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Comments 21751 to 21800:

21751. 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.

21752. 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.

21753. 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.

21754. 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.

21755. 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?

21756. 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.

21757. 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.  

21758. 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. 

21759. 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.

21760. 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.

21761. 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.

21762. 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.  

21763. 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.

21764. 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.

21765. 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.

21766. 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.

21767. 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.

21768. 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.

21769. 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.

21770. 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?

21771. 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.

21772. 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.

21773. 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.

21774. 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".

21775. 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.

21776. 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".

21777. 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.

21778. 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.

21779. 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.

21780. 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.
21781. 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.

21782. 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. 

21783. 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.

21784. JohnFornaro at 00:52 AM on 2 January 2017
       Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature
       

       Composer99: "If you want to get down to brass tacks, you can sum up the basic fact of global warming with a single number:

       0.6 W/m²

       Everything else is commentary."

       I'm not getting your 0.6 W/m² figure. The anthropogenic RF is between 1.13 W/m² and 3.33 W/m², by my understanding, if the following figures are correct.

       From:

       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_constant

       "The solar constant includes all types of solar radiation, not just the visible light. It is measured by satellite as being 1.361 kilowatts per square meter (kW/m²) at solar minimum and approximately 0.1% greater (roughly 1.362 kW/m²) at solar maximum. The solar "constant" is not a physical constant in the modern CODATA scientific sense; it varies in value, and has been called a "misconception". It has been shown to vary historically in the past 400 years over a range of less than 0.2 percent."

       From: WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf, page 11:

       "The total anthropogenic RF for 2011 relative to 1750 is 2.29 [1.13 to 3.33] W/m² (see Figure SPM.5), and it has increased more rapidly since 1970 than during prior decades."

       For conversational purposes:

       1.13/1,362 is: .083%
       2.29/1,362 is: .168%
       3.33/1,362 is: .246%

       While mankind's percentage contribution is pretty small compared to Mr. Sun, if these percentages are true, we do seem to be warming the planet, and shekels to bagels it doesn't stop anytime soon.

21785. chriskoz at 19:32 PM on 1 January 2017
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       Daniel Mocsny@9,

       Since uncritical faith in the words of men is the basis for America's $1 trillion religion industry, eradicating the fossil fuel industry might require eradicating (or at least greatly diminishing) the religion industry, by persuading people to put their trust in facts and evidence.

       You confuse FF industry with "religion industry". They are different industries and their interests are often different. Maybe interests of mormonism or evengelical christianism in US that you give as examples do overlap with FF interests but first, these are not the only religions, second the reasons people are coming and "trusting" those two industries are fundamentally different. People trust religion, because they want rationalise the existential questions they don't know the answer or fear the answer (like fear of death), while the same people trust FF, because they want to have energy to fuel their lifestyle. One has nothing to do with each other and eradication of the later (to combat AGW) does not imply eradication of the former (if you want to reform religion or replace religion by other rationalisative mechanism).

21786. Glenn Tamblyn at 17:44 PM on 1 January 2017
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       william #7
       
       Rosy? I suspect that is intentional. Trying to use a non-rosy view of religion isn't likely to help you with communicating to people who are religious. And lets be quite clear. Katharine has set herself a specific task - communicating to that demographic.

21787. Daniel Mocsny at 14:29 PM on 1 January 2017
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       william @7: the "rosy" view of religion's relationship to science has a name: NOMA, or "non-overlapping magisteria of authority." Stephen Jay Gould coined the term and described it in his (lamentable, in my view) book Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life.

       NOMA is essentially the official position of the National Academy of Sciences.

       NOMA has been heavily criticized by a number of prominent scientists, philosphers, etc., including Richard Dawkins, whose book The God Delusion gives it a working over.

       The claim that "religion has nothing to say about climate change" is a category error. (It's similar to claiming that nothing about climate change could feature in a J.K. Rowling novel - which is nonsense, because Rowling can write whatever she wants in her novels.) To understand the error, we have to understand what religion is. To understand what religion is, we need only look at where religious knowledge comes from, by posing the question to a religious believer: "What do you know about God (or spirituality, etc.) that you did not learn from men?"

