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.
Re:1205
Barton Paul Levenson says:
3 February 2010 at 7:30 AM
“Tim, Sorry, I think I misinterpreted what you meant by “chops,” since I haven’t heard that term used the way you used it before.”
No problem. I certainly intended no hostility. I previously complimented your work.
Chops: “Slang. The technical skill with which a jazz or rock musician performs.”
Also meaning “know how” and “skill set”
Regarding: B) “if you’ve got real evidence rather than airy-fairy speculation…”
heh heh… Is there a friendly way to convey that meaning?
But speaking of chops, I’m going back and apply mine with a few thousand images on my new website called “earthlight imagery. http://www.earthlightimagery.com It was just about to go live last December when I put it off to recover from surgery associated with an infected knee replacement.
Regarding drought… I really would like to have a compelling argument to curtail emissions out here in rural right wing Texas. If I could tie emissions to the current… and especially future exceptional drought, and dispel the idea that it’s just natural variability it would help us develop a ranch land conservation strategy involving conservation of multiple resources.
For instance, razing the hillside Ashe juniper woodlands, burning huge piles of Ashe juniper and NOT building berms for erosion control is a way of doing business for brush land management in Central Texas. You can imagine how much soot that sends up. Ignorant ranchers turn the forest sinks directly into CO2 and black carbon sources against their own interests.
I sprang for my subscription to “nature” last night so I can do some searches. I do have major ELI tweaking to get on with now, but I’ll keep up with this. I learn a lot on RC. I hope I’ve contributed something. I hope my website does too, as it brings out Antarctic and South Georgia penguins.
Fed Up :”PS: “And then have a look at what a solar panel factory looks like, and try to build it without fossils.”
No, I don’t think any fossils ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil ) are used in silicon wafer plants.”
I’m speechless. What about concrete, steel, transportation, building ? everything with donkeys and ropes?
OK, go in an african village and teach them how to make a silicon wafer with natural materials.
BPL: How much will the complete collapse of world civilization cost? Will that be expensive?
Oh yeah, easy to evaluate. The global GDP is around 60 000 billions $ a year, and probably would be reduced by around a factor 50 or 100, so the cost is around 59 000 billions $ a year.
But this will happen much more certainly by the cutting of fossil than by a warming of 1 or 2°C.
Gavin :”The fundamental issue is that the long term cost of using fossil fuels is not currently factored into it’s actual cost.
The solution to this is to price in the externalities (very reasonable economics), based on a very standard ‘polluter pays’ principle. That encourages both energy efficiency and switches to renewables and perhaps even CCS and air capture if they are competitive. Jevon’s paradox doesn’t apply because the efficiency gains don’t lead to cheaper fuel.”
It’s not factored : it is just part of the economy. But it costs much less than the wealth produced by fossils (60 000 billions $ /10 GtC = 6000 $/t C) .
Paying taxes doesn’t change the technical efficiency of extracting fossils or the wealth you can produce with them. It is just a redistribution. It may help conservation, but you’re wrong if you think Jevons paradox does not apply. Of course it will. Conserving allows to burn less fuel for the same service. But what would prevent somebody poorer to use it ? And why wouldn’t they be used by your children later?
RE #126; I guess there is no answer to this and to # 1086, then. ????
Gavin :”But to simply say it can’t be done, and therefore it’s not worth trying is fatalism of the highest order. ”
Actually I’m not only saying it won’t be done. I’m saying it is not worth to do it, until the marginal cost of fossil externalities is higher than the marginal benefit they produce. And that we are very, very far from this point.Actually I doubt that we ever reach it , given the limited amount of fossil we are able to burn. And Copenhagen is not a tragedy : it a mere consequence of this simple fact, that you persist to overlook.
[Response: This is neither simple nor a fact. It is just your wishful thinking. No economist who has studied this issue has concluded that the externalised cost of emitting CO2 is zero, and all have called for some kind of carbon price (Nordhaus, Tol, Mendelsohn, Hanniman, Stern even (non-economist) Lomborg). Estimating the appropriate price is difficult (despite your faith that it is tiny), and there is a finite possibility that it is very large indeed. – gavin]
AxelD, The Washington Times is owned by the Reverend Moon. May we ask when your mass wedding will be.
The Times has given up any pretense of being a newspaper. They don’t even report on local news or sports anymore. It’s all politics all the time. Dude, you’ve got a pretty amazing track record. You haven’t been right about anything yet.
Gilles, 1190
I am predicting that before very long we will see a PV factory powered by PV cells. That will mark the true “arrival” of photovoltaic power. It’s simply a matter of how soon the cost of PV power falls below the cost of alternatives.
I used to think that the “arrival” of PV power would be when PV power was used to manufacture aluminum backpack frames. You get the idea: when PV power is used in the mass production of a “green” product with a large market. Another possibility is PV power used in the manufacture of air conditioning parts.
