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michael sweet at 12:21 PM on 3 January 2025The forgotten story of Jimmy Carter’s White House solar panels
Eric,
You should Google subjects before you say incorrect information about them
This Wikipedia article says that in 2017 solar water heating provided 472 GW of heating worldwide. I have seen newspaper articles more recently that the capacity has increased a lot since then but my first Google didn't find it, there were too many advertisements for new systems.
When I lived in Australia 20 years ago solar hot water was common. I only remember using he electric back up once in two years. The USA is under the control of fossil fuel interests so they are not as common here as they should be.
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Eric (skeptic) at 11:47 AM on 3 January 2025The forgotten story of Jimmy Carter’s White House solar panels
Bob and Nijel, thanks for your replies. I think the examples you give of electric cars and even cell phones show that there is improvement with technology. But those types improvements are difficult with thermal water heating, even when indirect. That's because moving the warm fluid can't optimize variables as compared to a hot water heat pump where the heat pump can be optimized for the conditions. At that point, typically, the solar water system reverts to electric resistor.
One Planet, I should have included the avoided external costs in my chart. Some cost per metric ton of CO2 seems appropriate.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:51 AM on 3 January 2025Skeptical Science New Research for Week #1 2025
Thank you for continuing to compile and share this weekly summary of new research.
The first Open Notable, Why Misinformation Must Not Be Ignored, Ecker et al., American Psychologist:, is an informative presentation that should not have needed to be made.
It can be summarized by saying that: Many of the attempts to argue that misinformation can be ignored rely on the ability to successfully produce misunderstandings through the presentation of misinformation.
It is hard to deny that misunderstandings due to misleading presentations of misinformation lead to ‘avoidable conflicts of interest and can produce harmful results’.
The following quote from the article, from the section addressing ‘Argument 2: Misinformation Has No Significant Causal Impacts’, says it very well:
“The position that misinformation has no meaningful causal effects imagines that substantial segments of a population could form a false belief, such as the conviction that vaccines cause autism, either without being exposed specifically to the corresponding false claim or despite the exposure having no discernible consequence (Poland & Spier, 2010). On this view, the violent insurrection on January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol and the partisan gap in COVID-19 vaccination rates between Republicans and Democrats—which is now associated with a widening gap in mortality rates (Wallace et al., 2022)—were unrelated to misinformation about a “stolen” election or the safety of vaccines (see Bolsen & Palm, 2022; M. H. Graham & Yair, 2024; Henricksen & Betz, 2022; Lee et al., 2022; Riley, 2022). This seems implausible (e.g., court documents suggested that the views of many of those arrested after the insurrection were shaped by election-fraud misinformation; McCarthy, 2021). To provide additional examples, the view further implies that multiple lynchings of alleged child abductors in India in 2018 were not causally related to the false abduction rumors spreading on WhatsApp locally at the time (Gupta & Wilkinson, 2018) or that the 2024 anti-immigration riots in the United Kingdom that mainly targeted Muslims were unrelated to the misinformation about the religion of the alleged perpetrator of the Southport child murders (Holden & Smout, 2024). A strict interpretation of the “no causal impact” argument would even suggest that a counterfactual world with no misinformation would look just the same as the world we find ourselves in, and the argument also implies that information consumption or exposure in general has no causal impacts. This is not a credible position.”
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:46 AM on 3 January 2025The forgotten story of Jimmy Carter’s White House solar panels
Eric (skeptic),
A complete focus on EROI would have merit if the socioeconomic-political system is effectively governed by the pursuit of increased awareness and improved understanding of what is harmful and that constant learning is diligently applied to limit the development of harmful activities and to rapidly fully repair and make amends for any damage done. Also, the people penalized for benefiting from the harm done should not be able to influence how much they are required to do to repair and make amends for the harm done that they benefited from (they could potentially justifiably lose more than the benefit they obtained from the harm done). Note that people who did not benefit from the harm done would have their ‘repair and adaptation’ fully funded by those who benefited from the harm done.
The issue of climate change is a powerful example of what happens when ‘the system is not effectively governed by learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others’. There has been an understandable massive failure of the ‘marketplace focused on EROI’ to effectively responsibly self-govern to avoid being harmful. Plus there has been an understandable failure of external governing of the marketplace to effectively limit harm done and make those who benefited the most from the harm done do the most mitigation and neutralizing of damage done. Also, there has been a failure to have those who benefited most from the unavoidable future damage done responsibly and equitably do the most to help all others adapt to the future harm.
The major problem is misunderstandings, especially the mistaken belief that the economic and political games produce better results when there is more freedom of action. The potential for success through misleading marketing and the related misunderstandings and lack of awareness make it very unlikely that ‘free-pure competition for perceptions of superiority’ will be effectively responsibly self-governed.
I would support EROI if all risks of harm are more than adequately included in the evaluation, and the evaluation is not done by the people who hope to benefit.
So, the bottom line is that I am very skeptical of a simple limited focus on EROI because the conditions required for that self-interested short-term narrow-view focus to not produce harmful results are highly unlikely to freely be developed and sustained. In fact, the evidence indicates that there is significant misleading marketing effort against the development of the required conditions.
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nigelj at 05:49 AM on 3 January 2025The forgotten story of Jimmy Carter’s White House solar panels
Eric, criticising Jimmy Carters solar panels is pointless and baseless. Everything has to start somewhere often with primitive beginnings. The first ever mobile phone was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X launched in 1983, the size and weight of a brick and it cost about $4,000, and it would cost about 12,000 in todays money. It had a talk time of 30 minutes and took 10 hours to charge. Maybe some people bought it as a status symbol or as virtue signalling. But they still bought these phones, and they were useful. And look what is lead to. Eric youre a smart guy. Use some imagination .
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Evan at 02:22 AM on 3 January 2025Sabin 33 #8 - Will solar development destroy jobs?
I know that my comment is a little off topic, but one reason utilities like renewable energy is that costs are more predictable than for fossil-fuel plants. For renewable energy, the energy is free, even if more labor is required than fossil fuel plants. Fossil-fuel plants always have to be fed a product whose price goes through wild gyrations over the life of the plant. Whatever long-term average costs are, there is the uncertainty associated with what it will cost to feed your power plants.
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Bob Loblaw at 00:37 AM on 3 January 2025The forgotten story of Jimmy Carter’s White House solar panels
Eric:
The technology has certainly changed since 1979, and in 1979 the economics may not have been all that favourable, but I'm not sure I would call that decision "virtue signalling". In the early development stages of any technology, there is often a "sell it at a loss" strategy to get the market going (and growing), with expectations that the technology and economics will both improve over time.
Even GM, with the Chevrolet Bolt, apparently expected to lose money on production in the first few years. According to this Wikipedia page (information not confirmed by GM), they expected to lose $8-9K per vehicle at the start, and only expected to reach profitability in 2025. (Feel free to speculate why they stopped production, or why they started production on a money-losing proposition).
