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Comments 3001 to 3050:

3001. BaerbelW at 15:21 PM on 30 December 2022
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #52 2022
      

      HairyButler @1

      The paper is a preprint uploaded to Arxiv and hasn't yet been peer-reviewed. Which is why it for example doesn't get picked up for this New Research compilation. You could call it a "work in progress". Arxiv is not a scientific journal but "just" an open access repository where scientists can upload papers.

      It shows the status at the top: [Submitted on 8 Dec 2022 (v1), last revised 12 Dec 2022 (this version, v2)]

3002. HairyButler at 10:51 AM on 30 December 2022
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #52 2022
      

      I came across a new Hansen et al study on ECS which I haven't seen referenced here. I haven't seen any news reports on it either. That's odd, because their estimate for ECS is "at least ~4°C for doubled CO2 (2xCO2), with likely range 3.5-5.5°C". That's a fair bit higher than the long-standing consensus of 3ishC, so it seems newsworthy but maybe I'm missing something. https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.04474

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] Link activated.
      
      The web software here does not automatically create links. You can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box.

3003. John ONeill at 10:41 AM on 30 December 2022
      Tropical thermostat limits sea surface temperature to 30°C
      

      31 C is the minimum threshold temperature for supercritical carbon dioxide. This means that if nuclear power plants using s-CO2 as coolant, instead of water/steam, could rely on seawater cooling below this temperature, they could use simplified liquid CO2 pumping in the recuperator, instead of having s-CO2 compressors. This would lower both the cost of the plant, and the amount of waste heat needing to be removed per kilowatt/hour of power produced.

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] The only link to the original post seems to be the temperature of 31C and the mention of seawater. The blog post has nothing to do with nuclear power plants. As such, this comments seems quite off-topic.

3004. peppers at 10:07 AM on 30 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      NIgelj, I have the very same conclusions for the 8B. It cannot be addressed, if it is relevant. I think there are ideas in the 'if' range of that observation. Nuclear would leap past its impact and most other worries. But its also so political. Thx D

3005. nigelj at 06:52 AM on 30 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      Peppers @86, regarding the population issue. Yes you are right that population growth means more consumers and more fossil fuel use, all other things being equal. And this will presumably apply in places like Africa. But its hardly a big revelation.

      The problem is theres not a lot we can practically do to make huge and short term changes to the rate of population growth. You cant line people up and shoot them and one child policies have huge problems, and you of all people would presumably oppose government having very activist or coercive population policies. Even if the global fertility rate did fall to literally zero tomorrow (which it obviously won't) this wouldn't stop warming getting above 2 degrees because we are left with 8 billion people and it would take several decades before enough died off to even begin to make a difference to warming trajectories. 

      Its expected that human population will peak at about 10 billion people towards the end of this century and then population will gradually fall slowly after that in absolute size and thats probably what will happen. This is based on the most likely fertility rates going forwards which are about 2.2 children family size. I doubt we can chnage that projection. Im going by memory a bit. Refer projections of population growth on wikipedia for the details.

      The point is we are not going to be able to fix the global warming problem with population policies. The best that they would to is soften the problem slightly over the long term, so we are very reliant on renewable energy, electric transport and negative emissions technology. This was apparent to me years ago, and it seems self evident and did not require much thought.

3006. Charlie_Brown at 06:23 AM on 30 December 2022
      CO2 effect is saturated
      

      BothoStr and everyone following this thread,

      Thanks to MA Rodger for providing the link to Zhong & Haig. I was not aware of this reference, but I suspect it has been made somewhere in this thread. I highly recommend it for everyone to read or re-read. It is an excellent high-level discussion of this topic. It is 6 pages of dense reading, but is a much better source for learning about the effect of CO2 than wading through hundreds of comments.

      MA Rodger
      I completely agree with your comments on the logarithmic relationships.

      For the power of CH4, I was referring to its Global Warm Potential which is often cited (at least in the U.S.) as being about 28-30. It is defined as the cumulative warming effect over 100 years for one ton of CH4 emission compared to one ton of CO2 emission at current concentrations of 1.9 ppm CH4 and 415 ppm CO2. On a molecular basis, there is a factor of 2.75 difference in like-for-like just due to the molecular weight. The rest of the GWP is due to the starting point of current concentrations, which puts CO2 on a shallower part of the forcing curve shown in Fig 6a. CH4 has a similar forcing curve, but to your point, the values are lower for CH4 than for the same concentrations of CO2.

3007. peppers at 21:24 PM on 29 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      I apologies all over myself for the poor spelling in 86. The button was hit before a re-read. Normally my socks go on before the shoes. Uuggh.

3008. peppers at 21:19 PM on 29 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      One Planet, thanks for quoting me.

      An important part of my 8 billion comment goes past the division of consumption calcs, which I understood too; the case load on affecting Co2 is more in the developed nations. But all these new people are not static. They all want how others live as well, once they get past that days meals. 91% of the world having a smartphone just indicates, everyone wants one. And everyone wants to live as involved a life as they can achieve the lifestyle of. The causation is fossil fuels, the proliferation of them. But if it is the explosion of bodies from 1 to 8B, exactly matching the rise of Co2, is ID'd as the cause, then our solution would be re-thought as well. Corobaration of this would involve; has there been a rise in fossil burning vehicles and equipment, the movement of the secondary market of prior technology in to 3rd world areas, etc. As technology progresses to solve these emitters, as anything becomes cheaper and more prevalent, it will also increase in quantity of use as there is a horde of new people waiting to rise in comsumptive activity.  This cannot be a toss away factor. I am interested in this  800% population increase factor.

      Free speech is a nessesity in seeking truth. It may be inconvienient, but I would not want to be wrong because I wouldnt listen anymore.

      NIgelj, your Regarding Hate Speech in 83 nails it. It is deciding definitions that is the core of the concepts problem.

      One Planet, If you can decide your are so correct in defining that more input is deemed impossible to add anything, then you could move forward with the censoring and re-education plan. The world has seen that before however, and they are still reflecting, what were we thinking? There is no solice in numbers. Its an understandable impatience but a wrong conclusion (for me). 

      You have good input about my mention of sueing people who make false statements about someone/something. If categorized as regulating, I would not want more regs to even more regulate an area. Do we need more legal, etc.? To combat disinformation, maybe an action in to journalism, which starkly divides news from editorial. The news area would have to be heavily proved (or not stated there then) and all else can exist in editorial. Disinformation would be harder or not possible to pass as fact then?

