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Comments 21651 to 21700:

21651. nigelj at 07:22 AM on 6 January 2017
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       Daniel Mocsny @ 18, ok I concede taxation relates to self interest and weighing costs and benefits.

       However I'm a pragmatist, and carbon taxes are highly likely to work at least to some extent! Remember rates of smoking have declined from almost 50% of the population in the 1960s to 15% (in my country), and theres strong evidence tobacco taxes form a large part of that drop.

       Humans are indeed self interested creatures. I just think this is pretty deeply coded in our genes, and won't be changing fast. Therefore we might as well target this with something like a carbon tax.

       However we also have evolved to have an altruistic tendency that helps us make moral choices. However you give no indication of how you would promote this. So far appeals to consider the third world or future generations "fall on deaf ears" with some people.

       I dont think its an "either or" situation where we must go with self interest or altruism. It is more likely to be a combination of both. They are not mutually exclusive and history shows they have co-existed for a long time. However right now we probaly have the balance a bit too tilted to self interest.

       I think the air travel argument is wearing very thin. This is the only option to attend multinational conferences. I also know for a fact plenty of greenies do take personal responsibility and have voluntarily made some better lifestyle choices.

       Of course there are also hypocrites who talk about the need for climate action but do precisely nothing, but not everyone is like this.

       A big factor in the climate issue is renewable energy generation, and practically speaking only governments can really push this. Polls show popular support even if it does introduce some costs in the short term (and studies are showing these costs are very small or near break even). Governments however are ignoring the will of the people in some countries, maybe because they are captive to campaign donors.

       My point is things are complicated.

       But coming back to your moral values point, you offer no indication of how you change peoples moral values. At least a carbon tax sends the signal that fossil fuel use is considered a problem. This at least provides the information people need in order to make moral choices.

       Hopefully people learn to do the right thing and rather fast! Sometimes it takes a while for people to make these sorts of decisions but if you look at history, many things in life reach "tipping points" and suddenly there is quite rapid mass change in attitudes, actions and laws.

21652. nigelj at 06:31 AM on 6 January 2017
       As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated
       

       EliofVA @13, I think as a general rule people mentally calculate the odds of some problem, and rank that against the advantages of living in some fashionable area, or one that may also have jobs. I would do this. Psychological and economic research has found we mentally calculate the odds and trade offs, and its totally normal.

       Floods have some level of predictability: For example maybe once a year on average in locations near where I live. This makes it easier to make a mental risk and cost assessment, and many people decide to live with flood prone environments. ( Not eagerly, but having considered the costs and benefits)

       I would suggest sea level rise is different. It is an increasing phenomenon and harder to quantify costs and effects, other than to say it's not looking good. As you say people are ignoring the vulnerabilities. We also have people claiming global warming is a scam. People are thus likely to be making poor quality decisions, and not doing well informed mental calculations, or taking sufficient precautions.

21653. Philippe Chantreau at 04:52 AM on 6 January 2017
       NOAA was right: we have been underestimating warming
       

       Cooper13, anything and everything will be seized by some as opportunities to claim that the data are unreliable, regrdless of the vacuity of the argument. We live in a post reality, post information world that is no better connected to reality than the melanesian cargo cults. There is nothing that can be done to prevent some to make noise about the unreliability of this or that; the noise itself is their goal and achievement.

21654. Cooper13 at 03:54 AM on 6 January 2017
       NOAA was right: we have been underestimating warming
       

       One concern I have with how these studies are communicated in the press and in blogs, is the use of the terms 'cooling bias' in previous NOAA datasets. This basically tees up the ball for the denial crew to use those quotes and words in claiming 'funny business' with the data.

       I think it is more clear to the layperson and to the press to simply explain that older ship-based engine room data imposed an 'artificial warming' bias on the older data, by a small amount. When datasets were shifted over to buoys, that older 'artificial warm' bias disappears, which is the reason things 'looked cooler', because that superimposed warmer data was no longer used. We went from a dataset which should have had a small temperature correction subtracted from it, to one that did not need that correction. Almost like an LP record 'skipping back a track' when the data were switched from one source to another.

       Thus, for decades prior to buoy use, we were unknowingly and slightly overestimating the warming, up until the late 1990s, because the engine room data were not corrected properly. With the new correction, "the LP record no longer skips" and ALL of the datasets are better harmonized. And you can easily see with the updated corrections, the 'LP record skip is now gone'.

       So, this is really more a correction to the 'older' datasets (in absolute temperatures) than to the 'new' datasets. Maybe explaining the data in 'absolute' temperature measurements instead of 'deltas' would help, too....

21655. enSKog at 03:50 AM on 6 January 2017
       NOAA was right: we have been underestimating warming
       

       Nice way to start the new year, with some proper science.

       Why are there 3 Argo records and why are they different?

21656. ELIofVA at 02:05 AM on 6 January 2017
       Climate change in 2016: the good, the bad, and the ugly
       

       I do not know James Lovelocks ideas on the reversal of Climate Change? However, this is more than pure science.  Scientest examine the physical world to determine the truth.  However, as new truth's are revealed, it is important for creative people learn how to adapt to live within the truths that are revealed.  This is a very important role for non scientist.  What is clear to me and needs to be considered in our culture is that when we emit more carbon than can be sequestered atmospheric concentrations go up.  If you discern that is the problem, the only solution is to limit human carbon emissions to what can be sequestered.  All emissions below the net zero line are within the carbon cycle and do not add to carbon concentration.  Net Zero is an important reference that needs to be understood.  The only way to reduce carbon in the atmosphere is to develop a net sequestration economy where human emissions are less than what cana be sequestered.  Imagining how we can achieve a net sequestration economy moves us toward a vision of how to build a place for the human community that protects the life resilience we are blessed to live among.   

