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BaerbelW at 05:24 AM on 14 April 2023The Conspiracy Theory Handbook: Downloads and translations
On April 13, 2023 the Albanian and Macedonian translations of the Conspiracy Theory Handbook were published, bringing the number of available translations up to 18!
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:58 PM on 13 April 2023Science tackles the West’s megadrought
This April 12 NPR item "Swimming pools and lavish gardens of the rich are driving water shortages, study says" indicates that population growth and climate change are not the only significant factors leading to water shortages.
And Trump pursuing popular support by complaining about low-flush toilets and limited flow shower heads (reported here and there and everywhere) are examples of the harmful nonsense that Populists can temporarily benefit from (an example of the time limit is presented here).
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:20 PM on 13 April 2023Science and its Pretenders: Pseudoscience and Science Denial
EddieEvans,
Thanks for pointing to the Stanford University page. It is a great supplement to the Thinking is Power item reposted here on SkS.
I note that the list of criteria in 'Section 4. Alternative demarcation criteria; Sub-section 4.6 Multi-criterial approaches' starts with the following criteria identifying the practice of Pseudoscience:
"Belief in authority: It is contended that some person or persons have a special ability to determine what is true or false. Others have to accept their judgments."
Note that many believers of Pseudoscience that is professed by their "Identified Authority (Authoritarian ruler on the matter that they have passionate beliefs about)" often claim that a 'presenter of the developed consensus understanding regarding climate science and the resulting need to rapidly end the harm of fossil fuel use' is claiming to be 'the authority that others must accept the judgments of'.
The fact that the original Stanford document was published in 2008 appears to indicate that something is causing a powerful resistance to leadership learning the Truth about Pseudoscience, and not just regarding the climate impact case.
It appears that the powerful problem is harmful Populist political players as described in the detail in the National Endowment for Democracy's Democracy Digest item "Has populism won the war on liberal democracy".
The book "Has Populism Won? The war on liberal democracy", by Daniel Drache and Marc D. Froese, presents the diversity of Populists. Example of that diversity is Lula and Bolsonaro of Brazil both being Populists, as are Trump and Sanders in the USA. A common point about all Populists is their selling of different versions of a Big Lie that emotionally triggers support by making misleading, overly simple, claims about things. However, populists can be 'harmful or helpful'. Being misleading is not good. But it can temporarily reduce harm ... unless the 'helpful' Big Lie is 'seen through'.
Also note that the harmful Populists love to benefit from the promotion of Pseudoscience through the 'scientifically developed' power of misleading targeted marketing. Helpful Populists would be less likely to do that. The climate science case identifies the more harmful, less helpful, Populists.
A final point. Being scientific, and scientific developments, are no guarantee that harm is being reduced. What is chosen to be researched and how that learning is employed can be helpful or harmful. The science of marketing is an example. Nuclear weapons also prove that point. But misleading marketing is potentially a far more harmful scientifically developed thing.
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:50 AM on 13 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Funny. I just realized I posted the exact same story on this thread 2 years ago. No matter. It's one worth re-telling.
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:47 AM on 13 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Ron... As a vegetarian of over 40 years, I have to agree with you, though I'd have to add the caveat that not all vegans are militant and self-righteous about their diet. Far too many of them are, though, and it leads to making too many factually inaccurate claims.
The rule I've developed for myself over the years is this: I'm vegetarian with caveats. When something culturally important or a unique life experience presents itself in the form of eating meat. Give me the meat.
Example: When my Chinese wife's grandmother got up at 5am on Chinese New Year morning to make pork dumplings for the family, as she'd done her entire life... the last thing I'm going to say is "no thank you, I'm a vegetarian." My response is, "These are freaking amazing! Can I have more?" And I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have shared in this special part of her life.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:40 AM on 13 April 2023Science tackles the West’s megadrought
Extensive additional reporting regarding the Colorado River challenge is provided by NPR, particularly NPR's KUNC. Search "colorado river" on NPR's website.
The inability (unwillingness) of the collective users to agree to reduced water use is tragically similar to the global response to the need for climate impacts to be reduced. Each State, or each regional interest, appears to have tried to get the most potential benefit possible. The result is the creation of the current day continuation of harmful over-consumption.
Another tragic similarity to the climate problem is that the reluctance of groups to reduce their harmful over-consumption produces the requirement for the Federal government (an external governing body) to 'impose restrictions'. That is likely to be abused by harmful populist 'freedom and sovereignty' political players to do their harmful misleading by attacking 'those others' who try to impose restrictions on freedom and sovereignty. The harmful populists will likely also blame 'those other water consumers' of being the real harmful over-consumers (populists thrive on finding ways to misleadingly be more popular by 'attacking or blaming others' - recommended related reading is the book "Has Populism Won? The war on liberal democracy", by Daniel Drache and Marc D. Froese).
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Ron at 04:58 AM on 13 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
It always bugs me when Vegans (which seem to be more hateful and judgemental than Vegetarians) try to make people feel bad for being carnivores, or even drinking milk or having some butter.
It's not that I'm at all defending the meat industry, or the way in general animals are treated by them. And I hate the way some people in Asian countries are mistreating animals too. They're vicious and heartless (but I won't get into that right now). Also, about beef eating and the environment, I agree with Vegans. It is destructive and contributes to Climate Change, obviously, so should be phased out. And any fishing is overfishing these days, which is why I don't eat fish either.
