Like all human endeavours, the IPCC is not perfect. Despite the enormous efforts devoted to producing its reports with the multiple levels of peer review, some errors will sneak through. Most of these will be minor and inconsequential, but sometimes they might be more substantive. As many people are aware (and as John Nieslen-Gammon outlined in a post last month and Rick Piltz goes over today), there is a statement in the second volume of the IPCC (WG2), concerning the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are receding that is not correct and not properly referenced.
The statement, in a chapter on climate impacts in Asia, was that the likelihood of the Himalayan glaciers “disappearing by the year 2035” was “very high” if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate (WG 2, Ch. 10, p493), and was referenced to a World Wildlife Fund 2005 report. Examining the drafts and comments (available here), indicates that the statement was barely commented in the reviews, and that the WWF (2005) reference seems to have been a last minute addition (it does not appear in the First- or Second- Order Drafts). This claim did not make it into the summary for policy makers, nor the overall synthesis report, and so cannot be described as a ‘central claim’ of the IPCC. However, the statement has had some press attention since the report particularly in the Indian press, at least according to Google News, even though it was not familiar to us before last month.
It is therefore obvious that this error should be corrected (via some kind of corrigendum to the WG2 report perhaps), but it is important to realise that this doesn’t mean that Himalayan glaciers are doing just fine. They aren’t, and there may be serious consequences for water resources as the retreat continues. See also this review paper (Ren et al, 2006) on a subset of these glaciers.
East Rongbuk glacier just below Mt. Everest has lost 3-400 ft of ice in this area since 1921.
More generally, peer-review works to make the IPCC reports credible because many different eyes with different perspectives and knowledge look over the same text. This tends to make the resulting product reflect more than just the opinion of a single author. In this case, it appears that not enough people with relevant experience saw this text, or if they saw it, did not comment publicly. This might be related to the fact that this text was in the Working Group 2 report on impacts, which does not get the same amount of attention from the physical science community than does the higher profile WG 1 report (which is what people associated with RC generally look at). In WG1, the statements about continued glacier retreat are much more general and the rules on citation of non-peer reviewed literature was much more closely adhered to. However, in general, the science of climate impacts is less clear than the physical basis for climate change, and the literature is thinner, so there is necessarily more ambiguity in WG 2 statements.
In future reports (and the organisation for AR5 in 2013 is now underway), extra efforts will be needed to make sure that the links between WG1 and the other two reports are stronger, and that the physical science community should be encouraged to be more active in the other groups.
In summary, the measure of an organisation is not determined by the mere existence of errors, but in how it deals with them when they crop up. The current discussion about Himalayan glaciers is therefore a good opportunity for the IPCC to further improve their procedures and think more about what the IPCC should be doing in the times between the main reports.
Update: This backgrounder presented by Kargel et al AGU this December is the best summary of the current state of the Himalayas and the various sources of misinformation that are floating around. It covers this issue, the Raina report and the recent Lau et al paper.
Georgi Marinov,
You are preaching to the choir. My reference to Rosenfeld’s law was to show that it is possible to have economic growth in a sustainable economy.
The only difference anthropogenic climate change makes is that it means we have to go to a sustainable energy economy ASAP rather than relying on coal–and then having to make the transition to sustainability in less than 50 years.
“For others reading this thread: BPL thinks that a steam explosion is a “nuclear accident”. ”
And if it’s steam from a nuclear turbine, then it IS a nuclear accident.
Because you must AT THE VERY MINIMUM stop working and shut down that turbine lest you get runaway and then check to see if any of that water (which is a great moderator of neutrons which make handy little short-life radioactive isotopes) is radioactive.
Then you’ve got all the effluent leaks etc.
But this is all paid for out of government pocket and swept under the rug to stop any form of “panic”, so problems go mostly unreported and unremarked.
But the basic irrefutable point is that nuclear power is not considered economic by those who wish to invest.
995, Tim Jones: Fertilizers are made out of fossil fuels. We’re not liable to lose production of them because of a lack of energy. The question has to do more with a lack of raw materials.
Methane is harvested from municipal waste in at least 100 different locales in the US (with more under construction and planned), and many biofuels are being developed, though obviously at some cost: cellulosic ethanol; algal and bacterial ethanol, diesel, and butanol; diesel from camelina, jatropha, and salt-tolerant varieties of those and of beans and seeds. There are many things to be concerned about, but lack of fertilizer is the least of our worries.
There is no panacea or free lunch or perpetual motion machine. But lots of work is already underway, and the rates of growth of the diverse alternative energy supplies are higher than the GDP growth rates overall.
996, Tim Jones: Coal is dirt cheap because the cost of protecting the environment and human health associated with it is externalized instead of internalized.
I suspect that if what it takes to clean up the pollution from coal becomes part of the cost no one will use it.
