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Tom Curtis at 15:31 PM on 5 September 2015Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
juan vicini @54 & 55:
1) The CO2 in soft drinks is obtained by capturing CO2 from power station exhaust, and then forcing it into the water under high pressure. Because the CO2 is captured from power station exhaust, the amount of CO2 in that exhaust is reduced by the same amount as the CO2 "emitted" by soft drinks. In consequence, soft drinks emit no CO2 that was not going to be emitted anyway. It causes no increase in total CO2 emissions, other than that due to the energy of manufacture.
2) All human food is either plant life, or processed from plant life (meats). As such, the CO2 in all human food is obtained from the atmosphere by photosynthesis. Further, once respired, new food is grown by again taking CO2 from the atmosphere by photosynthesis. As such, the respired CO2 from humans does not increase overall atmospheric CO2 levels. It is only possible to imagine that it does by ignoring the photosynthetic half of the equation. This is all explained very clearly in the original post above, and in the comments afterwards.
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r.pauli at 13:51 PM on 5 September 2015Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips
the YouTube channel for Potholer54 has a wonderful playlist on denialists
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52KLGqDSAjo&list=PL82yk73N8eoX-Xobr_TfHsWPfAIyI7VAP
"The main purpose of this channel is to explain in simple terms the conclusions of scientific research, and correct some of the unsourced crap we get fed on the Internet. I am a former science journalist (see the "Who I am" video) with a degree in geology."
He is Peter Hadfield - I have enjoyed everything he has done. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hadfield_(journalist)
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juan vicini at 13:36 PM on 5 September 2015Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
I wonder... How much of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from soft drink bubbles?
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juan vicini at 13:27 PM on 5 September 2015Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Humans sink Carbon through waste, Humans are producers by means of the increment in aricultural productivity per hectar which we have developed. Fossil fuel burning recycles sunk carbon like volcanoes do every so often. Humans are part of the biosphere increments in our population do increase co2 in the atmosphere through breathing alone. We do not produce all the food we eat, non farmed fish consumed by humans per year amounts to 70 million tons. the question of how much of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from breathing is a valid one. in the end it is not just how much goes up and how much is sunk because we can't expect to keep earth on a permanent temperature indefinately as that would be imposible ue to prescesion of the earths axis. In fact trying to do o would probably harm the biosphere much more than fossil fuel burning. the adecuat balance of CO2 at any given moment in the atmosphere should be monitored as a percetage of total mas of living biosphere and in relation to the amount of C escaping the atmosphere aswell.
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Digby Scorgie at 12:37 PM on 5 September 2015Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips
Um, fellows, I don't think you understand my question. If someone tells me global warming is a myth, I'd like to ask, "OK, so what would you say would be proper evidence of global warming?"
I'm past the stage of caring what people think of climate change. I doubt that any effective action will be taken in the near future. It will be the planet that will change people's minds — and then it will be too late.
Nevertheless, I'm still curious about how deniers would answer my question. While there's curiosity, there's hope?!
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Daniel Bailey at 12:09 PM on 5 September 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
wideEyedPupil, given that I wrote the article you linked to, I'm not particularly worried about it.
- The graphic you're interested in was taken from this source.
- Nuclear power does have it's place, but as one of many wedges, and not the entire busload.
- But then, renewables can drive the busload by themselves, as it turns out.
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Tom Curtis at 08:11 AM on 5 September 2015Tracking the 2C Limit - July 2015
ronald myers @43, HadCRUT4 has 30 years more data, but that data is drawn primarilly from Europe and North America meaning it is limited in extent, and geographically biased. Because of this, NOAA and GISS decided not to included that data, considering estimates of GMST from that data to be too unreliable (a decision with which I agree).
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Tom Curtis at 08:05 AM on 5 September 2015The cause of the greatest mass-extinctions of all? Pollution (Part 1)
dudo39 @23:
1) CO2 toxicity appears to be a complicated subject. To begin with, the consequence of CO2 toxicity is not asphyxiation, which requires reducing oxygen concentrations to about 4%, but from increasing acidity in body tissues. The effects of this increased acidity include hamorrhaging of lungs, spleen, intestines and kidneys. It also includes loss of body mass, and the mass of various organs, although the rate of loss varies by organ and by species. Finally, at 15% concentration, it results in the complete loss of spermatogenesis. 15% concentration sustained over several weeks also resulted in the deaths of 30 to 50% of guinea pigs, but not of rats.