...and Tesla did not make profit until 2020 (and didn't turn a profit, excluding Bitcoin and regulatory credits, until June 2021). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#Finances). That's 15 years of losing money. Does Elon Musk strike you as someone that is into "virtue signalling"?
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Eric (skeptic) at 23:47 PM on 2 January 2025The forgotten story of Jimmy Carter’s White House solar panels
Solar panels were added to the White House grounds (an outbuilding) under George W Bush. The Carter "panels" were a water heater (as noted) but there was never any quantification of cost benefit. Drained in winter (no heat exchanger), they very likely had negative EROI after a 20 year service life (7 on the WH and 13 at Unity). That's probably true compared to gas heated water at the WH and certainly true at Unity. Unity spent over $150,000 on refurbishing and plumbing for half of the panels (16). They had room for all of them on the cafeteria roof. Links to references, and my attempt at quantification: followthedata.dev/wx/whp/whp.html
Yes, there is a positive symbolism expressed in the article. But there is also symbolism of virtue signaling and wasted resources which occurs in some renewable efforts. China, for example, has 7.5% capacity factor on their solar photovoltaic (2022 data). That will improve with demand shifting and batteries and they are certainly doing tremendous work on R&D on all of the above. But for deployment we need complete focus on EROI, not symbolism.
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Eclectic at 23:23 PM on 2 January 2025CO2 effect is saturated
As part of my New Year's Resolutions, I had wished to ask if SkS readers have any views or opinions on the AGW/CO2 ideas put forward by a Mr (or Dr ?) Tom Shula who allegedly has some physicist qualifications, yet who also qualifies as a science-denier apparently.
He strongly asserts that the 15-micron IR radiated upwards by the Earth's warm surface is totally absorbed by CO2 in the lowermost 10 meters of the troposphere. And that there is no re-radiation of IR by the CO2 molecules in that 10-meter layer ~ because, although molecules in solids and liquids can radiate photons, nevertheless it is impossible for molecules in the gasseous state to emit radiation.
At the same time, Tom Shula does say that Earth emits IR to space from the upper troposphere. Clearly Tom Shula suffers from cognitive dissonance . . . or I am failing to grasp the subtleties of his ideas.
IIRC, someone earlier in this thread has also claimed that "CO2 saturation" means that the 15-micron IR from the Earth's surface cannot rise above the 10-meter altitude (possibly that claimant was poster CallItAsItIs or his re-incarnations ~ but he has made so many posts in this thread, that it would be a tiresomely daunting task for me to go back and check & read through all of his comments ).
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The assertions by Shula were made in a Youtube video in 2024, on the Tom Nelson channel ~ a channel which is often bristling with Red Flags of Unscience.
Any thoughts? BTW, I am quite happy if this post today elicits no replies at all . . . for it is highly probable that Tom Shula's (and Tom Nelson's ) effusions are a waste of time for rational readers.
Moderator Response:[BL] This sounds waaay too much like the arguments being made many times here over the years by a series of banned users - most recently calling himself CallItAsItIs (then ReadItAndWeep, and finally LinusLucy).
The user that has made multiple identities here is clearly immune to logic and reason, and there is no point in discussing his hallucinations again.
[addendum]
After looking a bit more at what Tom Shula has been presenting, it seems unlikely that Tom Shula has been the person posting here. Consider them to be equally-deluded and sharing misinformation space, but probably not the same person.
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Bob Loblaw at 01:25 AM on 2 January 2025Sabin 33 #8 - Will solar development destroy jobs?
nigelj @ 8:
It is also worth noting that high labour requirements during installation would be considered as a one-time fixed cost in the context of a single project. In terms of economics, this would be a cost that should be amortized over the life of the project (or at least a period of time).
- If the project borrows money to pay the installation costs, then paying off the loan is spread over time, not paid up front.
- If the project pays directly, then the usual accounting practice is to consider it a capital cost and write off depreciation over time. This implies that the value of the capital investment drops over time. (Maintenance costs are an acceptable cost of keeping up the value of an asset.)
- Accounting for capital depreciation on your tax return will most likely use different rules from the internal "how much is what is left of my project worth today?" calculations that are reported to shareholders. (Within reason, law, and generally-accepted accounting principles - which a registered accountant is obligated to follow.)
...and the same issues are present for coal, nuclear, hydro plants, etc, which have huge capital costs associated with construction. Too often, the claims of "this coal/nuclear/whatever plant will create bazillions of jobs" include short-term construction jobs. Such construction jobs are only a permanent part of the economy as long as more and more production facilities are constructed on an ongoing basis.
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bbrowett at 00:59 AM on 2 January 20252024 in review - a bittersweet year for our team
Many thanks for your continued leadership. Great summary.
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nigelj at 06:17 AM on 1 January 2025Sabin 33 #8 - Will solar development destroy jobs?
David-acct said: "My statement was that more jobs per unit of production is an indication of less economic efficiency...."
This is only potentially true looking at labour productivity alone as BL points out. This doesnt mean renewables have poor overall economic efficiency. In fact we know renewables have higher overall economic efficiency than fossil fuels. This is because (simply put) while renewables require more labour inputs than fossil fuels, they have much lower running costs, that more than offsets the higher labour costs. We know this because renewables are lower cost per mwatt hour than fossil fuels.
I assume the high labour costs of solar power are related to installing all those panels. No problem. It gives people useful work, and this is important in economies facing high unemployment from automation and AI.
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LinusLucy at 03:58 AM on 1 January 2025CO2 effect is saturated
Now I'm just an amateur at this, but I believe I can quickly resolve this CO2 band saturation issue without getting into real complicated discussions. First, we note that for an unsaturated atmosphere, we expect the upward 15 micron radiation to monotonically decrease with altitude until approaching the TOA. This is because the CO2 molecules continue to tap energy from this upward IR radiation for as long as they are there to do so, thereby depleting energy from the 15 micron band and causing a drop in band intensity.
So, is this what is happening in the case of the 15 micron CO2 absorption band? Well, let's see! The MODTRAN plots supplied by Bob Loblaw@731 will be most helpful. Here, he has plotted spectral intensity vs wavelength of upward terrestrial IR radiation at the altitudes of 10km, 20km, 30km, 50km, and 70km. Examining the values of the spectral intensity at 15 microns I15(z) in each of these plots, we see that while there was a drop in I15 in going from z=10km to z=20km, there was a definite increase in going from 20-30km, and again in going from 30-50km. There was not much of a change in I15, however, in going from 50-70km. Therefore, it appears that in Bob Loblaw's example, the upward-bound 15 micron radiation intensity approaches a constant value well below the TOA while in an unsaturated atmosphere, this upward-bound radiation intensity monotonically decreases as altitude increases until it approaches the TOA.
So, is the CO2 greenhouse effect saturated of unsaturated? You tell me!
Moderator Response:No, you're another sock puppet. You are wasting everyone's time - especially yours.
[addendum]
For anyone puzzled by this reaction, read definition number 3 here:
..and then review the Comments Policy, where it states:
No multiple identities. Posting comments at Skeptical Science should use only one registered screen name. Use of more than one account will result in all accounts being banned.
