listed voters before the 2016 election. Kobach, who created the lists for his fellow GOP officials, tagged a whopping 417,147 in Michigan as potential double voters.”
http://www.gregpalast.com/trump-picks-al-capone-vote-rigging-investigate-federal-voter-fraud/Moderator Response:[JH] The rehashing of the 2016 US Presidential election is veering off-topic. Let's close it down.
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Trevor_S at 15:45 PM on 29 June 2018What happened last time it was as warm as it’s going to get later this century?
>J Hansen has raised the possibilty that sea level rise could be rapid,
He's not the only one, Harold Wanless does as well
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scaddenp at 12:25 PM on 29 June 2018Arctic sea ice has recovered
For more up to date figure on Greenland Ice volume, try this
Source NSIDC.
We could have greater clarity if BeesKnees would give more detail on his/her source.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:57 AM on 29 June 2018Arctic sea ice has recovered
Note that BeesKnees said "arctic ice volume", not sea ice volume. Scaddenp has illustrated how BeesKnees statement about the past 15 years is not true with respect to sea ice.
Someone may be tempted to say "what about Greenland?" You can use the search tool (top left) to find SkS articles on "Greenland Ice". BeesKnees statement is also not true for Greenland ice.
The next stop on the denial train would be to shift the goalposts to snow cover. You can search for northern hemisphere snow, too. Turns out that it also is decreasing.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:44 AM on 29 June 2018Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess
Not wanting to take this too far down the path of politics, but in my view the election of Trump was the result of years (if not decades) of building anger in America. A lot of people have been angry that society has not brought them to the promised land (be it religious or economic).
They are angry at the "elites" (whoever they are thought to be), the system, the government, etc., and this anger has been encouraged by outlets such as Fox News, parts of the print media, the Internet, etc.
Angry with the establishment, both Democrat and Republican voters flirtedwith rogue candiates that were seen to challenge the system. Hillary managed to beat Bernie Sanders, but the Republican core lost to Trump. And in the election, the angry voters rallied behind Trump.
I have relatives on my wife's side that live in the U.S. that cannot see there way to vote Democrat due to keystone issues such as abortion. In the last election, they held their noses and voted for Trump, and really just don't like talking about it. For at least some, I think they are embarrassed by him.
Trump sends a message than many want to hear. It does not matter if it is lies. It's the opiate of the masses.
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Wol at 09:50 AM on 29 June 2018Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess
One Planet Only Forever @6: I tend to agree with you.
Romm's book - which I haven't read, just going by the article above - might be all well and good when one is referencing a debate with opinions on each side.
But the climate "debate" is an entirely different animal: the deniers' "side" is 90% opinion (perhaps 10% regurgitated fake or wrong science) and the "side" of the scientists is - or should be - fact and data driven.
So n'er the twain shall meet.
We, the general untutored-in-climatology-and-the-relevant-disciplines public accept all sorts of science in our daily lives without blinking. We climb onto a 400 tonne aircraft with 400 other souls accepting that it was designed on computers and tested mainly on models before real life test flying. The science is taken for granted. Yet for probably deep seated psychological reasons the same acceptance of the relevan science is not there with climatology.
Romm's method will backfire, I suspect: the subject is far too complex to promote in a semi-conversational way.
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nigelj at 09:01 AM on 29 June 2018What happened last time it was as warm as it’s going to get later this century?
While many metres of sea level rise over millenia is very concerning, its rapid sea level rise that should be concerning us most. We are loading the dice to triggering this, due to the rapidity of emissions and the consequent rapid warming trend.
Consider that Meltwater pulse 1a was more recent than the miocene, but lead to about 4 metres of sea level rise per century, ongoing for several centuries, and was consistent with 5 degrees of warming. About 2 metres of this has been related to destabilisation of the antractic, and we are currently seeing signs that the antarctic is destabilising. If this was to spread to the eastern antarctic this century, imho it could lead to 2 metres of sea level rise this century as a very distinct possibility. Our rapid CO2 emissions are making this a real possibility.
J Hansen has raised the possibilty that sea level rise could be rapid, and even up to 5 metres per century. His scenario b temperature predictions have been vindicated by reality, so we better pay attention to his sea level rise views.
Regarding the issue of the miocene being wetter and greener and climate models not predicting this. According to this article, large parts of the world were actually pretty arid during the miocene, with only some parts of the world wetter. The reasons for the aridity relates to mountain building and continental drift. I'm not sure why this account differs from the article, others may know? So climate models may not be so far off.
