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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 19351 to 19400:

swampfoxh at 06:36 AM on 6 June 2017

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

I think it can be said that Ginko trees have existed on planet earth for an incredibly long time, even making in through the Cretaceous Extinction, the Eocene Thermal Maximum, a few dozen ice ages, etc. Does this mean that Ginko genetics are pretty well adapted to the viccitudes of global climate? What does adapted really mean? Does it have anything to do with complementary-cooperative-competitive biodiversity? If an organism arose on the planet, absent interference by humans, would it be because it was adapted to the environment in which it found itself? If a GMO is not a "natural organism" does it still have a place in the environment ? Is a GMO an alien organism? Do we chance mixing alien organisms with the planet's biodiversity and hope for the best or are we playing with an unquenchable fire? It seems to me that the proofs of anthropogenic climate change are pretty well settled and the research on vaccines takes us pretty close to accepted proofs, but is the "science" about GMO's of the same caliber?

nigelj at 17:38 PM on 5 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

Bchip, just adding to my comment right above, I probably sound contradictory. I'm really saying countries obviously have some natural comparative advantages (eg maybe minerals) but can partly create their own comparative advantage, to an extent at least in manufacturing and services, but tariifs are maybe no longer the best way to nurture these. There are obviously other mechanisms.

nigelj at 17:06 PM on 5 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

Bchip @17, your link is a long article, and I will definitely read it in detail later.

Just a brief response: I see comparative advantage theory as different from free trade, in the sense of tariff protection. This was really the point I was making. Comparative advantage theory is also rather debatable and simplistic, having read about half of Porters huge book on the subject. I think countries tend to make their own advantages..

I would just simplify the issue down to whether tariffs make sense in todays world, and I'm no longer convinced they do.

I also happen to live in NZ (Auckland). Small world isn't it! You are possibly an immigrant, so might not know NZs early history. NZ used to have a lot of tariff protection, and the result was high inflation, expensive imports etc. However manufacturing sector wages were good.

We got rid of those tariffs and inflation dropped, although income inequality increased. I think on balance we are better off as a nation, and inequality can be mitigated with income support (eg working for families). But I admit its hard to be 100% sure either way and there are no magic answers. I do think inequality and poor wages can become a big problem so if we go down the free trade route we have to do all we can to lift wages etc.

I do think if you do have tariffs, they need to be carefully focussed on just the areas of the economy where there's strong reasons, and not just because that area of the economy shouts loudest.

Interersting point on CO2 and exports. But that would be a problem whether we had free trade or protectionist trade. Basically NZ is so small we cant be self sufficient, so are really reliant on exports, more so than America. We have to live with that I think.

bjchip at 15:38 PM on 5 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

One has to be careful even in international trade. "Free" trade is not easily accomplished between two nations. I submit that the complexities render it utterly impossible if the number involved is greater than two.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vladimir-a-masch/the-myth-of-comparative-a_b_581814.html

"....“Qualifications.” Almost each one is currently impossible to meet. For instance, prices of the traded products, wages, and currency rates have to be fully and instantly changeable, so that trade, in fact, becomes barter. Movement of money and technology across borders is prohibited, and so on....."

Much detail at the link.

I don't think we have ever had the sort of free trade that would actually work to benefit both nations, not anywhere, not ever. The beneficiaries are the multinational corporations that can work both sides of the deal and ship the profits to a third to escape taxes besides. I expect it can work for nations that are close, have shared borders and cheap transport between them.

NZ, where I live now, has a magnificent moat however, and its belief in free-trade is going to kill its really good trade based economy when the price of emitting CO2 starts to get built into the shipping costs. It doesn't work the same way for all nations.

nigelj at 12:58 PM on 5 June 2017

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

Marco @37 thanks for the comments, and there is some sense in what you say. I dont want to get offside with you as we share concerns about climate change.

But what you say sounds reassuring, until I read the comments by Jonas, who is quoting Scientific American, as opposed to some dubious anti-ge website. It proves my previous point, the gmo issue is still getting criticism that is sometimes quite compelling and reasonable. I could also list a lot of links from reputable science publications but time doesnt permit.

Monsanto still goes as far as it possibly can to get farmers to buy new seeds evey year, whether they need to or not. They sure play hardball.

I just wonder if you looked at the full costs and benefits of ge, at the widest scale, you might not find much advantage to ge. We may never know, as it seems people are determined not to find out.

nigelj at 07:13 AM on 5 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

bchip @15, yes agreed.

Did you read my comment in 11 above on market fundamentalism being a religion? Tell me very briefly in a couple of words if you think I summed it up ok, if you have the time.

I will get to my view of how markets relate to the environment and climate change below.

Markets are certainly worshipped like a religion by some people. Its like some people put markets above all else in life, as some magical answer to everything. I see markets as more of a subset of a greater human enterprise, although a powerful and useful subset. When all is said and done, markets are just people making free agreements with each other. This is valuable and can lead to good decentralised decision making, and is compatible with the idea of competition, but markets clearly dont solve every problem. The market fundamentalists just wont acknowledge this simple fact, so we are on very opposite sides of the fence.

