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Stephen Baines at 01:12 AM on 17 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Coolbreeze,
I'm having a hard time getting my head around your arguments.
No one is suggesting that Bangkok farmers immediately shift to zero carbon technologies to move their crops. Even though they use trucks that run on petroleum, countries like Thailand and Myanmar still emit far less CO2 per person than the US, Canada, Australia, Europe do. We have the economic power and technological ability to change that for ourselves. Those truck drivers are not the problem.
It seems you are arguing against a sudden shift to alternative, zero-carbon energy sources that must be complete and immediate. That is a straw man. No one thinks that is a realistic solution and no one who is actually informed about the situation argues for it. No one thinks we should subject people to abject poverty to prepare for a carbon free energy system in the future. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to continuing to improve market share of renewable energy sources, or developing technologies to make that happen, or that can be used by those very Bangkok farmers. There is no reason to think that can't happen.
Speaking from a self-interested position that you seem to prefer as most realistic, we (the developed world) should do this because, frankly, it will have to happen regardless. Petroleum and gas reserves will decline or become a lot more expensive to obtain. Climate change impacts will become impossible to ignore. If we don't develop renewable energy someone else will come in and do it for us eventually. Then the transport driven by soccer moms and Bangkok farmers will be made by "someone else" and we may become economically irrelevant. The Bagnkok farmers should support that effort too, because, in the end, they will suffer less serious consequences.
Also, no one here (as far as I know) is arguing that petroleum has not done well by us economically — thank you great oil reserves of the earth! The future is the problem. Should we be happy to suffer future consequences of continuing dependence on fossil fuels simply out of an emotional attachment to what an inert resource has done for us in the past?
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Arthur123 at 00:58 AM on 17 May 2014Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
D Marsupial,
TThere are many documented cases already illustrating the tampering of historical climate data on the web site “WattsUpWithThat” and other similar sites. Just because you can download data off government web sites doesn’t mean it wasn’t tampered with previously. I just go over there at “WattsUpwiththat” and read them. There was a recent posting on Reykjavik, Iceland’s data tampering. The US data is constantly being adjusted by GISS. If I downloaded data 10 years ago at one meteorological site and compared it to a download today there is a better than 50 percent change some portions of the historical time line were adjusted.
Some of you paid AGW ”schlemiels” were just attacking me because I was saying the evaporation process in itself is a COOLING process. And this is a fact. As far as people like Trenberth is concerned he is running out of explanations as to why the earth is not heating up like he wants. Now he says the heat is "hiding" in the deep ocean. Cold salt water is denser and has greater salinity than warm ocean water, therefore it will sink. If anything ocean temperatures below 2,000 meters depth is likely significantly lower than the first 2000 meters, but because there are no monitoring systems at those depths guys like Trenberth can make wild guesses where the heat has gone. Complete nonsense!
By the way I am a meteorologist, graduated from CCNY back in the late 1970's and have been watching this whole AGW madness/scam unfold over the years and now I see its end nearing. Look recently what happened to Professor Lennart Bengtsson, who was a member of Global Warming Policy Foundation. He had to resign because he expressed his personal views that he was no longer sure he could support the anthropogenic global warming theory, because of the 17 year global temperature pause and the inability of global GCM models to reliability predict the pause. What happened to scientific freedom and inquiry???
Scientist by their very nature should always take the opposing view on any theory such as “AGW” especially since the real metrological data does not support run away temperatures in the first place.
The last Ice Age peaked approximately 18,000 years ago. Let’s see if any reasonable AWG proponent can explain to me how 2-3 mile thick (10,000 to 15,000 feet) solid glacial ice melted completely away in such a short geological time span. CO2 levels in those days were lower than today. What melted 15,000 feet of solid ice that was covering most of the Northern Hemisphere including the NYC area??? The Atlantic Ocean was so much lower that the east coast of the USA was 60 miles further out. For sure, climate change does happen but is a natural process that happens on a scale many more times higher in magnitude than anything caused by small changes in CO2. Imagine ice that was 10 times the height of the Empire State Building all gone today. 18,000 years ago is a blink of the eye in the earth’s life. No GCM model can model that for sure. What melted all that ice???Moderator Response:[TD] Your comment violates the comment policy at the very least by being off topic. Post your comments on the relevant threads, or your comments will be deleted without warning in the future. Here are some suggestions; many of these have Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced tabbed panes, so be sure to read all of those, in that order:
Your first paragraph: Temperature Record Is Unreliable
"The evaporation process in itself is a cooling process": (Do not use all caps; use bold or italic instead.) Evaporation cannot remove energy from the total Earth system (i.e., to space), so evaporation cannot cool the total Earth system, which is the system that global warming is all about. There are lots of places to learn about this, but you might start with "A Rough Guide to the Components of the Earth's Climate System."
Regarding the slower surface heating in the past few years than in the previous few: That is only slightly mysterious and most certainly not surprising. There are many posts about that, such as "Global Cooling - Is Global Warming Still Happening?," and "Climate Models Show Remarkable Agreement With Recent Surface Warming."