At lower levels of CO2, sustained exposure can be effectively buffered but at a cost. Specifically, at sustained 1% CO2 concentrations humans buffer against CO2 by loss of bone mass. This also is associated with replacement of calcium carbonate with calcium bicarbonate in bones as part of the buffering process. I am not sure what effect this has on the strength or brittlness of bone. The buffering is not continuous in time, but appears to go through stages.
The upshot is that while humans cannot increase CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to levels that are immediately fatal, or which will result in permanent sterillity (15%), at the upper limit we can increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations to levels that are toxic and have harmful effects on humans. Other species, however, are far more susceptible to CO2 concentration, particularly some marine species.
2) Yes, atmospheric H2O is replaced by evaporation, but that just means the concentration of H2O is controlled by temperature. Total human emissions of H2O does not increase the atmospheric concentration appreciably over the concentration due to that evaporation.
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ronald myers at 07:27 AM on 5 September 2015Tracking the 2C Limit - July 2015
My primary objective was to suggest changes to the first figure in this thread. There were three items. One was that HadCRUT4 has an additional 30 years of temperature record than GISS. The second item was a suggestion to adjust the CO2 so the average of the first 30 years are at 0 and consistent with the alignment of the temperature anomaly. The last was a method to include the CO2 concentrations on the figure and provide a means for the reader to determine the concentrations from the figure. You did bring up an additional suggestion to include other GHG concentrations and scale them in proportion to their forcing level. This would result in a total forcings line which is about 3% higher than just CO2 (based upon the natural log of the total forcing of 485 ppm CO2 equivalent per http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.html Table 2 and projecting 2015 value).
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Rob Honeycutt at 06:22 AM on 5 September 2015The cause of the greatest mass-extinctions of all? Pollution (Part 1)
dudo39... I can't see that you proposed any actual question(s).
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dudo39 at 01:42 AM on 5 September 2015The cause of the greatest mass-extinctions of all? Pollution (Part 1)
To Moderator Response,
Please tell me what policies did I not comply with?
My comment about water vapor was in response to the satement "Water vapour quickly cycles back to the surface as rain".
I did not suggest or imply that CO2 caused extinction by asphyxiation; my question was in response to "Harmful or poisonous effects depend on the physical and chemical properties of any one substance. Substances are widely variable in their toxicity in terms of concentration. Carbon dioxide, essential to photosynthetic plantlife, has other properties which, at higher concentrations, make it dangerous. As a strong greenhouse gas, any substantial increase in its atmospheric levels over a matter of a few centuries make it a pollutant because of the impacts of rapid climate change. At much higher levels it becomes an asphyxiant".
Please note that National Safety Council's "Fundamentals of Industrial Hygiene" [4th Edition] states in the first paragraph in page 42: "Carbon dioxide is always present in the atmosphere, but the proporetion of carbon dioxide in air exhaled from the lungs is 100 times greater"; thus my statement about the 40,000 ppm of CO2.
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Jim Eager at 01:38 AM on 5 September 2015Global warming intensified the record floods in Texas and Oklahoma
Umm, Denis, exactly where do you think those greenhouse gas emitting technological systems came from? It was we humans who designed and built and use them. Trivial semantics aside, people have been making poor decisions that negatively impact the environment and thereby ourselves since long before we invented indusrialized civilization.
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Tom Dayton at 01:36 AM on 5 September 2015Hockey stick is broken
David Appell is updating a list of all the hockey sticks anybody can find. He's asking for additions from anybody. It's over three dozen now.
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wideEyedPupil at 01:32 AM on 5 September 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
@Daniel Bailey 28
You might be aware you first graph comparing avain death by power source ahs been reused various places online like here. I'm wondering where the source for death by nuclear came from. Nuclear advocates often level this myth about wind turbines and it would be nice to have a reliable source to say well, if it's bird deaths your care so much about then you'd advocate replacing nuclear with wind power. Thx Alastair -
BBHY at 23:34 PM on 4 September 2015Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips
Tom Curtis, true, that is a good point. Still, I feel my point is valid,. People like to idenify with a group, it is a good feeling to be a part of something larger than oneself and for many people that can be a more powerful driver than cold, dry facts.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that these people cannot be reached, or even convinced to change their minds. I only suggest that facts, or as Digby puts it, evidence, presented alone, is not the most effective way to reach them.
