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DrivingBy at 23:07 PM on 28 November 2017American leaders should read their official climate science report
Whoops, I did not use a text editor. Pardon the unedited and disjointed draft above; while the substance is what I meant, it's is mis-connected pieces.
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DrivingBy at 23:04 PM on 28 November 2017American leaders should read their official climate science report
@badgering
Any one person has little effect on the course of AGW. You might equally well say: "What are the chances of Obama's rolling back the rise of the sea?"
Actually, the USA's C02 output has levelled off. Sooner or later, perhaps later than is wise, public opinion in the USA will consider it to be a both undesirable and significant. Lyndon Johnson was warned of this phenomenon in the 1960s, and of course he blew it off. As the cost of low carbon alternatives falls and concern over the consequences of higher carbon sources grows we may reach a point here the curves cross and the former replaces the latter.
If one wants to focus on a few figureheads, then do so on the monarchs and despots who need not concern themselves with popular sentiment, and who are pumping out cheap fossils fuel.
That would be the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Nigeria, Mexico and (once their wells are taken over by China & Russia) Venezuela. That's where the oil comes from, and crucially this is the low cost, price-setting oil. Were these producers to say "hey ya know what, we've already produced 2/3 of the oil ever used and we're concerned about the global C02 budget, so next years we're cutting production by 50%, and by half again the year after". The remaining oil has a far higher cost of production, and can't be drawn out fast enough to supply today's demand without massive investment, if at all. Whether by price or supply, oil demand would plummet.
Trump?? A distraction, and a minor one. He has very limited control over some barely break-even rapidly depleting oil (US shale). He can maybe nudge the needle a tad, but more than the slightest nudge which throws people out of work and his job goes next.
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Eclectic at 20:09 PM on 28 November 2017Ice age predicted in the 70s
Typo correction : that should read "... look at the [2014] report mentioned in post #64 ..."
Only clairvoyants in 1914, could perceive a 1975 'Cooling World' Story !
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Eclectic at 19:55 PM on 28 November 2017Greenland has only lost a tiny fraction of its ice mass
Bruce @4 , look at the evidence. Think for yourself — don't swallow the BS you seem to have gotten from some crazy science-free website. [Would it be WattsUpWithThat or JoNova or similar? Those are websites which cherry-pick tiny bits of data, without analysing them properly . . . and which love to put so much spin on the info, and carefully avoiding the context / bigger picture, to produce a grossly misleading impression on the casual reader.]
Greenland has gained a small bit of ice on the central heights — and has been losing over 50 cubic miles of ice (per year) from around the periphery. Rather as you'd expect, from all this AGW that's going on. And that melting loss of ice is part of the reason the sea level is rising so fast (and will get faster).
One cubic mile is a mighty big iceblock when you think about it, Bruce.
In comparison, the USA's Glacier National Park is pretty small beer. Sadly, the Park has lost most of the glaciers it had 150 years ago . . . and the few remaining, are horribly shrunken and disappearing fast. Get in and see them, Bruce, while there are still some left.
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Eclectic at 19:27 PM on 28 November 2017Ice age predicted in the 70s
Just like Michael Sweet says.
Bruce @65 . . . . what, if any, is the point you are wishing to make?
Have you read any of the alleged 93 papers? It would be wise of you to read at least a small sample of those papers to see if they were really "concerned". Be wise of you, because Notrickzone is a notorious Fake News outlet, which spouts an amazingly-large amount of BS on all sorts of topics and seems to enjoy winding-up gullible & ignorant readers. (Presumably that's how they make their money at the website.)
That's not to say that it ain't (just) possible that the Notrickszoners might actually have published something truthful this time [gotta be a first time for them, sometime, right?] . . . but judging by their track record, they usually only prefer to to tell a truth is it's a half-truth which misleads or misdirects the gullible readers. So be on your guard, Bruce !! And do a bit of cross-checking.
Now, back to the Notrickszone message.
And the first question is : So what? Bruce, read the brief article above [by John Russell] and view the 5-minute video by David Bedford. And look at the [1914] report mentioned in post #64 just above your own post #65.
Look again at the reality, Bruce : the globe is warming rapidly; sea level is rising ever faster; the world's ice is melting rapidly decade by decade. (Not many glaciers left in Glacier National Park now, Bruce. Sad. ) And the world has just had its 4 hottest years on record ( 2014 / 2015 / 2016 / and 2017 is in the bag ! )
And it's gonna get hotter still — as said by virtually all the scientists who know what's what. There's no reason left to believe any of the BS coming from the science-deniers (or from Notrickszoners, either). Look around, Bruce — unlike in the 1970's , there are nowadays no credible scientists remaining, who think Global Warming ain't happening.
And all the climate scientists have got the evidence backing their opinion !!
So, Bruce, what do you think? (Forget the Notrickszone rubbish/spin.)
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michael sweet at 19:16 PM on 28 November 2017Ice age predicted in the 70s
Bruce:
From the first reference at your link (Hanson et al 1981)
"Summary. The global temperature rose by 0.20C between the middle 1960's and 1980, yielding a warming of 0.4°C in the past century. This temperature increase is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect due to measured increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Variations of volcanic aerosols and possibly solar luminosity appear to be primary causes of observed fluctuations about the mean trend of increasing temperature. It is shown that the anthropogenic carbon dioxide warming should emerge from the noise level of natural climate variability by the end of the century, and there is a high probability of warming in the 1980's. Potential effects on climate in the 21st century include the creation of drought-prone regions in North America and central Asia as part of a shifting of climatic zones, erosion of the West Antarctic ice sheet with a consequent worldwide rise in sea level, and opening of the fabled Northwest Passage." (my emphasis)
Hardly in support of global cooling. The second reference: Benton 1970 also predicts global warming with increasing carbon dioxide. After the first two I stopped checking.
When you cite papers that predict additional warming and say that they support claims of global cooling it is easy to get a lot of papers. Scientists read the citations and realize that the claims of predictions of global cooling rely on readers who do not check the citations.