You are incorrect that that cold ocean water must immediately and permanently sink below warm water; there are long-understood mechanisms by which cold deeper water is pushed/pulled above warmer water. Also read "Correction to Curry's Erroneous Comments on Ocean Heating."
AGW does not mean runaway warming; you misunderstand what "positive feedback" means.
Regarding the last ice age (i.e., glacial period), the root-causal orbital variations are called Milankovitch Cycles. The other contributors, which are triggered by those orbital variations, actually are very well modeled.
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Coolbreeze at 00:40 AM on 17 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Thanks CB.
1. I look forward to continued advancements such as these in solar tech.
That being said, I am glad petroleum power is in place to get food and other goods transported efficiently. When the social costs and benefits are weighed, people choose to support fossil fuel technology time and time again. Take for instance the Thailand-Myanmar border area, where I was based last fall. As I would walk to the nearest village, I would see truckload after truckload hauling produce south towards Bangkok. I was grateful there was petroleum to move those trucks, so that people in Bangkok could receive large quantities of food in a timely manner. Imagine how un-lucrative it would be for those rural farmers to move their produce to Bangkok with zero emission technology. The people of Bangkok and other large urban areas around the world will understandably choose the climate change impacts of greenhouse emissions over starvation. Maybe in the future, electric vehicles (charged by solar panels) will kick ass at hauling large loads like petroleum does. That would be splendid.
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CBDunkerson at 21:26 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Coolbreeze, responses to your various 'arguments';
1: Solar requires rare earth metals and harms the environment - Nothing is absolutely zero impact, but arguing that this means we shouldn't go with things that have a vastly lower impact is taking 'false equivalency' to ridiculous levels. Also, not all forms of solar power require rare earth metals. The most promising recent advancements in solar PV have been with panels made of tin perovskites. Hardly a rare or toxic substance.
2: Oceans absorb CO2 so sea level rise is good - Not when most of the sea level rise is due to thermal expansion and the rate of CO2 absorption decreases as temperature increases. That is, sea levels are rising primarily because the oceans are getting warmer (matter expands when heated)... and warmer water absorbs less CO2. You are also again using the 'false equivalency' fallacy... pretending that the (erroneous) benefit of rising sea levels absorbing more CO2 completely offsets the harm caused by sea level rise.
3: CO2 boosts crop yields - Yes and no. In a controlled environment higher CO2 levels boost crop yields up to a certain point. In the open atmosphere higher CO2 levels boost some crop yields and lower others through increased heat, drought, flooding, and spread of species harmful to the crops. Recent studies suggest that the balance of these effects has already turned negative (i.e. total crop yields are down), and there is no question that significant further warming will result in greatly decreased agricultural output.
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Coolbreeze at 15:48 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
@ scaddenp: People have impacts to the environment whether they use FF's or not.
Take solar panels, for instance. Totally, angelically impact free: right? Not when one considers the rare earth metals involved. The extraction mining for these could be done on U.S. soil, turning streams to acid here. Or, the mining could be done in the third world, where laborers will work in conditions bordering on slavery, and some other country gets the environmental toll.
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scaddenp at 15:31 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
I doubt you will either but giving up on coal (more important than petroleum) will significantly reduce their exposure to climate change.
The most significant way (perhaps only meaningful way) is stop CO2 emissions. That is what is needed. If you emit, then you need to take responsibility for the damage you will do to others. How many Bangladeshis will Oregon take?
The oceans are actually more significant than trees for breathable air, but perhaps you should ask instead how much CO2 is being sequestered by your tree planting compared to the amount emitted. I would guess from other figures that one year's effort would offset maybe a few seconds of emissions. That is not meaningful.
If you dont like the guilt traps than we have to stop behaving in ways that impacts others. Getting off fossil fuel. It might cost you more your energy (until you remove subsidies on FF, then who knows), but that is the price you pay instead of others.
" But, I will reiterate that when the sales force states that those contributing the least emissions get the brunt, it does not build the attractiveness of the product!" That remains the most warped logic I have heard in a while. They are saying reducing your emissions give you the opportunity to help those who are taking the cost of using FF but arent contributing to the problem.
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Coolbreeze at 15:06 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Perhaps it is out of the power of the typical petroleum-burning American to get Bangladeshi farmers out of hardship. I doubt that giving up petroleum will change that: don't you?
But we contribute how we can. And like it or not, everybody has an impact on the environment in some way: everybody: with or without the luxuries owed to fossil fuels.
The trees we plant here in Oregon are not meaningless, by the way. They actually help keep the air as breathable as it is. The automobiles emit CO2; the trees take in CO2 and emit oxygen. I won't even bother citing a study on that, because it is so established in science.
