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Andy Skuce at 09:05 AM on 26 April 2013Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable
wili@41
Thanks.
Yes, I do believe that we should follow the science, wherever it leads and however gloomy the prospect is. Frankly, I find the whole prospect of climate change and our response to it a rather uncomfortable and gloomy one. However, I have spoken to individuals who are very depressed because they believe that we are already on an unstoppable path to disaster; that climate feedbacks are out of control and will continue to worsen, no matter what we do. That is not (yet) correct and, as a misconception, could be taken to mean that resistance is useless, a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy.
The science says that we need not feel fatalisitic, but neither can we afford to wait. Of course, this prescription will change the longer we procrastinate.
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Jonas at 08:44 AM on 26 April 2013Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus
I usually give to SkS at the end/beginning of the year. A paper that more thorrowly investigates the consensus (the biggest attack point of big oil/coal) makes me exceed my planned giving budgets ... we need this paper, and we need it free.
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nealjking at 08:35 AM on 26 April 2013Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus
If we save 2% by reducing one step of currency conversion, then over the whole amount of $1,600 we will have saved $32. This hardly seems worth all the extra set-up trouble in terms of multiple sub-accounts for different currencies.
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Synapsid at 08:18 AM on 26 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
John Hartz:
"...walking and working hand-in-hand...one of the biggest ecological disasters ever to have been created by the human race...continuing to develop a world-wide coalition of organizations dedicated to creating a grassroots (!) movement...campaign to get universities and colleges to disinvest in the fossil fuel industry..."
More power to them all; every bit helps.
My belief that Bill McKibben is focusing all of his time and energy on stopping the Keystone pipeline--I'm unaware of that belief. I mentioned the attention McKibben has managed to focus on Keystone XL. He has done that. The rest of the statement comes from you.
Ranking ecological disasters is a fool's game. Mining the Athabasca oil sands has had ghastly effects over a large area. Right up there with what coal mining has done over large areas of Kentucky and West Virginia and Wyoming and Montana, with what the US Army Corps of Engineers has been told to do to natural drainage in Florida, with what Glen Canyon Dam has done to a chunk of southern Utah, with what has been done to the East Coast from New Jersey south (with the exception of North Carolina), with what the Aswan High Dam has done to Egypt...there's no end to the list. I don't support any of it. I'm pointing at coal and saying that the problem it represents needs much more visibility, and I'm doing that because the potential damage from utilization of coal is of a higher order of magnitude than is the damage from oil, bad as that is. There are vast reserves of coal, and they're found in many parts of the world, and the demand for energy in countries with large and growing populations that want a Western lifestyle--that demand will grow and grow. (The US and Australia are among the largest exporters of coal helping to meet that demand.) Coal is and will continue to be the favored energy source in those countries, starting with China and India and their 2.5 billion people. Coal production can be ramped up several fold but oil production cannot. Got that last part? If we don't tackle that, every way we can, with much greater effort and visibility than we have so far, then all the other efforts to cut back fossil fuels will be undermined even more than they are now.
Want a mantra? Here: Coal is the climate killer. Snappy; might have legs.
The disinvesting campaign will likely do some good, but have you looked into how much money China has put into the oil sands? China's first-right-of-refusal agreements for Venezuela's oil? Similar moves in Brazil (China might come to regret those)? Disinvest in fossil fuels, for good and worthy reasons, and you will send a message all right, and China will respond with, as they say, alacrity. That's the downside we can't avoid.
Let's give this a rest, out of consideration for the other readers on SKS. I'm repeating my repetitions, and hearing about coalitions of organizations dedicated to_______________(fill in the blank) lost my sympathy decades ago. May those folks all prosper and have daughters.
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ianw01 at 07:28 AM on 26 April 2013Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus
In my experience PayPal will let you set up several currency-specific accounts within your main account. So for example we have CAD, USD and EUR sections to our account. In the PayPal web site go to "My Account" > "My Profile" > "My money" and in the "PayPal balance" section click "Currencies". Then you (SkS) can add a new currency.
It would seem to make sense to receive the donations in the donator's currency and only convert once you know what currency you will be paying with. Note that money laundering laws prevent (or so PayPal claims) you from depositing foreign currency into a bank in your own country, even if that account is in the the foreign currency. But PayPal will convert it for you at their going fee and allow you to then put the (remaining) equivalent in your domestic bank account.
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wili at 05:44 AM on 26 April 2013Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable
Andy, thanks for this great piece. One quible: In the second full paragraph, you say:
"many mistakenly believe that the climate system is going to send more warming our way no matter what we choose to do. Taken to an extreme, that viewpoint can lead to a fatalistic approach, in which efforts to mitigate climate change by cutting emissions are seen as futile"
My concern for now is not how valid various run-away gw scenarios may or may not be (I may get to that in a seperate post). But how you stated this sounds (though it may not be your intention) as if you think we should not consider valid any science that might make us feel sad or dispondent, since it may prevent people from taking effective action.
It seems to me that this is essentially what Inhofe and others do when they admit that they accepted climate science until they started considering what tax or other policy consequences of accepting the science might be.
The science is the science. We need to evaluate it on its own merits, not on what we think people's reactions to it might be or what politicies might be implemented because of it.
