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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Recent Comments

Comments 19201 to 19250:

nigelj at 07:21 AM on 11 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

Ubrew @10, I agree I think the Clinton email issue was a little "overblown". Obviously she did wrong, but there's no evidence harm was done (although as TC points out the potential was there) and no evidence of malicious intent.

However just to clarify my point, in my view the email thing made her virtually unelectable. It created huge and understandable suspicions in the publics perception (rightly or wrongly) right through the campaign and finally exploded again the the final week. It probably lost her the election more than anything else. Trump used the issue to the maximum.

We should not conclude that she lost due predominantly to her policies, so called elitism, lies (and there were a couple) or alleged hypocisy. These are probaly negative factors and some contributed, but not the main reason she lost which was the email issue. In fact I think her policies were largely sensible for what its worth.

I agree with the rest of what you say about Fox news, Trump, appearances, personalities, trying to personally discredit people. I'm no fan of any of this.

Unfortunately though many people make their political decisions based on little more than personality and gut instinct rather than policy, but the very last thing we need is to encourage yet more of this. Shame on Fox News.

The Russia thing is all just speculation. Innocent until proven guilty. But there an awful lot of smoke, etc, etc. However it's not really relevant to my comments.

Moderator Response:

[PS] Russia/Email scandals are a long way from climate science. Enough please.

nigelj at 06:46 AM on 11 July 2017

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

Norris M @43, this is just my two cents on climate models. This is the simplified explanation.

First just google the nasa giss global temperature record (the long term one since around 1900) or hadcrut if you prefer. Notice it generally tracks up but with many wiggles along the way. The fact is climate modelling can predict the track, but not the wiggles, because they are erratic natural variation.

Climate models have predicted the track reasonably well over the last 25 years, but temperatures are still slightly under. It's believed oceans are absorbing more heat than expected, delaying warmring slightly, but this is only a delay.

Notice in the same graph that the pause since 1998 is very small. Notice there are many small pauses along the way. The claim by people like Koonan etc that the pause was not predicted is somewhat out of date, based on old data. It was not as big as first thought, so is within expectations. It is more of a wiggle, obvious in the graph.

One Planet Only Forever at 06:28 AM on 11 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27

SingletonEngineer@4,

I share your concern that the current economic games driven by popularity and profitability without restrictions that ensure that only truly sustainable activity is allowed to compete to win will fail to care to recycle lithium-ion batteries.

There are many information sources but the following pair seem to be fairly comprehensive:

Lithium can be recovered from the slag for reuse. It is just that because full recycling of non-renewable resources is not required the cost of extracting the lithium for reuse is about 5 times the cost of new lithium.

The problem is not the technology. The problem is it the lack of leadership (by all of the wealthy and powerful leaders/winners of the games) to ensure that only truly sustainable activity gets to compete for popularity and profitability.

nigelj at 06:26 AM on 11 July 2017

Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming

It's certainly false to claim everything or most things are adjusted up. The following link is a good explanation of why temperature adjustments (corrections) are made. I tracked this down to figure out whats going on.

theconversation.com/why-scientists-adjust-temperature-records-and-how-you-can-too-36825

It's the raw data thats "unreliable" to some extent (although not hugely). Urban heat islands bias things up, stations are moved, often biasing things down, thermometers sometimes break, or are old and less reliable, etc. These are corrected, and are easy enough to quantify. It would be crazy not to correct for these issues.

The following link shows raw and adjusted data for global land, ocean and land ocean combined temperatures.

variable-variability.blogspot.co.nz/2015/02/homogenization-adjustments-reduce-global-warming.html

Land temperatures are adjusted up slightly, but ocean temperatures are adjusted down, and combined land ocean temperatures are adjusted down! This is the most important and complete data set. This seems lost on the denialists.

wili at 05:33 AM on 11 July 2017

Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming

Noam Chomsky - "The Most Dangerous Organization in Human History"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=O34JM4Xdf3g

ubrew12 at 01:47 AM on 11 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27

I'm no expert, but you can melt down sand, reduce it (take out the oxygen) and crystallize it into Silicon solar cells. Eventually, those fail as their contacts short out and from re-oxidation. It doesn't seem a stretch to imagine re-reducing the cell, separating out the contacts from the Silicon, and recrystallizing the Silicon, but again, I'm no expert. It's like recycling Aluminum cans. You can make the cans from bauxite, but its easier to remelt the cans themselves and recast them.

These things aren't nonrenewable the way burning gasoline is nonrenewable.

ubrew12 at 01:40 AM on 11 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

I don't want to argue Clinton's culpability here at skeptical science. I would note that if you are sent a classified email from an unclassified system (as the FBI found of all such Clinton emails), it doesn't seem proper that you alone should be prosecuted for it.

My broader point was that there seems to have been, or still is, an effort among rightwing media to train their viewers to 'spot the hypocrit'. If people are being trained into thinking of motive first, and evidence second, then it's that much easier to turn them to cynicism, which I agree with Runciman is epidemic in the US today. As a society we are obsessed with motive to the exclusion of evidence. Media has gone from print to television. But on TV its much easier to encourage the viewer to use 'visual shortcuts', shortcuts that may have been useful when we were all swinging in the trees, but today are used to herd us into tribes. In effect, the signal is being lost to the noise.