      Thx all, D

3009. MA Rodger at 20:48 PM on 29 December 2022
      CO2 effect is saturated
      

      Charlie_Brown @676,
      The logarithmic relationship between CO2 and climate forcing is an empirical one and somewhere there is set out a ruling that it can be used for CO2 levels between (if I remember correctly) 150ppm up to 1,300ppm.

      A good reference for the CO2-Forcing relationship is Zhong & Haig (2013) which shows the wavelengths of the CO2 forcing up to 12,000ppm and in their Fig6b the total forcing up to levels above 100,000ppm. Note that a logarithmic relationship would appear as a straight line in Fig6b, and the CO2 forcing does climb above that 'straightness' for concentrations above 1,300ppm.

      You also mention CH4. At today's concentrations, the total forcing (from zero CH4) is something like 1Wm^-2. Note on that Fig6b, the forcing for CO2 with a similar concentration (I think it is 1,500ppb) is shown at something like 5.5Wm^-2. Like-for-like, CO2 is by far the more powerful GHG.

3010. Bob Loblaw at 12:24 PM on 29 December 2022
      From the eMail Bag: the Beer-Lambert Law and CO2 Concentrations
      

      Charlie Brown's comment about using the Beer Lambert Law "looking down" is an interesting point worth following up on.

      Absorption is a probability thing. When we say that a layer absorbs 1% of the radiation emitted from the surface, we are talking about the average of a huge number of photons. For a single photon, the proper interpretation is that the photon has a 1% chance of being absorbed in that layer, and a 99% chance of being transmitted.

      For the view looking down from the top of layer 200 in Figure 5, reverse the X-axis  so that 200 is on the left and 0 is on the right, and we can re-interpret the graph as "what is the probability that we will see a photon that originated in layer 200? 150? 100? etc. Photons that start in layer 199 have a really high probability of reaching layer 200 and being transmitted through it. Layer 190? Better than 50% for the two absorption coefficients used in the graph. Layer 180? Chances are only 10-35% for the two coefficients.

      So, the IR radiation emitted by CO2 and lost to space more likely comes from the upper atmosphere.

       

      Any "argument" that claims the CO2 effect is "saturated", etc., because surface-emitted radiation won't directly reach space needs to explain why they think the rest of the atmosphere is not emitting IR radiation from CO2.

3011. Charlie_Brown at 11:51 AM on 29 December 2022
      From the eMail Bag: the Beer-Lambert Law and CO2 Concentrations
      

      Why, you might ask, did I say "it is much better to interpret the Beer-Lambert Law by looking down"?  Because it determines whether there are enough molecules in the path length to create a layer that emits toward space with an emittance close to 1.0. And it avoids the confusing discussion of absorption and re-emittance, which is unnecessary to understand radiant energy loss to space.
      For example, in the wavelength range of about 14-16 microns, Beer’s Law determines that there are enough CO2 molecules in the very long path length of the tropopause (altitude 10-20 km) to bring most absorption lines in this band to 1.0, even with a low concentration of 400 ppm and even with the low pressure of the tropopause. CO2 creates an effective emitting layer in this wavelength range. Because the tropopause is cold at 217K, this layer emits less energy compared to that emitted in this range from the surface at 288K. In the ranges of 8-9 and 11-13 microns, there are no gas molecules that absorb radiant energy, so the energy emitted from the surface (288K) reaches space. Without CO2 reducing energy escape to space, the earth would be cooler while maintaining the energy balance with solar insolation. With increasing CO2, more weak absorption lines in the ranges of about 13.5-14 and 16-16.5 microns increase toward a value of 1.0 and the absorption band becomes wider, requiring a higher surface temperature to maintain the overall global energy balance.
      Regarding water vapor, there are not enough molecules in the cold tropopause to create an emitting layer. The emitting layer for water vapor in the troposphere is warmer.

3012. Charlie_Brown at 07:23 AM on 29 December 2022
      CO2 effect is saturated
      

      BothoStr

      I commend you for wading through the discussion from @587 onwards. I trust that you also reviewed the basic, intermediate, and advanced rebuttals, which are excellent. The comments contain a lot of great information along with some misinterpretation, misinformation, just plain wrong thinking, and quite a bit of misunderstanding about word choices. Being new, it takes serious study and critical thinking to sort it out, although it can become rather simple after some tough concepts are understood. I would be interested in which argument was most convincing to you. In addition to this discussion of “Is the CO2 Effect Saturated”, there is a closely related thread “The Beer Lambert Law and CO2 Concentration” that has more information.

      To your point, reasonable sounding claims often begin with a kernel of truth that are misinterpreted and become distorted. Despite all of the technical explanation and arguments, it seems that almost everyone accepts that the effect of increasing CO2 tends to be logarithmic rather than linear. This means that each additional 100 ppm in CO2 has less effect than the prior increments (e.g., 100 to 200 to 300 to 400 ppm, etc.). It also means that each doubling of concentration (e.g., 100 to 200 to 400 to 800 ppm, etc.) has the same effect. The subjective debate is about whether CO2 is on the steep part of a linear curve or on a plateau. After plotting it, I conclude that it is in the middle. The effect may be diminishing or saturating, but it is not saturated.

      This leads to another interesting observation. Where is methane, currently at 1.9 ppm, on its curve of effect? The answer is that it is on the steep part, and therein lies a reason for its strong power as a GHG.

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] Link added to the text to point to the thread "The Beer Lambert Law and CO2 Concentration".

3013. nigelj at 06:25 AM on 29 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      OPOF @84

      We actually tried the three strikes law in New Zealand for about 10 years  and I initially supported the idea ( but with some reservations). But after ten years there was no evidence that it caused crime to go down or discouraged offending, and it lead to absurdly disproportionate punishments. Judges complained. The law was abandoned recently. 

      Now the right leaning National Party wants to bring it back if elected, and in pretty much the same form, despite the fact there is no evidence that it achieved anything and despite the fact that the  reasons it failed have become apparent. Its the problem Bob mentioned about not being able to identify horse pucky. People need to remember the famous quote by Einstein: "Dont keep on doing the same thing and expect different results" 

3014. One Planet Only Forever at 05:12 AM on 29 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      Nigelj,

      I agree that legal penalties for spreading/repeating misunderstandings that could produce harmful results are not the best way to try to limit the harm done by the creation, promotion and sharing of misunderstanding. A better action is the preemptive education of everyone (like the inoculation approach promoted by SkS) to awaken everyone to the constantly improving understanding of what is harmful and how to be less harmful and more helpful ‘to Others’. The key part is the ‘to Others’ part.