- You are not allowed to use two different identities at the same time.
- You are not allowed to create a second identity to replace an identity that has had its posting rights revoked due to an inability or unwillingness to follow the Comments Policy.
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Bob Loblaw at 02:05 AM on 1 January 2025Sabin 33 #8 - Will solar development destroy jobs?
I, too, am puzzled by David-acct's repetition of his claim, as stated in comment 5:
My statement was that more jobs per unit of production is an indication of less economic efficiency. I limited my comment to the production and operation side of the equation. I did not address the costs or the benefits of the manufacturing and installation side of the equation since it is not relevant to well established economic concepts.
He has ignored what said in comment 3. To rebut again:
- More jobs per unit of production is only an indicator of lower labour efficiency.
- David-acct has not "limited [his] comment to the production and operation side of the equation". He has limited it to the labour side of the equation, ignoring many other costs related to production and operation.
- "Well established economic concepts" argue for including all costs related to the production and operation of the industry.
- As an accountant, I am sure that David-acct is familiar with the process of accounting for depreciation of capital assets, the carrying costs of debt, and expenses such as providing heat and power. None involves a lot of labour input during normal operations, but they sure affect the bottom line.
- You can increase labour efficiency by replacing 20 people cutting wood using hand saws, with 2 people cutting wood with a table saw - but don't pretend that there is no cost associated with buying a table saw, buying a generator or paying to install electricity in a remote location, and paying the gas or electric bills.
- The business needs to look at the relative costs of hiring more people versus buying and operating the table saws in order to determine the efficiency of their financial (economic) input.
- In a location where labour is cheap, and electricity and table saws are difficult (read "expensive") to get, then 20 people cutting wood with hand saws may be more economically efficient.
- ...and of course, there are always the "externalities" that must be considered on a society-wide basis. Individuals and corporations are often very good at making sure that costs are borne by third parties: dumping toxic substances into the water or air and letting the people downstream (or the taxpayers) deal with the damage that is caused. Great for local profits; not so good for the community.
- Climate change is definitely one of those areas where externalities are present, and industries involved in producing and selling fossil fuels are fighting like heck to make sure that those externalities remain externalities, so they can maximize their profits.
..and when David-acct starts throwing around phrases such as "well supported basic economic concepts", it is pretty clear that he is just trying to bluff his way through the argument, rather than supporting his position.
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michael sweet at 23:18 PM on 31 December 2024Sabin 33 #8 - Will solar development destroy jobs?
David-acct:
You have not provided any support for your wild claim that "more jobs per unit of production is an indication of less economic efficiency.". You frequently post unsupported comments denigrating renewable energy. This is a scientific board, my degree is in Organic Chemistry. I did not take Ecomomics. You must provide written evidence to support your claim. I note that Bob Loblaw at 3 provided several other reasons why renewable energy could be cheaper than fossil fuels and provide more jobs at the same time. Please show that all of Bob Loblaw's reasons are incorrect.
I remembered that you made me document that French nuclear power plants shut down on the weekend. This was a factoid that everyone informed about nuclear energy knows. You provided raw data claiming that the data showed the plants did not close, even though I cited reliable sources that they did. I looked at two days of data and asked you these two questions:
"Several question about this raw data occured to me.
1) You state clearly that the data shows no nuclear power stations were shut down. Please explain why the power generated on the weekend is so much less than the power generated on Thursday. How does this show that no power stations were shut down over the weekend? It appears to me that about 6 of 31 power stations (20%) were turned off.
2) On both days they are generating more power at night when power is generated at a loss than they are generating during the day when the price of electricity is much higher. Can you explain why the "always on" nuclear plants generate less power during the most expensive part of the day than they do when electricity is cheapest?
This proves beyond doubt that examining cherry picked factoids without any analysis is a complete waste of time. Please do not cite raw data any more. You need to cite analysis of data that filter out gross errors." Source
Unfortunately, you never responded. Please answer these questions. In a scientific discussion you have to answer others questions, you can' t simply leave when you are called out for making obviously false claims.
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David-acct at 09:26 AM on 31 December 2024Sabin 33 #8 - Will solar development destroy jobs?
Mr Sweet -
My statement was that more jobs per unit of production is an indication of less economic efficiency. I limited my comment to the production and operation side of the equation. I did not address the costs or the benefits of the manufacturing and installation side of the equation since it is not relevant to well established economic concepts.
You frequently use the phrase " unsupported Claim". Nothing could be further from the truth. My comment is based on well supported basic economic concepts that are well known and which are found in any freshmen level micro economic textbook, including Paul Krugman's intro to Economics. There is no reason there should be a need to provide citations for something so basic.
Further, nothing in Jacobson's 100% renewable studies dispute my statement. In fact I would be very surprised that something so contrary to established economic concepts would be published in a peer reviewed paper. If it did get by peer review, then it would be a good sign the economic cost analysis is not nearly as robust as portrayed. -
ReadItAndWeep at 11:09 AM on 29 December 2024CO2 effect is saturated
Greetings SkS folks,
I am an associate of CallItAsItIs and would like to inform you of the completion of his paper titled Sensitivity Assessment of the C 2 Greenhouse Effect which specifically addresses MA Rodger@864 who states
Whatever the derivation of Schwarzschild's equation, we expect you to use it to demonstrate your proposed IR extinction phenomenon mathematically. I do not see where Kirchoff's Law would be required for such a mathematiacl [mathematical] exercise.
Regarding Kirchhoff's Law, since it was used in developing the Schwartzschild equation, it is "automatically" used when solving this equation. It is not somehow implemented in another step. So, it seems that moderator Response needs to update the statement that
... Your tireless, empty assertions of having an alternate explanation for radiative transfer equations will only be believed if you actually present such an explanation, in full. (Emphasis original)
The only conclusion that we can draw at this point is that you actually cannot provide such an explanation. (Emphasis added)
Not only that, but this moderator knew full well that "such an explanation, in full" was not possible for CallItAsItIs due to the fact that equations were essential to his arguments, and this website does not support posting equations on the Post-a-Comment pages. Instead of getting help in this matter, however, he got comments such as "more excuses to not do your own work", and his logins were disabled over a few days. Can we say just plain childish!? But perhaps on a more interesting note is the comment
... Your tireless, empty assertions of having an alternate explanation for radiative transfer equations ... (emphasis added)
Just wait until this moderator learns that the Beer-Lambert and Schwartzschild equations are radiative transfer equations (LOL!), but I suppose that's typical of the understanding this individual has about the actual science. It seems that he/she can "snip", but that's about it!
Anyway, in addition to solving the Schwartzchild equation, CallItAsItIs shows mistakes and mis-understandings on both sides of this issue, and resolves some seeming conflicts between the two. It turns out that the greenhouse forcings (ie. the heat energy per unit area per unit time) obtained from the Schwartzschild solutions were identical to those he predicted from the Beer-Lambert equation with no thermal emissions and no regard for thermal equilibrium. Actually, this should not be too surprising since absorption depends directly only the the current intensity, absorption cross-section, and CO2 density — and not thermal equilibrium status. While the absorption cross-section and CO2 density may in turn depend on temperature and pressure, it is assumed here that these profiles are known and part of the "given" for this exercise.
