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Comments 4351 to 4400:

4351. Evan at 06:56 AM on 24 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      nigelj@30 Agree with your comments about EV's. The world is not uniform. We've had an EV for 5 years, powering it, theoretically, on wind power. Many power utilities will certify that they use "green energy credits" to ensure the power used for cars comes from renewables.

      Also, getting a lot of EV's on the road sends the right signal to the company's making them and to the company's powering them. Hard to know where to start, but I think we need to just jump in and get things going whereever we can. Getting to net zero will likely not be as orderly as the modelers would like us to think.

      I think they call this the chicken or the egg problem. :-)

4352. nigelj at 06:44 AM on 24 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      Jan Rapan, thanks for the links. Its certainly true that many people are apathetic about the climate issue. This is for well known psychological reasons like these:

      You say you are a "data scientist. What university degree do you have and from what institution please?I was unable to find anything in any of your links or your biography.

      You wrote in one of your links: "Logically we need to have clean green energy first; only then do we need to change over tonew devices, like EVs. We cannot do it oppositely. Otherwise, we only transpose the CO2emission problems from oil fuels to our electric outlets filled by combustion power fuels (coal,natural gas, biomasses). It is the big irony driven by profit only. But look at an excellent exampleof simplification for people: Green is Cool. EVs are cool. EVs are zero emissions. EVs are Green.Yes, it holds for the country regions with low/zero emissions power sources. But remember,China is worldwide the most significant EVs market, and China produces electricity for themmainly from fossil fuels (and even openly plans to continue with it)"

      I disagree partly. You do actually have to start using some EVs even if the energy source is only about 10% renewables. You have to phase in EV's gradually. Otherwise we would have a situation where we get say 30 years down the road and the grid is say 75% renewables, then we have to start building EVs and everyone driving them which would probably be another 30 years because scaling them up is inevitably a slow process. By then the climate is totally cooked.

4353. Evan at 03:00 AM on 24 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      OPOF@15 Good questions.

      "Is it OK that there are a significant number of people who lack basic needs like: adequate nutrition and clean water, basic health care and education, adequate shelter? Global GDP has grown far faster than global population so how is that still happening?"

      IMO these groups should be allowed to continue to use fossil fuels longer than those of us who can afford to transition sooner. I believe this is the concept of "equity" included in the Paris Agreement.

      
      "Why do people who obtain the ability to provide for all of their basic needs become desperate to pursue More? And why do they pursue More without serious concern for the harm done by their pursuits of More? Every person consuming more than their basic needs reduces 'space and resourse access' for Others who do not have the ability to meet their basic needs. And being harmful is only potentially excused if a poor person does something harmful in pursuit of basic needs."

      Why do cats chase, play with, and then kill mice when they have all the food they need in their food dish?

      Why do tyrants invade and kill innocent people? If they have sufficient funds to wage war, presumably they have sufficient funds to properly run their country without waging war. I have no idea how we "retrain" people to play nice and to be fair.

4354. jan21405 at 00:46 AM on 24 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      @Eric (skeptic) #12:
      “Two million children die each year from indoor air pollution. link to the study. That's because 2.5 billion people use indoor fires for cooking and heating. “

      
      I found in the linked study (Fullerton, 2008):
      One-third of the world’s population burn organic material such as wood, dung or charcoal (biomass fuel) for cooking, heating and lighting.
      My note – no source and year defined for the: “1/3 of the world’s population burn organic material” claim.

      Then I found there:
      “The amount of exposure in terms of the number of people, exposure intensity and time spent exposed is far greater in the developing world (Smith, 1993); approximately 76% of all global particulate matter air pollution occurs indoors in the developing world (Figure 1).”

      My note: The study is from 1993 (29y ago) and refer to the situation in 1990 or “the late 1980s” when the world population was about 5.327B(1990) … (source: UN Population). Developing countries based on HDI<0.9 (defined by the author of the study) … can’t find the exact number.

      But the mentioned “ Indoor air pollution from biomass combustion in LDCs” (Smith, 1993) – are based on mixed country samples (developing countries) and different years of the data captured within the years 1968-1993. To be sure diff years for diff countries in the sample list. Then the study gets a heavy range of the Typical pollution level (fLg/m3) from 90 up to 21,000.

      
      There is also mentioned another source for the:
      “BMF refers to burned plant or animal material; wood, charcoal, dung and crop residues account for more than one-half of domestic energy in most developing countries and for as much as 95% in lower income countries (Smith et al., 2004).”
      My note:
      - Study source from 2004 is about different years and different country samples and different kinds of methods of obtaining data (local energy statistics, local census, International Energy Agency, local survey, statistical UN, statistical WRI, FAO, …)
      - The study from 2004 uses the list of different sources for “Parameters in the fuel use prediction model”: UN, World Bank, Author calculation, from different years: 1993-2001 for every single parameter.

      My conclusion:
      I certainly would not recommend using these data in research outputs, as climate deniers would literally tear you apart by comparing pollution from 1964 and today through research published in 1993. Or by the “strange” defined data for the modelling in 2004.
      It could be used as a comparison sample for research done today. That would make sense for me.

      To be completely clear. The importance of examining the impact of using Biomass fuels is essential. But it is much more important to use data that will not ruin the whole effort.

      @Eric (skeptic):
      “What do we do about that since that is the cause of the acceleration? We look at China's R&D as I pointed out in my opening comment, with the largest investment in solar hydrocarbon fuel research in the world. The benefits will be carbon neutral heat and cooking on demand. Fossil electricity is available today so they are doing that today. They will ramp up renewables as your fig 4 shows. The past lag is due to high price and the current lag is due to lack of emergy storage.”

      My note:
      Solar Hydrocarbon fuel is really great idea. No doubt.

4355. jan21405 at 22:23 PM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      @Evan

      thank you.

      Here is one of my first complex documents:

      GHG [CO2] emissions problem in a dark box - 1st part of the Global warming series

      Enjoy! 

       

4356. Evan at 21:54 PM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      jan, I like your approach. I write, and my co-author, jg, illustrates. I agree with the need for visual communication, and that's why I like collaborating with an illustrator: he brings the message to life as do you with your visualizations.

      My writing may, in fact, be how I practice to dialogue verbally with others. Effective communication needs both text and illustrations, in the proper balance. And getting that balance correct is the trick.

      And I like John's technique of wrapping the message in a tale of local history. That brings the message home and personalizes it.

      I hope you will continue to participate in SkS jan and to add your comments.

4357. jan21405 at 21:39 PM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      @Evan #24

      as a data scientist, I'm on the same page.

      I need to maintain a scientific approach to my hypotheses. That's why I make documents that follow this form 9testing, confirmation/rejection, references, ...).

      Subsequently, I make educational documents based on scientific methods, but I use data visualization (more than text doc) because people understand images better than text. This section is dedicated to popularization for scientists at a broader range than the Climate area.

      Subsequently, I started with documents for 80% of the population (Pareto). Then, thanks to what fed me, I understood that this auditorium needed a light information diet. Otherwise, they will refuse all because it will be difficult for them.

      Got your point regarding the "imperfect world".  I do it for my children and their successors lest they shouldn't be ashamed of what we left them.

