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wili at 01:31 AM on 6 January 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #1
The 3.4 area of the equatorial Pacific has been at or above the + 0.5 C anomaly threshold for 12 weeks now, so we should be seeing an official declaration of El Nino state any time now from NOAA. The Japanese has arleady called it, and as you point out here, there are already El Nino-like effects being felt in various locations.
Thanks for your ongoing coverage of this event. Any predictions on where things will go from here wrt El Nino??
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Things I thought were obvious!
Sorry, the Search tool is on the upper left, not upper right, of the SkS web page.
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PhilippeChantreau at 00:37 AM on 6 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Following gac73's link goes to a site by one Timoty Casey, who holds a bachelor of science in geology and, among other things, a senior first aid certificate, or something similar. One of his areas of interet includes the expanding earth theory, for which he finds there is less supporting evidence than for continental drift (phew!). Anyone with nothing better to do can go hack at his volcanic ramblings; unfortunately, my own time is already in short supply for much more rewarding activities.
Moderator Response:[Rob P] - Please note that gac73's comment was off-topic and that further distracting comments and replies have been deleted. No more in that vein please.
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Things I thought were obvious!
gac73 - There is no reason to think that volcanic activity (at roughly 1% of anthropogenic emissions) is responsible for recent CO2 rise. This is well understood, here is an article from the US Geological Survey on the topic.
Richard Telford has an excellent article on this, noting that there is no recent increase in volcanic activity, and that total volcanic emissions are well constrained by observed helium/CO2 ratios.
You appear to be grasping at (unsupportable) straws here, gac73 - this volcanic claim is nonsense. If you wish to discuss it further, I suggest using the Search tool on the upper right to find the correct thread, such as Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans. The same goes for CO2 was higher in the late Ordovician, and for your issues with renewable energy - these are myths, and have been discussed in some detail.
They are off-topic in this thread, which is rather a meta-discussion on motivations for action.
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gac73 at 23:08 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
I don't see why at thos stage first world tax payers should be paying for third world renewable energy infrastructure and particularly compensation for climate change to underdeveloped and or at risk countries predicted to be impacted by climate change.
There is too little known regarding AGW to warrant compensation. For instance at <carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net> research findings reasonably suggest that anthropregenic c02 cannot currently be finger printed merely by interpretation using the Suess effect alone - the depletion of particular carbon isotopes that is currently used to identify anthropregenic c02. It is suggested in research listed that volcanogenic c02 is depleted in the same isotopes as anthroprogenic c02. Research listed also suggests that tonnage of volcanogenic c02 may have been greatly underestimated and in fact may be the dominant contributor to current rises in atmospheric c02 depleted in 13c and 14c. It requires further research in methods to differentiate anthroprogenic c02 from volcanogenic c02.
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william11409 at 20:51 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
John Brookes@52 Yes, you're right, I am. But I don't think the majority of first world citizens hold this view.
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dagold at 16:55 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Yes OnePlanet - folks sometimes ask me why I am so interested in climate change in particular (I write climate articles for HUffington Post and Common Dreams) when there are so many human induced examples of suffering. I think it's because, to me, climate change is simply the inexorable result of so many of the "ingredients" that have manifested such suffering along the way: Finally, our peculiar propensities toward short-sightedness, self-centeredness and partisanship are tipping the very life-sustaining systems of the biosphere out of balance. It is increasingly awful and sad and in an impossible-to-look-away-from sense....stunningly fascinating.
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John Brookes at 16:54 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
William will no doubt be a strong supporter of the proposal that rich nations give poor nations money to help with the transition to a low carbon world.
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Tom Curtis at 16:29 PM on 5 January 2015A Relentless Rise in Global Sea Level
Rob @16, XKCD illustrates it best:
Note the insets of Mauna Loa and the Marianas Trench with "accurate" horizontal scale (= same scale for horizontal and vertical).
