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RedBaron at 05:22 AM on 12 November 2016Watch: Before the Flood
Digby,
One thing to consider as well is birds. Several farmers, most famously Joel Salatin, have figured out how to follow the grazers with birds. Usually chickens, but sometimes turkeys geese etc.... Generally if chickens, this is approximately 3 days later. The chickens primarily eat bugs, grasshoppers/locusts and fly larvae in the cow patties. This "clean up crew" produces a very high quality egg or meat product with extremely high nutritional values far exceeding hen house chickens, on at least 20%+ less grain. And actually by spreading the herbivore manure, eating pests, and adding their own high nitrogen manure, improves the grasslands even more. This also means the cows don't need wormer, as the chickens break the life cycle of herbivore paracites too. And for the farmer, another stream of income from the same acreage. Often farmers add bees too, with their obvious benefits. Also some people are planting certain nut and fruit trees intermixed loosly and managing it like an open savanna.
When you start adding multiple species of herbivore, and symbiotic species like chickens, turkeys, swine, bees etc. to a HPG management system and vertically stack all these symbiotic production models on top of each other, the total yields per acre start shooting through the roof. Profits too. And surprisingly, the soil building properties also increase dramatically as well. It becomes, counter-intuitively, the more you take from the land, the more it produces.
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perseus at 04:37 AM on 12 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
Jonbo69
I agree governments only take notice wen it hits them in the pocket, soi a boycott might be woth considering. However, I'm not sure which government should be boycotting who!
After Brexit and the appointment of the new Prime minister and an even more extreme right wing cabinet, the UK removed the name climate change from the relevent department
Department of Energy & Climate Change became part of Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy in July 2016
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-energy-climate-change
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:09 AM on 12 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
It is wrong to use the generic lable "Conservative" for this issue. Those who are Conservative but are willing to associate with people who have chosen to make-up their minds to be unacceptable impediments to the advancement of humanity to a lasting better future for all are no longer Conservatives. They are the likes of the worst type of people they have chosen to associate with. They no longer deserve to be called Conservative. They own a different description of the type of person they have chosen to be.
As JH requested of me a while ago, I owe an article presenting my perspective, specifically regarding the simple common sense unacceptability of a portion of humanity getting away with personal benefit through actions that can be understood to be creating challenges for others who do not get to benefit, or reducing the opportunity of others to live a decent life. Particularly galling are the attempts to justify what is going on by comparing the cost of challenges that future generations will face (ignoring the lost opportunity of future generations to more meaningfully and sustainably benefit from fossil fuels that are already burned up by their predecessors) to the perceived lost opportunity of current day humans if they stopped creating future challenges and stopped reducing future opportunities. An even more unacceptable aspect of that evaluation is people who deliberately understate the future consequences and overstate the opportunity that current generations have to give up. And even more galling is including perceived increases of prosperity that are just because of expansion of activity that creates larger future problems (the way the likes of Trump want to "Make America Great Again").
In business it is fair for a person who will suffer any and all consequences of their choice to make a comparison of future vs. short-term expectations of their options. What is clearly unacceptable is for a person to strive to only ever benefit from any action, ensuring that any negative consequence is somebody else's problem. In a nutshell that latter clearly unacceptable way of behaving is Trump's "Art of the Deal".
My perspective basically boils down to the fundamental need for human effort that is clearly associated with helping humanity develop a sustainable better future for a robust diversity of all life on this amazing planet to be what is valued the most.
Clearly the current systems of popularity and profitability (including the Communist experiments in places like the USSR) fail because they do not honestly honour that guiding principle. Those systems that allow impressions and perceptions to Trump fuller awareness and better understanding are destined to fail, but sadly not before they do develop damaging perceptions of success.
Conservatives can contribute a valuable perspective on ways to adavnce humanity to a lasting better future for all.
A new name must be given to people and groups striving to Unite all of those who have personal interests that are contrary to the advancement of humanity. They often refer to themselves as "Unite the Right" groups or as Conservatives but they are neither Right nor Conservative. What they are is people who need to change their minds if they want the freedom to participate in pursuits that may be of personal interest to them. They are the unRight, unConservative, unProgressive, unDecent, unThoughtful, unConsiderate, unCaring, the un(Anything that might be percieved to be positive or good thing).
That group is now embarking on trying to abuse the power of Trump's unUnited States to impede and regress the advancement of humanity. Perhaps they deserve to be called unEarthlings until they change their minds (because they disrespect 'any other form of life and living' with the exception of things like their political position in support of disrespecting a woman's choice regarding the use of their bodies to deliver new offspring of males).
They can even be referred to as unAmericans, since America has long claimed itself to be the global leader to a better future.
This is still not a complete presentation of my perspective, but it is a fairly complete summary. There is so much to say, including that any increased awareness and improved understanding of what is going on is helpful to advance humanity. The application of the understanding needs to be honourable. And attempts to limit what will be better understood to thing that will be popular and profitable clearly will fail to be helpful.