4358. Evan at 21:21 PM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      jan, I started writing analogies for the very purpose you describe: to reach the masses. I work in the sciences and generally communicate like an engineer. But I understand the need to which you're referring to speak to lay people on a different level. And some times this gets me in trouble with climate scientists because I will sacrifice scientific rigor to improve clarity and understanding.

      One of the problems we face is the mental, digital switch: all or nothing. If people lose hope, they say, "What's the point in trying." Yet life is often lived in a gray, imperfect zone, and we extract meaning from daily struggles with the results of less-than-perfect decisions. Whatever happens in the future with our imperfect political systems, life will go on, and the better people understand what is happening and why, the better they will be able to navigate life's bumpy roads.

      SkS is a great forum for discussing climate-science communication strategies.

4359. jan21405 at 20:49 PM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      @John Mason #21

      great job John, I will read it.

      We are in the same way. Now let's prepare a common understanding for the masses - a story - which will be easily digestible for them to understand.

4360. jan21405 at 20:42 PM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      A simple example of the masses thinking:

      Question: "What do you think is the fundamental problem in our civilization: ignorance or disinterest?"
      Answer: "I don't know. And I'm not even interested."

      Masses: We do not take care unless our house burns down.

      That's why I changed my approach to creating links for the masses. They don't need graphs, numbers, evidence.
      They need examples, stories. Something they can feel in the subconscious:

      No more good news on Global warming

      Let's join forces, knowledge, possibilities and let's communicate it so that the masses understand it.
      Of course, it is also necessary to maintain the scientific level. But again - this is not something the masses can understand.

4361. John Mason at 20:32 PM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      @#18 - yes I do  agree with a lot of that. It's why I have thought long and hard on the communication strategy and I realised that extensive demographics can be reached but not in the way we have been doing. For these, it is necessary to come at climate science from a different angle, I researched and wrote The Making of Ynyslas to see if I could reach the non-climate-engaged but nevertheless natural-history-enthusiastic, for example. That's a lot of people potentially. There's some evidence that it works in this purpose, from formerly non-engaged people who say they now understand.

4362. jan21405 at 20:29 PM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      sorry for the hyperlinks, I finally found the Insert/Hyperlink feature

4363. jan21405 at 20:28 PM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      @All

      Mr W. Churchill:

      - "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter".

      - "Democracy is the worst system, except for all the other systems".

      Unfortunately, old Mr Churchill was right, and nothing had changed during that time.

      Each country will do decided by its voters, who elect their representatives. Democracy is about the choice of the majority. Do you have an idea that the masses will elect someone to proclaim restrictions in their perfect consumer life? Elsewhere in the world, elections succeed with those who promise assurances.

      I spent my young period in socialism. Something terrible. However, today's capitalism is long beyond its initial thoughts. And that's the problem. People are driven through Social networks. The low-energy way of thinking suits them. They have more time to have fun. However, suppose you do not understand the judgment of the masses will be based on whether their source of knowledge has hundreds of million views and hundreds of million likes. In that case, we can invent anything - it will be useless.

      I spent my young period in socialism. Something terrible. However, today's capitalism is long beyond its initial thoughts. And that's the problem. People are controlled through Social networks. The low-energy way of thinking suits them. They have more time to have fun. I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories. However, if you do not understand the judgment of the masses will be based on whether their source of knowledge has a million views and a million likes, then we can invent anything - it will be useless.
      See what people are most interested in on YouTube:
      Social Blade: TOP25 You Tube channels

      or on Facebook:

      Social Blade: TOP25 Facebook channels

      ...

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] Links should work now.

4364. jan21405 at 19:56 PM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      @John #17

      got your point. But between the COVID-19 pandemic and the Climate change topic, there is a heavy gap (as you stated).

      You can't compare it in terms of your own social bubble. You have to go down one level.

      Let's compare them:

      - the COVID-19 pandemic brought a real threat. People were under pressure of an increasing number of deaths every day = this is a significant and unquestionable enabler. It affected a person's basic feelings - will I die?

      - Climate change topic is unclear for the masses. Something is wrong, but nobody dies. There is no instinct threat. People continue to buy things they don't need. They believe in the profit-driven agenda that if they buy EVs, they will save the planet. But they don't understand that they will recharge that EV from the outlet that is connected to the coal-fired plant. Let's look at + 50% EVs market share = China and their 70% share of fossil fuels in energy production + YoY increase in fossil fuel power plants. They continue to buy new smartphones because for many it is something connected to social status. The biggest attraction is its performance, which they don't need, and the number of Megapixels they can't judge on their screen. TV with 4k is no longer enough, we need to exchange all TVs for 8k. And so I can continue until the next morning. Do you still feel that the masses are aware of where this ship is heading? Do you feel afraid they will die?

      Compare how many people are willing to watch Super Bowl, Formula 1, Football, Olympics, a new movie from Marvel, know the story of each athlete/actor, take care of their privacy, collect gossip vs. how many people sit down on the Internet to learn more about e.g. climate change?

      In the past, we thought that the lack of interest in the serious issues of this world lies in the absence of information and education which would’ve been solved with social networks. Unfortunately, it now turns out that free access to information and relatively easy access to education (sources) does not result in more knowledge, outlook, and awareness. On the contrary, we observe an unprecedented rise and spread of delusions, misinformation, and conspiracies, often by the uneducated and uninformed. The masses consume such "information" only seeking affirmation of their opinions, not new knowledge. The problem of disinterest obviously has deeper causes: keyboard philosophers/scientists, pettiness, selfishness, light energy efficiency - lifestyle, and the embedding of the meaning of life in material plentifulness and entertainment.

      That is why I think that the fight to reduce climate change should not be paramount - unless we realize that the majority of the population does not care and only wants to have fun, we will lose every attempt at this game of life. Gaining likes will never lead to true climate change.

      Only one thing can awaken people - affect their instincts. The behavioural economy has long described this.

4365. John Mason at 19:14 PM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      @Jan #16:
      
      Not so sure about that. The measures taken here in the UK against COVID were dramatic and severe, yet given clear information regarding the nature of the threat, the majority of people accepted them to "do their bit". Countries where a degree of denialism prevailed saw, by contrast, massive losses. I know these are two very different issues but to me it shows what's possible if people are well-informed.

4366. jan21405 at 17:45 PM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      Gents, for this fight you need masses. But masses don't care about your topic. Current science is in chaotic stage in case of the climate change:

      - deniers

      - supporters

      - followers (they will be silen and wait for a miracle)

      - amateurs (they do perfect job for the denier's responses)

      - opportunists (they use current chaos for their profit)

      Who will be the trustworthy advisor for the masses:
      - who submits deep dive evidence?
      - who will use simple keywords?

      Just consider it from the Stanley Milgram obedience experiment side. 
      It is necessary to look at the causes, not the consequences. otherwise those measures will be shooting into the dark.
      Take the help of the Pareto principle to sort out the points of interest.
      1. If 10% of countries account for 81% of fossil fuel emissions, dealing with measures in the remaining 188 countries is a waste of time. And the time can't be bought.
      2. However, it is necessary to look deeper. I've already done it.

      And it's bad.
      Take a look here:

      [link]
      and here:

      [link]
      and here:

      [link]
      
      

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] Links activated

4367. One Planet Only Forever at 11:31 AM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      Evan,

      I am still pondering the entire presentation. But I agree with the urgency of getting people to significantly reduce their consumption, and not just their energy consumption.