      It is essential to clarify that ‘Others, using reasoning and evidence, determine a common understanding of what is harmful’. The person believing and doing something based on their belief does not get to claim they are correct or not very harmful. Everyone’s actions add up. People aiding and abetting share the blame. Harmful actions like the actions encouraged by Alex Jones cannot be excused by Alex Jones claiming he did not believe what he was doing was going to produce harmful results, or claiming that restricting his ability to promote the misunderstandings that he repeatedly shared would be ‘harmful to people like him by limiting their freedom of expression of beliefs’.

      Educating everyone to be more aware of harmful misunderstanding is also better than legal actions like suing, because legal consequences are ‘after the fact of harm done’. Legal systems have been built with systemic flaws that protect the interests of influential wealthy people. The example of what the GOP leadership has chosen to become (see my comment @78), and note that wealthy influential people also try to dominate the actions of the Democrat Party in the US, exposes that some among the ‘leadership class’, which includes all wealthy and influential people, appear to choose to develop interests that would motivate them to try to influence leadership and the legal system to protect their interests. It is very easy to severely penalize poorer and less influential people in the US (and many other nations), like the 3-strike nonsense in some US states where a person would be imprisoned 25 years for 3 cases like stealing a slice of pizza or being searched by police who discover a small amount of marijuana. And it is every difficult to prove the guilt of a wealthy influential person like Alex Jones and effectively penalize them.

      My understanding is that Alex Jones had to be proven to have understood that he was sharing misunderstandings about the school shooting and its victims. And Alex Jones had to be proven to have motivated the harmful actions of people who aggressively threatened innocent people as a result of being influenced by the misunderstandings powerfully promoted by the very influential Alex Jones. And, in spite of being found guilty (not certain to have been the result of the legal action) Alex Jones may evade significant jail time (he certainly is not going to jail for 25 years) and he may be able to keep a substantial amount of his wealth.

      That said, legal actions should be aggressively used as a last resort to limit the harmful influence of wealthy influential people. The ‘Leaders’, including all wealthy and influential people, are potentially the most helpful or most harmful members of the population. It is essential that that group be held responsible for/by peer-review that effectively limits the harmful influence of any members of the ‘Leadership class’.

      Note that, though Alex Jones is facing some consequence for his promotion of misunderstanding, there appears to have been no consequences for the “Merchants of Doubt” (direct reference to the excellent 2010 research report by Naomi Oreskes and ‎Erik M. Conway) for their far more harmful promotion of misunderstanding regarding climate science.

3015. Rob Honeycutt at 03:31 AM on 29 December 2022
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      Moved the conversation to a more relevant thread here.

3016. Rob Honeycutt at 03:30 AM on 29 December 2022
      Renewables can't provide baseload power
      

      [moved conversation from different thread]

      Doug... Note when you read the the LCOE reports they use the term "resource-constrained." All sources are intermittent. Wind and solars are merely not "dispatchable" in the same manner.

      Once again, use of the term "intermittent" is a canard because it doesn't fully describe the situation.

      I've read estimates are that renewables (wind, water, solar, geothermal) in conjunction with about 10% penetration of storage could supply all energy needs. You don't need 50% penetration for storage with integrated grids due to the fact other renewable resources are dispatachable (water, geothermal).

      You say, "...cutting the storage cost of $124.84/Mwhr in half is not enough" but I would suggest that is a baseless assertion when already peaker plants functionally perform the same task and are a critical part of the energy mix at virtually the same levelized cost factor.

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] The "different thread" is located here, if readers need more of the context..

3017. Rob Honeycutt at 02:53 AM on 29 December 2022
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      Doug... Note when you read the the LCOE reports they use the term "resource-constrained." All sources are intermittent. Wind and solars are merely not "dispatchable" in the same manner. 

      Once again, use of the term "intermittent" is a canard because it doesn't fully describe the situation.

      I've read estimates are that renewables (wind, water, solar, geothermal) in conjunction with about 10% penetration of storage could supply all energy needs. You don't need 50% penetration for storage with integrated grids due to the fact other renewable resources are dispatachable (water, geothermal). 

      You say, "...cutting the storage cost of $124.84/Mwhr in half is not enough" but I would suggest that is a baseless assertion when already peaker plants functionally perform the same task and are a critical part of the energy mix at virtually the same levelized cost factor.

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] Rob has duplicated this comment on the other thread he mentions in the next comment. Please make any follow-up comments on the other thread.

       

3018. Doug Cannon at 00:54 AM on 29 December 2022
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      Rob @ 377

      Intermittency of renewables is not a "canard" (unfounded rumor or story), it's an absolute fact that has to be dealt with.

      re "we are not replacing existing FF facilities until the end of their useful life. Once a facility is built it will continue operation until retirement"

      I totally agree. And that's all we can do until the intermittancy issue is solved. But cutting the storage cost of $124.84/Mwhr in half is not enough.

      I think another strategy worth considering is to forget the battery storage approach for now. Find the optimum mix of renewables that results in an effective capacity factor of 50% (wind and solar downtimes don't totally overlap). Then build renewables up to half our electricity and use FF for the other half. It will take decades to get to that point. By then the storage cost issue may be resolved.

      You're right though. This this is probably an issue for another thread.

3019. BothoStr at 21:46 PM on 28 December 2022
      CO2 effect is saturated
      

      I've just seen a discussion of this from post 587 onwards...

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] Here is a direct link to comment 587 in this thread.

3020. BothoStr at 21:08 PM on 28 December 2022
      CO2 effect is saturated
      

      Great post and discussion! Thank you

       

      I'm rather new to this and have been struggling with finding a sound rebuttal to the reasonable sounding claims in this paper. As far as I understand it there is a weak saturation-claim to be found here:

      Link to van Wijngaarden and Happer paper

      thanks!

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] Glad that you found the relevant discussion in the comments.

      Created a link to the paper. The web software here does not automatically create links. You can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box.

       

3021. nigelj at 16:01 PM on 28 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      Regarding twitter. I think OPOF is right about twitter. If it was to devolve into a cess pool of mostly obnoxious people spreading hate or misinformation you would probably not want to be part of that. Even if you used twitter just to connect with sensible people, it may be a bad look to be part of the twitter system. 

