188 MA Rodger inquires of Victor: “Are you really that stupid to suggest such a thing?”
You bet he is! Maybe this could help him out if he applied himself for a few years of intensive study and practice? http://www.majortests.com/sat/reading-comprehension.php
I think his ebook subtitle said: “A Primer for Critical Thinkers who Cannot Read”
This problem seems to afflict at least 99% of all AGW/CC deniers and media reporters. The Climate Feedback website http://climatefeedback.org/ was a great tip by Anthony Patt in his recent RC article. A pity the Victors of this world won’t ever read what is there.
imo people like Victor, the manipulative Journos and all denier websites need to be called out repeatedly and thoroughly embarrassed until they learn to simply shut up or are banned from the Internet as a public safety requirement.
Thomassays
192 Victor says: “It is simply not accurate to claim that 97% of scientists agree”
Well of course it’s not accurate. Cook’s Paper did not say that either. Read the paper, I did when it was first published. It’s bleeding obvious.
Survey conducted under the auspices of AMS Committee to Improve Climate Change Communication (CICCC) — George Mason University: Edward Maibach, Neil Stenhouse, Sara Cobb https://goo.gl/9WvBe4
Thomassays
192 Victor says: “In any case, it seems to me that Fyfe et al., with the participation, amazingly enough, of Michael Mann himself, has reinstated the hiatus in a very dramatic and surprising manner. AND …. “So as I see it, the evidence supporting the skeptical position is stronger than ever.”
Anyone who says or thinks that has either not read the Fyfe et al Paper, and/ or does not comprehend what it says. Which sounds just like a Victor and every other agw/cc denier comment made about it. No point trying to explain it to them either!
Victorsays
re #197
“It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming slowdown or hiatus, characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims.”
From “Making sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown,” (http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n3/full/nclimate2938.html) by
John C. Fyfe, Gerald A. Meehl, Matthew H. England, Michael E. Mann, Benjamin D. Santer, Gregory M. Flato, Ed Hawkins, Nathan P. Gillett, Shang-Ping Xie, Yu Kosaka & Neil C. Swart
In other words, the evidence presented in this paper contradicts the claim made in the article of Mann’s you just cited (dating from last year) that “there never was any “pause” or “hiatus” in global warming.” The newer paper even rejects claims that the pause has been overstated, which is truly surprising, especially in light of the fact that Mann apparently signed off on it. What gives?
Thomassays
196 Edward Greisch says: “Skipping a whole lot of stuff in a comment I almost made, trying to tell people directly about GW isn’t going to work. Arguing isn’t going to work. There are a whole lot of psychological problems in the way. There must be another way to do it.”
I do know. I’m an ‘amateur’ psychologist skilled in personnel and training and multinational corporate management, plus a former advertiser & expert in marketing including as a member of http://www.aim.com.au I already offered up several refs and fields to investigate further. It’s critical to put one’s own biases and beliefs aside first in order to be open-minded enough for new knowledge to flow in. And be willing to invest the time required eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuUnMCq-ARQ
Somewhere in that lecture he states that “conservatives cannot see AGW” – the whole lecture explains why that is so – research metaphors, framing and beliefs would be a start. Learning about the influence of narcissists, sociopaths, and ASPD in the public domain and especially in business can only help. Google scholar also has hundreds of social science papers and research by pro-agw science media academics and psychology field scientists about public communication of AGW/CC and the barriers involved. The “answers” are already out there Edward. Good luck.
Thomassays
196 Edward Greisch says: “Skipping a whole lot of stuff in a comment I almost made, trying to tell people directly about GW isn’t going to work. Arguing isn’t going to work. There are a whole lot of psychological problems in the way. There must be another way to do it.”
I do know. I’m an ‘amateur’ psychologist skilled in personnel and training and multinational corporate management, plus a former advertiser & expert in marketing including as a member of http://www.aim.com.au I already offered up several refs and fields to investigate further. It’s critical to put one’s own biases and beliefs aside first in order to be open-minded enough for new knowledge to flow in. And be willing to invest the time required eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuUnMCq-ARQ
Somewhere in that lecture he states that “conservatives cannot see AGW” – the whole lecture explains why that is so – research metaphors, framing and beliefs would be a start. Learning about the influence of narcissists, sociopaths, and ASPD in the public domain and especially in business and politics can only help aka “Know Thy Enemy” – Google scholar also has hundreds of social science papers and research by pro-agw science media academics and psychology field scientists about public communication of AGW/CC and the barriers involved. The “answers” are already out there Edward. Good luck.