The way to internalize the costs of coal is with “clean coal”: sequester the CO2, SO2, mercury (which is an ingredient in other products) and other stuff. Doing that adds to the cost of the electricity, but it’s still cheap compared to biofuels (with current technologies), solar and wind.
Georgi Marinov,
You are preaching to the choir. My reference to Rosenfeld’s law was to show that it is possible to have economic growth in a sustainable economy.
The only difference anthropogenic climate change makes is that it means we have to go to a sustainable energy economy ASAP rather than relying on coal–and then having to make the transition to sustainability in less than 50 years.
Comment by Ray Ladbury — 31 January 2010 @ 10:31 AM
Sorry, Ray, but for once I must disagree. Growth and sustainability are mutually exclusive concepts unless you have infinite resources. I’m hoping you meant economic development rather than growth. Yes, we can continue to change and modify our economies, but we cannot grow them indefinitely. There will come a crash. There always has, there always will.
If you actually meant growth, as in we can continue to increase consumption, and by extension, population, infinitely, please consider the yeast and their petri dish. Dr Al Bartlett is linked on my blog.
Cheers
“There are many things to be concerned about, but lack of fertilizer is the least of our worries.”
This is what happens when people are very conversant in their primary interest but only slightly so in other areas. That’s an observation, not an insult. I suggest you spend time here, at least one serious energy site (theoildrum being the incontrovertible best) and one non-traditional economics site (I prefer theautomaticearth.)
The price of energy is the price of virtually everything. When energy prices ran up not long ago (they are, in fact, still run up: Prices recently are 4x what they were just eight years ago), so did the costs of inputs for farmers. Some made a killing, but some didn’t because the price rise in commodities was matched by the price rise in inputs.
It is *possible* that enough alternatives will be developed quickly enough to exceed oil demand, but it is virtually a certainty that won’t happen unless we go on a build-out binge that makes what we are doing now look like a trickle. But how do you finance that with this economy? How do you finance that when there is less oil, and more expensive oil, and oil is far and away more fungible than anything attempting to replace it?
Coal? Also coming to a peak in production. Uranium? Ditto. Nat. gas? Same. Etc. And there are other factors. Rare earths for neodymium batteries, etc.? 95 of raw ores are in China. How’s that for a by-the-short-hairs thought?
Don’t get comfy in your assumptions. We are in a period of turbulence. Put on your seat belt.
Oh, and did I mention that FF-derived fertilizers deplete the soil? So, in a sense you are right: there’s enough fertilizer, but only if we stop using FF-based fertilizer.
Cheers
Septic: “Doing that adds to the cost of the electricity, but it’s still cheap compared to biofuels (with current technologies), solar and wind.”
Citation please.
(Wind goes for 3-5c/kWh in California).
Comment by t_p_hamilton
the temperature reconstructions are of temperature anomaly, and you have shown no statistical analysis of the error. The measurement error in monthly data is 0.03 degrees C.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/HadCRUT3_accepted.pdf. Is this small error really what you have a problem with, or do you mean something else?
may I remind you that the uncertainty on ANOMALIES includes also the uncertainty on baseline?
irrelevant to global warming, except to test certain aspects of models and to constrain sensitivity
and it is not important to “constrain sensitivity” ?
There are a range of climate sensitivities. The most likely is 3 degrees C for doubling CO2, not the maximum (do you know what that number is?)
Yes I do. Now if there is a range of sensitivities, it means that no model is certain. I’d like to know which is the procedure to compute the likelyhood that a model is true. I know to compute the likelyhood that some parameter has some value if the model has been proved to be right, but not if the model itself is uncertain.
“* it assumes that fossil fuels reserves will exceed by large the proved ones”
Any support for this statement that you know better than the experts?
just compare the amount of each fossil burnt in various scenarios with the amount of proved reserves. Have you read the SRES ?
Do you think food comes from the store by magic? That sea level rise of a meter is nothing for coastal cities to worry about?
how much fuel of each type do you have to burn to reach one meter , remember me? and when will it be reached?
and please tell me what has been the deep impact of the sea level rise of 0,2m during the XX century on mankind – with references.
Ray :”Gilles yours is a false choice between fossil fuel energy and no energy. The real choice is between sustainable energy and a diminishing fossil fuel resource–as you yourself have acknowledged. Funny how you make different arguments when it suits you. You sure you’re just one person?
”
I don’t see what you don’t understand. I just said that I doubt very much that we are able to reduce very much our fossil consumption without reducing our standard of living, and it has two logical consequences :
* mankind will never reduce willingly the total amount of fossil it can extract economically from the ground, any improvement in their use resulting in more wealth produced, but not less energy used.
* however, it will be soon or later forced to do it, just because they will exhaust. And then its standard of living will decrease accordingly.
