The advocate will pick up any piece of apparently useful data and without doing any analysis, decide that their pet theory perfectly explains any anomaly without consideration of any alternative explanations. Their conclusion is always that their original theory is correct.
The scientist will look at all possibilities and revise their thinking based on a thorough assessment of all issues – data quality, model quality and appropriateness of the the comparison. Their conclusion follows from the analysis whatever it points to.
RE # wmanny 8 April 2009 at 16:46
Walter, you could try to counter Ray’s statement by linking to some scientific papers that contradict the points that Ray mentioned. But you would also need to consider other papers that may come to different conclusions. The burden for you (and it’s a tough one) is to show why these studies are right and all of the other studies are wrong.
@ 394 and way off topic. The subject of earthquake prediction is a pretty fraught one. However, the radon connection is not a bad one. Uranium, the ultimate parent of the radon is lithophilic–it likes rock-forming elements like Si, K, Ca, etc., so a granite will be relatively high in U decay products. Ra will wind up collecting in fractures and fissures in the rock. As pressures change, you MIGHT expect some of the Ra to be squeezed out to the surface and be detected. It’s not going to work every time, but it could be an indicator. Other schemes use the piezoelectric nature of quartz, looking for changes in the electric fields at the surface. These, to have had some limited success, but a reliable earthquake prediction network is a long way off. It would be nice to have some method of predicting quakes other than monitoring seismic activity, as really big quakes often don’t have significant precursor activity.
Walter Manny, I’m not an evangelist. I’m not out to convert you. I would like to understand the basis of your belief, since it evidently is not evidence based. I would also like to know what it would take to convince you that climate change was real AND that it posed a significant threat. And if you really think, a priori, that the probability the scientific community is correct is zero, we know from Bayesian probability that we cannot convince you with any amount of evidence.
Look, as a scientist, I have to go with the preponderance of the evidence. If another theory came along that explianed the evidence better, I’d happily switch. My experience as a physicist tells me, though, that when the a theory (in this case, of Earth’s climate) has this much support, it’s extremely unlikely to be drastically wrong.
Ray, never once have I suggested that climate change was not real — indeed the two words make up a tautology — nor that the probability of the scientific community being correct is zero. The probability is that the community is right. That a significant threat is posed is a tricky one, and it may come in the form of an upper range of predictions coming true. It also may come in the form of the predictions being oversold and attempts to mitigate bringing unintended consequences. I think you have noted elsewhere how painful it will be to attempt to overturn a longstanding carbon addiction. Should that pain fall where it usually does, history will be unkind.
I understand that were I a scientist such as you, I would rely on the preponderance of evidence, I hope because I would have a deeper understanding of it. I do not possess that deep understanding, and the best I can do is go broad, reading the jargon-rich IPPC reports and other papers as best I can and comparing the reactions to them from more knowledgeable people such as yourself. You are a physicist who believes one thing. Dyson, as an example, comes out with a different point of view, as do Happer, Lindzen, Geigengack and a host of others, though a minority to be sure. I am not as inclined as you to dismiss these other views. In fact, when AGW “alarmists” go after them tooth and nail, my curiosity is hardly diminished.
As to consensus, your experience and your reading of the history of science tells you that the consensus holds far more often than some might think, and if I remember correctly, you think the obvious counterexamples are overblown. Perhaps I am overly drawn to the notion that the majority scientific view has too often circled its evidentiary wagons, only to be overturned by the heretic in the end. When I read statements along the lines that we know increased and anthropogenic CO2 has caused the preponderance of warming in the same way we know a glass of water, when released, will hit the floor, it’s too reminiscent of statements such as: We know the Sun revolves around the Earth. You would argue that’s an unfair comparison — heck, so would I — but still I think it’s enough of a reminder to say it’s too early to say we know enough. That we desire the state of science to be such that we can act on it immediately is a desire that has been with us always. We want to make a difference in the world during our tiny life spans.
In any event, I am heartened to hear that Holdren has hinted at a middle way that may some day allow us, along with alternate energy sources, Dyson’s carbon-eaters and anyone else’s dreamy solutions, to deal with the gloomiest IPPC projections, should they arise, in a way that may not be as painful to societies as the draconian solutions currently in vogue.
“Perhaps I am overly drawn to the notion that the majority scientific view has too often circled its evidentiary wagons, only to be overturned by the heretic in the end.”
too often?