Would you agree that we should look at the science, even if it does take us into places we may be emotionally and politically uncomfortable with?
(Again, I think I am reacting to how some may interpret what you said as you stated it, more than what I would like to assume you actually think. Just looking for some clarity.)
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shoyemore at 05:11 AM on 26 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
Congratulations, John and Dana.
I look forward to more.
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Andy Skuce at 05:03 AM on 26 April 2013Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus
The Journal's publication fee page is given here. They may bill SkS in UK Pounds (1000), Euros (1200) or US dollars (1600). Since the payment will coming from an Australian account, it will have to be converted into one of those currencies from Australian dollars. It would not have been practical to set up a foreign currency account in Australia just for this purpose.
When you pay amount X in AUD, PayPal will tell you how much that is your local currency before you finalize the payment and you will be able to go back and change it if you want to.
If you have any comments about anonymity or anything else, you have the option to "add special instructions to the seller". Alternatively, you can email John Cook at: john@skepticalscience.com
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john mfrilett at 04:27 AM on 26 April 2013Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus
I want to donate but why not let me donate in US$ since that is the currancy you want? Donation will be converted to AUD then back to US$. I didn't see any way to donate in US$.
John
Moderator Response:[JH] Paypal
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John Hartz at 04:23 AM on 26 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
@Synapsid #12:
You need to better understand the breadth and depth of the international coalition that has been created around the Stop Keystone Movement. The leadership of the Sierra Club is walking and working hand-in-hand with Bill McKibben and a myriad of others on this effort.
Leaving aside the impact that the burning of petroleum products derived from the Alberta Tar Sands has on greenhouse gas emissions, the mining of the tar sands is one of the biggest ecological disasters ever to have been created by the human race. There are a myriad of environmental reasons why the mining of the Tar Sands should be brought to a halt.
Your belief that the Stop the Keystone movement is diverting significant resources away from other ongoing campaigns to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in North America is simply wrong.
Your belief that Bill McKibben is focusing all of his time and energy on stopping the Keystone pipeline is also wrong. He and his colleagues in 350.org are continuing to develop a world-wide coalition of organizations dedicated to creating a grassroots movement focused on climate change. He and his colleagues are continuing their campaign to get universities and colleges to disinvest in the fossil fuel industry.
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CBDunkerson at 03:58 AM on 26 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
jdixon1980, I wouldn't have expected it to remain the top link indefinitely... though I do still see it on the first page of results with a 'highly cited' tag. Clearly getting a lot of traffic and attention.
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Synapsid at 03:30 AM on 26 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
John Hartz:
Sure, the Sierra Club and Greenpeace and other organizations are doing their bit, and none of them are getting the attention that Bill McKibben has managed to focus on Keystone XL, more's the pity.
I was a member of the Sierra Club for 24 years myself.
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Tom Dayton at 03:26 AM on 26 April 2013We're heading into an ice age
Tzedakis et al. (2012), "Can We Predict the Duration of an Interglacial?" mentions the end of the current interglacial only insofar as saying "We should also be able to predict the duration of the current interglacial in the absence of anthropogenic interference," and "glacial inception is possible despite the subdued insolation forcing, if CO2 concentrations were 240±5ppmv (Tzedakis et al., 2012)." [Emphasis is mine.]
That latter citation is of "Determining the Natural Length of the Current Interglacial," which says "No glacial inception is projected to occur at the current atmospheric CO2 concentrations of 390 ppmv. ... The end of the current interglacial would occur within the next 1500 years, if atmospheric CO2 concentrations did not exceed 240±5 ppmv." [Emphasis is mine.]
Of course there is no chance at all of CO2 falling that low for the next several hundreds and probably not for the next several thousands of years (see Figure A in another post), so we're not getting a new "Ice Age" for a really, really long time.
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LarryM at 03:20 AM on 26 April 2013Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus
FYI, about exchange rates. The donation form is in terms of Australian dollars (AUD). If one googles "exchange rate", there is a handy converter at the top of the results page. It shows, for example, that 1AUD = 1.03 USD (or 1 USD = 0.97 AUD), and 1 AUD = 0.79 Euro. However, Paypal adds a 2.5% currency conversion fee, so the end result today through Paypal is that 1USD = 0. 945830 AUD (or 1 AUD = 1.057272 USD).
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jsam at 03:07 AM on 26 April 2013Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus
Ah, I'd been expecting a special "donations" form. The only spot I could find to leave a note was under "Add special instructions to the seller". At the time I decided "nope, that can't be it" so I've left no message. Is that where you want people to indicate anonymity or otherwise? Or have I missed the point altogether?
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jdixon1980 at 02:21 AM on 26 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
Congrats, Dana; love the title ;)
CBDunkerson @1, sadly, when I just checked "global warming" in Google News, the top link is a denier article from the so-called "Washington Times Communities" with a big Washington Times logo at the top, and you have to read the fine print to see that "The opinions of Communities writers do not necessarily reflect nor are they endorsed by the Washington Times."