21657. ELIofVA at 01:23 AM on 6 January 2017
       As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated
       

       My cousin and his husband live in a high rise condominium a few blocks from the ocean in Fort Lauderdale.  They are on the ground floor.  I encouraged them to consider how they would respond to a major hurricane.  A month later, Hurricane Mathew came by.  They hunkered down.  Fortunately the storm's eye did not follow the coast line as predicted.  The eye was 20 miles out in the ocean.  Therefore they were spared a Sandy scale storm surge.  They got away with it.  They are only leasing the apartment, therefore are not as at risk financially.  If a significant storm surge  put them under, they can take the stairwell to upper floors to protect themselves.  However, it is a personal example a couple that is comitted to being in a hip location by ignoring the vulnerabilities.  

21658. Tom Curtis at 19:25 PM on 5 January 2017
       Sea level rise due to floating ice?
       

       Spaded Ace @60, the argument is not whether the melting of glacial ice will, or will not, raise sea level; but whether the melting of sea ice, ie, the ice that forms on the surface of the sea at low temperatures, will (or will not) raise sea levels.

21659. Spaded Ace at 16:03 PM on 5 January 2017
       Sea level rise due to floating ice?
       

       I'm following this but I have to say it appears as though the lab experiments have been conducted in error. Glaciel ice does not solely precipitate from beneath, when ocean levels reach tempuratures below 28.8f - the tempurature at which water with a salinity content of 35ppt will freeze. Most glacial ice precipitates from above, and is compacted by its own weight, coupled with occasional rainfall and warmer air tempuratures. With all this is mind, it is time to do the "melt test".
       If you fill a 5 gallon bucket with snow and melt it, you will get approximately 10%wbv. If you fill the same bucket with glaciel ice, melting results in 30%wbv, on average. Glacial ice, or compacted snow, can be as much as 70%wbv if it is trapped in a valley on a hard surface, with no exit, and low air tempuratures. Glacial ice which flows, melts underneath, or forms above water seldom reaches 50%wbv. On average, 35%wbv.
       Understanding these factors, realize that clear ice cubes are clear because they are more than 90%wbv, while glacial ice or snowpack is not clear becuase its composition includes more oxygen than water due to its crystaline structure. To conduct an accurate lab test, scrape the snowy sides of your freezer and compact it into an ice tray. Drop your snowballs into a glass of 35ppt NaCl (salt) and record the level. Melt the snowballs, and record the level. Be surprised. The displacement of glacial ice, which floats 90% below surface and 10% above surface, is a definite factor. With warmer ocean tempuratures due to sea ice dissipation, evaporation increases resulting in heavier precipitation.

       Legend:

       ppt: parts per thousand, or 35grams of salt per 1000grams of water

       wbv: water-by-volume, or 1gallon of water per 10gallons of snow

21660. Daniel Mocsny at 10:54 AM on 5 January 2017
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       nigelj@17:

       "I don't think such a tax is playing quite to self interest, as much as it would just be sending a signal."

       Sending a signal to what? To the self-interest-maximizing brains of market players. Prices and taxes send signals to buyers and sellers who use the information as they seek to maximize their individual self-interest. You're not going to spend $300 on a banana when you can buy one for $0.30. That's a basis for economic theory, that individuals are selfish and we use money to keep score of how many benefits to self we manage to gouge out of other people and avoid giving away to other people. Adam Smith's concept of The Invisible Hand is how economists transformed the individual moral vices of greed and selfishness into public virtues. (Free market fundamentalists go too far, by ignoring the negative externalities that can wipe out the unintended public benefits from individual greed.)

       A carbon tax is a type of Pigovian tax which internalizes a negative externality - it forces a greenhouse gas emitter to pay for some or all of the damage his or her emissions will inflict on other people or the natural world. But only an immoral selfish person needs to be forced to take responsibility for the harm he or she inflicts on others. Inflicting external costs on other people is a form of theft, and moral people don't steal. If people weren't selfish, they would already be treating fossil fuels as if their real prices were much higher than the selling prices. Morally responsible people would already be behaving the way the carbon tax signals the selfish people to behave.

       By analogy, consider a person who only refrains from committing crime because he thinks he'll be caught and punished. That's why we have police and jails - because a fraction of people lack the moral integrity to behave civilly.

       Criminals try to resist and undermine the justice system. Every form of coercion has its limits. We tax tobacco, but we are far from eliminating tobacco, even after decades of taxing it. Tobacco still kills over 400,000 Americans every year, and vast numbers of children still take up the habit.

       There are limits to coercion - if you push people harder than they want to be pushed, they push back. If tobacco taxes go too high, you get more tobacco smuggling and black market activity to circumvent the tax. You have to spend more resources on enforcement. Similarly with income taxes - the higher the tax rate, the more you stimulate an industry of tax evasion.

       There is really no substitute for changing people's moral values. A person who actually wants to do something will do it better than someone you have to coerce.

       But merely telling people the facts about climate change doesn't cause them to stop contributing to climate change. Just look at all the climate meetings filled with activists who burned jet fuel to get there. The problem is that no snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. When people take an interest in climate change, their first response is usually to think about grandiose government action rather than their own action - even though the goal of all the high-level actions is to nudge individuals to burn less fossil fuel. Almost all of the official messaging on climate change contributes to this denial of individual responsibility. This is because almost every influential person is in the top few centiles of the carbon footprint distribution. Politicians, journalists, prominent activists, etc. - they all ply their trade with jet fuel. This is an enormous barrier to getting honest discussion and real action on climate change. Imagine trying to get rid of heroin if everybody in government, the press, etc. was a heroin addict. No politician is going to propose that we limit everyone to their individual fair share of greenhouse gas emissions, because you can't have a political career on a fair share. Most people have no idea there is such a thing as an individual fair share of greenhouse gas emissions - that's one of the best-kept secrets in the whole climate issue.