Now, the original solution with the Beer-Lambert equation does have the limitation of not being able to predict the 15 micron thermal emissions emanating from the TOA, but these can be calculated separately using the Planck thermal distribution and subtracted from the total band intensity recorded by the detectors. It is important to realize that these thermal emissions consist only of photons escaping from the atmosphere and therefore cause no warming within the atmosphere. Hence, the only difference between these solutions is that in one case, the greenhouse effect forcing is determined in one calculation and the atmospheric thermal emissions flux is obtained in a separate step; and in the other case, both of these values are obtained from the solution of one somewhat more complicated equation. In either case, both bottom-line values are identical.
So, if you would like a copy of this paper please send me an email to answers@sciencefortruth.com and I will be glad to send you a copy in the .pdf format. Rob Loblaw does have a valid point when he says "do the actual math", and CallItAsItIs has done just that. In posting this message, I am hoping (against hope!) that your moderator would see this as a possible breakthrough in our understanding of theories that are in fact generally accepted in the scientific community, including climate scientists. But I'm not counting on it. So if you are interested, I would suggest that you act quickly in getting your email message out to me.
Moderator Response:Contents deleted. Sock puppet banned.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:02 AM on 29 December 2024CO2 lags temperature
wavefunction @680,
Your comment prompted me to reread the entire post (not the comments). It took me less than 10 minutes and I am a slow reader (I tend to read every word and try to understand what I am reading).
At no point is there mention of this specific issue being “... well understood for 170 years”.
Pursuing being more aware and developing a better understanding, by fully reading something before commenting, could help prevent someone from making an off-topic comment that deserves criticism and ridicule.
btw, Skimming the comments would lead to an awareness and understanding of the ridiculous (deserving ridicule) persistence of resistance to increased awareness and improved understanding. At least a review of the comments is proof of the point that some people do appear to 'not want to better understand it'.
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wavefunction at 22:17 PM on 28 December 2024CO2 lags temperature
Really? It's been well understood for 170 years? I'll bet you 675 comments that it's not well understood.
Moderator Response:[BL] 675 comments clearly indicates that there are people like you that do not understand the science, but that does not lead to any sort of conclusion that scientists that study the subject don't understand it.
This is only your second comment on this site. Your first one, on this same thread last March, was just as empty and vacuous as this one. You were warned then:
If your goal is to actually discuss any of the science, then you actually have to be willing to make a specific, supported, scientific statement that is related to the discussion topic of the original post, then you'll need to read and follow the Comments Policy. There is a link to the policy above the box you used to post your comment.
You will be given one more chance to try and make a constructive comment that leads to intelligent discussion. Until then:
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive or off-topic posts. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion. If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.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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michael sweet at 08:31 AM on 28 December 2024Sabin 33 #8 - Will solar development destroy jobs?
David-acct,
The op cites publications by acknowledged authorities that support the claim that renewables end up with many more jobs at the same time they have lower energy costs. Your unsupported response "I doubt it" is out of order. If you want to claim the op is incorrect you must provide references that support your claim.
I note that many peer reviewed papers like Jacobson et al 2022 make the same claim. I have never seen an analysis that finds less jobs from renewables. Fossil supporters simply say they disagree without any analysis or data Opinions without supporting data are worthless on a scientific site like Skeptical Science. The fact that there are already more renewable jobs than coal when we must dramatically enlarge renewables tells the whole story!
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MA Rodger at 04:19 AM on 27 December 2024Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
rkrolph @8,
The quote you provide comes from a 900 word essay entitled 'Progressive myths harm the honest discourse' by Michael Huemer, a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The essay is really no more than an advert for his book 'Progressive Myths' (Amazon preview here).In both book and essay he rails against "political activists" saying that "Nearly every piece of information they disseminate is a distortion or outright lie," and also that their influence is pervasive. In the essay he cites three exemplar "lies" promulgated by such "political activists." The three exemplars given are:-
(1) Women earn just 82 cents for every dollar that men earn for the same work;
(2) Police shootings show a marked racial bias against Black Americans;
(3) Global warming is an existential threat to America and the world.These are, of course 'progressive' lies as are the nine "myths" featured in his book (according to this book review) and with Huemer apparently a 'libertarian' (according to the reviewer of the book who does say but not convincingly Huemer "also addresses falsehoods from the far right"). With the subject of the book being titled "Progressive Myths", some significant bias should bring no surprises. The Amazon book review linked above shows the book's Part VI containts three chapters:-
19 The Global Warming Consensus.
20 Existential Climate Risk.
21 Mask Science, which presumably is about spread of the recent pandemic.(I should point out that, as I am a more-progressive less-libertarian Brit sat on the other side of the pond, I would consider the egregious lies and denials spread by 'libertarians' in the US should be far more of an issue and a concern. Thus I see the book as the lesson of Matthew 7:3-to-5 at play here.)
With that preamble from me, is there any merit to the notion of "global warming is an existential threat to America and the world" being nothing but a "progressive myth," as Huemer says? Is it indeed a lie? And do "Virtually no serious scientists think that global warming is an existential threat"?
The first thing required to be clear is what is meant by "existential threat."
There are some lunatics who talk of an "existential threat" to humanity, apparently suggesting that the Homo Sapiens species could become extinct. But such a notion is not being considered by Huemer.
The future exisitence of "America (USA) and the world" is the issue at hand. In the Amazon book review linked above which was lilely written by Huemer, the question is put "Is global warming really going to destroy human civilization?" Put another way, could we be** stoking a collapse of the USA and/or enough of the sovereign states of the world to collapse the world economic order. Note that more will be in play that AGW itself. Without collapsing the entire world order, the remaining sovereign states will almost certainly be arguing over resources, with the environmental impacts of AGW thus precipitating political conflict and thus further chaos.(** There is considerable uncertainty with the climate effects of AGW, even when a global level of warming is a given. There is thus a lot of uncertainty even before the level of AGW is converted into a measure of economic impacts.) The evident uncertainties within any assessment of the economic damage from AGW means assessment has to account for a less-than precise answer. The average of the potential results does not really provide a worthy assessment. It would be properly some assessment of the worst likely outcome.
And that leads to the work apparently setting-out what will be the financial impacts of AGW. In the most recent IPCC AR6 the conclusion is that no identifiable range of economic impacts globally is apparent due to the varying methodologies producing such a wide range of results. This range has increased since the limited analyses reviewed in AR5. Further complications include there being non-linear impacts with increasing AGW and there will be significant regional variation.
But to at least put some numbers to it, the range shown in AR6 for +4ºC of AGW is +3% to +33% with the CI ranging from negative to +66%. (Note the authors of these lower evaluations do come under fire and the likes of Richard Tol are well known for presenting a denialist stance.) This range compares to the "2.5% of GDP by 2100" stated by Huemer without any mention of the level of AGW assumed. It also compares with the range given in AR5 Box 3.1 "These incomplete estimates of global annual economic losses for temperature increases of ~2.5°C above pre-industrial levels are between 0.2 and 2.0% of income (medium evidence, medium agreement)."