There are many other ways to reach someone, and different personality styles wil respond to different methods. Advertisers understand this well and will produce ads that reach us in different ways on different levels. Naratives, humor, and appeals to emotional, moral and social resonance are just a few. Of course facts should be included as well, but they need to be presented in the proper context to be widely convincing.
Politicians are naturally skilled at making these kinds of convincing arguments, while the typical scientifically oriented personality is not. There are notable exceptions; Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye for instance. But I think this generally explains why so many people find the arguments of politicians more convincing than those of scientists, even though the scientists may have a far superior backing of evidence.
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Tom Curtis at 20:27 PM on 4 September 2015Northwest passage has been navigated in the past
MRoscio @6 & 7, the Manhattan was accompanied by an icebreaker, the USCGC Northwind, on its westward passage, and by another icebreaker, the USCGC Staten Island on its eastward passage. At some unspecified stage, it also had additional assistance by the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent. This despite having been modified to itself be an icebreaker. Likewise, the Canmar Explorer II was also accompanied by an icebreaker, the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent.
Given that multiple commercial ships and hobby craft transit the Northwest Passage every year now, without icebreaker assistance, I am not sure what your point is.
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MRoscio at 19:38 PM on 4 September 2015Northwest passage has been navigated in the past
I obviously meant "in both directions", East-to-West then West-to-East. Apologies.
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MRoscio at 19:35 PM on 4 September 2015Northwest passage has been navigated in the past
The first commercial ship to complete the Northwest Passage, in both senses, in the same year, was the US supertanker Manhattan in 1969.
The second one, as far as I know, was the drilling ship Canmar Explorer II in 1976.
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Tom Curtis at 16:55 PM on 4 September 2015Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips
BBHY @2, in defense of the aparently illogical Democrats and Republicans in that survey, there are policies I would trust some parties to impliment, but not others, even when the policy is essentially the same at a brief level of description. Not only is there much devil in the detail that can be a make or break issue on some policies, but even the detail of legislation does not cover the way in which policies are administered which can also make a difference.
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BBHY at 16:08 PM on 4 September 2015Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips
Digby, for many people logic and facts are not the driver of their views on climate change.
A recent Washington Post survey found that when Donald Trump proposes a policy, Republicans love it and Democrats hate it. When President Obama proposes a policy Democrats love it and Republicans hate it. This applies even when it is the exact same policy.
Views on climate change are similar. Many people have their particular view not because of the facts and logic, but because it helps identify them as belonging to their chosen political camp. This is just human nature.
Personally I prefer facts and logic, but I beleive I may be in the minority in that regard.
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Digby Scorgie at 14:01 PM on 4 September 2015Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips
I have to confess that I've not — yet — read any of the material of this course, but I have a related question that has been bothering me for some time. If it has already been answered, I beg forgiveness.
My question concerns deniers who reject the evidence for global warming. Has anyone asked them what they would consider to be "proper" evidence? For example, no more ice at the poles would surely be incontrovertible, if rather drastic; how about some intermediate situation, such as an ice-free Arctic Ocean in September? I would dearly like to know what they would put forward. It should be very entertaining.
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dudo39 at 13:52 PM on 4 September 2015The cause of the greatest mass-extinctions of all? Pollution (Part 1)
At what level does CO2 become an asphyxiant?
Please keep in mind that even at 40,000 ppm CO2 is not harmful to humans and probably to mammals.
Also keep in mind that as water precipitates it is readily replaced by evaporation, and it appears that water vapor varies over a wide range at a given location and time....
Moderator Response:[PS] Welcome to Skeptical Science.
Thank you for taking the time to share with us. Skeptical Science is a user forum wherein the science of climate change can be discussed from the standpoint of the science itself. Ideology and politics get checked at the keyboard.
Please take the time to review the Comments Policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
In particular, note that comments must be on-topic. No one is suggesting CO2 caused extinction by aphyxiation. Claims about water vapour should be in the appropriate place and backed by references. Unsubstantiated claims are sloganneering and banned.
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bozzza at 12:19 PM on 4 September 2015Global warming intensified the record floods in Texas and Oklahoma
You're talking nomenclature now: once the lingo is defined you can methodically work out the answer to the half-solved, said and specified problem.