The better understanding of how to abuse marketing to create unjustifiable perceptions to impede the advanncement of humanity is not a good thing. And abusing the knowledge of the electoral system is not a good thing (just as abusing knowledge of the tax code is not a good thing). And figuring out how to suppress voting by selected identifiable portions of the population is not helpful, including discouraging people from voting by unacceptably making up rules that make it difficult for specific groups of people to be able to register to vote or providing fewer polling stations and less opportunity for some to be able to take the time it ends up taking to vote.
A summary of the summary is:
The ability to Trump-up popular support for understandably unacceptable pursuits of profit and unacceptable attitudes and actions against the advancement of a robust diversity of humanity to a lasting better future for all "Must have no Future".
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ubrew12 at 03:41 AM on 12 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
"conservatives now own climate change." John Kenneth Galbraith: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." I don't want to be unkind, but I think the reason people choose conservatism is because walking away from ownership is part of its appeal. You invade Iraq, it turns into a mess. You walk away and blame the Iraqis: "they weren't 'ready' for democracy". You uproot America's industrial sector and plop it down in the land of the 'dollar-a-day' labor rates, and who is to blame for the Rust Belt left behind? It must be the liberal elite and the 'brown people'. I don't think conservatives have any problem 'owning' climate change. When the you-know-what hits the fan, they'll find someone else to pin the blame on. It's part of the appeal of conservatism.
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Jonbo69 at 02:42 AM on 12 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
I know there are lots of Americans here and you might not like the idea of the US being treated as a pariah, but the stated aims of the new US president elect amounts to a declaration of war against the planet. That is if everything that I've been reading on Skeptical Science, in the Guardian etc is correct.
The message has been clear for a long time; there can be no more operations for the extraction of fossil fuel other than that currently underway, most of the reserves has to stay in the ground, it's going to be hard to keep warming under 2 degrees, let alone 1.5 degrees even if Countries stick to the pledges they made at Paris etc. That's what was being said before the US election. Now; if all of that was true, the situation can't have radically changed overnight and on that basis if Tump goes ahead with his proposals then there is no hope; period! There is no hope for the climate without US co-operation and the sooner people accept this, the less time we'll spend waiting for politicians in other countries to come together and do what's needed to combat climate; they can't do it without the US and, in fact the US stance could give an excuse to other countries to do nothing.
I hate to sound over dramatic but Trump and the GOP need to see a large scale mobilisation of opposition forces before they have the chance to begin putting their war plan into effect; enough to scare them so that they back down before any real damage is done. We don't have time to wait around and see what happens - the enemies intention is clear and there is only a chance of them changing course if they are hit by a Tsunami coming at them from all directions.
If enough ordinary, everyday, people around the world take radical action and boycott goods and services provided by US businesses, then it would be a serious threat to the American economy and potentially lead to the total failure of a Trump administration in a short space of time - that is, if he doesn't change his mind.
I'm not some radical activist, I've never boycotted anything in my life, but I will have no qualms at all in making a pledge to a campaign that targets US businesses in reaction to the US stance on climate. In addition, a boycott against the US could lead other countries to think twice if they are thinking about not honouring the pledges they have made. Another benefit would be that it will put the issue of climate change in the spotlight in a way that's never happened before.
I repeat my call for a boycott!
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Johnboy at 01:06 AM on 12 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
Maybe some tiny glimmer of hope with several Republican senators supporting climate change and have a majority on these issues and appointments to critical positions.
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michael sweet at 22:46 PM on 11 November 2016CO2 lags temperature
Toobad,
The biggest negative feedback is that the amount of radiation emitted from the atmosphere goes up as the atmosphere warms. This increase is to the fourth power of the temperature. Eventually this increase in emitted energy overcomes any positive feedbacks because the increase in emitted energy is so great.
Everything considered is much more complicated, but the increase in emitted energy wins out in the end.
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Tom Curtis at 20:14 PM on 11 November 2016CO2 lags temperature
Twobad @507, this question is discussed in detail here (remember to read the intermediate and advanced versions of the article as well).
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Twobad at 19:40 PM on 11 November 2016CO2 lags temperature
I've been reading the above article and subsequent posts (only a fraction of them I confess, I don't have that much free time). One question that I am struggling to find an answer to is why does global warming naturally stop? The mechanisms for the causes of it are covered ad nauseam, but I have yet to find a discussion on why it isn't a run away process resulting in a Venus like Earth, which it clearly hasn't. The forcing by oceanic CO2 release would sugest to me that it should be. So what stops the process?
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Digby Scorgie at 19:18 PM on 11 November 2016Watch: Before the Flood
RedBaron
I'm encouraged. I'll go on to the next aspect, but as usual it'll take me a few days.
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scaddenp at 19:15 PM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
H4x354 Got numbers and source for the wealth flow caption on that electoral map? Looks like a bit of sloganeering to me.
