[Response: I think I understand your question now. My feeling is that all is not lost. What we are seeing is reduced carbon uptake by the natural world, not an actual CO2 release from the natural world yet. David]
i was wondering, when reading Canadell et al, about the strong interannual variability of the terrestrial carbon sink: as it is the remainder of the “emissions - airbourne fraction” term and the calculated ocean uptake, it reflects more or less the variability of the airbourne fraction.
Now do global vegetation models simulate this strong variability, when forced with observed climate (i would think this would be a good test, both for models and for the way carbon sinks are calculated) ?
is this variability somehow related to Nino events, volcanic events, or anything like that ?
Thanks -
[Response: Don’t take this as an authoritative answer, but my hunch is there’s a lot of noise in the terrestrial sink, which is all done by difference. I suspect there may be variability in ocean carbon fluxes that models don’t simulate. The land gets blamed for everything we don’t understand. I could be wrong about this. David]
— CO2 dissolving into the ocean as ions (raising pH) that ought to go on til it’s in equilibrium with the atmosphere, wherever that level ends up, right?
—- actual removal from dissolved CO2 — being ’sunk’ out of the oceans (as by calcite and aragonite shells from plankton sinking into sediment, long term removal from cycling back to the atmosphere)?
I know in some deep water where CO2 levels are higher, the calcite and aragonite do end up dissolving back into the ocean water even now. There’s a depth below which that always happens, and that can change as levels in the ocean of dissolved CO2 increase and pH increases.
[Response: Wow, finally you ask a question, Hank, that I’m competent to answer! CO2 dissolves in the ocean mostly be reacting with dissolved carbonate ion, CO3(2-), to form bicarbonate, HCO3-. This will continue happening, but the concentration of carbonate ion decreases as CO2 rises, so seawater loses its buffer strength. The response of CaCO3 is to dissolve, replenishing the carbonate ion. Fossil fuel CO2 can’t deposit as CaCO3 without a source of base, from weathering igneous rocks, which takes hundreds of thousands of years. Or deliberate chemical treatment is possible, speeding up the process. David]
I read this site regularly, although I have no science background. So I’m pretty hesitant to comment. But this especially sounds so dire. How much do you, as scientists steeped in this research, feel that human life on this planet has a fragile future at best? (I realize this is a broad question, so if it’s not applicable, please delete it.)
[Response: Don’t despair. If nothing else, it’s unproductive. The technology exists to cut CO2 emissions to safe levels at reasonable cost. David]
this is a very helpful essay -let for the non atmospheric scientist.
I hope for more of these, on the subject of the ocean atmosphere interface and for more extended comments by those better read than myself
Do we know offhand if there’s been a change to the level of calcium carbonate? I ran across a paper a few days ago (forgot to save a link) explaining how reduced CaCO3 tends to increase the partial pressure of CO2. Could erosion control during the last century have reduced the amount of calcium (and magnesium) oxides and carbonates entering the ocean? Could this be part of the reason?
[Response: CO2 reacts with dissolved CO3(2-) in the water, and that in turn provokes CaCO3 to dissolve. I don’t know if an extra dissolution signal has been detected yet, however. David]
How do photosynthesizing organisms such as phytoplankton fit into the picture?
Also, to explicate Shannon’s question: Much has been made of 450 ppm as a threshold beyond which Very Bad Things will probably happen. Shannon is asking (more or less) “Are we already there?”
[Response: Ocean biology, if it were to continue unaffected by the changing circulation, temperature, or pH, would have no effect on fossil fuel CO2 because it was sending carbon to the deep sea, and it would continue. But if the biology changes in some way, it would affect ocean uptake. One possibility is reduced formation of CaCO3 by surface ocean algae and corals. This would accelerate the absorbtion of CO2 a little bit. David]
I think Shannon means, are we seeing a carbon sink saturation/slowdown much earlier than anticipated, i.e. not by 2050 at 450 ppm CO2e as some predictions have it, but 2007 at 380 ppm CO2e. Perhaps yet further evidence that feedbacks are kicking in more rapidly than anticipated just a few years ago.
[Response: Everyone seems to have understood Shannon’s question except for me. I still don’t know the answer, though. Forecasting the carbon cycle seems to be a tricky business. David]
I think Canadell is a very important piece, in part because it quantifies the recarbonization of the energy system and in part because it shows that emissions are rising faster than the IPCC’s fastest-growing computer model scenario–even the one that was not included in the latest report because scientists thought it was unrealistically high. I blogged on it here:
I read several weeks ago that the waters off the N. American NW Pacific coast from Oregon to Alaska have become too acidic. This includes not only dissolved CO2, but nitric and sulfuric acids from the atmosphere & water pollution.
As a paleontologist(retired), I can add that the geological record contains strong evidence of several events coupled w/GW of oceans reaching their CO2 retention capacity, in which increased acidification along continental selves & near-shore environments led to widespread invertebrate extinctions. Many benthic organisms in particular are affected because they can no longer produce calcium carbonate.
Increased acidification & the inevitable dramatic decrease in dissolved oxygen no doubt put all marine organisms at risk of extinction. The overall effect being extensive eutrification creating anoxic comditions extending to the continental shelves. Such events have accompanied many mass extinction events.
Thus, the present increased acidity in conjunction w/increasingly common & enlarging Dead Zones along continental shelves from polluted stream water are putting the oceans in extreme peril. If the oceans, being the global food chain base, ‘die’, this will inevitably lead to terrestrial extinctions.
These feedback effects on the marine biosphere, rapidly spreading drought, groundwater depletion, salt water intrusion & stream pollution are *The Most Serious consequences of GW*. These problems are already in motion & must be addressed immediately. Not to minimize the disasterous consequences of sea level rise-especially for Eurasia, but sea levels rise gradually. This gives many coastal communities time to adjust by infrastructure reconstruction & rezoning, compared to the consequences of losing water & food from the former. It’s ALL About Ocean Health & Water.
As Kelvin Rudolfo of U of I, Chicago (the finest lecturer & field instructor I’ve ever known & with whom it was an honor to have been a grad assistant) once concluded in a dramatic, moving undergad lecture on GW in the 70s: “What does all this mean?….Learn to Farm!”.
Sidd, “what does outcrop mean?” — here it means deep ocean water rising up to the surface — and “deep ocean” means water that sank to the depths long ago, at least a century, perhaps up to a thousand years ago. How long it takes for the ocean to circulate is still being figured out.
The paper I mentioned was actually a chapter of Greenhouse Gas Sinks Edited by D Reay, University of Edinburgh, UK; N Hewitt, University of Lancaster, UK; J Grace, University of Edinburgh, UK; K A Smith.
Oceans are not the only sinking sink. A paper in Nature a couple of years ago showed a steady release of carbon from soils in the UK (independent of land use):
It’s not quite Henry’s law since pCO2 from the ocean also varies with [H(+)]^2 and that mean small changes in pH can set off decarbonization of the upper ocean. Local changes in pH could have a significant effect.
[Response: Henry’s law applies to the dissolved CO2 species, and also, in this case, to the hydrated form of CO2, carbonic acid, H2CO3. These two species are lumped together into what is called H2CO3* as an operational thing because it is difficult to measure the proportions of the hydrated and unhydrated forms. The expression for Henry’s law is that pCO2 / H2CO3* = a constant KH. The constant is very sensitive to temperature, somewhat to salinity. The relative concentrations of the other forms of carbon, bicarbonate (HCO3-) and carbonate ion (CO32-) are controlled as you say by the acidity of the seawater solution and the dissociation constants for carbonic acid K1 and K2. All these K’s are equilibrium constants, they just have different names by convention. Semantically, the pH behavior is not called Henry’s law, but you are absolutely correct that changing the pH has a huge effect on the amount of CO2 that wants to come out into the gas phase. Acidify seawater completely and it would foam like beer. David]
I did not know that papers were still sold by the bushel. But, this post is worth a bushel and peck of that peer reviewed stuff.
How about the recent popular press reports of methane bubbling out of Arctic lakes? Is that new, or just folks taking notice of something that has always happened?
[Response: Apologies for the non-SI unit. What was I thinking? Should have used m3 or kg. David]
you say that ‘….The climate changes triggered a strong positive carbon cycle feedback which is, yes, still poorly understood.’
As this is one of the $64,000 questions in terms of how this will all pan out, I wonder, if you have the time, if you could give a few references of your selelection the better published articles on this question, however limitted the conclusions.
[Response: My own latest thoughts on the topic are here. No single mechanism can do the entire CO2 drawdown by itself, we resorted to a “stew” of ideas. An earlier review paper of the conundrum is here. David]
The comment above is worth repeating: Increased acidification & the inevitable dramatic decrease in dissolved oxygen no doubt put all marine organisms at risk of extinction. The overall effect being extensive eutrification creating anoxic comditions extending to the continental shelves. Such events have accompanied many mass extinction events.
The offshore low oxygen zone in the Eastern North Pacific off of Oregon is one example. This has been going on for six consecutive years and may very well become a permanent feature.
By the way, this is yet another argument against ocean iron fertilization as a means of generating carbon offsets for the cap-and-trade carbon market. Assisting in the eutrophication of the oceans is a very bad idea!
Regarding the methane from lakes in Siberia, here’s the Nature paper:
Letter
They radiocarbon-dated the methane and found that the last time those carbon atoms were in the atmosphere was around 30-40,000 years ago. The conclusions of their paper are as follows:
“In conclusion, we have shown that North Siberian lakes are a significantly larger source of atmospheric CH4 than previously recognized. Emissions are dominated by ebullition, a mode of emission that we have quantified using the new technique of mapping bubbling point sources. This CH4 source is largely fuelled by thermokarst, and we have linked the expansion of thaw lakes during recent decades with a 58% increase in lake CH4 emissions, demonstrating a new feedback to climate warming. Though the recent increase in flux due to lake expansion is modest relative to anthropogenic emissions, the 500 Gt of labile Pleistocene-aged C in ice-rich yedoma permafrost could greatly intensify the positive feedback to high-latitude warming by releasing tens of thousands of teragrams of CH4 through ebullition from thermokarst lakes if northeast Siberia continues to warm in the future, as projected.”
If, say, half of that 500 GT of carbon in the permafrost ends up in the atmosphere, that would be the equivalent of about 80 years of anthropogenic CO2 emissions at today’s rates. How fast would that happen? No idea. How long will it take to melt the Greenland ice sheet at current forcings? Melt it will, but how fast? 100 years? 1000 years?
The sane response to such uncertainties is to eliminate the use of fossil fuels asap and replace them with renewable energy sources.
Rephrase: Are we seeing some of the predicted effects at 380 PPM that we expected to see at 450 PPM?
[Response: I’m not real up on the details of what the carbon cycle models, in particular the terrestrial biosphere carbon cycle models, predicted about when they’d start releasing co2 rather than taking it up. I don’ think those models are very well grounded in observations, just my opinion. I guess the turnaround though is happening faster than they predicted. David]
Changes in ocean circulation are not only going to kill a lot of sea life, but there is positive feedback again on greenhouse gas and warming acceleration … and the ‘closing of the door’ on for ever on the solution of using sea ecosystems to sink the carbon back where it came from, living bionmass in thriving oceans [as distinct from our largely dead and dying ones]
… but as if that currently almost half-complete death of the base of sea life [corals and phytoplankton] , there is something people do not seem even be aware of let alone to have modelled, the methane hydrate distribution on continental shelves is controlled by ocean temperature LOCALLY … just changing the ocean circulation at almost any coastline can trigger massive methane release without any increase in average earth temperature!
… the amount of methane is potentially so massive that it could even swamp the breakdown of methane in the atmosphere with sudden massive acceleration in warming due to methane persisting far longer
… in any case we shall never be able to recover from this input because it triggers warming and then the rest of the methane will be released as well and its likely all over … thermal run-away
life is demonstrably not coping with the current rate of change, measurements suggest it is four times the maximum rate at which many species are changing their location and habits in failing attempts to adapt… we have not the time to sit around just talking any longer, we need things back under control in all-out emergency action , it is simply irrational to find out what we overlooked after it commits us all to slow death …
The pictures painted to decision makers are of a sort of trade-off between cost and inconvenience of change as against temperature rise and some damage to nature [some say 50% by 2050, some say sooner] … no-one seems to be pointing out that one cannot damage nature 50% and it stop there, by that stage we have committed ourselves to almost complete death of the planetary life system and ourselves with it…
The ‘fiddling whilst Rome burns’ analogy comes to mind… we know the atmosphere is disturbed, we know we are disturbing the sea circulation…. it really is time that all these things were reducing, not accelerating in positive feedback already ,out of control ,as the figures indicate they are …
it is not time for another five years research before acting , it is time to mobilise everyone on the planet to change our way of life [one of the biggest ‘inertias’ in the system is humanity’s reluctance to change and learning time of new ways] …
It is seriously time to stop playing brinkmanship with existence of life on earth …and that is the thing we are gambling with against what is currently, but briefly a fairly small expense in best prudent insurance now [compared to massively increasing cost as time goes on, until no amount of money can save the ecosystems and us at a time which may easily be not far ahead , some say it is here already … there is absolutely no justification for risking all life on this planet for even massive expense, but we may well have a tiny window for doing it cheaply whilst the seas are somewhat alive … their death is not linear in time either …
We simply cannot have time for the mistake some dozen groups are playing with of just creating algal blooms which must then die , depriving the ocean of oxygen and with no great sequestration of CO2 to deep deposits or even guarantee that more co2 will not be released long term…
It is a crude sledgehammer approach where a hundredth of the amount of iron used could be chelated and fed in slow-release to the oceans to let the ecosystems expand, saving the seas and sinking truly massive amounts of CO2 into living biomass as the seas exponentially grow back to life UNDER OUR CONTROL and monitoring…
We even get vastly more food out of the process to offset the cost , enough to feed all people at last and at low cost , and off-setting the crippling loss of fertility of the land from modern farming methods…
If we all plant trees on our land , we can do much the same on the land too…
A serious look at the motor car shows that we would actually live vastly healthier lives without it and its pollution even without the massive contribution stopping using petrol and diesel cars would be to bringing things under control… this really is a win-win situation , a no-brainer … helping the earth and improving our quality of life at the same time…
Why are people not doing this? Do they not know yet? It seems even politicians mostly do not know that we are accelerating down the slippery slopes already , nor appreciate the extent of the damage , so how can the people ?
I just do not understand either how when we know that we don’t know all that could go wrong ,that we don’t play prudent and safe, extra-cautious until we do know , when we are playing for stakes of almost all life on earth, our own existence…
We are not then even considering the worst case scenarios and then maximising the chance of avoiding them, but why not? Since we all die in those cases, surely they are to ones to consider and ensure we maximise chances of avoiding them …
What we have at present i think is that even the best policy on the table is of somewhat less than 50% chance of keeping below 2C … but 2C is the point where some believe thermal run-away sets in… that makes no sense then at all as a policy, we want a close to zero chance of getting to that 2C point, not for it being more likely than not!
Again, methane release in the sea is being reported off South America, let us hope that it is only very local vulcanism or sea-bed shift , because if it is not we likely are too late to stop the ‘clathrate gun’ being triggered by ocean current changes kicking it off by merely LOCAL temperature rise over massive methane hydrate deposits … caused by just any ocean current shift with no average temperature rise of the earth needed to make it kick in…
I just do not get the confidence that men imagine that we can control this whenever we like , we really do not know that!
and the cost of doing so when we finally do so is exponentiating as we speak , what point is there at all in not doing all that can be done now, immediately ???
Equally we cannot just sit around and let the seas die, if we let 50% of species die off on the planet currently predicted , then it doesn’t stop there! … take any key organ out of our body and the whole dies, lose any key species and the ecosystem dies , almost all of it , and then we ourselves cannot survive that… the ecosystem that feed us will be committed to death long before v50% of species are extinct … putting it as percentage is misleading, this is NOT a linear process at all,not even close …
How can mankind not be working flat out to absolute first priority to minimise the chance of that, by every single method we know …I just don’t understand our complacency at all … we pride ourselves on intelligence , but this matter makes people dumb as rabbits caught in the headlights , standing inactive in the path of an approaching truck…
There is so much we can get going on immediately to get things moving back toward control, out of positive feedback and it just isn’t even beginning to happen… instead we are not even aiming to give ourselves half a chance to avoid pushing nature to the edge where there is no return…
It is less than imprudent, it is irrational in extreme … Changes in ocean circulation are not only going to kill a lot of sea life, but there is positive feedback again on greenhouse gas and warming acceleration … and the ‘closing of the door’ on for ever on the solution of using sea ecosystems to sink the carbon back where it came from, living bionmass in thriving oceans [as distinct from our largely dead and dying ones]
… but as if that currently almost half-complete death of the base of sea life [corals and phytoplankton] , there is something people do not seem even be aware of let alone to have modelled, the methane hydrate distribution on continental shelves is controlled by ocean temperature LOCALLY … just changing the ocean circulation at almost any coastline can trigger massive methane release without any increase in average earth temperature!
… the amount of methane is potentially so massive that it could even swamp the breakdown of methane in the atmosphere with sudden massive acceleration in warming due to methane persisting far longer
… in any case we shall never be able to recover from this input because it triggers warming and then the rest of the methane will be released as well and its likely all over … thermal run-away
life is demonstrably not coping with the current rate of change, measurements suggest it is four times the maximum rate at which many species are changing their location and habits in failing attempts to adapt… we have not the time to sit around just talking any longer, we need things back under control in all-out emergency action , it is simply irrational to find out what we overlooked after it commits us all to slow death …
The pictures painted to decision makers are of a sort of trade-off between cost and inconvenience of change as against temperature rise and some damage to nature [some say 50% by 2050, some say sooner] … no-one seems to be pointing out that one cannot damage nature 50% and it stop there, by that stage we have committed ourselves to almost complete death of the planetary life system and ourselves with it…
The ‘fiddling whilst Rome burns’ analogy comes to mind… we know the atmosphere is disturbed, we know we are disturbing the sea circulation…. it really is time that all these things were reducing, not accelerating in positive feedback already ,out of control ,as the figures indicate they are …
it is not time for another five years research before acting , it is time to mobilise everyone on the planet to change our way of life [one of the biggest ‘inertias’ in the system is humanity’s reluctance to change and learning time of new ways] …
It is seriously time to stop playing brinkmanship with existence of life on earth …and that is the thing we are gambling with against what is currently, but briefly a fairly small expense in best prudent insurance now [compared to massively increasing cost as time goes on, until no amount of money can save the ecosystems and us at a time which may easily be not far ahead , some say it is here already … there is absolutely no justification for risking all life on this planet for even massive expense, but we may well have a tiny window for doing it cheaply whilst the seas are somewhat alive … their death is not linear in time either …
We simply cannot have time for the mistake some dozen groups are playing with of just creating algal blooms which must then die , depriving the ocean of oxygen and with no great sequestration of CO2 to deep deposits or even guarantee that more co2 will not be released long term…
It is a crude sledgehammer approach where a hundredth of the amount of iron used could be chelated and fed in slow-release to the oceans to let the ecosystems expand, saving the seas and sinking truly massive amounts of CO2 into living biomass as the seas exponentially grow back to life UNDER OUR CONTROL and monitoring…
We even get vastly more food out of the process to offset the cost , enough to feed all people at last and at low cost , and off-setting the crippling loss of fertility of the land from modern farming methods…
If we all plant trees on our land , we can do much the same on the land too…
A serious look at the motor car shows that we would actually live vastly healthier lives without it and its pollution even without the massive contribution stopping using petrol and diesel cars would be to bringing things under control… this really is a win-win situation , a no-brainer … helping the earth and improving our quality of life at the same time…
Why are people not doing this? Do they not know yet? It seems even politicians mostly do not know that we are accelerating down the slippery slopes already , nor appreciate the extent of the damage , so how can the people ?
I just do not understand either how when we know that we don’t know all that could go wrong ,that we don’t play prudent and safe, extra-cautious until we do know , when we are playing for stakes of almost all life on earth, our own existence…
We are not then even considering the worst case scenarios and then maximising the chance of avoiding them, but why not? Since we all die in those cases, surely they are to ones to consider and ensure we maximise chances of avoiding them …
What we have at present i think is that even the best policy on the table is of somewhat less than 50% chance of keeping below 2C … but 2C is the point where some believe thermal run-away sets in… that makes no sense then at all as a policy, we want a close to zero chance of getting to that 2C point, not for it being more likely than not!
Again, methane release in the sea is being reported off South America, let us hope that it is only very local vulcanism or sea-bed shift , because if it is not we likely are too late to stop the ‘clathrate gun’ being triggered by ocean current changes kicking it off by merely LOCAL temperature rise over massive methane hydrate deposits … caused by just any ocean current shift with no average temperature rise of the earth needed to make it kick in…
I just do not get the confidence that men imagine that we can control this whenever we like , we really do not know that!
and the cost of doing so when we finally do so is exponentiating as we speak , what point is there at all in not doing all that can be done now, immediately ???
Equally we cannot just sit around and let the seas die, if we let 50% of species die off on the planet currently predicted , then it doesn’t stop there! … take any key organ out of our body and the whole dies, lose any key species and the ecosystem dies , almost all of it , and then we ourselves cannot survive that… the ecosystem that feed us will be committed to death long before v50% of species are extinct … putting it as percentage is misleading, this is NOT a linear process at all,not even close …
How can mankind not be working flat out to absolute first priority to minimise the chance of that, by every single method we know …I just don’t understand our complacency at all … we pride ourselves on intelligence , but this matter makes people dumb as rabbits caught in the headlights , standing inactive in the path of an approaching truck…
There is so much we can get going on immediately to get things moving back toward control, out of positive feedback and it just isn’t even beginning to happen… instead we are not even aiming to give ourselves half a chance to avoid pushing nature to the edge where there is no return…
It is seriously less than imprudent, it is irrational in extreme to play brinkmanship with an unknown edge of certain heat-death of our world … and we do know that we are currently accelerating toward it …
The oceans are understaturated with regards to CO2, always have been, always will be. Check back in geologic time, you will find that even CO2 atmospheric contents of 6000 ppm and more have been efficiently and quickly (geologically speaking) removed via the bicarbonate ion and massive CaCO3 precipitation when the balance is needed. There are hundreds of thousands of feet of naturally sequestered CO2 in limestone around the world. That is still happening and will continue, that is part of the natural cycle and thus the current short term, miniscule variances are nothing to get worried about. You people do need to get some earth science education.
One question I’ve been confused about. In temperate regions, like where I live, a deforested area is quickly grown over with a profusion of herbaceous species, and the forests tend to naturally reseed. What is the net effect on atmospheric CO2 in these areas?
[Response: Carbon is released as a forest is cut, perhaps slowly as the wood decays or quickly if it is burned. Then when it grows back, carbon is taken back up. Eventually as the forest reaches climax you are back where you started. David]
My Nobel Moment
By JOHN R. CHRISTY
November 1, 2007; Page A19
I’ve had a lot of fun recently with my tiny (and unofficial) slice of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But, though I was one of thousands of IPCC participants, I don’t think I will add “0.0001 Nobel Laureate” to my resume.
The other half of the prize was awarded to former Vice President Al Gore, whose carbon footprint would stomp my neighborhood flat. But that’s another story.
Large icebergs in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica. Winter sea ice around the continent set a record maximum last month.
Both halves of the award honor promoting the message that Earth’s temperature is rising due to human-based emissions of greenhouse gases. The Nobel committee praises Mr. Gore and the IPCC for alerting us to a potential catastrophe and for spurring us to a carbonless economy.
I’m sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see. Rather, I see a reliance on climate models (useful but never “proof”) and the coincidence that changes in carbon dioxide and global temperatures have loose similarity over time.
There are some of us who remain so humbled by the task of measuring and understanding the extraordinarily complex climate system that we are skeptical of our ability to know what it is doing and why. As we build climate data sets from scratch and look into the guts of the climate system, however, we don’t find the alarmist theory matching observations. (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite data we analyze at the University of Alabama in Huntsville does show modest warming — around 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit per century, if current warming trends of 0.25 degrees per decade continue.)
It is my turn to cringe when I hear overstated-confidence from those who describe the projected evolution of global weather patterns over the next 100 years, especially when I consider how difficult it is to accurately predict that system’s behavior over the next five days.
Mother Nature simply operates at a level of complexity that is, at this point, beyond the mastery of mere mortals (such as scientists) and the tools available to us. As my high-school physics teacher admonished us in those we-shall-conquer-the-world-with-a-slide-rule days, “Begin all of your scientific pronouncements with ‘At our present level of ignorance, we think we know . . .’”
I haven’t seen that type of climate humility lately. Rather I see jump-to-conclusions advocates and, unfortunately, some scientists who see in every weather anomaly the specter of a global-warming apocalypse. Explaining each successive phenomenon as a result of human action gives them comfort and an easy answer.
Others of us scratch our heads and try to understand the real causes behind what we see. We discount the possibility that everything is caused by human actions, because everything we’ve seen the climate do has happened before. Sea levels rise and fall continually. The Arctic ice cap has shrunk before. One millennium there are hippos swimming in the Thames, and a geological blink later there is an ice bridge linking Asia and North America.
One of the challenges in studying global climate is keeping a global perspective, especially when much of the research focuses on data gathered from spots around the globe. Often observations from one region get more attention than equally valid data from another.
The recent CNN report “Planet in Peril,” for instance, spent considerable time discussing shrinking Arctic sea ice cover. CNN did not note that winter sea ice around Antarctica last month set a record maximum (yes, maximum) for coverage since aerial measurements started.
Then there is the challenge of translating global trends to local climate. For instance, hasn’t global warming led to the five-year drought and fires in the U.S. Southwest?
Not necessarily.
There has been a drought, but it would be a stretch to link this drought to carbon dioxide. If you look at the 1,000-year climate record for the western U.S. you will see not five-year but 50-year-long droughts. The 12th and 13th centuries were particularly dry. The inconvenient truth is that the last century has been fairly benign in the American West. A return to the region’s long-term “normal” climate would present huge challenges for urban planners.
Without a doubt, atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing due primarily to carbon-based energy production (with its undisputed benefits to humanity) and many people ardently believe we must “do something” about its alleged consequence, global warming. This might seem like a legitimate concern given the potential disasters that are announced almost daily, so I’ve looked at a couple of ways in which humans might reduce CO2 emissions and their impact on temperatures.
California and some Northeastern states have decided to force their residents to buy cars that average 43 miles-per-gallon within the next decade. Even if you applied this law to the entire world, the net effect would reduce projected warming by about 0.05 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, an amount so minuscule as to be undetectable. Global temperatures vary more than that from day to day.
Suppose you are very serious about making a dent in carbon emissions and could replace about 10% of the world’s energy sources with non-CO2-emitting nuclear power by 2020 — roughly equivalent to halving U.S. emissions. Based on IPCC-like projections, the required 1,000 new nuclear power plants would slow the warming by about 0.2 ?176 degrees Fahrenheit per century. It’s a dent.
But what is the economic and human price, and what is it worth given the scientific uncertainty?
My experience as a missionary teacher in Africa opened my eyes to this simple fact: Without access to energy, life is brutal and short. The uncertain impacts of global warming far in the future must be weighed against disasters at our doorsteps today. Bjorn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus 2004, a cost-benefit analysis of health issues by leading economists (including three Nobelists), calculated that spending on health issues such as micronutrients for children, HIV/AIDS and water purification has benefits 50 to 200 times those of attempting to marginally limit “global warming.”
Given the scientific uncertainty and our relative impotence regarding climate change, the moral imperative here seems clear to me.
Mr. Christy is director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a participant in the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, co-recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
[Response: Mr. Christy is the guy who made a sign error in his analysis of satellite temperature records, with the result that satellites didn’t show the warming measured on the ground. This was a big argument in the denialist quiver until Mears cleaned up the mess. David]
“Also, in the meantime, mankind (and all of nature) will be doing a lot of adapting.”
================
That’s inevitable at this point, IMHO.
But I think there is a more important question. While we can adapt, when do we reach a point, particularly given the accelerated pace of change predicted where adatation will not compensate?
I think that is the real question for everyone to consider moving forward as people try to map out a future for humankind in a GHG-rich environment.
I’m not sure whether it will help or hinder. As the oceans rise the new coast of the entire world will be in a constant state of active erosion as the new surf zone and the hills adjoining the sea seek to find stability at the soil’s angle of repose measured from the local bedrock at the then-current sea level. Thus until the sea rise is done – all ice melt and thermal expansion complete – the ocean in coastal waters will be carrying huge volumes of suspended and re-suspended earth.
This will certainly be bad for all coastal-breeding fish, but on the other hand it may add some useful minerals to the mix. Probably not much calcium (so it’s bye-bye shell fish for those of us who gather it in the shallow coastal waters), but it could provide a huge chemically active surface area (like adding activated carbon or bentonite) in the mixing zone that will eventually settle just off shore.
I would also like to ask about the biological impacts. Most of this discussion is about physics/chemistry. However we do know the biological cycle is important too. Has it been quantified at all? Is the increasing acidity causing a slowdown in formation of carbonate shells? Is the balance between photosynthesis and respiration being affected at all? Is there any data on this, or even a way to determine how to measure these effects - perhaps by isotopic measurements?
[Response: The picture is kind of murky, but start here. David]
#25 [net effect] While herbs appear to grow faster than trees do, a standing crop of mature trees will hold vastly more carbon in biomass than will grasses and herbs over the same area. Trees can sequester carbon for over a hundred years, if allow to stand, while herbs and grasses will release any carbon they do take up in something like a single year (annuals) and a few years or a decade for larger, more woody herbs. Needless to say, it takes several decades for today’s seedling to uptake the same amount of carbon that was release when an earlier mature tree was cut out and removed (assuming it burned or was allowed to rot.) So that leaves us having to deal with that much carbon release into the atmosphere at a time when we can least afford it.
BTW, a tree removed from a forest and sawn into lumber for construction is (aside from the sawdust and leaves) still sequestered carbon. Our wood framed houses, if fated to stand for a hundred years, will keep that carbon out of the atmosphere AND allow more trees to grow where the former ones stood. While I am not a fan of lumber mills, this logic is hard to escape and in the run-up to a global catastrophe we need to look in all fruitful directions. Thus we should be making more structures out of wood and fewer out of metal, plastic and cement (the latter of which is a famous source of CO2) though this might have the net effect of spreading us out more because very tall buildings are less feasible. I can further imagine wooden cars, coaches and the like, wood-plank sidewalks instead of asphalt or cement, homes made entirely of wood including the foundation (as treated piers) and etc and so forth. Essentially, a forest under foot. In fact in a highly sustainable future the creative utilization of naturally occurring materials, many being carbon-based, will be the rule rather than fanciful speculation.
[Response: On the other hand, grasslands tend to sequester more carbon in soils, so the overall difference in carbon storage between forests and praries is smaller than you’d think. David]
I too would like an answer to Shannon’s question #2 (and rephrased #24). As another layman, it seems as if real world data is far ahead of even the most pessimistic forecasts.
Much has been made of the supposedly unreliability of climate models by climate-change-deniers. On current evidence I am beginning to agree with them, but for totally opposite reasons.
If the data quoted in this article is supported by other papers (and I understand this important qualification), will we have to wait another 5 years before the IPCC can publically acknowledge this? If so the words “fiddling” “Rome” and “burn” all come to mind…
[Response: Models of past climate changes, such as Dansgaard-Oeschger events or sea level increases, tend to underpredict somewhat the severity or the extent of the events. My opinion is that the IPCC forecast is a best-case scenario, in that there are no surprises. David]
Sounds like we have to await more results in the future. It also looks like this issue is very complex and due to this the jury is out at the moment.
What I would like to know is if this issue is complex when would we know if sinks become sources with regard to the Ocean? I presume that land sinks to sources are easier to measure?
So am I correct that the most recent 2007 IPPC report does not take into account this development? If not shouldn’t they redo their calculations lickedy split before everyone’s lured into a relatively false sense of security? As for me Ive heard enough, im stocking up on processed foods.
[Response: There’s a pretty wide range of atmospheric CO2 trajectories covered in the various scenarios. A weakening of natural carbon sinks would tend to leave us on the high side of the projected atmospheric concentration given some rate of emissions. And of course the emissions are higher than were projected also. So I guess this puts us at a high end of the projections, but I don’t think it’s a totally new ball game. David]
I suspect that the acid buildup is going faster than lime addition, plus warming. Oldtimers who fish at about Latitude 45 South don’t report windier weather but they do report more warm water fish species. Some believe it has been more cloudy than usual. A couple of speed yachting attempts (q.v. Bullimore) following the Roaring Forties were cancelled due to lack of wind. This alleged wind increase must be closer to the Antarctic.
I guess a slight change per square metre in ocean flux is more important than terrestial because of the larger areas.
The UNEP Report GEO4, just published, quotes in Figure 2.19 levels for (2-way) anthropogenic CO2 fluxes between ocean and atmosphere which seem remarkably high compared to the natural background fluxes and also almost 3 times the level of fossil fuel/cement emissions. Is this authoritative data? If so, why does this effect happen and might it change our view of oceanic sink reliability?
[Response: I don’t have the report in front of me, but carbon exchange fluxes with the land and with the ocean are much larger than the net fluxes from CO2 release or invasion. It makes it harder to measure and understand the net fluxes, but exchange is otherwise not so relevant to our situation. David]
Walt Bennett - “What it means to me is: somebody is going to figure out how to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, because it is too late for any other solution.”
If I were king, I’d put every available person (non-violent prisoners, the unemployed, anyone else that wants to help) to work planting trees, mixed forests of a draught resistant species, everywhere lacking forests presently. Billions of trees will take up some of the excess carbon and create habitat for some wildlife. These trees will prove the old cliche “rain makes trees, trees make rain.” It might not work… does someone have a better idea?
Uncontrolled technology has gotten our civilization to this unsustainable place. Only nature and the passage of time can fix things, either for we humans or for whatever life remains after the mass extinction that’s sure to come amazingly soon.
But I’m not king at all, more like a fly in boxcar on a train with no engineer or brakes screaming down from the mountains to cross a river where the bridge has washed out, while others on the train insist we’re parked at a station.
I think it’s safe to say that it’s freaking hard to determine the kinetics of reactions in situ and especially when living organisms are involved. There are several good links above, especially abut the pure equilibrium chemistry, I’ll just ad some about the “biological pump” and such below for the interested.
Really a question arising from the response to #6: will limestone and chalk coastlines start to dissolve noticeably faster as the ocean acidifies and, if so, will that have a noticeable feedback on the amount of CO2 in the ocean and atmosphere?
[Response: I don’t think the excess CaCO3 dissolution would be noticable like the fizz of an alka-seltzer, but if a large fraction of the fossil fuel is burned, there will be a worldwide hiatus in the deposition of CaCO3 on the sea floor. This time interval would be marked in sediment cores of the future by a layer of clay, like in the Paleocene Eocene thermal maximum event 55 myr ago. David]
A very small notation rant to go with the SI one in this thread. pCO2 is awful, precisely because you see it in expressions with pH and pKa so the first thing you think of is -log[CO2]. How about changing over to Pco2 or some such. The old lit has bushels and pecks but that is no reason to continue using them, and this is from a kcal guy.
[Response: Yeah, if we had it to do over again, I’d stay away from Gtons also, as a mass unit, rather than dealing with moles like proper chemists. Oh well. David]
David said, “The technology exists to cut CO2 emissions to safe levels at reasonable cost.”
This simple statement begs several questions. (1) What are the technologies. (2) Where have they been implemented. (3) Where are the data that validate the reduction in emissions. (4) What are safe levels for emissions. (5) What were the costs for implementing the proven technologies. (6) What are reasonable costs. (7) Where are the data that validate that the emission levels from the implemented technologies are safe.
While this comment will very likely be considered off-topic note that the original poster made the statement. And more importantly, why are such statements given a pass relative to the level of validation required for statements about the science?
[Response: It’s all in the Working Group III report of the IPCC, you can download all 1350 pages and read about it if you like. David]
We have seen methane levels remain flat recently. However, the amount of anthropogenic methane emissions have actually increased within the past few years as the result of the ramping-up of China’s economy. The difference has been the drying out of the lower latitude wetlands. The formation of methane is an anaerobic process which requires wet conditions.
Likewise, we have seen more methane being produced as the result of thawing permafrost, but only during the wetter years. However, we are supposed to see increased precipitation in the subpolar regions, and temperatures are supposed to rise there more than at the lower latitudes. The further up the warming takes the above freezing-temperatures for more months out of the year, the denser the pockets of permafrost. Which as usual means the further we take this, the further it will go - with compounded interest.
In Sweden we actually have the biggest mining company trying to fertilize the forest and optimize other parameters so that we would increase growth. Then they want to count that in as a carbon sink to draw from their CO2 output. It’s actually at research stage (academic and all) but I’m sceptic… one part not so well studied is how the sewage sludge used to fertilize the forest interact with the other parts of the forest. Another if enough sludge exists close enough to make it profitable…
The change being the ocean’s diminished ability to absorb CO2.This whole topic sounds a lot like a surprise element, perhaps like the North Atlantic Oscillation undergoing change in the near future, or a sizable chunk of real estate from Antarctica falling into the sea, ahead of schedule. It points to the need to take early,effective and perhaps draconian measures to mitigate AGW.
Re 28. It is sad to see John Christy let himself be used as a mouthpiece by the apologists of complacency such as the Wall Street Journal, Lomborg et al. Christy would have us believe that because we have much to discover we know nothing, and this is a fallacy that verges on mendacity. Worse, to allege that there are many scientists attributing every event of severe weather to climate change is simply a baldfaced lie. To allege that it is more difficult to predict climate than to predict weather is indicative of either extreme ignorance or mendacity. And finally to allege that those who advocate addressing climate change are condemning the third world to poverty is the biggest lie of all. I have said many times that mitigating climate change and facilitating development are two sides of the same problem–that of developing an economy that is both ecologically and economically sustainable.
I have to say that I am disappointed with Dr. Christy’s elastic attitude toward the truth. Perhaps he should look at what the scriptures of his holy book have to say about mendacity.
“What it means to me is: somebody is going to figure out how to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, because it is too late for any other solution.”
This can be accomplished through reforestation and organic agriculture, both of which have numerous other benefits.
Dan Hughes wrote:
“This simple statement [’The technology exists to cut CO2 emissions to safe levels at reasonable cost’] begs several questions. (1) What are the technologies. (2) Where have they been implemented. (3) Where are the data that validate the reduction in emissions. (4) What are safe levels for emissions. (5) What were the costs for implementing the proven technologies. (6) What are reasonable costs. (7) Where are the data that validate that the emission levels from the implemented technologies are safe.”
The ASES report concluded that full application of existing energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies (wind power, biofuels, biomass, photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, and geothermal power) could reduce US carbon emissions by 60 to 80 percent by mid-century, which is in line with what mainstream climate science indicates will be needed to keep CO2 levels below 450 ppm, which is generally considered to be the level below which we can prevent “dangerous” climate change.
The report concluded that full application of existing energy efficiency technologies alone would “prevent our carbon emissions from growing over the next 23 years, even as our economy grows”; 57 percent of total reductions would come from energy efficiency improvements and 43 percent from expanded use of the six renewable technologies examined.
I suggest that you download the free PDF version of the report for more detailed answers to your questions.
Re #42: [This simple statement begs several questions. (1) What are the technologies. (2) Where have they been implemented…]
That’s a question that’d require at least a book to answer in full. I’ll agree that “reasonable cost” is subjective, and AFAIK there’s no solid answer for “safe levels” except zero. But to make a start on the laundry list of CO2-reducing technology:
Nuclear power. Implemented in France & Japan, apparently at competitive cost to fossil fuel generation.
Electric trains & buses for medium & short distance transportation. Implemented in Switzerland. I don’t know about capital costs, but to the user it’s cheaper than flying or driving the same distance.
Fuel-efficient cars, available at your local Honda or Toyota dealer (or used car lot). Cheaper to buy than your guzzler.
Bicycle for short-distance transport, available nearly everywhere.
Turn out unused & unneeded lights, especially decorative landscape lighting. Your McMansion is ugly enough in the daytime - we don’t need to see it lit up at 4 AM
Magnus, thanks for the warning about that notion. Sewage sludge is not a particularly good material to use for fertilizer. Heavy metals, antibiotics, and hormone mimics — sewage systems worked before modern technological pollution got bad, but they don’t remove the new bad stuff at all. And even clean sewage is loaded with viruses. Talk about stuff that ought to be going into deep geological sequestration!
#28
[Response: Mr. Christy is the guy who made a sign error in his analysis of satellite temperature records, with the result that satellites didn’t show the warming measured on the ground. This was a big argument in the denialist quiver until Mears cleaned up the mess. David]
And I bet you Christy never admitted the mistake and let it fester in the web. A classic symptom of sceptic-cemia!
Re #48. Potentially energy savings via efficiency gains only have a limited worth because people use the money saved to expend energy some other way. This has just been reported on in the UK during some CO2 savings exercises.
At present cars use gasoline, biofuel is no replacement for it but a supplement to it only. Replacements are a fair way off but yes hydrogen looks promising as some cars are about to be released that use it. However you have to produce and store hydrogen and I for one doubt that as serious undertaking as this is will be implemented in time due to cost reasons even if we can produce the stuff sustainably.
If peak Oil is correct then come 2018 world growth is going to be threatened, maybe before then. The situation is more pressing politicially then anyone thinks is peak oil is real and almost here.
Maybe sustainables can remedey our elctricity and heating needs but what comes after natural gas for heating homes. Some kind of electric house heating system that means we are going to need to produce a lot of electricty via sustainable means, generate our hydrogen, increased population and industry needs.
I doubt that any single body has though it through enough.
Why do you differentiate between Fossil Fuel CO2 and I suppose natural CO2 being “taken” up.
Thanks,
Steve
[Response: Natural CO2 cycles between the land, the ocean, and the atmosphere very quickly. But before we started adding fossil fuel carbon to the mix, the fluxes of CO2 balanced pretty much. Nothing was changing with time. So fossil fuel carbon versus carbon that was already in play is one way to divide things, another is net (one way) versus exchange (two way) fluxes. David]
However you have to produce and store hydrogen and I for one doubt that as serious undertaking as this is will be implemented in time due to cost reasons even if we can produce the stuff sustainably.
I tend to agree, which is why I’ve been pushing sodium fuel cells, though without any success. (Of course I have just an amateur’s understanding of the technology.)
Although it would take some development, there’s been at least one sodium fuel cell bus running since the mid ’90’s (see next to bottom paragraph here).
I won’t describe all of what I’ve worked out of the design advantages (and downsides) here, but I started a thread elsewhere.
What I will mention is that it can work like a battery, needing only electricity to recharge (which we already have a distribution system for), but at potentially much higher recharge rates.
The longer term issue is where to get power in the first place. IMO nuclear is the only feasible answer, preferably from the big reactor in the sky. I prefer solar power satellites, as they would have a smaller eco-footprint (you could put a rectenna over a peat bog or prairie), but I admit that earth-based solar panel installations will probably come first. (Does anybody here know whether you need fluorine processes in building power photovoltaic cells?)
David said, “The technology exists to cut CO2 emissions to safe levels at reasonable cost.”
This simple statement begs several questions. (1) What are the technologies. (2) Where have they been implemented. (3) Where are the data that validate the reduction in emissions. (4) What are safe levels for emissions. (5) What were the costs for implementing the proven technologies. (6) What are reasonable costs. (7) Where are the data that validate that the emission levels from the implemented technologies are safe.
=========================
I also think maybe statement might have been more accurate if David had couched it in terms of proposals and what we have already. Blanket statements always leave something to be desired but, to be fair, this is a subject that comes up frequently here, so I think your complaint is somewhat unfair. If you’re interested, there are the digital equivalent of reams of info on this site in many of the discussions on other threads that preceded this between people who seem to have a great deal of knowledge in the area, and maybe someone who was involved could point you in that direction.
But regarding answers, while I’m not a scientist, engineer or (shudder) statistician…
1) Let’s see…Solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, nuclear all come readily to mind. Agro-fuels are another, but I want to see more in that area, not just in terms of potential, but how well it will hold up in a warming world where agriculture might not be as abundant as it is currently, and where hungry mouths are on the increase.
2) Not to be smart, but I think a simple Google search would likely give you a general idea, which is why I don’t think it needs to be answered here Wind, for example, has been around for decades and is on the increase.
Obviously they are far from perfect, but I think you could make a reasonable argument that if we really applied ourselves to the problem of increasing efficiency, anything is possible. And the more we apply ourselves, the more we will inevitably innovate and find even better ways of doing things. One need only look at what was spun off from the space program, or from the development of the transistor, to understand this.
3, 4 & 7) Can’t answer that for you, though, again, though I’d bet a google search might help you. Maybe someone else here with actual expertise in this area can also illuminate things for you. But, aside from production emissions in the factory where the equipment is manufactured, what emissions do YOU think will be emitted by solar or wind generators? Or by geothermal power generators?
And define “safe” while you are at it. IPCC safe? Or toxic emission safe, something fossil fuels most definitely are not. Again, re AGW, I believe this is information that is readily available, in this case in the IPCC report, in terms of what is projected as needed to acquire some sort of climate equilibrium. Extrapolate from there.
5) Costs. I would like to propose an additional question you might wish to ask in concert with this question: What would be the cost, given the increasingly obvious and detrimental effects of GHG-forcing, of continuing on as we are (business as usual)?
The short answer to 5: Who knows? Historically the introduction of new technologies has always been expensive. Look at the development of nuclear energy, of the U.S. Space Program. (Though I do recall a speech given to Congress in the late 70s, maybe the early 80s, by Robert A. Heinlein, later published under the title “Spinoff”, that suggested that the spin-offs from that program ended up paying for a large part of it, at least, up until the Space Shuttle.) The simple truth is new tech is ALWAYS expensive. (And if anyone wants to start drawing comparisons between Heinlein and Crichton, you’re just being silly. There is no comparison; the former actually had integrity.)
And in terms of costs are you looking in terms of short-term, or long-term? Short-term I would venture it would be prohibitively expensive. But given the nature of the emergency (and I use the word deliberately) I believe this is really a long-term question. In that case, if I was a betting man, I would say the answer is business as usual would be more expensive. Not just because of the GHG issue, either, particularly when you consider the effects of oil-based pollution on the biosphere.
Like it or not, we are reaching or have surpassed peak oil, as the demand continues to rise with more countries moving forward technologically and production increases being at best minimal. Look at it this way: sooner or later we will reach a juncture where it will cost a dollar’s worth of energy to extract a dollar’s worth of energy. That day is not here yet. But it is safe to predict that is we haven’t reached the point of dwindling returns on investment, we will soon. So we’re going to have to replace this form of energy with something else.
Nuclear fission is not a long-term solution, imho, from what I’ve picked up over time - if all the reactors anyone would desire to build were built globally, odds are the supply of fuel won’t last the century. Even if it did, with each new reactor you raise the odds of something bad happening, something with long-term ramifications on a continental basis. (Look into the history of the effects of Chernobyl for details or, even better, the events at Palo Verde in Arizona today, for an idea of the ongoing potential for problems these plants present.). And, of course, there is long-term storage of wastes. Fusion has been “just around the corner” since it was first proposed; so I wonder if we’ll ever pull it off – right now it remains less “sure” than a number of the alternatives being considered. Not that I would know with any sense of expertise…I’m not a physicist, after all, just an interested observer.
But it seems that ideally we want a technology that was cheap and relatively dependable. So solar and wind are obvious candidates. I think the real problem in this area are storage batteries and their impact. Maybe someone could address that?
6). Define “reasonable cost”. What would you consider a reasonable cost: perhaps something that involved not changing the manner in which you conducted your day-to-day life? Or how about keeping our technological edge? Perhaps something that didn’t force us to change the way we live at its most fundamental level?
Consider: we’ve always known that sooner or later we were going to have to change the way we did business. Only a fool could believe at this point in our history that we have an unending supply of fossil fuels to power our civilization. Yet we’re carrying on as if we believe just that and now it would appear the bill is coming due, global warming notwithstanding. Whatever the alternate technology or technologies may be, it is obvious that some countries are already researching and developing them (wind is very big in Europe, as I understand it), and it could be argued that, as with stem cell research, the U.S. is surrendering a technological edge to other counties by dragging its feet in the mud while it pursues policies that can best be described as counterintuitive to reality regarding what we’re faced. Ask yourself: as the century progresses, which country or group of countries do you think will be better positioned to maintaining their ability to survive and thrive: a country selling the technology, or one forced to buy it because it wasn’t willing to invest when it was obviously time to do so?
I think whatever happens, we’re going to have to learn to give up a lot of things we take for granted, change our way of doing business and commuting, nationally and globally. I think there are hard years ahead, many hard years, and the sooner we resign ourselves to the understanding this, the sooner we might be able to address this with a hope of coming out intact on the other end. Perhaps in the end only real question is whether we want to willingly accept these inevitable changes, or to have them forced on us by our own lack of foresight.
Re #s 28/47/51: To all appearances Christy bought himself a Bob Carter mask for Halloween and forgot to take it off.
The Mears correction was so very, very public that Christy couldn’t avoid accepting it, but he and Spencer continue to err on the low side. There should be a comprehensive reanalysis out from RSS (Mears) in the pretty near future, and in a sane world that would put this debate to bed permanently. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to live in a sane world.
Folks may recall the CCSP report a couple of years ago on resolving discrepancies in the various temperature data sets. Christy and Spencer were brought into that process and signed off on its conclusions (which because of the perceived need to get them on board was much softer on S+C’s past work than would have been the case had they remained outside the process). Just a few months later C+S popped up at the Marshall Institute with a presentation of their new analysis that repudiated what they had just agreed to in the CCSP report, noting that of course had only their new stuff been ready in time they would not have agreed to the report’s conclusions. I sincerely hope their CCSP co-authors learned their lesson on this one.
AGU members will have noticed that Christy’s recent major foray outside the satellite temp data analysis field (a paper purporting to show that increased temps in the California central valley are an artifact of irrigation) was comprehensively refuted a couple of weeks ago on the front page of Eos. I cannot help but think that the prominence of that refutation (which occupied the entire front page even though the more typical practice is to put part of such articles on an inside page so that something else can be featured as well) was intended as a message to Christy.
Spencer, in the meantime, has branched out into an attempted revival of Lindzen’s “iris” hypothesis. While some skeptic/denialist commenters in another RC thread waxed hopeful about its implications, my impression is that the field doesn’t take it seriously (although since it did get published perhaps it will get a formal refutation at some point).
For some reason S+C seem engaged in doing what they can to destroy what were at one point a couple of pretty good scientific reputations.
David, you wrote: “the pCO2 of the water rose twice as fast as the atmosphere did, by about 30 microatmospheres. The air-sea difference in pCO2 collapsed to zero in the high latitudes”
Wouldn’t it be reasonable to conclude that changes in water pCO2 were caused by some mechanism that is internal to ocean waters, and not by the relatively small external rise in CO2 concentrations attributed to humans? It certainly looks like the effect (water pCO2) should not be bigger that the cause (air pCO2)…
For some reason S+C seem engaged in doing what they can to destroy what were at one point a couple of pretty good scientific reputations.
Spencer has also endorsed Intelligent Design Creationism. I’m not trying to reopen that subject, but this should make it clear that views that are a bit unusual for scientists to hold.
I was there and it was quite shocking to be in the middle of some of the worlds finest minds and not one of them was inclined to question his frankly apocalyptic take on AGW.
Thanks for an excellent site. I’m an engineer by training & have been following the climate change issue for some years.
This may be considered a little off topic, but please bear with me, as you may well find this interesting, I hope.
One thing I have suspected from day one is that climate change & it’s effects would not be a ‘linear’ event, but characterised by feedbacks forcing sharply one way or the other - at some point. Forgive my simplicity here, but in light of the plethora of positive feedbacks & sq-root-of-very-little in the negative feedback corner, this screams out for a precautionary approach.
Forgive me again for my simplicity, but when the effects begin to lose linearity & show signs of heading round the ‘knee’ of the curve, as they have this last few years, we should be putting that precautionary approach on an urgent, emergency action basis.
Which, of course, is not happening….
In fact, when one takes account of likely substantial ‘export’ of emissions to China etc. (see New Economics Foundation ‘Chinadependence’ report), ‘business as usual’ best describes the results of the recent years’ political rhetoric, diplomacy & ‘greenwash’.
I have no doubt that we already have enough technological & scientific know-how to readily change course from these tipping points to anhilation.
So why aren’t we ?
I’ve been pondering this question for some time, and if you’re still with me, I’d like to share with you some thoughts & conclusions on this, and hopefully you might consider my post a little less ‘off-topic’.
We have a massive ’system’ problem in collective decision making mechanisms we describe as ‘politics’ or ‘democracy’. They are neither fit-for-purpose nor democratic.
Importantly, they contain virtually no feedback loops for our vital ecosphere and none at all that have a horizon much beyond the next ‘election’. The ‘Economics’ (money) subsystem is equally flawed & short term in outlook. The main ‘Information’ (Media)subsystem is clearly not fit-for-purpose either.
These outdated systems, born & little changed from pre-industrial fuedal societies ensured wealth & privilege for the few, misery & premature death for the many.
Economic growth of the Industrial age disguised or hid the worst realties of these systems of ‘governance’.
Unfortunately, we have reached the planets limits to our continued growth.
Under ‘feudal’ control, the inevitable large contraction of the ‘majority’ population on global scale will likely be very nasty indeed. The destruction of life on Earth (for a few hundred thousand years at least) is also possible.
However, help is at hand.
Capitalism 3.0 by Peter Barnes, proposes the best, workable, system ‘overhaul’ I’ve yet seen - by far, and, in true ‘commons’ spirit, it’s available for free pdf download.
This is why, originally, it was thought there’d be no problems with CO2 emissions:
Arrhenius did not see that as a problem. He figured that if industry continued to burn fuel at the current (1896) rate, it would take perhaps three thousand years for the CO2 level to rise so high. Högbom doubted it would ever rise that much. One thing holding back the rise was the oceans. According to a simple calculation, sea water would absorb 5/6ths of any additional gas. (That is roughly true over a long run of many thousand years, but Högbom and Arrhenius did not realize that if the gas were emitted more rapidly than they expected, the ocean absorption could lag behind.)
However, the mixing time of the oceans is around 1,000 years under today’s ocean circulation conditions. This means that the past century of fossil fuel CO2 emissions hasn’t had time to equilibrate with the oceans. Furthermore, if we look at geological history, it turns out that huge surges of CO2 into the atmosphere can linger for a very long time. The event 55 million years ago resulted in changes in ocean carbonate chemistry that persisted for 100,000 years.
We can guess why that might have happened - extinction of marine animals that produce calcium carbonate shells is one reason, and a thermal stratification of the oceans that reduced mixing rates is another.
Notions that “the natural system will respond as needed to restore the balance” (i.e. Dr J. above) are teleological nonsense. It is true that, eventually, the land and oceans will absorb the fossil carbon that we’ve transferred from fossil fuel reserves into the atmosphere, but 100,000 years is a long time to wait for that to happen, isn’t it?
Some readers might be interested to hear that the Institution of Engineering and Technology launched a new journal in September 2007—IET Renewable Power Generation—that may provide more details. There are plenty of tools available to us *now* to reduce emissions and increase energy-efficiencies, as well as schemes to capture carbon dioxide—though its storage is less well-advanced, but extraction, injection and storage projects like the one involving the Utsira aquifer over Statoil’s Sleipner West gas production field in the Norwegian North Sea do show promise.
In any case, engineers are addressing this issue of emissions reductions from as many angles as possible, so many more solutions are in the short-, medium- and long-term pipelines! It does not help, though, if technologies exist and remain underdeployed, nor for engineers to design products that remain on store shelves, or are bought and not used. So, my message to Sarah is this ~ please do not despair, but do keep asking questions that move this whole game forward (like “How can I switch to renewables *now*?” etc.)
The following link should work for non-members of the IET, and you should be able to access these papers until 31 December 2007 (after that, contact me). The description that goes with the Call for Papers is as follows:
All research published in IET Renewable Power Generation is free to download via the IET Digital Library during 2007.
Scope
This new journal from the IET brings together the topics of renewable energy technology, power generation and systems integration. Other technologies having a direct role in sustainable power generation such as fuel cells and energy storage will also be covered, as will system control approaches such as demand side management, that facilitate the integration of renewable sources into power systems, both large and small. Specific technology areas covered by the journal include:
wind power technology and systems
photovoltaics
solar thermal power generation
geothermal energy
fuel cells
wave power
marine current energy
biomass conversion
The journal provides a forum for the presentation of new research, development and applications of renewable power generation. Demonstrations and experimentally based research are particularly welcome. Research that explores issues where the characteristics of the renewable energy source impact on the power conversion and where the wider system control or operation are central to the challenge of integration are particularly encouraged.
The journal is technology focused covering design, demonstration, modelling and analysis, but papers covering techno-economic issues are also welcome.
In addition, there are many opportunities for engineers to share best-practices, such as this seminar next week:
and most of these events are completely invisible to the public. Engineers typically get minimal attention from the media, until a product is unveiled (or a disaster happens) …
Finally, there are two articles that appeared in Power Engineer Magazine on carbon capture and storage (CCS). (I just posted them on my blog for general interest.) They share a title—both are Dead and Buried!
Re 56
From what I have read the best hope for a replacing fossil fuels in the long term is geothermal. In the next few years advances in drilling technology should enable us to access hot rocks from practically anywhere on the Earths surface.
The snag is that it might take up to 10 years, time we may not have.
Re #52: […but what comes after natural gas for heating homes. Some kind of electric house heating system…]
Not to get too far off into technical details, but most houses can get most of their heating needs from solar. Even retrofitting decent insulation can slash the amount of energy used for heating and cooling.
After that, sewage plants generate a lot of methane, and what’s that but natural gas?
The whole situation looks dire to me, too. All the climate models I’ve heard about have been too mild (things are getting worse faster than any of them predicted).
Many have asked why, with available affordable technologies to reduce CO2 use, why isn’t anything being done about it? The answer is simply lack of political will. People simply don’t care, and they’re stupid (we’re obviously not an intelligent species; if we were, we would have not gotten ourselves into this mess in the first place). I don’t see anything meaningful being done about it. People like their cars and Americans don’t (and won’t) give them up. In spite of the obesity epidemic, people still want to drive everywhere, and live in suburbia, even if it means 1-2 hour commutes (long commuters are one of the fastest growing segments of our society, and I read somewhere there is enough of them now to stop any meaningful action on global warming).
6). Define “reasonable cost”. What would you consider a reasonable cost: perhaps something that involved not changing the manner in which you conducted your day-to-day life? Or how about keeping our technological edge? Perhaps something that didn’t force us to change the way we live at its most fundamental level?
I dunno. These days I like to turn the grid off to my house just to make sure I can run without it. I also like to walk outside and watch the meter spin backwards.
Okay, changing my lifestyle. When I switched from incandescents to CFLs my house stayed so much cooler that I was forced to open the windows to get some air exchange. My net lifestyle change was smaller electric bills (click the link under my name for a graphic) and more fresh air. Oh, and immunity from short term grid loss, and survivability in the event of a longer term loss. It’s a hard life. Someone has to live it, I guess.
There are entire subdivisions being built where I live that have 3KW solar arrays on the roof. I have 2100 watts — but room for more
There’s an entire subculture out there that’s already cutting carbon emissions to the bone and they don’t have anything near Gore’s wealth. Which he uses to spew carbon into the atmosphere at a frightening rate.
One of my ex’s refuses to use CFLs for outdoor lights. Why? Because they won’t turn on and off with photocell switches. Except that they are cheaper to run 24/7 than incandescents are to run 12/7 on average, year round.
The problems of saving energy aren’t real — most are imagined, just as the “savings” that comes from running incandescents with 4 times the power consumption, and a fraction of the life expectancy are imagined. Oil has been trading over $90/bbl lately. The people who are going to experience lifestyle changes are the ones who don’t start making the change to energy saving and renewable energy technologies.
House heating, cooling, hot water: one or more, depending on circumstances:
0) design the house sanely in first place; reflective blinds; seal airgaps; check out house with infrared thermometer, improve insulation, check windows. If you build with thick walls in first place, they tend to soak up heat during day, give it off at night, which works well in Southwest.
1) geothermal heat pumps heat or cool
2) solar thermal for heat and/or hot water
3) solar -> electricity [PV or CSP] -> electric heat, on-demand hot-water
4) wind -> electricity ->electric heat, on-demand hot-water
(people are starting to build a variety of devices that may be mor practical at home)
Of course, the issue of batteries remains, but there is interesting work going on.
5) solar thermal for pool, turn gas heater off.
There are people around here building regular suburban detached houses, but off the grid, zero external energy, designs.
Reading Canadell 2007, I observe that tere’s still a lot of uncertainty in measurments of carbon cycle. For exemple, uncertainty in annual fossil fuel + land use emissions is 0,5+0,4=0,9PgC/y. That’s nearly 41% of ocean sink (2,2PgC/y). And the airbone fraction graph (2A Atmospere) exhibits a strong variability, with most recent value not so high (higher values in the 1980’s, a 5yr smoothing for the trend would be interesting). A point I misunderstand in this graph for 2C is why the year 1998 does not show a net decrease in ocean fraction (with warmer oceans due to El Nino)
The trends observed by Le Quere et al. are eve smaller, as they concern just the Southern Ocean (0,08PgC/y/dec). And, if I carefully read their paper, the attribution-detection of the cause of this trend is not clear (a modification of winds, itself bound to SAM, ozone depletion or surface temp. gradients due to GW).
Mots of carbon cycle models announce a positive feedback for the century, bt I’m not convinced that these recent works are enough to infer a strong feedback.
[Response: The uncertainty in the land use change carbon emission, and therefore also in the “missing sink” terrestrial uptake, is particularly bad. 2 Gtons is more mass than the entire mass of humanity, going to ground every year, but we can’t find it. There are other uncertainties too, in every part of the story. But the fact that all indications, uncertain as they may be, point in the same direction seems to me significant. David]
#57. All Christy and acolyttes offer is the same old song. They are the enlightened amongst a field of inferiors. Free lancing nothing but half baked theory rhymes in line with their frank assetion of incompetence with respect to understanding climate. They have credentials of substance but offer no substance to absorb as reason. Aside from exclaiming the variability of climate, without clear causations, it just varies that is all they know for sure. This key premise is shattered everytime it gets warmer at multiple locations around the world simultaneously. Probably allergic to weather maps, they haven’t noticed the sheer strength in this warming. Rather, they rely on their foes as fodder to criticize, a venting target no matter how right they were. Bottom line, they serve no purpose, like a bunch of guys at a bar blabbering the same old nonsense. What science they offer, flawed MSU trends, and Iris which remained shut when all this polar ice as melted, past climate which has no semblance with todays environment, it is a good thing that the climate varies! Yet it got warmer every single year since they refuted global warming. A vast majority of people on Earth already knew more than they claimed, about to be humiliated they changed their tune, global warming exists because its all around us. But at the end they failed the test of their greatest peer, which was once their future, it didn’t get cooler, but steadily warmer, from this lesson, they learned to fear most the future, having based their science on stature giving them the right to dispute anything at will, instead of practicing physics and chemistry leading them to the inevitable repeatable conclusions. The lot of them remain silent about what will come next, because they simply don’t have a clue. Spending vast energies in finding a cunning contrarian prose must be taxing, leaving very little time to do science.
Great posts.
When I started out reading this blog, I would have categorized myself as somewhere between a climate skeptic and a climate denialist. I think this has changed and I am grateful for the helpful information found in this discussion, particularly. It has been an absolutely eye opening experience. I think I have a much clearer understanding of what climate scientists have to say about our world and I certainly believe that the danger is real. There can be absolutely no denial. Not for me, anyway. The danger is incredibly real and we are not safe.
Re #58, solar would be useless in the UK winter for heating a current home. In the summer then yes it works but we only need hot water then. Thats the real issue, its cold and winter becuase there is not Sun.
I believe that other solutions may be applicable such as trans continental grids that use wind and solar from disparate sources to produce hydrogen etc and provide some electricity. I am sure it can bge solved but market forces are being quite slow to react.
On the ability of humans to resolve AGW in time I would say this. It seems that the argument has moved on from if it is happenning to what to do about it which is good. However reticence is all around and the first world is loathe to give up any of its current lifestyle it would seem in the numbers necessary to make a difference and hence new technology must be key to resolving the issue.
So the first issue is population growth and longevity. 6.5 billion now to 9 billion by 2050, after that the global population is set to fall but 9 billion people is a lot to feed, clothe, house and give purposeful modern lives to.
Increased economic growth is fuelled by increase fuel usage and by 2030 the world will need 50% more energy then it consumes now. The vast majority of this is presently scheduled to come from fossil fuels because at this present moment in time with current economic and politicial thinking this is what works!! What is needed is new thinking in this area and new politics and economics with regard to promoting alternative energy strategies. Will it happen in time, maybe but it not looking good presently.
Oil is not going to be replaced by anything soon. Yes it may be mitigated by biofuels (first generation) but world food prices are rising to so this is not going to work to reduce oil use by any significant amount.
Efficiency gains are nearly always wiped out by people spending the money on other fuel consuming activities. This is awkward and will require a lot of thought to resolve. Oh I know tax is probably the only way here.
Sustainables and all that probably can work some kind of AGW miracle, hydrogen to maybe if we can produce enough of it, make enough cars and store it across the world in lot of small tanks called gasoline stations. But this troubles me because of time. I doubt that 40 years in long enough to replace the oil infrastructure of the world if we has the technology now. Heating buildings and home and new types of energy efficient buildings etc can help but it is not the whole picture and what about the energy used in making things and the role of plastics in society. Peak oil could make people think about energy security a lot sooner that AGW and hence much AGW strategy could go out of the window when freezing winters start nipping at our heels.
Coal is unlikey to get sequestered for a least a decade, just to get it going initially. To say that humankind would ramp up rollout in another decade is wishful thinking to my mind.
Toward the end of your comments, you say “The infamously hot summer of 2003 in Europe for example cut the rate of photosynthesis by 50%, dumping as much carbon into the air as had been taken up by that same area for the four previous years”. Please, could you be so kind as to explain why the rate of photosynthesis was cut. Also, do you mean, when you say that the result was to “dump carbon into the air”, that carbon was actually released by plants into the air or rather, that it was not taken up by photosynthesis?
[Response: Ciais et al conclude that it was a deficit of rainfall in eastern Europe, and heat in western Europe, that drove the response. The carbon storage of the landscape is determined by the balance of photosynthesis and respiration, so there’s less photosynthesis, the carbon stock could decrease. David]
Thanks for this post. These kinds of positive feedbacks need to be presented. I don’t think the general public or our leaders have any idea about them….they’re just thinking linearly.
RE cost effective technology, there’s an engineer/architect in Naperville who specializes in passive solar for the Chicagoland area. He has a home that uses about the same amount of energy for heating/cooling as a gas streetlight. And he doesn’t even have PV solar panels or wind generators — just passive solar, good design, excellent insulation, and a highly efficient combination water heater/home heater. But his roof is oriented to be perfect for addition of PV panels.
The house costs about 5% more than a conventional house, but pays for that difference within 10 or 20 years (I can’t remember), then goes on to save money. And it doesn’t look weird or stand out. You’d never know it was a passive solar home. And it’s very very comfortable.
Let me take a shot at #31 from Alex Tolley. Go to scholar.google.com which is a search engine for scientific literature and type in “climate change”. What you get will surprise you, it is almost all about biological effects and how to deal with them. The literature has moved on. This is something I noticed during the latest attempt to falsify Oreskes’ survey.
Fergus Brown did the same thing with”global climate change” and got the same sort of result. I’ll quote his conclusions:
“Firstly, that there is a vast body of evidence through all disciplines that global climate change is a matter of importance which is seriously addressed by each of these disciplines.
Secondly, that the vast majority of this research points towards impacts of global climate change which are negative, destructive, undesirable or, under certain circumstances, even alarming in their implications.
Thirdly, that the global warming which is consistently established as a causal agent in these impacts is potentially dangerous, either to specific or general objects, and that this inference is made time and time again on the basis of existing observation and due diligence in methodology.”
The issue of religious belief has crept in here wrt Christy and Spencer. First, what I am about to say is as neutral as I can make it, and also reflects my opinion. I have known many professional engineers and scientists and many more science and engineering students. People are very good at compartmenting. The percentage of religious believers is very high in the US among S&E folk. Of that many are literalists. The numbers may not be as high as in the general population, but they are high.
In so far as they can compartment their religious beliefs from their professional life there is no issue, they simply separate them. A Civil Engineer who builds roads has no conflict with any religious beliefs. Same goes for a condensed matter physicist or a physical chemist. THE SAME IS TRUE FOR NON-BELIEVERS. Of course the rubber hits the road for biology and medicine.
“The lot of them remain silent about what will come next, because they simply don’t have a clue.”
I see the climate skeptics changing their tune that it is better to adapt than to reduce carbon use (it is not in their nature to remain silent, they tend to be windbags). Their claim now is it is much cheaper to adapt, that reducing carbon use would damage the economy way too much.
Regarding the use of passive solar, how does that work when things really heat up and you don’t get the cold winters? Doesn’t your house end up getting way too hot? These architectural solutions for energy use don’t seem to make sense to me given a changing climate, since the house is being built for a particular climate that is changing rapidly now. It seems that the best architectural solutions would be building a house to reduce cooling costs (I think it is a waste of money to build a house to reduce heating costs since winters are getting warmer fast).
On another note, since there are real climate scientists on this list, I’ve heard on some of the TV historical shows, that the relatively stable climate of the last 10,000 years, that has allowed human civilizations to thrive, is actually an anomaly. I’ve seen this on a History Channel show about the 5-billion year history of the earth and elsewhere as well. Are these shows just saying this because they’re sponsored by SUV ads by car companies (so we won’t feel so bad about climate change) or is there any real truth to this? I haven’t read up much on paleoclimatology, but would like to learn more about it. The show I’m thinking about said that naturally occurring climate changes have been quite common, and the climate of the last 10,000 years has been unusually stable. This would imply that even in the current era of the Earth, that past ice age cycles had unstable climates. But, given the companies that support these shows, I tend to take it with a grain of salt and want to know what real paleoclimatologists think.
Another question I have is, in past eras (such as when the dinosaours roamed the Earth), the show said that the carbon in the atmosphere was really high, I believe much in excess of 450 PPM (I don’t remember what the exact number was). Back then, it was tropical even at the poles. I’d like to hear from a paleoclimatologist what the Earth’s temperature was really like during those times, and how much of it was desert, what the estimated CO2 amount in the atmosphere was, and if the Equator was unlivable (200 degrees or more). I’ve really been wondering this lately. If the Earth was warm enough for the poles to have temperate climates, what was the climate at the Equator (too hot to support any life at all)? I’d like to know, just to get an idea of what we’ve got to look forward to. How hot will the Equator get? Personally I believe that all the worst-case scenarios will be exceeded, and we’re just going to have to learn to live with the results of run-away global warming. Presumably all the fossil fuels we’re burning have carbon that was, at one time, in the atmosphere, and over millions of years went into plants that died and later got buried and turned into coal and oil. When all the coal and oil is used up, all that carbon will be in the atmosphere again, all at once. Will the CO2 level in the atmosphere, at that point, be higher than it ever was in the entire history of land-based plant life on the planet? Just really curious. Or, once all our coal and oil is used up (which I firmly believe it will be, at which point man will have to cut way back on energy use and get what energy he can out of alternative sources) will the CO2 level in the atmosphere still be less than or equal to what it was at some previous era that included land-based plant life?
It is hard for me to believe that in the dinosaour era (what you hear a lot about) there were so many tropical areas and so much water (the fossil fuels were formed from plants dying in swamps and not decomposing) when the planet was so much warmer. It seems like today’s global warming is turning everything into a desert, through excessive heat, dryness, and wildfires, that occur too frequently for plants to grow back. Here in the Pacific Northwest, in Western Oregon, we’re still getting near-normal rain (although longer dry periods than before) and it is still green with lots of trees, but I can’t help but feel that we’re next for massive wildfires like Southern California got (like in the next 10 years, at the accelerating rate of changes). And if fires like that hit here, it will be really bad due to the large trees.
On the issue of the world’s forests buring, shouldn’t we be encouraging logging of ALL our forests at this point, especially the rainforests, and using the logs for building lumber (not paper production) as opposed to either letting people burn the forests (as in tropical rainforests) or letting nature burn them (as in the U.S. and Canada)? I don’t think I support trying to save the rainforest any more. I think burning the rainforest should be strictly prohibited (with the death penalth) but the owners of the rainforest should be encouraged to log it and sell the lumber (the wood is top-notch and it is a shame to see it all being burned, when you can’t get wood like that for building any more in this country). That would keep the carbon sequestered for some time to come. And the people would make money selling the logs, then get to do what they want with them (grow beef, soy, or palm oil for biofuels) once they’ve sold the logs. That would be an economic incentive to those currently burning the rainforest. And I think we should encourage it and just write off the rainforests as gone. Since they’re going to be burned anyways, why not just stop the burning and encouraging the logging of them and the use of the wood for building? And that includes U.S. forests as well (even the old growth ones). And logging the northern forests has the added side effect of cooling the planet since the dark green traps heat. Indonesia, which is now the 3rd highest producer of greenhouse gasses due the burning of its rainforests, would probably drop to the bottom of the list if, instead of burning its rainforests, would chop them down and sell the wood for home building (or woodworking or any durable product use). I think the environmentalist’s attachment to trying to save the rainforest is a lost cause, and is causing countries with the rainforest to prohibit loggin, thus the people burn them so they can get land for raising whatever they’re raising. Does anyone agree here? At this point, we’re in damage control, and we’re going to lose a lot of species anyways, so let’s not make this change any more painful than it needs to be.