      Regarding free speech and suing people. If people had the ability to sue other people in civil court just because they didnt like what someone said, or they felt it was misinformation or hateful speech, I fear this would have a destructive effect on discussion, because plenty of people  would no longer participate in discussions out of fear of being sued. So such a proposition would be anti free speech.

      I understand that Alex Jones was convicted for making false claims about a  school schooting, but that was under a fairly narrowly focused existing law and that seems entirely appropriate to me. Hopefully it gets through to the totally obnoxious man that his conspiracy theory  had no basis in fact and that he should reconsider his views. However sadly some people become stubbornly attached to their views and unable to move on. 

      Regarding hate speech. The New Zealand did consider hate speech law. The problem was the governmnet defining "hate" and defining which things should be included and gender, race, religion and disabled people were considered. There was a lot of public pushback that for example you would no longer be able to criticise religion or discuss gender issues even if done politely.  So while I intensely dislike bigotry and so forth  I lean towards free speech with just a few minimal and focused restrictions. Yes if you had strong censorship smart people can find a way of discussing whatever they want through careful language but I believe most people would just give up participating out of fear and this is to everyones detriment.

      We have to be able to discuss things, fairly easily and openly and without fearing that just about anything we say could get us sued, convicted, fined or thrown off websites or comments deleted,  so restrictions need to be fairly minimal.

       

       

3022. One Planet Only Forever at 14:17 PM on 28 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      Reviewing the comment string, I hope it will be helpful to present examples, specifically regarding questions about total global population and bike riding, that clarify that presenting reasons and evidence that something is a misunderstanding and explaining how the misunderstandings can produce harmful results is not ‘labelling something a harmful misunderstanding’ (I also hope to adequately relate this comment to the question of the value of SkS activity on Twitter).

      My comment @38 presents the reasons for the complete set of Climate Myths that are addressed by SkS under the ‘Arguments’ tab to be understood to be harmful misunderstandings that are more harmful the more they get repeated. And it includes the point that each person may consider their impacts to be small, but many harmful problems are due to everyone’s small harmful impacts adding up. And, in addition to a person’s actions contributing to harmful global warming and resulting climate change impacts, each person’s persistence in believing and sharing misunderstandings regarding climate science harmfully add up.

      That totalling up of impacts relates to the question about increasing global population raised in peppers comment @45. An increased awareness and improved understanding regarding the ‘population problem’ is presented in my comment @4 on the SkS item “New reports spell out climate urgency, shortfalls, needed actions”. The quote in that comment is repeated below:

      The "Emissions Gap Report 2022: The Closing Window – Climate Crisis Calls for Rapid Transformation of Societies by Juliane Berger et al." starts and ends part 2.3.2 "Consumption-based emissions are highly unequal between and within countries" with the following quotes (Bold is my emphasis):

      "When national fossil CO2 emissions are estimated on a consumption-basis (i.e. where the supply-chain emissions are allocated to consumers) rather than on the territorial-basis considered so far, emissions tend to be higher in high-income countries such as the United States of America and European Union (by 6 per cent and 14 per cent respectively; Friedlingstein et al. [2020]). Conversely, they are lower in countries such as India and China (by 9 per cent and 10 per cent respectively), which are net exporters of goods ..."

      "Consumption-based emissions also diverge starkly at a household level, in large part due to income and wealth disparities between and within countries (Capstick, Khosla and Wang 2020). When the emissions associated with both household consumption and public and private investments are allocated to households (see appendix A), and households are ranked by GHG emissions (excluding LULUCF), the bottom 50 per cent emit on average 1.6 tCO2e/capita and contribute 12 per cent of the global total, whereas the top 1 per cent emit on average 110 tCO2e/capita and contribute 17 per cent of the total (Chancel 2022; Chancel et al. 2022). Super-emitters in the top 0.1 per cent (average 467 tCO2e/capita) and the top 0.01 per cent (2,531 tCO2e/capita) have seen the fastest growth in personal carbon footprints since 1990. High-emitting households are present across all major economies, and large inequalities now exist both within and between countries (figure 2.3) (Chancel et al. 2022)."

      An improved understanding of the population growth question is that the problem is the excessive harmful impacts of the highest impacting portion of the population, not the small amount of electricity used by poor people to recharge cell phones. A related problem is the incorrect development by poor people of a desire for a personal automobile or other harmful consumption examples set by the most harmful portion of the population.

      Public transport or bike riding are less harmful ways to ‘travel’. And that leads to the example of peppers comment @40. Quoting peppers: “Im reminded of being in line at the beach for something and overhearing a bicyclist loudly lamenting and lambasting all these strollers and roller bladers and runners mucking up the brand new bike path the City just put in. Another bystander, a City worker, heard enough and promptly corrected the speaker that the mission statement for the path included walking, running, skate boarders, strollers and more, as well as bikes.”

      The ‘bike path case’ is an example of misunderstandings producing potentially harmful results. The public arguing due to misunderstanding could have become more than just words (harmful bike path rage – like harmful road rage). It is also an example of how the risk of harm can be reduced by information and education effort that correct and limit misunderstanding. The city could have learned from other municipalities about the importance of public awareness campaigns and posted signs to make sure that users of the new path understood its intended, and therefore properly understood, use. The city worker would have been able to point to the signs to help correct the misunderstanding.

      However, in the absence of signage regarding the proper use of the new path the path being referred to as a ‘new bike path’ raises the possibility that it was not to be used by strollers and walkers. Many cities are building new pathways and lanes for safer quicker commuting by bike or scooter. Walkers and strollers are not to be on these paths – for everyone’s safety. The point is that the city employee or the bike rider may have been correct. And the important thing is to have everyone, especially leadership, apply Bayes’ theorem to learn to minimize the harm that can be caused by misunderstandings.

      If Twitter becomes increasingly populated by people who resist learning, people who resist having to change their mind by evading being awakened by increased awareness and improve understanding of what is harmful misunderstanding, then there clearly would be less point or value in SkS putting effort into Twitter.

3023. Eric (skeptic) at 13:01 PM on 28 December 2022
      What on Earth is a polar vortex? And what’s global warming got to do with it?
      

      David-acct, thanks for that chart.  I didn't know EIA published that.  Here's the one I use for Germany: energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE. The EIA says in June 2022, the United States had 137.6 GW of wind capacity.  With a 35% capacity factor (obviously more in winter, less in summer), that would be 48 GW on a perfectly average day.

      In the chart you linked, the production goes from 22 GW on 12/20 to a peak of 80 GW on 12/22 as low pressure started intensifying in the midwest.   The next 2 days wind production fluctuated between 36 to 46 GW with a brief dip to 33.  That's below average but not way below average.

