Update: Some related concerns from deepclimate.org, if these claims can be verified.
In a recent interview for a Norwegian magazine (Teknisk Ukeblad, 0412), the IPCC chair Rajendra Kumar Pachauri told the journalist that he had received death threats in connection with his role as a head for the IPCC. There have also been recent reports of threats and harassment of climate scientists for their stance on climate change (Kerry Emanuel. Katharine Hayhoe, Australian climate scientists, Phil Jones, Barton campaign, and Inhofe’s black list).
These incidents appear as an unpleasant deja vu from my past, smacking of attempts to suppress the freedom of speech. They remind me of the days when I did my national service as a border patrol at the Soviet-Norwegian border in 1988-1989 (Norway and Russia – then Soviet – share a 196 km long common border in the high north), where we stood up for our freedom and democracy. Freedom of speech was tacitly implied as one of the ingredients of an open democracy, which in our minds was the West. There was an understanding that the other side of the iron curtain represented an oppressive regime.
If the people who threat and harass climate scientists were to have their way, I fear we would be heading for a world resembling the other side of the iron curtain of 1989. The absence of oppression and harassment is a prerequisite for sound and functioning science. Oppressive regimes are not known for producing good science, and blind ideology have often been unsustainable. Therefore, threats and such dishonorable campaigns represent a concern.
Another unpleasant aspect of the direction taken by the public discource is the character of the rhetoric, which too exhibit similarities to that of the cold war. I still remember some of the propaganda that could be heard on the radio – translated to Norwegian. Too often these days, the debate is far from being informative but has turned into something like a beauty contest and he-said-she-said affair.
So it is important to keep in mind: Don’t shoot the messenger who is only doing her/his job. It would really be a disservice to the society. Any open and free democracy has to be based on true information and knowledge. When big and powerful media corporations start to look like past state-run propaganda machines, where slogans have replaced common sense and expert knowledge, then we’re heading in the wrong direction.
In Norway, the there were calls for enhanced openness and respect (by our prime minister) after the terrible July 22 (2011) terrorist attacks (the terrorist also disrespected climate science). In this sense, the openness also means exposing all levels and all aspects of matters being disputed. As in sciences, it is important to elucidate the situation, and see if the arguments stand up to being critically scrutinized. This also means that all relevant information must be included – not just those which support one stand.
I think that the science community needs a louder voice in the society, and there is a need for bringing some of the science-related debates closer to true science. We need to explain the virtues of the scientific method, such as transparency, replication of past results, testing and evaluating the methods and conclusions. These virtues lead to the most credible answers.
For example, we need to focus on question like the following: Is the strategy adopted objective? Does it give robust results? Or do the result depend on the context in which the analysis was carried out? In other words, we need to question whether the conclusions are generally valid.
Focusing on the real questions and doing science means being free, critical and sceptical – and not a climate of fear.
Pete Dunkelberg says
Meyer, discussed above, is a denier as explained here.
Cugel says
#447 “But if the fish population is managed properly (like our beloved DNR does in Minnesota) this point is moot!”
“Decreasing fisheries resources in large lakes due to rising water temperatures” means there’s less to manage. Proper management of resources is a completely different issue.
SecularAnimist says
Michael W wrote: “Anybody can list negatives.”
That’s true. For example, here is a discussion of some “negatives” by meteorologist Jeff Masters (emphasis added):
And more:
So, yes — there are plenty of “negatives” that “anybody can list”, including tens of billions of dollars in damages from extreme weather in a single year in the USA alone, and prolonged intense droughts that could “crash our global civilization”.
Michael W wrote: “Until you can argue the positives with as much gusto …”
Well, Michael, since you are the one who keeps hand-waving about these supposed “positives”, why don’t YOU tell us exactly what they are — with gusto?
Septic Matthew says
414,Ray Ladbury: The science says that the planet warms somewhere between 2 and 4.5 degrees per doubling of CO2, with a favored value of 3 degrees per doubling. Period.