The extremes of communism, and lassez faire capitalism both dont make any sense to me either. They are both overly simplstic, flawed, knee jerk historical reactions to difficult historical conditions.

I like the current conventional, mainstream economic view, because its at least moderatly evidence based, and has an element of commonsense to it as well: Markets (and the private sector in general) work well for many things, but you sometimes have "market failures" and at that point the government has a role.

The environment / pollution etc is a classic case where markets dont self regulate, or provide sensible answers and most economists accept this. Therefore government needs to regulate or sometimes provide programmes like conservation estates etc.

The market, (or private sector) also struggles with provision of a police force, an army, road network planning, social security, and some elements of education and healthcare. These things are normally provided by governments and rightly so in general terms. However I dont think there is a fixed prescription for this, and obviously small countries need greater government provision of services and capital than large countries like the USA.

But free markets certainly make sense for trade and I dont think a return to protectionism makes sense.

The market fundamentalists claim government just makes things worse, but the historical evidence says otherwise, on the whole.

bjchip at 06:22 AM on 5 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

Nigelj@13

"I would just add that moderately free markets are good, excessively free markets, deregulation, and extreme privatisation etc is bad."

Yes. The extremes at both ends must be avoided. It is noticable that the Rand-ist Capitalism and the Marxist Communism both suffer from the same philosophical malady. They cannot be implemented by fallible and often unreasonable humans. The market has a place... but it is not appropriate everyplace.

Moreover, any real democracy depends on an informed public, and when free-market principles are applied to the news media, that is lost as well.

The conclusion that there is no "free" suggests itself.

HK at 04:21 AM on 5 June 2017

It's waste heat

I really don’t understand why we should worry about waste heat from human activity. Now and in the near future it’s negligible compared to the forcing from man-made GHGs, as the article makes crystal clear.

The chart below – one of many interesting climate and energy charts available via the site of James Hansen and Makiko Sato – shows that the global energy consumption from waste heat generating sources (fossil & nuclear) was about 12 gigatonnes of oil equivalent in 2015. One tonne of oil equivalent is 42 gigajoules, so that represents a forcing of 0.031 watts/m², slightly more than the number given in Flanner 2009, but still negligible. If the waste heat generation increased to 0.059 watts/m² in 2040, it still wouldn’t be more than the CO₂ forcing in 1874 or methane forcing in 1891 (relative to 1850), and nobody can claim that these greenhouse gases were a serious problem at that time.

Energy chart

What if the waste heat increased to a level equal to the modern CO₂ forcing, about 2 watts/m² relative to 1850? That would be 6 doublings or 64 times more than the 2015 number and finally enough to have a significant impact on the global climate, but it would still be a pretty minor problem. Why?
Look at the energy consumption chart again. Since 1900 the energy consumption from fossil & nuclear has increased about 20-fold. What has all that energy done in addition to releasing a negligible amount of waste heat and a far more significant amount of GHG?

It has powered almost all the human activity in this period!

That includes urbanisation, transportation, agriculture, deforestation, mining, hunting, pollution and all kinds of economic activity that have caused large scale fragmentation or complete destruction of natural habitats and an increasing rate of extinctions. This is of course possible with muscle power too, but it’s much, much easier to, say, cut down a tropical rainforest with fossil fuel powered chainsaws and machines than with muscle powered axes.
The GHG emissions from fossil fuel is definitely a serious problem, but I will claim that it pales compared to all the habitat destruction that has been made so much easier by all the energy available from fossil fuels. The fragmentation of habitats has also made the remaining pockets of nature more vulnerable to climate change, as it makes it harder for many species to adapt by migrating to other places.

How can anyone imagine that it would be possible to increase this energy consumption and the related human activity by a factor 64 or even 256 (8 doublings) without completely wrecking the last remains of nature on this planet? What on Earth would we need all that energy for? An American lifestyle for hundreds of billions of humans? How should we feed them? Does anyone actually believe it would be possible to transform Earth to a global city akin to Coruscant in Star Wars without a complete destruction of all ecosystem services? A few watts of waste heat per square metre really is a trivial problem compared to this.

Believing that human waste heat could grow to a level with significant global climate impacts without far more devastating consequences for all life on Earth isn’t just unrealistic, but complete madness!

newryqs at 04:00 AM on 5 June 2017

Milankovitch Cycles

Dan. I also looked at the Wikipedia entry and wondered about its veracity. Remember. ANYONE can edit wikipedia.

Moderator Response:

[PS] You are responding to a commentator from 6 years ago. While anyone can edit Wikipedia, the entry contain an excellent set of external links to reliable sources. A google search will find many more.

Jonas at 23:38 PM on 4 June 2017

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

Science is a method to construct knowledge.

This depends on open information on all levels:
political context, funding, research goals, open data, reproduceability, ..

For climate science, most of the research is done at universities
and state controlled space organisations. As long as they are
sufficiently funded and can work independently, it's ok.
If government defunds (like Trump) or opens the door to
"research" by the fossil industry (advisers to EPA), it's not
science and is at least suspicious, if not void.

The same holds true for any other scientific domain:
do I trust Exxon on climate change? No: there is a conflict
of interest, which intrinsically makes anything void they say on climate.
Do I trust Monsanto? No: it's product development and marketing.
Do I trust a medical company on statements about it's products? No.

