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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect

nick51 at 00:21 AM on 5 January, 2026

Venus main statistics of the planet.
Size 12,104km
Gravity 8.87 m/s2
Atmosphere co2 96.5%
Clouds circle the planet sulfuric acid
Lapse rate 10.47 K/km
Rotational speed 6.52 km/h
Axis inclination 3 degrees
Energy received from the sun 2,613 W/m2
Super rotational winds (SRW) 100 m/s
Height of sulphuric acid clouds 40 km to 75 km
Direction of rotation of the planet Clock wise
Direction of SRW ACW

Sulphuric acid clouds
clouds are made of 75–96% sulfuric acid.
These are formed by photochemical reactions in the upper atmosphere, involving solar light acting on carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide (SO2), and water vapor, create the sulfuric acid.

These sulphuric acid clouds drive the climate on Venus.
Properties of sulphuric clouds
Albedo effect is between 0.75 to 0.80, which means they reflect 75-80% of the suns energy
Suns energy is 2,613 W/m2, approximately 2,000 W/m2 reflected back into space.
This leaves 613 W/m2 do drive Venus climate.
Sulphuric acid clouds absorb energy in the ultra violet (UV) which is about 10% of the suns energy and the remaining 20% of visible light left which enters the sulphuric acid cloud, 10% of this is absorbed

UV 450 nm, with a sharp edge around 400 nm. The iron-bearing mineral phases, such as rhomboclase and acid ferric sulfate, dissolved within the sulfuric acid droplets are the likely candidates for this absorption

No IR is absorbed by these clouds.
So the final figures are:-
Suns energy = 2613 W/m2
Reflected by the albedo effect = 2000 W/m2
Absorbed by the UV = 11% = 287 W/m2
Absorbed by the Visible Light = 11% = total = 577 W/m2.
This leaves 2,613 - 2,577 = 36 W/ms arriving at the surface (12 W/m2. Average) This means there can be no greenhouse effect. It is enough to get a faint haze glow on the surface.

So this 577 W/m2 drives the super rotational wind in the Venetian atmosphere.
This heats the clouds, rising the cloud tops to 75km in height.
The clouds are heated on the sunny side most, due to the slow rotation, the super heated clouds move to the cooler atmosphere, 2nd law of thermodynamics, which is in an anti clockwise direction. This causes this super rotational winds of 100 m/s to circle the planet, in a narrow band around the equator, where they lose some energy as the wind circle the planet and spread out towards the poles.
This doesn’t change during Venus year as its axis is only 3 degrees, so there is little or no change as it orbits the sun.
As these SRW approach the dark side the winds increase again as the dark side clouds are lower, and colder, this causes extra turbulence as the hot winds encounter the cooler atmosphere. This also causes more of the winds to migrate towards the poles, combined with the downwelling of the winds. This is shown by the pictures taken by the Japanese orbiter Akatsuki.
The SRW then approach the day side again where they receive extra energy from the sun and continue its journey to where the sun is directly overhead, receiving the 577 W/m2, where the cycle starts all over again.

What happens to the atmosphere as it down wells towards the planets surface.
The atmosphere has its driving force for this rotation now (the super rotation winds down welling):
Adiabatic lapse rate 10.47 c/km (Gravity rating on the specific heat capacity of the atmosphere)
We have the heights that this happens at. (Sulphuric acid clouds between 40-75km) and the temperatures. Two key points are 43km temperature is most earth like 14c, and planets surface temperature 465c.
We also have the adiabatic charts for Venus to check the results
The temperature profile of Venus is shown below:-
Height (km) Temperature (C) Pressure (1 atm)
0 465 93
10. 360 71
20 255 50
30 151 18
40. 49 7
43 14 1
50 -59 -15
60 -164 -37
70 -269 -58

As can bee seen, it explains the pressure on Venus - its driven by the temperature.

Emergence vs Detection & Attribution

wilddouglascounty at 10:49 AM on 17 December, 2025

@10 Bob, we completely agree until the very last sentence. The exact analogy that I'm driving at is that we're NOT saying "He was on steroids." The analogy, if carried to its simplified analog to "steroids" is "fossil fuels" or "carbon emissions" or "greenhouse gases" and the like, not "climate change." There is a real psychological underpinning behind the need to simplify a complex topic: just make sure you simplify it in a way that points out what needs to change if you want the changing climate to stabilize!

As you have pointed out, the complexity of the climate includes all of the other factors as a system, including solar irradiation, volcanic activity, long term orbital dynamics, and on and on, which we know goes "whoosh" over the average person's head, which the fossil fuel companies have taken advantage of, by the way. But the systemic changes we're seeing in the climate is from the change in carbon emissions that are overwhelming the system's ability to absorb it, causing a change in the composition of the atmosphere and ocean that supports increasingly frequent severe weather events. So we need to really hone in on that single fact: rising greenhouse gas percentages in the atmosphere and oceans is changing the climate, not "climate change." It is easier for everyone to understand the source of the changes occurring in a very complicated system in the same way as "he was on steroids" cuts to the chase. And #11, Nigelj, I'm completely fine with the term "anthropogenic climate change" and for everyone, I don't honestly expect us to just immediately stop using "climate change" as an important phrase in our vocabulary and discussions about the topic. What I do sincerely hope is that this phrase be modified to include the human driven nature of the changes in the climate, so in addition to "anthropogenic climate change" I'm hoping folks will always use such phrases as "human activity induced climate change," "fossil fuel driven climate change," "greenhouse gas induced climate change," "carbon emission driven climate change," etc. if you need to use the phrase at all. These phrases include true causality, while "climate change" by itself does not pinpoint the causal problem as finely as it needs to be made if we have any chance of changing our future.

Emergence vs Detection & Attribution

wilddouglascounty at 01:42 AM on 17 December, 2025

Thank you, @8 Bob, for sharing your perspective on this issue and the climate as a causal factor. I guess I'm not sure whether its descriptive or physical when you are doing attribution of a hurricane's intensity as being caused by climate change as it seems that it has elements of both.

That aside, what I'm saying, once again to use the analogy of the juiced athlete, is that if there is a change in the constellation of factors that make them a professional athlete including years of strength and endurance training, strategic coaching, genetic predisposition, etc., along with the performance enhancing drugs, as contributing to the increased frequency of home runs, does it make sense to to talk about the athlete in general terms that includes the entire cluster of factors (physical), or the performance statistics (descriptive); OR rather does it make sense to focus on the relevant causal factor of the practice of using performance enhancing drugs as causing the changes in the athlete's performance? For clarification's sake, the changing performance of athletes in general could not really be addressed until the key causal factor, performance enhancing drugs, was identified, after which people "got it" and took actions that penalized their use.

In a similar way, yes, physical climatology has causality in a general, collective way that clusters the real causal factors "under the hood". Since there is an identifiable subset of those "under the hood" factors called "greenhouse gases," "human activity emissions," "carbon emissions from human activities, primarily fossil fuel use" or what have you, it's time to start focusing on those "performance enhancing chemicals" we're emitting as the cause of the observed changes, so that people "get it." Otherwise vested interests will just continue to spread misinformation about the other factors, such as the sunspot cycle, cosmic rays, the end of the ice age and other things they can point to also under that hood. They are not incorrect in pointing to other factors that contribute to the climate; it's just that the science is clearly pointing to the changes in the climate as being linked to the changes in the atmospheric and oceanic chemistry caused by carbon emissions.

Emergence vs Detection & Attribution

wilddouglascounty at 06:59 AM on 16 December, 2025

I think one of the main reasons we seem to be stalling out on the climate change topic is that we've been burying the lead. Climate change is NOT a causal factor for increasingly frequent severe weather, IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Climate is a summary abstraction of individual weather events, so the way the climate changes is by increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. Saying climate change is causing more severe weather is like saying Sammy Sosa's improved batting average is causing him to hit more homeruns--ignoring the REAL cause, which is performance enhancing drugs, right?

In exactly the same way, fossil fuel emissions and other greenhouse emitting human activities have changed the atmospheric and oceanic chemistry, enabling more frequent, severe weather events, in exactly the same way Sammy Sosa's performance enhancing drugs enabled him to hit more frequent homeruns. People can understand that a juiced atmosphere is the problem here, in the same way we understand the effect of juiced athletes.

Even the attribution studies don't point back to the real causes: they point back to the "increased probability" that "climate change" has made it 300 times more likely that a hurricane grew that fast and so on, when in reality the attribution studies need to be saying that the increased carbon in the atmosphere and oceans, caused by human activities, has made it 300 times more likely that a hurricane grew that fast and so on.

We need to stop hiding behind the phrase "climate change" and start putting our human greenhouse gas emissions as causing all of this. The science is settled on this, right? Then why not start putting that front and center every time we talk about these increasingly frequent severe weather events: human activities with fossil fuel emissions being at the top of the list, is CAUSING the floods, hurricanes, droughts, heat waves and other extreme weather events to get worse. To say "climate change" is causing these things is reifying the phrase and giving it causality when none exists!

We don't have time to pass this issue onto younger folk. It's time to call a spade a spade.

A Skeptical Science member's path to an experiment on carbon sequestration

scaddenp at 06:12 AM on 8 December, 2025

Not entirely related to the experiment, but EOS has article on climate-smart agriculture here. It notes limited evidence and low adoption. The paper is largely a call for large-scale systematic evidence collection.

Why the chemtrail conspiracy theory lingers and grows – and why Tucker Carlson is talking about it

pattimer at 20:43 PM on 3 December, 2025

There are many reasons why people believe that contrails are chemtrails.

There is the political motivation by climate change deniers to encourage this conspiracy and so we cannot address this serious problem without looking at politics.

However why are people persuaded by this political deception and why is it growing at the present time? This is the question that we are addressing.

*People are seeing more contrails in the sky that they used to.

* People often want an easy solution to climate change that doesn't affect their way of life. If scientists explain that contrails affect the climate or that flying has a large carbon footprint then it's easier to deflect any obligations by believing the conspiracy.

* People have learned that there are real political conspiracies that the author accepts. There is a worldwide growing awareness or believe of a lifetime of false information that has been presented from media even in countries that consider themselves democratic. (Whether or not this awareness or believe is correct is "off topic" although important to be considered elsewhere). This is evident in the mass movements we see around the world regarding wars that use weapons from the West in particularly America and her allies. Therefore to those with a less scientific understanding, people are making the false

step from their realisation that they have been deceived by politicians and the media to believing that everything including the science is false.

I have personally watched the frightning denial and conspiracies for many decades but the latter point I make here is a new trend and one that I believe should be taken seriously.

Perhaps the Author would find some agreement with this.

CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused

Bob Loblaw at 05:51 AM on 3 December, 2025

Thanks for that graphic, MA.

In the Climate Change Cluedo post I linked to earlier today, a comment from nearly 10 years ago included another graphic for the carbon cycle.

Carbon cycle

[The name of that commenter was also MA Rodger... what a coincidence...]

CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused

MA Rodger at 03:54 AM on 3 December, 2025

I think sychodefender may benefit from seeing a diagram of the carbon cycle.

carbon cycle

He also mentions atmospheric methane levels which have almost trebled since pre-industrial times and contributed roughly a third to the man-made global warming. The initial pre-industrial value would not result in modern warming.

CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused

Bob Loblaw at 01:47 AM on 3 December, 2025

sychodefender @ 39:

I am afraid that you start off with an incomplete statistic (% of total CO2 emissions that are man made), which leads you into incorrect conclusions about the role of CO2 emissions in the rise of CO2.

Atmospheric changes in CO2 are the result of net CO2 fluxes - both additions (emissions) and removals. Without human emissions, the natural system was in balance and atmospheric CO2 levels did not change much year to year. (There is a clear annual cycle, though.)

If your 5% argument was correct, then if human emissions stopped we'd continue to see CO2 rise at 95% of the current rate. If this were true, why was CO2 not rising at 95% of the current rate before humans started emitting CO2? Because nature was absorbing that CO2 - that's why. Humans are 100% responsible for the imbalance.

You can read a better explanation of this mass balance issue on this post that discusses other typcial (bad) arguments about CO2 rise. You can also find another discussion of the various clues that lead to the conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of the increase in this post titled Climate Change Cluedo: Anthropogenic CO2.

Let's make a simple analogy:

You start with $1,000 in the bank.

Your regular income is $5,000 per month.

Your regular expenses are $5,000 per month.

After 5 years, you still have only $1,000 in the bank.

You win the lottery, and the prize is doled out at the rate of $250/month for 5 years.

You still get $5,000/month in income, and still spend $5,000/month.

After another five years, you now have $16,000 in the bank - an extra $15,000.

By your math, the lottery winnings are only 5% of your income, so only 5% ($750) of the extra money in the bank is from the lottery winnings. But clearly your regular income and expenses have not changed, and never led to any increase in your bank account (net zero). The extra $15,000 is 100% due to the extra lottery winnings, not 5%.

Let's say you decide to spend half your lottery winnings. You still have $5,000/month income and $250/month lottery winnings going into the bank, but now your spending is $5,125/month. After five years, you will have $8,500 in the bank - added savings compared to your pre-lottery days. (This is a closer analogy to atmospheric CO2, where half the human emissions are absorbed by natural processes.) That extra $7,500 is still 100% due to the lottery winnings.

The rest of your post follows from an incorrect initial assumption. It is wrong.

Ice age predicted in the 70s

angusmac at 09:51 AM on 30 November, 2025

BL@177.

Oh dear. Now you are playing the semantics game

[Snip]

with “conclusions” versus “concluding remarks” in your statement that:

177-BL-Par-Conclusions

If it were just a summary, then I reiterate that your alleged summary states that, “Some years from now man will control his climate...”, either by warming from “the increase of carbon dioxide” or by cooling from “particulate pollution”.

However, I disagree that “concluding statements” are just “final words”, and I reply below.

Conclusions tend to be more formal than concluding remarks, but in practice, they tend to be very similar.

Conclusions usually include (but are not limited to) the following:

Providing definitive, evidence-based judgment directly answering the questions raised in the paper.

Interpretations are drawn from the paper's data, and recommendations are usually provided.

Perhaps including a call for further research and/or a call for action.

Whereas, concluding remarks usually include (but are not limited to) the following:

Summarizing the paper, providing final thoughts, perhaps discussing broader context and/or future implications.

Incorporating reflections, acknowledging limitations, and possibly providing recommendations.

Perhaps including a call for further research and/or a call for action.

Furthermore, you have worked in academia and will be aware that the use of either conclusions or concluding remarks tends to be journal specific. In practice, the terms are often used interchangeably, and the specific requirements for their use can depend on the journal, discipline, and/or publication guidelines.

It is evident from the above that “concluding remarks” are not just “final words”, but no doubt you are already aware of this having worked in academia. However, in your reply, you chose to play the semantics game by pretending that they are just “final words”.

[End snip]

P.S. You seem to be very keen on my response to your challenge at BL@173, and I have already confirmed that I will respond in due course. However, I do have a daytime job and, firstly, I would rather respond to your other allegations.

Climate skeptics have new favorite graph; it shows the opposite of what they claim

MA Rodger at 05:03 AM on 29 November, 2025

RegalNose@26,
In the context of Judd et al (2024)'s graph below (Fig4a in the OP above), Judd et al Fig2

you ask - Isn't the NASA graph (below)

NASA carbon graph

just pure scaremongring?

You ask "What am I missing? Why the panic and crisis mode?"

The OP above does not really answer your question of why CO2 should put us humans into a panic mode.
❶ The OP is firstly addressing the misuse of the Judd et al findings, being converted into total nonsense. It is, of course, difficult to nail down 'total nonsense'. ❷ Secondly, the OP chats about the threat of our CO2 to natural life on Earth rathert than the treat to humanity. ❸ That is not to say we humans should not be panicking.

❶ That first point, the OP presents an exemplar piece of 'total nonsense' which says "There's always this rise and fall." The context here implies it is the global temperatures they are saying "always ... rise and fall."
They continue:-

"This idea that the whole thing is based on carbon emissions from human beings is total bullshit. It's not true. Right. We might be having an effect, but we're having a small effect, a very small effect.”

This quote is 'total nonsense' as the findings of Judd et al, the evidence they are presumably presenting, says the exact opposite. Judd et al say it is CO2 on which the "whole thing is based". From their abstract:-

"There is a strong correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations and GMST, identifying CO2 as the dominant control on variations in Phanerozoic global climate and suggesting an apparent Earth system sensitivity of ~8°C." [My bold]

And the present-day big actor driving the 'whole thing', the startling rise in CO2 NASA graph above, that is the 'human beings'. This 'whole thing' is not "very small".
Additionally, Judd et al finding "an apparent Earth system sensitivity of ~8°C" suggests the effect is far from "very small" in terms of global temperature.

❷ The threat to nature from to the CO2-rise being so rapid is a major part of the above OP. Perhaps to add a little colour, 56 million years ago the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was caused by CO2 rising from ~800ppm to ~2,000ppm. The climatic forcing would be the same if we today allow CO2 to rise to 690ppm (and no other GHG increases - accounting for other GHGs, the equivalent would be perhaps 520ppm).
The PETM was not a massive event in historical climate or ecology but it did have pretty big impacts. Consider horses - they shrank to the size of large dogs to cope with the heat. The PETM is often held up as the nearest example of what we are stoking with our man-made climate change. But there is one stark difference. The PETM warming took something like 25,000 years. Our warming is happening 100-times quicker. The sixth mass extinction event which humanity is already threatening with other activities will be a certainty if our warming gets anywhere close to rivalling the PETM's +6ºC.

❸ But we humans are an adaptable species. However the problems are this.
(1) We a very numerous species that relies on a lot of real-estate. Loss of big portions of that real-estate (or even just the projected loss of it) will have big big geo-political consequences. If we could all pull together and address the problems, that may not be so disastrous. But we won't. And I'd imagine climate-change-mitigation measures will not be such a high priority when the world economy collapses and wars of national survival break out.
(2) The climatology cannot tell us how long we can keep melting Greenland to prevent 20ft of sea level rise becoming inevitable, or when the AMOC will disappear plumging Europe into the deep freeze, or when the cloud feedbacks over the Pacific will add another +3ºC to the warming, etc. The +2ºC limit to the warming was dropped in favour of +1.5ºC because tipping-points such as these could potentially be triggered below +2ºC.

I hope that goes some way to explaining "the panic and crisis mode."

Ice age predicted in the 70s

angusmac at 11:51 AM on 27 November, 2025

BL@176 you seem to be determined to misrepresent what I actually said.

Yes, having written many scientific papers, I am aware of the structure of scientific papers, and I did state that they are broadly divided into two parts. I also agree with the typical contents of a scientific paper presented by you, and that (using your elements) these would usually include some or all of the following:

Part 1: Introduction/Methodology/Analysis/Interpretation and Discussion.
Part 2: Conclusions

Consequently, I agree with your comment that: 176-BL-SkS-Para-01

However, I was focusing on Benton (1970) as an example, which is very clearly divided into two main parts, namely:

Part 1: Present several hypotheses for the cause(s) of climate change and then discuss them.
Part 2: Present the conclusions.

Furthermore, your comment below does not come as surprise to me: 176-BL-SkS-Para-02

I have systematically reviewed the existing methodologies contained in numerous scientific publications and have proposed enhancements where appropriate. Advancements in science and engineering often result from critically evaluating prevailing methods and introducing new approaches or techniques, which usually lead to alternative and more reliable conclusions.

