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Tom13 at 00:42 AM on 2 October 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
18 - Red - Its a surtax, subsidy and a wealth transfer program precisely because the receiver of the subsidy is less efficient than the one being charged the surtax. Simple economics 101
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RedBaron at 00:36 AM on 2 October 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
@18 Tom13,
Exactly Tom. Like shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. This is my main problem with Liberal mitigation plans. But if the dividends were paid to the people sequestering carbon long term, then it would be paying for a goods/service that benefits society. That's a market rather than a wealth redistribution plan. Sure in some ways all economies are wealth redistribution, but that would redistribute to a producer! That's a good thing.
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Richard13699 at 00:32 AM on 2 October 2017Right-wing media could not be more wrong about the 1.5°C carbon budget paper
Isn't it time that climate deny-listers were prosecuted as the criminals and fraudsters that they are and for the crimes against humanity which they facilitate?
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Tom13 at 00:00 AM on 2 October 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
. The way fee and dividend works is a fee is charged to companies that produce greenhouse gas emissions. No longer would society be subsidizing the costs from carbon pollution.
The revenue from the fees would be returned to citizens so that it becomes a revenue-neutral tool. There is no net increase in cost or increase in income. What the fee and dividend method does, however, is reward people and companies for good choices.
In other words - its a surtax - with a subsidy for renewables and a wealth transfer program.
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Swayseeker at 23:41 PM on 1 October 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #39
Houses can be dried out and mould prevented by using solar air heaters - see http://www.builditsolar.com/Experimental/PopCanVsScreen/PopCanVsScreen.htm on how to build your own solar air heater. I wonder if water aerators could help improve hygine in some inundated areas.
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nigelj at 17:24 PM on 1 October 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Norris M @48
No Norris I made a whole range of points you ignored. But forget it.
You are however confusing me. You started off discussing historical temperatures and complaining we dont have 100% certainty. We have good certainty plus or minus a small difference. We have five main global temperature data sets produced by different agencies (nasa, noa, hadcrut, etc) who all take the raw data and correct for things like urban heat islands, so they dont bias things upwards etc. They do this slightly differently. All these finalised sets of data are actually pretty similar. There's a composite graph here below and its very clear.
https://thinkprogress.org/comparing-all-the-temperature-records-4a273a0f8f31/
If you are now talking model projections until 2015 (latest available) temperatures have tracked models quite well except they are slightly under projections through the last few years, but as you can see not much and the high temperatures of 2015 - 2016 have bought things back into line. So theres nothing fundamentally wrong with the models despite the complete blather on some websites. Some of these model runs are quite old so nothing has been "adjusted".
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/climate-model-projections-compared-to-observations/
Thank's for your quoted commentary but I dont intend to respond to much of it because its all out of context and hard to follow. The graphs I have indicated are from well known websites that dont make things up, and speak for themselves. A picture paints a thousand words anyway.
I will comment on this regarding models and predictions right through to year 2100:
"Sorry Benjamin but estimated ECS is still 1.5C – 4.5C @ 95% confidence. By definition that’s a constant forcing. That range hasn’t been improved in 60 years of climate “science”. The low end of that range is yawn-worthy and the high side is alarming. Observed ECS is near or below the low number."
"If we are still at this range, we are not talking 100% certainty, are we? We are no where near the certainty we require before we undertake massive changes in our society."
You are possibly missinterpreting these numbers. They are not variations in predicted temperatures by 2100. They are uncertainty of climate sensitivity. And yes it's a level of uncertainty for sure, but the raw range of numbers is a bit misleading. The weight of evidence puts the number at most probably 3.0 degrees. Most of the research points firmly at that number, especially the quality research. So its not quite as uncertain as it seems.
Its quite false of the writer to claim nothing has changed and his claims of observed climate sensitivity is very dubious, as it appears based on the pause, and the pause was not as big as was first thought, and has ended and these two things change the picture a lot.
Nevertheless the IPCC acknowledge we do not have 100% certainty on this sensitivity issue, so they have a range of forward temperature predictions. Business as usual emissions is expected to generate between about 3.5 -5 degrees by end of this century. This still has uncertainty, but less than the information you printed on climate sensitivity.
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MA Rodger at 16:59 PM on 1 October 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
NorrisM @41.
It may be correct to say that there is differing opinion as to when is appropriate to define "pre-industrial" and thus at what level to set as the "pre-industrial" temperature, but I'm not aware of any disagreement over the temperature rise since 1900. Consider the SAT records, ((HadCRUT, GISS, NOAA, BEST) they each present a temperature anomaly for the late 1800s (perhaps the average for the 1890s would suit as a pre-1900 value) and an anomaly for the most recent calender year 2016, yielding the following temperature rises: 1.13ºC, 1.25ºC, 0.93ºC, 1.33ºC. This shows a spread of results but given the differing methods employed this is to be expected. The average is 1.16ºC which to 2dp is 1.2ºC. The WMO (who define "pre-industrial" as late 1800s) provide the following graph which demonstrates this rise.
My use of the value 1.2ºC @40 was not intended to carry much weight. Rather it was demonstrating the way in which Curry was mis-representing the hockey-stick analysis. I mention the rise since 1900, the IPCC has passed attribution on the rise since 1950 which is the majority of the rise since 1900. It is this IPCC attribution that lies at the heart of Curry's denialism, a subject on which she has blogged at length many times.
Concerning the El Nino, I would suggest that the El Nino is now behind us and the rise since 1900 to the last 12 months comes out as 1.06ºC.
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Eclectic at 16:38 PM on 1 October 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
NorrisM , you have already been shown to be wrong about "your" version of requirement of "massive changes".
And your wildly irresponsible approach to major risk management is also clearly wrong.
It would be a pleasant change if you put forward some valid criticisms !
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NorrisM at 16:14 PM on 1 October 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
nigelj @ 46
I see that the thrust of the one question you asked that I did not answer relates to how much certainty do we need before we make significant decisions. You state:
" We certainly have a good idea of global temperatures plus or minus a small discrepency (sic)"
After me commenting on the Millar et al paper that has recently been published, one of the other participants suggested that I read the blog following the McKitrick article on the Judith Curry website. In fact, I found the discussion very interesting and civil between McKitrick and Hausfather but it was too technical for me to come to any conclusions on where they ended up.
But reading further, I came to an answer to your question regarding how much "certainty" I need or, more to the point, how much uncertainty there is there with the models?