See also:

".. Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify that genetically modified crops perform as advertised. That is because agritech companies have given themselves veto power over the work of independent researchers.

To purchase genetically modified seeds, a customer must sign an agreement that limits what can be done with them. .."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-seed-companies-control-gm-crop-research/

and

".. Systematic reviews are very, very onerous. In 2003, by coincidence, two were published, both looking specifically at the question we’re interested in. They took all the studies ever published that looked at whether industry funding is associated with pro-industry results. Each took a slightly different approach to finding research papers, and both found that industry-funded trials were, overall, about four times more likely to report positive results. A further review in 2007 looked at the new studies that had been published in the four years after these two earlier reviews: it found twenty more pieces of work, and all but two showed that industry sponsored trials were more likely to report flattering results. .."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trial-sans-error-how-pharma-funded-research-cherry-picks-positive-results/

and:

Science has got a big blow by allowing anonymous donations via PACs:
Heartland produces a "study": we can't tell who paid for it.
If in doubt, it should be ignored: undisclosed funding is not science:
undisclosed funding usually is hiding conflicts of interest;
which are intrinsically not science, be it consciously or unconsciously.

Daniel Bailey at 22:08 PM on 4 June 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #22

Not quite:

"With the more realistic physics in the Russell model the runaway water vapor feedback that exists with idealized concepts does not occur. However, the high climate sensitivity has implications for the habitability of the planet, should all fossil fuels actually be burned.
Furthermore, we show that the calculated climate sensitivity is consistent with global temperature and CO2 amounts that are estimated to have existed at earlier times in Earth's history when the planet was ice-free.
One implication is that if we should "succeed" in digging up and burning all fossil fuels, some parts of the planet would become literally uninhabitable, with some time in the year having wet bulb temperature exceeding 35°C.
At such temperatures, for reasons of physiology and physics, humans cannot survive, because even under ideal conditions of rest and ventilation, it is physically impossible for the environment to carry away the 100 W of metabolic heat that a human body generates when it is at rest. Thus even a person lying quietly naked in hurricane force winds would be unable to survive.
Temperatures even several degrees below this extreme limit would be sufficient to make a region practically uninhabitable for living and working.
The picture that emerges for Earth sometime in the distant future, if we should dig up and burn every fossil fuel, is thus consistent with that depicted in "Storms" — an ice-free Antarctica and a desolate planet without human inhabitants"

LINK

So no runaway. But Hansen notes that it won't take a runaway to basically completely eradicate civilization as we know it.

Further, unlike the simple example of positive feedback we learned in high school, the increase from every round of feedback gets smaller and smaller, in the case of the enhanced greenhouse effect. It is a significant factor in the overall warming, but it does NOT lead to a "runaway" trajectory for temperature.

LINK

Marco at 18:44 PM on 4 June 2017

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

nigelj: the problem with traditional breeding techniques that involve production of hybrids is that these usually have very different results when going to next generations. That means farmers usually decide to buy new seeds every year, to make sure they have the same consistent quality. Moreover, most companies selling such hybrids require buyers to sign a contract that says they cannot reuse the seeds.

GMO seeds are not sterile at all - although introduction of a sterility gene has been proposed as a way to prevent them from germinating 'in the wild', but the general public didn't want this at all. Perhaps somewhat ironically, Monsanto's acquisition of a company has helped stop the commercialization of the so-called terminator genes.

Regarding the zucchini scare, just google "zucchini New Zealand toxic".

Moderator Response:

[PS] Can I remind commentators again, that discussions of pro/cons of GMO is offtopic. Discussion of whether sources relied on by anti-GMO activists conform to the article characteristics of deniers are on-topic. I would note that the "NZ toxic zucchini" seems to more confirm the article rather than refute it.

longjohn119 at 15:13 PM on 4 June 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #22

When you denude a forest you release tons of Carbon .... when you plow fields you release tons of Carbon .... However the largest increase is likely due to thawing tundra and the release of CO2 trapped in ice that's now gone.

It's a classic positive feedback mechanism only this time it run in reverse with CO2 leading and Temperature following whereas under natural conditions the Temperature leads and the CO2 levels follow as tundra thaws and releases Carbon. The Feedback mechanism works as such More CO2 = more warming which causes more CO2 to be released which causes even more warming which causes even more CO2 to be released .... Lather rinse repeat until you go into a runaway feedback condition AKA Tipping Point or something catastrophic happens such as a large meteor strike or a shift in the Earth's axis to make break the feedback loop and lower temperatures

Art Vandelay at 14:37 PM on 4 June 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #22

Some good news in that data though. The annual increase is half that of the previous year, and a levelling off of global CO2 emissions means that the projected annual percentage increase will continue to decelerate.

bjchip at 13:59 PM on 4 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

Nigelj@9

I think the point I am coming to is that the "free market fundamentalism" is in all the ways that matter, a religion. Nor would I expect an evangelical to deal well with the issue simply because the surrounding environment for that movement is so deep in denial, but I don't think it is deterministic. We see that evangelicals who DO follow the science and there are no few of them, don't have a problem.