But I think that Vegan's real issue is not about Climate Change. No, I suspect that their hostility and judgmentalism is actually about an enjoyment of telling people what to do! A hatred of people (there is reason to hate some people though).
Do Vegans eat plants? Of course. Yet, there's a whole field emerging that says that they, too, are sentient. Feel pain. Want to live. Use all kinds of tricks to foul up predators (like Vegans). What gives them the Right to take that life away just to feed their stomachs? Is it because plants can't say "STOP!" when they are eating them? Can't move out of the way to save themselves? Can't audibly scream? How arrogant of them! So thoughtless. But so human too. :/
Also, do Vegans have pet cats or dogs? Do they feed them plants? If so, they wont live long. I've seen it. Isn't it hypocritical of them not to call for us to stop owning them?
Are Vegans calling for only humans and their pets to stop eating meat? What about wild animals? Do they want the lion to lie down with the lamb? All meat eating to end, period? An environmental crash would soon follow. Some people eat insects now. Yech! But anyway, do they judge them too? Insects are animals as well. Want to live. Run when we come.
You know, they say whenever you point a finger at another person, four more are pointing back at you. Are Vegans perfect? They'd better be if they choose judge an otherwise good person. A great man once said not to judge others because with the measure you mete out to them, it will be meted out to you in return. A more modern way of saying that is that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. People can lay out their beliefs, and that's fine, but don't make it personal (except for real dicks) unless they themselves are utterly flawless. Are they? Only they know.
So I do eat poultry. You see, you gotta eat to live. That's just the way it works on this planet. But I try to find poultry that's raised humanely. Anyway plants, or animals, they ALL want to live as well. So you gotta make a choice. The alternative is to eat already dead things - or starve.
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EddieEvans at 23:53 PM on 10 April 2023Science and its Pretenders: Pseudoscience and Science Denial
In the context of climate deception, I started my morning learning about Karl Popper's explanations for science and pseudo-science. I came across this Standford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy Science and Pseudo-Science page. It's broad but may add to unavailing climate deceivers more quickly and thoroughly. I hope this helps someday.
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michael sweet at 05:25 AM on 10 April 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #14
This article from CleanTechnica.com describes how the North East Power system (PJM) is making gas power plants repay funds that were given to them to provide "reliable power". In December 2022 Winter storm Elliott took out up to 23% of "always on" gas generators. Meanwhile, wind generators provided over two times their promised electricity.
Rules put in place after a similar storm in 2014, when gas generators also failed to work, fine producers who do not produce as they promised and reward generators who provide excess power (not to mention recent Texas gas fiascos blamed on renewable energy).
Perhaps we will be able to avoid these consistent power shortages in bad weather when we have an all renewable energy system.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:24 AM on 6 April 2023Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes
Bob Loblaw @54,
I agree that JohnSeers was seeking a debunking of the claim that the evidence of significant rapid recent climate system changes was significantly due to underwater volcanoes heating the oceans.
I think it could be helpful to always clarify a 'climate change' question or claim in the context of 'its significance related to the evidence of significant rapid recent climate system changes'. And there are 2 dominant verifiable (real based on evidence) rapid recent changes:
- Increased CO2 levels
- Increased global average surface temperature (and warmer oceans)
The evidence and developed understanding to date is so robust that it is very unlikely that fossil fuel use is not the dominant cause of those verifiable rapid recent changes.
As your helpful comment confirms, that part of the science is almost as certain as science can get on any matter (part of the reason many IPCC participants see no value in 'another update'). That leads to misleading political actions hoping to benefit from the popularity of limited awareness and related increased misunderstanding which is limitless. Verifiable evidence always limits the range of believable explanations ...
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Bob Loblaw at 03:21 AM on 6 April 2023Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes
I had presumed that JohnSeers' question @ 49 was with respect to the direct heating effects of undersea volcanoes, rather than any indirect effects associated with CO2 emissions, etc.
Oceans are an important mechanism of heat transfer. Globally, tropical and subtropical regions absorb much more solar radiation than they emit back to space, so they show a net gain via radiation. Polar and sub-polar regions are the opposite - they lose more by IR emission to space than they absorb from solar radiation.
The climate system re-balances those regions of gain/loss by transporting energy poleward, and this happens via circulation in both the atmosphere and the oceans. Ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream, etc. move large amounts of energy.
And both land areas and ocean floors show vertical heat transport from the interior of the earth to the surface - but as discussed in the link I gave in comment #50, the amounts are small. And as pointed out in comments, to argue that current surface warming is the result of this flux of heat from the earth's core (via volcanoes or regular conduction) would require massive undetected increases in that geothermal heat flux.
Ain't happening, and anyone arguing that it is (without evidence) can be assumed to be badly uninformed (or mis-informed).