Some other science is presented at Isaac Held’s blog:
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held/2011/10/26/19-radiative-convective-equilibrium/
From that, you can not tell how an increase in CO2 concentration will alter the transfer of heat from the surface and lower troposphere to the upper troposphere. It could increase that rate of transport, with a consequent decrease in surface and lower troposphere mean temperature, and an increase in upper troposphere mean temperature or cloud cover. What you called “the” science was a selection.
Russell says
433 et seq.
It takes more than commitment to the Precautionary Principle to quantitatively inform prudent action.
Meyers acting as a PR factotum does not reduce our need to know , and narrow the range of uncertainty, of such priors as the climate sensitivity .
dhogaza says
Septic Matthew’s linked blog post does not suggest that the modeling results presented there (much of which is historical) challenge the consensus view that sensitivity lies between 2 and 4.5 degrees per doubling of CO2.
You’re right! He said that he’d take that up in a later blog post.
Your point?
What’s the deal here, someone floating a link to that blog post on the denialist sites and you’ve picked it up without studying it closely?
MARodger says
Michael W @447
I thought Dan H was a light-weight but perhaps I was being unkind on the poor chap.
Predicting the future is what intelligence is all about. Then perhaps that is something you fail to grasp. When discussing climate, why you should characterise such predictions as “sticky” I know not. There are those who conflate our abilities to predict things like our economic futures with our abilities to predict climatic futures. This is not just an error. It is a singularly bad error. Guess what, Michael W.? I espy such an error being made by you!
Regarding AGW, perhaps you can explain why you insist it is up to others to prove they “can argue the positives with as much gusto ” as the negatives, while you feel not the slightest need to do so? Forget WGII. You give us your positives. Demonstrate that they are not a laughable joke. (Perhaps I was not clear enough for you @444. Then, I did not appreciate how obtuse the target audience was!!!)
All I see from you is an empty insistance on providing you with answers within your self-defined agenda. You do not engage with the propositions of others. You do not even engage wth the porpositions you laid down yourself but hours before. Michael W – this is definately not a good start you have made here.
Chris Colose says
454 Septic Matthew,
//From that, you can not tell how an increase in CO2 concentration will alter the transfer of heat from the surface and lower troposphere to the upper troposphere. It could increase that rate of transport, with a consequent decrease in surface and lower troposphere mean temperature, and an increase in upper troposphere mean temperature or cloud cover. What you called “the” science was a selection.//
Sorry, but no. The concept of radiative-convective equilibrium and how that relates to CO2 warming has been conceptually understood since at least the 1960’s with Manabe and Wetherald. The point of Isaac Held’s post, among other things, is to understand that to first order the tropospheric temperature profile lies very close to a particular family of curves (so that if you know the temperature at one point you can specify the temperature at any point over the troposphere). This is all accounted for in any credible estimate of climate sensitivity, including those found in the AR4.
Hank Roberts says
> 454 Septic Matthew
And you could have asked Isaac Held if you’d understood him correctly, rather than quoting his words without understanding and misstating the sense of it.
C’mon. You’re an academic yourself, aren’t you? You know better.
SecularAnimist says
Michael W wrote: “predicting the future is a sticky business”
Yes, it is much easier to predict the past.
For example, the 30,000 people who died in the unprecedented 2003 European heat wave, or the tens of thousands more who died in the unprecedented 2010 Russian heat wave, or the $55 Billion in damages caused by an unprecedented 14 billion-dollar-and-up extreme weather events in the USA, or the billions of dollars (and counting) lost due to the ongoing mega-drought in Texas, or the 4.3 trillion tons of ice mass that melted away from Greenland, Antarctica and Earth’s glaciers and ice caps between 2003 and 2010.
Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for you to venture a prediction about the “positive” effects of AGW that you keep vaguely referring to.
Unsettled Scientist says
Skeptic Matthew, your selection (no quotes) wasn’t a very good one. Why not link to the post by Isaac Held that directly deals with cumulative CO2 emissions and its effect on surface temperature?