What appears to be true of them is that they do not subscribe to that belief in the free-market solving everything. The ones who expect God to solve every problem for them are less common. The ones who take stewardship seriously I think, more common.

"Lord..I pray and I pray and I never win the lotto." and the Lord says "Meet me halfway on this and buy a ticket" :-) ...that sort of lazy.

nigelj at 13:33 PM on 4 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

I would just add that moderately free markets are good, excessively free markets, deregulation, and extreme privatisation etc is bad.

By analogy, (since this website loves analogies) morphine or even panadols are great things, but too much and you end up dead. And the change point is quite sudden.

Just think of the GFC. The causes were partly market deregulation, and greed is good ideologies and how close that got to a terminal disaster. And who bailed out the whole mess, and the missbehaving banks? The long suffering tax payer. That's probably you and me.

KR at 13:18 PM on 4 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

Regarding the free market mentality, I am reminded of a particular quote:

Upton Sinclair — 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.'

nigelj at 12:55 PM on 4 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

bchip @10, yes free market fundamentalism ( sometimes called neo liberalism or the chicago school) is definitely a religion, or very analogous to a religion. I have recently read some of Joseph Stiglitz's books, and all deal with the issue very sensibly, and nice writing style, a rare combination). You are maybe familar with his books, but I mention it anyway if anyone wants a a really good read.

I see it this way: Market fundamntalism is a belief system riddled with assumptions. It is not based on fully tested evidence, so is not science. Economics is both science and prescription, and market fundamentalism is based very much on a made up, contentious prescription, full of very dubious assumptions and value judgements many of which just happen to be of financial benefit to the economists who prepare this creed! Ha ha, like low taxes on high income earners. Mana to the Republican Party just what they want to hear. The GFC has proven some of the beliefs of market fundamentalism to be complete trash.

So with market fundamentalism you have worship of ideas that are not tangibly proven ideas, similar to belief in a god, worship of books on the subject that are often in clear contradiction with evidence in the real world, worship of guru like leaders like Friedman, Rand, Greenspan etc. There is dogma and ritual, yes very much like a religion.

In fact just for the record, I do believe in largely free markets, but there do need to be some constraints at times, and a sensible country, and sensible government, helps poor people. Of course I am also promoting what is ultimately a belief, but I can back it with obvious logical reasons, and some hard evidence and consistency of thought. In comparison, market fundamentalism is a bit nutty, and obviously very self interested, and not in a good way, and is unable to deal with changing realities in the real world in a measured way, and ends up just sloganising.

So its not entirely unexpected that some religious fundamentalists might be attracted to market fundamentalism.

I agree there are many shades of evangelical christians with different beliefs on climate and economics, so one shouldn't generalise too much, and I have seen this, but the association with climate denial, and certain types of leaders, and materialism is still so strong I just wonder if something in religious fundamentalism or evangelicism is somewhat deterministic. It's certainly a close association. Perhaps it attracts certain types of personality, but where do the characteristics of the personalities and rules and structure of the belief and chruch start and stop? They are intermingled.

bjchip at 12:04 PM on 4 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

Nigelj@9

"Lord..I pray and I pray and I never win the lotto." and the Lord says "Meet me halfway on this and buy a ticket" :-) ...that sort of lazy.

Tom Curtis at 11:13 AM on 4 June 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #22

Trevor_S @1, CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels have indeed flatlined:

That does not include emissions from cement manufacture, and nor does it include emissions from LUC. It is, therefore, quite possible that total anthropogenic emissions have continued to rise. (Certainly emissions from cement manufacture are likely to have done so.)

More importantly, a plateau in emissions still means anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing. A plateau will only mean the increase is at a constant rate rather than at an accelerating rate as has been the case prior to 2014.

Finally, the three years of the fossil fuel emissions plateau have also, each set a new Global Mean Surface Temperature record. With higher temperatures comes a reduced rate of absorption of CO2 by the ocean, and consequently a rise in CO2 concentration. This factor will average out with slower rises in concentration in likely neutral or La Nina years in the near future.

blackhole at 11:11 AM on 4 June 2017

Temp record is unreliable

I reviewed with interest the comments made to cosmoswarrior et. al. in comments 405-414. Tom Curtis points out in comment 406 that there is almost no difference between the raw and adjusted data from 1980-present for GNCNv3 data. Examining your plot, I would have to say I fully agree. Similarly, you showed plots of the new corrections, old corrections, and uncorrected NOAA temperature dataset in the figures in comment 409. Again, I would have to agree there is not much difference between three from about 1940 forward.

There is one statement you made, however, that needs correction. This is in comment 413(2) where you state:

Heller's giff does not demonstrate any significant change in values. Rather, it exhibits a change in the range of the y-axis from -0.6 to 0.8 for "NASA 2001" to approximately -0.85 to 1 for "NASA 2015". That represents a 32% increase and accounts for nearly all of the apparent change in trend - particlularly post 1980.