Then, the biggest, boldest headline is a James Taylor column in Forbes talking about how the "warmists" are resorting to their "last line of defense" - that the warming has gone to the "Bermuda triangle," i.e., the deep oceans, "you know, that part of our planet where we really can’t measure or find anything" . . . that is, unless you count the more than 3,000 Argo floats that have been recording data up to 2 kilometers deep in the ocean for the past six years!
Reminds of Bill O'Reilly's repeated mantra on TV, "tide comes in, tide goes out, no one can explain the tides..." The Daily Show nailed him on that with a guest appearance by Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is admittedly perhaps just a little overqualified to explain the concept that the tides are caused by the moon's gravitational pull...
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Nick Palmer at 01:44 AM on 26 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
Great news. We were thinking of changing our Sunday paper in any case. This might just tip the balance.
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MA Rodger at 01:13 AM on 26 April 2013The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years?
While we are awaiting KK Tung's second post, it may be worth considering what the thesis presented by Tung & Chou 2013 ought to be establishing.
Here in this post, the consequence presented by the thesis was that of the 'flat' forcing profile. Although no supporting evidence for such a 'flat' profile has been offered, our inability to quantify negative forcings with any useful accuracy does not preclude such 'flatness'. Perhaps the strongest argument that it may be 'flat' is the rise in global temperatures 1910-1940. Attributing natural or human forcing to this rise has not been entirely convincing leaving the door open for T&C13 to suggest natural variation as a cause while pointing at the AMO as chief suspect.
Myself, I am tempted to suggest that the human input remains yet to be fully researched. For instance, 1910-40 was overwhelmingly fuelled by coal yet it also saw the rise of the electrical grid which as today must surely have greatly impacted the levels of pollution per ton of coal burnt. Such consideration I have not seen mentioned for early 20th century climate forcing.The second post we eagerly await will presumably lead to discussion of the proportion of AGW present within the AMO signal (and the flip-side of that - how much AMO is present in the global temperature record). This does need to be fully addressed to prevent accusations of curve-fitting.
Yet I don't think that is the primary requirement for T&C13. The thesis stands more strongly than say Asakofu (which is simple curve-fitting). T&C13 does more than just assert that the global climate, as exemplified by the AMO, is ringing like a bell and that it has done so for the last few centuries. T&C13 presents evidence for this 'ringing bell'. If compelling evidence for the 'ringing bell' exists, it doesn't really matter if it is driven by AMO, PDO, ENSO, AO or smelly BO.
It is thus evidence of the 'ringing bell' that I consider the most important question, be it within AMO reconstructions or the CET record. -
VoxRat at 00:11 AM on 26 April 2013Malaria: biting into the climate change debate
Very good point, Tom Curtis. Thank you.
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Philippe Chantreau at 23:14 PM on 25 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
Congrats Dana and John, I'm looking forward to reading more from you. I was not following the Guardian much before and that might change.
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CBDunkerson at 21:27 PM on 25 April 2013Malaria: biting into the climate change debate
Mark Bahner wrote: "I think he's [Reiter] "polemical" for the same reason Roger Pielke Jr. is "polemical" about climate change and weather disasters (in particular hurricanes) and Jesse Ausubel is "polemical" about trends in carbon dioxide emissions."Yep, sounds about right. All three staked out a position and have continued to hold to it despite solid evidence to the contrary. Global warming is already increasing malaria infections and weather disasters, and Ausubel's insistence that we don't need to worry about AGW because the global economy is decarbonizing is perhaps the most insane of the three in the face of ever rising CO2 emissions.Also, for the record, the only 'science' Pielke Jr has studied is political science. He's more a political commentator on science than a 'scientist'. -
JohnB6223 at 21:00 PM on 25 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
Great work Dana et al.
Am looking forward to the publishing of the Australian edition of the Guardian -but I understand that won't happen before October.
A market penetration opportunity is being lost in not publishing before/during Australia's pre-election period.
Australia desperatley needs some honesty and integrity in news media- lets hope the Guardian can provide this.
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chriskoz at 19:48 PM on 25 April 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #16
If you live in Australia, you might be happy looking at the title of recent smh article:
Electricity prices set to drop in OZ
But you will be disappointed if you read inside:
The main driver of the decline in 2015-16 is linking the carbon price with the European price...
...which crashed. I expected the reason would be rather due to renewables successfuly competing with coal, rather than cheaper C tax. What a joke: a bad news transformed for good news for greedy people who cares about their pockets only rather than a big picture.
We are long way from fixing the planet and after this article, the way becomes longer. If C trading scheme does not work on the long run, why not replace it with Jim Hansen's fee and dividend scheme? I guess people are not ready to accept such scheme.
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Cornelius Breadbasket at 18:45 PM on 25 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
Excellent - as a UK resident and a Guardian reader myself I'm thrilled with your appointment.
A considered and intellegent response to the UKIP document <a href="http://ukip.org/media/policies/energy.pdf" target="_blank">Keeping the Lights On</a> woulkd be of great interest to readers.
UKIP are the UK Independence Party - the UKs only real party in denial about Climate Change.
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Doug Hutcheson at 17:28 PM on 25 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
... and I'm delighted that the denier swarm has not succeeded in derailing the conversation over there! The few who push the denier agenda have been sent packing with sensible, logical argument. Good to see.