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held/2012/02/13/23-cumulative-emissions/
The discussion is about how surface temperatures might react to different societal behaviors with respect to CO2 emissions, however he point out, “The ease of communicating this result is also worth emphasizing. Only one number is needed — ‘A’ — the warming per unit cumulative emissions. Typical central estimates for ‘A’ in the papers listed above are in the range 1.5-2 degrees C per trillion tons of carbon emitted.”
Now before you go jumping at the simple retort that 1.5-2 is smaller than 2-4.5, make sure you look at the units. Isaac Held is using “per trillion tons of CO2” and Ray Ladbury is using “per doubling of CO2”.
Unsettled Scientist says
Skeptic Matthew, your selection (no quotes) wasn’t a very good one. Why not link to the post by Isaac Held that directly deals with cumulative CO2 emissions and its effect on surface temperature?
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held/2012/02/13/23-cumulative-emissions/
The discussion is about how surface temperatures might react to different societal behaviors with respect to CO2 emissions, however he point out, “The ease of communicating this result is also worth emphasizing. Only one number is needed — ‘A’ — the warming per unit cumulative emissions. Typical central estimates for ‘A’ in the papers listed above are in the range 1.5-2 degrees C per trillion tons of carbon emitted.”
Now before you go jumping at the simple retort that 1.5-2 is smaller than 2-4.5, make sure you look at the units. Isaac Held is using “per trillion tons of CO2” and Ray Ladbury is using “per doubling of CO2”.
DOH: Duplicate comment because of recaptcha failure. Not sure if the mods can manually approve this post, thanks.
dhogaza says
Chris Colose:
When Septic Matthew said “from that” I was assuming he meant the blog post, which laid the background for the question “how does an increase in CO2 concentration alter the transfer of heat from the surface and lower troposphere to the upper troposphere?” without answering it.
But he laid a sound foundation (as you point out) for a further post, as he promised would be forthcoming. He made clear it was the first post of two (though I don’t see the second, too bad, would be good).
Maybe I was being too kind to SM, though. Maybe by “that” he meant the MW paper and other work referenced in the post, which would make him even more wrong.
Just how wrong were you, SM?
SM, which was it?
Unsettled Scientist says
Skeptic Matthew, here is Isaac Held on CO2 using the same “per doubling” as Ray Ladbury was using.
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held/2011/03/05/2-linearity-of-the-forced-response/
“if we double the CO2 in the CM2.1 model and integrate long enough so that it approaches its new equilibrium, we find that the global mean surface warming is close to 3.4 K.”
So Skeptic Matthew, thank you for pointing out another scientist in agreement with the consensus. He actually bolds the statement I quoted in his post.
Mods, I think I double posted my previous comment so please feel free to not approve/delete the second one as the first is now approved
Susan Anderson says
@circa 404, Ray Ladbury: Hope you don’t mind, I stole your comment for DotEarth latest, unattributed in quotes. Priceless:
You quit lying about the scientists and the science, and we’ll quit telling the truth about you. Deal?
It should show up tomorrow.
Balazs says
460: 30,000 people who died in the unprecedented 2003 European heat wave
Just for the record, 30,000 people as a fraction (0.006%) of the number of the people living in the EU (500 million) pales to the 2 million people mostly children (0.029% with respect to the global population, 7 billion) who die due to lack of access to clean water. That is five times more each year than one heat wave eight years ago. Actually, I did have discussions along these lines with Peter Gleick, because I never understood, why he was so obsessed with climate change, when water related problems seemed to be much more imminent. I certainly would side with Bjorn Lomborg, who argued that the resources invested in combating climate change would have been much better spent on providing clean water and proper sanitation to the poor.
When I grew up, we used to worry about hunger, illiteracy and population growth (perhaps because I grew up in a communist country, which needed justification to promote the big proletariat revolution). The last two or three decades almost eradicaded these concerns, instead we entered into an a world view, where humans are regarded as cancer on this planet threatening “mother nature”.