How often is “too often”? And surely you may as well say that “too often” you’ll wait three hours for the bus and then three turn up all at once. However, if that REALLY turned up as often as people make out, the commuter community would have collapsed decades ago, waiting for a bus.
I say to you that the reason why you remember these times is because they are so rare.
You’re arguing that because a few times before the evidence has shown something appropriate that it must be something else this time. One HUGE, MASSIVE, ***GARGANTUAN*** elephant in the room you’re missing out (likely deliberately) is that these heretics not only were once-in-a-lifetime events, but that they actually had some idea that worked better OVER THE EVIDENCE THEN AVAILABLE than the current science theory.
Anti-AGW doesn’t have this. They have a multitude of half-assed ideas that don’t work anywhere near as well as the current AGW theory.
OT, but doesn’t the Sun revolve around Earth? It definitely moves in an elliptical orbit with the earth as one focus. Do Kepler’s other laws hold?
wmanny is right. Consider the so-called “consensus” on heliocentric astronomy. Can you point to any scientists who have changed their mind in going from geocentrism to heliocentrism in recent decades, or the other way around? The only one I know of is Gerard Bouw, and he went to geocentrism. The lack of scientists who have changed their mind on this issue is clear proof that the “consensus” on heliocentrism is a case of group-think, where the contributions by geocentrist astronomers are being summarily dismissed by those who are sure that they are right. Pure confirmation bias.
CAPTCHA: painful membership
re #404 and your comments wmanny:
I know I keep saying this, but it’s not about “views”…it’s about the evidence. Scientists aren’t going after Lindzen, Giegengack etc “tooth and nail”. Those that are interested in the science are addressing the presentation of these scientists in relation to the evidence, and if their “views” are being questioned, this is being done in relation to the evidence. That’s the point of the particular story around which this thread is based.
The real question in relation to the various “views” of the scientists you list is why some of their “views” seem to be constructed around a misrepresentation of the evidence.
I’m curious to know what views of Dr. Giegengack you find particularly compelling. I’ve looked at a couple of his scientific papers; as far as I can see he’s published two papers that are vaguely relevant to climate – one on short term variations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and one on sunspot cycles. Neither of these is controversial or in any way contrary in relation to general understanding of climate, greenhouse gases and so on.
That’s his science. So which of his “views” do you find interesting? Can you cite a relevant paper/article? Or are you more interested in the fact that he holds opposing views, rather than his views per se or the evidence that he presents in support of these?
It’s worth noting that there are essentially two types of advocates: professional advocates and zealots.
The professional advocate may or may not believe in the cause they are advocating, but they have been engaged to advance the cause, so they do the best they can. The legal system of many western countries is based upon professional advocacy, and by and large it does a reasonable job, so it is hard to dismiss this form of advocacy out of hand. The only obligation of the professional advocate is to sow doubt about the arguments of their opponents.
This would certainly describe the behaviour of many in the anti-AGW camp (whether or not they are actually paid by the anti-AGW interests). A good example would be the WUWT post mentioned in #8 – Watts did not explicitly say that the paper refuted CFCs as the cause of the ozone hole; he merely implied it. That was all he needed to do – the meme that GCRs cause the ozone hole instead of CFCs is now established, and can forever be quoted as evidence of the dishonesty of the scientific establishment, and therefore proof that AGW is false. Watts has manipulated the blogosphere exactly the way that a good defence lawyer manipulates a jury.
The zealot, on the other hand, engages in advocacy because they desperately believe in the cause at hand. This type of advocate is even harder to deal with, because they are not interested in evidence of any variety. They have discovered The Truth, and will not rest until everyone else has accepted The Truth. I recently came across such a type on a comments page at The Register (which was my favourite website until they took the denialist kool-aid).
The chap I was dealing with is *convinced* that CO2 does not react or emit any “signal” until it has been heated to 800ºC. It therefore can’t be responsible for the greenhouse effect because the atmosphere is too cold. I tried explaining that CO2 heats up because it absorbs IR radiation, and the absorption itself is the “signal”, but he simply will not listen. I asked how his model could possibly explain Tyndall’s 1859 experiment, and he replied by changing the subject to say that the Mauna Loa CO2 measurements must be caused by local volcanism, and that he himself has a CO2 time series in North London that shows atmospheric CO2 is only 310ppm!
It is demoralising to try and deal with zealots, simply because they do not let things like logic get in the way of their arguments.