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bruce14421 at 17:03 PM on 28 November 2017Ice age predicted in the 70s
"The fact is that around 1970 there were 6 times as many scientists predicting a warming rather than a cooling planet"Following is a link to 93 papers concerned about an imminent ice age in the 1970's. http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.ydkdfTSH.dpbsCan the moderator either rebut these 93 or provide 6 times as many "warming" papers from the 1970's? -
bruce14421 at 16:49 PM on 28 November 2017Greenland has only lost a tiny fraction of its ice mass
For the last 18 months, DMI shows Greenland ice increasing significantly.
Arctic ice has plateaud and is now greater than it was in 2006.
If it was in a spiral of death, how is this possible?
Moderator Response:[Rob P] Arctic ice has declined dramatically since 2006. According to the DMI, the disintegration of Greenland ice sheet has contributed over 8mm of global sea level rise in that time. This is a science-based site so please stick to the facts/data or risk bogus claims being moderated out.
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Eclectic at 08:37 AM on 28 November 2017An Inconvenient Sequel – the science, history, and politics of climate change
Bozzza @36 , my reference was not to arctic sea ice — which would not affect SLR, of course. Rather, to NH ice such as the Himalayas and Greenland. The latter case involves "warming air" gaining some of its heat from the nearby ocean, true.
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nigelj at 08:14 AM on 28 November 2017American leaders should read their official climate science report
Chances of republicans reading this report seem on the low side.
There's an old saying you cannot argue with an idiot. This includes intelligent people determined to be idiotic, because of political motives.
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John Hartz at 06:47 AM on 28 November 2017American leaders should read their official climate science report
badgering: Zero.
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badgering at 06:10 AM on 28 November 2017American leaders should read their official climate science report
What are the chances of President Trump taking in this information? It may already be too late to prevent the worst effects of global warming.
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bozzza at 21:28 PM on 27 November 2017An Inconvenient Sequel – the science, history, and politics of climate change
A regular doubling period is of course impossible to achieve.
It is of course what the stockholder demands...
Jevons paradox rules the world hence blood for oil wars!
Eclectic thinks warmer air will melt the arctic sea ice but my understanding was that the atmosphere was chiefly responsible for heat distribution at the equator but the ocean took over the dominant role toward the poles!
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Eclectic at 19:04 PM on 27 November 2017An Inconvenient Sequel – the science, history, and politics of climate change
Sidd @34 , the real underlying point is that the next 100 years will likely show a sea level rise which is "above linear".
Warmer air will affect Northern Hemisphere ice and warmer seawater will affect Antarctic ice, in a complex way. All a matter of physical processes -— likely to have nett accelerations & slowings which won't fit well with basic algebraic formulae.
During the initial decades, SLR predictions will probably require frequent adjustments as observations & understanding continue to grow. Recent SLR has accelerated and we can expect even faster melting of ice sheets, since little has been done to counter the underlying cause of global warming.
For myself, I have never been able to empathize with the strange "reality-rejecting" mentality which views the very obvious global warming & higher sea level as being something which could be blamed on left-wing/right-wing political factions (including the "Gore" himself).
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sidd at 16:02 PM on 27 November 2017An Inconvenient Sequel – the science, history, and politics of climate change
I realize i was asked to give a colloquial discussion of the difference between supralinear and exponential without resort to mathematical language, and i failed badly. So i post a link to a picture. The curves go from linear (invisible on this scale) through quadratic(x^2), cubic (x^3), quartic(X^4) and exponential. Observe how exponential outruns all in the long run.http://membrane.com/sidd/powercurves.png
In any event, to decree a process exponential requires data for several doublings of the rate in question. So when the rate of sea level rise over the last century of 2 mm/yr hit 4 mm/yr in 20 yrs and hypothetically 8 mm/yr in another 20 yr we have reason to believe the increase is exponential with the doubling time of twenty year. But as of now we have perhaps seen one doubling which can be fitted just as well with a quadratic as any other larger power or even an exponential. But quadratic is already troubling.
Waiting for it to become obviously exponential is ridiculous. When it hits 8 mm/yr we all screwed. So the evidence of a quadratic (y^2) term is already troubling.And long before we see a cubic term we need to be migrating away from coastline quick.
Is that better ?
sidd
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:10 PM on 27 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #47
Glixon@4,
I agree that ending human activity that increases CO2 in the atmosphere is the top priority and must be achieved quickly.
The second point is that the current generation owes future generations no more than 350 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere. That means the current generation has to start removing carbon before it stops adding carbon, but never believe that because they are removing carbon it is acceptable for them to add more CO2.
That removal of CO2 will not be a 'money maker', and should not be a money maker unless a truly sustainable profitable activity is developed. Businesses/investors should not make a profit by being collectively paid by the collective of governments to reduce the CO2. And the businesses and investors making profit from the burning of fossil fuels should be paying the majority of the costs to remove CO2, again without the removers making any profit.
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nigelj at 12:43 PM on 27 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #47
Talking about extreme weather, Australia is having record setting heatwave:
www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11948291
This article has some good graphics on urban areas and how hot surfaces can get. "The heat mitigation study uses a dedicated "energy bus" and drones to measure surface and air temperatures."
Also grim predictions for India, and humid climates like Darwin.
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nigelj at 11:26 AM on 27 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #47
Carbon capture is very desirable to help combat the climate problem, but no one single carbon capture method is going to be sufficient alone. The calcium carbonate option ( and other similar approaches)should clearly be researched, but is expensive, energy intensive, complicated, blue sky technology and I agree it would be unwise to count on it. However it has the virtue of absorbing emissions fast, and doesn’t require much land area.
Forest sinks run out of enough land, and so will bccs solutions. Improved soil sinks are a very attractive natural proven option, but will be very slow to scale up, and carbon draw down can be slow.
But all options do have value especially in initial phases until they come towards various limiting factors. If you combine all of these in a planned way, it could well absorb emissions enough and be cost effective. Given countries have different geographies you can’t generalise on which is best option, but it would be possible to design a good combination of options for individual countries (like Jacobson has done with renewable energy).
But it’s hard for me to see governments agreeing a plan, especially when it involves a combination of methods. Democracy, lack of individual commitment, and varying human political ideologies were not designed for this sort of environmental crisis.
