A couple of months ago, we discussed a short paper by Matthews and Weaver on the ‘climate change commitment’ – how much change are we going to see purely because of previous emissions. In my write up, I contrasted the results in M&W (assuming zero CO2 emissions from now on) with a constant concentration scenario (roughly equivalent to an immediate cut of 70% in CO2 emissions), however, as a few people pointed out in the comments, this exclusive focus on CO2 is a little artificial.
I have elsewhere been a big advocate of paying attention to the multi-faceted nature of the anthropogenic emissions (including aerosols and radiatively and chemically active short-lived species), both because that gives a more useful assessment of what it is that we are doing that drives climate change, and also because it is vital information for judging the effectiveness of any proposed policy for a suite of public issues (climate, air pollution, public health etc.). Thus, I shouldn’t have neglected to include these other factors in discussions of the climate change commitment.
Luckily, some estimates do exist in the literature of what happens if we ceased all human emissions of climatically important factors. One such estimate is from Hare and Meinshausen (2006), whose results are illustrated here:
The curve (1) is the result for zero emissions of all of the anthropogenic inputs (in this case, CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs, SO2, CO, VOCs and NOx). The conclusion is that, in the absence of any human emissions, the expectation would be for quite a sharp warming with elevated temperatures lasting almost until 2050. The reason is that the reflective aerosols (sulphates) decrease in abundance very quickly and so their cooling effect is removed faster than the warming impact of the well-mixed GHGs disappears.
This calculation is done with a somewhat simplified model, and so it might be a little different with a more state-of-the-art ESM (for instance, including more aerosol species like black carbon and a more complete interaction between the chemistry and aerosol species), but the basic result is likely to be robust.
Obviously, this is not a realistic scenario for anything that could really happen, but it does illustrate a couple of points that are relevant for policy. Firstly, the full emissions profile of any particular activity or sector needs to be considered – exclusively focusing on CO2 might give a misleading picture of the climate impact. Secondly, timescales are important. The shorter the time horizon, the larger the impact of short-lived species (aerosols, ozone, etc.). However, the short-lived species provide both warming and cooling effects and the balance between them will vary depending on the activity. Good initial targets for policy measures to reduce emissions might therefore be those where both the short and long-lived components increase warming.
Rod, you are kind of weak on statistical reasoning. Of course you can find individual countries where increasing temperature will increase GDP and the reverse is also true. The quesiton is what effect it will have on the preponderance of countries–and the data indicate an inverse correlation.
As I have said, this has long been a subject of research in economics–even before climate change became a concern. Some studies even tried to control for the effect of level of development–for example looking at correlations within regions (e.g. Africa and Latin America or within the OECD). The same trend still holds.
I have mentioned some of the hypotheses advanced on this subject–e.g. that agriculture is more challenging in tropical than temperate environments; that health is more problematic in the tropics; and the problems of increased maintenance cost at elevated temperatures and tropical conditions (note wearout mechanisms are accelerated by temperature differences). These issues would apply globally if the world warmed due to climate change.
Now you can either continue to gainsay the research and remain ignorant, or you can look into it more deeply to see if there might be something to it–as the professional economists and demographers who do the research think.
#343
This is another example of estimating a significant trend. If you read the last paragraph of that link you will see that the recent rise is similar to the magnitude of the error bars.
What is the evidence based on earlier US polls? If there had been an earlier negative trend (as in the UK) this may at least provide evidence that it may have halted.
#343
This is another example of estimating a significant trend. If you read the last paragraph of that link you will see that the recent rise is similar to the magnitude of the error bars.
What is the evidence based on earlier US polls? If there had been an earlier negative trend (as in the UK) this may at least provide evidence that the downward trend may have halted.
CFU#The 1870’s European didn’t have access to modern composite materials to make high efficiency wind turbines from, Gilles. Neither did they have access to modern amorphous silicon production techniques to make photovoltaic cells.”
I hope you will invite me to visit your famous turbine or photovoltaic cell factory that has been built without fossil fuels, that doesn’t use anything made with fossil fuels (things like cement, steel, glas, insulators, copper, silicon, plastic), and that can produce turbines and solar cell at the same price as those other stupid fossil-based factories, some day ?