The trouble becomes: all science is inevitabaly political at some point and what we have here is the tribalistic problem of all tribalistic problems...some make serious money from pollution!
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denisaf at 11:16 AM on 4 September 2015Global warming intensified the record floods in Texas and Oklahoma
The terminology used leads to gross misunderstanding. Humans do not emit the greenhouse gases that have caused irreversible rapid climate disruption and ocean warming and acidification. It is the technological systems of indusrialized civilization that has done the damage. People can only make decisions, good and bad, about what should be done to adapt to what these systems have done wrong.
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scaddenp at 07:17 AM on 4 September 2015Tracking the 2C Limit - July 2015
Ronald, I am not quite sure what you are trying to achieve here. Climate theory says you expect temperature trends to be correlated to net forcing (with some lag), not just CO2. For an example, see Schmidt and Benestad 2009.
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wili at 06:19 AM on 4 September 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #35
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 7/abstract
Something to include in future digests or maybe even a main post??
Xin Qu, Alex Hall, Stephen A. Klein and Anthony M. DeAngelis (September 3, 2015), "Positive tropical marine low-cloud cover feedback inferred from cloud-controlling factors", Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/2015GL065627
This should have an effect on climate sensitivity estimations, I would think.
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wili at 06:09 AM on 4 September 2015Global warming intensified the record floods in Texas and Oklahoma
So does anyone predict that now citizens of these states will rise up and demand that their representatives do something about climate change...
I don't expect them to, and if they don't it is yet more proof that events themselves, even extreme and devastating events that can clearly be connected to GW, are not enough by themselves to change minds of even those directly effected by said extreme events.
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ronald myers at 03:22 AM on 4 September 2015Tracking the 2C Limit - July 2015
I have reworked the temperature anomaly and CO2 image. The temperature anomaly uses the average of the first 30 realisations of the HadCRUT4 data. I changed the base years to 1850 - 1880. I log transformed the CO2 and regressed it to the temperature anomaly. Correlation is 0.796. With more work, the CO2 concentrations can be alligned with the temperature anomaly lines.
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MA Rodger at 02:22 AM on 4 September 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #35
Ryland @1&7.
I'm not sure what your point is. I assume you are aware that your referenced Guardian article dates to 2009. Mind, it doesn't take much to get the papers to pop an angy editorial at the Met Office, as this Met press release from April this year shows.
If you look for real criticism of 2015 Met Office summer forecast stories, there was an item in the Exeter Express & Echo yesterday (the Met Office's Hadley Centre is in Exeter) complaining that the forecast average rainfall didn't match the 175% average that actually fell. (The whimps. Bournemouth got 230% in August, an August record, but not a word of complaint about weather forecasting. The sun always shines in Bournemouth!!!)
More seriously, there is chatter that the climate deniers of the new UK all-Tory government are doing their best to put the boot in the Met Office good and proper. If they can't get the CRU direct, the Met Office is a good alternative. Aren't they both jointly to blame for HadCRUT?
So we find the Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy re-blogging the ExeterE&E story and there are more viscious stories running round the rightist press which (with a few additional anachronistic stories for good measure) have been cut&pasted by the Gentlemen then nailed to the petrol pump on planet Wattsupia by the fair hand of Willard Watts himself.
The serious point, mentioned by the ExeterE&E, (with more coverage here) is the Met Office losing the BBC contract under rather odd circumstances.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:34 AM on 4 September 2015Citi report: slowing global warming would save tens of trillions of dollars
"Too big to fail" is a misleading term. That term is used to prolong irresponsible unsustainable gambles just because they have become very popular and profitable and to reward and protect those who obtained wealth and power from the unacceptable success of such pursuits.
The losses that should be faced by investors and employees and consumers whose perception of success are based on getting away with the understandably unacceptable gambles will clearly have to be forced on the current system. It is clear that the current system encourages leadership that will defend and promote the least acceptable economic activity that can be gotten away with.
What is needed is leadership that focuses on the constant improvement of the understanding of everything that is going on. And the required type of leadership would apply that understanding to encourage and promote development toward a lasting better future for all life on this amazing planet (something I contend is the only viable future for humanity on this or any other planet). That action by responsible leaders would include forcing changes of what has been developed. And that would include ensuring that those who hoped to benefit from unacceptable economic development wold suffer the losses they deserve in spite of the ability of misleading marketing to create perceptions of popular support for understandably unacceptable economic gambles.