The riparian zone restorations in urban areas have filtered mucho automobile run-off. Ongoing efforts at cleaning rivers have made a dramatic difference in the water quality of the Willamette and Tualatin Rivers in the Portland metro area, etc, etc., etc. Oregonians have chosen to put a lot of effort into these very meaningful efforts that significantly mitigate pollution, rather than giving up fossil fuels altogether. And we will keep having the guilt trips thrown at us about 3rd world farmers.
You know what else Oregonians do that you may or may not consider meaningful? We supplement our energy with wind and solar. But, I will reiterate that when the sales force states that those contributing the least emissions get the brunt, it does not build the attractiveness of the product!
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scaddenp at 14:40 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
"I will gladly continue pointing out how attached people are (in my nation of the U.S. at least) to the luxuries that fossil fuels bring."
Will you just as gladly tell me how me those people living that lifestyle are taking responsibility for the damage their lifestyle will do to other which lack those choices?
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scaddenp at 14:35 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Not what fossil fuel bring - but what energy brings and FF aren't the only way to do it.
I would applaud efforts to improve the environment, but an ounce of restoration does not offset a pound of damage. It might salve a conscience but is meaningless in the larger picture of future impacts.
Good for you if you can get Bangladeshi farmers out of poverty - where are they going to live? Frankly this is fine words with no meaningful action. Back your assertion with some actual studies. You will find plenty of more somber studies to the contrary in the IPCC AR2.
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scaddenp at 14:24 PM on 16 May 2014There's no tropospheric hot spot
This is kind of getting a bit old. There are numerous other predictions from climate models where the observer system isn't to validation; I wonder why this one was picked on.
Anyway, observation systems are improving and it would appear hot spot does exist. eg here or here.
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Terranova at 14:20 PM on 16 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
Mods, I have posted twice and it has disappeared. Am I doing something incorrect (-snip-)? Please explain.
Moderator Response:[DB] Your comments were sloganeering and off-topic for this thread. Note the thread guidance given you above by commenter scaddenp.
Moderation complaints snipped.
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Coolbreeze at 14:17 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
I love Tesla roadsters; I saw one in Portland. I would have paid into the waiting list for one a few years back, if only I had the clams to do it.
F.Y.I.: I didn't say that the behavior of subsidence farmers was bad. I did mention good behavior, in reference to a low emission lifestyle.
Being poor is not immoral, and I would not imply such a thing. But being wealthy is certainly advantageous, and I encourage wealth. I tell people that the way to help those vulnerable to climate change is to extend opportunity to the poor; wealth puts people in the position to do so.
We all know that there is an environmental impact to burning fossil fuels. But my concern about that is limited, particularly when people of high-impact lifestyles are making significant contributions back to humanity. One way people give back here in the state of Oregon is participating in habitat restorations. Another way is by helping the poor. Getting out of poverty makes people more resilient to climate change (an ongoing phenomenon which was occurring even before fossil fuels came about).
I will gladly continue pointing out how attached people are (in my nation of the U.S. at least) to the luxuries that fossil fuels bring.
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austrartsua at 14:04 PM on 16 May 2014There's no tropospheric hot spot
What is the significance of the hot spot signal? The hot spot is predicted by GCMs which predict strong net positive feedbacks in the climate response. This is why a doubling of Co2, which would all things being equal, cause 1.2C warming, can, via positive feedbacks purportedly lead to much more warming. Where is the hot spot? "Conversely, the data isn't conclusive enough to unequivocally say there is no hot spot." The burden of proof lies with those looking for the hot spot, not with the null hypothesis.
"Does this mean the greenhouse effect causes the hot spot? Not directly". If the climate system is highly sensitive to increases in Co2 radiative forcing, it must be fairly sensitivite to all forcing. The feedbacks are enacted more or less the same no matter what causes the warming right?
There does not seem to be strong evidence that the (long term?) hot spot exists. This is a problem for climate models which predict it. Of course more observations might reveal it, or they might not. For now, the evidence is not there.
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scaddenp at 13:51 PM on 16 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
I am disappointed in you Terranova. The cyclical change is due to a cyclical forcing which climate responds to. It completely calculable, currently going negative. Hardly an example of unforced change. The size of the milankovich forcing per century at 65N is about a 1/10 the size of global forcing from anthropogenic CO2. This is all heavily covered in scientific literature, including the paleoclimate chapter of IPCC. Note also how slow the change due to milankovich forcing is compared to temperature rise in past 100 years. See this article and comments for papers and more complete discussion. Discuss further over there.
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Tom Curtis at 13:35 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
CoolBreeze @20, when they are trying to persuade others, people try to use the points that they think the others will find persuasive. Thus we can deduce from the Apollo Alliance's sales pitch that they think their customers will be motivated by basic notions of equity, and will consider a situation in which they are profiting at the expense of others (ie, by using fossil fuels, the greatest harms of which will afflict the poorest globally) undesirable. Apollo Alliance's sales team seem to assume that the knowledge of that unfair situation will motivate its customers to do what they can to reduce the unfairness of the situation, at least to the extent of buying their products. They are probably right about most of their potential customers, though certainly not all of them. I would be greatly saddened to learn that aspect of the sales pitch was counter-productive overall because it would indicate wide spread lack of concern with equity in their marketplace.