You can see my exchange with the zealot here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/03/climate_act_impact_magic/comments/
I paraphrased SecularAnimist’s elegant summation of the facts at #140 in my argument – thanks for that. I hope I have got the physics more or less right – I’m only a biologist :-)
reCaptcha: prove prayer (I rest my case)
Walter,
First, economic pain in the near to midterm is inevitable. Peak Oil is upon us, and Peak Coal is 50–maybe 100 at the outside–years off. Our entire energy infrastructure will have to be retooled to meet future energy needs. This is a mathematical certainty. So the question is whether we bear some of that hardship and bequeath a sustainable infrastructure to our progeny or whether we punt the hardship down to our children and grandchildren. I would think that on moral considerations alone, we’d want to take on that task, but there are also good reasons to think that full resolution of these problems will be protracted, so an early start greatly increases the odds of success. This is quite independent of the additional constriant of climate considerations.
It is certainly true that climate change raises the stakes of developing a sustainable economy. Since my metier is risk assessment and mitigation, I tend to view the problem through that lens. We have threats that have consequences (read $$), and each threat has a certain estimated probability of being realized. The resulting risk is the probability multiplied by the cost if the threat were realized. We are justified in committing resources up to the risk to mitigate the risk–either by diminishing the consequences or by reducing probability of occurrence. We aren’t doing that, and one thing I have learned is that the longer you wait to mitigate a risk the more it will cost you to do so.
The mitigation should be carried out by the most cost-effective strategy. See, here is where I don’t understand your position. I don’t know how to build a carbon-eating tree. I don’t even know how to start, and near as I can tell, neither does Dyson. I also do not know whether the sorts of geo-engineering being discussed will be effective, since these strategies inevitably deal with the portions of the climate model where uncertainties are greatest and where unintended consequences are hardest to gauge. On the other hand, I know that if we reduce our carbon output, we will delay the time when we face serious consequences. That is based on the most certain part of the climate model. It would seem that you are advocating either a pipe dream or a highly uncertain strategy as a basis for mitigation while ignoring one that will assuredly work.
Also, since we are talking about science here, I think it would be more appropriate to focus on the era since the development of the modern scientific method by Francis Bacon and Galileo. In any case, the prevalence of the geocentric cosmology had more to do with religion than natural philosophy. I would contend that the more relevant examples raised by anti-science folks (e.g. plate tectonics, H. Pylori as the cause of ulcers, etc.) actually represent successes of the scientific method. In all these cases, the explanation was resisted when evidence was weak and accepted readily once evidence became strong. That is what science is supposed to do–base decisions on evidence. That is indeed the case wrt climate change. The overwhelming preponderance of evidence favors the consensus model of Earth’s climate. By your own admission, there is no compelling evidence that there is anything seriously wrong with the model.
So to me, it seems that the only question is whether we will base policy on the best science we have, or whether we will base it on…well, what exactly? Wishful thinking?
wmanny wrote: “That a significant threat is posed is a tricky one, and it may come in the form of an upper range of predictions coming true.”
The changes that we are already observing NOW — acidification of the oceans, melting of glaciers, large-scale droughts — are already a “significant threat”. The upper range of the IPCC predictions have already been exceeded.
The biggest deficit that I observe in so-called skeptics is their lack of knowledge of what is already happening to the Earth as a result of anthropogenic global warming.
Ray, while I would not say that Peak Oil is upon us (talk about unsettled science!) I am as anxious to get out of the pool as you are, if for different reasons. Coal I don’t know about, though it used to be out at ~2150 a while back when Hubbert was doing his thing, right? In any event, we need to switch over as soon as possible, I agree. The moral aspect relative to “our” grandchildren is compelling, and so is the moral aspect of getting today’s children out of smoky huts and into modern dwelling, possibly powered by coal or oil in the short term.
To cost-effective mitigation, well… yeah. I don’t know a lot of people (other than the Kennedys, ha-ha) who don’t want to see wind farms, wave farms, more efficient solar… the so-called wedges, though nuclear is problematic for some and not others. Biomass and even outside-the-box Dyson trees and the like are hopeful considerations. Even if I thought the CO2 threat was not oversold, though, surely by now the damage has been done, the supposed time-bomb triggered and that the best we can do in the short term is to slow the rate of growth in politically green-friendly countries. The Obama administration is showing signs that taxing the perceived problem away may not be the solution of the moment, and Holdren has had to keep the controversial aerosols on the table, just in case. I would say we need all available options until such time as the sustainables are ready to take over the grid.