[Response: providing everyone with clean water would cost ~50bn and use entirely existing technology. Given that governments spend over $1 trillion on the Iraq war, or similar amounts on bailouts for banks, it is clear that the small amount of money spent on climate change mitigation is not the impediment. Your error is in thinking that if we suddenly stopped doing anything about climate everyone would suddenly spend it on water. This is a lomborgian fallacy. – Gavin]
Septic Matthew says
464, Unsettled Scientist: “if we double the CO2 in the CM2.1 model and integrate long enough so that it approaches its new equilibrium, we find that the global mean surface warming is close to 3.4 K.”
I hope nobody interpreted me as saying that Prof Isaac Held disagreed with the consensus. What I referred to was the fact that the simulations can not predict the effect of increased CO2. One of the papers referred to at the site avers that the CO2 increase might reduce surface temperature.
You site the CM2.1 model. That model has not yet been shown to make accurate predictions over a long time span, though it also hasn’t been shown to be inaccurate. . It assumes the result that I said could not be computed from the simulations presented at Isaac Held’s blog.
459 Hank Roberts: And you could have asked Isaac Held if you’d understood him correctly, rather than quoting his words without understanding and misstating the sense of it.
I did not quote Prof Isaac Held’s words, and I don’t see where I claimed to have. I referred to the simulations, and the other links, as “other science”. I did ask him some questions via email.
458 Chris Colose: The concept of radiative-convective equilibrium and how that relates to CO2 warming has been conceptually understood since at least the 1960′s with Manabe and Wetherald.
Sure: Conceptually Understood. But it is still not possible to show what the effect of doubling CO2 concentration, from the present atmosphere, would be.
This is all accounted for in any credible estimate of climate sensitivity,
“credible” to you. I have not yet read a complete and accurate demonstration that the “climate sensitivity” is either accurately known OR known to be constant. The approximate constancy falls out from some quasi-steady state thermodynamic approximations; how accurate they are for forecasting the evolution of a nowhere and never stationary process has not been demonstrated. I also have not seen where it has “all” been accounted for, given that cloud formation is an unsettled research area.
dhogaza says
Sceptic Matthew – we’re waiting for an apology.
Are you capable of doing so?
Being wrong is no sin. Insisting on continuing to be wrong after your errors are pointed out … not so much.
Just sayin’
Don’t duck and run now.
RC: in a few years (I’m 58 now) I’ll probably be looking at filing ADA suits against reCAPTCHA sites. reCAPTCHA is, in no imaginable way, ADA compliant.
Craig Nazor says
Dan H (#401-2),
So you still deny that there is a strong scientific consensus that the human release of CO2 into the earth’s atmosphere is driving the recent observed warming of the earth’s climate? Fair enough. Is this just your opinion, or do you have any factual (and by that I mean peer-reviewed science) to back that up?
That evidence could include a peer-reviewed opinion survey; a plausible, logical, alternate scientific explanation that would account for the observed warming; or any peer-reviewed science that would demonstrate conclusively that the consensus explanation couldn’t be true.
If you can’t provide any of that, then why is your denial anything other than opinion?
Over the years, I have provided you with links to peer-reviewed surveys that show that the great majority of researching climate scientists support the consensus opinion, as well as most credible professional organizations of scientists that research climate. I have shown you peer-reviewed study after peer-reviewed study that supports the consensus opinion. And the consensus explanation for the observed warming makes sense, it is logical, and it is strongly supported by the research.
Dan, it’s time to lay down all your cards.
Matthew L says
Pete Dunkelberg — 22 Feb 2012 @ 6:07 PM
Pete, many thanks for the link to the SkS article commenting on Meyers article at Forbes. Puts his otherwise vague hand waving into a scientific context.
I have a couple of questions on the SkS article and will raise them there rather than here where they would be off topic.
llewelly says
Vikings will return to Greenland and found award-winning wineries …
(… until glacier-fueled floods wash them away.)
Dan H. says
Craig,
Yes, you have shown peer-reviewed papers that support your position. I have shown you peer-reviewed papers that support mine.
With regards to a “consensus” on the subject, I have only seen one peer-reviewed survey, and that was woefully inadequate concerning AGW (The Doran paper). There have been many documents provided to various scientific statements signed by numerous scientists supporting both your view and mine. I see nothing that hints that this so-called “consensus” exists, although it may have a decade or so ago, before much of the in-depth scientific research was performed. Remember Craig, I am saying that it is not happening, and temperatures will not rise 2C this century. Rather, that we cannot conclude that it is happening as laid depicted by posters here.