One thing I didn't see on this weeks selection of reading material was this article in New York Magazine by David Wallace-Wells: "The Uninhabitable Earth... What climate change could wreak- sooner than you think". It's possibly a bit alarmist, but he paints a very sobering picture of what the future holds if we don't get a handle on this problem soon.

Moderator Response:

[JH] The David Wallace-Wells article that you have flagged was posted on July 9 (US). The most recent Weekly News Roundup was posted on July 8 (US). A link to the Wallace-Well article will be posted on the SkS Facebook page later today. The article will therefore be included in the next edition of the Weekly News Roundup.

Based on Michael Mann's reaction to the Wallace-Wells article, I have elected not to post a link to it on the SkS Facebook page. See:

Fear Won't Save Us: Putting a Check on Climate Doom by Michael Mann, Common Dreams, July 10, 2017

Also see:

Are We as Doomed as That New York Magazine Article Says? by Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, July 10, 2017

Stop scaring people about climate change. It doesn’t work. by Eric Holthaus, Grist, July 10, 2017

Tom Curtis at 00:46 AM on 11 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

ubrew12 @10, from former Director Comey's statement on the Clinton Emails:

"From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent."
"With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to State, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received, one at the Secret level and two at the Confidential level. There were no additional Top Secret e-mails found. Finally, none of those we found have since been “up-classified.”
"With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account."

From the combination of these three quotes, it is clear that Clinton made confidential (and indeed, top secret) information vulnerable, and it is not known that that vulnerability was not exploited by hostile powers. Nor is it known that it was.

Further, the evidence that Trump or his campaign knowingly colluded with Russia in its attempts subvert the US Presidential election are, to date, circumstantial. It is consistent with that evidence that no knowing collusion took place. Therefore, so far as the evidence currently goes, Clinton was guilty of a worse offense than Trump has been shown to have committed. Of course, the investigation into Trump and his associates is not yet finished, and it is entirely possible that he or his campaign will be shown to have knowingly colluded, which would be a much worse offence than Clinton's.

In the meantime we should neither understate the case against Clinton, nor overstate the case against Trump.

SingletonEngineer at 23:54 PM on 10 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27

I'm surprised to read some of the comments about lithium recycling.

"ubrew" mentions melting down old batteries, presumably to reclaim lithium. I have only been able to find references to furnacves for reclamation of cobalt, coupled with mention of waste slag that contains a mixture of elements, not all of them pleasant. So far I have only been able to locate one such commercial operation, in Belgium. I have seen mention of another, unnamed, operation in the States.

CBDunkerson refers to a "robust lithium battery recycling industry" which I would like to know more about. It seems that even the EU has no firm plans along these lines.

Of course there are a number of bench prototypes and proposals floating around, but there are also many types of lithium battery, each with differing design, many of which are particularly fiddly and each needing a degree of disassembly before recycling (or partial recyclong). I have read that recycling of lithium from batteries is a very difficult proposition and is thus at least a decade away at practical scale.

That leaves three questions:

1. Where is there evidence of a robust lithium recycling industry?

2. Is recycling of lithium currently energy-competitive with sourcing lithium from minerals? Restraints? Pre-conditions?

3. Is recycling lithium from batteries currently economic? If so, where and under what circumstances?

These are not trivial considerations. Any person who proposes a reliance on lithium based batteries must be prepared to ensure that the necessary lithium and other raw materials are or will be realistically available and affordable. Proposals are for future billions of motor vehicles plus super-batteries providing stability to networks. Our current mobile phones and power tools are meerly scratching the surface.

IMHO, lithium batteries and solar PV panels are destined to become landfill, unwelcome in recyclers' waste streams, for some time to come.

CBDunkerson at 22:30 PM on 10 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27

There is actually a fairly robust lithium battery recycling industry despite the low cost of new supplies. Thus, if stocks ever ran low that would drive up prices and lead to more recycling. The same is true for many key materials that people worry about 'running out' of.

In theory we could even pull carbon out of the atmosphere to create new hydrocarbon fuels... there just isn't any currently cost effective way to do so.

Eclectic at 22:24 PM on 10 July 2017

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

NorrisM @43 , if I may add several points to the posts from TC, MAR and DB :-

(A) The claim (by Koonin?) of climate model projections having been much "hotter" than the observed rise in global surface temperature — is nowadays a claim which is severely out of date, since the development of record high temperatures in years 2014 / 2015 / 2016 / and YTD 2017.

In other words, the claim (of model "failure") is wrong. And consequently it is invalid to say mainstream climate science must be wrong because of "model deficiencies".

(B) Certainly Koonin "is no dummy". Yet there are many smarter people than Koonin : but AFAIK hardly any of them are climate change deniers (in the way that Koonin is a denier i.e. a denier in the sense of someone who minimizes AGW and claims it is of negligible size & importance). Of course, here I refer to intelligent people who understand the science.

In no way do I wish to suggest that there cannot be brilliant 200+ IQ artistic minds / mathematical minds / business minds / or legal minds [ especially ;-) ] who are nevertheless deniers of climate change ..... but it is simply that those types of brilliant minds fail to understand the issue and therefore their opinions (and intelligence) are inadmissible in the case.