21661. nigelj at 10:47 AM on 5 January 2017
       As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated
       

       Daniel Mocsny @10, what you say applies to floods. In my country we are going further with information on sea level rise trends tailored to specific cities. It may not alter behaviour, but at least people would be informed and have nobody else to blame, and can make informed choices.

       "My advice to anyone living within a vertical meter of high tide: sell now while there are still climate science deniers or ignorers dumb enough to buy."

       Totally agree. And if people must build on very low land at least think about foundation heights. The cost of this may be small compared to preserving good resale value, especially if  you intend to live in one place for a lengthy time. Sea level rise is expected to follow an accelerating trend and may catch unwary people out.

       However I admit good foundation height would be of limited value if other infrastructure is vulnerable.

21662. nigelj at 10:36 AM on 5 January 2017
       As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated
       

       People are probably continuing to build in these low lying areas for several reasons. It's probably partly ignorance about sea level rise, and part hoping it will be the next owners probem, and as someone says assuming the government will bail out the insurance companies, or otherwise fix the problem for "free".

       But nothing is free. This is kicking the can down the road, and putting the costs on tax payers or future generations, somewhat unfairly. It's the same issue as Americas ever growing public (government) debt, a problem many other countries have as well.

       At the very least people need good information from local governments so they can make informed choices. Those occasional "nuisance"floods will get worse and dumb buyers probably don't realsie the water can be contaminated with sewerage and cause severe damage and take weeks to repair.

       It leaves the question of whether local government should have building laws banning developement in very low lying areas, or at least require higher than normal foundations. Anyone with any sense should push for this. Slightly higher foundations wont add much cost.

       Don't count on local bodies building barriers to protect things.

21663. Daniel Mocsny at 10:12 AM on 5 January 2017
       As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated
       

       nigelj@3: in the USA every flood zone has been mapped by FEMA for decades, yet every time the designated flood zones do what they're predicted to do - flood - there are always victims acting surprised.

       In October 2001, a few years before Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a paper in Scientific American described what a major hurricane strike could do to New Orleans. Of course it was largely ignored at the time. Only after the 1000-plus deaths and billions in property damage occurred did priorities shift to free up the billions needed to improve the flood defenses of New Orleans. But they're flushing money away on a lost cause, as future costs will rise geometrically as sea levels go up.

       My advice to anyone living within a vertical meter of high tide: sell now while there are still climate science deniers or ignorers dumb enough to buy.

21664. Daniel Mocsny at 10:02 AM on 5 January 2017
       As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated
       

       knaugle@1: In real estate development the rent-to-value ratio is important. If demand from renters is high enough in a particular area, rents can go high enough to justify building temporary structures.

       An extreme example was the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 which featured 200 new buildings that were mostly demolished after one year of use. But those buildings were purposely designed to be temporary, so they were cheaper to build than permanent structures.

21665. Glenn Tamblyn at 09:46 AM on 5 January 2017
       New study confirms NOAA finding of faster global warming
       

       Well done to all.
       
       And for those who haven't spotted it, 4 of the authors are SkS regulars - Zeke Hausfather, Kevin Cowtan, Peter Jacobs and Mark Richardson.
       
       I hope Lamar Smith is enjoying his morning coffee and reading the paper :-)

21666. Wol at 09:11 AM on 5 January 2017
       As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated
       

       >>I've read, in the news, maybe last Summer?, that developers calculate that by 2040, many Miami oceanfront buildings today will be in trouble, but figure they will have made back their investments with profit by 2030, so who cares? Of course I could just be making this up?<<

       It's (to misquote the economists' phrase) the "Buyer of last resort" problem.

       Not only does the house owner have to consider his own tenancy term but also whether the NEXT owner would buy at the end of his ownership.

       Then of course whether the potential buyer would himself make the same assumption. How far down the chain of ownership is it sensible to go?

21667. Kiwiiano at 05:32 AM on 5 January 2017
       As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated
       

       What worries me it that Miami's problems are carbon copied to Christchurch NZ, except that we are built on equally porous alluvial gravels. We delight in the thought that beautifully fresh & clean water can percolate through the gravels from mountain snowfall but steadfastly ignore the fact that rising sea water can reverse the flow. With the present day high tide mark on our Avon river barely a km from the center of ChCh, the predicted 5m SLR from the optimistic 2°C temperature increase will leave much of the city underwater.

       No doubt the same or similar problems will occur world-wide.

21668. william5331 at 05:12 AM on 5 January 2017
       As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated
       

       Clearly the insurance companies are still giving insurance for these buildings and they don't give insurance if they are going to loose money.  They are therefore, most likely depending on the government (taxpayer) to bail them out and in the mean time they are pocketing big premiums.  It boils down to the root of most of our truly serious problems today.  We have to get vested interest money out of politics.  As long as the insurance companies can finance the politicians, they will carry on using our money to bail out the insurance companies.  At least with zero financing of politicians by vested interests we would have a chance of sorting out the mess.

21669. Daniel Bailey at 02:05 AM on 5 January 2017
       Climate change in 2016: the good, the bad, and the ugly
       

       That's how science works.  It may seem ruthless to those not acquainted with it, but science advances, remorselessly, as better evidence brings improved understandings to light.

21670. jacktar at 01:42 AM on 5 January 2017
       Climate change in 2016: the good, the bad, and the ugly
       

       Fair enough; if a bit harsh.

21671. Daniel Bailey at 01:27 AM on 5 January 2017
       Climate change in 2016: the good, the bad, and the ugly
       

       "What is everyones opinion on James Lovelocks reversal on Climate Change?"

       No one cares about opinions in this venue.  In a science-based venue such as this, all that matters is domain-level command of the science and being able to support your position with citations to the relevant credible literature.

21672. jacktar at 01:15 AM on 5 January 2017
       Climate change in 2016: the good, the bad, and the ugly
       

       What is everyones opinion on James Lovelocks reversal on Climate Change?