Gilles: And then have a look at what a solar panel factory looks like, and try to build it without fossils.
Well CFU was talking about PV plant, your picture is of the manufacturing of evacuated tube collectors. Even in your example glass furnaces to make the tubes can be (and sometimes are) powered by electricity.
“BPL: Iceland, with its geothermal power. ”
OK, let’s say “apart from very specific locations powered by hydro and/or geothermal power”. And you can check that Iceland use A LOT of fossils for other uses (including boats).
”
Certain spots in California, ditto. Solar thermal power plants which store excess heat in molten salts and achieve on-line time as good as coal-fired plants. Or a bunch of intermittent sources tied together by a smart grid.
”
“Certain spots” not connected to the grid ? and again, very specific requirements here : large cities near deserts. Exist only on some places in California, Spain, Australia.. and far from being sufficient.
”
Fossil fuels are not needed to generate electricity. They are not needed to fuel transportation. They are not even needed for fertilizer. They ARE needed for plastics and some medications, but that’s orders of magnitude less use than the energy-related ones.”
They are needed for cheap steel and concrete, which are needed for all other forms of electricity generation. They are needed for most long range transportation – you don’t transport goods with small electric cars. They are needed for plenty of carbochemistry – not only plastics. They are needed almost everywhere for a stable grid, except some very peculiar places. And even if they can be replaced for some uses, this would mainly increase the price of everything – so make people poorer.
Your arguing without facts. I just consider plain facts. Again, there would be no justification to allow developing countries to increase their fossil consumption if you were right. And as obviously nobody dares forbid them to use fossils -> you’re wrong.
Re: 1223
AxelD says:
3 February 2010 at 10:55 AM
“To illustrate my point in purely US terms, the Washington Post (I assume a highly respected newspaper) has a critical editorial on AGW which is even more explicit than most of the UK press.”
Why do you cite one newspaper and then give us a url from another? Something about your problem with evidence?
Gavin wrote: “[Response: Sorry, but the Washington Times is not respected at all.”
if reference to: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/02/osama-and-obama-on-global-warming/?feat+home_headlines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times
(excerpt)
“The Washington Times was founded in 1982 by Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon[1], who has said that he is the Messiah and the Second Coming of Christ and is fulfilling Jesus’ unfinished mission.”
And here’s What Joe Romm’s blog, Climate Progress has to say about the Washington Post:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/02/washington-posts-kurtz-calls-papers-op-ed-page-left-leaning-even-as-it-features-mostly-right-wingers/
AxelD, you keep making a wonderful case for “Look at me, I’m stupid.”
As for revising the IPCC AR4, won’t most of that happen in the AR5. Why advise something that will happen anyway?
Press Release issued by members of the Penn State University panel:
University Park, Pa. — An internal inquiry by Penn State into the research and scholarly activities of a well-known climate scientist will move into the investigatory stage, which is the next step in the University’s process for reviewing research conduct.
A University committee has concluded its inquiry into allegations of research impropriety that were leveled in November against Professor Michael Mann, after information contained in a collection of stolen e-mails was revealed. More than a thousand e-mails are reported to have been “hacked” from computer servers at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in England, one of the main repositories of information about climate change.
During the inquiry, all relevant e-mails pertaining to Mann or his work were reviewed, as well as related journal articles, reports and additional information. The committee followed a well-established University policy during the inquiry (http://guru.psu.edu/policies/ra10.html ).
“In looking at four possible allegations of research misconduct, the committee determined that further investigation is warranted for one of those allegations. The recommended investigation will focus on determining if Mann “engaged in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting or reporting research or other scholarly activities.” A full report (http://www.research.psu.edu/orp) concerning the allegations and the findings of the inquiry committee has been submitted.
“In the investigatory phase, as in the inquiry phase, the committee will not address the science of global climate change, a matter more appropriately left to the profession. The committee is charged with looking at the ethical behavior of the scientist and determining whether he violated professional standards in the course of his work.
“The investigatory committee will consist of five tenured full professor faculty members who will assess the evidence in the case and make a determination on Mann’s conduct.”
CFU, you should know this piece. It’s not the last word on range management — it’s among the first, and much more has been written. It still says much:
“… I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.
Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers.
I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades. So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf’s job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea….”
— Thinking Like a Mountain
—- By Aldo Leopold
Also for CFU.
I’m going on about this because it’s a glimpse of a whole area that people here may not know much about, that CFU for example has just been scoffing at, as many people do — no complaint, but I urge you to read more! — and that the IPCC has really not _yet_ paid a whole lot of attention to: biology per se.