I downloaded this animated .gif file myself and extracted the individual images for 2001 and 2015. I then compared scales by copying and pasting the two axises from the 2015 image onto the 2001 image, and then sliding each axis from the 2015 image next to the corresponding axis of the 2001 image. It turned out that the horizontal axises of the two images were identical and the scale of the vertical 2015 image was slightly smaller than that of the 2001 image. Therefore, the actual slopes of the data plot for 2015 are slightly higher than what they appear in the plot image. I would have shown this image, but I am not sure how to do it just yet. While this data is not important for the points I want to make and carries no credibility with you, I thought I should point out the error since the topic came up recently.

From what you have pointed out in your most recent comments, it seems that you have debunked the myth about NOAA eliminating the "warming hiatus" in its paper of 2015. What happened was that we had a warming trend from about 1980 until 1998 when the warming rates were greatly reduced. We then continued on that level trend until 2015 when NOAA announced that they had shown with their "corrected" data that the warming hiatus never existed. Contrary to NOAA's claims, however, you pointed out that the corrected and uncorrected data are very nearly identical and therefore could not have eliminated the hiatus. This means, of course, that the hiatus not only existed back in 1998 but continues to this day.

So thanks for your inputs, Tom Curtis. You have been most helpful to us "climate contrarians" in making our case.

Moderator Response:

[DB] Pathological liar and sock puppet of serial spammer cosmoswarrior has recused himself from further participation here in this iteration.

[PS] Also someone that seems absolutely determined that deniers have no concept of logic, critical thought or comprehension when it comes to trying to defend a preconceived position.

Trevor_S at 10:17 AM on 4 June 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #22

So where is all this CO2 coming from ? The IEA keeps reassuring us and folk like Stefan Rahmstorf use this data to suggest athrophogenic emisions have 'flatlined' for the last three years, for example here.. is it we're being misled about anthro emisions, as suggested here backed up by a real world example here ? or are sinks finally giving their CO2 up ie old anthro CO2 emissions coming back to haunt us, we have no El Nino to blame

nigelj at 09:23 AM on 4 June 2017

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

There is a real danger here that by associating silly, illogical sorts of criticisms with specific issues, that we label anyone who has any criticism of climate science, vaccines or nuclear power zealots or ideologues, even when they are asking perceptive questions. Maybe the article could have been worded just a little more sensitively or just noted that there is nothing wrong with fact based or evidence based criticism (even if it turns out to ultimately be wrong).

The article was completely right in the main though, in terms of listing the various logical fallacies, and its fair to say there seems to be a group who see almost any new science as deeply suspicious and come up with the same fallacy arguments.

I don't have a fundamnetal objection to nuclear power. If you dont have coal or oil, then you have to use what options you can find. France appears to be in that category, or was in the past, although I stand to be corrected. Or did they not want to rely on imported coal from germany?

But I wouldn't want nuclear power in my country. We have numerous other energy options, an accident would decimate our economy as it could contaminate agricultural crop exports, and we are hugely reliant on those. We also get a lot of earthquakes almost everywhere. The issue comes down to benefits versus risks and costs and every country will be different. Not all criticisms of certain issues are foolish criticisms.

Tom Curtis at 08:35 AM on 4 June 2017

It's waste heat

green tortoise @159, that is a very valid point, and also applies to fusion power (if and when it becomes viable). However, it places a cap on fision and/or fusion power at approximately the total current human energy use, or there abouts. If the deployment rates were favourable, we would do well to transfer all human power consumption to fision and/or fusion now, and restrict future energy growth to renewables. Unfortunately the deployment rates are not favourable, so that we are better of going straight to renewables with potentially some further construction of fision and/or fusion power to meet specific needs (marine transport comes to mind).

green tortoise at 07:46 AM on 4 June 2017

It's waste heat

The paper from Mark G. Flanner (2009) "Integrating anthropogenic heat flux with global climate models" arrives at the following numbers for:

Global "waste heat" flux: 0.028 W/m2 in 2005 and 0.059 W/m2 in 2040

Regional "waste heat flux": up to 0.68 W/m2 in 2005 and 0.89 W/m2 in 2040 (both numbers for West Europe).

In a regional to local level both greenhouse and waste heat warming can be significant, approaching the current level of greenhouse forcing (3W/m2) in some areas (table 2).

This result supports the earlier, coarser work of Chaisson (2008) , "Long-Term Global Heating from Energy Usage", that arrives at the conclusion that global warming from waste heat alone can warm the planet by 3°C in 8 doubling times of the global non-renewable energy consumption. At a 2% growth rate in energy consumption this would happen in 280 years and at 1% growth rate in 320 years.

I see no loophole in this result, indicating that carbon neutrality is a necessary, but by no means sufficient, condition to prevent overheating a planet. In the longer term, net energy neutrality is also necessary.

Renewable energy that takes energy already in the environment can do the trick, and there are lots of it. On the other hand, carbon-neutral non-renewable energy sources like nuclear or fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage do not.

nigelj at 07:22 AM on 4 June 2017

Donald Trump just cemented his legacy as America’s worst-ever president

Moderator, there is something a bit odd. The article says 49 comments on your main home page, but only 26 are displaying above. I don't think its my computer, as it also happens on the smartphone. Just letting you know in case its a software problem. Or maybe some comments were deleted.