I agree with your comment that the authors of PCF-08 knew how to find “Easter eggs”: 176-BL-SkS-Para-03

The reason I agree with your “Easter eggs” finding is because someone more sceptical than you might think that the authors of PCF-08 were data mining for information to support a preconceived warming position.

I also agree with your comment that Benton (1970) hardly merits the description of a paper: 176-BL-SkS-Para-04

However, I included it in my database because it was used by PCF-08.

I disagree with your comment regarding the clear prediction of warming in: 176-BL-SkS-Para-05

Benton (1970) only mentions 0.6°C warming in the discussion part of the paper by referring to “numerical studies have indicated” a warming of 0.6°C, namely:

006-Benton-PNAS1970-0.6C-Warming

I contend that if it were a clear prediction by Benton (1970) and not just an indication, then this warming would have been included in his conclusions as a clear prediction and not just an indication in the discussion part of the paper. Furthermore, if it were a prediction, I would have expected his conclusions to include an unequivocal statement similar to, “It is concluded that the present rate of increase in carbon dioxide would result an increase in temperature of approximately 0.6°C by the year 2000”.

However, the conclusions in Benton (1970) did not include an unequivocal prediction of warming.

Finally, I disagree that I am creating a false equivalence in: 176-BL-SkS-Para-06

On the contrary, Benton (1970) presented two main conclusions, namely: “Some years from now man will control his climate”, either by warming from “the increase of carbon dioxide” or by cooling from “particulate pollution”. It is evident from his conclusions that the Benton (1970) considers the possibility either warming or cooling to be equivalent and not a false equivalence.

However, I suspect that you will try to find some argument to postulate that “Some years from now” does not match your definition of a timeframe for a climate trend for some decades into the future.

It would appear to be you that is guilty of creating a false equivalence by taking a paragraph from the discussion part of a paper and elevating it to a conclusion of a clear prediction.

Ice age predicted in the 70s

angusmac at 09:09 AM on 25 November, 2025

BL@173 you have made so many comments; therefore, I shall respond in smaller bite-sized chunks

Reply 1 to BL@173, you do not seem to understand my reviews of the papers contained in my database. Therefore, let me explain by using Benton (1970) as an example.

Benton (1970) is typical of many scientific papers in that they are broadly divided into two main parts, namely:

Part 1: Present several hypotheses for the cause(s) of climate change and then discuss them.
Part 2: Present the conclusions.

I contend that the main part of a peer review classification of a paper is the conclusions – not the preceding discussion of the hypotheses. I think that this is where you (and the other commentators) on SkS have gone wrong because you focus on the hypotheses/discussion part of the paper, whereas the main part of the paper that matters is the conclusions.

I now present the conclusions from Benton (1970) below for ease of access for other readers (with my highlights):

Benton (1970) Conclusions

It is evident from the above that, “Some years from now” Benson (1970) is primarily concerned about two things, namely “…the increase of carbon dioxide and particulate pollution”.

If you wish to argue against the Benson (1970) conclusions then please go ahead, but I suggest that any reasonable person reading these conclusions would agree that they are neutral on the causes of climate change, namely, either carbon dioxide warming or particulate cooling.

Climate Adam - Climate Scientist responds to Bill Gates

walschuler at 05:11 AM on 13 November, 2025

As usual Climate Adam is clear and passionate. I have not read Gates' piece, and I will, but there is an action he is carrying out that relates to his argument, that is not commented on here, so I assume it is not mentioned by Gates. That action is that he has a permit for construction of a mini-nuclear powerplant in Wyoming that is based on uranium fuel and liquid sodium as primary coolant. Mini in this context means base load 345 Mwe, and with a short term (5 hour) peaking power at 500Mwe. Most recent power company nukes run base load at around 1,000Mwe. The Gates company collaborated with Hitachi, which is well established. But this design carries two burdens. First, the attempts to make liquid sodium reactors have failed. France has made the biggest efforts, in the form of the Phenix and Super-Phenix reactors. See wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix). The French designs had the goal of making them fast breeder reactors, that would generate more fissionable material while in operation than they would use up, using various purified natural sources, such as U238 (which is not a reactor or bomb isotope) or wastes from other reactors..Both reactors had serious problems. Among them is the fact that liquid sodium burns spontaneously if it comes in contact with air, so any leaks are potentially diasterous. Then there is the problem that like conventional reactors such reactors will end up with partly used fuel that will have high and low radiation level other elements as wastes that have to be separated and disposed of. One is Pu239, a great reactor fuel and atomic bomb material. So diversion of that is a threat, an easy threat if incoporated in a dirty bomb dispersed with conventional explosives, or an atomic threat if a critical mass can be purified and imploded. Disposal of it and other wastes demands separation from the environment for 10 half-lives, to reach a human-safe level of contact. For Pu239 that means reliable isolation for 249,000 years! Underground isolation in deep tunnels in geologically quiet and dry sites is needed for this and is the current working approach.. Finland is pioneering one, Sweden and France are gearing up. The USA had one designated at Yucca Mountain, adjacent to the underground test site of Yucca Flats, 65 miles north of Las Vegas. George W. Bush approved that, Nevada residents objected, and Barack Obama reversed it. It may have water leakage issues, but no further action has been taken there or or towards another site. So existing wastes (filled fuel rods) are containerized after cooling in swimming pools and are stored in various locations above ground. Other wastes, such as radioactivated structural materials and equipment, are separated and distributed to various "secure" locations. Potentially there is a second method of disposal, that uses a tuned subatomic particle accelerator or specially designed nuclear plant to convert wastes to either very short lived or stable isotopes. There is some work going on in Europe on this, but none in the US. It would be a way of making disposal of the hazards safe more quickly and it desrves serious funding, in order to dispose of slready generated and (possible) future wastes. To carry on generating nuclear power and wastes, even thogh the energy generated is mostly carbon-free, Gates' stated excuse for going nuclear, is irresponsible without safe operations and disposal guaranteed.

Ice age predicted in the 70s

Eclectic at 11:37 AM on 8 November, 2025

Angusmac @157 (and earlier) :

~ Looking at the Bigger Picture, why is it that you are bothering to argue about the exact percentage of scientific papers that were classed in cooling / neutral / warming ?

For us now viewing with the advantage of hindsight, the climate situation is very clear. But back in the sixties, there was a modicum of uncertainty ~ the scientists could see that the world had been warming for nearly a century (despite the long-term cooling from Milankovitch Cycle causes) . . . and yet there seemed to be more than a hint of unexpected relative cooling. [Later satisfactorily explained by the effect of industrial air pollution.]

But nowadays the uncertainty is gone. It is all over and done with, and the Fat Lady has finished singing.

So, what now? Plenty of room for political arguing about what are the best moves for tackling our Global Warming problem. Should we temporarily put up our feet and continue Business As Usual, or all go and live in a cave . . . or something inbetween, like pursuing Carbon Taxes combined with massive research on cheaper solar panels / cheaper sodium batteries / and a much bigger look at fusion power?

These are the questions for today. Not what Dr Sellers and others were meaning 50+ years ago. Why would one wish to argue on it?

Debunking Joe Rogan, Dick Lindzen, and Will Happer

One Planet Only Forever at 07:03 AM on 7 November, 2025

Because of Lindzen's past history of contributions to climate science, I find it very difficult to grant him any benefit-of-doubt regarding his statement in the first point raised (repeated below):

Lindzen @ 6:02: “global mean temperature doesn't change much, but you know you focus on one degree, a half degree, so it looks like something”

Lindzen @ 22:06: “Gutierrez (sic) at the UN says the next half degree and we're done for. I mean, doesn't anyone ask, a half degree? I mean, I deal with that between, you know, 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m [laughs]. Rogan: "it does seem crazy. It's just that kind of fear of minute change that they try to put into people.”

To start, Lindzen seriously misrepresents what Gutierres has said. A quick internet search finds the following UN News item: There is an exit off ‘the highway to climate hell’, Guterres insists. It includes the following selected quotes:

“It’s climate crunch time” when it comes to tackling rising carbon emissions, the UN Secretary-General said on Wednesday, stressing that while the need for global action is unprecedented, so too are the opportunities for prosperity and sustainable development.

...

Question of degrees

He said a half degree difference in global warming could mean some island States or coastal communities disappearing forever.

Scientists point out that the Greenland ice sheet and West Antarctic ice sheet could collapse and cause catastrophic sea level rise. Whole coral reef systems could disappear along with 300 million livelihoods if the 1.5℃ goal is not met.

Extreme weather from East Asia to the western seaboard of the US has been turbocharged by climate chaos, “destroying lives, pummelling economies and hammering health”, said the Secretary-General.

It is very challenging to excuse someone like Lindzen saying those types of things (and all the other cases of misleading manipulative messaging by him and Happer that have been pointed out).

Rogan can be excused for being a gullible desperate pursuer of popularity who is easily impressed and therefore potentially is unwittingly massively harmfully misleading. No such excuse comes to mind for Lindzen (or Happer).

I look forward to the follow-up mentioned by Dana that will "...look at the underlying psychology in a separate article in the near future."

Debunking Joe Rogan, Dick Lindzen, and Will Happer

Nick Palmer at 06:49 AM on 7 November, 2025

Does anyone have a reference for the claim that Lindzen has used the 'God wouldn't let us wreck our climate' argument. I knew both John Christie and Roy Spencer have very strong religious beliefs which makes them kind of believe that God wouldn't let us do it, which colours their views, but I've never heard anything similar about Lindzen.

In any event, I think it's unfair to characterise Lindzen as a denialist because his basic position is that he "accepts the elementary tenets of climate science. He agrees that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, calling people who dispute that point 'nutty.' He agrees that the level of it is rising because of human activity and that this should warm the climate. He also believes that decreasing tropical cirrus clouds in a warmer world will allow more longwave radiation to escape the atmosphere, counteracting the warming."

This is his hypothesised 'Iris effect'. This is why he believes that climate sensitivity is about 1/3 that of the figures 'IPPC science' works with. If he's right, then global warming genuinely will not be a problem. He often phrases his rhetoric to assert that 'science shows' that the sensitivity is a lot less than the IPCC's, but he's usually referring to his own papers and sort of implies that science generally supports him - but it's just his own views about clouds in the tropics.

CO2 is just a trace gas

Cedders at 09:53 AM on 5 November, 2025

I'm surprised that this argument is so low on the popularity list, 77 out of 200. Possibly it’s more common offline: meeting some contrarians at real-life events (stalls etc), it’s practically what opens the conversation when you are pegged as one of the climate-concerned. ‘I bet you can’t tell me the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.’

If you express an answer in parts per million, or perhaps as two million million tonnes, then they will want it converted to a percentage (even though most of the atmosphere is transparent to infra-red, and it’s the amount rather than proportion of greenhouse gases that determines the greenhouse effect). 0.043% sounds negligible somehow, perhaps because of common uses of percentages in polling or economics or pay rises. Without empirical knowledge of effects of a substance in a small proportion, people can fall back on what seems like a reasonable guess.

An underlying assumption by people stressing concentrations seems to be that if people knew CO₂ was ‘a trace gas’, they wouldn’t be concerned about climate change, and so the way most people can’t answer in percentage terms means that they are ignorant about the subject matter, or have been manipulated. (The conversation may then proceed to ‘life flourished in the Jurassic because of higher CO₂’ myth, about as accurate as One Million Years BC with Raquel Welch, or combine several misunderstandings into one sentence or question.)

So, supporting the large effects of trace substances argument, and as some people reject the ‘poison’ or ‘alcohol’ analogy as too indirect, I’d like to post this table. If comparisons across the electromagnetic spectrum are somehow valid, then 0.043% turns out to be a lot.

CO2 is just a trace gas

Cedders at 05:36 AM on 5 November, 2025

Bob Loblaw @60: "As for JJones idea that CO2 in trace amounts can't absorb enough radiation, there are commercial CO2 gas analyzers that are designed to measure CO2 by measuring the amount of IR radiation it absorbs, and they can do this on very small quantities of air."

Indeed I've bought an air quality meter for about $10 online, which uses non-dispersive infra-red (filters) to detect carbon dioxide, formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds. It takes a minute to literally warm up, and is of course nowhere near as accurate as the infra-red equipment scientists use to measure CO₂, but it will at least detect breath, poor ventilation and includes a hygrometer.

Whether actual hands-on experience of such things will help someone accept radiative physics is one question. And whether finding that kind of evidence against the most convenient rationalisation available changes wider world-view about who is responsible for climate change is a different one.

Scaddenp @61 : "I am interested in how people build up their mental models, and how we update these mental models as new information is presented."

(digression) So am I, although I often find it hard to persuade people to share their reasoning, particularly if they are quickly on the defensive. I think humans in general do some 'hill-climbing' in their professed beliefs, aiming at local maxima of practical, satisfactory narrative. New information may change the landscape, but people only move their position slightly, rather than doing the tiring cognitive work of re-evaluating the bigger picture. Hence why goalposts are moved and people rapidly move on to the next myth.

One thing I do find is quite common among contrarians in real life (besides an understandable but exaggerated distrust of authority that is a mirror image of acceptance of consensus) is a simplistic version of Popper's falsificationism. Here's apparent evidence why climate science is wrong, and that is enough to disprove it. (Some do then accrete other supporting arguments.) This mischaracterised epistemology is something to apply to any scientific 'hypothesis' that may have been painted as inconvenient or costing money or jeopardising worldview, but from my experience they use a more common-sense Bayesianism for everyday life.

To JJones @48, one could add that 'a significant amount of heat' is radiated from Sun to Earth and Earth to space. If the latter is mostly in the form of long-wave infra-red, and carbon dioxide absorbs long-wave infra-red, where does the 'heat energy' go? And then maybe explain emission layer displacement in simple terms.

Ice age predicted in the 70s

Philippe Chantreau at 03:12 AM on 3 November, 2025

So far, it is difficult to take seriously the classification proposed in that "database." I have taken random samples and I can not understand what criteria are used to declare that a particular piece can be said to point to future climate cooling rather than warming.

Example, the first I decided to look into: "Carbon Dioxide and its Role in Climate Change", George S. Benton. This was published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 67, No. 2, pp. 898-899, October 1970. However, it is not at all a research paper. It is a short summary of basic principles intended for a symposium, as it says in the header: "Contributed to the Symposium on Aids and Threats from Technology, April 29, 1970." The intent is to attract attention to the fact that Earth climate needed to be better understood. In the paper, it says things like:

"The effect of carbon dioxide is to increase the earth's temperature by absorbing outgoing terrestrial radiation. Recent numerical studies have indicated that a 10% increase in carbon dioxide should result, on the average, in a temperature increase of about 0.3OC at the earth's surface. The present rate of increaseof 0.7 ppm per year would therefore (if extrapolated to 2000 A.D.) result in awarming of about 0.60C-a very substantial change."

Interestingly, this prediction was very close to what actually happened. The rest of the letter goes on to review other factors affecting climate, such as aerosols, including that from volcanic activity, solar irradiance, and others. It concludes with these words: "Some years from now, man will control his climate, inadvertently or advertently. Before that day arrives, it is essential that scientists understand thoroughly the dynamics of climate. Only by such an understanding and by active intervention can man assure himself in the long run that this planet will continue to be a suitable place to live."

The only little tidbit that would fit the "it points to cooling" narrative would be this: "In the period from 1880 to 1940, the mean temperature of the earth increased about 0.60C; from 1940to 1970, it decreased by 0.3-0.4°C." This is an accurate factual statement but is not used has having any bearing on predicting future trends, and the letter does not even make the claim of having a clear explanation for it, although aerosols are cited as likely contributors.

Citing this piece as scientific work predicting future cooling of the Earth climate is downright mendacious.

New Book - Climate Obstruction: A global Assessment

One Planet Only Forever at 04:03 AM on 26 October, 2025

prove we are smart @4,

Mallen Baker’s presentation definitely helps understand ‘The Problem’. Developing sustainable improvements requires a proper thorough understanding of ‘The Problem’.

However, I think the ‘Right to Lie and related claims that it is justified Free Speech’ is just a more extreme version of Doublespeak. And Doublespeak has been a Problem, of varying degrees of severity, for as long as humans have been competing for perceptions of superiority and related pursuits of leadership influence. (links to Wikipedia items for Doublespeak and Doublespeak Awards - note that the 2005 Award was given to "Philip A. Cooney, for editing scientific reports to deceive the public about the nature of global warming and climate change and of the Bush Administration's negligence in dealing with these issues.")

The efforts of misleaders to benefit from Doublespeak amp-up in absurdity as the general population gains increased awareness and improved understanding regarding matters. Those who unjustifiably obtained perceptions of superior status via harmful unsustainable misleading actions have to double-down on their Doublespeak.

An example of the doubling-down of Double-speaking is the following (related to my comment @6):

CBC News item: Danielle Smith affirms Alberta's 2050 net-zero goal at testy committee appearance.

The following is a selected quote from the article:

“Her virtual appearance included testy exchanges as Bloc Quebecois MP Patrick Bonin repeatedly demanded to know whether Smith believes in climate change. She suggested that as a Quebecer, he could not grasp the substance of one of Canada's biggest industries.
Bonin repeatedly asked the premier whether she agreed the climate is warming up, and if human activity is primarily the cause.
Smith initially dodged the questions — first by talking about forest management practices, then by diving into Alberta's 2050 emission reduction plan. She and Bonin continually talked over each other as she repeated her points and he continually insisted she was not answering his question.
The exchange got so boisterous, Liberal chair Angelo Iacono was forced to interject to bring things back under control.
Bonin finally got an answer when he asked Smith to state "yes or no" whether she believes the climate is warming.
"Yes," she said.
Smith then said she agreed humans are contributing to climate change but wouldn't say it's the main factor driving it.
"I don't know the answer to that. I'm not a scientist. But we do know we need to get to carbon neutral by 2050 and we have a plan to do that," Smith said.
Later, after Bonin asked Smith if Alberta knew whether its plan to double oil and gas production would affect its 2050 net-zero target, Smith questioned his knowledge of the sector.

It is important to understand that although the need to reduce global warming emissions from Alberta, ultimately having no impact by 2050, was understandable well before the 2015 Paris Agreement, there has been no measurable action by the industry in Alberta towards that reduction (there has been limited government subsidized carbon capture).

It is also undeniable that wealthier portions of the current global population, like the portion benefiting from extraction and export of Alberta’s fossil fuels, need to minimize how harmful their actions are as they transition towards ending their harmfulness. The total amount of harm done is the important measure, not a promise to maybe-end the harmfulness at some ‘Future date’ like the claim to be ‘Net-Zero by 2050'.

Net-Zero may not actually be ‘harmless’. Double-speakers will just claim they are harmless, claim that they are not the problem, and/or claim that others are the problem.

Also reduction of impact now is more beneficial than reduction later.

As a worst case example, rapidly doubling the rate of Alberta oil and gas export but doing nothing to reduce the emissions, then shutting it all down in 2050 would theoretically meet the promise (the Promise is not a Lie).

The worst case for the future of humanity is Doublespeak continuing to be successful. Hopefully, the Welsh Senedd will act in a way that triggers the beginning of significant action to sustainably limit the success of Double-speakers trying to maximize their benefit from being harmful.