The post implied that we don’t know for certain what caused the pCO2 of the North Atlantic to rise twice the rise of atmospheric pCO2 in the 94-05 decade. Is this accurate? Is there a current best guess for the cause?
[Response: I don’t think the cause of the change is known well enough to answer the important questions (1) has there been an increase in uptake someplace else, and (2) is this a trend or an fluctuation. David]
So how much does increased exposure of Arctic Ocean waters to the atmosphere mitigate for either the North Atlantic’s stopped uptake, or for albedo changes?
[Response: Don’t know what the effect of the exposed Arctic has on ocean carbon uptake; good question. David]
Re #70: [One of my ex’s refuses to use CFLs for outdoor lights. Why? Because they won’t turn on and off with photocell switches. Except that they are cheaper to run 24/7 than incandescents…]
Which of course begs the question: why have outdoor lights at all? Why waste energy & money lighting up the outdoors when you’re not outside? (Or even then: I often read outside on summer nights, using a small LED light that uses 2 rechargable AAA cells.) I think this is a prime example of where the only new technology needed is an attitude change, and one that would be helped considerably by an increase in the price of electricity.
The co2 uptake is closely linked to the temperature: http://virakkraft.com/tempco2corr.mht
It seems to be pretty much unaffected both by emissions and concentration in air. If temp anomaly were to drop down to -0.6 oC all our emissions would be absorbed.
The north-atlantic uptake slows down simply because the temp is increasing so much there.
That virakkraft.com page is a mess of code, nothing renderable at least by my browser.
But your description doesn’t make sense, unless you’re assuming that emission and concentration aren’t correlated with temperature, for temperature to be the only thing related to uptake. Whatever you’re doing there isn’t physical chemistry.
This may be a good place to re-ask a question. Some sources describe the largest carbon sink by far as terrestrial carbonaceous rock fed in large part by atmospheric CO2 absorbed by rain. How come I never hear of this? Is it valid? Or is there a time reason why it has no geologically short term effect? Couldn’t this be a mitigating or negative forcing effect, as in more CO2 means higher temps means more evaporation means more condensation means less CO2?
[Response: Chemical weathering does take up CO2, maybe 0.1 Gton C per year. This dominates the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere on geological time scales (myr), but is kinda small on anthropogenic time scales. David]
47> Ray Ladbury: And finally to allege that those who advocate addressing climate change are condemning the third world to poverty is the biggest lie of all.
Ray, do you really think it helps your cause to call those who sincerely disagree with you liars? This is a controversial issue with considerable evidence on Christy’s and Lomborg’s (and my) side of the issue. We could be wrong, but for myself at least, it is a sincerely held position.
From what I have read the best hope for a replacing fossil fuels in the long term is geothermal … The snag is that it might take up to 10 years, time we may not have.
A much bigger snag is that the US (which has probably the biggest potential of any country in the world to reduce its GHG emissions by utilising geothermal) recently cut the geothermal research budget to zero.
#87
Sorry about that, it’s a mhtml file from a powerpoint slide.
I’m not doing physical chemistry, I’m just refering to historical records showing that in colder years nearly all emissions are absorbed while in warmer years almost nothing is absorbed.
Re. 89, Steve Reynold’s, it may be sincere in your case, but if as you claim it is sincere in Christy’s and Lomborg’s case, why do they completely ignore all the evidence (summed up in the IPCC reports) that it is the poorest countries which stand to suffer by far the most as a result of global warming, despite having made a negligible contribution to the problem? And how does this tally with the fact that the US Administration rejected Kyoto primarily because the poorest countries were not being asked to reduce their emissions in the current agreement?
#27 weather tis better… question about deforestation and forest re-growth and David’s inline response to the effect that, in the long run, it all balances out. David’s correct, of course, but the answer seems incomplete in the context of AGW, where I think it’s essential to consider the time value of carbon, i.e., carbon stored (or emissions avoided) today are worth more than carbon stored/emissions avoided in the future. After clearcut logging, even if promptly re-planted, a forest site will be continue to be a net carbon source for a decade or more due to decaying residue. Given how crucial it is to avoid emissions and maintain sinks now and over the next couple of decades, we should take no solace in the fact that forests regrow; a tiny pool of regrowth is no substitute for the large pool of a mature forest. Even though the rate of sequestration slows as trees mature, mature and old-growth forests tend to continue to act as net carbon sinks.
32 Cat Black and 81 Diane Wills and the presumed benefits of converting forests to wood products. As intuitively appealing as this may sound (and despite much promotion along these lines by the timber industry), it doesn’t really pencil out, especially if you again consider the time value of carbon. Logging a mature or old growth forest and processing trees into wood products release large amounts of carbon to the atmosphere. In the Pacific Northwest, with our exceptionally large trees, the best current estimate is that 50 percent of the harvested carbon (the biomass is about 50 percent carbon) is emitted to the atmosphere in the first year; and only about 25 percent is turned into long-lived wood products (the other 25 percent is left on the ground to decay). Elsewhere, the portion emitted is higher. This doesn’t count fossil fuels used in logging, transportation of logs, etc. Following Diane’s suggestion to avoid short-lived products like paper would improve storage somewhat, but not significantly. Even in the timber industry’s rosy scenario where wood is substituted for concrete, intensive forest management, wood products and substitution would take several decades to store more carbon than simply letting forests grown. It’s beside the point that there’s no real basis for the assumption that wood will substitute for concrete. The possibility that forests will burn sometime in the future doesn’t seem an adequate justification for logging them now with the guaranteed associated emissions.
David’s inline response to Cat Black #32 about carbon in soils of prairies and forests. It may not be definitive, but the one reference that falls to hand for me on this shows forest soils consistently storing about twice as much carbon as grassland soils for nine subregions of the U.S. (Birdsey, R. 1996. Carbon storage for major forest types and regions in the conterminous U.S. Pages 1-26 in N. Sampson, and D. O. Hall, editors. Forests and global change, volume 2: Forest management opportunities for mitigating carbon emissions. American Forests, Washington DC.) (Apologies that this reference is not readily available, but it seems to be the standard for the forest and wood products, etc. figures.)
There’s more that could be said about all this, but this is too long already. Hope it helps.
Ray Ladbury wrote: “… to allege that those who advocate addressing climate change are condemning the third world to poverty is the biggest lie of all.”
Steve Reynolds replied: “… for myself at least, it is a sincerely held position.”
With all due respect, it would seem that the only way that someone could “sincerely” believe that addressing global warming will “condemn the third world to poverty” is for the person to be profoundly ignorant. Essentially every national and international organization that is working to address poverty in the developing world recognizes that (1) the developing world is already experiencing severe impacts from global warming which are aggravating poverty, that (2) the rapidly worsening effects of global warming will hit the developing world especially hard, and the developing world will be much less able to deal with such effects than the rich world, and that (3) global warming threatens to thwart and wipe out whatever reductions in poverty might be achieved by aid from the rich world to the developing world (eg. the Millennium Development Goals).
The idea that addressing global warming will perpetuate or exacerbate poverty in the developing world is not only wrong, and baseless, it is in fact the exact opposite of the truth.
Not the time or place to respond to Steve Reynolds (#89 right now), perhaps, but I’d just like to point out that suggesting an attempt to rein in CO2 emissions is argued against on one hand as being cover for a left wing conspiracy to shift wealth to poor countries and on the other hand for condemning the third world to poverty. This has nothing to do with the science, but surely this is fascinating enough to warrant some discussion at another location (perhaps Steve R has a suggestion for an appropriate forum).
Ray: I have said many times that mitigating climate change and facilitating development are two sides of the same problem–that of developing an economy that is both ecologically and economically sustainable.
Sounds great, and if this was the consensus opinion from the economics world we’d have a lot more agreement on how to proceed with mitigation efforts.
Unfortunately many economic analyses suggest that mitigation costs are so great they’ll hurt development in the poor countries far more than they’ll help them with benefits from less pollution and less AGW. The Stern report suggested otherwise, but does some of the math in an unusual way. Lomborg’s approach is a more standard economics treatment.
It is interesting how the economics debate, like the hockey stick stats controversy, boils down to some pretty nuanced stats that are very hard for many to follow (including me).
Steve: This is a controversial issue with considerable evidence on Christy’s and Lomborg’s (and my) side of the issue. We could be wrong, but for myself at least, it is a sincerely held position.
Re: 89 “do you really think it helps your cause to call those who sincerely disagree with you liars?”
On the question Ray Ladbury raises, viz. whether “those who advocate addressing climate change are condemning the third world to poverty,” I’m moved to chime in that I also find this line of argument (which Ray denounces) particularly disingenuous and disgusting.
There have been numerous climate-trend studies which show the most severe effects of climate-change occurring in the poorest regions of the world. Around Bangladesh, water problems incessantly escalate on both sides: the demise of Himalayan glaciers and the rise of the Indian ocean. Meanwhile, Africa’s Sahel region grows more hellish every year. No previous “crime against humanity” approaches the scale of the genocide we now commit against poor nations with our pollution. There is a very serious global-justice issue here which is seldom if ever addressed.
No previous “crime against humanity” approaches the scale of the genocide we now commit against poor nations with our pollution.
Daniel this is the key point of contention, and if there was a good reason to believe this I’d be happy to donate to mitigation efforts rather than malaria nets. I’d encourage you to read up on this - there is a crime in our lack of funding for simple health remedies which could save some ten thousand people. Every day. Sure, I will vote to pull that from the military budget but as we prioritize research and spending to improve standards of living we should recognize where the money will do the most good. Also important to note that Sahel conditions appear to be more a product of regional climate change rather than global AGW.
Rod B (88) Carbonaceous rocks were at one time a huge carbon sink (when they were laid down). Now as they decompose they once again release their carbon. Mankind is facilitating this decomposition by mining, grinding and spreading limestone on our fields to neutralize the PH of the soil. This is one of the reasons agriculture is considered to be so “carbon intensive”.
Basically I am way way way late in deciding to post here once again.
But here is the conversational part: and then we get to the main course below.
Yes. After the last ice age and everyone of them, we saw an increase in atmospheric CO2. We do not know exactly where it ALL came from, but a warming ocean must account for a very very large part of it. That is, that within the boundless deep turns again home. That was the 800+/- year lag to the CO2 rise when the ice went off. It brought CO2 hanging around in the cold air at 180-190 ppmv (or less) to nearly 300 ppmv for some interglacial eras. Roughly as much as we have now pumped into the air, that is: 384 minus 300 equals 84 ppmv. So right now, with 384 ppmv in the air, can we expect additional ocean release in less than 800 years (200-400) that is now still entrained in the ocean? I believe (like an act of faith) that when the ocean reaches a punctuated equilibrium with the CO2 heated air, we will have experienced vast amounts of ocean embedded and buffered CO2 released to the air. But none of us will be around to validate that conjecture I posit on faith alone.
Main Course:
But. Initially when I read Sarah’s query and David’s response, I was concerned. David’s post is great and has the scientific conservative tone of an active player in the field.
Then Sarah . . .
#7 sarah Says:
1 November 2007 at 5:24 PM
I read this site regularly, although I have no science background. So I’m pretty hesitant to comment. But this especially sounds so dire. How much do you, as scientists steeped in this research, feel that human life on this planet has a fragile future at best? (I realize this is a broad question, so if it’s not applicable, please delete it.)
[Response: Don’t despair. If nothing else, it’s unproductive. The technology exists to cut CO2 emissions to safe levels at reasonable cost. David]
OK. Don’t despair (yet.) I agree. But the next statement which alludes to affordable technology and emissions at safe levels — disturbs me as it should many — and I see it did.
What on earth is the safe level of CO2 emission? USDA published a figure once saying the average human exhales 900mg of CO2 — and annually if you captured that CO2, extracted the C from it and used some vapor deposition form of layering it in diamond form you would end up with almost a cubic foot of diamond for every person. In other words, and I did a post on it, you exhale enough CO2 to make a cubic foot of diamond.
But the only safe emission level has got to be what is capable of sustaining a relative balance of C to maintain the temperature range for life on the planet. Right now, with the excess — it looks like the biological geological limit is the rough depth of the sawtooth in say the record from Mauna Loa.
That is why REALCLIMATESOLUTIONS.ORG needs to get into the act and explain how we get back to whatever stable level we need to arrive at for life species to be at a sustainable level — not the IPCC 450, 550, 700 or more levels “pleasant” to business interests.
This stuff IS going to be in the air for millenia unless real efforts are made to remove it, let alone stabilize it. Yeah, I’d like to see the real effort in removal and sequestration. Coupled to a bio-neutral level of emission.
If you ever read Larry Niven, the difficulty of civilization is getting rid of the heat. Here the CO2 is part of that heat problem
Obviously the interplay between ocean and earth is climate. Tectonics is slow to push chips here and there, so for long periods of time the fluctuating interplay between land and sea reaches an equilibrium — until something like us can interfere with it.
Life has had a good run, and could have as much as a billion years and maybe a hundred million years on top of that before the oceans begin to be lofted fully into the air and evaporate and rise to the warming Sun, H2 to Space, O2 to CO2. . .and Venus gets a sister. (not sure how long Venus’ H2SO4 clouds will last. They may be gone with a warming Sun by then. (Some students think it will take as much as 2 billion years to get rid of Earth’s climate moderating water.) I do not think we can push the runaway greenhouse now with anything monkeys can do. But we could make life difficult for a few millions of years, by carelessly pushing this, then that, species to the point of extinction. Many sapiens will die too. The MIT meeting on tinkering with the climate is not in anyway realistic unless huge means of rapidly removing and sequestering the atmospheric CO2 are initiated. We need to do nothing to increase the CO2.
For the record. The ocean sink is something likely to be filled and reversed if the ocean surface gets too, too warm — reaching the new equilibrium. Think of Realclimatesolutions.org as a credible mechanism. You guys ought to talk it up.
Re 89. Steve Reynolds, perhaps you can think of a motivation other than mendacity for a scientist repeating arguments he knows to be false (e.g. we can’t predict weather, so we can’t predict climate), for smearing the entire scientific community with the epithet “alarmist” while providing not one single example of a climate scientist attributing a particular weather event to climate change, and worst of all, painting those advocating mitigation of climate change as favoring continued poverty for the third world. I find this last particularly galling, having myself pointed out that development and climate mitigation are just two facets of the same problem–developing an economy that is both economically and ecologically sustainable.
So if you can think of a lesser charge than mendacity for Christy to plead to that encompasses his rejection of evidence-based science, I’ll be happy to listen.
Some people like the idea of gobbling up the third world’s few remaining arable acres for the cultivation of biofuel crops. Not me. Look up the word “exacerbate” - it is not a synonym of “solve”.
Daniel C. Goodwin (96) — The acres either are not arable or else are not required. Biopact’s total approach is actually most thoughtful.
In any case, those growing and processing biofuel crops now have a cash income, something they (often) had not had before. Largely it is a win-win situation, although there are some troubles with this concept, principally in Southeast Asia.
You really ought to read what Biopact has to say about themselves before just simply posting based on your mistaken assumptions.
RE 91: I understand the interest in raindrops as a mechanism of removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
The raindrops have a large air/water surface area, so some of the atmospheric CO2 surely is absorbed and transported to the oceans, in addition to the direct air/sea interaction.
Anyway, the 100 million year old carbon we burn does not disappear; it circulates and does its tricks.
About adaptation to climate climate change. It is frequently proposed that people with the probable problem of rising sea levels must just move somewhere else to live.
Adaptation is easier if decisions are taken in good time. So let us right now make moving a bit easier for them. Let us terminate all visa and passport requirements and frontier formalities.
This is not politically difficult. More real freedom for everyone, less big and unproductive government for the taxpayers to support. Who could possibly vote against it?
That exists now in the USA, and that is the stated goal of the European Union.
He states:
“The recent CNN report “Planet in Peril,” for instance, spent considerable time discussing shrinking Arctic sea ice cover. CNN did not note that winter sea ice around Antarctica last month set a record maximum (yes, maximum) for coverage since aerial measurements started.”
NSIDC note that “The area covered by antarctic sea ice has shown a small (not statistically significant) increasing trend.” Whereas they say about the Arctic: ” This trend is a major sign of climate change in the polar regions and may be an indicator of the effects of global warming.” http://nsidc.org/seaice/characteristics/difference.html
Yes climate’s always changing, so what is the alternate theory that explains at least the warming of the last 30 years? At the same time as we have global warming, we have an agent which, under the best available theory, we expect to cause global warming. Without an alternate theory he’s just asking us to accept that the warming is a coincidence in favour of a handwaving “natural causes”.
Anyway, here’s my nomination for Quote of the Week…
“We discount the possibility that everything is caused by human actions, because everything we’ve seen the climate do has happened before.”John R Christy.
Let me blind you with this science…..Next summer, there is going to be a lot of poor people in semi-arid places who will be suffering from the heat…..excruciating heat, with no recourse except to suffer. No air conditioners, little water, and lots and lots of heat. The summer after that will get worse. More science…in Bangledesh, water will cover the city in our lifetime, with the lack of bulldozers expediting that fact. Eventually, the land masses on this planet will become red hot all over, perhaps in your grandchildrens lifetime, for you young ones. human suffering will become commonplace, like Mexico and Haiti, but all over in bulk…..next year.
Dr. Francis T. Manns (#85) said this at gristmill:
“The effect of implimenting Kyoto would be disaster for you and yours. This is a case of needing to treat symptoms of global warming as they occur, if they are serious enough, without invoking Big Brother government to attack complex causes. The extremist model is not the only hypothesis. There are serious scientific questions. The spectal line of CO2 that is active in absorption is saturated. Additional CO2 cannot cause more warming.
The early experiments that sent radiation through gases in a tube, measuring bands of the spectrum at sea-level pressure and temperature, had been misleading. The bands seen at sea level were actually made up of overlapping spectral lines, which in the primitive early instruments had been smeared out into broad bands. Improved physics theory and precise laboratory measurements in the 1940s and after encouraged a new way of looking at the absorption. Scientists were especially struck to find that at low pressure and temperature, each band resolved into a cluster of sharply defined lines, like a picket fence, with gaps between the lines where radiation would get through.(24) The most important CO2 absorption lines did not lie exactly on top of water vapor lines. Instead of two overlapping bands, there were two sets of narrow lines with spaces for radiation to slip through. So even if water vapor in the lower layers of the atmosphere did entirely block any radiation that could have been absorbed by CO2, that would not keep the gas from making a difference in the rarified and frigid upper layers. Those layers held very little water vapor anyway. And scientists were coming to see that you couldn’t just calculate absorption for radiation passing through the atmosphere as a whole, you had to understand what happened in each layer — which was far harder to calculate.
Manns also claims that cosmic rays and sunspots are the real reasons behind the observed temperature trends. This has all been reviewed on RC, in 2004 and 2006 and 2007. Still, the same arguments keep rolling out, over and over, even after being debunked again and again.
93 Daniel C. Goodwin> On the question Ray Ladbury raises, viz. whether “those who advocate addressing climate change are condemning the third world to poverty,” I’m moved to chime in that I also find this line of argument (which Ray denounces) particularly disingenuous and disgusting.
Why is it disingenuous?
While ‘the most severe effects of climate-change occurring in the poorest regions of the world’, the most severe economic effects of any likely effective mitigation will also be born by the people of developing nations.
For people who believe the economic effects of mitigation will be worse than the original problem (at least in short to medium term), aggressive mitigation is not in the interest of the poor.
Re 89. This is another one of those statements that begs for more information. First of all, what is the evidence that you are citing? I keep hearing the argument, but those making it never seem to get around to explaining what supports it. In what ways will mitigation efforts make life worse in developing countries? Please be specific. Beyond that, I’m another person who finds the argument disgusting and disingenuous, given that those making it have not, to the best of my knowledge, previously demonstrated much concern with the problems of the developing world nor put any energy into solving those problems. They are using the argument solely in support of an ideological position. If no effort were being made toward climate mitigation, what actions would they propose and support right now to deal with the long-standing issues they have heretofore ignored?
You really scare me with the last paragraph of your comment! Burning forest might add CO2, but subsequently, new growth takes it back up again. Lumber will take some carbon out of the cycle, but what is the average life time of furniture or wooden construction? Most will end up in the atmosphere within 100 years. Without forests, tropical soils deplete within years, and drying out creates irreversible changes, if the soils are not completely eroded away first.
Although the geographical distribution of the continents was different, life was doing great in the tropics during the Jurassic and Cretaceous. One of the reasons must have been the moderating influence of forests, providing evaporation (which cools directly, and indirectly through cloud formation). A great site to learn some basics of paleo climate is scotese.com.
Re #56: I read all too little about ocean thermal energy conversion. There is a near-unlimited supply of it, and it already works, providing many tropical island communities with power, cooling and sweet water.
One nice thing about this technique is that it is preferentially available to countries near the equator, where most of the future growth in energy generating capacity is going to take place, both due to population growth and industrialization.
Unfortunately that also seems to be the reason that little research money is going into it. What is happening is mostly small and private.
#113, Steve Reynolds, are you really trying to convince us that you sincerely believe that if US citizens and businesses start to waste less energy and use more renewable energy, that will be cause subsistence farmers in Zambia and Bangladesh to suffer, and to suffer so much that the increases in droughts and floods that they are experiencing as a result of AGW pale in comparison? And please could you explain, in that case, why the US administration gave as its main reason for rejecting Kyoto the fact that countries such as Bangladesh and Zambia were not being asked to reduce their emissions under Kyoto?
RE #81 & “Regarding the use of passive solar, how does that work when things really heat up and you don’t get the cold winters? Doesn’t your house end up getting way too hot?”
Ken’s house (#78) stays pretty cool in the summer. Summers do get very hot in Chicago’s far suburbs. And the sun is more overhead then, so it doesn’t go through his southern facing solar absorbing windows. Plus he has removable awnings, and deciduous trees that are bare in the winter, allowing sun in, and shady in the summer. His northern side has high, small windows, and is bermed almost up to them (but you can hardly tell, because of the beautiful shrubbery on the berms); this not only helps keep it warm when it’s cold, but cool when it’s hot outside.
Finally his air-tight design & great insulation helps to keep cool, as well as warm, air in. (He also has a 4-stage filter system to bring outside, super-purified air in — 5 min every hour — so it is an extremely healthy environment.)
My only thinking on this is after the 70s energy crunch, why haven’t ALL homes been built this way????!!!!
Steve Reynolds,
While Christy at least has his missionary background as support for his concern for the developing world, Lomborg and his fellow yuppie-scum seem to reserve their concern for when it can justify inaction on climate change. However, I see no evidence that Christy’s concern with the plight of the poor extended beyond his quest for their souls. In any case, anyone who has examined the problem in any detail has concluded that we cannot just look at current CO2 emissions, but must look at where they are growing most rapidly and where their growth is expected to pick up (first and second derivatives, if you will). This was the failure of Kyoto–it did not look at China and India, where economic growth was moribund when the treaty was initiated.
Economic aid to develop green energy and transport infrastructures in developing countries will pay significant dividends both for their development and for stabilizing climate. Development is a part of the equation for sustainability, not a competitor.
The entire argument that states that we must allow development, so we must do nothing about climate is false on technical grounds, false on economic grounds, false on humanitarian grounds and false on historical grounds.
You state that the consequences of climate change will be less than the consequences of addressing it in the near term. However, climate consequences extend into the distant future and it is unwise to suppose that these threats can be met by simple technological fixes–particularly if we don’t allow time for those fixes to be developed. I can only presume that Christy posits a fiath-based solution.
Re #113 Steve Reynolds “While ‘the most severe effects of climate-change occurring in the poorest regions of the world’, the most severe economic effects of any likely effective mitigation will also be born by the people of developing nations.”
I think we need argument rather than mere assertion here. Since poor countries (”developing nations” is for many of them a pusillanimous euphemism) produce much less greenhouse gas emission per capita than rich ones, any international agreement on reducing emissions (and without such an agreement, there’s no way they will be reduced) is bound to require greater reductions of rich countries. The latter are also far more dependent on high-energy and other high-emission practices. So why will the people of poor countries be more affected?
Steve L> This has nothing to do with the science, but surely this is fascinating enough to warrant some discussion at another location (perhaps Steve R has a suggestion for an appropriate forum).
Re # 41 Eli Rabett “pCO2 is awful… How about changing over to Pco2 or some such.”
Physiologists have long denoted CO2 partial pressure as PCO2 (with subscript 2). It is the chemists and chemical oceanographers who for some reason adopted pCO2. They also give their pCO2 values in units of microatmospheres, which I find annoying. But, then, I’m stuck in the world of torr (or mm Hg) and kcal, having never quite made the transition to S.I. units.
Joe Duck wrote: “Unfortunately many economic analyses suggest that mitigation costs are so great they’ll hurt development in the poor countries far more than they’ll help them with benefits from less pollution and less AGW.”
With all due respeect, that is false. It is simply not true that “many economic analyses” suggest that. Nearly every economic analysis of the question strongly suggests the opposite. The overwhelming consensus of national and international organizations that work to overcome poverty in the developing world is that their efforts will be undermined and defeated by the effects of anthropogenic global warming, and that dealing with global warming is an absolutely essential requirement for improving human well-being in the developing world. The support that you claim for your opinion (”many economic analyses”) does not exist.
Steve Reynolds wrote: ” … the most severe economic effects of any likely effective mitigation will also be born by the people of developing nations.”
You offer no evidence to support the assertion that “the most severe economic effects” of mitigation will be to “developing nations”. In fact there is no such evidence and there is no reason to believe that this will be true. On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence and plenty of reason to believe that (1) the economic harms of global warming will hit developing countries and the poor especially hard, undermining and defeating all efforts to overcome global poverty, and indeed this is already happening; (2) developing countries and the poor lack the resources to deal with or adapt to the effects of global warming which will multiply the harm and the human suffering it will cause; (3) developing countries and the poor stand to economically benefit from a global effort to mitigate and reverse global warming through the development and application of energy efficiency, clean renewable energy and organic agriculture technologies.
Moreover, since the harmful effects of anthropogenic global warming that we are experiencing now and will experience in the next several decades are overwhelmingly the result of fossil fuel use by the rich, industrialized world — in particular the USA — the rich nations of the world have a responsibility to help the developing world with any harmful economic impacts that mitigation may bring, as well as to fund technology transfer to the developing world so that the poor countries can bypass unsustainable and destructive fossil-fuel based development, have access to the technologies and tools to provide clean renewable energy needed for sustainable economic development.
Steve Reynolds wrote: “For people who believe the economic effects of mitigation will be worse than the original problem (at least in short to medium term), aggressive mitigation is not in the interest of the poor.”
There is no valid reason for anyone to believe that “the economic effects of mitigation will be worse than the original problem” for the developing world, or the poor, or the vast majority of human beings on this planet. The only reason I can think of that someone would “sincerely” believe this is that someone has heard it repeated over and over again by various propaganda outlets and has uncritically accepted it as fact and neglected to investigate the facts which show there is no basis for this belief.
There is one group of human beings on this planet for whom the “the economic effects of mitigation will be worse than the original problem” and that is people who profit from the use of fossil fuels. A “business as usual” approach — with fossil fuel consumption increasing and accelerating until it eventually peaks and declines due to depletion of supplies — stands to bring trillions of dollars of profits to this group of human beings. They do not want that flow of profits to be “prematurely” ended because the world embarks on a program to rapidly phase out the use of fossil fuels and migrate to clean renewable energy sources, which is at the heart of any global warming mitigation agenda.
Of course, most people are not going to shed tears over the prospect of Exxon-Mobil losing some of its multi-billion-dollar annual profits as income and wealth shift to manufacturers of wind turbines, photovoltaics, biofuel systems, etc, so rather than bring their case honestly to the public, the fossil fuel profiteers promote bogus talking points about how “the poor” will suffer from addressing global warming.
Short, cynical answer: Because they consume less energy, and thus cut back on profits. If you question this, remember what Enron did to California at the very beginning of this century.
This may sound extreme (but then, so is the long term outlook for the effects of climate change on the biosphere we depend upon for sustenance) but I’ve felt for a long time that regulations should have been put in place long ago that maintained all new single-family homes and rental properties should be constructed with an eye on passive energy-saving architectural principles, and that they should be mandated to have a “plug-‘n’-play” set-up for hooking up energy alternatives like solar and wind, leaving the owner with the option to install panels or windmills.
The irony is readily apparent – if we had these things put in place even a decade ago, we’d be much further along with a response to AGW, and have the beginnings of an infrastructure in place to expand upon rapidly.
A short note of thanks for your recommendation made elsewhere of the Nov/Dec issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Very good read, expanding on something I read in Field Notes From a Catastrophe.
There are several pieces in the mag re Climate Change worth reading; interesting, sobering reads that address some of the discussion brought up here. And the discussion with Bruce Smith regarding the viability of nuclear power as a response to climate change is very clear in showing why this is probably not a very good idea.
Re 81. Diane, take a deep breath. There are a number of good books out there on passive solar for heating; you might find it worthwhile to take a look. At http://www.asespubs.org/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=41 you’ll find an interesting blurb about one of those books; the write-up gives a brief background on solar heating and passive cooling.
You’re right that use of passive solar for heating in cold weather can be responsible for overheating in hot, but there are well-known and understood design principles that allow passive solar to work both efficiently and comfortably during cold seasons while preventing overheating in hot seasons. For example, I have a sun porch on my house that has windows on the east, west, and south. In spite of the fact that the porch is poorly insulated and distressingly leaky (yeah, I know, mea culpa), it stays fairly warm in all except the bitterest cold weather. When we bought the house, the porch would get hot, hot, hot and uncomfortable in the summer. A little effort with various means of shading has mostly solved that problem and I believe we can do more. You can see a very basic illustration of the difference in the way the sun strikes a house between winter and summer and what it means for passive solar at http://www.nesea.org/buildings/passive.html.
There are some great resources out there for using the sun for our energy needs: passive solar for heating through building design, solar collectors, solar hot water heating, and photovoltaics for electricity. If you can find an energy fair in your area, you can learn a lot about how all these things work and what is available right now. Some of the products are still prohibitively expensive in the short term, but I believe that situation is changing and will continue to do so. Of course, the question is whether it will happen as fast as we need it to or not, especially given the current lack of leadership and the committed efforts of vested intersts.
As for temperatures getting warmer and doing away with cold winters–I don’t know that anyone is predicting tropical climates in the north in the near future. (Are they?) Where I live, at a little over 40 degrees latitude north, average monthly temperature from December through March ranges from a high of 39.4 degrees to a low of 26.1. Even if the atmosphere warmed up by 20 degrees in the next few years, I’d still need heat to keep my house livable during those months, although not as much as currently, of course. Still whatever amount of heat I need has to come from somewhere–better that it come from passive solar to the greatest extent possible than from continued use of fossil fuel. Better insulation and other conservation measures and better use of sustainable energy sources could make a big difference in how much CO2 we release into the atmosphere. No one effort is going to solve the problem, but, seriously, every little bit helps.
Re: #119 (Lynn) and earlier comments re low energy housing…
Try Googling “passivhaus”: a German design system for housing that uses no energy for heating or cooling. Passivhaus UK might be a good place to start…
Re: solar houses and such http://www.solardecathlon.org now shows the results of the 2007 university competition to build good-looking & efficient solar-powered homes.
The top 4 of 20, from around the world were:
#1 Technische Universitat Darmstadt
#2 U of Maryland
#3 Santa Clara University
#4 Penn State
7 of the 20 teams got 100% on Energy Balance.
This was a pretty serious evaluation.
Re:#128, J.S.’s comments. I also found the articles in the latest issue of the “Bulletin” timely and important. Chris Mooney does a thorough job of exposing the foot dragging by the current administration, and the interview of Dr. Smith points up the enormous risks associated of using nuclear fission as an alternative energy source.http://www.thebulletin.org/
James comment #84, shows that common sense has to go along with the use of improved technologies.What’s the point indeed of lighting up the sky at night? It gives cause to wonder whether, if we develop practical and affordable cars that get 80 miles per gallon, will drivers quadruple their mileage? This is why conservation is an important element, that ought to go hand in hand with improved efficiency.
BTW David gaves a good primer on the factors that effect the PH of the oceans, on RC, a few years ago that’s pertinent to his introductory post. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=169
125 SecularAnimist> You offer no evidence to support the assertion that “the most severe economic effects” of mitigation will be to “developing nations”. In fact there is no such evidence and there is no reason to believe that this will be true.
I have tried to point to such evidence (supported by 4 Nobel Prize winning economists), but apparently RC does not want you to see it; they censored my post.
SecularAnimist> There is no valid reason for anyone to believe that “the economic effects of mitigation will be worse than the original problem” for the developing world, or the poor, or the vast majority of human beings on this planet. The only reason I can think of that someone would “sincerely” believe this is that someone has heard it repeated over and over again by various propaganda outlets and has uncritically accepted it as fact and neglected to investigate the facts which show there is no basis for this belief.
The only reason that you can think of is incorrect. Please ask your question at the Fergus Brown site so I can answer without being censored.
My suggestion of a consensus among economists is based on my understanding of the work of Yale Economist Robert Mendohlson, a leader in this field who has extensively reviewed and published on this topic. I’ve emailed him for some clarification, but I think Steve Reynolds has this right.
Secular a challenge in the way you address this above is that we all use fuels, and we could all cut that amount down. Almost everybody agrees that we should cut CO2 and GHG emissions, and everybody agrees we should not completely ban all energy use tomorrow.
The question is this: What is the optimal balance with respect to mitigation? Almost all scenarios show that GDP will initially take a hit from massive mitigation - this is the large “cost” to the economy. The benefits depend a lot on how seriously climate change will hurt economies and also on assumptions about discount rates and such. Thanks to econ analyses we now know the folly of a pure Kyoto style approach (high cost, low benefits) and indicates why we need to look at the economics as we take steps to mitigate GHGs.
Also - the risk to developing countries argument I (and Steve) make above is based partly on the inevitable GDP hit they’ll likely take during crucial development stages and also assumes that if we suboptimally allocate resources to AGW mitigation we will have less to devote to helping poor countries in other respects. This latter point is weaker than the GDP argument but it is better than begging the question about prioritizing taxes and funding for important things. Many would suggest that expensive mitigation has a lower ROI than poverty assistance.
Re #131: You should also note that solar heating doesn’t have to be passive. Passive solar generally needs to be designed in, as it’s an expensive remodel. Active solar collectors can be much less expensive, and can be retrofitted to most houses. Do a search on something like “solar space heating”.
OK, Rod, the source you gave includes the same answer Dave gave:
“Carbonate - Silicate Cycle
… Time scale for this cycle is millions to hundreds of millions of years, so not a major concern of humans… ”
Accelerating that — mixing CO2-rich exhaust gas with ocean water and crushed limestone — has been proposed as a way of sequestering carbon in the ocean — giving the ocean a dose of calcium bicarbonate:
That was 7 years ago, I didn’t search for subsequent papers citing it to see what’s become of the idea; followups probably belong in the Geoengineering thread.
140# dhogaza - yes, it is not clear that any of the so-called schools of economic theory (neoclassical, institutional, etc) address the matter of economic phase transition, which is the sort of thing that is being approached now. the challenge for economists is to present a framework that describes the mix of both first-order phase transitions and continuous phase transitions as the unsustainable emissions ‘bubble’ that is the current world economy and that has developed since the industrial revolution goes pop. it is difficult enough to describe and analyse phase transitions for physical systems; much harder therefore for a system whose signalling systems are ungrounded and whose structures have deliberately cut off so many of the earth’s feedback signals to it.
Hank – thanks for the realclimate link which states that Christy+Spencer first introduced their error in 1998. Then Christy gave testimony, based on the erronous data, to the Senate in 2001. Then apparently the error was sorted out in the latter part of 2005. Are we saying that this uncorrected work was hanging about the web for - how many years? Seems like my bet was pretty safe for a certain amount of time.
Has Christy gone back to the Senate and said “You know that stuff I said back in 2001…?” The realclimate link did say “it will be interesting to see if this is now corrected.”
The science seemed interesting but I found the comment by one of the other authors rather suspect “Until we understand how precipitation systems change with warming, I don’t believe we can know how much of our current warming is manmade. Without that knowledge, we can’t predict future climate change with any degree of certainty.”
And he also had a pop at climate modelling “Let’s see if climate models can get this part right before we rely on their long term projections.”
Is this just more ‘cuckoo science’ or an interesting discovery?
Two economists find themselves locked in a basement. They’re not sure what time it is, because it’s dark and they can’t read their watches. They think it’s nearly dinner time, cause they’re starting to feel hungry. But they’re not worried; they are not starting to panic - because they know that their demand will create sandwiches for them!
I took your advice and did a bit of researching about Christy. He has his own little page on exxonsecrets and in the Guardian from this year (2007) I found:-
QUOTE
“The film (TGGWS) also maintains that manmade global warming is disproved by conflicting temperature data. Professor John Christy speaks about the discrepancy he discovered between temperatures at the Earth’s surface and temperatures in the troposphere (or lower atmosphere). But the programme fails to mention that in 2005 his data were proved wrong, by three papers in Science magazine.”
UNQUOTE
It looks like Christy forgot to mention that too. I missed his condemnation of TGGWS as well. Or corrections to what he said in the film.
QUOTE
[[ Professor John Christy ] What we’ve found consistently, is that in a great part of the Planet, that the bulk of the atmosphere is not warming as much as we see at the surface, in this region. And that’s a real head-scratcher for us, because the theory is pretty straight forward. And the theory says that if the surface warms, the upper atmosphere should warm rapidly. The rise in temperature of that part of the atmosphere is not very dramatic at all, and really does not match the theory that climate models are expressing at this point.]
UNQUOTE
Steve Reynolds @136: I doubt very much that RC censored your post. They have been having intermittent problems with their software over recent months; comments often go missing without a trace. This happens to me about one comment in three.
If they wanted to censor you, why would they allow you to post at all?
RE mitigation costs, here’s a method that might help:
1. First enact all purely money-saving measures, such as conservation (turning off lights not in use, cutting motor in drive-thrus, buying next house close to work, reusables, reduce); buying GreenMountain 100% wind-powered electricity, which saves a couple of bucks a month over conventional, dirty-powered electricty. And other such measures that purely save, with absolutely no up-front costs at all.
2. Then once one has saved some $$ from that, plow that into low-cost, money-saving measures — CF bulbs, low-flow showerheads (which cost $6, but save $100 or more per year on water & energy to heat it), etc.
3. Then once one has saved $$ on 1 & 2, then plow that into more expensive money-saving measures….maybe a SunFrost refrigerater, which really costs big, but also saves big.
4. Then once one has saved big $$ on 1, 2, & 3, start plowing that saved money into things that pay for themselves, but do not go on to save more $$, AND into things that cost, but do not pay for themselves over time — like plug-in hybrid cars (which should be available by then).
That way a person without a dime to spare (probably because of his/her energy/resource waste/inefficiency) can do it, which means everyone can do it. The rich can do it faster by investing their surplus, but even the poor can do it this way.
RE censorship on RC (#136), I’ve been censored in the past, but what I’ve found is if I tone down the rhetoric, make it polite and appealing to logic and reason, and make it more on-topic, it get accepted.
Nick Barnes> I doubt very much that RC censored your post. They have been having intermittent problems with their software over recent months; comments often go missing without a trace. This happens to me about one comment in three.
If they wanted to censor you, why would they allow you to post at all?
OK, let’s test your hypothesis. I will post it again immediately after this post.
Thank you for the response to my comments at 37, but your remarks do little to advance my understanding of the quoted carbon exchanges. The reply also leaves me wondering if the data given by UNESCO is suspect and if the real sensitivities could be dangerously misunderstood.
Let me quote you the main figures from the diagram (Gt/y to atmosphere +, from atmosphere):
1.Fossil fuel/cement +7.2
2.Anthropogenic land use change +1.5, land sink -2.4
3.Respiration/fires +55.5, net primary production -57.0
4.Background ocean/atmosphere +70.6, reverse -70.0
5.Anthropogenic ocean/atmosphere +20.0, reverse -22.2
Why are exchanges at (5) quoted as already a large fraction of those at (4) and currently no less than 3 times those at (1)!?
Sorry, but I cannot see how the picture given in the chart, if accurate, can be entirely irrelevant to atmospheric concentrations. The figure quotes the ocean sink as 38,000 Gt, slightly increased (by 135) through anthropogenic influences to date. However, it also quotes the atmospheric sink as originally 590 Gt, but now increased by 204, much more significant, of course. If the net exchanges at (4) and (5) were to become seriously positive for a variety of reasons, this would have a dramatic effect on the rate of atmospheric CO2 increase.
I had a big post Sunday. It didn’t go through. I am pretty sure that the software simply swallowed it. Two weeks ago three posts. Might have liked the post from yesterday to go through. Even more wish that I had saved it. I probably should always backup the big ones. Oh well. Might not even be the code, really, just the traffic. Sometimes I can’t get through, either.
Anyway, unless someone is completely off-topic, I really doubt they will be “censored” although the impolite stuff might get edited. (That has happened to me a couple times.) But a contributor or two might actually refuse to post something if they think it is impolite through-and-through and getting personal (that’s happened in one case in the time that I have been here) or they have given someone several warnings about simply repeating the same arguments after several days after those arguments have been addressed. (I have seen the latter happen once as well.) But in either case you will know. You won’t have to guess.
Why wouldn’t increased CO2 in the air lead to increased CO2 solubility in seawater due to Henry’s Law? The Henry’s Law effect is much stronger than temperature.
Based on crude calculations I’ve made since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we have increased the CO2 content of surface waters by something on the order of 5% or more. Such a change corresponds to a large amount of atmospheric CO2–on the order of 50, 100 ppm or more, depending on how thick surface waters are assumed to be. As CO2 levels rise why wouldn’t solubility follow and absorption continue?
Speaking of disingenuous, the name Bjorn Lomborg seems familiar to me from somewhere…
If only there were a rule that proven liars have to shut up for some decent interval. As it is, my feeble mind is overtaxed in remembering many names I’d prefer to forget.
Frankly, there are many economic analyses of climate change out there, and the ones put forward by the Copenhagen Consensus, (which, coincidentally or not, fit nicely with Bjorn Lomborg’s preordained world’s view), are not impressive. More pertinently to this thread, they do not as is substantiate your claim about mitigation costs to the poor. Let me explain: there is no doubt mitigation will negatively impact economic growth rates in the short term. Given the high sensitivity that poor nations and individuals have to these, there would be an argument to be made. However, the overall effect on these is directly accounted for in any CBA, and the sensitivity holds throughout, so if a CBA passes, this is not a valid argument (only if a CBA didn’t pass, and people argued from an aesthetic point of view that we should go forward with mitigation to protect the environment, the argument would be valid).
Outside of that- indeed, quite separate from it- is the degree to which mitigation spending creates greater welfare than development or malaria spending. It is manipulative and a red herring to suggest that somehow climate change needs to be pitted solely against charitable giving in the third world as the only two options for funds they artificially cap at $50 billion. Manipulative because charity spending, (as embodied by 3rd world development aid- note the last word), should have a higher threshold in a CBA than spending for one’s own benefits, (which very much describes mitigation), a distinction Lomborg is very much in the business of obscuring. A red herring because, if development spending passes a CBA given that higher threshold, bring it on. However, even if it were the case that such spending passed an appropriate CBA, and did so at a much higher utility than climate mitigation, that would not at all demonstrate that we shouldn’t spend on mitigation. It would rather mean that we should not spend the marginal wealth on the lowest welfare impact public good, and the Copenhagen Coalition does not have analysis to support that this is global warming mitigation (but yet they come to that conclusion anyway. Hmmm….).
As an aside, all that takes their conclusions at face value- quite charitable given that neither the Copenhagen Consensus nor any other one has demonstrated the first part, let alone the second (that mitigation is last), with any analysis more substantial than a block of swiss cheese. Indeed, there is very little in the Copenhagen Group analysis which is analytically compelling- its solution is an artifact of its formulation, (see Jeffery Sachs criticism of the highly engineered $50 billion figure alluded to in the Wikipedia article, not to mention my point and the much larger issues with the type of CBA at the heart of the analysis).
If you are interested in an economic review that is illuminating of its subject matter, you should look for one that recognizes the basic reality that we are not talking about charity with AGW mitigation, but investment in our own well being. One cognizant of the fact that there are more than two or three or five public goods for consideration in spending, and one that does not discard inputs simply because they are difficult to quantify- (Have we explicitly modeled uncertainty about climate sensitivity? About discount rates? How do we model damages in the distant dark reaches of a thick right tail? What is the statistical value of human life? And for center of the distribution modelers, what types of wars and terrorism is fought for or financed with petrocurrency? Can we expect there to be no geopolitical conflict as a result of climate change? How expensive are the agency issues associated with mitigation?). In short, you should look for an analysis that does not wear its science like a straight jacket. It turns out the difficult things to model are where the action is. When we arbitrarily discard them as the Coalition does, should we really expect the analysis to be valid?
A true welfare analysis takes into account all costs and benefits, (mitigated damages but also mitigated risk and uncertainty), uncertainty about climate sensitivity, about stochastic discount rates, etc. To date, there has not been very compelling work in this area, but that is changing. You will realize when you read that that ’skeptics’ criticism of the Stern Review is minor compared to the error any CBA that ignores uncertainty makes. And I’ll just keep posting that until someone picks up on it and realizes its pivotal significance.
doghzaa, et al, you may not like economics, but it’s the only decision tool we have. Simple science is insufficient for policy decisions, and it’s highly unlikely dead reckoning leads to any better conclusions (and is clearly more at risk of manipulation). What we need are economists who don’t simplify their analysis to fit within their comfort level and tool set, something we’ve had far too much of to date, (but as noted, is changing).
#125 SecularAnimistOf course, most people are not going to shed tears over the prospect of Exxon-Mobil losing some of its multi-billion-dollar annual profits as income and wealth shift to manufacturers of wind turbines, photovoltaics, biofuel systems,
Here’s a fun question: What % of XOM’s annual $400B in sales will be shifted to solar cell and other alt fuel manufacturers in the next 50 years? If you assume 50%, and if you believe that there will be a handful of leaders in the new space (typical in all segments of import), then that means that some solar cell company with a reasonable IPR position (take SPWR as an example) sitting at around $200M in sales today will be posting 20% YoY growth for the next 50 years to fill that void. It’d be unprecendented. But it also highlights how significant of an investment opportunity might exist.
Of course, if it looks inevitable, then it’d be easy for XOM to simply buy a few of these alt energy companies. SPWR is only $10B right now. Even with a few years of solid growth they would still be easily purchased by an oil company.
XOM won’t go away. They might morph into something else. But they won’t go away.
I wonder, too, if oil turns into the cheap fuel for emerging nations in 50 years. If EU + US do indeed bite the bullet and push to do the right thing and get off of oil, then world demand drops and the price would fall to unprecendented levels, making it much more attractive for nations that are seeing their population adjust to standards similar to what the west is enjoying today (1.8 cars per family, 3 TVs per house, etc).
If we opt to get world CO2 output to 1975 levels (arbitrary date, but presumably safe), and if we assume everyone in the world gets to produce CO2 equally (fair assumption for 2100 as India, China rise to current western standard of living), then per capita CO2 production in the US needs to drop by 96.3%. EU per capita CO2 production needs to drop by 92.5%.
Simple conservation doesn’t get us there unfortunately.
Steve Reynolds, So, do tell. When did the Copenhagen Business School take such a deep and abiding interest in the plight of the poor? Certainly, I find nothing among the “experts” to suggest any experience dealing with development issues–and squat when it comes to expertise in disaster mitigation, super-cat insurance or anything else associated with mitigation of risk.
The Copenhagen Consensus may well have been a consensus, but it certainly was not a consensus of experts in any field relevant to climate change mitigation or international development.
I take only two things away from what I’ve read of the Copenhagen Consensus:
1)Mere agreement does not make consensus (which must be based on evidence and the opinions of experts in the relevant fields)
2)Of course we need to take care that in our urgency to mitigate climate change, we do not embrace the false economy of sacrificing economic health and continued development.
The climate mitigation vs. development dichotomy is a false one. They are both aspects of sustainability.
Re #138 Joe Duck “My suggestion of a consensus among economists is based on my understanding of the work of Yale Economist Robert Mendohlson, a leader in this field who has extensively reviewed and published on this topic.”
Joe, can you give a more specific reference to Mendohlson’s views on the comparison of mitigation and impact costs? I can’t find anything he’s written specifically on that. He does say (Mendohlson, Dinar and Williams Environment and Development Economics 11: 159–178
“The distributional impact of climate change on rich and poor countries”):
“This paper has shown that climate impacts have large distributional
consequences. The bulk of the damages from climate change are likely
to fall on the poor countries of the world.”
In the same paper he advocates a carbon tax on all countries, the proceeds to be used to help poor countries develop. He does say:
“Rather than focusing strictly on mitigation, the carbon program would modernize developing countries, making them more capable of taking care of themselves.”
However, since the carbon tax would itself be a mitigation measure, he’s clearly not opposed to mitigation. I would oppose the authors’ suggestion that the World Bank (which is of course run by rich countries in their own interest) should administer this fund, but the idea of a global carbon tax hypothecated to helping poor countries grow economically is certainly worth considering - provided we add, as they do not, that this should also be oriented toward minimising any resultant increase in emissions from those countries.
Re # 155 Mike Alexander: “Why wouldn’t increased CO2 in the air lead to increased CO2 solubility in seawater due to Henry’s Law? The Henry’s Law effect is much stronger than temperature.”
Henry’s law states that the concentration of a dissolved gas (Cx) is equal to the partial pressure of that gas (Px) times the solubility coefficient for that gas in a particular solvent (alphax; note that various symbols are use for the solubility coefficient):
Cx = Px x alphax
The solubility coefficient is determined by the temperature and chemical composition (e.g., salinity in the case of seawater) of the solvent. So, in the technical sense, solubility (i.e., solubility coefficient) is independent of the partial pressure. Some people use the term “solubility” when they really mean concentration - is that how you are using the term, Mike?
Nick re: Mendohlson on Mitigation. I have a great email response from him about this - asking for permission to post it here. The gist is that the optimal approach starts with inexpensive mitigations and scales these up over time as technologies and effectiveness increase.
Citing Lomborg is hazardous to your argument. I’ve had live, face-to-face discussion with him. I can assure you, he doesn’t know the first thing about ecosystems, feedback systems, or climate science.
When I asked him about “fishing down the food web,” he said that this is simply removing the oldest fish from the population. My jaw literally dropped at his ignorance.
To my knowledge, he has never published in a peer-reviewed journal. Sincere nor not, if you follow him, you will be led astray.
Re Jim’s concerns: have you read the Copenhagen Consensus material regarding how to prioritize spending? Any specific complaints about how they order global priorities?
Make sure and ask him if his “optimal approach” is optimal under explicit recognition of uncertainty in the climate sensitivity scale parameter and discount factor (indeed, what method of discounting he is employing, or details and assumptions of his “optimal” strategy full stop). It is also worth noting that Mendelsohn is on the record as claiming that North America and northern Europe will benefit from global warming, to say nothing of this beauty:
“If you look at what’s going to happen to the world as a whole, there’s going to be huge sections of the world which will benefit greatly and other sections of the world which will get damaged,” he said. “When you add the two together what you find is that for the world as a whole, the benefits are offsetting the damages.”
…which makes it rather difficult to justify spending on emissions.
I wonder if the scientist visitors to this blog thread might have a go at that floating grapefruit for our friend Joe.
And Joe/Steve, if you like Mendelsohn, you should see his interactive map of which countries/demographic is getting hammered, by global warming. Indeed, Northern Europe and North America are doing splendidly, (assuming of course those ice sheets hold and you don’t live by the coast if they don’t!- and of course that heat stress doesn’t effect water supply- and that Cardio Vascular disease is still a leading killer, i.e. stasis in medical technology and infectious disease agents, of course etc. etc. etc.), while Africa is looking at massive economic contraction. Good thing most of the world’s poor live in the middle to high latitudes… err…
Re Joe’s comment at 164, Lomborg and I locked horns during his Copenhagen Consensus presentation at Microsoft Research a couple of years ago.
My biggest complaint was that he completely neglects feedbacks among his various solutions; what good will it do us to save millions of people from malaria and AIDS, only to see them die a few years later from climate disaster? And what if climate change also causes the spread of diseases? He called that a “tertiary effect” and dismissed it.
But mostly I was there to challenge him on his Skeptical Environmentalist claim that “species extinction is a problem, not a catastrophe.” He stood by it — to him, a board-foot of wood is a board-foot of wood, whether it comes from the Amazon Rainforest or a cheap pine-monoculture tree farm. I tried to talk to him about loss of ocean biomass to factory trawlers, longlines, shark finning, etc., and that’s when he made his amazingly ignorant assertion about fishing down the food web.
Since he doesn’t have the first clue about ecosystems, why should we believe he has a better grasp of economics?
“Floating grapefruit” — How apt a remainder of the perilous state of the oceans. Which, amoung other problems, are becoming less basic, more acidic. Which does bad things to the base of our food chain.
The food chain for all the people and other living creatures on the face of the earth.
Disclaimer: While I am a visiting (retired) scientist here, none of this remotely relates to my specialty. However, this is eighth grade general science, nothing deep or difficult.
Re Hank’s question: “Is any coursework in ecology required for a degree in economics these days?”
An important question. To my mind, both disciplines would benefit from greater integration.
But as far as Lomborg is concerned, he has neither an environmental nor an economics background; he’s a statistician, and afaik, he remains unpublished in any peer-reviewed journals.
Note to the moderators: I’d recommend you consider a “whitelist” for commenters who have posted nothing abusive - hopefully that is most of the folks participating here? People think they are getting censored when I think they are just delayed somewhat irratically via the moderation queue and the quirks of wordpress blogs.
Everybody should note that moderated comments may appear earlier in the comment sequence.
Majorajam: Disagree with most of your note above - Mendohlson’s economic qualifications in this area are almost unmatched. However you are correct to note that the discount rate is a key factor and unfortunately this single factor changes one’s conclusion about how to proceed. Stern in UK, for example, used different assumptions about discount rates and concluded early and massive mitigation is called for. He noted it would have a large initial cost in lost GDP but felt this was justified in terms of preventing giant economic losses in future. However, Mendohlson’s treatments appear to be more in line with mainstream economics though I don’t claim much expertise in this field. My B.S. is Botany, MS Social Sciences.
dhogaza (140), did I get this right? Are you asserting that climatologists are better at figuring out economic things than economists are? I also think the average economist’s forecasts are pretty poor. But are scientists, or proponents like on RC that predict sanguine economies all around, better?
RE the poor and their needs, I think it really behooves us to cut our GHGs, if not to save the earth and reduce GW harms to the poor (& to us & future generations), then at the very least so as to save money, so we can donate it to the poor. People ought to put their GHG cuts (and the money they reap from them) where their mouth is.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you’re any kind of environmentalist, even a skeptical one, it’s considered a good idea to be less than monumentally ignorant of ecology. Saying that, I don’t think that was your man’s point. That rather seems to be why should we make the effort to evaluate the work of someone given to making patently false statements outside or inside their field of expertise in any context. I have no reason to doubt Jim’s testimony, however we certainly don’t need to take it on faith. There are literally dozens of instances where Lomborg is on the record taking liberties with the evidence, and his example is not in the least bit out of character with the remainder of them.
Joe,
As with the Copenhagen Coalition, Mendolson’s assumptions account for his results, and their validity is what I was getting at with my post to you. I was hoping you’d get a response on the board from Mendohlson to my queries. You could ask it differently too- at what cumulative probability do large scale damages from ice sheet melt enter into your estimate of mitigation benefits? How valid would results be given a climate sensitivity of 7 degrees centigrade? Things like this. From the Weitzman paper people seem intent on ignoring, “What we do know about climate science and extreme tail probabilities is that planet Earth hovers in an unstable climate equilibrium, chaotic dynamics cannot be ruled out, and all eighteen current studies of climate sensitivity cited by IPCC4 taken together are estimating on average that P[S>6ºC] = 5% [i.e. the probability that climate sensitivity is greater than 6ºC is roughly 5%].” You could quote him that and ask him whether his analysis suffers from ignoring what mainstream climate science is telling us about possibilities.
You might also want to ask yourself if the idea that a changing climate would have a net zero effect on aggregate welfare seems reasonable to you prima facie, and whether someone who starts out by arguing such a thing with confidence truly has ‘unrivaled credentials’ or whatever you’re trying to make stick here. There is plenty of evidence of some rather dire ramifications of global warming, but more to the point, presumably we’re all most well adapted to our current climates, meaning changes imply at least the cost of realigning that adaptation, no? This highly basic observation implies net costs. You should also familiarize yourself with the strength of the assumptions needed to make any of these CBA’s go, and hold your nose when you do as they’re not pretty. In the case of an assured climate sensitivity of 3ºC that matters greatly (and more so the interest rate, about which you shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss Stern, especially considering your endorsement of the Cope Coalition). At thick tailed probabilities of very large climate sensitivities, these assumptions disappear underneath “fear of ruin”. That matters too.
As far as what I’ve said that you’ve disagreed with, and the only thing that comes to mind is the effect of mitigation on the unwashed poor, I suggest you see Mendohlson about that as well. You can’t just use him selectively for confirmation of your prejudices- he’s either a legend in his field beyond the skepticism of mere mortals, or not.
Joe Duck, the problem with Robert Mendelsohn’s argument is that the mitigation must be sufficient to avoid the majority of the adverse consequences, and the climate has positive feedbacks that will kick in at some uncertain level of CO2. If we exceed this level, all the mitigation will have been in vain. Risk mitigation requires that we pursue mitigations in order of maximum net benefit (net, because we have to consider cost). But above all else, we must pursue sufficient mitigation to be effective.
Mendelsohn et al. do not have a good understanding of climate consequences. No one does. However, an unknown risk is not a risk you can ignore, as Mendelsohn does. His recommendations are tantamount to an economist in the midst of hyper-inflation suggesting that the government cannot tighten the money supply, because it would be bad for the economy.
dhogaza (140), did I get this right? Are you asserting that climatologists are better at figuring out economic things than economists are?
No, but economists have a discouraging tendency to assume that environmental factors have zero value (in economic terms), which leads to a huge bias against spending any money whatsoever to minimize environmental harm.
“Is any coursework in ecology required for a degree in economics these days?” (Re:168).
I don’t know, Hank, but two semesters of economics were required for a bachelors degree in engineering way back when. We used a book by Paul Samuelson to give an idea of how far “when”. It’s kind of like chicken soup. It can’t hurt. Since it’s used as a significant factor in many areas of civil engineering from economical design of structures to equitable distribution of water resources, it helps to be on speaking terms with their vocabulary,as well as some basic principles.
“Is any coursework in ecology required for a degree in economics these days?” (Re:168).
Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at The University of Vermont might be a good place to start. http://www.uvm.edu/giee/?Page=default.html
#163 Jim Galasyn: To my knowledge, he has never published in a peer-reviewed journal. Sincere nor not, if you follow him, you will be led astray.
And yet when peer reviewed stuff comes out that folks don’t like, they pooh-pooh that too Witness Roe and Baker. And of course, when stuff comes out that isn’t peer reviewed that people like, even when they get some stuff wrong, the wagons circle again. “Well, he’s mostly right! And he’s not even a scientist! Sure there’s a bit of alarmism in there, but there HAS to be. THE MAN IS AWESOME!!!”
But mention Lomborg and people’s eyes cross in rage. No slack for him!
The guy has published 500+ pages of very technical stuff, with plenty of pointers to the actual studies. He’s readily accessible, interviews often, and is happy to discuss in any forum (can’t say that for Gore). He’s not a scientist, but I think he’s done a really fair job of researching the distilling the info. Mistakes? Of course. Show me a 500 page book with nearly 3000 footnotes that doesn’t make mistakes.
He was particularly effective last go round, and came across as a lone voice of reason amidst widespread hysterics in the NY Times interview (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/science/earth/11tiern.html). And again, I think that is what rub folks the wrong way.
Lots of folks like to talk about accelerated famines, plagues, etc, but the largest body of consensus on this just doesn’t really support that. The IPCC isn’t even really all that scary on water level rises.
Now, back to extinction that you brought up with him. Read Lomborg’s section on biodiversity in SE to get some context. Incredibly, it’s full of scary predictions from the last 40 years. In 1979, we were told we were losing 40,000 species a year. Gore still cites that number. Harvard biologist O. Wilson claims 27,000 and 100,000 per year. Ehrlich, coming off his several other spectacular predictions, claimed in 1981 we lose 250,000 species per year. And in case you weren’t scared by that, Ehrlich claimed in 1981 that all species would be gone between 2010 and 2025. And then Lomborg cites studies showing there are 1,600,000 known species (estimates are between 2M and 80M species total), adn 1033 known extinctions since 1600.
He explains that if a species lasts 1-10M years, with 1.6M species we’d expect to see 2.5 natural extinctions per year, and takes things from there. Very sane reasoning. Overall, I thought a very strong chapter. What specifics did you take issue with?
And yet when peer reviewed stuff comes out that folks don’t like, they pooh-pooh that too Witness Roe and Baker. And of course, when stuff comes out that isn’t peer reviewed that people like, even when they get some stuff wrong, the wagons circle again. “Well, he’s mostly right! And he’s not even a scientist! Sure there’s a bit of alarmism in there, but there HAS to be. THE MAN IS AWESOME!!!”
Well, yes, when a non-scientist presents the consensus position in science, we may say “he’s awesome!”
And why not?
And when a maverick gets a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal, which contradicts the commonly-accepted consensus position, we may say “we think he’s wrong”.
Why do you have a problem with that?
But mention Lomborg and people’s eyes cross in rage. No slack for him!
Is there something special about his name that makes you think this is wrong? People publish rational defenses of astrology and the like all the time, which have no basis in the real world.
Are we supposed to cut them slack, too, even if they’re scientifically ignorant?
The guy has published 500+ pages of very technical stuff
So have many Astrologists. Does this mean they’re right?
And if they publish 1000+ pages of “very technical stuff”, does this mean that astrology is twice as right as Lomborg’s anti-science crusade?
Having waded through most of the posts this evening, my question is, who of the decision makers are reading any of this? by that I mean local municipal politicians. These are the folk who affect real change in what happens in most of our communities. I see a real disconnect between what you the scientist are discussing and what the local politicians are concerned about.
The canary in the coal mine just doesnt cut it any more! how can you get your message to the people that make the day to day decisions about policy that determine what goes on on a local level count? It is all very well to discuss esoteric nuances of AWG and of CO2 problems, meanwhile we have armies of lunatics lining up at Tim Hortons drive throughs with their gas guzzling SUVs waiting to buy a cup of coffee!!!! Drive throughs shoud be illegal anywhere! these are areas that local politicians have some clout. I live in a place where they think that coal bed methane is a good thing for the economy and that coal liqudation and gasification is going to save the planet! We have a long way to go folks!
Iam working on a passive solar home and am building it myself. I hope I am not too late!
The key point, dhogaza, is that Lomborg is a slightly more technical Al Gore. Both rely on scientists to do their analysis. Both do a very good job of acting as a public face on each of the arguments. Because they aren’t scientists, I’m not sure it’s fair to hold one to a higher standard than the other as most here do. I do think Lomborg brings some very unique viewpoints that are worth thinking about to the table. It’s rather refreshing, because few are offering solutions. The scientists are all very good at saying “look how screwed we are”, the engineers are all good at saying “just tell us what to bet big on and we’ll make it cheap and safe”, the finance guys are ready to back anything that will make money, the environmentalist wackos are all using this to push their same tired agendas that have indirectly caused us to remain stuck on coal, and the public policy folks are all very good at…at…well…who knows. Fanning the flames I guess.
So let’s recap:
1) Lomborg’s media impressions are indeed damaging to the cause
2) Lomborg is deemed credible by the mainstream media (WSJ, NYT)
3) Leading scientists won’t debate Lomborg
4) Untold websites and hours are spent attempting to refute Lomborg
Hmmmm. I don’t think the 4 assertions above slightly re-phrased are true for astrology. Perhaps you need to re-think your argument or concede that he’s quite effective, and probably more accurate with the science than many here would like to admit. Certainly more accurate with the science than Al Gore was in AIT.
And if they publish 1000+ pages of “very technical stuff”, does this mean that astrology is twice as right as Lomborg’s anti-science crusade?
Let’s not forget the number of math errors that have slipped through 12 page peer reviewed articles, OK? The point stands that Lomborg’s book was well researched and covered a lot of ground. Expect there to be errors.
What specifics did you take issue with?
Matt that is an excellent question. These are complex issues and thus it’s best to identify a specific “falsehood”.
what good will it do us to save millions of people from malaria and AIDS, only to see them die a few years later from climate disaster?
Jim this answer seems to suggest that “millions will die” in a few years from climate change? This is not a reasonable assertion. Millions die every year right now, but climate change has only a modest impact on the number of human deaths per year. The type of climate impacts that would be required to kill millions are very unlikely, which is why many feel we should carefully weigh the costs and benefits of mitigation vis a vis other resource allocations.
Ray - No, I don’t think most economic analyses ignore uncertainties. They would tend to assign a probability range to various scenarios to predict outcomes. I see it as fundamentally important to determine the likelihood of catastrophic climate change because this will help us determine optimal resource allocation. Many here at RC seem to think catastrophic change is looming, but reading IPCC I come to a different conclusion - climate change will be modest over the next 100 years, and very modest during the next 10. Hansen and some others suggest more problems than IPCC, but he does not seem to reflect the consensus in the climate field.
Re: 180 (Matt): “And then Lomborg cites studies showing there are 1,600,000 known species (estimates are between 2M and 80M species total), adn 1033 known extinctions since 1600.”
Lomborg’s stress on “known extinctions” alone shows he is either ignorant or mendacious (or indeed both). We know about the extinction of conspicuous terrestrial organisms - mostly birds and mammals - and often make considerable efforts to prevent extinctions in these groups. Most species live in tropical forests. Most are small (a large proportion are beetles), many appear to have very restricted ranges. The actual number of extinctions since 1600 is very hard to calculate, but will inevitably be far more than the number of known extinctions.
James Lovelock has published more than just one paper. Once all his qualifications have been listed by the chairman, then I think you will find what he has to say is far from boring. See the Realtime webcast at: http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/event.asp?id=7142
¿What would be the consequences of Pinatubo eruption in oceanic CO2 sink?
¿What would the consequences of a high recurrence of El Niño events in Oceanic CO2 sink, and what’s more if they are the strongest in last half century?
Matt, Actually, the 4 points you raise about Lomborg apply to as well to astrology:
1) Lomborg’s media impressions are indeed damaging to the cause–pseudoscience is always damaging to science
2) Lomborg is deemed credible by the mainstream media (WSJ, NYT)–looked in your local paper lately? Bet you find horoscopes
3) Leading scientists won’t debate Lomborg–they won’t debate astrologers and other pseudoscientists either
4) Untold websites and hours are spent attempting to refute Lomborg–ever hear of James Randi?
Lomborg is a pseudointellectual blinkered ideologue whose biases against the left (which may be justified to some extent in Denmark) cause him to embrace uncritically all the positions of the right. Your assertion that he has a better grasp of the science than Gore is risible. Gore got most of the science right. Lomborg got almost none of it right–and what is more, he’s proud of that. I rate his intellect and argument style only slightly higher than Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter (or Al Franken, for that matter).
Why does Lomborg scare me? Because he IS so effective - a soft smile, gently carressing everyone on the cheek, while in a calm voice murmuring, “There, there, everything is going to be okay,” as he hands us his refreshing glass of Koolaid. Oh, it is so nice to be gently awakened from a nightmare! Unless when you really wake up, you realize it was not a nightmare at all, but reality.
RE “the probability that climate sensitivity is greater than 6ºC is roughly 5%” (#174). Sometimes how we present the stats is important, so one-in-20 chance seems a bit more startling than 5% (I’ve bet on 1-in-20 longshots before).
So, you’re working in your garage and it’s cold, so you debate whether to turn on your car engine & heater, or your electric heater (which is powered by 100% wind-generated electricity and costs less to run than the car), AND there’s a 1-in-20 chance you will die from the carbon monoxide from the car. Which would you choose? And, oh yeh, the money you save from using the electric heater over the car heater you can send to the poor to help prevent malaria and death!
RE #176 & economics, I think that Adam Smith classical and neoclassical economics is inappropriate and grossly deficient for a globally warming world. I’ve written much here over the years on this topic, so I won’t get into it, except to say that, yes, one’s diamonds and gold won’t be harmed much by GW, only cheap stuff, like food, will be greatly harmed. So the economy should do just fine. Question is, will there be people around to enjoy that fine economy.
And then there is the booming business in the health and rebuilding sector that should really do quite well.
Joe Duck asserts that “The type of climate impacts that would be required to kill millions are very unlikely.”
What about widespread, rapid desertification would make you think that? One season of global crop failure should do the trick. The UN reports that global grain storage has been declining for years; it’s estimated we have a 57-day supply.
The Holocene is an unusually stable climate regime, and it is this stability that makes agricultural civilization possible. I’ll take the opposite of your position: The type of climate impacts that would be required to kill millions become increasingly likely as we drive the planet away from the Holocene climate optimum.
What about widespread, rapid desertification would make you think that? One season of global crop failure should do the trick. The UN reports that global grain storage has been declining for years; it’s estimated we have a 57-day supply.
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It wouldn’t even need to be a global failure…just the failure of a region, and very quickly market forces could - and most likely would - act in such a way as to limit the delivery of key grain supplies to a number of countries that depend upon them.
#187 Nick Gotts: Lomborg’s stress on “known extinctions” alone shows he is either ignorant or mendacious (or indeed both).
He’s neither. He’s simply citing studies 5 studies (Baillie+Groombridge 1997, Walter +Gillet 1998, May 1995, Reid 1992) showing what others have studied to date. In the chapter he’s on a path working up to show just how unfounded the “we lose 40,000 species per year” claim from Gore is, along with the “we lose 250,000 species per year” claim from Ehrlich.
Incredibly, he traces the 40,000 figure to Myers “hazarding a guess” at a conference in 1974. From there it took a life of its own. And of course, Ehrlich was never one to be outdoomed. Of course, the point of the chapter is that for a long time now certain scientists have been telling us we’re on edge of losing nearly everything as we wipe out species at an alarming rate. And computer models have been built to say it is so.
Again, a very rational and sane treatment.
I will note that in the chapter Lomborg failed to show a scientific source of the 40,000 and 250,000 figures. If you know of one, then perhaps Lomborg ignored it and I’d be interested in knowing that. If you don’t know of one, and if you haven’t read the chapter, then there’s not much here to debate.
1) Lomborg’s media impressions are indeed damaging to the cause
2) Lomborg is deemed credible by the mainstream media (WSJ, NYT)
3) Leading scientists won’t debate Lomborg
4) Untold websites and hours are spent attempting to refute Lomborg
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Just to echo and reinforce Ray in 190:
Substitute the Discovery Institute or Intelligent Design Supporters or Creationists for “Lomborg” and you have a description of what has been going on in the Evolution/Creationism wars for years now.
This type of argument is empty rhetoric, a question beg that assumes that if someone doesn’t do something to address Lomborg’s arguments in particular forums or that Lomborg is being excluded from consideration or forums he somehow has scientific legitimacy.
This is a bogus proposition. Lomborg’s SCIENTIFIC legitimacy rests upon the work he produces, and the manner in which he provides it for examination, not on how he is perceived in the media. And as been discussed ad nauseum, Lomborg’s scientific legitimacy appears, at best, questionable to an extreme.
One other point - here again you have an instance of a single individual that opponents of a view flock to as having the “last word”, as being the one with the true answer, when the overwhelming majority of people with actual knowledge in the subjects that this individual holds forth on (knowledge, btw, attained from years of study and field work) somehow have less credibility in their conclusions.
If you claim you wanted to discuss things from a reasonable, rational perspective, this understand might give you some pause.
Having waded through most of the posts this evening, my question is, who of the decision makers are reading any of this? by that I mean local municipal politicians. These are the folk who affect real change in what happens in most of our communities. I see a real disconnect between what you the scientist are discussing and what the local politicians are concerned about.
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Check out Burlington, Vermont.
In Chapter 9 of “Field Notes from a Catastrophe”, Elizabeth Kolbert discusses their efforts to reduce consumption. While there were initial successes, the consumption continues to climb.
The upshot? While municipal efforts are helpful, it is unlikely nothing short of nationally coordinated efforts are going to have a long-term effect on AGW.
Re 183. What’s amazing, really, is exactly how much climate mitigation action is already taking place not only in the absence of leadership and commitment from the federal government but also in the face of media-supported efforts at denial and obstruction promulgated by vested interests. Much of the local and state activity seems, unfortunately, to be under the radar, with little attention and coverage so that most people, including many posting here apparently, are quite unaware of even a fraction of what is happening. Take a look at:
“Regional commitment to reducing emissions - Local policy in the United States goes some way towards countering anthropogenic climate change” - www.uvm.edu/giee/publications/Nature2005.pdf
(There are a few other city rankings that can be found.)
Not a governmental organization, Green Energy Ohio is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting environmentally and economically sustainable energy policies and practices in Ohio. Their home page at http://www.greenenergyohio.org/page.cfm?pageId=3 has a list of “Top News for Clean Energy in Ohio,” which includes information on local and state governmental actions.