First, Benjamin Webster came up with what I thought was a reasonable explanation for the differences in what the observations show and what the models have predicted and how they have been "adjusted" to correspond with actual observations so that they are very close:
"With regard to forcing, this is apples-to-apples.
For the past, we generally know the real-world forcings that went into the hindcasts.
For the present simulations, they can get off if we don’t use the real-world forcings.
That’s part of the cause of the 1998-2014 temperature “slowdown”. Solar and volcanic forcings were a little cooler than expected. But running a hindcast with the real-world forcings still gives pretty good estimate of the resulting surface temperatures."Just at a point when I thought, "gee" is that all there is in differences, David Springer highlighted exactly what Steve Koonin said in the APS panel that I have reference before:
"Sorry Benjamin but estimated ECS is still 1.5C – 4.5C @ 95% confidence. By definition that’s a constant forcing. That range hasn’t been improved in 60 years of climate “science”. The low end of that range is yawn-worthy and the high side is alarming. Observed ECS is near or below the low number."
I will not add the balance of his remark.
If we are still at this range, we are not talking 100% certainty, are we? We are no where near the certainty we require before we undertake massive changes in our society.
This is not the place to discuss the massive changes required.
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Eclectic at 15:50 PM on 1 October 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #39
NorrisM @2 :
< "In the midst of all this tragedy, could you not wait?" >
NorrisM, when you are beset by alligators, is also the time you should be draining the swamp.
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nigelj at 15:48 PM on 1 October 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #39
Norris are you talking to me or the writer of the article?
The disaster is already about a week ago, so plenty of respect has been shown.
However I think we should talk about causes, problems and solutions pretty immediately, while things are fresh in peoples minds, and I think this what the inhabitants would appreciate most. Theres nothing to be gained from what, having a months silence, crying in our beer? What is it you want, apart from trying to make people feel guilty?
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Eclectic at 15:46 PM on 1 October 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
NorrisM @45 , (A) you do not need to await a moderation opinion, before choosing to discuss things on a fitter thread.
(B) You are making the Denialist error of looking at various models and failing to look at the physical reality. Ice is melting, sea levels are rising ever faster, etcetera . . . the global warming is occurring very obviously — so it doesn't need to be "falsified" !
MA Rodger @40 , @38 , @36 : thank you for that further background on Judith Curry. It is in complete accordance with what I have seen in studying her blog. ( I haven't bothered with any detailed study of Lindzen Christy & Spencer — since a large slice of their illogical thinking derives from their fundamentalist religious fixed ideas. But Curry is interesting because she is something stranger & more peculiar ! )
Currie makes a nauseating display of persistent intellectual dishonesty — because she flies in the face of clear logical thinking & well-proven scientific fact. Made doubly nauseating by her attempts at a tone of self-righteous martyrdom.
Her blog's support for Salby's nonsense is far from the only denialist craziness that she chooses to espouse slightly indirectly. She has a tendency to put other denialists' scientifically-wacky stuff in her blog (in effect, they are "guest authors") and she keeps a few inches back from 100% endorsing this stuff, in that she delicately says she is including it for the readers' "interest" ). ~ Again, an example of her intellectual dishonesty.
She is indulging in plain denialism of the most unscientific sort — and the extremist politicians (senatorial and congressional) & the extremist press enjoy lapping it up.
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nigelj at 15:13 PM on 1 October 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
NorrisM @45
"Here is my point".
No Norris. Please go back and answer the points I raised in detail.
You show people no basic respect, by ignoring what they say, then have arrogance to expect to be taken seriously. Its starting to really annoy me because I dont do this.
However I will address your points:
"If you do not have a "base" upon which you can agree as to where the temperature has been, then how can you make judgments about the predictions of future temperature rises? How can you compare where you are if you do not know where you have started from?"
Thats empty rhetoric. We know the historical temperature record accurately enough. Anyone with any commonsense can see this, and certainly any scientist can. Im not interested in discussing it further. You pretend to be a reasonable man, but your rhetoric shows you are most unreasonable, and with respect are a likely climate denying shill for the fossil fuel industry, and legal profession, and spend a lot of time reading websites like The Heartland Institute. It will rot your brain reading that material.
"The GSM (or ESM) models have to be judged on their ability to predict the future by how successful they have been in predicting in the past. This is the very basis of the scientific method. Come up with a theory which is "falsifiable" and then see what happens. "
What are you getting at? Models are absolutely not judged just on how they predict the past, its a combination of the past and future. Models have predicted the past rather well, and models run in the 1990s have predicted subsequent temperatures until 2017 quite well. Its not perfect but is certainly predicted them well. That's all any model in any field of science can do. You have been given this data before several times.
The model is valid until someone can prove the terms in the model are wrong, or alternatively the real world proves the model wrong. Neither has happened. Temperatures from 1900 right through to 2017 are very close to the middle of model predictions. The only outlier from this is the hadcrut dataset, which is not a great dataset. This is all a fact whether you like it or not.
"If you say that the "disagreement between the main temperature data sets is quite small" then can you provide me with the following"
No I wont provide it. With respect, please google the information yourself. All you do is come on this website ask people to do your homework and provide information, then when we do you "claim" links dont work, ignore the information, or dispute the information. Data for nasa, noaa temperatures etc is pretty similar. I'm not interested in nit picking.
"The problem with "longer term" predictions is that we have to undertake significant changes in order to move our society from fossil fuels to other sources of energy. We know that the temperature is going up and that clearly a significant portion is man-made. But how fast this is going to happen is clearly material. "
Obviously yes its material, and models give certain results and if you ignore them then its on your conscience. It's the best scientific guide to the future we have. Im not sure what else you expect. A miracle?
"At the present time, my understanding is that oceans are rising at a level of 2 mm/yr "
What do you mean by present time? This year, last five years, what?
Short trends less than about five years mean nothing because natural variation makes levels fluctuate over very short periods. The ten year plus trend is more like 3.5mm and this is what counts, as has been pointed out to you about a dozen times before. A simple google search of the jason topex satellite data on sea level rise will show you this, something more for you to ignore and claim you cannot find. But once you look at a graph like this its all obvious and easier than using words.
"It has to be models predicting much higher temperatures to cause the oceans to rise at massively faster rates to get to 2-3 feet by 2100."
Yes models predict accelerating temperatures. And? Until you provide substantial physical and / or mathematical evidence the models are wrong, why should I take you seriously?
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NorrisM at 14:00 PM on 1 October 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
nigelj @ 44
Here is my point. If you do not have a "base" upon which you can agree as to where the temperature has been, then how can you make judgments about the predictions of future temperature rises? How can you compare where you are if you do not know where you have started from?