As I have provided clear reasons to not treat the fact that the globally poorest will suffer most from climate change as a reason to not reduce fossil fuel use, we are now only discussing whether or not mentioning the disproportionate impact of global warming on the poor is more or less likely to persuade people to modify their behaviour and reduce emissions. If we do not consider you as an example of people who would be dissuaded from reducing emissions (with the corrollary that you have limitted interest in basic fairness), then what we have is a discussion about whether you or Apollo Alliance have best gauged the motivations of your fellow citizens. As you present no evidence on the topic (unless you wish to present yourself as an anecdotal counter example), you have no case to argue. Possibly neither do Apollo Alliance, but companies tend to very carefully examine the effectiveness of their sales pitches so that their belief is at least likely to be empirically based.
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scaddenp at 13:33 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
This topic is to some extent about your or my actions. The Myth is:
"Curbing emissions will hurt the poor". Hurting the poor is assumed to be morally bad; ergo curbing emssions is immoral. This argument only matters to be people whose actions are guided by morally.
The article points out the premise is false; not curbing emissions will hurt the poor more.
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scaddenp at 13:03 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Sorry - "It does not really sell people on good behavior." What is that supposed to mean? Low emitters that are likely to be disproportionately affected by climate change are subsidence farmers like on the great river deltas (Eg Ganges, Niger, Mekong etc). In what way is their behaviour bad and why is reducing your emissions so they dont suffer uninspiring to you? You seem to be implying that poor is immoral.
I am sure people got comfortable lives from their asbestos and tobacco shares too. Doesnt mean they should. Fortunately, Tesla and other are showing the way for you to continue energy-extravagant lifestyles without petroleum.
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Coolbreeze at 12:45 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
A lot of good input, Tom Curtis.
Scaddenp: You are correct that poverty would more likely cause low fossil fuel use, rather than the other way around. It is still not inspiring to me, however, for a representative of Apollo Alliance to state that those emitting the least suffer the most, and that they are poor too. It does not really sell people on good behavior.And KR. I am aware, by the way, that solar and wind are growing markets, although they still don't drive the economy on the scale of petroleum.
When I watch the automobile traffic, I think of how petroleum is enabling soccer moms to quickly transport kids in three different directions in the afternoon. When I buy parts for my bicycle, I know that petroleum powered vehicles got those bike parts distributed efficiently to stores near me. And I see the comfortable life my brother and his wife provide for their kids from their petroleum company salaries.
In the future, more people may be drawing the big bucks from wind and solar too. That would be great. But the sales force for wind and solar should consider leaving out statements about those emitting the least getting the brunt of it.
And I notice, KR, that you mention my self interests and actions and throw in the word irresponsible. Careful! This forum is not about my actions or yours; you are unfamiliar with my life anyway.
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scaddenp at 11:45 AM on 16 May 2014Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future
Tom, critical appraisal of papers is always very welcome. That is how science progresses. Its the disinformation and spurious/medacious critiques that are unwelcome and which the site exists to debunk. I would say worth getting clarification from Dessler.
(I cant imagine there is anyone who actually desires AGW to be real, but some prefer not to live in a fantasy either).
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Tom Curtis at 10:34 AM on 16 May 2014Phil Jones says no global warming since 1995
YahooMike @12, 0.2 C per year is a very large rate of warming. In fact it is 10 times the underlying (ignoring volcanic influences) predicted rate from the IPCC, which is approximately 0.2 C per decade. You may have misremembered the rate of warming the denier in question claimed.
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Tom Curtis at 10:30 AM on 16 May 2014Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future
Michael Sweet, Stephen Baines, thankyou for the compliments. As, however, I now find myself disagreeing with Dessler, they may not be deserved.
Dessler states that "...radiative forcing is +0.3 W/m2 in the late 19th century", which is a fair estimate for the 1880-1900 value if you ignore the effects of volcanism. Including the effects of volcanism makes the value distinctly negative, however. More importantly, it reduced the global mean surface temperature. Consequently simply using the underlying forcing would overestimate climate sensitivity (unless you had an appropriate compensation for the 1880-1900 energy balance, which Kummer and Dessler does not).
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Tom Curtis at 10:19 AM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Coolbreeze @16:
1) You are assuming that those who will suffer more will suffer more because of their poverty. That is only partly correct. Even if they had the same wealth as us, however, they would still suffer more on average because, as it turns out, the geographical locations in which the rich people live who have caused nearly all of the problems just happen to be the the geographical locations in which the largest detrimental impacts will be felt (on average).