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scaddenp at 07:14 AM on 5 April 2023Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes
The idea of heating the oceans from below has so many things wrong it. Firstly, I highly recommend Bob's link to get a feel for the scale of different heat sources. Secondly, consider the vertical temperature profile of the oceans - rather consistant with heating from above not below wouldnt you think? And finally, to explain the rapid rise in ocean heat content, this is postulating the amount of heat being emitted geothermally has dramatically increased in recent years and yet is undetectable by observations of volcanism and vertical ocean temperature profiling. This is all about ignoring the simple, obvious explanation which is consistant with all of other data (adding CO2 to atmosphere from burning fossil fuels) and going for the extremely improbable, supported by no evidence at all, presumably because the likely explanation is unpalatable. I dont believe this is rational thinking.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:18 AM on 5 April 2023Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes
JohnSeers @49,
In addition to the responses by Bob and Rob I suggest that the following fairly obvious questions, with fairly obvious answers, are raised by that 3rd volcanic impact possibility:
- What is the evidence that underwater volcanic releases have dramatically increased recently in a way that explains the recent rapid increase of atmospheric CO2 levels and global average surface temperature increase?
- What has happened to all of the excess CO2 poduced by burining fossil fuels if it hasn't been causing the increase of atmospheric CO2 levels?
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:05 AM on 5 April 2023Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes
JohnSeers @49... I've heard that one many times before, at least relative to rising atmospheric CO2. What those who make that claim fail to recognize is that CO2 from underwater volcanoes would merely be dissolved into seawater before reaching the surface. It would lead to greater ocean acidification but any atmospheric changes would be limited to the second order effect from changes in the ocean/atmosphere exchange of CO2.
This argument seems more of a "what if" argument someone made up, didn't research, and spun up into a new denial theory.
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Bob Loblaw at 00:26 AM on 5 April 2023Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes
JohnSeers @49:
Without seeing details of the claim you are mentioning, it sounds like that would be a variation on the geothermal heat myth. You can read more about that here:
https://skepticalscience.com/underground-temperatures-control-climate.htm
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Bob Loblaw at 00:21 AM on 5 April 2023CO2 lags temperature
Terry2 @ 64:
Are you referring to the quote directly under the "Climate Myth" label? That is not a quote from the Science article - it is a quote from U.S. Rep Joe Barton. You can find the exact quote if you follow the "Full Statement" link immediately below the quote. It's Joe's interpretation of what he read (hopefully - he might just be repeating what someone else said) in the Science paper.
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JohnSeers at 23:06 PM on 4 April 2023Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes
There is a third argument made that volcanoes cause global warming. Many underwater volcanoes heat the ocean and transfer heat via the PDO, AMO, ENSO etc.
Is there any debunking of that anywhere? -
alonerock at 22:46 PM on 4 April 2023Inside the quest to develop long-range tornado forecasts
Can someone please tell me the approximate minimum depth of the Atlantic ocean off the coast of Newburyport Mass. when vast amounts of water was locked up in the ice caps ? In other words, how much less than current sea level. 200 feet ? IWhen I have talked with captains of dredgers over the past 50 years, many of them have pulled up mammoth skeletons with spear points, skeletons of saber-tooth tigers, camels and other Pleistocene species many miles off the coast, so I suspect that the seal and mammoth hunters from the Spain-French occupied eastern North America long before the Indians who crossed Beringia. I believe this idea is supported with DNA evidence as well. Any thoughts ?
Moderator Response:[BL} This is rather off-topic for this blog post. There are many other posts here at Skeptical Science that discuss sea level change over the time scale you are questioning.
This post on the importance of CO2 over glacial periods shows global sea level changes of about 100m.
This post covers sea levels over the past 150,000 years, and includes this figure:
Those are global averages. Along the Mass. coast, glacial ice weight (added, removed) will cause additional local changes. The effect is explained in this post on This Elastic Earth. It includes this animation . (Go to the post to understand what it is showing.)
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Terry2 at 18:01 PM on 4 April 2023CO2 lags temperature
Thank you for your excellent website and all the valuable information. I found this FAQ on CO2 lagging temperature very helpful. I found a copy of the Lorius et al. (1990) paper in Nature and it is great.
Pardon me if this has been said before in the may posts, but I could not see the direct quote that you present in the paper. The sentiments are definitley there and reflect the findings in the Lorius et al. paper, but not in those exact words. Perhaps the direct quote you have included comes from a different paper. It seems more like a commentary on the paper.
Thank you again.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:06 AM on 4 April 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #13
The Story of the Week raises interesting questions about how 'progress, advancement and improvement' are evaluated (and valued). New technology developments can be very negative in spite of the promotion of positive perceptions about the 'amazing new developments'. Many developed measures of status, like popularity or profit, do not relate to, or indicate, helpfulness or harmfulness.
More freedom to develop and spread misleading marketing is potentially the most harmful type of 'freedom'. And the most effective counter-measures appear to be educating people by more effectively exposing 'everyone' to the harmful misunderstandings some people try to benefit from developing and spreading.
Requiring AI guardrails to make it harder to abuse is helpful. The challenge is ensuring that constantly improved guardrails are being implemented on every AI. But creative people would still figure out how to harmfully abuse those developed systems.
In addition to rigorous requirements for guardrails, it would be helpful to have the AI developers share their product knowledge with a UN organization of global experts. That team of experts would develop and deploy a powerful AI application that seeks out misleading claims and rapidly responds with effective educational information. If it is well developed it could even produce responses that appeal to people who have become deeply immersed in harmful misunderstanding.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:36 PM on 2 April 2023CO2 limits will harm the economy
As usual, MA Rodger @115 manages to find links to useful links to these things...