I will happily cross the ocean with a fossil-free plane, built in another fossil-free factory, and we’ll go there with your fossil-free car …
[edit – insults and responses to insults in kind will be edited out]
John E. Pearson says: 9 June 2010 at 8:59 AM
Kevin McKinney says: 9 June 2010 at 9:02 AM
Concerning Murkowski, public opinions, today would be a great day to stop arguing about correlations between GDP and temperature for a moment, give your Senator a call.
Furry 326: I have. As I’ve noted before, I’ve actually studied statistics at the graduate level
BPL: Then why are you babbling about how “there are entirely too many variables to say that temperature and GDP have =any= relationship” ??? They’ve measured a relationship. It may or may not be causal, but to say there’s too many variables to tell if there’s a relationship is a meaningless statement when we’ve already measured one. If you meant “to tell if there’s a CAUSAL relationship,” then say so. That way I won’t mistake you for a statistical illiterate.
FG 330: The economic system is still too dynamic to pin GDP on temperature to where one can predict output based on it. And yeah, if one is saying “one degree = 2.2% reduction in GDP” one is doing exactly that.
BPL: The original study probably said something more like “1 degree = -2.2% GDP, all else being held equal.“
Rod 334: one can find a correlation with all four combinations of temp and GDP
BPL: What do you mean “all four combinations?” If you’re saying you can find either a negative or a positive correlation, you’re only wrong. Quantify each variable and r will have one and only one value, and it will be positive, negative, or zero.
AC 336: there’s no objective way to compare GDP between countries, regions or periods.
BPL: You mean we don’t know if we’re in a recession or not? We don’t know if the USA produces more goods and services than Haiti? Econometrics is pretty much a useless pseudoscience?
You need to take a course therein.
Gilles 337: can you give me a statistical method that I could blindly apply to correlate GDP against temperature, or FF (for instance without knowing which is which in “reduced units”), and that would show a better correlation with temperature than with FF ?
BPL: Do it yourself. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient is computed as follows:
r = sxy / sqrt(sx2 * sy2)
where sxy, sx2 and sy2 are “reduced sums of squares” or “sums of squared deviations” for X^2, Y^2, and X * Y:
sxy = Sum(X * Y) – N * Mean(X) * Mean(Y)
sx2 = Sum(X * X) – N * Mean(X) * Mean(X)
sy2 = Sum(Y * Y) – N * Mean(Y) * Mean(Y)
Gilles: and more generally, can you give me a method of reasoning , which, equally applied to judge the influence of temperature and FF consumption on human society, would obviously show that the first one is much more important than the second one to explain the wealth of modern countries ?
BPL: Probably not, since their present GDPs correlate to their past fossil fuel use.
Gilles: Again, if you postulate that “we could find in the future a magic solution to replace FF”, the same thought applied to temperature could equally give “we could find in the future a magic solution to adapt to warming”.
BPL: We don’t have to wait for the future. We already know how to produce power in other ways than burning fossil fuels. Wind power is not pie in the sky, nor is solar, nor geothermal, nor biomass, nor tidal.
Gilles: And conversely, if you estimate the influence of temperature on societies by extrapolating present known facts and correlations, then you should also estimate the influence of FF by extrapolating present known facts and correlations.
BPL: The idea is to change the present situation, not perpetuate it.
Gilles: So please, before saying that I’m wrong, give me a rational, scientific method to justify it.
BPL: It’s called “empiricism.” Google it.
Gilles 339: I would stress that the correlation between temperature and GDP is totally equivalent to the correlation between temperature and FF consumption, both being much looser than the correlation between FF and GDP
BPL: You’re saying:
r(T, GDP) = r(T, FF) << r(FF, GDP)
Prove it. Show your work.
338, Completely Fed Up: The 1870’s European didn’t have access to modern composite materials to make high efficiency wind turbines from, Gilles. Neither did they have access to modern amorphous silicon production techniques to make photovoltaic cells.
…
We do.