(C) # As a matter of interesting comparison : work by Professor Lindzen (in the late 1980's) projected only a very slight temperature rise for the past 3 decades. Currently, his modelling has run approximately 1.05 degreesC below reality. That full degreeC is hugely, hugely, hugely off target. Several other denialist-type scientists have made projections that also turned out to fall embarrassingly short of reality (though not as severely poorly as Lindzen's).

Overall, it is quite laughable how badly wrong the denialists get things!!!

(D) Unlike with Lindzen and Curry, there is AFAIK no apparent evidence that Koonin is in the pocket of Fossil Fuel Industry. Nor does he seem to be a political extremist, nor AFAIK a religious extremist. And he is too young to be likely suffering from subtle forms of mental senility.

So, what is the explanation for Koonin as an intelligent guy with a (non-climate) science background, holding opinions which are roughly equivalent to "Flat Earth" ??

To comprehend this puzzle, we must work upwards from our knowledge of human nature. "Motivated Reasoning" (particularly so, in the intelligent) is an extremely powerful force, owing to the way that our human emotions usually overrule the human intellect (unless we take stern measures to remain coolly objective i.e. scientific, through developing insight into our own motivations).

Somehow, somewhere in his mind, Koonin has allowed himself to bend & twist & contort himself into overlooking/ignoring the obvious (the obviously "Round Earth", so to speak!! ). His "motivated reasoning" is pushing him into a failure to understand the general scientific picture involved in the Greenhouse process & its consequences — he chooses to lose himself in a maze of minutiae, and chooses to fail to comprehend the basic process : a process which is so basic that it is easily comprehensible by even a moderately intelligent high school science student.

But such is the perversity of the human mind — and all too often!

Daniel Bailey at 20:43 PM on 10 July 2017

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

"I think both sides of this debate"

In the discussions around global warming and its anthropogenic causation, there are those who focus on the science using the scientific method and logic, seeking reproducible evidence that best explains what we can empirically measure.

Then there is everyone in the extreme minority, those who ignore the above in favor of slander, innuendo, unsupported assertion and character assassination in favor of promulgating false equivalence to support the ephemeral facade of "debate" and "sides".

But it is not about the science, the bulk of the science was settled, decades ago. Deniers posing as skeptics set up a charade tableau of false equivalence to poison the well of public acceptance of that science.

A parsimonious harping at the font of stolen, out-of-context and context-less emails proven not germane to the science is continuing on in the prosecution of the agenda of denial.

Truth, science and reputable journalism all sacrificed to the unholy alter of false equivalence under the guise of promulgating a fallacious "debate".

There is no debate. All that remains is the informed and the uninformed.

ubrew12 at 20:36 PM on 10 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

I also thought the 'Clinton hyprocrisy' argument was the weakest of Runciman's otherwise excellent essay. After all the heat and noise over Clinton's email server, how much classified material made it into the hands of our enemies? None. And arguably this was because of her use of a private server. This might not be notable except, at the same time, the Trump campaign was in conversation with those same enemies in common cause to win the election, with no media interest until after Nov.

"it's...of little use to impugn... motives" Turning skeptics into cynics is how money can influence elections and public decisions, like inaction on climate change. For years, Fox News directed its viewers to look at how people talk, when they talk, and not what they are actually saying. You'll never see a Trump or a Hannity slouching, looking askance, and fiddling his fingers. He'll always sit ram-rod straight, look you right in the eye, and in full military-bearing... lie to you. By training their viewers to focus on how people look when they're talking, rather than judge what is coming out of their mouths, Fox News is training people to be cynics. And the way to combat this, I think, is to draw people back into the conversation: What is actually being said, and how reasonable does it appear to be? Almost everything that comes out of Trump's mouth is 'word garbage', but you can't deny the straightforwardness with which he said it.

ubrew12 at 19:58 PM on 10 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27

I'm pretty sure the Lithium in batteries is not 'used up' from the charge/discharge cycle. Old batteries, filled with micro-shorts and other forms of oxidation stress, can be melted down and reduced again into new batteries. Likewise old Silicon in solar cells.

MA Rodger at 19:22 PM on 10 July 2017

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

NorrisM @43.

You set out your position saying "If the only way to criticize the legitimate questions that Koonin has raised is to attack Koonin without addressing his reasons, then I will be very disappointed with the replies to this comment."

The reply @44 can be forgiven for criticising Koonin without perhaps "addressing his reasons" for his "legitimate questions" as it is surely beholden on you to set out clearly what you think Koonin's "legitimate questions" actually are.

Regarding the branding of Koonin as a "science-denier" @9, this does appear to be justified. The Koonin NYJ article linked @44 is paywalled but an account of it elsewhere sets out quotes from the article which show the man is well away with the fairies. I would say the third excerpt is the real clincher.

Tom Curtis at 14:49 PM on 10 July 2017

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

NorrisM @43 states:

"Tom Curtis on a reply to my reference to Koonin, questioned Koonin's independence. At that time, I had no idea who Koonin was other than that he was a physicist who had been appointed by the APS to head the Climate Policy Panel."

The claim is incorrect. I have not specifically discussed Koonin in this thread, and certainly not in reply to NorrisM. My only specific reply to him in this thread prior to this one(@8) pointed out that a causal claim he made @6 was invalid. Granted that Eclectic applied some of my more general comments about motivated reasoning to Koonin @10, but even that does not call into question Koonin's independence.