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Rob Honeycutt at 15:14 PM on 5 January 2015A Relentless Rise in Global Sea Level
Michael Whittemore... Think of the oceans this way: The Pacific Ocean is averages about 3 miles deep, but it's about 8000 miles wide. If the Pacific were a sheet of writing paper the depth of ocean would roughly be the thickness of the paper.
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One Planet Only Forever at 15:06 PM on 5 January 20152014 SkS News Bulletin #7: LIMA COP20 / CMP10
wili,
Here is a Rolling Stone article that points out reasons to hopeful about the Lima meetings.
Inside the Lima Climate Change Summit: 5 Reasons to Be Hopeful
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:23 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
dagold@49,
What you mention is similar to what others have pointed out in a very important way.
The action that needs to be taken is to be taken by current day people. And there is no doubt that the result of the required action being taken will be 'at the expense of the opportunity for more benefit by current day people'. The current fatally flawed socioeconomic game has developed many unsustainable damaging activities that have popular support for their unjustified profitability (all those 'externalized costs', consequences that do not have to be paid for by the person benefiting).
Concerns about consequences others in the future face does not enter the personal accounting of many minds. In fact, the way that slave labour has 'developed' in most 'developing nations' to produce cheaper more profitable products to be consumed by people in more developed nations (where people cannot be employed at living wages doing those jobs because that would be less profitable), makes it clear that many people will not even attempt to investigate and account for concerns regarding consequences faced by other people in the same time period, let alone those future ones.
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Jim Eager at 13:39 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Knowingly or unkowling, William is just here peddling the Lomborg, Tol and Breakthrough crowd party line that Eli is currently discussing over at Rabett Run. Maybe he should take it over there.
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dagold at 12:58 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
I am guessing that most agree that we humans are not very acute when it comes to envisioning non-linear change... I am puzzled when (as is often the case) the possibilities of climate-change fueled human extinction are fairly blithely dismissed as they are in this article. Yes, we are an adaptable lot and will likely figure out how to survive in the climate of a 4C or so world if it comes to that. But there are over 400 nuclear sites (this is not including actualy nuclear weaponry) on our globe and some are in highly fragile geo-political areas (India, Pakistan, Israel). How can we possibly assume that the extremely complex and continuous monitoring required will survive in the, not unlikely, mass breakdowns of a 2C, 3C or 4C and beyond world? We can't.
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ubrew12 at 12:14 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
gac78@46: "It's common sense to avoid statistical noise and... to respect error margins in data." But that applies as well (and perhaps more forcefully) to economics than to hard science. The (perhaps unnecessary) cost of Climate Change mitigation is variously estimated to be 0.5% to 5% of annual GDP (analysis easily found here at skeptical science). Rough, but hardly earth-shaking. Meanwhile, the cost of inaction starts at 5%, and continues out to 100%. (to quote this article about just sea level rise: "If governments fail to take any action, the annual cost of damage stands to reach... as high as $100 trillion"). So, when you wrap your error bars around that, its quite obvious what our course of action should be, regardless of hurt feelings among the Saudi's and Russians (aye, but 'there's the rub', isn't it?).
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michael sweet at 12:09 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
GAC73,
At last you are making sense! The denial side of the AGW debate almost never respects error margins and rarely avoids statistical noise. For example, this RealClimate post details deceptive graphing, deliberate selecting the most error prone data to hide the increase and shows no error margins in a popular denier widget. On the other hand, virtually every claim in the IPCC report has detailed error margins and claims are backed by statistical evaluations. It is good that you agree with us on that.
Now that that issue is resolved, what else do you want to discuss?
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gac73 at 11:31 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
@mancan18
If you haven't read the post correctly, nor have reading the clarification post above, then I'll not bother making a point regarding your post that states "there is no common sense science"
What I will say however, is that William didn't use any words remotely resembling the words "common" , "sense" or "science". I'm hoping that merely because I am the view that he stated regarding fossil fuel use in the third world, that you haven't just assumed he has used the same terminology on a completely different train of thought, that I used above?