       Very few people claim to have received a religious revelation directly from God or from some supernatural source. There is, to my knowledge, no documented case of any two people independently receiving the same religious revelation, identical in all respects. For example, if you make first contact with some tribe in the Amazon rainforest, there is zero chance that they will have independently received even an approximate copy of the Bible (or a copy of any religious group's doctrine or theology) directly from the alleged source (God). If you find a tribesperson with a Bible, you know it had to come from missionaries or someone else who in turn got it from a long chain of middlemen tracing back to the original writers, redactors, editors, and compilers of the Bible. It wouldn't have come from "God" revealing the same thing twice to different people who had no prior knowledge, because that never happens.

       Religious people, therefore, do not put their trust in "God," but rather in some particular man or group of men who tell them some particular set of claims about God. Believers put their faith in whatever their religious leaders tell them to believe. As religious claims are unconstrained by any requirement for evidence, the claims of various religious groups are as diverse as human imagination itself. If some religious leader wants to make a religious claim about climate change - just as many religious leaders make claims about the age of the Earth and whether humans share a common ancestor with turnips - he is perfectly free to do so. Just as Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, was free to claim that the second coming of Jesus would occur at Jackson County, Missouri.

       For comparison, suppose I claim Elvis Presley is still alive and he told me to tell everyone to give me all their money. If someone accepts my claim and gives me all their money, who does that person believe?

       • Elvis, or
       • Me

       Even if I somehow persuade a million people to repeat my claim, anyone who accepts the claim is still placing their faith in me, not in Elvis. There is no option to believe Elvis, because Elvis has not verifiably shown up to make any claim. You can only choose to believe, or not believe, a real person who verifiably shows up and claims something. However, for me to qualify as a religious leader, rather than just a swindler, I must convince my followers that they have placed their faith in Elvis, rather than in me. Every religious person you talk to on this point will be deeply confused about where they have actually placed their faith, thus demonstrating the triumph of religion over reason. Religion benefits from the common human tendency to be better at remembering claims than at tracking their sources. It's easier for people to say "God wants me to do X" than the more accurate "My pastor tells me that God wants me to do X."

       Given that America's white Evangelical Christians just voted for Trump in a higher proportion than they've voted for any Presidential candidate before, and given that Trump appears to be waging war on climate science, Occam's Razor suggests a productive strategy for fighting climate change is to talk people out of putting their uncritical faith in the mere words of men. Since uncritical faith in the words of men is the basis for America's $1 trillion religion industry, eradicating the fossil fuel industry might require eradicating (or at least greatly diminishing) the religion industry, by persuading people to put their trust in facts and evidence.

       A religion like Mormonism relies on getting millions of people to take seriously claims as unlikely as the one about Jesus returning to Jackson County, Missouri. But all religions make equally far-fetched claims - some just do a better job of disguising them. It's hard to imagine humans are going to tackle tough problems like climate change, and whatever as-yet-undiscovered environmental catastrophes are coming next, as long as we have a trillion-dollar industry actively working to destroy peoples' reasoning capacities (and starting on them at very young ages).

       Sure, a few religious people subscribe to creation care philosophies. But in the USA - a nation critical to Earth's climate future - religion appears to be mostly an obstacle to long-term human survival.

21788. nigelj at 05:59 AM on 1 January 2017
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       Altruism has benefits including helping people and promoting stability and peace, and it brings a sense of satisfaction as well. Many people seem drawn to altruism, maybe most at some level. Many societies have experimented with altruism. The Soviet Union tried, but their society was based on a flawed model. Scandinavia has got the balance better with good results.

       However like Chriskoz says evolution of altruism by competition between nations slows down in a globalising world. The lessons and advantages of spacific nation states become diluted.

       But societies at either the national or global level can still consciously choose altruism just as they can consciously choose climate policies. In democracies the will of the majority ultimately tends to prevail, and in a global average sense seems to currently favour an emerging if somewhat limited altruism.

       We do seem to be slowly heading towards a global common humanity and morality with a recognition altruism is important. Of course more self interested motivations have their place as well, and it may be about finding a workable balance.

       However some people oppose altruism. We have people like Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and others, using either misleading rhetoric or fake news. This poor quality information makes it hard for voters to make informed choices. Last year the battle lines were drawn most firmly in America.

       But other countries do not have to follow America.

21789. william5331 at 04:36 AM on 1 January 2017
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       I love her videos on climate change but that is a very rosy view of religion.