Is this the most embarrassing error in the DOE Climate Working Group Report?

wilddouglascounty at 22:57 PM on 8 October, 2025

Thank you for putting this together and sharing this important document, a concise response to all of the information distortions and misinformation circulating. By putting it out here and in Climate Brink, folks will surely disseminate it far and wide.

My request is that even though public hearings have closed for responses to this deeply flawed document, composed by a "flash committee" that disappeared almost as quick as it was created, I hope that efforts will be made to place this in the hands of relevant Senate and House Committe members as well. Namely, members and staff of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee (Bret Guthrie chair), the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee and on the Senate side: members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Objections to this flawed rationale for gutting coordinated efforts to reduce carbon emissions, conserve energy, incentivize renewables while removing fossil fuel subsidies should continue to be challenged and protests and objections should be mounted at every step of the way. The current Administration's push to replace a sane energy strategy for the future with short sighted attacks on that strategy in the name of short term gains for the well positioned financial interests should be exposed for what it is at every turn. Trump's handlers need to know that ignoring physics and biology is like tearing up a parking ticket in a big city: the cost only goes up!

Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report

MA Rodger at 09:08 AM on 19 September, 2025

Evan @8,
(Hopefully my reply here, your third to #7, isn't piling too much at you.)

Quantifying CO2 global emissions is reliant on the data reported and that data does suggest that emissions are still edging up. And these annoying still-rising emissions will result in accelerating increases in atmospheric CO2 levels and leaving net zero further away than ever.
The question of whether "the carbon cycle is not doing what we thought" revolves around Af, the Airborne Fraction which does wobble quite a bit year-to-year. Studies do show that there is no sign of an increasing Airborne Fraction (eg Bennett et al (2024) 'Quantification of the Airborne Fraction of Atmospheric CO2 Reveals Stability in Global Carbon Sinks Over the Past Six Decades', their Fig4 below). Of course, if there were an increasing Airborne Fraction, it would be a game-changer. But the major long-term sink we rely on is the ocean absorbtion which is a case of reasonably straightforward chemistry. Over a millennium the oceans will take up about 75% of our emissions.
A simplistic reassurance can be gleaned from the work of the Global Carbon Project whose annual data shows annual emissions and the annual atmospheric increase (both in GtCarbon) with no perceptible sign of increases in the Airborne Fraction. Bennett et al 2024 fig4

Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report

One Planet Only Forever at 05:17 AM on 19 September, 2025

Evan,

Thank you for further clarifying what your primary concern is.

I fully agree that the Keeling Curve, and the concentrations of all other ghgs, should be what people pay attention to. Those measurements should be the basis for claims regarding the success of efforts to rapidly end the harmful human impacts and hopefully limit the harmful climate change impacts on future generations to far less than 2.0 degrees C (with unprofitable carbon extraction being required to bring excess impacts back down to 1.5 degrees C).

There is a chance that the recent set of unexpectedly warm years are the result of human impacts to date triggering significant long lasting feedbacks that are not yet identified and understood.

But I think it is significantly more likely that the ways that the rate of ‘human global warming and resulting climate change impacts’ are measured are inaccurate. And those inaccurate measurements lead people to make inaccurate claims, claims that are inconsistent with the Keeling Curve and the measurement of other ghgs.

To be clear, a leveling off of the annual rate of human impacts does not mean that the Keeling Curve would level off. Humans having sustainably achieved net-zero global warming impact would be indicated by the Keeling Curve leveling off and starting to slowly sustainably decline.

Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report

Evan at 20:05 PM on 18 September, 2025

MA Rodger@7, thanks for the review of the carbon cycle. I understand the principles here: I just don't accept the confidence with which the claims are made that carbon sinks will take care of carbon sources if we were to reach net-0.

But my real point is this. I caution people to listen less to all of the optimistic talk about how emissions are starting to flatten out and getting ready to decline, and watch instead what is happening to the Keeling Curve, because it represents the net effect of the carbon cycle. If the carbon cycle is really going to clean up our mess, then that should be reflected in the Keeling Curve (I understand that currently about half of our GHG emissions are absorbed by the oceans and the land).

But so far the Keeling Curve continues to accelerate upwards, and the annual average rate of increase is a colossal 2.5 ppm! I wonder if people really appreciate the magnitude of that kind of push on our environment?

For the Keeling Curve to continue its upward acceleration in the face of so much positive, optimistic emissions news means that either the carbon cycle is not doing what we thought it should be doing, or our emissions estimates underestimate reality. Either way, we are a long, long way from achieving anything like Net-0.

Perhaps my skepticism originates because I am a professional modeler and understand the uncertainties of such modeling. But beyond that, I am concerned about the confidence placed in our emissions estimates. The US is heading down a path to obfuscate climate science. Certainly such obfuscation is occurring elsewhere. For these reasons and more I encourage people to follow the trajectory of the Keeling Curve, because in the end, it is rrepresents the unvarnished truth about what is really happening to the carbon cycle.

Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report

MA Rodger at 14:45 PM on 18 September, 2025

Evan @3,

You set out your "point" that, in your opinion, "the warming would likely continue due to how we have already affected the balance of natural GHG sources and sinks" even after every humanity has effectively disappeared.

The carbon cycle is understood enough (and has been understood for some time) to allow studies to conclude that the carbon sinks will continue to outweigh any natural sources and the resulting reduction in GHG will roughly balance the remaining unfulfilled warming from our emissions. Thus warming effectively stops once our emissions stop.

There has been work looking at the potential for large new sources of natural emissions or the stifling of sinks. These include the likes of methane emissions from melting permafrost or warming Arctic seas, the cascading collapse of econsystems like the Amazon rainforest or the capacity of oceans to absorb CO2 in a warmer world. (Your mention of "feedbacks" @5 - you may have specific examples in mind.) Some of this past work has sounded pretty worrying but such worrying findings have not survived full analysis.

Beyond 'net zero', there are also calls for 'net-negative emissions' that don't get discussed as much as they should. These are seen as globally necessary if our emissions are not cut quickly enough, a situation which seems pretty certain to happen. 'Net-negative' does not address future warming but works to reduce the time over which peak warming continues.

Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report

One Planet Only Forever at 02:19 AM on 18 September, 2025

Evan,

My understanding is that the global warming, climate changes, and sea level rise due to increasing ghg levels is due to the 4%. How much future harm is done is indeed totally dependent on what global humanity collectively does in the future.

What global humanity has done to date, including the failure to dramatically reduce activities that undeniably increase ghg levels, especially the most fortunate failing to lead the transition to less harmful ways of living (and the related failure of the most fortunate to help those who are tragically unfortunate have better less harmful life experiences), made things worse now than it had to be.

If humans stop causing impacts that continue to increase ghg levels then the global warming, climate change and sea level rise impacts will stop getting worse.

So, “Future emissions [do] control future warming,” when those emissions are understood to be the human caused excess emissions increasing ghg levels (the 4%). And that understanding is reinforced by the complete quote “Future emissions control future warming, … And if the world were to rapidly act on carbon dioxide and methane emissions, we could halve the rate of warming.”
And that understanding can be extended to state that: If global humanity were to rapidly act on carbon dioxide and methane emissions and rapidly act to develop and implement effective sustainable reduction of levels of ghgs then the maximum level of future harm due to future human impacts will be less than would otherwise be created.

A reminder about an often ignored aspect of reality regarding effective methods to limit the total future harm of human climate change impacts. A significant action that can immediately be implemented, needing no technological development or growth of production and use of a technology, is the ending of energy use that, while potentially enjoyable or popular or profitable, is not required to live a decent healthy helpful (unharmful) life.

Technological developments that require less energy consumption should be the priority. Less energy use would reduce the harm done during the transition from harmful unsustainable energy systems to harmless sustainable energy systems.

Getting climate risk wrong

nigelj at 06:43 AM on 22 August, 2025

Ted Nordhaus talks about climate issues. Its important to understand his background and involvement in certain organisations. He has a BA degree in history, and was a founding member of the Breakthrough Institute. Wikipedia has a good page on the Breakthrough Institute. Some key excerpts:

The Breakthrough Institute is an environmental research center located in Berkeley, California. Founded in 2007 by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus,[5] The institute is aligned with ecomodernist philosophy.[6][7] The Institute advocates for an embrace of modernization and technological development (including nuclear power and carbon capture) in order to address environmental challenges. Proposing urbanization, agricultural intensification, nuclear power, aquaculture, and desalination as processes with a potential to reduce human demands on the environment, allowing more room for non-human species.[8][9][10][11]

Since its inception, environmental scientists and academics have criticized Breakthrough's environmental positions.[12][13][14][15][16] Popular press reception of Breakthrough's environmental ideas and policy has been mixed.[17][18][19][20][21][22][15][23][24][25]

Programs and philosophy:

Breakthrough Institute maintains programs in energy, conservation, and food.[33] Their website states that the energy research is “focused on making clean energy cheap through technology innovation to deal with both global warming and energy poverty.” The conservation work “seeks to offer pragmatic new frameworks and tools for navigating" the challenges of the Anthropocene, offering up nuclear energy, synthetic fertilizers, and genetically modified foods as solutions.

Criticism:

Scholars such as Professor of American and Environmental Studies Julie Sze and environmental humanist Michael Ziser criticize Breakthrough's philosophy as one that believes "community-based environmental justice poses a threat to the smooth operation of a highly capitalized, global-scale Environmentalism."[12] Further, Environmental and Art Historian TJ Demos has argued that Breakthrough's ideas present "nothing more than a bad utopian fantasy" that function to support the oil and gas industry and work as "an apology for nuclear energy."[13]

Journalist Paul D. Thacker alleged that the Breakthrough Institute is an example of a think tank which lacks intellectual rigour, promoting contrarianist reasoning and cherry picking evidence.[15]

The institute has also been criticized for promoting industrial agriculture and processed foodstuffs while also accepting donations from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, whose board members have financial ties to processed food companies that rely heavily on industrial agriculture. After an IRS complaint about potential improper use of 501(c)(3) status, the Institute no longer lists the Nathan Cummings Foundation as a donor. However, as Thacker has noted, the institute's funding remains largely opaque.[15]

Climate scientist Michael E. Mann also questions the motives of the Breakthrough Institute. According to Mann, the self-declared mission of the BTI is to look for a breakthrough to solve the climate problem. However Mann states that basically the BTI "appears to be opposed to anything - be it a price on carbon or incentives for renewable energy - that would have a meaningful impact." He notes that the BTI "remains curiously preoccupied with opposing advocates for meaningful climate action and is coincidentally linked to natural gas interests" and criticises the BTI for advocating "continued exploitation of fossil fuels." Mann also questions that the BTI on the one hand seems to be "very pessimistic" about renewable energy, while on the other hand "they are extreme techno-optimists" regarding geoengineering.[16]

The coolest new energy storage technologies

Charlie_Brown at 03:01 AM on 18 August, 2025

I am intrigued by salt hydrates for thermal energy storage. Energy is stored and released with the reversible thermochemical reaction for heat of hydration. Just add water.

K2CO3 + H2O ↔ K2CO3•1.5H2O + heat

Ref: Gaeini, Shaik, and Rindt, “Characterization of potassium carbonate salt hydrate for thermochemical energy storage in buildings,” Energy and Buildings, Elsevier, Aug 2019

The coolest new energy storage technologies

One Planet Only Forever at 02:16 AM on 14 August, 2025

Nice summary of the many existing and developing methods of storage excess renewable energy for use when the renewable generation is less than the demand.

A minor clarification is required regarding the presentation on Hydrogen. The planned project in Utah is better than the way it is summarized. The project in Utah is intended to ultimately burn pure Green Hydrogen, as explained in “Hydrogen is transforming a tiny Utah coal town. Could its success hold lessons for similar communities?” (Emma Penrod, Utility Dive):

"Because the original IPP plan called for the construction of two additional coal units that were never built, the cooperative had room on site for a new set of generators — two natural gas units totaling 840 MW. These will start running a 30% hydrogen blend as early as this summer, with a goal of using 100% carbon-free hydrogen by 2045.

I would add one more important point that seems to always be missed when discussing the future of renewable energy systems. There is something that can happen immediately, needing no new technology or systems to be developed or built.

The transition to a net-zero climate impact energy system will happen quicker and produce less total harmful impact if people who currently are over-consumers of energy rapidly transition to living without the excessive 'convenient and enjoyable' but unnecessary energy use.

Have renewables decreased electricity prices: European edition

David-acct at 08:54 AM on 2 August, 2025

The OP makes a valid point with this point -

"A better analysis would use the cost of generating power in order to isolate the impact of renewables. We can get a better estimate of that by using the wholesale price of electricity."

That is absolutely true if you are only measuring the cost of generation.

" Beyond LCOE : A systems oriented perspective for evaluating electricity decarbonization pathways which was published here at SkS on June 12, 2025. The study provides a very comprehensive explanation for the total costs of electric generation, transmission, etc.

" While LCOE is a good metric to track historical technology cost evolution, it is not an appropriate tool to use in the context of long-term planning and policymaking for deep decarbonization. This report explains why LCOE fails to reflect the full complexity of electricity systems and can lead to decisions that jeopardize reliability, affordability, and clean generation."

https://www.catf.us/resource/beyond-lcoe/

The PDF attached is at the link

Have renewables decreased electricity prices: European edition

tder2012 at 01:33 AM on 1 August, 2025

Sorry "Meanwhile energy transition to renewables has cost $750 billion euros with steadily increasing electricity costs and negligible decarbonization"

[snip]

"> In 2000 German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder began a phase-out of nuclear power in coalition with the Green Party

> 2005 Gerhard leaves office and gets a position at a Russian gas company

> Decline in Nuclear power capacity almost exactly matched by increase in gas generation

> 2016 Trump criticizes Germany for dependence on Russian gas

> 2021, natural gas accounts for 30% of German power production with half coming from Russia

> Meanwhile energy transition to renewables has cost $750 billion euros with steadily increasing electricity costs and negligible decarbonization

> 2022 Ukraine war breaks out

> Electricity prices in Germany skyrocket

> Massively accelerates decline of energy intensive industries in Germany

> Meanwhile France has 10x cleaner energy for 40% cheaper than Germany

> Renewables energy transition abysmal failure, dirtiest energy in Europe and among the most expensive, overall industrial decline and energy insecurity

Just so everyone knows how completely self inflicted Germanys dire energy predicament was" source

Have renewables decreased electricity prices: European edition

tder2012 at 23:22 PM on 31 July, 2025

Germany should focus mostly on their citizens' health and not as much about cost. They definitely should not be seen as an example to follow to decarbonize the electricity grid. "The German nuclear phaseout may have caused up to thousands of excess deaths annually according to several studies.

[Large snip]

It’s no secret that the phaseout was a disaster. But when you start digging into the real-world consequences, that’s when reality really hits.

Over the past decade, several researchers have tried to quantify the consequences. One topic that keeps coming up is how many people have died as a result of coal replacing nuclear.

Most studies agree that the number is in the hundreds or thousands per year, but they reach that conclusion in different ways.

Some, like Jarvis et al. (2022) and Núñez-Mujica et al. (2025), model the increase in coal emissions, run those through atmospheric dispersion models, and apply dose-response functions to estimate the health impact. Their numbers land around 725 to 800 excess deaths per year.

Neidell et al. (2021) take a different route. They look at reduced electricity consumption following the phaseout and estimate over 1,100 additional deaths per year linked to cold exposure and energy poverty.

Kharecha & Sato (2019) project out to 2035 and estimate a long-run average of around 2,286 annual deaths, based on increased air pollution alone.
Then there’s Kaariaho (2025), whose number (170 deaths per year) is much lower. That’s not because the health impact was smaller, but because the scope was. Kaariaho only looks at respiratory diseases, and only at observed mortality using a synthetic control method. In other words, it’s a very conservative lower bound.

I’ve put these results together in a single graphic. Each dot represents a study. Together, they show a clear pattern: coal replaced nuclear, and people died because of it.

This isn’t about nuclear versus renewables. If you remove clean energy while fossil fuels are still on the grid, guess what fills the gap?

In Germany, it was coal. And it killed people." source

2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29

wilddouglascounty at 23:55 PM on 21 July, 2025

By passing the Trump bill, the Republicans have cemented themselves as being Climate Change CHEERLEADERS. Everything they promote is knowingly PROMOTING increasingly frequent and severe weather events and they should be held accountable at mid-terms. The scientific community has laid out the evidence of the consequences of these policies as clearly as possible and the response is to shut down that science and enact policies that will only make things worse. This should be pointed out at every opportunity: why are you promoting more wildfires, worse flooding, longer hotter droughts, and cutting our ability to monitor, predict and understand these destructive events? Why are you promoting activities that will INCREASE carbon emissions, not decrease them, when the consequences of such policies are so clear? Do you think cleaning up after natural disasters is a better economic activity than installing home insulation and more efficient appliances to reduce people's bills? Why is incentivizing more fossil fuel production and decreasing National Weather Service funding a better response than the opposite, when the opposite will reduce the costs of natural disasters that have a much bigger impact on our nation's economy? Why is exporting Climate Change a better policy for foreign aid than building health care capacity in developing countries? The list is endless and we need to demand answers to all of them.

Update on Texas flooding

RedRoseAndy at 20:21 PM on 16 July, 2025

Offsetting CO2 Emissions with Fish

Professor Oswald Schmitz is quoted in ‘New Scientist’ as saying: “Fish have a “tremendous” impact on carbon storage. “Part of it is in just the sheer biomass of these animals,” he says. But bony fish also fix carbon into insoluble minerals in their intestines as part of their way of dealing with constantly ingesting seawater. “It’s a sort of rock-like substance that they poop out and that sinks to the ocean bottom really quickly.” Collectively, marine fish account for the storage of a whopping 5.5 gigatonnes of carbon each year.” (Man produces 37.41 gigatonnes of CO2 a year.) Scientists say that we used to have nine times as many fish as we do now, so there is plenty of room for a man-made increase in fish numbers by offsetting companies, if we got fish stocks up to historic levels our fish would store 49.5 gigatonnes a year, which is more than man produces in a year at the moment.

Using my method of preventing fish extinction can also, then, be a method for offsetting CO2 emissions, and even reversing global heating.

A Practical Solution To Fish Stock Depletion

Fish in the wild are being over exploited, and whole fish species face extinction. But there is an easy way of preventing these extinctions. An international law should be passed which ensures that the gonads of all fish caught are liquidized and put into water containers, the fish are usually gutted anyway so this would not be a great hardship for the fishermen. Once liquidized, artificial fertilization takes place, and after twenty four hours the fertilized fish eggs can be released into the sea. The bucket of young fish needs it’s temperature equal to the sea they are released into to prevent fry death, so standing for a length of time with the fry bucket in the sea needs a wet suit before release. When this is scaled up by offsetting organisations a less painful method will be used. Ensure that the water in your bucket is the temperature of the sea to avoid fish deaths. It does not matter where the eggs are put back because the fry of each species find their way back to the environment they originally come from.

In this way, the sea can be repopulated, and fishing can even become sustainable.

The Japanese were the first country to fish in this way, and had their Navy protect the massive shoal until the fish matured. I have only heard of it being done the once, though.