And by the way - despite the clarification above, there sure is a thing called common sense science. It's common sense to avoid statistical noise and it's common sense to respect error margins in data. This is something that I see regurlarly missing from claims made by particular people from a particular side of the AGW arguement.
When claims made upon data that fails to respect common sense in science, you can't expect common sense people to buy it.
Moderator Response:[JH] You are skating on the thin ice of sloganeering which is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
[PS] Gac73 - you are making vague illusions to problems that you perceive with the science that without any supporting evidence so this comes across as mere sloganneering. Things that are "believed" as common knowledge in denier community often do not bear close examination. If you have points to make it would be better to illustrate with specific examples and support your assertions with references. Eg you seem to be claiming climate science is ignoring error limits and statistical noise. A specific example of this problem would avoid the charge of sloganeering.
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2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #1B
This link didn't work for me -
Top 10 Misguided Climate Deniers’ Quotes of 2014
Moderator Response:[JH] Link fixed. Thank you for pointing out this glitch.
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scaddenp at 09:06 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Actually I would like a clear statement from William on whether he accepts that FF have uncosted externalities which would substantially change the price if costed. If William does not accept this, then why not?
Would he accept an alternative principle that future adaptation costs (starting immediately) resulting from climate change (especially those resulting in agriculture loss due to salt invasion from rising sealevel, land loss, and water cycle changes) be apportioned to countries in proportion to their cumulative contribution to change in climate forcing? Countries could chose whether to simply accept migrants and settle them, or pay for irrigation, desalination, flood protection, sea walls etc that would allow agriculture at pre-2010 levels.
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Andy Skuce at 09:04 AM on 5 January 2015A Relentless Rise in Global Sea Level
There was a poster at the 2014 AGU meeting that calculated the effect on albedo of flooding of coastal areas. Because the sea tends to be darker than the land, this leads to a (very) slight positive feedback.
"We find that the feedback is positive, but very weak. While the spatial pattern of sea-level rise is varying strongly with temperature, we find that the strength of the feedback is relatively independent of the temperature change, and around 0.8±0.1 %; i.e., an external forcing of 1 W/m2 will result in 1.008 W/m2 change of the energy balance."
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michael sweet at 08:50 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Rob,
While I am sure that you and many of the other posters at SkS care about Bangladesh (I am partial to Tuvalu also), it is my experience that most deniers in the USA do not care about other countries. Since there are so many examples of people in trouble from climate change I use examples from Florida (where I live). Students in my class care more about sea level rise affecting Miami than the much greater number of people affected in Bangladesh.
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Tom Curtis at 08:35 AM on 5 January 2015A Relentless Rise in Global Sea Level
Michaele Whittemore @11&12, the length of the worlds coast line has been quoted as being 1.635 million kilometers long (the longest estimate I could find, although a smaller scale would result in a longer estimate). The world's oceans have an area of 361.162 million km^2. So, even if 2 meters of sea level rise flooded an average of a kilometer back from the shore around the world, it would only flood 0.5% of the ocean surface area. In percentage terms, that is well below the observational error for measuring sea level rise, and can be neglected.
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Tom Curtis at 08:10 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
william @34:
"These countries argue that they should not be expected to forgo fossil fuel exploitation, which is what the West asks of them, as the development of the West was largely facilitated by the burning of fossil fuels."
It is odd. I have a very considerable familly connection to Africa (dating from 1671), grew up partially in Africa, have close familly involvement in Africa both politically and developmentally, and am in regular indirect communication with Africans (I act as my mother's secretary in her direct communications). Never-the-less I would not be so arrogant, as William is, to pretend I can speak for Africans, or tell the world what Africans are saying without direct quotation.
When I do try to find out what the Africans are saying, I find that they are saying that "... with 96 per cent of African agriculture dependent on rainfall and 50 per cent of fisheries related jobs estimated to be lost by 2050, climate change poses unimaginable consequences to livelihoods in Africa. Thus, the ministers were forthright in calling for a new climate regime that is legally binding and which addresses the continent’s needs after the current regime- the Kyoto protocol expires in 2015." (Source) I also find their negotiating position to be that they should urgently shift to renewable energy, but require funding assistance to do so (source, details of proposed scheme).