21790. PluviAL at 03:35 AM on 1 January 2017
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       Chrikoz@3,

       Love your take, without the pejoratives and jusdgements on others. Your bottom line is what I like: We must develop a global perspective.

       I think we are in the process of doing that, and really, one could say this is the point of the video. Our perspective is tribalistic and religious: That's how our conception of political reality and divinity has been honed; from Gilgamesh to current Abrahamics, and Eastern Strains it's what we could put together without the scientific method and subsequent tool.

       Now with a scientific perspective, it is time to create a new awareness of a common humanity, and a common morality. We are on the way, this website, and this video attest to this quest.

21791. WRyan at 02:11 AM on 1 January 2017
       2016 in Review: a recap of what happened at Skeptical Science
       

       The research component of John's Honours degree was in solar physics.

21792. Glenn Tamblyn at 21:30 PM on 31 December 2016
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       newairly
       
       As far as I know, no. Internet only.

21793. chriskoz at 18:47 PM on 31 December 2016
       2016 in Review: a recap of what happened at Skeptical Science
       

       John Cook has another degree in solar physics, and I recall it's also PhD although I don't know the subject of his dissertation there. So, to fully acknowledge John's credentials we should call him "Double Dr" now. Congratulations, John.

       Moderator Response:

       [BW] From what is currently stated on the About Us page (which we'll obviously have to update!):

       "Skeptical Science was created and maintained by John Cook, the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland. He originally obtained a Bachelor of Science at the University of Queensland, achieving First Class Honours with a major in physics."

21794. nigelj at 13:35 PM on 31 December 2016
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       
       Chriskoz @3, I agree with all that. A lot to ponder over. An interesting related book is "The Moral Arc" by Michael Shermer.
21795. Digby Scorgie at 11:15 AM on 31 December 2016
       Facts matter, and on climate change, Trump's picks get them wrong
       

       For pity's sake, nigelj, stop omitting necessary apostrophes.  It is really, really irritating.  I'm referring particularly to "cant" and "wont" and "dont", but you also have a cavalier attitude to "its" and "it's".

21796. chriskoz at 11:00 AM on 31 December 2016
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       nigelj@1,

       That's a very interesting topic.

       Altruism in a group has indeed developped as an evolutionary adaptation: group's survival odds turned out to be, in some cases, more important than the individual's selfish & competitive desire to pass their rown genes. After few trials and errors (no doubt involving eradication of "selfish" groups, as well as overwhelmingly "altruistic" groups), those groups that developed a perfect balance of altruism vs. classic darwinian survival of the fittest strategy, survived.

       Now, how can we apply that knowledge to find out the solution to AGW problem, which is not an environmental but a social problem? Surely, we must find social solutions to it. Here, in XXI century, we have a global civilisation consisting of 7bln sofisticated, predatory individuals whose immediate survival strategy is a typical darwinian survival of the fittest. Their altruism is often limitted towards their immediate and extended familly, to pass on their genes. Then, for many of them, the next altruistic level is the well being of their friends, neighbouring community (like a church community in case of Katharine), then entrire town/county. Vast majority of people never goes, not even understands the altruism past this level. Those who do (local politicians) often fail, e.g. encumbered by corruption. Then, we have the countries (almost 200 of them) as the largest groups. Here, the moral standards are even more shaky, vulnerable to all sort of conflict of interest and encumbered by individualistic predatory thought process. The failures can be even more spectacular. This past year, we had two big failures in politcs at this level: the election of a serial criminal in Philipines and the election of an inept but self-boasting liar and sexual predator with a brain of 12y o child in US. I hope, after president Obama, that it's just a circuitous path this nation decided to take, and it will learn from, and it will eventually emerge from, stronger. But the signs are pointing to even bigger problem: one major polical party denies most environmental sciences like Flat Earth Society, and president-elect shares that denial.

       From above examples, you can see the "natural evolution" did not develop adequate group morality at the national level. Now, what about hte morality needed to fix AGW problem? We have only one global civilisation "supergroup", and evolutionary trial and error approach does not apply at this level. You would need to have an "alternative" civilisation that would develop different standard allowing it to survive while the primary civilisation fails. Unfortunately, it's impossible now. It was possible when we had smaller mini-civilisations in the past. Now, global civilisation (dominated by white man) has ransacked all planetary resources and pushed alternative civilisations into oblivion.