…
Therefore in 20 years time, there will be a modern industrial society that will have an idiot like you look back and say “electricity from renewable resources is how any modern society created, tell me one modern society that wasn’t created without it? And don’t start me on that ancient ‘civilisation’ of the Victorians… I mean MODERN.”.
Well said. And I think that 20 years is the right time frame. 20 years from now, the debate will be entirely different. The exponential growth in alternative energy supplies is not sustainable for ever, but it is sustainable for 5 – 10 more doublings with today’s proven reserves, and that may take less than 20 years at current rates. The US has sufficient lithium and rare metals if the price rises sufficiently to justify re-opening the mines.
Ironically, or paradoxically, AGW proponents could achieve a significant fraction of their stated goals by eliminating rhetoric about AGW for a few years (while emphasizing the societal costs, in cash and lives, of fossil fuels, especially now with the BP Gulf disaster on everyone’s mind, and the recurrent coal mine disasters reminding everyone.) Lots of people who are skeptical or indifferent to AGW want the US to have sufficient energy supplies for commerce and war.
Besides, costs of renewables are declining and the source is inexhaustible (by humans), whereas fossil fuel costs are increasing and the supply is finite.
But there is no panacea: all the technologies that have promise need to be developed.
345, Secular Animist: As Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth suggested over 50 years ago in The Space Merchants, perhaps it is time to drop the pretense that Senators represent the citizens of their states, and acknowledge that they represent corporations, i.e. “Lisa Murkowski, Republican from ExxonMobil”.
I think it was Daniel Webster who was known as the Senator from the New York Central [railway]. All of the Northern Senators of the time supported protective tariffs requested by the industries of their states.
270, Completely Fed Up: Noting about whether the goal is feasible. After all, you can’t breed a dachshund from a banana, despite them both being long and thin.
No, but you can breed more nutritious, robust manioc and potatoes. When? It has already been started.
“I hope you will invite me to visit your famous turbine or photovoltaic cell factory that has been built without fossil fuels”
Did you know that evacuation of water from coal mines was only possible because of wind power?
Invite me over to your famous fossil fuel technology that wasn’t started by wind or wave power!
[edit – please stop]
“Mr. Pearson, giving the EPA to legislate through regulation, without oversight, is a bad idea.”
Uh, there’s as much oversight in the EPA regulation as there is in any political situation.
You’re just pissed because the EPA can do it, should do it and you hate it being done.
re: temperature and GDP,
Hank #312,
> Earthquake — rebuilding — increases GDP
Indeed, but a quake or a Katrina also disrupts production, sometimes sharply decreasing GDP in the short term, until factories are rebuilt, workers rehoused and so on.
Frank Giger,
I read Nordhaus’s fine print, too. I didn’t think it made the whole issue moot, much less the limited point I made. But YMMV.
J. S. McIntyre, Doug Bostrom, Flxible,
This silly discussion appears to be interesting enough that serious minds are working and publishing on it.
But to shift the GDP discussion back to the **original topic** of this thread — warming commitments: Benjamin (back at #111, 125) thought that, if warming significantly decreases growth, projections for emissions and warming that do not take this feedback into account must be exaggerated.
This idea that a climate-economy feedback might act to dampen global warming by reducing GDP, and hence emissions, has been addressed by Hallegatte (2005). Hallegatte, using a simple integrated model that took due account of global warming and adaptation as stock problems with lots of inertia, found it wouldn’t work, because of the long characteristic time of the climate-economy feedback. Hallegatte’s conclusion is worth quoting at length:
Yep. So, as Doug said, call your senator today…
OT, Christiana Figueres, Ivo de Boer’s replacement:
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-09-no-quick-fix-on-global-warming-says-new-un-climate-chief/
look at all these idiot billions of chinese and indian people who don’t know they can develop without increasing their FF consumption , sending thousands of coal minor to death each year, look at all these idiot oil companies who spend billions of dollars trying to extract oil in such awful places, risking gas blow-out, oil spills, hurricanes, whereas they could so easily make money with clean, renewable electricity … too sad, all this stupidity all around the world ! – Gilles
Gilles, your bad faith is quite obvious to most people here. The fact that extracting and using fossil fuels is currently profitable does not imply that we cannot develop an industrial civilisation that does not depend on them; and you are clearly not stupid enough to be unable to see this.