Moderator Response:

[GT]

Thanks. There seems to be a problem with the counts for a few recent posts. Have passed this on to be looked at.

nigelj at 07:06 AM on 4 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

Bjchip @6, I agree greed is not good. You see this reflected even in the writings of even ancient greece and egypt etc. I think we know it instinctively, but at an intellectual level we can observe looking at history that human prosperity requires humans cooperating and working together in group situations, and greed by certain members, and other destructive behavior by individuals, ultimately destabilises the group making prosperity very difficult.

Greed and ambition are often conflated. Ambition and the desire to aquire things are intrinsic and healthy, but the desire to covet and take more than is needed becomes greed. Ayn Rand wrote a book "In virtue of selfishness" which promotes the benefits of following selfish desires but she never really defined what she meant by selfishness. We can all recognise the virtue of humans being free spirits to make a profit doing what they wish, but if this sometimes becomes destructive or greedy and things break down, and at some point the destructive behaviour of the individual destablises the group.

Societies usually put limits on greed with simple things like the criminal law, but most societies go beyond this and promote sharing and so on.

Rand's claim that selfishness has virtue has some merit at one level, but does not obviate the need for limits on behaviour. She has a big problem because if she really believes in the virtue of selfishness, then what is wrong with people who simply steal things? Her simplicty falls down, and leads to anarchy. But she accepts the need for property law, and once one accepts that society needs laws and rules, this means you need government and have to discuss how far the laws go. If people cause harm to others by either greed or destructive behaviour, this is reason enough for laws, and harm can be done in many ways beyond theft for example environmental damage.

So I also think the free market fundamnentalists have got things wrong. Greed is not good and becomes hatred of government rules, and ultimately anarchic, and the rule of the jungle, at which point society destablises. Given dealing with climate change requires some degree of government input (and I wish it didn't but it does) it has bought the free market libertarian fundamentalists out in full force against climate science itself.

How does this relate to religion? I think this religious denial of climate science is not fundamental to climate denial. Plenty of religions recognise climate change and that greed is not good. However the evangelical religions are the exception, that are in denial about climate change. I have observed many of these people particularly their leaders are quite materialistic. They appear to interpret the bible as a free pass, take it literally, but dont worry about sin. They appear to believe as long as you believe in Christ you will be saved and that because a good person cannot buy their way to heaven through good works, there is no point even trying to be good. Most christian religions have the interpretation that humans should actually try to be good.

In fact if you read John Hartz link, its very interesting and the evangelicals have literally dozens of different reasons to oppose climate science. It's death by a thousand cuts, and this group would be very hard to convince. (Some of the comments posted on the article are very amusing eg JPDiddy).

bjchip at 04:38 AM on 4 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

#7 JJA

Of course!! The only way to get the American Political Right to mobilize on this is to characterize it as a "war" ;-)

jja at 04:10 AM on 4 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

To the extent that the IPCC WG1 does not include permafrost melt-emissions in their emissions pathway analyses, noting that they have grossly underestimated the carbon cycle feedback from warming soils (non-permafrost), that higher resolution models find a definitive impact from mitigation-scenario aerosol reduction rates on both the ENSO cycle (strongly positive) and Arctic sea ice (+1.5C avg temp), to the extent that the current models utilized in the AR5 project a vibrant September Arctic sea ice extent through 2050 and that a rapidly accelerated sea ice loss is currently observed, and will be greatly exacerbated by global atmospheric circulation changes induced by aerosol emissions reductions mentioned previously, such that Mid-Summer effective-free Arctic sea ice loss is now very likely by 2065 under RCP 6.0 with induced regional warming due to albedo that will be equivalent to a doubling of CO2, with all of its impacts on the Arctic circle, raising regional average temperatures by an additional +8C, to the extent that this is what the CURRENT science is saying (published since Dec. 2012 cutoff date for the IPCC WG1, we were only locking in total societal collapse by pursuing the anemic COP-21 accords and must mobilize into a WWII wartime footing of massive government production/intervention to achieve a net-zero emissions economy within the next 10 years.

green tortoise at 03:42 AM on 4 June 2017

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

The post about waste heat says:

"The contribution of waste heat to the global climate is 0.028 W/m2. In contrast, the contribution from human greenhouse gases is 2.9 W/m2. Greenhouse warming is adding about 100 times more heat to our climate than waste heat."

I never disputed that. What I am saying is that such situation may change in the long-term future. I will continue that discussion in the Waste heat thread.

green tortoise at 03:41 AM on 4 June 2017

It's waste heat

I am linking to my discussion about nuclear power from here

bjchip at 03:29 AM on 4 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

Greed is not good for any human society.

This is clear in the evolution of our human societies, from the expression of it, in every major religion.

Buddhism,Hinduism,Ba'hai,Muslim,Christian and if I missed yours it is not intentional. All of them and the Atheists as well, all will tell you greed is bad.

Is this accidental? When one considers the role of religion in ensuring that a society survives, and the survival of that society as an indication of the "correctness" of the religion, one has to consider that the religion "test" is actually pretty telling. They don't agree on much but "greed" is uniformly excoriated as "evil" in every one of them.

In Christianity it is one of the "seven deadly sins".