2) That wealth will buffer (not insulate) you from the effects of climate change does not mean you will not suffer from climate change. Put differently, that the poor will suffer more does not imply the rich will not suffer. In fact, if things turn out poorly it is possible that even the rich will suffer sufficiently that the global economy will collapse. At that point the rich, who depend most on that economy, will suffer most. That is not a likely outcome with BAU (<33%), but it is a sufficiently plausible outcome that it should be included in our planning with regard to further fossil fuel use.
3) If all people in the world used fossil fuels at the rate of the EU (let alone the USA), climate change would be almost gaurantteed to collapse the world economy and would be a plausible risk of driving the Earth to near universal extinction. As it is a basic principle of morality "to do unto others as we would have them do unto us", it becomes unethical to use fossil fuels into the future at rates which cannot be sustained globally. It is even more unethical given the balance of benefits and risks. Not only do we preclude the poor from becoming rich through fossil fuel use by our rate of consumption, but we actively harm them by that consumption.
4) There is a strong relationship between energy use and wealth in a society. Cheap fossil fuels have allowed western society to become wealthy to a level beyond the imagination of all prior ages. That fossil fuel use, however, is a short term thing, even without climate change. Fossil fuels are a limited resource. Therefore it is incumbent on us to use the huge wealth gained from fossil fuel use to establish a sustainable energy economy. If we fail to do so, we condemn near future (<300 years) generations to an energy economy not much greater than that durring the renaisance - a level unable to sustain the rate of scientific research and investment needed to switch to a sustainable high energy economy.
Because of global warming, the time to begin the sustained switch from a FF to a sustainable high energy economy was 25 years ago. Even ignoring global warming it will occure within 30 years. Sing the praises of fossil fuels as much as you like, but they were always (and at most) a scaffold to the future. Don't make the mistake of thinking the scaffold is the tower it is used to construct - and absolutely do not invest so heavilly in the scaffold that you are left unable to lay the foundation of the tower.
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citizenschallenge at 08:58 AM on 16 May 20146 major reports in a year: is it possible to have too much information about climate change?
gpwayne write: "In a raft of reports released over the last few months, there is so little room for doubt it makes climate change denial seem not just irresponsible, but plainly irrational." (criminal...)
I would add disconnected from the realities of our planet. As well as the realities of LEARNING as opposed to seeing everything as a political/ideological war.
~ ~ ~
It's not so much that they have their heads up their respectives arras - it's that they are totally brain-washed by media and consumerism - and have absolutely no conception of our Whole Earth planet. They refuse to look outside their bubble, and now that the view is getting seriously ugly all they can do is dig deeper and lash out with ever more shrill emotionality... as the reality slowly overtakes us all.
What a crying shame, we were blessed with all these brains, yet continue to allow our primal instincts to control us.
I mourn for my children and all the others too...
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scaddenp at 07:01 AM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
I am somewhat stunned by your approach. I am sure that you would object if someone setup next to you and made lots of money while dousing you and your family in toxic emissions. If you reject the idea of taking responsibility of harm caused to others by your actions, then I cannot see how you can expect your views to be respected.
By your logic, the world should still be mining and using asbestos. The US economy grew strong on homegrown or cheap imported oil but I would say the 7bbl/day imported now is certainly not helping the US economy.
I also dont your logic. People are not poor because they dont use much fossil fuel - they dont use much fossil fuel because they are poor. I would strongly agree that you having a strong economy is good but its doesnt follow that the energy to drive it has to come from fossil fuel.
" even after environmental costs have been weighed." So can you point us to a study which supports this (and contradicts all the other studies saying the opposite).
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KR at 04:17 AM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Coolbreeze - So in your opinion your own self-interest justifies you saying "screw you" to those who will suffer directly due to that self-interest and your actions? That seems the very definition of irresponsible.
Some notes:
- Wealth (and energy) are key components in reducing poverty, in improving quality of living everywhere.
- The pursuit of that wealth via purely fossil fuel consumption leads to damages for everyone.
- Even if you have the wealth to mitigate those damages (ordering your food or coffee from a new country due to crop changes, for example), you are less wealthy as a result of that mitigation.
- Renewable energy has the promise of raising everyones wealth without the accompanying carbon detriments.
I'll just note that solar (growing 50-60% compounded annually over the last five years) and wind (30% growth rate over last decade) are, contrary to your assertion, economic stimulators.
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Dikran Marsupial at 03:16 AM on 16 May 2014Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Arthur, did you go and investigate what they have done on the BEST project? Yes or no?
(updated to add the link again, just in case)
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billthefrog at 02:55 AM on 16 May 20146 major reports in a year: is it possible to have too much information about climate change?
@ Graham's OP and ubrew's comment
"Surely that’s a message that everyone can understand?"
One would like to think so, but...
There's an old adage about the 3 wise monkeys that involves "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil". For those who are sufficiently flexible, our simian cousins can be summarily dispensed with by the simple expedient of sticking one's head sufficiently far up one's own arras. (noun: an expensive tapestry or wall hanging, often depicting some imaginery scene.)