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scaddenp at 19:09 PM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
RedBaron, thinking about this more. Firstly, laying blame on removal of subsidies isn't something I can sympathize with and the right wing here froth at the mouth at the very idea of subsidies. Tax payer subsidies to not produce so as not to depress farm prices???? I've heard of this in a Doonesbury comic but seems beyond bizarre.
I don't know the history but beyond subsidy removal, what policies were enacted? In my experience, you could tell farmers to do x till blue in the face, but they wont do it without financial incentive. I rather suspect that instead farming changed for same drivers that industry has changed - economies of scale and automation - and wouldn't matter who was in government. You are saying that you want family farm incomes to rise (not entirely sure how that guarantees SOC increase over corporate farms but still). Doing this means that you either increase productivity or increase prices. Jobs are disappearing everywhere, not just in farming, because the route to productivity increase is automation. Do you really think a government can stop this? A policy of rage against the machines? Second option is increase prices. I don't buy the decrease supply with subsidies. You want to be paid not to work? Got another option? One I can think of is use emission trading scheme so farmers get carbon credits for increase in SOC. Farm carbon - but oh oh, needs "guvm'nt interference" and said government to recognize that carbon is a problem.
Also seems to me that lots of people are blaming immigrants or job exports for loss of jobs. While true to some extent, it is automation doing most of the damage.
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h4x354x0r at 17:31 PM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
This may be getting a bit to political and not enough climate, but here's a graphic I made tonight, putting a slightly different spin on the US Election map. Could people make money with 'ride service' like apps to directly connect urban consumers with rural producers in near real time, to cut out corporate ag as the profiteering middleman?
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h4x354x0r at 17:17 PM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
Good analysis @RedBarron. I've posted less documented musings on Facebook as well. I see three strikes against rural America:
1. Wal-Mart came in, killed local businesses, depressed wages and employment, and have been extracting wealth from rural communities ever since.
2. Corporate Agriculture has gotten between urban areas, and the surrounding rural communities that ostensibly feed them, squeezing both farmers and consumers for profit.
3. Propaganda-driven ignorance, aka hate radio and fox news and their ilk, have dominated these people's media exposure for decades. Fact is these rural communities are generally subsidized by social insurance transfer payments, but they've been lied to and led to believe it's others (i.e. urban blacks) getting all the government money. So, they just cut the last thread holding their own safety net together. Trump's shaping administration is already a who's who of extreme austerity policy. The cuts in social transfer payments to rural communities are going to be devastating.
And then, automated farming will take over. Driverless cars? Driverless tractors and combines, too. Rural America. It's what's for dinner. -
RedBaron at 14:24 PM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
scaddep,
I am saying that profit is a primary motivator of people. So the trick is to figure out a way to get people who don't necessarily even understand climate science, motivated to do the right thing simply because it returns a good profit for their hard work. Not investment portfolios. And not some minimal wage working for some corporation or factory either. Rather instead their labor, for which they deserve an honest working man's wage, but that labor having a negative carbon footprint.
See in some ways, Butz really was a genius. He has proven that government policies can have significant effect on entire sub-populations not only in a country, but in the whole world. Now his policies where from that standpoint wildly successful. He did what he set out to accomplish. In the short term they were beneficial too. What he missed was the long term side effects, since this particular strategy had never been tried before, he had no way of knowing. People did predict it, but he didn't believe them.
Now that we know the side effects, and how effective the strategy can be; using the same exact strategy of market intervention by government policies, but with a different end goal, should be both useful and effective.
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scaddenp at 14:05 PM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
I perfectly agree that vote for Trump had nothing to do with climate change, but as you said yourself, you also have to stop burning coal. Policies to do that require admitting first that you have to do it.
Are you trying to say that only thing conservatives will vote for is something that makes them money?
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RedBaron at 13:40 PM on 11 November 2016Watch: Before the Flood
Digby,
That's a pretty good summation of HPG in a brittle environment yes. Keeping in mind this was the type of grassland that always befuddled any attemps to restore it. Certain other less brittle grasslands are much easier to restore and more forgiving of poor management, but do also show improvement using HPG.
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Digby Scorgie at 13:34 PM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
RedBaron @ 16
I have some homework for you to review! Please see the comments after the article on "Before the flood".
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Digby Scorgie at 13:20 PM on 11 November 2016Watch: Before the Flood
RedBaron @9
I had an initial look at all the links you provided and then a closer look at those to do with grasslands. The following is what I deduce to be the recommended method of livestock management on the relevant grasslands in the future. I have no idea if I have summarized this correctly. My background is physics, not biology, but this is the sort of description I was looking for. I would appreciate having my misperceptions corrected.
Farming in a zero-carbon world — grasslands
On grasslands subject to alternating wet and dry seasons, livestock are managed according to a holistic grazing plan. This type of plan specifies when and how long animals will be in any given area. The animals are herded in tight groups and confined to relatively small paddocks by means of fences (either temporary electric or permanent) or herding or both. The technique amounts to multi-paddock mob-grazing. The aim is for the animals to have an intense but brief impact on the land — anything from several hours to a few days. The animals eat the grasses, forbs and shrubs available — the more diverse the better.