[Response: There are none so blind as will not see. – gavin]
Kevin McKinney says
#472–And the Doran paper was “woefully inadequate” because–?
And perhaps you missed Anderegg et al (2010)–PNAS–and Farnsworth and Lichter (2011)–International Journal of Public Opinion Research?
And surely the fact that no professional scientific association has disagreed with the mainstream view on climate change, while explicit official statements in agreement are very numerous, has something to say about the state of the ‘consensus?’
Thomas Lee Elifritz says
I have shown you peer-reviewed papers that support mine.
Dan, citing an illucid Forbes article by some guy named Warren Meyer – a self described small business owner from Phoenix, does not help your scientific and technical credibility anywhere, not just here.
Dan H. says
Sorry,
There should be a not inserted between I am and saying. Makes a bit of a difference.
Septic Matthew says
Ray Ladbury, Hank Roberts, gavin (who knows),Chris Colose, Barton Paul Levenson (if you are reading here today), John P. Reisman, others who post under their own names like Raymond T. Pierrehumbert (and whose excellent book I read), this looks like a good time to acknowledge that I am Matthew R. Marler, Ph.D. (statistics, Carnegie-Mellon University.)
You could be right about the role of anthropogenic CO2 in global warming, but to me you read like religious zealots. The most important thing that remains to be demonstrated is that climate scientists can predict the future effects of future increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations with sufficient accuracy to guide public policy.
Unsettled Scientist says
Septic Matthew, I do not cite the CM2.1 model, Isaac Held does. Notice what you quoted from my post was already in quotes.
You write: “What I referred to was the fact that the simulations can not predict the effect of increased CO2. One of the papers referred to at the site avers that the CO2 increase might reduce surface temperature.”
Which paper exactly? I hope it is not one of the papers from the 60s or 70s initially linked at the top. I think you are misunderstanding the information you are reading. It would help if you would cite your sources instead of being vague about your assertions. From the link you provided Isaac Held wrote: “Increasing the CO2 the surface and troposphere warm by the same amount, by construction, while the stratosphere cools and the tropopause rises, as described in MW.”
Looking at the recent papers referred to in the link you provided I find these figures.
“The three simulations (140, 280, and 560 ppmv) equilibrate at sea surface temperatures of 297.5, 300.1, and 303.0 K. This reflects a climate sensitivity in these simulations of about 2.6–2.9 K per doubling of CO2.” Romps, 2010
Again, the papers you reference do not fit with your claims and only further show the consensus. Please cite your sources if you wish to make a claim so that everyone can verify the accuracy of your statements.
Unsettled Scientist says
Septic Matthew writes: “You could be right about the role of anthropogenic CO2 in global warming, but to me you read like religious zealots.”
Please, you are the one making claims without citing your sources. When you do provide a source it does not match your claims. Rather than lowering yourself to a personal attack like this, please try to discuss the science without injecting emotional insults like this.
Michael W says
“it is clear that the small amount of money spent on climate change mitigation is not the impediment”
Gavin, it’s not logical to think this big problem can be solved with a small solution. There are those who say the climate crisis is the greatest challenge of our generation. If this is the case it’s going to take a great amount of human resources. After all, moving an entire planets energy appetite away from fossil fuels is not a small undertaking. There are those who think there are greater challenges and our focus is best placed elsewhere.
[Response: The fallacy is that you think ‘focus’ can only be on one thing. This is nonsense. Governments manage to deal with multiple issues all the time – health care, retirement, employment, foreign policy, international aid, whether someone swore at an awards ceremony, mileage standards, competition policy etc etc. Why are you not arguing that governments stop paying attention to all of that to support improving access to water in the developing world? Why is it only the pitiful amount being spent on climate change that is your target? I would of course be fascinated to read your no-doubt extensive oeuvre arguing for the higher prioritisation of water access in forums other than those dealing with climate. This whole line of argument reeks of post-hoc reasoning. – gavin]
Dan H. says
Kevin,
You may be interested in the changes that have occurred as a result of the uproar at APS.
http://americanphysicssociety.net/policy/statements/07_1.cfm
Of course, even these changes were not enough to keep some esteemed physicists from resigning in protest.