A fantastic new post just appeared over at WUWT. Absolutely magnificent.
It proves that there is a direct correlation between the temperature increase and CO2 increase, and uses this as evidence that (wait for it) increasing temperatures cause increased CO2.
No reason is proposed for the increase in temperatures.
I couldn’t have written a better parody myself, and yet it is presented in black and white as if it were a serious argument. Is it April first again?
Pinch me, I must be dreaming.
“No, but you can breed more nutritious, robust manioc and potatoes.”
Then why don’t we already have them? Or is there no market for nicer potatoes?
At least at the moment, they don’t have to worry too much about combating the droughts and floods, unlike the ones you insist are going to be able to save our society.
And how will these new nutritious and robust potatoes cope with drought? Will they continue to be more nutritious and robust than the current stock?
“And I think that 20 years is the right time frame. 20 years from now, the debate will be entirely different. ”
And in 20 years we’ll have dialled in another degree of warming.
And, if Gilles has his way, we’ll only START looking for new energy sources then!
So why are we waiting 20 more years again?
Bob (Sphaerica) says: 9 June 2010 at 3:21 PM
A fantastic new post just appeared over at WUWT. Absolutely magnificent.
There’s a crowd around the doors of the latest train to leave the station, no matter that it’s standing on previously unknown track leading to an entirely novel destination with a conductor speaking a incomprehensible language and sporting a watch set between timezones. Any train will do.
Comment heard from a member of the throng, grasping a ticket:
Not as elegant as E=MC^2 perhaps, but if confirmed, just as great a breakthrough for humankind.
There -are- a few people hanging back, muttering “Hmmm, do I really want to go there? Where is there?”
BPL: “You’re saying:
r(T, GDP) = r(T, FF) << r(FF, GDP)"
From the BP statistical review, i computed r(FF, GDP) = 0.75. They don't give the average temperature of countries, strangely enough for such an important parameter, but may be you have references to find them, since you're so certain it's important ?
CFU : "Did you know that evacuation of water from coal mines was only possible because of wind power?
Invite me over to your famous fossil fuel technology that wasn’t started by wind or wave power!
[edit]"
First, being impolite doesn't raise your credibility, it lowers it rather. Seems that you can't argue without being rough. Second, your statement is obviously wrong – water can be pumped with animals, human work, etc… as well, and at the time when steam engines weren't used yet, the life wasn't very different whether you were heated by coal or by wood, so there was no peculiar feature relying on the use of coal. Third, you seem to imply that another miracle is always guaranteed. But there were only two revolutions in the way of life of humanity : apparition of agriculture, and use of fossil fuels; you're like a guy having found a treasure in his cellar, spending it and saying "oh, doesn't matter, I will find another one. You wouldn't have predicted I would be that rich 10 years ago !" This is an obviously flawed argument.
But let's us assume you're right. People generally agree that rich western countries, that spend a lot of FF, are not very sensitive to average temperature, since energy can help doing a lot of things : irrigating, unsalting sea water, building solid houses, dams, pumps, and so on (remember that Saudi Arabia or Israel grow crops in the desert…)
So IF fossil fuels can be easily replaced by other techniques, without any loss of power, I don't see the problem of wasting FF : we can replace them anyway when they will be exhausted. And there is no reason why we couldn't develop all currently poor countries, using your marvelous solar cells and composite turbines or any fancy devices you like, to make them reach our current western standard of development; if WE can do it, and there is no limit on renewable power, I don't see any reason why they couldn't. Remember that a mere 2%/yr growth insures a 8-fold increase in one century. So logically they should all have enough energy, and may be much more than necessary , to cope with any warming. So why bother about the quantity of FF we burn? let's burn all what we want, and develop renewables after that…
If this site is moderated, then why does it allow personal attacks and name calling such as “idiot” and “stupid”?
Personal attacks violate the rules of reasoned debate. To the agree that they are allowed on a moderated site, it would appear that this site is not in favor of reasoned debate. Isn’t reasoned debate the stuff of real science?