This one is not from any governmental organization, but from the socially active Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. It’s also kind of interesting in regards to the opinions of people who don’t just talk about helping poor people, but who practice what they preach (unlike some who have been cited here). See “Threat of Global Warming/Climate Change: 2006 Statement of Conscience” - http://www.uua.org/socialjustice/socialjustice/statements/8061.shtml
Re 180 Matt: “The IPCC isn’t even really all that scary on water level rises.”
Despite it being pointed out to you repeatedly that the IPCC explicitly assumed no change in the rate of Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheet melting in its projection of sea level rise, you still cling to the conservative IPCC projections as comforting and more reliable than what has actually been observed and measured since the release of the last report. That simply is not rational.
#190 Ray Ladbury: Gore got most of the science right. Lomborg got almost none of it right–and what is more, he’s proud of that.
A 20 foot sea rise without a time scale given? You think that is fair? You are aware that Harry Smith asserted to Michael Bloomberg on Monday that “Manhattan will be underwater by 2050″. Where did Harry Smith get that?
[edit - keep the rhetoric in check please, and who is Harry Smith?]
what do you consider Lomborg’s biggest error?
BTW, you are underestimating Lomborg. Michael Crichton was extremely effective in the debate against pro-AGW scientists earlier this year–turning the crowd from believers to skeptics while pro-AGW scientists stood by and watched, mouths agape. And he’s merely a wordsmith. Lomborg is quite a bit more effective than Crichton. And if the leading pro-AGW voices won’t debate him, and if he can turn a NYT writer into a mass of admiring jelly, the problem (or solution, depending on viewpoint) is only going to get worse.
You claim that Lomborg “embraces uncritically all the positions of the right”. You are aware that he used to be a member of Greenpeace, and actually grew tired of dealing with all the made-up numbers Greenpeace was using to forward their cause. Hardly uncritical.
#194 Jim Eager: Despite it being pointed out to you repeatedly that the IPCC explicitly assumed no change in the rate of Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheet melting in its projection of sea level rise, you still cling to the conservative IPCC projections as comforting and more reliable than what has actually been observed and measured since the release of the last report. That simply is not rational.
Let’s see. So if I reject the IPCC documents outright, then I’m castigated for rejecting “the largest body of scientific consensus ever assembled.” But if I embrace the IPCC, then I’m castigated for ignoring the fact that they “assumed no change in the rate of ice sheet melt”
So, which is it? Are all the scientists wrong? Why did the IPCC assume there was no change in the rate of melting if in fact a year after publication all the ice sheets are melting? Or is there a small group of scientists that think this is a big problem, but a larger group aren’t as worried? Presumably if most IPCC scientists were worried about this, it would have been in the IPCC.
[Response: It is in the IPCC. And if you are castigated, it’s probably because you aren’t actually reading the IPCC report. Quote (from SPM): “Dynamical processes related to ice flow not included in current models but suggested by recent observations could increase the vulnerability of the ice sheets to warming, increasing future sea level rise. Understanding of these processes is limited and there is no consensus on their magnitude.” (see also http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/the-ipcc-sea-level-numbers/ ). I’m pretty sure everyone will agree that IPCC could have been clearer about what their numbers meant and how important this uncertainty is, but your characterisation of the IPCC statements are simply erroneous. - gavin]
RE #193, my impression is that maybe millions have already died from GW, its effects, and its repercussions.
I understand the WHO estimates that 160,000 die each year from disease spread (like malaria…someone tell that to Lomborg) due to GW. They attribute half the heat deaths in the 2003 European heat wave to GW, so I imagine a portion of heat deaths around the world might be attributed to GW; it’s not only the daytime heat, but the nighttime increases in temp(largely due to GW) not allowing people to recouperate from that day’s heat, that contributes heavily to the death toll.
Then there is the reduced agri output you mention; and I would add in farmer suicides as at least in part caused by GW and GW-induced droughts, floods, fires, and other crop-harming events. Even if one were to claim that GW’s contribution to these is minor, it could in many cases be seen as the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
RE wildfires enhanced by GW, we would also have to add in deaths or shortened lives due to the smoke pollution, such as deaths due to asthma, on top of deaths directly from the fire (or that portion…the top portion…of the fire intensity and spread due to GW).
The list goes on.
I think a way to think about it is how many deaths there would have been from these types of causes (whose increasing effects can be linked to GW) in a non-AGW world, subtracted from deaths from these causes today (then, of course, subtact out from that difference the lives saved due to GW….like not slipping on that ice that is no longer there bec of GW). [It is interesting that someone has actually calculated the deaths due to going from daylight savings time to regular time, so these types of calcs can be done to some extent.]
However, just as with our inability to know the exact number of species that have gone extinct in recent times, we would never be able to get an exact figure on how many have died or are projected to die from AGW, its effects, and its repercussions. But I’m thinking it will be quite large. When you consider that even one person’s life is invaluable to a moral person (a person who detests killing innocent people), this is a very urgent, high-priority issue that requires all moral persons to deal with, and mitigate GW.
Joe Duck wrote: “The type of climate impacts that would be required to kill millions are very unlikely”
You are just plain wrong. The type of climate impacts that would be required to kill millions are in fact very likely, if not already inevitable, and are indeed already underway — principally, the complete loss of glacier-fed fresh water supplies for hundreds of millions of people in south Asia, and prolonged severe drought afflicting the world’s most productive agricultural regions.
Re Matt in 197, can you explain why habitat loss due to land development and biomass loss due to ocean overexploitation would not cause widespread species extinctions far in excess of the background rate?
Re #202 (Matt) “You are aware that he used to be a member of Greenpeace, and actually grew tired of dealing with all the made-up numbers Greenpeace was using to forward their cause.”
From Wikepedia article on Lomborg:
“He has claimed to have been a supporter of Greenpeace. When challenged that Greenpeace had no record of his ever being a member or supporter, he stated that he had given money to Greenpeace collectors.”
From Sourcewatch on Lomborg “When challenged on this point on ABC Radio National’s Earthbeat Lomborg said “I’m a suburban kind of Greenpeace member, your stereotypical person who contributes and nothing else.”
In other words, his claim is dubious at best, an outright lie at worst, like so many others he has made.
Matt wrote: “[Lomborg] used to be a member of Greenpeace”
As far as I know, Lomborg has never been able to provide any evidence to support his claim that he was a “member” of Greenpeace, and Greenpeace has stated that they have no record of Lomborg having any active role in the organization. Of course many nonprofit organizations refer to any donor, even of five or ten dollars, as a “member”, so if Greenpeace uses this terminology, and if Lomborg sent them a few bucks once, then he can legitimately claim to have been a “member” of Greenpeace. But I fail to see how that gives him any credibility, especially given his well-documented, monumental dishonesty, inaccuracies and nonsensical rationalizations when it comes to the substance of his “arguments”. Lomborg is a darling of the corporate-funded so-called “right wing” because he tells them what they want to hear.
And if you are castigated, it’s probably because you aren’t actually reading the IPCC report
Gavin - Matt’s comments seem compatible with *your take* on the likelihood of various sea level rise scenarios. In a different comment you estimated extra rise from Greenland would add something like 25cm over the next century. [pls correct if I missed your point before] This departure from IPCC’s range of 18-59cm seems reasonable to me, but would change the range from 33-84cm over the next 100 years. This seems a far cry from the catastrophic implications of many comments throughout RC. How can we rationally consider the subject if we do not assign any probabilities to sea level rises?
Jim: You seem to imply it’s irrational to take IPCC, published months ago, at face value because new studies (like Hansen’s?) indicate the possibility of much greater sea level rises. Rational analysis of mathematical phenomenon *require* that we use numbers, not hyperbole. So what numbers do you suggest Matt use if not IPCC and not Gavin’s adjusted IPCC ranges? Uncertainties should lead to assignment of value ranges that are within very high probability. IPCC does a standup job with this, RC comments fall very short in this regard. Rational people accept IPCC as a good measure of what to expect in our climate future.
[Response: I don’t recall ever making a quantitative prediction - what would I base it on? The only point I make is that the upper bound is unconstrained, and paleo evidence for SLR greater than meters/century exists, and we know that the last time the planet was as warm for a substantial period as we project for 2100, SL was 20ft higher. Probabilities would be great, but they don’t exist and I can’t make them up. Clinging to the thermal expansion numbers (the bulk of the oft-quoted ‘IPCC’ range) in the hope that this means there is nothing to worry about is foolish. More research is definitely required, but I wouldn’t bet the beach house on it showing there’s no risk. - gavin]
No, I don’t think most economic analyses ignore uncertainties.
i.e. Mendelsohn’s work. I thought of a solution though. You’ve got his email at the ready, why don’t you just ask him to confirm your assertion? Ask him what probability of the scenario with large scale damages from ice sheet melt gets assigned? (What’s that? Ice sheet melt doesn’t occur in any scenario? Well, I guess it can’t happen then. Whew! That was a worry.) Ask him to confirm that his analysis is ignoring climate sensitivities that mainstream science is telling us are possible.
And speaking of possibilities Joe, you should consider the distinct possibility that you’re not familiar with the state of the literature on the economics of climate change, nor informed enough to be the first to claim a consensus and certainly not one that disavows Kyoto, (nor would it appear that you or Lomborg are truly interested in determining any optimal capital allocation that finds room for mitigation).
“Dass ich schon beim Schreiben des Buches die Schlussfolgerung kannte, mag manche der Dinge beeinflusst haben, die ich schrieb” [The fact that I knew the conclusion already when I started to write the book may have influenced many of the things that I wrote]. - Bjørn Lomborg, Interview in NZZFolio, monthly magazine of Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Januar 2006, p. 42
He neglected to give wanton opportunism and a complete absence of expertise and integrity their proper due. Perhaps that bit was off the record. In any case, RC has attracted itself some committed trolls now. I’m beginning to consider the virtue of not feeding them.
You are aware that he used to be a member of Greenpeace…
This is a classic science-denialist rhetorical trick.
“I USED to believe in evolution until I studied the science myself”
“I USED to believe in AGW until I studied the science myself”
“I USED to believe HIV causes AIDS until I studied the evidence myself”
“I USED to belong to Greenpeace until …”
Lomborg also follows the denialist handbook by cherry-picking data or ignoring science, for instance insisting that the documented number of species extinctions is an accurate indicator of how many species have actually gone extinct despite the scientific consensus that takes the opposite view.
He also employs the standard denialist trick of insisting that he, despite having no training in the relevant scientific fields, knows more about science than scientists themselves.
He knows more about population ecology than population ecologists, just as Bill Dembski knows more about evolutionary biology than evolutionary biologists, or Steve McIntyre knows more about climate science than climate scientist, or Stephen Milloy knows more about the effects of tobacco smoke on the human body than medical experts.
His approach is inherently dishonest. Matt needs a better bullshit-detector. If I were wealthy I’d buy him one
[[This departure from IPCC’s range of 18-59cm seems reasonable to me, but would change the range from 33-84cm over the next 100 years. This seems a far cry from the catastrophic implications of many comments throughout RC.]]
33-84 cm of sea level rise is catastrophic. You don’t have to drown a coastal city to make it uninhabitable, all you have to do is flood it enough for seawater to seep into the aquifers and back up sewers. Miami and cities like it will be uninhabitable long before they are under water. Note, also, that the figure under discussion is a global average — the figure will be higher in some places and lower in others, since sea level is not uniform around the world.
Joe, you should consider the distinct possibility that you’re not familiar with the state of the literature on the economics of climate change, nor informed enough to be the first to claim a consensus and certainly not one that disavows Kyoto
I will, and try to consider my deficiencies on an hourly basis.
Majorajam aside from your Nobel prize for annoying, what are your qualifications in this area?
Surely you do not see Kyoto as a high quality, viable approach to mitigation?
I’m still waiting for permission to post Mendelshon’s succinct reply but his ideas are online. You should like him - he’s critical of Copenhagen’s treatment of his climate mitigation proposal.
Re the claim that Lomborg was a “Greenpeace member,” here’s what he told journalist Alanna Mitchell:
Lomborg wasn’t an environmentalist, at all, as it turned out. He told me as much when I interviewed him in Toronto that year, confessing that the extent of his involvement had been to carry around a Greenpeace card for a while many years earlier when it had been the vogue for Europeans of a certain age.
tom looks for the silver lining of climate change: “Are we to assume that the optimal earth temperature existed somehere around 1980 and that every increase above that leads to dysfunction?”
I think it’s fair to assume that the relatively stable climate we’ve enjoyed for the past 10k years or so is optimal for the purposes of agricultural civilization. We have no evidence that agricultural civilization can survive in other climate regimes.
Lindzen’s new line is this: So what if the world is heating up to levels not seen in millions of years, it’s done it before, it’s natural and what’s the big deal?
Increasingly I’ve been reading this “plot theme” in news stories: “Okay, global warming is real, so what?”. Well, we need to do a better job of explaining how devastating a warmer world can be.
I keep thinking back to Jared’s Diamond’s description of Easter Island’s surviving population, descended from the ruling class, who felt their obvious decent into resource poverty and hardship, and the loss of most the island’s population, was no big deal (I’m obviously paraphrasing here, but read his book, Collapse, for his descriptions). People can suffer a lot before admitting their current societal direction is heading the wrong way, especially if they are in the ruling class and are buffered from early catastrophes. I guess to the wealthy, mobile, “elite”, such as Outside’s target audience, the changes predicted to occur because of a warming world are no big deal. I suppose they’ll turn to indoor ice walls once all the glaciers melt, etc. At any rate, if the call to reduce CO2 here in the U.S. is going to be effective we’ll have to reach over the head of these folks and somehow appeal to the middle class.
Matt said, “BTW, you are underestimating Lomborg. Michael Crichton was extremely effective in the debate against pro-AGW scientists earlier this year–turning the crowd from believers to skeptics while pro-AGW scientists stood by and watched, mouths agape. And he’s merely a wordsmith. Lomborg is quite a bit more effective than Crichton. And if the leading pro-AGW voices won’t debate him, and if he can turn a NYT writer into a mass of admiring jelly, the problem (or solution, depending on viewpoint) is only going to get worse.”
That is precisely why scientific consensus isn’t determined by debating skill or by charisms, but by the weight of evidence. Lomborg has none. A glib liar may be able to convince an audience in a 2 hour debate. Sorry, Matt, but science moves more slowly. It involves checking the facts–and lo and behold, the reason we’re seeing warming on Neptune is because it’s summer there.
People like Crichton and Lomborg…and you…are frightened by the scientific method because it subverts their ability to bullshit your way through life. Crichton writes science fiction, but didn’t even know enough about evolution to realize that the depiction of evolution in The Andromeda strain is a joke. Lomborg glibly spins a story about being a former Greenpeace member until his conversion on the road to Damascus–and then lo and behold, somebody looks it up. He is at least as glib with his use of scientific factoids. Like it or not, Matt, there is an objective reality, and it has consequences. It behooves us to try to understand those consequences, and the way to do that is science.
Now, I’m going to tell you something about scientific consensus: The product of scientific consensus is almost always conservative rather than alarmist. The reason why the IPCC numbers underestimate sea level rise is because that is what the scientists could agree upon. Some, probably most, would have been happier with higher estimates, particularly given recent developments. However, the IPCC represented the consensus–what the experts could all agree upon–at the time. And that is why, the consequences considered so far have concentrated on sea level rise. It is a virtual certainty. Other consequences–widespread drought, increased storm intensity, increased incidence of impulsive rainfall, increased disease, crop failures, etc.–do not have the level of consensus needed to come out with a strong statement. Their consequences may dwarf those of sea-level rise, but they are not certain.
Now I’m going to tell you something about risk management. An uncertain, unbounded risk is a greater concern than a high risk. You may want to study it to quantify it better, but if your study will be completed too late to complete mitigation, you had better either start mitigation in parallel with your study or try to buy time (e.g. slow down carbon emissions). You cannot ignore an unbounded risk.
Gavin - I apologize for suggesting you had assigned some specific extra CMs to the IPCC - I just looked back and I think I had misread the gist of your March post about IPCC Sea Level rises. I would be very interested in how people feel we should do risk and cost benefit analysis without assigning a range of probabilities to the various scenarios. As you get to “highly unlikely” events it’s very important to assign a very low probability - otherwise you wind up spending a trillion on asteroid defense shields which would in fact lower the chance of planetary destruction, but would be an unwise use of money given the probability of an asteroid collision.
Re 209 HJoe Duck: “Jim: You seem to imply it’s irrational to take IPCC, published months ago, at face value because new studies (like Hansen’s?) indicate the possibility of much greater sea level rises.”
No, I implied, and hereby explicitly state, that it is irrational to continue to take comfort in the IPPC’s projected numbers in the face of new data and observation of what is happening real time in the real world.
The IPCC knew their projected numbers were subject to change, which is exactly why they explicitly included a caveat about those numbers in their report. The wisdom of this has been justified by the extent of this summer’s Arctic sea ice melt and observed changes in Greenland since the report was released. Basically, all projected numbers quantifying how much and how fast the cryosphere will change are now suspect. To pretend otherwise is foolish.
Taking George’s comment to heart, let me ask an on-topic question:
Can we estimate the degree to which the large-scale destruction of ocean ecosystems affects the ocean CO2 sink? A lot of carbon gets sequestered in living creatures, but we’re rapidly strip-mining the oceans of all but the most ancient organisms.
re: optimal climate
Humans can certainly survive a range of climate conditions, and one has somje hope of adapting some crops, maybe.
On the other hand, not only is agriculture adapted to a specific climate, but a huge amount of expensive coastal infrastructure has been built in the last 150 years, with relatively stable sea levels. Back to economics:
I’d claim that one needs to seriously consider the possibility, not of just of a low discount rate, but of a negative one. The planet had a one-time pot of really cheap energy called fossil fuels. We either hit Peak Oil (50% used) in the next decade, or we already did in 2006 (if you believe T. Boone Pickens).
Now, consider the belief that the population will rise to 9B over the next 50 years, with less oil (and peak natural gas about 20 years after oil. We’d have to improve efficiency by 50% just to stay even in exergy/person, ASSUMING we can replace the oil&gas with solar/wind/geothermal/biofuel/(nuclear) even-up, which seems unlikely in the short-term, for all that we’re trying hard.
US East Coast (and some Gulf Coast) cities have infrastructure accumulated over 300 years, most of which was built with *REALLY CHEAP ENERGY*. Under BusinessAsUsual, especially with terrific pressure to burn coal, it’s hard for me to see how sea-level isn’t up at least 20 feet 300 years from now, which seems a reasonable planning horizon. [I don’t know why 2100 is magic: the world doesn’t stop then, I hope.]
These days, people build dikes with bulldozers, steel & concrete, and rebuilding a city somewhere else will take a lot of the latter two.
Here’s a “fun” exercise: you’re mayor of New York City, and it’s time to rebuild somewhere else. How much will that cost? and by the way, there is no cheap petroleum…. well, I guess the Egyptians built the pyramids without.
My qualifications? I’ve got a degree in social science from the Copenhagen business school… Joe, if you find me annoying I can only point out that the feeling is mutual, if not personal- it is more that I’m not partial to people who make patently erroneous statements with high-handed confidence, and more so when the person in question dutifully ignores the argued and sourced disagreement. Speaking of which, my statement that you should consider your own qualifications was intended to highlight that you’ve pulled this consensus from thin air and tried to assert its meaningful existence on numerous occasions (which I’d be happy to cite if thou protesteth… at all). If you have a source for this claim, do tell. If not, please avail us of the expertise of yours that qualifies you to make such a statement. And if you’re unclear what I mean still, you don’t have to go far up the thread to find a quintessential case in point:
Surely you do not see Kyoto as a high quality, viable approach to mitigation?
There in one line and, what, fifteen words, have you expressed a sentiment that you are unable to remotely back-up- that the mainstream rejects Kyoto and that it is not serious to advocate it or something similar. And you would be unable to support such innuendo because it is simply not the case. This is true both on the basis of ‘purely economic’ evaluation and more so for any more comprehensive review that examines the relevant agency issues. On the latter point, as people have been at pains to point out to you on this subject in the past, Kyoto is a framework- it is a way of establishing the ground rules and infrastructure to make mitigation workable in the future. Conceiving of the best academic scenario for an emissions treaty is pointless if it ignores the political realities, i.e. where the Kyoto protocol actually lives. Any criticism of Kyoto that doesn’t take those into account and is not properly qualified is therefore deeply flawed.
So, in light of those realities, do I think the Kyoto protocol is a good treaty? If I take your question to mean, should all nations have signed on, that to me is an unequivocal yes (well, as a global citizen, yes- it changes a bit as an economic actor amongst asymmetries, but I digress). This doesn’t make it perfect (e.g. a global carbon tax is preferable to emissions targets but it’s not clear that can be helped. some of the carbon sink fudges are clearly side payments, but those are to be expected, etc.). The point is that dismissing (or supporting) the treaty by slight of hand is lazy, disingenuous and/or ignorant, and that apply the ‘mainstream’ sticker to your side of the argument for the same purpose is worse.
P.S. While I acknowledge Mendelshon as an expert who knows a lot more about building integrated assessment models (amongst other things) than I do, I find his methodology lacking (not accounting for uncertainty in the economics of climate change is like not accounting for the point spread when betting on a game) and his claims dubious (middle of the distribution warming to have a net zero effect on welfare… ??). More generally I have huge issues with economists who have the temerity to push their extremely flawed models on the public as the best means of making policy decisions, (and huge respect for those who highlight the reasonable and unreasonable inferences that can be made from economic analysis, e.g. Weitzman). There are many of these, including one prominent one who assured me that heat stress has no effect on drinking water, in about so many words. Meanwhile, I can get no such pat answer from any climate scientist, so the only place we can be assured that such conditions exist is in this academic’s model.
P.P.S. Speaking of the utility of integrated assessment models, a case can be made that climate change had a role in the Darfur crisis. It’s not open and shut, but it isn’t totally baseless. Something in me doubts such a scenario is conceivable in an integrated assessment model.
RE 219;
The warmth and sea level of 1980 may not have been “optimum,” but it is what our infrastructure was engineered for; and our crops were bred to expect. Any other climate and sea level will require significant capital investment.
Change is not the problem, it is the rapidity of the change that is the real problem. Moreover, it is not so much rapid change per se that is the problem, it is unpredictable change that is the problem. If we are sure of a 0.10 meter of sea level change between 1/1/ 2031 and 1/1/2041, then we can plan for it and we can survive it at a minimum cost. However, if we are not certain, then some people will not prepare, and then even a few cm of sea level rise in that decade will cause damage, resulting in costs that will propagate through the global economy affecting all. If we all plan for a 0.10 m sea level rise, and we get a 0.20 m sea level rise, again there are damages and costs that propagate through the economy. As we plan for the changing environment, we need to incorporate safety factors.
Unpredictable change makes resource allocation decisions more difficult. Decisions are delayed until we are “sure,” and the delay results in wasted resources.
Majorajam - thank for that thoughtful reply to my note above. Mitigation economics is the key point of contention in the AGW debate and I’m hoping to learn more. So far, for me, Mendelsohn’s thinking has the most intuitive appeal. I simply do not understand discounting well enough to know if he’s reasonable in this matter or not, so I’m letting his credentials speak for him in that matter. I’m still trying to understand why Stern (and many here) have such pessimism about the future.
Re: #220 I should have read the story twice through before commenting on its author’s intent. Sorry about that. It’s a well written article that gets to the heart of Lindzen’s and Lomborg’s popularity.
I have a general question regarding the primary contributors to this site and don’t know where to post it. If there is a more appropriate place please direct me accordingly. I believe that the answer to my question is self-evident but the point has been called into question.
Is it fair to say that all of the primary contributors on this site agree with the consensus that the current global warming trend is predominantly anthropogenic in origin?
Worded in a slightly different way, could any of the primary contributors to this site be legitimately characterized as an AGW contrarian or a skeptic, and if so would they admit to being such?
[Response: We’re all practicing, publishing climate scientists, and I think we all buy the argument that the warming of the past decades was caused rising CO2 concentrations, and expect that if more CO2 is released, the temperature will rise further. We’re skeptical about new results all the time, as witness perhaps the post before this one. Contrarian means to me disregarding evidence that doesn’t support one’s desired conclusion, not a good strategy for a scientist. David]
Joe, imagine someone able, in 1776, to show Jefferson and Washington that within 200 years all the great North American forests would have been cut and not regrown, the buffalo herds gone, the passenger pigeons gone, the salmon and codfish and whales all but gone, the chestnut trees gone, most of the elms gone, the small towns and farms and farmers gone, and fifteen feet of topsoil washed off of the middle of the continent down the Mississippi. They would have been as pessimistic about their country’s future as Stern is now about his.
Most of that damage could have been avoided at low cost — but nobody was able to foresee it when it was happening.
We can see what’s at risk now, and the debate is whether it’s worth even the “no regrets” effort with provable payback, compared to the current-quarter bottom-line profit margin costs.
Joe Duck (233) — Did you follow the link in comment #133? Did you follow the link in comment #230? Have you read Jared Diamond’s Collapse? Do you understand the import for the future of the main post on this thread?
Integrated assessment models assume that everything can be priced in dollars. While it may be possible to price one human life, is the value of the human species, no more than the population times the value of one life?
Assume that human extinction will not occur for a few years, use discounting and the current cost of an act that will result in the extinction of the human species is ~$0.00. With this view, there is no responsibility for one’s actions because you can show that no action has any cost associated with it.
Of course, I have made a “Slicing the Salami “argument which is absurd. But, it is no more absurd than a too high discount rate for goods and services provided by Mother Nature, or a too long a discount period for the onset of costs associated with climate change.
AGW will have real costs, and they will be unpleasant. They cannot be “discounted” away. There will be real suffering. By acting now, we can reduce that suffering. By acting, we can minimize the intensity of the global warming, and by acting now, the effects of the global warming that does occur can be reduced.
dhogaza (176), I can accept that. The rules of accounting do say that you can only count things that are countable. While this leads to occasional goofy accounting results, neither should economists be held to General Accounting Standards.
Hank Roberts (241) — The Science Daily article states the paper is in the GPL on-line edition, co-authored by John R. Christy, W. Danny Braswell and Justin Hnilo, but since Roy Spencer is extensively quoted, I believe it refers to the paper in GSL that you provided a link to, with exactly those four co-authors.
Joe Duck, the knock on Kyoto is that it was too little to be effective. Likewise, the knock on Mendelsohn’s approach is that we don’t know whether “low-cost” measures will have sufficient effect to keep us out of the positive feedback regime. Kyoto had more symbolic value than real value. Likewise, Mendelsohn’s approach if viewed as a “starting point” has some merit, just as Kyoto did.
People do not realize just how conservative the IPCC consensus analyses are. Things could get much worse, but they are unlikely to be better.
My own view is that the low hanging fruit–conservation, energy resource diversification away from carbon-intensive sources, etc.–is the obvious place to start. Aid for energy and transport infrastructures of developing countries is another area that will pay serious dividends well into the future. Is that enough? We don’t know. A lot depends on the pace of development for technical solutions. The most important thing is to buy time so those solutions have a chance of being realized.
> Why do you ask?
Just odd to see a Sciencedirect article dated this week, long after the article it appears to be based on came out. I recall it got a lot of discussion at the time it was published — it’s more tentative than the current flurry of mentions on the denial sites make it seem though. That’s where you’ll find current discussion.
Ah, but Christy was just in the WSJ recently, perhaps his school sent out a fresh press release without the cite.
Spencer discussed the paper a while back at Prometheus:
“… In our resulting August 9 GRL paper … the tropospheric temperature variations were very large.
In something of a “fishing expedition” we examined a variety of satellite observations that could be related to the tropical tropospheric heat budget. For the 15 largest intraseasonal oscillations between 2000 and 2005, we averaged TRMM TMI rainfall and SST, Terra MODIS cloud fractions, CERES reflected SW and emitted LW fields, and AMSU-A tropospheric temperature data to daily time scales, over tropical average space scales. The result was clear evidence in support of Lindzen’s “Infrared Iris” hypothesis, at least on the intraseasonal time scales we examined. (Unpublished was an analysis of the 15 next-largest ISOs, which revealed very similar signatures.)…”
I haven’t found cites to it, but it’s early yet I guess.
#206 Jim Galasyn: Re Matt in 197, can you explain why habitat loss due to land development and biomass loss due to ocean overexploitation would not cause widespread species extinctions far in excess of the background rate?
Eastern US has seen forests fall to 2% of what it was 200 years ago. How many extinctions did we see?
Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest has been 88% cleared since the 1800’s. How many extinctions did we see?
According to Lomborg, 1 and 0.
According to EO Wilson’s model, the number of species would have been halved.
Now Lomborg only addresses animals for the US forests, and animals and plants for the Brazilian rainforest. So I guess a lot of insects could have been lost and Wilson would have been right.
It’d be interesting to hear if what Lomborg wrote is true. If it is true, can you explain the reason why EO Wilson’s predictions failed to materialize?
#207 Nick Gotts: From Wikepedia article on Lomborg:
“He has claimed to have been a supporter of Greenpeace. When challenged that Greenpeace had no record of his ever being a member or supporter, he stated that he had given money to Greenpeace collectors.”
That’s funny. I just checked Wikipedia and he said he was the regional director and shows a picture of him and Jacques Cousteau smiling together. Oh, wait, it just reverted. Never mind.
Seriously, if you won’t even believe a statement he makes about something in his own life, then there’s not much hope for anything else he does. Speaks volumes about your mindset though…
#208 SecularAnimist: But I fail to see how that gives him any credibility, especially given his well-documented, monumental dishonesty, inaccuracies and nonsensical rationalizations when it comes to the substance of his “arguments”.
Ray passed on the chance to point out Lomborg’s biggest mistake, so I’ll pass the torch to you. I hold the guy in pretty high regard, and would seriously like to know where he’s screwed up. I looked at a anti-Bjorn websites and found everything pretty petty.
Perhaps if you produced something you had studied in detail, I could study it too and come to some common understanding?
#203 Gavin’s inline: I’m pretty sure everyone will agree that IPCC could have been clearer about what their numbers meant and how important this uncertainty is, but your characterisation of the IPCC statements are simply erroneous.
Considering you had a special post on the topic, I trust I’m not alone in failing to recognize the full threat.
Here’s my naive take on this.
1) Oceans have been rising around 1.8mm/year based on long term tidal measurements.
2) Let’s assume warming, melting sheets, and other bad things bump that to 8mm/year. In 2100, that’d be 72 cm, which is at the high end of everything. Likely not worst case, but hopefully pretty bad.
3) 634M people live withing 30 feet of sea level, according to April 2007 Environment and Urbanization. No idea if this is valid.
4) Big jump: 44e6 people live within 0.7m (simple ratio off 634 * 0.7/10)
5) 60% of Netherlands population (15.8M) are under sea level.
6) Massive engineer projects take 15 years from start to finish, assuming minimal red tape.
OK, round numbers…in 88 years we are dealing with roughly 44M people’s place of residence being under water. That’s about 3X the number of people that are currently facing the same issue in the Netherlands.
88 years is almost 6 massive engineering cycles. Dubai’s Palm Island built land where there was none in 4 years.
And assume for a moment that we weren’t warming at all due to man. We’d have to deal with this problem anyway in 450 years rather than 88 years. From a planning perspective, what is the difference? Nobody plans 88 years ahead. But if we must, depreciate that which will flood over the next 88 years, give owners time to mitigate, sell, let cities decide how to address. The market will sort this out.
Poor nations can create enormous wealth in the next 50 years if they have low-cost energy available to them. Look at what Taiwan, Korea and China have accomplished in 50 years. And shame on all of us if a sizable portion of the world is still seeking fresh water and food in 10 years.
This is an engineering problem, readily solvable. It doesn’t scare me at all. If the water portion scares you, then I must ask why it doesn’t scare you that it’ll happen naturally anyway in 450 years?
re:147
“They have been having intermittent problems with their software over recent months; comments often go missing without a trace. This happens to me about one comment in three.”
It would be nice to get a reject message when moderated out. I sent an offtopic post which was only to do a heads up to RC on Bob Carter youtube videos. I am not surprised that it was apparently moderated out as contributed nothing to discussion but it would nice to know that it wasnt missing because of bug in web software.
Far off track for ocean carbon levels, but a useful pointer for anyone in N. America who’s curious what birds are thriving and threatened local to you. I’ll point to the glossary, without which the rest won’t make sense. You know what to do. http://www.rmbo.org/pif/glossary.html
“Database dictionary and key to data sources … Partners in Flight Species Assessment Databases (http://www.rmbo.org/pif/pifdb.html) and provides brief definitions for some terms. The databases, and this glossary of terms, should be used in consultation with the Partner in Flight Handbook on Species Assessment (http://www.rmbo.org/pubs/downloads/Handbook2005.pdf), which provides more complete information on the terms listed below. The databases should be used in consultation with this Handbook, which defines the terms listed….”
#234, Climate science is not a popularity contest, this article is nothing but fluff, fast food for the on the go science amateur. Never goes near the crux of the subject, which is about a relatively sudden unprecedented in 650,000 years injection of CO2 to the atmosphere (and ocean). Lindzen’s sympathetic reporters have always done the same thing, avoid the subject and infomercial the sweatheart contrarian.
“Seriously, if you won’t even believe a statement he makes about something in his own life, then there’s not much hope for anything else he does. Speaks volumes about your mindset though…”
Matt, it’s not a question of believing something he said, as it was shown the statement was at best facile, at worst a lie. Lomborg wrapping himself in an environmentalist flag because he gave money to Greenpeace is much like saying because I contribute money to breast cancer I’m a member of the medical establishment.
But you are right, if for the worng reasons. There’s not much hope for anything he says, not because he says it, but because, as demonstrated multiple times in this thread and elsewhere, what he does say turns out to be wrong.
While I agree with your sentiment about getting a reject message for moderated comments, unless the software is able to generate that automatically it would be quite a lot to ask of the moderators. As you probably well know, this website receives a LOT of comments.
Majorajam> A true welfare analysis takes into account all costs and benefits, (mitigated damages but also mitigated risk and uncertainty), uncertainty about climate sensitivity, about stochastic discount rates, etc.
Ray, nicely put: The most important thing is to buy time so those solutions have a chance of being realized.
I’d add that finding the most effective way to do will become one of the great challenges of this generation, though I’d prefer to see our innovation used first on the easy problems and do massive mitigations later (when we know which technologies work best and cheapest).
David Benson: Yes checked links, no have not read “Collapse”. Unless I am mistaken the new carbon sink studies do *not* suggest that we need to fundamentally shift IPCC projections of temp and sea level rises - rather don’t they suggest, somewhat speculatively, that we need minor modification to IPCC?
Hank: Your examples are a good example of how things have changed but not had catastrophic consequences. Total forest cover is down but we’ve got massive replanting and boards are not all that expensive. I’d bet a halfpenny that the founders would have loved the climate debate but would not have invoked all the alarmist catastrophe talk so prevalent in the media’s failed attempts to articulate the gradual changes that reflect how things are likely to shake out.
Simply noting (correctly) that there is a potential for climate catastrophe is not all that helpful to anybody. We need some form of quantified risk assessment or we’ll keep doing what humans do so well - budget the big money politically and emotionally rather than rationally and in a cost effective way.
Matt, you say Lomborg somewhere wrote that only one species became extinct in the Eastern US forests in the past 200 years. Where did he say this? Which species did he name?
Carolina parakeet? Passenger pigeon? Labrador duck? Ivory-billed woodpecker? Bachman’s warbler? That’s considering only birds, and only narrowly defined Eastern forest birds.
Think about the fact that you got fooled again, and came here believing what Lomborg wrote, even though it’s easy to debunk.
Don’t let people put stuff in your head without checking it, eh?
How many decades did it take to cut 98% of the eastern forest? Do you think maybe that makes a slight difference?
If 98% of the eastern forest were to be cut in something like 10 years, survival would be an entirely different problem for its inhabitants. The eastern forest is still being cut in a process that started centuries ago. I, little old me, helped cut several old-growth red spruce trees out of the Appalachians during the 1990s. My swings of the axe perhaps took it from 97.8888 percent cut to 97.8889. In the 1600s some guy cutting masts for sailing ships probably took it from .8888 to .8889.
98% of the eastern forest has never been lying on the ground at one time, or a percentage even remotely close to 98%. Cut 98% of it down in one year and you’ll be able to watch a lot of species population numbers go into severe retreat.
I would like get into brazilian rosewood from the coastal ranges of Brazil, but I hear Lomborg thinks a board foot is a board foot. So first I would love to buy some mature brazilian rosewood from him at yellow pine prices.
#247, Maybe I misunderstood but can you provide some supporting evidence that eastern US forest coverage is 2% of what it was 200 years ago? US Geological Survey has eastern US at 54% forest coverage and USDA Forest Service has forest cover at 70% of 400 years ago. 2%
re: #251 matt
“Poor nations can create enormous wealth in the next 50 years if they have low-cost energy available to them.”
Did you read #229? Can you explain to me where poor countries are going to get lots of low-cost energy? I’m eager to know, because it won’t be petroleum.
re: massive engineering projects take 15 years…
Zero credibility, “not even wrong”.
The Netherlands Delta project “was launched in 1958 and largely completed in 2002″. (Wikipedia). And that’s by a rich, smart country that has centuries of practice at this, and it wasn’t for dealing with SLR, it was for storms, and there’s a big difference. In the first, you engineer for a given level of risk. In the other, well, it’s hard to know how to plan, especially if you don’t really know how far up the water is coming.
And this is *tiny* compared to protecting just the Gulf Coast.
The distance from one end of the Netherlands to the other, near the coast, is ~500km. which is approximately the width of Louisiana, i.e., distance from Port Arthur, TX to Slidell, along I10 and I12.
(None of this implies that SLR is the worst problem, either.)
RE #248 Matt “That’s funny. I just checked Wikipedia and he said he was the regional director and shows a picture of him and Jacques Cousteau smiling together. Oh, wait, it just reverted. Never mind.
Seriously, if you won’t even believe a statement he makes about something in his own life, then there’s not much hope for anything else he does. Speaks volumes about your mindset though…”
Matt: Lomborg claims he was a Greenpeace member. Greenpeace says they have no record of him. When challenged on this point, he backs down. If Lomborg lied about this, as I believe he did, his only obvious motivation is because it makes a good propaganda point - as you’ve proved by using it here. I’d say that speaks volumes about his mindset, not mine. Let me ask you: do you believe him on this point? If so, presumably, you believe Greenpeace is lying when it says he was never registered as a member or supporter. Do you?
Matt @247: Now Lomborg only addresses animals for the US forests, and animals and plants for the Brazilian rainforest. So I guess a lot of insects could have been lost and Wilson would have been right.
The last time I checked, insects were animals. Please can you be a bit clearer? What exactly is Lomborg’s claim?
Matt @251: In 2100, that’d be 72 cm, which is at the high end of everything. It is? IPCC high end is 59cm (steric) plus an unknown number for melting (eustatic). A fairly conservative number for eustatic would be 50cm by 2100 (Greenland will eventually deliver ~7 metres, over a millenium or so). Hansen et al’s recent paper says several metres. Some people here are speculating about 10+m, which seems like a leap to me, based on pessimal ice sheet dynamics. But it’s not completely impossible.
Matt @251: I think your “big jump” step is unwarranted.
I am a firm believer in humanity’s ability to achieve amazing things, particularly in science and engineering spheres, particularly if they are highly motivated (by money, patriotism, desperation, or a survival instinct). So I’m not necessarily disagreeing with the thrust of Matt@251. But John Mashey @229 is quite right to bring up the subject of peak oil. Big engineering is going to get harder.
Matt,
First on Lomborg’s “Greenpeace membership”. This is at least as old as St. Augustine’s Confessions. Claim that you used to believe as your opponents did, but that you learned better. The role of this ploy is to imply superior wisdom based on hard experience. That’s why you have so many “Christians” claiming they used to be “hippies”, Neocons claiming to have been liberals, neoliberals claiming to have been conservatives, etc. An effective debating strategy that usually turns out to be an exercise in creative writing.
Now, as to Lomborg’s “greatest mistake”. In short, it is pointless to point out the mistakes of a liar and self promoter. Lomborg simply is not serious or credible anywhere outside of those circles who buy into his ideology.
As an example, to state that no species were lost in the clearcutting of Brazilian Atlantic forests is simply absurd. Lomborg is taking advantage of the lack of a proper census of species in this region prior to the unfolding of the ecological catastrophe that is Brazil.
(Greenland will eventually deliver ~7 metres, over a millenium or so). Hansen et al’s recent paper says several metres. Some people here are speculating about 10+m, which seems like a leap to me, based on pessimal ice sheet dynamics.
Hansen’s recent paper pretty much ruled out millenial time scales and refused to discount decadal ones.
“… we find no evidence of millennial lags between forcing and ice sheet response in palaeoclimate data. An ice sheet response time of centuries seems probable, and we cannot rule out large changes on decadal time-scales once wide-scale surface melt is underway.”
“Poor nations can create enormous wealth in the next 50 years if they have low-cost energy available to them. Look at what Taiwan, Korea and China have accomplished in 50 years.”
Here’s a little factoid- the 1970’s with their huge forced mitigation due to the oil embargos experienced significantly higher global GDP growth than the 80’s or 90’s which had extremely cheap energy by comparison. Is that consistent with the assumptions you’ve just made? This decade’s global GDP growth has been faster than the last, with much more expensive energy. How’s your theory holding up?
“give owners time to mitigate, sell, let cities decide how to address. The market will sort this out. ”
Give owners time to mitigate? What, costal property owners will single handedly reduce CO2 concentrations to such a point as to impact global climate? Or what, sell? Sell to…? I know, the guy who wants to live under water. Are these fair descriptions of your theory? The critical bit though is Bible faith that ‘market will sort this out’- just like the market sorted out airline security before 9/11, or chemical facility security since, or how it sorted out California’s electricity market in 2001, or the stock market in the 1920s, or how it sorted out clean air and water for Chinese. Just like that. Indeed, the market lets me rest easy at night.
“This is an engineering problem, readily solvable.”
I find it intriguing that you believe that erecting massive sea walls around tens of thousands of miles of coastline (together with concomitant environmental damage) will be cheaper than CO2 mitigation. Is that a back of the envelope calculation perhaps? And what happens when the loss of snow and glacier melt devastates the Colorado River system or any of the major river systems that are fed by Himalayan glaciers (or many others for that matter)? I guess we just take on some more engineering projects diverting water however many thousands of miles will be needed to sustain the populations that depended on that melt water? I’m sure you’re not scared, even as you’re keenly aware of the staggering amount of energy required to move water. And no doubt we’ve yet to approach the cost of mitigation, but the good news is we’re not done with the need for engineering projects. Because drought and desertification will require huge irrigation projects if we are to sustain agriculture in afflicted areas. And we’ll have plenty of engineering work to deal with the increased intensity of tropical cyclones, increased flooding, and other extreme weather events. How are we going? Let’s have a look at that envelope.
Note that this discussion would have happened in regular old scientific discourse if Lomborg had published his results in a refereed journal. Instead, it has to happen in a piecemeal and ad hoc way, with ludicrous claims like “scientists won’t debate him.”
It might be fun to debate Lomborg’s biggest error/distortion, but that would be a very long conversation. For a comprehensive list of Lomborg’s cluelessness and/or mendacity, I again point you to:
Interesting coverage of some scietific research on enhancing ocean uptake of CO2 by accelerating the weathering of volcanic rock and making oceans more alkaline. Harvard and Penn State team. http://www.physorg.com/news113637002.html
I think the article does an excellent job of laying out the difficult technical, economic and political challenges that face the world in responding to the related problems of anthropogenic global warming and fossil fuel depletion, and offers some valuable suggestions for dealing with them.
I think that most of you will find reading it a more rewarding use of your time than revisiting the well-documented frauds of Bjorn Lomborg that the climate change deniers enjoy wasting everyone’s time with.
You have to distinguish between original, primary, forest cover, most of which was cut down, and secondary forest cover which replaced some, though not all, of the primary forest. From McCarthy, B.C. (1995) The Ohio Woodland Journal 2:8-10:
“Historical records and descriptions of the pre-settlement eastern landscape paint a dramatically different picture from that of the present. Colonists of the 1600s were presented with vast stands of large trees and continuous cover. Most historians agree that this country was settled largely because of its enormous timber resource. The needs of a colonist were simple: a roof over one’s head, food on the table, and warmth in the cold months. As a result, forests were cleared for settlement, sawtimber, agriculture, and fuelwood. In later years, the surviving forests were exploited for a variety of additional wood products including charcoal, pulp, and turpentine. While the exact dates are arguable, essentially all eastern old-growth was eradicated by the turn of the 20th century.
Today, virtually all old-growth forest that remains in the eastern U.S. consists of small tracts of land (10 to 100 acres) that resulted from surveying errors or private family preservation for the purposes of aesthetics, hunting, or timbering. While these tracts pale in comparison to western old-growth forests, they remain a vitally important resource.”
Matt wrote: “I wonder, too, if oil turns into the cheap fuel for emerging nations in 50 years. If EU + US do indeed bite the bullet and push to do the right thing and get off of oil, then world demand drops and the price would fall to unprecendented levels…”
=================
I write this on a day when oil may pass, or at least flirt with, the $100.00-a-barrel benchmark.
That argument seems anti-intuitive. Your scenario is based on the presumption that the cost of oil production will drop in relation to the rise in cheap alternatives to where it could compete.
As alternative, renewable energy production grows, the cost would invariably drop. Say you get 30 years out of a solar panel system, and innovation makes the process cheaper (and the odds are very high innovation and increased demand will reduce costs) then the return on that system would make competition from oil a non-sequitur.
But the price of producing, refining and delivering oil will not change in any appreciative fashion.
With the alternative energy system, unless I am missing something, you have a one-time manufacture and delivery/setup cost (plus inevitable maintenance costs), whereas with oil you have to keep bringing it in. And as I said, the cost for solar go down, not up. But the costs of oil-production are more or less fixed in terms of a lower-limit, a limit that will likely increase because it takes a large infrastructure to maintain production. And as I mentioned earlier, it is a finite resource in terms of ease of extraction and availability, suggesting that sooner or later (more likely sooner), even with deflated prices, it will eventually cost a dollar’s worth of energy to extract a dollar’s worth of energy. And then production stops.
Further, it isn’t just the cost of oil you have to consider. More and more, countries are realizing their renewable resources, such as water, arable land, and flora and fauna biodiversity are increasingly valuable to a country’s bottom-line, (something both China and India are becoming increasingly aware of). Oil-based (and coal-based) pollution occurs easily and frequently, can be extremely toxic, long-lasting and difficult to eradicate, so you need to factor in ecological costs. And as time progresses and oil-based damage to the environment deepens, the expense of countering such damage will increase accordingly.
Oil (and coal) is also a health issue, in the sense its use has been demonstrated to have a negative effect on public health, short and long-term, so you need to factor in this effect on public health and the cost to productivity, the cost of maintaining a health care infrastructure and how an economy is impacted by those costs.
And then there is the cost of ongoing AGW fed by the continued use of a carbon-based model of energy production.
I’m sure I’m missing many other factors regarding the expense of using oil. It isn’t just about paying for the energy; it’s about paying for the effect of the energy. Any way you look at it, alternative renewable energy offers better long-term benefits in terms of ecological and societal costs than oil does.
Jim RE: #270 Lomborg Errors website:
I’d also encourage people to visit that site and read about Lomborg but for a different reason. Here the attacks against him seem to be mostly personal. The errors website is pitiful - is is another Danish professor’s attempt to discredit somebody he personally despises. In fact I understand he is often the force behind the many attempts to publicly discredit Lomborg.
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RC moderator dudes:
How about a Lomborg thread here? And/or a mitigation thread? Those topics seem to almost obsess people here at RC and are generally off topic for the posts on science. Alternatively I’d be happy to set up a blog for the purpose of discussing these hot button topics in the context of the climate science.
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I’d challenge folks to read the back and forth of Scientific American’s critique of Lomborg’s “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and come to anything but the obvious conclusion: Distinguished scientists felt their complex work was getting oversimplified by a non-scientist and felt their ethics were under attack by Lomborg. Rather than address his mostly obvious points they just attacked back. In fact almost all of the “anti Lomborg” rhetoric concedes most of his facts (but says they are cherry picked) and most of his broad points (Environmental awareness is important, AGW is clearly happenging, IPCC data is high quality, etc, etc.
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Few people here appear to have read many of his arguments which in many ways line up with the science presented here. For reasons that still confuse me Lomborg simply pisses off physical scientists even as he agrees with them. Nobody likes to be called alarmist, especially by somebody who is not an expert in the field.
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For example Lomborg has *consistently* strongly supported AGW hypothesis and consistently supported mitigation efforts. What seems to bother people is that Lomborg has spoken against Kyoto and massive mitgation efforts, he has oversimplified some complex issues, and unfortunately he accused many scientists and others in the environmental debate of alarmism and having a vested interest in outcomes. The personal Lomborg debates tend to trump his important and very reasoned point: How do we prioritize global solutions? Although it had flaws, the Copenhagen Consensus was an admirable attempt to create a nexus between science and policy and spending.
I’d challenge folks to read the back and forth of Scientific American’s critique of Lomborg’s “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and come to anything but the obvious conclusion: Distinguished scientists felt their complex work was getting oversimplified by a non-scientist and felt their ethics were under attack by Lomborg.
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Gosh, Joe, I did read that exchange.
Never got that impression at all. If anything, quite the opposite; Lomborg behaved as if everyone wasn’t treating him fairly ie: “You’re not making an exception for me, and you should.”
Here is a link that will allow people to actually see the “debate” in toto:
Note he also got spanked in Skeptic Magazine and American Scientist right around the same time. Skeptic went so far as to give him 20+ pages to present his argument.
Re #276 Joe Duck “Although it had flaws, the Copenhagen Consensus was an admirable attempt to create a nexus between science and policy and spending.”
It was nothing of the kind. It involved no natural scientists, nor any social scientists apart from a group of economists hand-picked to give a predetermined answer - which was overdetermined by his insistence on a short time-horizon. Lomborg riles people because he is a fraud, and not even an interesting or original one. He uses all the stale tricks familiar to most of us from the creationist attacks on evolutionary theory: cherry-picking data, false dichotomies, unsupported and implausible accusations of vested interests, challenges to debates, etc.
I read the SciAm exchange back in the day (2001) and wasn’t impressed with Lomborg. The Grist rebuttals are also worth a read. But these discussions are no substitute for publication in refereed journals.
To be clear: You are proposing that Lomborg understands population biology and climate science better than the published professionals in these fields. You’re telling me to believe Lomborg over E.O. Wilson, and Lomborg over Hansen, correct? Because the scientists are “emotional” and “partisan,” and the dilettante is “rational” and “neutral,” I suppose.
Further the “What’s everyone so mad about?” complaint, something from John Holdren in response to Lomborg’s “rebuttal” to his critique.
“Now, it is apparent from reading even the first few pages of The Skeptical Environmentalist that Lomborg proposes to make the case that not just environmentalists, but a considerable part of the heretofore respectable environmental-science community, have been misunderstanding the relevant concepts, misrepresenting the relevant facts, understating the uncertainties, selecting data, and failing to acknowledge errors after these have been pointed out - in other words, that the scientist contributors to what he calls “the environmental litany” (namely, that environmental problems are serious and becoming, in many instances more so) have been guilty of massively violating the scientists’ code of conduct. This would be interesting news indeed, if Lomborg could prove it. But reading further reveals that his attempt to do so is itself a richly populated pastiche of these very infractions. Every class of mistake of which he accuses environmentalists and environmental scientists who have contributed to the “litany” is in fact committed prolifically and indiscriminately in The Skeptical Environmentalist (except, of course, for refusing to acknowledge error - for this, one has to read his rebuttals).
“That the responses of environmental scientists have conveyed anger as well as substantive content, then, ought to be understandable. Lomborg’s performance careens far across the line that divides respectable (even if controversial science) from thoroughgoing and unrepentant incompetence. He has failed thoroughly to master his subject. He has committed, with appalling frequency and brazen abandon, exactly the kinds of mistakes and misrepresentations of which he accuses his adversaries. He has needlessly muddled public understanding and wasted immense amounts of the time of capable people who have had to take on the task of rebutting him. And he has done so at the particular intersection of science with public policy - environment and the human condition - where public and policy-maker confusion about the realities is more dangerous for the future of society than on any other science-and-policy question excepting, possibly, the dangers from weapons of mass destruction. It is a lot to answer for.
Joe Duck wrote: “Distinguished scientists felt their complex work was getting oversimplified by a non-scientist and felt their ethics were under attack by Lomborg.”
No, distinguished scientists felt that the realities of their fields of study, from climate to forestry to ecology and more, were being systematically misrepresented by Lomborg. And their responses substantiate, in detail, that this was in fact so.
Joe Duck wrote: “The personal Lomborg debates tend to trump his important and very reasoned point: How do we prioritize global solutions?”
That’s not a “point”. It’s a question. It is entirely legitimate for Lomborg or anyone else to ask that question. It is not legitimate to “reason” about answers to that question based on falsehoods, which is what Lomborg has consistently done, in order to reach his predetermined conclusions.
I think the reason that some people get upset with Lomborq on a “personal” level is that they perceive him to be either arrogantly and recklessly irresponsible in his willful ignorance at best, or a deliberate fraud at worst.
J.S. McIntyre quoted John Holdren: “… what [Lomborg] calls ‘the environmental litany’ (namely, that environmental problems are serious and becoming, in many instances more so) …”
It is worth noting that not only did Lomborg misrepresent scientific reality, but he also misrepresented environmentalism. His so-called “environmental litany” is a strawman. No one can reasonably argue against the proposition that “environmental problems are serious and becoming, in many instances more so” — so Lomborg argued against a distorted caricature of the central concerns and aims of the environmental movement.
An awful lot of time and attention, in this thread, is being paid to one individual, the Danish Professor and his principles and personality and we’re getting away from the broad overall picture. Matt and perhaps Joe and some others consider him their guru. Do any of you think you’re going to convince them otherwise?
Naomi Oreskes did a study which I know many of you are aware of and she found the following:
[A 2004 article by geologist and historian of science Naomi Oreskes summarized a study of the scientific literature on climate change.[29] The essay concluded that there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. The author analyzed 928 abstracts of papers from refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, listed with the keywords “global climate change”. Oreskes divided the abstracts into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. 75% of the abstracts were placed in the first three categories, thus either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, thus taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change; none of the abstracts disagreed with the consensus position, which the author found to be “remarkable”. According to the report, “authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.”]
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
In other words, the unanimous consensus of the more than 900 articles published in refereed journals from 1993 through 2003 was that global warming is under way. This should put into perspective the position of those few scientists who remain skeptical or on the fence.
I remember seeing the late Stephen Jay Gould being interviewed on the skepticism of scientists on another controversial topic, Darwinism, and he pointed out that were more than a million scientists in the world and there would always be a few who refused to accept the prevalent theory.
Matt (249) and Joe (276) - What is about Lomborg that you two find so admirable and credible? I really, really don’t get it.
I read the New York Times article, ‘Feel Good’ vs. ‘Do Good’ on Climate (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/science/earth/11tiern.html), about Lomborg. It made me cringe, and we’re not even talking scientific issues in that article.
First, he claims he agrees that, yes, “global warming is real” and that “it will do more harm than good”. Then he makes a suggestion for dealing with it: “… a carbon tax and a treaty forcing nations to budget hefty increases for research into low-carbon energy technologies.” Not bad suggestions, possibly, but given that he puts a lot of his time and energy into dissing the idea of any urgency around the issue of global warming, it’s hard to take his suggestion seriously. And how does one even create a treaty “forcing” nations to do something?
Then, of course, he moves right on to his real solution: “…make the rest of the world as rich as New York, so that people elsewhere can afford to do things like shore up their coastlines and buy air conditioners.” To which I can only say, “Huh?”
Now, I have no problem with making the rest of the world richer, although I do have a problem with the idea that a world where everyone uses energy and resources at the rate that we here in the U.S. do currently is in any way sustainable and not only in terms of AGW. Beyond that, exactly how does one do this?
How do we create the political will to support development in the poorer countries? How do we even determine exactly what assistance can best support development? How do we deal with the selfishness of the rich countries and the corruption and ineffectualness of many developing countries’ governments in order to effectively provide assistance? How do we suddenly successfully do something that we have singularly failed to do so far in history–something that requires not a technological solution (for which we have a pretty good track record) but that requires dealing with complex social, political, and historical issues.
Moreover, where do the energy resources come from, quickly and right now, so that this development can happen fast enough to deal with climate change issues over the upcoming century–the modest ones that Lomborg agrees are “real”? China is plunging ahead with cheap energy from coal and creating huge, huge local environmental problems in the process. The Chinese are not unaware of the problems but have yet to come to grips with what to do about it. So, what’s available for the rest of the developing world? Where do they get their energy resources? A few countries have oil of their own, but the industrialized and already-industrializing countries are doing their damnedest to get their hands on it for themselves. Lomborg mentions neither the threat of peak oil nor the environmental disaster and other dangers (mine disasters and disease) of coal use nor the major expense for construction and unresolved problems of nuclear energy. He just advocates more energy to make everyone richer. It’s like he wants everyone to join in a chorus of “don’t worry, be happy.” (Which, of course, begs the question of who, really, is the “feel good” person here?)
He then misrepresents the Kyoto treaty. It was designed as an initial step, for pete’s sake, which is one of the most salient points that all the nay-sayers from G. W. Bush on down never seem to want to acknowledge, and it was totally undercut as a beginning effort by the U.S. unwillingness to get on board and the efforts of people like Lomborg to make sure it was not acceptable.
Where is the real evidence for Lomborg’s assertion that “We could spend all that money to cut emissions and end up with more land flooded next century because people would be poorer?” I get so sick and tired of hearing about how Kyoto will make people poorer, but the economists I’ve read do not present very convincing arguments–and Lomborg here doesn’t even present any evidence for his claim. We’re just supposed to take it on faith, I guess.
Limit coastal development, he says. Good idea. But what about all the coastal development that already exists, both in the industrialized and developing world? How does one relocate poor villages, gated communities, and industries that are already situated in coastal areas? I have family in Florida, and the situation down there is getting downright scary. They are getting poorer by the minute as their homes lose value. How much of that is due to transient climate issues (hurricanes, drought, etc.) and how much of it is due to AGW? I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone else does either at this point, but it sure gives an indication of exactly how hard it is going to be to contend with any climate changes that come into existence due to AGW. And that “shore up their coastline” bit he advocated earlier? Is he even aware that Florida has over 8,000 miles of coastline? Exactly how does one “shore up” 8,000 miles of coastline? It is nowhere near as simple as Lomborg pretends it is as he plays the happy, happy “skeptical environmentalist”.
I also don’t get how Matt can claim that the websites responding to Lomborg’s distortions are “petty” or Joe can assert that the attacks are “personal” when they cite chapter and verse of where he is wrong or has cherry-picked or misrepresented information. Sorry, guys, that just doesn’t fly.
On a final note, I admit that I haven’t read The Skeptical Environmentalist myself so I don’t know that this is really, really true, but I see that Lomborg is quoted as claiming (on page 122 of the book) that “Thus, it is also expected that the oil price will once again decline from $27 to the low $20s until 2020.” Now, what was the price of oil again today in 2007? And this is the guy that you think is so prescient?
I have seen it yes. I think Annan is missing the point of Weitzman’s work and that is largely a product of his lack of familiarity with economics. Why should it be beyond the pale to include the implication on utility of events with a non-zero probability given what is possible to infer of such? A better question would be, on what basis can we ignore it if the science and statistics indicates it isn’t impossible? I don’t think you’re going to get many economists to present their results with the disclaimer, “we’ve looked at all feedbacks and ramifications except those that blow up our model”. That would be silly and, of course, this is Weitzman’s point. If you’re going to quantify things, quantify them, if you want to pull some levers and switches and proclaim objectivity, you shouldn’t have to add, “disregard the man behind the curtain”.
Annan’s biggest beef is with Weitzman’s treatment of climate sensitivity as, in the limit of observations, a pdf of known width. He says though that it would be different if we were trying to apply something known more abstractly (as from another planet) about climate sensitivity to earth’s environment. Now here I’m well out of my expertise, which probably means I’m typing, but I have to wonder if that is a valid point. If it is the case that particularities of other planets can drive randomness in this, frankly, artificial parameter, isn’t it also the case then that the changing particulars of our own planet- its eccentricity, land mass makeup and distribution, volcanic activity, anthropogenic activity (GHG & aerosol emissions, perhaps impact on land use), current state of disequilibrium, i.e. momentum in the system, etc.- could do the same? Some of those will matter in high resolution data, others will matter on geological time scales, but ultimately shouldn’t they all conspire to yield randomness, even as described by a very well behaved distribution (as Weitzman models)? Is not a belief in a single point estimate for climate sensitivity simply clutching at some artificial aggregate of chaotic forces because it has an analytically convenient functional form? Holy moly, did I just go on topic? If not, that was close. In any case, input from the brains of this operation (which excludes only about 75% of commenters inclusive) would be much appreciated.
As I see it and irrespective of the relative merits of my wild a*sed amateurism above, Weitzman has opened a door that cannot be closed by what Annan has done, and must be explored by economists in dire need of self-examination. Annan states in his thread something to the effect of, ‘what Weitzman’s done is apply something intended for one thing in a context it shouldn’t be and that’s silly’. This is patently wrong. He appears to be unaware that the real silliness is the inference afforded to integrated assessment models that come unglued when basic acknowledgement of uncertainty is conceded. Furthermore, it is the case that utility theory does not remotely gel with the empirical data where it exists, i.e. asset returns, and Weitzman’s approach shed’s light on that as well. So I think it is a bit rich to sell it short just yet.
P.S. It also should be stated that Annan has published papers that claim we can disregard high estimates of climate sensitivity. So far as I can tell, this is not the mainstream view, however, it has obvious and large implications on what Weitzman has done, so it’s less of a surprise that Annan has picked up on it and come to the conclusion he has. If anyone of knowledge is picking up on this post, I would appreciate being enlightened on this point as well. Thanks in advance…
In fact almost all of the “anti Lomborg” rhetoric concedes most of his facts (but says they are cherry picked)
That’s priceless. So if I wish to “prove” that most human beings have blonde hair, and if I go out in the street and find eight blondes and take their names, and then to make up the numbers, find one brunette and one person with black hair, (which is a classic illustration of what “cherry picking” means) and if I publish my “survey” demonstrating that 8 out of 10 humans worldwide are blondes, then I take it you would have to concede that I was factually correct (while saying my facts were cherry picked)?
Cherry picking data breaks one of the cardinal rules of science, is anti-science, and amounts to lying.
J.S. McIntyre (275), I think this was a cogent analysis, but I have one disagreement. The cost of producing oil is no way the driving force behind $100/bbl pricing, and there is major leeway between the $100/bbl and the cost of production, transport, refining and delivery (the latter two a near zero factor in the $100 figure) — all from what the folks at OPEC, e.g., simply think they can charge. Neither will the cost of production see large continuous increases in the future. It will see occasional quantum jumps: a little from finding more of it, and a bunch when there has to be a shift from primary to secondary and tertiary drilling techniques. But overall there is considerable wiggle room. I would not be surprised if the producers, if so inclined, could drop the spot/futures price to $50 overnight and feel nary a twinge.
#270 Jim Galasyn: For Lomborg errors on deforestation, see…
Read it this morning before the sun came up. Thanks
Note that this discussion would have happened in regular old scientific discourse if Lomborg had published his results in a refereed journal. Instead, it has to happen in a piecemeal and ad hoc way, with ludicrous claims like “scientists won’t debate him.”
As I noted above, Lomborg isn’t a scientist. He’s on par with Al Gore. They are both “faces” on the movements. Their job is to try and make you think the scientists behind them are correct.
Now, I went into this thinking Lomborg was laying all the cards out on the table. Reading the link above, I’ll concede that it appears Lomborg hasn’t. To me, this puts him on par with Al Gore and Michael Crichton, who I don’t feel put all the cards out on the table either. Nor do I expect them to, because as I said, they aren’t scientists, they are moutpieces.
So, now that I have acknowledged Lomborg distorts by selectively sharing information with readers, how many here will acknowledge the same about Gore? I recall the kid-gloves treatment Gore received here recently for his “mostly accurate” AIT. Ray? Gavin? Do you feel Al Gore has left out critical pieces of information that cause the viewer to jump to the wrong conclusion? Is it different than Lomborg?
Mary C (288): I was enjoying your post (even though I disagreed with some of it), and then you went and let your visceral get out with “…naysayers [on Kyoto] like George W. Bush….” As your mind knows better than your gut, I’m sure, Clinton and Gore and the Senate of ‘97 canned the Kyoto treaty; Bush just carried on the sentiment. A minor point to be sure within the context of the total post, but it does splash on a pile of incredibility, unfortunately.
One problem that I think many people have with climate change is grasping the timescales. They see a problem where the worst of the consequences will not occur for a century or more and think that it is of no consequence. Surely, they say, we can come up with technical fixes by then. How, they wonder, do I know that things won’t change dramatically in that time and mitigate the problem without our efforts? The problem with this thinking is that while consequences may be a ways off on a human timescale, our ability to counter these issues before they become inevitable actually has a very short horizon. A scientist looks at a system where positive feedbacks may dwarf our own contributions and is naturally concerned. Anyone with even a little experience of dynamical systems–or even an understanding of exponential functions–is bound to see that such a system is highly unstable. If we do not buy time by reducing carbon emissions, we will push the climate into this regime, and likely nothing we can do will have much effect. That is what scientists are trying to warn people about. That is what people like Lomborg in their sanguine ignorance do not understand.
#275 J.S. McIntyre: But the price of producing, refining and delivering oil will not change in any appreciative fashion.
50% of gas is oil costs according to (1). US, EU are 44% of world oil consumption. If US and EU manage to get substantially off oil (say, 90% reduction) over 50 years, do Saudi Arabia et al simply live with half as much revenue? Do they double the price and accelerate emerging nations shift to non-oil use, or do they halve the price and make it easy for emerging nations to use all the old technology (IC engines), that the rest of the world quit using a while back?
In other words, if EU and US weren’t buying any oil, what would the price per barrel be? I think it would be quite a bit less.
#263 John Mashey: Did you read #229? Can you explain to me where poor countries are going to get lots of low-cost energy? I’m eager to know, because it won’t be petroleum.
Agree on petroleum. Let’s look at some numbers. Solar cell costs today are around $0.25/kwh. In 50 years, is it reasonable to expect those costs to fall two orders of magnitude? Semiconductor industry would achieve almost 3 orders of magnitude improvement in that time frame (if current trends continue–probably not likely), so perhaps 100X improvement to cost is practical for cells. In any case, in round numbers, if you have sun, you will have super cheap energy. 100X reduction to 0.25, of course, is 0.0025, which is about 1/10 the cost of today’s cheaper options for electricity. Can they afford them? Well if per-capita income growth in India can outpace inflation by 5%, then in 50 years they are getting sorta close to Arkansas’s average income.
The Netherlands Delta project “was launched in 1958 and largely completed in 2002″. (Wikipedia). And that’s by a rich, smart country that has centuries of practice at this, and it wasn’t for dealing with SLR, it was for storms, and there’s a big difference. In the first, you engineer for a given level of risk. In the other, well, it’s hard to know how to plan, especially if you don’t really know how far up the water is coming.
This isn’t one big project. It’s a series of smaller projects, that, as I note, complete on shorter time schedules. As you write above, you make it sounds like the project was delivering zero protection until it was finished in 2002. In fact, it has been deliver stages of protection continuously since the 1970s.
And of course, they are will to contract out their smarts and know how. Dubai didn’t figure out Palm Islands all by themselves.
The distance from one end of the Netherlands to the other, near the coast, is ~500km. which is approximately the width of Louisiana, i.e., distance from Port Arthur, TX to Slidell, along I10 and I12
Wiki says there are 10,000 miles of dykes protecting the Dutch. TEN THOUSAND MILES OF DYKES. Holy cow.
Poor countries will do well for low cost energy provided they have biomass to spare. Read the link provided in comment #278 for relationships between biofuel and fossil fuel prices.
ray ladbury> Anyone with even a little experience of dynamical systems–or even an understanding of exponential functions–is bound to see that such a system is highly unstable.
As someone with experience with dynamical systems, it seems to me the system becomes more stable as ice is eliminated.
When there is no more ice, there is no more ice albedo positive feedback. Other factors being equal (methane hydrate speculation aside), the system gain is lower, and the system is more stable.
Off topic — sorry! I’ve had a difficult time finding this website, which Google no longer seems to list, even as I ask for www.realclimate.org. Can anyone tell me what’s happening? I normally connect almost daily.
Re #294: [Wiki says there are 10,000 miles of dykes protecting the Dutch. TEN THOUSAND MILES OF DYKES. Holy cow.]
Humm… Standing, or laid end-to-end?
Re #288: [(Quoting Lomborg) “…make the rest of the world as rich as New York, so that people elsewhere can afford to do things like shore up their coastlines and buy air conditioners.” To which I can only say, “Huh?”]
Which I can only echo, but for a different reason. That’s maybe the most fundamental difference between the Lomborg types and the rest of us. It might be possible to create such a world, but I have great difficulty in understanding how anyone could see having to spend all one’s time indoors as a desirable goal. Surely we can think a bit beyond mere survival, and consider how the world might actually be made liveable as well?
#269 Majorajam: Here’s a little factoid- the 1970’s with their huge forced mitigation due to the oil embargos experienced significantly higher global GDP growth than the 80’s or 90’s which had extremely cheap energy by comparison. Is that consistent with the assumptions you’ve just made? This decade’s global GDP growth has been faster than the last, with much more expensive energy. How’s your theory holding up
Let’s look at it this way: How have emerging markets made a name for themselves in the last 50 years? By doing something cheaper than an established market. Usually, to date has been focused nearly 100% labor cost, with contributions from governments at times to lure businesses. Consider that energy costs are 20% of an airlines expenses. Consider energy costs are under 1% of a SW company’s expenses. But there are a host of products, such as LCD TVs, in which energy costs related to production are non-trivial–in some cases 4-5%.
If a country with near zero infrastructure today opts to avoid legacy constraints that the US or EU might have (as related to power generation), and finds a way to trim that 4-5% energy cost to 1-2% ON TOP OF offering a labor pool that will do the same job for 10% less than the next highest bidder, then the world will beat a path to their door.
We watched the world movemanufacturing to Japan, then back to US, then to Mexico, then Taiwan, then China, Malaysia, Vietnam, and then ??? all over reduced labor costs.
Give owners time to mitigate? What, costal property owners will single handedly reduce CO2 concentrations to such a point as to impact global climate? Or what, sell? Sell to…? I know, the guy who wants to live under water.
Assume I have ocean front property today worth $1M today for the land, and $500K for the house. Houses get moved all the time. The land today is worth $1M. The land in 40 years is worth about half that. When the water rises in 80 years, it’s obviously worth zero. Things get depreciated all the time. Without AGW it’ll be worth 0 in 400 years. What’s 320 years? One might also note that those living this close to the water are already costing society a disproportionate chunk of change.
I find it intriguing that you believe that erecting massive sea walls around tens of thousands of miles of coastline (together with concomitant environmental damage) will be cheaper than CO2 mitigation. Is that a back of the envelope calculation perhaps?
Again, it’s not needed everywhere. Put a stick in the sand, tell folks this will probably be under water in 80 years what do you want to do? If you want us to protect it, here’s the cost. If you want to sell it, now is the time.
Again, it would have happened in 320 years anyway if man wasn’t even on the planet. It’s nature.
I’m sure you’re not scared, even as you’re keenly aware of the staggering amount of energy required to move water.
100 years ago do you know how daunting the task must have seemed to produce the 3.6T KWH the US needs today each and every year? And yet we did it. See my other post. It’s entirely reasonable energy could cost 1/10 in 50 years of what it costs today. Outside of minor blips and burps, the cost for energy falls so quickly folks really fail to grasp it. A paper in SCIENCE in 1981 predicted that it would require more than a barrel of oil’s worth of energy to extract a barrel of oil. Spectacularly wrong.
Moving water is a problem if energy is expensive. Fresh water is a problem if energy is expensive. Both are managable if energy is cheap.
J.S. McIntyre (275), I think this was a cogent analysis, but I have one disagreement. The cost of producing oil is no way the driving force behind $100/bbl pricing, and there is major leeway between the $100/bbl and the cost of production, transport, refining and delivery (the latter two a near zero factor in the $100 figure) — all from what the folks at OPEC, e.g., simply think they can charge.
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Nor did I say it was, specifically, only using the figure to underscore a point - that this is a commodity that will invariably continue to rise in cost. The estimated true cost of oil right now is closer to $70.00 a barrel, not $100.00. Adjusting for inflation, I believe at $70.00 a barrel it is cheaper than during the oil crisis of the 70s. That price is being pushed by nervous traders looking for something, anything, to keep an ailing market moving. It may decline, it may not…there are many factors at play.
And it is not the “folks from OPEC”, though they contribute. There are a multitude of factors, such as 1) the ill-advised invasion of Iraq coupled with the mismanagement, corruption and painful incompetence that has marked our presence there, 2) the continued saber-rattling over Iran, 3) the ongoing problems with refineries being taken off-line for repair and maintenance, 4) the loss of production from Mexico 5) the growth of energy consuming economies that more and more are helping to drive the cost of oil up and so forth. And let’s not forget Big Oil, who have a stake in keeping the money flowing.
“Neither will the cost of production see large continuous increases in the future.”