To, “By your own admission, there is no compelling evidence that there is anything seriously wrong with the model,” either you have misread me or I have misspoken. I do not believe that the models are anywhere near fully loaded, well understood, or proven predictors. You believe the evidence is strong, and you believe the models are robust. Others whose opinions I value do not share that view, and I’ll stop before we get back on that merry-go-round. In short, I do not think we should base policy on the best science we have if the science is not good enough.
There’s a problem with this new pop-up format for comments. If I make any sort of error (like forgetting to enter name and e-mail address) and request a preview, I get an error message with no way back; I’ve lost my message.
If I get past that, but mistype the CAPTCHA words, I get a more forgiving message. BUT the comment window is now empty and if I hit “Post” I get the unrecoverable error again.
[Response: hmmm… you avoid the pop-up comments if you click on the post title instead. Then you get the complete post and all comments. – gavin]
sidd Says (8 April 2009 at 5:16 PM):
“What has Dyson published on climate science in the last three decades?”
Just for curiousity’s sake, Google scholar, type in “FJ Dyson” in the author field, 1980 and 2009 as the from & to dates, and hit search… Humm… Maybe I’m doing something wrong (Google is not MY friend :-( ), because it appears that you could almost leave out the “on climate science” qualifier in that question.
Walter Manny, I presumed that your failure to provide any strong evidence indicated you did not know of any. If you do know of some, then please provide it.
As to the strength of the evidence favoring the consensus model, there is mainly its explanatory power for many features of Earth’s climate–from paleoclimate (glacial/interglacial cycle) to modern observations (response to perturbations, global features of modern climate, etc.). The models in the main get them right. There is no model with a climate sensitivity less than 2 degrees per doubling that even comes close. I don’t see how to interpret this as other than strong evidence that sensitivity is somewhere in the 90% confidence range.
It is not simply a matter of “replacing” part of the CO2 forcing with another forcing. The forcing would have to have roughly the same characteristics as CO2–long-lived, persistent (=well mixed), and so on. Do you know of another forcing that is on the increase that meets these criteria?
So, we have a forcing that can meet the description. We don’t have a good alternative. We have evidence that suggests such a forcing is required and no evidence contraindicating it. What do you suggest we should do?
> Sun … Earth …
“Because two bodies mutually revolve about their barycenter, Newton knew he had to modify Kepler’s third law to take this into account.”
http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~smyers/courses/astro11/L6.html
See the other chapters if you need more on this. Way off topic here, eh?
“Maybe I’m doing something wrong (Google is not MY friend :-( ), because it appears that you could almost leave out the “on climate science” qualifier in that question.”
Not when Dyson is pontificating on climate work.
Or do you retain a solicitor without checking they have a license to practice ***law*** and a mechanical engineering license is good enough?
Heck, what is the evidence supporting the consensus heliocentric model?
Looks to me like the sun goes around us.
I can’t see with my little eye several of the planets. And they seem to be going around us too.
I know that heliocentric model is a simpler explanation of the precession of mars et al, but orrerys did that with the earth at the centre.
I think we should teach the controversy!
>If I get past that, but mistype the CAPTCHA words, I get a more forgiving message. BUT the comment window is now empty and if I hit “Post” I get the unrecoverable error again.
Try opening comments in a new tab, then it won’t pop up. There are other problems. Sometimes it throws in decimals or is completely unreadable. I’ve even gotten things like 25 1/2. I’m not looking at this blog on a typewriter, so I don’t know how to make that.
Also if you get it wrong and type it in again, it will say duplicate comment detected, even though the first one failed due to error.
A paper by Tom Quirk has recently been published in ‘Environment and Energy’ claiming that fossil CO2 is rapidly soaked up by the oceans and does not contribute to rising general CO2 levels. It would be useful to have a review of this paper by yourselves
Thanks
[Response: Very little point since it is completely wrong. This can be seen trivially from the fact that CO2 levels have risen 38% over pre-industrial levels to values not seen in more than 800,000 – maybe even millions – years. Some discussion here though. – gavin]
Mark Says (9 April 2009 at 2:14 PM):
“Not when Dyson is pontificating on climate work.
Or do you retain a solicitor without checking they have a license to practice ***law*** and a mechanical engineering license is good enough?”