21673. michael sweet at 21:08 PM on 4 January 2017
       As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated
       

       Driving by,

       They currently are spending several hundred million dollars to raise streets in Miami.  Someone has to pay those increased fees now.  The pictures of businesses two steps down from the road don't make you feel very welcome.  That can't be good for business.  Tourists wading to their apartments do not look good either.

       When they get the next hurricane it will be a foot deeper.  That will cause a lot more flooding.  When the hurricane hits it might be the last straw for the Federal flood insurance.  

       If the Feds get out of insurance most of the homes in Miami will not be insurable.  What will that do to housing values?  Once insurance rates reflect current risk billions of dollars of real estate value  will vanish.  After Sandy they talked about raising rates and property became unsellable.  Insurance costs were as high as mortgages for properties.  That faded as the Feds backed down.  I think that after the next big hurricane, wherever it strikes, the Feds will finally raise rates.  If not the first hurricane than the second.  A big hurricane hits the US every 5 or 10 years.

       There is a good chance the bottom will drop out of the market all at once when insurance goes up.  I do not think we will have to wait until 2040 for that to happen.

21674. DrivingBy at 14:02 PM on 4 January 2017
       As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated
       

       So? 

       If you're planning to live there for 15 years, what will probably happen in 2040 is not your issue. If you're now 70 and are buying property, you'll be somewhere else well before 2040. The nasty effects of SLR on South Florida beyond nuisance flooding will be after 2050. By then perhaps they'll have problems with no technical solution, but nobody buying now cares. 

       Yeah, it's stupid, but stupid is usually the rule. Then again, when smart people bravely invent a new world, it's usually far worse than the work of the 'stupid' folks.  

21675. Tom Curtis at 09:28 AM on 4 January 2017
       Record-breaking Arctic warmth ‘extremely unlikely’ without climate change
       

       Kuni @11, according to Rogelj et al's Probability Density Function (PDF) of the IPCC statements on the Equilibrium Climate Response, there is up to a 5% chance, based on all the evidence, that the temperature response from a doubling of CO2 after feedbacks will be less than that expected with no feedbacks.  There is a near one in three chance that the temperature response will be 2 C or less, and a 50% chance it will be less than 2.5 C.  Indeed the most likely single value (mode of the PDF) is around 1.7 C.

       

       (Detailed discussion)

       The IPCC do not commit to a specific PDF, and alternate PDFs consistent with their statement give different but similar values for low temperature responses.  Any reasonable PDF for their statements will give a modal temperature of 2 C or less.  It follows that "luke warmers", the most rational camp within the agw "skeptic" community, are not wrong to think that a low temperature response has a reasonably high probability.  Where they tend to be wrong is in downplaying or rejecting the low (25% or less, depending on PDF) risk of an ECS above 3 C; generally by restricting the data they will accept.  They are guilty of unreasonably high certainty, based on undully restricted evidence - ie, of dogmatism.

       The IPCC uncertainty about impacts is greater than it uncertainty about ECS, with a corresponding higher probability of low impacts from significant temperature increases.  Again, the expectation of such low impacts is not entirely unreasonable.  What is unreasonable about the "skeptic" position is the unwarranted exclusion of the probability of high impacts.  Not certainty, of, but probability of.  

       The upshot is that your position, which unreasonably excludes the probability of low temperature responses and low impacts is (at best) at least as dogmatic and irrational as that of the AGW "skeptics".  Indeed, any position that neglects the low probability of a soft landing from AGW and expresses dogmatism that the impacts will be high if we do nothing is contrary to the science.  What is the case is that the probability of such a soft landing is low, being the product of two probabilities already less than 50%.  And ignoring that for rhetorical reasons merely makes us easy to ignore. 

21676. nigelj at 08:44 AM on 4 January 2017
       Climate change in 2016: the good, the bad, and the ugly
       

       Michael Sweet, 1.5 degrees Celsius could well be true if you take it wider from 1750 right to this year. I personally have no argument with that.

       However regardless of exact numbers and start and end points, studies like Marcott going back over 10,000 years show just how unprecedented recent temperatures are. I remain optimistic that if the public are made aware numerous studies keep duplicating the original hockey stick the facts will eventually sink in.

       Debates are eventually won on the facts. Even Trump is going to find that out the hard way because right now all his policies (climate change, foreign policy, and economic etc) are  all based on fallacies of various kinds, and are therefore very foolish policies. They are foolish for other reasons as well.

21677. nigelj at 08:09 AM on 4 January 2017
       Facts matter, and on climate change, Trump's picks get them wrong
       

       One Planet Only @20, by climate change being perceived as a future issue and a difficult one to get to grips with mentally, I meant humans are genetically and psychologically hardwired to think short term. Psychology has done a lot of research on this.

       Not everyone is like this, but its dominant in many people. We have to overcome this somehow.

       I agree we should be considering future generations and aiming for a lasting and better future, otherwise life just seems pointless and totally hedonistic.

       The difficultly is convincing people because opinions clearly vary. Some people are short sighted in their values by nature, others more altruistic.

       I think the issue is we probably have to acknowledge the value of self interest and economic competition, but also emphasise the value of altruism. I don't think they are mutually exclusive. I think evolution has generated both instincts so they both seem to have survival value.

       But we need to emphasise altruism more than we are currently doing. I think the neoliberal economic revolution since the mid 1980's has over emphasised selfishness. I'm talking the "greed is good" mentality. This has made it very hard to reduce carbon emissions. The values system has become out of balance or skewed towards greed.

       It has made some people sceptical about climate science and wilfully ignorant, as they try to justify continuing to use fossil fuels and take a generally self centred attitude, and one that is fixated on the present.

       This is of course unsustainable, and we need some boundaries as a society to stop this.