And I think also that for reasonable figures you can assume to compute the time when this will happen, and the total amount of fossil burnt ultimately , the GW will be a minor event compared to the “everlasting recession” that will hit mankind, until it will get back to an agrarian society. And actually , I think that this long recession has just begun, starting with PO, much before any strong influence of GW in our life.
Re:988 Completely Fed Up says: 30 January 2010 at 6:49 PM
“(Note to Tim et al: THIS guy’s argument is why you can’t use the engineering “Peak Oil” argument: as long as there’s SOME left then it’s always possible to extract even more quickly if the price is high enough).”
The limit on extraction is often reached well before exhaustion of the resource. If it takes more energy to extract a source of energy than is contained in it the expenditure is an exercise in futility, irregardless of price. ERoEI – Energy Returned on Energy Invested is a good formula for evaluating the feasibility of extracting difficult to reach resources.
This is why corn ethanol fuel has become such a questionable fuel. It takes more (or nearly as much) energy to make as you get out of it. Without subsidies the industry would die.
Updated Corn Ethanol Economics
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4208
A Net Energy Parable: Why is ERoEI Important?
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/2/114144/2387
Every fuel runs up against this fundamental formula. If price becomes a factor then the _whole_ price of a source of energy should be considered. Associated costs should not be externalized, but factored into the cost of using fuels.
For too long our atmosphere and water ways have been considered convenient garbage dumps for industrial waste.
As we see in the discussion of coping with climate change, acid rain or ocean acidification we are now up against the consequences of ignoring what happens when we throw something away. “Away” doesn’t exist.
Fed Up :I n 2007, 923 million people were reported as being undernourished, an increase of 80 million since 1990-92.[6]. It has also been recorded that the world already produces enough food to support the world’s population – 6 billion people – and could support double – 12 billion people.
It is a problem of politics, economics, humanity. Not -yet- climate. And I think, again, that the depletion of fossil fuels will hit much more the agriculture than climate changes.
Completely Fed Up says: 31 January 2010 at 12:58 PM
Further to that, a steam explosion in a nuclear plant automatically means that the normal means of removing heat from the reactor is no longer functioning, that the backup cooling system is in play, and that the reactor must be brought to a swift halt
Now if you dig into NRC documents you’ll find that one of the chief bugaboos of the style of reactor we’re most fond of here in the United States is the lousy dependability of systems we depend on in emergencies. In a twisted way this is testimony to the amazing reliability of main plant systems, but the point is, over and over again inspections reveal that the redundancy we count on for safe operation is frequently not truly present and accounted for, it is not ready to operate.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a foe of nuclear power, but I’m consistently amazed by starry-eyed assessments of the virtues of nuclear power that ignore the relatively tiny numbers of nuclear plants actually deployed and the benevolent environments in which they operate, versus the huge number of plants that will need to be commissioned if we are to use nuclear technology as a substantial substitute for fossil fuel generation and the operationally hostile places those plants would sited. We hear all sorts of figures cited about hours of accident free operation, etc. but the fact is nuclear plants are not very numerous and they’re deployed in places with ample technical talent and generally excellent political stability. They’re operating in a laboratory not reflective of general real world conditions.
Even with the friendly circumstances in which they presently operate, it’s an enormous challenge to maintain these plants. They’re very complex and rather unforgiving. Don’t take my word for it, look at NRC reports.
Regarding all this back and forth over costs of electricity, it’s going to cost more. Fossil fuels are uniquely cheap but we can’t use them. Get over it.
1006 Comp f u
I live in California. Please send me your complete supply of that 3-5 c/kWhr wind stuff.
I understand from the economist magazine that peak electricity prices on average for the USA are already 33 c/kWhr. I assume your wind is available at peak times so I plan to make a tidy profit selling it back to PGE.
Hm, wonder what is holding back the wind business.
Gilles says: 31 January 2010 at 2:52 PM
> may I remind you that the uncertainty on ANOMALIES includes
> also the uncertainty on baseline?
Gilles, you don’t understand what these words mean. Please look for a source and check your assumptions about the basic arithmetic, you’ve got it wrong.
ccpo says: 31 January 2010 at 2:47 PM
20:20 hindsight: 20 years ago we knew the problem we were facing, we could see the technical challenges, but we engaged in “debate” for 20 years. So we’re substantially out of time, out of energy.
Thanks, doubters. Nice job there. Way to go.
Gilles, as an example, here:
http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2010/01/climate-betting-baseline-set.html
1011 Doug Bostrom
You analyze correctly, except for the part about “we can’t use them (cheap fossil fuels)”
Then tack on the Gilles 1008 realities and things do not look good.
Then look at the actions of government which shift to coal anyway, by promoting electric plug-in cars and by providing perpetual support for centralized coal fired power plants with the “smart” grid infrastructure to distribute electricity. (No, I am not talking about “smart” electric meters that do not need a meter reading person any longer.)