Given, however, that NorrisM has explicitly raised the issue of Koonin, I note that mere credentials do not grant wisdom. There are even better qualified people than Koonin who fall into the climate "skeptic" camp, but the proportion of similarly qualified people who disagree with, or unconvinced of the hypothesis of AGW is very small relative to the proportion who accept the science. Nor are that small proportion able to give cogent reasons for their disagreement.

An example of this is Koonin's nonsense claim that "...human additions to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by the middle of the 21st century are expected to directly shift the atmosphere’s natural greenhouse effect by only 1% to 2%." Koonin defended this claim at Climate Etc, by comparing what he calls the greenhouse effect, ie, the downward IR flux at the surface of 342 W/m^2 to the 2.3 W/m^2 anthropogenic forcing since 1750 (both figures taken from IPCC AR5).

The immediate problems with this claim are that the greenhouse effect is the difference between the upwelling IR radiation at the surface and the IR radiation to space (ie, 159 W/m^2 based in the AR5 figures); and that that total includes not just the forcing but the feedback responses from water vapour and the IR effect of clouds. The proper comparison is therefore between either the forcing of 2.3 W/m^2 and the 40 W/m^2 of the Total Greenhouse Effect which is due to well mixed Green House Gases, or possibly between the forcing plus its equilibrium feedback response and the total greenhouse effect. The former gives a 5.8% change to date, while the later gives at least a 2.9% response (based on the water vapour and lapse rate feedbacks at least doubling the effect of the forced response).

In short, Koonin's article and his defence of it shows he lacks understanding of the physics of the greenhouse effect at a fundamental level. His article is comparable to somebody trying to explain what is wrong with specal relativity without understanding what is meant by a "reference frame". Given that he wrote and submitted his article after the APS symposium where he obtained the views of six climate scientists, that lack of understanding is very disturbing. (For more on the article, see here.)

No amount of qualifications can justify a scientist pontificating on a subject on which he makes such fundamental errors. Indeed, that he does so shows that despite his qualifications, he has researched the topic at an entirely superficial level; or taken his information almost entirely from anti-science sites (such as WUWT, where that faulty argument gets a regular replay).

nigelj at 12:57 PM on 10 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

The David Runciman article is very perceptive on the whole, with some caveats. I certainly agree the whole climate issue has become very politicised and the scepticism has become cynical denialism.

I don't understand why people get so obsessed with motives of various people involved on either side of the debate. Regardless of motives, the laws of physics, equations etc are not altered by motive. I also think the evidence for a warming world is so overhelming and varied, that its literally insane to think its some sort of conspiracy.

However it's possibly also of little use to impugn the motives of sceptics too much. It's never going to prove them wrong, although my private thoughts are very criticial.

I wonder about the discussion on lies versus hypocrisy. The article argues that people preferred the liar trump over the hypocrite clinton. This is very debatable, as Trump himself is a huge hypocrite arguably more so than clinton.

I think Clinton lost primarily due to the email scandal. I struggle to see how they ever thought she could win with that monkey on her back. She has several obvious flaws, but I dont think hypocrisy was a huge factor here. None of us perfectly walk the walk, and the public know this. Anyway all I'm saying is be careful how you interpret that election result.

NorrisM at 12:01 PM on 10 July 2017

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

nigelj, Tom Curtis and Eclectic.

If the Department of Energy does decide to form a Red Team Blue Team to examine climate change, then I think I can sit back and watch the fireworks rather than spend an inordinate amount of time reading all of the thread on this website dealing with the questions of the climate models trying to understand the debate. The reason I say this is that I think the real battleground will be whether the climate models have (a) accurately hindcasted the past climate (without adjustments that are needed to match reality); and (b) accurately predicted the future climate changes over the last 20 years.

Perhaps a part of the debate will be that irrespective of the discrepancies that exist the "hard science" not only proves the 1C increase but also the "positive vapour feedbacks" although I would have to think that would be an uphill argument. Perhaps the answer will be that the differences in predictions and observations are minor. As I noted elsewhere, if they all cannot agree on the facts because of the lack of proper instrumentation measuring things then that would at least argue for more funds dedictated to measurements which has to be a positive for both sides.

As I have noted on the other climate model thread, during the APS Panel chaired by Steve Koonin, both Santer and Held (at pages 503-505) acknowledged that the climate models have not been able to predict the changes. So the real issue will be whether both sides can agree on a "revised" Christy chart.

Tom Curtis on a reply to my reference to Koonin, questioned Koonin's independence. At that time, I had no idea who Koonin was other than that he was a physicist who had been appointed by the APS to head the Climate Policy Panel.

Since that time, I have done a Wikipedia search of Koonin and his credentials are stellar. I have also read the Physics Today article on his WSJ OpEd in the fall of 2014 and read his recent statement suggesting a Red Team Blue Team approach. Not too many people have their Doctorate in Physics from MIT. Not too many people have risen to the position of Undersecretary of Energy for Science under the Obama administration. Yes, he did work at one time for BP where he was responsible for long range technology including alternative and renewable energy sources. But this guy is no dummy.

So when as a sophisticated scientist as Koonin at the APS hearing expresses surprise at how far the models were off from observations, it makes me take note and ask how many "non-climate scientists" really understand how far the models are off from what has been happening with temperatures. It made me ask how much most non-climate scientists really know about the actual physics. Are they largely relying on the climate scientists without any real investigation on their own part? What are the fields of science necessary to construct adequate models? Reading the comments of SemiChem on fluid dynamics made me ask whether this was an area properly represented. What strikes me is that there are so many areas that it has to be difficult for one or two people to have a sufficient grasp on all the relevant areas.