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Glixon at 10:32 AM on 27 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #47
I agree with Dr. Kevin Anderson when it comes to any form of geo- engineering and carbin capture. To paraphrase, his viewpoint is that we should research carbon capture & storage, but we must not assume it will work at scale - which it has yet to do so so far - and it should not be included in any of the IPCC emission scenarios. Instead, as he points out, we should be putting our time, effort, money and energy into rapid and large-scale mitigation and decarbonization measures that will reduce - not stabilize, but actual reduction - of carbon emissions. Frankly, to pin our hopes on truly untested and pie-in-the-sky scenarios to save our "non-negotiable" and profligate way of life here in the west is not only sheer stupidity of the highest order, but, in my opinion, tantamount to genocidal crimes against all life on this planet, not just us.
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sidd at 10:13 AM on 27 November 2017An Inconvenient Sequel – the science, history, and politics of climate change
Re: supralinear and exponential.Supralinear means a faster than linear increase, that the dependent variable y, (the rate of sea level rise ) is increasing as some power of t (time), like t^n where n is greater than 1. The graphs support this, and the first nonlinear term can be fitted as t^2. which gives a constant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise. This is not to be confused with the far faster exponential exp(t) where the acceleration of the rate of sea level rise is also exponential, in fact all derivatives are also exponential. The data do not allow one to say that the rate is exponential, but they do allow one to say that the rate is increasing. There is justification for a t^2 term but not higher powers, and certainly not an exponential.That said, paleo data show step like change, but we cannot yet say that we are seeing any more than a t^2 term from current data.
siddsidd
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nigelj at 06:58 AM on 27 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
OPOF, yes business interests / organisations are unlikely to do much on own initiative to reduce airplane emissions. The fox is not going to guard the henhouse.
There's quite a good critique of the ICAO plan here. and it covers a wide range of aspects. Although at the end of the day reducing aircraft emissions is hard, and we may be stuck with some form of carbon offsets.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:40 AM on 27 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #47
Unfortunately, the past and current lack of leadership in Business and Politics to limit the negative future consequences of current day pursuits of Private Interests has resulted in economic Private Interests significantly compromising the Global Public Interest of developing lasting benefits for humanity.
The obligation of the current generation of humanity to stop allowing Private Interests to compromise the Public Interest is undeniable. Expecting 'Others' to deal with a problem that is being created by the Private Interests of a current generation of humanity in pursuit of enjoying a better present for themselves is undeniable unsustainable harmful activity. No Real Good Reason can be offered to support that type of attitude.
And the current generation, particularly the most fortunate among the current generation, have an obligation to do the most to undo the damage already done by developed human activity. And it is fairly well established that responsible respectable human action would rapidly reduce CO2 levels to 350 ppm (kudo's to the likes of Bill and Melinda Gates).
The above is presented as the basis for the following: Until a 'truly sustainable profitable economic system' develops to remove carbon from the atmosphere, the most effective methods for doing this must be paid for by government funded actions Not For Profit. A 'profitable' system to remove carbon may never develop. What possible economic use can be made of carbon extracted from the atmosphere where the extraction of the carbon is more cost-effective than other sustainable methods of obtaining that carbon?
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nigelj at 06:34 AM on 27 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #47
The calcium process is near instant removal of emissions, but would clearly be energy intensive, and would have to use renewable energy otherwise you are just burning fossil fuels to then remove the same carbon. So it needs a lot of links in the chain to be properly in place.
The main thing bugging me is the article didn't give much idea of availablity of suitable geological formations to store all the carbon, dioxide, and whether these are in useful locations.
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nigelj at 05:54 AM on 27 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #47
Regarding negative emissions technology, the economist.com has a good article here. This covers sucking CO2 from the atmosphere with chemical processes, beccs, enhanced soil sinks, and forestry sinks.
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william5331 at 04:40 AM on 27 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #47
We should congratulate Trump for uniting the world against myopic American policies. They weren't much better before Trump but he has united us.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:19 AM on 27 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
nigelj,
An organization calling itself the GHG Management Institute has published an article about International Travel and Climate Change. The article explains why international air travel is excluded from a nation's GHG accounting. It explains that it was agreed that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) would be responsible for GHG abatement actions on international travel (International cargo GHG is also not accounted for by nations, and neither is the GHG emissions of a nation's military activity outside of their nation).
An interesting point is how difficult it has been for the ICAO to make meaningful progress. My suspicion is that they lack the authority to direct what will be done by aircraft manufacturer's because those are 'National and Business Organization Interests'. And they lack the authority to direct what will be done by International Carriers because they are also 'National and Business Organization Interests'. And as an association of Private Interest organizations, part of their mandate is maximizing the success of their members, protecting their Private Interests.
Asking the ICAO to impose profitability challenges on their members (the actions required to responsibly address the climate change challenge), appears to be similar to asking the International Energy Agency (IEA) to effectively manage the rapid termination of global burning of fossil fuels.
The real problem continues to be the power of inappropriately developed Private Interests to interfere with efforts to curtail understandably harmful and ultimately unsustainable activity. And the real problem related to that problem is the ability of powerful people to abuse the understanding of marketing message creation and delivery to improperly influence the education of the population.
Which leads to John Stuart Mill's warning in "On Liberty" that I share so often (because it keeps coming up as the best fundamental explanation of so many problems/challenges relating to developing lasting improvements for all of humanity).
“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.”
And a related quote that keeps coming up as the best explanation of what is going on is from the UN Commissioned Report "Our Common Future" published in 1987.
"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 those identified fundamental problems have led to the development of a Global set of Sustainable Development Goals that can be used to measure the worthiness of any leader of humanity (in Business and Politics). Those goals include climate action. And it is clear that all of the SDGs need to be achieved for humanity to have a decent future.
The missing link is the global ability to effectively limit the influence of undeserving Winners of Pursuit of Private Interest and keep other undeserving people from becoming temporary damaging Winners. And that missing link will not be easily developed as long as there remains a powerful belief/dogma that Good Results will develop if people, groups or nations are freer to believe and do whatever they can get away with that suits Their Interest.
Better education of the entire global population will be best developed when Private Interests that want to compromise the Global Public Interest have no significant influence on the leadership or education of any sub-set of the population. As long as sub-sets are freer to believe whatever they want and try to get away with doing what suits their Private Interest there will be damaging developments and conflict.