An engineering solution would set a goal of reducing the CO2 by 90% and not making pronouncements about “not using any fossil fuels.” Then some answers start to come up. The core problem of electric power is that the system depends on centralized power stations that have no way to use the waste heat. First fix that, and shift to natural gas in the process. Now we have cut 70% of the CO2 by getting rid of heat wasters and 50% of the remainder by shifting to natural gas. An 85% cut in CO2 starts to look interesting. Since we now produce electricity without wasting heat we get close to 100% efficiency for the generation, so natural gas goes a lot further than before. So things might work.
I could go on to tell how this can be implemented at minimal cost.
PS, quoting from that link:
“From here on in this blog, references to denialist, septics, etc. involve only skeptics who won’t put their money where their mouths are.”
Good idea. Good challenge.
Jim Bullis @1012:
Not much here in Montana, we’re building wind farms right and left.
“I live in California. Please send me your complete supply of that 3-5 c/kWhr wind stuff.”
They don’t charge YOU that, but then again, if they did, they’d not make any profit.
Links have been put here many many times. If you still haven’t taken them or looked at them, then what do you think will happen this time?
In mine of 3:56 I reminded myself of the “Smart Meter” thing.
It has long been an obvious way to save labor cost where meters would be read remontely. Until now, nothing happened since the cost of conversion was a capital expenditure and meter readers were on-going labor costs approved by regularors. Now the opportunity to eliminate these mundane jobs was made available by the “green” fashion and by government desire to fund such. Of course, the government says they are stimulating “green” jobs, but really they are eliminating meter reader jobs.
Things are often not what they might seem to be.
Doug: “Now if you dig into NRC documents you’ll find that one of the chief bugaboos of the style of reactor we’re most fond of here in the United States is the lousy dependability of systems we depend on in emergencies.”
I quite like Lu Tse’s complaint against the extremely reliable “emergency procedures” at the Monastery of Wen the Eternally Surprised when he mentions that their plans always leave something out: the emergency.
” Gilles says:
31 January 2010 at 3:11 PM”
So?
You wanted to see people starving.
Do you think that when we have enough food for 10 billion people and have 6 billion to feed that this will mean fewer people starving?
Really?
I know that YOU won’t starve, and that’s all you care about, but you really think that less food means less starvation?
Re:1003 Septic Matthew says: 31 January 2010 at 1:25 PM
“995, Tim Jones: Fertilizers are made out of fossil fuels. We’re not liable to lose production of them because of a lack of energy. The question has to do more with a lack of raw materials.”
[…]
There are many things to be concerned about, but lack of fertilizer is the least of our worries.
“Least of our worries” is rather subjective, don’t you think?
I was referring to nitrogen fertilizers derived from fossil fuels.
In drawing out the word you snuck out of the context.
This is just a zero sum game for you, isn’t it?
Yes you could substitute methane from landfills, etc but it doesn’t compare to scale. I don’t think this is the forum for a discussion of the nuances of fertilizer production, though I’m not trying to avoid the issue. All I’m saying is that as competition for what becomes a scarce resource ensues more pressure will be put on how methane is used. As more and more methane is used as a relatively clean source of energy the price for what’s used in agriculture will rise.
Why Are Nitrogen Prices So High?
http://www.noble.org/Ag/Soils/NitrogenPrices/Index.htm
see also.
The upside to peak fertilizer
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/02/07/peak_fertilizer/
“996, Tim Jones: Coal is dirt cheap because the cost of protecting the environment and human health associated with it is externalized instead of internalized.”
“The way to internalize the costs of coal is with “clean coal”: sequester the CO2, SO2, mercury (which is an ingredient in other products) and other stuff. Doing that adds to the cost of the electricity, but it’s still cheap compared to biofuels (with current technologies), solar and wind.”
Well now you’ve drunk the cool aid haven’t you?
The Myth of Clean Coal by Richard Conniff : Yale Environment 360
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2014
Please show us where clean coal technology is actually being applied and evaluated.
Jimbo: If CO2 warming was causing glacier retreat, then ALL glaciers would be similarly retreating which is not the case.
BPL: Your “then” is a non sequitur. It would only mean that glaciers would be retreating on average, since conditions are slightly different for each glacier–mass, angle, elevation, latitude and longitude, color, local winds, etc., etc., etc.
Re:1003 Septic Matthew says: 31 January 2010 at 1:25 PM
“many biofuels are being developed, though obviously at some cost”
I’ll say. Turning food into fuel is a horrible idea, a recipe for disaster.
Biofuels like palm tree oil are incredibly insulting to rainforest environments and biodiversity.
So we go to second generation biofuels as the new silver bullets.
Since you won’t supply supporting evidence perhaps someone
should.
Note: highly cherry-picked links. …but someplace to start if
you’re interested in alterative fuels. I still think all these are
more carbon intensive than would be good for undoing AGW.