The farmers carefully observe the plants that are eaten for signs of over-grazing and adjust accordingly the amount of time the animals are confined in any given paddock. The grazing plan is therefore not fixed but evolves continuously as the farmers monitor the impact the animals are having and the rate of recovery of the plants in the other paddocks. Over-grazing is avoided.
When and where necessary, land is rested by the complete removal of the animals. The purpose is to allow bitten plants and their roots to recover and regrow after proper grazing and animal impact. Over-resting land is avoided as much as over-grazing, however, as this also leads to degradation of grassland. The rest period may be anywhere from a month to two years, depending on various factors. This period of rest is an essential part of the process, which always includes the return of intense short-term grazing and animal impact pressure after the recovery period.
(The above summary is heavily based on the work of A Savory.)
One can add more, explaining how the above method mimics Nature (before humans screwed things up), listing the advantages (particularly from a climate-change point of view), comparing this method with typical current practice, and describing how one initiates the process of restoring already-degraded grasslands using animals.
Should I go on, RedBaron, or should I leave it to the experts?
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RedBaron at 13:11 PM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
I'll stick with what I know, agriculture.
In 1945 27% of farmers in US were forced to work off farm to earn a decent living. By 2002
93% of farmers had off-farm income to make ends meet.Source: Compiled by Economic
Research Service, USDA, using
data from Census of Agriculture
and Census of the United States52.2% of those farmers principle income was off farm and only 46.1% of farmers earn net positive income from farming.
Source: USDA-NASS, Census of Agriculture
In 1950 farmers received 41% of the food dollar spent by consumers. Now it is 17.4% on average. Certain things like commodity grains even as low as 3%.
Source: USDA-ERS
In 2012 the average age of farmers was 58.3 with over 20 times more farmers over age 75 as under 25. This has been growing steadily every year, as income:cost of living ratio has dropped and the next generation simply can't afford to farm. If the next generation can't get in, then the old generation can't get out. I suspect it is probably 60 by now.
Source: USDA-NASS, Census of Agriculture
Now check Wikipedia for the source of all these problems:
“Earl Lauer Butz (July 3, 1909 – February 2, 2008) was a United States government official who served as Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. His policies favored large-scale corporate farming and an end to New Deal programs, but he is best remembered for a series of verbal gaffes that eventually cost him his job.”
“For example, he abolished a program that paid corn farmers to not plant all their land. (See Henry Wallace’s “Ever-Normal Granary”.) This program had attempted to prevent a national oversupply of corn and low corn prices. His mantra to farmers was “get big or get out,”[6][7] and he urged farmers to plant commodity crops like corn “from fencerow to fencerow.” These policy shifts coincided with the rise of major agribusiness corporations, and the declining financial stability of the small family farm.[8]”
Now look at those maps that went to Trump. Small town and rural America almost all went Trump. Have you been to small town rural America recently? Clearly Earl Butz's policies had their intended results as evidenced by the stats I posted above. But what is missing from those stats is what it did to the whole economic structure of rural and small town America. Every one of those farmers forced off their land ("get big or get out") + nearly all farmers children and grandchildren, a whole culture, should be happily working the land, building houses, visiting the local hardware store, feed store, equipment supplier, sale barn, grocery store etc etc etc.... and now forced to take substandard jobs at walmart and McDonalds etc.... because when they left the farm to go work at the factories, they found the factories shut down and moved to Mexico and China? So now they are completely displaced. Off the land and no where to go!
In my opinion the vote for Trump had absolutely NOTHING to do with climate change. Denialism or full belief 100% is irrelevant. You really want to put forth a proposal that gets support? Figure out a way to end Butz's highly destructive policies. Replace them with policies that allow farmers back on the land and pays them to put carbon back into those depleted soils. I doesn't even need to be money from the government. Actually better if it isn't. Just end the subsidies keeping them off the land. Organic food already commands premium prices. You'll soon have an army of extremely motivated workers mitigating AGW. And you sold it as a jobs program for rural America. Doesn't even need to necessarily contain a whisper of the word "climate change". They start making money again, and that money will circulate through all those rural economies multiplying the effect.
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h4x354x0r at 12:46 PM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
Here to echo Straight Talkin @ 13 here; didn't the Great Recession end up causing the single largest drop in global emissions we've seen so far? IIRC it was nearly 10%. Most of us are probalby aware that significant conservation will be required to reduce emissions quickly; energy replacement can't ramp up fast enough without significant conservation to meet in the middle. Too bad so few people seem willing to do that, because forced conservation sucks. But, it would still reduce emissions.
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Digby Scorgie at 12:36 PM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
Straight Talkin @13
I've been thinking the same thing for a long time. The sooner global civilization collapses, the less damage humanity will inflict on the planet. But is this true? I've not seen any investigations of the topic. Does anybody know?