[Response: I’ve edited most of them out. To all commenters, please refrain from personal attacks against other commenters. Argue the substance, or don’t bother. – gavin]
BPL (358), you’re saying I can not do different analyses for different regions and am probably limited in the timescale. O.K. That says the only valid scope is what the Horowitz (sp?) stated: global. Which means since the correlation between global temp and global GDP for any reasonable period (the question I’ve asked twice and which everyone just ignores the elephant) is clearly positive. Which says the claim/study that it is negatively correlated is 100% flat-ass wrong.
No! Wait! In your very next post you say one HAS to do different analyses for different regions and boundries!
You guys are really wrapping yourselves around the axle and making me dizzy.
Off topic, but relevant to some of the discussion here on food crops (and the “CO2 is plant food” silliness) is a recent piece about research into the effects of higher CO2 level on plant growth on the ABC TV popular science show Catalyst. In summary – high CO2 tends to lower protein yield and higher levels of toxins. I guess anybody wanting to know more could contact the researchers interviewed in the piece.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2891924.htm
331 ccpo and Dr. Bone: I am open to new research on the issue of methane hydrates. We are all well aware that they are down there and potentially deadly. If I were in charge of NSF or whatever, there would be a lot of money going into methane hydrate research. There were 2 RC articles earlier this year. RC please keep us informed of any new developments.
341 wili: Yes, a spark is required. Sparks are easy to come by. Lightning is clearly one, but methane in air needs only a very small spark. Turning on a light worked for friends of mine who were burned when the gas company failed add the warning odor. 2 cases. Any flame works. Walking on a carpet works. Etc.
348 Frank Giger: You have never been a federal employee, have you? The EPA is being overseen by Congress. Congress makes the laws. The bureaucrats [federal employees other than politicians] just do what they are told.
350 Bob (Sphaerica): Read “Six Degrees” by Mark Lynas. By the time we get to 6 degrees C, we are extinct.
BPL @ 356:
Because I thought it was implied that we were discussing causal relationships and not just “How to have fun with numbers.”
Especially since I included what I felt were the CAUSAL relationships.
You’re a science fiction writer. You may want to study real science, and even =do= some science. I realize this is an ad homme, but when a science fiction writer accuses me of being statistically illiterate, I really have to wonder if the person knows the difference between science and science fiction.
Hint: One is =fiction=.
Bob (Sphaerica) says:
9 June 2010 at 3:21 PM
A fantastic new post just appeared over at WUWT. Absolutely magnificent.
It proves that there is a direct correlation between the temperature increase and CO2 increase, and uses this as evidence that (wait for it) increasing temperatures cause increased CO2.”
That’s not unreasonable; in fact, it’s expected.
What Lon Hocker’s graphs show is a possible correlation between the global temperature and rate of carbon dioxide rise. I could see this being possible from either a direct effect of the air temperature or because La Niña enhances the absorption rate and is associated with cooler temperatures. Whether the size of the effect he appears to observe is in agreement with current theory I don’t know.
Now Lon’s conclusion, that “the rise in CO2 is a result of the temperature anomaly, not the other way around”, looks completely unjustified to me.
Oh, I’ve been a Federal Employee, and am all too aware of the power of regulation versus law. Now, then, regulatory bodies have their place – I want us to have an OSHA, Fish and Game, etc. – but giving the EPA a broad brush to regulate CO2 emissions is handing them the keys to the nation’s treasury. They’ll be setting economic policy.
Once the regulation is in place, Congress has to over-ride it in most cases with a law. Few regulations are simply terminated or reversed after a Congressional hearing, no matter how pointed.
On GM crops: Wow, lots of noise in the signal. GM crops, by and large, are tweaks to our existing ones, not miraculous new strains. Some of them are really good – they came up with a variety of rice that can withstand being submerged for two weeks and survive. This is a boon for when the rainy season gets a bit too rainy (the “normal” rice can only live two or three days at most). Golden rice, OTOH, looked like a similar boon but was rejected. It’s flood and drought resistent, does well against insects and fungus, has a superior yield, and tastes like crap. If push comes to shove will people adopt it? Yeah, if it’s golden rice or nothing, but they’ll make it a distant option.