I could stand corrected.
“cellulosic ethanol”
The Cellulosic Ethanol Delusion
http://pov-mentarch1.blogspot.com/2009/03/myth-of-cellulosic-ethanol-as-biofuel.html
Verenium and Aventine are Circling the Drain
MARCH 31, 2009
“algal and bacterial ethanol, diesel”
Biofuels Bonanza: Exxon, Venter to Team up on Algae
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/07/14/biofuels-bonanza-exxon-venter-to-team-up-on-algae/
JULY 14, 2009, 11:14 AM ET
“butanol”
Certainly better than corn ethanol, but,
http://www.butanol.com/
BioButanol is made from the same “corn, sugar beets,
sorghum, cassava, sugarcane, corn st@lks, and other biomass
as ethanol…” Mostly food for fuel.
“diesel from camelina”
14 Airlines Sign Landmark MOU for Camelina-based Renewable Jet Fuel & Green Diesel
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/businesswire/2009/12/15/businesswire132863078.html
“jatropha”
BP Gives up on Jatropha for Biofuel
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/07/17/bp-gives-up-on-jatropha-for-biofuel/tab/article/
17 july 2009
Time will tell which of these get sorted out as viable alternatives.
But why, with global warming threatening much of the Midwestern
farmland we use, are we converting what we use for food to fuel?
This does NOT help a starving world.
“…lots of work is already underway, and the rates of growth of the diverse alternative energy supplies are higher than the GDP growth rates overall.”
So why are all the denialists/repugs so anti alternative fuels, crying about all the taxes and million$ they will cost to realize?
CCPO, I am very familiar with A-squared B, as we used to call him. All I am pointing out is that if “growth” is defined as the total value of goods and services produced, then it is still possible for growth to occur with no increase in consumption if resources are directed toward higher-value products.
I fully agree that indefinite growth in consumption is not possible. What I take issue with is the contention that sustainable equals stagnant.
re 1006, that “Wind goes for 3-5c/kWh in California” meme is fast becoming a bad Chinese torture. Speaking of cites, can you cite the power deliverer where you can buy wind-driven power for that in CA?
Jimbo – perhaps you have noticed the complex heat redistribution system that gives us weather? Whether a glacier grows or retreats depends where in that system the glacier is. Glacier length is the balance between melting at the terminus and accumulation at the top. Consider an alpine system facing westerlies flow (eg NZ). A warmer ocean results in more moisture in the westerlies, so more snow feeding the glacier while the neve remains above the snowline. This can compensate for more rapid melting from higher temperatures – for a while. As temperatures rise, you need unrealizable increases in precipitation to stop glacial retreat.
1005, ccpo: It is *possible* that enough alternatives will be developed quickly enough to exceed oil demand, but it is virtually a certainty that won’t happen unless we go on a build-out binge that makes what we are doing now look like a trickle. But how do you finance that with this economy? How do you finance that when there is less oil, and more expensive oil, and oil is far and away more fungible than anything attempting to replace it?
The US, EU, and China (to name only 3) are already growing their alternative energy supplies faster than they are growing their overall GDP. Solar, wind, and biofuels production doubles every year or 2. Exactly how long this can continue can’t be foretold, but there is no reason to think there is an intrinsic limit of below 10 years, implying about 32 – 1000 times as much 10 years from now as now. There is no reason for “faith” that it will happen, but no reason for nihilism either. Iowa leads the states of the US in the rate of new wind farm installation (and Iowa has one of the two largest wind turbine factories in the US), which means that Iowa farmers can have the windfarms on their cropland powering the production of the fertilizer that they need; it can spread outward from there. Multiple cities now harvest methane from municipal sewage and municipal solid waste, and the number is increasing.
1025, Tim Jones: Time will tell which of these get sorted out as viable alternatives.
But why, with global warming threatening much of the Midwestern
farmland we use, are we converting what we use for food to fuel?
This does NOT help a starving world.
The point is that many alternatives are being researched, and that some of them do not depend on what is now cropland: especially the salt-tolerant varieties.
Contemporary camelina and contemporary jatropha are not the future, rather genetically modified camelina and jatropha, especially salt-tolerant varieties, are the future. Similarly for algae and bacteria, which have been genetically engineered to produce more oil and to be salt-tolerant.
So why are all the denialists/repugs so anti alternative fuels, crying about all the taxes and million$ they will cost to realize?
You’ll have to ask them. Bjorn Lomborg (to pick one) does not argue against alternative energy development, he argues against trying to do too much and too soon (i.e., he argues against exactly what ccpo argues for.) Lindsay Graham (to pick another) is willing to subsidize wind and solar and adopt cap-and-trade as long as there is also a subsidy for nuclear power. The Chinese government and Indian government are instituting no reductions at all in their fossil fuel consumption while building their solar, wind, and nuclear power production at a higher rate, measured as % increase per annum, admittedly starting from a lower base rate.