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Straight Talkin at 11:55 AM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
As the world economy is in what Chris Martenson at PeakProsperity calls a 'Predicament' (no escape from final destination) and the most likely outcome, as outlined on Ourfiniteworld, is a worldwide societal collapse Trump's contribution may be to speed up that process. This would probably lead to a massive reduction in greenhouse emissions, although not in a pleasant way.
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John Hartz at 11:30 AM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
@Synapsid #5: Recommended reading:
Five things that explain Donald Trump’s stunning presidential election victory by Anthony J. Gaughan, The Conversation US, Nov 9, 2016
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nigelj at 10:15 AM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
Red Baron @ 6, nice thoughts, but hasn't Obama pushed clean energy partly on the basis it creates opportunities for profit? And it does. And Hilary Clinton has done the same.
Nothing seems to get through to the Republicans on climate change.
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Greg13940 at 10:12 AM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
I understand the backlash against the defeatism of the article, but I understand the defeatism as well. Generally speaking, cap-and-trade and carbon taxes are the conservative, market-friendly solutions. Republicans, or at least the current Republican leadership, have rejected those as non-starters, and have made clear the only acceptable solution to them is denying the existence of a problem. It doesn't leave a lot of room to work with.
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nigelj at 10:10 AM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
Scaddenp @4, I agree and would add this. I struggle to see how bringing back tariffs will help anyone. Tariffs will increase the price of consumer goods, and thus inflation and interest rates, and thus mortgage rates. Everyone suffers.
The Economist.com have calculated that 60% of manufacturing job losses in America are due to automation and robotics and only 30% to immigration and "free trade".
Even if you put back tariffs I think the only jobs they will create will be low pay production line jobs, and bringing back more automation to America from Asia obviously doesnt really create jobs.
I feel sorry for blue collar workers because they are the victim of things beyond their control, however the real answer is government help for people hurt and left behind, but this is on nobodies agenda!
I dont think it helps to politicise who voted for Trump, and their ideological leanings, but its fair to say they now bear considerable responsibility for the negative effects of climate change. I have been prepared to support government initiatives and their costs, and I feel let down.
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scaddenp at 10:03 AM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
RB - you have agree that a problem exists before you can solve it. Good luck with that in Congress. Pigovian taxes, cap and trade, emission trading all give profits those who mitigate, all designed to appeal to right-wing, - and going nowhere. Basically all of those depend on government intervention. I wrote an article here, indeed looking for solutions that were acceptable to the political right, especially liberatarians. Reading the comments is depressing, -it would appear that if a cheap technological fix were possible, then that is okay but otherwise it is la la la - but mostly you cant get the right wing to even consider solutions because denial is so much easier. Ie if there isnt a solution to a problem that conforms to my ideology, then problem doesnt exist (as opposed to "my ideology needs to change"). I cant my head around the mindset at. I dont even get why people buy into an ideology in the first place.
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Dcrickett at 09:24 AM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
What I find specially disturbing is that a knowledgeable, capable and respectable voice on the Climate issue writes such a misguided opinion piece. Blaming it all on conservatives is doubly inexcusable. First, because it is factually wrong (which the author weakly acknowledges). Also, because there are approaches of a more conservative orientation that need to be considered.
I continue to be an admirer of John Abraham's writing and climate work.
(My own political orientation, like my sexual orientation, is blatantly obvious to all who know me and utterly irrelevant to Skeptical Science.)
I was intellectually prepared for a Trump victory in my country’s presidential election. But emotionally I was utterly unprepared. On the day after the day after, I am still in a state of shock and unable to wrap my consciousness around it.
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RedBaron at 09:15 AM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
John,
Conservatives own climate change.
Conservatives own the consequences of climate change.
They own the increased droughts, more severe storms, sea level rise, and floods.
They own the heat waves, the loss of habitat and the shifting climate zones.
They own the climate refugees, the resulting political strive, and climate conflicts.
They own it all.
OK, that's what happened and for at least 2 years they will also own congress. This is potentially the greatest opportunity ever actually, or the biggest disaster ever, depending on how it is handled. The mitigation plans must be carefully crafted in such a way as to be acceptable to a conservative business slanting government, maybe as a business stimulous package? Trump pledged to cut taxes, so maybe huge tax cuts for businesses with a negative carbon footprint? This way he does what he said and at the same time addresses mitigation. Maybe as I have stated many times, change the subsidies on the buffer stock schemes surrounding "king corn" along with a tax credit for verifiable increases in soil carbon on agricultural soils? That could actually lower taxes. Or approach it from Trumps promise to rebuild infrastructure? Infra structure could look very different according to what it is designed to support. It's possible some ways to address that, could also at the same time address CO2.
I did not vote for Trump by any means. Be sure. Not with his crazy conspiracy theory blaming AGW on the Chinese. But I have been a conservative my whole life, and I am certain that it is possible to come up with a conservative acceptable mitigation plan. So instead of crying from shock, and proclaiming the end of the world, why not sharpen your pencils and find a new approach to mitigation that is acceptable to conservatives? Since they own the presidency and both houses, any plan you come up with that really is acceptable to conservatives is bound to pass right through. We could potentially flip the script on climate change in a matter of months!