      I believe it's likely you are correct in certain cases (e.g. the drop in wind for about a day in Feb 2021 in Texas), the drops and the rise to 80 GW during the intensification of the storm, will depend on weather patterns which vary.  I think Arctic outbreaks will vary, and total wind production for the US will vary including in unaffected regions like California.

3024. David-acct at 12:29 PM on 28 December 2022
      What on Earth is a polar vortex? And what’s global warming got to do with it?
      

      www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/expanded-view/electric_overview/US48/US48/GenerationByEnergySource-4/edit

       

      Sorry misposted the link

      moderator - feel free to delete the bad link to the EIA in my post above.

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] Done

3025. David-acct at 12:28 PM on 28 December 2022
      What on Earth is a polar vortex? And what’s global warming got to do with it?
      

      interesting aspect of these polar vortex, 

      Typically for 2-4 days after the polar vortex hits, the wind drops significantly for those 2-4 days,  Those days are also very cold.

       

      I have attached links to the real time US Energy information association  and the the germany real time electric generation by source.  those real time data sources provide great information.  

      Also noted is the TVA went through some minor rolling blackouts during a relatively mild polar vortex.  www.agora-energiewende.de/en/service/recent-electricity-data/chart/power_generation/28.10.2022/28.12.2022/today/

       

      https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/expanded-view/electric_overview/US48/US48/GenerationByEnergySource-4/edit

       

       

3026. David-acct at 12:14 PM on 28 December 2022
      How to save on winter home heating costs
      

      The article above highlights the advantages of tax subsidies for the purchase of energy efficient appliances, ev's etc.  One of the most misunderstood facts regarding is that the real economic benefit goes to the seller of the product - contrary to popular perception.  

       

      Those tax subsidies artificially shift the demand curve, resulting in a higher sales price than the market drive point where the supply and demand curves naturally meet.  The net price (gross sales price less the tax credit or subsidy)  of the product reflects the natural equilibrium price without the tax subsidy.  ( Slight caveat - depending on the elasticity of the product, the seller receives around 60-90% of the benefit).

       

      any micro economics textbook will have good explanation of the effect of tax credits and subsidies on the supply and demand curves

3027. peppers at 12:02 PM on 28 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      Rob, I mixed you w Bob again! So sorry. Thats two!

      NIgelj,

      If they open some ability for all to sue if false statements, liable or defamation is there, then the market will take care of this. That would be better than even more regs.

      This site and folks do fine, and this is a hard place to manage. I have spoken of tolerance but Im not sure how I would hold up here, every time I mean.

      I watch old Johnny Carson reruns and they were not allowed to say the name of a competing network if they needed to ID a show elsewhere. I am sure I will also evolve and there are more than several levels of censorship, some I agree with. Such as business competition. But not in other locates.

      Best again, D

3028. Rob Honeycutt at 10:34 AM on 28 December 2022
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      Doug @376... This is starting to veer onto a new topic that might be better for a different thread, but what you're doing is promoting the canard about intermittency of wind and solar. 

      The fact is, we are not replacing existing FF facilities until the end of their useful life. Once a facility is built it will continue operation until retirement. New facilities are built to address increased energy needs and to replace retiring facilities. Because of the LCOE most new installed facilities are now wind and solar. 

      As the cost of grid level storage falls below the cost of peaker plants, those facilties will are become economically unviable to build. Existing peaker plants will continue to operate until their useful life expires and grid storage will replace them.

      You say, "Remember to account for the battery storage when needed" but that is part of the canard about intermittency. Each of these are independent elements of the grid system. Each supply power when available (yes, even FF sources often unexpectedly go down as well). 

      With the falling cost of grid level storage what many new wind and solar facilities are looking at is co-location as opposed to grid level arbitrage. That storage cost could like fall to half of the current price in the coming decade, and once that happens there is no way for any mix of FF to compete in the market. It would just be a matter of allowing existing FF facilities to live out their useful lives to then be replaced with renewable sources.

3029. Doug Cannon at 09:57 AM on 28 December 2022
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      Rob #373, 374.

      I apparently wasn't clear in my second paragraph. I'm referring to our current practice where there is always enough fossil or nuclear power available when solar or wind isn't available. This comes at no extra investment; it's sunk cost.

      That scenario is the absolute best economic case for the use of renewables based on today's cost. We're eliminating the CO2 emmissions that would otherwise come from the replaced gas and it's costing us $7.61/Mwhr.

      Try some other scenarios. I don't think you'll find any more favorable situation. Remember to account for the battery storage when needed.

3030. Eclectic at 09:47 AM on 28 December 2022
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      Not sure how it would enter the overall dollar calculation, but there may well be circumstances where there is value in a generation system that can give close-to-zero marginal cost (short or longer term).  That would apply especially to solar installations, but slightly less so for wind.

      There is that ~ and the difficulty of long-term LCOE estimations of "renewables" which are rapidly changing in technology & build costs.

3031. Rob Honeycutt at 09:03 AM on 28 December 2022
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      In addition, capacity factor is irrelevant for LCOE and investment decisions since the grid buys power based on the lowest available price, not on when the power is available.

3032. Rob Honeycutt at 08:57 AM on 28 December 2022
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      Doug... Yes, what you're comparing is the "up front capital costs" which all new facilities incur. The up front capital costs for FF is lower, but then you're burdened with supplying that facility with fuel for the lifetime of its existence. Whereas, the up front cost of renewables are higher but they require no fuel for their lifetime. This is exactly what LCOE is. 

      Investors do not base their decisions only on up front capital costs but rather on the ROI they will see over the lifetime of the project. Renewables also generally have a shorter lifespan for any given installation, but in that span of time the investor reaps the entire return faster and moves on to a new project well before they can see their full return on a dollar-for-dollar investment for a FF based facility.

      This is why renewables are now scaling exponentially.

3033. Bob Loblaw at 08:16 AM on 28 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      Nigelj:

      My comment @ 74 about people accusing SkS of deleting comments it does not agree with was not directed at you. Such accusations often appear in the final stages of a commenter breaking the moderation rules - and are typically deleted (usually shortly before a commenter's posting privileges are revoked). Regular readers would not see them.

      My view of bias in web sites, news sources, etc. is more a case of "this is what it is" rather than support of the actions of those that do it. My father worked in the newspaper business for many years, and there was a time when all major news sources made a concerted effort to provide actual balance. Different papers had their leanings, but they also had principles and a conscience. Today, I see many "news" sources that just don't care whether what they print is true or not.