The GSM (or ESM) models have to be judged on their ability to predict the future by how successful they have been in predicting in the past. This is the very basis of the scientific method. Come up with a theory which is "falsifiable" and then see what happens.
If you have a large range on what the past was then this becomes very difficult.
If you say that the "disagreement between the main temperature data sets is quite small" then can you provide me with the following:
1. Range for the period 1800 - 1900;
2. Range for the period 1900 - 1950
3. Range for the period 1950-Present
The problem with "longer term" predictions is that we have to undertake significant changes in order to move our society from fossil fuels to other sources of energy. We know that the temperature is going up and that clearly a significant portion is man-made. But how fast this is going to happen is clearly material. At the present time, my understanding is that oceans are rising at a level of 2 mm/yr (recently down from 3 mm/yr). It has to be models predicting much higher temperatures to cause the oceans to rise at massively faster rates to get to 2-3 feet by 2100.
Moderator: Perhaps we should move this to the thread on climate models. It is amazing how easy it is to move from one thing to the other because they are so related.
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NorrisM at 13:42 PM on 1 October 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #39
In the midst of all this tragedy, could you not wait?
Moderator Response:[JH] Sloganeering snipped.
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nigelj at 07:24 AM on 1 October 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Norris M @41
"There does not seem to even be agreement amongst climate scientists on what actual global average surface air temperature increases have taken place since "pre-industrial times" (ie 1800) or since 1900."
This is true, but what is your real point here? The disagreement between the main temperature datasets is quite small. You will probably never get perfect agreement because histoorical data collection is not inherently perfect. We certainly have a good idea of global temperatures plus or minus a small discrepency. This is as good as it gets (like the movie) and is enough for intelligent understanding of the general situation we are in. You seldom get 100% agreement and certainty in anything in any measurements of any past historical phenomena. That doesnt matter as long as trends clearly stand out.This is enough for me to see theres clearly been approx "x" quantity of temperature increase.
Are you saying you want 100% certainty and agreement before you can take climate change seriously?
A simple question Norris. Do you really have 100% certainty in other areas of your personal and business life? Think about it hard there are mostly always some doubts and unknowns even if we sometimes say we are "sure".
"I read that temperature rise had now fallen back to the pre-2015-2016 El Nino level"
Again so what is your point? It's to be expected that temperatures fall after an el nino but its highly probable they will rise again after a few years. Its really longer term trends that count, and approx. temperature increases over a time frame, not exact temperatues 1.65382 degrees over x time frame.
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nigelj at 07:05 AM on 1 October 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
MA Rodger @40
"She will raises issues but almost always fails to set out clearly what she concludes from such issues."
This has also been my exact same impression of various things she has said. Its very frustrating and it creates enormous doubts, exactly what climate denialists deliberately set out to do, so she plays right into their hands, either deliberately or unwittingly.
I think going back to your previous post all the trouble started when she was heavily criticised over her research paper on weather systems. It appears she lost confidence in herself, or something, and started to side with the sceptics and perhaps their was some genuine desire to respect their point of view, or at least listen to it, at least at first. But its a slippery slope, and she is a full scale denialist now whether she realises it or not, and admits it or not. Her rhetoric speaks for itself. It reminds me of the theme expressed in the book Animal Farm by Orwell.
"Her evidence on the relevance of the 'hiatus' never concludes. Rather it rambles on about "The growing discrepancy between climate model predictions and the observations".
Exactly. Now at that point in time of her testimony it was fair to say temperatures were falling towards the lower boundary of error bars, but they were not outside these and as far as I'm aware its always been predicted you could have approx. 10 year periods of slow temperature growth, or even falling temperatures due to a variety of natural cycles. Curry must know that so why didn't she say so in her testimony? If she thinks natural causes could not have been responsible for the "pause", then why does she not say so? By saying nothing, she is unbalanced and not fulsome in her testimony, and can only be seen as a full on climate denialist whether she intends this or not.
"and for good measure the graph stops short of the latest 2015 warmth),'
Again Curry must have know this, and it puts her testimony into the frankly misleading category. This is not good enough.
"we need to look at the satellite data. I mean, this is the best data that we have and is global")".
I'm just gobsmacked by this, as again she must know the limitations of this data. Its certainly not the best data. Again it puts her fully in the Watts Up denialist camp, and is the exact sort of rhetoric they use. She is copying and pasting what they say.
You dont need to have a degree in atmospheric physics to know that none of the data sets are 100% perfect, and the sane and sensible thing to do would be to take an average of them all. Curry is qualified and obviously very intelligent, so something has become unhinged somewhere, to be saying the things she is saying.
I have no problem with scepticism as its natural, and I dont take things at face value, but I think we have a duty to be balanced and tell things in full context, and explain a full conclusion, and Curry does neither of these things.
"Yes, I do believe that we have overall been warming, but we have been warming for 200, maybe even 400 years, OK? And that is not caused by humans."
This just feeds right into the denialist machine. She has been suckered in. And clearly theres a big acceleration in warming form 1920 so why doesn't she see the significance of that?
"the land datasets are sort of starting to agree"
She is thinking aloud. You do this in private with colleagues not when testifying to politicians! She doesnt know when to shut up.
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nigelj at 06:04 AM on 1 October 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #39
This disaster is very grim for Peurto Rico, and possibly a sign of worse things to come as climate changes. If IPCC climate predictions prove correct and hurricanes become more intense and eventually more numerous, the impacts will be very significant. Some of the IPCC projections for increased hurricane intensity are quite large, depending somewhat on geographical location. Increasing quantities of gdp will go into hurricane repairs as opposed to increasing basic quality of life.
Some vulnerable areas will possibly never fully recover before the next big one hits. It took 10 years to clean up and repair things after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and the cost was 100 billion dollars. No wonder small island nations already stay poor.
This sort of scenario can only become more common as climate continues to change because the type of change has mostly negative consequences for weather systems. Theres very little upside when more heat energy and moisture goes into weather systems.
Economies are adapted over decades and centuries to stability of environment or at least known regular cyclical problems of roughly equal intensity. This stability has been useful in improvement in human economies, and we have seen tremendous progess in many areas, despite the inevitable problems as well. Our modern economy since the end of the last ice age has never actually faced a period where weather gets progressively worse almost everywhere over decadal time frames, so its uncharted territory to fully quantify.