The continued development of climate science awareness and understanding has unintentionally, but very powerfully, exposed the unacceptability of what has been developed by competitions of Private Interests for popularity and profit, and the social and economic leadership changes that are needed for the Global Public Interest of humanity to have a lasting constantly improving future, not being compromised by Private Interests pursuing better personal presents at the expense of others.
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XRAY1961 at 03:10 AM on 27 November 2017Humans are greening the planet, but the implications are complicated
Being rather visual in my interpretations, one thing I notice from the image above is that a lot of the greening appears to be in the sub polar regions. These are areas that for the most part have been either tundra or ice covered.
We are already observing changes in these areas due to warming. In addition, there has been concern voiced about increased emmissions of GHG's as these areas melt. Finally, there are the obvious albedo changes. As the title mentions, it's "complicated".
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Paul D at 21:00 PM on 26 November 2017New rebuttal to the myth 'climate scientists are in it for the money' courtesy of Katharine Hayhoe
Accusing someone of doing something purely for the money reveals more about the person saying it than it does of the person it is aimed at.
I get paid for the work I do, but I stay with the job because the work I do ticks all the boxes regarding my interests and skills. I work for a large commercial engineering and services company.
I don't own property and I use public transport.
If I wanted more money I wouldn't stay where I am.
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Lloyd Flack at 16:37 PM on 26 November 2017New rebuttal to the myth 'climate scientists are in it for the money' courtesy of Katharine Hayhoe
My salary gets paid out of research grants. I know what researchers do to try to stretch out a grant. The suggestion that anyone is getting rich off them is plain silly. I am working in public health rather than climate but I see no reason at all to believe that how grants are spent is any different.
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nigelj at 08:18 AM on 26 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
Peter Wilde@16
The impression of how many countries have reached emissions peak might indeed be over optimistic in some cases, but not all cases, or that widely. In Russia it was driven by politics of the breakup of the Soviet Union and later economic recessions, and with no real sign of a genuine commitment to reduce emissions.
However offshoring of manufacturing in Britain to China is only part of the reason for emissions reductions. It's well known Britain have a well developed renewable electricity sector which would be a big contributor to lower emissions.
Surely emissions from planes are accounted for in country of origin? I dont see why it would be ambiguous or otherwise.
China's share of manufacturing has increased over the last 30 years, but this process is nearing saturation according to the economist.com. China has some manufacturing migrating back to America and very low cost centres like Vietnam and Bangaldesh. This is because of wage rises in China. Theres's also a government push to expand the services sector rather than just manufacturing. Manufacturing debt servicing is also right at the upper limits. Chinas building boom of high rise apartments is also nearing saturation level, so its use of cement may decrease to some extent. So if you consider all that, it is feasible that China can reduce emissions.
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nigelj at 06:37 AM on 26 November 2017What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?
Aleks, Michael Sweet, this published research appears to be what is very relevant.
"Impact of anthropogenic atmospheric nitrogen and sulfur deposition on ocean acidification and the inorganic carbon system"
Scott C. Doney,*† Natalie Mahowald,‡ Ivan Lima,* Richard A. Feely,§ Fred T. Mackenzie,¶ Jean-Francois Lamarque,‖ and Phil J. Rasch‡
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Sep 11; 104(37): 14580–14585.
Published online 2007 Sep 5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0702218104
PMCID: PMC1965482
Environmental Sciences, Sustainability Science, Environmental Scienceswww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1965482/
Summary:
On a global scale, the alterations in surface water chemistry from anthropogenic nitrogen and sulfur deposition are only a few percent of the ocean acidification and Δ[DIC] increases expected from the oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO2. However, impacts on seawater chemistry can be much more substantial in coastal waters, on the order of 10–50% or more of the anthropogenic CO2-driven changes near the major source regions and in marginal seas.
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Peter Wilde at 05:16 AM on 26 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
Looking at the dates when national emissions peak, as in this article, could give an over-optimistic impression of how far and fast the world is advancing in tackling climate change.
Surely it's also necessary to consider the reasons why certain countries' emissions have peaked relatively early. For a number of developed countries like the UK, the relatively early peak to some extent reflects a decline in home-grown manufacturing industry; replaced by a greater reliance on imports of manufactured goods from countries like China.
The rise of the globalised economy and goods being transported for long distances also raises other questions. Where are emissions from planes and ships being accounted for when considering whether or not a particular country's emissions have peaked? And what about emissions connected to rapidly increasing internet activity, for maintaining server farms, and call centres, etc?
A few major players like China and India are responsible for an increasing share of global manufacturing (and arguably too of data processing and the internet-based service economy). How much reliance can be placed on their good intentions to reduce emissions by xx date - while simultaneously increasing their share of global business activity - ?
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nigelj at 05:13 AM on 26 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
Voting systems are actually extremely relevant to the climate issue. FPP makes it very challenging for small parties, like Green Parties and other environemtally driven parties to become part of any government. Proportional representation is more inclusive of Green parties, and wider minority parties generally. I have seen this in my country first hand where small parties have been in government, or had confidence and supply agreements. Just the possibility they could be in government might influence policy of other parties.
The problem with MMP is it can give minority parties a disproportionate influence, where the tail wags the dog. This can lead to instability. STV (single transferable vote) proportional representation overcomes this problem and may be the best system overall.
Approx 80 countries have some form of proportional representation as below. Many have proportional party list.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation
I dont think you can lightly dismiss the decision of 80 countries, especially wealthy european countries, some with good climate policies. FPP might have the virtue of it being easier and more clear cut in forming a government, but the results in terms of quality of government often aren't compelling.
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michael sweet at 04:41 AM on 26 November 2017What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?
Aleks:
The solubility of CO2 in water dependant on both the temperature and the pressure of the CO2. According to the engineering toolbox, at 15C and 1 atm pressure, approximately 2 gm of CO2 dissolve per kg of water. Your figure of 1.5 g/kg is probably from 25C.
You make two basic mistakes with using this temperature:
- The average temperature of the ocean is closer to 15C and not 25C.
- The pressure of CO2 above the ocean is not 1 atm, it is 4x10-4 atm.