      The biggest problem is that so many people cannot recognize horse pucky for what it is. That is not solved by "more people speaking louder". The long, slow process of learning a subject is lost in the fire hose of short, wrong, "anything that sells" crap that snake oil salesmen know will trigger people's worst emotions and separate them from their hard-earned dollars. It's easier to convince them that everything they don't agree with is "fake news" - even though the person saying "fake news" is the fakest of the lot.

      Alex Jones may be learning a lesson on what is allowed. Or, it may be a case where he has already learned how to move his money to places where law suits can't reach it. Law suits only cover the most obscene cases, though. Canada has laws against "hate speech", but they are rarely used. The cases that hit the news are often associated with Holocaust denial. "Free Speech" is the usual defence (and usually fails).

      Elon Musks's "free speech" position does not seem to include letting people mention alternatives to Twitter. (Links in comment 58.) His moderation policy seems to be "in flux" (to put it mildly). I tend to not trust people that say one thing while they are doing another.

3034. Doug Cannon at 08:10 AM on 28 December 2022
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      Rob Honeycutt #367

      My numbers include all cost, not just installation. I didn't assume any MW/yr, or discount rate from which you could compute LCOE. With the same assumptions My numbers would agree with eia except they may be 2 years out of date.

      You have to compare the total solar cost/ MWhr excluding taxpayer payments ($36.10/Mwhr) to just the variable cost avoided by not operating the combined cycle unit when solar is available: $37.05-8.56 =$28.49/Mwhr. That's basically what we're doing today.

       

      What I was addressing was the the up front capital cost and the lower capacity factor show a major investment. Actually the 2022 eia report show this even more clearly

3035. nigelj at 05:51 AM on 28 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      Bob Loblaw at 74

      Thanks for the comments. I get where you are coming from.

      One clarification. I didnt mean that this website specifically deletes comments and I wasn't being critical of them for doing that. I was just speaking generally.

      This websites moderation policy actually seems generally quite well considered to me. Comments are deleted if they ramble off topic, make wild claims without reference to scientific literature or that just get repetitive.  People only have to obey a few simple rules to get their opinion published. Some people just resist this then get all agitated. They are either arrogant or just not very bright.

      The point is this website doesnt delete opinions just because it doesnt agree with them. People get a generally fair go. So the level of 'censorship' on this website  is acceptable,  but I would say its right at the upper limit of whats appropriate.

      Yes Fox News is absolutely selective and biased. However this is not an excuse for us to do ever do the same. We should always strive to be objective. If there is a bias or adherence to some ideology it should be advertised: The economist.com does this nicely in its mission statement but I cant find thething now to copy and paste. It was something along the lines that they lean centre right economically and towards free trade  but are not adverse to governments having some involvement in the economy. And that they lean liberal socially. So readers know their philosophical leaning

      Yes we all get that there have to be some limits on free speech. Its entirely about where one draws the line in the sand. Governments impose some limits on free speech. I have no problem with that in principle and generally they are fairly minimal in western countries and that is to my preference.

      The NZ governmnet goes slightly beyond some countries because it has laws against racist speech and this makes sense to me for reasons stated up thread. Its been considering hate speech law but has given up for now, because its so difficult to define hate speech and there has been a lot of push back against potentially suppressing discussion because almost anything could be labelled hate. This seems like a valid concern to me.

      But its not only governments that can limit free speech. My main concern is what websites do and I lean towards fairly minimal moderation. You and Electic seem to lean towards quite strong censorship on websites. Six months ago my views were virtually identical to Electics on this. So similar its quite startling. Now I just wonder if strong censorship  might do more harm than good. I think the trigger was our governmnets attempts to bring in hate speech laws. It just doesnt seem possible to define adequately or practically viable and is too likely to suppress opinion, and just too Orwellian for me.

      I'm sure you and Eclectic would do a good fair minded job of moderation of such issues,  but its other people I worry about.

      So back to Twitter. It is not entirely clear what Musk is up to yet. However it appears he leans strongly towards libertarian values and free speech and against censorship, and it appears he is not going to be banning people or deleting comments unless they are inciting criminal activity or are just  being extremely verbally abusive and bullying. 

      One problem is there isnt another website offering a similar service to Twitter to my knowledge. Given I have my doubts about hate speech laws, and the lack of alternatives to Twitter,  I dont think this website should feel it has to abandon Twitter at this stage. FWIW.

3036. One Planet Only Forever at 05:05 AM on 28 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      This new NPR item "Why Republican elites backed Trump: power, belonging ... and voter pressure" is about one person's experience and personal learning journey through the harmful changes of the Republican Party, changes that predated Trump becoming the leader of the GOP.

      There appear to be parallels to the SkS Twitter dilemma. To be helpful requires figuring out how to continue to be helpful when an organization you have developed an identity within drifts towards increased harmful misunderstanding, is pulled away from the pursuit of learning/teaching to be less harmful and more helpful to Others.

      Ultimately, the harmful devolution of an organization may get to the point where efforts to help reduce harmful misunderstanding among the members becomes a waste of time. It is helpful to build a presence in alternative organizations. Those alternatives are then ready to be more fully moved to should the harmfully devolving organization and its members become increasingly resistant to Bayesian Learning.

3037. Rob Honeycutt at 03:52 AM on 28 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      Peppers @75... "Staying open minded is a bother, a torment even, and thats where being tolerant comes in play."

      As the saying goes, "It's good to keep an open mind, but not so much that your brain falls out."

      In other words, an open mind is far from "a bother." It's fundamental to the scientific process. Here at SkS, what is expected is that you bring substantive points to the table and be able to defend your position with the backing of published research. Making up your own theories on the spot doesn't fly. Repeating unsubstantiated theories doesn't fly. You need to do your homework, do your research, and thoroughly think through what you're saying.

3038. Rob Honeycutt at 03:45 AM on 28 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      What is my "rot in hell" story, Peppers?

3039. peppers at 02:05 AM on 28 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      Rob and all,

      Each have a proper point and Rob is close to my premise. And Rob, I love your 'rot in hell' story!

      I was relating to truth. This also means scientific truth, and explains why the scientific process never closes to new input, angles or ideas.

      I perfectly understand that SS is hampered with a repeat of the same 3-4 dozen premises which are not bringing new in, AND that area comes under abuse by ill intending visitors.