I disagree. “Easy” oil production is becoming more a thing of the past - witness the scramble of the East Asian countries and India to compete with the U.S. and Western Europe to lock up oil from a variety of countries. The newer fields are in harsh climes, in deeper water, or increasingly unstable regions of the world, politically and militarily. Getting oil out of these places will be increasingly expensive, both in terms of inflation and real cost. Consider Iraq: even if we hold on to a presence there and somehow get production flowing, we already thrown multiple billions of dollars at the problem for no return. And once the oil is produced, there is no guarantee it is “ours” - it gets turned over to companies that refine and ship it to the highest bidder. What are we going to do - levy a tax on the oil before they can have it? If so, that will only raise the cost of production.
“I would not be surprised if the producers, if so inclined, could drop the spot/futures price to $50 overnight and feel nary a twinge.”
Unlikely to an extreme, and even if it did, it would likely be little more than the last gasp of a bygone era. The world has changed, Rod. There are more consumers than consumables. In such a world, it’s a seller’s market.
#275 J.S. McIntyre: But the price of producing, refining and delivering oil will not change in any appreciative fashion.
50% of gas is oil costs according to (1). US, EU are 44% of world oil consumption. If US and EU manage to get substantially off oil (say, 90% reduction) over 50 years, do Saudi Arabia et al simply live with half as much revenue? Do they double the price and accelerate emerging nations shift to non-oil use, or do they halve the price and make it easy for emerging nations to use all the old technology (IC engines), that the rest of the world quit using a while back?”
Oil is a finite resource. The U.S. hit peak oil decades ago. The Middle East hit or will hit peak oil soon. There are not enough new fields coming on line to substantially change production levels - what is there is there, and in many places production is in decline. Given the increased demand, even short term, by the time Western (and hopefully Eastern) economies wean themselves off fossil fuels, it is unlikely there will be a dramatic lowering in price. Why? Factor in the understanding that as countries develop and seek to exploit renewables the produce they are going to undermine any attempt by oil producing countries to take advantage of your fairy-tale scenario by underselling. It’s smart business, both for the seller and the buyer.
Again, the more renewables grow, the cheaper they will become to produce. Add to that the understanding that beyond one-time costs of production and installation and invariable maintenence(which you are not addressing) the cost advantage of alternatives outweigh the constant maintenece of an oil-based economy.
And, of course, you fail to address the ecological and health advantages…but then, you really can’t, now can you?
Here’s the real bottom line … we’re going to be forced off of oil-based economies sooner or later. The real question is whether we do it now, or are forced to do it when, as discussed here quite a bit, it will probably be too late. But once alternative energy solutions come on line in large quantities, become cheaper, and lifestyles change - and they will - the odds are there will be a major shift in how the world consumes energy.
Those small, impovershed nations you like to talk about will probably adapt well, if allowed. It’s countries like the U.S., consuming 25% of the world’s energy, that is going to have a rough go of it.
Put another way, this is going to be one heck of a diet.
DanG — don’t include the period after the ‘org’ in the link you ask for, as you did in your posting. Anything with ‘www’ or http:// in front of it will be hilighted and clickable (it will “look alive), but the rest of the URL has to be right for it to connect.
Well I would guess I am in a small minority, being a climate scientist who actually does have a formal qualification in economics - not that I am going to cross swords with Weitzman on that score
Weitzman’s result is essentially due to how he handles the infinitesimal probability of an infinitely large catastrophe. Even if one accepts his probabilistic paradigm (which I do not) it is important to realise that he is not just saying that (eg) 2xCO2 is a catastrophe with unbounded cost, his analysis shows that +1ppm of CO2 is equally a catastrophe with unbounded cost, and I bet his method would also say that the risk of a future flu epidemic is a catastrophe with unbounded cost (consider the number of people killed as an uncertain multiplicative parameter just like climate sensitivity). So it seems that at best he has shown that this sort of analysis cannot provide usable results - how are we supposed to allocate resources to such things as CO2 mitigation and disease control if we face an infinite future cost for all possible choices?
> Wiki says there are 10,000 miles of dykes protecting the Dutch. TEN
> THOUSAND MILES OF DYKES. Holy cow.
Matt, not all dykes are created equal. Most of those are “internal”
dykes, part of a hierarchical system aimed at removing excess water in
steps. Others are river dykes, which have recently been under threat
also as the Rhine has been flooding more abundantly due to environmental
changes upstream (which may be partly climate related too).
The dykes (and dunes!) protecting the Netherlands from sea level
extremes are no more than a few hundred kms long. It includes the
‘afsluitdijk’ behind which the Zuyderzee polders are located (each with
its own dykes), and the Zealand storm surge barrier. Both these were
specifically aimed at shortening the coastline exposed to the sea.
In the North there is the Waddenzee, a tidal plain serving as a
stop-over for many (most?) migrating birds of W Europe. That’s going to
disappear too, no way to save that with dykes. Same for the salt water
ecosystem behind the storm surge barrier, which was designed (at great
cost) to preserve it.
The Dutch are spending as much money on their sea defences as most
nations on their military. It would (will?) increase drastically with
sea level rise as projected. Mitigation costs are (would be?) modest by
comparison, cf. the IPCC report of WG3.
I am from the Netherlands originally, the part protected by these works.
If all your arguments are as facts based as this one, I am not
impressed.
BTW the learning process of the Dutch was very similar to what we can
observe as ongoing now for climate change: first disaster strikes, and
then you learn — and spend. In 1953, my cradle stood behind one of
those lowly “internal dykes”, mere kilometres from the flooded area.
Off topic — sorry! I’ve had a difficult time finding this website, which Google no longer seems to list, even as I ask for www.realclimate.org. Can anyone tell me what’s happening? I normally connect almost daily.
Zero pages returned. As far as the Google index is concerned, not a single web page at Real Climate exists.
Someone apparently found a trick to flush it from Google. Something similar was done to Panda’s Thumb a while back by creationists. Science under attack — again.
The good news is that there are plenty of sites that link here, but all of the posts and comments should be generating their own traffic, showing up as results in the Google searches. A large part of what makes it a real resource.
re 294: “there are 10,000 miles of dykes protecting the Dutch”.
Yes indeed, however most of them are old inland dikes. The main coastline is around 50% dikes, 50% natural dunes (personal guess). But we (I live there, my house stands 2 meters below see level.) have dikes along rivers, and the most of that 10.000 km are dikes remaining from the time we made polders, reclaimed the land from sea, bit by bit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder.
For SLR we need to enforce the 500 km coastline, but also have to take care of the river water, coming from Germany and Belgium. With a few meters SLR it will not flow, and we will have to pump and enforce the dikes along that rivers. And to keep my personal feet dry we now have to pump up the water 2 meters, and that will be a bit more in the future (or much more.) It is not only water from rain that has to be removed, ground water is coming up and this water is becoming saltier. Some farmers near the coast already have problems…
In our local news today and yesterday: plans to make new islands in front of the coast (Dubai didn’t figure out Palm Islands all by themselves. We have a proposal of a tulip.) Main purpose: we need (??) space (including new airport?) and nature for recreation… No stupid decision taken yet, but I do not understand it at all. Why make more land that we will have to protect this coming age?? And how long will we try, before we retreat? 1 meter SLR? No problem, we will build dikes and new (energy consuming) pumps. 5 meters? Some time this or coming century we will loose this expensive battle.
You are proposing that Lomborg understands population biology and climate science better than the published professionals in these fields. You’re telling me to believe Lomborg over E.O. Wilson, and Lomborg over Hansen, correct?
No, of course not. I think he has many reasonable ideas for how to prioritize global problems and correctly suggests that we avoid alarmism or risk spending money and allocating time ineffectively.
Lomborg actually agrees with mainstream scientific assessments on almost every issue of substance. Can you give an example where he does not do that? No. He pisses people off because he regularly and assertively suggests - reasonably in my view - that there is a lot of hype and alarmism about AGW and other environmental issues that misuses the science. Here at RC that notion is very objectionable because people seem to feel strongly that there is not much alarmism in the media (e.g. An Inconvenient Truth was objective science rather than subjective hype). Alarmism is a subjective opinion and thus can’t be labelled “true or false” so I doubt we’ll make much progress debating “alarmism”.
Above some correctly noted I should NOT have used the term “simplified”, which is what I think Lomborg usually does, to characterize scientists feeling and saying he *misrepresented* their science, which is what many scientists suggest he does.
I saw few references to actual Lomborg points that people disagree with. Some above even seem to think he is an AGW skeptic when Lomborg has consistently used IPCC data even years ago when he first started writing.
I did NOT say Lomborg cherry picked, rather I was noting he was accused of that in The Skeptical Environmentalist. Of course cherry picking is not scientific and is misleading. He may be guilty of a small amount of that (I have only seen a handful of trivial examples from the SciAm articles). Nothing that would discredit any of his main points about allocating resources more effectively and recognizing that catastrophe is unlikely to be looming.
The price of oil quote as a sign he’s not credible or a “liar” is so ridiculous I don’t know how to respond. Lomborg is made an oil price prediction that did not come true. Wrong predictions are not lies though you’d be right to question his credibility if he made a lot of predictions that did not come true. He has not done that. Nobody can predict oil prices accurately except perhaps OPEC because they can set them.
Mary - several times you note that you *agree* with specific things he said, then go on to elaborate on topics where you don’t know what he thinks. I’m not saying that is all you did, but could you find something substantial and specific Lomborg says that you think is a lie or inaccurate? Not opinions because I agree you should not be a Lomborg fan. It’s clear that compared to me you assume there is a higher chance of climate change that will create catastrophic conditions. Several people here seem to think catastrophic sea level rises this century are - let’s say for sake of reasoned debate - more than 10% likely, probably as a result of the type of feedbacks Hansen is concerned about that could cause much faster Greenland melting than had been previously considered likely. If you believe Greenland has a reasonably liklihood of melting soon you are completely right to feel Lomborg is a sort of pied piper, luring us into a false sense of security.
If, on the other hand, you assume catastrophic conditions are extremely unlikely (on the order of less than 1%), as I do, you see Lomborg as offering reasonable approaches to mitigation and other global problems - placing more urgency on immediate benefits.
In my opinion discussing these issues as if Lomborg was the issue detracts from the very important questions of the day - how much mitigation, how we do it, how do we minimize the cost and maximize the impact. Attack the problems, not the people.
Can anybody tell me what the latest level of atmospheric CO2 is, seasonally adjusted if possible?
Every figure I see is about 2 years old. All I see of recent readings is comment on percentage growth in emissions, and not the result of the increase on actual levels.
Regarding OIL production. OPEC countries produce 42% of world demand but have 60% of proven reserves. Russia for instance produces a lot of Oil but does not have much left hence I guess their recent activities in the Arctic. However Oil in the Arctic is probably 4 miles down and drilling for Oil has never taken place at such depths before. The UK recently put in some requests for Antartic space most likely for Oil reasons and Canada and the USA through Alaska will probably become interested in the Arctic to.
Lets get this straight, consumption of oil is increasing but the world currently due to drilling issues and lack of new investment cannot pump it even if it is there to pump. There have been 1 trillion barrels of Oil used since 1850 and one trillion is known about left to drill. However these proven reserves figues have remained unchanged since the 1980’s and OPEC countries do not disclose their reserves willingly or accurately. Another trillion barrels of heavy oil might exist in the Antartic and Arctic and places such as venezuela (orinicho belt etc) and tar sands and shale but these oils are not limited by cost but by technology and the availability of natural resources.
A new movie/dvd called A Crude Awakening explains this situation and examines in consequences.
Peak Oil appears to be real and worrying as china and India seek more of it. It just serves to keep the price high. It may well be that for a short time prices will come down as more oil can be pumped but by the IEAs own admission long term oil production is a worry simply because of the cost of new exploration and limited returns.
We defo need to find something else within 20 years and its either second generation ethanol or hydrogen. Time is against us thats for sure.
Matt 294
“Wiki says there are 10,000 miles of dykes protecting the Dutch. TEN THOUSAND MILES OF DYKES. Holy cow.”
You need to brush up your Geography and History. Most of those dykes are actually inland to control the flow of rivers, they are not coastal defenses, plus they have been built ever since Midle Age.
The biggest coastal defense in Holland as mentioned somewhere above is actually a storm defense, a direct result of the great storm of 1958 (which also caused devastation in the coast of East Anglia, thats England), it defends the mouth of a gulf which is exposed to the North Sea and it took decades to finnally be completed and declared fit to counter a storm equivalent to 1958.
I’m just an amateur reader of the science, but for what it’s worth:
I agree with James Annan with regards climate sensitivity being of the order of 3degC - I get the impression his stance on this is within the consensus, and the long tail lobby are not. And I agree with him in that I think we can largely dismiss claims of long tail high sensitivity.
But saying we can expect 3degC committed global average temperature increase for a doubling of CO2 levels above pre-industrial does NOT amount to “no need to worry”.
To read someone as noteworthy as David Archer stating “taken as a whole, [the studies] provide convincing evidence that the hypothesized carbon cycle positive feedback has begun.” That was chilling, partly because I was hoping he’d say the opposite. The point being that CO2 feedbacks, even with a 3degC Climate Sensitivity can still produce the sort of overall impacts one might have associated with a higher Climate Sensitivity.
Take an emissions profile (the SRES data used by IPCC) and with a Climate Sensitivity of 3deg C you may expect a certain evolution of global average temperature. BUT if the carbon cycle acts to “amplify” emissions more than expected (as it seems to be), the actual atmospheric CO2 build-up associated with that SRES scenario can still proceed ahead of projections. The end result (very simplistically speaking) could be a warming progression similar to a projection with a higher Climate Sensitivity than 3degC.
So whilst I agree with Annan’s dismissal of a long tail to Climate Sensitivity. I don’t think that this can be carried through to the actual warming associated with a given emissions path - that pdf tail is not so certain and cannot be bounded as Annan/Hargreaves have done.
(It has been very interesting to compare the Roe/Baker paper’s discussion alongside this posting by David Archer.)
Mary C wrote: “I get so sick and tired of hearing about how Kyoto will make people poorer ..”
The rapid phase-out of fossil fuels that is necessary to avert the worst consequences of anthropogenic global warming will make Exxon-Mobil “poorer”, which is to say it will transfer some of the trillions of dollars in profits that they would otherwise receive over the next 10 to 20 years to other sectors of the economy.
To the already unimaginably rich fossil fuel corporations, that’s an unacceptable “cost” of global warming mitigation, and it is the real impetus behind all the fraudulent Lomborgian propaganda about how global warming mitigation will “hurt the poor”.
#317 & David’s statement “taken as a whole, they provide convincing evidence that the hypothesized carbon cycle positive feedback has begun.”
Does this mean we just might have already reached that tipping point I’m most concerned about (that no matter how much we reduce our GHGs now, nature will take over and keep on increasing the warming, in the most part by its own GHG emissions)?
I’ve read Mark Lynas’s SIX DEGREES, and based on his best assessment of the scientific studies a couple of years ago when it was sent for publication, he suggested that a 3C degree increase in warming would push us past that point of no return tipping point (at least for many 1000s of years), that 3C would ensure we get to 4C, which would ensure we get to 5C, that would ensure 6C (at least that’s how I read it). And BTW his vision of a 3C increase scenario is pretty horrible in my books, even if he is wrong about it being the tipping point.
A few years earlier, I think the idea was if we reach 6C warming (the high projection for 2100), that would be the tipping point.
My gut sense is that we really don’t know. 3C makes it more sure than 1C, and 6C is pretty high certainty, but we really don’t know.
Joe Duck, Re 313. Let’s look at some of the other sites your HAN_NL site links to:
globalwarming.org, Hudson Institute, Johndaly.com, OISM, and Fred Singer’s SEPP. And that’s just a start. Hmm, thanks, Joe. I’ve seen enough. With friends like this, Lomborg is damned just by the company he keeps. The fact of the matter is that Lomborg’s opinions are based on ideology, and a misunderstanding of the science informed by that ideology.
Joe, why is it hard for you to understand why scientists are outraged by someone who distorts the science and then calls the scientists “alarmists” based on that distortion? Scientists have been trying to get people to pay attention to this for over 20 years. They have been rewarded by being called “chicken littles”, alarmists, frauds and worse by ignorant, greedy food tubes who don’t understand the science. Do you wonder that their skin on that issue might have worn a little thin?
“I saw few references to actual Lomborg points that people disagree with.”
======================
With all due respect, reviewing the contents of the post referenced, you are either ignoring what has been provided/not paying attention or, as I pointed out on another thread, you are wasting everyone’s time.
I tend to continue to support the latter position.
I disagree with you, but thanks for a rational and civil statement of your position.
Here’s an analogy: global warming is like lung cancer. Right now it’s just a tiny little dark spot on your chest x-ray. It doesn’t affect your life dramatically — yet — you only have a little cough from time to time and a wee bit of shortness of breath. Your uncle Lomborg comes along and says, “If you spend all that money to treat lung cancer, it’ll take away from your budget for food and rent. Even your “extra” money would be better spent elsewhere — like sending some cash to our poor cousin living in poverty in Bangladesh. Besides, chemo and radiation therapy are likely to have only a minor effect on the progress of your cancer.”
Your *doctor* (let’s call him Dr. Hansen) says that without an aggressive treatment plan things are going to get a lot worse. He also tells you right up front that things will get worse even *with* that agressive treatment plan. Most of all, he emphasizes that every minute of delay in treatment makes the problem worse. A lot worse. He further says that you must quit smoking, and beside, it’ll save you money.
Meanwhile your wife tells you, “For the love of God, quit smoking!!!” She also says your uncle Lomborg is a detestable worm.
#303 J.S. McIntyre Here’s the real bottom line … we’re going to be forced off of oil-based economies sooner or later. The real question is whether we do it now, or are forced to do it when, as discussed here quite a bit, it will probably be too late. But once alternative energy solutions come on line in large quantities, become cheaper, and lifestyles change - and they will - the odds are there will be a major shift in how the world consumes energy.
I think we are at total agreement here. As I’ve said previously, Bush should have said to the country on September 12 2001 that we were going to speed our migration off of oil like nobody has seen before.
My guess is where we do diverge is that I’m keen on nuclear, and you aren’t (true?). That’s really a separate discussion that I think was collectively mined out in another thread a while back.
BTW, it’s the refusal to speed the migration to nuclear that will ultimately cause us to remain stuck on oil. Everything else in the near term just doesn’t deliver the scale we need to make a quick transition, and in those times the status quo always wins.
Joe agrees that Lomborg does not understand population biology and climate science better than published researchers, which is cool, but then Joe asks, “Lomborg actually agrees with mainstream scientific assessments on almost every issue of substance. Can you give an example where he does not do that? No.”
Yes. Lomborg told me, in person, that “biodiversity loss is not a catastrophe.” I don’t know what would rise to the level of catastrophe for him, but I call wiping out entire ecosystems catastrophic.
For example, great sharks, the top of the food web in many ocean ecosystems, have been fished nearly to extinction. If you remove the apex predators from an ecosystem, the system unravels in a trophic cascade. See recent research on the destruction of the N. Carolina scallop industry:
Here’s another example: Most of the N. Atlantic fisheries have collapsed due to overexplotation. This grim development is part of a global crisis in ocean biomass. For published work, see UBC Fisheries research.
In both of these cases, “environmentalist” Lomborg denies there’s an issue; as long as we have some aquaculture to farm fish for human consumption, all is well. And in both cases, Lomborg’s opinion flies completely in the face of mountains of peer-reviewed research.
Furthermore, when I pressed him on this very issue, he tried to switch the conversation to forestry, but I didn’t let him. I said, “We’re not deploying factory trawlers and longliners into the forests.” My point was that we don’t allow hunters to place 30-mile trap lines in Yellowstone; imagine the outcry, as bears, cougars, deer, raccoons, squirrels, and all manner of furry creatures would be very visibly caught to die slow, agonizing deaths. But that’s what we do in the oceans, and the result is to remove entire trophic levels from the ocean ecosystems. To Lomborg, that’s just “removing the oldest fish from the population” (his exact quote to me). I doubt that Lomborg knows what a “trophic level” is.
“Matt (249) and Joe (276) - What is about Lomborg that you two find so admirable and credible? I really, really don’t get it.”
I often ask myself this same question about one-issue voters, the kind of people who will support any candidate as long as they claim to be against abortion or homosexuality or favor prayer-in-schools.
It strikes me there will always be a segment of society that will want the world to be a certain way and to hell with the consequences, or the evidence.
This sort of behavior reminds me of a quote from David Brin:
===============
What are the most common traits of nearly all forms of Mental Illness?
Nearly all sufferers lack…
…flexibility - to be able to change your opinion or course of action, if shown clear evidence you are wrong
…satiability - the ability to feel satisfaction if you actually get what you wanted, and to transfer your strivings to other goals.
…extrapolation - the ability to realistically access the possible consequences of your actions and to empathize, or guess how another person might think or feel.
#324 Surely the world is going is going to decommission nuclear reactors as quickly as possible because of SLR. A good majority of them are sitting at current sea level at the coastline and would be engulfed by the sea if it rises much more than the IPCC SLR estimates. The disintegrating ice sheets and the nuclear reactors need to be viewed as a single, coupled system. Perhaps if the IPCC is correct, it is just a question of storm surges. But if the IPCC has a shread a doubt in its collective mind about its few-centimetre SLR estimates for BAU SLR then it ought to get back and start discussing SLR properly … and pronto.
“My guess is where we do diverge is that I’m keen on nuclear, and you aren’t (true?).”
No, I’m not. Having worked with nukes, and spent a fair amount of time studying the problems associated with the use of nuclear energy as a solution to energy problems, I have a very strong aversion to most things nuclear.
I would suggest you read the interview with Dr. Brice Smith in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Nov/Dec) and then get back to me.
I would also recommend Alan Weisman’s “The World Without Us”. His discussion of what we know about disposal issues is nothing short of nightmarish.
“…it’s the refusal to speed the migration to nuclear that will ultimately cause us to remain stuck on oil.”
There is no real data to support this opinion.
But seeing as you brought up the pie-in-the-sky solution, let me offer another: “Mining the Sky” by John S. Lewis, a book that offers some long-term and potentially sustainable non-nuclear solutions to our energy problems, and to my thinking, a wiser solution than the nuclear option.
#306 Margin Vermeer:If all your arguments are as facts based as this one, I am not
impressed.
I’m just merely pointing out that it floods in 320 years naturally anyway. Because of man, it might flood in 80 years. From a planning perspective, both are long term projects. Here in Seattle we can’t even get consensus on whether or not to build new bridges that are supposed to fall down in the next big earthquake. If we can’t agree on that 20 year event, what is the difference between an 80 year SLR with 10% certainty and a 320 year SLR with 100% certainty?
#318 SecularAnimist: To the already unimaginably rich fossil fuel corporations, that’s an unacceptable “cost” of global warming mitigation,
XOM has GM of 43.5%, op margin of 42%, 41.4% tax rate, 10.5% net on sales.
AAPL has GM of 29%, op margin of 43%, 29.4% tax rate, 10.3% net on sales.
MSFT has GM of 79.1%, op margin of 45%, 30.0% tax rate, 27.5% net on sales.
GOOG has GM of 60.2%, op margin of 55.6%, 23.3% tax rate, 29% net on sales.
I’m not sure what “unimaginably rich fossil fuel corporations” you are using, but XOM isn’t a great looking business from teh numbers. They are about the same as Apple, with a 12% higher tax burden. MSFT and GOOG do, in fact, meet the measure of “unimaginably rich corporations”.
Matt @ 324: One difference between J.S.McIntyre and yourself is plain in this post. When McIntyre says “we’re going to be forced off of oil-based economies sooner or later”, he doesn’t just mean the US. He also means the rest of us. There are of course national security reasons to reduce US dependence on imported oil. But even if the US had a gazillion barrels of home-grown oil, it should still be reducing fossil fuel dependence, because (a) the atmospheric CO2 will do for you just as surely as it does for the rest of the world, and also (b) latecomers to the energy-efficiency game will buy their solutions from the early adopters.
[In fact, the US does have a gazillion barrels of oil underground, in the form of coal, which can be converted to gasoline etc at a price equivalence of about $50/barrel, once the conversion plant is constructed].
Zero pages returned. As far as the Google index is concerned, not a single web page at Real Climate exists.
Someone apparently found a trick to flush it from Google. Something similar was done to Panda’s Thumb a while back by creationists. Science under attack — again.
Timothy Chase wrotte (308)
“The good news is that there are plenty of sites that link here, but all of the posts and comments should be generating their own traffic, showing up as results in the Google searches. A large part of what makes it a real resource.”
I imagined something like that, so it’s on my favourites list now.
It reminds me of Reasic blog which as well one day simply disapeared from the web. It is impossible to access it and technocrati without much surprise reports that visits from one day to the next dropped from a few hundred a day to nil.
Natural variation some would say… nothing to worry about.
[Response: Actually, this is not what you think. We are talking to google and hope to have normal service restored soon. - gavin]
#322 J.S. McIntyre: With all due respect, reviewing the contents of the post referenced, you are either ignoring what has been provided/not paying attention or, as I pointed out on another thread, you are wasting everyone’s time.
It remains a fair question. I’ll note that while Lomborg was suitably taken to task on extinction, nobody here really faulted the other that were MUCH MORE WRONG about extinction rates. Gore, Wilson, Ehrlich, Lovejoy all claimed extinction rates much much much higher than anyone is seeing. And, for all the grief he took, at the end of the section in SE, Lomborg’s position is 0.7% species lost over 50 years (if 30M species, that’s 4,200 species/year). The UN predicts 0.1 to 1% over 50 years. So for all the arm waving, Lomborg was in line with UN estimates.
Lomborg? ~4000 species per year. Within UN range.
Gore? 40,000 species per year. ~10X higher than UN.
Lovejoy? 15-20% of all species dead by 2000. ~100X higher than UN.
Ehrlich? Everything dead by 2020.
So, in the end, who was bending the truth a bit?
Of all the players, I think Lomborg was being most truthful with the readers. Could he have been more clear? Sure. But if you want to fault Lomborg, then you also need to hold the other names above in a similarly dimmed light.
[Response: Everyone’s actual statements are fair game - but the problem with much of this analysis is that you are quoting biased paraphrases of what was actually said. http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/chapter23.htm (p249 comment). If you want to get to the bottom of anything and make the appropriate comment - check your sources! - gavin]
Re #305 Where James Annan wrote: Well I would guess I am in a small minority, being a climate scientist who actually does have a formal qualification in economics - not that I am going to cross swords with Weitzman on that score
James,
James this thread is not about economics, nor is it about a climate sensitivity, or even Bayesian statistics. It is about the oceans saturating with CO2, which if global warming continues will result in their emitting rather than absorbing CO2. This will result in a positive feedback which could end up in a runaway situation!
If, as you have done, you go over past trends and average them out, then you can come up with a climate sensitivity which is smooth 3K change. But that is because you have smoothed it out by taking an average! The recent (last 100,000 years) climate record for the northern hemisphere shows that the climate changed abruptly, not smoothly. During the last major change, at the end of the Younger Dryas, the UK average temperature rose by 5 K in perhaps only three years. See Richard Alley’s “Two Mile Time Machine.”
The Russian scientists now estimate that the Arctic ice will disappear withing three years. After it has gone perhaps global temperatures will only have risen by 3 K. But how will that affect the forests in California, Greece, Turkey, and Australia. How will that affect the droughts in the Southern sttes of the US, or the flooding in the northern tropics of Africa and south America?
Recently we have seen that the Earth can behave catastrophically, both with the Boxing Day Tsunami, and with the Katrina in New Orleans. How big a disaster will it take before you realise that you cannot predict the behaviour of the Earth system using a spread sheet.
The Earth system is not a mathematical model. It is a real system which if pushed too hard will explode!
Annan above: Very insightful. I’m unfamiliar with that particular issue but I find it extremely helpful when climate issues are discussed in terms of probabilities. Without this, policy decisions are poisoned from the outset by emotion and politics. The concept of “unbounded risk” seems to be invoked here at RealClimate often and I think lies at the heart of many of the points of contention.
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Tamino - thanks, I appreciate that.
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Concernd that Lomborg, rather than his ideas, are held up as the climate issue though I suppose it’s in line with how skeptics have treated Gore for his policy suggestions. IMO both Gore and Lomborg are sincere advocates for very different points of view.
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Ray I agree that it makes sense that many scientists are angry at Lomborg for what often seems to be an arrogant disregard for complexities. Also those scientists feel he has misrepresented and mischaracterized many issues as “not problems” or “small problems” when those scientists see the complexities as creating “big problems”. However, when I actually go read Lomborg I find little to disagree with. You (Ray) criticized the Danish website referenced above based on links to sites you say are just confusing the debate. Not sure how to counter that point, since it devolves into a discussion of things that, to me, are unrelated to whether Lomborg has been treated fairly by critics.
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J.S. - reviewing the contents of the post referenced, you are either ignoring what has been provided/not paying attention
Hard to address your concern J.S. I’ve reviewed this post and spent a lot of time earlier at the AIT discussion. Most of the discussion seems to simply lash out at Lomborg as not credible rather than quote him and then provide an alternative interpretation (this is because Lomborg usually is in agreement with mainstream science assessments - he disagrees with how policy and resource allocation should flow from the science). Here is a quote made a couple of times above attributed to Lomborg. But this would be general opinion and, ummm, it’s not even a Lomborg quote at all!
“…make the rest of the world as rich as New York, so
that people elsewhere can afford to do things like shore up their coastlines and buy air conditioners.”
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Here is a real Lomborg quote about a point of substance where he’s making the point that alarmism is focusing attention on heat deaths and simply ignoring deaths from cold:
For Europe as a whole, about 200,000 people die from excess heat each year. However, about 1.5 million Europeans die annually from excess cold.
Does this suggest warming is not a problem? No. Does it suggest we are failing to view climate-related death in a rational manner? To me, it does.
Re #197 (Matt) Since I wasn’t defending either Erlich’s or Myers’ numbers, your response is entirely beside the point, which is that “known extinctions” and “extinctions” are entirely different things. Any discussion of extinction that does not acknowledge this is, as I said, either ignorant, mendacious, or both.
Re #331 (Matt) “I’m just merely pointing out that it floods in 320 years naturally anyway. Because of man, it might flood in 80 years. From a planning perspective, both are long term projects.”
First, I’m truly gobsmacked you can’t see it might be easier to deal with a given SLR over 320 years than over 80. Second, what’s your source for the 320 year natural flooding claim?
Re #339 (Joe Duck) Joe, despite the number of times you’ve repeated it, it simply is not true that Lomborg is usually in agreement with mainstream science assessments. On p.277 of TSE, he says (this is from Kare Fog - I don’t have a copy of TSE handy): “This theory [the sunspot theory] also has the tremendous advantage, compared to the greenhouse theory, that it can explain the temperature changes from 1860 to 1950, which the rest of the climate scientists with a shrug of the shoulders have accredited to `natural variation´”. This is a gross mischaracterisation of the mainstream view, and also a fine example of Lomborg’s use of false dichotomies, suggesting that solar and anthropogenic causes for temperature change are mutually exclusive possibilities. On extinction, you’ve already been referred to E.O. Wilson’s response to Lomborg. Here’s a quote from Wilson: “His estimate, “0.7 percent over the next 50 years” — or 0.014 percent per year — is an order of magnitude smaller than the most conservative species extinction rates by authorities in the field.”
Re flooding in 320 years, doesn’t this turn the usual denialist claim on its head? I thought AGW was good, because it’s forestalling the next ice age and the concomitant falling sea level.
All I am saying is that whilst I am with Annan on the lower end climate sensitivity I don’t find this too comforting in light of results such as David Archer outlines. From my (limited) understanding, if we accept the Permian/Triassic Extinction as the best analogy for what could happen, it’s when we get to the >5degC range that there is a risk of clathrate outgassing which will then produce a substantial outgassing. I think this is where the ~6degC you refer to is sourced from.
I certainly don’t think we’re anywhere near being committed to catastrophic warming based on the physics and earth-system side of things.
[Human evolved behaviours + 5000Gtons of extractable carbon equivalent fossil fuels] is a totally different equation. IMHO we’re committed to re-running the Permian/Triassic unless the intermediate process acts as a negative feedback on our activities.
Thanks for your response. You say, “Weitzman’s result is essentially due to how he handles the infinitesimal probability of an infinitely large catastrophe.”
As I understand and possibly misunderstand it, Weitzman’s result is due to the fact that the probability of catastrophe is not infinitesimally small, (or, more to the point, does not decay faster than utility burgeons), or cannot be inferred to be such as a result of uncertainty in the scale parameter. If on the other hand that parameter is drawn from a known pdf, you do get infinitesimally small probabilities of catastrophe and therefore DT does not apply- the tails of the posterior pdf in that case decay exponentially. As I understood the manuscript, only when damages from a catastrophe are unbounded, (which they’re not in DT, given that have only one life to give for our CBA), and S must be inferred by inductive reasoning from empirical data, (i.e. has power-law tails), do you get the result that the utility of an extra sure unit of consumption is infinite.
“Even if one accepts his probabilistic paradigm (which I do not) it is important to realise that he is not just saying that (eg) 2xCO2 is a catastrophe with unbounded cost, his analysis shows that +1ppm of CO2 is equally a catastrophe with unbounded cost”.
This is a misreading. His result does not say that +1ppm has catastrophe- it says that the utility of mitigation in a two stage model (present and future) is infinite if and only if deep uncertainty exists and the expected loss from a catastrophe assuming it occurs is unbounded. Again, that is not the model presented, as Weitzman introduces the value of statistical life as the lower bound on catastrophic damages in the outermost regions of f(y). In any case, the result is marginal- so it holds for 1ppm most closely, while a doubling is not explicitly demonstrated. I would presume it will hold for extra sure units of consumption until the tradeoff between bad tail behavior in f(y) and the utility of current consumption come into balance, presumably when mitigation spending is large. I have to ask though, would it make sense for the utility of significant savings/mitigation to be infinite but small scale savings/mitigation not to be? It wouldn’t to me.
A better way to illustrate absurdity is not to scale the mitigation down but up (as Weitzman does when he asks rhetorically whether it was optimal to undergo the industrial revolution). It is not the case that Weitzman doesn’t perceive the strength of this result- as illustrated- it is that that alone does not invalidate the poignancy of what he’s pointed out: that in situations where DT applies, the degree of uncertainty in the scale parameter and upper bound on damages in tail events can dominate assumptions of discounting and of middle of the distribution costs and benefits. Clearly a strong implication worthy of further inquiry.
“I bet his method would also say that the risk of a future flu epidemic is a catastrophe with unbounded cost (consider the number of people killed as an uncertain multiplicative parameter just like climate sensitivity).”
Weitzman points to a number of potential other circumstances where DT may apply, though I don’t see that it would here (a death is a damage, not a scaling parameter. A closer analogy would be something encapsulating the virulence and communicability of the mutated virus, but the uncertainty here extends in both directions not to mention to the virus generating process, the meaning of an extra sure unit of consumption in such a context is not obvious, and, clearly, the scope of potential catastrophic damage is far smaller than a temperature change of 10ºC). Either way, the applicability of DT to other circumstances is not prima facie meaningful. It is after all a mathematical finding.
“So it seems that at best he has shown that this sort of analysis cannot provide usable results - how are we supposed to allocate resources to such things as CO2 mitigation and disease control if we face an infinite future cost for all possible choices?”
Even if all his paper showed was that this sort of analysis cannot provide usable results, (which I don’t accept), this would be well worth a manuscript. And that of course is a major thrust of his piece- that conventional cost benefit models of climate change should be affixed with a caveat: oh by the way, we’re assuming things that the science and statistic do not support, so while the simplified parallel world that our model describes should do X, it says nothing about what we should do. This is a rather big deal, wouldn’t you agree? What room that leaves for economics to add to the discussion is frankly, at best, a secondary concern. Relying on an informationless compass to lead you out of the desert because it’s all you’ve got won’t get the job done.
In my view though, this is actually quite a constructive step as all works that point to critical flaws in existing scientific practices are. It is a point of departure for a field where there are smart people to make its tool set more relevant, (and hopefully to better fit empirical data where before their performance has been dismal to put it mildly). Weitzman suggests ways we can reduce the pertinence of DT by learning more about geo-engineering steps that may truncate the catastrophic tail. That is a constructive result. Others may look to better articulate sensitivity analysis or Monte Carlo simulation, etc. that add to the knowledge. I don’t see how these developments could be construed as anything other than constructive.
PS I won’t ask you about the climate sensitivity debate despite your expertise because having published on it you are a stakeholder. I would however like to know more about what I read on your blog- namely that if climate sensitivity was inferred from observations on other planets and then ported to Earth that it could be seen as arising from a distribution. This point is irritating me because the basic physics of radiative transfer will be the same in either case as it will have always been on Earth- but other major things will not be in both cases, while with Earth-only observations there are more factors that have to be kept constant, (e.g. rough distance from the sun, diameter, basic magnetic properties, etc.). Are you saying that you can attribute the fact that variation in sensitivity cannot be expected of climate sensitivity because of these factors but cannot be for those that time vary on Earth? This is only a somewhat pointed question in that I enter into it in full appreciation of my ignorance of the subject.
Joe Duck, your quote by Lomborg suggesting a warmer world will decrease death rate is precisely the sort of deceptive simplification that typifies his lines of argument. Look at a single limited facet that illustrates your point rather than looking at the totality of deaths and economic impact from climate change. Do a google search on Lomborg, hotter climate, deaths and look at the crap that floats to the top. Lomborg is an apologist for complacency. However, his worst sin is to present global environmental and economic challenges in terms of competition, when there exist common solutions–or at least remediations–to many of them. Presenting challenges to sustainability as a “multichotomy” and forcing people to choose which concerns are addressed is simply a recipe for fracturing consensus to deal with any of them. It is a strategy of divide et impera in a pseudo-democratic guise.
Nick - thanks for those specific examples, I want to review those points and will respond here tomorrow, though I think a separate “Lomborg” thread is called for here to keep the rabblerousers on topic. Better would be a mitigation thread to discuss a highly relevant topic of great concern to all of us.
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Moderators - if the RC pages don’t reappear in Google I can help get them back - suggest you review and/or email me with any changes you recently made to robots.txt or server 301 redirection or use of “NOFOLLOW” tags here at the site - those are the most likely culprits. A reinclusion request is probably needed at Google and I may be able to expedite that process.
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J.S. What are the most common traits of nearly all forms of Mental Illness?
I think you forgot to add “regular participation in this comment thread”. Maybe we can agree about that one.
Gavin wrote in response to RealClimate getting dropped by Google:
Response: Actually, this is not what you think. We are talking to google and hope to have normal service restored soon. - gavin
Lovely.
I wish I had checked back again prior to making some calls. Fortunately I was put on hold and checked back just prior to being transfered somewhere else. It took PandasThumb quite a while to get back — and I didn’t want the same thing happening to you guys.
Anyway, keeping busy with interviews. But reading.
I’ve read Mark Lynas’s SIX DEGREES, and based on his best assessment of the scientific studies a couple of years ago when it was sent for publication, he suggested that a 3C degree increase in warming would push us past that point of no return tipping point (at least for many 1000s of years), that 3C would ensure we get to 4C, which would ensure we get to 5C, that would ensure 6C (at least that’s how I read it). And BTW his vision of a 3C increase scenario is pretty horrible in my books, even if he is wrong about it being the tipping point.
That isn’t quite the way that Jim Hansen reads the paleoclimate record. According to him, the fast-feedback climate sensitivity is 3 C/CO2-doubling. The slow-feedback climate sensitivity is 6 C/CO2-doubling. However, even once we get to 3 C, some of the feedback will have been slow-feedback. So a 2 C fast-feedback rise in temperature would more or less mean that you’ll get 4 C slow-feedback rise in temperature but not 5 C.
As for the feedbacks we are seeing at this point from the carbon cycle, they are still simply a weakening of the carbon sinks, not the transformation of sinks into emitters. So at this point, while we are getting feedback, it is still the kind of feedback where nature has given us a pillow and we are hitting ourselves over the head, only its a shrinking pillow. Nature hasn’t started swinging its own bat, and even when it does, it will take some more doing on our part to turn it into a real sledgehammer.
And BTW his vision of a 3C increase scenario is pretty horrible in my books, even if he is wrong about it being the tipping point.
Each additional degree is a great deal worse that the degree before it. I think Lynas plays with the analogy of the Richter scale (which would certainly make sense) although I’m not sure. I haven’t found the book yet. However, we always have plenty of incentive for pulling back.
Having a look back over the paper, I should modify my comments (and type slower and think more beforehand). First off it is not useful to discuss the implications of infinite forgone consumption because it can only exist in the presence of infinite downside (which is equally incompatible with the real world as the former). Secondly, as regards implications for differing levels of mitigation, what you’re getting out is really an indifference price between current and future consumption under the circumstances (which will, irrespective of lower bounds, be higher than subsistence level consumption, which was where I was originally going). The price is the price and it will include the first marginal unit (the first consumption equivalent of +1ppm) and all the consumption equivalent +ppms up until indifference. In any case, my understanding is that your concern relates to conflating damage cost with this price and the finding of infinite discomfort with future uncertainty, which is being read into too much in the first place.
Matt (301,330) — Baring anthropogenic influences, the global climate ought to be slowly cooling towards the next attempt at a stade (massive ice sheets) 20,000 years from now. Given this, I am unwilling to credit a claim of ‘natural’ sea stand rise in 320 years. I am willing to credit a claim of sea stand rise for centuries due to anthropogenically induced global warming. Which needs to be reversed. Badly.
And by the way, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere appears now to be increasing at about 2 ppm, faster than previously.
Re 293. Rod - Your retelling is not quite accurate. Clinton supported Kyoto and it was during his administration that the U.S. signed it. He did not, however, send the treaty to the Senate for ratification in the face of a “sense of the Senate” 95-0 vote in July 1997 stating that “the Senate would not ratify the Protocol unless rapidly developing countries such as China were included in its requirements to reduce greenhouse gases.” Certainly it was disappointing that the Clinton-Gore administration did not go all out in support of the treaty but with absolutely no support whatsoever in the Senate it was probably always unrealistic to expect them to do so. Nevertheless, according to Wikipedia, the Clinton administration continued to show at least some support for the treaty, and in July 1998, “released an economic analysis …, prepared by the Council of Economic Advisors, which concluded that with emissions trading among the Annex B/Annex I countries, and participation of key developing countries in the ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ — which grants the latter business-as-usual emissions rates through 2012 — the costs of implementing the Kyoto Protocol could be reduced as much as 60% from many estimates.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol)
Bush, on the other hand, publicly opposed the treaty. On March 29, 2001, just two months after his inauguration, an article at cnn.com reported that “……White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on Wednesday: ‘The president has been unequivocal. He does not support the Kyoto treaty. It is not in the United States’ economic best interest.’”
(http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/italy/03/29/environment.kyoto/)
Since I was speaking specifically of “nay-sayers” in my post 288, I think my point stands with no damage to my credibility.
A charitable interpretation of your riposte to my factoid about global growth rates is that it was unclear. More generally, your hand waving has long since broken the sound barrier, and I’m not going to indulge it any longer. Your thesis that no potential circumstance is a problem because there ways to address them is absurd on its face. Just fyi: that problems can be dealt with will not come as a surprise. I can pick up the glass and replace the window when Jimmy throws a ball through it, but it’d be cheaper to walk to the front yard beforehand and tell him to take his game to the park. Global warming wouldn’t be a problem if we collectively decided to cease all emissions- it can be done, it isn’t cost effective though. Solar panels with 30% efficiency can be made, but not at a cost that doesn’t make it much cheaper to simply make more of the current variety. Etc. Etc. You have not even attempted to demonstrate that any of these adaptation routines are efficient, nor suggested any line of reasoning on why they might be intuitively appealing (to most here, I believe them not to be). How does one respond to, “well you could build a sea wall, or you could evacuate”, except to say, no kidding- look me up when you have anything remotely interesting to claim. Speaking of which, I think that’s where this discussion ends.
RE #346, & “if we accept the Permian/Triassic Extinction as the best analogy for what could happen, it’s when we get to the greater than 5degC range that there is a risk of clathrate outgassing which will then produce a substantial outgassing.”
That is probably the most probable boundary figure for hysteresis (greater than 5degC range), but I’m not sure that scientists actually know whether or not 3C might be enough to EVENTUALLY over a long time play out to much greater increasts via nature’s contributions. Perhaps 6C warming ensures massive outgassing, but a 3C warming might lead to a bit of outgassing, leading to a bit more warmnig, and so on up to a 6C warming.
I’m not familiar with the science, but I would be looking for proof that a 3C warming in the past did NOT result in such an effect (eventually). and maybe the scientists have this proof, but I just am unaware of it.
BTW, SIX DEGREES (Mark Lynas) is for sale in the UK, and will be over here in January 2008. I used http://www.amazon.co.uk to get my copy. It is based an a lot of scientific studies.
Martin Vermeer answered to Matt on the Dutch dikes:
“If all your arguments are as facts based as this one, I am not
impressed.”
Typically, that is the way with denialists’ arguments. When checked, they evaporate. That do not hinder them to sprout such garbage a dozen times in a post.
It makes me wonder, why an earth such behaviour is tolerated?
A correction to earlier comment. The great storm in the North Sea was in 1953 and not 1958.
About 170 people died in East Anglia as a result of it and over a 1000 in Holland.
By the way, as I writte just now a severe weather warning is being issued due to similar conditions to 1953 happening this very night. Rotterdam port will is currently closed and homes are being evacuated in East Anglia.
This set of conditions: high tides and stormy weather are not related with AGW however, in a scenario of higher average level of Oceans will obviously influence the impact of these occurrences increasing therefore the risk.
It’s funny that you say that because I was attempted to post yesterday, as I veered dangerously close to on-topic, that there should be a discussion of climate sensitivity to CO2 emissions rather than simply CO2 concentrations. I didn’t post that because it occurred to me that sink saturation isn’t necessarily an appropriate criticism of the economic modeling (in other words, I would imagine- and hope- that the consensus on the relationship between future emissions and their direct effect on GHG concentrations in the upper atmosphere is taken into account in the models, although it is less than clear that the uncertainty of said is). What hadn’t occurred to me is the potential relevance of the separate issue of melting permafrost or any other feedbacks that could result in significant (or very significant) emissions of GHGs- i.e. the relationship between future emissions and their indirect effect on GHG concentrations- which won’t be incorporated in the models unless it is taken into account in the climate sensitivity scale parameter.
Anyone care to comment? I’ve heard it said that climate sensitivity is an equilibrium concept. Does that imply that it includes long term feedbacks especially those that are highly unpredictable and unstable/non-linear like the thawing of permafrost? Are those (rumored-to-be) highly positive feedbacks part of the 3ºC sensitivity even as they are one-off? The more I think about climate sensitivity, the more the mind boggles.
Lynn Vincentnathan (357) — I opine that a better analogy is PETM, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. The Wikipedia page on this appears to have updated recently:
Joe Duck, I agree that we should be discussing issues, rather than Lomborg’s style or positions. In fact, I would contend that like most ideologically driven “advocates,” (be they from right or left) Lomborg has made himself irrelevant.
So, I ask you, if you had never read Lomborg and his soothing words, how you would prioritize resources given that
1)climate change has at least the potential to damage civilization beyond repair
2)the probability of 1) cannot be reliably bounded at present
3)we do not know where the tipping points for irreversible change are
4)we have many other crises and needs, which climate change will exacerbate, and which must be solved simultaneously if we are to reach the ultimate goal of economic and ecological sustainability.
Lomborg and Gore are lightning rods. Let us lay them aside until the sparks die down. Do you disagree with the above points? If so, which? If not how would YOU prioritize efforts.
For Europe as a whole, about 200,000 people die from excess heat each year. However, about 1.5 million Europeans die annually from excess cold.
Does this suggest warming is not a problem? No. Does it suggest we are failing to view climate-related death in a rational manner? To me, it does.
It’s a strawman. Direct deaths due to excess heat is not claimed by anyone credible to be high on the list of problems that will be caused by accelerated warming.
Setting up a strawman, knocking it down - surely you realize that this is a dishonest tactic?
It’s crap like this that cause us to call him a liar.
Re. 363, it’s not only a straw man, it’s also a good illustration of (apparently) intentionally misleading the public with statistics; because what counts isn’t the total numbers of deaths occurring presently, but the number of additional heat-related deaths that are expected to occur as a result of increased temperatures, vs. the number of cold-related deaths that are expected to be avoided as a result of increased temperatures. On that measure the net number of deaths is expected to rise substantially as temperatures rise (see here for instance, and/or see the IPCC WGII reports).
Also, re. 363, it’s also a very good example of cherry picking. Why quote statistics for Europe rather than give the worldwide statistics (which would show a far higher proportion of heat-related deaths)? When it comes to the expected impacts of global warming, he almost always focusses on Europe and/or the US, and ignores the expected (far more serious impact) on tropical countries - most of which are the same developing countries that he claims to be so concerned about. It’s a classic example of mendacious cherry picking.
I did NOT say Lomborg cherry picked, rather I was noting he was accused of that in The Skeptical Environmentalist. Of course cherry picking is not scientific and is misleading.
Joe you’re dissembling. What you actually wrote was:
In fact almost all of the “anti Lomborg” rhetoric concedes most of his facts (but says they are cherry picked)
When someone accuses someone else of cherry picking, for you to say that they are thereby “conceding the facts” that are being cherry-picked (as if that made the charge of cherry picking somehow less serious) is an outrageous attempt to defend the practice of cherry picking, and you know it.
RE #363:
“For Europe as a whole, about 200,000 people die from excess heat each year. However, about 1.5 million Europeans die annually from excess cold”
Sorry I can not reel back to the originator of this nonsense.
BS and nothing else. Where is his/her reference? Where is his/her common sense?
We do cope quite well with the usual winter weather, thank you.
I pointed earlier to a link with actual numbers on excess wintertime deaths — which is not the same as deaths “from excess cold” at all.
The actual number reported is a tenth the number you’re attributing to Lomborg. Where do you find that in what Lomborg published?
I’m not sure what “unimaginably rich fossil fuel corporations” you are using, but XOM isn’t a great looking business from teh numbers. They are about the same as Apple, with a 12% higher tax burden. MSFT and GOOG do, in fact, meet the measure of “unimaginably rich corporations”.
According to CNNMoney.com, Exxon-Mobil is the world’s largest publicly traded company, and in February 2007 reported the largest annual profit of any corporation in US history for 2006: $39.5 billion, an increase over its previous record-seting $36.1 billion profit in 2005.
I would say that setting records two years in a row for the largest profit of any corporation in US history qualifies as “unimaginably rich.”
Microsoft’s annual profits are less than half of Exxon-Mobil’s and Google’s profits are less than one tenth. Fortune 500 lists Exxon-Mobil as the most profitable US corporation for 2007; Microsoft doesn’t even make the top 10, and Google doesn’t make the top 20.
RE: Lomborg quote about deaths was from “Cool It” and pulled from Lomborg.org. Not sure of his source as I don’t have the book where it’ll be noted. I agree these numbers are not a reason to be complacent in face of global warming, but disagree that he’s suggesting they are. He’s correctly using this as a good example of the media’s tendency to ignore this significant aspect of climate related deaths. It’s interesting that some above call this a strawman while others say it’s cherry picking and others say irrelevant altogether and others say the numbers are bogus. It CANNOT be all those things, folks.
Dave: When someone accuses someone else of cherry picking, for you to say that they are thereby “conceding the facts”
This is an odd interpretation of what I wrote, but usually cherry picking accusations do concede the veracity of the limited set of facts in an analysis, but suggest they are presented in a misleading way.
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With both Gore and Lomborg critiques I think you need to be careful to look separately at the *facts*, which both Lomborg and Gore tend to have right and the selection and interpretation of those facts, which they both do to some extent selectively (aka cherry pick). Because cherry picking varies in degree it’s hard to address exactly how defective a cherry picked analysis turns out to be.
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Dave you do make a good point about Europe vs Global - what are the numbers? This would be a legitimate “cherry picking” point against Lomborg though it would not invalidate his main point - let’s look broadly at the issue.
Ray wrote: Presenting challenges to sustainability as a “multichotomy” and forcing people to choose which concerns are addressed is simply a recipe for fracturing consensus to deal with any of them.
I think this is the most powerful criticism of what could happen from the Lomborg / Copenhagen Concensus approach. But it’s up to us to prioritize on the basis of reason rather than on the basis of emotion. On that point most people can agree even if reasonable people disagree about the probabilities, which brings up your other question to me:
how you would prioritize resources given that
1)climate change has at least the potential to damage civilization beyond repair
2)the probability of 1) cannot be reliably bounded at present
3)we do not know where the tipping points for irreversible change are
4)we have many other crises and needs, which climate change will exacerbate, and which must be solved simultaneously if we are to reach the ultimate goal of economic and ecological sustainability.
Complex but great question Ray. I’m starting to study the idea of “unbounded risk” that keeps cropping up here. I think the concept is questionably applied in teh RC discussions, often treated here as if unbounded risk should be assigned a super high value because it is unbounded. I’m assuming (I don’t understand this yet) that for a risk analysis you’ll need to assign some probabilities to the risks, unbounded or not. For example a major asteroid collision or huge solar flare would be more problematic for us than any climate scenario, yet we all (correctly) don’t want to spend much time worrying about those possibilities or spending money or innovation devising mitigations. However, a short and generic short answer is that I’d follow Mendelsohn’s advice and do moderate mitigation.
Ray also noted this: Lomborg and Gore are lightning rods. Let us lay them aside until the sparks die down
Ray - I’d vote for this approach to mitigation. This is the very thoughtful reply I had from Dr. Mendelsohn at Yale. I just got his permission to post this:
Robert Mendelsohn:
The economics community involved in climate change generally agrees that it is time to start controlling greenhouse gases. The prevailing wisdom in this community is that we should start with a relatively modest program that gets more stringent over time (although there are a few dissenters to this conclusion). A policy that begins with massive immediate mitigation will tend to be wasteful on a number of criteria. First, the costs will far exceed the benefits. The present value of damages from current emissions are relatively low, so that any immediate program that has very high costs per ton will be wasteful. The benefits of controlling carbon dioxide this decade are less than $10/ton of carbon dioxide. The abatement costs will exceed the benefits for any effort that costs more than this amount. Second, the optimal response to a stock pollutant like greenhouse gases is a dynamic policy that tightens over time. This optimal response delays expenditures on abatement until later. The optimal response postpones massive costs until the second half of the century. This reduces the overall cost of abatement, regardless of the long term cumulative target, by a factor of three. Third, we want to take advantage of technical change. If we invest in abatement too soon, we will invest in poorly designed programs and technology. The current corn ethanol program in the United States is a good example. It costs a lot of money and has the same carbon footprint as gasoline. That is, it is completely ineffective at controlling greenhouse gases. Let technical change proceed and then invest heavily in effective alternatives. Finally, the optimal program is a universal program that applies to every emitter in the world. It is wasteful to spend $10 per ton to remove a ton of emissions in one place while failing to spend $1 per ton removing a ton in another. The more stringent the policy becomes, the more critical that it be applied
universally. R. Mendelsohn
” The Harvard study found that low-income, white rural populations in the North, including Minnesota, the Dakotas, Iowa, Montana, and Nebraska, have life expectancies of 76.2 years for men and 81.8 years for women. That’s substantially more than 98% of the average white population. Many counties in the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” fared well in life expectancy, but Nicollet County was the top at 81.1 years. …”
Go north of those states, and life expectancy goes up even higher.
Warming Minnesota is not going to materially lengthen life expectancy for its citizens.
“The most extensive study on Excess winter mortality in Europe: a cross country analysis identifying key risk factors was published in 2002. The results show a positive link between premature winter deaths, mean winter environmental temperature and mean winter precipitation. In other words, the premature death toll is higher in countries with a warmer winter climate. …”
He’s correctly using this as a good example of the media’s tendency to ignore this significant aspect of climate related deaths.
It’s not significant.
Why do you imagine that it is?
Because Lomborg says it is. Got it.
It’s interesting that some above call this a strawman
Yes, it is.
while others say it’s cherry picking
Strawmen are often built of statements containing cherry-picked data used to refute an argument the other side never makes.
and others say irrelevant altogether
Because knocking down a strawmen IS irrelevant.
and others say the numbers are bogus.
They may well be. Building a strawman by making shit up is a lot easier than searching for data to cherry-pick. Knocking down a strawman argument is a form of lying, so why would one be terribly surprised if the facts being quoted are also a lie?
In #373 above, Joe Duck states (regarding Lomborg’s claim that GCC will save lives overall from the reduction in deaths from cold in witner):
“It’s interesting that some above call this a strawman while others say it’s cherry picking and others say irrelevant altogether and others say the numbers are bogus. It CANNOT be all those things, folks.”
I would invite you to reconsider that statement, since clearly a claim *CAN* be all those things (whether or not Lomborg’s is being a separate question.
A strawman is a false representation of an opposing position, manufactured to be easily knocked down. The easiest way to fabircate such a false representation is by cherry-picking the data. Cherry-picked data is, on the account of the “bogus” selection criteria, irrelevant. The issue is largely a matter of which aspect of the irrelevant cherry-picked bogus strawman misrepresentation of the facts one chooses to emphasize.
Joe, did you ask professor Mendelsohn why it made sense to pay for mitigation when the, “costs of global warming roughly equal the benefits” as he stated just a few short years ago? One might say that given this remarkable turnaround in such a short period that skepticism might be in order when this good doctor makes a claim. Btw, there was nothing in that ‘thoughtful’ response but a serious of unsubstantiated conclusions stamped with the, “my view is the mainstream view” seal of approval. Though the good professor is in a position to know that, I do find myself seriously doubting that he posseses even a modicum of objectivity. In any case, I would be willing to bet that amongst the smelling sweetly as Linberger cheese assumptions required to get to his result you would find:
A fixed climate sensitivity parameter
A net positive effect on disese mortality from global warming
No effect of global warming on drinking/fresh water availability
No scenarios that introduce damages from ice sheet melt
A fixed horizon of 100 years (pre-selecting a strategy that emphasizes late mitigation)
A slightly negative net effect on agricultural yields but positive in the early to middle part of the horizon
Mitigation costs that do not account for what mere lay persons might see as the positive geopolitical ramifications of less dependence on fossil fuels from unstable nations and despots. Neither will the positive effect on persistent and destabalizing trade imbalances factor here.
The discount rate applied will assume a perfect correlation between benefits from mitigation and per capita growth while risk aversion and the pure rate of time preference are likewise fixed parameters
Etc. etc. etc. I don’t know any of this for certain as I haven’t look through his work, but it describes my strong suspicions, and a critical mass of these would certainly account for his ‘reasoned’ stance. I would actually think it a good idea to put these assumptions to the good doctor and see if he objects. Do you mind shooting him an email Joe?
Assuming that these assumptions hold in the main, this is precisely what I mean by economists with the temerity to push their grossly crude models on the public as if they represent wisdom. Small. Joke.
Joe, first some definitions–any adverse outcome has a cost that would be incurred if it happened and a probability of occurence. Multiply these together and you have risk. For a risk to be unbounded, it must have a very high cost–incalculable or inestimable–and there is also a difficulty in calculating its probability of occurrence. A good example of such a risk was that of terrorist attack just after 9/11/2001–insurance companies wouldn’t touch it, and when the insurance companies turn their back, you know you’ve got an unbounded risk.
Climate change fits this definition quite nicely. There are many threats arising from climate change that have extremely severe consequences–e.g. Lovelock’s hypothesis of near complete loss of ocean productivity. Now Lovelock has taken some hits for some ideas that sounded a bit too new agey in the past, but he is a sharp guy. His concern is deemed credible by several experts. The problem is that we don’t know enough to calculate the probability. Another: loss of agricultural productivity at a time when human population is growing to 9-12 billion. Extreme weather events, and so on.
When you have unbounded risk, one thing you have to do is more research to better
) 
1 November 2007 at 15:45
Does this apparent saturation mean ocean pH levels will not decrease further ?
[Response: No, I woudn’t think so. I don’t think the oceans are completely stopped taking up CO2, just maybe slowing. David]
1 November 2007 at 16:16
Does this mean that 380 PPM is the new 450 PPM?
[Response: I think I understand your question now. My feeling is that all is not lost. What we are seeing is reduced carbon uptake by the natural world, not an actual CO2 release from the natural world yet. David]
1 November 2007 at 16:40
Hi,
thank you for the post, very clear.
i was wondering, when reading Canadell et al, about the strong interannual variability of the terrestrial carbon sink: as it is the remainder of the “emissions - airbourne fraction” term and the calculated ocean uptake, it reflects more or less the variability of the airbourne fraction.
Now do global vegetation models simulate this strong variability, when forced with observed climate (i would think this would be a good test, both for models and for the way carbon sinks are calculated) ?
is this variability somehow related to Nino events, volcanic events, or anything like that ?
Thanks -
[Response: Don’t take this as an authoritative answer, but my hunch is there’s a lot of noise in the terrestrial sink, which is all done by difference. I suspect there may be variability in ocean carbon fluxes that models don’t simulate. The land gets blamed for everything we don’t understand. I could be wrong about this. David]
1 November 2007 at 16:42
It seems forests may be in the same boat, (pun intended).
http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article3115537.ece
1 November 2007 at 16:58
Forward the RealClimate email to your senators. We may not have 200 years.
1 November 2007 at 17:17
Do we distinguish between
— CO2 dissolving into the ocean as ions (raising pH) that ought to go on til it’s in equilibrium with the atmosphere, wherever that level ends up, right?
—- actual removal from dissolved CO2 — being ’sunk’ out of the oceans (as by calcite and aragonite shells from plankton sinking into sediment, long term removal from cycling back to the atmosphere)?
I know in some deep water where CO2 levels are higher, the calcite and aragonite do end up dissolving back into the ocean water even now. There’s a depth below which that always happens, and that can change as levels in the ocean of dissolved CO2 increase and pH increases.
[Response: Wow, finally you ask a question, Hank, that I’m competent to answer! CO2 dissolves in the ocean mostly be reacting with dissolved carbonate ion, CO3(2-), to form bicarbonate, HCO3-. This will continue happening, but the concentration of carbonate ion decreases as CO2 rises, so seawater loses its buffer strength. The response of CaCO3 is to dissolve, replenishing the carbonate ion. Fossil fuel CO2 can’t deposit as CaCO3 without a source of base, from weathering igneous rocks, which takes hundreds of thousands of years. Or deliberate chemical treatment is possible, speeding up the process. David]
1 November 2007 at 17:24
I read this site regularly, although I have no science background. So I’m pretty hesitant to comment. But this especially sounds so dire. How much do you, as scientists steeped in this research, feel that human life on this planet has a fragile future at best? (I realize this is a broad question, so if it’s not applicable, please delete it.)
[Response: Don’t despair. If nothing else, it’s unproductive. The technology exists to cut CO2 emissions to safe levels at reasonable cost. David]
1 November 2007 at 17:33
this is a very helpful essay -let for the non atmospheric scientist.
I hope for more of these, on the subject of the ocean atmosphere interface and for more extended comments by those better read than myself
thank you
1 November 2007 at 17:35
Do we know offhand if there’s been a change to the level of calcium carbonate? I ran across a paper a few days ago (forgot to save a link) explaining how reduced CaCO3 tends to increase the partial pressure of CO2. Could erosion control during the last century have reduced the amount of calcium (and magnesium) oxides and carbonates entering the ocean? Could this be part of the reason?
[Response: CO2 reacts with dissolved CO3(2-) in the water, and that in turn provokes CaCO3 to dissolve. I don’t know if an extra dissolution signal has been detected yet, however. David]
1 November 2007 at 17:45
Please:
“The Southern Ocean is an important avenue of carbon invasion into the ocean, because the deep ocean outcrops here. ”
what does outcrop mean ?
[Response: It means reach the surface. Other parts of the world, the cold deep water is covered by a warmer layer of water near the surface. David]
1 November 2007 at 17:49
How do photosynthesizing organisms such as phytoplankton fit into the picture?
Also, to explicate Shannon’s question: Much has been made of 450 ppm as a threshold beyond which Very Bad Things will probably happen. Shannon is asking (more or less) “Are we already there?”
[Response: Ocean biology, if it were to continue unaffected by the changing circulation, temperature, or pH, would have no effect on fossil fuel CO2 because it was sending carbon to the deep sea, and it would continue. But if the biology changes in some way, it would affect ocean uptake. One possibility is reduced formation of CaCO3 by surface ocean algae and corals. This would accelerate the absorbtion of CO2 a little bit. David]
1 November 2007 at 17:52
I think Shannon means, are we seeing a carbon sink saturation/slowdown much earlier than anticipated, i.e. not by 2050 at 450 ppm CO2e as some predictions have it, but 2007 at 380 ppm CO2e. Perhaps yet further evidence that feedbacks are kicking in more rapidly than anticipated just a few years ago.
[Response: Everyone seems to have understood Shannon’s question except for me. I still don’t know the answer, though. Forecasting the carbon cycle seems to be a tricky business. David]
1 November 2007 at 17:59
Good post.
Canadell et al is available online here:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0702737104v1
You can find Schuster and Watson (in proof) here:
http://lgmacweb.env.uea.ac.uk/ajw/Reprints/Schuster_Watson_JGR_in_press.pdf
And you can even find Le Quere et al (!) here:
http://lgmacweb.env.uea.ac.uk/lequere/publi/Le_Quere_et_al_Science_reprint_2007.pdf
I think Canadell is a very important piece, in part because it quantifies the recarbonization of the energy system and in part because it shows that emissions are rising faster than the IPCC’s fastest-growing computer model scenario–even the one that was not included in the latest report because scientists thought it was unrealistically high. I blogged on it here:
http://climateprogress.org/2007/10/26/soaring-carbon-dioxide-concentrations-sinks-saturating/
and former Time magazine reporter Eric Roston blogged on it here:
http://climateprogress.org/2007/10/23/carbon-emissions-race-past-all-predictions/
BBC reported on Schuster and Watson are here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7053903.stm
My comments on Schuster and Watson and the BBC coverage of it are here:
http://climateprogress.org/2007/10/22/big-news-the-ocean-carbon-sink-is-saturating/
1 November 2007 at 18:01
I read several weeks ago that the waters off the N. American NW Pacific coast from Oregon to Alaska have become too acidic. This includes not only dissolved CO2, but nitric and sulfuric acids from the atmosphere & water pollution.
As a paleontologist(retired), I can add that the geological record contains strong evidence of several events coupled w/GW of oceans reaching their CO2 retention capacity, in which increased acidification along continental selves & near-shore environments led to widespread invertebrate extinctions. Many benthic organisms in particular are affected because they can no longer produce calcium carbonate.
Increased acidification & the inevitable dramatic decrease in dissolved oxygen no doubt put all marine organisms at risk of extinction. The overall effect being extensive eutrification creating anoxic comditions extending to the continental shelves. Such events have accompanied many mass extinction events.
Thus, the present increased acidity in conjunction w/increasingly common & enlarging Dead Zones along continental shelves from polluted stream water are putting the oceans in extreme peril. If the oceans, being the global food chain base, ‘die’, this will inevitably lead to terrestrial extinctions.
These feedback effects on the marine biosphere, rapidly spreading drought, groundwater depletion, salt water intrusion & stream pollution are *The Most Serious consequences of GW*. These problems are already in motion & must be addressed immediately. Not to minimize the disasterous consequences of sea level rise-especially for Eurasia, but sea levels rise gradually. This gives many coastal communities time to adjust by infrastructure reconstruction & rezoning, compared to the consequences of losing water & food from the former. It’s ALL About Ocean Health & Water.
As Kelvin Rudolfo of U of I, Chicago (the finest lecturer & field instructor I’ve ever known & with whom it was an honor to have been a grad assistant) once concluded in a dramatic, moving undergad lecture on GW in the 70s: “What does all this mean?….Learn to Farm!”.
1 November 2007 at 18:32
Sidd, “what does outcrop mean?” — here it means deep ocean water rising up to the surface — and “deep ocean” means water that sank to the depths long ago, at least a century, perhaps up to a thousand years ago. How long it takes for the ocean to circulate is still being figured out.
“…. a deep-sea outcrop at the surface…. the outcropping deep water is essentially virgin as to fossil CO2 ….”
http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5765731
1 November 2007 at 18:42
Re: #9
The paper I mentioned was actually a chapter of Greenhouse Gas Sinks Edited by D Reay, University of Edinburgh, UK; N Hewitt, University of Lancaster, UK; J Grace, University of Edinburgh, UK; K A Smith.
6 Geological Carbon Sinks
The part I was referring to was Box 6.1. Carbonate chemistry ‘101’.
1 November 2007 at 18:46
Re: #7
Sarah,
I too am a layman, and they take my comments just fine, so don’t worry.
What it means to me is: somebody is going to figure out how to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, because it is too late for any other solution.
Also, in the meantime, mankind (and all of nature) will be doing a lot of adapting.
1 November 2007 at 19:05
Oceans are not the only sinking sink. A paper in Nature a couple of years ago showed a steady release of carbon from soils in the UK (independent of land use):
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7056/abs/nature04038.html
1 November 2007 at 19:44
It’s not quite Henry’s law since pCO2 from the ocean also varies with [H(+)]^2 and that mean small changes in pH can set off decarbonization of the upper ocean. Local changes in pH could have a significant effect.
[Response: Henry’s law applies to the dissolved CO2 species, and also, in this case, to the hydrated form of CO2, carbonic acid, H2CO3. These two species are lumped together into what is called H2CO3* as an operational thing because it is difficult to measure the proportions of the hydrated and unhydrated forms. The expression for Henry’s law is that pCO2 / H2CO3* = a constant KH. The constant is very sensitive to temperature, somewhat to salinity. The relative concentrations of the other forms of carbon, bicarbonate (HCO3-) and carbonate ion (CO32-) are controlled as you say by the acidity of the seawater solution and the dissociation constants for carbonic acid K1 and K2. All these K’s are equilibrium constants, they just have different names by convention. Semantically, the pH behavior is not called Henry’s law, but you are absolutely correct that changing the pH has a huge effect on the amount of CO2 that wants to come out into the gas phase. Acidify seawater completely and it would foam like beer. David]
1 November 2007 at 19:48
I did not know that papers were still sold by the bushel. But, this post is worth a bushel and peck of that peer reviewed stuff.
How about the recent popular press reports of methane bubbling out of Arctic lakes? Is that new, or just folks taking notice of something that has always happened?
[Response: Apologies for the non-SI unit. What was I thinking? Should have used m3 or kg. David]
1 November 2007 at 20:04
Nice clear post, many thanks.
you say that ‘….The climate changes triggered a strong positive carbon cycle feedback which is, yes, still poorly understood.’
As this is one of the $64,000 questions in terms of how this will all pan out, I wonder, if you have the time, if you could give a few references of your selelection the better published articles on this question, however limitted the conclusions.
[Response: My own latest thoughts on the topic are here. No single mechanism can do the entire CO2 drawdown by itself, we resorted to a “stew” of ideas. An earlier review paper of the conundrum is here. David]
1 November 2007 at 20:28
Good post.
The comment above is worth repeating:
Increased acidification & the inevitable dramatic decrease in dissolved oxygen no doubt put all marine organisms at risk of extinction. The overall effect being extensive eutrification creating anoxic comditions extending to the continental shelves. Such events have accompanied many mass extinction events.
The offshore low oxygen zone in the Eastern North Pacific off of Oregon is one example. This has been going on for six consecutive years and may very well become a permanent feature.
By the way, this is yet another argument against ocean iron fertilization as a means of generating carbon offsets for the cap-and-trade carbon market. Assisting in the eutrophication of the oceans is a very bad idea!
Regarding the methane from lakes in Siberia, here’s the Nature paper:
Letter
Methane bubbling from Siberian thaw lakes as a positive feedback to climate warming
K. M. Walter, S. A. Zimov, J. P. Chanton, D. Verbyla and F. S. Chapin, III
Nature 443, 71-75 (7 September 2006)
They radiocarbon-dated the methane and found that the last time those carbon atoms were in the atmosphere was around 30-40,000 years ago. The conclusions of their paper are as follows:
“In conclusion, we have shown that North Siberian lakes are a significantly larger source of atmospheric CH4 than previously recognized. Emissions are dominated by ebullition, a mode of emission that we have quantified using the new technique of mapping bubbling point sources. This CH4 source is largely fuelled by thermokarst, and we have linked the expansion of thaw lakes during recent decades with a 58% increase in lake CH4 emissions, demonstrating a new feedback to climate warming. Though the recent increase in flux due to lake expansion is modest relative to anthropogenic emissions, the 500 Gt of labile Pleistocene-aged C in ice-rich yedoma permafrost could greatly intensify the positive feedback to high-latitude warming by releasing tens of thousands of teragrams of CH4 through ebullition from thermokarst lakes if northeast Siberia continues to warm in the future, as projected.”
If, say, half of that 500 GT of carbon in the permafrost ends up in the atmosphere, that would be the equivalent of about 80 years of anthropogenic CO2 emissions at today’s rates. How fast would that happen? No idea. How long will it take to melt the Greenland ice sheet at current forcings? Melt it will, but how fast? 100 years? 1000 years?
The sane response to such uncertainties is to eliminate the use of fossil fuels asap and replace them with renewable energy sources.
1 November 2007 at 20:31
To actually do something about this visit soon www.stepitup2007.org.
1 November 2007 at 20:39
Rephrase: Are we seeing some of the predicted effects at 380 PPM that we expected to see at 450 PPM?