I'll even give you a hint, if the plan includes big profits for those mitigating AGW, it will be at least considered.
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Synapsid at 09:12 AM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
I would not agree that consevatives elected Trump. What elected Trump was the repudiation of Clinton plus the conservative vote.
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gws at 08:57 AM on 11 November 2016So fracking reduces carbon emissions, right?
ah, sorry. meant cogeneration. IIRC, cogen is the most efficient use of the fuel's primary energy content, especially when relatively small plants are used to provide district heating (neighborhood scale).
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scaddenp at 08:53 AM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
But what the blue collar have been sold is that their jobs are going and wages stagnant because immigrants are taking their jobs and companies are shipping jobs offshore. Trump is gonna fix that (right). While that is partially true, it ignores much bigger job loss to automation and fact that people prefer cheap to homegrown. Trump isnt going to fix that.
Essentially same issues with getting people to understand climate issues - much more appealing voices telling stories to further their political aims.
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calyptorhynchus at 08:49 AM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
I agree, but we also need to remember that many centerist or left of centre governments around the world did little on climate change during the period 2000 - now. They said many fine things about the need for action, but then did too little, or put it in the too-hard basket.
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nigelj at 07:16 AM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
Some of us in countries on the other side of the world are in deep shock and despair as well. Trumps policies on climate change, social issues, and economics are all a giant leap backwards for America, but they have vast and negative global implications as well.
I want to pick up on one point in the article. I'm reasonably well off financially, so also insulated from the negatives. I feel sorry for blue collar people in America as they have been sucked in by economic "snake oil" and the policy platorm proposed can only hurt them badly financially. They will also be the least able to cope with climate change as money gives people flexibility.
But what is done is done. You cannot save people from their own stupidity. It's up to the rest of the world to see the way emotion and poor reasoning has clouded Americas political thinking, and not be influenced by the outcome. We have to go our own way and push ahead with climate change mitigation, and hope Trump only lasts 4 years.
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scaddenp at 06:04 AM on 11 November 2016So fracking reduces carbon emissions, right?
gws - "power NG plants are rarely planned as combined cycle,"
I would stunned if there were gas power stations being built that werent CC. It doesnt make economic sense. Can you provide examples please?
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Jonbo69 at 04:09 AM on 11 November 2016Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change
I'm doing my best here in the UK by contacting groups such as Greenpeace UK with a plan of activism. My simple idea and hope is, the moment Trump as president makes it clear he is not going to adhere to the pledges made in the Paris agreement, there should be a campaign aimed at the UK public asking them to boycott all goods and services manufactures or delivered by American owned companies.
Trump ran with the campaign slogan 'America first' so I'm suggesting there could be a campaign called 'Planet first'. If we could start it off here in the UK maybe it could spread to other countries. I know there will be many scientists, liberal politicians and environmental activists in the US protesting against the Trump plan. They are going to be subjected to demonization and misinformation campaigns and it won't be enough - Trump & the GOP will do nothing unless the majority of American public opinion is against them. International governments may make protestations about US policy, but ultimately will do nothing, that's why there has to be a campaign organised by the people for the people.
Here in the UK, as in many countries, we are not doing enough to meet our climate targets, but the path America has chosen takes things to a whole new level. In the UK in the 1980's we still had racism; that didn't mean that we didn't have the right to campaign against apartheid in South Africa - a campaign that was ultimately successful.
Everyday Americans who don't realise the scale of problem may only be drawn to it if they witness palpable large scale anger and resentment in other countries. If US corporations such as Coca Cola, Starbucks and McDonalds are taking a major hit in their international operations then they'll be on Trumps back.
Anyway, those are just my thoughts for the moment.
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:24 AM on 11 November 2016President Trump would Make America Deplorable Again
Sorry, ABloke, but there is nothing about a Trump presidency that changes basic physics.
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gws at 01:23 AM on 11 November 2016So fracking reduces carbon emissions, right?
jpbpawley
yes, a point not addressed in the article. The current issue is, however, AFAIK, that power NG plants are rarely planned as combined cycle, and also too large, undermining the flexibility and targeted role as renewables backup you are highlighting. So that harks back to the last sentence in the post ...
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ABloke at 01:20 AM on 11 November 2016President Trump would Make America Deplorable Again
Well I must confess to being slighly bemused Mr or Ms Moderator, having read you comments policy. 'On Topic' well everyone seemed to be discussing the effects of Donald Trumps presidency on 'Climate change'. My comment were appropriate to the thread, not repetitive, No sloganeering, unless you count 'collapse like a deck of cards'?!!! No link, no picture, no accusations of deception, no attacks. Political rants? No, bearing in mind the whole thread is tiled the 'President Trump would make America deplorable again' (a bit political and ranty, no?). All caps? No. Profanity/inflammatory? No. Dogpiling? No. Multiple identities? Not even mild schizophrenia. Copy/pasting? No. Spamming? No. Valid email address? Yes. So dear moderator exactly where have I transgressed 'policy'? I was merely expressing an opinion, as are others in this thread, as to the future of AGW now Trump is in the white house.