Back to the differences, I am NOT saying that there cannot be valid explanations for these differences in the models and observations but unless I am missing something, if you have models that are two times off what is actually happening, it does make you pause.

So, of course, the issue will then be just how far off are these models. In fairness, all three IPCC climatologists (contributors) were not ready to concede that there was as much difference as Christy suggested but they certainly admitted there were clear discrepancies and they did NOT say (as they easily could have) that the discrepancies were minor.

Koonin is now the Director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress, New York University. He was a past professor of theoretical physics and provost of Caltech. If the only way to criticize the legitimate questions that Koonin has raised is to attack Koonin without addressing his reasons, then I will be very disappointed with the replies to this comment.

As I noted before, I think both sides of this debate should welcome any efforts by members of the Trump administration to get to the bottom of this. Let the chips fall where they may. Given that Trump is here to stay for at least another 3.5 years, what is there to lose?

If Koonin was indeed appointed to head this Red Team Blue Team investigation, I think you would have someone who would ensure that all sides are properly represented. I have to assume he chose the 6 climatologists who participated in the APS Panel in 2014.

nigelj at 08:12 AM on 10 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27

Electric cars are clearly the way of the future, with so many upsides and no real downsides. Even Trump might buy one, if it's painted gold.

I understand the world has pretty large reserves of lithium, but its not an infinite resource, so are there other workable possible battery technologies as well?

nigelj at 07:14 AM on 10 July 2017

Bad news for climate contrarians – 'the best data we have' just got hotter

I just don't understand Judith Curry at all. She is certainly very vague.

She says climate gate raised genuine doubts with her. I find this incomprehensible, because I have looked at the actual evidence and there's just nothing there, nothing wrong and various investigations have found the same. So what is she on about? She is certainly unable to specifically say when asked. She is a scientist for goodness sake!

Yes, climate scientists do sometimes make mistakes like anyone, but there was nothing remotely significant in the climategate thing! In fact when you look at the desperate attempts to get dirt on climate scientists, and the many documents found (or hacked illegally) theres just remarkably little dirt there.

I think Curry is an attention seeker, and this is her way of creating a following of people on her blog.

Of course climategate showed some grumpy scientists complaining about somebody trying to publish a sceptical paper, and hoping it might not get published. This is people in a frustrated mood, as we all get, it is not evidence of a global conspiracy!

Jo Nova and Judith Curry are of course entitled to their websites. Free speech and all that is very important to me. It doesn't change the fact the content is largely nonsense.

People like Joe Nova claim to be intelligent, discerning sceptics, but they do not apply this equally to everything, they ignore patent nonsense, so they are intellectually shallow.

They are not genuine sceptics. I think they simply have some deep seated distrust or dislike of climate science, that is probably a mish mash of different motivations, some genuine scepticism, but I think much of it more about gut reactions, politics and protecting their general world view. You will learn precious little reading their websites.

nigelj at 06:49 AM on 10 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

Climategate was unfortunate. Of course it was theft of documents we shouldn't ever forget that, and an attempt to dig dirt and basically politically motivated.

The accusations turned out to be empty, (no surprise there) and several official investigations found nothing wrong.

It was almost just rotten luck. Things were leaked and some of the language used was unfortunate and not a good look, unless you knew the background. I was familiar with the term "hide the decline" and knew it wasn't how it sounded, but from the point of view of the general public this understandably sounded sinister. Its rotten luck, and sometimes the events of history turn on such things.

The hackers and climate sceptics are driven by a whole mish mash of vested interests, excessive, paranoid fears about government regullation, and protecting personal wealth and established power bases, and even just personal habits. Climategate played into their hands, and gave them a further excuse. Any investigations probably "fell on deaf ears" but remember the general public and moderately open minded people have more respect for official investigations. Still it was rotten luck, and could have had a rather large if disproportionate impact on the whole debate.

Nevertheless the denialists and wealthy power play denialists in particular are acting unacceptably like OPOF says, and values have to change. I think they need to change back to the more ethically focussed and moderate, consensus seeking capitalism before the "greed is good" nonsense emerged in the 1980s.

nigelj at 06:34 AM on 10 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

Ubrew @5, thanks for the tip on the article. I have just read a very good book on scepticism called "Skeptic, by Michael Shermer" and it's the healthy, rational form of genuine scepticism. This writer also wrote "The Moral Arc". People who read this website may be interested.

He does an excellent chapter on the scientific method, logic and misleading fallacy arguments, then works through the main of the historical conspiracies like 911 etc, as well as climate change denialism and why it doesn't make sense. He was in fact once a climate change sceptic, but changed positions when he looked deeper at the issue. He uses this as an example of rational scepticism.

If I'm honest with myself I'm at a stage where I'm tempted to say some very brutal things about climate denialists, but I restrain myself. It is not going to persuade people, especially the hardened conspiracy theory, elite hating people like for example Steve Bannon.