Since you do not know how to figure out the solubility of CO2 from a graph, why should I believe your claim that:
" Calculation from the data in the right column of the table leads to a much larger difference.
It seems that these data do not confirm the theory of determining role of atmospheric CO2 in the change of ocean acidity."You have made so many basic calculation errors that your calculations canot be trusted.
Scientists have found that the tabulated data is completely consistant with theory that CO2 determines the pH of the ocean. Keep in mind that other buffers exist in the ocean (especially boric acid) and you must consider these when you calcuate the pH change caused by adding more CO2.
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michael sweet at 04:15 AM on 26 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
Norrism:
Your comment was deleted for being off topic on this thread (I am not a moderator).
I suggest you repost your question on the Weekly news roundup where it will be more on topic. I imagine that John Hartz did not see the post in the Economist, it is difficult to read everything.
Moderator Response:[JH] See my Moderator's comment on NorrisM's post.]
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NorrisM at 03:21 AM on 26 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
Moderator
As Eclectic has noted, my question relating to the recent lead article in the November 18, 2017 of the Economist has been "disappeared" but without any explanation for why this was done. I thought perhaps it should be posted on the "Models are Unreliable" thread but it did seem relevant to this thread as well in that the levelling of emissions is not enough according to the Economist. We have to pull massive amounts of carbon out of the air to meet most of the model's projections.
Moderator Response:[JH] Another Moderator deleted your comment because it was "off topic."
Andy Skuce produced a three-part series on the issues of your concen in the Fall/Winter of 2015.
The Road to Two Degrees, Part One: Feasible Emissions Pathways
The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
The Road to Two Degrees, Part Three: Equity, inertia and fairly sharing the remaining carbon budget
Please read this set of articles and post your comment on one of them.
For more recents article on this topic, see:
Who will deliver the negative emissions needed to avoid 2C warming?, Guest Post by Glen Peters & Oliver Geden, Carbon Brief, Oct 30, 2017
Can Carbon-Dioxide Removal Save the World? by Elizabeth Kolbert, Annals of Science, The New Yorker, Nov 20, 2017 Print Edition
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:42 AM on 26 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
NorrisM@10,
To begin, I did not say the Conservatives 'will choose to fade away'. What I said, and meant, was that unless the Conservatives become a less significant factor in Global Leadership there is no real hope of make lasting improvements for the future of humanity.
And I should have said the 'Collective of current day Unite the Right groups who claim to be Conservative' (rather than using the term Conservative), need to become irrelevant.
The Global Public Interest is advancing humanity through the development of 'lasting' improvements for a robust diversity of humanity, the future of humanity. And all sub-sets of humanity need to govern their regional or tribal behaviour in line with achieving that Public Interest, ensuring their regional or tribal Private Interests do not compromise the Global Pubic Interest.
Unite the Right groups can clearly be seen to be collections of a diversity of Private Interests that are contrary to the Public Interest. As that awarenss and understanding grows fewer people will be willing to stay in that United group that votes to support each other's understandably unaccepable interests.
It is inevitable that the Unite the Right groups will see reduced popularity. The extremists among that group like ISIS and Team Trump are making it more difficult for people to excuse what is understandably the pursuit of unacceptable and ultimately unsustainable regional or tribal Private Interests that compromise the Public Interest of the future of humanity.
As I mentioned in my earlier comment, Alberta is likely one of the last places on the planet where the Unite the Right will fade away. But the United Right in Alberta have less than 50% popularity. That shows that even in a very Religious part of Canada with so much easy money to be made if they can get away with behaving less acceptably, the collective of Religious Fundamentalists, Callous Greedy and those who Tribally just vote 'Conservative' because that is what they always did are less than 50% of the population.
As for voting, I think that Ranked Transferable votes are the Right way to vote in multi-party systems to ensure the First Past 50% support is the Winner. The United Right who call themselves Conservative are unlikely to be anyones 2nd choice. When they won Minority Power at the Federal level in Canada in 2006 they could not Lead because they were so different form all te other parties, except the Quebec Seperatist Party. They called for new elections several times until the flawed FPP system gave them the narrow win of Majority rule. They lost in the next election.
As for the realities of public opinions created by massive misleading marketing campaigns favoring the compromise of Public Interests for Private Interests in Alberta, I understand that changing the public understanding is the political challenge faced by any responsible Government in Alberta (maximizing the misunderstanding in the population is the objective of Unite the Right types especially when they Win Government Leadrship. The Unite the Right Leadership in Saskatchewan that has walked away from the job because the unsustainable delusions they created were recently shattered is proof of that.
A ranked ballot vote would reduce the chances of the United Right winning unfettered power in Alberta (or anywhere else). What are your thoughts regarding a Ranked Transferable Ballot?
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aleks at 02:19 AM on 26 November 2017What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?
Some remarks to the main problem of our discussion: effect of CO2 on ocean acidity. Let's analyze data that can be considered as a result of experimental verification of this effect. Doug Mackie [1] gives a graph (Fig. 13) of pH dependence on depth in Pacific and Atlantic ocean
https://skepticalscience.com/Mackie_OA_not_OK_post_14.html
Similar (but not the same) data are given by Z.Ernest a.o. [2], this article also gives the values of CO2 concentration (T CO2, micromole/kg):
https://socratic.org/questions/how-does-ph-change-with-depth
Some of the data taken from these graphs for convenience are tabulated.
Atlantic Pacific Depth, m pH TCO2 [2] pH TCO2 [2]
0 8.1[1], ~8[2] ~ 2000 7.8[1], 7.82[2] ~2000
500 7.9[1], 7.7[2] 2150 7.75[1], 7.3[2] 2350
From these data it is clear that: a) Difference between the results of measurements of surface pH values in Atlantic and Pacific at approximately the same CO2 concentration is greater than the accepted decrease in pH of the World Ocean due to Industrial Revolution (0.1 – 0.15). b) CO2 concentration in the surface layer of both oceans is much less than value corresponding to maximum solubility (1.5 g/kg = 34 mmole/kg), tabulated values of TCO2 are in the range of 2 – 2.35 mmole/kg. c) An increase in the CO2 concentration by 7.5% (2000 -> 2150) leads to the decrease in the pH by 0.2, or increase in [H+] from 8 nmole/kg (pH 8.1) to 13 nmole/kg (pH 7.9): by 63%. Calculation from the data in the right column of the table leads to a much larger difference.