In any event climate models would probably struggle to incorporate such complex geological changes, and this would explain any discrepancy if one exists.
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5150debil at 08:55 AM on 29 June 2018What President Trump means for the future of energy and climate
Would go a long way to AE costs to cut the FF handouts or even invest them in the right direction. When externalities are included, as in a 2015 study by the International Monetary Fund, the unpaid costs of fossil fuels are upward of $5.3 trillion annually – which works out to a staggering $10 million per minute.
Oil Change International’s most recent reporting looks at money for fossil fuel production only (including exploration, and extraction, and development) in the G20 governments – which includes many of the world’s most developed countries. These governments are providing support to oil, gas, and coal companies to the tune of $444 billion per year, between direct national subsidies, domestic and international finance, and state-owned enterprise investment.
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scaddenp at 07:51 AM on 29 June 2018Arctic sea ice has recovered
BeesKnees - I dont where you are getting your "elsewhere" information on arctic ice volume, but I would suggest that it is either extremely unreliable or you have misinterpreted.
Here is the arctic ice volume from PIOMAS.
Source: Polar Science Center
It is higher than 2016, 2017, 2012, but weather causes year to year variability. The trend in ice volume is pretty clear in picture:
Well below 2003 level.
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5150debil at 07:49 AM on 29 June 2018Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
As this is your first post, Skeptical Science respectfully reminds you to please follow our comments policy. Thank You! Since breathing is nessasary to sustaining our life seems like a moot point for discussion. Unless you are proposing extermination on a significant part of the population. The 34.7 Billion tons from fossil fuel combustion a year however IS something we can change. Old figure 2009. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/08/7_billion_carbon_sinks.html
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nigelj at 07:17 AM on 29 June 2018Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess
Johnboy @13, I hear you, but I dont think theres a magic answer to this.
Clearly any president is going to get more exposure than scientists, its the way of the world. Scientists have to grab every opportunity possible and make it count by speaking clearly etc. And many do this rather well, and they are the ones to learn from.
Like DM pointed out science and technical people are backroom people and not always well trained in public speaking. I work in a technical field, and used to dread public speaking, almost a phobia, but because I deal with so many people I had to learn the arts. Even just an hour reading a good book on communications skills, or some time with a public relations expert can be transformational. It's really important because we absolutely have to convince people.
Having said that, there are many fine well written books and websites on climate science that are suitable for the general public. Its always possible to do better, but again theres no magic bullet. Talking about watts / m2 is complicated, talking about atomic bombs is emotive and would totally alienate the Republican side of the debate.
The book "An Inconvenient Truth" was well written, if a little light on the "denialist" side of the issue. It's hard for me to see how it could be "significantly" better written, and kept at a sensible size. Unfortunately Al Gore was a politician, and this probably coloured perceptions of the book.
Let me try to bring this together. We can all learn to communicate better, and this is really important, but at the end of the day there are limits to what communication can do. Scientists have spelt out the science pretty well, and cannot be blamed for the ignorance of many in the public and their desire not to listen, and their preference for conspiracy theory ideation, and their inability to recognise red herring arguments and cherry picking. Scientists cannot be blamed for the denialist campaign, and some of its people have no shame!
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BeesKnees at 06:44 AM on 29 June 2018Arctic sea ice has recovered
I've seen a few mentions elsewhere that arctic ice volume is at near record highs for last 15 years.
Does anyone know what has triggered the change from being well below 2004-2013 average in May to now being well above average?
I'm a complete amateur so I was making guesses of cloud cover (I beleive there was an unusual weather system in may) or volcanic activity (Kilauea, vanuatu or fuego eruptions) but it would be nice to have a clearer idea of what is happening.
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nigelj at 06:35 AM on 29 June 2018Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess
Daniel Mocnsy @11, I agree entirely. I would add that Hilary Clintons 'baggage' comprised a set of false accusations, and she was cleared of wrong doing by the courts and various investigations. Unfortunately mud sticks, and it I think it made her the wrong choice to be a candidate. This is the hard reality.
The email issue clearly cost her votes. That was my point about baggage, and perhaps I should have explained it more.
Imho she is largely a sensible moderate, although not a terribly great candidate either.
The important thing is not to jump to the conclusion that Trump's "oratory" won him the election. It was more about Hilarys baggage and Trumps ability to use immigration as a scare tactic etc.
While its very important to talk in a concise way and get peoples attention, imho insults, bullying, misleading and inaccurate information will not work as tactics for either the Democrats or scientists. It will all become a shouting match and would backfire on them.