With all of the information available on new energy development (the oildrum is a good place to start, as well as the web page of the National Renewable Energy Lab), there is really no reason to claim that the developed world will run out of fertilizer. There is at least a credible claim that we might run out of fresh water, but we don’t need fresh water to make fertilizer.
Jim Bullis, Miastrada Co. says: 31 January 2010 at 3:56 PM
I keep swearing to myself I won’t get involved in energy extraction/capture/liberation technology discussions and then I fall off the wagon, again.
Your ideas sound intriguing, but let me just confess I fell into the trap of being absolutist. Amend “can’t use them” to “should use as very little as possible”, the rub being of course the myriad implications thereof.
For anybody looking for some fractious discussion around energy technologies, “BraveNewClimate” is all about acceptance of anthropogenic warming, rejection of adaption, with the only possible solution being nuclear energy, lots of it. Fun stuff.
Completely Fed Up says: 31 January 2010 at 4:17 PM
“I quite like Lu Tse’s complaint against the extremely reliable “emergency procedures” at the Monastery of Wen the Eternally Surprised when he mentions that their plans always leave something out: the emergency.”
Closing that circle, would you believe Pratchett’s day job as his writing career began to take off was as an electric utility press officer, doing spin for (among other things) a number of nuclear power plants?
1019 Compfu
You misunderstand. I looked at all the links provided here and found them lacking as far as reasonable business analysis would go.
I also have noted many times how actual reality differs from your numbers. We have had discussions here about European experiences where large subsidies were required. I referred you to the Oregon experience which shows the flaws in the wind idea, and that only has to be searched.
References that have been actually read by the referencee are always welcome.
fed Up :So?
You wanted to see people starving.
I wanted ?don’t be silly, why would I WANT such a thing ?
Do you think that when we have enough food for 10 billion people and have 6 billion to feed that this will mean fewer people starving?
I don’t think so. But IPCC does, because all its scenarios are based on unrealistic growth hypothesis. Look at the plain figures for the income per capita:
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Fsr/?src=/climate/ipcc/emission/
(sometimes I wonder if you ever read these scenarios…)
There is of course absolutely no mention of people starving in mass in these scenarios, for a very simple reason : again, access to fossil fuels has been the main reason to suppress the starvation. People who are now victims of it are exactly the same who are deprived of FF. It’s so obvious that I can’t understand how it can be a matter of discussion. Limiting – voluntarily or not – the amount of FF can only increase the number of such people.
Ray Ladbury: “The only difference anthropogenic climate change makes is that it means we have to go to a sustainable energy economy ASAP rather than relying on coal–and then having to make the transition to sustainability in less than 50 years.”
The point I was trying to make is that switching to a sustainable economy at this point can only happen by taking the demand destruction path rather than substituting fossil fuel supply with alternative energy, because despite the seemingly impressive rates of growth solar and wind, they are still about 1% of the total energy consumption and the rest is an awful lot of energy to be provided. I can’t see us building one million square kilometers of solar panels, and then doing it again and again every 20-30 years as they age.
Also, people forget that it is not just an issue of energy, raw materials also matter – the discussion above about fertilizers leaves out phosphates and those are mined and about to peak, with no substitute; same thing with many other elements
If we are in overshoot, and this is almost certain at this point, there is no point debating how we can maintain this level in a sustainable way, we can’t.
Doug, I don’t know the man well enough.
His work in “The Truth” showed off his press/newspaper past IMO in that it was OK for DeWorde to keep the people from knowing the truth, but not OK for, say, Sam Vimes.
The sarcasm and cynicism is pretty British. As is the whimsy in the humour (especially when it turns darkly whimsical).
To bring back OT, the point is that believing that nuclear is safe is how you make it unsafe. The problem with the Chernobyl accident was that it was considered safe by the engineers who built it but when the accident happened, it wasn’t those same engineers working it, and the workers did the wrong thing.
“1027
Rod B says:
31 January 2010 at 5:59 PM
re 1006, that “Wind goes for 3-5c/kWh in California” meme”
Only because idiots keep complaining that wind power is cheap and they haven’t looked. Or only looked as far as their pay bill (which isn’t the cost: do you think your $500 Nikes cost more than $10 to make?).
Bullshit points always brought up:
1) It kills the birdies!!!
Far, FAR fewer than killed by skyscrapers. We’re not levelling the cities, though
2) It takes too much land!!!
It takes a certain expanse, practically all of it is unused, a fraction of a % is taken up and not available for use, there’s plenty of land overall for it
3) It looks horrible!!!
Yah, that and 50p will buy you a mars bar
4) What happens if the wind doesn’t blow. huh???
Nuclear can’t manage peak demand either. Therefore nuclear is USELESS??