I think you missed my point, which was that (if I’m using Google Scholar correctly – and I freely admit I might not be) Dyson doesn’t seem to have published much of anything, on any subject, in that period. The references I see are to a popular book, or to a few papers where he’s one of the last authors listed – the position usually reserved for the advisor of the grad student who actually did the work.
Indeed, I was rather surprised when I read the Dyson interview in the NYT a couple of weeks ago. I knew his name from historical references, of course, but I’d supposed that he’d died long ago.
I’ve been looking for a timeline of recent global warming events. My search has led me to several. First and best is the Global Warming Timeline, part of Spencer Weart’s The Discovery of Global Warming.
Next is one that takes up where Spencer Weart leaves off, in 2007, and looks ahead to The Frightening Future of Earth.
(Timeline: The Frightening Future of Earth
By Andrea Thompson and Ker Than, LiveScience)
Others include offerings from CNN, Cosmos Magazine, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, New Scientist, and Sustainable Energy Ireland. The one most like what I’m looking for is this one from PBS Frontline:
Timeline: The Science and Politics of Global Warming
It’s got separate tracks for science and politics. Does anyone know of a timeline with multiple tracks like that, but that’s more up to date, and maybe has more information — like the various conferences and declarations?
“I think you missed my point, which was that (if I’m using Google Scholar correctly – and I freely admit I might not be) Dyson doesn’t seem to have published much of anything, on any subject, in that period”
Nope, I think it was misunderstood.
Ta.
Relevant to the topic, and scary:
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/04/07/07climatewire-secretive-un-board-awards-lucrative-credits-10458.html?pagewanted=all
With no legal immunity from prosecution, the members of the UN board handling Kyoto credits have been threatened under the strict European libel laws for criticizing projects. Hat tip to: http://www.sej.org/news/index.htm
Article from the NYT.
don’t get me started on the UN… it should be so good, but…the corruption…ugh.
MSNBC on George Will, Bachmann, and other misrepresentations of scientific work:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/30145811#30117559
“What George Will did was cherry-pick …. ” says the WaPo editor interviewed.
Much more debunking of public lying and fake facts also in that video.
Economists blog on political spin about greenhouse gas legislation:
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2009/04/thomas-friedman-is-headslappingly-wrong.html
Hey Hank… switching over to advocacy. Some points in response to your earlier questions.
1) I’m building my website myself, to be a profit making thing. I’m a professional software developer so I can do that.
2) Some posters equated a reduction in CO2 footprint with a lifestyle improvement. The cost of CO2 improvements is essentially to accept a pre-industrial use of energy per capita and the effect of that is catastrophic. Wind and solar cannot compete in availability, we can’t store electricity at large scales (still), and the only CO2 friendly answer is nuclear, which is off the table.
Even basic energy reductions have unpleasantries. I don’t like CFL’s at all. The light makes me sick. If you have a tight house you increase indoor air pollution. I like a drafty house with the heat on, and I like the sound of a V8 engine when I drive.
And, the thing is, just about every energy efficiency increase is already at their economic limit. Requires increase of expense to go more, and therefor, a lowered lifestyle elsewhere. Just like how putting airbags and pollution control devices jacked up the price of cars about 5k. You have less.. that is why we have to have carbon taxes and even those aren’t actually being used to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere.
3) I don’t disagree with the science. I’m interested in just what’s a good anomaly baseline. RSS started out at .322 for the year and has been declining. For now I’m using .322, with the expectation that GW should increase above that as the year(s) progress.
4) The real point that I am going to drive home is that, even if we do everything that the environmentalists want, to lower carbon dioxide, all the box models show that it will be at least a century before the excess CO2 is absorbed… so, we’re going to spend -trillions- of dollars in CO2 without accomplishing anything. So, if we go by the science, then the only really economic answer is going to be creating a technology that can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It’s the only answer too, to if there are short term spikes in CO2 that are naturally induced, like a super volcano.
We’re way past the point where can just lower our footprint to silence and hope for the best.
We have to manage the atmosphere.
“A paper by Tom Quirk has recently been published in ‘Environment and Energy’ claiming that fossil CO2 is rapidly soaked up by the oceans and does not contribute to rising general CO2 levels. It would be useful to have a review of this paper by yourselves”
Review:
Quirk reportedly posits that all fossil carbon C goes into the ocean and not the atmosphere. Since rising atmospheric C over the industrial era is an empirical certainty, the source of the atmospheric rise must be land use changes, particularly forest clearing and burning, since terrestrial carbon is the only other possible source. Therefore deforestation and fossil fuel burning are leading, respectively, to rapid global warming and rapid ocean acification. Clearly, these carbon generating activities need to be drastically curtailed if these effects are to be mitigated.