The future of humanity clearly depends on the development of ways to ensure the success of that type of leadership in business and politics (to the detriment of unacceptable gamblers who desire short term personal benefit any way it can be gotten away with). Without such leadership the future is guaranteed to be more inhumane and immoral as there is more and fiercer 'competition to benefit the most from diminishing limited opportunities to get away with unacceptable actions'.
Hopefully, that type of leadership will develop in time to keep undeserved wealth and power from remaining in the hands of people who have clearly not responsibly limited their actions based on the developing understanding of what is going on. That leadership will admittedly be regionally unpopular to different degrees. So the requirement will become global leadership collectively pressuring and penalizing unacceptable regional and business leadership in the hopes that such actions will 'change the minds of those who have decided to try to get the most personal gain as quickly as possible in the least acceptable way they think they can get away with'.
And responsible global leadership clearly must not try to protect or defend undeserved perceptions of prosperity and wealth in already developed regions that deliberately continued to burn fossil fuels to obtain more competitive trade advantages or places that encouraged the increased export of fossil fuels for burning, particularly the export or burning of coal, oil sands or pet-coke (the worse than coal waste product from upgrading heavy oils like oil sands bitumen).
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Glenn Tamblyn at 21:01 PM on 3 September 2015New paper shows that renewables can supply 100% of all energy (not just electricity)
Slightly of-topic but perhaps relevant to the mining comment KR references.
A discussion on Peak Mining. -
michael sweet at 20:00 PM on 3 September 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #35
Fairoaken,
This article on the extraordinary hurricane season in the Central Pacific is relevant. The predictions were that over the long term (longer than 10 years) strong hurricanes would increase. This year the Northern Hemisphere has set a record for most hurricane activity, it is just not in your back yard. Hawaii has been threatened three times. Until recently Hawaii was considered to be out of the Hurricane zone. AGW has put Hawaii at risk. Sandy was also a month after the normal end of Hurricane season in the NorthEast USA. Hurricanes are occasional occurances and a lot of chance is involved in exactly where they occur.. If hurricanes are increasing world wide it is only a matter of time before you get hit.
In addition to Hurricane Sandy, mentioned above, you did not notice the 2 category 5 hurricanes that hit central America in 2007.
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ronald myers at 18:09 PM on 3 September 2015Tracking the 2C Limit - July 2015
Thanks Tristan. The shape of the CO2 curve did not change but the scale will. Initially, I use Excel regression and the correlation was 0.797 and assumed that I could use that. I log transformed the CO2 concentration and used repeated the regression in Excel. The correlation between CO2 and Temperature Anomaly went down to 0.796. I can use the heavy hand approach to rescaling the CO2 by using white numbers and manually placing the revised values in place of the ones that are there now. The major item I was trying to show is to have the first 30 years of CO2 align with the 0 for temperature anomaly.
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ryland at 17:25 PM on 3 September 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #35
The forecasts to which I referred were made by the UK Met Office as reported in the Guardian "This year was to be different, we were told. A "barbecue summer" – from no less an authority than the Met Office itself."
"Yesterday, though, the Met Office conceded what Britons have seen with their own eyes over the last few weeks: apart from a fortnight in June, the summer has been more soggy than sizzling. And it's not likely to get much better in August, a prediction that will disappoint, if not entirely surprise" (http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/jul/29/summer-weather-forecast-rain-holiday)
These would appear to be credible forecasts from experienced meteorologists
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shoyemore at 16:26 PM on 3 September 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #35
An article very pertinent to the remarks of ryland and Fairoakien:
"Increasingly, projections about hurricanes or winter storm are being posted by a range of people and often it is hard to distinguish between a credible forecast by an experienced meteorologist or the opinion of a hobbyist that is getting ready for the high school prom. Such opinions can create conflict and confusion in potentially life-threatening situations."
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PhilippeChantreau at 15:15 PM on 3 September 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #35
Fairoakien, beside seconding CB Dunkerson in his request, I'll add that Sandy may have escaped you attention but certainly did not go unnoticed with the people on the East coast...