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Doug Hutcheson at 16:39 PM on 25 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
Well done, Dana. Keep up the good work.
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bill4344 at 14:45 PM on 25 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
Congrats indeed on a gig at the Graun! That's impressive!
And riling up the CiF trolls is a sure sign you're on the right track...
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Bruce Caithness at 13:01 PM on 25 April 2013Rogues or respectable? How climate change sceptics spread doubt and denial
Some thoughts triggered by Garth Paltridges "The Climate Caper" (2010):
Hermann Hesse wrote a poem that is included in his novel "The Glass Bead Game. It is called "A Compromise" and it opens:
"The men of principled simplicity
Will have no traffic with our subtle doubt.
The world is flat, they tell us, and they shout:
The myth of depth is an absurdity!"
The goal of science is to find satisfactory explanations for whatever we feel needs explaining. Whatever explanations we come up with in science are regarded as permanently open to criticism and refinement, but the holding of doubt is subtle, for not even the philosopher Karl Popper would suggest that theories that have survived severe testing should be readily discarded without serious consideration.
The closing sentence of Hesse's excerpt raises the issue of who are the flat-earthers, the denialists of human accentuated climate change or the proponents? It is obvious in matters of conjecture and refutation that exaggeration and dogmatism can stain all sides of the debate. If Garth Paltridge's text highlights the dangers of an excess of dogmatism, the inertia of normal science, and the dangers of herd mentality, yes even in the IPCC, it is perhaps a worthy aim, if however it subtly reinforces denialist claims that have already been falsified in peer-reviewed testing then it would be a sad legacy for his eminent and long fought career. A forward by The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is not a good way to start a work of serious intent. Sad career finales are not without precedent, Sir Ronald Fisher, arguably the greatest statistician of the twentieth century naively stained his legacy in the final years of his life in questioning the impact of smoking for public health. Science has implications that are far from neutral or saintly in their disinterest. Do shrill, and politically correct, warnings about the dangers of tobacco look so misguided now?
Moving to specifics, Garth Paltridge in this short book does question the hockey-stick model of climate change - later studies do seem to have falsified Garth's stance or at least have made it questionable.
It is all well and good to comment on the sociology of science, to stress situational analysis and piecemeal engineering rather than big budget government social engineering. The price of liberty is indeed eternal vigilance but even piecemeal solutions can turn toxic if out of context. Climate change does present complexities of a new scale that require a diversity of opinion and robust debate, but denialism is not scepticism.
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Tom Curtis at 12:22 PM on 25 April 2013Malaria: biting into the climate change debate
Mark Bahner @5, like Pielke Jnr (who has built a career on the assumption that improved building codes have no effect on the risk of destruction by hurricanes), it appears to me that Reiter is pulling a swifty.
Specifically, consider the following two maps:
(Source)
The bottom map shows the historical distribution of malaria, while the upper map shows the frequency distribution of sickle cell anemia alleles.
Sickle cell anemia is very interesting for the study of evolution. It is invariably lethal without intensive modern medical care (and often with it) if it is inherited from both parents. If inherited from one parent, however, it confers a large degree of immunity to malaria. It follows that high frequencies of sickle cell anemia will only occur where there are high frequencies of malarial infection (also normally fatal without modern medical care). We can infer from the map above that the distrubtion of malaria in the second map leaves out an important component - the frequency of infection:
(Source)
Buggirl provides the following translation for the medically illiterate:
"To translate: the different colors relate to the level of infection in the general population (PR, or Parasite rate). ”Endemic” means that the infection is maintained in a community at a more or less steady state.
Epidemic/Unstable means that infections break out periodically in these regions
Hypoendemic: less than 10% of the population is infected with malaria
Mesoendemic: between 10% and <50% is infected with malaria
Hyperendemic: Between 50% and75% is infected with malaria
Holoendemic: over 75% of the population is infected with malaria"As can be seen from map a in the second figure, the historical distribution of malaria is just as Reiter says; but the frequency of infection in London and lapland was very low, only occuring in occasional outbreaks. In constrast, in warm hot regions in Africa where sickle cell anemia is frequent, over 75% of the population was infected; or more correctly, 75% of the population without a sickle cell anemia allele.
High altitude, high latitude or ariddity significantly reduce rates of infection.
That picture is not complete. There is a far more extensive distribution of Thalassemia, another frequenlty fatal blood disease that is endemic in populations because it confers a partial immunity to malaria:
(Source)
You will note the complemental distribution with sickle cell anemia in areas of frequent endemic malarial infection.
So, will global warming push malaria into areas it has not occurred before? No, certainly not with modern control methods. Reiter is correct about that. But will it expand the area in which malarial infection is endemic and so frequent that having a genetic disorder that gives a 25% chance of each child dying makes good genetic sense? Absolutely. No scientist merely trying to correct the record would fail to mention the important factor of frequency of infection. Ergo Reiter's interventions are not in the interests of accuracy, but of politics.
Hopefully modern control measures can keep up with that risk, although global warming has a kicker there as well. The warmer the climate the greater the number of generations per year, and hence the quicker they will evolve immunity to various control measures.