There are many difficulties facing these researchers trying to set some sort of economic cost to AGW, mitigated or unmitigated, some examples being:-
☻ The 2100 time-frame usually chosen ignores some very serious issues, not least Sea Level Rise over multi-century timescales. Greenland melt down will become inevitable at some point below 2ºC AGW if it continues at that level. Thus it becomes a certainty for continuing AGW of +2ºC to resultant +7m SLR over a millennium or so. At +4ºC, there would be an additional +8m SLR from other land ice loss.
☻ There are many saying the undeveloped nations will see negative economic growth under unmitigated AGW. This may well not have such a big simplistic impact on global economic growth as the deveolped world accounts for the vast majority of the global economy. So if say Madagascar were to melt into the Indian Ocean and disappear, the global economy shrinks by just 0.1%. But also the 30 million inhabitants would thus be looking for some sort of future beyond their lost homeland. Some may see such migrations boosting economies elsewhere while others may see it as a more significant annual cost than the $500/head/y lost from their present day autochthonic productivity.
☻ The potential size of unmitigated AGW has been reduced in the minds of some researchers because the world has turned against using coal. This is argued because there are insufficient non-coal FFs to create much more than +3ºC AGW. Yet such an assumption remains to be fully argued out.And do "Virtually no serious scientists think that global warming is an existential threat"? There is another philosopher who talks as though no scientist could seriously say it is not an exisitential threat. "In the worst-case scenarios in scientists’ climate models, human-caused climate change is a threat to the continued existence of many species and to human society as we know it."
To conclude, Huemer presents a predictably denialist (and he insists he is not an AGW denialist) with his outlandish pronouncements entirely out-of-kilter with him being a growed-up philosopher and all.
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Bob Loblaw at 01:47 AM on 27 December 2024Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
rkrolph @ 8:
The devil is in the details on the quote you provided. What exactly do they mean by "existential threat"? That is the sort of subjective, emotive phrase that is very hard to pin down (and therefore hard to argue against or even have any sort of reasonable discussion about). Until such terms are clearly, unambiguously defined, trying to debate the statement is a fool's errand.
As for the "other world problems" part of that statement, it sound like they are channelling Bjorn Lomborg, who uses that shtick all the time. The shtick is so common that there is even an XKCD comic about it:
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Bob Loblaw at 01:32 AM on 27 December 2024Sabin 33 #8 - Will solar development destroy jobs?
David-acct:
"Generally" is not an easily-supported position. A lot more than employment numbers goes into an economic efficiency determination. Any production operation has to balance staffing, capital costs, operations and maintenance (O&M) costs, non-labour input costs, etc. I would have thought that a good accountant would realize this.
"Efficiency" where large capital costs spent elsewhere replaces local jobs, leaving severe local unemployment, may be profitable for an individual company, but may not be a good thing for the local community. How many problems exist in the US because jobs have been exported to China?
I agree that temporary construction jobs may not be a suitable long-term indicator, but in an industry that is continually expanding in small increments, construction jobs would continue to exist as long as expansion continues. You would have to make sure that the job counting does not count the same employees several times as they move from project to project, though. This illustrates the difference between looking at an industry as a whole rather than extrapolating from a single project's accounting as if it represented the entire industry.
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MA Rodger at 22:53 PM on 26 December 2024CO2 effect is saturated
I should perhaps correct the typo @864.
Schwarzschild's equation is expressed correctly thus:-
dIλ/ds = nσλ[Bλ(t)-Iλ]
where
Bλ(t) = [(2h.c^2)/λ^5] x 1/[e^(hc/kBt )-1]This looks eminently solvable (said boldly he) as it does appear to convert into a simple series for a linear-changing temperature. But there really is no reason to do this solving as through a cooling temperature gradient the equasion shows the flux will be dropping and ever approaching Iλ = Bλ(t). And this will be the case up through the troposphere until either the process continues up past the tropopause or the process ends with emissions from within the tropopause out into space.
And perhaps I should also explain the "???" @549 where I claim "As a PhD-wielding engineer, this extra source ???→CO2→photon comes as no surprise to me."
Actually an undergraduate engineer should be able to provide such an explanation if they had been paying attention during the lectures on Specific Heat Content. These show a lot more going on with poly-atomic gases than be explained by Ideal Gas theory and that activity is the spinning and vibrating of the molecules. And it is, of course, vibrating molecules that emit IR in the atmosphere. -
David-acct at 06:40 AM on 26 December 2024Sabin 33 #8 - Will solar development destroy jobs?
TWFA -
I wouldnt go as far as you did, though in general higher rates of employment per units of production is an indication of less efficiency, not greater efficiency. In this case, a large percentage of jobs would be temporary associated with construction, so the better measure would be compare the jobs per units of prodction associated with operations.
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TWFA at 04:59 AM on 26 December 2024Sabin 33 #8 - Will solar development destroy jobs?
So, two to five times as many jobs required to deliver the same amount of energy is... good? Would the same be true of farming, or just about any other industry of production?
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:30 AM on 25 December 2024Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
rkrolph @8,
In addition to the helpful comments by Evan @9 and nigelj @10, as a Professional Engineer with an MBA I would add that a proper evaluation of GDP has to exclude any economic activity that is a 'repair of or recovery from damage done by climate change'. Not excluding those activities that are required to address the harm done is like saying that the clean up of environmental damage done by an economic activity counts as a 'boost to the economy'.
Also, the likes of Nordhaus usually exclude any 'external negatives' like the displacement of, or harm done to, people who are not significant parts of the economic activity they are evaluating.
But the most misleading thing that the likes of Nordhaus do is 'heavily discount' future negatives. They apply high discount rates to create misunderstanding that make it appear that future negative impacts are 'justifiably significantly less meaningful to people today'.
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nigelj at 05:54 AM on 25 December 2024Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
rkrolph @ 8, sorry I didn't mean to say "you said" those quotes, they were by Michael Heumer.
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nigelj at 05:49 AM on 25 December 2024Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
rkolph@8
You said: "Virtually no serious scientists think that global warming is an existential threat. "
Some well qualified scientists do think climate change is an existential threat to humanity:
phys.org/news/2023-10-life-earth-existential-threat-climate.html
You said "Mainstream researchers anticipate global warming contributing perhaps a quarter percent to the excess death rate by mid-century and costing us 2.5% of GDP by 2100, making global warming less serious than many other world problems that have received far less attention."
Note that no researchers are named. You invariably find its the economist William Nordhaus. Just look up his wikipedia entry and read the expert criticisms of his DICE eoconomic model of climate change, near the end of the article. His assumptions are often unrealistic and he leaves out entire aspects of climate change like sea level rise.