It seems that these data do not confirm the theory of determining role of atmospheric CO2 in the change of ocean acidity. -
Eclectic at 00:06 AM on 26 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
My apologies, Moderators. My post above was a reply to a post of NorrisM's which has been "disappeared". Please delete, too.
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Eclectic at 00:00 AM on 26 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
NorrisM @10 , certainly 810 billion tonnes of CO2 is a formidable amount to "remove".
All the more reason, to minimize the problem in the first place, by rapid conversion of the world energy economy to "renewable" energy.
It may well be that future citizens [of late 21st Century] will stridently demand that their politicians take action to get the carbon back in the ground. Will the technology exist in 60 years' time, to do so? As well as the renewable-sourced electricity to reduce the 810 bn tonnes you mentioned, into black sooty carbon [ = 220 bn tonnes of soot ] ??
On my back-of-envelope arithmetic, 220 bn tonnes of carbon would equate to about a 10mm thick layer of (granular) soot covering the world's 1700 million hectares of arable farmland. Maybe not all that difficult to churn that underground during routine seasonal ploughing. Good for the soil, too. Though I don't know what the carbon degradation rate would be.
On another thread, contributor Red Baron discussed the alternative approach of biological [fungal] fixation of carbon into pasture/ range-land.
Then again, some 200 custom-built supertankers could carry that 220 bn tonnes of granular carbon and, during 25 years . . . dump it somewhere off the continental shelf, where no voters exist!
Still, NorrisM — an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
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John Hartz at 23:58 PM on 25 November 2017Climate scientists are in it for the money
The denier myth begins with...
In truth, the overwhelming majority of climate-research funding comes from the federal government and left-wing foundations.
In truth, climate-research is conducted by scientists throughout the world who are not being paid by either the US government or US foundations.
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NorrisM at 16:50 PM on 25 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
OPOF @ 7
"And the Conservatives should not be expected to change their minds. They will likely continue trying to Win any unacceptable way they can get away with. The future of humanity clearly needs that group to globally become nothing more than an irrelevant annoyance."
Don't hold your breath. I think that anyone thinking that the Conservatives of Alberta or the Republicans in the US will just "fade away" have to examine their powers of analysis to be polite. I think that the NDP government in Alberta (referred to your in your blog as the "non-Conservative" party) when it unexpectedly found itself in power had to face political reality and come up with some rational proposals. For those who are not familiar with Canadian politics, the NDP is the most left wind party in Canada. I personally think they have done a good job of balancing political realities with a climate policy. It is amazing what happens when you are suddenly faced with political power rather than arguing from the opposition.
I personally think that FPP is the best system compared to proportional representation. Look what is happening in Germany at the present time. Or consider Italy or Israel or ...... I have always thought that the US system was a disaster because of its "checks and balances". I would much prefer 4 or 5 year "dictatorships" who have to know they will be booted out if they do not behave. But we really should not be discussing political systems on this website.
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nigelj at 10:30 AM on 25 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
OPOF,
We used to have a FPP voting system, and frustratingly this system twice lead to a party with less popular vote than the other main party being elected on the basis of electorate results. This is just so unacceptable to me personally.
One of these governments turned out to be a genuine disaster, and this motivated a change to mixed member proportional representation about 1994, and we still have this. It has been good on the whole, imho, and has delivered coalitions of both centre left leaning governments and centre right governments, both of which have been reasonably decent governments on the whole, no huge disasters of policy, although some issues not adressed well enough. (I want to avoid polarising political evaluation of which I personally prefer etc). Two of these governments had stability issues due to one of the smaller parties, but FPP also had stability issues of its own kind.
But the point is if we can change our voting system anyone can, and the majority don’t want to go back to FPP. This speaks volumes. Although I would suggest STV proportional representation system may be best, (if hard to get ones head around,) as it avoids some of the issues of mmp.
People are addicted to oil in various ways on various levels. Take the drug away, and you get anger, tantrums, and an endless stream of excuses and sceptical nonsense just like any drug.
Coming back to MMP it seems to have lead to a consensus on having climate policy and this appears to be an inevitable result of MMP style of system. Nobody would dare dump policy completely because they would be punished electorally where with FPP winner take all system it appeared easier to get away with this sort of thing.
What is more troublesome is manipulation of ETS by the last centre right government and weakening of it, but this may be partly because an ETS is susceptible to this manipulation, as Europe has found if you read about their system.
Anyway people who ruthlessly abuse or exploit the "commons" or business activities to their own benefit to cause damage to the community well being, and planetary resources and systems, have to be subjected to boundaries, that is for sure.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:44 AM on 25 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
nigelj,
Just to clarify. In Canada the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan are 'outliers' when it comes to political leaning and attitude towards reduction of burning of fossil fuels. Both of those provinces are heavily dependent on continuing to get away with benefiting from the burning of fossil fuels for electricity and export of fossil fuels for burning ... because they have large deposits of those non-renewable resources (Alberta more than Saskatchewan).
Excluding the GHG generated by the burning of fossil fuels exported from Alberta, activity in the province of Alberta is the largest contribution to Canada's total emissions. This can be seen in the lastest Government of Canada report of GHG emissions (2015).
And Alberta will have increased emissions since major expansions of Oil Sands extraction will be completed and start operations in the near future. These facilities can take nearly a decade to design and build. So they got started when the price of oil was alluringly high. Now that they are built their investors have 'sunk their costs in the facilities'. Those investors are desperate to maximize their revenue, and so is the Government of Alberta. They push for new pipelines to reduce the cost, increase the speed of exporting the stuff, and also in the hopes of attracting new investment to further expand the extraction for export.
The popularity of getting away with getting wealthy from the global burning of fossil fuels is regionally massive. So massive that just about any Alberta Government has to be seen to be a Cheerleader for the unacceptable activity if they want to stand a chance to win power in the flawed multi-party First-Past-the-Post game. The current government leaders have implemented Carbon Legislation for Alberta that includes a modest Carbon Price. And they set a limit on the GHG emissions, but at a level that allows significant expansion of Oil Sands extraction (Alberta plan for Oil Sands GHG). And the United Conservatives have declared the 'Need' to eliminate all of the Carbon Plan without offering any Carbon Reduction action of their own.