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Philippe Chantreau at 05:17 AM on 1 October 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
NorrisM says "I read that temperature rise had now fallen back to the pre-2015-2016 El Nino level"
Why would that not be an entirely normal expectation? Said level was already above that of the mammoth 1998 El Nino, an extraordinary outlier, although it did not remain so for long at all.
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NorrisM at 03:12 AM on 1 October 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
MA Rodger @ 40
"She is strongly suggesting that the possible 0.2ºC warming over a recent 300-year period (1600-1900) somehow brings into serious doubt the IPCC's attribution of the 1.2ºC warming since 1900."
There does not seem to even be agreement amongst climate scientists on what actual global average surface air temperature increases have taken place since "pre-industrial times" (ie 1800) or since 1900.
My understanding from everything that I have had read up to now was that from 1900 to 2015, we had about a .8C rise with about .3C to .4C being attributed to about 1940 and then from 1975 to 2015 about .4 to .5C. I honestly cannot remember whether it was .3/.5C or .4C/.4C. Then, owing to the hot 2015-2016 years attributable to the hottest El Nino on record, the temperature rise exceeded 1C. This last statement is directly from the Millar et al paper recently published in Nature Geoscience (I actually bought a copy of it).
But then the Millar et al paper begins its discussion by stating that "human induced warming reached an estimated 0.93C (+/-.13C) above mid-19th century conditions in 2015 and is currently increasing at .2C per decade" and cites an Otto et al paper in 2015 in support of this.
The above statement by MA Rodger references the IPCC suggesting that there has been a 1.2C rise since 1900. I assume this comes from the 2013 IPCC Assessment because I assume they do not make "statements" outside of their assessments.
Added to this, somewhere else I read that temperature rise had now fallen back to the pre-2015-2016 El Nino level. I think the comment referenced .8C but I am not sure.
Can someone make sense of all these conflicting statements about actual warming?
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MA Rodger at 21:36 PM on 30 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
nigelJ @39,
Note that within her spreading of doubt and denial about AGW, Curry is even happy to trash the temperature record. (This is perhaps odd as the temperature record is about the only thing she has to base her grand theory of there being a humongous natural climate wobble which has amplified the recent AGW over 1970-98 to create the present climate 'hysteria' with Wyatt's Unified Wave Theory being Judy's candidate for such an oscillation back in 2015.)Her stance in the temperature record is basically that 'there has been warming, but...' with the 'but' being followed by the buckets of doubt and denial. In many ways her comments about the temperature-record exemplifies her highly unscientific method. She will raises issues but almost always fails to set out clearly what she concludes from such issues. If she did, she would be slammed for promulgating serious denial with sky-high Monckton-ratings.
Consider her testemony about the temperature record in front of this 2015 Senate Committee:-
♠ Her citing of the hockeystick graph as showing "overall warming may have occurred for the past 300–400 years. Humans contributed little if anything to this early global warming," rather misrepresents the hockeystick. She is strongly suggesting that the possible 0.2ºC warming over a recent 300-year period (1600-1900) somehow brings into serious doubt the IPCC's attribution of the 1.2ºC warming since 1900.
♠ Her evidence on the relevance of the 'hiatus' never concludes. Rather it rambles on about "The growing discrepancy between climate model predictions and the observations", the raging debates over the recent Karl et al (2015), the 'hiatus' "clearly revealed" by satellite data (helpfully plotted by denialist Roy Spencer so the graph shows the now-superceded RSSv3.3 and the then-yet-to-be-released UAHv6.0 and with the RSS data re-based and curiously shorn of some of its maxs&mins and for good measure the graph stops short of the latest 2015 warmth), scientific disagreement over discrepancies between TLT & SAT records (and note where she stands on that with her oral testimony "we need to look at the satellite data. I mean, this is the best data that we have and is global"), convoluted statistical probability of 2015 becoming warmest-year-on-record, discrepancies amongst temperature data sets, a five years requirement to be sure the 'hiatus' has actually ended. It rambles on but the relevance of the 'hiatus', the message she is meant to be delivering, is never set out.
♠ Beyond her written testimony, Curry also expounds on SAT record adjustments, spreading yet more doubt:-"... And the adjustments, as you can see, are rather huge, OK?
So should we—so, to me, the error bars should really be much bigger if they are making such a large adjustment. So we really don’t know too much about what is going on in terms of, you know, it is a great deal of uncertainty. Yes, I do believe that we have overall been warming, but we have been warming for 200, maybe even 400 years, OK? And that is not caused by humans."After the digression onto the pet "warming for even 400 years,OK" Curry returns to adjustments but specifically ocean adjustments stating "I mean, the land datasets are sort of starting to agree, but there is a great deal of controversy and uncertainty right now in the treatment of the ocean temperatures." Poor Judy has failed to note that Chariman Cruz was asking for comment on USCHN data adjustments and her comment relevant to that data solely comprises "the land datasets are sort of starting to agree" and thus that the adjustments Cruz is complaining about are perfectly appropriate. Yet that is certainly not the take-away message she provides.
Curry gets away with talking this rubbish, even in written reports presented to a Senate Committe. She really should be taken to task for it.
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jgnfld at 20:24 PM on 30 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
More to the subject of federal/state political actions, Perry just announced nearly 4 billion in subsidies to a nuclear plant in Georgia. This is in addition to many more billions this plant has already gotten.
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Ari Jokimäki at 14:53 PM on 30 September 2017New research, September 18-24, 2017
Thanks! I use a RSS feed reader where I have included new paper feeds of about 90 journals.
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Philippe Chantreau at 14:45 PM on 30 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
I doubt that it will be of any interest. It's going to be another useless pseudo debate of the TV type in which the better show person comes across as more convincing, regardless of the substance they present. Not to mention the audience will likely be far from having the ability to sort through all the stuff flung around, a lot of it will inevitably be long debunked nonsense. The only reason the instigators of this BS are going through with it is because they are reasonably sure that it will give them an edge toward continuing business as usual. Well thought out, carefully reasoned thoughts do not lok and sound good on TV.
The only real debate that is worth paying attention to has been going for years, it is conducted by the people who really know what they're talking about and it happens in the scientific litterature. That's where it's at. There is no stupid colored team there, only experts trying to better understand the physical world.
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Eclectic at 13:13 PM on 30 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
Yes, an interesting waste of taxpayers' money.
Arranged by people who are hostile to the taxpayers' interests.
Titanic . . . deck chairs . . . etc.
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citizenschallenge at 13:00 PM on 30 September 2017New research, September 18-24, 2017
How do you keep up with it? Thank you for the effort.