      That brings up some other good questions to ponder.

      • Is it OK that there are a significant number of people who lack basic needs like: adequate nutrition and clean water, basic health care and education, adequate shelter? Global GDP has grown far faster than global population so how is that still happening?
      • Why do people who obtain the ability to provide for all of their basic needs become desperate to pursue More? And why do they pursue More without serious concern for the harm done by their pursuits of More? Every person consuming more than their basic needs reduces 'space and resourse access' for Others who do not have the ability to meet their basic needs. And being harmful is only potentially excused if a poor person does something harmful in pursuit of basic needs.

      Policy changes are required, like the Carbon Fee and Rebate, that can help the less fortunate achieve improved living while the harmful developed ways of 'living better' get removed form the system. But, as with any aid for the less fortunate that depends on unsustainable harmful action like fossil fuel use, a carbon fee and rebate program would not be a lasting improvement for the less fortunate.

      The challenge is changing the perception of value in global societies to be "valuing the pursuit of being less harmful and more helpful to others". And there are many powerful people who will fight against that change of focus and any related changes of policy objectives. They have been fighting against new policy like Carbon Fee and Rebates. The current dramatic challenge is due to Their Success through the past 30 years.

      Another way to say all this is that the challenge is to take power away from undeserving 'higher status people who will fight viciously to resist losing their undeserved developed perceptions of superiority'. And that can only happen if more people become aware of that challenge and make it clear to political candidates that they will vote for the policy makers who are most committed to make the required changes happen.

4368. nigelj at 06:10 AM on 23 March 2022
      The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations
      

      David-acct @4

      The examples of misinformation you quite are not truly misinformation. They are the media getting things wrong or making mistakes. Misinformation in the context we are discussing is the deliberate spreading of false facts. Most of this seems to be from right wing sources currently in our own media in New Zealand.

       

       

4369. Evan at 05:56 AM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      Let me add the following comment to this discussion. Table 1 shows a path that is almost incomprehensibly challenging. The consequences of not meeting that incomprehensible challenge is dire. Yet people are confidently placing their hope and trust in forecasts and predictions when nothing we've done, to date, has slowed the upward acceleration of the Keeling Curve.

      To me, this indicates that we must do all that we can to reduce GHG emissions. It would be a mistake to trust in technologies that have yet to be deployed at a scale to make a difference. It seems prudent to start campaigns to get people to consume less.

      There is no guarantee of success. But we increase our odds for success by not just relying on wonder technologies, but being prudent and encouraging people to reduce consumption.

4370. Evan at 05:37 AM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      Eric (skeptic)@12

      "Perhaps you can counter that argument and/or explain why lower prices and energy storage won't change the outcome by particular dates."

      I am not challenging your detailed analysis, and it is interesting. There are so many facets to this problem. But getting to net zero means tackling all of the source of GHG emissions simultaneously and in every country. That is a huge challenge. Yes, as you point out, there are uses of fossil fuels that will naturally give way to better, cleaner methods. But other uses may not give way so easily, and the companies that sell fossil fuels are, and will likely continue, to fight to sell their product.

      If, as you predict (and I hope you're correct), we replace all fossil-fuel energy by 2050 or within a couple of decades after, there will still be remaining issues such as deforestation and ag-related GHG emissions.

      My point is this. If we broadcast that these things will naturally happen because price is on our side (we just need time to allow market penetration to happen), and that there is no need for the average citizen to change the way they live, I am quite certain we will fail. Even if we are able to eventually execute the transition to net zero for the reasons you articulate, time is of the essence. If we allow temperatures to rise too high before we get to net zero, we may lock in dangerously high temperatures for a long time.

      I hope you and I can agree that there is an urgency to doing this quickly, and we need to convey this urgency to the average person. One of the ways to immediately cut down GHG emissions is to simply consume less.

      I am, of course, talking about those of us in developed countries cutting down. People in developing countries will likely use fossil fuels to raise their standard of living for some time yet.

4371. Eric (skeptic) at 05:18 AM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      Evan, the cause of the acceleration is important.  It's not the usual suspects using more energy, it's billions of people who use very little energy using more energy.   Two million children die each year from indoor air pollution.  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003592030800271X. That's because 2.5 billion people use indoor fires for cooking and heating.  Governments of all types will do what China did, first giving people stoves and then coal-fired electricity.

      What do we do about that since that is the cause of the acceleration?  We look at China's R&D as I pointed out in my opening comment, with the largest investment in solar hydrocarbon fuel research in the world. The benefits will be carbon neutral heat and cooking on demand.  Fossil electricity is available today so they are doing that today.  They will ramp up renewables as your fig 4 shows.  The past lag is due to high price and the current lag is due to lack of emergy storage.

      I hope I have explained why the curves in fig 4 have those shapes.  Perhaps you can counter that argument and/or explain why lower prices and energy storage won't change the outcome by particular dates.

4372. Evan at 04:00 AM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      Eric (skeptic)@10

      So let's be clear by what we mean when we talk about "stopping the rise."

      The Keeling Curve is currently accelerating upwards. Nothing we've done to date has had any effect on its upward, accelerating trajectory. Any statements being made are based on what we "hope" will happen in the future, because nothing we've done in the past has had any effect.

      NET is a technology not yet deployed on a scale to have any impact. It's deployment therefore represents only a hypothetical plan. What I am trying to show in these posts is that if we are to realize the expectations to which you're referring, we are going to have to prioritize them (i.e., they must affect how we vote) and make sacrifices to achieve net zero in any reasonable time frame. So far that is not happening. There is lots of talk, but very little action. And unfortunately, a lot of the talk is to reassure people that we have the technology that will allow us to do this, without communicating that one of the best ways to achieve net zero is to cut back on energy consumption.

      To deploy renewable technology so that it reduces carbon emissions, we must ramp down fossil-fuel eneregy production. That will not happen without a fight. So far renewable energy seems to be coexisting with fossil-fuel energy, and not replacing it. IMO, many science communicators seem to think that fossil-fuel energy systems will naturally ramp down as we deploy more renewable energy systems. I am skeptical of this happening. It may be that all we do with wide-spread deployment of renewable energy systems is to simply increase the available energy consumption.

      Where we differ is that I am skeptical that the carefully-crafted scenarios to net zero can be deployed without facing the kind of resistance that will put their success in jeopardy. We need to prepare the public for a long struggle to get to net zero.

4373. Eric (skeptic) at 02:51 AM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      Evan, stopping the rise is inevitable although by 2050 is far from inevitable.  Progress is not my "opinion". It is a fact. The only question is the timeframe.  Once the rise is stopped by whatever date, the decrease is also inevitable since the processes will continue and are scalable.  Perhaps we only disagree on the time frame, and you believe technological progress is much too slow.

      I admit there are some scenarios where production, e.g. burning lots of coal, can outstrip the CO2 increase reduction and CO2 elimination, mostly this century, but probably not beyond.  I agree NET costs money.  But the cost is decreasing and will continue to decrease.  Also we don't have to uselessly pump liquid CO2 into the ground.  We can, for example, sequster solid carbon above ground.  For example carbon-based infrastructure that builds itself and constantly renews itself by sequestering ambient CO2.