21678. nigelj at 07:30 AM on 4 January 2017
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       Daniel Mocsny @16, your comments are perceptive, and I agree with much of what you say, in general terms. Here are a few thoughts:

       One of the problems with religious doctrine is indeed its fixed nature. This is one reason I'm an athiest, along with the singular lack of hard evidence for religious belief. However, looking at it positively at least some churches have recognised the difficulty and have a mechanism for "new revelations" that allow some flexibility of doctrine. It's a contortionist exercise of course but I do admire The Popes repositioning on at least some things, including climate change and this could ultimately be quite influential.

       I take your point about the problems of prohibition. I'm not a great believer in prohibition, and you would need a compelling case and wide public support. Forcing fossil fuel companies to keep fossil fuels in the ground may be unlikely to gain public support.

       I disagree somewhat about a carbon tax.  I think such a thing can change behaviour and also provide an income that can be directed as we choose. The proof is reductions in tobacoo use  due to tobacco taxes. Rates of use have dropped immediately taxes have been introduced or increased. Clearly other things have helped as well.

       I don't think such a tax is playing quite to self interest, as much as it would just be sending a signal.

       Clearly government regulation of electricity companies has also led to some real gains in promoting renewable energy. Subsidies have also helped kick start things.

       However most people clearly do support some degree of taxation, and / or regulatory control of unsafe activities. Mainstream economics accepts markets sometimes fail to self regulate and require government regulation or taxation as appropriate, but the case needs to be strong.

       However clearly for the public to support such things as regulations or taxes, they must be convinced they need supporting. We are a democracy and regulation or prohibition (if it was to go that far) need quite substantial public support.

       Perhaps this is where I agree with you that it becomes a values or moral decision by the public. Right now everyone is confused and a bit scared about costs of reducing climate change, and about giving up the oil addiction etc. Theres still a lot of climate scepticism of various types and the variety of scepticism makes it a confounding sort of issue, although a lot of it is ultimately rooted in ideological beliefs about role of government.

       However I'm inclined to think changes in public perception tend to be generated by good knowledge about climate change and the foolish nature of climate scepticism. In the end, "facts" matter and they matter a lot in ultimately winning debates. Europe is more enlightened on climate change than America for example. It's a question of whether the debate can be won in time to convince governments and individuals to take firmer actions.

       You make the comment that WW2 was won not on self intererst but more on abstract notions of national interest and doing the right thing. One could argue the British took an altruistic view of doing things for the good of the country. It's an interesting thought. One could appeal to peoples concern for the welfare of future generations, however I dont think this alone would be enoughand we probably need a range of things to motivate people.

       In fact I think self interest is taken sort of the flip side of altruism but both things are actually more closely related than we think.

       The other possibility that may galvanise people to demand strong action on climate change, and also to take it themselves could simply be physical reality. Last years temperature record will slowly sink in. Things reach tipping points, including human beleifs and behaviour and can suddenly and dramatically change.

       You may find this book interesting:  "The Moral Arc", by Michael Shermer, which argues morality is improving and its largely due to science. He provides a lot of hard evidence.

21679. michael sweet at 07:18 AM on 4 January 2017
       Climate change in 2016: the good, the bad, and the ugly
       

       Nigelj,

       According to GISS monthly data December 2015- November 2016 was 1.02C above baseline (1950-1979).  1880-1890 was about -.17C.  Add a little for 1750-1880 and you are very close to 1.5C for the year.   If you take the peak monthly anomaly (Feburary 1.33C) and add the .17 to 1880 and you get 1.50C for that month even without the adjustment to 1750.  1.5C over baseline was observed during at least February and March 2016.  Average Oct '15-Apr '16 is 1.15C + .17 to 1880 + .2 to 1750 = 1.51C.  Cowtan and Way February 2016 1.134C + .399 (average of 1850, high error) = 1.53C

       I think the claim that 1.5C has been observed is sustainable.  It probably has not been observed for a whole year average yet, but it certainly has been observed for two consecutive months.  

21680. nigelj at 06:31 AM on 4 January 2017
       As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated
       

       I think the key to this sea level rise issue is people having good information, and governments making sure this is provided by appropriate bodies. For example in New Zealand we have a document called a Lim (land information memorandum) that local government have to provide to anyone contemplating building or significantly altering a house. It warns of known problems or hazards.

       This Lim is going to now include sea level rise estimates for all low lying properties and related information, but in simple concise form. It's being developed right now.

       It will give people information relevant to local conditions in specific cities, but without automatically dictating where they can build or how they build. It will be based on IPCC middle range estimates, and also considers local geology (erosion, uplift and subsidence etc) and for NZ this equates to about 1 metre by the end of the  century. It will be upgraded as estimates change.

       This is at least a start. Nobody will be able to say they weren't warned.

21681. Daniel Mocsny at 06:04 AM on 4 January 2017
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       nigelj@15: The fundamental danger of religion is that it brainwashes people to place their trust in human authority while at the same time fooling themselves into thinking they are trusting something else (such as "God"). That leaves religious people vulnerable to being led anywhere the human authority wants them to go. That can either be bad or good.

       Some religions forbid behaviors that science has found to be lethal, such as alcohol consumption. Alcohol kills around 75,000 Americans per year, with many of the victims being young enough to have had decades of life expectancy remaining. If Americans were to adopt a religion that bans booze (for example Islam), the reduction in deaths might make up for the increase in honor killings, stonings, beheadings, suicide bomings, etc. Religiously motivated violence is deplorable, but it gets far more news coverage than the numerically greater killings from substance abuse. Then again, Islam was invented in a time and place where people didn't yet know about tobacco. Tobacco is now the world's number one cause of preventable death, accounting for about 10% of all human deaths! (Over 5 million deaths/yr globally, and over 400,000/yr just in the USA.) Yet the fixed doctrine of Islam does not change to account for this new poison, with the result that tobacco use is prevalent throughout the Islamic world. In part this is because tobacco is one of the few vices Islam does not forbid.