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GeoffThomas at 12:57 PM on 30 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
OOPS should have said GRAMS Swamp fox, there has now been huge success with feeding cows charcoal, 200 to 400 GRAMS/day, (mixed with their molasses) the charcoal helps the digestion, reduces infection and is turned into Biochar (actually enlivened biochar) by the cow, then pooped out and buried by Dung Beetles, leading to healthier cows with higher stocking rates, and rebuilding the impoverished soil, or vastly improving good soil - those farmers using that technique should get the dividend, twould perhaps pay for the charcoal, a dividend would be appropriate as farmers are traditionally conservative and hesitant to spend money
Much land in Australia is very difficult to farm except by running animals on it, and as very little charcoal is lost by this process, the farmer would know exactly how much charcoal he has put into the soil through his cows.
Threre are 28.5 Million cows in Australia, more than people, if they each get app 1/3rd of a kilo that is 9.5 million kilos per day, 3467.5 million Kgs per year, - in America there are 98.4 million, - between 1,3 and 1.5 Billion cows on the Earth, - do the sums, and charcoal/carbon is traditionally taken by humans for flatulence, - virtually removes methane farting from cows too.
an institute in Germany has done some good research, - the Ithaka foundation, http://www.ithaka-institut.org/en/ct/95-Biochar-Feed-Additives, and not just on cows but all sorts of animals, and below this is a utube of the experience of an East Coast of Australia farmer doing just what I suggested above, feeding his cows charcoal, it is a very inspiring and concise video, be prepared to be shocked if you have not come across this good information before.
Again you see the changes coming up from individuals and groups, not imposed by politicians who typically lead by watching where every one is running and then pretending to be at the front.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JPoItRWYSQ&feature=youtu.be
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NorrisM at 12:39 PM on 30 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
Well, folks, looks like we are indeed going to have a Red Team Blue Team event! And guess who is going to head it?
Here is the following from a July 22, 2017 statement from Science Magazine:
"U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt is considering a former official in President Barack Obama’s Energy Department to lead the agency's debate on mainstream climate science, according to a former leader of the Trump administration's EPA transition effort.
Steve Koonin, a physicist and director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University, is being eyed to lead EPA's "red team, blue team" review of climate science, said Myron Ebell, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a Trump transition leader."Just happened to see this when I googled "Steve Koonin Climate Change" for another purpose.
It will be interesting!
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GeoffThomas at 10:08 AM on 30 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
Swamp fox, there has now been huge success with feeding cows charcoal, 200to 400 mG/day, the charcoal helps the digestion, reduces infection and is turned into Biochar by the cow, then pooped out and buried by Dung Beetles, leading to healthier cows with higher stocking rates, and rebuilding the impoverished soil, - those farmers using that technique should get the dividend, twould perhaps pay for the charcoal.
Much land in Australia is very difficult to farm except by running animals on it, and as very little charcoal is lost by this process, the farmer would know exactly how much charcoal he has put into the soil through his cows.
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nigelj at 07:08 AM on 30 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
Red Baron @9, yes the fee and dividend scheme as presented is not perfect in its details. I pointed out one potential flaw, but didn't have time to think about other flaws.
But fee and dividend is clearly a step in the right direction, and I believe right in principle, and needed some positive feedback. Its also not just a supply side concept, because of the dividend which can be applied flexibly to a whole range of things. This is what makes the idea powerful because it regulates emissions at source, (the best thing to do) and also subsidises a range of things and these can be anything we want. No other scheme does both within one scheme, and I think you must do both.
Perhaps they could implement fee and dividend scheme so the dividend does go partly to farmers who farm to increase soil sequestration. I can't see why it couldn't.
And subsidies have done enormous things to get renewable energy off the ground and could now be phased down slowly. The main thing is to subsidise car recharging networks to get this over the line. The point is you dont need a whole lot of give away subsidies, its just a known range of things that benefit. As you say if theye are targeted at farmers who do things a certin way and get results, they are not an entitlement of freebie.
Cap and trade in theory as in a text book resolves every possible issue even in theory encouraging soil sequestration indirectly, but comes up against a whole lot of real world obstacles, policial skullduggery, and time frame problems, that make it a dubious idea.
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nigelj at 06:29 AM on 30 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
MA Rodger @38, I agree that makes sense. I'm not a climate scientist, just have some background from physical geography etc, so I can't say much about the calculations, without digging out a textbook or something.
But here's my take on the issue, and I'm very certain about it. Firstly her assertions on CO2 not being a factor in warming early last century. One glance at a graph of CO2 and its obvious CO2 emissions were still actually very significant early last century, so must have been a significant factor. Unless she is saying much of the heating from these would be delayed a couple of decades? But clearly CO2 must have played at least "some" role during early last century, and likely more than 10% maybe 30%, is my instinct just thinking about it all.
But her main point seems to be there wasn't much CO2 early last century so what other factor caused the warming? Surely as a scientist she is well aware that records show solar activity was quite high, and volcanic activity quite low? They certainly contributed to the warming. Its really hard to know the proportions that CO2 contributed, solar contributed, and reduced volcanic activity because records are poor, but its clearly some combination. The quite strong warming is easily explained by a combination of factors. Various different research papers come up with different proportions. But theres no great mystery on what caused the warming, just the exact proportions.
By asking a silly rhetorical question already at least partly answered about what caused the warming, she spreads doubt, and suggests either unwittingly or deliberatety that something else could be causing warming like solar changes, and this could be causing warming now. Thats my take on it, and how uneducated people would perceive it, tell me if I'm wrong.
Overall her testimony is so flawed, rhetorical, and missing pieces of the puzzle, that it just creates confusion, and every sceptical thing she says gets cherry picked by other sceptics.
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RedBaron at 06:07 AM on 30 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
@10 swampfoxh,
You are wrong about animal agriculture, but this is the wrong thread to discuss it. Please go to the proper thread. I will be happy to discuss it there with you. Maybe a mod can find a link.
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RedBaron at 05:59 AM on 30 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
@nigelj #8,
Yes indeed. That's exactly the sort of thing I am talking about. Battery powered cars running off electricity from solar and wind is very doable. A semitruck, cargo ship, or jet plane run on renewable is not really technilogically feasible right now. We I guess in a pinch we could try and go back to three mast sailing ships, but certainly no where near the same capacity in tons of cargo. Maybe even nuclear powered cargo ships? Still a potential new set of problems. But if we have a sequestration sink that is verifiable like the LCP in agriculture BCCS systems, then we don't need eliminate fossil fuels 100%. Just offset what we don't have the technology to fix with BCCS for a drawdown scenario.