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John Hartz at 11:58 AM on 25 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
Synapsid:
Recommend that you acquaint yourself with the Sierra Club's Beyond Caol Campaign which began in 2002. Here's a breif overview from the Sierra Club's website.
Not only is coal burning responsible for one third of US carbon emissions—the main contributor to climate disruption—but it is also making us sick, leading to as many as 13,000 premature deaths every year and more than $100 billion in annual health costs.
The Beyond Coal campaign’s main objective is to replace dirty coal with clean energy by mobilizing grassroots activists in local communities to advocate for the retirement of old and outdated coal plants and to prevent new coal plants from being built.
Our goals include:
Retiring one-third of the nation’s more than 500 coal plants by 2020
Replacing the majority of retired coal plants with clean energy solutions such as wind, solar, and geothermal
Keeping coal in the ground in places like Appalachia and Wyoming’s Powder River Basin
Click here for more details.
In the interest of full disclsure, I am an active member of the Sierra Club.
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Synapsid at 10:53 AM on 25 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
John Hartz:
Yes, Albertans would be better off--we'd all be better off--if development of the oil sands were slowed, no question about it. I'd like to be a fly on the wall when the provincial government tries to bring that about, not that that is likely. As a colleague in the Alberta oil patch put it: Albertans like oil companies, and they don't like taxes. His view may be slanted, of course. For that matter, North Dakotans would be better off if oil production from the Bakken were slowed; aside from the societal strains, 30% of the natural gas that comes off with the oil is being flared because the infrastructure to collect it and transport it to a market doesn't exist. The state government of North Dakota could stop that tomorrow: No more oil production until NG can be collected and sent to market--no more flaring. That's Alberta's approach. North Dakota doesn't do that, I expect because of lost tax and severance income.
I'm no fan of Keystone XL or of any pipeline or hydrocarbon project. We'd be much better off if we got off fossil fuels altogether, and one useful step would be to substitute NG for coal wherever possible on the way to that fossil-fuel-free garden we can see in our dreams. That won't happen in a hurry, particularly because as NG becomes more expensive and more is produced it will become, once again, more expensive than coal. (There are markets for NG, and demand, but it will take higher prices than current ones to make drilling for it in the US economic again.) My point is that Keystone XL is not the game changer / end of the world as we know it that it all too often seems to be thought to be. Stop coal. Put the effort being directed at Keystone XL into stopping coal. There's great demand for coal in this world, and its production could be increased several fold as that demand grows (China; India for starters)--and that is not the case with oil. There's a reason that more and more effort and money have been expended in more and more difficult settings (deep offshore; below the salt off Brazil) to obtain oil that is more and more expensive: that's what is left. All the new production we hear about is just about matching decline in production from the really big fields that have been yielding for years.
jyushchyshyn (Kirgiz?): An interesting idea, that of not allowing Keystone XL to be built except with the condition that products refined from the crude it would carry not be allowed to be exported. I don't know how it would work. The crude would belong to whoever bought it from the producing companies in the oil sands, who might be refiners or companies that will sell it to refiners. That would happen in Canada. The US can't interfere with internal business in Canada, and the US would not own the pipeline, either. Besides, US Midwest refiners are doing that very thing right now, as they buy Canadian crude backed up at Cushing, Oklahoma where prices are very low because of the glut, and sell gasoline and diesel refined from it in Latin America and the Carribean at prices comparable to products refined from $100 / barrel crude available on the world market. They're coining money at the moment.
Recall that approval from the White House applies to the part of the pipeline that actually crosses the US / Canada border. The White House has no control over the part of the pipeline within the country, and I mentioned earlier that the southern part of the overall plan, from Cushing, OK to Texas Gulf-Coast refineries, is under construction right now. President Obama gave his approval but that carries no weight--he has no power to approve or disapprove that stretch.
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Dave123 at 10:52 AM on 25 April 2013Peter Sinclair interview with Michael Mann
I'm trying to keep this in the right topic bin, which appears to be here since this post is the most recent referring to Wegman.
In the current (May-June 2013) issue of American Scientist, Andrew Gelman documents serial plagiarism by Wegman. Gelman on Wegman Wegman's behavior with Mann is part of a chronic problem of academic misconduct (apparently).
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Mark Bahner at 10:45 AM on 25 April 2013Malaria: biting into the climate change debate
Malaria researcher Paul Reiter has a different take on this issue: The Malaria Myths of Climate Change.
His tone in that article strikes me as more polemical than objective, but it would be useful to see a point-by-point response - if there is one.
I think he's "polemical" for the same reason Roger Pielke Jr. is "polemical" about climate change and weather disasters (in particular hurricanes) and Jesse Ausubel is "polemical" about trends in carbon dioxide emissions.
They are men who have actually studied the science of the particular issues and are annoyed to see it misrepresented for the purposes of quickly reducing emissions of CO2.
I can understand why Paul Reiter would be particularly annoyed, because the focus on global warming actually turns attention *away* from measures that actually reduce malaria mortality, and thus promotes more malaria deaths than would otherwise occur.
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tmac57 at 10:22 AM on 25 April 2013Hockey stick is broken
The Tamino 'Not Alike' link also goes nowhere (not found).