Perhaps using sonar in fishing can be banned in order to give our fish more of a chance in life.

It's not bad

jlsoaz at 06:01 AM on 12 July, 2025

Hi,

To add a bit to my comments from a couple of years ago:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-07/how-climate-scientists-do-extreme-weather-attribution
Climate Scientists Created a SWAT Team for Weather Disasters

Friederike Otto and her colleagues jump into action during heat waves, floods, and fires to pinpoint if global warming is to blame.
By Eric Roston
October 6, 2021 at 10:00 PM MST

"...WWA’s success has come in part from using a peer-reviewed process—even if the rapid analyses themselves aren’t formally published for a year. A 2012 workshop at Oxford introduced the field to a broad range of professionals. “They asked user groups whether they would be interested in attribution results, and pretty much all of them said no,” Van Oldenborgh says. There were two notable exceptions: lawyers and journalists...."

"...World Weather Attribution earns the biggest and most regular headlines, but other groups are also at work analyzing “angry weather”—the title of Otto’s 2020 book. The climate science and policy website CarbonBrief.org counted more than 350 peer-reviewed studies earlier this year. Since 2012, Stott and colleagues have edited an annual research collection called Explaining Extreme Events From a Climate Perspective...."

-----

Basically it appears to me that the science of attribution is further along than I realized when we first had this discussion. Would it be possible for skepticalscience.com to take a second look at this and consider explaining to readers that while there is dispute over methods and results when attribution is attempted, it does appear that scientists have made progress in this area?

This seems to be the website of world weather attribution.
https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/

Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles - Recap

tder2012 at 23:32 PM on 2 July, 2025

Here is a report you may want to consider

[snip]

"The Growth & Future of Small Modular Reactors" by Arthur D. Little group. It starts with

"Bridging the Green Energy Gap

Decarbonizing energy supply is central to achieving net zero targets. However, once fossil fuel power plants are decommissioned, wind and solar generation alone will not be sufficient to fill the resulting gap, despite the rapid rise in renewables. The intermittent nature of wind and solar — and the lack of viable energy storage mechanisms — highlights the urgent need for low-carbon sources of continuous baseload generation to power an increasingly electrified world. Nuclear power should be the primary option for filling this need, but the combination of an aging fleet of reactors, substantial cost and time overruns on new plants, and safety fears have held back its widespread deployment. Small modular reactors (SMRs) provide a potential opportunity to overcome the challenges faced by nuclear power, though their cost competitiveness compared to large nuclear power plants (LNPPs) is still being proven." I don't see "baseload" defined anywhere in the report. I've seen baseload defined as minimum load or demand, which usually occurs on an electricity grid early in the morning when most everyone is asleep. For example, in California the minimum demand today occurred at 4:05am local time, 23,242MW.

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

tder2012 at 06:02 AM on 2 July, 2025

Keep in mind the following:

nuclear 1GW x80% capacity factor x80 years = 560,640GWh lifetime
solar 1GW x25% capacity factor x30 years = 67,500GWh lifetime
wind 1GW x45% capacity factor x35 years = 137,970 lifetime

A recent SKS article identified a report released in June 2025 "Beyond LCOE" "This report explains why LCOE fails to reflect the full complexity of electricity systems and can lead to decisions that jeopardize reliability, affordability, and clean generation."

Keep in mind that Lazard's LCOE reports have many factors that they don't examine, which Lazard themselves clearly acknowledge.See the bottom of page 7 in the 2025 report (it was page 8 in 2024) "Other factors would also have a potentially significant effect on the results contained herein, but have not been examined in the scope of this current analysis. These additional factors, among others, may include: implementation and interpretation of the full scope of the IRA; economic policy, transmission queue reform, network upgrades and other transmission matters, congestion, curtailment or other integration-related costs; permitting or other development costs, unless otherwise noted; and costs of complying with various environmental regulations (e.g., carbon emissions offsets or emissions control systems). This analysis is intended to represent a snapshot in time and utilizes a wide, but not exhaustive, sample set of Industry data. As such, we recognize and acknowledge the likelihood of results outside of our ranges. Therefore, this analysis is not a forecasting tool and should not be used as such, given the complexities of our evolving Industry, grid and resource needs. Except as illustratively sensitized herein, this analysis does not consider the intermittent nature of selected renewables energy technologies or the related grid impacts of incremental renewable energy deployment. This analysis also does not address potential social and environmental externalities, including, for example, the social costs and rate consequences for those who cannot afford distributed generation solutions, as well as the long-term residual and societal consequences of various conventional generation technologies that are difficult to measure (e.g., airborne pollutants, greenhouse gases, etc.)"

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

michael sweet at 22:42 PM on 30 June, 2025

Moderator:

td2012 is not providing any data to support their absurd claims and is now taunting others who try to respond to their nonsensical posts.

They have not provided any information to support their wild claim that a nuclear plus renewable grid could be built faster and cheaper than a renewable only grid in spite of demanding that I provide data to show that renewables only was cheaper and faster (which I provided).

They have not listed three nations successfully using nuclear to reduce carbon emissions despite demanding that I provide names of nations using renewable energy to reduce carbon.

They are simply repeating posts made several months ago at SkS that several other posters responded to pointing out their contradictions, mistakes and deliberate lies.

I am tired of responding to these insulting taunts and deliberate lies. It is time for the moderators to take action and require tder2012 to conform to the comments policy.

The comments policy requires that data be provided, especially when the poster has demanded others to provide data. The comments policy does not allow reposting the same comments repeatedly without any new information. The comments policy does not allow evidence free and knowledge free taunting of other posters.

It is a waste of everyones time reading and responding to repeated misinformation, taunts and lies that fill up the comments thread with garbage. I do not like to see misinformation and deliberate lies left unrefuted at SkS. I do not have unlimited time to respond to posters who are not required to adhere to the comments policy.

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

tder2012 at 20:49 PM on 30 June, 2025

Of course QC is hydro, as is BC. I find it puzzling when people promote wind, solar and batteries and state they can decarbonize, give examples of how it can be done, but hydro is used as the example. Going forward, which region will hit the Paris climate target that has not hit that target yet using mostly hydro? Which region has meet the Paris climate target with most of their electricity generated by wind, solar and batteries (reminder: that is less than 100 grams of CO2 emissions per kilowatt-hour, averaged on an annual basis). Which region has hit the Paris climate target with the majority of their electricity generated by wind, solar and batteries?

Quebec flooded land the size of the Canadian province of PEI for hydro. Is the methane emitted from that rotted vegetation accounted for in GHG emissions of QC hydro?

Over 95% of Manitoba's electricity is geneated by hydro. The dams are about 1000kms from where most of the electricity is consumed. Manitobans paid $5.3 billion for a new long distance HVDC transmission line, completed 7 years ago, big money for 1.5 million people. Here is a list of the top seven HVDC transmission line distances in the world, from 1400 to 2500 kms, all hydro. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1305820/longest-power-transmission-lines-worldwide/ I do wonder if, for long distance HVDC transmission lines, the amount of concrete, steel, aluminium, etc and the amount of land that needs to be cleared are factored into lifecycle CO2 emissions, raw material requirements and cost estimates of hydro dams.

Also, since you dislike nuclear so much, shouldn't you spend time lobbying all those regions and companies I identified making commitments to nuclear? How much money is being committed to nuclear, don't you consider this a waste of money? One example Nuclear Dawn: Africa’s $105 Billion Energy Revolution

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

tder2012 at 09:57 AM on 28 June, 2025

I posted on the "its too hard" post because nuclear energy was mentioned as a solution there.

Michael Sweet, either the following are not getting your message, or maybe they know something you don't

Philippines Senate Passes Nuclear Bill

Nuclear Dawn: Africa’s $105 Billion Energy Revolution

At COP28, over 20 countries pledged to triple nuclear power by 2050. That number has now grown to more than 30. Last fall Ebba Busch spoke at a conference in New York where 14 major banks and financial institutions – incl. Bank of America, Morgan Stanley & Goldman Sachs – announced their commitment to financing the expansion of nuclear energy

South Korea has started building two new reactors, with plans for two more by 2038

Nuclear energy set a global production record in 2024, despite premature shutdowns in the 2010s and early 2020s in countries like Germany, Japan, Sweden, France, and the US

newly appointed German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron signaled a new joint vision for energy policy: A tech-neutral EU with no discrimination against any fossil-free energy sources – including nuclear – with a renewed focus on competitiveness and security of supply

The European Nuclear Alliance – launched under the Swedish EU Presidency – has grown to 16 member states. That’s a majority of EU countries now openly supporting nuclear power. Public support is also strong: 56% of EU citizens now say nuclear power positively impacts their lives. The European Investment Bank (EIB) is now opening the door to nuclear funding, starting with backing Urenco’s expansion

15 EU countries are actively pursuing new builds – from construction/preparations (France, Poland, Czechia) to feasibility studies (Sweden, Estonia, Finland)

Despite an on-going invasion, Ukraine has begun preparing new nuclear projects – including groundwork for new reactors

In the US, nuclear is getting support from both the federal level and individual states. Texas is investing $2B to become a hub for new nuclear. Michigan’s Palisades plant is on track to be the first prematurely closed reactor to restart. Small and microreactor projects are moving ahead – civilian and military. The Pentagon’s Project Pele (mobile microreactors for military bases) is already under construction

Canada has committed tens of billions to extend the life of its CANDU fleet. Yesterday, OPG announced the final investment decision for North America’s first grid-connected SMR – on track for 2029 if all goes to plan

Denmark is reconsidering its decades-long nuclear ban. Danish PM, social democrat Mette Frederiksen, has signaled openness, and a €350M investment fund has launched with backing from major firms like Novo Nordisk

Finland and Estonia are planning new reactors – including for district heating and SMRs. Sweden’s Vattenfall is a shareholder in Estonian startup Fermi Energia

Norway has launched a government inquiry and tasked multiple government agencies with preparing for environmental permitting of new SMRs

China has already approved 10 new reactors this year. In fact, this is the 4th year in a row Chines regulators have kept to their promise to approve "8-10" units a year. With 11 reactors approved last year, China now exceeds its target of 8–10 reactor approvals annually

Investor interest is high – both from domestic companies and international investors. The government has taken about 50 actions to accelerate new builds, including regulatory reforms and a major financing bill now before parliament

The UK announced a historic £30 billion nuclear investment programme. This includes £14 billion to build two EPRs totaling 3 200 MW at Sizewell C and announcing Rolls-Royce as the winner of the UK SMR competition

As Rt Hon Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said during the announcement: "Energy security is national security"

Czech Republic finally signs €17 billion deal with KHNP (Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power) to build two new reactors

Nuclear ties between Europe and Asia are deepening fast

For the first time, the World Bank will consider funding new nuclear.
This is a monumental shift in global development policy

Together with Constellation Energy, Meta will keep the Clinton Power Station running for 20 more years.
Big Tech and hyperscalers are stepping in to secure carbon-free, 24/7 power

At the same time, Westinghoue targets a $75 billion expansion with dramatically reduced costs through utilising a finalised design, series build and a ready supply chain

Japan moves to restart reactors at world's largest nuclear power plant
Tepco has started loading fuel at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa No. 6 reactor (with No. 7 loaded last year)

Taiwan eyes nuclear restart
Lawmakers have passed a proposal for a referendum on restarting the Maanshan nuclear plant.

Belgium legalizes nuclear
After 22 years, the nuclear phaseout law in Belgium is dead. The plan to shut down 50% of national electricity supply in 3 years is over.
Belgium is back in the nuclear game.

The 1985 ban on studying nuclear as an energy source is gone — repealed by the antinuclear parties. There are still bans on nuclear in Denmark, but there is also undeniable momentum.

What about Sweden?
On May 21st, the Riksdag (parliament) cleared the path for new investments in nuclear but adopting the nuclear financing bill put forward by the government.

This is another step in Sweden’s pivot from phaseout to buildout. Sweden now has one of the best financing frameworks for nuclear in the world in place

Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Google, Oracle and Dow Chemical have signed agreements with various nuclear reactor companies. Amazon doubled their nuclear contract in June 2025

Greece opens door to nuclear power on June 19

Nvidia invested in Bill Gates nuclear reactor company, Terrapower

It's too hard

tder2012 at 22:28 PM on 27 June, 2025

Since this article was written in 2010, we see minimal change in fossil fuel production, slight growth and minimal percentage change. This chart shows shows the years 2010 to 2023 on the horizontal axis and TWh of energy on the vertical axis, from ~153,000TWh in 2010 to ~183,000TWh in 2023.

This map from Our World in Data is "Energy Use per person, 2023". For example, Chad's 2021 number is 361kwh/person, India is 7,586, UK is 28,501, Canada is 100,000, Bolivia in 2021 was 7,062, Bangladesh 2,940, Germany 38,052. There are many people who use too much energy, but there are so many more that need additional energy. If all 8.2 billion of us lived a lifestyle of a typical European, we would need 4x as much energy as we consume today.

This chart "Remaining carbon budget" has on the vertical axis CO2 emissions per year in gigatons and the horizontal axis has years from 2000 to 2100. It shows our emission need to be at zero by 2036 to keep global warming to 1.5C, at zero by 2052 to keep global warming to 1.7C and at zero by 2077 to keep global warming to 2C. We can see that 1.5C is essentially impossible, 1.7C will be very difficult and 2C is doable if we all get on the same page and agree it must be done.

The reality is "it's too hard" is likely true, but we have no choice, we must do it. We no longer have the luxury of picking and choosing energy sources, we have to throw everything we got at it as fast as we can.

You can read two X threads by Ebba Busch (Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden, Minister for Energy and the Minister for Business and Industry) about nuclear energy announcements on May 9 and June 13 . What is not included is "Nuclear Dawn: Africa’s $105 Billion Energy Revolution" and "Philippines Senate Passes Nuclear Bill"

Fact brief - Was 'global warming' changed to 'climate change' because Earth stopped warming?

Bob Loblaw at 01:36 AM on 5 June, 2025

Greenhouse effect, global warming, and climate change do indeed have different technical meanings, but common simplified usage does tend to add obfuscation - er, sorry, make things more confusing.

The Greenhouse Effect, as lynnvinc mentions, exists as a natural phenomenon. It relates to the atmospheric influence, as discussed by Charlie Brown, that leads to warmer surface temperatures than we would observe if there was no atmosphere.

It is a somewhat unfortunate term, as "the label "greenhouse" implies a similarity with actual greenhouses - and that was based on a misunderstanding of what keeps greenhouses warm. (Trapping air is more important than trapping IR radiation.)

At times, people have suggested using "the atmospheric effect" instead, but that has never caught on. At times, the human-cause changes in greenhouse gases have been referred to as "the enhanced greenhouse effect", but that is rather cumbersome and the "enhanced" part gets dropped.

As for "global warming" - that is the key easily-observed result of an enhanced greenhouse effect, but also can be caused by other factors. (CO2 dominates the current trends). On a global mean basis, surface temperatures will rise. It is not the only effect of an enhanced greenhouse effect, though. Precipitation changes are also critical. And many other weather phenomena. Seasonal changes and timing. Extreme weather events. Etc. Hence "climate change" is a much broader, more encompassing term. In the Venn diagram of climate, "Global warming " is a subset of "climate change", and "global warming" overlaps both the greenhouse effect and other causes of climate change.

On the myth of "they changed the name...", I took undergraduate climate science in the 1970s. The textbook we used was Sellers, W.D., 1965, Physical Climatology, U Chicago Press. Changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide are discussed in that book, along with other factors, under the chapter titled "Paleoclimatology and Theories of Climatic Change". My copy of the book is the one that I bought in 1978, so if "they changed the name..." then someone must have taken my copy off my bookshelf, altered the printing, and replaced it without me noticing.

Electric vehicles have a net harmful effect on climate change

MA Rodger at 05:47 AM on 31 May, 2025

tder2012 @3,

First point to make is my use of g(C)/kWh which is a lot different to g(CO2)/kWh. To convert the former to the latter you need add the weight of the O2 by multiplying by 3.664. (My working in C rather than CO2 is a climatology thing.)

At that ElectricityMaps webpage, the 226 g(CO2eq)/kWh figure you quote I read as being the carbon intensity for Jan 2025 alone. I read the webpage data showing the individual months of 2024 running Jan-to-Dec 227, 180, 172, 135, 172, 145, 164, 124, 169, 189, 227, 176. I was thinking you shouldn't really average these as the electric use (they average 173) with the summer-use being a lot different from the chilly winter months, but GridWatch graphs UK electric use through 2024 and a back-of-fag-packet adjustment doesn't make that much difference (average 175g(CO2eq)/kWh = 48g(C)/kWh).

My number was taken from a CarbonBrief article which sports this graphic which shows the same as the article says 2024 =124g(CO2)/kWh = 34g(C)/kWh. UK electric carbon intensity

The NESO does a monthly analysis of GB monthly electric stats (Apr25 & links) and there does seem to be a discrepancy between the numbers from NESO and that ElectricityMaps webpage with NESO giving Apr25 at 133g(CO2)/kWh and ElectricityMaps 174g(CO2eq)/kWh.
Why the difference?
Speculating, perhaps the imported electric is seen as zero carbon due to it being emitted abroad. Perhaps something else.

Electric vehicles have a net harmful effect on climate change

tder2012 at 01:53 AM on 31 May, 2025

MA Rodger, I am curious what your source is for "In UK the carbon-intensity of electricity has dropped by 75% since 2010 (136g(C)/KWh to 32g(C)/kWh in 2024)". In the 12 month period January 2024 to January 2025, the UK emitted 226 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour, averaged on an annual basis, according to app.electricitymaps.com. In 2012, according to this link, the lowest CO2 grams emitted per kilowatt-hour was about 440. Good reductions for UK, for sure. However, Paris climate targets call for electricity grids to emit less than 100 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour, averaged on an annual basis.

Electric vehicles have a net harmful effect on climate change

MA Rodger at 02:25 AM on 30 May, 2025

Charlie_Brown @1,

The brave new world of net zero brings with it many transformations which people appear to find difficult to normalise and set out rationally.
Be warned!! This is a subject I can drone-on about for hours. But picking up on a couple of things you address....

Ⅰ Back in the day when I was still a car owner, I was rather vocal with the message on EVs - 'As the electric grid decarbonised, the emissions from an EV will diminish. For a petrol-engined vehicle it will be fixed until the day it is scrapped.'

And back then I was also vocal about the fuel-efficiency of petrol-engined vehicles which were (and are) continuing to spew that darned CO2 into the atmosphere. I reckoned efficiency (mpg) should be increasing far more quickly than was/is the case** yet nobody seemed to care. My last car (20 years ago - I'm now car-free) did 70mpg. Back then I was asking 'Where are the 100mpg cars? The 150mpg cars?" Such efficiencies are not beyond the wit of man***.

And the graphic comparison in the above OP (that seems to address your objections, "seems" because the links to sources cited by the OPs Ref4 are not working for me): the OPs graphic would be transformed by improving mpg. Given the numbers presented in the OPs graphic, the point where an efficient petrol-engined vehicle becomes less carbon-intensive than the compared EV is 85mpg. But importantly, and petrol-heads be warned, that assumes the carbon-intensity of the grid doesn't reduce, an assumption which is not the case. In UK the carbon-intensity of electricity has dropped by 75% since 2010 (136g(C)/KWh to 32g(C)/kWh in 2024).