Neither of these positions looks anything like the unsourced opinion William ascribes to them. Indeed, what appears to be happening here is that a particular privileged westerner, ie, William, is seeking to put his views into the mouths of the third world rather than taking the care to find out what the people of the third world are themselves saying (which, I am sure, is a host of different and contradictory things just as in the West, but the informed and official positions seem quite clear).
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Dcrickett at 07:48 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Several commenters have discussed the variety of types of people who are «Deniers». Regarding people who deny science matters other than CO₂ emissions, I know a young person who denies Evolution; is a passionate partisan of Young-World Creationism; is a climate activist; and is also a ΦΒΚ graduate, currently a grad student. Obviously not a person to be scorned. Also and just as obviously, a person outside the 3σ range.
Moderator Response:Fixed
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scaddenp at 07:46 AM on 5 January 2015A Relentless Rise in Global Sea Level
I appreciate the diagram, but the on the scale of world oceans, the expansion of the basin surface area associated with the rise is pretty tiny, especially compared to ocean depth.
For GRACE, the expansion of ocean due to rising sea level is impossibly tiny at that resolution. The bigger issue is changes in the freshwater storage on land.
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longjohn119 at 07:21 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
You say Common Sense and I say Myths and Old Wives Tales
Tomāto ....Tomăto .....
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ubrew12 at 07:08 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
william@39 said "the view point of the "poor nations" is why should they forgo the economic advantage that the West enjoyed by [exploiting fossil fuels]?" I don't think that actually IS their viewpoint. In any case, since developed nations built their development on the back of inexpensive fossils, its incumbent upon them to spurt the development of inexpensive non-fossils, and they are doing just that (not quickly enough, but still). And what is inexpensive in Australia is now also inexpensive in India.
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william11409 at 05:40 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Rob Painting @ 36 and 37. From your cosseted Western Worldview point It may well be "extraordinarily daft" to ecourage poor nations to expand fossil fuel consumption but the view point of the "poor nations" is why should they forgo the economic advantage that the West enjoyed by doing just that? This comment may, again, be viewed as trolling by commenters here but if so, perhaps any such commenter may like to look at the comments from these countries at Copenhage, Cancun and Lima. Not sure if you're in Australia, I think you are, but here people are reluctant to move, say, from NSW to WA or vice versa to get work.. That doesn't really gel with your comment that rich people can move. They may have the ability to do so but that certainly doesn't translate to motivation.
Moderator Response:[JH] Pratter designed to antagonize other commenters is not welcome on this website. Either comply with the SkS Comments Policy or relinquish your privilege of posting comments.
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MA Rodger at 05:23 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
william @34.
Concerning trolls, your stance here does not appear constructive or come-hitherly, just like a troll's stance. I don't see where your pushing this developing world argument is going other than to present a contrary position. And you set your argument so poorly that it does not appear genuine to me.
Concerning the replacing of Kyoto, it is wrong to suggest that such a follow-on to Kyoto was unobtainable because "the West" insisted that developing countries "forgo fossil fuel exploitation" which developing countries then refused to do. Rather, it was the US in particular that has struggled with making commitments to emissions cuts when developing countries had not been asked to make such commitments. Or perhaps it is more correct that the US has struggled to make any commitment whatever towards reducing its emissions. Such a stance is difficult to countenance when the US is arguably the number-one emissions offender. And it was after all the US that failed even to ratify Kyoto.
This argument you make on behalf of developing countries, are you then arguing that extra emissions to 'facilitate' economic development should be added to the allowable emissions from such countries? How many GtC did you have in mind to budget for such an allowance?
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Rob Painting at 05:05 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
"Why worry about Bangladesh when there are so many problems in the USA (or Australia if you live there)"
Rich people can move. Poor people not so much.