Ray Ladbury says
Dan H., Really? Really, Dan H.? You dispute the scientific consensus when:
1)A PNAS study shows 97% of climate experts say we’re warming the planet
2)Several other studies show similar levels of support (e.g. Bray and von Storch 2008)
3)Over 32 National Academies of Science have taken a strong position that climate change constitutes a serious threat–including every industrial nation.
4)Not one single professional organization of scientists dissents from the consensus, and most go further to assert that climate change constitutes a serious threat.
5)Oh, but wait! Don’t answer yet. There’s also the much higher levels of productivity of consensus scientists vs. dissenters
6)Then there is the fact that dissenters lack a coherent theory that explains much of anything about Earth’s climate.
Given all this, Dan, you still dispute that there is a consensus? Just curious, dude. What exactly constitutes consensus in your mind?
Ray Ladbury says
Septic Matthew: “The most important thing that remains to be demonstrated is that climate scientists can predict the future effects of future increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations…”
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ModelsReliable.html
So, you are suggesting we pretend the successes of the past 30 years didn’t happen?
One difference between the consensus position and religion: we have the evidence on our side. Funnily, that also distinguishes our position from yours. Project much?
Radge Havers says
OK. Is there anything you can add to that that will make it less pointless? For all I can tell you’re just projecting.
So, for all the time you’ve spent here stirring the pot, have you actually done anything meaningful to move that process along?
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
An’ ev’n devotion!
To a Louse, Robert Burns
Ike Solem says
Ah, Septic Matthew it’s called fossil fuel-sourced CO2. Anthropogenic CO2 (which means what, CO2 in the breath?) is a fuzzy term that ignores the central problem – reliance on fossil fuels for energy production. There’s no way to avoid non-neutral CO2 emissions if you want to burn fossil fuels.
As far as predictions, you need to go back and read climate science papers from, say, 1970-1990 and then compare their predictions to recent data on things like polar temperature trends, snowmelt trends, extreme weather trends, etc. Yes, the predictions are in line with outcomes – and you also had a nice semi-experimental test case for climate science, the Pinatubo volcanic explosion. If projections match results, what then?
https://www.sciencemag.org/content/296/5568/727.short
Denial of scientific fact in the name of protecting corporate fossil fuel profit margins is a dirty game, but that’s what’s going on – just take a look at this plan from the Heartland Institute, 2012 Fundraising Plan:
The fossil fuel-protecting PR agenda here is pretty obvious, if you read the next section of the Heartland Institute document:
Isn’t transparency and openness what science is all about? That includes revealing private donors and dirty little plans, too.
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation) says
#475 Dan H.
I noticed what you meant as I am sure did others. But it makes no difference on your consensus argument about climate scientists. Go to a science meeting where climate scientists go, and test the idea that there is no consensus regarding the quantified work.
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation) says
#476 Septic Matthew (Matthew R. Marler, Ph.D.)
What is religious about discussing science based on the peer reviewed literature?
Answer me one question: What would the temperature of Earth be if you remove the tiny fraction of CO2?
If you answer that one question, you will possibly understand the role of any CO2, let alone anthropogenic, in our atmosphere.
P.S. gavin = Gavin Schmidt (NASA/GISS)
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/gavin-schmidt/
It often helps if you look.
Balazs says
[Response: providing everyone with clean water would cost ~50bn and use entirely existing technology. Given that governments spend over $1 trillion on the Iraq war, or similar amounts on bailouts for banks, it is clear that the small amount of money spent on climate change mitigation is not the impediment. Your error is in thinking that if we suddenly stopped doing anything about climate everyone would suddenly spend it on water. This is a lomborgian fallacy. – Gavin]
Hi Gavin,
I am not that naive to believe that stopping renewable subsidies would mean that all the money would flow to provide clean water to the poor. I am also willing to accept that the halving of foreign aids in the last few decades (according to Bjorn Lomborg) cannot be entirely attributed to the efforts to combat climate change. Nevertheless, it would be hard to deny that climate change diverted attention from problems that I would consider more imminent and and certainly more easy to solve in the near future than climate change.