What we can infer from this is that no major society that embraced "greed" as a sacrament, survived long enough for that particular religious belief to make a mark. Which has to suggest that there is some inherent difficulty for a society that needs to work together being comprised of individuals who each put themselves ahead of everyone else. They don't last. The necessary trust is absent. The society disintegrates.

So when we examine the cult of "free-market fundamentalism" and its exhortations that "greed is good" we can recognize that the people believing that horse-puckey are entirely un-Christian and destructive to the society they claim to be a part of. If they claim Christianity they are hypocrites and if they assert atheism they fail the test of logic. Conveniently for them.

It is however, this cult that is involved in the bulk of "Climate Denial" and their religion will brook no rights of anyone else being considered as important as their own right to wreck things to extract a few bucks from them. The benefits to others of those things don't matter at all. "Greed is good".

In no society can such a sick attitude long survive. It either kills the society and dies with its host or the society kills it. Religions are one of the ways society deals with such cancers. Education would be another.

Part of the issue with climate denial is that the cultists chose greed early. They ignored the science that warned that the headlong rush to get more money might be bad for everyone. The science got stronger and they rejected it. They would rather die than admit error as they know that if they are wrong they have done harm to others, and that is the most perverse aspect of this.

Their "religion" makes a near fetish of personal responsibility. If they accept the science they HAVE to take responsibility. As humans we never want to perceive ourselves as evil. Yet since the science has been clear, they have made things worse... and to accept it now, and accept their error, they have an even greater "responsibility" to shoulder.

In that hole they have dug, they can't stop digging. Failed as their response was, they cannot stop using it.

Which is a lot of why the argument is interminable, the logic absent and the opposition to the science intransigent.

Greed is bad.

green tortoise at 03:03 AM on 4 June 2017

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

My apologies for the mistake about Angela Merkel scientific career. I saw some months ago a documentary about the life of Merkel (that was not about nuclear power, but about her in general), that cited her career at quantum physics.

If I have made some research, I would have found that she later specialiced in chemistry rather than nuclear physics.

As for nuclear power, I would comment the following:

Nuclear power shares with fossil fuels its non-renewable nature, and there are 3 well known issues with nuclear energy:

1) Safety from extreme events (like Chernobyl or Fukushima)
2) Nuclear waste
3) Military use

Those are well known and will not go further discussing them. They can be resolved with more research , regulation and technology development.

Some years ago I believed nuclear power could provide a possible alternative to fossil fuels, given strong technological and regulatory improvements.

However then I found that there is a fourth, more subtle and serious issue with nuclear power (or any non-renewable fuel, for that matter):

Thermal power plants liberate heat, also known as "waste heat". Today waste heat is just a tiny % of global radiative forcing (so it is a marginal contributor to global warming), but with exponential energy consumption growth it can outpace in a few centuries the greenhouse warming.

Any source of energy that adds heat to a planet has the same problem, even solar power if not collected in the Earth surface but instead collected in space and then re-radiated to the Earth surface.

It's just a radiative balance calculation, heat warms a planet, no matter if it comes from the greehouse effect or from direct heating. The only sure check to planetary warming in the very long term (i.e centuries to millenia) is to limit energy use.

Energy use could be limited either by regulation or by turning to heat-neutral energy sources, like Earth-based solar, wind, small-to-medium hydroelectric, advanced biofuels, etc.

If I am going off topic, please feel free to re-direct me to a more appropiate thread.

Moderator Response:

[TD] (I'm sorry, I accidentally clicked a button to send you a reminder about the comments policy. Thank you for being conscious of it and mentioning it without prodding!) What I meant to do was simply point you to the post about waste heat being trivial.

Tom Curtis at 19:13 PM on 3 June 2017

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

green tortoise @32, Angela Merkel's publication record includes nothing on nuclear physics, nor anything directly related. Her scientific career was not at any nuclear facility. She was, however, Minister for the Environment and Nuclear Safety from 1994 to 1998. There is no reason to think her response to Fukushima was anything other than political.

green tortoise at 16:56 PM on 3 June 2017

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

Why the image about nuclear power? As far as I know, there is nothing anti-science in opposing nuclear power. Even Angela Merkel (herself a nuclear scientist) after Fukushima did a policy of nuclear phaseout.

As for GMOs, I know too little about them to have a settled opinion. The only thing I could say is that given the huge genetic diversity of genetical technologies, there may be some good (even excellent) GMO crops (like crops with vitamins and better nutritional values) but others that, like in every technology known to humankind, could go wrong. If there are some crops that produce toxins to kill parasites, could that not be that as bad as pesticides if mismanaged?

I will not lump together all those things. I would make the following classification:

outright denialism (like the so-called AGW "skeptics", creationists, flat-earthers, etc.)
Alarmists (like the ones that exaggerate side effects of vaccines, so scared about them that become blind to the much bigger threat of infectious diseases). GMO opposition, if not based on evidence, fits also here.

Of course there is a mixing of both groups, as both deny inconvenient facts, or invoke "conspiracy theories".