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Rob Painting at 04:59 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
"These countries argue that they should not be expected to forgo fossil fuel exploitation, which is what the West asks of them"
It would be an extraordinarily daft thing to do, to encourage poor nations to expand fossil fuel consumption at a time when the very consumption of said fossil fuels is effecting dangerous change on Earth's climate and ecosystems. True, most wealthy nations are doing zip and in fact are increasing their emissions of CO2, but do you jump off a cliff because it's the trendy thing to do?
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:28 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Re: william@22 and gac73@24 and beyond,
I often present the case that since the impacts of burning buried hydrocarbons are unacceptable the only ones who should benefit in any way from such an activity should be the poorest of the poor. And they should only benefit for as long as it takes to rapidly transition them up to a sustainable decent way of living.
Any 'developed' economy or society heavily reliant on the ultimately unsustainable burning of buried hydrocarbons (they are non-renewable) actually has no future, really isn't 'developed' at all.
That perspective challenges the beliefs and desires of many people in the so-called 'developed' societies. So I agree with you about the real problem being the attitude of those type of people in developed societies. However, those same unacceptable attitudes exist in developing societies.
The global GDP has increased many times faster than the global population. And every nation with desperately poor people in it has enough total wealth for the poorest to live a decent basic existence. The real problem is clearly the socio-economic-political system raging around the planet which actually encourages and rewards greed, and rewards intolerance that will vote side-by-side with greed.
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william11409 at 02:25 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
MA Rodger you comment "So to suggest that there is some reason for the west to re-evaluate its position in light of the situation facing the developing world (or some paret thereof) is at best exceedingly foolish. At worst it is trollish" Commenters on this site do seem a tad fixated on trolls.
It appears to have escaped your attention that the failure so far to replace the Kyoto Treaty with one that is acceptable to all nations is that re-valuating its position is exactly what the developing countries want the West to do These countries argue that they should not be expected to forgo fossil fuel exploitation, which is what the West asks of them, as the development of the West was largely facilitated by the burning of fossil fuels.
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Phil at 02:15 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
M.A. Rodger @32
I concur wholeheartedly. The societies that William describes will probably be currently supplied with electricity from a petrol or kerosene generator, supplied to local (town or village) distribution network which will be operational for a few hours each day. The fuel will probably be supplied by trucks slowly traversing potholed roads. There will be no transmission network or associated infrastructure (substations) thus rendering "baseload" irrelevant
In such a scenario, small scale solar and/or wind installations are a significant improvement in life quality, especially if coupled with battery usages (such as electric bicycles). The installation can grow incrementally without large up-front infrastructure costs.
There are interesting parallels with the telecommunications developments in the third world. Most, if not all, of Africa has mobile phone access (supplied by companies such as MTN), without having gone to the expense of building an extensive static copper/fibre infrastructure to support the now largely redundant land-lines.
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Michael Whittemore at 01:54 AM on 5 January 2015A Relentless Rise in Global Sea Level
This is the image below
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Michael Whittemore at 01:21 AM on 5 January 2015A Relentless Rise in Global Sea Level
@Rob P,
You linked me to the paper Balancing the sea level budget - Leuliette & Willis (2011) which I gave a quick read.
The paper explains “Using GRACE measurements alone, for regions near coasts, it is impossible to distinguish whether gravity variations are influenced by water changes on land or in the ocean.” I was thinking sea level rise could be slowing because the sea water is progressing inland. A example can be seen in the diagram below.
If you treat the coast as a barrier you could get sea level rise A but if you include sea water inundation of coastal areas you could get sea level rise B.
Another factor I dont think is discussed in the paper is if the amount of cold water from melting ice is reducing thermal expansion? -
MA Rodger at 01:13 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
William @26.
You will really have to try a lot harder if you wish to "look at the position of the developing world through unbiased eyes not through the prism of the privileged Westerner." If a society is as you describe @22 lacking "access to clean water, medical care, sufficient food, education and all of the other trappings of life we in the West, take not only for granted but as our God given right," the adjective "developing" would be a bit of a misnomer as 'development' has jet to begin. The best options for providing power within such societies are probably renewables which, once set up, do not depend on the arrival of the next coal truck from the coast. "Base load" or "transport options" are hardily applicable for the initial power needs of such communities.