One thing. He assumes quite high levels of economic growth in the future will offset climate problems. However economic growth has slowed relentlessly in developed countries since the 1970s until presently, with every sign developing countries will follow that trend later this century, and we live in a world of finite resources, with many fast being depleted and we have many countries with aging demographics and market saturation. This suggests future global economic growth will be low.
And thats before you consider the negative impacts of climate change on economic growth. Some experts calculate it will be considerably more than Nordhaus assumes:
"The largest impact of climate change is that it could wipe off up to 18% of GDP off the worldwide economy by 2050 if global temperatures rise by 3.2°C, the Swiss Re Institute warns."
www.weforum.org/stories/2021/06/impact-climate-change-global-gdp/
18% is huge and would severely impact the world. And this is still based on middle range warming estimates, and assumes critical tipping points won't be crossed.
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Evan at 22:34 PM on 24 December 2024Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
rkolph@8
I repeatedly hear from top climate scientists that the scope and severity of climate change is proceeding faster than climate scientists thought it would X years ago. One of the top climate researchers, Prof. Richard Alley of Penn State, is on record saying that sea level rise could be 15 ft of more by 2100. That statement alone is sufficient to counter the positive outlook presented in the Daily Breeze.
If you watch videos of Prof. Alley's talks, you will quickly learn that he is a very measured and disciplined scientist who carefully chooses his words. He is not an alarmist. For him to say that you can not rule out sea level rise of 15 to 20 ft is alarming.
Prof. Alley has also researched past climatic changes and notes that if we push the system hard enough it can switch states in a matter of years through Abrupt Climate Change. The previous link is to a paper that is behind a paywall, but if just read the abstract visible on the website, you get the idea. Abrupt climate changes are hard to predict, but have happened before, and could likely happen again, given just how hard we're pushing the system.
How hard are we pushing the system?
Typical ice-age cycles see the predominant greenhouse gas, CO2, change by about 100 ppm over 100,000 years, causing a fluctuation of sea level by 400 ft! We are currently increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations by 2.5 ppm/yr, year after year after year. In just 40 years, we increase CO2 by the same amount that natural processes require 1000's of year to do.
The idea that the human effect on the climate will be mild and managable are wishful thinking. We are actively damaging our life-support systems, but making precise predictions about how this will play out is difficult.
My recommendation is that you google "Richard Alley Climate Change" and start watching vidoes of his talks. You will learn a lot with which to counter the myth that the effects of climate change will be mild and managable.
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rkrolph at 17:11 PM on 24 December 2024Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
I read in my local newspaper, The Daily Breeze, serving South Bay Cities of Los Angeles County, the following quote, and was wondering if anyone has a response to it. It was titled "Progressive myths harm the honest discourse." Author was Michael Huemer.
"Virtually no serious scientists think that global warming is an existential threat. Mainstream researchers anticipate global warming contributing perhaps a quarter percent to the excess death rate by mid-century and costing us 2.5% of GDP by 2100, making global warming less serious than many other world problems that have received far less attention."
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David-acct at 12:32 PM on 24 December 2024Uruguay, pioneer in renewable energy: a model for the world?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption
fwiw - Uruguay per capita electric consumption is approx 35-40% of the US per capita electric consumption. Per capita electric generation in Uruguay from Wind & hydro is actually reasonably close to the per capita electric generation from wind and hydro in the US.
Along those lines, One thing worth noting in Jacobson's 100% renewable studies is the projected increase in electric usage in many of underdeveloped countries is reasonably close to projected population increases with little increase in per capita electric usage as those countries experience industrial and modern world development. See Jacobson's supplemental schedules.
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scaddenp at 06:05 AM on 23 December 2024Fact brief - Are we heading into an 'ice age'?
For an "Historian", Adrian seems strangely challenged in checking the validity of his sources.
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nigelj at 05:04 AM on 23 December 2024Fact brief - Are we heading into an 'ice age'?
The Time magazine cover from 1977 featuring a photo of a penguin with the headline, “How To Survive The Coming Ice Age” was a fake:
apnews.com/article/fact-check-time-magazine-global-climate-fabricated-cover-944714514495
In the 1970s a small number of scientists thought there might be a flat or cooling trend in coming decades but the majority of published research around the 1940s - 1970s predicted there would be a global warming trend in coming decades (which there was)
skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm
I actually did a couple of papers in physical geography at university back in the early 1980s. One of the textbooks was Atmosphere ,Weather and Climate by Barry and Chorley, a 1971 edition, and the chapter on climate change did not say the scientific community was predicting a coming cooling trend or ice age. It said global temperatures had been flat from the 1940s to 1970, and it was uncertain what would happen in the coming decades. I still have this textbook.
Moderator Response:[BL] You are responding to a comment from AdriantheHistorian that has had its contents deleted. Although all you may have seen was "text", his last two comments consisted of links to images that were the result of web searches. Rather than actually bothering to type the contents, or get a direct link to an image, he has simply put the web search into his comment.
For other readers, AdriantheHIstorian has been repeating myths about the 1970s cooling trends.
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AdriantheHistorian at 02:01 AM on 23 December 2024Fact brief - Are we heading into an 'ice age'?
Skeptical Science asks that you review the comments policy. Thank you.
[snip]
The New Ice Age was Promoted and a 'Fact' back in the 1970's to get President Nixion to Create the EPA. Enviromental Protection Agency.
https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=a708972a8ba8ce15990b406eec8dd8eeef261a471c38752311e038ee709c5666JmltdHM9MTczNDgyNTYwMA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=4&fclid=1c8ee8b9-4b23-6ade-3488-fbd14a996bb8&u=a1L2ltYWdlcy9zZWFyY2g_cT1waWN0dXJlcytzaG93aW5nK3RpbWUrbWFnYXppbmUrY292ZXJzK3dpdGgrdGhlK25ldytpY2UrYWdlJnFwdnQ9cGljdHVyZXMrc2hvd2luZyt0aW1lK21hZ2F6aW5lK2NvdmVycyt3aXRoK3RoZStuZXcraWNlK2FnZSZGT1JNPUlHUkU&ntb=1
Moderator Response:[BL] Also material previously posted and deleted by a moderator.
Your unsupported assertions are a violation of the Comments Policy. As is posting links without an explanation of what they contain. And a link that is a search will change contents over time (and likely change depending on who does it) and is particularly useless as supporting evidence of your claim.
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AdriantheHistorian at 01:49 AM on 23 December 2024Fact brief - Are we heading into an 'ice age'?
[snip]
Moderator Response:[BL] Empty, incorrect claims without supporting evidence.
The deleted contents represented a link to a web search of images, and is unacceptable content.
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AdriantheHistorian at 01:32 AM on 23 December 2024Fact brief - Are we heading into an 'ice age'?
Skeptical Science asks that you review the comments policy. Thank you.
[snip]
TODAY!......... Climate Shift. ..??.. DID the “NEW ICE AGE”, Climate Fanatics of the 1970’s CAUSE the so-called, “Climate Shift” Crises of Today?