[Response: I’m not real up on the details of what the carbon cycle models, in particular the terrestrial biosphere carbon cycle models, predicted about when they’d start releasing co2 rather than taking it up. I don’ think those models are very well grounded in observations, just my opinion. I guess the turnaround though is happening faster than they predicted. David]
1 November 2007 at 21:14
Changes in ocean circulation are not only going to kill a lot of sea life, but there is positive feedback again on greenhouse gas and warming acceleration … and the ‘closing of the door’ on for ever on the solution of using sea ecosystems to sink the carbon back where it came from, living bionmass in thriving oceans [as distinct from our largely dead and dying ones]
… but as if that currently almost half-complete death of the base of sea life [corals and phytoplankton] , there is something people do not seem even be aware of let alone to have modelled, the methane hydrate distribution on continental shelves is controlled by ocean temperature LOCALLY … just changing the ocean circulation at almost any coastline can trigger massive methane release without any increase in average earth temperature!
… the amount of methane is potentially so massive that it could even swamp the breakdown of methane in the atmosphere with sudden massive acceleration in warming due to methane persisting far longer
… in any case we shall never be able to recover from this input because it triggers warming and then the rest of the methane will be released as well and its likely all over … thermal run-away
life is demonstrably not coping with the current rate of change, measurements suggest it is four times the maximum rate at which many species are changing their location and habits in failing attempts to adapt… we have not the time to sit around just talking any longer, we need things back under control in all-out emergency action , it is simply irrational to find out what we overlooked after it commits us all to slow death …
The pictures painted to decision makers are of a sort of trade-off between cost and inconvenience of change as against temperature rise and some damage to nature [some say 50% by 2050, some say sooner] … no-one seems to be pointing out that one cannot damage nature 50% and it stop there, by that stage we have committed ourselves to almost complete death of the planetary life system and ourselves with it…
The ‘fiddling whilst Rome burns’ analogy comes to mind… we know the atmosphere is disturbed, we know we are disturbing the sea circulation…. it really is time that all these things were reducing, not accelerating in positive feedback already ,out of control ,as the figures indicate they are …
it is not time for another five years research before acting , it is time to mobilise everyone on the planet to change our way of life [one of the biggest ‘inertias’ in the system is humanity’s reluctance to change and learning time of new ways] …
It is seriously time to stop playing brinkmanship with existence of life on earth …and that is the thing we are gambling with against what is currently, but briefly a fairly small expense in best prudent insurance now [compared to massively increasing cost as time goes on, until no amount of money can save the ecosystems and us at a time which may easily be not far ahead , some say it is here already … there is absolutely no justification for risking all life on this planet for even massive expense, but we may well have a tiny window for doing it cheaply whilst the seas are somewhat alive … their death is not linear in time either …
We simply cannot have time for the mistake some dozen groups are playing with of just creating algal blooms which must then die , depriving the ocean of oxygen and with no great sequestration of CO2 to deep deposits or even guarantee that more co2 will not be released long term…
It is a crude sledgehammer approach where a hundredth of the amount of iron used could be chelated and fed in slow-release to the oceans to let the ecosystems expand, saving the seas and sinking truly massive amounts of CO2 into living biomass as the seas exponentially grow back to life UNDER OUR CONTROL and monitoring…
We even get vastly more food out of the process to offset the cost , enough to feed all people at last and at low cost , and off-setting the crippling loss of fertility of the land from modern farming methods…
If we all plant trees on our land , we can do much the same on the land too…
A serious look at the motor car shows that we would actually live vastly healthier lives without it and its pollution even without the massive contribution stopping using petrol and diesel cars would be to bringing things under control… this really is a win-win situation , a no-brainer … helping the earth and improving our quality of life at the same time…
Why are people not doing this? Do they not know yet? It seems even politicians mostly do not know that we are accelerating down the slippery slopes already , nor appreciate the extent of the damage , so how can the people ?
I just do not understand either how when we know that we don’t know all that could go wrong ,that we don’t play prudent and safe, extra-cautious until we do know , when we are playing for stakes of almost all life on earth, our own existence…
We are not then even considering the worst case scenarios and then maximising the chance of avoiding them, but why not? Since we all die in those cases, surely they are to ones to consider and ensure we maximise chances of avoiding them …
What we have at present i think is that even the best policy on the table is of somewhat less than 50% chance of keeping below 2C … but 2C is the point where some believe thermal run-away sets in… that makes no sense then at all as a policy, we want a close to zero chance of getting to that 2C point, not for it being more likely than not!
Again, methane release in the sea is being reported off South America, let us hope that it is only very local vulcanism or sea-bed shift , because if it is not we likely are too late to stop the ‘clathrate gun’ being triggered by ocean current changes kicking it off by merely LOCAL temperature rise over massive methane hydrate deposits … caused by just any ocean current shift with no average temperature rise of the earth needed to make it kick in…
I just do not get the confidence that men imagine that we can control this whenever we like , we really do not know that!
and the cost of doing so when we finally do so is exponentiating as we speak , what point is there at all in not doing all that can be done now, immediately ???
Equally we cannot just sit around and let the seas die, if we let 50% of species die off on the planet currently predicted , then it doesn’t stop there! … take any key organ out of our body and the whole dies, lose any key species and the ecosystem dies , almost all of it , and then we ourselves cannot survive that… the ecosystem that feed us will be committed to death long before v50% of species are extinct … putting it as percentage is misleading, this is NOT a linear process at all,not even close …
How can mankind not be working flat out to absolute first priority to minimise the chance of that, by every single method we know …I just don’t understand our complacency at all … we pride ourselves on intelligence , but this matter makes people dumb as rabbits caught in the headlights , standing inactive in the path of an approaching truck…
There is so much we can get going on immediately to get things moving back toward control, out of positive feedback and it just isn’t even beginning to happen… instead we are not even aiming to give ourselves half a chance to avoid pushing nature to the edge where there is no return…
It is less than imprudent, it is irrational in extreme … Changes in ocean circulation are not only going to kill a lot of sea life, but there is positive feedback again on greenhouse gas and warming acceleration … and the ‘closing of the door’ on for ever on the solution of using sea ecosystems to sink the carbon back where it came from, living bionmass in thriving oceans [as distinct from our largely dead and dying ones]
… but as if that currently almost half-complete death of the base of sea life [corals and phytoplankton] , there is something people do not seem even be aware of let alone to have modelled, the methane hydrate distribution on continental shelves is controlled by ocean temperature LOCALLY … just changing the ocean circulation at almost any coastline can trigger massive methane release without any increase in average earth temperature!
… the amount of methane is potentially so massive that it could even swamp the breakdown of methane in the atmosphere with sudden massive acceleration in warming due to methane persisting far longer
… in any case we shall never be able to recover from this input because it triggers warming and then the rest of the methane will be released as well and its likely all over … thermal run-away
life is demonstrably not coping with the current rate of change, measurements suggest it is four times the maximum rate at which many species are changing their location and habits in failing attempts to adapt… we have not the time to sit around just talking any longer, we need things back under control in all-out emergency action , it is simply irrational to find out what we overlooked after it commits us all to slow death …
The pictures painted to decision makers are of a sort of trade-off between cost and inconvenience of change as against temperature rise and some damage to nature [some say 50% by 2050, some say sooner] … no-one seems to be pointing out that one cannot damage nature 50% and it stop there, by that stage we have committed ourselves to almost complete death of the planetary life system and ourselves with it…
The ‘fiddling whilst Rome burns’ analogy comes to mind… we know the atmosphere is disturbed, we know we are disturbing the sea circulation…. it really is time that all these things were reducing, not accelerating in positive feedback already ,out of control ,as the figures indicate they are …
it is not time for another five years research before acting , it is time to mobilise everyone on the planet to change our way of life [one of the biggest ‘inertias’ in the system is humanity’s reluctance to change and learning time of new ways] …
It is seriously time to stop playing brinkmanship with existence of life on earth …and that is the thing we are gambling with against what is currently, but briefly a fairly small expense in best prudent insurance now [compared to massively increasing cost as time goes on, until no amount of money can save the ecosystems and us at a time which may easily be not far ahead , some say it is here already … there is absolutely no justification for risking all life on this planet for even massive expense, but we may well have a tiny window for doing it cheaply whilst the seas are somewhat alive … their death is not linear in time either …
We simply cannot have time for the mistake some dozen groups are playing with of just creating algal blooms which must then die , depriving the ocean of oxygen and with no great sequestration of CO2 to deep deposits or even guarantee that more co2 will not be released long term…
It is a crude sledgehammer approach where a hundredth of the amount of iron used could be chelated and fed in slow-release to the oceans to let the ecosystems expand, saving the seas and sinking truly massive amounts of CO2 into living biomass as the seas exponentially grow back to life UNDER OUR CONTROL and monitoring…
We even get vastly more food out of the process to offset the cost , enough to feed all people at last and at low cost , and off-setting the crippling loss of fertility of the land from modern farming methods…
If we all plant trees on our land , we can do much the same on the land too…
A serious look at the motor car shows that we would actually live vastly healthier lives without it and its pollution even without the massive contribution stopping using petrol and diesel cars would be to bringing things under control… this really is a win-win situation , a no-brainer … helping the earth and improving our quality of life at the same time…
Why are people not doing this? Do they not know yet? It seems even politicians mostly do not know that we are accelerating down the slippery slopes already , nor appreciate the extent of the damage , so how can the people ?
I just do not understand either how when we know that we don’t know all that could go wrong ,that we don’t play prudent and safe, extra-cautious until we do know , when we are playing for stakes of almost all life on earth, our own existence…
We are not then even considering the worst case scenarios and then maximising the chance of avoiding them, but why not? Since we all die in those cases, surely they are to ones to consider and ensure we maximise chances of avoiding them …
What we have at present i think is that even the best policy on the table is of somewhat less than 50% chance of keeping below 2C … but 2C is the point where some believe thermal run-away sets in… that makes no sense then at all as a policy, we want a close to zero chance of getting to that 2C point, not for it being more likely than not!
Again, methane release in the sea is being reported off South America, let us hope that it is only very local vulcanism or sea-bed shift , because if it is not we likely are too late to stop the ‘clathrate gun’ being triggered by ocean current changes kicking it off by merely LOCAL temperature rise over massive methane hydrate deposits … caused by just any ocean current shift with no average temperature rise of the earth needed to make it kick in…
I just do not get the confidence that men imagine that we can control this whenever we like , we really do not know that!
and the cost of doing so when we finally do so is exponentiating as we speak , what point is there at all in not doing all that can be done now, immediately ???
Equally we cannot just sit around and let the seas die, if we let 50% of species die off on the planet currently predicted , then it doesn’t stop there! … take any key organ out of our body and the whole dies, lose any key species and the ecosystem dies , almost all of it , and then we ourselves cannot survive that… the ecosystem that feed us will be committed to death long before v50% of species are extinct … putting it as percentage is misleading, this is NOT a linear process at all,not even close …
How can mankind not be working flat out to absolute first priority to minimise the chance of that, by every single method we know …I just don’t understand our complacency at all … we pride ourselves on intelligence , but this matter makes people dumb as rabbits caught in the headlights , standing inactive in the path of an approaching truck…
There is so much we can get going on immediately to get things moving back toward control, out of positive feedback and it just isn’t even beginning to happen… instead we are not even aiming to give ourselves half a chance to avoid pushing nature to the edge where there is no return…
It is seriously less than imprudent, it is irrational in extreme to play brinkmanship with an unknown edge of certain heat-death of our world … and we do know that we are currently accelerating toward it …
1 November 2007 at 21:52
The oceans are understaturated with regards to CO2, always have been, always will be. Check back in geologic time, you will find that even CO2 atmospheric contents of 6000 ppm and more have been efficiently and quickly (geologically speaking) removed via the bicarbonate ion and massive CaCO3 precipitation when the balance is needed. There are hundreds of thousands of feet of naturally sequestered CO2 in limestone around the world. That is still happening and will continue, that is part of the natural cycle and thus the current short term, miniscule variances are nothing to get worried about. You people do need to get some earth science education.
1 November 2007 at 21:59
One question I’ve been confused about. In temperate regions, like where I live, a deforested area is quickly grown over with a profusion of herbaceous species, and the forests tend to naturally reseed. What is the net effect on atmospheric CO2 in these areas?
[Response: Carbon is released as a forest is cut, perhaps slowly as the wood decays or quickly if it is burned. Then when it grows back, carbon is taken back up. Eventually as the forest reaches climax you are back where you started. David]
1 November 2007 at 22:32
Aybody want to comment on this?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119387567378878423.html
My Nobel Moment
By JOHN R. CHRISTY
November 1, 2007; Page A19
I’ve had a lot of fun recently with my tiny (and unofficial) slice of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But, though I was one of thousands of IPCC participants, I don’t think I will add “0.0001 Nobel Laureate” to my resume.
The other half of the prize was awarded to former Vice President Al Gore, whose carbon footprint would stomp my neighborhood flat. But that’s another story.
Large icebergs in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica. Winter sea ice around the continent set a record maximum last month.
Both halves of the award honor promoting the message that Earth’s temperature is rising due to human-based emissions of greenhouse gases. The Nobel committee praises Mr. Gore and the IPCC for alerting us to a potential catastrophe and for spurring us to a carbonless economy.
I’m sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see. Rather, I see a reliance on climate models (useful but never “proof”) and the coincidence that changes in carbon dioxide and global temperatures have loose similarity over time.
There are some of us who remain so humbled by the task of measuring and understanding the extraordinarily complex climate system that we are skeptical of our ability to know what it is doing and why. As we build climate data sets from scratch and look into the guts of the climate system, however, we don’t find the alarmist theory matching observations. (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite data we analyze at the University of Alabama in Huntsville does show modest warming — around 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit per century, if current warming trends of 0.25 degrees per decade continue.)
It is my turn to cringe when I hear overstated-confidence from those who describe the projected evolution of global weather patterns over the next 100 years, especially when I consider how difficult it is to accurately predict that system’s behavior over the next five days.
Mother Nature simply operates at a level of complexity that is, at this point, beyond the mastery of mere mortals (such as scientists) and the tools available to us. As my high-school physics teacher admonished us in those we-shall-conquer-the-world-with-a-slide-rule days, “Begin all of your scientific pronouncements with ‘At our present level of ignorance, we think we know . . .’”
I haven’t seen that type of climate humility lately. Rather I see jump-to-conclusions advocates and, unfortunately, some scientists who see in every weather anomaly the specter of a global-warming apocalypse. Explaining each successive phenomenon as a result of human action gives them comfort and an easy answer.
Others of us scratch our heads and try to understand the real causes behind what we see. We discount the possibility that everything is caused by human actions, because everything we’ve seen the climate do has happened before. Sea levels rise and fall continually. The Arctic ice cap has shrunk before. One millennium there are hippos swimming in the Thames, and a geological blink later there is an ice bridge linking Asia and North America.
One of the challenges in studying global climate is keeping a global perspective, especially when much of the research focuses on data gathered from spots around the globe. Often observations from one region get more attention than equally valid data from another.
The recent CNN report “Planet in Peril,” for instance, spent considerable time discussing shrinking Arctic sea ice cover. CNN did not note that winter sea ice around Antarctica last month set a record maximum (yes, maximum) for coverage since aerial measurements started.
Then there is the challenge of translating global trends to local climate. For instance, hasn’t global warming led to the five-year drought and fires in the U.S. Southwest?
Not necessarily.
There has been a drought, but it would be a stretch to link this drought to carbon dioxide. If you look at the 1,000-year climate record for the western U.S. you will see not five-year but 50-year-long droughts. The 12th and 13th centuries were particularly dry. The inconvenient truth is that the last century has been fairly benign in the American West. A return to the region’s long-term “normal” climate would present huge challenges for urban planners.
Without a doubt, atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing due primarily to carbon-based energy production (with its undisputed benefits to humanity) and many people ardently believe we must “do something” about its alleged consequence, global warming. This might seem like a legitimate concern given the potential disasters that are announced almost daily, so I’ve looked at a couple of ways in which humans might reduce CO2 emissions and their impact on temperatures.
California and some Northeastern states have decided to force their residents to buy cars that average 43 miles-per-gallon within the next decade. Even if you applied this law to the entire world, the net effect would reduce projected warming by about 0.05 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, an amount so minuscule as to be undetectable. Global temperatures vary more than that from day to day.
Suppose you are very serious about making a dent in carbon emissions and could replace about 10% of the world’s energy sources with non-CO2-emitting nuclear power by 2020 — roughly equivalent to halving U.S. emissions. Based on IPCC-like projections, the required 1,000 new nuclear power plants would slow the warming by about 0.2 ?176 degrees Fahrenheit per century. It’s a dent.
But what is the economic and human price, and what is it worth given the scientific uncertainty?
My experience as a missionary teacher in Africa opened my eyes to this simple fact: Without access to energy, life is brutal and short. The uncertain impacts of global warming far in the future must be weighed against disasters at our doorsteps today. Bjorn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus 2004, a cost-benefit analysis of health issues by leading economists (including three Nobelists), calculated that spending on health issues such as micronutrients for children, HIV/AIDS and water purification has benefits 50 to 200 times those of attempting to marginally limit “global warming.”
Given the scientific uncertainty and our relative impotence regarding climate change, the moral imperative here seems clear to me.
Mr. Christy is director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a participant in the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, co-recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
[Response: Mr. Christy is the guy who made a sign error in his analysis of satellite temperature records, with the result that satellites didn’t show the warming measured on the ground. This was a big argument in the denialist quiver until Mears cleaned up the mess. David]
1 November 2007 at 22:33
re 17
“Also, in the meantime, mankind (and all of nature) will be doing a lot of adapting.”
================
That’s inevitable at this point, IMHO.
But I think there is a more important question. While we can adapt, when do we reach a point, particularly given the accelerated pace of change predicted where adatation will not compensate?
I think that is the real question for everyone to consider moving forward as people try to map out a future for humankind in a GHG-rich environment.
1 November 2007 at 23:28
I’m not sure whether it will help or hinder. As the oceans rise the new coast of the entire world will be in a constant state of active erosion as the new surf zone and the hills adjoining the sea seek to find stability at the soil’s angle of repose measured from the local bedrock at the then-current sea level. Thus until the sea rise is done – all ice melt and thermal expansion complete – the ocean in coastal waters will be carrying huge volumes of suspended and re-suspended earth.
This will certainly be bad for all coastal-breeding fish, but on the other hand it may add some useful minerals to the mix. Probably not much calcium (so it’s bye-bye shell fish for those of us who gather it in the shallow coastal waters), but it could provide a huge chemically active surface area (like adding activated carbon or bentonite) in the mixing zone that will eventually settle just off shore.
1 November 2007 at 23:38
I would also like to ask about the biological impacts. Most of this discussion is about physics/chemistry. However we do know the biological cycle is important too. Has it been quantified at all? Is the increasing acidity causing a slowdown in formation of carbonate shells? Is the balance between photosynthesis and respiration being affected at all? Is there any data on this, or even a way to determine how to measure these effects - perhaps by isotopic measurements?
[Response: The picture is kind of murky, but start here. David]
2 November 2007 at 1:34
#25 [net effect] While herbs appear to grow faster than trees do, a standing crop of mature trees will hold vastly more carbon in biomass than will grasses and herbs over the same area. Trees can sequester carbon for over a hundred years, if allow to stand, while herbs and grasses will release any carbon they do take up in something like a single year (annuals) and a few years or a decade for larger, more woody herbs. Needless to say, it takes several decades for today’s seedling to uptake the same amount of carbon that was release when an earlier mature tree was cut out and removed (assuming it burned or was allowed to rot.) So that leaves us having to deal with that much carbon release into the atmosphere at a time when we can least afford it.
BTW, a tree removed from a forest and sawn into lumber for construction is (aside from the sawdust and leaves) still sequestered carbon. Our wood framed houses, if fated to stand for a hundred years, will keep that carbon out of the atmosphere AND allow more trees to grow where the former ones stood. While I am not a fan of lumber mills, this logic is hard to escape and in the run-up to a global catastrophe we need to look in all fruitful directions. Thus we should be making more structures out of wood and fewer out of metal, plastic and cement (the latter of which is a famous source of CO2) though this might have the net effect of spreading us out more because very tall buildings are less feasible. I can further imagine wooden cars, coaches and the like, wood-plank sidewalks instead of asphalt or cement, homes made entirely of wood including the foundation (as treated piers) and etc and so forth. Essentially, a forest under foot. In fact in a highly sustainable future the creative utilization of naturally occurring materials, many being carbon-based, will be the rule rather than fanciful speculation.
[Response: On the other hand, grasslands tend to sequester more carbon in soils, so the overall difference in carbon storage between forests and praries is smaller than you’d think. David]
2 November 2007 at 4:51
I too would like an answer to Shannon’s question #2 (and rephrased #24). As another layman, it seems as if real world data is far ahead of even the most pessimistic forecasts.
Much has been made of the supposedly unreliability of climate models by climate-change-deniers. On current evidence I am beginning to agree with them, but for totally opposite reasons.
If the data quoted in this article is supported by other papers (and I understand this important qualification), will we have to wait another 5 years before the IPCC can publically acknowledge this? If so the words “fiddling” “Rome” and “burn” all come to mind…
[Response: Models of past climate changes, such as Dansgaard-Oeschger events or sea level increases, tend to underpredict somewhat the severity or the extent of the events. My opinion is that the IPCC forecast is a best-case scenario, in that there are no surprises. David]
2 November 2007 at 5:28
Sounds like we have to await more results in the future. It also looks like this issue is very complex and due to this the jury is out at the moment.
What I would like to know is if this issue is complex when would we know if sinks become sources with regard to the Ocean? I presume that land sinks to sources are easier to measure?
2 November 2007 at 5:55
So am I correct that the most recent 2007 IPPC report does not take into account this development? If not shouldn’t they redo their calculations lickedy split before everyone’s lured into a relatively false sense of security? As for me Ive heard enough, im stocking up on processed foods.
[Response: There’s a pretty wide range of atmospheric CO2 trajectories covered in the various scenarios. A weakening of natural carbon sinks would tend to leave us on the high side of the projected atmospheric concentration given some rate of emissions. And of course the emissions are higher than were projected also. So I guess this puts us at a high end of the projections, but I don’t think it’s a totally new ball game. David]
2 November 2007 at 6:16
I suspect that the acid buildup is going faster than lime addition, plus warming. Oldtimers who fish at about Latitude 45 South don’t report windier weather but they do report more warm water fish species. Some believe it has been more cloudy than usual. A couple of speed yachting attempts (q.v. Bullimore) following the Roaring Forties were cancelled due to lack of wind. This alleged wind increase must be closer to the Antarctic.
I guess a slight change per square metre in ocean flux is more important than terrestial because of the larger areas.
2 November 2007 at 6:22
The UNEP Report GEO4, just published, quotes in Figure 2.19 levels for (2-way) anthropogenic CO2 fluxes between ocean and atmosphere which seem remarkably high compared to the natural background fluxes and also almost 3 times the level of fossil fuel/cement emissions. Is this authoritative data? If so, why does this effect happen and might it change our view of oceanic sink reliability?
[Response: I don’t have the report in front of me, but carbon exchange fluxes with the land and with the ocean are much larger than the net fluxes from CO2 release or invasion. It makes it harder to measure and understand the net fluxes, but exchange is otherwise not so relevant to our situation. David]
2 November 2007 at 6:40
Walt Bennett - “What it means to me is: somebody is going to figure out how to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, because it is too late for any other solution.”
If I were king, I’d put every available person (non-violent prisoners, the unemployed, anyone else that wants to help) to work planting trees, mixed forests of a draught resistant species, everywhere lacking forests presently. Billions of trees will take up some of the excess carbon and create habitat for some wildlife. These trees will prove the old cliche “rain makes trees, trees make rain.” It might not work… does someone have a better idea?
Uncontrolled technology has gotten our civilization to this unsustainable place. Only nature and the passage of time can fix things, either for we humans or for whatever life remains after the mass extinction that’s sure to come amazingly soon.
But I’m not king at all, more like a fly in boxcar on a train with no engineer or brakes screaming down from the mountains to cross a river where the bridge has washed out, while others on the train insist we’re parked at a station.
2 November 2007 at 6:51
I think it’s safe to say that it’s freaking hard to determine the kinetics of reactions in situ and especially when living organisms are involved. There are several good links above, especially abut the pure equilibrium chemistry, I’ll just ad some about the “biological pump” and such below for the interested.
Is the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_pump
Slower then expected?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070627224849.htm
http://dissertations.ub.rug.nl/faculties/science/2005/y.bozec/
http://www.ipsl.jussieu.fr/~jomce/acidification/paper/Orr_OnlineNature04095.pdf
2 November 2007 at 8:04
Unnerving stuff.
Really a question arising from the response to #6: will limestone and chalk coastlines start to dissolve noticeably faster as the ocean acidifies and, if so, will that have a noticeable feedback on the amount of CO2 in the ocean and atmosphere?
[Response: I don’t think the excess CaCO3 dissolution would be noticable like the fizz of an alka-seltzer, but if a large fraction of the fossil fuel is burned, there will be a worldwide hiatus in the deposition of CaCO3 on the sea floor. This time interval would be marked in sediment cores of the future by a layer of clay, like in the Paleocene Eocene thermal maximum event 55 myr ago. David]
2 November 2007 at 8:10
A very small notation rant to go with the SI one in this thread. pCO2 is awful, precisely because you see it in expressions with pH and pKa so the first thing you think of is -log[CO2]. How about changing over to Pco2 or some such. The old lit has bushels and pecks but that is no reason to continue using them, and this is from a kcal guy.
[Response: Yeah, if we had it to do over again, I’d stay away from Gtons also, as a mass unit, rather than dealing with moles like proper chemists. Oh well. David]
2 November 2007 at 8:30
re: #7
David said, “The technology exists to cut CO2 emissions to safe levels at reasonable cost.”
This simple statement begs several questions. (1) What are the technologies. (2) Where have they been implemented. (3) Where are the data that validate the reduction in emissions. (4) What are safe levels for emissions. (5) What were the costs for implementing the proven technologies. (6) What are reasonable costs. (7) Where are the data that validate that the emission levels from the implemented technologies are safe.
While this comment will very likely be considered off-topic note that the original poster made the statement. And more importantly, why are such statements given a pass relative to the level of validation required for statements about the science?
[Response: It’s all in the Working Group III report of the IPCC, you can download all 1350 pages and read about it if you like. David]
2 November 2007 at 8:47
RE Ike Solem #22 - yedoma, methane.
We have seen methane levels remain flat recently. However, the amount of anthropogenic methane emissions have actually increased within the past few years as the result of the ramping-up of China’s economy. The difference has been the drying out of the lower latitude wetlands. The formation of methane is an anaerobic process which requires wet conditions.
Likewise, we have seen more methane being produced as the result of thawing permafrost, but only during the wetter years. However, we are supposed to see increased precipitation in the subpolar regions, and temperatures are supposed to rise there more than at the lower latitudes. The further up the warming takes the above freezing-temperatures for more months out of the year, the denser the pockets of permafrost. Which as usual means the further we take this, the further it will go - with compounded interest.
2 November 2007 at 9:14
RE #26 Dr J “There are hundreds of thousands of feet of naturally sequestered CO2 in limestone around the world.”
100,000 feet is nearly 20 miles. Could you point me to the 40-mile deep limestone deposits?
Incidentally, it’s “minuscule”, not “miniscule”.
2 November 2007 at 9:17
In Sweden we actually have the biggest mining company trying to fertilize the forest and optimize other parameters so that we would increase growth. Then they want to count that in as a carbon sink to draw from their CO2 output. It’s actually at research stage (academic and all) but I’m sceptic… one part not so well studied is how the sewage sludge used to fertilize the forest interact with the other parts of the forest. Another if enough sludge exists close enough to make it profitable…
2 November 2007 at 9:51
The following is a quote by Watson that appeared in an article in Reuters on Oct. 20:
“The speed and size of the change show that we cannot take for granted the ocean sink for the carbon dioxide,” said Watson.
“Perhaps this is partly a natural oscillation or perhaps it is a response to the recent rapid climate warming. In either case we now know that the sink can change quickly and we need to continue to monitor the ocean uptake.”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKL2034748520071020?pageNumber=2&sp=true
The change being the ocean’s diminished ability to absorb CO2.This whole topic sounds a lot like a surprise element, perhaps like the North Atlantic Oscillation undergoing change in the near future, or a sizable chunk of real estate from Antarctica falling into the sea, ahead of schedule. It points to the need to take early,effective and perhaps draconian measures to mitigate AGW.
2 November 2007 at 9:53
Re 28. It is sad to see John Christy let himself be used as a mouthpiece by the apologists of complacency such as the Wall Street Journal, Lomborg et al. Christy would have us believe that because we have much to discover we know nothing, and this is a fallacy that verges on mendacity. Worse, to allege that there are many scientists attributing every event of severe weather to climate change is simply a baldfaced lie. To allege that it is more difficult to predict climate than to predict weather is indicative of either extreme ignorance or mendacity. And finally to allege that those who advocate addressing climate change are condemning the third world to poverty is the biggest lie of all. I have said many times that mitigating climate change and facilitating development are two sides of the same problem–that of developing an economy that is both ecologically and economically sustainable.
I have to say that I am disappointed with Dr. Christy’s elastic attitude toward the truth. Perhaps he should look at what the scriptures of his holy book have to say about mendacity.
2 November 2007 at 10:23
Walt Bennett wrote:
This can be accomplished through reforestation and organic agriculture, both of which have numerous other benefits.
Dan Hughes wrote:
Those are good questions.
In January 2007, the American Solar Energy Society published a report entitled “Tackling Climate Change in the US: Potential Carbon Emissions Reductions from Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy by 2030″.
The ASES report concluded that full application of existing energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies (wind power, biofuels, biomass, photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, and geothermal power) could reduce US carbon emissions by 60 to 80 percent by mid-century, which is in line with what mainstream climate science indicates will be needed to keep CO2 levels below 450 ppm, which is generally considered to be the level below which we can prevent “dangerous” climate change.
The report concluded that full application of existing energy efficiency technologies alone would “prevent our carbon emissions from growing over the next 23 years, even as our economy grows”; 57 percent of total reductions would come from energy efficiency improvements and 43 percent from expanded use of the six renewable technologies examined.
I suggest that you download the free PDF version of the report for more detailed answers to your questions.
2 November 2007 at 10:26
Re #42: [This simple statement begs several questions. (1) What are the technologies. (2) Where have they been implemented…]
That’s a question that’d require at least a book to answer in full. I’ll agree that “reasonable cost” is subjective, and AFAIK there’s no solid answer for “safe levels” except zero. But to make a start on the laundry list of CO2-reducing technology:
Nuclear power. Implemented in France & Japan, apparently at competitive cost to fossil fuel generation.
Electric trains & buses for medium & short distance transportation. Implemented in Switzerland. I don’t know about capital costs, but to the user it’s cheaper than flying or driving the same distance.
Fuel-efficient cars, available at your local Honda or Toyota dealer (or used car lot). Cheaper to buy than your guzzler.
Bicycle for short-distance transport, available nearly everywhere.
Turn out unused & unneeded lights, especially decorative landscape lighting. Your McMansion is ugly enough in the daytime - we don’t need to see it lit up at 4 AM
2 November 2007 at 10:51
Magnus, thanks for the warning about that notion. Sewage sludge is not a particularly good material to use for fertilizer. Heavy metals, antibiotics, and hormone mimics — sewage systems worked before modern technological pollution got bad, but they don’t remove the new bad stuff at all. And even clean sewage is loaded with viruses. Talk about stuff that ought to be going into deep geological sequestration!
2 November 2007 at 11:53
#28
[Response: Mr. Christy is the guy who made a sign error in his analysis of satellite temperature records, with the result that satellites didn’t show the warming measured on the ground. This was a big argument in the denialist quiver until Mears cleaned up the mess. David]
And I bet you Christy never admitted the mistake and let it fester in the web. A classic symptom of sceptic-cemia!
2 November 2007 at 12:02
Re #48. Potentially energy savings via efficiency gains only have a limited worth because people use the money saved to expend energy some other way. This has just been reported on in the UK during some CO2 savings exercises.
At present cars use gasoline, biofuel is no replacement for it but a supplement to it only. Replacements are a fair way off but yes hydrogen looks promising as some cars are about to be released that use it. However you have to produce and store hydrogen and I for one doubt that as serious undertaking as this is will be implemented in time due to cost reasons even if we can produce the stuff sustainably.
If peak Oil is correct then come 2018 world growth is going to be threatened, maybe before then. The situation is more pressing politicially then anyone thinks is peak oil is real and almost here.
Maybe sustainables can remedey our elctricity and heating needs but what comes after natural gas for heating homes. Some kind of electric house heating system that means we are going to need to produce a lot of electricty via sustainable means, generate our hydrogen, increased population and industry needs.
I doubt that any single body has though it through enough.
2 November 2007 at 13:45
David,
Why do you differentiate between Fossil Fuel CO2 and I suppose natural CO2 being “taken” up.
Thanks,
Steve
[Response: Natural CO2 cycles between the land, the ocean, and the atmosphere very quickly. But before we started adding fossil fuel carbon to the mix, the fluxes of CO2 balanced pretty much. Nothing was changing with time. So fossil fuel carbon versus carbon that was already in play is one way to divide things, another is net (one way) versus exchange (two way) fluxes. David]
2 November 2007 at 14:29
Re: #52 pete best
I tend to agree, which is why I’ve been pushing sodium fuel cells, though without any success. (Of course I have just an amateur’s understanding of the technology.)
Although it would take some development, there’s been at least one sodium fuel cell bus running since the mid ’90’s (see next to bottom paragraph here).
I won’t describe all of what I’ve worked out of the design advantages (and downsides) here, but I started a thread elsewhere.
What I will mention is that it can work like a battery, needing only electricity to recharge (which we already have a distribution system for), but at potentially much higher recharge rates.
The longer term issue is where to get power in the first place. IMO nuclear is the only feasible answer, preferably from the big reactor in the sky. I prefer solar power satellites, as they would have a smaller eco-footprint (you could put a rectenna over a peat bog or prairie), but I admit that earth-based solar panel installations will probably come first. (Does anybody here know whether you need fluorine processes in building power photovoltaic cells?)
2 November 2007 at 14:43
Mike McDonald wrote:
> And I bet you Christy never admitted the mistake ….
Mike, you lost your bet.
Before posting your belief, use the “Search” box at top of the page:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/more-satellite-stuff/
2 November 2007 at 14:47
re 42
David said, “The technology exists to cut CO2 emissions to safe levels at reasonable cost.”
This simple statement begs several questions. (1) What are the technologies. (2) Where have they been implemented. (3) Where are the data that validate the reduction in emissions. (4) What are safe levels for emissions. (5) What were the costs for implementing the proven technologies. (6) What are reasonable costs. (7) Where are the data that validate that the emission levels from the implemented technologies are safe.
=========================
I also think maybe statement might have been more accurate if David had couched it in terms of proposals and what we have already. Blanket statements always leave something to be desired but, to be fair, this is a subject that comes up frequently here, so I think your complaint is somewhat unfair. If you’re interested, there are the digital equivalent of reams of info on this site in many of the discussions on other threads that preceded this between people who seem to have a great deal of knowledge in the area, and maybe someone who was involved could point you in that direction.
But regarding answers, while I’m not a scientist, engineer or (shudder) statistician…
1) Let’s see…Solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, nuclear all come readily to mind. Agro-fuels are another, but I want to see more in that area, not just in terms of potential, but how well it will hold up in a warming world where agriculture might not be as abundant as it is currently, and where hungry mouths are on the increase.
2) Not to be smart, but I think a simple Google search would likely give you a general idea, which is why I don’t think it needs to be answered here Wind, for example, has been around for decades and is on the increase.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power
Likewise, solar power…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power
…both photovoltaic…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_cell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_solar_cells
…and the concentrated focusing of reflected sunlight…
http://www.solarpaces.org/CSP_Technology/docs/solar_tower.pdf
…are pretty easy to find. And let’s not forget passive solar:
http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/01-02/RE_info/passive_solar.htm
http://www.nrel.gov/learning/re_passive_solar.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_solar
Obviously they are far from perfect, but I think you could make a reasonable argument that if we really applied ourselves to the problem of increasing efficiency, anything is possible. And the more we apply ourselves, the more we will inevitably innovate and find even better ways of doing things. One need only look at what was spun off from the space program, or from the development of the transistor, to understand this.
3, 4 & 7) Can’t answer that for you, though, again, though I’d bet a google search might help you. Maybe someone else here with actual expertise in this area can also illuminate things for you. But, aside from production emissions in the factory where the equipment is manufactured, what emissions do YOU think will be emitted by solar or wind generators? Or by geothermal power generators?
And define “safe” while you are at it. IPCC safe? Or toxic emission safe, something fossil fuels most definitely are not. Again, re AGW, I believe this is information that is readily available, in this case in the IPCC report, in terms of what is projected as needed to acquire some sort of climate equilibrium. Extrapolate from there.
5) Costs. I would like to propose an additional question you might wish to ask in concert with this question: What would be the cost, given the increasingly obvious and detrimental effects of GHG-forcing, of continuing on as we are (business as usual)?
The short answer to 5: Who knows? Historically the introduction of new technologies has always been expensive. Look at the development of nuclear energy, of the U.S. Space Program. (Though I do recall a speech given to Congress in the late 70s, maybe the early 80s, by Robert A. Heinlein, later published under the title “Spinoff”, that suggested that the spin-offs from that program ended up paying for a large part of it, at least, up until the Space Shuttle.) The simple truth is new tech is ALWAYS expensive. (And if anyone wants to start drawing comparisons between Heinlein and Crichton, you’re just being silly. There is no comparison; the former actually had integrity.)
And in terms of costs are you looking in terms of short-term, or long-term? Short-term I would venture it would be prohibitively expensive. But given the nature of the emergency (and I use the word deliberately) I believe this is really a long-term question. In that case, if I was a betting man, I would say the answer is business as usual would be more expensive. Not just because of the GHG issue, either, particularly when you consider the effects of oil-based pollution on the biosphere.
Like it or not, we are reaching or have surpassed peak oil, as the demand continues to rise with more countries moving forward technologically and production increases being at best minimal. Look at it this way: sooner or later we will reach a juncture where it will cost a dollar’s worth of energy to extract a dollar’s worth of energy. That day is not here yet. But it is safe to predict that is we haven’t reached the point of dwindling returns on investment, we will soon. So we’re going to have to replace this form of energy with something else.
Nuclear fission is not a long-term solution, imho, from what I’ve picked up over time - if all the reactors anyone would desire to build were built globally, odds are the supply of fuel won’t last the century. Even if it did, with each new reactor you raise the odds of something bad happening, something with long-term ramifications on a continental basis. (Look into the history of the effects of Chernobyl for details or, even better, the events at Palo Verde in Arizona today, for an idea of the ongoing potential for problems these plants present.). And, of course, there is long-term storage of wastes. Fusion has been “just around the corner” since it was first proposed; so I wonder if we’ll ever pull it off – right now it remains less “sure” than a number of the alternatives being considered. Not that I would know with any sense of expertise…I’m not a physicist, after all, just an interested observer.
But it seems that ideally we want a technology that was cheap and relatively dependable. So solar and wind are obvious candidates. I think the real problem in this area are storage batteries and their impact. Maybe someone could address that?
6). Define “reasonable cost”. What would you consider a reasonable cost: perhaps something that involved not changing the manner in which you conducted your day-to-day life? Or how about keeping our technological edge? Perhaps something that didn’t force us to change the way we live at its most fundamental level?
Consider: we’ve always known that sooner or later we were going to have to change the way we did business. Only a fool could believe at this point in our history that we have an unending supply of fossil fuels to power our civilization. Yet we’re carrying on as if we believe just that and now it would appear the bill is coming due, global warming notwithstanding. Whatever the alternate technology or technologies may be, it is obvious that some countries are already researching and developing them (wind is very big in Europe, as I understand it), and it could be argued that, as with stem cell research, the U.S. is surrendering a technological edge to other counties by dragging its feet in the mud while it pursues policies that can best be described as counterintuitive to reality regarding what we’re faced. Ask yourself: as the century progresses, which country or group of countries do you think will be better positioned to maintaining their ability to survive and thrive: a country selling the technology, or one forced to buy it because it wasn’t willing to invest when it was obviously time to do so?
I think whatever happens, we’re going to have to learn to give up a lot of things we take for granted, change our way of doing business and commuting, nationally and globally. I think there are hard years ahead, many hard years, and the sooner we resign ourselves to the understanding this, the sooner we might be able to address this with a hope of coming out intact on the other end. Perhaps in the end only real question is whether we want to willingly accept these inevitable changes, or to have them forced on us by our own lack of foresight.
2 November 2007 at 14:57
Re #s 28/47/51: To all appearances Christy bought himself a Bob Carter mask for Halloween and forgot to take it off.
The Mears correction was so very, very public that Christy couldn’t avoid accepting it, but he and Spencer continue to err on the low side. There should be a comprehensive reanalysis out from RSS (Mears) in the pretty near future, and in a sane world that would put this debate to bed permanently. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to live in a sane world.
Folks may recall the CCSP report a couple of years ago on resolving discrepancies in the various temperature data sets. Christy and Spencer were brought into that process and signed off on its conclusions (which because of the perceived need to get them on board was much softer on S+C’s past work than would have been the case had they remained outside the process). Just a few months later C+S popped up at the Marshall Institute with a presentation of their new analysis that repudiated what they had just agreed to in the CCSP report, noting that of course had only their new stuff been ready in time they would not have agreed to the report’s conclusions. I sincerely hope their CCSP co-authors learned their lesson on this one.
AGU members will have noticed that Christy’s recent major foray outside the satellite temp data analysis field (a paper purporting to show that increased temps in the California central valley are an artifact of irrigation) was comprehensively refuted a couple of weeks ago on the front page of Eos. I cannot help but think that the prominence of that refutation (which occupied the entire front page even though the more typical practice is to put part of such articles on an inside page so that something else can be featured as well) was intended as a message to Christy.
Spencer, in the meantime, has branched out into an attempted revival of Lindzen’s “iris” hypothesis. While some skeptic/denialist commenters in another RC thread waxed hopeful about its implications, my impression is that the field doesn’t take it seriously (although since it did get published perhaps it will get a formal refutation at some point).
For some reason S+C seem engaged in doing what they can to destroy what were at one point a couple of pretty good scientific reputations.
2 November 2007 at 15:16
David, you wrote: “the pCO2 of the water rose twice as fast as the atmosphere did, by about 30 microatmospheres. The air-sea difference in pCO2 collapsed to zero in the high latitudes”
Wouldn’t it be reasonable to conclude that changes in water pCO2 were caused by some mechanism that is internal to ocean waters, and not by the relatively small external rise in CO2 concentrations attributed to humans? It certainly looks like the effect (water pCO2) should not be bigger that the cause (air pCO2)…
2 November 2007 at 16:16
Spencer has also endorsed Intelligent Design Creationism. I’m not trying to reopen that subject, but this should make it clear that views that are a bit unusual for scientists to hold.
2 November 2007 at 16:39
RE#13
Joseph Romm, nice piece in Slate with the duel with Landsberg. Good work!
2 November 2007 at 16:53
Re. #57, Steve Bloom:
The reason is clearly idealogical. Both are libertarians, and both work for several of the libertarian lobby groups that have been spreading a great deal of disinformation about science in order to further their anti-regulation agenda. Christy is a member of the Independent Institute’s Panel on Global Warming, while Spencer actively supports the Tech Central Science Foundation, the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, the Heartland Institute and the infamous George C. Marshall Institute.
2 November 2007 at 16:59
Go and check out the James Lovelock lecture on the royal society website. 3 or 4 down on the right hand menu :
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/
I was there and it was quite shocking to be in the middle of some of the worlds finest minds and not one of them was inclined to question his frankly apocalyptic take on AGW.
Keep up the good work Real Climate.
2 November 2007 at 17:04
Thanks for an excellent site. I’m an engineer by training & have been following the climate change issue for some years.
This may be considered a little off topic, but please bear with me, as you may well find this interesting, I hope.
One thing I have suspected from day one is that climate change & it’s effects would not be a ‘linear’ event, but characterised by feedbacks forcing sharply one way or the other - at some point. Forgive my simplicity here, but in light of the plethora of positive feedbacks & sq-root-of-very-little in the negative feedback corner, this screams out for a precautionary approach.
Forgive me again for my simplicity, but when the effects begin to lose linearity & show signs of heading round the ‘knee’ of the curve, as they have this last few years, we should be putting that precautionary approach on an urgent, emergency action basis.
Which, of course, is not happening….
In fact, when one takes account of likely substantial ‘export’ of emissions to China etc. (see New Economics Foundation ‘Chinadependence’ report), ‘business as usual’ best describes the results of the recent years’ political rhetoric, diplomacy & ‘greenwash’.
I have no doubt that we already have enough technological & scientific know-how to readily change course from these tipping points to anhilation.
So why aren’t we ?
I’ve been pondering this question for some time, and if you’re still with me, I’d like to share with you some thoughts & conclusions on this, and hopefully you might consider my post a little less ‘off-topic’.
We have a massive ’system’ problem in collective decision making mechanisms we describe as ‘politics’ or ‘democracy’. They are neither fit-for-purpose nor democratic.
Importantly, they contain virtually no feedback loops for our vital ecosphere and none at all that have a horizon much beyond the next ‘election’. The ‘Economics’ (money) subsystem is equally flawed & short term in outlook. The main ‘Information’ (Media)subsystem is clearly not fit-for-purpose either.
These outdated systems, born & little changed from pre-industrial fuedal societies ensured wealth & privilege for the few, misery & premature death for the many.
Economic growth of the Industrial age disguised or hid the worst realties of these systems of ‘governance’.
Unfortunately, we have reached the planets limits to our continued growth.
Under ‘feudal’ control, the inevitable large contraction of the ‘majority’ population on global scale will likely be very nasty indeed. The destruction of life on Earth (for a few hundred thousand years at least) is also possible.
However, help is at hand.
Capitalism 3.0 by Peter Barnes, proposes the best, workable, system ‘overhaul’ I’ve yet seen - by far, and, in true ‘commons’ spirit, it’s available for free pdf download.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/353333/Capitalism-3-0-Peter-Barnes
Do read it.
All we have to lose is our super-rich elites & their selfish agenda.
Thank you for indulging my oblique ? / off ?topic post - I’ll not make a habit of it.
2 November 2007 at 17:09
When you dissolve CO2 in water, it enters the carbonate equilibration system in the ocean:
CO2 + H2O = H2CO3 -> [HCO32-] - [CO32-] -> CaCO3
As the ocean’s acidity increases (especially in the surface waters), this will reduce the ability of marine organisms to form calcium carbonate shells, because the carbonate equilibrium will be pulled to the left.
This is why, originally, it was thought there’d be no problems with CO2 emissions:
However, the mixing time of the oceans is around 1,000 years under today’s ocean circulation conditions. This means that the past century of fossil fuel CO2 emissions hasn’t had time to equilibrate with the oceans. Furthermore, if we look at geological history, it turns out that huge surges of CO2 into the atmosphere can linger for a very long time. The event 55 million years ago resulted in changes in ocean carbonate chemistry that persisted for 100,000 years.
We can guess why that might have happened - extinction of marine animals that produce calcium carbonate shells is one reason, and a thermal stratification of the oceans that reduced mixing rates is another.
Notions that “the natural system will respond as needed to restore the balance” (i.e. Dr J. above) are teleological nonsense. It is true that, eventually, the land and oceans will absorb the fossil carbon that we’ve transferred from fossil fuel reserves into the atmosphere, but 100,000 years is a long time to wait for that to happen, isn’t it?
2 November 2007 at 18:14
Re: #56, #49 and #42 and the original #7
Some readers might be interested to hear that the Institution of Engineering and Technology launched a new journal in September 2007—IET Renewable Power Generation—that may provide more details. There are plenty of tools available to us *now* to reduce emissions and increase energy-efficiencies, as well as schemes to capture carbon dioxide—though its storage is less well-advanced, but extraction, injection and storage projects like the one involving the Utsira aquifer over Statoil’s Sleipner West gas production field in the Norwegian North Sea do show promise.
In any case, engineers are addressing this issue of emissions reductions from as many angles as possible, so many more solutions are in the short-, medium- and long-term pipelines! It does not help, though, if technologies exist and remain underdeployed, nor for engineers to design products that remain on store shelves, or are bought and not used. So, my message to Sarah is this ~ please do not despair, but do keep asking questions that move this whole game forward (like “How can I switch to renewables *now*?” etc.)
The following link should work for non-members of the IET, and you should be able to access these papers until 31 December 2007 (after that, contact me). The description that goes with the Call for Papers is as follows:
In addition, there are many opportunities for engineers to share best-practices, such as this seminar next week:
Emissions Reduction in the Oil, Gas and Chemical Industries - Technical Advances in Emissions Reduction
and most of these events are completely invisible to the public. Engineers typically get minimal attention from the media, until a product is unveiled (or a disaster happens) …
Finally, there are two articles that appeared in Power Engineer Magazine on carbon capture and storage (CCS). (I just posted them on my blog for general interest.) They share a title—both are Dead and Buried!
2 November 2007 at 18:21
Re 56
From what I have read the best hope for a replacing fossil fuels in the long term is geothermal. In the next few years advances in drilling technology should enable us to access hot rocks from practically anywhere on the Earths surface.
The snag is that it might take up to 10 years, time we may not have.
2 November 2007 at 22:27
Re #52: […but what comes after natural gas for heating homes. Some kind of electric house heating system…]
Not to get too far off into technical details, but most houses can get most of their heating needs from solar. Even retrofitting decent insulation can slash the amount of energy used for heating and cooling.
After that, sewage plants generate a lot of methane, and what’s that but natural gas?
2 November 2007 at 23:47
The whole situation looks dire to me, too. All the climate models I’ve heard about have been too mild (things are getting worse faster than any of them predicted).
Many have asked why, with available affordable technologies to reduce CO2 use, why isn’t anything being done about it? The answer is simply lack of political will. People simply don’t care, and they’re stupid (we’re obviously not an intelligent species; if we were, we would have not gotten ourselves into this mess in the first place). I don’t see anything meaningful being done about it. People like their cars and Americans don’t (and won’t) give them up. In spite of the obesity epidemic, people still want to drive everywhere, and live in suburbia, even if it means 1-2 hour commutes (long commuters are one of the fastest growing segments of our society, and I read somewhere there is enough of them now to stop any meaningful action on global warming).
So nothing will be done about it.
2 November 2007 at 23:54
Well Honda has a natural gas car. It has 0 emissions. Methane as a rule doesn’t burn. It just emits.
2 November 2007 at 23:56
6). Define “reasonable cost”. What would you consider a reasonable cost: perhaps something that involved not changing the manner in which you conducted your day-to-day life? Or how about keeping our technological edge? Perhaps something that didn’t force us to change the way we live at its most fundamental level?
I dunno. These days I like to turn the grid off to my house just to make sure I can run without it. I also like to walk outside and watch the meter spin backwards.
Okay, changing my lifestyle. When I switched from incandescents to CFLs my house stayed so much cooler that I was forced to open the windows to get some air exchange. My net lifestyle change was smaller electric bills (click the link under my name for a graphic) and more fresh air. Oh, and immunity from short term grid loss, and survivability in the event of a longer term loss. It’s a hard life. Someone has to live it, I guess.
There are entire subdivisions being built where I live that have 3KW solar arrays on the roof. I have 2100 watts — but room for more
There’s an entire subculture out there that’s already cutting carbon emissions to the bone and they don’t have anything near Gore’s wealth. Which he uses to spew carbon into the atmosphere at a frightening rate.
One of my ex’s refuses to use CFLs for outdoor lights. Why? Because they won’t turn on and off with photocell switches. Except that they are cheaper to run 24/7 than incandescents are to run 12/7 on average, year round.
The problems of saving energy aren’t real — most are imagined, just as the “savings” that comes from running incandescents with 4 times the power consumption, and a fraction of the life expectancy are imagined. Oil has been trading over $90/bbl lately. The people who are going to experience lifestyle changes are the ones who don’t start making the change to energy saving and renewable energy technologies.
3 November 2007 at 1:03
House heating, cooling, hot water: one or more, depending on circumstances:
0) design the house sanely in first place; reflective blinds; seal airgaps; check out house with infrared thermometer, improve insulation, check windows. If you build with thick walls in first place, they tend to soak up heat during day, give it off at night, which works well in Southwest.
1) geothermal heat pumps heat or cool
2) solar thermal for heat and/or hot water
3) solar -> electricity [PV or CSP] -> electric heat, on-demand hot-water
4) wind -> electricity ->electric heat, on-demand hot-water
(people are starting to build a variety of devices that may be mor practical at home)
Of course, the issue of batteries remains, but there is interesting work going on.
5) solar thermal for pool, turn gas heater off.
There are people around here building regular suburban detached houses, but off the grid, zero external energy, designs.
3 November 2007 at 2:18
Reading Canadell 2007, I observe that tere’s still a lot of uncertainty in measurments of carbon cycle. For exemple, uncertainty in annual fossil fuel + land use emissions is 0,5+0,4=0,9PgC/y. That’s nearly 41% of ocean sink (2,2PgC/y). And the airbone fraction graph (2A Atmospere) exhibits a strong variability, with most recent value not so high (higher values in the 1980’s, a 5yr smoothing for the trend would be interesting). A point I misunderstand in this graph for 2C is why the year 1998 does not show a net decrease in ocean fraction (with warmer oceans due to El Nino)
The trends observed by Le Quere et al. are eve smaller, as they concern just the Southern Ocean (0,08PgC/y/dec). And, if I carefully read their paper, the attribution-detection of the cause of this trend is not clear (a modification of winds, itself bound to SAM, ozone depletion or surface temp. gradients due to GW).
Mots of carbon cycle models announce a positive feedback for the century, bt I’m not convinced that these recent works are enough to infer a strong feedback.
[Response: The uncertainty in the land use change carbon emission, and therefore also in the “missing sink” terrestrial uptake, is particularly bad. 2 Gtons is more mass than the entire mass of humanity, going to ground every year, but we can’t find it. There are other uncertainties too, in every part of the story. But the fact that all indications, uncertain as they may be, point in the same direction seems to me significant. David]
3 November 2007 at 2:20
#57. All Christy and acolyttes offer is the same old song. They are the enlightened amongst a field of inferiors. Free lancing nothing but half baked theory rhymes in line with their frank assetion of incompetence with respect to understanding climate. They have credentials of substance but offer no substance to absorb as reason. Aside from exclaiming the variability of climate, without clear causations, it just varies that is all they know for sure. This key premise is shattered everytime it gets warmer at multiple locations around the world simultaneously. Probably allergic to weather maps, they haven’t noticed the sheer strength in this warming. Rather, they rely on their foes as fodder to criticize, a venting target no matter how right they were. Bottom line, they serve no purpose, like a bunch of guys at a bar blabbering the same old nonsense. What science they offer, flawed MSU trends, and Iris which remained shut when all this polar ice as melted, past climate which has no semblance with todays environment, it is a good thing that the climate varies! Yet it got warmer every single year since they refuted global warming. A vast majority of people on Earth already knew more than they claimed, about to be humiliated they changed their tune, global warming exists because its all around us. But at the end they failed the test of their greatest peer, which was once their future, it didn’t get cooler, but steadily warmer, from this lesson, they learned to fear most the future, having based their science on stature giving them the right to dispute anything at will, instead of practicing physics and chemistry leading them to the inevitable repeatable conclusions. The lot of them remain silent about what will come next, because they simply don’t have a clue. Spending vast energies in finding a cunning contrarian prose must be taxing, leaving very little time to do science.
3 November 2007 at 3:45
Great posts.
When I started out reading this blog, I would have categorized myself as somewhere between a climate skeptic and a climate denialist. I think this has changed and I am grateful for the helpful information found in this discussion, particularly. It has been an absolutely eye opening experience. I think I have a much clearer understanding of what climate scientists have to say about our world and I certainly believe that the danger is real. There can be absolutely no denial. Not for me, anyway. The danger is incredibly real and we are not safe.
3 November 2007 at 5:13
Re #58, solar would be useless in the UK winter for heating a current home. In the summer then yes it works but we only need hot water then. Thats the real issue, its cold and winter becuase there is not Sun.
I believe that other solutions may be applicable such as trans continental grids that use wind and solar from disparate sources to produce hydrogen etc and provide some electricity. I am sure it can bge solved but market forces are being quite slow to react.
3 November 2007 at 5:58
On the ability of humans to resolve AGW in time I would say this. It seems that the argument has moved on from if it is happenning to what to do about it which is good. However reticence is all around and the first world is loathe to give up any of its current lifestyle it would seem in the numbers necessary to make a difference and hence new technology must be key to resolving the issue.
So the first issue is population growth and longevity. 6.5 billion now to 9 billion by 2050, after that the global population is set to fall but 9 billion people is a lot to feed, clothe, house and give purposeful modern lives to.
Increased economic growth is fuelled by increase fuel usage and by 2030 the world will need 50% more energy then it consumes now. The vast majority of this is presently scheduled to come from fossil fuels because at this present moment in time with current economic and politicial thinking this is what works!! What is needed is new thinking in this area and new politics and economics with regard to promoting alternative energy strategies. Will it happen in time, maybe but it not looking good presently.
Oil is not going to be replaced by anything soon. Yes it may be mitigated by biofuels (first generation) but world food prices are rising to so this is not going to work to reduce oil use by any significant amount.
Efficiency gains are nearly always wiped out by people spending the money on other fuel consuming activities. This is awkward and will require a lot of thought to resolve. Oh I know tax is probably the only way here.
Sustainables and all that probably can work some kind of AGW miracle, hydrogen to maybe if we can produce enough of it, make enough cars and store it across the world in lot of small tanks called gasoline stations. But this troubles me because of time. I doubt that 40 years in long enough to replace the oil infrastructure of the world if we has the technology now. Heating buildings and home and new types of energy efficient buildings etc can help but it is not the whole picture and what about the energy used in making things and the role of plastics in society. Peak oil could make people think about energy security a lot sooner that AGW and hence much AGW strategy could go out of the window when freezing winters start nipping at our heels.
Coal is unlikey to get sequestered for a least a decade, just to get it going initially. To say that humankind would ramp up rollout in another decade is wishful thinking to my mind.
its not looking good.
3 November 2007 at 6:55
Toward the end of your comments, you say “The infamously hot summer of 2003 in Europe for example cut the rate of photosynthesis by 50%, dumping as much carbon into the air as had been taken up by that same area for the four previous years”. Please, could you be so kind as to explain why the rate of photosynthesis was cut. Also, do you mean, when you say that the result was to “dump carbon into the air”, that carbon was actually released by plants into the air or rather, that it was not taken up by photosynthesis?
[Response: Ciais et al conclude that it was a deficit of rainfall in eastern Europe, and heat in western Europe, that drove the response. The carbon storage of the landscape is determined by the balance of photosynthesis and respiration, so there’s less photosynthesis, the carbon stock could decrease. David]
3 November 2007 at 8:56
Thanks for this post. These kinds of positive feedbacks need to be presented. I don’t think the general public or our leaders have any idea about them….they’re just thinking linearly.
RE cost effective technology, there’s an engineer/architect in Naperville who specializes in passive solar for the Chicagoland area. He has a home that uses about the same amount of energy for heating/cooling as a gas streetlight. And he doesn’t even have PV solar panels or wind generators — just passive solar, good design, excellent insulation, and a highly efficient combination water heater/home heater. But his roof is oriented to be perfect for addition of PV panels.
The house costs about 5% more than a conventional house, but pays for that difference within 10 or 20 years (I can’t remember), then goes on to save money. And it doesn’t look weird or stand out. You’d never know it was a passive solar home. And it’s very very comfortable.
3 November 2007 at 9:46
Let me take a shot at #31 from Alex Tolley. Go to scholar.google.com which is a search engine for scientific literature and type in “climate change”. What you get will surprise you, it is almost all about biological effects and how to deal with them. The literature has moved on. This is something I noticed during the latest attempt to falsify Oreskes’ survey.
Fergus Brown did the same thing with”global climate change” and got the same sort of result. I’ll quote his conclusions:
“Firstly, that there is a vast body of evidence through all disciplines that global climate change is a matter of importance which is seriously addressed by each of these disciplines.
Secondly, that the vast majority of this research points towards impacts of global climate change which are negative, destructive, undesirable or, under certain circumstances, even alarming in their implications.
Thirdly, that the global warming which is consistently established as a causal agent in these impacts is potentially dangerous, either to specific or general objects, and that this inference is made time and time again on the basis of existing observation and due diligence in methodology.”
3 November 2007 at 10:04
The issue of religious belief has crept in here wrt Christy and Spencer. First, what I am about to say is as neutral as I can make it, and also reflects my opinion. I have known many professional engineers and scientists and many more science and engineering students. People are very good at compartmenting. The percentage of religious believers is very high in the US among S&E folk. Of that many are literalists. The numbers may not be as high as in the general population, but they are high.
In so far as they can compartment their religious beliefs from their professional life there is no issue, they simply separate them. A Civil Engineer who builds roads has no conflict with any religious beliefs. Same goes for a condensed matter physicist or a physical chemist. THE SAME IS TRUE FOR NON-BELIEVERS. Of course the rubber hits the road for biology and medicine.
3 November 2007 at 10:25
“The lot of them remain silent about what will come next, because they simply don’t have a clue.”
I see the climate skeptics changing their tune that it is better to adapt than to reduce carbon use (it is not in their nature to remain silent, they tend to be windbags). Their claim now is it is much cheaper to adapt, that reducing carbon use would damage the economy way too much.
Regarding the use of passive solar, how does that work when things really heat up and you don’t get the cold winters? Doesn’t your house end up getting way too hot? These architectural solutions for energy use don’t seem to make sense to me given a changing climate, since the house is being built for a particular climate that is changing rapidly now. It seems that the best architectural solutions would be building a house to reduce cooling costs (I think it is a waste of money to build a house to reduce heating costs since winters are getting warmer fast).
On another note, since there are real climate scientists on this list, I’ve heard on some of the TV historical shows, that the relatively stable climate of the last 10,000 years, that has allowed human civilizations to thrive, is actually an anomaly. I’ve seen this on a History Channel show about the 5-billion year history of the earth and elsewhere as well. Are these shows just saying this because they’re sponsored by SUV ads by car companies (so we won’t feel so bad about climate change) or is there any real truth to this? I haven’t read up much on paleoclimatology, but would like to learn more about it. The show I’m thinking about said that naturally occurring climate changes have been quite common, and the climate of the last 10,000 years has been unusually stable. This would imply that even in the current era of the Earth, that past ice age cycles had unstable climates. But, given the companies that support these shows, I tend to take it with a grain of salt and want to know what real paleoclimatologists think.
Another question I have is, in past eras (such as when the dinosaours roamed the Earth), the show said that the carbon in the atmosphere was really high, I believe much in excess of 450 PPM (I don’t remember what the exact number was). Back then, it was tropical even at the poles. I’d like to hear from a paleoclimatologist what the Earth’s temperature was really like during those times, and how much of it was desert, what the estimated CO2 amount in the atmosphere was, and if the Equator was unlivable (200 degrees or more). I’ve really been wondering this lately. If the Earth was warm enough for the poles to have temperate climates, what was the climate at the Equator (too hot to support any life at all)? I’d like to know, just to get an idea of what we’ve got to look forward to. How hot will the Equator get? Personally I believe that all the worst-case scenarios will be exceeded, and we’re just going to have to learn to live with the results of run-away global warming. Presumably all the fossil fuels we’re burning have carbon that was, at one time, in the atmosphere, and over millions of years went into plants that died and later got buried and turned into coal and oil. When all the coal and oil is used up, all that carbon will be in the atmosphere again, all at once. Will the CO2 level in the atmosphere, at that point, be higher than it ever was in the entire history of land-based plant life on the planet? Just really curious. Or, once all our coal and oil is used up (which I firmly believe it will be, at which point man will have to cut way back on energy use and get what energy he can out of alternative sources) will the CO2 level in the atmosphere still be less than or equal to what it was at some previous era that included land-based plant life?
It is hard for me to believe that in the dinosaour era (what you hear a lot about) there were so many tropical areas and so much water (the fossil fuels were formed from plants dying in swamps and not decomposing) when the planet was so much warmer. It seems like today’s global warming is turning everything into a desert, through excessive heat, dryness, and wildfires, that occur too frequently for plants to grow back. Here in the Pacific Northwest, in Western Oregon, we’re still getting near-normal rain (although longer dry periods than before) and it is still green with lots of trees, but I can’t help but feel that we’re next for massive wildfires like Southern California got (like in the next 10 years, at the accelerating rate of changes). And if fires like that hit here, it will be really bad due to the large trees.
On the issue of the world’s forests buring, shouldn’t we be encouraging logging of ALL our forests at this point, especially the rainforests, and using the logs for building lumber (not paper production) as opposed to either letting people burn the forests (as in tropical rainforests) or letting nature burn them (as in the U.S. and Canada)? I don’t think I support trying to save the rainforest any more. I think burning the rainforest should be strictly prohibited (with the death penalth) but the owners of the rainforest should be encouraged to log it and sell the lumber (the wood is top-notch and it is a shame to see it all being burned, when you can’t get wood like that for building any more in this country). That would keep the carbon sequestered for some time to come. And the people would make money selling the logs, then get to do what they want with them (grow beef, soy, or palm oil for biofuels) once they’ve sold the logs. That would be an economic incentive to those currently burning the rainforest. And I think we should encourage it and just write off the rainforests as gone. Since they’re going to be burned anyways, why not just stop the burning and encouraging the logging of them and the use of the wood for building? And that includes U.S. forests as well (even the old growth ones). And logging the northern forests has the added side effect of cooling the planet since the dark green traps heat. Indonesia, which is now the 3rd highest producer of greenhouse gasses due the burning of its rainforests, would probably drop to the bottom of the list if, instead of burning its rainforests, would chop them down and sell the wood for home building (or woodworking or any durable product use). I think the environmentalist’s attachment to trying to save the rainforest is a lost cause, and is causing countries with the rainforest to prohibit loggin, thus the people burn them so they can get land for raising whatever they’re raising. Does anyone agree here? At this point, we’re in damage control, and we’re going to lose a lot of species anyways, so let’s not make this change any more painful than it needs to be.
3 November 2007 at 11:12
The post implied that we don’t know for certain what caused the pCO2 of the North Atlantic to rise twice the rise of atmospheric pCO2 in the 94-05 decade. Is this accurate? Is there a current best guess for the cause?
[Response: I don’t think the cause of the change is known well enough to answer the important questions (1) has there been an increase in uptake someplace else, and (2) is this a trend or an fluctuation. David]
3 November 2007 at 11:16
So how much does increased exposure of Arctic Ocean waters to the atmosphere mitigate for either the North Atlantic’s stopped uptake, or for albedo changes?
[Response: Don’t know what the effect of the exposed Arctic has on ocean carbon uptake; good question. David]
3 November 2007 at 11:18
Re #70: [One of my ex’s refuses to use CFLs for outdoor lights. Why? Because they won’t turn on and off with photocell switches. Except that they are cheaper to run 24/7 than incandescents…]
Which of course begs the question: why have outdoor lights at all? Why waste energy & money lighting up the outdoors when you’re not outside? (Or even then: I often read outside on summer nights, using a small LED light that uses 2 rechargable AAA cells.) I think this is a prime example of where the only new technology needed is an attitude change, and one that would be helped considerably by an increase in the price of electricity.
3 November 2007 at 11:25
I’m more concerned about te intellectual climate.
3 November 2007 at 11:39
The co2 uptake is closely linked to the temperature:
http://virakkraft.com/tempco2corr.mht
It seems to be pretty much unaffected both by emissions and concentration in air. If temp anomaly were to drop down to -0.6 oC all our emissions would be absorbed.
The north-atlantic uptake slows down simply because the temp is increasing so much there.
3 November 2007 at 11:48
That virakkraft.com page is a mess of code, nothing renderable at least by my browser.
But your description doesn’t make sense, unless you’re assuming that emission and concentration aren’t correlated with temperature, for temperature to be the only thing related to uptake. Whatever you’re doing there isn’t physical chemistry.
3 November 2007 at 12:06
This may be a good place to re-ask a question. Some sources describe the largest carbon sink by far as terrestrial carbonaceous rock fed in large part by atmospheric CO2 absorbed by rain. How come I never hear of this? Is it valid? Or is there a time reason why it has no geologically short term effect? Couldn’t this be a mitigating or negative forcing effect, as in more CO2 means higher temps means more evaporation means more condensation means less CO2?
[Response: Chemical weathering does take up CO2, maybe 0.1 Gton C per year. This dominates the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere on geological time scales (myr), but is kinda small on anthropogenic time scales. David]
3 November 2007 at 12:08
47> Ray Ladbury: And finally to allege that those who advocate addressing climate change are condemning the third world to poverty is the biggest lie of all.
Ray, do you really think it helps your cause to call those who sincerely disagree with you liars? This is a controversial issue with considerable evidence on Christy’s and Lomborg’s (and my) side of the issue. We could be wrong, but for myself at least, it is a sincerely held position.
3 November 2007 at 12:35
Re. #66, David Price
A much bigger snag is that the US (which has probably the biggest potential of any country in the world to reduce its GHG emissions by utilising geothermal) recently cut the geothermal research budget to zero.
3 November 2007 at 12:38
Rod, this has been asked before and the answer hasn’t changed.
Your “some sources” ought to be identified by now, what are they?
If we can look at where you get these ideas we can help with them.
> terrestrial carbonaceous rock
Limestone, probably?
> fed
You can’t feed rock.
> in large part by atmospheric CO2 absorbed by rain
What?
Probably they’re trying to talk about how acid rain increases the rate at which limestone dissolves.
Somewhere you’ve gotten word salad. It’s not helpful. What’s the source?
Biogeochemical cycling. Rate of change.
3 November 2007 at 12:44
#87
Sorry about that, it’s a mhtml file from a powerpoint slide.
I’m not doing physical chemistry, I’m just refering to historical records showing that in colder years nearly all emissions are absorbed while in warmer years almost nothing is absorbed.
3 November 2007 at 13:34
Re. 89, Steve Reynold’s, it may be sincere in your case, but if as you claim it is sincere in Christy’s and Lomborg’s case, why do they completely ignore all the evidence (summed up in the IPCC reports) that it is the poorest countries which stand to suffer by far the most as a result of global warming, despite having made a negligible contribution to the problem? And how does this tally with the fact that the US Administration rejected Kyoto primarily because the poorest countries were not being asked to reduce their emissions in the current agreement?
3 November 2007 at 14:07
Re: various posts about forests.
#27 weather tis better… question about deforestation and forest re-growth and David’s inline response to the effect that, in the long run, it all balances out. David’s correct, of course, but the answer seems incomplete in the context of AGW, where I think it’s essential to consider the time value of carbon, i.e., carbon stored (or emissions avoided) today are worth more than carbon stored/emissions avoided in the future. After clearcut logging, even if promptly re-planted, a forest site will be continue to be a net carbon source for a decade or more due to decaying residue. Given how crucial it is to avoid emissions and maintain sinks now and over the next couple of decades, we should take no solace in the fact that forests regrow; a tiny pool of regrowth is no substitute for the large pool of a mature forest. Even though the rate of sequestration slows as trees mature, mature and old-growth forests tend to continue to act as net carbon sinks.
32 Cat Black and 81 Diane Wills and the presumed benefits of converting forests to wood products. As intuitively appealing as this may sound (and despite much promotion along these lines by the timber industry), it doesn’t really pencil out, especially if you again consider the time value of carbon. Logging a mature or old growth forest and processing trees into wood products release large amounts of carbon to the atmosphere. In the Pacific Northwest, with our exceptionally large trees, the best current estimate is that 50 percent of the harvested carbon (the biomass is about 50 percent carbon) is emitted to the atmosphere in the first year; and only about 25 percent is turned into long-lived wood products (the other 25 percent is left on the ground to decay). Elsewhere, the portion emitted is higher. This doesn’t count fossil fuels used in logging, transportation of logs, etc. Following Diane’s suggestion to avoid short-lived products like paper would improve storage somewhat, but not significantly. Even in the timber industry’s rosy scenario where wood is substituted for concrete, intensive forest management, wood products and substitution would take several decades to store more carbon than simply letting forests grown. It’s beside the point that there’s no real basis for the assumption that wood will substitute for concrete. The possibility that forests will burn sometime in the future doesn’t seem an adequate justification for logging them now with the guaranteed associated emissions.
David’s inline response to Cat Black #32 about carbon in soils of prairies and forests. It may not be definitive, but the one reference that falls to hand for me on this shows forest soils consistently storing about twice as much carbon as grassland soils for nine subregions of the U.S. (Birdsey, R. 1996. Carbon storage for major forest types and regions in the conterminous U.S. Pages 1-26 in N. Sampson, and D. O. Hall, editors. Forests and global change, volume 2: Forest management opportunities for mitigating carbon emissions. American Forests, Washington DC.) (Apologies that this reference is not readily available, but it seems to be the standard for the forest and wood products, etc. figures.)
There’s more that could be said about all this, but this is too long already. Hope it helps.
3 November 2007 at 14:31
Ray Ladbury wrote: “… to allege that those who advocate addressing climate change are condemning the third world to poverty is the biggest lie of all.”
Steve Reynolds replied: “… for myself at least, it is a sincerely held position.”
With all due respect, it would seem that the only way that someone could “sincerely” believe that addressing global warming will “condemn the third world to poverty” is for the person to be profoundly ignorant. Essentially every national and international organization that is working to address poverty in the developing world recognizes that (1) the developing world is already experiencing severe impacts from global warming which are aggravating poverty, that (2) the rapidly worsening effects of global warming will hit the developing world especially hard, and the developing world will be much less able to deal with such effects than the rich world, and that (3) global warming threatens to thwart and wipe out whatever reductions in poverty might be achieved by aid from the rich world to the developing world (eg. the Millennium Development Goals).