I did read Lomborg's "The Skeptical Environmentalist" many years ago. The major thing that struck me was the way he compartmentalized the various "costs" and alternative solutions. He'd look at one specific/isolated problem caused by climate change, and then claim that it was cheaper to fix that problem after the fact than to avoid the climate change.
Of course, to avoid climate change you only have to pay for it once - not many times for each individual/isolated problem. He would never add up all the costs of the different isolated problems and compare that total to the one-time "avoid climate change" cost.
It's like saying "it will cost me $10,000 to fix that leaking roof on my house", and then conclude that it is cheaper to clean and repaint the bedroom ceiling when the water damages it. And then when the leaking roof causes damage to wall insulation, it's cheaper to replace the insulation. And when electrical wiring shorts out, it's cheaper to re-do the wiring. And when the TV gets wet, it's cheaper to replace the TV. And on, and on, and on.
Eventually, the rational home owner realizes that it would have been cheaper to fix the roof than to replace the many, many things that the leaking roof damaged. But as long as you can fool the home owner into looking at each individual problem in isolation, you can sell them a paint job, an electrical job, and new TV, etc. If your business is home repair - not roofing - then it becomes a lucrative approach. Also lucrative if your business is to prevent roof repairs.
MA Rodger's link to the rebuttal is worth reading. Lomborg, not so much. All you need to do is look to see what Lomborg's proposed alternatives are and assess how much effort he puts into making those alternatives happen - as opposed to how much effort he puts into arguing against preventing climate change. (Cue the XKCD cartoon...)
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MA Rodger at 18:35 PM on 2 April 2023CO2 limits will harm the economy
retiredguy @112,
You do specifically ask about rebuttals of Lomborg's verbose 2020 paper 'Welfare in the 21st century: Increasing development, reducing inequality, the impact of climate change, and the cost of climate policies' and as has been pointed out, this paper is packed full of the usual Lomborg nonsense. I don't know of any specific rebuttal to this paper. I think with a 'broken record' like Lomborg, you need the expertise to unpick his nonsense as well as the dedication to keep at it. A month after this paper, Lomborg published a book 'False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet' and that did result in a rebuttal.
As for the paper 'Welfare in the 21st century: Increasing development, reducing inequality, the impact of climate change, and the cost of climate policies,' we can cut through all Lomborg's nonsense and simply consider his basic argument which is that AGM mitigation preventing large levels of global warming (as in scenario SSP1-1.9) is, according to Lomborg, not as benificial to mankind as allowing fossil fuel use to continue without restriction (as in secanario SSP5-8.5, roughly similar to the previous RCP8.5). From the abstract:-
Long-term impacts of climate policy can cost even more [than 2030 costs]. The IPCC's two best future scenarios are the “sustainable” SSP1 and the “fossil-fuel driven” SSP5. Current climate-focused attitudes suggest we aim for the “sustainable” world, but the higher economic growth in SSP5 actually leads to much greater welfare for humanity. After adjusting for climate damages, SSP5 will on average leave grandchildren of today's poor $48,000 better off every year. It will reduce poverty by 26 million each year until 2050, inequality will be lower, and more than 80 million premature deaths will be avoided.
This argument is thus mainly based on the economic predictions set out by IPCC ARs within these SSPs and then downplaying to the point of insignificant the economic damage in a SSP5-8.5 world experiencing +4.4ºC by 2100 (this a central figure in the range +3.3ºC-5.7ºC) and which will continue warming post-2100, the 2300 range being given as +6.6ºC−14.1ºC. Now that is scary. (And note in the graphic below, the SSP5/RCP8.5 temperatures are still rising in 2300. There is even more to come.) Lomborg is advocating a really scary future while insisting there is no scary future.
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One Planet Only Forever at 10:05 AM on 2 April 2023CO2 limits will harm the economy
retiredguy @112,
As Bob Loblaw has pointed out, serious pursuers of better understanding may not have bothered to do 'yet another' detailed debunking of Lomborg's nonsense. I read some of his earlier books and was able to easily identify many misleading claims he made. He has a history of changing his claims, but not his motivation to be misleading regarding the climate impact problem and its solutions.
Based on the title of the 2020 Lomborg item, I am almost certain that this version of his misleading story-telling efforts can be effectively corrected by reading helpful detailed documents like the UNDP's Human Development Reports. I particularly recommend the 2020 HDR which includes a robust evaluation that dispels the myth that GDP is a meaningful measure of advancement.
Other documents that help people learn how to dismiss the claims of people like Lomborg include:
- The series of documents in the SkS "New reports spell out climate urgency, shortfalls, needed actions"
- The Story of the Week in the 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5: "Social change more important than physical tipping points" and the "Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook 2023" it summarizes.
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Bob Loblaw at 04:44 AM on 2 April 2023At a glance - What do the 'Climategate' hacked CRU emails tell us?
That's a new trick for me, jimpsy.
Similar to the trick I learned when I was young, for multiplying 2-digit numbers by 11:
- Take the two digits, and insert a space between them.
- Add the two digits together.