(Scientists say sprinkling diamond dust into the sky could offset almost all of climate change so far — but it'll cost $175 trillion)
Story by Sascha Pare 12-19-2024Sprinkling diamond dust into the atmosphere could offset almost all the warming caused by humans since the industrial revolution and "buy us some time" with climate change, scientists say.
[This is Funny as the ''Climate Craze'' back in the 1970's was the New Ice Age..... Yes ''they'' said that Pollution (partials) were being thrown up into the upper atmosphere and causing the suns light to be reflected back into space., This was causing a New Ice Age to destroy the Earth.
Note; To STOP this New Ice Age, the USA went 'seriously' into protecting the 'Environment' way back in the 1970's with President Nixon signing the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) into law.
Today the USA only produces as much steel as it did in 1950, this is as an example of those EPA efforts.
High Gas Prices?.. EPA will Not allow a New Oil refinery to be built in America.
Etc. Etc.
And this is also a major reason for the loss of Millions of very good paying jobs, I might add. 'clean', comes with a very steep 'price'.]Continued.
New research indicates that shooting 5.5 million tons (5 million metric tons) of diamond dust into the stratosphere every year could cool the planet by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) thanks to the gems' reflective properties. This extent of cooling would go a long way to limiting global warming that began in the second half of the 19th century and now amounts to about 2.45 F (1.36 C), according to NASA.
The research contributes to a field of geoengineering that's looking for ways to fight climate change by reducing the amount of energy reaching Earth from the sun.https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/scientists-say-sprinkling-diamond-dust-into-the-sky-could-offset-almost-all-of-climate-change-so-far-but-it-ll-cost-175-trillion/ar-AA1w6MuP?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=2dfb5c2f1669448799854ec819ce98bf&ei=43
Moderator Response:[BL] Reposting stuff that has already been cut out by moderators is a violation of the comments policy.
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prove we are smart at 10:55 AM on 20 December 2024Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
Since my opinion is in agreement with Evan, I too hope we are both wrong.
"When humans stop emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the climate will stop warming." Not just keep co2 emissions from increasing but stop any GHG pollution entering our air.
Here is part of why I think "committed warming" is the real world norm.
Take for example the USA,www.wri.org/insights/interactive-chart-shows-changes-worlds-top-10-emitters while its per capita co2 emissions has peaked, historically this one country has put 25% of the co2 in our atmosphere! It is number 2 in the current yearly co2 emitters and to get some perspective-this is the equivalent to the mass of 6,300+ small cars x a million in this year alone!
The worst top three add 46% of climate change pollutants with the worst 10 making this amount to over 66%.
I'm tired of the hopium of scaled co2 "scrubbers", of a wake-up of humanity and forcing our leaders to think decades ahead and to get the transition moving more quickly.
The map for 2017 ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 shows the large inequalities of contribution across the world that the first treemap visualization has shown. The USA has emitted the most to date: more than a quarter of all historical CO2 — twice that of China, which is the second largest contributor.
In contrast, most countries across Africa have been responsible for less than 0.01% of all emissions over the last 266 years.
What becomes clear when we look at emissions across the world today is that the countries with the highest emissions over history are not always the biggest emitters today. The UK, for example, was responsible for only 1% of global emissions in 2017. Reductions here will have a relatively small impact on emissions at the global level – or at least fall far short of the scale of change we need. This creates tension with the argument that the largest contributors in the past should be those doing the most to reduce emissions today. This is because a large fraction of CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years once emitted.3
This inequality is one of the main reasons why it’s so challenging to find international agreement on who should take action.
I think future warming is inevitable because of our flawed human nature..
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:01 AM on 20 December 2024Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
AdriantheHistorian @4,
In addition to reviewing the comments policy, the SkS home page helpfully offers 3 big boxes near the top for people who are relatively unaware or lack a reasonable understanding of the issue:
- Newcomers, start here
- History of Climate Science
- The Big Picture
A very helpful part of the Newcomers, start here page (linked here) is the section: Good starting points for newbies.
After becoming more familiar with the issue you should understand and appreciate the lack of legitimacy, lack of merit, lack of value, of the beliefs you shared in your comment @4.
Obvious questions about constantly pumping massive amounts of diamond dust, or other materials, into the atmosphere are:
- How sustainable is the activity? (how long could it be done?)
- Who will pay for the action? (the people who are the richest today because of the past pumping of ghgs into the atmosphere should)
- What potential harm could be caused? (any potential for harm to be caused by an attempt to counteract another harmful action points back to the need to stop the original harmful action - not add harm by claiming it is the way to deal with harm done)
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nigelj at 05:54 AM on 20 December 2024Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
AdriantheHistorian said: "Today the USA only produces as much steel as it did in 1950, this is as an example of those EPA efforts."
Not necessarilly. This is from "History of the iron and steel industry in the United States" on Wikipedia: "US production of iron and steel peaked in 1973, when the US industry produced a combined total of 229 million metric tons of iron and steel. But US iron and steel production dropped drastically during the recession of the late 1970s and early 1980s. From a combined iron and steel production of 203 million tons in 1979, US output fell almost in half, to 107 million tons in 1982. Some steel companies declared bankruptcy, and many permanently closed steelmaking plants. By 1989, US combined iron and steel production recovered to 142 million tons, a much lower level than in the 1960s and 1970s. The causes of the sudden decline are disputed. Among the many causes alleged have been: dumping of foreign imports below cost, high labor costs, poor management, unfavorable tax policies, and costs of environmental controls."
It seems most likely that the EPA contributed to a relatively small part of the stagnation in steel production if anything. I think is a price worth paying to look after the environment and have clean air and water and so forth. It's a values issue.
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AdriantheHistorian at 01:36 AM on 20 December 2024Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
Skeptical Science asks that you review the comments policy. Thank you.
[snip]
TODAY!......... Climate Shift. ..??.. DID the Climate Fanatics of the 1970’s CAUSE the Climate Crises of Today?
Funny as the ''Climate Craze'' back in the 1970's was the New Ice Age..... Yes ''they'' said that Pollution (partials) were being thrown up into the upper atmosphere and causing the suns light to be reflected back into space., This was causing a New Ice Age to destroy the earth.(Scientists say sprinkling diamond dust into the sky could offset almost all of climate change so far — but it'll cost $175 trillion)
Story by Sascha Pare 12-19-2024Today those same people (Rainmakers) are selling yet another climate ''Crises''.
Note; To STOP this New Ice Age, the USA went 'seriously' into protecting the 'Environment' way back in the 1970's with President Nixon signing the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) into law.
Today the USA only produces as much steel as it did in 1950, this is as an example of those EPA efforts.
High Gas Prices?.. EPA will Not allow a New Oil refinery to be built in America.
And this is also a major reason for the loss of Millions of very good paying jobs, I might add. 'clean', comes with a very steep 'price'.
Even IF the ‘Clean’ is ONLY here and all that pollution was just Moved to China, along with all the Jobs.
Good thing we don’t use the same Air as the Chinese. Otherwise it would ALL have been a waste of time and Money.TODAY!......... Climate Shift. ..??.. DID the Climate Fanatics of the 1070 CAUSE the Climate Crises of Today?