(**Latest govt number (for 2020) show the UK's average new petrol car with 52.4mpg & diesel 56.1mpg. That was rising on average by a paltry 0.8mpg/yr back during in the 2000s. That annual increasing efficiency doubled 2010-15 but since then the growth of the SUV sees the average efficiency getting worse, hopefully a temperary phenomenon.)

(*** Apparently petrol or diesel car still doesn't do much more than 70mpg. A lot of the lost mpg is because many are aren't so small and today small cars require reinforcing so they don't get flattened by the bigly SUVs & 4x4s swarming around them.)

Ⅱ Your comment also reminds me of an enquiry I made about an EV a little more recently. I was trying to get the CO2/mile numbers (along with a lot more) from Nissan who were presenting their much-advertised & wondrous EV - the Leaf. It was evident they had no idea what I was on about. They could tell me how cheap it was to run (£/mile) but stuff like carbon intensity or energy intensity didn't register as something they understood.

Evidently, they just wanted to sell cars and for them the USP was the wonderful £/mile.

Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?

michael sweet at 07:28 AM on 18 May, 2025

tder2012:

We agree that decarbonizing as rapidly as possible is the target.

Oil is primarily used for transportation. As cars are switched to electric oil use will start to go down. Trains are already switching to electric (except in the USA). Electric trucks are being tested on the road. The cost savings for trucks switching to electric are substantial.

I understand electric freighters are economic up to about 1500 miles and some are being manufactured in China. Google says that some river freighters and ferries are the largest currently in service. Additional batteries can be loaded as containers on the freight deck and connected to the ships power, then switched at the next port.

Small planes have been built that are electric.

The key is to build out carbon free electricity as rapidly as possible and tax carbon emissions. As cheap electricity becomes more widely available and carbon more expensive, more users will switch to electric.

Vote for politicians who support more carbon free electricity!!

Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?

tder2012 at 11:03 AM on 17 May, 2025

I don't care how grids get decarbonized, just get it done NOW. France did it 40 years ago by accident, only because they wanted energy security and independence, no fossil fuels to extract in France. Australia wants to do it with wind, solar, batteries, synchronous condensors, etc. I say go for it, get 'er done! Here are a few sites you can watch AUS grid generation mix, import, export between states, prices, etc (you can find sites like this for many other countries, states, etc but I like electricitymaps best as I am very concerned about CO2 and ghg emissions and I find its the best for showing that data. Also, it is a "one stop shop"). https://aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/data-nem/data-dashboard-nem & https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/nem/?range=7d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed & https://www.nem-watch.info/widgets/RenewEconomy/

Clean energy hits many roadblocks, often people ideologically opposed to them, we see this with solar, wind and also with nuclear. The No Nukes in the USA in the 70's were successful at blocking the build of nuclear power plants, but look at this article from US Energy Information Administration and see how much coal was built after 1980, fortunately they haven't build much since 2013. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50658

We are only really talking about electricity here, which is 20-25 % of global energy production. Oil is barely a blip in global electricity production (mostly diesel generators in small remote communities and islands). New England in USA uses oil occasionally, they seem to encounter natural gas supply issues more than typical, this is an article on the New England Independent System Operator (NEISO) website. "Nuclear, oil, and coal generators are critical on the coldest winter days when natural gas supply is constrained (as shown below). Coal- and oil-fired resources also make valuable contributions on the hottest days of summer when demand is very high or major resources are unavailable".

Anyway, the point I want to make is that oil is barely a blip in global electricity generation, yet it is the number one source of energy generation in the world, as you can see on this Our World in Data website https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitution?time=1970..latest Much decarbonization all over the world needs to be done in very short order.

Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?

nigelj at 05:55 AM on 16 May, 2025

Drax in the United Kingdom use carbon neutral thermal turbines burning wood pellets to contribute to grid stability (voltage and frequency). Read something on it years ago. They have a great article in laypersons language on the whole issue of grid stability here:

www.drax.com/power-generation/great-balancing-act-takes-keep-power-grid-stable/

Blackouts attributable to renewables in places like the UK with considerable renewables in the mix are uncommon. This is quite impressive with new technology. So the doubters claims of disaster have consistently failed to materialise. Spain has just had a big blackout that might have something to do with renewables but its rather unclear what caused it. But its the first such event. These things are clearly very uncommon.

There are obvious known technologies that help renewables grids remain stable. They will be added as required as renewables expand. Grid operators are not actually complete idiots. The public wont tolerate significant numbers of blackouts and neither will politicians so there will also be lots of pressure to make the system work seamlessly. Dont panic.

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

tder2012 at 00:32 AM on 15 May, 2025

I thought the fact that I used the text "Largest 10-year deployments of low-carbon electricity generation" and the descriptions on the x and y axis of the picture would have been clear enough, sorry.

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

tder2012 at 20:00 PM on 14 May, 2025

for comment 409, sorry I had forgetten about this chart until now "Largest 10-year deployments of low-carbon electricity generation"

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

michael sweet at 00:37 AM on 14 May, 2025

tder2012 at 410:

You are Gish Galloping again. That is a techniquie used by nuclear supporters when they realize thay have lost an argument.

Regarding the Barakah nuclear power plant. Planning for the plant began about 2005 and the first power was generated in 2020, 15 years. In 2005 solar was more expensive than nuclear power and a nuclear reactor might have made sense.

Today nuclear power is 10 times more expensive than solar on a GW generated basis and a solar farm takes only 2-4 years to build from initial plans. The carbon dioxide released in the 10-15 extra years it takes to build the nuclear plant is enormous and counts as emitted by the nuclear plant.

i note that no additional power plants using the Barakah plans are being built anywhere in the world outside of Korea. They are not legal to build in the EU and USA since they do not meet safety regulations. They are not economic, people are building solar and batteries instead.

Your comments on Bangaledesh power usage are off topicc. In any case, nuclear power will not lift the poor out of poverty since it costs ten timesw as much as solar.

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

tder2012 at 03:52 AM on 13 May, 2025

"The Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant prevents up to 22.4 million tons of carbon emissions every year, equivalent to removing 4.8 million cars from the roads". "Construction Program"

"In December 2023 at COP28 in Dubai, 22 countries and more than 120 companies pledged to triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050".

I'm not familiar with any study in involving nuclear energy that is similar to Jacobson's The Solutions Project in which everyone will use much less energy by 2050, including those that live in extreme poverty today and have almost no access to energy.

The solar panels being installed in Bangladesh, how much CO2 emissions will it prevent every year? Will Bangladesh people now have access to stove, washer, dryer, microwave, air conditioning, computers, internet, running water, industry, manufacturing, careers and women will now have access to education?

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

michael sweet at 08:25 AM on 12 May, 2025

tder2012,

Mark Jacobson has over 47,352 citations according to Google Scholar. Your assertions that his work has been discredited are false, deliberate misinformation, but you usually post misinformation.

I have already linked at least two articles for you that show that renewable energy systems are cheaper and faster to build than systems containing nuclear. I note that, according to your link, if enough nuclear plants were built to provide 10% of all power there is only enough uranium for 60 years, less than the claimed lifetime of the plants. One plant would have to be installed approximately every 10 days starting today. For the last ten years there have not been enough plants opened worldwide to keep up with lost capacity from closed plants.

Provide an up to date reference suggesting that it would be more rapid to build out a nuclear plus renewable grid than a renewable only grid. Jacobson 2009 conclusively shows that building out nuclear at any level increases the amount of carbon emitted. Lund et al, linked above also show nuclear results in increased emissions. Your previous quote, (no link), included no data or analysis to support your wild claim. it was simply idle speculation. Why do you ask me for more creditable evidence when you have offered no evidence at all? The last researchers who supported adding nuclear to renewables announced in 2022 that renewables were so much cheaper than nuclear that nuclear is not economic under any plan. (linked upthread, do your homework)

You are simply repeating your previous false claims. That wastes everyones time. You have had your say and I have had mine. The other readers can evaluate what we have both posted. Move on to another subject.

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

tder2012 at 06:10 AM on 12 May, 2025

I don't read Jacobson at all. He has been thoroughly discredited and debunked. He has a scientific debate through the court system and loses that as well. But he claims "victory" because Stanford, and not him, have to pay all the legal fees, good grief. https://retractionwatch.com/2024/02/15/stanford-prof-who-sued-critics-loses-appeal-against-500000-in-legal-fees/

Do you have any creditable evidence for your claim "It is a false pproposition that is more rapid to decarbonize using renewables and nuclear than to use nuclear alone. It is faster and releases less carbon to build out a completely renewable system."

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

michael sweet at 03:30 AM on 12 May, 2025

tder2012:

It is a false pproposition that is more rapid to decarbonize using renewables and nuclear than to use nuclear alone. It is faster and releases less carbon to build out a completely renewable system. I note that your question was asked in 2012. Since then the cost of a compeltely renewable system has decreased greatly in cost and the storage isssue has been resolved completely. Meanwhile, modular reactor proposals that promised working reactors by 2020 are decades behind schedule. The money spent on nuclear is wasted.

If you had read Jacobson et al 2009 you would know that the emissions generated by the extreme long time manufacturing nuclear plants results in much more carbon release than building out a complete renewable system.

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

tder2012 at 00:20 AM on 12 May, 2025

every energy source has its pros and cons. Anyone who said there is a miracle solution is a fool, in my opinion. Based on this chart, I feel its to risky to take low emitting energy sources off the table, we need all we got as soon as possible https://robbieandrew.github.io/GCB2024/PNG/s64_2024_LinearPathways.png

Dr. John Morgan asked the following question at a nuclear energy debate in Australia in 2012
"Question to those against (nuclear energy). Given that the rate at which we decarbonize will determine how much warming the planet ultimately experiences and given that we can decarbonize more rapidly if we use both renewables and nuclear power, how many degrees of planetary warming do you feel it's worth to avoid the use of nuclear energy"

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #19 2025

gerontocrat at 07:12 AM on 10 May, 2025

This one is very sobering

Indicators of Global Climate Change 2024: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence, Forster et al., Open Access pdf 10.5194/essd-2025-250

It's a very long technical paper and you need to download the preprint pdf; but if you scroll almost to the end of the pdf you will find figure 14, which shows very simply how bad things have got since 2018 (based on IPCC AR6 data).

The remaining carbon budget to avoid exceeding 1.5 C global warming is now very, very small - impossible not to be exceeded?

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

michael sweet at 05:48 AM on 8 May, 2025

tder2012

Batteries and grid forming inverters are readilly available today!!! They need to scale up the rate of construction and we will have the carbon free grid that we need. Factories are being built as we post!

By contrast, the nuclear facilities that you favor have not been designed yet. Let us imagine they finish the design in 2 years. Then 4 years to get regulatory approval, 4 years to find a location and get permits and then 5 years to build the prototype. We wait for 5 years of experience to determine if the prototype works and then it is at least 8 years before lots of additional reactors can be built.

That is a total of 28 years before large numbers of reactors are built. That is too late!! The nuclear ship sailed long ago. And there is not enough uranium to put in the reactors! Read Abbott 2012. All the problems he suggests still apply.

Sabin 33 #13 - Is solar energy unreliable?

tder2012 at 02:13 AM on 8 May, 2025

Feel free to address one claim at a time. My point in showing the 2016 post is simply this is at least how long I am familiar with Jacobson's work. Address only this point them from Lazard's 2024 LCOE+ report. Page 8 from https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf

"Other factors would also have a potentially significant effect on the results contained herein, but have not been examined in the scope of this current analysis. These additional
factors, among others, may include: implementation and interpretation of the full scope of the IRA; economic policy, transmission queue reform, network upgrades and other
transmission matters, congestion, curtailment or other integration-related costs; permitting or other development costs, unless otherwise noted; and costs of complying with
various environmental regulations (e.g., carbon emissions offsets or emissions control systems). This analysis is intended to represent a snapshot in time and utilizes a wide, but
not exhaustive, sample set of Industry data. As such, we recognize and acknowledge the likelihood of results outside of our ranges. Therefore, this analysis is not a forecasting
tool and should not be used as such, given the complexities of our evolving Industry, grid and resource needs. Except as illustratively sensitized herein, this analysis does not
consider the intermittent nature of selected renewables energy technologies or the related grid impacts of incremental renewable energy deployment. This analysis also does not
address potential social and environmental externalities, including, for example, the social costs and rate consequences for those who cannot afford distributed generation
solutions, as well as the long-term residual and societal consequences of various conventional generation technologies that are difficult to measure (e.g., airborne pollutants,
greenhouse gases, etc."

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #18 2025

tder2012 at 14:01 PM on 7 May, 2025

I asked the following of Dr. Romm when he posted this on his LinkedIn, he never responded to me, perhaps you could? He quotes WoodMac's LCOE

"Hi Dr. Romm. I asked the following question on Woodmac' LinkedIn page from 5 months ago https://www.linkedin.com/posts/wood-mackenzie_our-five-regional-levelised-cost-of-electricity-activity-7258040109122338816-hJN0/

Do you publish your LCOE assumptions, if any? I ask because I see Lazard's, but I am unable to locate Woodmac's LCOE assumptions. Lazard's assumptions are outlined at the bottom of page 8 here https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated, Dr. Romm"

Here are the limitations of Lazard's LCOE, which they openly acknowledge:

"Other factors would also have a potentially significant effect on the results contained herein, but have not been examined in the scope of this current analysis. These additional factors, among others, may include: implementation and interpretation of the full scope of the IRA; economic policy, transmission queue reform, network upgrades and other transmission matters, congestion, curtailment or other integration-related costs; permitting or other development costs, unless otherwise noted; and costs of complying with various environmental regulations (e.g., carbon emissions offsets or emissions control systems). This analysis is intended to represent a snapshot in time and utilizes a wide, but not exhaustive, sample set of Industry data. As such, we recognize and acknowledge the likelihood of results outside of our ranges. Therefore, this analysis is not a forecasting tool and should not be used as such, given the complexities of our evolving Industry, grid and resource needs. Except as illustratively sensitized herein, this analysis does not consider the intermittent nature of selected renewables energy technologies or the related grid impacts of incremental renewable energy deployment. This analysis also does not address potential social and environmental externalities, including, for example, the social costs and rate consequences for those who cannot afford distributed generation solutions, as well as the long-term residual and societal consequences of various conventional generation technologies that are difficult to measure (e.g., airborne pollutants, greenhouse gases, etc."

Instead of using LCOE, we should be using Dr. Robert Idel's work at Rice University, Levelized Full System Cost of Electricity Move over, LCOE. LFSCOE is the new metric in town

Sabin 33 #13 - Is solar energy unreliable?

Eclectic at 10:37 AM on 7 May, 2025

Tder202 @4 :-

Thank you for the video titled: "Net Zero and Other Delusions" by Nate Hagens.

In essence, he says that Net Zero [of fossil carbon emissions] cannot happen by 2050. I suspect that every realist would agree that such a target ~ in only 25 years' time ~ is completely impracticable, with today's politics & today's technology. (But is half a loaf not better than none?)

Perhaps possible by 2070 or 2080? That would require cheap & durable solar panels plus cheap & durable storage batteries. Even the pre-2050 invention of practical & economic Boron-Proton fusion generation of electricity . . . would take decades to roll out for worldwide usage.

Big advances in solar/battery manufacture are a very much better "Bayesian bet" (as Hagens would say).

And yet now is the time to roll up metaphorical sleeves and get to work on the future problems.

# So the question remains: Why is Nate Hagens such a hopeless pessimist? Is he the sort of pessimist who will refuse to plant a sapling for a shade-tree (while bemoaning today's lack of sufficient shade)??

btw, tder2012, if you have any influence with Nate Hagens ~ please ask him to shorten his 20-minute video down to about one-third the length (which would not degrade his message! ). There is an old ecclesiastical saying: "An excellent sermon should need less than 10 minutes to best deliver its message."

2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #16

One Planet Only Forever at 05:45 AM on 24 April, 2025

RedRoseAndy,

Your proposal would help achieve the required corrections of developed unsustainable fishing activity. It would be a little more work and would reduce the profitability of the currently developed fishing. But, as you correctly implied, the easier and more profitable fishing methods that have developed have no real future (and benefiting from burning non-renewable fossil fuels also has no future, even if it wasn’t causing harmful climate change impacts).

The assisted fertilization of eggs from ‘caught fish’ would be part of the actions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.

You should investigate the potential for your suggestion to be part of the SDG 14 related UN Event - Ocean Action Panel 10 : Enhancing the conservation and sustainable use of oceans and their resources by implementing international law as reflected in the UNCLOS

However, I would like to know more about ‘how’ (considering all of the aspects in a holistic evaluation) an increased amount of fish will produce a reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere (more going on than carbon in fish poop falling into the depths). It seems intuitive that, like trees, more fish would result in reduced CO2 levels. If increasing the amount of fish in the seas will sustainably reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, then any actions that sustainably increase fish populations would help.

Regardless of the question about increased fish stocks reducing CO2, it would be helpful to increase fish stocks.

Hopefully all reasonable helpful actions will be pursued by leaders, in business and politics, to limit the harm done by human activities. Unfortunately, the focus will likely be on the easier, more profitable, and more easily popular actions rather than pursuing actually possible actions (not ‘hoped to be developed’ technological solutions) that are more helpful but are harder, more expensive, or less likely to be popular.

2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #16

RedRoseAndy at 18:04 PM on 22 April, 2025

Offsetting CO2 Emissions with Fish

Professor Oswald Schmitz is quoted in ‘New Scientist’ as saying: “Fish have a “tremendous” impact on carbon storage. “Part of it is in just the sheer biomass of these animals,” he says. But bony fish also fix carbon into insoluble minerals in their intestines as part of their way of dealing with constantly ingesting seawater. “It’s a sort of rock-like substance that they poop out and that sinks to the ocean bottom really quickly.” Collectively, marine fish account for the storage of a whopping 5.5 gigatonnes of carbon each year.” (Man produces 37.41 gigatonnes of CO2 a year.)
Using my method of preventing fish extinction can also, then, be a method for offsetting CO2 emissions.

A Practical Solution To Fish Stock Depletion

Fish in the wild are being over exploited, and whole fish species face extinction. But there is an easy way of preventing these extinctions. An international law should be passed which ensures that the gonads of all fish caught are liquidized and put into water containers, the fish are usually gutted anyway so this would not be a great hardship for the fishermen. Once liquidized, artificial fertilization takes place, and after twenty four hours the fertilized fish eggs can be released into the sea. Ensure that the water in your bucket is the temperature of the sea to avoid fish deaths. It does not matter where the eggs are put back because the fry of each species find their way back to the environment they originally come from.
In this way, the sea can be repopulated, and fishing can even become sustainable.
The Japanese were the first country to fish in this way, and had their Navy protect the massive shoal until the fish matured. I have only heard of it being done the once, though.

2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #14

One Planet Only Forever at 10:22 AM on 9 April, 2025

nigelj,

Though we substantially agree, I need to respond to the part of your comment @23 (on the SkS re-posting of “Climate skeptics have new favorite graph; it shows the opposite of what they claim”)

You said: “For example the Democrats proposed some truly stupid ideas like defunding the police. I guess it was an emotive reaction to police abuses but its still stupid.”