       A key aspect of religion, which secular policymaking lacks entirely, is the ability to change people's values. When economists try to change people's behavior, the best they can do is try to change the incentive structure in which rationally self-interested players try to maximize benefits to self. That is, economists can only appeal to individual greed and selfishness. They cannot fundamentally change that aspect of people. Furthermore, as the rise of Donald Trump illustrates with horrifying clarity, economists cannot insulate the incentive structure from being manipulated by the very people the economists are trying to incentivize. They can't keep the monkeys in their cages. If we try to incentivize people to emit less greenhouse gas by slapping them with a carbon tax, we equally incentivize them to look for ways to undermine the carbon tax - such as by funding think tanks to spread disinformation, buying policians, or voting for Trump. If the selfish value-maximizers figure out it is cheaper to get rid of the carbon tax than to comply with it, they get rid of it.

       We saw the same thing with Prohibition in the USA. Boozers weighed up all the costs and decided it made more sense to undermine Prohibition than to comply with it.

       As another analogy, imagine a group of economists try to find an incentive structure that would transform a Supermax prison facility into a social utopia. You can't reach the Moon by climbing a tree, and you can't turn hardened criminals and sociopaths into productive, law-abiding citizens by adjusting the tax code. To have a civil society, you need most people to behave morally most of the time, even when it goes against their short-term selfish interests. Changing the economic system at most causes small adjustments to human behavior. To get transformative behavior change you need transformative moral change - you must transform what people value. Eliminating crime requires persuading everybody to view theft, violence, and harming others as wrong, even when you personally benefit. You need a large fraction of people to be so honest and morally upright that if they find a bag full of money on the street they will return it to its rightful owner rather than keep it.

       Religion can change people's values, but so can secular philosophy. Secular philosophy has the added advantage that it can be based on evidence, and can improve by taking new evidence into account. Religion is extremely poor at accounting for new evidence, because religion is fundamentally about rejecting evidence.

       As to the goodness of Katharine Hayhoe - I fully agree. She comes across as a genuinely good person. If all religious people were like her, religion wouldn't be much of a problem. So let's hope she succeeds.

       However, she has certainly picked a tough fight. Even if she does somehow persuade significant numbers of Evangelicals to accept the scientific facts of climate change, they're still going to vote Republican because they don't accept the Democratic Party's positions on other issues like gay rights and reproductive choice. Thus you have to ask: how many decades would the Hayhoe approach take to bear fruit? Remember that Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million, and only won the Electoral College with a tiny margin in three critical swing states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, by 100,000 total votes or less). It would be far more efficient to turn a few hundred thousand Evangelicals into atheists and thus into liberal Democrats than to turn tens of millions of them into science-acceptors who remain social-religious conservatives who might then be able to shift the entire Republican Party into supporting climate policy.

       But even so, I don't believe policy is where the future of Earth's climate gets decided. I believe morality is the real playing field. Humans are changing the climate because individual humans obtain benefits to self by contributing to climate change. There is no combination of policy and foreseeable technology that will change those game rules soon enough to prevent catastrophic climate change. (That is, zero-carbon alternatives will not become cheaper than existing dirty alternatives for everything we currently do, such as power generation, transportation, agriculture, cement manufacture, etc., before we have locked in catastrophic amounts of climate change. If you want to take an airplane flight in the year 2050, you will almost certainly burn fossil-fuel derived kerosene to do it.) Our only way out is for people to become far less selfish. People must come to value not contributing to climate change more than they value the benefits to self from contributing to climate change.

       In a similar way, we didn't fight World War II by appealing to self-interest. You didn't get soldiers to land on Omaha Beach and charge into the German MG 42s by adjusting the incentive structure. You needed soldiers who had an abstract value that overrode their rational self-interest.

21682. nigelj at 05:51 AM on 4 January 2017
       Climate change in 2016: the good, the bad, and the ugly
       

       Maybe John Abraham was simply thinking of 1.5 degrees fahrenheit given he is American? The world has warmed that much since 1880 to approx. 2010 according to NASA. In no way does it detract from the many obvious truths in the article.

       It's sad that the mainstream media dont report much on the falling cost of renewable energy. I just hear about it on a few websites like this. But then the fossil fuel lobby is very powerful, so draw your own conclusions.

21683. william5331 at 05:23 AM on 4 January 2017
       Climate change in 2016: the good, the bad, and the ugly
       

       An additonal possible 'bad' is that despite an evening out or even slight decrease in the world's carbon output into the atmosphere, the CO2 level in the atmosphere made a bigger jump than ever before.  This may just be an effect of El Nino but the coming year will give some clarity if this is so. If it is a trend and continues, we are in a spot of bother.

21684. Kuni at 05:15 AM on 4 January 2017
       This is not normal – climate researchers take to the streets to protect science
       

       Yes, it is normal. Welcome to end result of when you dick around with useless crapola that most people don’t understand like "95% confidence interval" or phrases like "extremely likely."

       Every single climate expert needs to state the following at the beginning, middle, and end of every presentation, news conference, symposium, peer reviewed paper, and in their sleep:

       When it comes to global warming there is no debate, there is no discussion, and there is no opinion. There are only those who want to commit mass murder on a global scale with global warming, and those who do not want to commit mass murder on a global scale.

       The difference between Conservatives and ISIL/Daesh members: ISIL/Daesh members are a better class of hominid because at least they don’t lie about wanting to murder us.

       Claiming that global warming is a hoax is worse than sitting around a Hamburg apartment planning to hijack passenger jets and crash them into office towers.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Excessive repetition snipped.

21685. Kuni at 05:06 AM on 4 January 2017
       As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated
       

       So hire Goldman to create a derivative that permits a long term short of the insurance companies with large exposure to low lying areas.