“Based on its latest projections, EIA said global carbon dioxide emissions from energy activities will rise from 36 billion metric tons in 2012, the baseline year used for the 2016 outlook, to 43 billion metric tons in 2040.”
Pete Bestsays
Whilst you are rage against Victor and ruin this awesome blog maybe news such as this an get some airtime:
Maybe its time to close the open discussion down and just have good more relevant articles.
Digby Scorgiesays
Mal Adapted @193
IANAP?
Anyway, I suppose I’ve redefined a “psychotic” as someone with an irrational world-view who refuses to accept any evidence that is in conflict with that world-view. The psychologists might not like it, but as far as I’m concerned such reality-deniers are off their trolley.
EG 207, quoting EIA: “Based on its latest projections, EIA said global carbon dioxide emissions from energy activities will rise from 36 billion metric tons in 2012, the baseline year used for the 2016 outlook, to 43 billion metric tons in 2040.”
Victor the Troll @204.
You really should stop trolling the abstract of Fyfe et al (2016). If you do feel it is worthy of comment, I would suggest you read the full paper, or in your case perhaps find somebody to explain it to you.
And before you start citing Michael Mann as an author of Fyfe et al (2016), be aware he is one of our hosts here. And be aware also of his reaction to the eye-bulgingly-silly conclusions that some see in Fyfe et al (2016), conclusions pretty-much the same as the stuff you’ve been trolling out here. The Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy and serial-idiot Delingpole prompted our host to have his position published in New Scientist (although this posting of it requires no sign-in). That publication sort of makes a nonsense of your assertion, Victor the Troll @204, that Fyfe et al (2016) “contradicts the claim made in the article of Mann’s you just cited (dating from last year) that “there never was any “pause” or “hiatus” in global warming,” “ but as we all know what a stupid fellow you are, such an outcome is no surprise to us.
Interestingly for others, the defining 15-year rolling trends presented by Fyfe et al (2016) (PDF) in their Fig 2 (showing GISS & HadCRUT data) indicate there is the beginnings of a revival in the level of trend as of the end of 2014. Of course, we are now 15 months further on data-wise and for the record those trends are greatly higher now (GISS +31%, NOAA +40%, HadCRUT 62%) and in each case rapidly regaining the level of the 30-year rolling trend. That suggests to me that Kevin McKinney (quoted @174) was correct to say that he does see the so-called “pause” and that “it’s rapidly receding in my rear view mirror,” this of course the quote that got Victor the Troll up onto his high horse @192 and misrepresenting one of our hosts.
Another year, another U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) assessment report that makes the agency’s own forecasters look foolish.
In the latest Electric Power Monthly report, which covers all twelve months of 2015, the EIA revealed that renewable energy sources accounted for nearly 13.5-percent of the nation’s utility-scale electrical output. This is up by more than 2-percent over 2014. But get this: less than three months earlier, in the “Short-Term Energy Outlook,” the agency predicted “total renewables used in the electric power sector to decrease by 1.8% in 2015.”
The EIA’s record for long-term forecasts is no better. In fact, it’s consistently worse.
As Ken Bossong, Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign, recently pointed out, the agency’s “Annual Energy Outlook 2012” forecast that non-hydro renewables would provide about 250,000 thousand megawatt-hours of electricity by 2015. The new EIA tallies put that figure at over 300,000 thousand megawatt-hours, roughly 20-percent higher than predicted …
“Just a few years ago EIA had forecast that renewables might provide 15% of the nation’s electricity by 2035,” said Bossong. “It now appears that goal could be reached within the next two years and quite possibly sooner!”
This isn’t the rare instance of the EIA getting something wrong. Rather, it’s something of an annual tradition.
will we hit 410 or 411 this year? I think yes on both, but so what?
In any case, the 4.8 ppm spread is pretty large in what is admittedly, a very noisy number. I expect another month (may) with an increase of over 4 ppm over the past year. That does not seem like a good thing.
Should we be worried yet? Are things going to be bad by 2100 or maybe a little sooner? what if we add in a blue ocean event for 2016? Are we lining up the tipping points like dominos. But, hey, I love dominos.