4374. Bob Loblaw at 00:34 AM on 23 March 2022
      The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations
      

      David-acct @ 4:

      What on earth is your definition of "censorship"? As far as I can see, nothing in the post or comments calls for censorship, which is defined here as

      The use of state or group power to control freedom of expression or press, such as passing laws to prevent media from being published or propagated.

      Freedom of speech does not mean "free to speak, unopposed", and freedoms come with responsibilities. "Freedom" does not mean "free of consequences".

      You expose your biases by talking of "both sides of the political spectrum". You create a "this side vs. that side" dichotomy. XKCD recently had a cartoon on false dichotomies:

      

       

      ...and then you complain that NPR did not discuss Hunter Biden while covering Trump's impeachment? You are engaging in Whataboutery. I"ll bet they did not cover WW II, Attila the Hun, Ted Bundy, etc. either. Maybe because whatever Hunter Biden may or may not have done had no relevance to what Trump had been doing?

      Perhaps you should try actually reading the poster. Start in the top right corner, where it mentions "Fake Debate". Below that is "False Choice" (including "False Dichotomy"), and to the left of that is "Jumping to Conclusons".

      You are ringing all the bells for having fallen for disinformation.

4375. jan21405 at 00:15 AM on 23 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      Carbon Neutral, especially in China, is a dream.

      With the current approach, RES technologies, speed of replacement of fossil fuel energy produced to the RES or Nuclear it will take more than 50y from now (in the best scenario).

      But China would have to accelerate RES capacity building significantly. However, no one considers the deterioration of conditions, which are limiting for the RES. For example, there will be less solar capacity if there is more precipitation. Furthermore, no one considers how the current YtY growth in energy consumption (only in China) will cause there to generate twice as much energy in 2050 as is needed in 2021. I have seen a few Chinese "scientific" studies that are virtually impossible. For example, here is my analysis of such approach:

      [link]

      Unless we know how to "solve" China, we can put all the plans in the trash. But China does not have a headache. So who will push them UN, G7, G20?

      Here I have discussed several possible development scenarios for the China energy sector:

      [link]

      And here is the simplified version:

      [link]

      There is one option that no one will like - to freeze and reduce energy production growth in China. But it will hurt everyone.

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] Links inserted and shortened to prevent page formatting issues.

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

4376. Evan at 22:35 PM on 22 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      Eric (skeptic)@7

      "Seems rather obvious to me that decreasing ambient CO2 is inevitable after stopping the rise."

      I don't think any of this is inevitable. We will only solve the climate crisis through shear willpower. You are referring to carbon from the energy sector, but agricultural emissions are more difficult to zero out, and will likely require negative emission technologies (NET) to do that. Although some of the NET systems represent modified agricultural practices that may represent win/win scenarios, much of the NET systems will represent a pure tax. And we know how people respond to increasing taxes.

4377. Eric (skeptic) at 20:48 PM on 22 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      The idea that emerges is more like, because we have wind turbines and solar panels, with the wave of a hand we can easily switch from fossil fuels to renewables.

      I don't think wind turbines owe much to science.  As an engineer I much prefer solid state power for which we need more science.  China as one example puts a lot of money into science such as solar fuel catalysts.  Those promise not just carbon neutral fuel, but solar energy storage and eventual sequestration.

      This path shown in Table 1 leaves us with 450 ppm CO2 in 2050, sufficient to take us to 2°C warming, if we don't get CO2 to start decreasing at that point.

      Seems rather obvious to me that decreasing ambient CO2 is inevitable after stopping the rise.  I agree stopping the rise by 2050 is very challenging, but probably only by a decade or two.  Along with your fig 4 you should show cost per watt ($3 when I bought my first panel to 50 cents today), efficiency (approaching 50% in the labs), etc.

4378. jan21405 at 20:38 PM on 22 March 2022
      Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
      

      Gents, as a fan of your site, I have some additional points to this discussion:

      1. Be careful when using data from a source Our World in Data. I found many discrepancies there.

      2. Same regarding data from FAO/FAOSTAT. In my last study, you can find exact pieces of evidence.

      3. Based on my last communication with EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, EU JRC), I discovered that binding differences in outputs arise due to insufficient taxonomy data in their EDGAR DBs. Not to mention that their data are still necessary to be paired on LULUCF from FAOSTAT data sources (which, as I explained above, is in a catastrophic state). However, unlike the FAO, they thanked for the proposed adjustments that give them a sense of data quality.

      4. Regarding the impact of animal agriculture on the total emissions, even in the case of the Food systems, I discovered several serious shortcomings from the FAO.

      I like vegetables, even containing a lot more share on my plate, to be sure. However, I also like reliable data. I also like the interpretation of the data in a broader context.
      To prove what was written by me, you can check my last document:

      [link]

      I would like to read your opinions, respectively. I will be happy to help you edit your article.

      I think that too much meat production is being created unnecessarily. Sure. This does not mean that tackling climate change through extremism is right. Not all meat source is produced as it is made from various extreme videos. It's like a dream when someone thinks we can replace fossil fuels with RESs by 2050 - no, we're not (with current technologies and the G7/G20 approach). If we are looking for useful and long term sustainable solutions for this planet, we will be on the right track.

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] long link activated.

4379. Evan at 20:29 PM on 22 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      anticorncob6 @4

      Thank you for your thoughts. I am trying hard not to write as a pessimist, but to help people see the true scope of the problem so that we can prescribe effective solutions. Getting to net zero will be tough, and we need to prepare for that. Whether or not we achieve net zero by 2050, we need to push to achieve that as close as possible and as fast as possible.

      "Also, am I interpreting you correctly that if all carbon emissions ended right now, we'd still get to 1.7C? If so, where do you get that?"

      This is tricky. If we ended all carbon emissions now, we would stabilize at something like 1.1C. But if we stabilize CO2 at something like 420 ppm and it does not drop, then we eventually warm to something like 1.7C. This is due to the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), which the IPCC estimates as being in the range of 2.5 to 4C increase for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration. A common value used for ECS is 3C/doubling CO2. In Analogy 4 I show measured temperature and CO2 data that exhibits this ECS = 3C/doubling CO2.

4380. Wol at 20:10 PM on 22 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      Congratulations!

      At last: a piece in an influential science-based outlet that doesn't skirt around, or ignore, the fundamental problem which is there are too many of us, and more by the second.

      I've seen all sorts of arguments from all sorts of people attempting to play down the population issue, none of which make sense.

      We are all familiar with arithmetic v exponential growth. It really is as simple as that. All living systems find equilibrium within their niches - except us: our technology has enabled us to outwit the exponential v arithmetic equation. Except that it hasn't. What it HAS done is enable us to extract from a limited - if large - natural capital of energy and raw materials to APPEAR to have done it, and now the end game is in full view. It's not just CO2, or energy generally - it's everything. There are just too many of us even if starting from a full bowl and not from the point where we have already used a large amount from the bowl.

      It's not easy being optimistic today: I'm just glad to be eighty this year and with no children to worry about.

4381. Eclectic at 14:17 PM on 22 March 2022
      The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations
      

      David-acct  @4 : you should delve more.  Your examples are not good.