That is a commonly claimed criticism. And it is as valid as claiming that “Tax is evil and Socialist– and imposing a Carbon Price is a tax - therefore Carbon Pricing is Socialist evil” which is the product manufactured by the misleading marketing efforts of people who resist learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others. Taxes are not evil (or Socialist). And a lack of a Carbon Price that funds full neutralization of the impacts of fossil fuel use is the reason that so much harmful activity became so popular, profitable and powerful - bad enough that many of the more informed and smarter minds are protecting their interests rather than fighting to limit the climate change harm done.

For the police issue, Defund he Police was a punchy poster statement promoting a more involved matter. The real problem was paying to have the police try to do things they did not have proper training to do – like deal with cases of homelessness, mental health, drug use, and domestic abuse. Shifting some police funding to employ specialists in those non-police realms was the objective. “Defund the Police” was the punchy poster that became the basis for unjustified misleading marketing.

See the following Brookings Institute presentation on the topic “7 myths about “defunding the police” debunked”

2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #14

One Planet Only Forever at 06:17 AM on 8 April, 2025

wilddouglascounty,

In addition to Bob’s good pointer to the weekly New Research posts, I would add that one of the categories for the weekly News Roundup is Climate Science and Research.

Also, the blue panel at the bottom of the News listing invites everyone to submit an article to be included on the listing. Note that the tagging of articles for the News Roundup categories is done by the person submitting the suggested item. And they can only tag one category. Therefore, some items that are reports about recent research publications will not be tagged for the Climate Science and Research category. Examples are:

the article “Losing Forest Carbon Stocks Could Put Climate Goals Out Of Reach” is a news report regarding a new published research item. But I support it being tagged for the Climate Change Impacts category.

the article “If sea levels are rising, why is the Maldives still above water?” refers to many different publications, but it is not about a specific new research publication.

Also note:

This week, the only item in the Climate Science and Research category is the weekly New Research posting last week.

In last week’s News Roundup (#13) there was also only one item in the Climate Science and Research category. But it was not the weekly New Research post.

In News Roundup #12 there were three items in the Climate Science and Research category, including the weekly New Research post.

I am not sure that the weekly New Research post should be included in the News Roundup. But I am not the person volunteering to produce this amazing weekly compilation of informative items.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Reed Coray at 12:54 PM on 7 April, 2025

This response is to Dikran Marsupial at 02:14 AM on 7 April 2025. I struggle putting comments on this blog in the right spot.

Your statement: “My question was whether it was reasonable in a discussion with a lay-person to say that a blanket keeps you warm by ‘trapping heat’ or whether a thermos flask keeps tea warm by ‘trapping heat’”.

My response: Yes, it is reasonable when interacting at an educational level. But It is not reasonable when presenting a scientific argument for the purpose of persuading someone to change his way of life.

My question to you: Forget global warming for a minute, if as part of an effort to get a lay person to appreciably change his way of life, is it okay to use scientifically invalid arguments?

Your comments: (a) "How about a greenhouse (is the Cambridge dictionary that uses it as an example usage of "trap" incorrect?)." and (b) "The most popular dictionary and thesaurus for learners of English. Find meanings and definitions of words with pronunciations and translations in various languages."

My response: Could you send me the URL where the Cambridge dictionary uses greenhouse as an example usage of "trap?" When I Googled "Cabridge Dictionary Online" the URL that appeared was "https://www.bing.com/search?q=cambridge+dictionary+online&qs=HS&pq=cambrid&sc=10-7&cvid=69BDBA17495D45A3B8FE6E7E187CDE83&FORM=CHRDEF&sp=1&lq=0" The first entry that appeared on the screen was: "Cambridge Dictionary | English Dictionary, Translations & Thesaurus..." When I clicked on that the URL what appeared was: "https://dictionary.cambridge.org/"

When I entered "greenhouse" as the word to be defined, the word "trap" appeared nowhere on the screen. A link did appear for the phrase 'greenhouse effect." When I clicked on that link, three definitions of greenhouse effect appeared. (1) "an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere (= mixture of gases around the earth), that is believed to be the cause of a gradual warming of the surface of the earth," (2) “A reference to the American Dictionary which defined the greenhouse effect to be: ‘the gradual warming of the earth because of heat trapped by carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere’." (3) “A reference to the BUSINESS ENGLISH dictionary which defined the greenhouse effect to be: ‘an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere (= mix of gases which surround the earth), which is believed to cause the surface of the earth to become gradually warmer and to be a threat to its future’.”
At that point I quit my online search. The "American Dictionary" definition did include a reference to "trapped heat, but the Cambridge dictionary did so only as a reference to the American Dictionary. In any event, all of those dictionaries are targeted at the general public. As such, “every-day” dictionaries omit detailed scientific arguments and replace it with phraseology that is familiar to the common man. If there is a valid complex scientific explanation that shows an error in the common-man definition, that explanation will be omitted from the dictionary. Thus, when you argue that it’s okay to use terminology from an every-day dictionary to discuss a scientific matter with a lay person, you are correct.

However, that doesn’t establish the scientific validity of the discussion, it only means that the same terminology is used both in both the “definition” and the “discussion.” So, when an every-day dictionary uses the phrase “trap heat,” it establishes that using the phrase in discussions with lay people is a common practice and therefore acceptable, but it does not establish the scientific validity of the phrase “trap heat.”

Your comment: "I have seen this time and time again in discussions with "contrarians", which is that I am happy to give very straight answers to direct questions, but they are not. The reason is that they know that their argument collapses if they give a straight answer."

Question to you: Are my above answers "straight answers to your direct questions?”

Your comment: "You appear not to understand the basic mechanism of the greenhouse effect if that thought experiment was intended to be relevant to that question."

My response: My understanding of the ‘basic mechanisms of the greenhouse effect” is as follows. (a) the absorption of IR emitted from the Earth's surface prevents some of that IR from reaching space (i.e., leaving the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system), (b) the energy in the IR that doesn’t reach space is absorbed by gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, and (c) a portion of that absorbed energy is radiated back to the Earth's surface thereby increasing the rate the Earth's surface absorbs IR, which in turn acts to increase the Earth’s surface temperature.

If my understanding of the mechanism is wrong or incomplete, please explain why.

Responding in kind to your statement that “I (i.e., you) have seen this time and time again in discussions with "contrarians", which is that I am happy to give very straight answers to direct questions, but they are not. The reason is that they know that their argument collapses if they give a straight answer.”

I make a similar comment. "I have seen time and time again in discussions with "global warming advocates," that the use of precise scientific terminology is seldom employed. The reason being that most global warming advocates are at best minimally knowledgeable of the science, and if asked to explain the details of the underlying physics, can’t.

2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #14

wilddouglascounty at 09:23 AM on 7 April, 2025

This is a request:

In light of the overwhelming amount of research and analytics being done regarding the many, many facets of the climate, your Weekly Climate Change News has in the past been very helpful for the reader to find vetted journal news to sort through the tsunami of coverage that is almost impossible to sort out. Kudos for your editorial staff to sort through this firehose of information in order to glean it down to semi-digestible quantities!

Maybe it has been there along and I have noticed it, and perhaps it is because of your system of categorization that you are now using, but I have been noticing an inflation of news articles that are inundating the research based articles published in vetted journals. While there is nothing inherently wrong with reporting the "news" in the Climate Change Impacts category, for instance, I can easily find these news articles elsewhere, whereas the journal articles are more difficult to retrieve. Given the huge volume of articles available, you could greatly turn down the "news" volume in order to make it easier to take in the research end of the category. For instance in this week's "Climate Change Impacts" section, the following represent the kind of analytic and research articles I'm interested in finding out about:

-If sea levels are rising, why is the Maldives still above water?

-Losing Forest Carbon Stocks Could Put Climate Goals Out Of Reach

-Big Banks Quietly Prepare for Catastrophic Warming

-Global warming of more than 3°C this century may wipe 40% off the world’s economy, new analysis reveals

-Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer

-Forecasters predict another active 2025 Atlantic hurricane season

-On the Edge: The people and polar bears of a warming arctic

The rest of the articles in the Climate Change Impacts category are merely news headlines about unfolding weather events, and we all know that intensity and frequency of these are increasing due to increased capacities of weather systems in an atmosphere juiced by increasing carbon levels. But I'm looking more for research and analyses of those weather pattern changes, instead of reportage of the weather events themselves, which I can find elsewhere. Burying the 7 analyses/research papers amongst the 11 weather news reports makes it more, not less difficult to study Climate Change Impacts, at least for me. Perhaps this might make it easier for you as well!

Climate skeptics have new favorite graph; it shows the opposite of what they claim

One Planet Only Forever at 08:12 AM on 2 April, 2025

nigelj,

I agree that we substantially agree. One question I have is what would be the ways to transition from what has developed – nearly 9 billion with a very inequitable distribution of harmfulness and wealth plus total impacts that are well beyond being sustainable - to 2 billion living as you see being a sustainable future?

I will also clarify my perspective. (As an engineer with an MBA this is like the way I deal with an engineering/business challenge):

What is the desired objective? All of humanity equitably (not equally) living Sustainably (into the very far future).

What is the starting point? Really important to understand that the current developed reality is very unsustainable, grossly inequitable, and in many ways getting worse (global warming and climate change impacts are getting worse until ghg levels, not just CO2, stop increasing)

What are the ways to help achieve the urgently required transition from the current developed very harmful unsustainable reality to humanity collectively equitably living sustainably for the millions of years this amazing planet could be lived on? (A related understanding: Humanity should not spread beyond this planet until this is figured out).

Specifically regarding a Sustainable Global Population:

Any ‘total global population’ up to 9.5 billion can be sustainable. It is simply a matter of keeping the sum of everybody’s impacts below the sustainable limits (the planetary boundaries and regional impact limits).

There can be a diversity of ways to live within that total equitable sustainable population.

People who are more fortunate should be required to set the examples of ways to live less harmfully and more helpfully (live more sustainably) for Others to aspire to develop towards. Everyone less fortunate should be able to develop to the more fortunate ways of living without compromising the sustainable total impact.

Regarding the corrections required related to global warming and climate change impacts:

It is unacceptable for there to be significant differences of the amount of harm that people benefit from.

Peer pressure will be required to ensure that all of the most fortunate compete to be ‘least harmful and most helpful to Others’ (having the evidence rationally prove things – Do not just accept proclamations that a person’s actions are less harmful and more helpful – No more Carbon Offset scams).

Without effective evidence-based peer pressure it is unlikely that sustainable living will develop as rapidly as is required to responsibly limit the harm done by currently developed unsustainable activities like fossil fuel use.

That perspective allows, and should encourage, improvements through scientific investigation and development of technological improvements ‘governed by learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others’.

Climate skeptics have new favorite graph; it shows the opposite of what they claim

Eric (skeptic) at 13:26 PM on 31 March, 2025

Thanks Evan for #11, I see your point. However my understanding is that climate sensitivity is not constant. This paper dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/1874/358482/1.pdf?sequence=1 shows most of the factors affecting climate sensitivity in fig 1. The pertinent ones are decade time frames since we are comparing decades of human-created CO2 to past natural rises in CO2. Also we need to consider TCR rather than ECS with all the long term feedbacks: www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog_held/3-transient-vs-equilibrium-climate-responses/ In short, variations in dust, vegetation and carbon cycle between the current time and the Eemian could result in a different transient or equilibrium climate sensivity.

That may make it difficult to compare the current rise in CO2 and Eemian (and prior) rates of rise in CO2 as proxies for rates of temperature rise. However getting back to nigelj #5, reiterated in #12, the rise from the LGM to the present (the chart linked by OPOF) that makes the present magnitude and rate unique in 24k years.

Climate skeptics have new favorite graph; it shows the opposite of what they claim

One Planet Only Forever at 14:28 PM on 30 March, 2025

I am not surprised that the paper’s presentation of 485 million years of temperature history was irrationally misinterpreted. Some people desperately seek any excuse to maintain their harmfully incorrect beliefs about climate science, and many other matters. They can be especially desperate to prolong or increase the benefits they can get from delaying the ‘responsible, ethical and moral’ corrections of harmful developed human beliefs and behaviour that climate science has identified.

The fact that human civilization has only existed in the last 10,000 years (less than 0.002% of the length of the chart) has to be ignored by some people to maintain their desired misunderstandings.

It took me less than a minute to find the following Phys.org report from 2021: Global temperatures over last 24,000 years show today's warming 'unprecedented'. It presents details of the temperatures in that tiny right-hand end of the misunderstood chart from the 485-million-year paper. (Note that the title includes a term that some people attempt to claim does not apply to the results of modern-day human impacts on the planet).

Undeniably, many people are easily tempted to believe misunderstandings about research results like this report. And, unfortunately, some people are so passionately emotionally invested in their misunderstandings that they powerfully resist attempts to get them to care to learn that their beliefs are ‘harmfully incorrect’.

Harmfully misleading pursuers of popularity and profit like Joe Rogan (and like Musk, and Trump, and all the people who bought memberships in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Cult) are unlikely to be influenced by efforts to get them to learn that their preferred beliefs are harmful incorrect. They will behave like the following quote from this re-posted Climate Brink story.

The furor over the graph reached its apogee in January when Joe Rogan showed it in a podcast interview with Mel Gibson, saying that “If you believe these silly people, way before human beings had ever existed, there's always this rise and fall. And this idea that the whole thing is based on carbon emissions from human beings is total bullshit. It's not true. Right. We might be having an effect, but we're having a small effect, a very small effect.”

It is tempting to say that ‘all people in a democracy’ are to blame for the results of their collective leadership elections. But that is disrespectful of everyone who tried to help others learn to be less harmful and more helpful to Others. And it excuses the harmful misleading actions of the likes of Joe Rogan (and the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk).

It is important to understand that ‘pure democracy’ would result in the interests of ‘the controlling majority’ being justified regardless of the undeniable harms caused by those interests. Regardless of the socioeconomic-political system, there is a significant risk of harmful abusive actions dominating (winning) unless everyone is effectively governed by learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others.

Ideally everyone would responsibly self-govern to be less harmful and more helpful to Others. But there will always be some people who need to be ‘governed by Others’.

China will need 10,000GW of wind and solar by 2060

wilddouglascounty at 23:18 PM on 25 March, 2025

So China is taking a low/no carbon future seriously, if we are to take this at face value. Meanwhile, fossil fuel interests seem to be creating a pushback to such low carbon futures in many countries in the West. China is doing these responsible steps in the context of a command and control economy and a surveillance state that has questionable human rights. Can the western states provide a viable pathway to a low carbon future that does not involve these "features?"

The institutions of science clearly can operate in both scenarios; can western democracies evade the authoritarian impulses that seem to be driving them toward protecting the status quo? Can they generate good science, integrate with other disciplines to develop and partner with manufactures of low carbon technologies that also protect the environmental diversity that is essential for the functioning of the biosphere in addition to slowing/reversing the forces that are driving our climate upwards? These are the questions that come up in my mind. How about you?

Do Americans really want urban sprawl?

One Planet Only Forever at 12:23 PM on 21 March, 2025

Regarding nigelj’s comment and expanding onto other points.

Walkable development does not require expensive high-rise buildings. But it can be expensive to redevelop built cities to be walkable. However, the bigger issue is the ways that misunderstandings can be exploited by people who want to impede efforts to develop sustainable improvements.

Walkable development can be effective with multi-use buildings less than 10 stories high. The lower floors could be commercial uses with the upper floors being residential. (Note: This NFSA blog post from 2020 states that the International Building Code – It is not International. It only applies in regions of the US that choose to adopt it. But that is another matter – defines a high-rise as, “a building with an occupied floor located more than 75 feet (22,680 mm) above the lowest level of fire department vehicle access.”)

Very walkable cities developed before ‘car-based sprawl’ and ‘downtowns filled with skyscrapers’ became misleading symbols of superiority.

Cities that developed based on the desire for ‘car sprawl’ and ‘downtown office skyscrapers’, like Calgary, Alberta (where I live), are very expensive to ‘re-develop to be walkable’. That is unfortunate because those cities are at a competitive cost disadvantage if they do not re-develop.

People living in ‘car-sprawl’ cities ‘need’ less expensive housing due to the high cost of ‘car ownership’ (internet searching will find many estimates that it costs more than $10,000 per year to be a car owner). Those cities also have higher costs to build and maintain their sprawling public service infrastructure (roads, water mains, sewer mains, power distribution ...).
The ‘car sprawl’ cities have also developed a cultural attitude that resists sensible changes, like the change to be ‘a more walkable city’.

There is a global collective that develops misunderstandings in opposition to efforts to limit the harm done by fossil fuel use. A massive percentage of Calgary’s wealth potential is from ‘limiting the limiting of harm done by fossil fuel use’. That ‘opposition to learning to be less harmful’ includes political misleading messaging to promote misunderstandings about actions like carbon pricing. The following article presents a connection between opposition to carbon pricing and opposition to walkable cities.

The Hub - Steve Lafleur: The Liberals have kneecapped the carbon tax. Now we need walkable cities more than ever

There is powerful opposition in Calgary to efforts to increase density and redevelop already built areas to be more walkable and higher density. The following articles are examples. They do not represent all of the Calgary opposition to ‘learning to live less harmfully’.

Calgary Herald - Legal fight against city's blanket rezoning decision rages on, headed for appeal

CTV News Calgary - Glenmore Landing redevelopment defeated by vote at Calgary council

Note that the area councillor supported the development and mentioned her attempts to address misunderstandings. The development was opposed by councillors of other areas of the city who repeated misunderstandings about the proposed development. The following article is about a different council member attempting to more officially investigate and address those misunderstandings.

CBC News - Calgary city councillor wants review on impacts of false information

The suggestion that the popularity of misunderstandings was a serious concern prompted misunderstandings in response

Calgary Herald - Opinion: Is a Ministry of Truth coming to Calgary?

The Calgary opposition to ‘walkable 15-minute’ development is almost certainly a key part of the unjustified global collective that opposes ‘learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others’ (a ‘big-tent’ collective of misleading promoters of a diversity of misunderstandings, including climate science misunderstandings).

And the ‘walkable 15-minute’ misunderstandings are related to efforts opposed to better understanding of climate science (refer back to The Hub article link above). More walkable implies less car use, which would mean less potential for benefit from fossil fuel use (note that the Calgary councillor also wanted misunderstanding regarding Calgary’s rapid transit system development to be investigated).

The following article mentions the international conspiracy theory promotion of misunderstandings regarding 15-minute walkable development.

Queen’s University – The Queen’s Journal - Contrary to conspiracy theories, Queen’s professors say walkable cities improve quality of life

And the global group coordinating that ‘opposition to learning’ is also likely heavily involved in the opposition to other harm limiting actions like New York City’s Congestion Pricing (see this NYC ABC news item - Trump administration extends deadline for New York City to end congestion pricing)

There are a multitude of problems to be addressed and corrected by efforts to develop sustainable improvements. But almost all of the problems can be understood to be parts of a global collective that wants to benefit by developing and promoting misunderstandings to limit ‘learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others’.

CO2 limits will harm the economy

Bob Loblaw at 00:28 AM on 20 March, 2025

charles125 @ 126:

The moderator has pointed out your lack of sources for data, and some inconsistencies in your brief comment. I'll point out a few more.