Per the discussion of what it takes to reach/move/motivate people, I think it is clear from the historical record that fear is a powerful motivator. Too bad that fear clouds thinking and may trigger some counter-productive outcomes.
Another beautiful, warm day in the Pac NW. I think we will go camping on the Salish Sea today to avoid the heat, maybe stick our toes in the water.
Don’t feed the trolls!
Warm regards,
Mike
Thomassays
1712 Victor response to #188 MARodger: Oh dear pot kettle black. Someone can’t tell the difference between AGW and the variability in rainfall or the difference between ‘weather’ variations in the Indian Ocean and planet earth’s rising temperatures. :-0 http://www.mcpheeandrewartha.com.au/humility-is-a-leadership-skill/
that is a reasonable projection, but projections are just that. I believe projections are not destiny or fate. All the models are wrong as Gavin has stated.
As it becomes more and more apparent that our situation is dire, our species has the opportunity to make some very fundamental changes in the way we live, the way we share the planet and how we want to proceed into the sixth great extinction.
the great percentage of species that have ever existed are now extinct. I suspect that none of the species simply projected/calculated their demise and gave up. A lot of individuals almost certainly tried to adapt, struggled to avoid extinction, struggled to survive and reproduce. That is our biological heritage. Extinction or no, I think our species is in the unusual and perhaps unique position of seeing extinction on the horizon. We can see it coming. I believe we understand extinction events in a way that is new on the planet. That’s an interesting and challenging situation to be in. I think we can change and not meet various projections, such as the one that EIA has provided, but I don’t know if we will change or if we will change fast enough. As long as we keep talking about how bad it might be in 2100, our species will not act to change. Homo sapiens know enough to run and hide from a tornado or a tsunami, but we are poorly evolved and equipped to address global warming.
All of that assumes you believe in theory of evolution, which I think everyone here but Victor probably accepts. We can laugh at the trolls, but we should engage them.
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.” – George Bernard Shaw Nuff said?
Hey, Hank, I loved the pony reference. There has to be a pony in this AGW mess somewhere, right?
#192, Victor–The ‘recession’ of the hiatus I referred to–and yes, that was my phrase–has nothing to do with Karl et al. It has everything to do with the fact that over the last 2-plus years, natural variability stopped interfering destructively with the anthropogenic warming trend, and started reinforcing it. The result has been 2 record-warm years, with a possible third in the offing (though it remains to be seen how temps will play out as ENSO transitions out of the El Nino phase once again.)
“I declare Victor the One Ring that Binds Them, Master of the Dark Propagandist Arts… and all y’all his playthings.”
Well, I at least find some amusement in the proceedings, so I think it’s open to question just who is playing whom.
Mal Adaptedsays
@Digby Scorgie:
“IANAP”: I Am Not A Psychiatrist. And on second thought, if “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results”, then it’s the commenters who keep responding to Victor that are insane.
Andrew Spiterisays
#196 Edward Greisch / #190 Zebra
Skip to the last couple paragraphs if you want a more direct answer to your question.
I’m getting paid to collect signatures for a petition to get an initiative to ban fracking on Michigan’s ballot this November. When people disagree with me they generally say they don’t agree with me and keep walking. I’ll tell them I can give them more information on it, they tell me already know all about it. I tell them I’m sure they don’t know everything, but apparently they do. (I know they haven’t read scientific studies or the actual law exempting it from the Clean Water Act, nobody ever goes that deep. I wrote up my own information sheet that had links to studies in peer reviewed journals showing it’s effects on groundwater and the exact language in the Clean Water Act and where to find it, they wouldn’t even look at it.)
When they do stop to talk to me I’ll tell them that oil, gas, and coal have permanent tax breaks written into law while alternative energy has nothing of the sort and it’s against free market ideology. I told one guy it was because of Republicans, he told me that I thought it was all about politics then, which isn’t true at all. I told another guy alternative energy would undercut fossil fuels if they were give these tax breaks, that guy said he didn’t believe me. Would he take some info on it, no he already knows all about it. People walk by me all the time, they say they don’t know enough about it, I offer to give them some more information, give them a pamphlet. No. It is nothing but the fact that people don’t care about learning. They literally do not care about learning or looking at another point of view.