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Tristan at 12:11 PM on 3 September 2015Tracking the 2C Limit - July 2015
Hi ronald. Keep in mind that we don't expect CO2 and temp to be linearly related, the linear relationship is between log(CO2) and temp.
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bozzza at 11:39 AM on 3 September 2015Citi report: slowing global warming would save tens of trillions of dollars
The 'too-big-to-fail' question is of course an excellent question!
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mrkt at 11:23 AM on 3 September 2015Citi report: slowing global warming would save tens of trillions of dollars
Question: Do energy companies continue to explore in the expectation that they will be paid by governments for those 'stranded assetts' when the governments finally begin to restrict extraction?
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scaddenp at 08:17 AM on 3 September 2015New paper shows that renewables can supply 100% of all energy (not just electricity)
So you have much smaller systems that burn (yes, that produces CO2) fractions not useful for plastic to power the cracking (and cogenerate power while at it). If this is the only CO2 from FF in use, then I rather suspect the planet will cope ok (and certainly a lot better than current usage). The refining process would be different when the target is not to produce as much transport fuels (ie less cracking) as possible. Tuning for petrochemical production would be different.
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CBDunkerson at 05:28 AM on 3 September 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #35
Fairoakien, please cite this 2005 prediction of increased gulf coast hurricanes in the ten year period now past. Who made it? Where?
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ronald myers at 04:55 AM on 3 September 2015Tracking the 2C Limit - July 2015
Sorry for the poor post on 37 and 38. I'm an old dog learning new things.
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Fairoakien at 04:52 AM on 3 September 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #35
Katrina. 10 years we were told because of global warming the Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean are getting warmer. I agree.
Then the global warmimg forecasters/modelers said that the Gulf would suffer more and more violent hurricanes because of the warming.
Well that hasn't happened. No category 4 or 5 hurricanes ahve hit the east/South coasts in the 10 years. Florida has had the quietest 10 years of hurricanes.
in fact the drought in Texas and Oklahoma can be attributed to the lack of good tropical storms coming off the Gulf.
Moderator Response:[Rob P] All caps - a breach of the comments policy - removed.
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ronald myers at 04:22 AM on 3 September 2015Tracking the 2C Limit - July 2015
Here is an alternative method of displaying two parameters on a single image. This was generated in PowerPoint and is two separate data sets. For the CO2 concentrations, I selected the Y axis to be displayed at the maximum value. I adjusted the maximum and minimum CO2 concentrations to coincide with the temperature that correlates with the regression values for the minimum and maximum temperature values.
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jef12506 at 00:43 AM on 3 September 2015You can’t rush the oceans (why CO2 emission rates matter)
Howardlee - Is there any research or understanding how the many micro-plastic particle gyres around the world are effecting the ocean carbon cycle?
It would seem to me that since plastic is carbon, as it slowly dissolves it would overwhelm the process.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:27 AM on 3 September 2015Citi report: slowing global warming would save tens of trillions of dollars
The concept of "Moral Hazard" is an interesting concept.
The reality is that many economists fail to consider that some humans have no morals. And they are encouraged to ignore that reality because admitting it leads to the obvious understanding that popularity and profitability are poor measures of acceptability. It also leads to the understanding that a system based on people being as free as possible to do as they please will degenerate as those who care less about the consequences of how they benefit clearly become the 'bigger winners'.
And rules alone are not an answer. Sports provides the best way of describing the behaviour. In a game without referees and meanigful penalties the result will be cheaters winning by deliberately doing things they understand are unacceptable. And the amount of unacceptable behaviour will increase with the perceived potential reward for getting away with the unacceptable behaviour (and immediate opportunity to benefit overrules any potential negative consequences in many risk taking evaluations). And in most sports new rules and methods of monitoring need to be developed as new ways of being unacceptable develop. And inspiet of the rules some people will try to argue against the application of the rule to something they did.
The economic system is similar to sport except that every aspect of it is subject to bigger reward for anyone who can get away with any form of less acceptable behaviour.
So the obvious conclusion is: Until humanity develops to the point where every human seriously pursues the best understanding of what is going on and diligently and responsibly strives to have all of their actions be leading toward the development of a lasting better future for all life on this amaing planet, there needs to be lots of effort put into constantly improving the effective restriction of what is allowed to be gotten away with in economic (and political) activity.