But as someone said before, one group deny a whole set of reality (climate change, evolution, age of the universe, etc.), the other exaggerate in a hyperbolic manner some possible problems in some specific areas (minimal side effects for vaccines, mismanegement of some GMOs, etc)

Moderator Response:

[PS] How about providing a cite for your belief that Angela Merkel is Nuclear scientist? Quantum chemistry seems a bit of a stretch to put it mildly. In fact, it rather strongly suggests you are victim of someone pushing misinformation to attack nuclear power but prove me wrong.

LinkeLau at 16:47 PM on 3 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

Dear NigelJ, thanks for your comments. There is indeed no doubt about Radiative Forcing of CO2, but my doubt is in all the higher order effects it causes and the little we still know about the impact of other important explaining variables, such as cloud formation.

I have seen many studies in academics that showed effects of a certain experimental variable in a controlled environment. These effects tended to be very clear. But when implementee in practice, if thousands and thousands of other variables also played a role, the effect found in a controlled environment were not found anymore, or diminished largely.

I argue my comment is not off topic. It is a reaction to the first sentenses of the post of John Abraham that states "the science of climate change is clear and that humans are the cause of warming". This is a far to simple statement as so much on climate effects still have to be discovered.

Moderator Response:

[PS] First this is offtopic. Use the search button to find appropriate topics. Second making a pile of unsupported comments is sloganeering. It might be what you believe, but that does not make it true. Arguments from Personal Incredulity have no weight, especially to the better informed. Either back your arguments with evidence or find somewhere else to comment. I suggest a long hard read of the IPCC WG1 report.

ubrew12 at 15:44 PM on 3 June 2017

Donald Trump just cemented his legacy as America’s worst-ever president

DrivingBy@25: Woodrow Wilson didn't start WWI, although he arguably ended it. And the dust-up of 150 years ago was no fault of Lincoln's, but Slavery's. Trump is not presiding over the worst hardship in our government (largely thanks, economically, to the 'African' who preceded him). It's his remarkable ability to make a sow's ear out of a silk purse, that will render him the worst in history. The Paris agreement mostly justified China spending half a trillion dollars on renewable energy in the six year we're centered in, and India making smaller but similar commitments to wean itself from coal. It justified the over 90% of new electric power turned on last year in Europe that came from renewable sources. All while 'requiring' remarkably little from America, other than fracturing more of its 'Heartland' for natural gas, and hiding the fugitive emissions from the Fed's (and the locals who will have to inhale them). That's the definition of a 'win-win', and who couldn't put up with that? The worst president in American history, that's who.

nigelj at 12:35 PM on 3 June 2017

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

Macro @30 I live in NZ and don't recall the zucchini scare, but ok I accept some traditional crops have had problems. However what bothers me more is this: We know that this occasionally happens with traditional breeding, but we do have a good picture going back decades to get a feel for the scale of things. And people were ill, they didn’t die.

Genetic engineering is a whole new frontier, a new system. Because of this I just really hope the testing is really good. There doesn't seem to be that much good quality genuinely independent testing. And ok maybe the same applies to traditional crops.

I read a fair amount, and there seems some quite good credible material critical of ge at various levels, more so than anti vaccine material etc.

I'm not calling for gmo's to be banned globally, America can do as it wishes. But they are very strictly controlled in NZ. You can trial them but its not easy. Frankly we are likely to make more money as a nation with organic foods. Once gmos become widespread in NZ there will be cross contamination so organic options become limited. But I admit I'm driven here by my own commercial views on what may work for my country as much as the safety issue or other issues.

Yes I do hear what you are saying any corporation can become a monopoly, whether gmos crops or traditional crops. All monopolies tend to be problems not just monsanto, but right now they are certainly a problem.

I also thought the need to buy new gmo seeds was that they were deliberately designed to self terminate. This might be commercial, but it’s an alarming, questionable sort of thing.

scaddenp at 11:42 AM on 3 June 2017

Donald Trump just cemented his legacy as America’s worst-ever president

Mukesh Prasad - it appears I inadvertantly deleted your comment instead of moderating it. Try again but this time try stating your objection, on topic, backed with data and/or references to peer-reviewed science, and leave the sloganeering and attitude behind. Debate about science is very welcome but only if you are prepared to abide by comments policy of this site.

DrivingBy at 11:07 AM on 3 June 2017

Donald Trump just cemented his legacy as America’s worst-ever president

While I disagree rather strongly with Trump's current stance on AGW, to state that not persuing the Paris agreement (which would have been dead in the Senate anyways) equals being the worst President in history would be funny, were it not sad. Has the author forgotton World War I, and Wilson's delusional League of Nation which was surely, really for sure this time outlaw war? Or the little dust-up a mere 150 years ago?

This is temporary, mostly symbolic annoyance. The rest of the world will go on with its plans to slow AGW as before, and in a bit, after some theatre, the US will join it. But the Paris treaty/agreement/whatever is not some holy writ, even if implemented in full it would only slow ACC and not halt, much less reverse it.

None of the current or proposed plans are likely to halt climate change; if the US and the rest of the world really wanted to do that, the time to start was around 1970. The Greenhouse Effect has been known for over 200 years and CO2's approximate role for over 100. Neither were secrets known only to the USA.

John Hartz at 10:14 AM on 3 June 2017

Reflections on the politics of climate change

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