There’s going to be some hits and misses in developing new varieties of crops, but it is definately worth pursuing.
We know that people will adopt an inferior variety of a foodstuff if there is no alternative. The bannana we eat today would have been rejected in the 1950’s; nobody seriously cultivated them. But a worldwide fungus made the popular variety for all purposes extinct, so they went with the next best thing.
For large portions of the globe there is a serious crop problem when it comes to varieties. You’re not going to grow rice or wheat in Indonesia, as an example. The soil just won’t support it, let alone the climate. Hell, potatoes won’t grow there.
On the GDP discussion, perhaps a cut down the middle? Altering the climate is going to make things tougher, all things considered equally. However, the base line of potential GDP for a given area, particularly in Africa, is hard to establish. The GDP’s of African nations are so skewed by mismanagement of resources due to war, colonialism, dictatorships, ad nauseum, that “normal GDP” is anything but what should be normal.
I’m glad somebody mentioned the SW USA and viability of cities. My crystal ball says that in the next 50 years cities are going to shrink considerably there. They’ve already outgrown their water resources today and it’s only going to get drier. However, the SE USA is projected in the short term to get wetter, so look for a continuation of migration to the South. We don’t mind it, as a Western drawl is easily converted to a Southern one. ;)
NG:”Gilles, your bad faith is quite obvious to most people here. The fact that extracting and using fossil fuels is currently profitable does not imply that we cannot develop an industrial civilisation that does not depend on them; and you are clearly not stupid enough to be unable to see this.”
I disagree, and this is not bad faith : the fact that NOWHERE , NEVER, an industrial civilization has been developed without FF makes VERY LIKELY that producing things without FF is much more expensive that with them, since if it weren’t true , it would be very unlikely that no country (including those deprived of them) wouldn’t have chosen another solution. Since exhaustion of its natural gas and coal, for instance, France has almost no domestic FF production. It has made a huge effort (the hugest in the world) to develop nuclear power – which has indeed a significative effect on his CO2 production, among one of the best in western Europe. And it has also a fair hydroelectric production. Significative, but very far from 100 % – still 70 % of its energu comes from fossil fuels (not including the thermal losses of nuclear plants, which represent an significant part of the total) . As far as I know, this ratio has not changed for 20 years. Why ? why do conservation if it were so easy to replace them ? why not impose to developing countries to use only renewables, since they are the main drivers of CO2 increase especially with coal ? why SOME fossil free technique are indeed used (hydropower) where we can , but NEVER at 100 % scale? this doesn’t make sense, if it were possible : we KNOW that fossil fuel will be soon exhausted, and that they may be poisoning our atmosphere – so why is it so difficult to go out of them? and if it is so difficult, how can you state so firmly that it will be done without harm ?
FurryCatHerder says: 9 June 2010 at 9:15 PM
You’re a science fiction writer. [blah-blah]
I would not be surprised to hear that you occasionally or even regularly must clean your own toilets, FCH. What does that have to do with what you say here? Are your skills are limited to cleaning toilets?
No.
“Oh, I’ve been a Federal Employee, and am all too aware of the power of regulation versus law.”
Uh, their regulation IS law. There’s a law giving them the right. Look at the FCC who during Bush’s reign pushed phone companies into a non-regulated zone. Then when the ISPs were acting like abusive monopolies and the FCC wanted to regulate them, the Supreme Court said they couldn’t because the ISPs were not regulated under the statute they attempted and suggested either putting them back under the regulated regime or using a different regulatory framework.
This is called “oversight”.
[edit – just stop]
PS Frank, tell me how they’d manage health and safety with laws rather than regulation. Do you know how many senators know about engineering and can therefore make a law themselves about such practices safely? None to few. So what do they do? They ask for lobby efforts or get specia lists in to draft laws for them.
In what way is this different from a regulatory body?
Except, of course, that the regulatory body HAS oversight whereas the lobby group or “expert” (the quotes holding there very strongly for the US Republicans getting Chris Monckton in as their “expert” on climate change science…) gets NONE.