Society probably follows some sort of bell curve where you have a big group in the middle who can be persuaded by sensible, constructive argument. It requires showing genuine flaws in denialist rhetoric and as you say exposing the hypocrisy, and I would say the contradictions. But it must be done simply, and very skillfully, and often people get too tangled up in detail and endless qualifications. There is of course definitely sometimes a place for this sort of detail but it depends on context. This website is a good place for detail, but Michael Mann lets himself get a little to bogged down by details sometimes and also personalities and when you are in some form of climate hearing process or talking to the media you have to keep it simple, clear and focussed.

There is a group who will "never" be convinced. Theres no point agonising over them. They tend to mainly have poor educations etc. There are people who still believe tobacco is harmless, and evolution is a myth.

The more important goal is to convince ordinary, sensible people, and people in positions of power. Intelligent people have their world views and biases, but generally also have at least some flexibility of thought, (although the current Republican Party doesn't exhibit much of this. It wasn't always that way. But i feel they are currently perhaps an exception).

You are right about Clinton and Trump. She can be patronising, a cold fish, not a good communicator etc. Trump is easier to relate to, but it's still in my view all confidence trickery stuff.

tcflood at 06:31 AM on 10 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26

tcflood @7, nigelj @8, gingerbaker @10:

Here is an interesting pass at evaluating the debate that also has useful references/links within.

https://theconversation.com/energy-wonks-have-a-meltdown-over-the-us-going-100-percent-renewable-why-79834

Moderator Response:

[PS] Fixed link. Pleas learn how to do this yourself with the link tool in the comment editor.

One Planet Only Forever at 02:10 AM on 10 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

ubrew12@5,

"Climategate" exposed the exploitation of criminal theft of emails by very smart undeserving wealthy people who abused bits of information completely out of context to achieve a damaging objective. "Climategate" did not expose subversive actions by scientists. The worst that it exposed was the use of terms that can have a meaning twisted when they are taken out of context (like presenting the average of longer periods of data to hide a short-term decline, or excluding tree ring data that was inconsistent with all of the other data until the inconsistency was better understood). The fact that many people still believe it exposed anything else is a serious problem.

Increasing awareness and providing better explanations of what is going on is effectively being attacked by damaging irresponsible adults telling other people that they can believe what they prefer to believe and that anyone who says otherwise is a liar and a hypocrite and all manner of other derogatory names.

Unltimately, the only future for humanity is for the vast majority of the population to become compassionate considerate responsible adults who will rationally evaluate what is presented to them with the objective of improving the future for all of humanity. And that majority must have no hesitation to disappoint the stubborn people who resist becoming responsible adults because they like the idea of getting away with less acceptable behaviour.

The expectation that everyone must be allowed to believe whatever they want to excuse or defend doing what they please is the problem. Climate science is only one of many 'constantly improving understandings of what is really going on' that have exposed the fundamental problem. The solution to that problem is not the responsibility of climate scientists, acting to correct the problem has to be understood to be the responsibility/obligation/expectation of every 'leader/winner' (in business and government) in every society on this planet, no matter how unpopular or less profitable the many required corrections may be regionally.

ubrew12 at 00:27 AM on 10 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

For those interested, I highly recommend the David Runciman article: "How climate scepticism turned into something more dangerous". Some quotes from that article: "climate scepticism is being driven out by climate cynicism. A sceptic questions the evidence... A cynic questions the motives... In these politically charged circumstances, there is no safe space for the facts to retreat to. That was made clear by... “climategate"... the emails betrayed the scientists’ awareness that the idea of a consensus on... climate change was under concerted attack. So they went out of their way to shore up the consensus. Which, when revealed, confirmed to their opponents that the consensus was a sham... we dislike hypocrisy more than we dislike lying... [and this] is not just a problem for climate politics. It is a problem for democracy... Trump has always been careful not to come across as the wrong sort of hypocrite: the kind who seems to be talking down to people. Hillary Clinton was not so careful. And when the voters get to choose between the two, the hypocrite loses to the liar... We live in an age when mistrust of politics has spilled over into mistrust of expertise... To respond with ever-greater certainty in the name of science is a big mistake... climate science... in the age of Trump should not keep saying that the populists are lying about the consensus. They should say that they are hypocrites about the doubt: they do not practise what they preach because they think they know the answers already. Climate change deniers argue they are only trying to discover the truth. We should all be sceptical about that."

Denial thrives on the idea of science hypocrisy. It is combatted not by attempting science purity, but by hammering on denial hypocrisy itself. At the very least, point out how someone cannot be a skeptic if he ignores the ocean of evidence before him to focus on one bit of cherry-picked data. And keep hammering the idea that much 'denial' is being funded by an industry with a $22 trillion interest in the outcome of this debate.

jgnfld at 00:23 AM on 10 July 2017

Bad news for climate contrarians – 'the best data we have' just got hotter

@29

The Greek scholar in my family assures me of a couple of things:

Thucydides wrote in a terrible, deeply nested style that is hard to work with. She said that many translations are more understandable that the original!

WRT the specific Greek terms underlying "sovereign reason" she says the term relates to "autocratic" more than any more positive connotation. That is rather than "motivated reasoning" one might render it as reasoning like an autocrat.

WRT Jo Nova, her political views totally outweigh her accurate reporting of actual science as this case clearly typifies.

Eclectic at 23:25 PM on 9 July 2017

Bad news for climate contrarians – 'the best data we have' just got hotter

Haze @33 , it is not altogether true that SkS comments columns are more strictly moderated than WUWT's & JoNova's.