That time has to come soon. This is true both at the primary production level — the ecosystems under the sea ice and in the cold upwelling areas of the ocean — and in fisheries and range management and all the rest of the way the world works.
http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1641/0006-3568%282005%29055%5B0613:LWAPAL%5D2.0.CO%3B2
Linking Wolves and Plants: Aldo Leopold on Trophic Cascades
Click the link for the text, and for links to these citing papers:
Jill S. Baron, Lance Gunderson, Craig D. Allen, Erica Fleishman, Donald McKenzie, Laura A. Meyerson, Jill Oropeza, Nate Stephenson. (2010) Options for National Parks and Reserves for Adapting to Climate Change. Environmental Management 44:6, 1033-1042, 1-Jan-2010.
Gary W. Roemer, Matthew E. Gompper, Blaire Van Valkenburgh. (2009) The Ecological Role of the Mammalian Mesocarnivore. BioScience 59:2, 165-173, 1-Feb-2009.
Robert L. Beschta, William J. Ripple. (2008) Recovering Riparian Plant Communities with Wolves in Northern Yellowstone, U.S.A. Restoration Ecology, 1-Oct-2008.
Som B. Ale, Christopher J. Whelan. (2008) Reappraisal of the role of big, fierce predators!. Biodiversity and Conservation 17:4, 685-690, 1-May-2008.
Rolf A. Ims, Nigel G. Yoccoz, Kari Anne Bråthen, Per Fauchald, Torkild Tveraa, Vera Hausner. (2007) Can Reindeer Overabundance Cause a Trophic Cascade?. Ecosystems 10:4, 607-622, 19-Oct-2007.
Steve Wolverton, James H. Kennedy, John D. Cornelius. (2007) A Paleozoological Perspective on White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus texana) Population Density and Body Size in Central Texas. Environmental Management 39:4, 545-552, 1-May-2007.
CURT MEINE, MICHAEL SOULE, REED F. NOSS. (2006) “A Mission-Driven Discipline”: the Growth of Conservation Biology. Conservation Biology 20:3, 631-651, 1-Jul-2006.
Donald M. Waller. (2006) Re-Visioning Conservation. Conservation Biology 20:2, 587-588, 1-May-2006.
Dan Binkley, Margaret M. Moore, William H. Romme, Peter M. Brown. (2006) Was Aldo Leopold Right about the Kaibab Deer Herd?. Ecosystems 9:2, 227-241
1-Apr-2006.
Doug Bostrom (1145), I almost hate to say it, but this post is cogent and pretty good.
ps, to be sure I’m not saying you should just make up a bunch of bs spin, either (as CFU says, too). But you might need to present the truth in a different fashion. [The difficulty is, in part and as said before, that the most knowledgeable people don’t like doing that sort of thing and are often not very good at it. I got no good suggestion for you there.]
just read the press release from the IPCC , scientists that volunteer their valuable time and effort
SINCERE THANK YOU FROM ALL IN AUSTRALIA
,
GM, some of us HAVE read McKay and don’t agree with his bloody analysis. It doesn’t mean we’re “refus[ing] to engage with the limits of renewables.” It means we don’t think McKay has accurately IDENTIFIED the limits of renewables. The guy wanted to show that nuclear was vital and he let it affect his thinking.
Georgi: you aren’t looking deep enough.
Europe already has a large nuclear resource.
And nowhere in the book does it suggest that solar and wind farms won’t be large. In fact, MacKay repeatedly makes the point that country-sized renewable energy will require country-sized installations.
You keep trying to come up with reasons why we can’t do this. But reality calls you a liar, because as others have frequently observed, the renewables sector is expanding rapidly.
Looking at the limits is important, because it tells us things like “we need to develop offshore wind in the UK”, and “nuclear is a good fit for urban coastal locations where there is lots of water but limited space for wind”, and many, many other things.
The other thing that many people miss when reading MacKay’s book is that his energy consumption figures include heating, transport – many things not currently considered in the residential electricity equation. Yes, we will get there – but the path isn’t short. It isn’t just a matter of replacing a few coal power stations with equivalent renewables.
Okay, I admit that for people who are afraid of nuclear power, or that have an ostrich attitude to how we will live without petrol to run cars or gas to heat houses – these people may not like MacKay’s book. Well, they don’t. Those people, and people like you, Georgi, with your “it can’t be done” attitude. I will leave you with a quotation from the book:
BPL:
MacKay’s estimates of renewable energy potential are several orders of magnitude greater than other studies, and are only bounded by major physical limitations, such as “how much ground can be covered with wind/solar/whatever”. And you still don’t like the estimates?
Okay, then. Find some credible source that comes up with numbers you do like.
Then you can have a long discussion with the more biologically-oriented side of the environmental movement about why destroying biodiversity in the name of energy security may, in the long term, be considered shooting oneself in the foot.
Note: If you, or anyone else, tries yet again to extrapolate California to the entire world, prepare to be severely mocked.
BPL: I worry sometimes that you are quite prepared for a population catastrophe later this century (OMG! 8 billion dead!), and you expect small scale renewables to be perfectly adequate for the survivors. Please tell me that you don’t have this sort of defeatist, apocalyptic scenario in mind.