Here’s the real kicker. I think Republicans knew they were postponing action on climate change so the fossil fuel industry when we were about to ratify Kyoto in the 2000-2001. They thought it was so far in the future though that we have time. Now, they are out of office and the Tea Party is in. The Tea Party Republicans know nothing of these deals. They think the Republicans positions are real and that Democrats and climate scientists are literally trying to push us into a planned economy. I think this is making it so that we will have literally no chance to change course in the near future, maybe the next decade.
I would say definitely the next decade because it looks like Hillary Clinton will be the next Democratic nominee and a recent poll that came out had her losing to Trump by multiple points in Ohio and winning by only one point in Florida and Pennsylvania respectively. She has no chance without Ohio. That probably means a Republican Presidency, both houses of Congress, and a Supreme Court for decades.
Here is what hope I do have. I’ve read some studies, the first might just be an observation by Katherine Hayhoe, in the past few weeks on changing peoples minds on climate change. The first and most important one says that people who disagree that climate change is man made or real will change their mind when you relate to them on a personal level. I have no idea how I’m supposed to do that with people just randomly walking by me. I know one woman who collects for us tells them she is a Republican and I’m sure she can relate to people that way. That might work, I’m pretty liberal so I don’t know what to do. I don’t think I can even do it with my family. The other one looked at some random people, who were Audubon members, I think. They had them write some short essays on random things or the dangers of climate change on a personal or the dangers of climate change from a societal/humanitarian level. The people who wrote on about the societal level said they would give more money to the cause of preventing climate change. That was persistent after for a while after the study had been done. That might not apply to deniers because I imagine deniers aren’t as likely to be Audubon members. That’s that though.
To Zebra’s point, I definitely think you have to use more immediate impacts when talking about climate change as a danger. Wildfires, droughts, famines. Those are more immediate and those will happen very soon. Look at California, they are in the midst of a bad drought and are losing water faster than they are replacing it. The land is sinking they are losing so much from their aquifer in central California. Their agriculture is very water intensive because they grow things that were not meant for their climate. Their landscaping is the same way. Agriculture is an enormous part of California’s economy and California is an enormous part of the US economy, in fact if California were a country it would be the fifth largest economy in the world. Finally, if California were to experience the kind of drought where it pumps its aquifers near dry you would see a ton of climate refugees. This is not to mention the droughts we will see in the South and Mexico within a few decades. It’s not pretty.
What convinced me the most that climate change was real was, I’ve watched the world news since I was five so about 24 years, every year the amount of wildfires there have been out west have hit a record high. Every single year. If that doesn’t mean the climate is shifting I don’t know what does. The budget to fight fires has gone up every year and the budget to prevent fires goes down because fighting fires cuts into it. The greenhouse effect makes sense to me. Inside Climate/LA Times and another study from somewhere else just ran some pieces on how climate models were originally funded by oil companies, specifically Exxon, to see how carbon release would effect the climate. Then when the results came out indicating global warming in a couple years they started denying climate change. If climate scientists were only doing this to make more money why would they have bitten the hand that feeds them. It makes no sense. And now Attorney Generals from multiple states are suing fossil fuel companies under RICO laws. It’s beautiful.
Andrew Spiterisays
#209 BPL / #216 mike
I don’t think we are dead. I think we can save ourselves no matter what happens, it would just take some extreme focus and action. Specifically, finding a way to absorb CO2 and CH4 from the atmosphere and sequester it. There is a guy named Klaus Lackner at Columbia, now Arizona State. He created these CO2 trees that absorbed CO2 from the atmosphere, then he thought you could sequester it underground. Now I don’t think sequestering underground is the best idea because it can always escape. He has another way to sequester it though, make it into plastic. Now he thinks it’s to expensive to do, but at some point that will come money is not going to be an object and we’re going to willing to spend a hell of a lot of it, maybe even forget it exists. If we need to collect it from the upper atmosphere put a whole lot of engineering into a low/zero emission plane that can be mass produced. Maybe you can use fuel cells. I don’t know but I’m sure we could engineer a way out of it. If taliks form and we can’t find a way to absorb methane from the atmosphere dredge the permafrost and absorb the CO2. Do something, civilization is important, money is not an object at that point, I mean it’s a social construction, it serves us.
Steve Fishsays
Comment by Piotr — 10 May 2016 @ 10:27 PM, ~#153
“Hope it clarifies things a bit.” I am sorry to say that I am not clarified and am now, at best, only partly translucent. How about a link to an explanation for the general public and one or two scientific articles that cover this topic?