Acknowledging that leads to the understanding that much of the currently developed economic activity and perceptions of wealth and prosperity are an illusion, a very damaging reality poorly understood by many that some very wealthy powerful people fight to expand their personal benefit in. It is a system where the developed wealth and power will fight against admitting they do not deserve the perceptions they have gotten used to, the perceptions that were irresponsibly allowed to develop.
It is definitely a challenge to develop broad acceptance of that understanding of what is going on in a global society that has most people immersed in mass-marketing consumption based efforts to link and limit perceptions of acceptability, merit and value to perceptions of popularity and profitability which can be completely ammoral and likely be immoral.
The required action to address the developed better understanding of what is going on because of the burning of fossil fuels is challenged because it raises the awareness and understanding of the unacceptability of more developed economic activity than just the burning of fossil fuels.
Many books have written about this including Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring", Paul Hawken's "The Ecology of Commmerce", and most pointedly Naomi Klein's "This Changes Everything".
The failure of the current socio-economic-political games to develop lasting improvements of conditions for all of humanity is not a new understanding. What seems to be new are the simplistic claims that the system and what has developed are not the problem, the growth of human population is all that needs to be addressed.
Obviously what needs to be limited is the potential for success by humans who try to benefit or win by getting away with deliberately not caring to limit their actions based on the possible to understand unacceptability of how they try to benefit. It would be nice if all such humans would responsibly and considerately change their mind if given enough information presented in an appealing way, but that is clearly an unrealistic expectation.
Therefore, the required action is ensuring that the only actions permitted to succeed in the socio-economic-political games are actions that will promote and develop virtually eternally lasting activity all of humanity can benefit from (that will not be as popular or profitable as what might be able to be gotten away with). That will mean limiting the total human impact on renewables to the rate of renewing (that will also not be as popular or profitable as what might be able to be gotten away with). That does imply addressing the total human population number, but only after excessive consumption and impact by the highest impacting and consuming humans has been restricted (which will definitely not be popular or as profitable as what has been able to be developed).
This need is nothing new. The thoughts about how to limit the success of the unacceptable economic pursuers among us have even been the basis for religious edicts like bans on 'usury' many centuries ago. And before Rachel Carson, writers like Shakespeare and Dickens were trying to get the message out.
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CBDunkerson at 22:11 PM on 2 September 2015Citi report: slowing global warming would save tens of trillions of dollars
moreover wrote: "# 1 coal company Peabody at some point dipped to $1.10 per share - you get the picture."
They actually hit $0.99 briefly on July 28th. That said, while I've been noting the collapse of coal in the United States for several years now... it is not yet a global phenomenon. China and India have easy access to cheap coal... but are not as well situated for natural gas, wind, or solar. As wind and solar costs continue to decline that is changing, but coal seems like it is going to continue to be a major player in those and other regions for years.
Hopefully, they will look at studies like the one above and consider costs other than just the nominal price. When total costs are accounted for wind and solar are already cheaper than any of the fossil fuels nearly everywhere. China already seems to be reaching that conclusion due to their massive pollution problems, and India has recently shown signs of changing course too.
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bozzza at 20:11 PM on 2 September 2015It's not bad
A little birdy told me that there is no money for Glacier Research. Is this true?
If it is this can't be good can it?? If the myth being addressed is that the problem is not bad then can some mention of this be made in a revision of the answer to this skeptical questioning of the science.
I don't want to push the point and it's not my site but it would seem appropriate is all I'm saying.
I'm just saying it gives me the chills to hear that this could be a reality: that there is indeed no money for Glacier Research at a time when we are seeing funny rates of change to other indicators of climate change, namely the sea ice in the Arctic.
Isn't science all about corroboration?
Of course, this is an excellent web-site and we all enjoy using it.
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michael sweet at 19:40 PM on 2 September 2015Citi report: slowing global warming would save tens of trillions of dollars
Denisaf,
Please read the 100% of power can be provided by Renewables thread. It shows that all power in the economy can be produced by renewables. Alternate fuels are found for current liquid fuels. Please provide citations for your unsupported claim that there are additional hidden costs.
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ajki at 18:26 PM on 2 September 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #35
Remarks by the President (of US) at the GLACIER Conference — Anchorage, AK, September 01, 2015, transcript
Bold, blunt, honest.
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