“Okay, then. Find some credible source that comes up with numbers you do like.”
How about here:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/an-open-letter-to-steve-levitt/
?
Hank, 1261, they aren’t introducing the wolf into the drought stricken areas of sub-saharan africa.
I therefore fail to see the point.
Gilles: “They are needed for cheap steel and concrete, …
Your arguing without facts. I just consider plain facts. ”
Except that they aren’t facts, Gilles.
You don’t need CO2 production to make cheap steel.
I note that you still fail to admit you were wrong on Al Gore, and had to resort to a Jedi Mind Trick “this is not the CO2 I’m looking for”.
“1252
Gilles says:
3 February 2010 at 4:27 PM
Fed Up :”PS: “And then have a look at what a solar panel factory looks like, and try to build it without fossils.”
No, I don’t think any fossils ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil ) are used in silicon wafer plants.”
I’m speechless. What about concrete, steel, transportation, building ? everything with donkeys and ropes? ”
Nope, I’m CERTAIN fossils aren’t used in concrete, steel or transportation (which isn’t tied to fossil fuels either).
I’ve got a hunch that fossils are used in the Natural History Museum.
“1247
Jacob Mack says:
3 February 2010 at 2:36 PM
I just want to remind people that wikipedia cannot be trusted as a reliable source no matter how many citations it may contain.”
Neither is Encyclopedia Brittanica.
Or Encarta.
Or anything.
But it IS a lot more accessible to the public.
“1237
Hank Roberts says:
3 February 2010 at 12:52 PM
CFU asks:
> if they didn’t overgraze then why are they overgrazing?
I told you. Removal of top predators.”
No, there’s humans as the top predators and they are growing herds for themselves to live off.
You don’t keep growing cattle until you can’t fit any more in the field because you know what’s going to happen.
Unlike wolves, we FARM animals.
Your point doesn’t work, doesn’t fit.
This isn’t “more animals grazing”, this is *overgrazing* which is where you have more goats than your land will support.
Why?
Because you need the animal products.
Why?
Likely because without all those animals, your children would starve.
Jack Kelly,
I don’t think anyone here would accuse you of trollishness–be it of the concern variety or any other. Your posts here have been thoughtful. Of course any reasonable person who understands the risks we face has to be concerned And I do think that the way we communicate with the public has to change.
The problem we face is that we must convince the public to make sacrifices NOW to avert a serious threat in the future. This of course puts us on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, we must convince people that the threat is serious enough to warrant action now, which flies in the face of the inate human tendency complacency toward future risks. On the other hand, if we outline the seriousness of the risks we face, we run into the tendency of the human brain to shut down into denial when confronted with something scary.
The thing is that climate change is not the only such threat we face. It just looks to be the one with the highest chance of seriously disrupting human civilization in the foreseeable future. Somehow, we must come up with a way of rising above our inate tendencies so that we can confront such real threats. I do think it is possible, but it is not something we know how to do yet. After all, people are still smoking and riding motorcycles without helmets.
Ron Taylor (#1233) doesn’t want to “call me out” on anything, but only (!) to let me know that my comment about the effect of recent embarrassments is “shamefully irresponsible.” Well, please be assured Ron that it is not all climate scientists who now look like charlatans, but only some leading proponents of CAGW theories. I shouldn’t have to remind you in detail of the recent embarrassments because you’re very familiar with them. Of course it doesn’t help that others, not directly at fault (as far as we know anyway) for the sloppiness, in some cases, and mendacity or illegality, in other cases, then try to defend or minimize the bad behavior. The whole thing tends unfortunately to taint the “community’s” reputation in the larger community, helping to explain in part why members of the public are turning off to CAGW claims in droves.
“They are needed for cheap steel and concrete, which are needed for all other forms of electricity generation. They are needed for most long range transportation – you don’t transport goods with small electric cars.”
Electric furnaces are currently used for making steel.
Electric motors are great for hauling freight. They are so good that for decades they have been the drive force in large railroad locomotive. Full electric freight hauling will need improved storage but hybrid electric locomotives from GE and hybrid electric trucks from Kenworth are available now.
Jack, one thing may help you here.
Watch Robert Newman’s history of oil and in the last few minutes he goes on about action and how he used to go to the alpha male or female and tell them what should be done.
They gave him a look and he didn’t understand and so left to find someone else to tell what should be done.
Eventually he realised what the look meant: OK, fine idea, you go out and organise it and I’ll print the leaflets”.
On realising this he then found his outlook completely changed. He knew he should do the work, not tell someone about the work.
So he stopped going to people to tell them what should be done.
We’re giving you the look, Jack.
> Completely Fed Up says: 4 February 2010 at 9:10 AM
> Hank, 1261, they aren’t introducing the wolf ….