The idea that addressing global warming will perpetuate or exacerbate poverty in the developing world is not only wrong, and baseless, it is in fact the exact opposite of the truth.
So why do you “sincerely” believe it?
3 November 2007 at 14:58
Not the time or place to respond to Steve Reynolds (#89 right now), perhaps, but I’d just like to point out that suggesting an attempt to rein in CO2 emissions is argued against on one hand as being cover for a left wing conspiracy to shift wealth to poor countries and on the other hand for condemning the third world to poverty. This has nothing to do with the science, but surely this is fascinating enough to warrant some discussion at another location (perhaps Steve R has a suggestion for an appropriate forum).
3 November 2007 at 15:20
Ray:
I have said many times that mitigating climate change and facilitating development are two sides of the same problem–that of developing an economy that is both ecologically and economically sustainable.
Sounds great, and if this was the consensus opinion from the economics world we’d have a lot more agreement on how to proceed with mitigation efforts.
Unfortunately many economic analyses suggest that mitigation costs are so great they’ll hurt development in the poor countries far more than they’ll help them with benefits from less pollution and less AGW. The Stern report suggested otherwise, but does some of the math in an unusual way. Lomborg’s approach is a more standard economics treatment.
It is interesting how the economics debate, like the hockey stick stats controversy, boils down to some pretty nuanced stats that are very hard for many to follow (including me).
Steve:
This is a controversial issue with considerable evidence on Christy’s and Lomborg’s (and my) side of the issue. We could be wrong, but for myself at least, it is a sincerely held position.
Wow, that was very nicely put.
3 November 2007 at 15:42
Re: 89 “do you really think it helps your cause to call those who sincerely disagree with you liars?”
On the question Ray Ladbury raises, viz. whether “those who advocate addressing climate change are condemning the third world to poverty,” I’m moved to chime in that I also find this line of argument (which Ray denounces) particularly disingenuous and disgusting.
There have been numerous climate-trend studies which show the most severe effects of climate-change occurring in the poorest regions of the world. Around Bangladesh, water problems incessantly escalate on both sides: the demise of Himalayan glaciers and the rise of the Indian ocean. Meanwhile, Africa’s Sahel region grows more hellish every year. No previous “crime against humanity” approaches the scale of the genocide we now commit against poor nations with our pollution. There is a very serious global-justice issue here which is seldom if ever addressed.
3 November 2007 at 15:58
Daniel C. Godwin (93) — Yes. Which is one reason for liking Biopact’s approach.
http://biopact.com/
3 November 2007 at 15:59
No previous “crime against humanity” approaches the scale of the genocide we now commit against poor nations with our pollution.
Daniel this is the key point of contention, and if there was a good reason to believe this I’d be happy to donate to mitigation efforts rather than malaria nets. I’d encourage you to read up on this - there is a crime in our lack of funding for simple health remedies which could save some ten thousand people. Every day. Sure, I will vote to pull that from the military budget but as we prioritize research and spending to improve standards of living we should recognize where the money will do the most good. Also important to note that Sahel conditions appear to be more a product of regional climate change rather than global AGW.
3 November 2007 at 16:00
Rod B (88) Carbonaceous rocks were at one time a huge carbon sink (when they were laid down). Now as they decompose they once again release their carbon. Mankind is facilitating this decomposition by mining, grinding and spreading limestone on our fields to neutralize the PH of the soil. This is one of the reasons agriculture is considered to be so “carbon intensive”.
3 November 2007 at 16:01
Basically I am way way way late in deciding to post here once again.
But here is the conversational part: and then we get to the main course below.
Yes. After the last ice age and everyone of them, we saw an increase in atmospheric CO2. We do not know exactly where it ALL came from, but a warming ocean must account for a very very large part of it. That is, that within the boundless deep turns again home. That was the 800+/- year lag to the CO2 rise when the ice went off. It brought CO2 hanging around in the cold air at 180-190 ppmv (or less) to nearly 300 ppmv for some interglacial eras. Roughly as much as we have now pumped into the air, that is: 384 minus 300 equals 84 ppmv. So right now, with 384 ppmv in the air, can we expect additional ocean release in less than 800 years (200-400) that is now still entrained in the ocean? I believe (like an act of faith) that when the ocean reaches a punctuated equilibrium with the CO2 heated air, we will have experienced vast amounts of ocean embedded and buffered CO2 released to the air. But none of us will be around to validate that conjecture I posit on faith alone.
Main Course:
But. Initially when I read Sarah’s query and David’s response, I was concerned. David’s post is great and has the scientific conservative tone of an active player in the field.
Then Sarah . . .
#7 sarah Says:
1 November 2007 at 5:24 PM
I read this site regularly, although I have no science background. So I’m pretty hesitant to comment. But this especially sounds so dire. How much do you, as scientists steeped in this research, feel that human life on this planet has a fragile future at best? (I realize this is a broad question, so if it’s not applicable, please delete it.)
[Response: Don’t despair. If nothing else, it’s unproductive. The technology exists to cut CO2 emissions to safe levels at reasonable cost. David]
OK. Don’t despair (yet.) I agree. But the next statement which alludes to affordable technology and emissions at safe levels — disturbs me as it should many — and I see it did.
What on earth is the safe level of CO2 emission? USDA published a figure once saying the average human exhales 900mg of CO2 — and annually if you captured that CO2, extracted the C from it and used some vapor deposition form of layering it in diamond form you would end up with almost a cubic foot of diamond for every person. In other words, and I did a post on it, you exhale enough CO2 to make a cubic foot of diamond.
http://www.xomba.com/a_diamond_made_from_air
But the only safe emission level has got to be what is capable of sustaining a relative balance of C to maintain the temperature range for life on the planet. Right now, with the excess — it looks like the biological geological limit is the rough depth of the sawtooth in say the record from Mauna Loa.
That is why REALCLIMATESOLUTIONS.ORG needs to get into the act and explain how we get back to whatever stable level we need to arrive at for life species to be at a sustainable level — not the IPCC 450, 550, 700 or more levels “pleasant” to business interests.
This stuff IS going to be in the air for millenia unless real efforts are made to remove it, let alone stabilize it. Yeah, I’d like to see the real effort in removal and sequestration. Coupled to a bio-neutral level of emission.
If you ever read Larry Niven, the difficulty of civilization is getting rid of the heat. Here the CO2 is part of that heat problem
Obviously the interplay between ocean and earth is climate. Tectonics is slow to push chips here and there, so for long periods of time the fluctuating interplay between land and sea reaches an equilibrium — until something like us can interfere with it.
Life has had a good run, and could have as much as a billion years and maybe a hundred million years on top of that before the oceans begin to be lofted fully into the air and evaporate and rise to the warming Sun, H2 to Space, O2 to CO2. . .and Venus gets a sister. (not sure how long Venus’ H2SO4 clouds will last. They may be gone with a warming Sun by then. (Some students think it will take as much as 2 billion years to get rid of Earth’s climate moderating water.) I do not think we can push the runaway greenhouse now with anything monkeys can do. But we could make life difficult for a few millions of years, by carelessly pushing this, then that, species to the point of extinction. Many sapiens will die too. The MIT meeting on tinkering with the climate is not in anyway realistic unless huge means of rapidly removing and sequestering the atmospheric CO2 are initiated. We need to do nothing to increase the CO2.
For the record. The ocean sink is something likely to be filled and reversed if the ocean surface gets too, too warm — reaching the new equilibrium. Think of Realclimatesolutions.org as a credible mechanism. You guys ought to talk it up.
3 November 2007 at 16:35
Re 89. Steve Reynolds, perhaps you can think of a motivation other than mendacity for a scientist repeating arguments he knows to be false (e.g. we can’t predict weather, so we can’t predict climate), for smearing the entire scientific community with the epithet “alarmist” while providing not one single example of a climate scientist attributing a particular weather event to climate change, and worst of all, painting those advocating mitigation of climate change as favoring continued poverty for the third world. I find this last particularly galling, having myself pointed out that development and climate mitigation are just two facets of the same problem–developing an economy that is both economically and ecologically sustainable.
So if you can think of a lesser charge than mendacity for Christy to plead to that encompasses his rejection of evidence-based science, I’ll be happy to listen.
3 November 2007 at 16:39
Re: 94 liking Biopact
Some people like the idea of gobbling up the third world’s few remaining arable acres for the cultivation of biofuel crops. Not me. Look up the word “exacerbate” - it is not a synonym of “solve”.
3 November 2007 at 17:05
Daniel C. Goodwin (96) — The acres either are not arable or else are not required. Biopact’s total approach is actually most thoughtful.
In any case, those growing and processing biofuel crops now have a cash income, something they (often) had not had before. Largely it is a win-win situation, although there are some troubles with this concept, principally in Southeast Asia.
You really ought to read what Biopact has to say about themselves before just simply posting based on your mistaken assumptions.
3 November 2007 at 17:16
RE 91: I understand the interest in raindrops as a mechanism of removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
The raindrops have a large air/water surface area, so some of the atmospheric CO2 surely is absorbed and transported to the oceans, in addition to the direct air/sea interaction.
Anyway, the 100 million year old carbon we burn does not disappear; it circulates and does its tricks.
3 November 2007 at 17:27
About adaptation to climate climate change. It is frequently proposed that people with the probable problem of rising sea levels must just move somewhere else to live.
Adaptation is easier if decisions are taken in good time. So let us right now make moving a bit easier for them. Let us terminate all visa and passport requirements and frontier formalities.
This is not politically difficult. More real freedom for everyone, less big and unproductive government for the taxpayers to support. Who could possibly vote against it?
That exists now in the USA, and that is the stated goal of the European Union.
3 November 2007 at 18:01
#28 on re Dr Christy,
Very, very disappointing…
He states:
“The recent CNN report “Planet in Peril,” for instance, spent considerable time discussing shrinking Arctic sea ice cover. CNN did not note that winter sea ice around Antarctica last month set a record maximum (yes, maximum) for coverage since aerial measurements started.”
NSIDC note that “The area covered by antarctic sea ice has shown a small (not statistically significant) increasing trend.” Whereas they say about the Arctic: ” This trend is a major sign of climate change in the polar regions and may be an indicator of the effects of global warming.” http://nsidc.org/seaice/characteristics/difference.html
That’s only up to last year. More up to date data increasingly paints a different picture from that which Christy seeks to portray:
Antarctic anomaly: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg
Arctic anomaly: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.jpg
Comparing the 2 makes Christy’s statement look disingenuous to me. And that’s without labouring the perennial ice issue.
Yes climate’s always changing, so what is the alternate theory that explains at least the warming of the last 30 years? At the same time as we have global warming, we have an agent which, under the best available theory, we expect to cause global warming. Without an alternate theory he’s just asking us to accept that the warming is a coincidence in favour of a handwaving “natural causes”.
Anyway, here’s my nomination for Quote of the Week…
“We discount the possibility that everything is caused by human actions, because everything we’ve seen the climate do has happened before.”John R Christy.
3 November 2007 at 19:21
Dr. Francis T. Manns (85) says:
“I’m more concerned about te intellectual climate.”
We worry about that too
3 November 2007 at 19:22
Let me blind you with this science…..Next summer, there is going to be a lot of poor people in semi-arid places who will be suffering from the heat…..excruciating heat, with no recourse except to suffer. No air conditioners, little water, and lots and lots of heat. The summer after that will get worse. More science…in Bangledesh, water will cover the city in our lifetime, with the lack of bulldozers expediting that fact. Eventually, the land masses on this planet will become red hot all over, perhaps in your grandchildrens lifetime, for you young ones. human suffering will become commonplace, like Mexico and Haiti, but all over in bulk…..next year.
3 November 2007 at 19:36
> this planet will become red hot all over, perhaps in
> your grandchildrens lifetime
If you’re right, the grandchildren will live til the sun becomes a red giant and expands to reach Earth. That would be good.
I suspect you’re wrong.
3 November 2007 at 19:53
Dr. Francis T. Manns (#85) said this at gristmill:
“The effect of implimenting Kyoto would be disaster for you and yours. This is a case of needing to treat symptoms of global warming as they occur, if they are serious enough, without invoking Big Brother government to attack complex causes. The extremist model is not the only hypothesis. There are serious scientific questions. The spectal line of CO2 that is active in absorption is saturated. Additional CO2 cannot cause more warming.
Francis T. Manns, Ph.D., P.Geo. (Ontario)”
That notion was shown to be wrong well over 50 years ago. See The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect, Spencer Weart, aip.org:
Manns also claims that cosmic rays and sunspots are the real reasons behind the observed temperature trends. This has all been reviewed on RC, in 2004 and 2006 and 2007. Still, the same arguments keep rolling out, over and over, even after being debunked again and again.
3 November 2007 at 21:33
93 Daniel C. Goodwin> On the question Ray Ladbury raises, viz. whether “those who advocate addressing climate change are condemning the third world to poverty,” I’m moved to chime in that I also find this line of argument (which Ray denounces) particularly disingenuous and disgusting.
Why is it disingenuous?
While ‘the most severe effects of climate-change occurring in the poorest regions of the world’, the most severe economic effects of any likely effective mitigation will also be born by the people of developing nations.
For people who believe the economic effects of mitigation will be worse than the original problem (at least in short to medium term), aggressive mitigation is not in the interest of the poor.
4 November 2007 at 0:07
Re 89. This is another one of those statements that begs for more information. First of all, what is the evidence that you are citing? I keep hearing the argument, but those making it never seem to get around to explaining what supports it. In what ways will mitigation efforts make life worse in developing countries? Please be specific. Beyond that, I’m another person who finds the argument disgusting and disingenuous, given that those making it have not, to the best of my knowledge, previously demonstrated much concern with the problems of the developing world nor put any energy into solving those problems. They are using the argument solely in support of an ideological position. If no effort were being made toward climate mitigation, what actions would they propose and support right now to deal with the long-standing issues they have heretofore ignored?
4 November 2007 at 2:01
Re # 68 Diana Wills:
You really scare me with the last paragraph of your comment! Burning forest might add CO2, but subsequently, new growth takes it back up again. Lumber will take some carbon out of the cycle, but what is the average life time of furniture or wooden construction? Most will end up in the atmosphere within 100 years. Without forests, tropical soils deplete within years, and drying out creates irreversible changes, if the soils are not completely eroded away first.
Although the geographical distribution of the continents was different, life was doing great in the tropics during the Jurassic and Cretaceous. One of the reasons must have been the moderating influence of forests, providing evaporation (which cools directly, and indirectly through cloud formation). A great site to learn some basics of paleo climate is scotese.com.
4 November 2007 at 2:46
Re # 81 (sorry, not # 68), Diana Wills: about the paleo tropics:
Herrera et al. (2005), ‘Warm (Not Hot) Tropics During the Late Paleocene: First Continental Evidence, American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005.
(http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUFMPP51C0608H)
4 November 2007 at 5:45
Re #56: I read all too little about ocean thermal energy conversion. There is a near-unlimited supply of it, and it already works, providing many tropical island communities with power, cooling and sweet water.
One nice thing about this technique is that it is preferentially available to countries near the equator, where most of the future growth in energy generating capacity is going to take place, both due to population growth and industrialization.
Unfortunately that also seems to be the reason that little research money is going into it. What is happening is mostly small and private.
4 November 2007 at 7:44
#113, Steve Reynolds, are you really trying to convince us that you sincerely believe that if US citizens and businesses start to waste less energy and use more renewable energy, that will be cause subsistence farmers in Zambia and Bangladesh to suffer, and to suffer so much that the increases in droughts and floods that they are experiencing as a result of AGW pale in comparison? And please could you explain, in that case, why the US administration gave as its main reason for rejecting Kyoto the fact that countries such as Bangladesh and Zambia were not being asked to reduce their emissions under Kyoto?
4 November 2007 at 8:54
RE #81 & “Regarding the use of passive solar, how does that work when things really heat up and you don’t get the cold winters? Doesn’t your house end up getting way too hot?”
Ken’s house (#78) stays pretty cool in the summer. Summers do get very hot in Chicago’s far suburbs. And the sun is more overhead then, so it doesn’t go through his southern facing solar absorbing windows. Plus he has removable awnings, and deciduous trees that are bare in the winter, allowing sun in, and shady in the summer. His northern side has high, small windows, and is bermed almost up to them (but you can hardly tell, because of the beautiful shrubbery on the berms); this not only helps keep it warm when it’s cold, but cool when it’s hot outside.
Finally his air-tight design & great insulation helps to keep cool, as well as warm, air in. (He also has a 4-stage filter system to bring outside, super-purified air in — 5 min every hour — so it is an extremely healthy environment.)
My only thinking on this is after the 70s energy crunch, why haven’t ALL homes been built this way????!!!!
4 November 2007 at 9:13
Steve Reynolds,
While Christy at least has his missionary background as support for his concern for the developing world, Lomborg and his fellow yuppie-scum seem to reserve their concern for when it can justify inaction on climate change. However, I see no evidence that Christy’s concern with the plight of the poor extended beyond his quest for their souls. In any case, anyone who has examined the problem in any detail has concluded that we cannot just look at current CO2 emissions, but must look at where they are growing most rapidly and where their growth is expected to pick up (first and second derivatives, if you will). This was the failure of Kyoto–it did not look at China and India, where economic growth was moribund when the treaty was initiated.
Economic aid to develop green energy and transport infrastructures in developing countries will pay significant dividends both for their development and for stabilizing climate. Development is a part of the equation for sustainability, not a competitor.
The entire argument that states that we must allow development, so we must do nothing about climate is false on technical grounds, false on economic grounds, false on humanitarian grounds and false on historical grounds.
You state that the consequences of climate change will be less than the consequences of addressing it in the near term. However, climate consequences extend into the distant future and it is unwise to suppose that these threats can be met by simple technological fixes–particularly if we don’t allow time for those fixes to be developed. I can only presume that Christy posits a fiath-based solution.
4 November 2007 at 10:07
Re #113 Steve Reynolds “While ‘the most severe effects of climate-change occurring in the poorest regions of the world’, the most severe economic effects of any likely effective mitigation will also be born by the people of developing nations.”
I think we need argument rather than mere assertion here. Since poor countries (”developing nations” is for many of them a pusillanimous euphemism) produce much less greenhouse gas emission per capita than rich ones, any international agreement on reducing emissions (and without such an agreement, there’s no way they will be reduced) is bound to require greater reductions of rich countries. The latter are also far more dependent on high-energy and other high-emission practices. So why will the people of poor countries be more affected?
4 November 2007 at 10:13
OFF TOPIC (slightly) - The dilemma of reporting climate change in the media.
Two articles reported in the Telegraph (a co called right wing intelligensia newspaper in the UK) reports two climate articles.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/04/eamussels204.xml
and
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/04/eaclimate104.xml
One story deals with the reality of climate change with a BAU and the other denies it is happenning completely.
The battle of hearts and minds still goes on let alone implementing the solutions.
4 November 2007 at 10:44
Steve L> This has nothing to do with the science, but surely this is fascinating enough to warrant some discussion at another location (perhaps Steve R has a suggestion for an appropriate forum).
I agree; RC is not the place for this discussion.
I suggest:
http://fergusbrown.wordpress.com/
Fergus is certainly not on my side of the issue, but I think he welcomes discussion of economics and philosophy.
4 November 2007 at 11:15
Re # 41 Eli Rabett “pCO2 is awful… How about changing over to Pco2 or some such.”
Physiologists have long denoted CO2 partial pressure as PCO2 (with subscript 2). It is the chemists and chemical oceanographers who for some reason adopted pCO2. They also give their pCO2 values in units of microatmospheres, which I find annoying. But, then, I’m stuck in the world of torr (or mm Hg) and kcal, having never quite made the transition to S.I. units.
4 November 2007 at 12:23
Joe Duck wrote: “Unfortunately many economic analyses suggest that mitigation costs are so great they’ll hurt development in the poor countries far more than they’ll help them with benefits from less pollution and less AGW.”
With all due respeect, that is false. It is simply not true that “many economic analyses” suggest that. Nearly every economic analysis of the question strongly suggests the opposite. The overwhelming consensus of national and international organizations that work to overcome poverty in the developing world is that their efforts will be undermined and defeated by the effects of anthropogenic global warming, and that dealing with global warming is an absolutely essential requirement for improving human well-being in the developing world. The support that you claim for your opinion (”many economic analyses”) does not exist.
Steve Reynolds wrote: ” … the most severe economic effects of any likely effective mitigation will also be born by the people of developing nations.”
You offer no evidence to support the assertion that “the most severe economic effects” of mitigation will be to “developing nations”. In fact there is no such evidence and there is no reason to believe that this will be true. On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence and plenty of reason to believe that (1) the economic harms of global warming will hit developing countries and the poor especially hard, undermining and defeating all efforts to overcome global poverty, and indeed this is already happening; (2) developing countries and the poor lack the resources to deal with or adapt to the effects of global warming which will multiply the harm and the human suffering it will cause; (3) developing countries and the poor stand to economically benefit from a global effort to mitigate and reverse global warming through the development and application of energy efficiency, clean renewable energy and organic agriculture technologies.
Moreover, since the harmful effects of anthropogenic global warming that we are experiencing now and will experience in the next several decades are overwhelmingly the result of fossil fuel use by the rich, industrialized world — in particular the USA — the rich nations of the world have a responsibility to help the developing world with any harmful economic impacts that mitigation may bring, as well as to fund technology transfer to the developing world so that the poor countries can bypass unsustainable and destructive fossil-fuel based development, have access to the technologies and tools to provide clean renewable energy needed for sustainable economic development.
Steve Reynolds wrote: “For people who believe the economic effects of mitigation will be worse than the original problem (at least in short to medium term), aggressive mitigation is not in the interest of the poor.”
There is no valid reason for anyone to believe that “the economic effects of mitigation will be worse than the original problem” for the developing world, or the poor, or the vast majority of human beings on this planet. The only reason I can think of that someone would “sincerely” believe this is that someone has heard it repeated over and over again by various propaganda outlets and has uncritically accepted it as fact and neglected to investigate the facts which show there is no basis for this belief.
There is one group of human beings on this planet for whom the “the economic effects of mitigation will be worse than the original problem” and that is people who profit from the use of fossil fuels. A “business as usual” approach — with fossil fuel consumption increasing and accelerating until it eventually peaks and declines due to depletion of supplies — stands to bring trillions of dollars of profits to this group of human beings. They do not want that flow of profits to be “prematurely” ended because the world embarks on a program to rapidly phase out the use of fossil fuels and migrate to clean renewable energy sources, which is at the heart of any global warming mitigation agenda.
Of course, most people are not going to shed tears over the prospect of Exxon-Mobil losing some of its multi-billion-dollar annual profits as income and wealth shift to manufacturers of wind turbines, photovoltaics, biofuel systems, etc, so rather than bring their case honestly to the public, the fossil fuel profiteers promote bogus talking points about how “the poor” will suffer from addressing global warming.
4 November 2007 at 12:40
re 119
Short, cynical answer: Because they consume less energy, and thus cut back on profits. If you question this, remember what Enron did to California at the very beginning of this century.
This may sound extreme (but then, so is the long term outlook for the effects of climate change on the biosphere we depend upon for sustenance) but I’ve felt for a long time that regulations should have been put in place long ago that maintained all new single-family homes and rental properties should be constructed with an eye on passive energy-saving architectural principles, and that they should be mandated to have a “plug-‘n’-play” set-up for hooking up energy alternatives like solar and wind, leaving the owner with the option to install panels or windmills.
The irony is readily apparent – if we had these things put in place even a decade ago, we’d be much further along with a response to AGW, and have the beginnings of an infrastructure in place to expand upon rapidly.
4 November 2007 at 12:44
Carbonate rock refers to limestones (CaCO3) and dolomites (MgCO3); carbonaceous means mostly made of organic carbon, like coal or black shales.
4 November 2007 at 12:47
Lawrence Brown.
A short note of thanks for your recommendation made elsewhere of the Nov/Dec issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Very good read, expanding on something I read in Field Notes From a Catastrophe.
There are several pieces in the mag re Climate Change worth reading; interesting, sobering reads that address some of the discussion brought up here. And the discussion with Bruce Smith regarding the viability of nuclear power as a response to climate change is very clear in showing why this is probably not a very good idea.
4 November 2007 at 13:24
> carbonate, carbonaceous
Yeah, without knowing Rod’s “some sources” it’s hard to figure out where the confusion is arising.
Rod, in 88 you
> re-ask a question. Some sources describe …
What source?
4 November 2007 at 14:08
Thank you for that clarification Figen Mekik.
4 November 2007 at 14:17
Re 81. Diane, take a deep breath. There are a number of good books out there on passive solar for heating; you might find it worthwhile to take a look. At http://www.asespubs.org/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=41 you’ll find an interesting blurb about one of those books; the write-up gives a brief background on solar heating and passive cooling.
You’re right that use of passive solar for heating in cold weather can be responsible for overheating in hot, but there are well-known and understood design principles that allow passive solar to work both efficiently and comfortably during cold seasons while preventing overheating in hot seasons. For example, I have a sun porch on my house that has windows on the east, west, and south. In spite of the fact that the porch is poorly insulated and distressingly leaky (yeah, I know, mea culpa), it stays fairly warm in all except the bitterest cold weather. When we bought the house, the porch would get hot, hot, hot and uncomfortable in the summer. A little effort with various means of shading has mostly solved that problem and I believe we can do more. You can see a very basic illustration of the difference in the way the sun strikes a house between winter and summer and what it means for passive solar at http://www.nesea.org/buildings/passive.html.
There are some great resources out there for using the sun for our energy needs: passive solar for heating through building design, solar collectors, solar hot water heating, and photovoltaics for electricity. If you can find an energy fair in your area, you can learn a lot about how all these things work and what is available right now. Some of the products are still prohibitively expensive in the short term, but I believe that situation is changing and will continue to do so. Of course, the question is whether it will happen as fast as we need it to or not, especially given the current lack of leadership and the committed efforts of vested intersts.
As for temperatures getting warmer and doing away with cold winters–I don’t know that anyone is predicting tropical climates in the north in the near future. (Are they?) Where I live, at a little over 40 degrees latitude north, average monthly temperature from December through March ranges from a high of 39.4 degrees to a low of 26.1. Even if the atmosphere warmed up by 20 degrees in the next few years, I’d still need heat to keep my house livable during those months, although not as much as currently, of course. Still whatever amount of heat I need has to come from somewhere–better that it come from passive solar to the greatest extent possible than from continued use of fossil fuel. Better insulation and other conservation measures and better use of sustainable energy sources could make a big difference in how much CO2 we release into the atmosphere. No one effort is going to solve the problem, but, seriously, every little bit helps.
4 November 2007 at 15:44
Re: #119 (Lynn) and earlier comments re low energy housing…
Try Googling “passivhaus”: a German design system for housing that uses no energy for heating or cooling. Passivhaus UK might be a good place to start…
4 November 2007 at 17:52
Here is a slightly different take on the main topic of this thread:
http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2007/11/carbon-cycle-misfortunes.html
which illustrates the necessity of immediate action with excellent graphics.
4 November 2007 at 18:50
Re: solar houses and such
http://www.solardecathlon.org now shows the results of the 2007 university competition to build good-looking & efficient solar-powered homes.
The top 4 of 20, from around the world were:
#1 Technische Universitat Darmstadt
#2 U of Maryland
#3 Santa Clara University
#4 Penn State
7 of the 20 teams got 100% on Energy Balance.
This was a pretty serious evaluation.
4 November 2007 at 20:16
Re:#128, J.S.’s comments. I also found the articles in the latest issue of the “Bulletin” timely and important. Chris Mooney does a thorough job of exposing the foot dragging by the current administration, and the interview of Dr. Smith points up the enormous risks associated of using nuclear fission as an alternative energy source.http://www.thebulletin.org/
James comment #84, shows that common sense has to go along with the use of improved technologies.What’s the point indeed of lighting up the sky at night? It gives cause to wonder whether, if we develop practical and affordable cars that get 80 miles per gallon, will drivers quadruple their mileage? This is why conservation is an important element, that ought to go hand in hand with improved efficiency.
BTW David gaves a good primer on the factors that effect the PH of the oceans, on RC, a few years ago that’s pertinent to his introductory post.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=169
4 November 2007 at 21:02
125 SecularAnimist> You offer no evidence to support the assertion that “the most severe economic effects” of mitigation will be to “developing nations”. In fact there is no such evidence and there is no reason to believe that this will be true.
I have tried to point to such evidence (supported by 4 Nobel Prize winning economists), but apparently RC does not want you to see it; they censored my post.
SecularAnimist> There is no valid reason for anyone to believe that “the economic effects of mitigation will be worse than the original problem” for the developing world, or the poor, or the vast majority of human beings on this planet. The only reason I can think of that someone would “sincerely” believe this is that someone has heard it repeated over and over again by various propaganda outlets and has uncritically accepted it as fact and neglected to investigate the facts which show there is no basis for this belief.
The only reason that you can think of is incorrect. Please ask your question at the Fergus Brown site so I can answer without being censored.
4 November 2007 at 21:47
Hank, one of my sources of carbonaceous rocks:
http://www.colorado.edu/GeolSci/courses/GEOL1070/chap04/chapter4.html
4 November 2007 at 22:08
Mary C and SecularAnimist re: Mitigation Costs:
My suggestion of a consensus among economists is based on my understanding of the work of Yale Economist Robert Mendohlson, a leader in this field who has extensively reviewed and published on this topic. I’ve emailed him for some clarification, but I think Steve Reynolds has this right.
Secular a challenge in the way you address this above is that we all use fuels, and we could all cut that amount down. Almost everybody agrees that we should cut CO2 and GHG emissions, and everybody agrees we should not completely ban all energy use tomorrow.
The question is this: What is the optimal balance with respect to mitigation? Almost all scenarios show that GDP will initially take a hit from massive mitigation - this is the large “cost” to the economy. The benefits depend a lot on how seriously climate change will hurt economies and also on assumptions about discount rates and such. Thanks to econ analyses we now know the folly of a pure Kyoto style approach (high cost, low benefits) and indicates why we need to look at the economics as we take steps to mitigate GHGs.
Also - the risk to developing countries argument I (and Steve) make above is based partly on the inevitable GDP hit they’ll likely take during crucial development stages and also assumes that if we suboptimally allocate resources to AGW mitigation we will have less to devote to helping poor countries in other respects. This latter point is weaker than the GDP argument but it is better than begging the question about prioritizing taxes and funding for important things. Many would suggest that expensive mitigation has a lower ROI than poverty assistance.
4 November 2007 at 22:57
Re #131: You should also note that solar heating doesn’t have to be passive. Passive solar generally needs to be designed in, as it’s an expensive remodel. Active solar collectors can be much less expensive, and can be retrofitted to most houses. Do a search on something like “solar space heating”.
4 November 2007 at 23:24
Economists have a notoriously low track record in their ability to predict the costs of environmental regulations.
I prefer science to ummm whatever economics is. Whatever it is, it is clearly not science.
5 November 2007 at 0:53
OK, Rod, the source you gave includes the same answer Dave gave:
“Carbonate - Silicate Cycle
… Time scale for this cycle is millions to hundreds of millions of years, so not a major concern of humans… ”
Accelerating that — mixing CO2-rich exhaust gas with ocean water and crushed limestone — has been proposed as a way of sequestering carbon in the ocean — giving the ocean a dose of calcium bicarbonate:
http://www.geol.ucsb.edu/Graduate/GS266.imgs/Caldeira_Rau_GRL_2000.pdf
Caldeira And Rau: Accelerating Carbonate Dissolution To Sequester Carbon Dioxide — Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 27, NO. 2, Pages 225–228, January 15, 2000
That was 7 years ago, I didn’t search for subsequent papers citing it to see what’s become of the idea; followups probably belong in the Geoengineering thread.
5 November 2007 at 1:15
140# dhogaza - yes, it is not clear that any of the so-called schools of economic theory (neoclassical, institutional, etc) address the matter of economic phase transition, which is the sort of thing that is being approached now. the challenge for economists is to present a framework that describes the mix of both first-order phase transitions and continuous phase transitions as the unsustainable emissions ‘bubble’ that is the current world economy and that has developed since the industrial revolution goes pop. it is difficult enough to describe and analyse phase transitions for physical systems; much harder therefore for a system whose signalling systems are ungrounded and whose structures have deliberately cut off so many of the earth’s feedback signals to it.
5 November 2007 at 4:09
#55 Hank Roberts Says:
2 November 2007 at 2:43 PM
Mike McDonald wrote:
> And I bet you Christy never admitted the mistake ….
Mike, you lost your bet.
Before posting your belief, use the “Search” box at top of the page:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/more-satellite-stuff/
Hank – thanks for the realclimate link which states that Christy+Spencer first introduced their error in 1998. Then Christy gave testimony, based on the erronous data, to the Senate in 2001. Then apparently the error was sorted out in the latter part of 2005. Are we saying that this uncorrected work was hanging about the web for - how many years? Seems like my bet was pretty safe for a certain amount of time.
Has Christy gone back to the Senate and said “You know that stuff I said back in 2001…?” The realclimate link did say “it will be interesting to see if this is now corrected.”
5 November 2007 at 4:45
Re the John R Christy debate (#28), is this the same guy that has just co-authored a paper claiming that cirrus cloud cover decreases during tropical warming cycles? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071102152636.htm
The science seemed interesting but I found the comment by one of the other authors rather suspect “Until we understand how precipitation systems change with warming, I don’t believe we can know how much of our current warming is manmade. Without that knowledge, we can’t predict future climate change with any degree of certainty.”
And he also had a pop at climate modelling “Let’s see if climate models can get this part right before we rely on their long term projections.”
Is this just more ‘cuckoo science’ or an interesting discovery?
5 November 2007 at 6:39
Re #138,
On a somewhat lighter note: http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3160#more
Two economists find themselves locked in a basement. They’re not sure what time it is, because it’s dark and they can’t read their watches. They think it’s nearly dinner time, cause they’re starting to feel hungry. But they’re not worried; they are not starting to panic - because they know that their demand will create sandwiches for them!
5 November 2007 at 7:14
#55
Hank.
It looks like the bet’s still on.
I took your advice and did a bit of researching about Christy. He has his own little page on exxonsecrets and in the Guardian from this year (2007) I found:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2032361,00.html
QUOTE
“The film (TGGWS) also maintains that manmade global warming is disproved by conflicting temperature data. Professor John Christy speaks about the discrepancy he discovered between temperatures at the Earth’s surface and temperatures in the troposphere (or lower atmosphere). But the programme fails to mention that in 2005 his data were proved wrong, by three papers in Science magazine.”
UNQUOTE
It looks like Christy forgot to mention that too. I missed his condemnation of TGGWS as well. Or corrections to what he said in the film.
I found the transcript of TGGWS at:-
http://connected.uwc.ac.za/blog/index.php?/article/bcb724-tggws-the-transcript/
QUOTE
[[ Professor John Christy ] What we’ve found consistently, is that in a great part of the Planet, that the bulk of the atmosphere is not warming as much as we see at the surface, in this region. And that’s a real head-scratcher for us, because the theory is pretty straight forward. And the theory says that if the surface warms, the upper atmosphere should warm rapidly. The rise in temperature of that part of the atmosphere is not very dramatic at all, and really does not match the theory that climate models are expressing at this point.]
UNQUOTE
5 November 2007 at 8:04
Steve Reynolds @136: I doubt very much that RC censored your post. They have been having intermittent problems with their software over recent months; comments often go missing without a trace. This happens to me about one comment in three.
If they wanted to censor you, why would they allow you to post at all?
5 November 2007 at 8:41
Re #144: For Roy W. Spencer, see this:
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=19
For the paper, it is in Geophysical Research Letters, i.e., legit. Let’s see how it holds up. It would be good to see a RC review of this.
5 November 2007 at 9:19
RE mitigation costs, here’s a method that might help:
1. First enact all purely money-saving measures, such as conservation (turning off lights not in use, cutting motor in drive-thrus, buying next house close to work, reusables, reduce); buying GreenMountain 100% wind-powered electricity, which saves a couple of bucks a month over conventional, dirty-powered electricty. And other such measures that purely save, with absolutely no up-front costs at all.
2. Then once one has saved some $$ from that, plow that into low-cost, money-saving measures — CF bulbs, low-flow showerheads (which cost $6, but save $100 or more per year on water & energy to heat it), etc.
3. Then once one has saved $$ on 1 & 2, then plow that into more expensive money-saving measures….maybe a SunFrost refrigerater, which really costs big, but also saves big.
4. Then once one has saved big $$ on 1, 2, & 3, start plowing that saved money into things that pay for themselves, but do not go on to save more $$, AND into things that cost, but do not pay for themselves over time — like plug-in hybrid cars (which should be available by then).
That way a person without a dime to spare (probably because of his/her energy/resource waste/inefficiency) can do it, which means everyone can do it. The rich can do it faster by investing their surplus, but even the poor can do it this way.
Net loss: zero
Net gain: life on earth
5 November 2007 at 9:21
RE censorship on RC (#136), I’ve been censored in the past, but what I’ve found is if I tone down the rhetoric, make it polite and appealing to logic and reason, and make it more on-topic, it get accepted.
5 November 2007 at 9:31
Nick Barnes> I doubt very much that RC censored your post. They have been having intermittent problems with their software over recent months; comments often go missing without a trace. This happens to me about one comment in three.
If they wanted to censor you, why would they allow you to post at all?
OK, let’s test your hypothesis. I will post it again immediately after this post.
5 November 2007 at 9:32
Here is the repost:
Steve Reynolds Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
4 November 2007 at 10:40 AM
To 95, 114, 118 who all seem to think there is no support for the idea that putting resources into AGW mitigation could be bad for the poor, please look into the Copenhagen Consensus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Consensus
http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/Default.aspx?ID=788
5 November 2007 at 10:02
Thank you for the response to my comments at 37, but your remarks do little to advance my understanding of the quoted carbon exchanges. The reply also leaves me wondering if the data given by UNESCO is suspect and if the real sensitivities could be dangerously misunderstood.
Let me quote you the main figures from the diagram (Gt/y to atmosphere +, from atmosphere):
1.Fossil fuel/cement +7.2
2.Anthropogenic land use change +1.5, land sink -2.4
3.Respiration/fires +55.5, net primary production -57.0
4.Background ocean/atmosphere +70.6, reverse -70.0
5.Anthropogenic ocean/atmosphere +20.0, reverse -22.2
Why are exchanges at (5) quoted as already a large fraction of those at (4) and currently no less than 3 times those at (1)!?
Sorry, but I cannot see how the picture given in the chart, if accurate, can be entirely irrelevant to atmospheric concentrations. The figure quotes the ocean sink as 38,000 Gt, slightly increased (by 135) through anthropogenic influences to date. However, it also quotes the atmospheric sink as originally 590 Gt, but now increased by 204, much more significant, of course. If the net exchanges at (4) and (5) were to become seriously positive for a variety of reasons, this would have a dramatic effect on the rate of atmospheric CO2 increase.
5 November 2007 at 10:07
Re “I’ve been censored!”
I had a big post Sunday. It didn’t go through. I am pretty sure that the software simply swallowed it. Two weeks ago three posts. Might have liked the post from yesterday to go through. Even more wish that I had saved it. I probably should always backup the big ones. Oh well. Might not even be the code, really, just the traffic. Sometimes I can’t get through, either.
Anyway, unless someone is completely off-topic, I really doubt they will be “censored” although the impolite stuff might get edited. (That has happened to me a couple times.) But a contributor or two might actually refuse to post something if they think it is impolite through-and-through and getting personal (that’s happened in one case in the time that I have been here) or they have given someone several warnings about simply repeating the same arguments after several days after those arguments have been addressed. (I have seen the latter happen once as well.) But in either case you will know. You won’t have to guess.
5 November 2007 at 11:11
Why wouldn’t increased CO2 in the air lead to increased CO2 solubility in seawater due to Henry’s Law? The Henry’s Law effect is much stronger than temperature.
Based on crude calculations I’ve made since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we have increased the CO2 content of surface waters by something on the order of 5% or more. Such a change corresponds to a large amount of atmospheric CO2–on the order of 50, 100 ppm or more, depending on how thick surface waters are assumed to be. As CO2 levels rise why wouldn’t solubility follow and absorption continue?
What am I missing?
5 November 2007 at 11:43
Re 152 “Copenhagen Consensus”
Speaking of disingenuous, the name Bjorn Lomborg seems familiar to me from somewhere…
If only there were a rule that proven liars have to shut up for some decent interval. As it is, my feeble mind is overtaxed in remembering many names I’d prefer to forget.
5 November 2007 at 11:47
Steve Reynolds,
Frankly, there are many economic analyses of climate change out there, and the ones put forward by the Copenhagen Consensus, (which, coincidentally or not, fit nicely with Bjorn Lomborg’s preordained world’s view), are not impressive. More pertinently to this thread, they do not as is substantiate your claim about mitigation costs to the poor. Let me explain: there is no doubt mitigation will negatively impact economic growth rates in the short term. Given the high sensitivity that poor nations and individuals have to these, there would be an argument to be made. However, the overall effect on these is directly accounted for in any CBA, and the sensitivity holds throughout, so if a CBA passes, this is not a valid argument (only if a CBA didn’t pass, and people argued from an aesthetic point of view that we should go forward with mitigation to protect the environment, the argument would be valid).
Outside of that- indeed, quite separate from it- is the degree to which mitigation spending creates greater welfare than development or malaria spending. It is manipulative and a red herring to suggest that somehow climate change needs to be pitted solely against charitable giving in the third world as the only two options for funds they artificially cap at $50 billion. Manipulative because charity spending, (as embodied by 3rd world development aid- note the last word), should have a higher threshold in a CBA than spending for one’s own benefits, (which very much describes mitigation), a distinction Lomborg is very much in the business of obscuring. A red herring because, if development spending passes a CBA given that higher threshold, bring it on. However, even if it were the case that such spending passed an appropriate CBA, and did so at a much higher utility than climate mitigation, that would not at all demonstrate that we shouldn’t spend on mitigation. It would rather mean that we should not spend the marginal wealth on the lowest welfare impact public good, and the Copenhagen Coalition does not have analysis to support that this is global warming mitigation (but yet they come to that conclusion anyway. Hmmm….).
As an aside, all that takes their conclusions at face value- quite charitable given that neither the Copenhagen Consensus nor any other one has demonstrated the first part, let alone the second (that mitigation is last), with any analysis more substantial than a block of swiss cheese. Indeed, there is very little in the Copenhagen Group analysis which is analytically compelling- its solution is an artifact of its formulation, (see Jeffery Sachs criticism of the highly engineered $50 billion figure alluded to in the Wikipedia article, not to mention my point and the much larger issues with the type of CBA at the heart of the analysis).
If you are interested in an economic review that is illuminating of its subject matter, you should look for one that recognizes the basic reality that we are not talking about charity with AGW mitigation, but investment in our own well being. One cognizant of the fact that there are more than two or three or five public goods for consideration in spending, and one that does not discard inputs simply because they are difficult to quantify- (Have we explicitly modeled uncertainty about climate sensitivity? About discount rates? How do we model damages in the distant dark reaches of a thick right tail? What is the statistical value of human life? And for center of the distribution modelers, what types of wars and terrorism is fought for or financed with petrocurrency? Can we expect there to be no geopolitical conflict as a result of climate change? How expensive are the agency issues associated with mitigation?). In short, you should look for an analysis that does not wear its science like a straight jacket. It turns out the difficult things to model are where the action is. When we arbitrarily discard them as the Coalition does, should we really expect the analysis to be valid?
A true welfare analysis takes into account all costs and benefits, (mitigated damages but also mitigated risk and uncertainty), uncertainty about climate sensitivity, about stochastic discount rates, etc. To date, there has not been very compelling work in this area, but that is changing. You will realize when you read that that ’skeptics’ criticism of the Stern Review is minor compared to the error any CBA that ignores uncertainty makes. And I’ll just keep posting that until someone picks up on it and realizes its pivotal significance.
doghzaa, et al, you may not like economics, but it’s the only decision tool we have. Simple science is insufficient for policy decisions, and it’s highly unlikely dead reckoning leads to any better conclusions (and is clearly more at risk of manipulation). What we need are economists who don’t simplify their analysis to fit within their comfort level and tool set, something we’ve had far too much of to date, (but as noted, is changing).
5 November 2007 at 12:06
#125 SecularAnimistOf course, most people are not going to shed tears over the prospect of Exxon-Mobil losing some of its multi-billion-dollar annual profits as income and wealth shift to manufacturers of wind turbines, photovoltaics, biofuel systems,
Here’s a fun question: What % of XOM’s annual $400B in sales will be shifted to solar cell and other alt fuel manufacturers in the next 50 years? If you assume 50%, and if you believe that there will be a handful of leaders in the new space (typical in all segments of import), then that means that some solar cell company with a reasonable IPR position (take SPWR as an example) sitting at around $200M in sales today will be posting 20% YoY growth for the next 50 years to fill that void. It’d be unprecendented. But it also highlights how significant of an investment opportunity might exist.
Of course, if it looks inevitable, then it’d be easy for XOM to simply buy a few of these alt energy companies. SPWR is only $10B right now. Even with a few years of solid growth they would still be easily purchased by an oil company.
XOM won’t go away. They might morph into something else. But they won’t go away.
I wonder, too, if oil turns into the cheap fuel for emerging nations in 50 years. If EU + US do indeed bite the bullet and push to do the right thing and get off of oil, then world demand drops and the price would fall to unprecendented levels, making it much more attractive for nations that are seeing their population adjust to standards similar to what the west is enjoying today (1.8 cars per family, 3 TVs per house, etc).
If we opt to get world CO2 output to 1975 levels (arbitrary date, but presumably safe), and if we assume everyone in the world gets to produce CO2 equally (fair assumption for 2100 as India, China rise to current western standard of living), then per capita CO2 production in the US needs to drop by 96.3%. EU per capita CO2 production needs to drop by 92.5%.
Simple conservation doesn’t get us there unfortunately.
5 November 2007 at 12:45
Steve Reynolds, So, do tell. When did the Copenhagen Business School take such a deep and abiding interest in the plight of the poor? Certainly, I find nothing among the “experts” to suggest any experience dealing with development issues–and squat when it comes to expertise in disaster mitigation, super-cat insurance or anything else associated with mitigation of risk.
The Copenhagen Consensus may well have been a consensus, but it certainly was not a consensus of experts in any field relevant to climate change mitigation or international development.
I take only two things away from what I’ve read of the Copenhagen Consensus:
1)Mere agreement does not make consensus (which must be based on evidence and the opinions of experts in the relevant fields)
2)Of course we need to take care that in our urgency to mitigate climate change, we do not embrace the false economy of sacrificing economic health and continued development.
The climate mitigation vs. development dichotomy is a false one. They are both aspects of sustainability.
5 November 2007 at 12:47
Re #138 Joe Duck “My suggestion of a consensus among economists is based on my understanding of the work of Yale Economist Robert Mendohlson, a leader in this field who has extensively reviewed and published on this topic.”
Joe, can you give a more specific reference to Mendohlson’s views on the comparison of mitigation and impact costs? I can’t find anything he’s written specifically on that. He does say (Mendohlson, Dinar and Williams Environment and Development Economics 11: 159–178
“The distributional impact of climate change on rich and poor countries”):
“This paper has shown that climate impacts have large distributional
consequences. The bulk of the damages from climate change are likely
to fall on the poor countries of the world.”
In the same paper he advocates a carbon tax on all countries, the proceeds to be used to help poor countries develop. He does say:
“Rather than focusing strictly on mitigation, the carbon program would modernize developing countries, making them more capable of taking care of themselves.”
However, since the carbon tax would itself be a mitigation measure, he’s clearly not opposed to mitigation. I would oppose the authors’ suggestion that the World Bank (which is of course run by rich countries in their own interest) should administer this fund, but the idea of a global carbon tax hypothecated to helping poor countries grow economically is certainly worth considering - provided we add, as they do not, that this should also be oriented toward minimising any resultant increase in emissions from those countries.
5 November 2007 at 13:01
Re # 155 Mike Alexander: “Why wouldn’t increased CO2 in the air lead to increased CO2 solubility in seawater due to Henry’s Law? The Henry’s Law effect is much stronger than temperature.”
Henry’s law states that the concentration of a dissolved gas (Cx) is equal to the partial pressure of that gas (Px) times the solubility coefficient for that gas in a particular solvent (alphax; note that various symbols are use for the solubility coefficient):
Cx = Px x alphax
The solubility coefficient is determined by the temperature and chemical composition (e.g., salinity in the case of seawater) of the solvent. So, in the technical sense, solubility (i.e., solubility coefficient) is independent of the partial pressure. Some people use the term “solubility” when they really mean concentration - is that how you are using the term, Mike?
5 November 2007 at 15:07
Nick re: Mendohlson on Mitigation. I have a great email response from him about this - asking for permission to post it here. The gist is that the optimal approach starts with inexpensive mitigations and scales these up over time as technologies and effectiveness increase.
5 November 2007 at 15:45
Re Steve cites Lomborg in 152:
Citing Lomborg is hazardous to your argument. I’ve had live, face-to-face discussion with him. I can assure you, he doesn’t know the first thing about ecosystems, feedback systems, or climate science.
When I asked him about “fishing down the food web,” he said that this is simply removing the oldest fish from the population. My jaw literally dropped at his ignorance.
To my knowledge, he has never published in a peer-reviewed journal. Sincere nor not, if you follow him, you will be led astray.
5 November 2007 at 16:37
Re Jim’s concerns: have you read the Copenhagen Consensus material regarding how to prioritize spending? Any specific complaints about how they order global priorities?
5 November 2007 at 16:38
Joe Duck,
Make sure and ask him if his “optimal approach” is optimal under explicit recognition of uncertainty in the climate sensitivity scale parameter and discount factor (indeed, what method of discounting he is employing, or details and assumptions of his “optimal” strategy full stop). It is also worth noting that Mendelsohn is on the record as claiming that North America and northern Europe will benefit from global warming, to say nothing of this beauty:
…which makes it rather difficult to justify spending on emissions.
I wonder if the scientist visitors to this blog thread might have a go at that floating grapefruit for our friend Joe.
5 November 2007 at 17:03
And Joe/Steve, if you like Mendelsohn, you should see his interactive map of which countries/demographic is getting hammered, by global warming. Indeed, Northern Europe and North America are doing splendidly, (assuming of course those ice sheets hold and you don’t live by the coast if they don’t!- and of course that heat stress doesn’t effect water supply- and that Cardio Vascular disease is still a leading killer, i.e. stasis in medical technology and infectious disease agents, of course etc. etc. etc.), while Africa is looking at massive economic contraction. Good thing most of the world’s poor live in the middle to high latitudes… err…
5 November 2007 at 17:13
Re Joe’s comment at 164, Lomborg and I locked horns during his Copenhagen Consensus presentation at Microsoft Research a couple of years ago.
My biggest complaint was that he completely neglects feedbacks among his various solutions; what good will it do us to save millions of people from malaria and AIDS, only to see them die a few years later from climate disaster? And what if climate change also causes the spread of diseases? He called that a “tertiary effect” and dismissed it.
But mostly I was there to challenge him on his Skeptical Environmentalist claim that “species extinction is a problem, not a catastrophe.” He stood by it — to him, a board-foot of wood is a board-foot of wood, whether it comes from the Amazon Rainforest or a cheap pine-monoculture tree farm. I tried to talk to him about loss of ocean biomass to factory trawlers, longlines, shark finning, etc., and that’s when he made his amazingly ignorant assertion about fishing down the food web.
Since he doesn’t have the first clue about ecosystems, why should we believe he has a better grasp of economics?
5 November 2007 at 17:25
> he doesn’t have the first clue about ecosystems,
> why should we believe he has a better grasp of economics?
Is any coursework in ecology required for a degree in economics these days?
5 November 2007 at 17:42
“Floating grapefruit” — How apt a remainder of the perilous state of the oceans. Which, amoung other problems, are becoming less basic, more acidic. Which does bad things to the base of our food chain.
The food chain for all the people and other living creatures on the face of the earth.
Disclaimer: While I am a visiting (retired) scientist here, none of this remotely relates to my specialty. However, this is eighth grade general science, nothing deep or difficult.
5 November 2007 at 18:05
Re Hank’s question: “Is any coursework in ecology required for a degree in economics these days?”
An important question. To my mind, both disciplines would benefit from greater integration.
But as far as Lomborg is concerned, he has neither an environmental nor an economics background; he’s a statistician, and afaik, he remains unpublished in any peer-reviewed journals.
5 November 2007 at 18:20
Note to the moderators: I’d recommend you consider a “whitelist” for commenters who have posted nothing abusive - hopefully that is most of the folks participating here? People think they are getting censored when I think they are just delayed somewhat irratically via the moderation queue and the quirks of wordpress blogs.
Everybody should note that moderated comments may appear earlier in the comment sequence.
Majorajam: Disagree with most of your note above - Mendohlson’s economic qualifications in this area are almost unmatched. However you are correct to note that the discount rate is a key factor and unfortunately this single factor changes one’s conclusion about how to proceed. Stern in UK, for example, used different assumptions about discount rates and concluded early and massive mitigation is called for. He noted it would have a large initial cost in lost GDP but felt this was justified in terms of preventing giant economic losses in future. However, Mendohlson’s treatments appear to be more in line with mainstream economics though I don’t claim much expertise in this field. My B.S. is Botany, MS Social Sciences.
5 November 2007 at 18:37
dhogaza (140), did I get this right? Are you asserting that climatologists are better at figuring out economic things than economists are? I also think the average economist’s forecasts are pretty poor. But are scientists, or proponents like on RC that predict sanguine economies all around, better?
5 November 2007 at 18:52
RE the poor and their needs, I think it really behooves us to cut our GHGs, if not to save the earth and reduce GW harms to the poor (& to us & future generations), then at the very least so as to save money, so we can donate it to the poor. People ought to put their GHG cuts (and the money they reap from them) where their mouth is.
5 November 2007 at 19:16
Hank,
Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you’re any kind of environmentalist, even a skeptical one, it’s considered a good idea to be less than monumentally ignorant of ecology. Saying that, I don’t think that was your man’s point. That rather seems to be why should we make the effort to evaluate the work of someone given to making patently false statements outside or inside their field of expertise in any context. I have no reason to doubt Jim’s testimony, however we certainly don’t need to take it on faith. There are literally dozens of instances where Lomborg is on the record taking liberties with the evidence, and his example is not in the least bit out of character with the remainder of them.
Joe,
As with the Copenhagen Coalition, Mendolson’s assumptions account for his results, and their validity is what I was getting at with my post to you. I was hoping you’d get a response on the board from Mendohlson to my queries. You could ask it differently too- at what cumulative probability do large scale damages from ice sheet melt enter into your estimate of mitigation benefits? How valid would results be given a climate sensitivity of 7 degrees centigrade? Things like this. From the Weitzman paper people seem intent on ignoring, “What we do know about climate science and extreme tail probabilities is that planet Earth hovers in an unstable climate equilibrium, chaotic dynamics cannot be ruled out, and all eighteen current studies of climate sensitivity cited by IPCC4 taken together are estimating on average that P[S>6ºC] = 5% [i.e. the probability that climate sensitivity is greater than 6ºC is roughly 5%].” You could quote him that and ask him whether his analysis suffers from ignoring what mainstream climate science is telling us about possibilities.
You might also want to ask yourself if the idea that a changing climate would have a net zero effect on aggregate welfare seems reasonable to you prima facie, and whether someone who starts out by arguing such a thing with confidence truly has ‘unrivaled credentials’ or whatever you’re trying to make stick here. There is plenty of evidence of some rather dire ramifications of global warming, but more to the point, presumably we’re all most well adapted to our current climates, meaning changes imply at least the cost of realigning that adaptation, no? This highly basic observation implies net costs. You should also familiarize yourself with the strength of the assumptions needed to make any of these CBA’s go, and hold your nose when you do as they’re not pretty. In the case of an assured climate sensitivity of 3ºC that matters greatly (and more so the interest rate, about which you shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss Stern, especially considering your endorsement of the Cope Coalition). At thick tailed probabilities of very large climate sensitivities, these assumptions disappear underneath “fear of ruin”. That matters too.
As far as what I’ve said that you’ve disagreed with, and the only thing that comes to mind is the effect of mitigation on the unwashed poor, I suggest you see Mendohlson about that as well. You can’t just use him selectively for confirmation of your prejudices- he’s either a legend in his field beyond the skepticism of mere mortals, or not.
5 November 2007 at 19:35
Joe Duck, the problem with Robert Mendelsohn’s argument is that the mitigation must be sufficient to avoid the majority of the adverse consequences, and the climate has positive feedbacks that will kick in at some uncertain level of CO2. If we exceed this level, all the mitigation will have been in vain. Risk mitigation requires that we pursue mitigations in order of maximum net benefit (net, because we have to consider cost). But above all else, we must pursue sufficient mitigation to be effective.
Mendelsohn et al. do not have a good understanding of climate consequences. No one does. However, an unknown risk is not a risk you can ignore, as Mendelsohn does. His recommendations are tantamount to an economist in the midst of hyper-inflation suggesting that the government cannot tighten the money supply, because it would be bad for the economy.
5 November 2007 at 19:38
No, but economists have a discouraging tendency to assume that environmental factors have zero value (in economic terms), which leads to a huge bias against spending any money whatsoever to minimize environmental harm.
5 November 2007 at 19:42
The Weyerhaeuser chair in a management school is a mainstream economist?
5 November 2007 at 19:57
“Is any coursework in ecology required for a degree in economics these days?” (Re:168).
I don’t know, Hank, but two semesters of economics were required for a bachelors degree in engineering way back when. We used a book by Paul Samuelson to give an idea of how far “when”. It’s kind of like chicken soup. It can’t hurt. Since it’s used as a significant factor in many areas of civil engineering from economical design of structures to equitable distribution of water resources, it helps to be on speaking terms with their vocabulary,as well as some basic principles.
5 November 2007 at 20:48
“Is any coursework in ecology required for a degree in economics these days?” (Re:168).
Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at The University of Vermont might be a good place to start.
http://www.uvm.edu/giee/?Page=default.html
5 November 2007 at 22:06
#163 Jim Galasyn: To my knowledge, he has never published in a peer-reviewed journal. Sincere nor not, if you follow him, you will be led astray.
And yet when peer reviewed stuff comes out that folks don’t like, they pooh-pooh that too
Witness Roe and Baker. And of course, when stuff comes out that isn’t peer reviewed that people like, even when they get some stuff wrong, the wagons circle again. “Well, he’s mostly right! And he’s not even a scientist! Sure there’s a bit of alarmism in there, but there HAS to be. THE MAN IS AWESOME!!!”
But mention Lomborg and people’s eyes cross in rage. No slack for him!
The guy has published 500+ pages of very technical stuff, with plenty of pointers to the actual studies. He’s readily accessible, interviews often, and is happy to discuss in any forum (can’t say that for Gore). He’s not a scientist, but I think he’s done a really fair job of researching the distilling the info. Mistakes? Of course. Show me a 500 page book with nearly 3000 footnotes that doesn’t make mistakes.
He was particularly effective last go round, and came across as a lone voice of reason amidst widespread hysterics in the NY Times interview (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/science/earth/11tiern.html). And again, I think that is what rub folks the wrong way.
Lots of folks like to talk about accelerated famines, plagues, etc, but the largest body of consensus on this just doesn’t really support that. The IPCC isn’t even really all that scary on water level rises.
Now, back to extinction that you brought up with him. Read Lomborg’s section on biodiversity in SE to get some context. Incredibly, it’s full of scary predictions from the last 40 years. In 1979, we were told we were losing 40,000 species a year. Gore still cites that number. Harvard biologist O. Wilson claims 27,000 and 100,000 per year. Ehrlich, coming off his several other spectacular predictions, claimed in 1981 we lose 250,000 species per year. And in case you weren’t scared by that, Ehrlich claimed in 1981 that all species would be gone between 2010 and 2025. And then Lomborg cites studies showing there are 1,600,000 known species (estimates are between 2M and 80M species total), adn 1033 known extinctions since 1600.
He explains that if a species lasts 1-10M years, with 1.6M species we’d expect to see 2.5 natural extinctions per year, and takes things from there. Very sane reasoning. Overall, I thought a very strong chapter. What specifics did you take issue with?
6 November 2007 at 0:00
He’s boring.
6 November 2007 at 0:17
Well, yes, when a non-scientist presents the consensus position in science, we may say “he’s awesome!”
And why not?
And when a maverick gets a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal, which contradicts the commonly-accepted consensus position, we may say “we think he’s wrong”.
Why do you have a problem with that?
Is there something special about his name that makes you think this is wrong? People publish rational defenses of astrology and the like all the time, which have no basis in the real world.
Are we supposed to cut them slack, too, even if they’re scientifically ignorant?
So have many Astrologists. Does this mean they’re right?
And if they publish 1000+ pages of “very technical stuff”, does this mean that astrology is twice as right as Lomborg’s anti-science crusade?
And yes, you’re boring, as pointed out above.
6 November 2007 at 1:33
Having waded through most of the posts this evening, my question is, who of the decision makers are reading any of this? by that I mean local municipal politicians. These are the folk who affect real change in what happens in most of our communities. I see a real disconnect between what you the scientist are discussing and what the local politicians are concerned about.
The canary in the coal mine just doesnt cut it any more! how can you get your message to the people that make the day to day decisions about policy that determine what goes on on a local level count? It is all very well to discuss esoteric nuances of AWG and of CO2 problems, meanwhile we have armies of lunatics lining up at Tim Hortons drive throughs with their gas guzzling SUVs waiting to buy a cup of coffee!!!! Drive throughs shoud be illegal anywhere! these are areas that local politicians have some clout. I live in a place where they think that coal bed methane is a good thing for the economy and that coal liqudation and gasification is going to save the planet! We have a long way to go folks!
Iam working on a passive solar home and am building it myself. I hope I am not too late!
Michael
6 November 2007 at 2:04
#181, #182 Hank and dhogaza: You’re boring
And yet you bite every time
The key point, dhogaza, is that Lomborg is a slightly more technical Al Gore. Both rely on scientists to do their analysis. Both do a very good job of acting as a public face on each of the arguments. Because they aren’t scientists, I’m not sure it’s fair to hold one to a higher standard than the other as most here do. I do think Lomborg brings some very unique viewpoints that are worth thinking about to the table. It’s rather refreshing, because few are offering solutions. The scientists are all very good at saying “look how screwed we are”, the engineers are all good at saying “just tell us what to bet big on and we’ll make it cheap and safe”, the finance guys are ready to back anything that will make money, the environmentalist wackos are all using this to push their same tired agendas that have indirectly caused us to remain stuck on coal, and the public policy folks are all very good at…at…well…who knows. Fanning the flames I guess.
So let’s recap:
1) Lomborg’s media impressions are indeed damaging to the cause
2) Lomborg is deemed credible by the mainstream media (WSJ, NYT)
3) Leading scientists won’t debate Lomborg
4) Untold websites and hours are spent attempting to refute Lomborg
Hmmmm. I don’t think the 4 assertions above slightly re-phrased are true for astrology. Perhaps you need to re-think your argument or concede that he’s quite effective, and probably more accurate with the science than many here would like to admit. Certainly more accurate with the science than Al Gore was in AIT.
And if they publish 1000+ pages of “very technical stuff”, does this mean that astrology is twice as right as Lomborg’s anti-science crusade?
Let’s not forget the number of math errors that have slipped through 12 page peer reviewed articles, OK? The point stands that Lomborg’s book was well researched and covered a lot of ground. Expect there to be errors.
6 November 2007 at 4:43
What specifics did you take issue with?
Matt that is an excellent question. These are complex issues and thus it’s best to identify a specific “falsehood”.
what good will it do us to save millions of people from malaria and AIDS, only to see them die a few years later from climate disaster?
Jim this answer seems to suggest that “millions will die” in a few years from climate change? This is not a reasonable assertion. Millions die every year right now, but climate change has only a modest impact on the number of human deaths per year. The type of climate impacts that would be required to kill millions are very unlikely, which is why many feel we should carefully weigh the costs and benefits of mitigation vis a vis other resource allocations.
Ray - No, I don’t think most economic analyses ignore uncertainties. They would tend to assign a probability range to various scenarios to predict outcomes. I see it as fundamentally important to determine the likelihood of catastrophic climate change because this will help us determine optimal resource allocation. Many here at RC seem to think catastrophic change is looming, but reading IPCC I come to a different conclusion - climate change will be modest over the next 100 years, and very modest during the next 10. Hansen and some others suggest more problems than IPCC, but he does not seem to reflect the consensus in the climate field.
6 November 2007 at 5:31
Re: Jim Glaswyn on Lomborg. I’m no fan of Lomborg’s, but he does have at least one refereed publication, unless there’s another B. Lomborg out there:
Lomborg, B. 1996 “Nucleus and Shield: The Evolution of Social Structure in the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma” American Sociological Review 61, 278-307.
6 November 2007 at 5:44
Re: 180 (Matt): “And then Lomborg cites studies showing there are 1,600,000 known species (estimates are between 2M and 80M species total), adn 1033 known extinctions since 1600.”
Lomborg’s stress on “known extinctions” alone shows he is either ignorant or mendacious (or indeed both). We know about the extinction of conspicuous terrestrial organisms - mostly birds and mammals - and often make considerable efforts to prevent extinctions in these groups. Most species live in tropical forests. Most are small (a large proportion are beetles), many appear to have very restricted ranges. The actual number of extinctions since 1600 is very hard to calculate, but will inevitably be far more than the number of known extinctions.
6 November 2007 at 6:10
James Lovelock has published more than just one paper. Once all his qualifications have been listed by the chairman, then I think you will find what he has to say is far from boring. See the Realtime webcast at: http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/event.asp?id=7142
6 November 2007 at 7:18
¿What would be the consequences of Pinatubo eruption in oceanic CO2 sink?
¿What would the consequences of a high recurrence of El Niño events in Oceanic CO2 sink, and what’s more if they are the strongest in last half century?
6 November 2007 at 9:08
Matt, Actually, the 4 points you raise about Lomborg apply to as well to astrology:
1) Lomborg’s media impressions are indeed damaging to the cause–pseudoscience is always damaging to science
2) Lomborg is deemed credible by the mainstream media (WSJ, NYT)–looked in your local paper lately? Bet you find horoscopes
3) Leading scientists won’t debate Lomborg–they won’t debate astrologers and other pseudoscientists either
4) Untold websites and hours are spent attempting to refute Lomborg–ever hear of James Randi?
Lomborg is a pseudointellectual blinkered ideologue whose biases against the left (which may be justified to some extent in Denmark) cause him to embrace uncritically all the positions of the right. Your assertion that he has a better grasp of the science than Gore is risible. Gore got most of the science right. Lomborg got almost none of it right–and what is more, he’s proud of that. I rate his intellect and argument style only slightly higher than Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter (or Al Franken, for that matter).
6 November 2007 at 9:29
Why does Lomborg scare me? Because he IS so effective - a soft smile, gently carressing everyone on the cheek, while in a calm voice murmuring, “There, there, everything is going to be okay,” as he hands us his refreshing glass of Koolaid. Oh, it is so nice to be gently awakened from a nightmare! Unless when you really wake up, you realize it was not a nightmare at all, but reality.
6 November 2007 at 9:40
RE “the probability that climate sensitivity is greater than 6ºC is roughly 5%” (#174). Sometimes how we present the stats is important, so one-in-20 chance seems a bit more startling than 5% (I’ve bet on 1-in-20 longshots before).
So, you’re working in your garage and it’s cold, so you debate whether to turn on your car engine & heater, or your electric heater (which is powered by 100% wind-generated electricity and costs less to run than the car), AND there’s a 1-in-20 chance you will die from the carbon monoxide from the car. Which would you choose? And, oh yeh, the money you save from using the electric heater over the car heater you can send to the poor to help prevent malaria and death!
RE #176 & economics, I think that Adam Smith classical and neoclassical economics is inappropriate and grossly deficient for a globally warming world. I’ve written much here over the years on this topic, so I won’t get into it, except to say that, yes, one’s diamonds and gold won’t be harmed much by GW, only cheap stuff, like food, will be greatly harmed. So the economy should do just fine. Question is, will there be people around to enjoy that fine economy.
And then there is the booming business in the health and rebuilding sector that should really do quite well.
6 November 2007 at 10:14
Joe Duck asserts that “The type of climate impacts that would be required to kill millions are very unlikely.”
What about widespread, rapid desertification would make you think that? One season of global crop failure should do the trick. The UN reports that global grain storage has been declining for years; it’s estimated we have a 57-day supply.
The Holocene is an unusually stable climate regime, and it is this stability that makes agricultural civilization possible. I’ll take the opposite of your position: The type of climate impacts that would be required to kill millions become increasingly likely as we drive the planet away from the Holocene climate optimum.
6 November 2007 at 10:34
Matt concurs with Lomborg: “species extinction is a problem, not a catastrophe.”
Do you also agree with Lomborg’s assertion that “fishing down the food web just means removing the oldest fish from the population?”
Biologist Kåre Fog takes Lomborg’s Chapter 23 to task:
http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/chapter23.htm
6 November 2007 at 10:39
And to be clear, it’s Lomborg I find boring, not you Matt.
6 November 2007 at 10:46
What about widespread, rapid desertification would make you think that? One season of global crop failure should do the trick. The UN reports that global grain storage has been declining for years; it’s estimated we have a 57-day supply.
================
It wouldn’t even need to be a global failure…just the failure of a region, and very quickly market forces could - and most likely would - act in such a way as to limit the delivery of key grain supplies to a number of countries that depend upon them.
6 November 2007 at 10:58
#187 Nick Gotts: Lomborg’s stress on “known extinctions” alone shows he is either ignorant or mendacious (or indeed both).
He’s neither. He’s simply citing studies 5 studies (Baillie+Groombridge 1997, Walter +Gillet 1998, May 1995, Reid 1992) showing what others have studied to date. In the chapter he’s on a path working up to show just how unfounded the “we lose 40,000 species per year” claim from Gore is, along with the “we lose 250,000 species per year” claim from Ehrlich.
Incredibly, he traces the 40,000 figure to Myers “hazarding a guess” at a conference in 1974. From there it took a life of its own. And of course, Ehrlich was never one to be outdoomed. Of course, the point of the chapter is that for a long time now certain scientists have been telling us we’re on edge of losing nearly everything as we wipe out species at an alarming rate. And computer models have been built to say it is so.
Again, a very rational and sane treatment.
I will note that in the chapter Lomborg failed to show a scientific source of the 40,000 and 250,000 figures. If you know of one, then perhaps Lomborg ignored it and I’d be interested in knowing that. If you don’t know of one, and if you haven’t read the chapter, then there’s not much here to debate.
6 November 2007 at 11:03
re 184:
So let’s recap:
1) Lomborg’s media impressions are indeed damaging to the cause
2) Lomborg is deemed credible by the mainstream media (WSJ, NYT)
3) Leading scientists won’t debate Lomborg
4) Untold websites and hours are spent attempting to refute Lomborg
===================
Just to echo and reinforce Ray in 190:
Substitute the Discovery Institute or Intelligent Design Supporters or Creationists for “Lomborg” and you have a description of what has been going on in the Evolution/Creationism wars for years now.
This type of argument is empty rhetoric, a question beg that assumes that if someone doesn’t do something to address Lomborg’s arguments in particular forums or that Lomborg is being excluded from consideration or forums he somehow has scientific legitimacy.
This is a bogus proposition. Lomborg’s SCIENTIFIC legitimacy rests upon the work he produces, and the manner in which he provides it for examination, not on how he is perceived in the media. And as been discussed ad nauseum, Lomborg’s scientific legitimacy appears, at best, questionable to an extreme.
One other point - here again you have an instance of a single individual that opponents of a view flock to as having the “last word”, as being the one with the true answer, when the overwhelming majority of people with actual knowledge in the subjects that this individual holds forth on (knowledge, btw, attained from years of study and field work) somehow have less credibility in their conclusions.
If you claim you wanted to discuss things from a reasonable, rational perspective, this understand might give you some pause.
6 November 2007 at 11:13
re 183:
Having waded through most of the posts this evening, my question is, who of the decision makers are reading any of this? by that I mean local municipal politicians. These are the folk who affect real change in what happens in most of our communities. I see a real disconnect between what you the scientist are discussing and what the local politicians are concerned about.
===================
Check out Burlington, Vermont.
In Chapter 9 of “Field Notes from a Catastrophe”, Elizabeth Kolbert discusses their efforts to reduce consumption. While there were initial successes, the consumption continues to climb.
The upshot? While municipal efforts are helpful, it is unlikely nothing short of nationally coordinated efforts are going to have a long-term effect on AGW.