When people have adopted a passionately felt viewpoint based solely on pre-existing personal prejudices, or on the editorial prejudices of their chosen media outlet, then even the most rational argument is likely to fall on deaf ears. (Probably because their head is stuck so far up their own...)
Prior to his retirement from his position as Chief Oceanographer to the US Navy, Rear Admiral David Titley was very vocal in spreading the message that climate disruption over the coming decades represented a clear and present danger to security. Since subsequently taking up a directorial position with NOAA, his views have hardly shown any signs of softening.
When millions of educated people choose to ignore the unambiguous message that has been disseminated far and wide for many years, one has to ask "just what does it take to convince you?".
I was going to suggest the first unaccompanied transit straight across the Arctic basin - none of this Northern Sea Route nonsense - by an LNG supertanker. However, I suspect even that won't be nearly enough.
More likely it will be the way the great Max Plank described science as progressing "one funeral at a time".
On that cheerful note, I'm off to the fish'n'chips van.
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Coolbreeze at 02:53 AM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
I see what you are saying, scaddenp and KR. But the following combination below is more likely to make me sing the praises of a fossil fuel burning economy and the lavish lifestyles it can support, rather than an economy based on wind and solar.
- Those contributing the least to the problem suffer from its effects the most
- Those contributing the least to the problem are also poor.
The lesson from this is to have money if you want to be insulated from climate change effects. In this country, the petroleum corporations have provided a good living for a lot of people. Meanwhile, the "green energy" lobby courts the government to build it up, using climate change as a motivator.
While wind and solar are viable sources of supplemental power, they just have not been the economic stimulator that petroleum has been in the U.S. The mountains of money generated by the petroleum industry still persuade much more strongly than the climate change talk of green energy companies, even after environmental costs have been weighed.
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geoffrey brooks at 02:20 AM on 16 May 20146 major reports in a year: is it possible to have too much information about climate change?
No dispute about where the "planet is going wrong". There is a naive belief that we can continue doing the same things, just emitting a little bit less...hoping human ingenuity will get us out the woods. Unfortunately many dont know (especially American polkiticians) how lost we are in the woods and what they see as a political path forward - an unescapable human catastrophe.
We should be immediately planning to remove Carbon as the prime energy source (using very high C taxes to invest in the H future, and other alternatives). The best way is to use these taxes to go to the Hydrogen Economy as quickly as possible. Fusion power will help to save our planet - and keep all the carbon we have left, safely buried in the ground.
Fusion by 2035??
Lets get the AAAS and the ACS (+ others) to ensure that our "leaders" make the immense investment required - to unlock H energy & perhaps help save the planet.
(is it too late?)
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DSL at 01:59 AM on 16 May 2014Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Arthur! Dangit! You almost made me ruin my keyboard. I was taking a drink.
No evidence. No post. bye bye.
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Arthur123 at 01:56 AM on 16 May 2014Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Dikran Marsupial,
It isn't nonsense!
I have seen many articles documenting the adjustments to temperature records. In almost all the cases the past is temperatures are adjusted downward to eliminate any simlar periods of past warming. Take a look at what was recently done to historical climate data at Reykjavik, Greenland. This distortion of past climate record data is happening at many, many locations around the world. The US historical record is nothing to be proud of. The weathestation.org group has shown so many problems with sitting of monitoring equipement hear heat sources. Most of the data used by GISS is based on many many adjustments over time. Each adustment they make always enhances there arguement the earth/USA is getting warmer. The cat is out of the bag and the American public know the truth behind the AGW SCAM!
Moderator Response:[PS] Arthur, please review the comment policy. Conformance is not optional. Note the bit on allegations of deception. Discussions of the temperature record are at "Temp record is unreliable" and offtopic on water vapour. I would ask arthur and anyone responding to show him how he has been taken in by disinformers to move the discussion there.
I could also suggest Arthur that you actually read the science instead of the disinformaton for a bit so you dont make laughable comments which suggests scientists dont know about evaporative cooling. (eg look at the Trenberth Energy budget diagram)
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Dikran Marsupial at 01:35 AM on 16 May 2014Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Arthur123 wrote "There has been so much fudging on historical climate data by GISS and other government outlets to make the past look colder than today that I don't really see any evidence the eartth is really warming at any truely measureable rate."
You do know, don't you that the raw data is publically available, and that anybody who is skeptical of GISS can download the data (and indeed the code) and perform the analysis for themselves. Indeed a group of (initially) skeptical scientists actually went and did this and found that the nonsense about fudging historical climate data was just that - nonsense, as they got very similar results to the existing analyses.
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Composer99 at 00:59 AM on 16 May 2014Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Arthur123: If your comment survives moderation, might I recommend you read more actual science rather than disinformation. I also recommend reviewing the Skeptical Science comments policy.
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michael sweet at 00:59 AM on 16 May 2014It's cooling
According to the NCDC, last winter was the 62 coolest winter (December 2103-Feb 2014) in Vermont. On the other hand, it was the warmest ever recorded winter in California. Jetfuel needs to check his "facts" before he posts. They are currently having large wildfires in California since it was so warm in the winter. Globally (since it is called Global Warming) it was the eighth warmest Dec-Feb ever.