I cited overgrazing as a consequence of changes in how herd animals graze after removal of top predators — including man — with links; this is good ecological work
You think this suggests wolves in Africa?!? You can’t be reading at all.
You’re not thinking, you’re arguing. Try changing the monicker to something that suggests you’re able to do more than complain, it might help.
In the last couple of days, a Lancet study linking autism to vaccinations has been disavowed by its original publisher and by most of its authors. And yet people continue to go to doctors and take medicines.
Surely, AGW-deniers should now apply the same skepticism to medicine that they say they take with climate science and refuse to use medicines or consult with the medical profession.
And I’ll say one of the reasons this kind of argument pisses me off. I’m supporting a program that has people in that area of Africa right now, as teachers. I hear about this area first hand. One just bicycled 40 miles on his vacation, across the Sahel. I’m not telling you about abstract academic study from a detached point of view. I likely know more about the people you’re whining about feeding than you do. If you actually know something, speak up on it.
The problem with grazing management is not the number of animals per se — people need to know how to manage them to get value from them without degrading the resource and losing the whole thing. Letting animals graze freely in the absence of predation means they spread out, and degrade the resource, and eventually starve. Adding more animals makes it worse. Duh.
Creating concentrated grazing enclosures, and moving those enclosures often, restores the pattern with which the plants and animals coevolved, lets each area of the field rest and recover, feeds as many or more animals on the same amount of land successfully and sustainably, and gets the topsoil back.
It takes management to do this. It takes education and will to manage well.
It takes nothing to complain and armwave in ‘fed up’ despair — that keeps degrading the world in the stupid belief that it’s hopeless and there’s nothing to be done. Maybe you’re right. Time will tell. Fermi Paradox, eh?
You choose. Don’t whine about people needing to destroy the earth to eat.
Learn what works and teach what you can.
OK, the IPCC isn’t infallible and neither is Penn State. However, there is good news from the perspective of sanity:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/scientist+fake+data+inquiry+finds/2519876/story.html
Central sentence:
“While a perception has been created in the weeks after the CRU emails were made public that Dr. Mann has engaged in the suppression or falsification of data, there is no credible evidence that he ever did so, and certainly not while at Penn State,” said the inquiry report, published by the university yesterday.
CFU: Your link is a non sequitur. If there was a thought behind your post, perhaps you would like to spend some time laying it out carefully?
Gavin :”This is neither simple nor a fact. It is just your wishful thinking. No economist who has studied this issue has concluded that the externalised cost of emitting CO2 is zero, and all have called for some kind of carbon price (Nordhaus, Tol, Mendelsohn, Hanniman, Stern even (non-economist) Lomborg). Estimating the appropriate price is difficult (despite your faith that it is tiny), and there is a finite possibility that it is very large indeed. ”
I’m not speaking of the cost of fossils. I’m speaking of the benefit, the wealth produced by them. It is a misleading conception that they have a cost, or rather, the cost is just an investment. The ROI is enormous (6000 $/t C) and exceeds by far the externalities computed by every economist, including Stern. That’s the most simple explanation why all policies of reducing the fossils worldwide have failed – it’s just contrary to basic economics.
[Response: Where does that come from? Frankly, I have very little confidence that it is correct in any case. There was a recent paper that found that the net ROI of coal was actually negative even without taking climate change into account and just factoring in the costs to the environment, clean up and public health. The comparisons have to be with alternative energy sources, and the any carbon pricing upwards of $30 /t C, and certainly numbers like $100/t C make alternatives (including efficiency) very attractive. – gavin]
And the Jevons paradox can be understood as follows : the MORE you conserve, the MORE wealth you produce with a given amount of energy – and so the MORE costly it is to renounce to burning them. Improving efficiency has always allowed an INCREASE in our capacity of burning fuels – as the basic history facts show.
[Response: You are guilty of assuming that a correlation in history is some iron law that can’t ever be changed. Try doing that with 19th Century correlations (horse numbers and economic growth for instance) and see how useless it is. Given the low appreciation of the consequences of CO2 emissions in the past, these were not priced in – therefore increasing efficiency reduces demand, prices fall and more energy is used. But without the middle step – which can be changed – there is no such feedback. People do respond to price incentives – as was seen very clearly when the oil price spiked. Why do you assume they won’t? – gavin]
CFU “Nope, I’m CERTAIN fossils aren’t used in concrete, steel or transportation (which isn’t tied to fossil fuels either).”
Sorry , fossil fuels ARE kind of fossils, but we may use “fossils” instead of “fossil fuels” more often in French. But CHEAP concrete, steel, and transportation are possible – to my knowledge – only with fossil fuels. So try again to built a wafer plant without all this – beginning by concrete for the walls, steel for furnaces, and all kind of plastics, insulators, and so on.. Not speaking of all wires and devices for the electrical grid. Again have a look at the countries that are REALLY low fossil fuels consumers – instead of imaginary fairy PV-powered countries. I am not even speaking of intermittency, solar efficiency at high latitudes, and so on..