Yes, WUWT & JoNova comments columns are [and please forgive the "Irishism" ..... ] not just "full of hyperbole and emotion" but also full of vitriol, conspiracy theorism, and mindless repetition of long-disproven ideas. And particularly telling counterpoints (against denialism) are deleted — according to hearsay from scientists who have attempted such posts.

OTOH, the past policy of SkS moderators seems to have been to only delete posts which were egregious rubbish and/or flagrantly in breach of Comments Guidelines. More recently (as you will have seen) the moderators have taken a softened approach to many "low-quality" posts, by striking them through yet leaving them visible. But not sparing them where spam or outrageous trolling is involved.

Judith Curry's blog is a different kettle of fish. Yes, the comments column has a goodly share of poor thinking and unscientific nonsense posts, but there are also many posts which at least make some attempt to grapple with the issues raised by her. Almost invariably ineffectually, though!!! Taken altogether, the Curry blog provides a space where genteel denialists can express themselves without the unpleasantness of associating themselves with the vitriolic hoi polloi.

The problem of Curry's blog is mostly with her own efforts. She revels in vague (and unjustifiable) "uncertainties". Always her underlying message is: We must wait and do nothing; we must carry on with Business-As-Usual ; we must carry on with more studies over many decades. Unsurprisingly, she is seen as (and doubtless is) an apologist for Fossil Fuel Industry. For which reason she is a darling of right-wing anti-science extremists, especially those in high places! And like other FF Industry apologists, she entirely fails to make a case against the mainstream consensus science position.

Vague uncertainties and woolly sophistries are the stock-in-trade of Curry. On top of that, she sometimes features guest authors who spout rubbish & crazy theories — crazy stuff, which she does not trouble to deny or critique, but she says they were included in her blog "because they are interesting". A tasty bone for the crazier end of the spectrum of her blog's followers ;-)

For an example of Curry sophistry & confusionism & absurdity :- try this gem ...

"The Brumbergs are correct to conclude: In our view, the fact that so many scientists agree so closely about the [causes of the] earth's warming is, in itself, evidence of a lack of evidence for [human caused] global warming."

— Quelle superbe post-modernist claptrap, eh!!!

Moderator Response:

[PS] Sks continues to improve tools available to moderators rather than change moderation policy. Deleting a comment is a blunt instrument, providing the commentator with little feedback as to why they were moderated. If someone spent 30 minutes writing it and blew it with a rant at the end, then losing the whole comment is annoying. The provision of selective snip and strike-through tools to moderators allows for some education as to what is acceptable here and what is not. Of course we still have to deal with trolls who have no intention of complying with comments policy...

SirCharles at 22:45 PM on 9 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

The Skeptical Science Facebook link is incorrect.

Moderator Response:

[JH] Corrected. Thank you for bringing this glitch to our attention.

Haze at 19:53 PM on 9 July 2017

Bad news for climate contrarians – 'the best data we have' just got hotter

@31 Yes I do visit sites that have different view points. I look at WUWT, JoNova and Climate etc and Skeptical Science, Real Climate and Open Mind. I also subscribe to The Guardian and The Australian as I like to get views from both sides of politics too

@31 and 32. WUWT, JoNova but not really Judith Curry do tend to over simplify the topic and exaggerate minutiae and the readers are less likely to be scientifically inclined as those visiting this and other similar sites. This leads to comments that are full of hyperbole and emotion but often not well thought through. I think the real difference though is that the climate science sites are far more strictly moderated and emotive incorrectness is not tolerated. Thus comments to, say, SkS need more thought than those to, say, WUWT

Digby Scorgie at 18:32 PM on 9 July 2017

Bad news for climate contrarians – 'the best data we have' just got hotter

nigelj @31

People too lazy to spend any time at reputable climate websites but not so lazy as to patronise denier websites?

nigelj at 18:11 PM on 9 July 2017

Bad news for climate contrarians – 'the best data we have' just got hotter

Haze, confirmation bias is indeed as you say a problem that effects everyone, but I would suggest maybe not equally. I long ago recognised my own biases, and make a point of reading both sides of all debates about equally, and carefully, and it's clear others on this website do the same. Maybe you do as well.

Most climate sceptics I know that are just ordinary people haven't even read one mainstream book on the subject, or something like the NASA website, or this website, and they make various pathetic excuses that its all a scam so why bother. A lot of people are lazy and want glib answers, and I think they populate denialist websites or general media websites.

Eclectic at 16:04 PM on 9 July 2017

Bad news for climate contrarians – 'the best data we have' just got hotter

Thanks, Haze @29 , for the excellent Thucydides quote.

I guess a more modern translater would have rendered "Sovereign Reason" into some form of "Motivated Reasoning".

Ultimately however, we must choose between truth and falsehood — and JoNova has chosen falsehood.

The scientific evidence is overwhelmingly clear, in this matter of AGW/Climate-Change, that JoNova and others of her type are quite wrong — and so to that extent there is no moral equivalence between the "followers" of JoNova (et alia) and the "followers" of SkepticalScience (& other such organizations dedicated to scientific truth). The two groups are worlds apart, morally.