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tmac57 at 10:17 AM on 25 April 2013Hockey stick is broken
The link for the 'NOAA Paleoclimatology Reconstructions Network' returns a 'forbidden' message.
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Uncle Pete at 09:50 AM on 25 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
Good work
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StBarnabas at 08:07 AM on 25 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
Dana
Congrats. I am domiciled in the UK and the Guardian is probably the best UK broadsheet and definetly the best on climate change. It is the only paper I regularly buy.
Keep up the great work here at SKS.
What is scary in the UK that the Guardian for example has a circulation figure of about 240k papers daily whereas the Mail has about 1.9M - c 8x the circulation.
We face an uphill struggle I'm afraid. To me the Mail panders to right wing predjudice and ceartainly is "Skeptic".
StB
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John Cook at 07:29 AM on 25 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
Congratulations Dana. But don't rest on your laurels, I want to see a blog post expressing global warming in units of kitten sneezes (read the Guardian comment thread for context).
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Rob Painting at 07:24 AM on 25 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
Nice work Dana and John. The climate trolls at the Guardian are all over it - which is a sure sign that the message has been received loud and clear!
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jyushchyshyn at 07:18 AM on 25 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
The above article, "Tar sands is worse than you can imagine," includes a link to a video about luxury cars. What's wrong with this picture?
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jyushchyshyn at 07:11 AM on 25 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
Yes, some, probably most of the oil, natural gas and coal, must be left in the ground, The way to do so is not to stop pipelines, but to use alternate energy, rather than gasoline and diesel for transportation. If we can get everybody to drive an electric car in the next few years, then whether or not Keystone is built will be moot.
And concerns to the effect that Keystone XL could be used for overseas exports can be addressed by not allowing it to be used to do so as a condition of allowing it to be built.
Unless we are hoping to get a shortage of oil, rejecting Keystone will not reduce consumption. And if we do get that shortage, expect a massive backlash. Global warming deniers already want to throw climatolgists in jail. And what is wrong with leaving Venezuelan oil in the ground?
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John Hartz at 03:00 AM on 25 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
@Synapsid #6:
I highly recommend that you read Taking the Reins, a recently released report by the University of Alberta's Parkland Institute. It concludes that the public interest best served by slowing down the bitumen production of the Alberta Tar Sands.
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CBDunkerson at 01:51 AM on 25 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
Congrats Dana.
I have the 'Global Warming' category on my Google News main page and your new blog was the top article displayed there this morning. That, along with the active comments thread, suggest that you are already getting quite a bit of traffic.
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VoxRat at 01:49 AM on 25 April 2013Malaria: biting into the climate change debate
Malaria researcher Paul Reiter has a different take on this issue: The Malaria Myths of Climate Change.
"Simplistic reasoning on the future prevalence of malaria is ill-founded; malaria is not limited by climate in most temperate regions, nor in the tropics, and in nearly all cases, "new" malaria at high altitudes is well below the maximum altitudinal limits for transmission. Future changes in climate may alter the prevalence and incidence of the disease, but obsessive emphasis on "global warming" as a dominant parameter is indefensible; the principal determinants are linked to ecological and societal change, politics and economics."
His tone in that article strikes me as more polemical than objective, but it would be useful to see a point-by-point response - if there is one.
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Bob Lacatena at 00:58 AM on 25 April 2013Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues
Icarus,
Given a climate sensitivity of a mere 2˚C per doubling, the current global temperature increase should currently be 2 * log2(395/285) or 0.94˚C. If climate sensitivity is instead 3, then warming should be 1.4˚C. As such, if we have seen 0.8˚C (using the beginning of the twentieth century as a baseline — if the baseline is 1979, then warming to date due to CO2 forcing is less) then we should expect more.
This implies that there is anywhere from 0.14˚C to 0.8˚C of warming "in the pipeline," (depending on climate sensitivity and start point) yet to be realized even if net forcing freezes at the current level forever. As such, the fact that the oceans are absorbing this warming (for now) is unsurprising. [And, of course, the reason that the net forcing is steady is because of a temporary confluence of negative natural forcings. One should expect (a) net forcing to increase when the negative natural forcings terminate and (b) the ocean to slow its heat uptake and instead allow the atmosphere to come into equilibrium with the ocean.]
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Icarus at 22:51 PM on 24 April 2013Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues
Ocean heat content studies find that global warming has accelerated in recent years – for example, Levitus 2012 finds a rise in OHC of around 10^23 Joules over the last decade, twice that of the previous decade.
At the same time, the growth rate of CO₂ forcing has declined slightly – i.e. we are putting more CO₂ into the atmosphere, but the airborne fraction has declined, so the CO₂ forcing hasn’t been rising quite as steeply since about 1990. This means that the net climate forcing, according to GISS, hasn’t risen since about 2000 -
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/
We know that the existing planetary energy imbalance will cause continuing warming for many decades due to ocean thermal inertia, but we wouldn’t expect warming to be *accelerating* if the climate forcing hasn’t increased for 13 years. That’s a puzzle, it seems to me.