I know, my views will be unpopular, but I have no objection “spreading democracy” even at the $1 trillion level, but I find it highly disturbing, when this desire is restricted to countries with huge oil reservers. I wish if the US and the rest of the developed world would have been willing to spread democracy by stopping genocide in Rwanda or stopped the Balkan war for other reason than some president needing to divert attention from his misconducts.
I don’t think that the money spent on climate change mitigation is that small. I suspect that when fully accounted it could be easily in the tens of billion $$, if not in the trillion $$ level (globally). Even if it does not show up as “spending” requiring utilities to provide certain amount of electricity from renewables undoubtedly raises energy prices. Requiring the addition of biofuel to gasoline is clearly a hidden subsidy to the corn industry that I actually find unethical. I would support full heartedly, if corn subsidies were justified by the need to provide food for the hungry, but it should make everybody puke when biofuels are burned in our vehicles.
I have no doubt that pumping CO2 to the atmosphere is a problem that everybody needs to be aware of and at some time we have to stop using fossil fuels entirely (if not for other reason, but because they will run out). The AGW fallacy is that we have the technology to start that shift now. All studies that showed renewable and improved energy efficiency will solve the problem (starting with the infamous Pacala and Socolow wedges) assumed that the global energy use (from 15TW) can be reduced to 11TW. While this is possible for the 20% richest part of the world, but “leaves the rest in the dark” (as Pielke Jr. would phrase it). Allowing the 80% to come up even to a much more efficient level than the United States still needs a tripling or quadrupling of the global energy use in the upcoming decades. At that level, renewables are simply not enough.
James Hansen knows this well and he realizes that without nuclear energy there is no way to solve climate change, yet he is less vocal expressing this realization then blaming big oil (as evidenced in his recent performance at the AAAC panel meeting in Vancouver http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2012/0209am_webcast.shtml). If the Heartland Institute saga proves anything, it is that big oil don’t even care (considering the laughable amount of support they provide to spread “misinformation”). The 20+ years lack of progress is a testament that we don’t have the technology to replace fossil fuels.
Hank Roberts says
> read like religious zealots
People who study ecology have, for many decades, read that way. You’ve read Aldo Leopold?
How do you read the people at CMU who write about ecology and biology?
I try to read like a reference librarian here, actually. It’s tedious and boring and not very much fun.
But it’s a way to resist the temptation to argue like a “religious zealot” justifying it by thinking “they did it first so I can too, double.”
It’s an easy pitfall. There’s loads of distorted info available to feed that kind of argument — CO2Science is a font of it, so is Heartland.
Trying to bring the good habits of academic reading and writing into blog conversation isn’t fun or easy.
If you’re convinced there’s nothing to the science, you won’t bother.
Is there anyone at CMU you consider a reliable source on ecology and climate?
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation) says
#476 Septic Matthew (Matthew R. Marler, Ph.D.)
The science give strong enough indication for policy (more CO2 = worse/less = less worse). The most important thing that remains to be demonstrated is will policy-makers make the best choices regarding the future effects of future increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations with sufficient accuracy so as to minimize the relative costs to society.
That is what remains to be seen.
Michael W says
“You do not engage with the propositions of others. You do not even engage wth the porpositions you laid down yourself but hours before.”
#457 MARoger,
Ray, Kevin, Walter, and yourself have added nothing to the conversation, and keep repeating the same information, totally missing the concept. Listing only studies that support your narrow view is not a balanced analysis. The conformation bias is pretty evident. For instance if I were to point to a study such as
http://www.geogsci.com/EN/abstract/abstract530.shtml
and say a warmer planet is a greener planet, I am sure it would be analysed, criticized, and picked through, but if I were to point to a study like Ray posted as
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JHM-386.1
it’s just more or less accepted, because it agrees with the narrative.