21797. newairly at 10:16 AM on 31 December 2016
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       Does anyone know if this series is on free to air TV in Australia?

21798. nigelj at 09:33 AM on 31 December 2016
       Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 7
       

       Katharine argues that the science can only describe the nature of the climate problem and suggest technical solutions, and religion can offer moral guidance on what we do.

       Well the new testament does talk some real sense on morality, however science also provides some guidance on morality. (decaration of personal interest, Im an athiest) Altruistic behaviour and looking after people is a trait in early human societies, and even the animal world sometimes, which suggests basic morality has an evolutionary adaptation, with biological origins. I would suggest its one we should not ignore. However its clear that not all people have this altrustic tendency.

       However if anything this shows that the new testament and science are speaking the same language at least on some aspects of morality.

       It certainly doesnt seem moral to lock in many centuries of sea level rise when renewable energy is dropping fast in price and is eminently affordable now.

21799. nigelj at 07:41 AM on 31 December 2016
       Record-breaking Arctic warmth ‘extremely unlikely’ without climate change
       

       KeenOn350, I totally understand your frustration. The way scientists talk in probabilities and conditionality may be fustrating, but its also the truth about various issues. We should not distort the truth. Hopefully most people can understand thats the way science does work on the basis of probabilities.

21800. nigelj at 06:48 AM on 31 December 2016
       Facts matter, and on climate change, Trump's picks get them wrong
       
       One Planet Only @15,
       
       "If there is an Engineering Solution it should have to be developed, implemented and proven to be effective before the action to obtain benefit started"
       
       Yes that makes sense. I think we would want proof of viability and to ensure profit is not made out of some fantasy scheme, purely for the benefit off the shareholders.
       
       However personally I dont think engineering solutions like carbon capture or more ambitious geoengineering solutions have much practical viability, and some have high risks as well. I know technology has produced great feats, but we cant assume this ability is infinite. Even if we find a workable engineering solution, it would be too late to stop dangerous climate change, so our first priority should be reducing emissions, with engineering solutions as a second order of priority.
       
       "It is common sense that the people who will benefit from an activity should be required to create and pay for any mitigation/adaptation to the changes that the actions. Another way of saying it is that no portion of humanity should benefit in a way that negatively affects other members of humanity, including future generations'.
       
       It is indeed commonsense, and its also recognised by economists that environmental impacts should be either prohibited, or user pays principles should apply. In fact society mostly (but certainly not all) recognise this. Currently we are mostly all using oil, and this impacts negatively on the environment. The obvious solution is a carbon tax that would reduce oil use and also pay for some degree of the problems.
       
       Things get more difficult with climate change because we are considering such a long term issue that get harder to quantify so easier to ignore.
       
       Several factors are at work: Business interests can become very orientated on short term goals, very avaricious and neglect costs that are far in the future.
       
       People get scared that they might face high costs now to protect something far in the future.
       
       Some people are very fixated on the present and their personal rights. Some people are narcissistic and self centred, while others have more of a big picture natural concern about the future. These are psychological issues that divide society, and its really important to grasp this.
       
       What we have to do is bring narcissistic people into line and make them see we need to consider the bigger picture. We need to demonstrate that it's ultimately in their interests to leave a decent planet for their children. We need to show that the costs of dealing with climate change are just not as large as the scaremongers claim.
       
       "And an international body like the UN would monitor/audit all of the nations and identify which nations have leadership that is failing to be objectively effective."
       
       Yes in an ideal world. The UN is the ideal organisation to regulate some global form of environmental standards. They also do see the big picture. But you know what certain people will say, "world government, nanny state, anti capitalist etc" and this is so frustrating.
       
       However we need global agreements and standards, and a way needs to be found to do this that ensures the UN has power, but is also accountable and properly democratically constrained. Its got to be a balance between the central power of the UN, and countries sovereignty. Somehow this riddle has to be solved and agreement reached on the proper role of the UN.
       
       I think its inevitable and useful that global agreeements will become more significant, provided they are well constructed and fair in nature, but Trump is a backwards step in this regard.
       
       Anyway those are a few random thoughts that may be of some help.

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