One explanation could be that the acceleration in OHC accumulation isn’t real. Another could be that it’s real, and that additional natural positive feedbacks have been kicking in to accelerate the warming despite the known forcings being level for 13 years. A third explanation might be that we have overestimated the negative forcing from atmospheric aerosols – since this is largely assumed or estimated rather than measured, perhaps it’s not been offsetting the greenhouse gas forcing as much as expected in recent years, meaning that GISS are underestimating the net climate forcing.
Does anyone have a view on what the most likely explanation is? Thanks!
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Rob Painting at 18:46 PM on 24 April 2013Global Dimming in the Hottest Decade
Sorry Ian, still on my to do list. It does appear, however, that since about 2007/2008 we've seen a period of brightening (more sunlight reaching the Earth's surface) due to reduced sulfate pollution from China. See Figure 1 in Klimont (2013).
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JasonB at 18:32 PM on 24 April 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
Contrary to anti-nuke propagandists, nuclear power *can* follow demand very well. Nuclear submarines and nuclear navy ships PROVE THIS every day.
Ignoring the fact that naval nuclear reactors are much more expensive per kWh, is it "propaganda" to point out that the levelised cost of electricity of new nuclear power is extremely sensitive to the load factor? If you're going to quote nuclear power generation costs with respect to renewables, don't forget to adjust it by average load factor; running at an average of 60% load factor increases the LCOE by about 40% vs running at 90% average load factor.
Scandinavia can perhaps provide a few dozen extra GW of storage to accept the German excess, but that's it. There is no way Scandinavia can 'Power all of Europe'. Sheer lunacy.
You seem to be confusing generation power with storage capacity, which is surprising for someone trying to lecture others. "a few dozen extra GW of storage" makes no sense.
Certainly, entire EU-27 has about 600 GW of average power demand and there is no chance that scandinavia could provide 600 GW 'for a week' (according to JasonB).
EU-27 electricity generation for 2010 was 3.18 million GWh, which equates to an average electricity generation of 363 GW. (Link)
The Nordel power system has a storage capacity of about 120 TWh (and I have seen reports that there is the potential to expand it to as much as 205 TWh) and the UCTE grid has another 57 TWh, for a total of 177 TWh. (Link)
That's enough storage (note the units) to power the EU-27 for 177,000 GWh/363 GW = 487 hours = 20 days = nearly three weeks with no other electricity generation at all — no wind, no solar, nothing. Nordel alone actually has enough for nearly two weeks.
Now, in order for it to be able to do that, obviously three things need to happen:
1. Big interconnects between Scandinavia and Europe so the power can be efficiently transferred back and forth. (Hence NORD.LINK, NorNed, NorGer, HVDC Norway–UK, Scotland–Norway interconnector, etc.)
2. The existing hydro-electric dams upgraded to pumped storage so they can pump water back up into the reservoir when electricity is cheap, thereby storing it (rather than simply relying on nature to replenish the dams).
3. Install more and larger generators so the peak power output can be increased (current max. for Nordel is 46 GW because that's all they need at the moment).
Given that Europe is unlikely to ever be in a situation where all electricity must be coming from Scandinavia there's no point actually installing 300+ GW of generating capacity; far more important is the storage capacity, which would allow it to plug a shortfall in generation for a very long period of time until the renewables are once again producing more than demand requires. (What was it you said again? Oh, yes: "Which means that pretty much every day, they are going to have dozens of *GW* of power with no place to go but out of the country." Bingo.)
Furthermore, in the GreenPeace energy scenario for europe, some 2600(!) GW of solar and wind power would need to be built. This means scandinavia would have to have about 2000(!) GW of pumped hydro storage capacity. That's about one *hundred* times their current installed amount. They cannot provide this! In fact, they can only provide about 50 to 100 GW (Norway and Sweden together) beyond what they have now. That's a large and valuable resource, but clearly *nowhere near* enough for 'all of europe'.
Again with the unit confusion. What's "2000(!) GW of pumped hydro storage capacity" supposed to mean? 2000 GWh is only 1% of their current capacity, while 2000 GW of generating capacity is 5.5 times more than the average generation for the whole of Europe right now. It would help if you took time to familiarise yourself with the concepts, I think.
In any case, note that there's no logical reason why Scandinavia's pumped hydro generation capacity has to match the nameplate capacity of solar + wind; what it needs to match in reality is the worst-case shortfall between ex-Scandinavian production and EU demand.
Funnily enough, your own link states that Norway's total reservoir capacity is 85 TWh alone, which by itself would be enough to provide nearly ten days' power for all of Europe. They don't have sufficient generating capacity hooked up to those reservoirs to do so, of course, because right now they are pure hydro power rather than pumped storage — in other words, they rely entirely on nature to recharge those reservoirs, and those reservoirs have to last all year long. As soon as you switch to pumped storage — that is, install generators that can double as pumps and pump the water back up to the reservoir — then more powerful generators are justified.
What intrigues me now is this: Does JasonB even know what Scandinavian current potential is, since he is clearly the expert?
You would do well to lose the snark, especially since your own link supports what I said.
Perhaps JasonB will provide us with the scientifically robust information that he has which contradicts the link above and shows that "Fully developed it [scandinavia] could single-handedly power all of Europe for weeks, allowing Europe to easily take advantage of large amounts of intermittent renewables."