“What Lon Hocker’s graphs show is a possible correlation between the global temperature and rate of carbon dioxide rise. I could see this being possible from either a direct effect of the air temperature or because La Niña enhances the absorption rate and is associated with cooler temperatures.”
What Lon Hocker’s graph doesn’t show is where all our burnt fossil fuel CO2 is going.
When someone dies, their brain dies. So the fact that I shot someone doesn’t mean I killed them: their brain dying killed them! ABSOLUTE CORRELATION!!!
“Seems that you can’t argue without being rough.”
Seems like you can’t argue.
“And it has also a fair hydroelectric production. Significative, but very far from 100 % – still 70 % of its energu comes from fossil fuels”
How long did it take to move from steam powered locomotives (coal) to diesel (petroleum)?
Was your granddaddy sitting around going “It’ll never take off, we’re still using mostly horses here, 20% of people are using cars, but still mostly horses. Significant, but very far from 100%”?
Frank Giger says: 9 June 2010 at 11:20 PM
“You’re not going to grow rice or wheat in Indonesia…”
That was surprising to me. Checking Wikipedia, I see Indonesia is currently the worlds fourth-largest producer of rice.
Perhaps you meant corn?
CFU :”How long did it take to move from steam powered locomotives (coal) to diesel (petroleum)?
Was your granddaddy sitting around going “It’ll never take off, we’re still using mostly horses here, 20% of people are using cars, but still mostly horses. Significant, but very far from 100%”?”
You miss the point. Once these devices have started to develop, there hasn’t been any stagnation in their growth rate.
Any comments on this:
NG:”Gilles, your bad faith is quite obvious to most people here. The fact that extracting and using fossil fuels is currently profitable does not imply that we cannot develop an industrial civilisation that does not depend on them; and you are clearly not stupid enough to be unable to see this.”
Gilles: I disagree, and this is not bad faith : the fact that NOWHERE , NEVER, an industrial civilization has been developed without FF makes VERY LIKELY that producing things without FF is much more expensive that with them, since if it weren’t true , it would be very unlikely that no country (including those deprived of them) wouldn’t have chosen another solution.
You are goalpost-shifting. You claimed that the fact that fossil fuels are being used to power the growth of India and China showed that an industrial civilisation without them is impossible. It does nothing of the kind, as I pointed out. So you attempt to distract attention from your false claim by shifting to a different one.
To deal with your shifted goalposts: whether energy sources other than fossil fuels can support an industrial society clearly depends on the technology and infrastructure available. Currently, such a society is not possible, because we do not have the infrastructure or (in some respects) the technology; that does not imply that it will remain so. Again, this is such an elementary point that it is impossible to believe you do not understand it. The fact that the development of industrial society (and there is, in fact, only one such society, global in scope) has depended on fossil fuels does not show that it will remain so: it also depended crucially at various stages on the horse, on whale oil, on charcoal, on canals dug by hand, on steam locomotives, on mechanical calculators – on a vast range of raw materials, products and skills that are now either completely obsolete or clearly inessential.
You note that fossil fuels are finite. You claim that industrial society will necessarily collapse without them. Yet you oppose any attempt to reduce their use. One can only conclude that you want industrial society to collapse as soon as possible. As to why you want to see human misery on the scale that this would cause, I have no idea. Can you enlighten me?
“A cross examination of global warming science conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Law and Economics has concluded that virtually every claim advanced by global warming proponents fail to stand up to scrutiny.”
Comment 1: It’s not global warming science
Comment 2: Law and Economics have WHAT training in science?
“You miss the point. Once these devices have started to develop, there hasn’t been any stagnation in their growth rate.”
Yes there was. 1920’s. 1950’s Europe.
And there’s no stagnation in the growth rate of the renewables.
RE #331 and #378.
Yes, it’s worth watching the methane/Arctic situation closely. However, I’m a bit concerned about some of the argumentation here. Edward, ccpo, you seem to be arguing:
1. That even if we did *immediately* go to zero emissions it still wouldn’t stop the Arctic sea-ice melting.
2. That with the Summer sea ice gone, that will set off so much in extra methane emissions that the world will still warm uncontrollably (i.e. back to PETM temperatures, or even worse create loads of methane fuel-air explosions).