Having said that, scientists do sometimes get lost in detail and nuance and sometimes take ages to get to the point. Theres a sensible middle ground! J Hansen is a very good communicator in terms of style.
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Johnboy at 03:42 AM on 29 June 2018Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess
But how to get information out, as in @ villabolo #1 and @sauerj #8, in front of the general public as easily as Trump can ( obviously, never will be quite that easy). The "war" being waged between science and denialism mostly out of sight of the average American.
Really liked those two posts. Had a thought that maybe a little more background about "natural" CO2 levels (in atom bombs, maybe(?)) that not only allows life as we know at to exist on earth at all, but the relatively stable levels since the last ice age that has allowed human civilization to thrive over the last 10,000 years. Human populations going from 1M to 1B by the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, due to the introduction of farming. There has been a price to pay for that. Now it's gone from there to 7B in 200 years.
The denialist constantly claim climate change is "natural" and is always happening. Sure, over a range, but we're talking about radical changes driven by extreme events such as volcanic eruptions, asteroid strikes, ice ages (glaciation) driven by significant solar events. And now burning fossil fuels is taking us out of that "natural" range.
i'm sharing the two posts with my denialist friends. Probably won't do much good.
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Daniel Mocsny at 02:13 AM on 29 June 2018Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess
It's useful to distinguish between having an inner game and an outer game. In science, the inner game is what scientists learned to do in school: read science journals, design experiments, collect data, construct theories, test theories, write and publish results, and share information with a "friendly" audience of fellow scientists. (Yes, scientists can sometimes be contentious, even bitter rivals, but they are friendly compared to anti-scientists who reject the scientific method and norms for truth. Scientists for the most part can be persuaded by evidence. Talking to people who do that is very different from talking to people who won't.)
The outer game is conveying science to the non-scientific (and often anti-scientific) masses. Wherever science collides and conflicts with pre-existing ideas, beliefs, behaviors, or economic interests, the outer game must necessarily include persuasion. Climate change has an especially tough challenge, because virtually every person on the planet is either fully dedicated to a climate-raping lifestyle, or (if poor) aspires to become rich enough to have one.
It goes pretty much without saying that scientific training almost wholly neglects the outer game. So here we are as a species, careening along with our fossil fuel global suicide pact. Interestingly, the Fermi paradox suggests that no other technological species in the history of our own galaxy, or possibly even in the entire observable universe, managed to solve the tragedy of the commons in time to avoid wiping itself out before becoming a spacefaring species.
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Daniel Mocsny at 01:56 AM on 29 June 2018Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess
3. nigelj at 08:14 AM on 28 June, 2018:
[Trump] won because Hilary had so much baggage from her past.
A very large fraction of which consisted of lies promoted relentlessly by a cottage industry of right-wing authors and pundits who spent decades smearing the Clintons. It's not so much that Hillary has "baggage" but that much of the public has been duped into believing she does. The Clinton-smearing cottage industry has proved once again that if you repeat a lie enough times, it sticks.
A number of factors helped Trump win the Electoral College (he lost the popular vote by almost 3 million, remember - due to America's continuing rapid population growth, Hillary actually won more votes than any Presidential candidate in history). One of the most critical factors was Trump's theocratic appeal to America's white Evangelical Christians, who have long been a reliable voting bloc for Republican Presidential candidates. An even higher percentage (81%, I read) voted for Trump than for any other recent Republican candidate. These are people who believe, for the most part, in the literal truth of Noah's Ark. They are horrified by things such as abortion, gay marriage, and the teaching of evolution in schools (not that it's taught much in the USA, thanks to their efforts). Trump promised to stack the Supreme Court with theocrats, so Evangelicals showed their true colors by voting for Trump despite his vulgar boasts about sexually assaulting women.
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villabolo at 01:51 AM on 29 June 2018Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess
@ sauerj #8
"When I put the thermal imbalance in units of hiro atom bombs per hour, and then, more so, compared that to how much energy all of man hourly consumes (also in the same units), this had a profound visceral impact on me (I am a chemical engineer)."
Unfortunately, the Hiroshima bomb metaphor is likely to turn off many readers since it gives the impression that AGW is setting of powerful explosions throughout the world. Since the warmest day does not translate into a searing thermal pulse of a nuke the typical reader will imagine.
I'm hard-pressed to figure out a metaphor that the average person can understand but using an incredulous (No matter how technically correct) metaphor is likely to be a turn-off.
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