(Scientists say sprinkling diamond dust into the sky could offset almost all of climate change so far — but it'll cost $175 trillion)
Story by Sascha Pare 12-19-2024Sprinkling diamond dust into the atmosphere could offset almost all the warming caused by humans since the industrial revolution and "buy us some time" with climate change, scientists say.
New research indicates that shooting 5.5 million tons (5 million metric tons) of diamond dust into the stratosphere every year could cool the planet by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) thanks to the gems' reflective properties. This extent of cooling would go a long way to limiting global warming that began in the second half of the 19th century and now amounts to about 2.45 F (1.36 C), according to NASA.
The research contributes to a field of geoengineering that's looking for ways to fight climate change by reducing the amount of energy reaching Earth from the sun.https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/scientists-say-sprinkling-diamond-dust-into-the-sky-could-offset-almost-all-of-climate-change-so-far-but-it-ll-cost-175-trillion/ar-AA1w6MuP?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=2dfb5c2f1669448799854ec819ce98bf&ei=43
Moderator Response:[BL] Apart from getting facts wrong, this is essentially yet another uninformed political rant.
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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nigelj at 07:14 AM on 19 December 2024Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
My understanding is that the committed / equilibrium warming is apparently zero, provided emissions drop abruptly to zero in some given year, as opposed to trailing off slowly (?). But it very unlikely that emissions will abruptly drop to zero, so for all practical purposes we have some committed warming!
However assuming purely for the sake of argument that the committed warming is Hansens 10 degrees, that will take many thousands of years to evolve and so won't affect humanity significantly for a very long time, so its not a reason for us to give up on reducing emissions.
I hear what Evan is saying. There is perhaps also a tendency for people to assume things like emissions trading schemes or carbon taxes are fixing the problem when they are not doing this adequately. However counter balancing this people must also be aware progess reducing emissions is going too slowly, given its been in the media often enough. So I'm not sure that too many people would assume the problem is being adequately solved.
Evan says "The message is also that any level of emissions is bad, and that we need to do all that we can to reduce GHG emissions."
Exactly.
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Evan at 22:29 PM on 18 December 2024Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
The message that I prefer to give people is this.
"The current CO2 concentration is 420 ppm. That concentration is sufficient to warm the planet to 1.7C if we don't bring it down. Every time we emit CO2 we are actively destroying Earth's life-support systems. We need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as fast as possible and to support local, national, and global initiatives that do that."
This is a message that is consistent with climate science and refers people back to the Keeling Curve to monitor how we're doing. If 420 ppm is enough to take us to 1.7C, then anything higher will take us to a higher temperature. The message is also that any level of emissions is bad, and that we need to do all that we can to reduce GHG emissions.
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Evan at 22:05 PM on 18 December 2024Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
Although I agree with the theoretical aspects of no warming after reaching net-0 emissions, the danger I see with the underlying message in this paper is that we are broadcasting the concept that the future is in our hands. This is not only an arrogant position, but may backfire. The average person is not reading SkS and is not grounded in legitimate climate science, but may be getting a fuzzy, positive feeling when they see the number of solar panels, wind turbines, and EVs on the road increasing. They see what looks like great progress deploying renewable energy and EVs, and therefore conclude wrongly that we're decreasing CO2 emissions, and so now can relax and rest assured that the future will be fine. As long as they continue to see the deployment of renewable energy projects and EVs, they are satisfied that we are doing what is needed. Now that we've got the climate back on track, let's go elect leaders to get the economy back on track.
This at a time when CO2 concentrations are increasing at a rate of 2.5 ppm/year and fossil-fuel use continues to increase year after year.
In my opinion it will never work to broadcast that the future is in our hands and that we just need to get to Net-0 emissions to stabilize the climate. The message is arrogant and really just a concept that we cannot possibly hope to effectively quantify. In my opinion, achieving it will require more than we've ever demonstrated we're capable of.
I hope my opinion is wrong!
Having said this, I'm still not sure what the best messaging is. I think what SkS is doing is critically important because it is helping people understand what is happening and why. So I offer my comments in an effort to put the message of this paper into context and to temper what I see as an overly optimistic message.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:46 AM on 18 December 2024How much should you worry about a collapse of the Atlantic conveyor belt?
Bob Loblaw,
I like the point about 2 + 2 = 5 potentially being valid depending on the details.
However, that 'unusual scientifically accurate point' does not mean that '2 + 2 = Whatever you wish' in spite of some people's belief that everything is just matters of Opinion and every Opinion is equally valid. Independently verifiable evidence reduce the range of valid Opinions.
My pet peeve is that, in spite of all serious scientists abandoning the use of archaic units of measurement decades ago, some archaic units continue to be popular enough in the general population of some regions of the planet that many reporters feel obliged to include conversions to the archaic units.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:58 PM on 17 December 2024How much should you worry about a collapse of the Atlantic conveyor belt?
...and "around 3C" could be anywhere from 2.5C (4.5F) to 3.5C (6.5F), so "around 5F" is a reasonable approximation to "around 3C", provided we're not on the high end of "around 3C".
It's like the old saying: 2 + 2 = 5 for sufficiently large values of 2. (Try 2.4 + 2.4.) Uncertainty ranges are important.
...but my pet peeve - a battle lost decades ago - is for the use of "5 degrees Celsius" as a descriptor for a temperature change. A temperature difference is "5 Celsius degrees". "5 degrees Celsius" is a single point on the scale. 5 degrees Celsius is 5 Celsius degrees colder than 10 degrees Celsius.
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BaerbelW at 15:58 PM on 17 December 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
dorfline @1
Thanks for your feedback! The categorization simply happens via a drop down in the Google form used to collect articles for sharing, so is down to whatever the person submitting the form selects from the options given in the form. This can obviously be manually corrected later. In earlier editions of this roundup, we mention that we employed ChatGPT and/or Gemini to generate categorized listings, so some of them are based on those exercises. Some others were suggested in comments to the postings.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:25 PM on 17 December 2024How much should you worry about a collapse of the Atlantic conveyor belt?
My mental math late at night is not too sharp.
3 C x 1.8 = 5.4 F (still rounds to 5 F)
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:23 PM on 17 December 2024How much should you worry about a collapse of the Atlantic conveyor belt?
hig314 @1,
The stated temperatures are correct (correct enough).
A 1 degree celsius 'change of temperature' is exactly 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. So a change of 15 C x 1.8 = 27 F (exactly) and 3 C x 1.8 = 4.8 F (rounds to 5 F).
You are probably thinking of the 'equivalent temperature' values which are based on 0 C = 32 F (exactly) and 100 C = 212 F (exactly).
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hig314 at 13:54 PM on 17 December 2024How much should you worry about a collapse of the Atlantic conveyor belt?
Some celcius - fareignheit conversions need correcting (feel free to delete this comment, I just wanted to let you know.) "The average February temperature plummeted by a bone-chilling 15 degrees Celsius (27 degrees Fahrenheit) in London and by around 3°C (5°F) across the mid-Mississippi Valley of the United States."