My problem: The slow calcium/carbon cycle is how our excess atmospheric CO2 will be eventually drawn down. The carbon that is removed from the air and ocean and passed through the earth’s mantle and converted to rock is 80% limestone from calcium carbonate compounds made by sea creatures. The rest is organic carbon that makes, for example, shale, and a small amount of fossil carbon (e.g. coal, oil, gas). See- http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/page2.php for example. This process makes it hard for me to see how corals, and other calcium carbonate creating organisms actually cause an increase in atmospheric or dissolved CO2.
Steve
Andrew Spiterisays
#216 mike
One more thing, humans always discount the future. That’s probably why we are so bad at saving for retirement. There was a study that looked how future oriented various peoples were, or maybe just Germans and Americans. Germans have a more future oriented language than English and the plan for the future to a greater extent. So, maybe that will help some way.
Thomassays
216 mike says: “..our species has the opportunity to make some very fundamental changes in the way we live, the way we share the planet and how we want to proceed into the sixth great extinction.”
Hear hear! It is a huge opportunity. How many will rise to the occasion is as yet unknown. But it’s looking better than a decade ago today. Typically with all the noise going on (especially media wise and ongoing spot wars) it is hard to tell the forest from the trees.
Do note page 6 graphs World¹ total primary energy supply (TPES) from 1971 to 2013
by fuel (Mtoe) for geothermal, solar, wind, heat, etc is 1.2% and it’s not changed significantly since then.
And pg 11 crude oil use for United States production 509 Mt and imports 391 Mt ~900Mt or 21.5% of the world’s total and still rising (on my rough calcs).
Pg 13 natural gas use for United States production 730 bcm and imports 33 bcm ~763bcm or 21.65% of world total and still rising.
Coal is about 11% of the world total consumption. US population is 4.7% of the world.
But good job with increasing renewables use in electricity output up to ~13.5% of US total electricity production. No point getting carried away or overly excited though, for that would be like peeing in the ocean and expecting sea levels to rise. :-)
It is better than the opposite direction of course but worth keeping it in perspective, because EIA errors are not that big a deal. Bringing global GHG emissions down to a net zero is and of course everyone would agree on that.
Victorsays
Mike @ 216: “All of that assumes you believe in theory of evolution, which I think everyone here but Victor probably accepts.”
Which theory of evolution are you referring to, Mike? And no, I don’t “believe” in evolution any more than I “believe” in any other scientific theory. For my thoughts on this topic, see
I’m probably a bit late to the discussion here, but i’m just wondering – Victor, I see that you are walking a fine line between troll and devil’s advocate, and I have to ask you; do you deny altogether that climate change is taking place? Or do you just hold that it might not be happening in the way that climate scientists predict? If your answer is the latter, why contest the smaller points rather than working to contribute to the body of work to find an answer that you are satisfied with? It seems to me that it would be far more effective to come up with an original body of work with a new take on things than to just disagree with what is already out there.
Regards,
Cody
Thomassays
OK so while everyone comes at the issues surrounding AGW/CC Science from different interests and perspectives the consensus of most posters here seems to be one of a building frustration of being unable to make much progress. The personal frustrations that arise from ‘deniers’ such as Victor is, imo, merely an effect of deeper underlying personal feelings of frustration – collectively not being able to reach the goals that have been articulated by the scientific research going back decades.
Would that be a fair generalized state of play – not only on this site but across all similar sites as RC? OK, well maybe it might help to put all that aside for a few minutes and to allow yourself to be taken on a short journey of the mind:
Prof George Lakoff on how he started his work on conceptual metaphor, particularly the ‘LOVE IS A JOURNEY’ metaphor. https://youtu.be/Eu-9rpJITY8 (only 8 mins)
Your ‘homework’ is to take the gist of what that video spoke about and then apply it to your personal situation regarding AGW/CC and why you are here in the first place. To also think about the barriers to communicating the implications of climate science to people who do not want to hear it. Why is it more critical now that real fundamental and widespread changes begin now and not in 2030?
Your homework is to think about the possible blockages that are in fact caused by other people’s entrenched ‘mindsets’ – their own conceptual metaphorical ways of thinking about Life and climate science and their reactions to AGW/CC. To think about how it is that Politicians all over this world seem to be doing and saying the same things despite coming from totally different cultures and systemic beliefs. They too have ‘mindsets’ and can only think in conceptual metaphors too (if Lakoff is correct) so what could those be?