Your economic argument appears to make the "one cause and only one cause" error. CO2 emission are not affected only by carbon taxes - many factors come into it. For your argument (that carbon taxes had no effect on emissions) to make sense, because changes happened without them, you need to pretend that nothing else matters. To make a successful argument, you would have to show that actual emissions remained the same as they would have if there had been no carbon tax (all other factors remaining in effect). That requires a level of economic analysis that you have not provided (or given a reference to).

You also have logical inconsistencies in your short argument. At the end, you say "...they knew the economic impact carbon taxes would have." Which is it: no impact (no emission changes), or impact? You can't have it both ways.

...and you are misrepresenting the reason BC cut taxes when they introduced their carbon tax. They did so in order to make the carbon tax revenue-neutral. Their policy was to keep collecting the same total $ in taxes, but switch the means of collecting some of those dollars from income etc. to fossil fuel use. That provides an incentive to move away from fossil fuels - you only pay the carbon tax if you use fossil fuels, but everyone sees the other tax reductions (whether they use fossil fuels or not). The people that move away from fossil fuels see more money in their pockets, while the profligate fossil fuel user ends up with less in their pocket. This is exactly the sort of market-driven process that economists think is an efficient method of incentivizing innovation and individual choice in reducing fossil fuel use.

The Canadian carbon pricing scheme was also designed to be revenue-neutral. A fee was charged on fossil fuels, but taxpayers received quarterly rebates. In January, my household received $210. The rebates were set at a level so that total rebate $ were close to total carbon fee $ - but again, the family with below-average fossil fuel use still got the same rebate as everyone else, so they had more $ in their pockets. It was the high-fossil-fuel users that paid more in carbon fees than they got back. A disincentive to use fossil fuels - the invisible hand of the market at work.

Unfortunately, certain political elements beat the drum of "carbon taxes bad!". Those politicians never emphasized "we're going to axe your carbon rebates!" (many people were unaware that they even existed), and people drank the koolaid so now the political trend is to eliminate those carbon fees.

And you also show a lack of knowledge of the history of carbon pricing in Ontario. Ontario used to have a cap-and-trade system in place. Not strictly a "carbon tax", but still a cost on fossil fuel use. A change in government eliminated that program. Ontario's reductions in CO2 emissions under the previous government were also partly the result of a policy to eliminate coal-powered electricity production. More than one policy. More than one factor involved in reducing CO2 emissions.

CO2 limits will harm the economy

charles125 at 07:44 AM on 19 March, 2025

Seeing articles like this years later is hilarious, BCs emissions since 2013 have only increased (between 2013 and 2016 they went back up to 2008 levels). Yes their emissions per capita have decreased, but that has been decreasing since before 2008, same with fuel consumption. Also Ontario's total emissions have decreased 19 percent since 2005. Ontario never had a provincial carbon tax scheme. And since the introduction of the federal scheme, emissions per GDP in Canada have only stayed the same, maybe a marginal decrease. This is big govt nonsense not based on economic reality, BC cut income taxes, precisely because they knew the economic impact carbon taxes would have.

Is CO2 plant food? Why are we still talking about this?

Evan at 22:19 PM on 27 February, 2025

People have many roles. A person may be a father, a brother, a son, an employee, a hunter, the list goes on and on. Nobody has just a single role.

It is likely that your boss cares more about your role as an employee than your role as a brother. The role that matters is situational.

CO2 is plant food, carbonator of drinks, key component of CO2 lasers, dry ice, greenhouse gas, the list goes on. The role we care about is situational. CO2 does not have a single role.

Electric vehicle adoption is stumbling, but still growing amid geopolitical clashes

nigelj at 05:17 AM on 25 February, 2025

I agree with Evan and Michael Sweet. Some other possible reasons for the slight decline in EV sales: The high income green leaning early adopters have probably all bought EVs and that is leaving the more cautious general market. The practical advantages of EVs are considerable with good acceleration, lower mainenance costs and running costs but its a lot for the general market to get their heads around and the default position with big expensive purchases is caution.

Theres been a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there about EVs in our media over the last couple of years, as the denialists have switched their attacks from the science onto solutions. I feel that for rapid uptake, EVs would need to be significantly cheaper than ICE cars to overcome the various barriers mentioned. Or as OPOF points out you would need a strong carbon pricing scheme, which kind of amounts to the same thing.

Electric vehicle adoption is stumbling, but still growing amid geopolitical clashes

One Planet Only Forever at 05:08 AM on 25 February, 2025

Evan,

Carbon pricing, massively resisted in the USA, would help.

I will get to carbon pricing. But I will start by commenting on the popular misunderstanding that “Most people are concerned more about meeting their own needs than those of others.”

A better understanding is: Many people have developed to be more concerned with misleading marketing induced ‘wants – incorrectly perceived as needs’ than they are about learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others.

The root of the problem is ‘the developed marketplace competition’. And a relate problem is the marketplace failure to identify, limit, and make amends for harms done.

Marketplace competition for popularity and profit drives the pursuit of perceptions of superiority relative to others, the ‘keeping up with the Jones-es’ nonsense, harmfully amplified by misunderstandings popularized by the science of misleading marketing. That creates ‘misunderstandings and unjustified perceptions of needs that overpower learning to be less harmful and more helpful’.

The competition not being governed by learning to be less harmful and more helpful has produced massively harmful results. The poorly governed free-for-all marketplace has developed:

massively harmful developed ways of living, particularly climate change impacts

massive aspirations to be more like the ‘more harmful perceived winners’

massive resistance to the understandable need to massively and rapidly correct (transition away from) what has developed.

A massive part of that resistance is opposition to carbon pricing on fossil fuels.

The marketplace operation could help protect against the climate change harm being done if the harm of carbon emissions from fossil fuel use was properly priced (it would be a very high price per tonne of CO2e – likely more than $200 USD).

France’s leadership made a massive mistake by introducing a fairly low carbon price without clearly providing adequate additional assistance to the poor. The result was increased popularity of anti-learning populist politicians who paired the opposition to ‘climate science and the understandable need for carbon pricing’ with other harmful anti-learning actions like intolerance for immigrants (those Others).

In Germany the populist AfD opposes climate science and immigration, along with promoting other harmful misunderstandings (see my comment on a previous SkS item here).

Canada’s carbon pricing and rebate program (currently only $80 CAN - $55 USD per tonne of CO2e) benefited the poorest by providing more rebate than the carbon pricing costs they faced. Even our household in the top 10% income bracket got more rebate than we paid because of the choices we made to reduce fossil fuel use. However, the anti-learning populist political players were able to misleadingly market so successfully that all major Canadian political parties have declared they no longer support the carbon pricing program.

How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see

One Planet Only Forever at 05:49 AM on 23 February, 2025

Regarding my comment @5,

Tomorrow’s election in Germany will be an indication of which side is winning the ‘global war on learning to be less harmful and more helpful to others’. The Trump Republicans clearly tried to influence the German election with misleading marketing supporting the AfD (part of their global anti-learning Team effort). ‘Alt-President Musk’ and ‘Trump Republican loyal foot-soldier Vance’ blatantly delivered harmfully misleading messages in support of the AfD during the election campaign, coordinated with their anti-learning partners in Russia ‘Team Putin’.

The February 17, 2025 Clean Energy Wire article “Far-right AfD shifts debate on German climate policy, but lacks real say – researcher” opens with the following:

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) – the second strongest polling party ahead of Germany's snap elections on 23 February – is the only major party to outright reject the scientific consensus behind human-induced climate change. The AfD will likely remain in opposition for the coming term, yet the party's growing strength has influenced the electoral campaign through agenda-setting, says political scientist Manès Weisskircher. While some of their anti-climate protection messages have found support in the wider population, their fundamental criticism of climate action relies on exaggerated claims and leaves nuance out of complicated policy decisions, the researcher who focuses on far-right politics and climate protection at TU Dresden told Clean Energy Wire. Still, a growing support base means other mainstream parties might turn quieter on their climate ambition, Weisskircher warned.

The misleading marketing of anti-learning types competing in business or politics can significantly influence the behaviour of all political leadership competitors.

Another example of harmful anti-learning political populism has happened in Canada with a likely election this spring. The Conservative Party in Canada spent years and lots of money on a massive amount of misleading marketing against the federal requirement for increasing carbon pricing and the federal backstop Carbon Fee and Rebate program that is applied in provinces that do not implement their own adequate carbon pricing program.

Like the AfD actions described above, the Conservative Party marketing made “... exaggerated claims and leaves nuance out of complicated policy decisions...”. They claimed it was a tax without mentioning the rebate. When challenged about the rebate they exaggerated how many people face more cost than the rebate they receive. And they evaded explaining that the alternative ways to reduce emissions would likely be less effective at reducing emissions and be even more expensive for the average consumer.

The Conservative Party misleading marketing has become so popular that their Liberal and NDP election opponents, who had supported the carbon pricing program, have declared that they would not continue the carbon pricing program.

Fact brief - Is sea level rise exaggerated?

TWFA at 03:55 AM on 17 February, 2025

If we

[snip]

are the only reason sea levels are rising, please explain:
Global mean sea level anomalies (mm; blue) and carbon emitted (millions of tonnes; red) since the early 19th century. Reproduced from Fig. 4.1 of Curry (2018). [Sea level from Jevrejeva et al. (2014), carbon from Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC, 2014)].

Global mean sea level anomalies (mm; blue) and carbon emitted (millions of tonnes; red) since the early 19th century. Reproduced from Fig. 4.1 of Curry (2018). [Sea level from Jevrejeva et al. (2014), carbon from Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC, 2014)].

Going back another century on sea levels with the same Jevrejeva data, instead of cutting it off at 1800 like most do for dramatic effect:
Sea Levels since 1700

We see the sea levels were falling prior to the mid-18th century and came to a halt right about the time of the Boston Tea Party. Assuming the 46 tons of tea dumped overboard would make no difference in net displacement, and some other human forcing was required to overcome natural cycles and thermal inertia, what were we doing from, say, 1600 to 1750 to arrest the presumably naturally falling sea levels, bring them to a halt and then begin to raise them back up again by 1800, a century before our emissions amounted to anything?

Just curious, the engine of science is skepticism and this site encourages it, right?

Climate Adam: Is it Game Over for the 1.5 Degree Climate Limit?

nigelj at 07:13 AM on 12 February, 2025

Napalm doesnt look like a great idea for backing up renewables. Napalm is a mixture of petrol or diesel and a gelling agent and burns much hotter than petrol. But its not providing more energy than petrol would just by adding a gelling agent. I assume it burns hotter but not for as long as petrol (?) so has no advantage in power as a fuel source for generating electricity. And dealing with that high temperature and flammability would be a nightmare.

Its also higher carbon than gas fired backup power so its even worse for the climate. It looks like it would be higher cost than petrol or diesel, due to the manufacturing process.

Napalm might have more stable availability than gas, but this looks like it would be negated by the downsides. I just think its a classic example of a crank solution, where people see "higher temperatures" but fail to look at all the related issues.

Climate Adam: Is it Game Over for the 1.5 Degree Climate Limit?

michael sweet at 05:38 AM on 12 February, 2025

Red Rose:

Do you realize you are proposing to replace fossil fuels with napalm when napalm is also a fossil fuel? It is tough to lower carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning using a more refined and energy intensive fossil fuel. Good luck!

Buy solar panels instead.

Climate Adam: Is it Game Over for the 1.5 Degree Climate Limit?

wilddouglascounty at 01:09 AM on 12 February, 2025

RedRose,

Your suggestion is potentially very dangerous and risky for anyone to try, particularly in an indoor environment due to the extreme deoxygenation and carbon monoxide properties of burning napalm in an enclosed room. Why didn't you mention that in conjunction with your very dangerous experiments and when talking about it being used in warzones by people with no other alternatives? People could die playing with your fire, even if they are far enough away from the burning napalm to not get burned. For a hint of napalm's dangers, check out https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/books/NBK537127/

It might be worth considering removing your comment, or at least removing your careless experimenting with it from your comment.

January sets an unexpected temperature record

nigelj at 06:21 AM on 5 February, 2025

PericoDelosPalotes

"I dont think governments, who have access to intel data, really see any urgency:"

I wouldnt use weak governmnet climate policies as a guide to the true severity of the climate problem. Those policies are only weak because governmnets have been captured by the fossil fuels lobby, and governments are scared of losing votes by having strong carbon taxes. Even losing a few votes can be significant. Listen to what the scientists say like Evan says.

2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #05

One Planet Only Forever at 04:43 AM on 4 February, 2025

Living in Alberta I witness more evidence of Cenovus supporting and delivering misinformation marketing than is presentation in the Weekly News item “Cenovus Funded 'Grassroots' Groups That Oppose Climate Laws, Document Reveals” by Geoff Dembicki, DeSmog, Jan 30, 2025.

Cenovus has been running a very misleading video and radio ad that it calls “Helping Canada run smoothly” (you can watch it on YouTube).

The Cenovus ad simply asks the question: What would life be like if fossil fuel production stopped? But it makes an ‘irrational step, twist, leap of faith’ to imply that anything that is imagined to be done using fossil fuels cannot be done any other way. And it implies that actions to reduce the harm done by fossil fuel use, including plastic production, will immediately shut it all down.

The video opens with images of a happy family driving home and taking in a parcel left on their sidewalk then heating a tea kettle with natural gas. And the audio begins with “You might not think much about how a strong oil and gas industry affects your daily life.” It then misleadingly calls it all ‘needs’ and uses the terms ‘essential’ and ‘relied on’ for stuff that is understandably not ‘essential to a decent life’ – if you think about it.

The ad is comically misleading by trying to imply that:

Transportation must be fossil fuelled. Undeniably the family car could have been an EV. But also note that Cenovus is a Calgary-based company. Calgary Public Transit CTrains have been wind powered for decades – CBC 2001 article “City's LRT first in North America to be wind-driven”.

Parcel delivery can only happen via fossil fuels. There already are EV delivery vehicles.

Cooking ‘needs’ to be done with natural gas, likely the deadliest and most harmful modern way of cooking.

A particularly comical bit is that the delivered package has the old-style harmful and wasteful Styrofoam peanut packing that very few parcel packers use today.

An obvious misleading implication is that actions like carbon pricing and emissions caps would immediately end fossil fuel use with no possible alternative ways to do the fossil fuelled stuff.

A more important question, unasked in the Cenovus ad, is: What would life be like without governing actions that effectively limit the harm done by pursuers of profit?

Thoughtful consideration of that question would include: How horrible would life be for the less fortunate, and many of the more fortunate, if pursuers of profit were freer to be as harmful as they could be in their pursuit of maximum profit, including being more secretive, deceptive, and misleading?

Smog and other poisons in the air, but cleaner safer air where the ‘most fortunate’ live.

Contaminated water, but purer and safer for the ‘most fortunate’.

Nutrition deficient and deadlier food, but safe and nutritious for the ‘most fortunate’.

More harmful climate change, but the ‘most fortunate’ living ‘more exclusively’ where it is ‘Better and Safer’ for them.

All of that is understandably the developed reality today. The important question is: Does the future get worse or better for the less fortunate? How does the entire future of humanity become sustainably more fortunate?

How could global warming accelerate if CO2 is 'logarithmic'?

akb at 06:45 AM on 3 February, 2025

We can learn a lot from geological history. Supplementing info from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record), we see that the earth today is relatively cool compared the past 500 million years even though recent ice ages were cooler. From plot of temperatures and CO2 levels over history determined by a variety of means, one sees that the temperaure rise is not linear with CO2 concentrations due Beer's law (it gradually flattens but does not turnover and drop). If we have reached peak fossil-fuel use and phase it out over the same time frame (about a century) we used to reach the peak, we will reach about 550 ppm CO2, which the geologic record says corresponds to about a 3 deg C temperature increase. For comparison, dinosaurs lived at about 1500 ppm CO2 and at temperatures 5-9 deg C higher. Creation of the Devonian black shales and Carboniferous coals dropped CO2 from 4000 ppm to something close to present, with a corresponding drop of about 10-12 deg C. One does not need a supercomputer to know approximately where we are headed.

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

Bob Loblaw at 03:05 AM on 1 February, 2025

sychodefender @ 34:

For feedbacks, they start as soon as any system change occurs. When CO2 rises, it take a bit of time for temperature to rise, and then once temperature rises, atmospheric water vapour will rise, which will have a greenhouse gas heating effect (after a bit of time...), etc.

...but I have left "a bit of time" undefined for the moment. There are many different factors that take varying amounts of time to respond to changes. MA Rodger's response @ 35 touches on several of these factors.

Obviously, day-to-day weather causes changes in temperature, which will cause day-to-day feedback effects, etc. When we talk in terms of climate, though, we are more interested in the persistent changes, and how factors relate over longer periods of time. We also often talk about averages over large areas, not local effects such as your back yard.

Taking MA Rodgers statement about "increased evaporation adds 7% H2O capacity for every +1ºC", we are talking about longer term effects - e.g. decades. You won't see this simple a relationship when discussing day-to-day local weather. This relationship is looking at global trends over decades.

We can't instantaneously double atmospheric CO2 in the real world (thankfully!), but we can in a climate model. Back in 1981, Hansen et al published a well-known paper on CO2 and climate that included an interesting diagram.

Hansen, J., Johnson, D., Lacis, A., Lebedeff, S., Lee, P., Rind, D., & Russell, G. (1981). Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Science, 213(4511), 957-966

They ran a computer model where they instantaneously doubled atmospheric CO2, and their figure 4 shows how energy fluxes changed over time.

Hansen et al (1981) fig 4

This is a somewhat complex diagram, so bear with me a bit.

The first panel shows the immediate response. We see a very slight increase in atmospheric absorption of solar radiation, a larger reduction of IR loss to space, and some changes in the radiation, thermal, and evaporation fluxes between the surface and atmosphere.

A lot of things are now "out of balance", so changes will occur.

Notice that the change in IR loss to space (ΔF) is -2.4 W/m². Combined with the change in solar (ΔS = 0.1), we get a net change of +2.5. This is the "climate forcing" that MA Rodger refers to. This is what drives the overall warming of the earth-atmosphere system.

The atmosphere is the fastest to respond to these energy changes, because it does not require a lot of heat to warm up air. Land will heat up more slowly, and oceans even slower than land.

In the middle panel, we see what is happening "a few months later". The atmosphere has restored its local balance, but the surface has not - so the whole system is still out of balance. Surface temperature (T_s) is still the same as it was at the start.

The net climate forcing is now +3.9 (similar to the 3.7 number MA Rodger states in comment 35. Different models will vary slightly on what this number should be.)

The atmosphere has now had a chance to warm - and get more humid. So now, we see the effects that include the feedback.

With water vapour feedback now active, the net global imbalance has increased from +2.5 to +3.9. Roughly 50% larger than if there was no feedback.

The last panel is "many years later". The entire system has balanced again.

The atmosphere has a net balance of zero.

The surface has a net balance of zero.

The whole system has a net balance of zero.

...but note that many of the internal energy fluxes are different from what they were before CO2 was doubled.

Absorbed solar has change for both the atmosphere and surface. Total net solar (ΔS) has only increased by 0.1, but where it is absorbed is different - more in the atmosphere and less at the surface.