6 November 2007 at 11:15
Re 183. What’s amazing, really, is exactly how much climate mitigation action is already taking place not only in the absence of leadership and commitment from the federal government but also in the face of media-supported efforts at denial and obstruction promulgated by vested interests. Much of the local and state activity seems, unfortunately, to be under the radar, with little attention and coverage so that most people, including many posting here apparently, are quite unaware of even a fraction of what is happening. Take a look at:
“Regional commitment to reducing emissions - Local policy in the United States goes some way towards countering anthropogenic climate change” - www.uvm.edu/giee/publications/Nature2005.pdf
“What’s Being Done…In the States” - http://www.pewclimate.org/what_s_being_done/in_the_states/
“Local, State and Regional Action to Address Global Warming” - http://www.net.org/policy/global_warming/pdf/gw_regional_action.pdf
“State & Regional Programs to Address Global Warming” - http://www.nwf.org/globalwarming/pdfs/StateActionsClimateChange.pdf
State and Regional Climate Actions Table - http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/stateandlocalgov/state_actionslist.html
U.S. Green Building Council: Government Resources - http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1779
Democratic Energy: Communities and Government Working on our Energy Future - http://www.newrules.org/electricity/climate.html
Post Carbon Cities: Preparing local governments for energy and climate uncertainty - http://postcarboncities.net/node/1454
Conservation Law Foundation: Advocacy for New England’s Environment - http://www.clf.org/programs/index.asp?id=62
The U.S. Conference of Mayors: Mayors Climate Protection Center - http://usmayors.org/climateprotection/
Note that a “Mayors Climate Protection Summit” took place in Seattle last Thursday and Friday. An article on a speech by Bill Clinton can be found at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/337769_climate02.html
State /Energy Alternatives: Renewable resources, technologies, and policies for states and communities - http://www.eere.energy.gov/states/alternatives/
Mayors for Climate Protection - http://www.coolmayors.org/common/11061/?clientID=11061
The Top 10 Green Cities in the U.S.: 2006 - http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/113/top10cities
The SustainLane 2006 US City Rankings - http://www.sustainlane.com/us-city-rankings/
(There are a few other city rankings that can be found.)
Not a governmental organization, Green Energy Ohio is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting environmentally and economically sustainable energy policies and practices in Ohio. Their home page at http://www.greenenergyohio.org/page.cfm?pageId=3 has a list of “Top News for Clean Energy in Ohio,” which includes information on local and state governmental actions.
This one is not from any governmental organization, but from the socially active Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. It’s also kind of interesting in regards to the opinions of people who don’t just talk about helping poor people, but who practice what they preach (unlike some who have been cited here). See “Threat of Global Warming/Climate Change: 2006 Statement of Conscience” - http://www.uua.org/socialjustice/socialjustice/statements/8061.shtml
6 November 2007 at 11:36
Re 180 Matt: “The IPCC isn’t even really all that scary on water level rises.”
Despite it being pointed out to you repeatedly that the IPCC explicitly assumed no change in the rate of Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheet melting in its projection of sea level rise, you still cling to the conservative IPCC projections as comforting and more reliable than what has actually been observed and measured since the release of the last report. That simply is not rational.
6 November 2007 at 11:38
#190 Ray Ladbury: Gore got most of the science right. Lomborg got almost none of it right–and what is more, he’s proud of that.
A 20 foot sea rise without a time scale given? You think that is fair? You are aware that Harry Smith asserted to Michael Bloomberg on Monday that “Manhattan will be underwater by 2050″. Where did Harry Smith get that?
[edit - keep the rhetoric in check please, and who is Harry Smith?]
what do you consider Lomborg’s biggest error?
BTW, you are underestimating Lomborg. Michael Crichton was extremely effective in the debate against pro-AGW scientists earlier this year–turning the crowd from believers to skeptics while pro-AGW scientists stood by and watched, mouths agape. And he’s merely a wordsmith. Lomborg is quite a bit more effective than Crichton. And if the leading pro-AGW voices won’t debate him, and if he can turn a NYT writer into a mass of admiring jelly, the problem (or solution, depending on viewpoint) is only going to get worse.
You claim that Lomborg “embraces uncritically all the positions of the right”. You are aware that he used to be a member of Greenpeace, and actually grew tired of dealing with all the made-up numbers Greenpeace was using to forward their cause. Hardly uncritical.
6 November 2007 at 11:47
#194 Jim Eager: Despite it being pointed out to you repeatedly that the IPCC explicitly assumed no change in the rate of Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheet melting in its projection of sea level rise, you still cling to the conservative IPCC projections as comforting and more reliable than what has actually been observed and measured since the release of the last report. That simply is not rational.
Let’s see. So if I reject the IPCC documents outright, then I’m castigated for rejecting “the largest body of scientific consensus ever assembled.” But if I embrace the IPCC, then I’m castigated for ignoring the fact that they “assumed no change in the rate of ice sheet melt”
So, which is it? Are all the scientists wrong? Why did the IPCC assume there was no change in the rate of melting if in fact a year after publication all the ice sheets are melting? Or is there a small group of scientists that think this is a big problem, but a larger group aren’t as worried? Presumably if most IPCC scientists were worried about this, it would have been in the IPCC.
[Response: It is in the IPCC. And if you are castigated, it’s probably because you aren’t actually reading the IPCC report. Quote (from SPM): “Dynamical processes related to ice flow not included in current models but suggested by recent observations could increase the vulnerability of the ice sheets to warming, increasing future sea level rise. Understanding of these processes is limited and there is no consensus on their magnitude.” (see also http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/the-ipcc-sea-level-numbers/ ). I’m pretty sure everyone will agree that IPCC could have been clearer about what their numbers meant and how important this uncertainty is, but your characterisation of the IPCC statements are simply erroneous. - gavin]
6 November 2007 at 12:13
RE #193, my impression is that maybe millions have already died from GW, its effects, and its repercussions.
I understand the WHO estimates that 160,000 die each year from disease spread (like malaria…someone tell that to Lomborg) due to GW. They attribute half the heat deaths in the 2003 European heat wave to GW, so I imagine a portion of heat deaths around the world might be attributed to GW; it’s not only the daytime heat, but the nighttime increases in temp(largely due to GW) not allowing people to recouperate from that day’s heat, that contributes heavily to the death toll.
Then there is the reduced agri output you mention; and I would add in farmer suicides as at least in part caused by GW and GW-induced droughts, floods, fires, and other crop-harming events. Even if one were to claim that GW’s contribution to these is minor, it could in many cases be seen as the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
RE wildfires enhanced by GW, we would also have to add in deaths or shortened lives due to the smoke pollution, such as deaths due to asthma, on top of deaths directly from the fire (or that portion…the top portion…of the fire intensity and spread due to GW).
The list goes on.
I think a way to think about it is how many deaths there would have been from these types of causes (whose increasing effects can be linked to GW) in a non-AGW world, subtracted from deaths from these causes today (then, of course, subtact out from that difference the lives saved due to GW….like not slipping on that ice that is no longer there bec of GW). [It is interesting that someone has actually calculated the deaths due to going from daylight savings time to regular time, so these types of calcs can be done to some extent.]
However, just as with our inability to know the exact number of species that have gone extinct in recent times, we would never be able to get an exact figure on how many have died or are projected to die from AGW, its effects, and its repercussions. But I’m thinking it will be quite large. When you consider that even one person’s life is invaluable to a moral person (a person who detests killing innocent people), this is a very urgent, high-priority issue that requires all moral persons to deal with, and mitigate GW.
6 November 2007 at 12:42
Joe Duck wrote: “The type of climate impacts that would be required to kill millions are very unlikely”
You are just plain wrong. The type of climate impacts that would be required to kill millions are in fact very likely, if not already inevitable, and are indeed already underway — principally, the complete loss of glacier-fed fresh water supplies for hundreds of millions of people in south Asia, and prolonged severe drought afflicting the world’s most productive agricultural regions.
6 November 2007 at 12:46
Re Matt in 197, can you explain why habitat loss due to land development and biomass loss due to ocean overexploitation would not cause widespread species extinctions far in excess of the background rate?
6 November 2007 at 12:49
Re #202 (Matt) “You are aware that he used to be a member of Greenpeace, and actually grew tired of dealing with all the made-up numbers Greenpeace was using to forward their cause.”
From Wikepedia article on Lomborg:
“He has claimed to have been a supporter of Greenpeace. When challenged that Greenpeace had no record of his ever being a member or supporter, he stated that he had given money to Greenpeace collectors.”
From Sourcewatch on Lomborg “When challenged on this point on ABC Radio National’s Earthbeat Lomborg said “I’m a suburban kind of Greenpeace member, your stereotypical person who contributes and nothing else.”
In other words, his claim is dubious at best, an outright lie at worst, like so many others he has made.
6 November 2007 at 12:49
Matt wrote: “[Lomborg] used to be a member of Greenpeace”
As far as I know, Lomborg has never been able to provide any evidence to support his claim that he was a “member” of Greenpeace, and Greenpeace has stated that they have no record of Lomborg having any active role in the organization. Of course many nonprofit organizations refer to any donor, even of five or ten dollars, as a “member”, so if Greenpeace uses this terminology, and if Lomborg sent them a few bucks once, then he can legitimately claim to have been a “member” of Greenpeace. But I fail to see how that gives him any credibility, especially given his well-documented, monumental dishonesty, inaccuracies and nonsensical rationalizations when it comes to the substance of his “arguments”. Lomborg is a darling of the corporate-funded so-called “right wing” because he tells them what they want to hear.
6 November 2007 at 12:54
And if you are castigated, it’s probably because you aren’t actually reading the IPCC report
Gavin - Matt’s comments seem compatible with *your take* on the likelihood of various sea level rise scenarios. In a different comment you estimated extra rise from Greenland would add something like 25cm over the next century. [pls correct if I missed your point before] This departure from IPCC’s range of 18-59cm seems reasonable to me, but would change the range from 33-84cm over the next 100 years. This seems a far cry from the catastrophic implications of many comments throughout RC. How can we rationally consider the subject if we do not assign any probabilities to sea level rises?
Jim: You seem to imply it’s irrational to take IPCC, published months ago, at face value because new studies (like Hansen’s?) indicate the possibility of much greater sea level rises. Rational analysis of mathematical phenomenon *require* that we use numbers, not hyperbole. So what numbers do you suggest Matt use if not IPCC and not Gavin’s adjusted IPCC ranges? Uncertainties should lead to assignment of value ranges that are within very high probability. IPCC does a standup job with this, RC comments fall very short in this regard. Rational people accept IPCC as a good measure of what to expect in our climate future.
[Response: I don’t recall ever making a quantitative prediction - what would I base it on? The only point I make is that the upper bound is unconstrained, and paleo evidence for SLR greater than meters/century exists, and we know that the last time the planet was as warm for a substantial period as we project for 2100, SL was 20ft higher. Probabilities would be great, but they don’t exist and I can’t make them up. Clinging to the thermal expansion numbers (the bulk of the oft-quoted ‘IPCC’ range) in the hope that this means there is nothing to worry about is foolish. More research is definitely required, but I wouldn’t bet the beach house on it showing there’s no risk. - gavin]
6 November 2007 at 13:02
Re: 203 Matt: “Why did the IPCC assume there was no change in the rate of melting if in fact a year after publication all the ice sheets are melting?”
The key words being “a year after publication.”
New observational data on the state of the Greenland ice sheet have become available AFTER the report was debated, written and published.
The unprecedented Arctic sea ice melt took place AFTER the report was debated, written and published.
Are you simply temporally challenged or are you being deliberately obtuse?
6 November 2007 at 13:02
Joe,
I guess we’re off Mendelsohn now- or at least the part where his analysis depicts the least developed countries getting pummeled by global warming damages- sucks to be from Mozambique. We’re moved onto ‘most economic analysis’…
i.e. Mendelsohn’s work. I thought of a solution though. You’ve got his email at the ready, why don’t you just ask him to confirm your assertion? Ask him what probability of the scenario with large scale damages from ice sheet melt gets assigned? (What’s that? Ice sheet melt doesn’t occur in any scenario? Well, I guess it can’t happen then. Whew! That was a worry.) Ask him to confirm that his analysis is ignoring climate sensitivities that mainstream science is telling us are possible.
And speaking of possibilities Joe, you should consider the distinct possibility that you’re not familiar with the state of the literature on the economics of climate change, nor informed enough to be the first to claim a consensus and certainly not one that disavows Kyoto, (nor would it appear that you or Lomborg are truly interested in determining any optimal capital allocation that finds room for mitigation).
6 November 2007 at 13:24
“Dass ich schon beim Schreiben des Buches die Schlussfolgerung kannte, mag manche der Dinge beeinflusst haben, die ich schrieb” [The fact that I knew the conclusion already when I started to write the book may have influenced many of the things that I wrote]. - Bjørn Lomborg, Interview in NZZFolio, monthly magazine of Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Januar 2006, p. 42
He neglected to give wanton opportunism and a complete absence of expertise and integrity their proper due. Perhaps that bit was off the record. In any case, RC has attracted itself some committed trolls now. I’m beginning to consider the virtue of not feeding them.
6 November 2007 at 13:26
#203 - And How many lives have been saved by AGW?
How much INCREASEs in crop yield are attributable to AGW?
How likely is it that LACK of tropical cyclones in the Pacific contributed to the condition that led to the fires in Calif.?
Are we to assume that the optimal earth temperature existed somehere around 1980 and that every increase above that leads to dysfunction?
6 November 2007 at 13:29
Please, could we have a new post? Comments here are beginning to resemble the classic Monty Python “Argument” skit, only not funny.
6 November 2007 at 13:30
This is a classic science-denialist rhetorical trick.
“I USED to believe in evolution until I studied the science myself”
“I USED to believe in AGW until I studied the science myself”
“I USED to believe HIV causes AIDS until I studied the evidence myself”
“I USED to belong to Greenpeace until …”
Lomborg also follows the denialist handbook by cherry-picking data or ignoring science, for instance insisting that the documented number of species extinctions is an accurate indicator of how many species have actually gone extinct despite the scientific consensus that takes the opposite view.
He also employs the standard denialist trick of insisting that he, despite having no training in the relevant scientific fields, knows more about science than scientists themselves.
He knows more about population ecology than population ecologists, just as Bill Dembski knows more about evolutionary biology than evolutionary biologists, or Steve McIntyre knows more about climate science than climate scientist, or Stephen Milloy knows more about the effects of tobacco smoke on the human body than medical experts.
His approach is inherently dishonest. Matt needs a better bullshit-detector. If I were wealthy I’d buy him one
6 November 2007 at 13:38
Joe Duck writes:
[[This departure from IPCC’s range of 18-59cm seems reasonable to me, but would change the range from 33-84cm over the next 100 years. This seems a far cry from the catastrophic implications of many comments throughout RC.]]
33-84 cm of sea level rise is catastrophic. You don’t have to drown a coastal city to make it uninhabitable, all you have to do is flood it enough for seawater to seep into the aquifers and back up sewers. Miami and cities like it will be uninhabitable long before they are under water. Note, also, that the figure under discussion is a global average — the figure will be higher in some places and lower in others, since sea level is not uniform around the world.
6 November 2007 at 13:46
Joe, you should consider the distinct possibility that you’re not familiar with the state of the literature on the economics of climate change, nor informed enough to be the first to claim a consensus and certainly not one that disavows Kyoto
I will, and try to consider my deficiencies on an hourly basis.
Majorajam aside from your Nobel prize for annoying, what are your qualifications in this area?
Surely you do not see Kyoto as a high quality, viable approach to mitigation?
I’m still waiting for permission to post Mendelshon’s succinct reply but his ideas are online. You should like him - he’s critical of Copenhagen’s treatment of his climate mitigation proposal.
6 November 2007 at 13:56
Re the claim that Lomborg was a “Greenpeace member,” here’s what he told journalist Alanna Mitchell:
Ah, the folly of youth.
6 November 2007 at 14:02
tom looks for the silver lining of climate change: “Are we to assume that the optimal earth temperature existed somehere around 1980 and that every increase above that leads to dysfunction?”
I think it’s fair to assume that the relatively stable climate we’ve enjoyed for the past 10k years or so is optimal for the purposes of agricultural civilization. We have no evidence that agricultural civilization can survive in other climate regimes.
6 November 2007 at 14:25
Here’s some real bad news. The Washington Post’s head environmental writer, in an article for Outside Magazine, believes Richard Lindzen’s goop.
http://outside.away.com/outside/culture/200710/richard-lindzen-1.html
Lindzen’s new line is this: So what if the world is heating up to levels not seen in millions of years, it’s done it before, it’s natural and what’s the big deal?
Increasingly I’ve been reading this “plot theme” in news stories: “Okay, global warming is real, so what?”. Well, we need to do a better job of explaining how devastating a warmer world can be.
I keep thinking back to Jared’s Diamond’s description of Easter Island’s surviving population, descended from the ruling class, who felt their obvious decent into resource poverty and hardship, and the loss of most the island’s population, was no big deal (I’m obviously paraphrasing here, but read his book, Collapse, for his descriptions). People can suffer a lot before admitting their current societal direction is heading the wrong way, especially if they are in the ruling class and are buffered from early catastrophes. I guess to the wealthy, mobile, “elite”, such as Outside’s target audience, the changes predicted to occur because of a warming world are no big deal. I suppose they’ll turn to indoor ice walls once all the glaciers melt, etc. At any rate, if the call to reduce CO2 here in the U.S. is going to be effective we’ll have to reach over the head of these folks and somehow appeal to the middle class.
6 November 2007 at 14:29
Matt said, “BTW, you are underestimating Lomborg. Michael Crichton was extremely effective in the debate against pro-AGW scientists earlier this year–turning the crowd from believers to skeptics while pro-AGW scientists stood by and watched, mouths agape. And he’s merely a wordsmith. Lomborg is quite a bit more effective than Crichton. And if the leading pro-AGW voices won’t debate him, and if he can turn a NYT writer into a mass of admiring jelly, the problem (or solution, depending on viewpoint) is only going to get worse.”
That is precisely why scientific consensus isn’t determined by debating skill or by charisms, but by the weight of evidence. Lomborg has none. A glib liar may be able to convince an audience in a 2 hour debate. Sorry, Matt, but science moves more slowly. It involves checking the facts–and lo and behold, the reason we’re seeing warming on Neptune is because it’s summer there.
People like Crichton and Lomborg…and you…are frightened by the scientific method because it subverts their ability to bullshit your way through life. Crichton writes science fiction, but didn’t even know enough about evolution to realize that the depiction of evolution in The Andromeda strain is a joke. Lomborg glibly spins a story about being a former Greenpeace member until his conversion on the road to Damascus–and then lo and behold, somebody looks it up. He is at least as glib with his use of scientific factoids. Like it or not, Matt, there is an objective reality, and it has consequences. It behooves us to try to understand those consequences, and the way to do that is science.
Now, I’m going to tell you something about scientific consensus: The product of scientific consensus is almost always conservative rather than alarmist. The reason why the IPCC numbers underestimate sea level rise is because that is what the scientists could agree upon. Some, probably most, would have been happier with higher estimates, particularly given recent developments. However, the IPCC represented the consensus–what the experts could all agree upon–at the time. And that is why, the consequences considered so far have concentrated on sea level rise. It is a virtual certainty. Other consequences–widespread drought, increased storm intensity, increased incidence of impulsive rainfall, increased disease, crop failures, etc.–do not have the level of consensus needed to come out with a strong statement. Their consequences may dwarf those of sea-level rise, but they are not certain.
Now I’m going to tell you something about risk management. An uncertain, unbounded risk is a greater concern than a high risk. You may want to study it to quantify it better, but if your study will be completed too late to complete mitigation, you had better either start mitigation in parallel with your study or try to buy time (e.g. slow down carbon emissions). You cannot ignore an unbounded risk.
6 November 2007 at 14:31
Gavin - I apologize for suggesting you had assigned some specific extra CMs to the IPCC - I just looked back and I think I had misread the gist of your March post about IPCC Sea Level rises. I would be very interested in how people feel we should do risk and cost benefit analysis without assigning a range of probabilities to the various scenarios. As you get to “highly unlikely” events it’s very important to assign a very low probability - otherwise you wind up spending a trillion on asteroid defense shields which would in fact lower the chance of planetary destruction, but would be an unwise use of money given the probability of an asteroid collision.
6 November 2007 at 14:32
Re 209 HJoe Duck: “Jim: You seem to imply it’s irrational to take IPCC, published months ago, at face value because new studies (like Hansen’s?) indicate the possibility of much greater sea level rises.”
No, I implied, and hereby explicitly state, that it is irrational to continue to take comfort in the IPPC’s projected numbers in the face of new data and observation of what is happening real time in the real world.
The IPCC knew their projected numbers were subject to change, which is exactly why they explicitly included a caveat about those numbers in their report. The wisdom of this has been justified by the extent of this summer’s Arctic sea ice melt and observed changes in Greenland since the report was released. Basically, all projected numbers quantifying how much and how fast the cryosphere will change are now suspect. To pretend otherwise is foolish.
6 November 2007 at 14:43
Vanishing Point
On Bjorn Lomborg and extinction
By E. O. Wilson
http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2001/12/12/point/
6 November 2007 at 14:45
Re the citation on Lomborg’s Greenpeace cred, I completely munged the URL. Here’s the corrected link:
The Pollyanna of global warming
http://honolulu.craigslist.org/kau/pol/435448272.html
6 November 2007 at 14:46
re 213.
Tom, can you provide supported answers for any of those questions?
6 November 2007 at 14:54
I preferred 1950 myself.
There are now several studies regarding the high likelihood of climate wars over diminishing resources. Risky business changing the climate.
Matt might care to read Jared Diamond’s Collapse with regard to known effects of climate change on civilizations.
6 November 2007 at 15:07
Taking George’s comment to heart, let me ask an on-topic question:
Can we estimate the degree to which the large-scale destruction of ocean ecosystems affects the ocean CO2 sink? A lot of carbon gets sequestered in living creatures, but we’re rapidly strip-mining the oceans of all but the most ancient organisms.
6 November 2007 at 15:16
re: optimal climate
Humans can certainly survive a range of climate conditions, and one has somje hope of adapting some crops, maybe.
On the other hand, not only is agriculture adapted to a specific climate, but a huge amount of expensive coastal infrastructure has been built in the last 150 years, with relatively stable sea levels. Back to economics:
I’d claim that one needs to seriously consider the possibility, not of just of a low discount rate, but of a negative one. The planet had a one-time pot of really cheap energy called fossil fuels. We either hit Peak Oil (50% used) in the next decade, or we already did in 2006 (if you believe T. Boone Pickens).
Put that together with the strong positive influence of exergy (energy used x effiency) on wealth: see Ayres & Warr:
http://www.iea.org/Textbase/work/2004/eewp/Ayres-paper1.pdf
Especially, read the conclusion.
Now, consider the belief that the population will rise to 9B over the next 50 years, with less oil (and peak natural gas about 20 years after oil. We’d have to improve efficiency by 50% just to stay even in exergy/person, ASSUMING we can replace the oil&gas with solar/wind/geothermal/biofuel/(nuclear) even-up, which seems unlikely in the short-term, for all that we’re trying hard.
US East Coast (and some Gulf Coast) cities have infrastructure accumulated over 300 years, most of which was built with *REALLY CHEAP ENERGY*. Under BusinessAsUsual, especially with terrific pressure to burn coal, it’s hard for me to see how sea-level isn’t up at least 20 feet 300 years from now, which seems a reasonable planning horizon. [I don’t know why 2100 is magic: the world doesn’t stop then, I hope.]
These days, people build dikes with bulldozers, steel & concrete, and rebuilding a city somewhere else will take a lot of the latter two.
Here’s a “fun” exercise: you’re mayor of New York City, and it’s time to rebuild somewhere else. How much will that cost? and by the way, there is no cheap petroleum…. well, I guess the Egyptians built the pyramids without.
6 November 2007 at 15:23
> ocean CO2 sink
Yep.
Just posted a link and excerpts at Tamino’s site, here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/new-policy/#comment-8316
6 November 2007 at 15:25
My qualifications? I’ve got a degree in social science from the Copenhagen business school… Joe, if you find me annoying I can only point out that the feeling is mutual, if not personal- it is more that I’m not partial to people who make patently erroneous statements with high-handed confidence, and more so when the person in question dutifully ignores the argued and sourced disagreement. Speaking of which, my statement that you should consider your own qualifications was intended to highlight that you’ve pulled this consensus from thin air and tried to assert its meaningful existence on numerous occasions (which I’d be happy to cite if thou protesteth… at all). If you have a source for this claim, do tell. If not, please avail us of the expertise of yours that qualifies you to make such a statement. And if you’re unclear what I mean still, you don’t have to go far up the thread to find a quintessential case in point:
There in one line and, what, fifteen words, have you expressed a sentiment that you are unable to remotely back-up- that the mainstream rejects Kyoto and that it is not serious to advocate it or something similar. And you would be unable to support such innuendo because it is simply not the case. This is true both on the basis of ‘purely economic’ evaluation and more so for any more comprehensive review that examines the relevant agency issues. On the latter point, as people have been at pains to point out to you on this subject in the past, Kyoto is a framework- it is a way of establishing the ground rules and infrastructure to make mitigation workable in the future. Conceiving of the best academic scenario for an emissions treaty is pointless if it ignores the political realities, i.e. where the Kyoto protocol actually lives. Any criticism of Kyoto that doesn’t take those into account and is not properly qualified is therefore deeply flawed.
So, in light of those realities, do I think the Kyoto protocol is a good treaty? If I take your question to mean, should all nations have signed on, that to me is an unequivocal yes (well, as a global citizen, yes- it changes a bit as an economic actor amongst asymmetries, but I digress). This doesn’t make it perfect (e.g. a global carbon tax is preferable to emissions targets but it’s not clear that can be helped. some of the carbon sink fudges are clearly side payments, but those are to be expected, etc.). The point is that dismissing (or supporting) the treaty by slight of hand is lazy, disingenuous and/or ignorant, and that apply the ‘mainstream’ sticker to your side of the argument for the same purpose is worse.
P.S. While I acknowledge Mendelshon as an expert who knows a lot more about building integrated assessment models (amongst other things) than I do, I find his methodology lacking (not accounting for uncertainty in the economics of climate change is like not accounting for the point spread when betting on a game) and his claims dubious (middle of the distribution warming to have a net zero effect on welfare… ??). More generally I have huge issues with economists who have the temerity to push their extremely flawed models on the public as the best means of making policy decisions, (and huge respect for those who highlight the reasonable and unreasonable inferences that can be made from economic analysis, e.g. Weitzman). There are many of these, including one prominent one who assured me that heat stress has no effect on drinking water, in about so many words. Meanwhile, I can get no such pat answer from any climate scientist, so the only place we can be assured that such conditions exist is in this academic’s model.
P.P.S. Speaking of the utility of integrated assessment models, a case can be made that climate change had a role in the Darfur crisis. It’s not open and shut, but it isn’t totally baseless. Something in me doubts such a scenario is conceivable in an integrated assessment model.
6 November 2007 at 16:10
RE 219;
The warmth and sea level of 1980 may not have been “optimum,” but it is what our infrastructure was engineered for; and our crops were bred to expect. Any other climate and sea level will require significant capital investment.
Change is not the problem, it is the rapidity of the change that is the real problem. Moreover, it is not so much rapid change per se that is the problem, it is unpredictable change that is the problem. If we are sure of a 0.10 meter of sea level change between 1/1/ 2031 and 1/1/2041, then we can plan for it and we can survive it at a minimum cost. However, if we are not certain, then some people will not prepare, and then even a few cm of sea level rise in that decade will cause damage, resulting in costs that will propagate through the global economy affecting all. If we all plan for a 0.10 m sea level rise, and we get a 0.20 m sea level rise, again there are damages and costs that propagate through the economy. As we plan for the changing environment, we need to incorporate safety factors.
Unpredictable change makes resource allocation decisions more difficult. Decisions are delayed until we are “sure,” and the delay results in wasted resources.
6 November 2007 at 17:15
Majorajam - thank for that thoughtful reply to my note above. Mitigation economics is the key point of contention in the AGW debate and I’m hoping to learn more. So far, for me, Mendelsohn’s thinking has the most intuitive appeal. I simply do not understand discounting well enough to know if he’s reasonable in this matter or not, so I’m letting his credentials speak for him in that matter. I’m still trying to understand why Stern (and many here) have such pessimism about the future.
6 November 2007 at 17:46
Re: #220 I should have read the story twice through before commenting on its author’s intent. Sorry about that. It’s a well written article that gets to the heart of Lindzen’s and Lomborg’s popularity.
6 November 2007 at 17:47
I have a general question regarding the primary contributors to this site and don’t know where to post it. If there is a more appropriate place please direct me accordingly. I believe that the answer to my question is self-evident but the point has been called into question.
Is it fair to say that all of the primary contributors on this site agree with the consensus that the current global warming trend is predominantly anthropogenic in origin?
Worded in a slightly different way, could any of the primary contributors to this site be legitimately characterized as an AGW contrarian or a skeptic, and if so would they admit to being such?
[Response: We’re all practicing, publishing climate scientists, and I think we all buy the argument that the warming of the past decades was caused rising CO2 concentrations, and expect that if more CO2 is released, the temperature will rise further. We’re skeptical about new results all the time, as witness perhaps the post before this one. Contrarian means to me disregarding evidence that doesn’t support one’s desired conclusion, not a good strategy for a scientist. David]
6 November 2007 at 17:47
Joe, imagine someone able, in 1776, to show Jefferson and Washington that within 200 years all the great North American forests would have been cut and not regrown, the buffalo herds gone, the passenger pigeons gone, the salmon and codfish and whales all but gone, the chestnut trees gone, most of the elms gone, the small towns and farms and farmers gone, and fifteen feet of topsoil washed off of the middle of the continent down the Mississippi. They would have been as pessimistic about their country’s future as Stern is now about his.
Most of that damage could have been avoided at low cost — but nobody was able to foresee it when it was happening.
We can see what’s at risk now, and the debate is whether it’s worth even the “no regrets” effort with provable payback, compared to the current-quarter bottom-line profit margin costs.
6 November 2007 at 17:53
Joe Duck (233) — Did you follow the link in comment #133? Did you follow the link in comment #230? Have you read Jared Diamond’s Collapse? Do you understand the import for the future of the main post on this thread?
6 November 2007 at 18:05
Integrated assessment models assume that everything can be priced in dollars. While it may be possible to price one human life, is the value of the human species, no more than the population times the value of one life?
Assume that human extinction will not occur for a few years, use discounting and the current cost of an act that will result in the extinction of the human species is ~$0.00. With this view, there is no responsibility for one’s actions because you can show that no action has any cost associated with it.
Of course, I have made a “Slicing the Salami “argument which is absurd. But, it is no more absurd than a too high discount rate for goods and services provided by Mother Nature, or a too long a discount period for the onset of costs associated with climate change.
AGW will have real costs, and they will be unpleasant. They cannot be “discounted” away. There will be real suffering. By acting now, we can reduce that suffering. By acting, we can minimize the intensity of the global warming, and by acting now, the effects of the global warming that does occur can be reduced.
6 November 2007 at 18:13
Here is a small bit of slightly encouraging news regarding cirrus clouds, should it be verified:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071102152636.htm
6 November 2007 at 18:18
dhogaza (176), I can accept that. The rules of accounting do say that you can only count things that are countable. While this leads to occasional goofy accounting results, neither should economists be held to General Accounting Standards.
6 November 2007 at 18:55
Is that Sciencedaily release a reference to some new Spencer-Christie paper? Can’t tell from the story; link’s just to their school PR office. Sounds to me like it’s this one:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL029698.shtml
Full text here (secondary source, looks like a photocopy)
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?num=100&hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&safe=off&scoring=r&q=Spencer+Christy+Lindzen+iris&as_ylo=2007&btnG=Search
6 November 2007 at 19:35
Hank Roberts (241) — The Science Daily article states the paper is in the GPL on-line edition, co-authored by John R. Christy, W. Danny Braswell and Justin Hnilo, but since Roy Spencer is extensively quoted, I believe it refers to the paper in GSL that you provided a link to, with exactly those four co-authors.
Why do you ask?
6 November 2007 at 19:37
Joe Duck, the knock on Kyoto is that it was too little to be effective. Likewise, the knock on Mendelsohn’s approach is that we don’t know whether “low-cost” measures will have sufficient effect to keep us out of the positive feedback regime. Kyoto had more symbolic value than real value. Likewise, Mendelsohn’s approach if viewed as a “starting point” has some merit, just as Kyoto did.
People do not realize just how conservative the IPCC consensus analyses are. Things could get much worse, but they are unlikely to be better.
My own view is that the low hanging fruit–conservation, energy resource diversification away from carbon-intensive sources, etc.–is the obvious place to start. Aid for energy and transport infrastructures of developing countries is another area that will pay serious dividends well into the future. Is that enough? We don’t know. A lot depends on the pace of development for technical solutions. The most important thing is to buy time so those solutions have a chance of being realized.
6 November 2007 at 20:36
> Why do you ask?
Just odd to see a Sciencedirect article dated this week, long after the article it appears to be based on came out. I recall it got a lot of discussion at the time it was published — it’s more tentative than the current flurry of mentions on the denial sites make it seem though. That’s where you’ll find current discussion.
Ah, but Christy was just in the WSJ recently, perhaps his school sent out a fresh press release without the cite.
Spencer discussed the paper a while back at Prometheus:
“… In our resulting August 9 GRL paper … the tropospheric temperature variations were very large.
In something of a “fishing expedition” we examined a variety of satellite observations that could be related to the tropical tropospheric heat budget. For the 15 largest intraseasonal oscillations between 2000 and 2005, we averaged TRMM TMI rainfall and SST, Terra MODIS cloud fractions, CERES reflected SW and emitted LW fields, and AMSU-A tropospheric temperature data to daily time scales, over tropical average space scales. The result was clear evidence in support of Lindzen’s “Infrared Iris” hypothesis, at least on the intraseasonal time scales we examined. (Unpublished was an analysis of the 15 next-largest ISOs, which revealed very similar signatures.)…”
I haven’t found cites to it, but it’s early yet I guess.
6 November 2007 at 20:37
Oops, the Prometheus cite for my recent quote from Spencer is:
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/08/23/part-2-feedbacks-the-infrared-iris-and-the-role-of-precipitation-processes-by-roy-spencer/
6 November 2007 at 20:51
Oh! Hank, your 236 hyperbole and histronics make good literature (it is well written) but not very helpful…
6 November 2007 at 20:55
#206 Jim Galasyn: Re Matt in 197, can you explain why habitat loss due to land development and biomass loss due to ocean overexploitation would not cause widespread species extinctions far in excess of the background rate?
Eastern US has seen forests fall to 2% of what it was 200 years ago. How many extinctions did we see?
Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest has been 88% cleared since the 1800’s. How many extinctions did we see?
According to Lomborg, 1 and 0.
According to EO Wilson’s model, the number of species would have been halved.
Now Lomborg only addresses animals for the US forests, and animals and plants for the Brazilian rainforest. So I guess a lot of insects could have been lost and Wilson would have been right.
It’d be interesting to hear if what Lomborg wrote is true. If it is true, can you explain the reason why EO Wilson’s predictions failed to materialize?
6 November 2007 at 21:02
#207 Nick Gotts: From Wikepedia article on Lomborg:
“He has claimed to have been a supporter of Greenpeace. When challenged that Greenpeace had no record of his ever being a member or supporter, he stated that he had given money to Greenpeace collectors.”
That’s funny. I just checked Wikipedia and he said he was the regional director and shows a picture of him and Jacques Cousteau smiling together. Oh, wait, it just reverted. Never mind.
Seriously, if you won’t even believe a statement he makes about something in his own life, then there’s not much hope for anything else he does. Speaks volumes about your mindset though…
6 November 2007 at 21:05
#208 SecularAnimist: But I fail to see how that gives him any credibility, especially given his well-documented, monumental dishonesty, inaccuracies and nonsensical rationalizations when it comes to the substance of his “arguments”.
Ray passed on the chance to point out Lomborg’s biggest mistake, so I’ll pass the torch to you. I hold the guy in pretty high regard, and would seriously like to know where he’s screwed up. I looked at a anti-Bjorn websites and found everything pretty petty.
Perhaps if you produced something you had studied in detail, I could study it too and come to some common understanding?
6 November 2007 at 21:22
Re #214: No, they’re not.
6 November 2007 at 21:34
#203 Gavin’s inline: I’m pretty sure everyone will agree that IPCC could have been clearer about what their numbers meant and how important this uncertainty is, but your characterisation of the IPCC statements are simply erroneous.
Considering you had a special post on the topic, I trust I’m not alone in failing to recognize the full threat.
Here’s my naive take on this.
1) Oceans have been rising around 1.8mm/year based on long term tidal measurements.
2) Let’s assume warming, melting sheets, and other bad things bump that to 8mm/year. In 2100, that’d be 72 cm, which is at the high end of everything. Likely not worst case, but hopefully pretty bad.
3) 634M people live withing 30 feet of sea level, according to April 2007 Environment and Urbanization. No idea if this is valid.
4) Big jump: 44e6 people live within 0.7m (simple ratio off 634 * 0.7/10)
5) 60% of Netherlands population (15.8M) are under sea level.
6) Massive engineer projects take 15 years from start to finish, assuming minimal red tape.
OK, round numbers…in 88 years we are dealing with roughly 44M people’s place of residence being under water. That’s about 3X the number of people that are currently facing the same issue in the Netherlands.
88 years is almost 6 massive engineering cycles. Dubai’s Palm Island built land where there was none in 4 years.
And assume for a moment that we weren’t warming at all due to man. We’d have to deal with this problem anyway in 450 years rather than 88 years. From a planning perspective, what is the difference? Nobody plans 88 years ahead. But if we must, depreciate that which will flood over the next 88 years, give owners time to mitigate, sell, let cities decide how to address. The market will sort this out.
Poor nations can create enormous wealth in the next 50 years if they have low-cost energy available to them. Look at what Taiwan, Korea and China have accomplished in 50 years. And shame on all of us if a sizable portion of the world is still seeking fresh water and food in 10 years.
This is an engineering problem, readily solvable. It doesn’t scare me at all. If the water portion scares you, then I must ask why it doesn’t scare you that it’ll happen naturally anyway in 450 years?
6 November 2007 at 21:55
re:147
“They have been having intermittent problems with their software over recent months; comments often go missing without a trace. This happens to me about one comment in three.”
It would be nice to get a reject message when moderated out. I sent an offtopic post which was only to do a heads up to RC on Bob Carter youtube videos. I am not surprised that it was apparently moderated out as contributed nothing to discussion but it would nice to know that it wasnt missing because of bug in web software.
6 November 2007 at 23:24
> Eastern US has seen forests fall to 2% of what it was 200 years ago. > How many extinctions did we see?
Me personally, a handful. Did you see any?
You know where to look this up, if you want to know what you missed.
6 November 2007 at 23:35
Far off track for ocean carbon levels, but a useful pointer for anyone in N. America who’s curious what birds are thriving and threatened local to you. I’ll point to the glossary, without which the rest won’t make sense. You know what to do.
http://www.rmbo.org/pif/glossary.html
“Database dictionary and key to data sources … Partners in Flight Species Assessment Databases (http://www.rmbo.org/pif/pifdb.html) and provides brief definitions for some terms. The databases, and this glossary of terms, should be used in consultation with the Partner in Flight Handbook on Species Assessment (http://www.rmbo.org/pubs/downloads/Handbook2005.pdf), which provides more complete information on the terms listed below. The databases should be used in consultation with this Handbook, which defines the terms listed….”
6 November 2007 at 23:47
#234, Climate science is not a popularity contest, this article is nothing but fluff, fast food for the on the go science amateur. Never goes near the crux of the subject, which is about a relatively sudden unprecedented in 650,000 years injection of CO2 to the atmosphere (and ocean). Lindzen’s sympathetic reporters have always done the same thing, avoid the subject and infomercial the sweatheart contrarian.
6 November 2007 at 23:50
re 248
“Seriously, if you won’t even believe a statement he makes about something in his own life, then there’s not much hope for anything else he does. Speaks volumes about your mindset though…”
Matt, it’s not a question of believing something he said, as it was shown the statement was at best facile, at worst a lie. Lomborg wrapping himself in an environmentalist flag because he gave money to Greenpeace is much like saying because I contribute money to breast cancer I’m a member of the medical establishment.
But you are right, if for the worng reasons. There’s not much hope for anything he says, not because he says it, but because, as demonstrated multiple times in this thread and elsewhere, what he does say turns out to be wrong.
This is an important distinction.
6 November 2007 at 23:59
Phil Scadden,
While I agree with your sentiment about getting a reject message for moderated comments, unless the software is able to generate that automatically it would be quite a lot to ask of the moderators. As you probably well know, this website receives a LOT of comments.
7 November 2007 at 0:11
Majorajam> A true welfare analysis takes into account all costs and benefits, (mitigated damages but also mitigated risk and uncertainty), uncertainty about climate sensitivity, about stochastic discount rates, etc.
There is an interesting discussion of (and not much agreement with) Weitzman by climate scientist James Annan here:
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2007/10/weitzmans-dismal-theorem.html
7 November 2007 at 1:02
Ray, nicely put: The most important thing is to buy time so those solutions have a chance of being realized.
I’d add that finding the most effective way to do will become one of the great challenges of this generation, though I’d prefer to see our innovation used first on the easy problems and do massive mitigations later (when we know which technologies work best and cheapest).
David Benson: Yes checked links, no have not read “Collapse”. Unless I am mistaken the new carbon sink studies do *not* suggest that we need to fundamentally shift IPCC projections of temp and sea level rises - rather don’t they suggest, somewhat speculatively, that we need minor modification to IPCC?
Hank: Your examples are a good example of how things have changed but not had catastrophic consequences. Total forest cover is down but we’ve got massive replanting and boards are not all that expensive. I’d bet a halfpenny that the founders would have loved the climate debate but would not have invoked all the alarmist catastrophe talk so prevalent in the media’s failed attempts to articulate the gradual changes that reflect how things are likely to shake out.
Simply noting (correctly) that there is a potential for climate catastrophe is not all that helpful to anybody. We need some form of quantified risk assessment or we’ll keep doing what humans do so well - budget the big money politically and emotionally rather than rationally and in a cost effective way.
7 November 2007 at 1:45
Matt, you say Lomborg somewhere wrote that only one species became extinct in the Eastern US forests in the past 200 years. Where did he say this? Which species did he name?
Carolina parakeet? Passenger pigeon? Labrador duck? Ivory-billed woodpecker? Bachman’s warbler? That’s considering only birds, and only narrowly defined Eastern forest birds.
Think about the fact that you got fooled again, and came here believing what Lomborg wrote, even though it’s easy to debunk.
Don’t let people put stuff in your head without checking it, eh?
http://www.biology-online.org/articles/forest_losses_predict_bird/predicting_species_losses_forest.html
7 November 2007 at 2:45
How many decades did it take to cut 98% of the eastern forest? Do you think maybe that makes a slight difference?
If 98% of the eastern forest were to be cut in something like 10 years, survival would be an entirely different problem for its inhabitants. The eastern forest is still being cut in a process that started centuries ago. I, little old me, helped cut several old-growth red spruce trees out of the Appalachians during the 1990s. My swings of the axe perhaps took it from 97.8888 percent cut to 97.8889. In the 1600s some guy cutting masts for sailing ships probably took it from .8888 to .8889.
98% of the eastern forest has never been lying on the ground at one time, or a percentage even remotely close to 98%. Cut 98% of it down in one year and you’ll be able to watch a lot of species population numbers go into severe retreat.
I would like get into brazilian rosewood from the coastal ranges of Brazil, but I hear Lomborg thinks a board foot is a board foot. So first I would love to buy some mature brazilian rosewood from him at yellow pine prices.
7 November 2007 at 2:48
#247, Maybe I misunderstood but can you provide some supporting evidence that eastern US forest coverage is 2% of what it was 200 years ago? US Geological Survey has eastern US at 54% forest coverage and USDA Forest Service has forest cover at 70% of 400 years ago. 2%
7 November 2007 at 3:02
re: #251 matt
“Poor nations can create enormous wealth in the next 50 years if they have low-cost energy available to them.”
Did you read #229? Can you explain to me where poor countries are going to get lots of low-cost energy? I’m eager to know, because it won’t be petroleum.
re: massive engineering projects take 15 years…
Zero credibility, “not even wrong”.
The Netherlands Delta project “was launched in 1958 and largely completed in 2002″. (Wikipedia). And that’s by a rich, smart country that has centuries of practice at this, and it wasn’t for dealing with SLR, it was for storms, and there’s a big difference. In the first, you engineer for a given level of risk. In the other, well, it’s hard to know how to plan, especially if you don’t really know how far up the water is coming.
And this is *tiny* compared to protecting just the Gulf Coast.
The distance from one end of the Netherlands to the other, near the coast, is ~500km. which is approximately the width of Louisiana, i.e., distance from Port Arthur, TX to Slidell, along I10 and I12.
(None of this implies that SLR is the worst problem, either.)
7 November 2007 at 5:06
RE #248 Matt “That’s funny. I just checked Wikipedia and he said he was the regional director and shows a picture of him and Jacques Cousteau smiling together. Oh, wait, it just reverted. Never mind.
Seriously, if you won’t even believe a statement he makes about something in his own life, then there’s not much hope for anything else he does. Speaks volumes about your mindset though…”
Matt: Lomborg claims he was a Greenpeace member. Greenpeace says they have no record of him. When challenged on this point, he backs down. If Lomborg lied about this, as I believe he did, his only obvious motivation is because it makes a good propaganda point - as you’ve proved by using it here. I’d say that speaks volumes about his mindset, not mine. Let me ask you: do you believe him on this point? If so, presumably, you believe Greenpeace is lying when it says he was never registered as a member or supporter. Do you?
7 November 2007 at 8:10
Matt @247: Now Lomborg only addresses animals for the US forests, and animals and plants for the Brazilian rainforest. So I guess a lot of insects could have been lost and Wilson would have been right.
The last time I checked, insects were animals. Please can you be a bit clearer? What exactly is Lomborg’s claim?
Matt @251: In 2100, that’d be 72 cm, which is at the high end of everything. It is? IPCC high end is 59cm (steric) plus an unknown number for melting (eustatic). A fairly conservative number for eustatic would be 50cm by 2100 (Greenland will eventually deliver ~7 metres, over a millenium or so). Hansen et al’s recent paper says several metres. Some people here are speculating about 10+m, which seems like a leap to me, based on pessimal ice sheet dynamics. But it’s not completely impossible.
Matt @251: I think your “big jump” step is unwarranted.
I am a firm believer in humanity’s ability to achieve amazing things, particularly in science and engineering spheres, particularly if they are highly motivated (by money, patriotism, desperation, or a survival instinct). So I’m not necessarily disagreeing with the thrust of Matt@251. But John Mashey @229 is quite right to bring up the subject of peak oil. Big engineering is going to get harder.
7 November 2007 at 9:23
Matt,
First on Lomborg’s “Greenpeace membership”. This is at least as old as St. Augustine’s Confessions. Claim that you used to believe as your opponents did, but that you learned better. The role of this ploy is to imply superior wisdom based on hard experience. That’s why you have so many “Christians” claiming they used to be “hippies”, Neocons claiming to have been liberals, neoliberals claiming to have been conservatives, etc. An effective debating strategy that usually turns out to be an exercise in creative writing.
Now, as to Lomborg’s “greatest mistake”. In short, it is pointless to point out the mistakes of a liar and self promoter. Lomborg simply is not serious or credible anywhere outside of those circles who buy into his ideology.
As an example, to state that no species were lost in the clearcutting of Brazilian Atlantic forests is simply absurd. Lomborg is taking advantage of the lack of a proper census of species in this region prior to the unfolding of the ecological catastrophe that is Brazil.
7 November 2007 at 10:00
(Greenland will eventually deliver ~7 metres, over a millenium or so). Hansen et al’s recent paper says several metres. Some people here are speculating about 10+m, which seems like a leap to me, based on pessimal ice sheet dynamics.
Hansen’s recent paper pretty much ruled out millenial time scales and refused to discount decadal ones.
“… we find no evidence of millennial lags between forcing and ice sheet response in palaeoclimate data. An ice sheet response time of centuries seems probable, and we cannot rule out large changes on decadal time-scales once wide-scale surface melt is underway.”
7 November 2007 at 10:13
So back on topic, just for the hell of it, over at Tamino there’s this: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/10/27/uncertain-sensitivity/#comment-8342
7 November 2007 at 10:18
Matt said:
“Poor nations can create enormous wealth in the next 50 years if they have low-cost energy available to them. Look at what Taiwan, Korea and China have accomplished in 50 years.”
Here’s a little factoid- the 1970’s with their huge forced mitigation due to the oil embargos experienced significantly higher global GDP growth than the 80’s or 90’s which had extremely cheap energy by comparison. Is that consistent with the assumptions you’ve just made? This decade’s global GDP growth has been faster than the last, with much more expensive energy. How’s your theory holding up?
“give owners time to mitigate, sell, let cities decide how to address. The market will sort this out. ”
Give owners time to mitigate? What, costal property owners will single handedly reduce CO2 concentrations to such a point as to impact global climate? Or what, sell? Sell to…? I know, the guy who wants to live under water. Are these fair descriptions of your theory? The critical bit though is Bible faith that ‘market will sort this out’- just like the market sorted out airline security before 9/11, or chemical facility security since, or how it sorted out California’s electricity market in 2001, or the stock market in the 1920s, or how it sorted out clean air and water for Chinese. Just like that. Indeed, the market lets me rest easy at night.
“This is an engineering problem, readily solvable.”
I find it intriguing that you believe that erecting massive sea walls around tens of thousands of miles of coastline (together with concomitant environmental damage) will be cheaper than CO2 mitigation. Is that a back of the envelope calculation perhaps? And what happens when the loss of snow and glacier melt devastates the Colorado River system or any of the major river systems that are fed by Himalayan glaciers (or many others for that matter)? I guess we just take on some more engineering projects diverting water however many thousands of miles will be needed to sustain the populations that depended on that melt water? I’m sure you’re not scared, even as you’re keenly aware of the staggering amount of energy required to move water. And no doubt we’ve yet to approach the cost of mitigation, but the good news is we’re not done with the need for engineering projects. Because drought and desertification will require huge irrigation projects if we are to sustain agriculture in afflicted areas. And we’ll have plenty of engineering work to deal with the increased intensity of tropical cyclones, increased flooding, and other extreme weather events. How are we going? Let’s have a look at that envelope.
“It doesn’t scare me at all.”
It can truly be said that ignorance is bliss.
7 November 2007 at 10:55
Re Matt’s claim that Lomborg p0wns Wilson, see Wilson’s rebuttal:
Vanishing Point: On Bjorn Lomborg and extinction
For Lomborg errors on deforestation, see:
Not Seeing the Forest for the Trees: On Bjorn Lomborg and deforestation
Note that this discussion would have happened in regular old scientific discourse if Lomborg had published his results in a refereed journal. Instead, it has to happen in a piecemeal and ad hoc way, with ludicrous claims like “scientists won’t debate him.”
It might be fun to debate Lomborg’s biggest error/distortion, but that would be a very long conversation. For a comprehensive list of Lomborg’s cluelessness and/or mendacity, I again point you to:
http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/
7 November 2007 at 11:06
Interesting coverage of some scietific research on enhancing ocean uptake of CO2 by accelerating the weathering of volcanic rock and making oceans more alkaline. Harvard and Penn State team.
http://www.physorg.com/news113637002.html
7 November 2007 at 12:26
I would like to strongly, and indeed urgently, commend to everyone’s attention this article by Richard Heinberg:
I think the article does an excellent job of laying out the difficult technical, economic and political challenges that face the world in responding to the related problems of anthropogenic global warming and fossil fuel depletion, and offers some valuable suggestions for dealing with them.
I think that most of you will find reading it a more rewarding use of your time than revisiting the well-documented frauds of Bjorn Lomborg that the climate change deniers enjoy wasting everyone’s time with.
7 November 2007 at 13:08
BTW, thanks to Hank for the links to interesting discussion on ocean ecosystems and CO2.
7 November 2007 at 13:11
Re # 247, 262 forest cover
You have to distinguish between original, primary, forest cover, most of which was cut down, and secondary forest cover which replaced some, though not all, of the primary forest. From McCarthy, B.C. (1995) The Ohio Woodland Journal 2:8-10:
“Historical records and descriptions of the pre-settlement eastern landscape paint a dramatically different picture from that of the present. Colonists of the 1600s were presented with vast stands of large trees and continuous cover. Most historians agree that this country was settled largely because of its enormous timber resource. The needs of a colonist were simple: a roof over one’s head, food on the table, and warmth in the cold months. As a result, forests were cleared for settlement, sawtimber, agriculture, and fuelwood. In later years, the surviving forests were exploited for a variety of additional wood products including charcoal, pulp, and turpentine. While the exact dates are arguable, essentially all eastern old-growth was eradicated by the turn of the 20th century.
Today, virtually all old-growth forest that remains in the eastern U.S. consists of small tracts of land (10 to 100 acres) that resulted from surveying errors or private family preservation for the purposes of aesthetics, hunting, or timbering. While these tracts pale in comparison to western old-growth forests, they remain a vitally important resource.”
(Department of Environmental and Plant Biology at Ohio University, http://www.plantbio.ohiou.edu/epb/instruct/ecology/ogarticie/mccarthy.htm)
7 November 2007 at 13:48
re 158
Matt wrote: “I wonder, too, if oil turns into the cheap fuel for emerging nations in 50 years. If EU + US do indeed bite the bullet and push to do the right thing and get off of oil, then world demand drops and the price would fall to unprecendented levels…”
=================
I write this on a day when oil may pass, or at least flirt with, the $100.00-a-barrel benchmark.
That argument seems anti-intuitive. Your scenario is based on the presumption that the cost of oil production will drop in relation to the rise in cheap alternatives to where it could compete.
As alternative, renewable energy production grows, the cost would invariably drop. Say you get 30 years out of a solar panel system, and innovation makes the process cheaper (and the odds are very high innovation and increased demand will reduce costs) then the return on that system would make competition from oil a non-sequitur.
But the price of producing, refining and delivering oil will not change in any appreciative fashion.
With the alternative energy system, unless I am missing something, you have a one-time manufacture and delivery/setup cost (plus inevitable maintenance costs), whereas with oil you have to keep bringing it in. And as I said, the cost for solar go down, not up. But the costs of oil-production are more or less fixed in terms of a lower-limit, a limit that will likely increase because it takes a large infrastructure to maintain production. And as I mentioned earlier, it is a finite resource in terms of ease of extraction and availability, suggesting that sooner or later (more likely sooner), even with deflated prices, it will eventually cost a dollar’s worth of energy to extract a dollar’s worth of energy. And then production stops.
Further, it isn’t just the cost of oil you have to consider. More and more, countries are realizing their renewable resources, such as water, arable land, and flora and fauna biodiversity are increasingly valuable to a country’s bottom-line, (something both China and India are becoming increasingly aware of). Oil-based (and coal-based) pollution occurs easily and frequently, can be extremely toxic, long-lasting and difficult to eradicate, so you need to factor in ecological costs. And as time progresses and oil-based damage to the environment deepens, the expense of countering such damage will increase accordingly.
Oil (and coal) is also a health issue, in the sense its use has been demonstrated to have a negative effect on public health, short and long-term, so you need to factor in this effect on public health and the cost to productivity, the cost of maintaining a health care infrastructure and how an economy is impacted by those costs.
And then there is the cost of ongoing AGW fed by the continued use of a carbon-based model of energy production.
I’m sure I’m missing many other factors regarding the expense of using oil. It isn’t just about paying for the energy; it’s about paying for the effect of the energy. Any way you look at it, alternative renewable energy offers better long-term benefits in terms of ecological and societal costs than oil does.
7 November 2007 at 13:52
Jim RE: #270 Lomborg Errors website:
I’d also encourage people to visit that site and read about Lomborg but for a different reason. Here the attacks against him seem to be mostly personal. The errors website is pitiful - is is another Danish professor’s attempt to discredit somebody he personally despises. In fact I understand he is often the force behind the many attempts to publicly discredit Lomborg.
*
RC moderator dudes:
How about a Lomborg thread here? And/or a mitigation thread? Those topics seem to almost obsess people here at RC and are generally off topic for the posts on science. Alternatively I’d be happy to set up a blog for the purpose of discussing these hot button topics in the context of the climate science.
*
I’d challenge folks to read the back and forth of Scientific American’s critique of Lomborg’s “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and come to anything but the obvious conclusion: Distinguished scientists felt their complex work was getting oversimplified by a non-scientist and felt their ethics were under attack by Lomborg. Rather than address his mostly obvious points they just attacked back. In fact almost all of the “anti Lomborg” rhetoric concedes most of his facts (but says they are cherry picked) and most of his broad points (Environmental awareness is important, AGW is clearly happenging, IPCC data is high quality, etc, etc.
*
Few people here appear to have read many of his arguments which in many ways line up with the science presented here. For reasons that still confuse me Lomborg simply pisses off physical scientists even as he agrees with them. Nobody likes to be called alarmist, especially by somebody who is not an expert in the field.
*
For example Lomborg has *consistently* strongly supported AGW hypothesis and consistently supported mitigation efforts. What seems to bother people is that Lomborg has spoken against Kyoto and massive mitgation efforts, he has oversimplified some complex issues, and unfortunately he accused many scientists and others in the environmental debate of alarmism and having a vested interest in outcomes. The personal Lomborg debates tend to trump his important and very reasoned point: How do we prioritize global solutions? Although it had flaws, the Copenhagen Consensus was an admirable attempt to create a nexus between science and policy and spending.
7 November 2007 at 14:47
re 276
I’d challenge folks to read the back and forth of Scientific American’s critique of Lomborg’s “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and come to anything but the obvious conclusion: Distinguished scientists felt their complex work was getting oversimplified by a non-scientist and felt their ethics were under attack by Lomborg.
===================
Gosh, Joe, I did read that exchange.
Never got that impression at all. If anything, quite the opposite; Lomborg behaved as if everyone wasn’t treating him fairly ie: “You’re not making an exception for me, and you should.”
Here is a link that will allow people to actually see the “debate” in toto:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00000B96-9517-1CDA-B4A8809EC588EEDF
Note he also got spanked in Skeptic Magazine and American Scientist right around the same time. Skeptic went so far as to give him 20+ pages to present his argument.
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-05-18.html
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/17791?&print=yes
In every case, the critiques pretty much underscored much of what has been discussed here.
7 November 2007 at 14:49
Regarding fossil fuel substitutes, consider what Harvard professor Ricardo Hausmann has written:
http://biopact.com/2007/11/harvard-center-for-international.html
7 November 2007 at 15:42
Not simplified, MISREPRESENTED.
7 November 2007 at 15:57
Re #276 Joe Duck “Although it had flaws, the Copenhagen Consensus was an admirable attempt to create a nexus between science and policy and spending.”
It was nothing of the kind. It involved no natural scientists, nor any social scientists apart from a group of economists hand-picked to give a predetermined answer - which was overdetermined by his insistence on a short time-horizon. Lomborg riles people because he is a fraud, and not even an interesting or original one. He uses all the stale tricks familiar to most of us from the creationist attacks on evolutionary theory: cherry-picking data, false dichotomies, unsupported and implausible accusations of vested interests, challenges to debates, etc.
7 November 2007 at 15:58
To Joe in 276:
I read the SciAm exchange back in the day (2001) and wasn’t impressed with Lomborg. The Grist rebuttals are also worth a read. But these discussions are no substitute for publication in refereed journals.
To be clear: You are proposing that Lomborg understands population biology and climate science better than the published professionals in these fields. You’re telling me to believe Lomborg over E.O. Wilson, and Lomborg over Hansen, correct? Because the scientists are “emotional” and “partisan,” and the dilettante is “rational” and “neutral,” I suppose.
7 November 2007 at 16:32
re 276.
Further the “What’s everyone so mad about?” complaint, something from John Holdren in response to Lomborg’s “rebuttal” to his critique.
“Now, it is apparent from reading even the first few pages of The Skeptical Environmentalist that Lomborg proposes to make the case that not just environmentalists, but a considerable part of the heretofore respectable environmental-science community, have been misunderstanding the relevant concepts, misrepresenting the relevant facts, understating the uncertainties, selecting data, and failing to acknowledge errors after these have been pointed out - in other words, that the scientist contributors to what he calls “the environmental litany” (namely, that environmental problems are serious and becoming, in many instances more so) have been guilty of massively violating the scientists’ code of conduct. This would be interesting news indeed, if Lomborg could prove it. But reading further reveals that his attempt to do so is itself a richly populated pastiche of these very infractions. Every class of mistake of which he accuses environmentalists and environmental scientists who have contributed to the “litany” is in fact committed prolifically and indiscriminately in The Skeptical Environmentalist (except, of course, for refusing to acknowledge error - for this, one has to read his rebuttals).
“That the responses of environmental scientists have conveyed anger as well as substantive content, then, ought to be understandable. Lomborg’s performance careens far across the line that divides respectable (even if controversial science) from thoroughgoing and unrepentant incompetence. He has failed thoroughly to master his subject. He has committed, with appalling frequency and brazen abandon, exactly the kinds of mistakes and misrepresentations of which he accuses his adversaries. He has needlessly muddled public understanding and wasted immense amounts of the time of capable people who have had to take on the task of rebutting him. And he has done so at the particular intersection of science with public policy - environment and the human condition - where public and policy-maker confusion about the realities is more dangerous for the future of society than on any other science-and-policy question excepting, possibly, the dangers from weapons of mass destruction. It is a lot to answer for.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000DC658-9373-1CDA-B4A8809EC588EEDF&pageNumber=6&catID=9
7 November 2007 at 17:46
http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/
“Thus, it is also expected that the oil price will once again decline from $27 to the low $20s until 2020.” - Lomborg
Quoting him is a personal attack?
Please show us some examples of what you consider personal attacks on that website.
7 November 2007 at 17:58
re 283
“Quoting him is a personal attack? ”
Maybe Lomborg would feel it was a personal attack…
7 November 2007 at 18:12
Joe Duck wrote: “Distinguished scientists felt their complex work was getting oversimplified by a non-scientist and felt their ethics were under attack by Lomborg.”
No, distinguished scientists felt that the realities of their fields of study, from climate to forestry to ecology and more, were being systematically misrepresented by Lomborg. And their responses substantiate, in detail, that this was in fact so.
Joe Duck wrote: “The personal Lomborg debates tend to trump his important and very reasoned point: How do we prioritize global solutions?”
That’s not a “point”. It’s a question. It is entirely legitimate for Lomborg or anyone else to ask that question. It is not legitimate to “reason” about answers to that question based on falsehoods, which is what Lomborg has consistently done, in order to reach his predetermined conclusions.
I think the reason that some people get upset with Lomborq on a “personal” level is that they perceive him to be either arrogantly and recklessly irresponsible in his willful ignorance at best, or a deliberate fraud at worst.
J.S. McIntyre quoted John Holdren: “… what [Lomborg] calls ‘the environmental litany’ (namely, that environmental problems are serious and becoming, in many instances more so) …”
It is worth noting that not only did Lomborg misrepresent scientific reality, but he also misrepresented environmentalism. His so-called “environmental litany” is a strawman. No one can reasonably argue against the proposition that “environmental problems are serious and becoming, in many instances more so” — so Lomborg argued against a distorted caricature of the central concerns and aims of the environmental movement.
7 November 2007 at 18:27
TYNT today has a special section entitled Business of Green with several informative articles.
7 November 2007 at 18:43
An awful lot of time and attention, in this thread, is being paid to one individual, the Danish Professor and his principles and personality and we’re getting away from the broad overall picture. Matt and perhaps Joe and some others consider him their guru. Do any of you think you’re going to convince them otherwise?
Naomi Oreskes did a study which I know many of you are aware of and she found the following:
[A 2004 article by geologist and historian of science Naomi Oreskes summarized a study of the scientific literature on climate change.[29] The essay concluded that there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. The author analyzed 928 abstracts of papers from refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, listed with the keywords “global climate change”. Oreskes divided the abstracts into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. 75% of the abstracts were placed in the first three categories, thus either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, thus taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change; none of the abstracts disagreed with the consensus position, which the author found to be “remarkable”. According to the report, “authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.”]
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
In other words, the unanimous consensus of the more than 900 articles published in refereed journals from 1993 through 2003 was that global warming is under way. This should put into perspective the position of those few scientists who remain skeptical or on the fence.
I remember seeing the late Stephen Jay Gould being interviewed on the skepticism of scientists on another controversial topic, Darwinism, and he pointed out that were more than a million scientists in the world and there would always be a few who refused to accept the prevalent theory.
7 November 2007 at 18:55
Matt (249) and Joe (276) - What is about Lomborg that you two find so admirable and credible? I really, really don’t get it.
I read the New York Times article, ‘Feel Good’ vs. ‘Do Good’ on Climate (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/science/earth/11tiern.html), about Lomborg. It made me cringe, and we’re not even talking scientific issues in that article.
First, he claims he agrees that, yes, “global warming is real” and that “it will do more harm than good”. Then he makes a suggestion for dealing with it: “… a carbon tax and a treaty forcing nations to budget hefty increases for research into low-carbon energy technologies.” Not bad suggestions, possibly, but given that he puts a lot of his time and energy into dissing the idea of any urgency around the issue of global warming, it’s hard to take his suggestion seriously. And how does one even create a treaty “forcing” nations to do something?
Then, of course, he moves right on to his real solution: “…make the rest of the world as rich as New York, so that people elsewhere can afford to do things like shore up their coastlines and buy air conditioners.” To which I can only say, “Huh?”
Now, I have no problem with making the rest of the world richer, although I do have a problem with the idea that a world where everyone uses energy and resources at the rate that we here in the U.S. do currently is in any way sustainable and not only in terms of AGW. Beyond that, exactly how does one do this?
How do we create the political will to support development in the poorer countries? How do we even determine exactly what assistance can best support development? How do we deal with the selfishness of the rich countries and the corruption and ineffectualness of many developing countries’ governments in order to effectively provide assistance? How do we suddenly successfully do something that we have singularly failed to do so far in history–something that requires not a technological solution (for which we have a pretty good track record) but that requires dealing with complex social, political, and historical issues.
Moreover, where do the energy resources come from, quickly and right now, so that this development can happen fast enough to deal with climate change issues over the upcoming century–the modest ones that Lomborg agrees are “real”? China is plunging ahead with cheap energy from coal and creating huge, huge local environmental problems in the process. The Chinese are not unaware of the problems but have yet to come to grips with what to do about it. So, what’s available for the rest of the developing world? Where do they get their energy resources? A few countries have oil of their own, but the industrialized and already-industrializing countries are doing their damnedest to get their hands on it for themselves. Lomborg mentions neither the threat of peak oil nor the environmental disaster and other dangers (mine disasters and disease) of coal use nor the major expense for construction and unresolved problems of nuclear energy. He just advocates more energy to make everyone richer. It’s like he wants everyone to join in a chorus of “don’t worry, be happy.” (Which, of course, begs the question of who, really, is the “feel good” person here?)
He then misrepresents the Kyoto treaty. It was designed as an initial step, for pete’s sake, which is one of the most salient points that all the nay-sayers from G. W. Bush on down never seem to want to acknowledge, and it was totally undercut as a beginning effort by the U.S. unwillingness to get on board and the efforts of people like Lomborg to make sure it was not acceptable.
Where is the real evidence for Lomborg’s assertion that “We could spend all that money to cut emissions and end up with more land flooded next century because people would be poorer?” I get so sick and tired of hearing about how Kyoto will make people poorer, but the economists I’ve read do not present very convincing arguments–and Lomborg here doesn’t even present any evidence for his claim. We’re just supposed to take it on faith, I guess.
Limit coastal development, he says. Good idea. But what about all the coastal development that already exists, both in the industrialized and developing world? How does one relocate poor villages, gated communities, and industries that are already situated in coastal areas? I have family in Florida, and the situation down there is getting downright scary. They are getting poorer by the minute as their homes lose value. How much of that is due to transient climate issues (hurricanes, drought, etc.) and how much of it is due to AGW? I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone else does either at this point, but it sure gives an indication of exactly how hard it is going to be to contend with any climate changes that come into existence due to AGW. And that “shore up their coastline” bit he advocated earlier? Is he even aware that Florida has over 8,000 miles of coastline? Exactly how does one “shore up” 8,000 miles of coastline? It is nowhere near as simple as Lomborg pretends it is as he plays the happy, happy “skeptical environmentalist”.
I also don’t get how Matt can claim that the websites responding to Lomborg’s distortions are “petty” or Joe can assert that the attacks are “personal” when they cite chapter and verse of where he is wrong or has cherry-picked or misrepresented information. Sorry, guys, that just doesn’t fly.
On a final note, I admit that I haven’t read The Skeptical Environmentalist myself so I don’t know that this is really, really true, but I see that Lomborg is quoted as claiming (on page 122 of the book) that “Thus, it is also expected that the oil price will once again decline from $27 to the low $20s until 2020.” Now, what was the price of oil again today in 2007? And this is the guy that you think is so prescient?
7 November 2007 at 19:45
Steve Reynolds,
I have seen it yes. I think Annan is missing the point of Weitzman’s work and that is largely a product of his lack of familiarity with economics. Why should it be beyond the pale to include the implication on utility of events with a non-zero probability given what is possible to infer of such? A better question would be, on what basis can we ignore it if the science and statistics indicates it isn’t impossible? I don’t think you’re going to get many economists to present their results with the disclaimer, “we’ve looked at all feedbacks and ramifications except those that blow up our model”. That would be silly and, of course, this is Weitzman’s point. If you’re going to quantify things, quantify them, if you want to pull some levers and switches and proclaim objectivity, you shouldn’t have to add, “disregard the man behind the curtain”.
Annan’s biggest beef is with Weitzman’s treatment of climate sensitivity as, in the limit of observations, a pdf of known width. He says though that it would be different if we were trying to apply something known more abstractly (as from another planet) about climate sensitivity to earth’s environment. Now here I’m well out of my expertise, which probably means I’m typing, but I have to wonder if that is a valid point. If it is the case that particularities of other planets can drive randomness in this, frankly, artificial parameter, isn’t it also the case then that the changing particulars of our own planet- its eccentricity, land mass makeup and distribution, volcanic activity, anthropogenic activity (GHG & aerosol emissions, perhaps impact on land use), current state of disequilibrium, i.e. momentum in the system, etc.- could do the same? Some of those will matter in high resolution data, others will matter on geological time scales, but ultimately shouldn’t they all conspire to yield randomness, even as described by a very well behaved distribution (as Weitzman models)? Is not a belief in a single point estimate for climate sensitivity simply clutching at some artificial aggregate of chaotic forces because it has an analytically convenient functional form? Holy moly, did I just go on topic? If not, that was close. In any case, input from the brains of this operation (which excludes only about 75% of commenters inclusive) would be much appreciated.
As I see it and irrespective of the relative merits of my wild a*sed amateurism above, Weitzman has opened a door that cannot be closed by what Annan has done, and must be explored by economists in dire need of self-examination. Annan states in his thread something to the effect of, ‘what Weitzman’s done is apply something intended for one thing in a context it shouldn’t be and that’s silly’. This is patently wrong. He appears to be unaware that the real silliness is the inference afforded to integrated assessment models that come unglued when basic acknowledgement of uncertainty is conceded. Furthermore, it is the case that utility theory does not remotely gel with the empirical data where it exists, i.e. asset returns, and Weitzman’s approach shed’s light on that as well. So I think it is a bit rich to sell it short just yet.
P.S. It also should be stated that Annan has published papers that claim we can disregard high estimates of climate sensitivity. So far as I can tell, this is not the mainstream view, however, it has obvious and large implications on what Weitzman has done, so it’s less of a surprise that Annan has picked up on it and come to the conclusion he has. If anyone of knowledge is picking up on this post, I would appreciate being enlightened on this point as well. Thanks in advance…
7 November 2007 at 19:58
Joe Duck, #276, wrote:
That’s priceless. So if I wish to “prove” that most human beings have blonde hair, and if I go out in the street and find eight blondes and take their names, and then to make up the numbers, find one brunette and one person with black hair, (which is a classic illustration of what “cherry picking” means) and if I publish my “survey” demonstrating that 8 out of 10 humans worldwide are blondes, then I take it you would have to concede that I was factually correct (while saying my facts were cherry picked)?
Cherry picking data breaks one of the cardinal rules of science, is anti-science, and amounts to lying.
7 November 2007 at 20:35
J.S. McIntyre (275), I think this was a cogent analysis, but I have one disagreement. The cost of producing oil is no way the driving force behind $100/bbl pricing, and there is major leeway between the $100/bbl and the cost of production, transport, refining and delivery (the latter two a near zero factor in the $100 figure) — all from what the folks at OPEC, e.g., simply think they can charge. Neither will the cost of production see large continuous increases in the future. It will see occasional quantum jumps: a little from finding more of it, and a bunch when there has to be a shift from primary to secondary and tertiary drilling techniques. But overall there is considerable wiggle room. I would not be surprised if the producers, if so inclined, could drop the spot/futures price to $50 overnight and feel nary a twinge.
7 November 2007 at 21:04
#270 Jim Galasyn: For Lomborg errors on deforestation, see…
Read it this morning before the sun came up. Thanks
Note that this discussion would have happened in regular old scientific discourse if Lomborg had published his results in a refereed journal. Instead, it has to happen in a piecemeal and ad hoc way, with ludicrous claims like “scientists won’t debate him.”
As I noted above, Lomborg isn’t a scientist. He’s on par with Al Gore. They are both “faces” on the movements. Their job is to try and make you think the scientists behind them are correct.
Now, I went into this thinking Lomborg was laying all the cards out on the table. Reading the link above, I’ll concede that it appears Lomborg hasn’t. To me, this puts him on par with Al Gore and Michael Crichton, who I don’t feel put all the cards out on the table either. Nor do I expect them to, because as I said, they aren’t scientists, they are moutpieces.
So, now that I have acknowledged Lomborg distorts by selectively sharing information with readers, how many here will acknowledge the same about Gore? I recall the kid-gloves treatment Gore received here recently for his “mostly accurate” AIT. Ray? Gavin? Do you feel Al Gore has left out critical pieces of information that cause the viewer to jump to the wrong conclusion? Is it different than Lomborg?