- Insert the sum in the space you created.
23x11 becomes 2[space]3, and the sum of 2+3 = 5, so 23x11 = 253.
47x11 becomes 4[space]7, and 4+7 = 11, so you insert 11 in the space by adding the first 1 to 4 and leaving the second 1 in place, so 47x11 = (4+1)17 = 517.
An absolutely dastardly trick if I ever saw one...
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Bob Loblaw at 04:34 AM on 2 April 2023CO2 limits will harm the economy
retiredguy:
Bjorn Lomborg is a broken record, who basically keeps repeating most of the same arguments over and over and over (and over). Much of his stuff has been debunked in a variety of sources (over, and over, and over, and over).
Is there anything particularly new in that work you linked to? Any reason to spend time on it, since (for me, at least) it has been years (if not decades) since I have seen anything worth reading from him?
You can read more about his general track record at Desmog.
...and for the most, part, I think what he usually has to say bears a strong resemblance to this XKCD cartoon:
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Rob Honeycutt at 03:01 AM on 2 April 2023At a glance - What do the 'Climategate' hacked CRU emails tell us?
jimspy... I think that qualifies as Voodoo. ;-)
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retiredguy at 01:09 AM on 2 April 2023CO2 limits will harm the economy
Can anyone point me to a comprehensive review and response to Bjorn Lomborg's July 2020 article, "Welfare in the 21st century: Increasing development, reducing inequality, the impact of climate change, and the cost of climate policies" ?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162520304157
Moderator Response:[BL] Link activated. Please learn how to do this yourself.
As previously mentioned, you can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box.
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jimspy at 18:41 PM on 1 April 2023At a glance - What do the 'Climategate' hacked CRU emails tell us?
If I had a nickel for every time I had to remind skeptics that there are two, subtly but distinctly differentiated meanings of the word trick... A simple way to present it, at least in person, is to demonstrate how to mutiply by 9 on your fingers. The multiplicand is 9. Count on the fingers of your left hand up to the multiplier, let's say it's 5. You bend your fifth finger (pinky) down. There are 4 fingers remaining on your left hand, and 5 remaining on your right - 45. Now, I just showed you a trick....but did I trick you?
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:30 PM on 1 April 2023Extreme heat waves in Europe may be linked to melting Arctic sea ice
Gordon and Bob,
I agree that discussing 'energy poverty' is getting off-topic. But raising the related problem of 'energy gluttony' seems appropriate, because 'harmful energy gluttony' is a major root of the climate impact problem.
All I will add is that 'energy gluttony' can be understood to be a major aggravating factor regarding 'energy poverty'.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:18 AM on 1 April 2023Extreme heat waves in Europe may be linked to melting Arctic sea ice
Now that I am looking at the maps that you mention regarding the "energy poverty" issue, it looks like that December high mortality rate is in reference to the 2016-2019 average. The way they worded that suggests that they have not adjusted for seasonal patterns, which makes it very difficult to tell if the December 2022 value is really an unusual case, or just a normal seasonal effect.
As for the similarity between the "can't keep the home warm" and the "Dec 2022 excess mortality" maps - I am not seeing a strong link. Norway and Finland score high on the excess deaths map, but they are in the lowest category for "problems heating". Switzerland and Austria also show a similar pattern. Romania and Bulgaria are the opposite: they score very low on excess deaths, but are in the highest two categories for "unable to heat the home". The geography of Europe suggests that some countries may be much better prepared for heating in the cold season. There are a lot of variables involved.
Your definition of energy poverty also seems rather vague. There are a multitude of levels of "negatively affect", and "health and well-being" also covers an awful lot of ground.
And finally - this is really getting off-topic for the blog post.
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Bob Loblaw at 10:57 AM on 1 April 2023Extreme heat waves in Europe may be linked to melting Arctic sea ice
Thanks for the link, Gordon. For future reference, when you provide a quote like that one, it really helps if you give a proper link to the source, rather than leaving people guessing.
I can find that quote on page 22. There is very little context there. They repeat the 40,000 number on page 37, where they say:
Gallagher Re estimates that as many as or more than 40,000 excess deaths were recorded between June and August from heat-related activity in the region, which particularly hit the UK, France, Spain and Portugal. This was conducted based on national-level mortality analysis.
and then again in the appendix tables on page 52. In none of those cases do they provide any further details on the analysis method.
Without details on the analysis method, there isn't much hope in trying to come up with an explanation of why they attribute European summer deaths to heat, and other spikes are attributed to other causes. The original quote you provided does state that this was a "preliminary estimate", which suggests that it was not as thorough as they would like.
You may wish to read this Reaclimate post on heat-deaths vs cold-deaths under a warming climate. It mentions that winter mortality rates in Europe are normally higher - but hopefully an "excess mortality" assessment would take this into account.
The Eurostat link in comment #1 does not tell us if the 19% "sharp rise" in December 2022 is within a normal range of variability for December, and it does not tell us if they use individual monthly averages for each "excess death" calculation, or an average over several months, a full year, or several years. The quote I gave in comment #2 contains values for four other peaks in the past three years - two in April, and two in November. That suggests that they might not be making monthly base/reference calculations - but it's really hard to tell.