How’s that?
Ok, Todd, let me see if I get this:
You’re basically listing the usual stuff. There’s a compendium at http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/?source=rss
You want some support for this “baseline” notion you’ve made up, so you can put it on a website, attract right-thinking people and advertisers, and $$Profit$$.
If I’ve understood you, for that purpose, you can make anything up; your target audience will believe the same stuff they find at the other PR sites. Need a list? http://www.desmogblog.com will get you all the popular ones to copy.
This might help: http://www.historybuff.com/library/refbarnum.html
Nice to know the entrepreneurial spirit is still alive and well.
Todd Bandrowsky:
“Even basic energy reductions have unpleasantries. I don’t like CFL’s at all. The light makes me sick. If you have a tight house you increase indoor air pollution. I like a drafty house with the heat on, and I like the sound of a V8 engine when I drive.”
The incredulometer has pegged.
Jim Bouldin,
Wow, the ocean is a whole helluva lot smarter than we thought if it can tell the difference between a carbon atom from fossil fuel burning and one from land use change. Kind of adds a whole new level to both Maxwell’s demon and intelligent design.
Todd Bandrowsky says: “We have to manage the atmosphere.”
Great, we can start with limiting the amount of CO2 we put into it, as that is the part of climate forcing we understand best. Once you have that down, come back and we’ll start on more difficult activities.
PS, Todd, as to your claim
> box models show that it will be at least a century
> before the excess CO2 is absorbed…
That’s far too optimistic.
Since you say
> so, we’re going to spend -trillions- of dollars in
> CO2 without accomplishing anything
You aren’t interested in any future beyond your own.
So, for your website, I’d like to suggest an icon:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3399/653/320/Louis15-4.jpg
and a motto: “Après moi, le déluge”
http://tradicionclasica.blogspot.com/2006/01/expression-aprs-moi-le-dluge-and-its.html
Todd Bandrowsky wrote: “Wind and solar cannot compete in availability … and the only CO2 friendly answer is nuclear, which is off the table.”
With all due respect, that’s just plain wrong.
The USA has vast commercially exploitable solar and wind energy resources, which are sufficient to provide several times as much electricity as the entire country uses.
According to the US DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the gross offshore wind energy resources of the mid-Atlantic region alone are greater than the entire output of all the coal-fired power plants in the USA.
Similarly, the offshore wind energy resources of the Northeast alone are sufficient to generate more electricity than the entire country uses.
The same is true of the wind energy resources of only FOUR mid-Western states.
Concentrating solar thermal power plants in the Southwest likewise could produce as much electricity as the entire country uses.
Fully exploiting the solar photovoltaic capacity of existing commercial rooftops (malls, warehouses, office buildings, supermarkets, etc) could produce 185 gigawatts of electricity.
For that matter, simply capturing waste heat that is vented from industrial smokestacks and currently wasted, and using it to drive turbines could generate as much electricity as all the nuclear power plants in the US, at a tiny fraction of the cost of new nuclear.
Both solar and wind are attracting billions of dollars every year in private venture capital. The largest recipient of venture capital investment in the USA last year was Nanosolar, a manufacturer of thin-film photovoltaics. Both wind and solar are growing worldwide at record-breaking, double-digit rates every year. In 2008, wind generating capacity in the USA grew by 50 percent — in one year — and accounted for 42 percent of all new generating capacity.
As for nuclear, it is not especially “CO2 friendly” — including the entire construction, operation and decommissioning cycle, and including the nuclear fuel cycle from mining through processing and transport and sequestration (still an unsolved problem), its CO2 emissions are about the same as natural gas. That’s better than coal, I’ll grant you. But it’s far from “carbon free”.
And the big problem with nuclear power is that it is simply not possible to build enough nuclear power plants fast enough, to reduce emissions enough in the time frame that is needed. Nuclear power plants take ten years to build; utility-scale wind and solar installations take one to two years.
Nuclear power is not an effective solution for reducing CO2 emissions. Wind and solar are effective solutions. They can do the job faster and cheaper and with none of the very serious problems of nuclear power.