In another comment I used the phrase “know thy enemy” – but I was not speaking about ‘people’, groups or classes of people. For example AGW/CC Deniers are not enemies they are simply people, they are not the enemy. The real ‘enemy’ is ‘mindsets’ aka internalized belief systems that people cling to – their conceptual metaphors.
The most critical mindset to deal with first is your own. Until one is fully aware of their own particular ‘mindset’ then you do not have a chance in hell of successfully engaging another person or group of people to listen to your pov until you first understand where they are coming from and how they see and think about things.
Good Luck – there will be a test. ;-)
Thomassays
Like most online forums there seems to be a predominance of Americans on RC. Issues about the US often tend to be raised. So as an ‘unbiased’ non-American I figure it’s fair to raise the fact that politics does play a significant if not overwhelming role regarding the acceptance or rejection of the AGW/CC science and it’s implications over the long haul. It is an election year yes? In that light (and as a one off thought experiment) I believe that it’s time the US had a woman as President. No no no, not that woman, this woman: https://youtu.be/obQ51NP4DZc
Maybe tally up a list of the items you can agree with against those you reject. Which column is larger? I repeat this is simply a ‘thought experiment’ so no further discussion or comment is required – it’s your business only. Do think about it though as much as you wish. :-)
Killiansays
Re: 218 Kevin, Ummmmm….. nope. Repetition favors the troll 100% of the time.
Thomassays
Last one: How to gain access to transform structures so that they are Life affirming and not destructive.
Nonviolent Communication and Corporations (Govts & Gangs) with Dr. Marshall Rosenberg (Psychologist) in 2006 https://youtu.be/YvFeY5GXtQo?t=4m35s (listen for 3 minutes and continue if it makes sense)
Refs:
Speak Peace in a World of Conflict: What You Say Next Will Change Your World By Marshall B. Rosenberg
Life-enriching Education: Nonviolent Communication Helps Schools Improve …By Marshall B. Rosenberg
The Basics of Nonviolent Communication (NVC)
Most of us have been educated from birth to compete, judge, demand and diagnose — to think and communicate in terms of what is “right“ and “wrong“ with people.
We express our feelings in terms of what another person has “done to us.” We struggle to understand what we want or need in the moment, and how to effectively ask for what we want without using unhealthy demands, threats or coercion. As founder of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D. says,
“What others do may be a stimulus of our feelings, but not the cause.”
At best, thinking and communicating this way can create misunderstanding and frustration, or simply keep us from getting what we want. It can also keep us from the fulfilling relationships we deserve. And still worse, it can lead to anger, depression and even emotional or physical violence.
Since developing the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) process in the 1960’s, Marshall Rosenberg’s vision has been to teach people of any age, gender, ethnicity or background a much more effective alternative. http://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/aboutnvc/aboutnvc.htm
andysays
Anyone noticed what’s happening in the arctic this spring? Surely this should be more of a focus than arguing with a tin of hot air.
from Robert Scribbler: “An event many scientists thought wouldn’t be possible until the 2070s or 2080s as little as ten years ago. A Blue Ocean Event that is now a very real risk for 2016.”
Peter Wadhams looking like the winner on the blue ocean sweepstakes.
Daily CO2
May 13, 2016: 407.80 ppm
May 13, 2015: 403.80 ppm
we are bumping along at about 4 ppm over last year. I think El Nino is down around neutral. We are posting up some big numbers. Where is the CO2 coming from? Will we see a spike in methane ppb this year? Not as easy to track as CO2. I love the co2.earth website. Have been asking them to expand to ch4.earth. CO2 is the big dog, but CH4 is like a mean little sister. I guess the good news is that CH4 breaks down to CO2 after about a decade. We can all make it through a hot decade or two, can’t we?
Every point up on either increases global warmth. Every point up on either increases ocean acidification. It’s all about these numbers folks.
Victor – earth, flat or round? You make me laugh, guy. Don’t argue with the trolls, just giggle at their foolishness.
Cheers
Mike
Victorsays
#227 Thanks, Cody, for the civil response. Your question is meaningful so I’ll try to answer as best I can.
“I’m probably a bit late to the discussion here, but i’m just wondering – Victor, I see that you are walking a fine line between troll and devil’s advocate,”
I prefer “gadfly.” But “skeptic” fills the bill nicely, imo.