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swampfoxh at 05:57 AM on 30 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
Carbon fee and dividend, I think, forms the basis of effective public policy, but if that scheme is undertaken only by 1st World democracies, it won't do much to reduce emissions. Since 2nd 3rd and 4th World countries, together, (whom are administratively very deficient in managing any public program), can torpedo this program, it's probably not going to be a big player in fostering emissions reductions or building renewables. In the background, sequestration schemes large enough to really count either can't be done and made permanent (e.g. carbon capture) or done so slowly (e.g. soils regenerative) that significant positive effects can't be detected for generations. It makes no sense to burn fossil fuels and then go 'round trying to scoop out the 0.04% of CO2 that's mixed into the atmosphere...we should just not burn fossil fuels in the first place. However, the complete elimination of Animal Agriculture could drop, rapidly, CO2 emissions by about 50%/year which would give us a good deal of breathing room while we turn down the CO2 portion of the greenhouse gases that human activity seems addicted to liberating.
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RedBaron at 05:43 AM on 30 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
@nigelj,
It is still all on the supply side of the carbon cycle, even the so called "cuts" are nothing more than a reduction of the increases of CO2. No where does that sort of tax and dividend fee actually promote sequestration and drawdown of CO2, revenue neutral or not. That type of plan is analogous to just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. No one is patching the hole on the sinking ship.
Now right here in Oklahoma we have the carbon program that actually has a chance to work. It is a pilot program and still just voluntary. BUT it is functional and it does actually have a chance to literally verifiably reduce atmospheric CO2 if scaled up. Unlike the tax and dividend scheme talked about in the OP. This is because the "dividend" goes only to VERIFIABLE increases in soil carbon. So we have a way to actually remove vast amounts of CO2 and control and verify the payments of the dividends to ONLY those farmers actually sequestering the carbon. It never can become an entitlement, it is paying carbon farmers for farming carbon! And the payments reflect the "crop" they are growing, fertile high carbon soil.
Carbon Sequestration Certification Program
It is voluntary now but should such a time come when federal plans are instituted it could easily be funded too.
Now personally I am trying to raise the money to become a demonstration farm for the project. It will cost me about 14 k to do that including the proof of concept I need to run.
So far I have raised 10 dollars :P oops. Not much love out there on gofundme. And for some reason I did not get my federal grant. LOLZ But the principles are the same whether it is me personally doing the demonstrations or someone else.
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nigelj at 05:19 AM on 30 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
Red Baron @ 5
Maybe add item 4 :Resolve difficulty of cutting aviation and industrial emissions, by using agricultural, soil, and forestry related carbon sinks as offsets.
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nigelj at 05:06 AM on 30 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
Singleton Engineer @3, I agree cutting emissions is the main thing, but doing this will promote renewable energy anyway. The beauty of fee and dividend is it pushes money into renewable energy. This process would be the same in rich and poor countries, just rates of construction of renewable energy are clearly very different.
There's also value psychologically in promoting renewable energy in the public climate discussions, as its a positive solutions orientated sort of thing that takes peoples minds off endless cuts and the associated difficulties of making cuts.
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nigelj at 05:01 AM on 30 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
Swayseeker @4
With respect these comments have absolutely nothing to do with fee and dividend, literally nothing at all.
"One could heat areas by using biochar? The dark biochar soil will heat up more than the surrounding land and air above it will heat up and rise, increasing chances of convectional rain, especially because areas of convergence of sea breezes could be induced in the certain areas. One could also use solar air heaters instead of biochar."
This is just crazy stuff. Dark biochar soil has plants growing in it surely? And even if the biochar is exposed, it would not make that much difference, and would just be a waste of crop lands and would erode.
What is a solar air heater?
"When they fed extra evaporation into climate models it showed that evaporation cools Earth."
What study shows this nonsense?
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MA Rodger at 04:58 AM on 30 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
NigelJ @37,
Judith Curry's objections are indeed quite petty, numerous and overtly used in feeding the denial machine. Their petty nature generally means she gets away without too much detailed criticisms. Mind, she makes out she doesn't like being called a denier. In her Dec 2015 Senate testimony (PDFp104) she describes this badge-of-courage and counters it by describing three things the IPCC assessments allegedly cannot explain, the least petty of which was the early 20th century warming."Are you aware that temperatures have been warming for more than 200 years and that in the 20th century, 40 percent of the warming occurred before 1950, when carbon dioxide was not a factor in the warming. OK. And I could go on and on. Many of these issues are raised in my written testimony. " (My bold)
This, of course, is intemperate nonsense from Judy-the-BlogMom and not the words that any serious climatologist would ever utter. To be fair we should examine her written testimony to check she didn't mis-speak. He written testimony tells us:-
"If the warming since 1950 was caused by humans, what caused the warming during the period 1910—1945? The period 1910–1945 comprises over 40 percent of the warming since 1900, but is associated with only 10 percent of the carbon dioxide increase since 1900. Clearly, human emissions of greenhouse gases played little role in causing this early warming."
Here we meet a cherry-picked period 1910-1940 which is then associated with "warming since 1900" so I would be inclined to take 1900 as the start-point of any analysis.
Checking Curry's bold assertions - Using 10-year averages to prevent annual fluctuations causing problems (as per the data in the graph presented in Curry's testimony, although here I use GISS, not HadCRUT) and CO2 forcing from IPCC AR5 AII, the warming 1900-40 is 37% of the 1900-2000 rise and the "associated carbon dioxide increase", ΔF(CO2) 21%. It appears Curry's testimony is seriously flawed.Mind, this method of comparison that Curry attempts is overly simplistic and needs checking. We could instead compare the 40-year period 1900-1940 with the period 1970-2010 and note that the global increase in temperature 1900-40 was 42% the 1970-2010 increase. And the anthropogenic climate forcings increase (for both periods a pretty-linear increase) with the 1900-40 increase 26% that of the later period. (We should also perhaps note in passing that in comparison to 1970-2010, 1900-40 was preceded by decades of relatively high ΔF(anthro) that would have still been in action thro' the respective periods and also relatively high negative natural forcings, Both these would have boosted temperatures 1900-40 relative to the later period.) These percentages 42% & 26% would compare to Curry's unfounded asssertion of 40:60=67% & 10:90=11%.
Thus it can be seen that Curry identifies an allegedly unexplained discrepancy to refute the accusation made against her - "I was basically called a denier." But she then unable to grasp the problem in more-than-trebling the size of this discrepancy within her testimony to a Senate Hearing. So it basically sounds like her accusers called it right.