I will leave the other"facts" in place as the moderator asks.
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Arthur123 at 00:47 AM on 16 May 2014Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
I have not read all these comments. There has been so much fudging on historical climate data by GISS and other government outlets to make the past look colder than today that I don't really see any evidence the eartth is really warming at any truely measureable rate. The HADCUT data shows no warming, the ARGOS ocean data shows no warming, Antartica is growing record ice, and the Arctic is showing some signs of ice growth too. Plus the USA just experienced one of the harshest winters of all recent times. If CO2 increases water vapor in the atmosphere than why are some blaming the west coast drought on AGW? The truth is these droughts have occurred many times in the historical past in the USA. A few years ago the Southeast was in severe drought. Not any more. The evaporation process in itself is a COOLING process so more evaporation more cooling not less. When precipitation falls latent is released back into the atmosphere. There is no net warming or cooling. The earth's atmosphere is a baroclinic system which is always trying to bring equilibrium to this dynamic system. Its this natural unbalance that keeps the system in motion and always unstable.
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Dikran Marsupial at 00:11 AM on 16 May 2014It's cooling
@jetfuel It may have been a harsh winter in Vermont, however it was an unusually mild one in the U.K. However the plural of anecdote is not data. If you want to make an argument that it is cooling, fine, but present the data supporting your argument, not just cherry picked press stories.
As to Arctic sea ice extent. There are a variety of reasons that the annual "recovery" is increasing. The most obvious is that it is dark during much of the winter in the high Arctic and any open water is likely to freeze up. The smaller the September minimum, the more open water there is, the more first year ice will form. This isn't rocket science. As to why the March maximum is declining more slowly than the September minimum, I'd say it was a combination of at least two factors. Firstly it is dark in the high Arctic during much of the winter, so the "regional" greenhouse effect is relatively small as the Sun is not warming the surface. Secondly, when the ice pack is relatively solid during the winter, it will be less affected by Arctic weather, principally wind which pushes the ice about more in the summer when it is broken up, rather than more or less contiguous during the winter.
Moderator Response:[JH] Excellent advice. Unfortunately, jetfuel is unlikley to take it because he has been ignoring such advice since he began posting comments on SkS. I suggest that everyone completely ignore what jetfuel posts from here on out. I have recommended that jetfuel's comment privileges be rescinded.
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ianw01 at 00:07 AM on 16 May 20146 major reports in a year: is it possible to have too much information about climate change?
Fundamentally the problem is time-related:
- There is a lag between CO2 emissions and significant consequences for ordinary people.
- The time scales involved are not easily grasped by ordinary people. In human terms, the change is a very slow-motion train wreck but in geological terms the changes are a near-instantaneous shock.
The (human-centric) question is how much pain and cost future generations will endure, and which generations get the worst of it.
We have been proven to be much better at helping people (spatially) near us than those on the other side of the world.
Climate change is test about being concerned for people far away in time.
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DSL at 23:05 PM on 15 May 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #19
You are correct, BC! When I put the figure for April into my spreadsheet, I had left my guess for April in, and so I entered the new value as May's value. Gahhhh. Thanks for pointing that out. I was distracted! I have twins!
Moderator Response:[JH] Copy that. My wife's niece has triplets.
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jetfuel at 22:47 PM on 15 May 2014It's cooling
US natural gas supplies are at an 11 year low. Jeffrey Folks article on American Thinker: "A recent report on natural gas usage during this past winter. For the first time, the U.S. burned more than 3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas this winter, most of it for heating. That was more than the 2.3 trillion cf of 2012-13, and double that of 2011-12.
That evidence is irrefutable. We have lived through a winter of historic proportions – the coldest winter in Vermont’s long history, and the third-coldest for the city of Chicago. Gas futures also provide evidence about next winter.
Futures traders are highly sophisticated investors who base their trading on all known information. Futures traders care only about the facts. When they are right about the facts, they stand to make a great deal of money."
I took a survey on CO2 and found out a few things: I generate 4.6 tons of it per year. Unfortunately, the site told me my result was above the world average of 4.0 tons, and that we 6.6 Billion Earth inhabitants need to all cut back to an average of 2 tons each to stabilize current global CO2 levels. For me to get down to 2 tons, I need to bump my 32 mpg sedan up to 70 mpg without any factory participation and turn my house from 66 degrees down to about 50 degrees all through next winter, and set my a/c on 85 this summer. Then, if 6.6 Billion others each also cut their use in half, Moana Lau can hold steady at 401 ppm CO2.
Not going to happen, but the US is reducing CO2 production by 7% per year and we make about 7% of the human made CO2 in the world. I wonder how our 3 trillion cu ft of nat gas use compares to our gasoline use.
Moderator Response:[JH] Stop wondering and start researching. Google can be your best friend.