And the relevance of such societies to discussion of AGW mitigation is low when compared with societies that are actually developing.
Even so, the total CO2 emissions of all societies beyond the 'privileged West', when the carbon footprint of goods manufactures for export are factored in, their emissions remain the smaller part of today's emissions. So to suggest that there is some reason for the west to re-evaluate its position in light of the situation facing the developing world (or some paret thereof) is at best exceedingly foolish. At worst, it is trollish.
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PhilippeChantreau at 00:52 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Incidentally, anyone throwing around ridiculous concepts such as "common sense science" should not be expected to be treated kindly on a site where a lot of moderators/contributors have a record of peer-reviewed publications...
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PhilippeChantreau at 00:50 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Fossil fuels are cheap only because the vast majority of their associated costs are hidden or "externalized." If these costs were factored in, FF would become more expensive than renewables. Beyond a certain point, hiding becomes impossible. We're running a huge credit card bill on our planet, the debt is cumulative and will not go away. We're in a race, in which Thermodynamics always win. We're just having the attitude that it's ok because it's a generational relay race and we'll have handed the stick over when the finish line is crossed, so someone else will have the sour feeling of no winning...
For what it's worth, my electricity is from hydro.
I've lived in countries of the kind mentioned by commenters above. By far their worst problems are human problems: corruption, cronyism, misallocation of resources, leaders who don't give a rat's about their people. The West caters to it so long as they benefit. It is no less physically possible to implement sustainable solutions in these countries, just more difficult because of the human factors of governance.
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william11409 at 00:47 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Manacan @28. Can't see where I used the term "common sense science" or even implied that I believe in it. I'd be grateful if you could point to the comments I made that lead you to the conclusion that I did. I am aware alternatives to fossil fuels are being used to some extent in the cement and aluminium industries but, with the exception of hydropower, these have not yet entirely replaced the use of fossil fuels nor seem likely to in the near future. I'm surprised you don't comment on the role of nuclear power.
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mancan18 at 22:37 PM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Gac73 and william
There is no such thing as common sense science. Common sense is not science. Science is observation, hypothesis, collecting and tabulating data, verifying, peer review and then other scientists accepting the hypothesis so that it becomes a part of mainstream scientific theory. What you call common sense science is either basic science or not science at all.
The basic science of climate change is that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases due to the burning of fossil fuels are increasing to levels not seen for millions of years. This increase in CO2 is and will heat the planet, and this heating is and will cause a climate shift. Despite all their rhetoric, the denier hypothesis, in simple terms, is that increasing greenhouse gases won't warm the planet. Unfortunately, deniers don't ever seem to be required to prove their hypothesis with peer reviewed research.
So far we have seen arguments that deny warming, nothing strange is happening, or it's all just natural. None of this rhetoric stands up to significant peer reviewed scientific scrutiny. Now the latest argument from the climate doubting community seems to be that increasing the CO2 level and changing the chemistry of the earth's atmosphere doesn't matter, even though it is a greenhouse gas and will heat the planet. They cite times in the planet's history when CO2 levels were high, like around the Cambrian, when trilobites were the dominant species, or during the Cretaceous when, for a time, dinosaurs roamed Antarctica. Mind you the configuration of the continents was different and the Sun's radiation was significantly less than it is today. But that doesn't seem to matter to a denier despite the reality that at no time in human existence have CO2 levels been as high as they are today. Also, at no time in the Earth's history has the CO2 levels changed as quickly as they are today. While the worst case IPCC scenario would cause some fairly extreme changes in climate, which will seriously impact significant parts of the planet, there has never been the suggestion it would cause a runaway greenhouse like there is on Venus. It may, however, severely impact ecosystems that are important for sustaining humanity at its current standard of civilisation.