5) Nuclear is cheaper
THIS is a redundant meme. In the 70’s it was going to be too cheap to meter!
” Tim Jones says:
31 January 2010 at 5:36 PM
Re:1003 Septic Matthew says: 31 January 2010 at 1:25 PM
“many biofuels are being developed, though obviously at some cost”
I’ll say. Turning food into fuel is a horrible idea, a recipe for disaster.
Biofuels like palm tree oil are incredibly insulting to rainforest environm”
However, weeds or non-foodstock food waste is completely available.
If it weren’t for the crusade against gange, hemp would be perfect. It needs little water, grows quickly, is a nitrogen fixer, its seeds can be used for biofuels, its stems for rope (why Dupont made marijuana illegal: hemp interfered with their patented nylon).
Where it IS pointless is the US corn-farmer-subsidy-led corn-based biofuels. They take nearly as much energy as they give back in biofuels.
920 Ray Ladbury
1. You say you haven’t seen a firestorm in the press. I therefore assume you do not live in the UK and do not ready any of the Sunday Newspapers. The IPCC, is being accused of being a politcal organisation campaiging on behalf of a particular standpoint – rather than being an independent and scientific reporting panel. Pachauri is increasingly portrayed as a figure of fun living in his expensive mansion, wearing 1000 dollar suits, having a chauffeur, making millions out of TERI TATA, allowing dodgy, unpeer-reviewed, reports and headlines in to AR4 and accusing the Indian government of “voodoo science”.
2. You say: “none of the errors you have cited undermines the overall work the IPCC did. The science is solid”.
Whether or not something is “undermined” is a concept experienced by the recipient of information – not the proposer. One of the reasons why RealClimate exists is to deal with attempts to undermine the science – and to respond to the undermining. To deny the existance of any “undermining” is to have your head in the sand!
You need to accept that the IPCC has not only made factual mistakes – albeit only a few – and help try to ensure that they don’t leave themselves open to similar charges in the future – and stick to the science and not the “spin”!
As you seem to have no problem with forthrightness, may I suggest you open your “bunker” door and take a peek outside. Maybe you might get the information to help rather than hinder.
The IPCC, and you, need to argue the science and ensure that that is all you do. If you maintain your current attitude – the accusation of “zealot” will sit ever more comfortably and give the opposition all the ammunition it needs.
Grow up!
Did: You really have the gall to compare the number of fatalities (less than 100 in 60 years, even when you pad it out with weapons research and military accidents!) with deaths from other sources of power?
BPL: Which part of “Chernobyl has caused or will cause thousands of deaths” did you not get? How about “the number of deaths resulting from unplanned releases of radioactive material and assorted contamination incidents is completely unknown?”
Yes, not many people have been killed by civilian nuclear accidents in the US. That’s still more than the “NO CIVILIAN DEATHS” lie the nukers keep throwing at us.
I believe it is within our engineering capabilities to build a safe nuclear power plant. I also believe that if you built such a thing, it would cost too much to be practical.
Power from fission is a dead-end technology. It was a good idea in the ’50s from all we knew back then. It didn’t work out. It just costs too damn much. It belongs with crossbows and horse-drawn coaches. Deal with it.
An organization alleviated to an objective, monopolistic truth-sayer cannot afford to be infallible. If there exists flaws, it should not exist.
Olve@1040: We share something in common. Neither of us has any idea what you are talking about.
Curmudgeon Cynic,
All I’ve seen from the press on either side of the pond is a few articles (mostly ill informed) and a lot of hysterical and mostly silly commentary. I do not pay attention to such idiocy because it is not science. None of the nontroversies of late have laid a glove on a single basic tenet of the consensus theory of climate. The consensus among those who understand the science–you know, the scientists–continues to strengthen (better than 97% at last count).
This is not about Pachauri or the IPCC or Phil Jones or CRU. It is about evidence, and the evidence is overwhelming. Eventually, all the crybabies will get tired of saying “I hate you!!!” And guess what, all that evidence will still be there.
It would not matter who was head of the IPCC. They would be a target. It wouldn’t matter if the IPCC only forgot to cross a ‘t’ or dot an ‘i’. Denialists would be raising just the same stink as they are over a couple of typos.
If people don’t like the IPCC, fine. Go read with the National Academies say. If they don’t like the National Academies, they can go to just about any relevant professional society of scientists and read a similar summary (albeit less detailed than the IPCC). And if they don’t trust any of that, there is always the peer-reviewed research if they aren’t too lazy or stupid to learn to read it.
The IPCC faces criticism because it is telling people what they don’t want to hear. Do you think another messenger would be any better received, or should we just look for somebody who is better at dodging bullets.
Wise up!
920 Ray Ladbury
… and what’s more!
Don’t you see what’s happening?