Moderator Response:[RH] Moderation complaint.
[PS] Sloganeering is making statements/assertions, without providing evidence to back them up. Shooting the messenger will not make a problem disappear.
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gws at 01:18 AM on 11 November 2016So fracking reduces carbon emissions, right?
william, I think this article may be helpful.
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John Hartz at 00:43 AM on 11 November 2016President Trump would Make America Deplorable Again
ABloke #12: You would do well to read:
Physics Doesn’t Really Care Who Was Elected by Brian Kahn, Climate Central, Nov 9, 2016
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John Hartz at 00:33 AM on 11 November 2016President Trump would Make America Deplorable Again
JonBo 69 @#1: You asked:
Are we likely to see climate scientists face prosecution?
If you mean criminal prosecution, I sincerely doubt that would occur in the US.
For a more detail explanation of what might actually happen, see:
What Trump's Surprise Victory Could Mean for Science by Ryan F. Mandelbaum, Scientific American, Nov 9, 2016
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RedBaron at 00:26 AM on 11 November 2016President Trump would Make America Deplorable Again
@Haze,
What now as the questions about what Trump will do are clearly no longer "rendered moot"?
Sharpen your pencils and come up with a mitigation plan that is acceptable to conservatives. I highly recommend you don't use the word "tax" anywhere in the plan, but something similar could be in there somewhere.
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John Hartz at 00:25 AM on 11 November 2016President Trump would Make America Deplorable Again
Haze @10: My new crystal ball has not yet arrived. My old one disintegrated as the election results came in..
Seriously, I am as concerned as you are about what a Trump Presidency means for international and national efforts to mitigate manmade climate change. In fact, I have been posting links to numerous articles about this topic on the SkS Facebook page over the past few days and will continue to do so.
Here are the ones I have posted to date:
US election: Climate scientists react to Donald Trump’s victory by Carbon Brief Staff, Carbon Brief, Nov 9, 2016
Trump Victory in Presidential Race Stuns Climate World by Zahra Hirji, InsideClimate News, Nov 9, 2016
The Paris Agreement will survive President Trump by Thomas Hale, Climate Home, Nov 9, 2016
What it would really mean if Trump pulls the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement by Chris Mooney, Energy & Environment, Washington Post, Nov 8, 2016What Trump's Surprise Victory Could Mean for Science by Ryan F. Mandelbaum, Scientific American, Nov 9, 2016
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ABloke at 22:46 PM on 10 November 2016President Trump would Make America Deplorable Again
The whole 'Climate Change' thing is over. Trump will pull the funding, funding to the UN, withdraw from the Paris agreement. The UK have already closed down the Dept of Energy and Climate Change, Malcolm Roberts is precipitating change in the Australian Government. The whole thing will collapse like a house of cards.
Moderator Response:[JH] Sloganeering is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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chriskoz at 17:46 PM on 10 November 2016President Trump would Make America Deplorable Again
Haze@10,
Do you really want to drill on the consequences of that sad morning of a new 9/11 (as 9th of Nov is written by the rest of the world)? What's the point?
Just re-read the OP replacing "would" with "will". As I mentioned somewhere else, climate mitigation will be the very first casualty under the new administration because there is not opposition in Congress to the raving of the irresponssible man, particularly in thsat area of policies. This is especially sad. The only good news is that Paris agreement signed by Obama administration thankfuly went into force Nov 4 for the next 4 years, so the irresponsible administration will not be able to withdraw US from it, at least not immediately...
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Haze at 11:58 AM on 10 November 2016President Trump would Make America Deplorable Again
John Hartz@2 "I personally believe that your questions/concerns about what Trump will do as President on the climate change front will be rendered moot after the votes are tallied tomorrow and Hillary Clinton is declared to be the "President-elect."
What now as the questions about what Trump will do are clearly no longer "rendered moot"?
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jbpawley at 11:42 AM on 10 November 2016So fracking reduces carbon emissions, right?
I hate to say anything to support fracked NG but:
It is really not just a matter of whether or not it replaces coal. NG can replace coal in 2 major ways: 1) as the fuel to a boiler that could otherwise use coal or 2) being burned in a gas turbine hooked to a generator with the hot exhaust then used to boil water into steam fed to a steam turbine/generator. The latter is called a combined-cycle setup and it is a very different animal. In particular, it can be turned off and on rapidly (Minutes?) and after warmup, it can provide a combined thermal efficiency close to 60% versus about 40% for a steam only plant.
This makes combined cycle a very useful method of filling gaps in renewables caused by changes in the weather.
So, the discussion of utility of NG isn't just about methane leaks and the fact that burning it produces relatively more heat for a given amount of CO2.