PS the FIRST step to produce silicon is SiO2 +C -> Si +CO2. Guess what is “C”.
You can think that I am silly and you’re right -but : i predict you that you will be always deceived by carbon reduction agreements – and what is the best test to know who is right than comparing predictions and reality ?
the post that my #1264 was p s-ing to didn’t make it; probably why 1264 makes little sense.
1258, Gilles:
“Certain spots” not connected to the grid ? and again, very specific requirements here : large cities near deserts. Exist only on some places in California, Spain, Australia.. and far from being sufficient.
A great deal of power use is “specific” requirements in well-defined locales, and the current energy plants can be replaced piece-meal in those places. In much of the US, 20% or so of peak electricity demand is for Air Conditioning, and that A/C can be adequately powered by solar. In much of the US southwest most heating requirements occur on sunny days, and the heating can be provided by solar-powered heat pumps. In most spots of the US, some liquid fuel can be supplied by crops grown near the spot, and vast quantities can be supplied by crops grown near shorelines.
The US energy system was not planned in advance in complete detail and then built in 20 years, and its replacement also does not need to be planned in advance and built in 20 years. What’s needed is diversity in energy R&D and deployment, standards for connecting to the (“smart”) grids, and flexibility in evaluating the power supplies for each new enterprise. And, as in everything else, continuing product improvement.
And, at present rates of development, alternative supplies will in 20 years supply a great deal of US energy. In percentage terms, the growth of the alternative energy supply in the US is several times the growth of energy consumption and GDP, coal usage is down, and CO2 output is down (some of this is due to the recession, but not all of it.)
You can get detailed information from the web pages of the Energy Information Association and the National Renewable Energy Lab. What’s being debated in Congress is the exact amount to invest and the exact mix of investments for the next few years: now that Obama has publicly committed to more offshore oil and gas, and to nuclear, there is no longer an important debate between him and the centrist Republicans and Democrats.
Hank Roberts wrote: “You choose. Don’t whine about people needing to destroy the earth to eat.”
Agreed.
That’s one reason that I chose over twenty years ago to eat a vegan diet … after being lacto-ovo vegetarian for 14 years before that.
There may be places in the world where it is genuinely difficult for people to obtain adequate nutrition without consuming any animal products.
The United States of America is not one of those places. In the USA, it is FAR easier, not to mention less costly, to eat a vegan diet than to obtain so-called “sustainably” or “humanely” produced animal foods. It is a choice that any American reader of this blog can easily make.
One university study found that by switching from the “standard American diet” to a vegan diet, one can reduce one’s carbon footprint as much as by switching from a gas guzzler to a Prius. And it doesn’t cost $25,000 like the Prius — on the contrary, for most people switching to a vegan diet saves money, and has health benefits as well.
A United Nations study found that livestock production accounts for nearly 20 percent of global GHG emissions — comparable to the transport sector, which gets a lot more attention. A more recent study published by WorldWatch Institute put the figure at over 50 percent. Either way, animal agriculture is a significant part of the problem.
There has been a lot of discussion about the impact of biofuel production on the food supply — yet such discussions often ignore the fact that most of the world’s production of soybeans and corn goes to animal feed, to produce meat, thereby reducing the protein available to humans by as much as 90 percent. If it is objectionable to divert food crops to biofuels, is it not also objectionable to divert crops that could feed human beings to animal feed, so that rich people can eat meat?
OK, so a foreigne mistook the Washington Post for the Times. Ho ho. And that’s the best you can do, assert that everything else I say must therefore be wrong? Oh dear. This really says much more about you and climate science than about me.
Since you’re unwilling to face reality about the need to change anything in your solely “evidence-based” approach, let me give you a real-life example, from the UK. You won’t like the parallels, but parallels they are. Consider this true story.
Our politicians, called Members of Parliament, or MPs, have long had a very loose and flexible expenses system to which successive governments have turned a blind eye. MPs bolstered their rather low salaries by exorbitant claims which were waved through. This has continued for years, with very strange figures being submitted and paid as valid expenses. Until … the recession arrived, and a whistle-blower exposed all the data to a national newspaper, that gleefully printed all the details. The public were horrified – out trusted politicians (OK I made up the bit about “trusted”) are submitting invalid figures? Well, yes, they were, and they didn’t like it one bit when their activites were exposed for everyone to read in the media. Of course, the media had a field day. Vicious doesn’t begin to describe it.
So, trust in the political class has plummeted, and is through the floor. Seriously – MPs reputations ranked way below lawyers and estate agents (realtors). And that’s bad. Something had to be done. Independent agents were brought in and trawled through every piece of data. Rules were introduced – retrospectively – about what could be allowed and what couldn’t. The squeals of protest rent the heavens, but most MPs paid up on excessive claims, and the others have left the public scene. And the system has been changed dramatically for future MP’s remuneration.