Todd Bandrowsky wrote: “If you have a tight house you increase indoor air pollution.”
If you research “net zero energy” house construction, you will learn that modern superinsulated house designs — like those being developed by the US Department of Energy in collaboration with Habitat For Humanity — use mechanical ventilation with heat exchangers to solve this problem.
Todd Bandrowsky wrote: “So, if we go by the science, then the only really economic answer is going to be creating a technology that can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.”
Since anthropogenic excess CO2 is already at dangerous levels, it is true that we need to both (1) reduce emissions to near zero as quickly as possible and (2) find a way to draw down the excess CO2, preferably to pre-industrial levels.
But we don’t need to “create new technology” to do that. We can sequester CO2 naturally in the biosphere, through organic agriculture and reforestation.
“If you have a tight house you increase indoor air pollution. I like a drafty house with the heat on”
Certainly. Insulation is over-rated
“I like the sound of a V8 engine when I drive”
Music to my ears
Windmills and solar panels will cost 5 times that of nuclear power plants. That’s without calculating the cost of the grid changes you need to make it theoretically work. And, it doesn’t take into consideration that the nameplate capacity of either wind or solar is rarely achieved in practice. You might build 20MW of wind, for example, but you might only get 3. You have to overbuild a lot. When the dust all settles, you could be talking 5 to 10 trillion dollars to do this, and then have an inherently unreliable power supply. Or, could spend about 800 billion, and build 300 nuclear power plants, and be done with it. You could build them more quickly if you cleared some legal hurdles out of the way.
Bouldin.. you have no taste. A V8 engine is a mechanical marvel, a work of pure genius, a symphony of sound. Steam engines, too actually, have a lot of good asthetic value.
Well, it’s going to be an interesting bridge once you get it built and live under it. I recommend citing sources instead of just making assertions on your eventual blog, if you want people to keep replying. Numbers are easy to come up with, but without cites to sources, people will just make their own numbers up to argue. Recreational typing.
PS, first you have to make the tools:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/02/21/response-to-an-integral-fast-reactor-ifr-critique/#comment-11187
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“quality contract” says ReCaptcha
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Okay, would whoever runs ReCaptcha please just get the AI to start writing full sentences, then try paragraphs? It’s Turing time.
Todd Bandrowsky,
You have a rather limited scope on technology. Solar and wind are developing technologies. To assign a price to them for all time is simply silly. And while the V-8 is good, it pales in comparison to a Stirling engine as a marvel of technology. And if you like steam engines, you’ll love solar thermal.
gavin, scientists – especially those named jim,
you may consider this off topic (but the topic is advocacy/science), but i just returned from dinner at my in-laws. there were about 15 otherwise well-educated people there. i asked each one in private what they thought about global warming – i.e. whether it’s man-made and whether it’s something to worry about. 14 of 15 said they think it’s a left-wing greenie hoax designed to…well…destroy capitalism or something….(why is this a left/right issue…?) heavy sigh… of the 14 ALL said there is still not a scientific consensus. they went on to talk about politics, taxes, natural cycles, etc…. my point is THEY QUESTION THE SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS (and of course mentioned al gore’s house…) that’s where we are with the public. we need PROJECT JIM just to get past this “step 1” in the discussion. please help!
I’ve been having fun stirring the possum over at the WhatsUpWithThat Lindzen post.
Now I’ve foolishly stuck my neck out with the following post. Can anyone see flaws in my argument?
And having subsequently been asked:
“Is it possible that the choice of the 9% figure may have been made made essentially to give the result you were trying to prove?”
I replied:
Dr Lindzen has replied to Anthony Watts’ request for clarrification on the choice of dataset:
Seems to me that it is entirely plausible that “‘corrections’ should always bring the data closer to models” if the models do in fact do a reasonable job of describing reality! Although I note that the AGW-denial crowd also like to winge about the models being ‘tuned’ to fit the data. And I imagine that inevitably some corrections do make the data fit the models less well – prompting further work on the models.
Todd Bandrowsky Says (10 April 2009 at 2:02 PM):
“2) Some posters equated a reduction in CO2 footprint with a lifestyle improvement. The cost of CO2 improvements is essentially to accept a pre-industrial use of energy per capita and the effect of that is catastrophic.”