      Your example of misinformation [vaccine causing autism] was reasonably quickly debunked scientifically . . . yet here we are, nigh on 20 years later, with a significant slice of the population still believing it (or at least, feeling very uneasy & hesitant about the measles vaccine).   And there is a multiplying effect ~ FUD breeds more FUD . . . perhaps analogous to a nuclear fission reactor core.   It spills over into other vaccines : and has all gotten worse, thanks in part to flaky celebrities and venal "influencers".   And it poisons the scientific well in other areas too.

      David, you are living in the past, if you hold to "zero-censorship" ideals.   The modern world is different to the pre-internet world which you seem to base your ideals on.

      For a pictuesque analogy : the wood-fire of yesterday's communication systems (with some natural tendency to extinguishment) has become today's nuclear reactor, owing to the perversity and imperfections of the human psyche.   Nowadays we very much need to use Control Rods to damp down the extensive misinformation (from ignorance) and the disinformation (from malice).

      You can call it censorship, or name it some better-sounding term  ~ but the underlying need, whether it's a nuclear fission reactor or a living organic cell, is for negative-feedback control mechanisms to sustain things in a healthy range.

      Either zero-censorship or total censorship [which is an impossibility] . . . they are both dangerous extremes to aim for.  They are both incompatible with a healthy society.       ~ Please avoid doctrinaire ideologies, and aim for the middle path !

4382. anticorncob6 at 12:48 PM on 22 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      You made an excellent case for climate pessimism. I've also been a climate pessimist since 2015; it was the Vox articles "the awful truth about climate change no one wants to admit" and "7 reasons america will fail on climate change" that convinced me.

      Like the author of 7 reasons (as well as ~99% of climate pessimists), I would be deeply grateful to anyone who could convince me I'm wrong. Non-pessimists have given me information that we're making progress, and I simply keep pointing out that emissions are still increasing, so what's happening isn't enough. This article does a great job of explaining why those statistics are highly misleading, so I can refer here when I need to without simply repeatedly pointing back to the same fact.

      I agree with you on overpopulation, and am infuriated with people who think there's a low birth rate crisis and people need to have more kids. The simple fact is, fewer people means fewer emissions. We certainly could sustain 8 billion people if we chose to live more sustainably, but there's no sign of that happening, so not having children is the best choice. Plus, even if we do collectively wake up about this crisis and act, fewer people will help reach our goals.

      Also, am I interpreting you correctly that if all carbon emissions ended right now, we'd still get to 1.7C? If so, where do you get that?

4383. David-acct at 12:26 PM on 22 March 2022
      The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations
      

      As I have previously stated, attempts to censor "misinformation " or "disinformation " if far more detrimental to the free exchange of ideas along with the advancement of knowledge.  If what is stated is truly "disinformation, it will quickly be determined to be false. A good example is the lancet study that showed vaccines cause autism.  That disinformation was quickly discovered to be false.  If the statements are truly false, the free exchange of information will expose the misinformation for what it is.

       

      Both sides of the political spectrum are purveyors of false information. I dont know how bad Faux news  is since I dont listen to or read Fox/Faux, though though I can say many of the mainstream pervades in misinformation.  

      Granted there is large amounts of misinformation regarding climate science, yet bad information will eventually sink to the bottom with solid evidence.  

      Nigel posted the link to the NPR , though NPR is one of the worst offenders of misinformation.  A few examples of NPR's misinformation include 1) during Trumps first well deserved impeachment, nary a word was mentioned of Hunters involvement in corruption,  2) during april 2020 NPR ran numerous stories on the "impossibility" of a lab leak, which 20 months later we know as the most likely source 3) During Sept & Oct 2020, npr ran numerous stories on Hunter's laptop as being russian disinformation though the NYT now admits was actually Hunters laptop

      My apologies for delving outside climate science for examples. I am just pointing out that both sides of the political spectrum are heavily invested in disinformation.  The obvious risk is allowing one side of the political spectrum to decide what to censor.  

4384. Evan at 11:15 AM on 22 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      MA Rodger@2 thanks for your comments. Much appreciated.

      I agree that Net Zero as defined by the leading authorities means net zero emissions by 2050, which would cause CO2 cocnentrations to drop well before then. I also understand net zero emissions is an aspiration. There is no way to ensure this is enforced. It is merely a goal.

      Hence, what I am presenting is actually much easier than that, and yet Fig. 5 and Table 1 clearly show the great effort required to meet this "easier" goal. If we were to achieve anything like what is shown in Table 1 it would be a great accomplishment.

      So I accept your correction to my use of the term "net zero", but maintain that what I show in Table 1 is sufficiently close to what we need to achieve, is much easier to comprehend and remember, and itself represents a near miracle if we achieve it.

      As far as population, let's just leave it that you and I disagree. Every person is a carbon emitter. Even if you remove the top 10% of carbon emitters, responsible for 50% of emissions, we still have a climate crisis. So we are splitting hairs, because halving our emissions won't get us anywhere near where we need to be.

4385. MA Rodger at 10:58 AM on 22 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      I cannot agree with the notion set out by the OP that "accelerating" AGW is being driven by the rise in global population.

      Firstly, yes, the global population is increasing, presently at 80 millions per year, and the population & CO2 emissions rises are very similar, but the societies with rising population are not the major contributors to the emissions rises. There is thus no viable connection between population & CO2 emissions. 
      Secondly, what is meant by the idea that AGW is "accelerating" does need to be nailed down before it is presented in such an analogy.

      I do agree with the general view that there is a disconnect between the science and the real-world policies to mitigate AGW.
      There certainly is a "don't scare the horses" agenda being propagated by politicians. (Or perhaps it is the civil servants that advise dumb politicians who are doing the propagating.) The idea that we can scale up renewables to achieve a 50% cut in GHGs by 2030 and 100% cut in CO2 by 2050 is not practical given the present efforts to achieve it.
      I am from UK whose ruling politicians are not-so-long-ago climate-change-deniers. They delight in telling the world how we have cut our emissions by a world-beating 40% since 1990. Ignoring the significant exporting of emissions through the period since 1990 that allowed the 40% cut to be achieved, we are still (2020 data) at 32M toe non-fossil-fuels primary energy production, a value that hasn't moved since 2017. (See DUKES 2021 datasets) So no sign of any actions to address any looming climate emergency. Instead we get bonkers Boris and his world-beating nonsense.
      So I generally agree with the message the OP is hoping to provide, but am not at all happy with the analogies.

      I would also point to errors in the portrayal of "net zero". The zero is about CO2 emissions and not about atmospheric concentrations. The scenario SSP1-1.9 hits net zero emissions by 2050 but atmospheric ppms peak and begin the drop from 2040 (at 440ppm according to Meinshausen et al 2020).
      
      

4386. One Planet Only Forever at 05:17 AM on 22 March 2022
      The Climate Shell Game
      

      Thank you for providing another thought provoking presentation.

      I will share more thoughts after pondering the entire presentation further.

      But my initial thought is that the root of the problem can be better understood by evaluating:

      • What if the global population was not still growing?
      • What if the developing poorer portion of a global total of 8 billion people continued to aspire to develop to live like the supposedly 'more advanced - higher status' portion of the population did/do?
      • What if the higher status people continued to live 'more' harmfully rather than all competing to set better example of living in ways that are less harmful and more helpful to others?
4387. One Planet Only Forever at 04:31 AM on 22 March 2022
      2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11
      

      The following recent NPR items are like The Atlantic item "We Need to Tell People Their Houses Are Going to Burn". They are about severe flooding events affecting already built parts of the USA. They are stories that are likely mirrored around the world.