Methodology is critically important in these sorts of calculations.
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Gordon at 09:43 AM on 1 April 2023Extreme heat waves in Europe may be linked to melting Arctic sea ice
Bob:
Here is the LINK to the quote in comment#1.
Energy poverty is defined as such:
Energy poverty occurs when energy bills represent a high percentage of consumers’ income, or when they must reduce their household's energy consumption to a degree that negatively impacts their health and well-being."
A simple example supporting my belief can be found by comparing the MAP in this article with the MAP in this one. Note that Germany's situation has deteriorated substantially since 2020 due to the war and loss of Nordstream. You can find the MAP for July here by selecting the the appropriate time series on the top left hand corner.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:43 PM on 31 March 2023Solar cycles cause global warming
As a further follow-up to the responses to retiredguy, note that the Beer et al paper mentioned in comment #60 is from 2000, when a lot of contrarians were still beating the "cosmic rays" drum pretty hard. You can read more about it here. In the past 20 years, that drum has been beaten to death.
Just over a year ago, I also did a more thorough review of another "it's the sun" paper that SkS was asked about in email. You can read that review to see where the paper went wrong. That paper argued (incorrectly) for "indirect solar effects" in an attempt to get around the weak direct effects (changes in total energy from the sun).
And finally, reading my comment #62 here in the original thread (instead of in "Recent Comments"), I see that the graph I provided is also in Comment #59.... Plus ca change...
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Bob Loblaw at 23:25 PM on 31 March 2023Extreme heat waves in Europe may be linked to melting Arctic sea ice
Gordon:
I am still not finding the quote you provided in comment #1 in your link in comment #1 (repeated in comment #3). The word "heat " only appears on that page once, and it is in the text that I quoted in comment #2. The second link that you provided in comment #3 does not contain the word "heat" at all (letting my browser search for it).
Please check your sources and given a proper reference/source for the quote. To understand the quote, we need more information about context and methodology.
Your second link does provide Covid-related deaths in raw numbers, but does not let us determine how to transform that into "excess mortality" as a percent - we need to know both a numerator and a denominator to be able to calculate percent.
As for your closing statement about energy poverty, you are going to have to define what you mean by that term and provide some supporting data/information if you want us to think it is anything more than a belief on your part.
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MA Rodger at 19:51 PM on 31 March 2023Solar cycles cause global warming
retiredguy @60,
A pointed out by responding comment, Beer et al (2000) is quite old and struggles with its solar irradience reconstruction. A more recent paper of which Beer is a co-author is Gray et al (2010) 'Solar influences on Climate'. This concludes by saying:-
Despite these uncertainties in solar radiative forcing, they are nevertheless much smaller than the estimated radiative forcing due to anthropogenic changes, and the predicted solar cycle‐related surface temperature change is small relative to anthropogenic changes.
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Gordon at 17:28 PM on 31 March 2023Extreme heat waves in Europe may be linked to melting Arctic sea ice
Hi Bob,
The quote comes from the paper referred to in the second paragraph link "40,000 people died". Incidently the paper was written by an insurance company and does not contain any references that I can find to support the claim. Whilst the excess mortality LINK shows 17% for July and 19% for December it does not distinguish between Covid and other causes. This LINK, however, does show the number of Covid deaths for the respective periods. Interestingly, the deaths from Covid in July were higher than in December. It is well known that more people die during cold periods than during warm (as demonstrated here), however, I believe the main driver behind these increases is energy poverty.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:35 AM on 31 March 2023Extreme heat waves in Europe may be linked to melting Arctic sea ice
Gordon:
I have not watched the video. Is the quote you provide transcribed from the video? At what time point?
The link you provide referencing the December 2022 spike generally makes no attempt to attribute the spikes it sees (in any period, let alone Dec 2022). It just reports numbers compared to a reference period. There is a paragraph saying:
"The EU registered earlier major peaks in excess deaths in April 2020 (+25%), November 2020 (+40%), April 2021 (+21%) and November 2021 (+27%). July 2022 also showed significantly higher than the baseline mortality, possibly due to the heatwaves that affected parts of Europe during the reference period.
The quote you provided includes the phrase (emphasis added) "...by subtracting from recent decadal averages and COVID-19 spikes...". That means it the raw excess mortality has been adjusted for Covid-19 (a known cause of excess mortality).
The link you gave also includes this paragraph:
"Please note that while a substantial increase in excess mortality largely coincides with the COVID-19 outbreak, this indicator does not discriminate among the causes of death and does not identify differences between sex or age.
Do you know the cause of the Dec 2022 spike, or are you just speculating?
And do you have numbers available that will allow a proper comparison of excess deaths measured as a number (40,000) and a % (the 19% given for December in the link you gave). You can't compare apples and oranges,
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Bob Loblaw at 11:09 AM on 31 March 2023Solar cycles cause global warming
retiredguy:
You have linked to the publisher's site, which only has a portion of the paper visible (along with "Access through your institution" and "Purchase PDF" buttons). Google Scholar led me to a full version here.
The first half of the paper simply reiterates a variety of reasons to expect variation in solar input to the earth system on a variety of time scales, without getting into specific solar irradiance values. They also talk about the importance of spectral variations - in addition to simple variations in total energy input.