      Folks can limit speech, but at the cost of new input and at the cost of working ever further and less forward toward truth. Staying open minded is a bother, a torment even, and thats where being tolerant comes in play.

      The educated minds here may like this Einsteinian favorite of mine. 2 boys, one on a train slowing moving and one on the ground. The train boy throws a ball straight out. The boy on the train sees it travel straight out and down. The boy on the ground sees the ball fall in a great barabolic curve overhead. The key to this universal example is that the experience of each boy, as different as they each were, are both perfectly, defendably and repeatably true. Each can argue til the end of days, but it was the same one event for both, and both are right.

      I believe that I want input. I did not bring the topic up of death threats and obvious 'Imminent crime" exceptions to free speech, and those who have brought that up ( correctly but) have missed my point.

      Bob, my wife adds that folks do not act in person like online. Maybe some form of liability online may be coming, to inhibit people from acting badly. The ability to sue or something. Then they hide their identity... Not an easy problem.

      Best all. D

3040. Doug Cannon at 02:04 AM on 28 December 2022
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      To MA Rodger, re #369

      Thanks for your input. That's about 40% less than my rough estimate of 200 million acres.

      I think I can summarize the various replies to my query:

      Yes, but it would be extremely difficult and we're too committed to renewables to focus elsewhere.

      Signing off. Thanks to all.

3041. Eric (skeptic) at 01:39 AM on 28 December 2022
      What on Earth is a polar vortex? And what’s global warming got to do with it?
      

      Thanks for that nicely balanced article.  For the recent event the AO index went negative.   Negative AO is not necessary for an Arctic outbreak but it's indication of a north-south tendency in the jet stream.  Also if negative AO leads to an outbreak, that outbreak could be anywhere in the NH and may not make the U.S. centric news in the U.S.

      So a logical question to ask is what is the trend of AO?  No trend: www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/month_ao_index.shtml. The papers by Francis a few years ago referenced the AO starting late fall and winter.  That makes sense because the anomalous heat release from refreezing open water is highest in the fall continuing into winter.  Arctic tempeature deviations from normal are highest in winter: ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php. But consistently higher in the fall.

      The CPC website provides a rendering of JFM AO: www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/JFM_season_ao_index.shtml.  Perhaps a positive trend.  One paper claiming a jet waviness trend used data ending in 2013.  iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/1/014005  That's not convincing anymore given the newer data with opposite trend.

      To show a connection, someone will need to take an index like AO and the temperature data e.g. DMI and look for changes in the index corresponding to increases in fall warmth shown in the temperature data starting around day 250.

      It seems likely that we would see some correlation in the winter data from negative AO to the many of the spikes of warming shown in DMI.  That would be correlation but would not mean the temperature spikes caused negative AO.  More likely the opposite and a careful analysis of timing might tease that out.

3042. Bob Loblaw at 23:53 PM on 27 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      nigelj @ 64 asks "But what about the website refusing to allow comments or opinions that they just dont like?"

      SkS is often accused of that, but deletion of portions or entire comments usually starts after someone has posted the same thing several times and is not listening to answers.

      ...but in the web writ large, so what? Web sites can filter their material any way they want. Free speech suppressed? No. There are lots of other web sites someone can post to, and they can start their own web site if they want. "Free speech" does not entitle someone to force an unwilling audience to hear them.

      News organizations are quite capable of being extremely selective in what they publish. Is Fox News "fair and balanced"?  Is Tucker Carlson interested in presenting a balance discussion of topics? There are lot of examples of major "news" organizations with terrible bias on many issues.

      Forty years ago, I worked overseas for several months, and I used shortwave radio to get news. Three sources were easy to pick up (strong signals), and I categorized them this way:

      1. Voice of America, with a message that communists were all going to rot in hell.
      2. Radio Moscow, with a message that capitalists were all going to rot in hell.
      3. Evangelical Christian stations, with a message that nearly everyone was going to rot in hell.

      Bias in information sources on the Internet is a serious problem, but it is not new, and it is not a "Free Speech" issue.

      All these commercial sources are selling something. Bums in the seats/eyes on the screen - grist for the advertisers.

      Twitter will survive in some form as long as advertisers want to associate their products with the material that brings in readers that will buy products. As discussed in the OP, SkS needs to decide the pros and cons of continuing to participate in Twitter.

      Limits to "Free Speech" come in when governments enact legislation to regulate content. As we have discussed, there have always been limits to "Free Speech" - libel and slander laws, creating a public disturbance, hate speech, etc. The Internet is a new beast - in part because it is international, in part because of its speed of spreading information, in part because individual users do not risk facing their "opponents" in the flesh world. If some people's behaviour in the real world matched their online behaviour, riots would ensue and people would end up in jail.

      Not an easy problem.

3043. Bob Loblaw at 23:23 PM on 27 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      Slumgullionridge @71:

      Note that Skeptical Science is a volunteer-operated group. Resources are limited. Even our stock of "Myth Rebuttals" is hard to keep up-to-date.

      We do publish a weekly "New Research" summary, but much of that content is automatically generated. As Eclectic notes, our strength is in our stock of rebuttals.

      Comments are driven by whoever decides to comment, and yes it is often difficult to see detailed scientific discussion. Too often it is the same old, tired, uniformed myths being repeated by people that are not willing to read the material they are posting under (or the comments they get back).

3044. Bob Loblaw at 23:15 PM on 27 December 2022
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      To see the annual uptake in the link in comment 366, you have to read past the first page/Introduction. Further down, they have a section titled "Annual Carbon Accumulation Rates". There, they give a figure of 2.0 tCha/yr.

      They also refer to it as "the rate of carbon accumulation in aboveground biomass" [emphasis added]. As I noted above, soil carbon, leaf litter, and dead branches. etc. (usually called "detritus") can be important carbon storage reservoirs in many forests.

      Forestry practices can have major consequences on soil carbon and detritus. For example, after clearing a section of boreal forest to harvest timber, the land becomes a strong carbon source as the soil carbon decomposes due to increases sunlight and warmer soil temperatures. This is a much larger loss of carbon than any  gains from rapid young tree growth.

      So Doug Cannon's "solution" is not the panacea he thinks it is.

3045. MA Rodger at 21:01 PM on 27 December 2022
      Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
      

      The source of the 77.5 t(CO2)/acre quoted @258 is shown in the link @366. It is not a figure for annual sequestration (which is evidently being expected @358 and which would be a few percentage points of this 77.5t figure) but total sequestration. And I think it is too low. It is derived from cocoa plantations so a figure which may not be representative of replanted global woodlands.