      Rebuild or leave? In a flood-prone Tennessee town, one family must decide

      This school wasn't built for the new climate reality. Yours may not be either

       

      What they have in common is long standing developed features that have been severely damaged by intense unprecedented recent flooding. As a result, the developed items and locations are being understood to be at serious risk of future severe flooding, but without certainty about how severe. And what they also have in common is the belief that the solution is 'building what is hoped to withstand the future events or building what are hoped to be adequate regional flood mitigation measures' rather than 'abandoning the locations that are at risk of being severely flooded in the future'.

      As a Civil engineer I am painfully aware that without certainty regarding the future magnitude of human climate change impacts it is less likely that climate forecasts can be developed to establish a conservative certainty regarding the changed climate conditions that need to be designed for.

      Even if climate change impacts are limited to 1.5C, or peak slightly higher then are rapidly brought back down to 1.5C, it is difficult to establish conservative future design requirements (especially when the cost of more conservative requirements is argued against by people hoping to save money or save part of the developed status quo). And if the impacts peak at 2C or higher it is even less certain what the required conservative design conditions would be.

      Abandoning areas at risk of future flooding, based on a very conservative evaluation of flood risk, would develop things that would survive far into the future with less risk of disruption or repair costs. That would build lasting improvements, rather than hoping to save money by building something that is hoped to be good enough based on not really having much understanding about what the future will be like.

      The real story is that the real problem is that the short term benefits of being increasingly harmful to the future generations are too hard for those currently living to give up. It is even harder for caring people to have the power to 'motivate (force)' the people benefiting the most harmfully to give up their harmful unsustainable developed pursuits of 'more'.

4388. Eclectic at 20:19 PM on 20 March 2022
      Models are unreliable
      

      BaerbelW @1301  -  thank you for adding the latest Potholer54 video to the bottom of the article "Which is a more reliable measure"  [linked @1301].    Potholer54's video is 20 minutes long, and (unusually for him) contains only a few humorous remarks.

      But I think it is a neat summary of of Dr Spencer's ongoing error-making in measuring AGW's increase  ~ and shows how Spencer has gradually changed from a scientific black sheep, into merely a dark gray sheep.

      Potholer54 puts Spencer's history into perspective ~ and I find the PH54 videos a very useful source for arguments against denialists.  And always useful to be able to quote Spencer's own evidence against  denialists !

      Noteworthy :-  Potholer54's new video has scored 22,000 views in its first 24 hours.

4389. Eclectic at 20:06 PM on 20 March 2022
      Models are unreliable
      

      Bob Loblaw @1302  -  thank you.  It is a while since I looked at the background info on Dr Roy Spencer.  The SkS  info on him is from 2012, and the Desmog info goes up to 2017.   ( I do see Spencer's UAH  monthly chart always gets featured on the WUWT  blogsite, and draws many comments of a vacuous sort.  Other global temperature charts get little mention there . . . and oceanic warming is almost tabu. )

      Spencer has to keep backstepping from his original position of total AGW denial (including the "minimal warming" assertion).   And he has stepped even further back since 2017, and is now admitting (quietly) that it is possible the majority of modern warming comes from manmade GH gasses.

      No such admission from that other celebrated contrarian climatologist Dr Judith Curry.   On her blog [ClimateEtc] her latest article, posted 17 March, titled:  "A 'Plan B' for addressing climate change"  . . . is classic Curry vagueness.  The reader risks almost drowning in discursive verbiage ~ which in essence kind of boils down to:  We should be doing nothing to counteract Global Warming because it is all too difficult (and too mild) and should probably be given a priority way, way below all the other problems that we face in this world.      (And of course we cannot tackle more than one problem at a time.)

4390. Bob Loblaw at 04:50 AM on 20 March 2022
      Models are unreliable
      

      Although it does not have a place for comments or responses, readers of this discussion who are curious about Roy Spencer's work may also wish to read the information on this page:

      https://skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Roy_Spencer.htm

      As usual, Desmog also tracks him:

      https://www.desmog.com/roy-spencer/

4391. BaerbelW at 00:24 AM on 20 March 2022
      Models are unreliable
      

      @Eclectic #1300

      The argument answering the question "Which is a more reliable measure of global temperature: thermometers or satellites?" is a better fit for Peter Hadfield's latest video. Which is why I added it as a "further viewing" note at the bottom just now.

4392. Eclectic at 22:55 PM on 19 March 2022
      Models are unreliable
      

      Out today ~ date 19 March 2022 ~ a new YouTube video

      by science journalist PotHoler54

      Describing multiple errors with Dr Roy Spencer's [Christy and Spencer] UAH satellite system's tropospheric temperature measurements, errors made over several decades.

      In short : Spencer's predictions wrong, and model predictions right.

      Not exactly news ~ except I myself had not realised how greatly Spencer's fundamentalist religious beliefs had given a severe bias to his thinking.

      (Moderator ~ I'm not sure if there is a better thread for this post.)

4393. One Planet Only Forever at 11:25 AM on 18 March 2022
      The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations
      

      nigelj, Thanks for helping with the link.

      It is tragic that so much effort is required to try to clean up the messes of harmful misunderstanding that are created by politically motivated marketers.

      The SkS team are very helpful, especially with the generalized presentation on this poster. It helps on many 'misleading marketing fronts', not just the climate science issues.

      A related reference if you are interested in the gory details of advertising standards is the International Council for Ad Self-Regulation. The following is linked (hopefully) to the ICAS Advertising Standards web page which opens with the following:

      "Self-regulatory Advertising Standards and Codes exist to ensure that advertisements and all forms of marketing communications are prepared with a due sense of social responsibility. Among the basic principles incorporated in ad standards worldwide are the fact that ads should be legal, decent, honest and truthful. Moreover, ads should conform to the principles of fair competition, as generally accepted in business."

      Imagine that ethical standard actually being honoured by all politically motivated marketers.

4394. nigelj at 05:45 AM on 18 March 2022
      The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations
      

      OPOF @1 good news item,  but the link doesn't work.  Found the article here:

      www.npr.org/2022/03/17/1087047638/the-truth-in-political-advertising-youre-allowed-to-lie

4395. One Planet Only Forever at 04:21 AM on 18 March 2022
      The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations
      

      This is indeed helpful. And tragically, more helpful items like this are likely to need to be constantly repeated as a reminder to people because, as this NPR News item nicely summarizes in its headline, "The truth in political advertising: 'You're allowed to lie'"

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] Link fixed, based on following comment.

4396. One Planet Only Forever at 04:24 AM on 17 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Recent leadership actions in Texas and other parts of the USA (NPR News item - Texas and other states want to 'boycott' fossil fuel divestment) are examples of why Figure 2 is what it is.