In section 3.1, they cover "the reconstruction of the past solar irradiance". In that section, they state (emphasis added):
"Our own irradiance reconstruction is based on the frequency of the Schwabe cycle because we find a better fit with the temperature data if we assume a linear relationship between cycle frequency and irradiance (Fig. 7).
Their figure 7 is a graph of the reconstructed solar irradiance. It shows a solar irradiance value of about 1362 W/m2 in 1850, and a value of about 1366 W/m2 in 1990, for a difference of 4 W/m2. The wiggles in their reconstruction go as low as 1361 W/m2 in 1900, up to 1364 W/m2 from 1920-1950, and down to 1362 W/m2 around 1965.
Skeptical Science also has another page on "It's the sun". On that page, we see another solar irradiance reconstruction:
Note that the reconstruction from the paper you linked to shows much more variability and range. Their figure 7 mentions a "14-y low-pass filter", so it should probably be compared to the 11-year average in the above figure.
So, the first thing is that they have estimated a much larger change (about 4x) in solar irradiance over the 1850-1990 period than most other sources. This would explain their conclusions that solar forcing is a strong effect.
So, you have to ask, which solar reconstruction is better? Well, I think the clue is in the section I quoted and highlighted above, regarding their choice of method of reconstruction:
"...because we find a better fit with the temperature data..."
To put it bluntly, to claim that solar forcing is an important factor affecting temperature after choosing a solar reconstruction "because we find a better fit with the temperature data" is plain bad science. In all likelihood, they have erroneously fitted other causes of temperature change into their solar reconstruction, which leads to an overestimate of the magnitude and importance of solar forcing.
I notice their figure 10 is also for northern hemisphere temperature, not global. They do talk about the two hemispheres in the text, but I don't see an explanation as to why they did not use global temperature in their final evaluation.
In short, the main weakness is that they have a really bad solar irradiance reconstruction.
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Rob Honeycutt at 09:52 AM on 31 March 2023Solar cycles cause global warming
retiredguy... That's a very old paper and really doesn't claim much nor does it seem to present any actual research. I don't see any claim of 40%. Is there more to the paper that I'm not seeing? I ask because the the paper in that link ends with an ellipsis suggesting there's more.
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retiredguy at 09:19 AM on 31 March 2023Solar cycles cause global warming
Can anyone comment on J. Beer et al's assertion in 2000 that 40% of global warming which occurred between 1850 and 1990 was due to the sun ?
Moderator Response:[RH] Link activated
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MA Rodger at 09:17 AM on 31 March 2023Climate sensitivity is low
retiredguy @387,
Lewis (2022) 'Objectively combining climate sensitivity evidence' was given the once-over in a comment thread at RealClimate when it first appeared last year.
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Gordon at 08:55 AM on 31 March 2023Extreme heat waves in Europe may be linked to melting Arctic sea ice
"Preliminary estimates based on Gallagher Re analysis of
country-level excess mortality statistics, which determined totals
by subtracting from recent decadal averages and COVID-19 spikes,
suggested that as many as or more than 40,000 excess deaths
may be attributed to the extreme heat across the continent during
the summer months."If this really was the case why then did excess deaths spike more in December 2022 than in July 2022 ? Is this just a case of the cold being more deadly than the heat or is there something else going on here ?
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retiredguy at 08:29 AM on 31 March 2023Climate sensitivity is low
Can anyone comment on Nic Lewis' 'rebuttal' of Sherwood et al's findings ?
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-022-06468-x
Moderator Response:[BL] Link activated.
The web software here does not automatically create links. You can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box. -
retiredguy at 08:22 AM on 31 March 2023Models are unreliable
Can anyone comment (in terms that an intelligent but relative domain novice might understand) on Nic Lewis's 'rebuttal' (specifically his 3 claims and conclusion) of Steven Sherwood et al's findings relative to effective sensitivity and it's uncertainty ?
Sherwood: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019RG000678
Lewis: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-022-06468-x
Moderator Response:[BL] Links activated...
...but, you have asked the same question on another thread, and have already received an answer there.
Please do not post the same information on multiple threads. Pick one, and stick to it, so all responses can be seen together. New comments are always visible - regardless of the thread - from the Comments link immediately under the masthead.
Anyone reading this comment in the "Models are unreliable" thread should follow the link to the comment on the "How sensitive is our climate?" thread and respond there.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:50 PM on 30 March 2023Gas stoves pose health risks. Are gas furnaces and other appliances safe to use?
A quick reference to a news item I came across this week. Earlier this month, Desmog had an article about this gas stove issue, with the under-the-headline statement "The American Gas Association is trying to discredit research on the health impacts of gas stoves today. But newly revealed documents show it was discussing indoor air pollution concerns five decades ago."
As described in the Desmog article, the pattern of behaviour by an industry trade group looks awfully familiar. It is a lot like the tactics that we have seen from the fossil fuel industry over climate change issues - and by the tobacco industry over smoking and cancer issues.
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John Hartz at 04:25 AM on 30 March 2023At a glance - Is Antarctica losing or gaining ice?