Roger, setting aside the debate, for your own curiosity, aren’t you the least bit interested in what the temperature would be optimal for the planet?
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation) says
#476 Septic Matthew (Matthew R. Marler, Ph.D.)
Furthermore, I find it incredibly arrogant (unwarranted confidence) of you to accuse me and many on your list of being religious on this matter. Would it not be more accurate to describe yourself as attempting to remove the splinters from our eyes while ignoring the log in your own (to paraphrase a known bible quote).
Do please answer me this: Exactly how is a discussion based on the peer reviewed science religious?
Chris Colose says
Septic MAtthew (476)
Look, no one is happy that climate sensitivity estimates have centered around ~3 C with large (50% or so) uncertainties on either side, or that relatively little progress has been made over the last couple decades in making that 50% number smaller. There are constraints however. Unless you want to play Judith Curry, you don’t get the freedom to make up whatever physics you want or misrepresent other articles in the name of ‘uncertainty.’
Instead of name-calling, you should re-read Isaac Held’s post, re-read the section of raypierre’s book where he talks about convective adjustment, or perhaps the Manabe and Wetherald paper.
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation) says
#485 Michael W
Context is key. As I’ve said before there will be some advantages but there is plenty of data that indicates while certain growing areas are increasing in size and seasonal length. What good is it to the crop yields if soil moisture content drops and hydrology changes in such a way as to impede crop yields and nutritive values?
Start studying crop yields in relation to warming, fire, drought, food and other related factors and then you might start to get the picture.
Susan Anderson says
As a corrective to the poisonous ego of guest commenters who assume they have the right to lecture scientists and promote dubious pseudoscience, here are two excellent videos:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/a-chat-with-realclimate-blogger-gavin-schmidt/
Considering that the purpose of this blog is to disseminate information and promote discussion amongst those who know something about what they are talking about, stirring the pot with assertions of superiority while demonstrating ignorance should make the poster want to crawl with shame. Unfortunately, it does not seem to have that effect. That, however, is not a sign that our hosts and their community have not responded with multiple resources and almost too much tolerance of recycled politics. Nature has the last and only vote, and those working hard to understand and work with it are worthy of respect, not sneering dismissal.
Hank Roberts says
> warmer planet is a greener planet
No question about that.
Weeds, more than food plants, benefit fastest.
Grains are mostly already near their heat stress limit.
Soils in Canada are thin over rock, not suitable to grow wheat.
A warmer planet is greener, and hungrier.
All these have been cited repeatedly here.
You know how to find this stuff.
dhogaza says
Dan H.
A fraction of much, much less than 1%, yes. And, no wonder – the 2010 statement you refer to supports the original 2007 statement they objected to. The only difference is that it’s several times longer, giving spaced for a more nuanced argument that’s totally supportive of mainstream climate science.
Michael W says
#490 John, despite the problems of ‘dropping soil moisture content, fire, drought, food, and other factors’ during the time the earth has warmed in the last half century, crop yields have increased. Why do you assume the reasons we overcome these negative factors won’t continue into the future?
Ray Ladbury says
Uh, Dan H., have you read the APS 2010 statement? It really does not support your case. All it does is reiterate the 2007 statement and expand on detail. I’m starting to worry about your reading comprehension. Have you been tested?
Ray Ladbury says
Michael W.,
OK. Let me see if I’ve got this right. You are reassured by the fact that plants can grow in what was previously permafrost or snow cover? Dude, that’s not where we farm. Wheat doesn’t grow there. Do you even bother to read the stuff you cite?
Moreover, “greener” is not necessarily good. Weeds are green–as you would know if you saw my garden. So is mold. Don’t confuse fertile with fetid. The evidence shows decreasing yield with temperature. You’ve shown nothing that mitigates the concern.
Thomas Lee Elifritz says
Indeed, anything this well vetted that predicts 1 – 3 degrees global temperature rises on multi-decadal timescales is a force to be reckoned with.
Climate scientists know it is well past time for society to own up to this.