      These types of actions through the past 30 years are why the required correction of developed activity is now so large and needs to be so rapid. These ‘legal efforts’, and the recent repost in SkS of Supreme Court hears case on EPA GHGs regulation, are further evidence supporting many of the points I make in my comment @86:

      • Undeserving people try to avoid suffering loss of status by prolonging harmful misunderstanding that excuses their harmful pursuits of benefit.
      • Legal power is abused to create harmful laws and push for harmful legal decisions.
      • Bad exampes are set by many wealthy and powerful people

      Those types of actions by supposedly more advanced people clearly set bad examples for people who are pursuing improved lives. Many of those hoping for a better life incorrectly aspire to develop to match the harmful examples that have been set. And harmful powerful and wealthy people in developing nations learn from bad examples set in the supposedly more advanced nations.

      A related point is that helpful action, like renewable power built in Texas, does not off-set the harm done by Texas leadership. Harm is not to be masked by claims of ‘deserving credit for appearing to be helpful’. It is incorrect to do a utilitarian style overall evaluation of help and harm, especially when one group is helped to do more harm to others.

      Harmful resistance to learning to be less harmful and more helpful, especially by many among the rich and powerful, is a major root of the problem. The ‘successes’ of those type of people through the past 30 years have made the required correction larger and more rapid. And some of them did succeed in not experiencing the losses of status associated with the required correction in their lifetime. Their success made the current day challenge worse than it needed to be.

      Tragically, the cycle of harm continues. Many people today have developed the same harmful misunderstanding fuelled hope. They hope to be able to make the problem worse for others, including the future generations. They do not care how much harm is done to Others, including not caring about a more significant and rapid correction happening in the future in places like Texas, or Alberta. They hope they will not suffer the consequences of their resistance to learning to be less harmful. But they also promote the misleading claim that people who are less harmful than they are must not be allowed to develop to be like them, even though the bad examples they set can clearly encourage others to aspire to develop to be like them, just like today's leaders in places like Texas continue to try to set the examples of how to be as harmful as possible.

4397. Philippe Chantreau at 03:47 AM on 16 March 2022
      Models are unreliable
      

      Oldengine,

      I very much understand how you feel. I used to teach the weather and weather data sessions in the groundschool part of a pilot training program. Back then, CO2 content was still around 300ppm. The fact that it increased to 400 is a geological scale event that happened in a geological blink of an eye. There is no natural explanation for this whatsoever. 

      The reason why this thread is so long and convoluted is the never-ending insistence of some to protect the power of certain industries. In that effort, they deploy an infinity of vacuous arguments, all of which have to be dismissed meticulously by the reality based crowd. Meanwhile, they have no problem remaining free of the very strict standards they demand of others, with arguments ranging from grotesque as shown by basic physics, to downright mendacious. They seldom, if ever, argue in good faith.

      I actually trend to agree on many of your points. I hope the reactor being built in Wyoming will pan out and show itself as a viable tool. The efforts toward fusion energy should increased tenfold. Coal burning on an industrial scale should be phased out as quickly as possible. Terrestrial transportation should be electrified to the best extent possible. All possible avenues to minimize emissions in agriculture practices should be explored and implemented. Buildings should undergo retrofitting work, new ones should have appropriate certification standards. Fossil fuels use should be reserved to situations where alternatives are not possible or practical, like aviation, which presents unique challenges in terms of weight and energy density, but where efforts to find ways for the future have increased significantly in the past 15 years.

4398. Oldengine at 03:14 AM on 16 March 2022
      Models are unreliable
      

      Oldengine is a retired engineer, not a scientist.  I love watching scientists argue over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  But this has become tiresome and dangerous.  The accuracy of the measurement of CO2 in the atmosphere is "good enough" to take action now.  My ASHRAE handbook from 1977 shows the CO2 content of "average air" was less than 300 ppm.  Now it's over 400 ppm (+/- whatever).

      Don't you all see what you are doing.  We (The big "we", as in all humanity) are driving towards a stone wall at more than sixty miles an hour and we are not taking our foot off of the accelerator.  It doesn't matter if the speedometer is calibrated in MPH or furlongs per fortnight.  It doesn't matter if we are actually going 58 mph or 62 mph.  We have to step on the brake now.  Paralysis by analysis will result in the end of life as we know it.

      FYI - I think we should be building 500 thorium salt fueled nuclear reactors (50 to 100 MW each) right now and ordering another 500 tomorrow.

      Oldengine

4399. One Planet Only Forever at 05:55 AM on 15 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      I agree with the Moderator's comment on my post @85.

      Only the second paragraph of my comment departs from the OP topic of the need for rapid required corrections of developed activity and development activity.

4400. One Planet Only Forever at 04:19 AM on 15 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Here is my response to what swampfoxh wrote @74 (in the context of other responses and all the other comments on this thought provoking OP).

      Regarding animal agriculture, I support corrections of all food production, distribution, and consumption aligned with the understanding that harmful unsustainable ways of food production need to be ended. It is especially important to correct the developed types of production and consumption that have already caused phosphorous and nitrogen impacts to exceed safe planetary boundaries (see Planetary Boundaries). It is also important to limit waste and ensure that all people receive at least basic decent nutrition, preferably from maximized local food production (refer to the compendium of climate impact related solutions presented in Project Drawdown).

      Upon reflection it appears that serious important questions are raised by the way that swampfoxh chose to try to focus attention on the matter Rights (in spite of the content of my first comment on this topic @3, and all subsequent comments).

      The (sort of) quick response is:

      Fossil fuelled development can produce perceptions of prosperity and superiority. And the competitive for pursuit of higher status (admiring and aspiring to be like the highest status) can develop harmful misunderstandings in attempts to develop and prolong harmful activity. Undeserved status would be lost by a correction of what has developed and a correction of the direction of development (away from fossil fuel use).

      A correction to limit the harm of climate change impacts will cause loss of developed status. The more rapid the correction, the more significant the losses will be. And it now appears, based on Figure 2, that significant losses will have to happen in the remaining lifetime of many people who fought to delay the correction. Their fight against change, their fight against correction of harmful developed misunderstandings, has created the need for more rapid correction. That has motivated increased resistance to learning in people who would prefer to have the losses happen to Others, especially the future generations who have no influence today. They make excuses that the future will always be better for everyone. And they make related demands that they not suffer any loss of their status relative to others due to required corrections, claiming things like ‘everybody’s perception of prosperity needs to constantly improve fro the current developed starting point, like a marathon racer who wants to start 20 miles into the race, because that is where they are when the race starts.

      Rights are an ethical matter that gets harmfully compromised by political game players. The harmful socioeconomic game players who have significant political influence can become the least ethical people, using the power of misleading marketing to promote and prolong harmful misunderstanding.

      Poverty in the midst of Plenty is the result of systems that create cases of people who do not deserve the circumstances they experience. Many of the lower status do not deserve their lower status. And many of the higher status do not deserve their higher status.

      A different response is:

      It is a misunderstanding to believe that people who were less able to develop the more harmful, less sustainable, fossil fuelled ways of living (mistakenly perceived to be more advanced or superior) have ‘missed the bus’. It is also unacceptable to declare that the people enjoying the ride on the ‘harm-full bus’ must not have their level of enjoyment limited or governed externally by others. It is not right to declare that the ones on the ‘Harm-Full Bus’ have the right to be more harmful than Others. And it is not right to declare than others cannot develop to harmfully joy-ride like the ones already on the ‘Harm-Full Bus’.