Suggested supplemental reading:
Fact check: NASA Antarctic ice sheet data consistent with global warming by Kate S Petersen, Fact Check, USA Today, Mar 24, 2023
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Bob Loblaw at 23:48 PM on 27 March 2023Gas stoves pose health risks. Are gas furnaces and other appliances safe to use?
And finally, in comment #13, David-acct refers to another article critical of PAF, and provides what he calls a "money quote".
What David-acct does not do is include other quotes from the same paper's Conclusions section.
The first quote I will provide talks about assumptions related to the use of PAFs:
With respect to interpretation of an AF as the proportion of disease risk that could be eliminated if the excess risk associated with exposure were to be eliminated, there may be valuable meaning under a specific set of assumptions. In addition to the assumptions commonly listed in textbooks, there is one more critical assumption: that we can envision a specific intervention that will cause the estimated reduction in risk in the exposed while changing no other risk factor distributions.
The second quote I will provide is the final paragraph of those conclusions (emphasis added):
This paper is not an argument for never computing a population AF. It is an argument for more clarity, justification, and complex thinking when using this measure. AFs are only a beginning of the discussion of the public health consequences of intervening to reduce the prevalence of risk exposures.
Once again, the paper does not support the argument that David-acct is trying to make. From his first post, he has been trying to dismiss the results of a study simply because it used PAF. None of the references he has provided represent a blanket condemnation of PAF that he wants to think they do. They recommend caution, which is an argument applicable to any statistical method - for example, over-stating the significance of a correlation (or lack thereof) that we have seen in certain comments here.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:27 PM on 27 March 2023Gas stoves pose health risks. Are gas furnaces and other appliances safe to use?
To follow up on Michael Sweet's comment 15, pointing out that the study that David-acct has linked to is related to open fires, here is the relevant quote from the Interpretation section:
The use of open fires for cooking is associated with an increased risk of symptoms of asthma and of asthma diagnosis in children. Because a large percentage of the world population uses open fires for cooking, this method of cooking might be an important modifiable risk factor if the association is proven to be causal.
(The full paper is behind a paywall. Onlne availability at The Lancet is limited to this.)
Questions for David-acct:
- How may households in the U.S. use open fires for cooking?
- Are open fires used for cooking expected to be a significant contributor to asthma in the U.S.?
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Bob Loblaw at 23:11 PM on 27 March 2023Gas stoves pose health risks. Are gas furnaces and other appliances safe to use?
David-acct:
Now you are tripling down on your erroneous analysis.
As I have pointed out, your lack of correlation is meaningless. Your methodology gets no correlation even when applied to a set of data that is completely explained by two variables, including the one that you claim has "no correlation". A bogus search for correlation - by ignoring confounding variables - is not evidence for anything.
And, as I have pointed out, PAF is not the measure that used to determine whether or not a single variable affects an outcome - it is an application of other results (the Odds Ratio, in this case) where gas stoves have been previously assessed against other possible causes of asthma.
Your continued focus on PAF is unfortunate.
Your 'by design?" quip in comment 14 is an accusation of dishonesty on the part of the authors of the study in question. That is a serious accusation.
Have you provided the wrong link for your "much newer, more comprehensive" study mentioned in comment 14? That link leads to a paper from 2013 - the same year as the metastudy that is the first reference in the paper mentioned in the original blog post. In fact, the paper that you linked to is listed in the references of the metastudy. How was this study "omitted" when it is part of the chain of references?
The authors also did a search for newer material, and assessed a number of papers, but none had any newer material. They state, in their Materials amd Methods section:
Full manuscripts (n = 27) were independently reviewed by co-authors; none reported new associations between gas stove use and childhood asthma specifically in North America or Europe.
As for the use of data from North America and some of Europe: the authors of the study referenced in the OP are explicit regarding this in their Materials and Methods section (emphasis added):
We combined effect sizes for North America and Europe given the similarities in housing characteristics and gas-stove usage patterns across these geographies.
What this means is that they are looking for results that can reasonably apply to the U.S. with minimum difficulty. Selecting data that comes from similar environments reduces the likelihood that there are confounding variables that are not controlled for. This is good scientific practise: search for relevant results that are directly applicable to your use case. Do not include results that have factors that are not present in the area that you are analyzing.
Frankly, you are clutching at straws to try to dismiss the results of this study. It is clear that you do not understand the methodology, you do not understand the statistics, and you do not understand the chain of supporting evidence referenced in the sequence of papers cited in the relevant studies. You keep missing essential details in the papers that cover the "criticisms" that you are making. The only parts you seem to be reading are the parts that you erroneously seem to think invalidate the study.
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michael sweet at 22:35 PM on 27 March 2023Gas stoves pose health risks. Are gas furnaces and other appliances safe to use?
David-Acct,
The study you link is much older than the stuy Bob Loblaw linked. In fact, the study that Bob linked only reviewed studies that were pubished after the study you linked. Your statement "a much newer. more comprehensive and robust study" is incorrect. Bob's study also only used data from the USA and Europe while your link used worldwide data, mostly from open fires.
The study that Bob linked used data from 9 states. They are not the same states that you produced data for in post 7. You have not linked where you obtained the data you posted. Where did you get the data in post 7? I note that the study Bob linked used all the states where the most comprehensive data was available for. How were the states you selected chosen? Was a list of all the states reviewed and these picked out for some reason?