See both my link and your own link above. Note that I never said that the installed generating capacity was enough, because it would have been stupid for Scandinavia to have installed generators capable of draining their reserviors in a matter of weeks then leave them without power for the rest of the year, as they are normal hydro power plants at the moment, dependent on nature for replenishment. The important thing is their storage potential, which, fully developed, would be enough to single-handedly power Europe for weeks, although it would never actually be required to.
The point is that Europe has a lot of headroom when it comes to attaching intermittent renewables to the grid. As the range in prices increases (even down to negative prices at times — Link), the economic incentive to upgrade hydro power stations in Scandinavia to pumped storage with larger generating capacity and increase their links to the rest of the grid increases (since they buy electricity when it is cheap and sell it back when it is expensive) hand-in-hand. Install away and the free market will provide an incentive for the upgrades as-needed.
The big question at the moment is not whether Scandinavia can become Europe's battery, but whether they can upgrade their interconnects and generators quickly enough to lock themselves in as established providers before other technologies like Compressed Air Energy Storage (Link), which is similarly attractive economically, can gain a foothold.
It would be nice if JasonB provided some scientific support, like I have been doing in my previous posts which he seems to have been selectively reading.
Hmm... I littered my comments with hyperlinks to supporting documents. I count at least nine references in my earlier posts but perhaps they weren't clear enough for you, so I've separated out the links above for you so they're more obvious. I note, also, that the vast majority of your claims have been unsupported by references, despite your apparent belief to the contrary.
I say selectively, because JasonB is still claiming my figures for uranium and thorium reserves are wrong.
No, your figures for the amount of reserves were roughly correct; you were just out by a factor of 150 on the rate that nuclear reactors consumed those reserves. "Enough to power 10,000 nuclear power plants for 500 years" vs "enough to power the current fleet of 435 nuclear reactors for 80 years" is a pretty big discrepancy, especially when we're talking about scaling up nuclear power by a factor of 15 or so. Since you apparently missed the links I used to support my claims, here they are again:
1. World uranium reserves: 5,327,200 tonnes (Link)
2. Current uranium consumption: 66,512 tonnes/year (Link)
3. Time left: 5,327,200/66,512 = 80.1 years (Maths)
In case you don't trust the maths, the first link above also includes this:
"Current usage is about 68,000 tU/yr. Thus the world's present measured resources of uranium (5.3 Mt) in the cost category around present spot prices and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for about 80 years."
The links themselves are to the World Nuclear Association, which in turn reference the Red Book, in case you're worried they've been hijacked by greenies.
If only he would go back and simply read science, rather than simply allow his imagination of what is 'fact' run wild? Here is my source again:
http://www.mcgill.ca/files/gec3/NuclearFissionFuelisInexhaustibleIEEE.pdf
Then why don't you read it? Your source is talking about breeders. If you're going to advocate nuclear power and, at the same time, claim that fuel supply is a non-issue, then be honest and point out that the type of nuclear power you are talking about is the type of reactor that e.g. Japan started building in 1986, which has cost ¥1.08 trillion (for 280 MWe!) and as of late last year had generated electricity for just one hour? (Link) The power plant that is claimed to be Japan's "most dangerous reactor"? (Link) The type of reactor that the US first had operational in 1951 but which it doesn't use at all anymore? The type that spawned the book "We Almost Lost Detroit"? (Link)
The bottom line is that people, including the Japanese and the Americans, have tried and failed to build commercial breeders in the past, and there's no guarantee that breeders will be commercial-ready in the near future. We may as well be talking about fusion, or extracting methane from unicorn farts. There are real obstacles to overcome, and large amounts of time, money, and effort will need to be expended to make them a viable part of the solution. It isn't even clear whether they'll eventually be cost-effective or not, especially given the cost overruns of the first two EPR installations (which are conventional reactors, that are supposed to herald a new era of cheap and safe nuclear power!); in contrast, there are plenty of storage technologies that are available now that can help intermittent renewables achieve much higher levels of penetration. Upgrading Scandinavia's hydro plants is positively pedestrian in comparison.
You also seem to have a massive blind spot when it comes to the need for nuclear to be coupled with storage, which I've raised many times now. The original purpose of Dinorwig, for example, "was to deal with the difficulty that National Grid would have had if the large numbers of nuclear power stations then planned had been built. These are technically and economically inflexible, ideally needing to run at full output all of the time and, effectively, storage capacity was needed for some of the night-time power when the demand for power dropped off. " (Link)
Simply claiming that this isn't a problem because nuclear power plants can do load following since nuclear submarines exist doesn't address the issue.
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Ian Love at 15:56 PM on 24 April 2013Global Dimming in the Hottest Decade
@Rob Painting
Useful article thanks. Has the Part 2 follow-up appeared? I cannot find it....
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barry1487 at 13:23 PM on 24 April 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome, Nic Lewis Edition
It is good form to flag when you have changed the text of an article post-publication, as they do at realclimate. I see Tom Curtis' notes have been taken up re the changed text around the Aldrin study section. Hat tip to you, Tom.
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