Why catastrophic? Why is the amount of energy used per capita even significant? Surely it is the output, in terms of quality of life (and I agree some of that can be subjective) that matters, not the amount of power input. Consider computers as an obvious instance. When I started working with them, back in the early ’80s, they took kilowatts of power to run (and more for dedicated A/C to remove the waste heat), and took weeks to run simulations. Now the notebook I’m writing this on is using about 17 watts, and can run similar (probably more complex) simulations in real time. So I’ve increased my computing quality-of-life by a factor of thousands, while reducing the power required by a similar factor.
“…the only CO2 friendly answer is nuclear, which is off the table.”
Off whose table? Not mine, and not many others.
“I don’t like CFL’s at all. The light makes me sick.”
Well, that’s YOUR problem. I actually prefer the quality of CFL light to the yellowish tone of incandescents. (Remember when light bulb makers used to compete to produce the whitest light?)
“I like a drafty house with the heat on, and I like the sound of a V8 engine when I drive.”
Again, these are personal problems. If you like drafty, why not buy a couple of fans, or just live in a tent? And if engine sound is your problem, it’s pretty easy to wire up a car stereo to play any amount or quality of engine noise you want (keeping it inside the car, of course) while the nearly silent stirling/electric propulsion system (see http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/09/07/gm-could-have-made-a-plug-in-hybrid-car-38-years-ago/ ) efficiently moves you down the road.
But of course, the real question here is why you seem to believe that the world should be run in such a way that everyone has to live the way you want to.
“And, the thing is, just about every energy efficiency increase is already at their economic limit. Requires increase of expense to go more, and therefor, a lowered lifestyle elsewhere. Just like how putting airbags and pollution control devices jacked up the price of cars about 5k.”
Oh, bovine excrement! To take your example, the price of cars, corrected for inflation, has actually decreased in recent years (Source: http://freeby50.blogspot.com/2008/11/history-of-new-car-costs-and-average.html ) Amortize that cost over the useful life, and it’s gone down considerably. A ’59 Chevy would be doing well to survive 10 years or 100K miles of moderate use, while my ’88 Toyota is still going strong at over twice that. And of course a car’s efficiency could be easily & cheaply increased, simply by making it smaller.
Craig, your calculations are justifiable. Use them and if they are to be refuted, demand that they PROVE them wrong in a significant degree.
After all, they are now the ones with the statement (“your calculations are incorrect”) and they ALWAYS demand proof of the statement that AGW is a problem.
So see if they are truly skeptical: demand they prove your response wrong. Not with hand waving.
Craig, it also seems to me that the denialosphere awlays take the idea of ANY correction to be purely for making up proof of AGW.
This seems as disingenuous as what he is accusing “alarmists” of doing.
Is he going to ever say that a change to a dataset is ever done for valid scientific reasons?
Todd Bandrowski writes:
Nonsense.
There is enough wind and solar power available to provide all the power the world needs now many times over. Denmark is already getting 16% of its power from wind, Spain is rapidly catching up, and even in the US the wind power energy now employs more people than the coal industry (85,000 versus 81,000).
Pump water uphill. Let it flow downhill through turbines.
Lead-acid batteries. Lots of ’em.
Solar thermal power stations store excess heat from the day in molten salts to release at night and in bad weather. Some get almost 24/7 operation that way.
Flywheels.
Compressed air.
Nuclear involves huge amounts of cement, which gives off CO2 when it sets. And it’s incredibly expensive even in countries where state power prevents protests and lawsuits.
Todd Bandrowsky writes:
Did you wipe that pseudo-statistic off before displaying it here?
We need grid changes whatever we do. Might as well build smart grids.
Statistics, please? Sources? Numbers?
I can play this game, too. Without sources or specifics, it’s easy. “You might design a 1,000 GW nuclear plant and get only 7 GW.”
Large grids, solar in daytime, wind at night. If Solar and wind provided 80% of the energy and natural gas provided 20%, we’d still be cutting emissions greatly, and in the long run biomass can provide the natural gas. There is nothing “inherently” unreliable about renewable energy. And have you forgotten geothermal, which is both steady and operates 24/7?
Yeah, it’s a lot easier if the locals can’t protest what you’re doing. Just have a production bureau announce it and implement it. Sounds good to me, comrade.
Craig Allen,
Looks good, except that you left clouds out of the greenhouse effect list (clouds also have a greenhouse effect, though it is largely balanced by their reflecting sunlight back up). Also it’s infrared “absorption” that greenhouse gases do. Adsorption is stuff adhering to particles.