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Rocketscientist at 09:31 AM on 10 November 2016No longer taken seriously, we're seeing the last gasp of climate denial groups
Your ‘congregation’ could do with a little more of a balanced assessment of the points raised by Ridely (and many others).
I have a degree in Physics and helped developed the first satellite communication satellite systems used around the world i.e. so while not an expert I can understand the science involved. I'm also a greenie, left winger by nature and was initially at least very concerned by Al Gore’s ‘famous’ work. After spending a LOT of time and effort looking into the issues involved I came away impressed by much of the science of global warming - particular the ice age reconstructions - but extremely disappointed by much of the work on 'climate modelling'. The CO2 modelling fails the most basic of tests in that it HAS CONTINUNALLY FAILED to predict current trends or more importantly replicate the past paleoclimatic cycle data. To match the short term recent temperature data the models have continually required after the fact hindsight tweaking to match the data or the data has required tweaking.
So, when 'sceptics' point this out give them a little credit and admit the science is far from perfect. I've quoted your own assessment of Christies report below to point out the problem. You should acknowledge and THANK him instead you denigrate!
'So, this recent paper did a few things. First, they took the contrarian argument that the mid-troposphere temperatures have been rising at only 1/3 the rate predicted by models. They found that Christy’s team neglected the contamination of the cooling in the upper stratosphere. When they applied this correction, they found that Christy’s claim was incorrect. Differences between modelled and observed warming rates were much smaller, and had known explanations'.
The abstract is also provided below
‘We use updated and improved satellite retrievals of the temperature of the mid- to upper troposphere (TMT) to address key questions about the size and significance of TMT trends, agreement with model-derived TMT values, and whether models and satellite data show similar vertical profiles of warming. A recent study claimed that TMT trends over 1979 and 2015 are three times larger in climate models than in satellite data, but did not correct for the contribution TMT trends receive from stratospheric cooling. Here we show that the average ratio of modeled and observed TMT trends is sensitive to both satellite data uncertainties and to model-data differences in stratospheric cooling. When the impact of lower stratospheric cooling on TMT is accounted for, and when the most recent versions of satellite datasets are used, the previously claimed ratio of three between simulated and observed near-global TMT trends is reduced to ≈ 1.7. Next, we assess the validity of the statement that satellite data show no significant tropospheric warming over the last 18 years. This claim is not supported by our analysis: in five out of six corrected satellite TMT records, significant global-scale tropospheric warming has occurred within the last 18 years. Finally, we address long-standing concerns regarding discrepancies in modeled and observed vertical profiles of warming in the tropical atmosphere. We show that amplification of tropical warming between the lower and mid- to upper troposphere is now in close agreement in the average of 37 climate models and in one updated satellite record.’
To get the models to match it was also necessary to mess with the basic satellite data itself as well - probably for good reason but none the less more after the fact hindsight fiddling - yet AGAIN. Now all this is fine - that's how science and the models advance but at least acknowledge the problem and the fact that the science is NOT OVER. (PS the factor of 3 error was reduced to 1.7 – WELL DONE)
The other major problem is that none of these, what I call CO2 forcing factor driven models have manage to replicate the past ice age cycle data. Especially if the CO2 levels allowed to 'free run' rather than being artificially forced to match the ice core data response. The problem with the later should be obvious – does CO2 drive temperature or does temperature drive CO2 – obviously, a combination of both but the two factors need to be isolated.
This is basic 101 stuff - you have to validate major model assumptions before they have any credibility. The ONLY work that managed to do this as far as I've been able to determine was a paper (peer reviewed) published in 2013 in Nature. ' Insolation-driven 100,000-year glacial cycles and hysteresis of ice-sheet volume.' This to me was a major piece of work which has largely been ignored. This group finally managed to replicate the past ice age cycle behaviour largely using insolation factors coupled with isostatic rebound of the continental plates. I'm sure you'll be aware of this work and its potential importance. Basically, they appear to have demonstrated that you do NOT need to assign an artificially high forcing factor to CO2 to replicate the cycles. As they noted from their sensitivity runs 'Carbon dioxide is involved, but is not determinative, in the evolution of the 100,000-year glacial cycles.'
FINALLY, you avoided the other incredibly important issue totally - which is to question whether a warmer, wetter planet with higher CO2 levels is a BAD outcome. The greening of the planet since the end of the last ice age has directly enabled us to develop agriculture and societies to the point that we now all enjoy. Past geological data also readily indicates the planet has been much warmer in the past and lush as a result. Plants have done an incredible job in terraforming the atmosphere reducing CO2 to TRACE levels. I noticed that there was no response to Ridley’s and other’s arguments in this respect.
These are important issues and as Ridley rightly points out the concern is that attention and resources are being diverted from much more important ecological and social concerns.
PS I wonder whether this post will survive your ‘peer’ review?Moderator Response:[RH] Multiple breeches of commenting policies. Please try again after reading policies.
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