In an effort to pursuade the general public of the dangers of AGW, Al Gore et al concentrate on “headlines”. The Hockey stick, Amazon Forest, Glacier loss, increased natural disaster events, arctic ice loss, talking about climate in the context of weather, etc are “messages” that had been effectively “received” by the public and they were “on board”.
Systematically though, the “headlines” are being attacked (wouldn’t you do the same if you were in the other camp?) and one by one there is a “counter-story” being publicised.
And, in each of the recent attacks on each headline the IPCC have left a big hole in their armoury through mistakes, shoddy process, niavety, or, quite frankly, sensationalism – by the IPCC and Pachauri (BTW, his “voodoo science” accusation, when he must have already known that the story was coming out, was stunningly irresponsible).
So, a member of the public hears that the glaciers aren’t melting out of control, hurricanes are not increasing, The Amazon Forest isn’t being lost to AGW, Phil Jones is suspended from UEA and Michael Mann is under investigation at Penn. None of these issues change the science – only the public’s perception of the science – i.e their faith gets “undermined”.
HAVE YOU GOT IT YET!
Georgi Marinov,
I agree that cutting down on fuel consumption will be essential, but there is a lot of fat to trim before we start seriously cutting into peoples’ qualites of life. And I think it is too early to prejudge the potential contributions of renewables.
What is needed is an energy pricing structure that eliminates to the extent possible externalities, so that people can make rational decisions.
Curmudgeon Cynic,
Regardless of what the denialists say:
1)Glaciers are melting rapidly–not by 2035, granted–but rapidly
2)The Amazon is vulnerable to drought and climate change is expected to exacerbate drought.
3)this isn’t about Mike Mann, or Phil Jones or Pachauri; it’s about evidence
AND
It’s not about FAITH; it’s about evidence.
It’s not about politics; it’a about evidence.
It’s not about personalities or character assassination; it’s about evidence.
The denialists will attack wherever they see a vulnerability. Humans have vulnerabilities. Where they cannot attack is the evidence.
Would you care to tell me what EVIDENCE has been undermined by the latest nontroversies?
Do you get that it is about evidence yet?
#1045 Ray Ladbury
You are giving the term “denialist” a whole new meaning.
In one final attempt to get you too “see”, I ask you to compare the prestige and reputation of the IPCC in the press, on the news and in the eyes of the public now – to what it was a year ago.
Do you see any difference?
Yes? Welcome to the real world.
No? … then there is nothing more I can say
“You are giving the term “denialist” a whole new meaning.”
Really?
Where?
And when Big Oil’s product is confusion, how does the IPCC’s reputation in the press refute the science or make CO2 no longer a greenhouse gas?
“In an effort to pursuade the general public of the dangers of AGW, Al Gore et al concentrate on “headlines”.”
Since when did this stop the talking ditto heads like Watts and McIntyre and Plimer? They’ve been chasing headlines.
Yet they’re not having a problem with you for doing so.
Partisan.
Curmudgeon, I’m not sure Ray and you are speaking to the same point.
Ray is speaking to the scientific reality; you are speaking to PR.
Sure, I’d say it’s been a tough period from a PR point of view. But the IPCC is not a PR body; it is a policy advisory body. They don’t exist to “spin,” but to summarize what the evidence actually says. Normally that would be enough, but they are trying to operate in a cognitive environment which is systematically being poisoned by vested interests–and ones whose vest pockets are very deep indeed:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Climate-Cover-Up-A-Review
Maybe the UN should do more PR on this–but it’s kind of a Catch-22, as then the accusations of “politicization” would be substantiated. (Of course, the Heartland Institute or Senator Inhofe don’t “politicize”–that’s “different” somehow.)
Curmudgeon cynic,
What I see is an all-out assault on the credibility of anyone who is trying to tell coal and oil interests that maybe their product is causing some serious issues. And I see you taking the bait–not just hook, line, sinker, but rod and reel, too.
Anyone who insists on the science is going to be a target. If Pachauri goes away, the new IPCC head will be a target. If the IPCC goes away, whatever takes its place (and something will unless they succeed in outlawing science) will become a target.
Humans make mistakes. Science is a robust methodology for ensuring that those mistakes humans make dont obscure the truth.
The denialists found a typo and 3 or 4 questionable (not wrong, just questionable) references in 3000 pages and you are baying for blood. If you want perfection, I suggest you apply for admission to another species. If you want a robust approximation of the truth about climate or any other natural phenomenon, I recommend science.
Don’t focus on the side show. Focus on the evidence. When they say “emails”, say, “that’s nice, but how about the evidence”. When they say “climate scientists are meanies,” say “now, about that evidence”. When they froth at the mouth and say “blah-blah-blah hockeystick,” say “as a matter of fact, the hockeystick shows up in every proxy we’ve validated.”
Their game is calvin-ball. They will change the rules whenever it suits them. Don’t play their game. Play science.