      And helpful people should not have to try to undo or repair the harm done by people on the ‘harm-full bus’. However, until the Harm-Full Party Bus is safely kept from harmfully compromising leadership actions, all possible helpful hands are required to build the power to limit the harm done - no more bystanders or people ‘just focused on the science’, because those type of people are part of the harm problem by not being as helpful as they could be.

      Competitors who are willing to try to benefit from something harmful that others may not notice as harmful (like sports cheaters) or try to benefit from a harmful misunderstanding (including unethical rules or unethical enforcement of rules) can mistakenly develop the belief that ‘everyone is like they are’. That can create a mind-set that can be easily tempted to spiral down into more harmful misunderstanding.

      Less fortunate people have more excuse for being less aware of how to avoid being harmful to others. More fortunate people have less excuse. And the legitimacy of the highest status, like the wealthiest 10%, should be evaluated based on the understanding that they all have ‘little excuse for maintaining harmful misunderstandings’.

      Disclosure: I have lived for decades in Alberta, a major region of origin of harmful fossil fuelled misunderstanding. I have tried to be less harmful, engineering was a good fit for that, and more helpful to others (a diversity of volunteer activities are part of that). My abilities, combined with those focuses, appear to have enabled me to rise into the top 10% of income earners in Alberta. I may have been able to achieved a higher status, but I was not interested in compromising my ethical perspective in pursuit of that.

      A detailed response regarding my perspective on the issue follows:

      Constant learning from a constantly improving ethical perspective is an important part of the pursuit of increased awareness and improved understanding of how to be less harmful and more helpful to others. And that expanded ethical perspective includes consideration for all other life, humans do not stand apart from nature, now and into the future, constantly learning to correct, and make amends for, developed harmful misunderstandings and related actions.

      Everyone learns and develops their motives and perspective from the environment they are born into and grow up in. A lack of diversity of experience, including a lack of natural experiences, can develop a harmfully limited perspective. And that developed limited perspective can resist learning how harmful the things that are perceived to be beneficial actually are. Too much focus inside a man-made socioeconomic-political environment of competition for survival and superiority relative to others can develop intensely held harmful misunderstandings.

      Ethical fairness of what is being evaluated is determined by considering the system and its results from versions of the following perspective: The system is fair and just if I end up experiencing any of the diversity of individual circumstances that the system could potentially produce (consider the history of European colonial conquest from that perspective, and extend that thinking into the future).

      That evaluation justifiably determines that systems that produce poverty in the midst of plenty need correction. It also establishes the understanding that a person who acts in ways that harm others does not deserve credit for helping ‘a different sub-set of others’. A person who ‘helps some people’ in ways that ‘harm other people’ is harmful. And that individual-based understanding can be extended to groups of people. A group or nation is not Collectively Good if some of its members are helpful pursuers of being less harmful while other members of the group or nation pursue benefit in harmful ways.

      A fundamental ethical point is understanding that each person born should not have ‘advantages or special rights and privileges’ due to where and when they are born or who their parents and ancestors are. That understanding is often attempted to be denied by the promotion of harmful misunderstandings regarding ‘perceptions of status’ (like believing that a ‘special sub-set of the population’ deserve to be the first and only ones on a bus). A related point is that a person who has attained higher status relative to others by benefiting from harmful actions does not ‘deserve the ability to be harmful because they can afford it or can legally win attempts to penalize them for the harm they benefit from’. Harmful laws and harmful application of laws have been developed, proving that all Rule of Law is not Ethical Law and Order. Harmful laws and enforcement are often developed to defend and excuse harmful people who have become wealthier or more powerful through harmful means.

      That context leads to ethical questions of how fair and just it is for someone to declare that:

      • They were the first to benefit from a harmful unsustainable activity and therefore must not be corrected, but others who have not developed to live that way must not be allowed to develop to be like that.
      • They have developed to be the most harmful pursuer of personal interest and must not be corrected, but others who have not developed to live that way must not be allowed to develop to be like that.
      • Because they were born into a group that had developed perceptions of higher status relative to others through actions that are now understood to be harmful and that were/are excused and defended by harmful misunderstandings, they must not be corrected, but others who have not developed to live that way must not be allowed to develop to be like them.

      Applying that thinking to climate change impacts, what swampfoxh states @74 can be understood to be arguing for the right to continue to be more harmful than Others are allowed to be.

      Applying a different perspective, what swampfoxh argues @74 is no reason for nations like China or India to forego their development. There is lots of coal and oil to burn. It is clearly inexcusable for people in nations with a history of benefiting from harmful actions to demand that they have the exclusive Right to maintain their harmfully obtained benefits, insisting that others who have been less harmful and have less developed ways of living must not develop to be like them.

      I will use Canada (representing the Western developed nations), the nation I was born in about 60 years ago and continue to live in, as the example to reinforce the point. The following compares per person emissions from 1960 (World Bank data) between Canada - USA and the BRIC nations. The average atmospheric CO2 levels are provided in brackets to indicate harm already done primarily by western nations (with 280 ppm as the understood level before those impacts:

      Yr (ppm) Canada - USA: Brazil – Russia – India - China
      1960 (317)  10.8  -  16.0:   0.65     12.1        0.27      1.2
      1970 (326)  16.0  -  21.1:   1.0       18.1        0.35      0.94
      1980 (339)  18.1  -  20.8:   1.6       25.1        0.45      1.5
      1990 (354)  15.1  -  19.4:   1.3       14.6        0.64      1.9
      2000 (369)  16.8  -  20.5:   1.8       10.2        0.89      2.6
      2010 (389)  15.7  -  17.4:   2.0       11.1        1.4        6.3
      2018 (410)  15.5  -  15.2:   2.0       11.1        1.8       7.4 latest World Bank values
      2020 (412) Canada 16.8 (= 637 Mt / 38 million): China approx 10 (like Canada was in 1960)

      There is ample coal and oil for China and India to develop to match the pattern of high emissions per person for 60 years. What is their motivation to not do that? Why wouldn’t they follow the examples set by the more developed nations? The argument by swampfoxh @74 would deservedly be laughed away.

      And, revisiting my comments about how averaging things can obscure what needs to be seen, why wouldn’t every region of China and India develop to match what the region of Alberta/Saskatchewan in Canada has currently developed to be? The combined population of Alberta and Saskatchewan is 5.6 million (4.4 + 1.2) with emissions impact rates of 60 tonnes per person (potentially increasing if the rate of extraction and export of fossil fuels, especially Western Canada Select - diluted bitumen - is increased). It is important to note that that high rate of impact does not count the additional harm done outside of Canada to process the exported product into final products for burning. What is exported, WCS, is heavy sour crude. Upgrading it to the quality of other globally traded oil products before export would result in more emissions in Canada (that understanding indicates that the federal government shares the blame with the provincial governments for exporting more harmful products to make Canada’s numbers look better).

      I am fairly proud of a lot of actions taken by Canada's leadership on matters of corrections of harmful developed misunderstandings, but not regarding climate change.

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] As was suggested earlier, if people want to discuss veganism and/or agriculture, there are two possible threads here at Skeptical Science that might be more suitable. If you are to comment on those threads, make sure to read the original post, any following comments, and make sure that your comments are on topic.

      https://skepticalscience.com/animal-agriculture-meat-global-warming.htm

      https://skepticalscience.com/veganism.htm

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