       No one ever went broke betting on Americans doing the wrong thing.

21686. Kuni at 04:56 AM on 4 January 2017
       Record-breaking Arctic warmth ‘extremely unlikely’ without climate change
       

       Oooooooooooo, extremely unlikely. That will really convince people to ignore those claiming reality is a myth.

       Climate scientists need to up their game. EVERY statement that climate scientists make needs to open with the following:

       When it comes to global warming there is no debate, there is no discussion, and there is no opinion. There are only those who want to commit mass murder on a global scale with global warming, and those who do not want to commit mass murder on a global scale.

       The difference between Conservatives and ISIL/Daesh members: ISIL/Daesh members are a better class of hominid because at least they don’t lie about wanting to murder us.

       Claiming that global warming is a hoax is worse than sitting around a Hamburg apartment planning to hijack passenger jets and crash them into office towers.

       Moderator Response:

       [DB] As others have noted, future comments standing in direct violation of this site's Comments Policy are subject to summary deletion.  At the discretion of the moderators, future posting ability may be rescinded.

21687. knaugle at 02:30 AM on 4 January 2017
       As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated
       

       I've read, in the news, maybe last Summer?, that developers calculate that by 2040, many Miami oceanfront buildings today will be in trouble, but figure they will have made back their investments with profit by 2030, so who cares?  Of course I could just be making this up?

21688. Tom Curtis at 17:34 PM on 3 January 2017
       Climate change in 2016: the good, the bad, and the ugly
       

       David Kirtley @1, the trend increase from 1880 to present is about 1 C, but in 1880 the CO2 concentration was 290 ppmv, for a 38% increase in CO2 concentration.  For a 45% increase in concentration, you need to start with 280 ppmv, or the preindustrial value.  That is, circa 1750.  The temperature increase from 1750 to the present is not very well known, but is likely to be greater than the 1 C increase since 1880, with a 1.5 C increase being a reasonable estimate.

       I do not know that that the reasoning behind John Abraham's claim.  He could also be using the specific difference in annual temperatures between 1880 and 2016, but at least part of that increase is due to short term factors (especially ENSO) so that is unlikely.

21689. indy222 at 13:56 PM on 3 January 2017
       Hansen and Sato Estimate Climate Sensitivity from Earth's History
       

       A new paper by Friedrich et al. 2016 http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/11/e1501923   agrees with HS12 that averaged over all the paleo data, CS =3.2 C. However, the point of their paper is that CS is very nonlinear, and is small at cold temps and high at warmer temps. In fact, they find CS=4.88C at the interglacial highs. The dots of paleo data do show a convincing strongly arcing upward curvature in deltaT vs forcing. If this is true, this is a real game-changer in a bad way. Does anyone know of significant criticisms of the Friedrich work? A casual search doesn't find any.

21690. Digby Scorgie at 13:05 PM on 3 January 2017
       2016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #53
       

       You're right, Glenn — a very cleverly written article.

21691. David Kirtley at 10:28 AM on 3 January 2017
       Climate change in 2016: the good, the bad, and the ugly
       

       When John says: "reaching almost 1.5 degrees Celsius with only about a 45% increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere" I'm wondering if he meant to say "1.0 degrees".

21692. Glenn Tamblyn at 10:22 AM on 3 January 2017
       2016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #53
       

       This is a good article - read it to the end to get the punchline.

21693. One Planet Only Forever at 08:12 AM on 3 January 2017
       Facts matter, and on climate change, Trump's picks get them wrong
       

       nigelj@18,

       Thanks for the feed-back. My thoughts and their presentation are still a work in progress.

       I can definitely be clearer in the future that the type of "Engineering Solution" I believe is required to best meet the objective of advancing humanity is "Social Engieering - particularly in Business related Marketing activity (including political marketing by pursuers of personal benefit)" not "Technical Engineering". I share your concern about global geoengineering like the current massive experiment with CO2 generation. Global scale Geoengineering is probably only justified on a nearly lifeless planet, which hopefully human actions won't cause this one to become in the future (nuclear weapons threats as 'defense' or 'hoped to be a restraint of unacceptable actions' and related Star Wars creations of 'Perceptions of Imunity for Trouble-makers hoping to avoid retribution for what they try to get away with' are a bigger immediate threat, but they do not diminish the threat of rapid climate change).

       As for 'rapid climate change due to human activity' being a future issue, making it difficult to address. The objective of advancing humanity to a lasting better future is clearly made more difficult by the currently popular and profitable massive rate of burning of fossil fuels. The unjustified perceptions of prosperity, popularity and profitability are the real problem, not the fact that the consequences are difficult to recognize. There is little doubt that burning fossil fuels is messing up the future, not improving it. But the ones who benefit the most can be confident that they will not suffer a net negative consequence because the main consequence is a future consequence, or the immediate consequences will only create a net-negative effect on less fortunate people who will not have the wealth and options to overcome the problems created (and have no real power or ability to fairly and justly get even with the benefiting trouble-makers). That is the main point I am preparing an OP on, the simple unacceptability of benefiting from an activity that others will face the consequences of. The assessments 'comparing the future costs of mitigation and adaptation to climate change vs. the perceptions of prosperity that have to be given up today' are basically bogus. They are built on the flawed concept that it is OK to cause problems for others, something that is especially easy to do to future generations because they literally have no chance to stop it (no vote, no lobbying power, no purchasing power, no misleading marketing power). 

       As for global action. Message Repetition is powerful. Repeating that 'It is essential for everything to be evaluated based on the need to advance humanity to a lasting better future for all, and actions that are contrary to that objective are simply not acceptabel regardless of developed perceptions of profitability or popularity' would help. Every leader should be required to repeat that almost daily and prove how their actions are 'acceptable and helpful'. And the leaders (in business and politics) who won't do that should lose their ability to be 'leaders' (immediately be removed from leadership for being proven to be incapable of properly responsibly performing the duties).