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RedBaron at 02:21 AM on 30 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
#3 Singleton Engineer,
You said, "They (CO2 emissions) must be cut to zero, avoided, banned and outlawed to achieve the goal."
This is not precisely true. If this recently published study in Nature is to be believed, then AGW will increase for quite some time even at zero emissions from us, simply due to natural feedbacks we already triggered.
Evolution of global temperature over the past two million years
Earth 'Locked Into' Temperatures Not Seen in 2 Million Years
Of course we really are not "locked into" that scenario if we also effectly start sequestering enough carbon to counter past emissions and start drawdown.
CCS cant do it.
BeCCS can't do it.
But BCCS can most certainly be scaled up enough to at least offset enough if there are significant cuts in emissions.
Can we reverse global warming?
Executive summary:
Yes we can reverse Global Warming.
It does not require huge tax increases or expensive untested risky technologies. It does not even require 100% elimination of all fossil fuel use.
It will require a three pronged approach worldwide.
- Reduce fossil fuel use by replacing energy needs with as many feasible renewables as current technology allows.
- Change Agricultural methods to high yielding regenerative models of production made possible by recent biological & agricultural science advancements.
- Large scale ecosystem recovery projects similar to the Loess Plateau project, National Parks like Yellowstone etc. where appropriate and applicable.
What matters is balancing emissions against sequestration until we have a drawdown scenario. BCCS is potentially scale-able to be big enough to do that with significant cuts on the emissions side, but not necessarily needing to be 100%.
Trying to be perfect is where the huge costs and technical difficulties come in. If all you need to do is balance plus a small amount more negative, it can actually be done at a net profit. Meaning no net cost at all. And even better it is doable right now without the need of unknown future technical advances.
In fact eliminating billions and billions of dollars of subsidies for unsustainable energy and ag systems would save us taxparers so much and probably allow the free market to do all the heavy lifting straight away.
Just a slightly different POV for your consideration.
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Swayseeker at 23:08 PM on 29 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
Regarding the wildfires in Canada and the hurricanes mentioned, why not create areas of two seabreeze convergence (lake breeze convergence) near lakes, on the sea where hurricanes form, etc, to increase rainfall and cause more evaporation and rain to cool off Earth and reduce fires. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110914161729.htm explains that evaporation increases low level clouds which reflect solar energy back to space. In fact low level clouds in low latitudes are comparatively warm and radiate heat back to space better than other clouds. Some scientists used to believe that more evaporation could even warm Earth because water vapour is a greenhouse gas. When they fed extra evaporation into climate models it showed that evaporation cools Earth. Florida and other narrow land masses have sea breezes from both sides and there is an area of convergence where high pressure and rising air result where the two breezes meet. This is associated with high rainfall in areas such as Florida. One could heat areas by using biochar? The dark biochar soil will heat up more than the surrounding land and air above it will heat up and rise, increasing chances of convectional rain, especially because areas of convergence of sea breezes could be induced in the certain areas. One could also use solar air heaters instead of biochar. The sea might not be as hot as the sea round Florida, but areas on convergence also occur in New Zealand as shown in http://blog.metservice.com/SeaBreezes See also http://climate.ncsu.edu/edu/k12/.liftingmechanisms
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SingletonEngineer at 22:43 PM on 29 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
I would caution against hyperbole. There have been comparable or worse hurricanes, perhaps not recently. The blackout-causing storm in South Australia a year ago was listed as "worst in 54 years", but soon came to be touted as "worst ever... sign that the sky is falling".
I absolutely accept that climate damage is happening due to greenhouse gases and the oceans are being acidified and warmed and that these things herald trouble ahead, but if the current events are not really the worst ever, then suggesting that they are only invites swift rejoinders from those who aren't seeing the big picture.
Hence, my personal concern that "renewables" are less important than CO2e emission reduction. The discussion should centre on the way that reduced or zero emissions globally can be achieved affordably, rather than as at present rich countries in Europe, North America and Australia puffing out their chests with pride about how much money they have blown through in order to convert maybe 5% of their total emissions to so-called renewable electricity.
What matters... the only thing that matters... is how soon the remaining sources are going to be stopped, including in the countries that are money poor and energy poor. That will never be achieved by only WWS projects and mountains of money and progress toward this goal cannot be measured in terms of "X thousand notional households".
Put bluntly, CO2 emissions will not stop because we continue to license or to tax emitters. They must be cut to zero, avoided, banned and outlawed to achieve the goal.
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Riduna at 16:47 PM on 29 September 2017Right-wing media could not be more wrong about the 1.5°C carbon budget paper
I an not at all sure that Professor Allen enhances the reputation of Oxford University with his latest Paper. It appears to involve a hint of cherry-picking.
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nigelj at 12:43 PM on 29 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Judith Currie is not making a lot of sense to me. She makes a lot of criticisms of the IPCC and climategate and climate science in general. These criticisms are largely quite petty criticisms, or related to isolated problems any professional body will have, or they are idealistic suggestions. She blurts all this out in public forums, and its potentially undermining public confidence in the IPCC. Maybe she is grandstanding, because it just doesn't make sense otherwise.
Some things are best done in private and by all means forcefully done if required with backup from other colleagues. Not everything has to be in the public domain. And some of her suggestions are good, like putting costs to a range of temperature scenarios.
If there was a big systemic problem, or many problems, of course blow the whistle, but there just isn't. Climategate comprised leaks (actually theft) of thousands of emails and you have a couple of small things and numerous reviews done finding no problems. IPCC reports thousands of pages long and about one single mistake on some glacier. Many reviews have already been done of the IPCC. Currie is making the perfect the enemy of the good, time and time again. She is tearing herself and climate science to pieces, and what good has come of it?
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Eclectic at 11:09 AM on 29 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38
NorrisM @8 , you make yourself ridiculous, to imply that "massive expenditure" in renewables is being proposed in an unjustifiable way.
Economically, we are already at the crossover point where future power generation is cheaper with renewables wind/solar. (You may also have noticed the report that half of U.S. nuclear power plants are unprofitable — partly due to fracked gas and partly due to renewables. Remarkable!! And worth contemplation.) Why would any sane person wish future energy infrastructure spending to be on more expensive items than on cheaper items? — and especially so, in view of the need to eliminate CO2 pollution.
On a side-note : The Marshall Plan was indeed very expensive — yet I gather that the economists' consensus is that it was money very justified in economic terms (not to mention the humanitarian & geopolitical benefits).