Thankfully, the Federal Government has legislated a minimum required action by any province. So the Conservatives winning power in Alberta will only be able to cut back the actions in Alberta to the Federal minimums. The United Conservatives in Alberta (and Conservatives in the rest of Canada), have already declared their dislike of the Federal Government that implemented such a diabolical restriction of 'Their Freedom to Believe and do as they please'.
If the likes of the United Conservatives win Federal power it may be necessary for the global community to impose targeted penalties on Canadian activities (or specific Canadians) to motivate 'better behaviour' from the anti-Leaders. Since the power winners in multi-party First-Past-the-Post elections usually do not have true majority support, the majority of Canadians would likely support such external influence, just as the majority of Albertans would support Federal restrictions on a Conservative Provincial leadership.
And the Conservatives should not be expected to change their minds. They will likely continue trying to Win any unacceptable way they can get away with. The future of humanity clearly needs that group to globally become nothing more than an irrelevant annoyance.
Things are headed in that direction. And the rising anger of the United Right/Conservatives is probable proof that even they know their Winning is not sustainable. But since they only care about the benefit they can get away with in their lifetime there will always need external restrictions on what they can get away with - restrictions and penalties that they will always be angry about, never acknowledge their understanding of the importance of the restrictions because the importance is the Public Interest. And their Private Interest is to compromise the Public Interest as much as they can get away with.
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michael sweet at 09:07 AM on 25 November 2017Video: Climate, Sea Level, and Superstorms
Nigelj,
I would look more carefully at the Gulf Stream system.
This RealClimate post reviews two reasons that current models are biased toward a more stable Gulf Stream. It describes collapse of the Gulf Stream over 100-300 years. It has several additional links at the end.
This Real Climate post #2 describes slowing of the Gulf Stream since 1930.
Fig. 3 Index of the strength of the overturning circulation in the Atlantic (AMOC), calculated from the temperature in the subpolar Atlantic minus the mean temperature of the Northern Hemisphere (red and blue curves). The green curve shows the coral data of Sherwood and colleagues. Source: Rahmstorf et al, Nature Climate Change 2015.
The Gulf Stream flow is a little higher than its lowest point around 1980. It is not catastrophic but not a "low probability" that it could get worse. The currently measured slow down is greater than predicted by models.
The cold patch just below Greenland on many global temperature graphs is caused by the slowing of the Gulf Stream. This patch set a record for the coldest measured (over the entire record) during 2015, a record hot year worldwide.
Fig. 1 Linear temperature trends from 1901 to 2013 according to NASA data. Source: Rahmstorf et al, Nature Climate Change 2015.
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nigelj at 06:22 AM on 25 November 2017Video: Climate, Sea Level, and Superstorms
HK @7 yes fair comments. The movie the day after tomorrow was obviously fantasy, and things like a change in the gulf stream and cooling Northern ocean cannot cause such a deep ice age and certainly not that fast, or generate superstorms of that ferocity and also covering the entire northern hemisphere. That is Hollywood hype and dramatic licence, like numerous other disaster movies. Virtually everyone realises this is fantasy. However I quite enjoy these movies, and it's interesting to contemplate why we enjoy disaster movies.
However its interesting that the day after tomorrow got a little bit partly right that changes to gulf stream and thus cooler northern oceans leads to more intense storms as you pointed out. I wonder if that was accident or a little bit of science input.
The more accurate scenario is a warming climate could cause a change in gulf stream, but low probability at this stage. It would potentially cause a semi ice age in Europe and parts of N America with significant drop in temperatures over decades to centuries, that would be very damaging, although not kilometre thick ice sheets. Although the probability is low, the consequences are still serious enough so we should pay strong attention.
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nigelj at 05:52 AM on 25 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
OPOF @5
Your account of Canada's climate policy is interesting.
I live in New Zealand, and our history of emissions reductions has actually been very weak, but our new government elected this year is taking a stronger stand on emissions reduction, and I will get to that.
Firstly, our history of attempts to reduce emissions and deal with global warming has been of limited success so far. Here is a brief summary of the sorry story, a comedy of errors and denial:
The Labour (liberal / left leaning party) started things about 15 years ago by proposing a sensible carbon tax, but was beaten in that election and the incoming National Party (conservative party) adopted an emissions trading scheme. This ETS has been an appalling joke of a scheme with limited strength, no actual cap, and huge reliance on imported carbon credits that turned out to be worthless, but still form part of the system in terms of value, despite this being acknowledged by the government. This ETS is still in force today.
The ETS scheme is so complicated nobody understands it, and the media don't go near the thing, apart from Brian Fallow, but his comments are so technical only enthusiasts would bother. This ETS has proven useless, because our emissions have continued to grow, and the scheme excludes farming, our main source of emissions, because we are a big dairy producer. The ETS settings are not strong enough, and too much reliance is put on forestry sinks particularly buying credits in these from other countries that are proven to be of dubious value.
But the ETS "sound impressive" like we are doing something, and the National Government has sold it with appropriate spin and exaggerated hype, and never been properly challenged by the media. I don't think its media political bias, more possibly just laziness and not enough news in a gray complex issue like this, but that is no excuse. We are a small country with just a few main media outlets, and no huge media bias, although the main newspaper did arguably start to favour National a little recently.
Renewable energy has been more successful, but only by accident. We had good hydro and geothermal power making up over 50% of our electricity, going way back to the 1940's. We have added more geothermal power recently but this would have happened regardless of climate policies. We have added wind power which gets a small subsidy and is about 5% or so of our generation. More wind power is planned, but the global financial crash caused a drop in electricity demand, so we have surplus of generation at the moment.
Currently approx. 80% of our electricity is hydro, geothermal and wind with the remainder gas and one coal station I think. DS will correct me if I'm wrong.