The problem is that if you push that line, the current climate skeptics can just change tack. They have three possible responses.
– You’re being insanely alarmist. I’m just not listening any more.
– Since you believe we’re all doomed anyway, why shouldn’t we use our remaining time on Earth to have one last party (and burn all the oil, coal, gas, trees etc. we need to in the process)?
– Our only hope of survival is now some form of geo-engineering and/or an accelerated space travel program. We will need a strongly-growing economy for either of those, so again we should burn all the fossil fuels, trees etc. that we need to.
Probably not the conclusions you were hoping for!
It seems to me the right conclusions are:
1. We are in a deep deep hole and making it deeper by the day.
2. The hole is a very unpleasant place to be in but still livable. It gets less livable the deeper we go.
3. We really need to stop digging. This means, stop emitting as soon as is *technically* possible. This is much much sooner than what is currently deemed *politically* possible.
4. Having stopped digging, we will still need to find a way to get oursleves out of the hole (e.g. by CO2 extraction from the atmosphere).
Lynn #391,
A really quick comment: This is hilarious!
Prof. Jason Scott Johnston builds this tract around the conceit that he’s acting like a trial lawyer conducting a cross-examination of a hostile expert witness (viz., “the IPCC and other carriers of the establishment climate story”).
Usually, in a “cross-examination”, there’s an actual expert witness who gets to take the stand and answer back. No such disturbing elements here.
Here, there’s just Prof. Johnston. You have to picture him standing in an empty courtroom, delivering his monologue growing increasingly pleased with the sound of his own voice and with the obvious force of his arguments — as not a single word is raised in rebuttal, for Johnston is savaging the witness’s record in front of an empty witness stand.
Since the author’s at U. Penn., his treatment of the “hockey-stick” is particularly interesting. There’s a good litmus test for seeing if a hockey-stick-toting debater has got a clue, and yes, he fails it:
*Ehem.* http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/fig-6-10.jpg
Incidentally, he also misquotes the IPCC 2001 TAR, omitting “likely” from its description of the 1990s/1998 as likely to have been the warmest in the NH for 1,000 years.
And that’s just p. 15.
And he talks about “rhetorical strategies”. Wow.
Further to LLynne’s question, I’ve looked, but there’s no cross-examination there.
It’s all cherry picks without any party there to cross examine.
A trial with the accused in absentia is no fair trial.
There’s absolutely no quantifying of their statements either. Where they say there are large uncertainties in some records, there’s nothing about whether the uncertainties cover areas that invalidate the position.
After all, if a bomb under my ass could go off “any minute now” or in days, that’s a big error in when my hips pass my ears. This in no way means I can breathe a sigh of relief: no matter how wide the margin, there’s still a bomb under there.
It’s actually a great example of projection: it proclaims the IPCC use rhetorical tricks and cherry picking but is actually entirely made from rhetorical devices and cherry picking.
They also state as if they were scientists that the troposphere is affected by solar UV changes and, more damningly, on the GCR proposition that has had no measurement made to discern any reliable effect.
They are talking of the science as if they are scientists yet are not. They are writing something that states it is a legal cross examination of the IPCC yet it isn’t. They state errors without stating their actual effect, merely leaving it there to infer their message.
Rod 376: Which says the claim/study that it is negatively correlated is 100% flat-ass wrong.
BPL: Either show they used the wrong data or show they did the math wrong, because the correlation is a simple mathematical function of the values.
Furry 379: You’re a science fiction writer. You may want to study real science, and even =do= some science. I realize this is an ad homme, but when a science fiction writer accuses me of being statistically illiterate, I really have to wonder if the person knows the difference between science and science fiction.
BPL: “Ad hominem.” Please, Furry, don’t tell my old professors I don’t know anything about “real science.” They might take back my degree in physics. And don’t let the Tripoli Science Association know, either. I’m not the president any more, but it could be a black mark on my record.