As for the "coal is good for humanity" argument that Australia's PM Tony Abbott seems so fond of, it too doesn't stack up as a long term solution to alleviate poverty in the Third World. A simple calculation based on known fossil fuel reserves world wide and consumption rates used by high emitting nations like Australia and the US, indicates that fossil fuels are not a viable long term energy solution to their problems. If they consume fossil fuels at the per capita rates that the high emitter nations do, then there would only be about 50 years of fossil fuel energy left. Also, this would put the CO2 levels to well over 1000 ppm with all the global warming consequences that that would incur. The only long term solution are renewables. Unfortunately, no-one seems to know what an economy will look like in a mainly solar powered, wind turbine world. This is because solar panels and small wind turbines, which have a lifetime of decades, on the roof of every self-sustaining energy household does not easily fit the current corporate mine/power company/consumer model for supplying energy.
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michael sweet at 22:24 PM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Rob and William,
Why worry about Bangladesh when there are so many problems in the USA (or Australia if you live there). Miami is designing new sewers to attempt to keep high tide out of the city center. This will work as long as it never rains during high tide. Beach nurishment costs hundreds of millions of dollars each year in the USA. Much of that work is required because of sea level rise. As sea level rise increases it will become impossible to protect the beaches. The only question is how long before low lying areas are no longer defensible. Already inland states complain that they do not want to subsidize insurance rates anymore. If insurance goes to market rates the Florida real estate market will plummet.
China would not have agreed to build out renewables if they were not suffering through choking smog. Reports of children with lung cancer from the smog are common. Reports of Companies installing solar power in India because fossil energy is unreliable are also common. For homes in many developing countries solar is the only choice, no grid exists. You are claiming that they will be better off building two systems. First a fossil grid and then a renewable grid. Why pay twice for the same service? They will save money by building the renewable grid first.
Texas would not be the state with the most wind energy installed in the USA if wind was not the cheapest way to generate energy. The argument about baseload is a red herring. Actual economic studies show that renewables can provide baseload power. Currently utilities subsidize night time rates because they have excess baseload they cannot use.
William, your argument amounts to claiming that people are too stupid to be able to build out renewables. What do you expect civilizations in the future to do after all the fossil fuel has been burned?? Perhaps they will be smarter than we are. That time is not so far in the future. China and India already have difficulty sourcing their coal. Should we wait for all the carbon to be gone before we implement the replacement?
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william11409 at 21:44 PM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
No, Rob Painting, I wasn't "just trolling". Why would you make such a comment? Do people from the developing world post here? It is true that Renewables are becoming cheaper than fossil fuels but are you suggesting that developing countries should rely on renewables as the sole source of their energy supply? Surely not, for, as yet, renewables do not supply the constant baseload power required to develop an economy. And do renewables provide the cheap transport options that oil does?
I was trying to look at the position of the developing world through unbiased eyes not through the prism of the privileged Westerner. Perhaps it is that you refer to as trolling. And on that, my thanks to gac73@ 24 for the comment "I highly doubt that William is a troll for merely expressing his point of view". It is refeshing.
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Rob Painting at 20:15 PM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Fossil fuels fail on cost. They are prohibitively expensive compared to renewable forms of energy even if one excludes all the many lives lost each year to particulate pollution, and the medical cost of treating those that survive, because fossil fuels are warming the atmosphere and oceans and are causing seawater to become corrosive. Furthermore, rising sea level will drown many of the poor island states and nations such as Bangladesh. These are costs that must be borne at some stage, and pretending that they don't exist isn't a particulatrly convincing argument.
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gac73 at 19:49 PM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
@Rob re William
Fossil fuel is abundant and cheap. It is affordable for third world countries that must lift the living standards of empoverished communities.
Renewables are at this point unreliable, expensive and costly to maintain on a scale required to provide energy to hundreds of millions of people.
Fossil fuels are supporting the exponential economic growth in China and has lifted millions out of abject poverty.
Until renewable energy can be obtained as cheaply or at lower cost, fossil fuels will be the playform that continues to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty.