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Alexandre at 22:22 PM on 15 May 20146 major reports in a year: is it possible to have too much information about climate change?
We need more of this, much more. Scientific institutions coming forward and saying clearly what they know, and how large a consensus this is. There should be billboards and TV ads saying this.
Moderator Response:[JH] Once George Soros' check clears, SkS will move forward on your suggestion. (Tongue-in-cheek humor)
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chriskoz at 21:23 PM on 15 May 2014Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future
Stephen@22,
I assume you're joking. On a serious note, being on the "wrong side of a debate" (with Tom or anyone else) can be a rewarding experience if you're open minded and want to learn. If you're afraid of a rational debate, you never learn anything. The trick is to know what is logical & rational and follow rational argumentation while rebutting the irrational. If you're wrong, ratinal arguments eventually teach you to change your mind.
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BC at 21:02 PM on 15 May 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #19
I'm glad to see that the Weekly News Roundup announcement has been rescinded, although I can see the difficulty with making a selection from such a wide choice and that it would be time consuming to do it.
Moderator Response:[JH] Thanks for the positive feedback. There will only be one News Roundup this week because my youngest daughter is getting married on Sat (US). The posting of Weekly Digest #20 may be postponed 'til Mon (US).
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BC at 20:43 PM on 15 May 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #19
DSL,
Isn't the 2010 April figure higher?
I like checking out this page which gives an interesting monthly analysis -
www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/
See the 'Monthly Analysis' about a quarter of the way down. The new monthly figures come out on the 14th, give or take. This page can also be reached from
Then click on the top graph, followed by the 'page 2' link in the second line.
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Tom Curtis at 16:39 PM on 15 May 201497% consensus on human-caused global warming has been disproven
Uncomfortable as it makes me, I have to agree with tlitb1 on this one. In partuclar, in stating that he understated his claims in the paper to get past peer review, Shaviv did not state that the claims in their understated form did not reject AGW. Further, in the abstract, Shaviv clearly asserts a climate sensitivity of 0.35 K/W/M^2 (equivalent to 1.3 C per doubling of CO2), and asserts that solar effects including indirect effects through changes in cosmic ray intensity are responsible for 0.47 K of the increase in temperature over the twentieth century. Using AR4 figures, that is 0.47 out of 0.7 K. Both of these should have been sufficient to classify the abstract as rejecting AGW.
The Shaviv paper just happens to be one of the demonstrably small number of mistakes in classification in Cook et al. It is silly to think that a project like the Consensus Project would be mistake free. What is remarkable about the project is how few the mistakes were, and how little impact (if any) they have on the headline result.
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KR at 15:53 PM on 15 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Cool breeze - There is no contradiction, and I don't see why that statement should disillusion you.
The global poor contribute the least to AGW due to their low per capita energy use, and due to their thinner margins for agriculture, water, and the income with which to adapt, they will be the most impacted by climate change.
This connects to an inverted position really puzzles me - Roy Spencer, for example, has been going on about mitigation efforts harming the poor, when it's really the Business As Usual (BAU) approach that he promotes that will do the most damage to the poor he seemingly champions... He seems to live in a backwards Bizzaro world.
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scaddenp at 14:59 PM on 15 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
I still dont follow. The people who need to install wind/solar are the rich countries. I'm not quite sure why you link low/no emission tech and economic prosperity. The two dont seem linked to me, except that if we dont move to a low/no emission power generation then the costs of adapting to climate change will do economic damage (and a great deal worse to poor countries). The poor contribute less to emissions, not because they use low emission technology, but because they use less energy.
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Coolbreeze at 14:38 PM on 15 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
@ scaddenp: Because , stating that people contributing the least to climate change are poor does not give low/no emission technology (wind and solar power) a reputation of economic prosperity.
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scaddenp at 13:51 PM on 15 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
"IMHO the predicted physics are not playing out, and the paleoclimate record demonstrates cyclical phenomena (albeit without a human overlay)"
That would seem to be an example then of choosing your own interpretation of predicted physics and denying the published papers instead. In my understanding of the paleoclimate record, what is obvious is that the climate changes in response to changes in forcing. Claiming what we see is an unforced cycle would require an interesting interpretation of conservation of energy when you look at OHC. I, with others, would like you to present the science that backs your claim as well as asking again where the "over the top" predictions in the IPCC are. Since you are a scientist, then surely you base your humble opinion on actual data and/or published analysis of data.
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ubrew12 at 13:26 PM on 15 May 20146 major reports in a year: is it possible to have too much information about climate change?
"Surely that’s a message that everyone can understand?" Surely, I get you. But you need to stop trying to convince me, and try convincing my invisible hand. (/sarcasm, I wish, but too many are thinking that way).
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John Hartz at 12:58 PM on 15 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
A friendly reminder - Dogpiling is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.
Please let Terranova respond to Steven Barnes and DSL before posting a comment on his initial and subsequent posts.
Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.
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