Believe it or not we actually export oil, shamelessly as far as the climate issue goes. We are a very open free market economy and both export and import oil (weird I know, but this is an open market economy). We also export coal, although less recently I think. So there are no limits on this in terms of climate policies, and the National government also allows deep sea oil exploration, again regardless of climate issue. They make a bizarre point of principle that the ETS should be only control on emitters, in a nonsensical application of ideological free market purity. Everyone else can work out you don't have to rely just on an ETS, and need a range of policies and the public have questioned the wisdom of drilling for more oil.
Now we come to the year of 2017, when a Labour government has been elected (with a very pleasant and smart leader). More precisely we have a proportional representation system of MMP the same as Germany. The National Party got the highest popular vote, but had no real coalition partners this time, so the other three main parties Labour, NZ First and The Greens with less of the vote, formed a governing coalition. As you can imagine this complicates climate policies.
The new Labour coalition elected this year has taken a stronger stand overall on climate issues, but precise policy is not clear yet and time will tell.
Unfortunately they have decided one thing, to keep the ETS, but have proposed a rethink and may modify it, but who knows. More significantly they have proposed a carbon tax of some sort on agriculture in an attempt to reduce methane emissions. Time will tell if they implement this.
The leader Adern has expressed a strong and genuine commitement to reducing emissions, however it appears the party has backtraked partly on some other strong economic policies out of fear of causing negative economic side effects so who knows what will happen over climate issues. I'm not yet decided whether Adern is sensible and prepared to listen and do sensible modifications, or easily lead and weak. Again its too early to say.
We have no idea what Labour will do in terms of coal and oil exports. and given their commitment to free market this may not change. I think its likely they would stop offsore exploration as this is easy "low hanging fruit" and offshore potential appears limited anyway. I have no doubt they would support renewable electricity generation, as this is an easy thing to agree on.
So in summary the new Labour government talks tough on climate change, but time will tell if it amounts to much and what real policies are. However it cant be worse than the outgoing National government.
As you can see I'm not all that enthused about ETS schemes, and think a carbon fee and dividend is probably better. However both can be made to work if theres a will.
Our political parties and lobby groups have also made some shameless claims about how various climate policies and so on will hurt the poor etc, usually in a very misleading way, but not quite as brazenly as Canada by the sound of it. The various schemes only get back page coverage in the media, and hardly even figured in the election campaign. The media seldom ask the hard questions of National ministers on their terrible ETS, apart from Brian Fallow alone. I suppose the media find it complicated, and frankly anyone would, but it still seems like laziness and poor journalism to me as its clearly an important issue.
In general we have all the same media issues as you do in Canada, but possibly not quite as severely!
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Video: Climate, Sea Level, and Superstorms
#5:
In his book Storms of my Grandchildren James Hansen described that movie as "highly unscientific" as it greatly exaggerates the global cooling caused by the shutdown of the Gulfstream. The lead climate scientist in the movie – portrayed by Dennis Quaid – claimed that the storms would continue until the balance was restored, but I doubt that the movie makers really understood the global energy imbalance the way climate scientists define it. -
One Planet Only Forever at 01:32 AM on 25 November 2017Analysis: WRI data suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries
Digby Scorgie@4,
At least you appear to be in a region with Leadership that gets popular support for claiming to support actions to reduce carbon emissions and could win re-election if they meaningfully act to reduce fossil fuel burning.
I live in Alberta, Canada. I would bet Alberta (along with similarly addicted to benefiting from the export of fossil fuels for burning - Saskatchewan) will be among the last places on the planet to get a combined significant popular support for action to reduce Carbon emissions and Leadership that wants that.
Alberta's current Leaders claim to want action to reduce Carbon Emissions. But they have been careful to not say they want to wind-down the Oil Sands extraction and export quicker than the market-place would wrap it up (the provincial budget is massively dependent on revenue from fossil fuel export for burning).
But they are only the current Leaders due to a freak event where 2 Conservative Parties were in the 5 Party chase for power. That allowed the strongest of the non-Conservative Parties to win many seats with less than majority support. (Unlike Australia, Canada still uses First-Past-the-Post Voting even though we have almost always had at least 3 major political parties).
The current government in Alberta has implemented a Carbon Fee and partial Rebate program. A portion of the Carbon Fee is returned to people with moderate or lower income with the rebate likely exceeding the Carbon Fee those people would pay (Full rebate at $60,000 income reduced to Zero rebate at $90,000). And the rest of the Carbon Fee is used to try to diversify the Alberta economy away from actions related to the burning of fossil fuels.
The Conservative Parties in Alberta recently United. And polls clearly show the popularity in Alberta of that United Party being higher than any other party, though still lower than 50%. In Alberta that level of support (less than 50%) has produced clear majority authority for a party. That is how the current non-Conservative Party won majority power in the last election.
The leader of the United Conservatives has already made misleading marketing pitches criticizing the Carbon Fee program because the increase in the fees happens at the start of next year. They claim the Carbon Fee hurts the less fortunate (they never mention the rebate). And they claim the Fee is a 75% Tax on Natural Gas (they do not mention that natural gas only costs $2 per GJ and the Carbon Fee after the increase will be a fixed $1.50 per GJ meaning the 'tax rate' goes down as the price goes up).
A few of the media in Alberta have tried to better inform Albertans when they report the claims made by the United Conservatives. But not all of the media are that responsible (many of the media are also misleading marketers - eager to lock in the more popular audience support that many advertisers look for).
I am heartened by the fact that some media in Alberta are trying to better inform the population. But I doubt that enough proper efforts to better and more fully inform the population in Alberta will occur before the next election. I also doubt that even all of the major media trying to better inform the population in Alberta would make enough of a difference before the next election. Such action, pointing out the Fake Claims being made by the United Conservatives, would probably lead to massive amounts of loud popular support for claims of Fake News being produced.
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Evan at 01:25 AM on 25 November 2017New rebuttal to the myth 'climate scientists are in it for the money' courtesy of Katharine Hayhoe
According to Kevin Anderson, one of the insidious things is that many climate scientists are apparently down playing the severity of climate change so that they get government support, quite the opposite of the effect to which Katharine Hayhoe is referring. "He points to hypocrisy in IPCC working groups, the UK Committee on Climate Change, and university research councils writing their strategy documents. Bodies which he suggests are concealing the gravity of the situation, in the interests of their own funding."
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