Even the most unworldly types here must see the parallels. Something had to be done to restore some degree of faith in the political class and system. So they did it – in its way, as radical a reform as I suggest for the way the IPCC operates.
This example shows that, if the will is there, a catastrophic loss of public faith can be changed round (though ours still has some way to go yet.) But while you cling helplessly to the belief that the “evidence” will trump the media stories, for every one individual that checks with RC or similar sites, 999 people will be gaining their ideas on climate change from TV and the press.
To get your message across, you have to convince media and public that some radical root-and-branch surgery has taken place. But I’m afraid I’ve zero confidence that you’ll even begin to acknowledge that.
[Response: While the media circus in both cases is similar, the underlying issues are not. It was a scandal that people were charging hotel pornography or moat cleaning to their expenses, and people were rightly outraged. New rules, tighter monitoring and a clean sweep are completely appropriate. But the issues with climate science are nothing like that, 90% of the furore is over things that are merely accusations without any substance, and the other 10% are just the kind of error that happens in any endeavour. That someone did not check a reference or that Pachauri is not a diplomat are nothing like the same thing as claiming mortgage payments on a house you don’t actually own. If ‘climate science’ was an institution (it isn’t), and if there was evidence of large scale bending and breaking of the ‘rules’ (there isn’t), then maybe a similar approach could be taken. But we are just a bunch of individuals all trying to do our best – we only have responsibility for own behaviour and have very limited control over how wrong the media are. – gavin]
More calls for Pachauri to go.
This time from Greenpeace in the UK.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/7153621/Greenpeace-director-tells-IPCC-boss-Rajendra-Pachauri-to-stand-down-over-glacier-claim.html (Daily Telegraph – a right wing rag)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/04/ipcc-rajendra-pachauri-resignation (The Guardian – left wing paper that is read by academics and greenies)
Did: I worry sometimes that you are quite prepared for a population catastrophe later this century (OMG! 8 billion dead!), and you expect small scale renewables to be perfectly adequate for the survivors. Please tell me that you don’t have this sort of defeatist, apocalyptic scenario in mind.
BPL: That is EXACTLY what I expect to happen, minus the renewables being some sort of panacea after the crash. As many here have pointed out, the science is clear, but the lying propagandists are winning the public relations battle. WINNING it. President Obama is still making meaningless noises about “clean coal.” China sabotaged Copenhagen. Russia loves oil.
Human beings do not prevent crises. They wait until the crisis happens and then react. That’s why Hitler marched into the Ruhr in 1934 and no one told him to get out. And the US didn’t join the war until HE declared war on US seven years later.
CO2 will rise, human agriculture will collapse completely some time in the next 40 years, and most of humanity will die of starvation, disease, rioting, and war in the aftermath. And we will enter a new dark ages that will probably last for around a thousand years. In fact, with all the easily available metals and fossil fuels already used up, we may never be able to get up again at all, though that’s very debatable.
Re #1193 CFU
As you say, The Economist is a respectable newspaper. In fact, it writes almost always taking for granted the current scientific view. Reader comments are usually filled up with denialist talking points, but that still has to have an effect on the editorial direction.
Some interesting excerpts from The Economist’s Global Warming Special ( http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14994872 , not sure whether this content is visible to non-subscribers):
“But the usual causes of natural variability do not seem to explain the current trend, so scientists incline to the view that it is man-made. It is therefore likely to persist unless mankind starts to behave differently—and there is not much sign of that happening.”
[…]
“But the broad scientific consensus is that serious climate change is a danger, and this newspaper believes that, as an insurance policy against a catastrophe that may never happen, the world needs to adjust its behaviour to try to avert that threat.
The problem is not a technological one. The human race has almost all the tools it needs to continue leading much the sort of life it has been enjoying without causing a net increase in greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere. […]
Nor is it a question of economics. Economists argue over the sums (see article), but broadly agree that greenhouse-gas emissions can be curbed without flattening the world economy. […]
It is all about politics.
“
Perhaps, after all, some climate scientists do recognize the need for change. Or maybe it’s their government. Whatever, this story in today’s UK Telegraph summarizes: “India has threatened to pull out of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and set up its on climate change body because it “cannot rely” on the group headed by its own Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr R K Pachauri.
A selective quote continues:”… last night Mr Ramesh effectively marginalised the IPC chairman even further. He announced that the Indian government will establish a separate National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology to monitor the effects of climate change on the world’s “third ice cap”, and an “Indian IPCC” to use “climate science” to assess the impact of global warming throughout the country.”
Not sure how certain this is, but it shows a willingness to establish a base of confidence.
AxelD #1249: “But something has to change dramatically, to reverse the flood tide of media sentiment.”
How about: the oil companies stop their PR campaign to discredit the science and the scientists?