       That is the type of Social Engineering that will be required, a return to Requiring Responsible behaviour from all of the "Winners". And it will solve many more problems than this Climate Change issue. Hopefully the reality of what some among us clearly try to get away with will be exposed and better understood to be objectively inexcusable, hastening the required Global Social Engineering changes.

       I am now settling my thoughts on the root of the problem being this whole idea of "Winners". Humanity needs helpful contributors towards the advancement of all of humanity to a lasting better future. The human made-up games of competion can only be helpful if unacceptable pursuits are effectively kept from enabling someone to be perceived to be a "Winner". That simple rule applies in sport as well as business and politics. Grand fabulous amazing games with brilliant competition and spectacular results are possible, including nations becoming great, as long as creative talented ingenious very-smart cheaters never get a chance to be seen as "Winners".

21694. ubrew12 at 19:28 PM on 2 January 2017
       2016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #53
       

       Mary Ellen Harte compiles a semi-regular listing of climate articles at HuffPo your readers may also find interesting.  Her latest is linked to here.  Especially noteworthy is a web-article at CNN offering statistics, photos, and mini-interviews describing Earths Sixth Extinction that we're currently undergoing.

21695. jbpawley at 09:10 AM on 2 January 2017
       2016 in Review: a recap of what happened at Skeptical Science
       

       Good luck from all of us to John as he enters "The Lion's Den" of rightwing-funded disinformaiton groups at George Mason University.

       https://www.desmogblog.com/george-mason-university

       You are our Daniel. We are confident that, wielding the sword of truth, you will bring them (and TRUMP!) to their senses.

21696. nigelj at 06:24 AM on 2 January 2017
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       Daniel Mocsny @9, I think you are partly right that real religious revelations are rare, and people tend to simply believe what other people say, including religious authority figures etc. It's obviously not exactly a terribly rigorous way of getting at facts.

       However many people I know believe the writers of the gospels personally knew Jesus, and they don't realise the gospels were written significantly later, and are second or third hand accounts. So people do at least believe there is some direct evidence. This unfortunate things compounds it all even further.

       However Katharine might be rose tinted in her views, but seems like a good person in many ways, and even as an athiest I think it makes sense to support her outlook on this particular climate issue.

21697. nigelj at 06:13 AM on 2 January 2017
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       
       Chriskoz @11, I think your points are all true enough, but the real point being made is religion is based on faith so arguably diminishes trust in hard evidence in a "general sense". This may in turn diminish trust in global warming. This is of course speculative, but there does seem to be evidence that religious people are more sceptical about global warming from various polls.
       
       However I doubt its a big issue for the climate debate. Polls dont show a massive difference. Europe tends more towards athiesm, and their efforts to reduce climate change are limited at best.
       
       I do think this suggests climate change scepticism is more related to other factors to do with reliance on oil, psychological issues, vested interests and subconscious feelings cold climate are hostile etc. Its a whole combination of things so very hard to untangle.
       
       I suspect 10 more years of elevated temperatures will start to really register with the public and politicians, and policy may start to change quite rapidly. It could happen before then and hopefully does. Climate reaches tipping points, and so do human responses to events.
21698. Daniel Mocsny at 05:19 AM on 2 January 2017
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       Glenn Tamblyn @10: "Trying to use a non-rosy view of religion isn't likely to help you with communicating to people who are religious."

       We have to use a non-rosy view of fossil fuels when communicating with people who are habituated to burning fossil fuels, because that's reality. Continuing to burn fossil fuels and dump the resulting greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere will severely damage civilization or perhaps even destroy it. If people are hostile to reality, then we have to solve that problem before we can make any headway. If a patient has cancer and needs chemotherapy, it's bad news any way you slice it.

       Taking a non-rosy view of religion enabled writers like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and many others to sell millions of books. The fastest-growing "religion" in America today is "none." We have an opening here to accelerate a trend that is already well underway. The "Nones" typically vote Democrat, which correlates with being more likely to accept the scientific reality of man-made climate change. The available evidence suggests that talking people out of faith is one way to make them more likely to support action against climate change. Given the overwhelming support for Trump among white Evangelical voters, talking them out of their faith may be the most productive way to make progress on climate change.

       Consider that the magnitude of mind-change is similar for abandoning religion and fossil fuels. People are deeply attached to both of these bad habits because they have spent a lifetime being indoctrinated into them. If you can get people to question their faith in the religion of their childhood, then they have made the same type of cognitive headway they must make to question their faith in fossil fuels. It's probably easier to talk people out of religion, given that millions of Americans are abandoning it - how many people are abandoning fossil fuels yet?

       All religious people have doubts. Even the sainted Mother Teresa struggled with doubt during her life. Some fraction of religious professionals have lost their faith, and are just faking it to keep getting paid and to maintain family and community ties.

21699. Daniel Mocsny at 04:58 AM on 2 January 2017
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       chriskoz @11: I do not confuse the fossil fuel and religion industries. Rather, I note that their interests have increasingly aligned in recent US elections. To believe the two industries "have nothing to do with each other," one must imagine this remarkable alignment of interests is purely coincidental. For evidence of shared values and their deliberate construction, read the book: One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America. There are several similar books. Expect more to come out once commentators have digested the implications of the Trump win and the overwhelming support for the profane and immoral Trump from white Evangelical Christians. 

21700. william5331 at 03:37 AM on 2 January 2017
       2016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #53
       

       China is dominating the solar industry, primarily because she thinks in decades, centuries and even milenia.  Our governments think in election cycles and our businesses in quarterly reports.  Besides our politicians are to a large extent in the pockets of vested interests.  Get money out of politics and at least on barrier to some sensible decisions will have been removed.

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