      In numbers I am more familiar with, 77.5t(CO2)/acre is (as the link says) 191.6t(CO2)/ha or [x100/3.664=] 5,200t(C)/sq km. 

      Over the period 2010-19, there has been 53M ha of lost tropical forest (according to OurWorldInData). And since AD1850, the figure given is 1,400M ha. The Global Carbon Project give budgets showing estimated emissions from land-use-change (this mainly due to deforestation) as 13Gt(C) for 2010-19 and 203Gt(C) since AD1850. These numbers suggest a carbon sequestration intensity for natural woodland of 24,500t(C)/sq km or 14,500t(C)/sq km, the former figure tropical, the latter perhaps global. These numbers are far greater than that given in the #366 link.

      We can dodge calculating the annual uptake by considering how many sq km of forest would need to be planted to draw down today's annual CO2 emissions (which would be necessary to stabalise GHG forcing). That would be roughly 500,000 sq km or 0.3% of global land, or 0.5% of the 100M sq km global productive land, annually. Note that globally 38M sq km is currently forested, and a similar amount would be naturally scrub or grassland so also not very useful for sequestering our CO2. Thus the potential for land available to sequester our FF CO2 emissions would be somewhere near 25M sq km and such a level of replanting would provide sequestration for perhaps 50 years of our FF emissions at present levels of FF-use.

3046. Eclectic at 18:06 PM on 27 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      Slumgullionridge @71 : 

      Fair enough.   SkepticalScience was set up as an educational resource.   With its long list of Most Used Climate Myths , it provides you (or anyone) a reasonably quick & efficient way to gain scientific knowledge about climate.   You can wade through the Myths one after the other, in turn.   Or if you already have moderately good background knowledge, then you can pick out those Myths which fill the gaps (and read the discussions of the peer-reviewed studies, to be found in the comments columns there).    I must confess I have not found a better website for that educational purpose.

      The problem then becomes: what do you do when you have achieved a high passing grade in the comprehension of climate science?   I do not mean by that, the achievement of mastery & expertise in all the minutiae & technicalities,   I mean, enough knowledge to see that the mainstream climate science is correct  ~ and the skeptics/contrarians haven't a leg to stand on (despite their repetitious assertions).

      I guess you then consider retiring to your cabin by the lake, and dismissing the climate problem from your mind.   Or you consider spending some time on the subsequent aspect  ~ what to actually do, in terms of political science, ethics, and so on.   Plenty of room there for hot-headed conversations . . . most of which crop up in the ephemeral/daily topic threads (such as the one where you are now posting).

      Some amount of rhetoric & pomposity is almost inescapable in discussing political matters.    ~ Just the nature of the beast.

3047. slumgullionridge at 16:43 PM on 27 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      I have been with Skeptical Science for about 6 months. I joined on a recommendation of a colleague of mine, a climate science associate who is a peer review committeeperson serving as Editor for the authors of a new study to be published in spring. I'm struck by the plethora of social science commentary on this site, contrasted to my expectation to be exposed to peer-reviewed hard science. I wanted to see commentary on the progress of climate science, instead it seems like the comments belong in a compendium of social science...which I have a full library of, behind my desk in English 301. I do appreciate the expansive listing of peer-reviewed studies precedent to the "comments" rhetoric, but I was hoping to see commentary about the studies, not so much about political science, ethics, or philosophy.

3048. Rob Honeycutt at 16:38 PM on 27 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      I'm usually the perennial optimist, but when it comes to Twitter I genuinely believe it's a lost cause. The fundamental business model is predicated on the need for revenues, by way of the fact it is a centralized business with investors and a large base of employee/engineers. The way they generate revenue is to code algorithms so that interations between users generate maximum activity to generate the most revenue possible. That maximum activity is primarily going to be a function of users attacking each other. But the company has to keep a lid on the exchanges in order to maintain advertisers for revenue.

      I think Twitter was (prior to Musk) doing it's best to thread that needle, and that meant no one was ever really happy with the situation. Elon Musk's version of the business model was merely to come in and take one side on all arguments without fully understanding what he was doing. 

      My personal opinion is that Twitter is a total loss. I think it will be out of business in the next 12 to 18 months.

3049. slumgullionridge at 15:55 PM on 27 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      I hope that Skeptical Science does not leave Twitter. I'm a mature, educated adult, an English Professor and am world travelled. I can tell the difference between types of speech and am not uncomfortable having to sift through such material to get to where I would like to go. I do have a neighborhood family that chooses to live in a home surrounded by "refuse" and the whiff of marijuana, but I can navigate around that without analyzing who's being "harmful" or "hateful" or "pompous" or "full of rhetoric"...and I'm hopeful all of you can navigate around your definitions of "odious" as well. 

3050. Eclectic at 15:04 PM on 27 December 2022
      We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.
      

      Nigelj @67 :

      Agreed.  Woke is nowadays an ugly term.   AFAICT it started as a somewhat light-hearted label, and then was seized by the non-woke and used as an all-purpose bludgeon in the identity-politics game.   The word has now become almost meaningless, other than distinguishing "them" from "us the good people".

      Sad when any meaningful word loses its meaning.  For example, in the USA the word "socialist" has no actual meaning for 90% of the population.  It is just a bludgeon used by many politicians.   Impossible to have a genuine discussion using that word, because the hearer automatically short-circuits his brain into "evil enemy ... evil enemy ... Spawn of Satan ... etc."   [Shades of "1984" language-shaping, eh!]    And yet the same hearer is happy to accept his farm subsidy or his Social Security cheque or his Medicare-ized hospital treatment, etcetera.

      Possibly, in time, the term Woke can be rehabilitated into something light-hearted and useful . . . by overusing the word and applying it to everything in sight (and especially to right-wing attitudes & activities).   By making it so greasy that it can't be grasped as a weapon.

       

      Back on topic ~ for Twitter etcetera I would prefer to be over-censored than under-censored.   Much less harm done, that way.   Those who wish to have an intelligent public conversation, can find indirect ways & allusions to discuss issues (by treading a tad carefully).   And the truly anti-social citizens will always continue to use their echochambers & dark spaces  ~  but they won't get condoned or "normalized" in the public gaze.

      To some extent, laws follow public sentiment.  But the converse also applies  ~ and George Bernard Shaw points out how laws can shape public sentiment, over time.   Useful, to start with good laws.  (Think: the Anti-Slavery laws).

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