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Mal Adapted at 10:35 AM on 29 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38
Here you sound like a genuine skeptic:
I have come to realize that the whole issue of climate change and what to do about it is a massively complex matter which is difficult for the layman to grasp. It does worry me whether the public at least could ever get any benefit from a Red Team Blue Team approach.
Here you don't sound very skeptical, IMHO:
What continues to scare me is that we are being asked to expend massive amounts of money (GDP that could have otherwise been directed to other places) to convert from fossil fuels.
Who is asking you to expend massive amounts of money to convert from fossil fuels? While some targeted subsidies might be cost-effective, all the technology needed to substantially decarbonize the global economy has been invented, awaiting only investment in R&D on more efficient production and distribution, and economies of scale. With a nudge from the 'visible hand' of collective intervention in the 'free' market to re-internalize enough of the marginal climate-change costs of fossil fuels, the omnipresent 'invisible hand' can help steer the carbon-neutral transition rapidly, fairly, and at the lowest net cost.
A revenue-neutral US Carbon Fee and Dividend with Border Adjustment Tariff , for example, would not increase the average federal tax burden. The combined revenues, collected from fuel producers and importers of manufactured goods, would periodically be divided by the number of taxpayers and returned to each of us as a dividend. While the average taxpayer would break even, those who consume more fossil carbon than the national average would, essentially, pay those who use less. CF&D with BAT is effectively a progressive tax: since per-capita energy consumption in fossil carbon equivalents per year is positively correlated with income, there would be a net income transfer downward. The Border Adjustment Tariff would keep US manufacturers competitive domestically and encourage our trading partners to follow our lead.
Returned to every taxpayer in equal-sized dividends, under CF&D with BAT the fee and tariff revenue would remain in consumer hands, to drive demand for currently available carbon-neutral alternative energy, at prices that compete with fossil fuels accounting for a scientifically justifiable, lower-bound estimate of the marginal cost of CO2-equivalent emissions. With accurate pricing of the true costs of energy from the available sources, market forces will build out alternative energy supplies and infrastructure, until average energy prices are about what they are now. And for now, the buying power of US consumers is still sufficient to propagate decarbonization throughout the globe's tightly integrated economy.
See citizensclimatelobby.org for more information.
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Philippe Chantreau at 09:53 AM on 29 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38
I find the concern about spending massive amounts of money for energy transition is misplaced. No such concern was present in the years leading to the 2008 crisis, and the World spent 15 trillions with absolutely nothing to show for it because the entire US financial market had become fradulent; this was made possible by infiltrating regulating bodies with free market nuts who believed that it was all going to regulate itself with people driven exclusively by exteme greed at the wheel. We all know how that ended. Greenspan himself had to confess that he had made the screw up of a life tine when he allowed this belief to be implemented.
Remarkably, however, the World economy has recovered in less than 10 years, and the effects were a far cry from what was experienced post 1929. If we could spend 15 trillion to indulge the frantic greed of a few criminals, why can't we spend the same for a true energy transition, something that will leave a lasting positive effect on all of humanity? There is no good answer to that question, none. The only morally justifiable thing to do is the carry on the energy transition with at least the same urgency that the criminals expended on the task of enriching themselves.
In a recent NYT editorial, another free market fanatic made the argument that Harvey was going to be barely a blip in Houston march to prosperity. Little did this person realize that this can be turned around and one can just as well argue that if the Housont area economy can merrily absorb 200 billions of hurricane damage, it could as easily absorb 200 billions of energy transition investment in one quick setting. Priorities...
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Doug_C at 07:11 AM on 29 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
I also support the fee and dividend system with an escalating fee on fossil fuels at the source and a direct divident to energy consumers. This allows the energy sector to plan for the time when fossil fuels become non-competitive and gives consumers the resources they need to support alternatives.
I live in southern British Columbia, Canada and have relatives just across the border in Washington State. The amount of wildfires here is unprecedented, BC still has massive wildfires burning, one over 1,000,000 acres, overall more than 2.5 million acres are or have burned here this season. Oregon, California, Washington State and Montana are all also experiencing the same catastrophic impacts due to the warmer drier summers already this will become an even more acute situation as the years progress. This is clearly a global phenomena as Australia, Siberis and other places are also experiencing record widlfires along with many other impacts globally.
I also have family in Texas and know people in Florida who were impacted by some of the worst hurricanes ever recorded, considering that these massive storm systems gain their strength directly from warm ocean water, this is also something that southern US states will be combating for decades to come. Any sound policy on the state level must factor in the costs of not mitigating climate change impacts which are already significant. Harvey is estimated to have done alomst $200 billion in damage in Texas and Irma caused at least $10 billion in Florida and other nearby states. Not to mention the deaths which are in the hundreds from all the hurricanes across the Caribbean, Central America and US south this year.
While it is unfortunate that the current US president has choosen to ignore the glaring reality on this in favor of a position that is clearly unsustainable and unsupported by evidence, it is good to see that other levels of US government are stepping up.
In the end I think that real change on this issue is going to come from the ground up, citizens demanding that their elected officials implement policies based on the best evidence not the worst.
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nigelj at 06:46 AM on 29 September 2017Right-wing media could not be more wrong about the 1.5°C carbon budget paper
Gorgulak @5, I know exactly what you mean, its confusing and hard to work out how they get there. The following article explains it ok:
It's a combination of things. Firstly theres very little discrepency between models and latest real world temperatures taken as a average of all temperature data sets. But the study uses the hadcrut data which shows the least warming ( I have no idea why they would do that and select just one set of data as opposed to an average) so magnifies the discrepency. Secondly theres some issue about how the study considers carbon budgets explained in the article. But be warned its a bit headache inducing!
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nigelj at 06:23 AM on 29 September 2017Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races
Fee and dividend is an absolute winner for me. It solves a whole range of problems, including getting right at the source of the problem, various practical issues, being fair to consumers, overcoming various political / ideological objections. The fact that just one idea solves so many different problems suggests the idea is inherently the right one, and certainly practical in real world terms. In contrast cap and trade seems to have some problems applied in the real world, and a patchy record where it has been used.
The fee will possibly push up petrol prices (although this is not inevitable), and it will be a good incentive to buy less petrol. However if the dividend is purely cash in hand it will cancel this out, so it's important the dividend is largely some sort of voucher for buying home insulation, electric cars, and perhaps home appliances to try to at least minimise this leakage effect, and push things in the best direction.
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