IR loss rates to space have changed. Net change (ΔF) is only 0.1 (to balance the change in ΔS), but again we see that contributions from the surface and atmosphere have changed.

IR exchanges between the surface and atmosphere have changed. The climate is warmer, so IR fluxes have increased in both directions.

Convective fluxes (thermal and evaporation) between the surface and atmosphere have changed slightly.

...and surface temperature is now 2.8C warmer... (Global warming!)

...so we are living in a different climate, with many changes. A new equilibrium, but one that looks quite different from what we are used to.

Hopefully this is not too hard to follow. As stated before, climate is a complex system. It gets quite difficult to to isolate changes in one part from another. Looking at one part can help understanding - but you do need to be careful about over-emphasizing what you see in that one part (and missing another important part). Much of what you can call "contrarian" positions involves over-simplifying the system, to the peril of leaving out parts that do matter. You're doing the right thing by asking questions.

Fact brief - Can CO2 be ignored because it’s just a trace gas?

nigelj at 06:03 AM on 29 January, 2025

Evan @8, and OPOF @9

Interesting. I agree with OPOFs views on the climate issue, in a theoretical sense. For example, it is obvious to me high income people can mostly cut their consumption significantly and still have a decent enough life, and that leaders of society should set an example. However I share Evans concern that greed and self interest get in the way, and human nature is unlikely to change.

But the situation is quite nuanced because most people are not hugely greedy. They clearly make personal sacrifices for a good cause, up to a limit, on average over the population. For example they donate to charity and help others. The majority of people have accepted things like carbon taxes or emissions trading schemes up to a certain extent, knowing this is ultimately a personal sacrifice. This has helped build renewable energy.

I think our job is to persuade people to make as much sacrifice as possible in terms of things like accepting carbon taxes or government subsidy schemes. But it seems unlikely we would get people to make huge personal sacrifices of the type where they stop flying, or turn thermostats down low in the middle of winter and cycle everywhere. These things can become very uncomfortable and have various downsides. This is all why I tend to promote the renewables and electric cars side of the equation. I dont fly much myself , but for many people travel is viewed almost as an essential of life.

The energy consumption issue has another dimension as well. If we cut our levels of energy use too much and too fast it could cause a severe recession and unemployment, as demand is sucked out of the economy. And this means its unlikely such a policy would gain traction. This is why I tend to think we are mostly or almost completely reliant on an energy substitiution process of building renewables and EV's. Im not saying this is the ideal perfect solution - just that is likely the only workable solution in the real world.

I think the misinformation thing is a different issue, although it is used to make greed sound acceptable.

OPOF: "My more global concern is that we could be witnessing the early days of a powerful resurgence leading to many decades, possibly centuries, of global humanity being dominated by extremely harmful misunderstandings."

It has shocked me how 50% of people could support a leader who spreads huge volumes of misinformation. Its really a bit depressing and shows how thin the veneer of civilisation is. However its hard to say how long harmful misunderstandings would last. If a harmful misunderstanding causes a global trajedy like a nuclear war the pendulum might quickly swing back to the need to truth and accuracy. Or maybe people will just tire of all the misinformation and normality will be restored quite quickly. But in the medieval period of human history, the middle ages, people believed in complete nonsense and it was a dark time that lasted over 1000 years. It kind of self corrected as people slowly realised their lack of accurate information was holding them back and science emerged to promote accurate information. But that was a slow process. Maybe a centuries long period of misinformation could happen again especially if there is a huge drop in trust in science. We must do all we can to counter that.

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

MA Rodger at 02:42 AM on 29 January, 2025

sychodefender @30,

Another take on answering you questioning....

As you say, the climate forcing from mankind's CO2 emissions does cause feedbacks, these most evident in the water cycle, humidity, cloud cover, cloud height (this last the least understood). But there is no "self-sustaining loop" or even any significant CO2 emissions consequent from mankind's emissions as a feedback. There is thus no need for a natural mechanism to prevent run-away global warming.

You mention CO2 in this "natural mechanism" and CO2 has operated naturally as the major control knob for the climate through the eons. (Calling CO2 the 'control knob' should not be in any way controiversial.) The ancient Earth's climate is a bit of a mystery as the sun was less energetic in the early solar system (and from its weak beginning will continue to strengthen) and with no means of knowing the ancient atmospheric composition the 'faint sun paradox' remains unexplained. More recently, over the last 500 million years the temperature record is reasonably well known. (Through that time the sun has brightened by about 5% which is a climate forcing equivalent to roughly a quadrupling of CO2.) 500My Earth temperature

There are a few very-long-term mechanisms at work altering the carbon available for the carbon cycle (in the atmosphere, bliosphere and ocean waters, these being in equilibrium for multi-millenial periods).
Taking CO2 from the atmosphere into rocks as coal was a major process in warm climates for early parts of this 500My period as back then fungi were not well developed enough to decompose plants which could thus be buried and turned to coal. Modern fungi prevents such significant coal formation.
A second mechanism is the water-weathering of mountain rocks which allows the formation of carboniferous rock in sea water. When the 700Gt(C) humanity has emitted so far has reachen equilibrium between biosphere, ocean and atmosphere (which takes abut a millenium), the remaining 25% of our emissions in the atmosphere (assuming only natural processes) will require rock-weathering to be extracted, this taking tens of millenia to complete. At a similar rate of action, the formation of the Himalayas and associated increase in rock-weathering has seen the atmospheric CO2 content drop over the last 50 million years and with it the cooling of the planet.
Once this deposit of carbon into the geology occurs, it is volcanism that works to return it to the carbon cycle. Thus when the planet is so cold that there is no rain to weather rocks and no significant biosphere at work, the volcanic activity will slowly pump CO2 back into the atmosphere restoring the level of greenhouse effect. The emissions are very small relative to mankind's emissions (perhaps about 1%).

You mention Milankovitch cycles which have been waggling the planet's temperature for the past 3 million years (initially as a 40ky cycle, then 100ky).
The Milankovitch cycles are not so strong in themselves but are amplified by positive feedbacks. Within these cycles, CO2 is part of that positive feedback (increasing the size of the wobbles) with carbon being locked away under frozen land and in cooling oceans under increased sea ice. However the big driver of recent ice ages is albedo not CO2.

You mention the logarithmic relationship between CO2 levels and climate forcing. This is an empirical relationship for concentrations in the range 150ppm to 1300ppm. As Zhong & Haig (2013) fig 6 shows, beyond 1300ppm the forcings increase faster than logarithmic. By then, of course, an increase in the CO2 consentrations would need to be four-times an increase to add the same extra forcing. But we don't want to be creating a world with 1300ppm. It would have already been under a forcing of 8.4Wm^-2 from the extra CO2, perhaps global warming of +7ºC.

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

sychodefender at 09:56 AM on 27 January, 2025

Hi Bob, interested to hear your comments on this paper regarding co2. Isotopes.

https://www.mdpi.com/2413-4155/6/1/17#:~:text=The%20stable%20carbon%20isotopes%2012,an%20established%20standard%20reference%20material

Fact brief - Can CO2 be ignored because it’s just a trace gas?

One Planet Only Forever at 05:00 AM on 27 January, 2025

Evan @6,

Your make a good point about the sensitivity of our amazing planet’s global climate conditions. It has prompted the following thoughts regarding attempts to ignore or dismiss CO2 impacts ...

The warming impact of increased levels of CO2 have been understood for more than 125 years. And the natural causes of glaciation and inter-glacial periods, like the Milankovitch cycles, have been reasonably understood for more than 80 years.

A challenging understanding, an inconvenient truth, is that human CO2 impacts causing global warming may be helpful in the future but are not helpful now. Those distant future actions could make the next natural glaciation event more ‘livable’.

The next glaciation is expected to naturally happen about 50,000 years from now. But studies, like the one reported in the Carbon Brief in 2016: Human emissions will delay next ice age by 50,000 years, indicate that the human caused increased CO2 levels have likely delayed the next glaciation by 50,000 years. That is nothing to be proud of. It was Too Much Too Soon.

It would be ‘great’ if lots of easy to access fossil fuels were still available for future humans to use to limit the negative impacts of future glaciations.

Fossil fuels are undeniably non-renewable. Future generations cannot benefit from burning them as much as current generations do. Rapidly ending fossil fuel use would leave more ‘limited resources’ for the benefit of future generations and reduce the climate change harm done to people today and to future generations. However, the ‘competitive marketplace’ fails to ‘naturally’ develop towards those understandably ‘great’ objectives. In fact, there is ample evidence that the marketplace developed, and continues to develop, misinformation efforts against the development of such ’helpful external influences on the marketplace’.

The undeniable marketplace efforts against learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others clarifies what competitive free market activity can be expected to accomplish. The fundamental market function is managing the distribution and benefits from the use of scarce resources. It develops replacement alternatives as resources become scarcer. However, the marketplace will only seriously develop replacements that are less expensive than the increased cost of the activities that rely on scarcer resources (note political efforts to reduce the costs of fossil fuels).

More importantly, the market is unlikely to care to reduce harm or ensure that harm done is repaired. Limiting harm done, and avoiding the challenge of getting the beneficiaries of harm done to repair the damage done, requires external influence to make the more harmful ways less popular, more difficult, and more expensive.

Hopefully efforts to limit the success of misinformation, not just regarding climate science, will result in more helpful and less harmful political action. It is common sense that political actions need to be less likely to cycle in ways that are significantly negative for the future of humanity. However, limiting the sensitivity of political actions to harmful misunderstandings is likely less certain than improving the understanding of the sensitivity of the climate on this amazing planet to the impacts of human activity.

Scientific understanding is certain to be constantly improving the ability to develop sustainable improvements and limit harm done - The politics of popularity of beliefs is not certain to develop sustainable improvements or limit harm done.

Moving away from high-end emissions scenarios

MA Rodger at 00:02 AM on 25 January, 2025

To put some other numbers into this interchange.

Regarding rates of emissions:-
The Global Carbon Project give data for the various fossil fuel types going way back. Their budgets back to1959 also show numbers for Land Use Change emissions (as well as the ocean absorption and the land absorption).
The 1980 wobble in emissions resulted from the 1970s oil crisis driving efficiency measures but the high 1970s oil price led to over-production and what was called the "1980s oil glut" thus ending the wobble. I'm not so sure about talk in that link of a slow-down in economic growth also being a factor as use of gas and coal doesn't seem to have shown any signs of this oil-use wobble and continued apace (as this OurWorldInData graph shows). OurWorldInData FF use

Regarding atmospheric levels:-
The Land Use Change emissions are a significant part of global emissions and when added to FF emissions allow the calculation of the Atmospheric Fraction (Af) which is the annual ration (Atmospheric increase)/(Man-made emissions). This has remained pretty constant since the 1960s altough there is no underlying reason for it**.
The land-based absorption provides the lion's share of the wobbles in the Af with El Niño the primary wobble-driver.

(**If an emissions-free world had a single emissions event, the annual absorption in Year 1 would be about 3% and through following non-emissions years the annual absorption would slowly decrease to zero over a millenium. How much atmospheric CO2 then remained would depend on the size of the emission - so roughly 25% remaining if the emission event was 600Gt(C), this the very rough size of our cumulative emissions to date.)

Moving away from high-end emissions scenarios

RickyO at 19:39 PM on 22 January, 2025

Thanks.

Taking into account all of the above, it's plausible that we're burning through the remaining carbon budget faster than the calculations (budget minus emissions) show.

Moving away from high-end emissions scenarios

nigelj at 05:59 AM on 22 January, 2025

Evans graph shows atmospheric concentrations of CO2 continuing to increase and possibly even accelerating further , despite a reduction in the rate of emissions growth over the past ten years. According to Carbon brief: "Total global CO2 emissions have notably plateaued in the past decade (2015-24), growing at only 0.2% per year compared to the 1.9% rate of growth over the previous decade (2005-214) and the longer-term average growth rate of 1.7% between 1959 and 2014." This all seems perplexing.

I think there would be several possibilities why this is happening.

1). The possibility that reduction in the growth rate of emissions omits some sources of emissions as Ricky O points out such as burning wood pellets and the canadian wildfires. Also as the oceans warm and the permafrost melts, they release CO2 to the atmosphere. This process may be accelerating and thus negating the reduction in the growth rate of emissions, until emissions growth stops and emissions fall sufficiently.

2)The reduction in the growth rate of emissions is still within the margin of measuring error for growth in atmospheric concentrations so it hasnt shown up yet

3). There is no reduction in the growth rate of emissions because countries are not accurately reporting their emissions. However there are obvious ways of international agencies objectively assessing this such as data on the construction of renewable energy. I find it hard to believe that there is no reduction in emissions growth, although it is probably exaggerated to some extent.

Moving away from high-end emissions scenarios

RickyO at 23:14 PM on 21 January, 2025

Evan,

Because declared CO2 emissions are not the same as CO2 released into the atmosphere.

For example:

www.chathamhouse.org/2021/10/greenhouse-gas-emissions-burning-us-sourced-woody-biomass-eu-and-uk/annex-emissions-wood

and CO2 comes from other sources.

For example:

www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-nasa-study-tallies-carbon-emissions-from-massive-canadian-fires/

Fact brief - Can CO2 be ignored because it’s just a trace gas?

Noel Yrrep at 07:56 AM on 19 January, 2025

Carbon dioxide is a trace gas, but to put that in perspective, the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere is not physically insubstantial.

Focusing on parts per million to the exclusion of actual amounts is employing a mathematical sleight of hand. A sleight of hand that suits those who don't accept the scientific orthodoxy behind the 'warming' role of CO₂.

Each part per million of CO₂ in the atmosphere represents approximately 2.13 gigatonnes of carbon, or 7.82 gigatonnes of CO₂.

422 parts per million represents 3,300 gigatonnes of CO₂.

422 parts per million represents 3,300,000,000,000 tonnes of CO2.

Which is why "trace" amounts of CO₂ supports the massive amount of plant life on land and in water.

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Philippe Chantreau at 06:28 AM on 19 January, 2025

Michael,

I know I won't change your mind about nuclear as a large scale solution, but please give me the courtesy of keeping up the quality of argument expected from all participants here. I don't doubt that you have some notion of what kind of analysis is required before one can claim that some days are "representative" and I am sure that, if anyone on this forum was to make such claim on any subject, they would be asked to produce substantation.

There is an abundant literature about load following and and it disagrees with your contention that it is by nature uneconomical. Here is an example, that I have no doubt you could find just as easily as I could. It also contains information as to how the load following is achieved and it is not through shutting down the reaction. Virtually all reactors currently in use in France were designed for load following. Wikipedia has a page on load following, which is also very easy to find.

The reason EDf was partially privatized in 2004 was to satisfy a EU mandate. The following years saw underinvestment in infrastructure and maintenance. There was a number of problems with several reactors in 2021-22 but these have now been resolved and the parc is again exporting electricity all over Europe, so, once again, using the adverb "lately" is a little imprecise whren talking about the capacity decrease of 2021/22.

I won't dispute that nuclear electricity is more expensive than coal gas or oil, that is a fact. The carbon footprint, however, is much better. Perhaps there is a price to that, although that was not the reason why it was initially chosen as a solution.

I know very little about the US nculear reactor fleet and how it ise used, so I won't comment on that.

My contention is that France's programme has been largely successful and has produced yearly terawatts of carbon free electricity for decades. If not produced from that source, what would they have been using instead over the past 60 years? Oil, coal and gas, like England and Germany or even Denmark? Would that truly have been better?

Exploring the drivers of modern global warming

RickyO at 21:23 PM on 17 January, 2025

Zeke,

I'm troubled by the CO2 curve on the graph 'Analysis of decadal warming rates as the sum of different contributing factors between 1905 and 2024' and the explanation "The rate of warming from CO2 has increased over time as emissions have increased, though it has plateaued over the past decade as CO2 emissions have plateaued.

Surely, in considering CO2 as a driver it's the measured amount in the atmosphere which is important, not the partially contrived CO2 'emissions' (as in eg. the carbon neutral burning of wood pellets).

I'm struggling to understand why the rate of warming from CO2 has plateaued in the last 10 yrs, while the conc of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to increase relentlessly (independant of 'emissions')

www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide

(Figs 1&2)

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Philippe Chantreau at 03:40 AM on 11 January, 2025

I also noted an inconsistency between posts #365 and 367 above:

In # 365, the following quote from Wikipedia is cited: "France's nuclear reactors comprise 90 per cent of EDFs capacity and so they are used in load-following mode and some reactors close at weekends because there is no market for the electricity."

In # 367, this comes back as: "the plants shut down during the highest demand periods during the summer and on weekends. Fossil fuels make up what nuclear fails to generate." That would be the very opposite of what the previous quote says: not following the load.

The reason why some plants are tuned down and/or taken off line is indeed the one in #367, i.e. they are used in load following mode. They are not "shut down" during the highest demand period, they are ramped up, that much is clearly visible in the data. As I have pointed before, the eCO2mix data shows that peak demand is, in the vast majority of cases, associated with peak nuclear production.

Furthermore, fossil fuel use in the generation mix in France is very limited. Oil and coal are almost negligible. Gas is marginal and, to my knowledge, used because of its very fast reaction time. Wind is very well developed: on the morning of January 1st, gas was at 1.8GW, when total wind production was close to 19GW (more than 10 times higher). Compare that to Texas, a leader in the US for wind electricity, where production peaks around 10GW on windy summer days.

Looking at the end of December and the beginning of January so far, I see that the share of gas is lower than wind, and the total amount exported is greater than the share of gas. Looking at longer periods, it is apparent that the overall share of wind power over time is larger than gas. France certainly can't be accused of being a bad actor in limiting the carbon emissions of electricity production in Europe. The European grid is highly interconnected and synchronous (except for the UK), even extending into North Africa; there are a lot of international factors involved in France's total production and level of export. I am skeptical of the claim that the exploitation of their nuclear plants is uneconomical.

In any case, achieving a carbon intensity per kWh that is a factor of 10 lower than neighboring countries, while retaining affordable rates is not a bad result. Despite high amounts of fuels used for road transportation, France has per capita CO2 emissions lower than Denmark, Germany, Finland or Italy. Sweden does better but, like Norway or Quebec, they are in a very privileged position for hydro generation; still, about 30% of their production is from nuclear.

That being said, the long term future needs serious planning. France's existing nuclear power plants can not last for ever. Much has been said of the outages of 2021/22. Some of it was valid, and some of it was spin. One could say that they showed a safety system that works, a grid resilient enough to withstand the outages, and problems that could be detected and solved.

Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the 30-50 year horizon demands solutions. I don't know that renewables can be increased to the 50+GW they would have to produce. That is way above my pay grade.

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Philippe Chantreau at 04:10 AM on 10 January, 2025

Michael,

At the scale of the country and in the timeline where it happened, nuclear power in France DID significantly reduce reliance on fossil fuel, that is how they achieved such a low carbon emission per kWh. It was the very reason for the Messmer plan and it did succeed to a large extent. As to whether that can be scaled up far beyond the country, that is another question.

There may be a semantic issue between you and David-acct also: once the reaction is started, a nuclear reactor is not "shut down" except in an emergency or for major maintenance. The reaction is always going, albeit with up and down modulations. The part that is "shut down" is the electricity fed into the grid. It would be perhaps more accurate to say they are taken off line or partially off line, but they certainly do not stop the reaction.

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