AxeID: “Even the most unworldly types here must see the parallels. Something had to be done to restore some degree of faith in the political class and system. So they did it – in its way, as radical a reform as I suggest for the way the IPCC operates.”
Except the anxiety about the Hadley Center stuff was artificial — the quotes and contexts of the emails were intentionally misconstrued. Extending the anxiety over the entire field of climatology was (and is) pure posturing. If a doctor gets sued for malpractice, the entire field of medicine isn’t punished. People don’t quit going to the doctor.
There’s a group of people who face a financial hit if certain policies are implemented to combat global warming. To imagine that they aren’t behind the effort to discredit the entire science is too naive to be believed. Particularly when their doubters show up as anonymous posters. But I’m afraid I’ve zero confidence that you’ll even begin to acknowledge that.
Gavin @1284, I certainly take your point that the underlying issues are a little different, but all I claimed was that there are parallels. None of the MPs has broken the law (as far as we know) – their transgressions were simply moral, rather than criminal. In fact, they didn’t even actually break their own rules – but their behaviour simply outraged public opinion.
But, in the parallel case, I’d call bending the rules of peer review (for just one instance) a pretty flagrant breaking of science’s moral code, and it’s certainly outraged public opinion. I don’t want to get into an argument about the rights and wrongs of the way that the peer review may or may not have been subverted – the fact remains that the public believes it has, and that view is being reinforced right now in the UK by complementary stories from the field of stem cell research.
Again, I absolutely accept that you are “just a bunch of individuals all trying to do our best” but when doing your best I think you’d find it much easier to make the impression you want if you were – in the near future – working within the context of a truly trusted organization. In a post I’ve just made, the Indian government now seem to think it “cannot rely” on the IPCC, and may set up its own version of the IPCC. Not sure that’s necessarily the answer, but it’s a big straw in the wind.
Gavin, I appreciate comments made in your response to AxelD (#1284). Especially, I want to take to heart that you (the collective “you,” referring I believe to climate scientists) are “just a bunch of individuals all trying to do our best [who] only have responsibility for [your] own [behavior].” But, honestly, I don’t think you can quite support your other claim that “90%” if the furor lacks substance and the other 10% is “the kind of error that happens in any [endeavor].” Aren’t you overlooking the official finding, now, that Dr. Jones engaged in unlawful conduct, albeit uncovered too late to prosecute? Surely you don’t suggest that violations of laws relating to disclosure and transparency are commonplace errors. In fact, I know you don’t because you have written previously that such violations of law and ethics are inexcusable. So, you should not try to minimize those things now as mere “errors” that could happen to anyone. On reflection, I imagine that you’ll agree.
With that as background, may I ask a question? It is a real question, not a rhetorical one, because in fact I am unsure regarding what your answer will be. Which is why I ask. My question is: In retrospect, do you think that possibly you and your colleagues responded to McIntyre et al. with a more adversarial spirit than might have been completely appropriate?
One more: Is it possible that in the to-and-fro of discourse, the adversarial purposes and sentiments that we see expressed in Dr. Jones’ communications infected your own approach to these matters?
I’m very willing to be enlightened regarding these topics.
Which, of course, is something that never happened. But that won’t stop AxelD from repeating it, I bet.
Gilles: “Your arguing without facts. I just consider plain facts. Again, there would be no justification to allow developing countries to increase their fossil consumption if you were right. And as obviously nobody dares forbid them to use fossils -> you’re wrong.”
And YOU are arguing from a “fossilized” perception Gillies, not considering any facts at all. The justification nearly everyone uses [including you] for not requiring developing countries to immediately reduce the increase in their rate of emissions has to do with the politics of “justice”, not science or facts. If you could wrap your mind around the possibility of humanity adopting a more ecologically enlightened approach to existence, you might see there are ways to live as comfortably as you do now without consuming a disproportionate share of the planet. You are arguing against any attempt to deal with problems based on your perception of human behaviour being single mindedly greedy and sef interested …. also, while cement/concrete production can be a major producer of CO2, it doesn’t need to be, and in some formulations/uses it actually reabsorbs most of the CO2 produced in it’s making, I percieved that “pv facility” you linked as being constructed of timber framing, not steel.
CFU: “This isn’t “more animals grazing”, this is *overgrazing* which is where you have more goats than your land will support.
Why?
Because you need the animal products.
Why?
Likely because without all those animals, your children would starve”
Or because the [wolves in Africa]landlord insists on his ROI [and your children starve anyway]:
new paradigm
a list of stories about the situation
Gilles/1284
you neglect other possibilities, including: Pure silicon (>99.9%) can be extracted directly from solid silica or other silicon compounds by molten salt electrolysis. This method, known from 1854 (see also FFC Cambridge Process) has the potential to directly produce solar grade silicon without any CO2 emission and at much lower energy consumption.
also: SiO2 + 2 C → Si + 2 CO
Please relent with fossilized “refutations” of progress