Emotions are always an enormous part of what motivates us humans: yet we must acknowledge there are good emotions and evil emotions. Sadly, it is the "Dark Side" emotion of selfishness which impels the science-deniers, and leads them to commit lies and deceptions (and self-deceptions).

Haze at 13:03 PM on 9 July 2017

Bad news for climate contrarians – 'the best data we have' just got hotter

@28. I try to see the best in people rather than the worst. Jo Nova, who is a scientist with an Honours degree from the University of Western Australia in a hard science, does in fact post comments that do not support her views. As for her readers, it is impossible to comment on whether or not they want to be accurately informed. They almost certainly however do prefer to have their biases confirmed. This is a common human trait, first described by Thucydides in about 400BC in his treatise "The Pelopennesian War" . He wrote:

"For it is a habit of humanity to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy."

Much subsequent research has unequivocally confirmed this comment. Jo Nova's readers are extremely unlikely to be any different from readers of other sites, even sites such as Skepticalscience

as do many readers of readers on any blog site including sites such as Skeptical Science?

nigelj at 11:30 AM on 9 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

OPOF @2, yes sustainable economic growth has to be the main goal or criteria, for our quality of life, and planetary stability. I would even argue prosperity as well.

Of course sustainable growth might reduce rates of crude gdp growth output, or equally alternatively it could be more neutral, or even positive. When limits are put on some resources or activities, efforts often simply move into other activities, and enhance those. Plenty of small countries with strong environmental standards have reasonable gdp growth rates such as Scandinavia.

Solutions are often not as costly as expected. The obvious example was strong controls on vehicle pollution in the 1950s and 1960s, which ended up having virtually no effect on company profitability.

Cheap renewable power is emerging, and would make make recycling more economically feasible, and reduce the need to expand mining in sensitive areas. This is a virtuous circle.

Of course there are arguably ultimate limits to economic growth due to ultimate resource limits. There are numerous writings on this, but we are a fair way away from that yet, and many things can be recycled.

One Planet Only Forever at 09:08 AM on 9 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

nigelj,

Economic growth in sustainable ways is the only growth that can be sustained. And that does indeed include the production of longer lasting goods and infrastructure.

The appearance of economic growth from the expansion or prolonging of understandably unacceptable and ultimately unsustainable activity like the burning up of buried ancient hydrocarbons, wasteful consumerism, or increased consumer debt cannot be expected to last.

Sadly for many Americans (and many others who developed along the path pushed along by the least concientious people created by the undeniably failing American Experiment in the freedom for everyone to beleive and do as they please - the sad perversion of the original intent to have everyone free from unjust authoritarian actions) they bought into the lie that they did not have to change the way they lived. G.W Bush declared that Big Lie when announcing that the USA would not join the Kyoto agreement.

Much of the developed perception of prosperity and opportunity in the USA is a mirage, a figment of the imagination, the result of unsustainable and damaging activity that the biggest beneficiaries attempt to mask and excuse. Because they over-developed so much in incorrect ways and fought against changing their ways many of them undeniably have the most to lose and now fight even more viciously against being the ones to suffer that inevitable bigger loss (hoping the future generation suffers the consequence).

nigelj at 07:35 AM on 9 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

Justin Trudeau makes a good point that "strong economic growth and environmental protection can go hand in hand." There are more jobs in renewable energy than coal, study after study has observed this. Trump is living in the past too much.

thinkprogress.org/clean-energy-more-jobs-than-fossil-fuels-32f615915399

Having said that, growth in simple output terms may slow a little long term, and already has since the 1970s, probably due to saturated markets, and more people may be choosing more lesiure time, and quality over simple quantity.

Apartment living is not conducive to raw output of more quantity of "stuff". And why would I need a new washing machine every year? The low hanging fruit that generate easy growth have all been picked. Getting gdp growth in manufacturing is easy, but it's not so easy in services based economies.

A lot of money is also going into non productive speculation. It's a complicated issue overall.

Hope I'm not sounding too contradictory. The ideas are not incompatible, if you think about it

I'm not promoting zero growth, because some forward momentum is a good thing, but it looks to be inevitably slowing and maybe we shouldn't panic. Quality may come to replace quantity.

scaddenp at 06:45 AM on 9 July 2017

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

Climate4You is Ole Humlum's misinformation organ.

nigelj at 06:12 AM on 9 July 2017

Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world

Singelton Engineer, thanks. I had another look at the map and realise it has a zoom key. I didn't see this originally, as the way I manipulated the page hid the key, and I never noticed it. My fault. I'm a twit.

michael sweet at 03:16 AM on 9 July 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #26

I thought that this article in the Los Angeles Times about 5,000 dairy cows dying during a heat wave was interesting. The local redering facilities were overfll so they ahve nowhere to take all the bodies.

When someone says that the effects of AGW will only be felt in the future this is a good example of currrent effects of too much heat. But who cares of milk and other dairy products cost more?/sark

One Planet Only Forever at 01:52 AM on 9 July 2017

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

nigelj@37,

I agree that critical thinking is important. My point is that critical thinking without 'being moved by rational consideration of distant motives' can lead to incredibly dangerous and damaging thoughts and actions. And 'being moved by rational consideration of distant motives' would likely result in a 'non-critical thinker' accepting/following a helpful dogma/propaganda and being dismissive of harmful dogma/propaganda.

John Hartz at 01:27 AM on 9 July 2017

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

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