I highly doubt that William is a troll for merely expressing his point of view.
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Rob Painting at 19:22 PM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Why would such energy need to be in the form of fossil fuels? Or are you just trolling?
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william11409 at 17:55 PM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Unfortunately those who are most affected both by climate change and who are most affected by the lack of the cheap and reliable power that fossil fuels supply, are not represented at this web site. Comments made here are exclusively from those with comfortable lives, probably (but by no means definitely) economically relatively untroubled and who owe their comfortablr lives to the cheap and reliable power that their society has enjoyed from the burning fossil fuels. The discussions above on socio-economic problems and differences are laughable in the context of the terrible problems faced by so very many in the world who lack access to clean water, medical care, sufficient food, education and all of the other trappings of life we in the West, take not only for granted but as our God given right. These people live in low emissions societies but would welcome without any question the advantages they could get from the cheap, reliable energy provided by burning fossil fuel. I would be very, very interested in posts from those in these societies.
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Trevor_S at 12:50 PM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
I approached this a little differently some 5 years ago and thought well, I need to live this life if I expect others to. No one pays attention to obesity advice off an obesie physician, for example. So we did. We moved to a milder climate (adaption will ensure migration is necessary), we reducued our emissons by living off the grid, reduced our emissions by not flying for holidays, not driving, not owning a meat eating pet, cutting back on meat comsumption and growing lots of our own produce. I gave up my job, enforced penury does marvels for comsumption reduction. At first I thought look at all I am giving up and that's exacty why people don't want to move to a low carbon life. It's taken me years to realise everything I have gained.
What I do know now after living an ultra low emissions lifestyle, is that the people understand and accept the science are the problem, they refuse to mitigate, blaming others (politicans, business etc) for their own profligate emissions.
We have not yet begun to counternace the changes we need to make, Ted Trainer aside, and it's already to late. Until people actually start living a low emssions lifestyle, engaging with freinds and peers about why and voting only for politicans who are serious about climate change, we will never get anywhere in regards emissions reduction, just more yak yak.
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denisaf at 11:48 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Unfortunately this is an anthropcentric discussion that is misleading about what sound decisions can now be made by people. the reality is that technolgical systems do the work, positive and negative. The objective to 'avoid or minimize destruction of ecosystems' does not take into account the fact that industrialized civilization is irrevocably destorying ecosystems at a high rate. Irreversible climate change is already under way. The best we can do is make smart decisions about the use of technolgical systems to mitigate or adapt to what is happening. But, for example, closing down coal-fired power stations will not be a popular decision. The discussion about 'climate sensitivity' presumes people can make sound decisions even when they do not understand the stark reality. The discussion of 'survival of the human species' does not take into account the irreversible aging of the vast infrastructure that provides the goods and services that society has become so dependent on. What will people decide to do when, for example, the grid can no longer supply electricity and fuel for cars, airliners and ships runs out?
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gac73 at 11:43 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
@Moderator
I respectfully accept the warning regarding the struck out statement above.
But it doesn't change the fact that there are those who seek to exploit current circumstances on both sides of the arguement.
Perhaps I should have chosen my words with a little more precision.
The point I made above is actually neutral, neither for or against the science of anthroprogenic catastrophic warming. The point that I am making is that the case has not been made in a manner which the majority are willing to accept. The majority are and always will be creatures of common sense appeal. Counter intuitive evidence is not something that the majority accept easily. So when there exists a common sense perspective, that is intuitive, it appeals to the majority i.e The Cambrian Explosion and c02ppm 5 to 22 x higher than today.
I am very interested in the science, which is why I am here on this site. But I'm not here to discuss politics or economics, despite my intense interest in both of those areas as well.
Moderator Response:[Rob P] - so, in other words, you admit that you have no idea what the carbonate saturation state (corrosiveness) of the oceans were back then. One thing is for sure, it cannot be calculated with only one known parameter of the ocean carbonate system. See Zeebe (2012).
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