7 November 2007 at 21:08
Mary C (288): I was enjoying your post (even though I disagreed with some of it), and then you went and let your visceral get out with “…naysayers [on Kyoto] like George W. Bush….” As your mind knows better than your gut, I’m sure, Clinton and Gore and the Senate of ‘97 canned the Kyoto treaty; Bush just carried on the sentiment. A minor point to be sure within the context of the total post, but it does splash on a pile of incredibility, unfortunately.
7 November 2007 at 21:27
One problem that I think many people have with climate change is grasping the timescales. They see a problem where the worst of the consequences will not occur for a century or more and think that it is of no consequence. Surely, they say, we can come up with technical fixes by then. How, they wonder, do I know that things won’t change dramatically in that time and mitigate the problem without our efforts? The problem with this thinking is that while consequences may be a ways off on a human timescale, our ability to counter these issues before they become inevitable actually has a very short horizon. A scientist looks at a system where positive feedbacks may dwarf our own contributions and is naturally concerned. Anyone with even a little experience of dynamical systems–or even an understanding of exponential functions–is bound to see that such a system is highly unstable. If we do not buy time by reducing carbon emissions, we will push the climate into this regime, and likely nothing we can do will have much effect. That is what scientists are trying to warn people about. That is what people like Lomborg in their sanguine ignorance do not understand.
7 November 2007 at 21:29
#275 J.S. McIntyre: But the price of producing, refining and delivering oil will not change in any appreciative fashion.
50% of gas is oil costs according to (1). US, EU are 44% of world oil consumption. If US and EU manage to get substantially off oil (say, 90% reduction) over 50 years, do Saudi Arabia et al simply live with half as much revenue? Do they double the price and accelerate emerging nations shift to non-oil use, or do they halve the price and make it easy for emerging nations to use all the old technology (IC engines), that the rest of the world quit using a while back?
In other words, if EU and US weren’t buying any oil, what would the price per barrel be? I think it would be quite a bit less.
1. http://www.atg.wa.gov/uploadedFiles/Another/Safeguarding_Consumers/Antitrust/Unfair_Trade_Practices/Gas_Prices/2007%20Gas%20Price%20Study%20-%20phase%20I.pdf
7 November 2007 at 21:43
#263 John Mashey: Did you read #229? Can you explain to me where poor countries are going to get lots of low-cost energy? I’m eager to know, because it won’t be petroleum.
Agree on petroleum. Let’s look at some numbers. Solar cell costs today are around $0.25/kwh. In 50 years, is it reasonable to expect those costs to fall two orders of magnitude? Semiconductor industry would achieve almost 3 orders of magnitude improvement in that time frame (if current trends continue–probably not likely), so perhaps 100X improvement to cost is practical for cells. In any case, in round numbers, if you have sun, you will have super cheap energy. 100X reduction to 0.25, of course, is 0.0025, which is about 1/10 the cost of today’s cheaper options for electricity. Can they afford them? Well if per-capita income growth in India can outpace inflation by 5%, then in 50 years they are getting sorta close to Arkansas’s average income.
The Netherlands Delta project “was launched in 1958 and largely completed in 2002″. (Wikipedia). And that’s by a rich, smart country that has centuries of practice at this, and it wasn’t for dealing with SLR, it was for storms, and there’s a big difference. In the first, you engineer for a given level of risk. In the other, well, it’s hard to know how to plan, especially if you don’t really know how far up the water is coming.
This isn’t one big project. It’s a series of smaller projects, that, as I note, complete on shorter time schedules. As you write above, you make it sounds like the project was delivering zero protection until it was finished in 2002. In fact, it has been deliver stages of protection continuously since the 1970s.
And of course, they are will to contract out their smarts and know how. Dubai didn’t figure out Palm Islands all by themselves.
The distance from one end of the Netherlands to the other, near the coast, is ~500km. which is approximately the width of Louisiana, i.e., distance from Port Arthur, TX to Slidell, along I10 and I12
Wiki says there are 10,000 miles of dykes protecting the Dutch. TEN THOUSAND MILES OF DYKES. Holy cow.
7 November 2007 at 21:57
Poor countries will do well for low cost energy provided they have biomass to spare. Read the link provided in comment #278 for relationships between biofuel and fossil fuel prices.
7 November 2007 at 22:54
ray ladbury> Anyone with even a little experience of dynamical systems–or even an understanding of exponential functions–is bound to see that such a system is highly unstable.
As someone with experience with dynamical systems, it seems to me the system becomes more stable as ice is eliminated.
When there is no more ice, there is no more ice albedo positive feedback. Other factors being equal (methane hydrate speculation aside), the system gain is lower, and the system is more stable.
7 November 2007 at 23:26
Off topic — sorry! I’ve had a difficult time finding this website, which Google no longer seems to list, even as I ask for www.realclimate.org. Can anyone tell me what’s happening? I normally connect almost daily.
7 November 2007 at 23:39
Re #294: [Wiki says there are 10,000 miles of dykes protecting the Dutch. TEN THOUSAND MILES OF DYKES. Holy cow.]
Humm… Standing, or laid end-to-end?
Re #288: [(Quoting Lomborg) “…make the rest of the world as rich as New York, so that people elsewhere can afford to do things like shore up their coastlines and buy air conditioners.” To which I can only say, “Huh?”]
Which I can only echo, but for a different reason. That’s maybe the most fundamental difference between the Lomborg types and the rest of us. It might be possible to create such a world, but I have great difficulty in understanding how anyone could see having to spend all one’s time indoors as a desirable goal. Surely we can think a bit beyond mere survival, and consider how the world might actually be made liveable as well?
7 November 2007 at 23:44
#269 Majorajam: Here’s a little factoid- the 1970’s with their huge forced mitigation due to the oil embargos experienced significantly higher global GDP growth than the 80’s or 90’s which had extremely cheap energy by comparison. Is that consistent with the assumptions you’ve just made? This decade’s global GDP growth has been faster than the last, with much more expensive energy. How’s your theory holding up
Let’s look at it this way: How have emerging markets made a name for themselves in the last 50 years? By doing something cheaper than an established market. Usually, to date has been focused nearly 100% labor cost, with contributions from governments at times to lure businesses. Consider that energy costs are 20% of an airlines expenses. Consider energy costs are under 1% of a SW company’s expenses. But there are a host of products, such as LCD TVs, in which energy costs related to production are non-trivial–in some cases 4-5%.
If a country with near zero infrastructure today opts to avoid legacy constraints that the US or EU might have (as related to power generation), and finds a way to trim that 4-5% energy cost to 1-2% ON TOP OF offering a labor pool that will do the same job for 10% less than the next highest bidder, then the world will beat a path to their door.
We watched the world movemanufacturing to Japan, then back to US, then to Mexico, then Taiwan, then China, Malaysia, Vietnam, and then ??? all over reduced labor costs.
Give owners time to mitigate? What, costal property owners will single handedly reduce CO2 concentrations to such a point as to impact global climate? Or what, sell? Sell to…? I know, the guy who wants to live under water.
Assume I have ocean front property today worth $1M today for the land, and $500K for the house. Houses get moved all the time. The land today is worth $1M. The land in 40 years is worth about half that. When the water rises in 80 years, it’s obviously worth zero. Things get depreciated all the time. Without AGW it’ll be worth 0 in 400 years. What’s 320 years? One might also note that those living this close to the water are already costing society a disproportionate chunk of change.
I find it intriguing that you believe that erecting massive sea walls around tens of thousands of miles of coastline (together with concomitant environmental damage) will be cheaper than CO2 mitigation. Is that a back of the envelope calculation perhaps?
Again, it’s not needed everywhere. Put a stick in the sand, tell folks this will probably be under water in 80 years what do you want to do? If you want us to protect it, here’s the cost. If you want to sell it, now is the time.
Again, it would have happened in 320 years anyway if man wasn’t even on the planet. It’s nature.
I’m sure you’re not scared, even as you’re keenly aware of the staggering amount of energy required to move water.
100 years ago do you know how daunting the task must have seemed to produce the 3.6T KWH the US needs today each and every year? And yet we did it. See my other post. It’s entirely reasonable energy could cost 1/10 in 50 years of what it costs today. Outside of minor blips and burps, the cost for energy falls so quickly folks really fail to grasp it. A paper in SCIENCE in 1981 predicted that it would require more than a barrel of oil’s worth of energy to extract a barrel of oil. Spectacularly wrong.
Moving water is a problem if energy is expensive. Fresh water is a problem if energy is expensive. Both are managable if energy is cheap.
7 November 2007 at 23:56
re 291
J.S. McIntyre (275), I think this was a cogent analysis, but I have one disagreement. The cost of producing oil is no way the driving force behind $100/bbl pricing, and there is major leeway between the $100/bbl and the cost of production, transport, refining and delivery (the latter two a near zero factor in the $100 figure) — all from what the folks at OPEC, e.g., simply think they can charge.
=============
Nor did I say it was, specifically, only using the figure to underscore a point - that this is a commodity that will invariably continue to rise in cost. The estimated true cost of oil right now is closer to $70.00 a barrel, not $100.00. Adjusting for inflation, I believe at $70.00 a barrel it is cheaper than during the oil crisis of the 70s. That price is being pushed by nervous traders looking for something, anything, to keep an ailing market moving. It may decline, it may not…there are many factors at play.
And it is not the “folks from OPEC”, though they contribute. There are a multitude of factors, such as 1) the ill-advised invasion of Iraq coupled with the mismanagement, corruption and painful incompetence that has marked our presence there, 2) the continued saber-rattling over Iran, 3) the ongoing problems with refineries being taken off-line for repair and maintenance, 4) the loss of production from Mexico 5) the growth of energy consuming economies that more and more are helping to drive the cost of oil up and so forth. And let’s not forget Big Oil, who have a stake in keeping the money flowing.
“Neither will the cost of production see large continuous increases in the future.”
I disagree. “Easy” oil production is becoming more a thing of the past - witness the scramble of the East Asian countries and India to compete with the U.S. and Western Europe to lock up oil from a variety of countries. The newer fields are in harsh climes, in deeper water, or increasingly unstable regions of the world, politically and militarily. Getting oil out of these places will be increasingly expensive, both in terms of inflation and real cost. Consider Iraq: even if we hold on to a presence there and somehow get production flowing, we already thrown multiple billions of dollars at the problem for no return. And once the oil is produced, there is no guarantee it is “ours” - it gets turned over to companies that refine and ship it to the highest bidder. What are we going to do - levy a tax on the oil before they can have it? If so, that will only raise the cost of production.
“I would not be surprised if the producers, if so inclined, could drop the spot/futures price to $50 overnight and feel nary a twinge.”
Unlikely to an extreme, and even if it did, it would likely be little more than the last gasp of a bygone era. The world has changed, Rod. There are more consumers than consumables. In such a world, it’s a seller’s market.
8 November 2007 at 0:15
re 293
#275 J.S. McIntyre: But the price of producing, refining and delivering oil will not change in any appreciative fashion.
50% of gas is oil costs according to (1). US, EU are 44% of world oil consumption. If US and EU manage to get substantially off oil (say, 90% reduction) over 50 years, do Saudi Arabia et al simply live with half as much revenue? Do they double the price and accelerate emerging nations shift to non-oil use, or do they halve the price and make it easy for emerging nations to use all the old technology (IC engines), that the rest of the world quit using a while back?”
Oil is a finite resource. The U.S. hit peak oil decades ago. The Middle East hit or will hit peak oil soon. There are not enough new fields coming on line to substantially change production levels - what is there is there, and in many places production is in decline. Given the increased demand, even short term, by the time Western (and hopefully Eastern) economies wean themselves off fossil fuels, it is unlikely there will be a dramatic lowering in price. Why? Factor in the understanding that as countries develop and seek to exploit renewables the produce they are going to undermine any attempt by oil producing countries to take advantage of your fairy-tale scenario by underselling. It’s smart business, both for the seller and the buyer.
Again, the more renewables grow, the cheaper they will become to produce. Add to that the understanding that beyond one-time costs of production and installation and invariable maintenence(which you are not addressing) the cost advantage of alternatives outweigh the constant maintenece of an oil-based economy.
And, of course, you fail to address the ecological and health advantages…but then, you really can’t, now can you?
Here’s the real bottom line … we’re going to be forced off of oil-based economies sooner or later. The real question is whether we do it now, or are forced to do it when, as discussed here quite a bit, it will probably be too late. But once alternative energy solutions come on line in large quantities, become cheaper, and lifestyles change - and they will - the odds are there will be a major shift in how the world consumes energy.
Those small, impovershed nations you like to talk about will probably adapt well, if allowed. It’s countries like the U.S., consuming 25% of the world’s energy, that is going to have a rough go of it.
Put another way, this is going to be one heck of a diet.
8 November 2007 at 1:08
DanG — don’t include the period after the ‘org’ in the link you ask for, as you did in your posting. Anything with ‘www’ or http:// in front of it will be hilighted and clickable (it will “look alive), but the rest of the URL has to be right for it to connect.
8 November 2007 at 1:16
Marjorajam,
Well I would guess I am in a small minority, being a climate scientist who actually does have a formal qualification in economics - not that I am going to cross swords with Weitzman on that score
Weitzman’s result is essentially due to how he handles the infinitesimal probability of an infinitely large catastrophe. Even if one accepts his probabilistic paradigm (which I do not) it is important to realise that he is not just saying that (eg) 2xCO2 is a catastrophe with unbounded cost, his analysis shows that +1ppm of CO2 is equally a catastrophe with unbounded cost, and I bet his method would also say that the risk of a future flu epidemic is a catastrophe with unbounded cost (consider the number of people killed as an uncertain multiplicative parameter just like climate sensitivity). So it seems that at best he has shown that this sort of analysis cannot provide usable results - how are we supposed to allocate resources to such things as CO2 mitigation and disease control if we face an infinite future cost for all possible choices?
8 November 2007 at 1:40
> Wiki says there are 10,000 miles of dykes protecting the Dutch. TEN
> THOUSAND MILES OF DYKES. Holy cow.
Matt, not all dykes are created equal. Most of those are “internal”
dykes, part of a hierarchical system aimed at removing excess water in
steps. Others are river dykes, which have recently been under threat
also as the Rhine has been flooding more abundantly due to environmental
changes upstream (which may be partly climate related too).
The dykes (and dunes!) protecting the Netherlands from sea level
extremes are no more than a few hundred kms long. It includes the
‘afsluitdijk’ behind which the Zuyderzee polders are located (each with
its own dykes), and the Zealand storm surge barrier. Both these were
specifically aimed at shortening the coastline exposed to the sea.
In the North there is the Waddenzee, a tidal plain serving as a
stop-over for many (most?) migrating birds of W Europe. That’s going to
disappear too, no way to save that with dykes. Same for the salt water
ecosystem behind the storm surge barrier, which was designed (at great
cost) to preserve it.
The Dutch are spending as much money on their sea defences as most
nations on their military. It would (will?) increase drastically with
sea level rise as projected. Mitigation costs are (would be?) modest by
comparison, cf. the IPCC report of WG3.
I am from the Netherlands originally, the part protected by these works.
If all your arguments are as facts based as this one, I am not
impressed.
8 November 2007 at 1:59
BTW the learning process of the Dutch was very similar to what we can
observe as ongoing now for climate change: first disaster strikes, and
then you learn — and spend. In 1953, my cradle stood behind one of
those lowly “internal dykes”, mere kilometres from the flooded area.
8 November 2007 at 2:54
Dan G (#295) wrote:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=site%3Awww.realclimate.org&btnG=Search
Zero pages returned. As far as the Google index is concerned, not a single web page at Real Climate exists.
Someone apparently found a trick to flush it from Google. Something similar was done to Panda’s Thumb a while back by creationists. Science under attack — again.
The good news is that there are plenty of sites that link here, but all of the posts and comments should be generating their own traffic, showing up as results in the Google searches. A large part of what makes it a real resource.
8 November 2007 at 3:32
re 294: “there are 10,000 miles of dykes protecting the Dutch”.
Yes indeed, however most of them are old inland dikes. The main coastline is around 50% dikes, 50% natural dunes (personal guess). But we (I live there, my house stands 2 meters below see level.) have dikes along rivers, and the most of that 10.000 km are dikes remaining from the time we made polders, reclaimed the land from sea, bit by bit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder.
For SLR we need to enforce the 500 km coastline, but also have to take care of the river water, coming from Germany and Belgium. With a few meters SLR it will not flow, and we will have to pump and enforce the dikes along that rivers. And to keep my personal feet dry we now have to pump up the water 2 meters, and that will be a bit more in the future (or much more.) It is not only water from rain that has to be removed, ground water is coming up and this water is becoming saltier. Some farmers near the coast already have problems…
In our local news today and yesterday: plans to make new islands in front of the coast (Dubai didn’t figure out Palm Islands all by themselves. We have a proposal of a tulip.) Main purpose: we need (??) space (including new airport?) and nature for recreation… No stupid decision taken yet, but I do not understand it at all. Why make more land that we will have to protect this coming age?? And how long will we try, before we retreat? 1 meter SLR? No problem, we will build dikes and new (energy consuming) pumps. 5 meters? Some time this or coming century we will loose this expensive battle.
8 November 2007 at 5:10
Thanks to all for the spirited opinions above.
You are proposing that Lomborg understands population biology and climate science better than the published professionals in these fields. You’re telling me to believe Lomborg over E.O. Wilson, and Lomborg over Hansen, correct?
No, of course not. I think he has many reasonable ideas for how to prioritize global problems and correctly suggests that we avoid alarmism or risk spending money and allocating time ineffectively.
Lomborg actually agrees with mainstream scientific assessments on almost every issue of substance. Can you give an example where he does not do that? No. He pisses people off because he regularly and assertively suggests - reasonably in my view - that there is a lot of hype and alarmism about AGW and other environmental issues that misuses the science. Here at RC that notion is very objectionable because people seem to feel strongly that there is not much alarmism in the media (e.g. An Inconvenient Truth was objective science rather than subjective hype). Alarmism is a subjective opinion and thus can’t be labelled “true or false” so I doubt we’ll make much progress debating “alarmism”.
Above some correctly noted I should NOT have used the term “simplified”, which is what I think Lomborg usually does, to characterize scientists feeling and saying he *misrepresented* their science, which is what many scientists suggest he does.
I saw few references to actual Lomborg points that people disagree with. Some above even seem to think he is an AGW skeptic when Lomborg has consistently used IPCC data even years ago when he first started writing.
I did NOT say Lomborg cherry picked, rather I was noting he was accused of that in The Skeptical Environmentalist. Of course cherry picking is not scientific and is misleading. He may be guilty of a small amount of that (I have only seen a handful of trivial examples from the SciAm articles). Nothing that would discredit any of his main points about allocating resources more effectively and recognizing that catastrophe is unlikely to be looming.
The price of oil quote as a sign he’s not credible or a “liar” is so ridiculous I don’t know how to respond. Lomborg is made an oil price prediction that did not come true. Wrong predictions are not lies though you’d be right to question his credibility if he made a lot of predictions that did not come true. He has not done that. Nobody can predict oil prices accurately except perhaps OPEC because they can set them.
Mary - several times you note that you *agree* with specific things he said, then go on to elaborate on topics where you don’t know what he thinks. I’m not saying that is all you did, but could you find something substantial and specific Lomborg says that you think is a lie or inaccurate? Not opinions because I agree you should not be a Lomborg fan. It’s clear that compared to me you assume there is a higher chance of climate change that will create catastrophic conditions. Several people here seem to think catastrophic sea level rises this century are - let’s say for sake of reasoned debate - more than 10% likely, probably as a result of the type of feedbacks Hansen is concerned about that could cause much faster Greenland melting than had been previously considered likely. If you believe Greenland has a reasonably liklihood of melting soon you are completely right to feel Lomborg is a sort of pied piper, luring us into a false sense of security.
If, on the other hand, you assume catastrophic conditions are extremely unlikely (on the order of less than 1%), as I do, you see Lomborg as offering reasonable approaches to mitigation and other global problems - placing more urgency on immediate benefits.
In my opinion discussing these issues as if Lomborg was the issue detracts from the very important questions of the day - how much mitigation, how we do it, how do we minimize the cost and maximize the impact. Attack the problems, not the people.
8 November 2007 at 5:27
#294 Wiki says there are 10,000 miles of dykes protecting the Dutch. TEN THOUSAND MILES OF DYKES. Holy cow.
Maybe that shows just how difficult it would be to protect all the vulnerable coastline on the planet.
8 November 2007 at 5:39
Can anybody tell me what the latest level of atmospheric CO2 is, seasonally adjusted if possible?
Every figure I see is about 2 years old. All I see of recent readings is comment on percentage growth in emissions, and not the result of the increase on actual levels.
8 November 2007 at 5:40
Extensive analysis of Lomborg criticisms:
http://www.stichting-han.nl/lomborg.htm
8 November 2007 at 6:07
Regarding OIL production. OPEC countries produce 42% of world demand but have 60% of proven reserves. Russia for instance produces a lot of Oil but does not have much left hence I guess their recent activities in the Arctic. However Oil in the Arctic is probably 4 miles down and drilling for Oil has never taken place at such depths before. The UK recently put in some requests for Antartic space most likely for Oil reasons and Canada and the USA through Alaska will probably become interested in the Arctic to.
Lets get this straight, consumption of oil is increasing but the world currently due to drilling issues and lack of new investment cannot pump it even if it is there to pump. There have been 1 trillion barrels of Oil used since 1850 and one trillion is known about left to drill. However these proven reserves figues have remained unchanged since the 1980’s and OPEC countries do not disclose their reserves willingly or accurately. Another trillion barrels of heavy oil might exist in the Antartic and Arctic and places such as venezuela (orinicho belt etc) and tar sands and shale but these oils are not limited by cost but by technology and the availability of natural resources.
A new movie/dvd called A Crude Awakening explains this situation and examines in consequences.
Peak Oil appears to be real and worrying as china and India seek more of it. It just serves to keep the price high. It may well be that for a short time prices will come down as more oil can be pumped but by the IEAs own admission long term oil production is a worry simply because of the cost of new exploration and limited returns.
We defo need to find something else within 20 years and its either second generation ethanol or hydrogen. Time is against us thats for sure.
8 November 2007 at 6:09
There are 10,000 kilometers of dikes (much of it river and canal dikes) that protect the Dutch from the SLR of the past, not the future.
I guess they’ll call it the Lomborg Sea.
8 November 2007 at 6:24
Matt 294
“Wiki says there are 10,000 miles of dykes protecting the Dutch. TEN THOUSAND MILES OF DYKES. Holy cow.”
You need to brush up your Geography and History. Most of those dykes are actually inland to control the flow of rivers, they are not coastal defenses, plus they have been built ever since Midle Age.
The biggest coastal defense in Holland as mentioned somewhere above is actually a storm defense, a direct result of the great storm of 1958 (which also caused devastation in the coast of East Anglia, thats England), it defends the mouth of a gulf which is exposed to the North Sea and it took decades to finnally be completed and declared fit to counter a storm equivalent to 1958.
8 November 2007 at 7:31
#298 Majorajam,
I’m just an amateur reader of the science, but for what it’s worth:
I agree with James Annan with regards climate sensitivity being of the order of 3degC - I get the impression his stance on this is within the consensus, and the long tail lobby are not. And I agree with him in that I think we can largely dismiss claims of long tail high sensitivity.
But saying we can expect 3degC committed global average temperature increase for a doubling of CO2 levels above pre-industrial does NOT amount to “no need to worry”.
To read someone as noteworthy as David Archer stating “taken as a whole, [the studies] provide convincing evidence that the hypothesized carbon cycle positive feedback has begun.” That was chilling, partly because I was hoping he’d say the opposite. The point being that CO2 feedbacks, even with a 3degC Climate Sensitivity can still produce the sort of overall impacts one might have associated with a higher Climate Sensitivity.
Take an emissions profile (the SRES data used by IPCC) and with a Climate Sensitivity of 3deg C you may expect a certain evolution of global average temperature. BUT if the carbon cycle acts to “amplify” emissions more than expected (as it seems to be), the actual atmospheric CO2 build-up associated with that SRES scenario can still proceed ahead of projections. The end result (very simplistically speaking) could be a warming progression similar to a projection with a higher Climate Sensitivity than 3degC.
So whilst I agree with Annan’s dismissal of a long tail to Climate Sensitivity. I don’t think that this can be carried through to the actual warming associated with a given emissions path - that pdf tail is not so certain and cannot be bounded as Annan/Hargreaves have done.
(It has been very interesting to compare the Roe/Baker paper’s discussion alongside this posting by David Archer.)
8 November 2007 at 7:58
Mary C wrote: “I get so sick and tired of hearing about how Kyoto will make people poorer ..”
The rapid phase-out of fossil fuels that is necessary to avert the worst consequences of anthropogenic global warming will make Exxon-Mobil “poorer”, which is to say it will transfer some of the trillions of dollars in profits that they would otherwise receive over the next 10 to 20 years to other sectors of the economy.
To the already unimaginably rich fossil fuel corporations, that’s an unacceptable “cost” of global warming mitigation, and it is the real impetus behind all the fraudulent Lomborgian propaganda about how global warming mitigation will “hurt the poor”.
8 November 2007 at 9:43
Re: #312 (Goffers)
As of September 2007 the monthly average CO2 concentration from Mauna Loa is 380.58 ppmv. Seasonally adjusted, it’s 383.57.
8 November 2007 at 9:56
#317 & David’s statement “taken as a whole, they provide convincing evidence that the hypothesized carbon cycle positive feedback has begun.”
Does this mean we just might have already reached that tipping point I’m most concerned about (that no matter how much we reduce our GHGs now, nature will take over and keep on increasing the warming, in the most part by its own GHG emissions)?
I’ve read Mark Lynas’s SIX DEGREES, and based on his best assessment of the scientific studies a couple of years ago when it was sent for publication, he suggested that a 3C degree increase in warming would push us past that point of no return tipping point (at least for many 1000s of years), that 3C would ensure we get to 4C, which would ensure we get to 5C, that would ensure 6C (at least that’s how I read it). And BTW his vision of a 3C increase scenario is pretty horrible in my books, even if he is wrong about it being the tipping point.
A few years earlier, I think the idea was if we reach 6C warming (the high projection for 2100), that would be the tipping point.
My gut sense is that we really don’t know. 3C makes it more sure than 1C, and 6C is pretty high certainty, but we really don’t know.
8 November 2007 at 10:07
Joe Duck, Re 313. Let’s look at some of the other sites your HAN_NL site links to:
globalwarming.org, Hudson Institute, Johndaly.com, OISM, and Fred Singer’s SEPP. And that’s just a start. Hmm, thanks, Joe. I’ve seen enough. With friends like this, Lomborg is damned just by the company he keeps. The fact of the matter is that Lomborg’s opinions are based on ideology, and a misunderstanding of the science informed by that ideology.
Joe, why is it hard for you to understand why scientists are outraged by someone who distorts the science and then calls the scientists “alarmists” based on that distortion? Scientists have been trying to get people to pay attention to this for over 20 years. They have been rewarded by being called “chicken littles”, alarmists, frauds and worse by ignorant, greedy food tubes who don’t understand the science. Do you wonder that their skin on that issue might have worn a little thin?
8 November 2007 at 10:21
re 310
“I saw few references to actual Lomborg points that people disagree with.”
======================
With all due respect, reviewing the contents of the post referenced, you are either ignoring what has been provided/not paying attention or, as I pointed out on another thread, you are wasting everyone’s time.
I tend to continue to support the latter position.
8 November 2007 at 10:37
Re: Joe Duck
I disagree with you, but thanks for a rational and civil statement of your position.
Here’s an analogy: global warming is like lung cancer. Right now it’s just a tiny little dark spot on your chest x-ray. It doesn’t affect your life dramatically — yet — you only have a little cough from time to time and a wee bit of shortness of breath. Your uncle Lomborg comes along and says, “If you spend all that money to treat lung cancer, it’ll take away from your budget for food and rent. Even your “extra” money would be better spent elsewhere — like sending some cash to our poor cousin living in poverty in Bangladesh. Besides, chemo and radiation therapy are likely to have only a minor effect on the progress of your cancer.”
Your *doctor* (let’s call him Dr. Hansen) says that without an aggressive treatment plan things are going to get a lot worse. He also tells you right up front that things will get worse even *with* that agressive treatment plan. Most of all, he emphasizes that every minute of delay in treatment makes the problem worse. A lot worse. He further says that you must quit smoking, and beside, it’ll save you money.
Meanwhile your wife tells you, “For the love of God, quit smoking!!!” She also says your uncle Lomborg is a detestable worm.
8 November 2007 at 10:39
#303 J.S. McIntyre Here’s the real bottom line … we’re going to be forced off of oil-based economies sooner or later. The real question is whether we do it now, or are forced to do it when, as discussed here quite a bit, it will probably be too late. But once alternative energy solutions come on line in large quantities, become cheaper, and lifestyles change - and they will - the odds are there will be a major shift in how the world consumes energy.
I think we are at total agreement here. As I’ve said previously, Bush should have said to the country on September 12 2001 that we were going to speed our migration off of oil like nobody has seen before.
My guess is where we do diverge is that I’m keen on nuclear, and you aren’t (true?). That’s really a separate discussion that I think was collectively mined out in another thread a while back.
BTW, it’s the refusal to speed the migration to nuclear that will ultimately cause us to remain stuck on oil. Everything else in the near term just doesn’t deliver the scale we need to make a quick transition, and in those times the status quo always wins.
8 November 2007 at 10:42
Goffers: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
8 November 2007 at 11:05
Joe agrees that Lomborg does not understand population biology and climate science better than published researchers, which is cool, but then Joe asks, “Lomborg actually agrees with mainstream scientific assessments on almost every issue of substance. Can you give an example where he does not do that? No.”
Yes. Lomborg told me, in person, that “biodiversity loss is not a catastrophe.” I don’t know what would rise to the level of catastrophe for him, but I call wiping out entire ecosystems catastrophic.
For example, great sharks, the top of the food web in many ocean ecosystems, have been fished nearly to extinction. If you remove the apex predators from an ecosystem, the system unravels in a trophic cascade. See recent research on the destruction of the N. Carolina scallop industry:
Cascading effects of the loss of apex predatory sharks from a coastal ocean
Here’s another example: Most of the N. Atlantic fisheries have collapsed due to overexplotation. This grim development is part of a global crisis in ocean biomass. For published work, see UBC Fisheries research.
In both of these cases, “environmentalist” Lomborg denies there’s an issue; as long as we have some aquaculture to farm fish for human consumption, all is well. And in both cases, Lomborg’s opinion flies completely in the face of mountains of peer-reviewed research.
Furthermore, when I pressed him on this very issue, he tried to switch the conversation to forestry, but I didn’t let him. I said, “We’re not deploying factory trawlers and longliners into the forests.” My point was that we don’t allow hunters to place 30-mile trap lines in Yellowstone; imagine the outcry, as bears, cougars, deer, raccoons, squirrels, and all manner of furry creatures would be very visibly caught to die slow, agonizing deaths. But that’s what we do in the oceans, and the result is to remove entire trophic levels from the ocean ecosystems. To Lomborg, that’s just “removing the oldest fish from the population” (his exact quote to me). I doubt that Lomborg knows what a “trophic level” is.
8 November 2007 at 11:06
re 288
“Matt (249) and Joe (276) - What is about Lomborg that you two find so admirable and credible? I really, really don’t get it.”
I often ask myself this same question about one-issue voters, the kind of people who will support any candidate as long as they claim to be against abortion or homosexuality or favor prayer-in-schools.
It strikes me there will always be a segment of society that will want the world to be a certain way and to hell with the consequences, or the evidence.
This sort of behavior reminds me of a quote from David Brin:
===============
What are the most common traits of nearly all forms of Mental Illness?
Nearly all sufferers lack…
…flexibility - to be able to change your opinion or course of action, if shown clear evidence you are wrong
…satiability - the ability to feel satisfaction if you actually get what you wanted, and to transfer your strivings to other goals.
…extrapolation - the ability to realistically access the possible consequences of your actions and to empathize, or guess how another person might think or feel.
David Brin.
8 November 2007 at 11:15
Re #312 & #319
The latest Mauna Loa trends can be found at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
HTH, Alastair.
8 November 2007 at 11:19
#324 Surely the world is going is going to decommission nuclear reactors as quickly as possible because of SLR. A good majority of them are sitting at current sea level at the coastline and would be engulfed by the sea if it rises much more than the IPCC SLR estimates. The disintegrating ice sheets and the nuclear reactors need to be viewed as a single, coupled system. Perhaps if the IPCC is correct, it is just a question of storm surges. But if the IPCC has a shread a doubt in its collective mind about its few-centimetre SLR estimates for BAU SLR then it ought to get back and start discussing SLR properly … and pronto.
8 November 2007 at 11:25
re 324
“My guess is where we do diverge is that I’m keen on nuclear, and you aren’t (true?).”
No, I’m not. Having worked with nukes, and spent a fair amount of time studying the problems associated with the use of nuclear energy as a solution to energy problems, I have a very strong aversion to most things nuclear.
I would suggest you read the interview with Dr. Brice Smith in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Nov/Dec) and then get back to me.
http://thebulletin.metapress.com/content/06276q2j38877333/fulltext.pdf
(Note: It might load a little slow, but it will load)
As he discusses, nuclear is a short-term solution, a band-aide that treats the symptom, not the disease, to use a medical metaphor.
He points out there are three classic risks:
1) the association between the fuel cycle and weapons production;
2) reactor accidents; and
3) disposal.
He also points out that while the risk of accidents - low probabilities mixed with very high consequences.
There are also two very good discussions of Climate Change to be found in this issue, found here:
http://thebulletin.metapress.com/content/u51191350533/?p=3d88486ade784dff9a5d4f7604f058c2&pi=0
I would also recommend Alan Weisman’s “The World Without Us”. His discussion of what we know about disposal issues is nothing short of nightmarish.
“…it’s the refusal to speed the migration to nuclear that will ultimately cause us to remain stuck on oil.”
There is no real data to support this opinion.
But seeing as you brought up the pie-in-the-sky solution, let me offer another: “Mining the Sky” by John S. Lewis, a book that offers some long-term and potentially sustainable non-nuclear solutions to our energy problems, and to my thinking, a wiser solution than the nuclear option.
http://books.google.com/books?id=k9hwi3ktye8C&dq=mining+the+sky&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=ph8ZfRQrTk&sig=W5XEj2iKuRLVzOamkFqsSiexwWM
8 November 2007 at 11:31
#306 Margin Vermeer:If all your arguments are as facts based as this one, I am not
impressed.
I’m just merely pointing out that it floods in 320 years naturally anyway. Because of man, it might flood in 80 years. From a planning perspective, both are long term projects. Here in Seattle we can’t even get consensus on whether or not to build new bridges that are supposed to fall down in the next big earthquake. If we can’t agree on that 20 year event, what is the difference between an 80 year SLR with 10% certainty and a 320 year SLR with 100% certainty?
8 November 2007 at 11:35
re 324
“it’s the refusal to speed the migration to nuclear that will ultimately cause us to remain stuck on oil.”
I wrote there was no data I was aware of to support this.
I should have elaborated. There is nothing to suggest this is limited to an either/or situation, as your statement suggests.
8 November 2007 at 11:44
#318 SecularAnimist: To the already unimaginably rich fossil fuel corporations, that’s an unacceptable “cost” of global warming mitigation,
XOM has GM of 43.5%, op margin of 42%, 41.4% tax rate, 10.5% net on sales.
AAPL has GM of 29%, op margin of 43%, 29.4% tax rate, 10.3% net on sales.
MSFT has GM of 79.1%, op margin of 45%, 30.0% tax rate, 27.5% net on sales.
GOOG has GM of 60.2%, op margin of 55.6%, 23.3% tax rate, 29% net on sales.
I’m not sure what “unimaginably rich fossil fuel corporations” you are using, but XOM isn’t a great looking business from teh numbers. They are about the same as Apple, with a 12% higher tax burden. MSFT and GOOG do, in fact, meet the measure of “unimaginably rich corporations”.
Labels need to mean something to actually stick.
8 November 2007 at 11:50
Matt @ 324: One difference between J.S.McIntyre and yourself is plain in this post. When McIntyre says “we’re going to be forced off of oil-based economies sooner or later”, he doesn’t just mean the US. He also means the rest of us. There are of course national security reasons to reduce US dependence on imported oil. But even if the US had a gazillion barrels of home-grown oil, it should still be reducing fossil fuel dependence, because (a) the atmospheric CO2 will do for you just as surely as it does for the rest of the world, and also (b) latecomers to the energy-efficiency game will buy their solutions from the early adopters.
[In fact, the US does have a gazillion barrels of oil underground, in the form of coal, which can be converted to gasoline etc at a price equivalence of about $50/barrel, once the conversion plant is constructed].
8 November 2007 at 12:02
Re:324
Matt, if you think nuclear is a solution you need to read
http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html
Sorry if this is off topic!
8 November 2007 at 12:02
Zero pages returned. As far as the Google index is concerned, not a single web page at Real Climate exists.
Someone apparently found a trick to flush it from Google. Something similar was done to Panda’s Thumb a while back by creationists. Science under attack — again.
Timothy Chase wrotte (308)
“The good news is that there are plenty of sites that link here, but all of the posts and comments should be generating their own traffic, showing up as results in the Google searches. A large part of what makes it a real resource.”
I imagined something like that, so it’s on my favourites list now.
It reminds me of Reasic blog which as well one day simply disapeared from the web. It is impossible to access it and technocrati without much surprise reports that visits from one day to the next dropped from a few hundred a day to nil.
Natural variation some would say… nothing to worry about.
[Response: Actually, this is not what you think. We are talking to google and hope to have normal service restored soon. - gavin]
8 November 2007 at 12:04
#322 J.S. McIntyre: With all due respect, reviewing the contents of the post referenced, you are either ignoring what has been provided/not paying attention or, as I pointed out on another thread, you are wasting everyone’s time.
It remains a fair question. I’ll note that while Lomborg was suitably taken to task on extinction, nobody here really faulted the other that were MUCH MORE WRONG about extinction rates. Gore, Wilson, Ehrlich, Lovejoy all claimed extinction rates much much much higher than anyone is seeing. And, for all the grief he took, at the end of the section in SE, Lomborg’s position is 0.7% species lost over 50 years (if 30M species, that’s 4,200 species/year). The UN predicts 0.1 to 1% over 50 years. So for all the arm waving, Lomborg was in line with UN estimates.
Lomborg? ~4000 species per year. Within UN range.
Gore? 40,000 species per year. ~10X higher than UN.
Lovejoy? 15-20% of all species dead by 2000. ~100X higher than UN.
Ehrlich? Everything dead by 2020.
So, in the end, who was bending the truth a bit?
Of all the players, I think Lomborg was being most truthful with the readers. Could he have been more clear? Sure. But if you want to fault Lomborg, then you also need to hold the other names above in a similarly dimmed light.
[Response: Everyone’s actual statements are fair game - but the problem with much of this analysis is that you are quoting biased paraphrases of what was actually said. http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/chapter23.htm (p249 comment). If you want to get to the bottom of anything and make the appropriate comment - check your sources! - gavin]
8 November 2007 at 12:19
Re #305 Where James Annan wrote:
Well I would guess I am in a small minority, being a climate scientist who actually does have a formal qualification in economics - not that I am going to cross swords with Weitzman on that score
James,
James this thread is not about economics, nor is it about a climate sensitivity, or even Bayesian statistics. It is about the oceans saturating with CO2, which if global warming continues will result in their emitting rather than absorbing CO2. This will result in a positive feedback which could end up in a runaway situation!
If, as you have done, you go over past trends and average them out, then you can come up with a climate sensitivity which is smooth 3K change. But that is because you have smoothed it out by taking an average! The recent (last 100,000 years) climate record for the northern hemisphere shows that the climate changed abruptly, not smoothly. During the last major change, at the end of the Younger Dryas, the UK average temperature rose by 5 K in perhaps only three years. See Richard Alley’s “Two Mile Time Machine.”
The Russian scientists now estimate that the Arctic ice will disappear withing three years. After it has gone perhaps global temperatures will only have risen by 3 K. But how will that affect the forests in California, Greece, Turkey, and Australia. How will that affect the droughts in the Southern sttes of the US, or the flooding in the northern tropics of Africa and south America?
Recently we have seen that the Earth can behave catastrophically, both with the Boxing Day Tsunami, and with the Katrina in New Orleans. How big a disaster will it take before you realise that you cannot predict the behaviour of the Earth system using a spread sheet.
The Earth system is not a mathematical model. It is a real system which if pushed too hard will explode!
8 November 2007 at 12:21
Annan above: Very insightful. I’m unfamiliar with that particular issue but I find it extremely helpful when climate issues are discussed in terms of probabilities. Without this, policy decisions are poisoned from the outset by emotion and politics. The concept of “unbounded risk” seems to be invoked here at RealClimate often and I think lies at the heart of many of the points of contention.
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Tamino - thanks, I appreciate that.
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Concernd that Lomborg, rather than his ideas, are held up as the climate issue though I suppose it’s in line with how skeptics have treated Gore for his policy suggestions. IMO both Gore and Lomborg are sincere advocates for very different points of view.
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Ray I agree that it makes sense that many scientists are angry at Lomborg for what often seems to be an arrogant disregard for complexities. Also those scientists feel he has misrepresented and mischaracterized many issues as “not problems” or “small problems” when those scientists see the complexities as creating “big problems”. However, when I actually go read Lomborg I find little to disagree with. You (Ray) criticized the Danish website referenced above based on links to sites you say are just confusing the debate. Not sure how to counter that point, since it devolves into a discussion of things that, to me, are unrelated to whether Lomborg has been treated fairly by critics.
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J.S. - reviewing the contents of the post referenced, you are either ignoring what has been provided/not paying attention
Hard to address your concern J.S. I’ve reviewed this post and spent a lot of time earlier at the AIT discussion. Most of the discussion seems to simply lash out at Lomborg as not credible rather than quote him and then provide an alternative interpretation (this is because Lomborg usually is in agreement with mainstream science assessments - he disagrees with how policy and resource allocation should flow from the science). Here is a quote made a couple of times above attributed to Lomborg. But this would be general opinion and, ummm, it’s not even a Lomborg quote at all!
“…make the rest of the world as rich as New York, so
that people elsewhere can afford to do things like shore up their coastlines and buy air conditioners.”
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Here is a real Lomborg quote about a point of substance where he’s making the point that alarmism is focusing attention on heat deaths and simply ignoring deaths from cold:
For Europe as a whole, about 200,000 people die from excess heat each year. However, about 1.5 million Europeans die annually from excess cold.
Does this suggest warming is not a problem? No. Does it suggest we are failing to view climate-related death in a rational manner? To me, it does.
8 November 2007 at 12:33
Yes. Today’s rate of species extinction, and the number of past extinctions, attributable to human activity.
8 November 2007 at 12:34
re 325
Very Good! (As Usual)
Better! :http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/
and scroll down
8 November 2007 at 12:39
Re #197 (Matt) Since I wasn’t defending either Erlich’s or Myers’ numbers, your response is entirely beside the point, which is that “known extinctions” and “extinctions” are entirely different things. Any discussion of extinction that does not acknowledge this is, as I said, either ignorant, mendacious, or both.
Re #331 (Matt) “I’m just merely pointing out that it floods in 320 years naturally anyway. Because of man, it might flood in 80 years. From a planning perspective, both are long term projects.”
First, I’m truly gobsmacked you can’t see it might be easier to deal with a given SLR over 320 years than over 80. Second, what’s your source for the 320 year natural flooding claim?
8 November 2007 at 12:53
Re #339 (Joe Duck) Joe, despite the number of times you’ve repeated it, it simply is not true that Lomborg is usually in agreement with mainstream science assessments. On p.277 of TSE, he says (this is from Kare Fog - I don’t have a copy of TSE handy): “This theory [the sunspot theory] also has the tremendous advantage, compared to the greenhouse theory, that it can explain the temperature changes from 1860 to 1950, which the rest of the climate scientists with a shrug of the shoulders have accredited to `natural variation´”. This is a gross mischaracterisation of the mainstream view, and also a fine example of Lomborg’s use of false dichotomies, suggesting that solar and anthropogenic causes for temperature change are mutually exclusive possibilities. On extinction, you’ve already been referred to E.O. Wilson’s response to Lomborg. Here’s a quote from Wilson: “His estimate, “0.7 percent over the next 50 years” — or 0.014 percent per year — is an order of magnitude smaller than the most conservative species extinction rates by authorities in the field.”
8 November 2007 at 12:55
re 339
“I’ve reviewed this post and spent a lot of time earlier at the AIT discussion. ”
Obviously we - and the record of your responses in relation to what has been said - disagree.
I’ll leave it at that.
8 November 2007 at 13:09
Re flooding in 320 years, doesn’t this turn the usual denialist claim on its head? I thought AGW was good, because it’s forestalling the next ice age and the concomitant falling sea level.
8 November 2007 at 13:09
#320 Lynn Vincentnathan,
All I am saying is that whilst I am with Annan on the lower end climate sensitivity I don’t find this too comforting in light of results such as David Archer outlines. From my (limited) understanding, if we accept the Permian/Triassic Extinction as the best analogy for what could happen, it’s when we get to the >5degC range that there is a risk of clathrate outgassing which will then produce a substantial outgassing. I think this is where the ~6degC you refer to is sourced from.
I certainly don’t think we’re anywhere near being committed to catastrophic warming based on the physics and earth-system side of things.
[Human evolved behaviours + 5000Gtons of extractable carbon equivalent fossil fuels] is a totally different equation. IMHO we’re committed to re-running the Permian/Triassic unless the intermediate process acts as a negative feedback on our activities.
8 November 2007 at 13:09
James Annan,
Thanks for your response. You say, “Weitzman’s result is essentially due to how he handles the infinitesimal probability of an infinitely large catastrophe.”
As I understand and possibly misunderstand it, Weitzman’s result is due to the fact that the probability of catastrophe is not infinitesimally small, (or, more to the point, does not decay faster than utility burgeons), or cannot be inferred to be such as a result of uncertainty in the scale parameter. If on the other hand that parameter is drawn from a known pdf, you do get infinitesimally small probabilities of catastrophe and therefore DT does not apply- the tails of the posterior pdf in that case decay exponentially. As I understood the manuscript, only when damages from a catastrophe are unbounded, (which they’re not in DT, given that have only one life to give for our CBA), and S must be inferred by inductive reasoning from empirical data, (i.e. has power-law tails), do you get the result that the utility of an extra sure unit of consumption is infinite.
“Even if one accepts his probabilistic paradigm (which I do not) it is important to realise that he is not just saying that (eg) 2xCO2 is a catastrophe with unbounded cost, his analysis shows that +1ppm of CO2 is equally a catastrophe with unbounded cost”.
This is a misreading. His result does not say that +1ppm has catastrophe- it says that the utility of mitigation in a two stage model (present and future) is infinite if and only if deep uncertainty exists and the expected loss from a catastrophe assuming it occurs is unbounded. Again, that is not the model presented, as Weitzman introduces the value of statistical life as the lower bound on catastrophic damages in the outermost regions of f(y). In any case, the result is marginal- so it holds for 1ppm most closely, while a doubling is not explicitly demonstrated. I would presume it will hold for extra sure units of consumption until the tradeoff between bad tail behavior in f(y) and the utility of current consumption come into balance, presumably when mitigation spending is large. I have to ask though, would it make sense for the utility of significant savings/mitigation to be infinite but small scale savings/mitigation not to be? It wouldn’t to me.
A better way to illustrate absurdity is not to scale the mitigation down but up (as Weitzman does when he asks rhetorically whether it was optimal to undergo the industrial revolution). It is not the case that Weitzman doesn’t perceive the strength of this result- as illustrated- it is that that alone does not invalidate the poignancy of what he’s pointed out: that in situations where DT applies, the degree of uncertainty in the scale parameter and upper bound on damages in tail events can dominate assumptions of discounting and of middle of the distribution costs and benefits. Clearly a strong implication worthy of further inquiry.
“I bet his method would also say that the risk of a future flu epidemic is a catastrophe with unbounded cost (consider the number of people killed as an uncertain multiplicative parameter just like climate sensitivity).”
Weitzman points to a number of potential other circumstances where DT may apply, though I don’t see that it would here (a death is a damage, not a scaling parameter. A closer analogy would be something encapsulating the virulence and communicability of the mutated virus, but the uncertainty here extends in both directions not to mention to the virus generating process, the meaning of an extra sure unit of consumption in such a context is not obvious, and, clearly, the scope of potential catastrophic damage is far smaller than a temperature change of 10ºC). Either way, the applicability of DT to other circumstances is not prima facie meaningful. It is after all a mathematical finding.
“So it seems that at best he has shown that this sort of analysis cannot provide usable results - how are we supposed to allocate resources to such things as CO2 mitigation and disease control if we face an infinite future cost for all possible choices?”
Even if all his paper showed was that this sort of analysis cannot provide usable results, (which I don’t accept), this would be well worth a manuscript. And that of course is a major thrust of his piece- that conventional cost benefit models of climate change should be affixed with a caveat: oh by the way, we’re assuming things that the science and statistic do not support, so while the simplified parallel world that our model describes should do X, it says nothing about what we should do. This is a rather big deal, wouldn’t you agree? What room that leaves for economics to add to the discussion is frankly, at best, a secondary concern. Relying on an informationless compass to lead you out of the desert because it’s all you’ve got won’t get the job done.
In my view though, this is actually quite a constructive step as all works that point to critical flaws in existing scientific practices are. It is a point of departure for a field where there are smart people to make its tool set more relevant, (and hopefully to better fit empirical data where before their performance has been dismal to put it mildly). Weitzman suggests ways we can reduce the pertinence of DT by learning more about geo-engineering steps that may truncate the catastrophic tail. That is a constructive result. Others may look to better articulate sensitivity analysis or Monte Carlo simulation, etc. that add to the knowledge. I don’t see how these developments could be construed as anything other than constructive.
PS I won’t ask you about the climate sensitivity debate despite your expertise because having published on it you are a stakeholder. I would however like to know more about what I read on your blog- namely that if climate sensitivity was inferred from observations on other planets and then ported to Earth that it could be seen as arising from a distribution. This point is irritating me because the basic physics of radiative transfer will be the same in either case as it will have always been on Earth- but other major things will not be in both cases, while with Earth-only observations there are more factors that have to be kept constant, (e.g. rough distance from the sun, diameter, basic magnetic properties, etc.). Are you saying that you can attribute the fact that variation in sensitivity cannot be expected of climate sensitivity because of these factors but cannot be for those that time vary on Earth? This is only a somewhat pointed question in that I enter into it in full appreciation of my ignorance of the subject.
8 November 2007 at 13:22
Joe Duck, your quote by Lomborg suggesting a warmer world will decrease death rate is precisely the sort of deceptive simplification that typifies his lines of argument. Look at a single limited facet that illustrates your point rather than looking at the totality of deaths and economic impact from climate change. Do a google search on Lomborg, hotter climate, deaths and look at the crap that floats to the top. Lomborg is an apologist for complacency. However, his worst sin is to present global environmental and economic challenges in terms of competition, when there exist common solutions–or at least remediations–to many of them. Presenting challenges to sustainability as a “multichotomy” and forcing people to choose which concerns are addressed is simply a recipe for fracturing consensus to deal with any of them. It is a strategy of divide et impera in a pseudo-democratic guise.
8 November 2007 at 13:34
Nick - thanks for those specific examples, I want to review those points and will respond here tomorrow, though I think a separate “Lomborg” thread is called for here to keep the rabblerousers on topic. Better would be a mitigation thread to discuss a highly relevant topic of great concern to all of us.
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Moderators - if the RC pages don’t reappear in Google I can help get them back - suggest you review and/or email me with any changes you recently made to robots.txt or server 301 redirection or use of “NOFOLLOW” tags here at the site - those are the most likely culprits. A reinclusion request is probably needed at Google and I may be able to expedite that process.
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J.S. What are the most common traits of nearly all forms of Mental Illness?
I think you forgot to add “regular participation in this comment thread”. Maybe we can agree about that one.
8 November 2007 at 13:48
Gavin wrote in response to RealClimate getting dropped by Google:
Lovely.
I wish I had checked back again prior to making some calls. Fortunately I was put on hold and checked back just prior to being transfered somewhere else. It took PandasThumb quite a while to get back — and I didn’t want the same thing happening to you guys.
Anyway, keeping busy with interviews. But reading.
8 November 2007 at 14:15
Lynn Vincentnathan (#320) wrote:
That isn’t quite the way that Jim Hansen reads the paleoclimate record. According to him, the fast-feedback climate sensitivity is 3 C/CO2-doubling. The slow-feedback climate sensitivity is 6 C/CO2-doubling. However, even once we get to 3 C, some of the feedback will have been slow-feedback. So a 2 C fast-feedback rise in temperature would more or less mean that you’ll get 4 C slow-feedback rise in temperature but not 5 C.
As for the feedbacks we are seeing at this point from the carbon cycle, they are still simply a weakening of the carbon sinks, not the transformation of sinks into emitters. So at this point, while we are getting feedback, it is still the kind of feedback where nature has given us a pillow and we are hitting ourselves over the head, only its a shrinking pillow. Nature hasn’t started swinging its own bat, and even when it does, it will take some more doing on our part to turn it into a real sledgehammer.
Lynn Vincentnathan (#320) wrote:
Each additional degree is a great deal worse that the degree before it. I think Lynas plays with the analogy of the Richter scale (which would certainly make sense) although I’m not sure. I haven’t found the book yet. However, we always have plenty of incentive for pulling back.
8 November 2007 at 14:18
James,
Having a look back over the paper, I should modify my comments (and type slower and think more beforehand). First off it is not useful to discuss the implications of infinite forgone consumption because it can only exist in the presence of infinite downside (which is equally incompatible with the real world as the former). Secondly, as regards implications for differing levels of mitigation, what you’re getting out is really an indifference price between current and future consumption under the circumstances (which will, irrespective of lower bounds, be higher than subsistence level consumption, which was where I was originally going). The price is the price and it will include the first marginal unit (the first consumption equivalent of +1ppm) and all the consumption equivalent +ppms up until indifference. In any case, my understanding is that your concern relates to conflating damage cost with this price and the finding of infinite discomfort with future uncertainty, which is being read into too much in the first place.
8 November 2007 at 14:28
Matt (301,330) — Baring anthropogenic influences, the global climate ought to be slowly cooling towards the next attempt at a stade (massive ice sheets) 20,000 years from now. Given this, I am unwilling to credit a claim of ‘natural’ sea stand rise in 320 years. I am willing to credit a claim of sea stand rise for centuries due to anthropogenically induced global warming. Which needs to be reversed. Badly.
And by the way, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere appears now to be increasing at about 2 ppm, faster than previously.
8 November 2007 at 14:29
Re 293. Rod - Your retelling is not quite accurate. Clinton supported Kyoto and it was during his administration that the U.S. signed it. He did not, however, send the treaty to the Senate for ratification in the face of a “sense of the Senate” 95-0 vote in July 1997 stating that “the Senate would not ratify the Protocol unless rapidly developing countries such as China were included in its requirements to reduce greenhouse gases.” Certainly it was disappointing that the Clinton-Gore administration did not go all out in support of the treaty but with absolutely no support whatsoever in the Senate it was probably always unrealistic to expect them to do so. Nevertheless, according to Wikipedia, the Clinton administration continued to show at least some support for the treaty, and in July 1998, “released an economic analysis …, prepared by the Council of Economic Advisors, which concluded that with emissions trading among the Annex B/Annex I countries, and participation of key developing countries in the ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ — which grants the latter business-as-usual emissions rates through 2012 — the costs of implementing the Kyoto Protocol could be reduced as much as 60% from many estimates.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol)
Bush, on the other hand, publicly opposed the treaty. On March 29, 2001, just two months after his inauguration, an article at cnn.com reported that “……White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on Wednesday: ‘The president has been unequivocal. He does not support the Kyoto treaty. It is not in the United States’ economic best interest.’”
(http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/italy/03/29/environment.kyoto/)
Since I was speaking specifically of “nay-sayers” in my post 288, I think my point stands with no damage to my credibility.
8 November 2007 at 14:41
> real Lomborg quote
Real cite
http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_information/dissemination/unexpected/unexpected_8_en.htm#2
8 November 2007 at 14:45
Matt,
A charitable interpretation of your riposte to my factoid about global growth rates is that it was unclear. More generally, your hand waving has long since broken the sound barrier, and I’m not going to indulge it any longer. Your thesis that no potential circumstance is a problem because there ways to address them is absurd on its face. Just fyi: that problems can be dealt with will not come as a surprise. I can pick up the glass and replace the window when Jimmy throws a ball through it, but it’d be cheaper to walk to the front yard beforehand and tell him to take his game to the park. Global warming wouldn’t be a problem if we collectively decided to cease all emissions- it can be done, it isn’t cost effective though. Solar panels with 30% efficiency can be made, but not at a cost that doesn’t make it much cheaper to simply make more of the current variety. Etc. Etc. You have not even attempted to demonstrate that any of these adaptation routines are efficient, nor suggested any line of reasoning on why they might be intuitively appealing (to most here, I believe them not to be). How does one respond to, “well you could build a sea wall, or you could evacuate”, except to say, no kidding- look me up when you have anything remotely interesting to claim. Speaking of which, I think that’s where this discussion ends.
8 November 2007 at 14:50
RE #346, & “if we accept the Permian/Triassic Extinction as the best analogy for what could happen, it’s when we get to the greater than 5degC range that there is a risk of clathrate outgassing which will then produce a substantial outgassing.”
That is probably the most probable boundary figure for hysteresis (greater than 5degC range), but I’m not sure that scientists actually know whether or not 3C might be enough to EVENTUALLY over a long time play out to much greater increasts via nature’s contributions. Perhaps 6C warming ensures massive outgassing, but a 3C warming might lead to a bit of outgassing, leading to a bit more warmnig, and so on up to a 6C warming.
I’m not familiar with the science, but I would be looking for proof that a 3C warming in the past did NOT result in such an effect (eventually). and maybe the scientists have this proof, but I just am unaware of it.
BTW, SIX DEGREES (Mark Lynas) is for sale in the UK, and will be over here in January 2008. I used http://www.amazon.co.uk to get my copy. It is based an a lot of scientific studies.
8 November 2007 at 15:01
Martin Vermeer answered to Matt on the Dutch dikes:
“If all your arguments are as facts based as this one, I am not
impressed.”
Typically, that is the way with denialists’ arguments. When checked, they evaporate. That do not hinder them to sprout such garbage a dozen times in a post.
It makes me wonder, why an earth such behaviour is tolerated?
8 November 2007 at 15:02
A correction to earlier comment. The great storm in the North Sea was in 1953 and not 1958.
About 170 people died in East Anglia as a result of it and over a 1000 in Holland.
By the way, as I writte just now a severe weather warning is being issued due to similar conditions to 1953 happening this very night. Rotterdam port will is currently closed and homes are being evacuated in East Anglia.
This set of conditions: high tides and stormy weather are not related with AGW however, in a scenario of higher average level of Oceans will obviously influence the impact of these occurrences increasing therefore the risk.
8 November 2007 at 15:13
Cobblyworlds,
It’s funny that you say that because I was attempted to post yesterday, as I veered dangerously close to on-topic, that there should be a discussion of climate sensitivity to CO2 emissions rather than simply CO2 concentrations. I didn’t post that because it occurred to me that sink saturation isn’t necessarily an appropriate criticism of the economic modeling (in other words, I would imagine- and hope- that the consensus on the relationship between future emissions and their direct effect on GHG concentrations in the upper atmosphere is taken into account in the models, although it is less than clear that the uncertainty of said is). What hadn’t occurred to me is the potential relevance of the separate issue of melting permafrost or any other feedbacks that could result in significant (or very significant) emissions of GHGs- i.e. the relationship between future emissions and their indirect effect on GHG concentrations- which won’t be incorporated in the models unless it is taken into account in the climate sensitivity scale parameter.
Anyone care to comment? I’ve heard it said that climate sensitivity is an equilibrium concept. Does that imply that it includes long term feedbacks especially those that are highly unpredictable and unstable/non-linear like the thawing of permafrost? Are those (rumored-to-be) highly positive feedbacks part of the 3ºC sensitivity even as they are one-off? The more I think about climate sensitivity, the more the mind boggles.
8 November 2007 at 15:18
Lynn Vincentnathan (357) — I opine that a better analogy is PETM, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. The Wikipedia page on this appears to have updated recently:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene-Eocene_Thermal_Maximum
8 November 2007 at 15:24
Joe Duck, I agree that we should be discussing issues, rather than Lomborg’s style or positions. In fact, I would contend that like most ideologically driven “advocates,” (be they from right or left) Lomborg has made himself irrelevant.
So, I ask you, if you had never read Lomborg and his soothing words, how you would prioritize resources given that
1)climate change has at least the potential to damage civilization beyond repair
2)the probability of 1) cannot be reliably bounded at present
3)we do not know where the tipping points for irreversible change are
4)we have many other crises and needs, which climate change will exacerbate, and which must be solved simultaneously if we are to reach the ultimate goal of economic and ecological sustainability.
Lomborg and Gore are lightning rods. Let us lay them aside until the sparks die down. Do you disagree with the above points? If so, which? If not how would YOU prioritize efforts.
8 November 2007 at 15:59
It’s a strawman. Direct deaths due to excess heat is not claimed by anyone credible to be high on the list of problems that will be caused by accelerated warming.
Setting up a strawman, knocking it down - surely you realize that this is a dishonest tactic?
It’s crap like this that cause us to call him a liar.
8 November 2007 at 16:17
The annual death rate and life expectancy in Minnesota are little different than they are in Florida. The grim reaper is not that easily fooled.
8 November 2007 at 16:21
Re. 363, it’s not only a straw man, it’s also a good illustration of (apparently) intentionally misleading the public with statistics; because what counts isn’t the total numbers of deaths occurring presently, but the number of additional heat-related deaths that are expected to occur as a result of increased temperatures, vs. the number of cold-related deaths that are expected to be avoided as a result of increased temperatures. On that measure the net number of deaths is expected to rise substantially as temperatures rise (see here for instance, and/or see the IPCC WGII reports).
8 November 2007 at 16:28
Regarding alternative fuels and CO2, an interesting piece from the NYT:
The Carbon Calculus
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/business/businessspecial3/07carbon.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin
8 November 2007 at 16:35
Also, re. 363, it’s also a very good example of cherry picking. Why quote statistics for Europe rather than give the worldwide statistics (which would show a far higher proportion of heat-related deaths)? When it comes to the expected impacts of global warming, he almost always focusses on Europe and/or the US, and ignores the expected (far more serious impact) on tropical countries - most of which are the same developing countries that he claims to be so concerned about. It’s a classic example of mendacious cherry picking.
8 November 2007 at 16:46
Re, Joe Duck, 310:
Joe you’re dissembling. What you actually wrote was:
When someone accuses someone else of cherry picking, for you to say that they are thereby “conceding the facts” that are being cherry-picked (as if that made the charge of cherry picking somehow less serious) is an outrageous attempt to defend the practice of cherry picking, and you know it.
8 November 2007 at 16:58
RE #363:
“For Europe as a whole, about 200,000 people die from excess heat each year. However, about 1.5 million Europeans die annually from excess cold”
Sorry I can not reel back to the originator of this nonsense.
BS and nothing else. Where is his/her reference? Where is his/her common sense?
We do cope quite well with the usual winter weather, thank you.
8 November 2007 at 17:02
I pointed earlier to a link with actual numbers on excess wintertime deaths — which is not the same as deaths “from excess cold” at all.
The actual number reported is a tenth the number you’re attributing to Lomborg. Where do you find that in what Lomborg published?
8 November 2007 at 17:08
Closer to on-topic, here is a most disturbing recent report by the IEA regarding increases in global warming gases:
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view_article.php?article_id=99485
8 November 2007 at 17:15
Matt wrote:
According to CNNMoney.com, Exxon-Mobil is the world’s largest publicly traded company, and in February 2007 reported the largest annual profit of any corporation in US history for 2006: $39.5 billion, an increase over its previous record-seting $36.1 billion profit in 2005.
I would say that setting records two years in a row for the largest profit of any corporation in US history qualifies as “unimaginably rich.”
Microsoft’s annual profits are less than half of Exxon-Mobil’s and Google’s profits are less than one tenth. Fortune 500 lists Exxon-Mobil as the most profitable US corporation for 2007; Microsoft doesn’t even make the top 10, and Google doesn’t make the top 20.
8 November 2007 at 18:17
RE: Lomborg quote about deaths was from “Cool It” and pulled from Lomborg.org. Not sure of his source as I don’t have the book where it’ll be noted. I agree these numbers are not a reason to be complacent in face of global warming, but disagree that he’s suggesting they are. He’s correctly using this as a good example of the media’s tendency to ignore this significant aspect of climate related deaths. It’s interesting that some above call this a strawman while others say it’s cherry picking and others say irrelevant altogether and others say the numbers are bogus. It CANNOT be all those things, folks.
Dave:
When someone accuses someone else of cherry picking, for you to say that they are thereby “conceding the facts”
This is an odd interpretation of what I wrote, but usually cherry picking accusations do concede the veracity of the limited set of facts in an analysis, but suggest they are presented in a misleading way.
*
With both Gore and Lomborg critiques I think you need to be careful to look separately at the *facts*, which both Lomborg and Gore tend to have right and the selection and interpretation of those facts, which they both do to some extent selectively (aka cherry pick). Because cherry picking varies in degree it’s hard to address exactly how defective a cherry picked analysis turns out to be.
*
Dave you do make a good point about Europe vs Global - what are the numbers? This would be a legitimate “cherry picking” point against Lomborg though it would not invalidate his main point - let’s look broadly at the issue.
Ray wrote:
Presenting challenges to sustainability as a “multichotomy” and forcing people to choose which concerns are addressed is simply a recipe for fracturing consensus to deal with any of them.
I think this is the most powerful criticism of what could happen from the Lomborg / Copenhagen Concensus approach. But it’s up to us to prioritize on the basis of reason rather than on the basis of emotion. On that point most people can agree even if reasonable people disagree about the probabilities, which brings up your other question to me:
how you would prioritize resources given that
1)climate change has at least the potential to damage civilization beyond repair
2)the probability of 1) cannot be reliably bounded at present
3)we do not know where the tipping points for irreversible change are
4)we have many other crises and needs, which climate change will exacerbate, and which must be solved simultaneously if we are to reach the ultimate goal of economic and ecological sustainability.
Complex but great question Ray. I’m starting to study the idea of “unbounded risk” that keeps cropping up here. I think the concept is questionably applied in teh RC discussions, often treated here as if unbounded risk should be assigned a super high value because it is unbounded. I’m assuming (I don’t understand this yet) that for a risk analysis you’ll need to assign some probabilities to the risks, unbounded or not. For example a major asteroid collision or huge solar flare would be more problematic for us than any climate scenario, yet we all (correctly) don’t want to spend much time worrying about those possibilities or spending money or innovation devising mitigations. However, a short and generic short answer is that I’d follow Mendelsohn’s advice and do moderate mitigation.
Ray also noted this:
Lomborg and Gore are lightning rods. Let us lay them aside until the sparks die down
Great idea!
8 November 2007 at 19:05
Ray - I’d vote for this approach to mitigation. This is the very thoughtful reply I had from Dr. Mendelsohn at Yale. I just got his permission to post this:
Robert Mendelsohn:
The economics community involved in climate change generally agrees that it is time to start controlling greenhouse gases. The prevailing wisdom in this community is that we should start with a relatively modest program that gets more stringent over time (although there are a few dissenters to this conclusion). A policy that begins with massive immediate mitigation will tend to be wasteful on a number of criteria. First, the costs will far exceed the benefits. The present value of damages from current emissions are relatively low, so that any immediate program that has very high costs per ton will be wasteful. The benefits of controlling carbon dioxide this decade are less than $10/ton of carbon dioxide. The abatement costs will exceed the benefits for any effort that costs more than this amount. Second, the optimal response to a stock pollutant like greenhouse gases is a dynamic policy that tightens over time. This optimal response delays expenditures on abatement until later. The optimal response postpones massive costs until the second half of the century. This reduces the overall cost of abatement, regardless of the long term cumulative target, by a factor of three. Third, we want to take advantage of technical change. If we invest in abatement too soon, we will invest in poorly designed programs and technology. The current corn ethanol program in the United States is a good example. It costs a lot of money and has the same carbon footprint as gasoline. That is, it is completely ineffective at controlling greenhouse gases. Let technical change proceed and then invest heavily in effective alternatives. Finally, the optimal program is a universal program that applies to every emitter in the world. It is wasteful to spend $10 per ton to remove a ton of emissions in one place while failing to spend $1 per ton removing a ton in another. The more stringent the policy becomes, the more critical that it be applied
universally. R. Mendelsohn
8 November 2007 at 19:25
” The Harvard study found that low-income, white rural populations in the North, including Minnesota, the Dakotas, Iowa, Montana, and Nebraska, have life expectancies of 76.2 years for men and 81.8 years for women. That’s substantially more than 98% of the average white population. Many counties in the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” fared well in life expectancy, but Nicollet County was the top at 81.1 years. …”
Go north of those states, and life expectancy goes up even higher.
Warming Minnesota is not going to materially lengthen life expectancy for its citizens.
“The most extensive study on Excess winter mortality in Europe: a cross country analysis identifying key risk factors was published in 2002. The results show a positive link between premature winter deaths, mean winter environmental temperature and mean winter precipitation. In other words, the premature death toll is higher in countries with a warmer winter climate. …”
8 November 2007 at 20:00
It’s not significant.
Why do you imagine that it is?
Because Lomborg says it is. Got it.
Yes, it is.
Strawmen are often built of statements containing cherry-picked data used to refute an argument the other side never makes.
Because knocking down a strawmen IS irrelevant.
They may well be. Building a strawman by making shit up is a lot easier than searching for data to cherry-pick. Knocking down a strawman argument is a form of lying, so why would one be terribly surprised if the facts being quoted are also a lie?
Sure it can, and indeed appears to be.
8 November 2007 at 20:12
I’d love to see the analysis that allows him to make this statement in such an authoritative manner.
8 November 2007 at 20:24
In #373 above, Joe Duck states (regarding Lomborg’s claim that GCC will save lives overall from the reduction in deaths from cold in witner):
“It’s interesting that some above call this a strawman while others say it’s cherry picking and others say irrelevant altogether and others say the numbers are bogus. It CANNOT be all those things, folks.”
I would invite you to reconsider that statement, since clearly a claim *CAN* be all those things (whether or not Lomborg’s is being a separate question.
A strawman is a false representation of an opposing position, manufactured to be easily knocked down. The easiest way to fabircate such a false representation is by cherry-picking the data. Cherry-picked data is, on the account of the “bogus” selection criteria, irrelevant. The issue is largely a matter of which aspect of the irrelevant cherry-picked bogus strawman misrepresentation of the facts one chooses to emphasize.
8 November 2007 at 20:47
Joe, did you ask professor Mendelsohn why it made sense to pay for mitigation when the, “costs of global warming roughly equal the benefits” as he stated just a few short years ago? One might say that given this remarkable turnaround in such a short period that skepticism might be in order when this good doctor makes a claim. Btw, there was nothing in that ‘thoughtful’ response but a serious of unsubstantiated conclusions stamped with the, “my view is the mainstream view” seal of approval. Though the good professor is in a position to know that, I do find myself seriously doubting that he posseses even a modicum of objectivity. In any case, I would be willing to bet that amongst the smelling sweetly as Linberger cheese assumptions required to get to his result you would find:
A fixed climate sensitivity parameter
A net positive effect on disese mortality from global warming
No effect of global warming on drinking/fresh water availability
No scenarios that introduce damages from ice sheet melt
A fixed horizon of 100 years (pre-selecting a strategy that emphasizes late mitigation)
A slightly negative net effect on agricultural yields but positive in the early to middle part of the horizon
Mitigation costs that do not account for what mere lay persons might see as the positive geopolitical ramifications of less dependence on fossil fuels from unstable nations and despots. Neither will the positive effect on persistent and destabalizing trade imbalances factor here.
The discount rate applied will assume a perfect correlation between benefits from mitigation and per capita growth while risk aversion and the pure rate of time preference are likewise fixed parameters
Etc. etc. etc. I don’t know any of this for certain as I haven’t look through his work, but it describes my strong suspicions, and a critical mass of these would certainly account for his ‘reasoned’ stance. I would actually think it a good idea to put these assumptions to the good doctor and see if he objects. Do you mind shooting him an email Joe?
Assuming that these assumptions hold in the main, this is precisely what I mean by economists with the temerity to push their grossly crude models on the public as if they represent wisdom. Small. Joke.
8 November 2007 at 20:47
Joe, first some definitions–any adverse outcome has a cost that would be incurred if it happened and a probability of occurence. Multiply these together and you have risk. For a risk to be unbounded, it must have a very high cost–incalculable or inestimable–and there is also a difficulty in calculating its probability of occurrence. A good example of such a risk was that of terrorist attack just after 9/11/2001–insurance companies wouldn’t touch it, and when the insurance companies turn their back, you know you’ve got an unbounded risk.
Climate change fits this definition quite nicely. There are many threats arising from climate change that have extremely severe consequences–e.g. Lovelock’s hypothesis of near complete loss of ocean productivity. Now Lovelock has taken some hits for some ideas that sounded a bit too new agey in the past, but he is a sharp guy. His concern is deemed credible by several experts. The problem is that we don’t know enough to calculate the probability. Another: loss of agricultural productivity at a time when human population is growing to 9-12 billion. Extreme weather events, and so on.
When you have unbounded risk, one thing you have to do is more research to better