“and I have to ask you; do you deny altogether that climate change is taking place? Or do you just hold that it might not be happening in the way that climate scientists predict?”
What we see time and again from typical “denialists,” “skeptics” what have you, is the phrase “the climate is always changing.” That, of course, is simply a truism, so I won’t repeat it here. What I’ll say instead is that, in the words of the old song, “the temperature’s rising.” It’s apparently somewhere around 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it was in the 1880’s. Does that mean “we’re havin’ a heat wave”? Well, certainly not “a tropical heat wave,” no. In fact such an increase, given all the many difficulties and uncertainties involved in taking the temperature of the whole earth, seems hardly worth noticing. But, for the sake of argument, I’m willing to take the word of climate scientists that things could get a lot worse if the temperature gets significantly higher. There’s certainly been a lot of research in that area and I’m not qualified to contest it.
“If your answer is the latter, why contest the smaller points rather than working to contribute to the body of work to find an answer that you are satisfied with? It seems to me that it would be far more effective to come up with an original body of work with a new take on things than to just disagree with what is already out there.”
It’s not so much that I disagree. It’s that I don’t see the evidence linking the relatively small amount of warming we’ve seen so far with either CO2 emissions or disastrous consequences. And there’s nothing original about my take on this, nor do I have any ambition to come up with anything original. A great many very competent scientists and critical thinkers have taken more or less the same position.
What would satisfy me, and no doubt many others, would be clear evidence that 1. CO2 emissions contribute in a significant way to increased global temperatures; and 2. that increased temperatures of only 1, 2 or 3 degrees Fahrenheit have the power to produce a significantly higher rate of extreme weather events. Finding reasons for the lack of a consistent correlation between temperature and CO2 is not the same as producing a correlation. But if the same set of reasons (forcings, factors, what have you) were to be applied across the board, to all periods in question, that would go a long way toward making the “warmist” position more convincing.
As far as extreme weather events are concerned, much of the research on the history of such events seems to have been biased by differences in the degree to which such events have been reported over widely different time periods. Once the bias, produced by greater diligence in recent years, is removed, then, as more recent studies have shown, the incidence of almost all such events does not seem any greater in recent years than it ever was.
These are not small points, but go to the heart of the controversy. And by the way, I’m willing to admit that the skeptics could be wrong. But if they are, I don’t see any reasonable solution to the problem, as imo severe cutbacks in fossil fuel consumption worldwide would be devastating.
One more thing, humans always discount the future. That’s probably why we are so bad at saving for retirement.
Well, I’ve saved enough for a comfortable retirement, and I probably won’t live to see the worst impacts of AGW. If I were thirty years younger, though, I might ask myself “why bother saving for retirement when AGW will cause civilization to collapse, and take my savings down with it?”
Thomassays
234 Victor the Non-Thinker says: “And by the way, I’m willing to admit that the skeptics could be wrong. But if they are, I don’t see any reasonable solution to the problem, as imo severe cutbacks in fossil fuel consumption worldwide would be devastating.”
Devastating to who Victor, devastating to who? There is the “mindset” in clear view.
What non-thinkers are unable to do is prove they are right, while pretending the issue might be they could be wrong but no one error by scientists or GCMs is acceptable.
Well Victor you can own your opinion but you do not own the atmosphere! 7,000,000,000 other human beings own it on a strata-title plan – you do not. Your unthinking delusional opinion does not count anywhere but inside your own home and in the voting booths.
So Victor’s call to arms is to turn the taps on for fossil fuels now and into the future. Burn it all because like the neanderthal like anti-science religious fanatic ex-PM of Australia Tony Abbott asserted “Coal is Good for Humanity.” That’s the ‘mindset’ that is the enemy of humanity. Foolishness writ large.
Victor of course cannot count and is stuck in the past by trotting out foolish fallacies such as “increased temperatures of only 1, 2 or 3 degrees Fahrenheit” means something meaningful when it does not.
Victor refuses to add up the physics based maths of increasing CO2 PPM (and CO2e like SO2/NOx etc) from 408 today to 500 in two decades. Of CO2 at 600 PPM a decade later in 2045. Of 750 PPM in 2075 when hitting higher growth rates if his “opinion” gets it’s way …. so Victor wants to remain stuck in the past that the issue is “of only 1, 2 or 3 degrees Fahrenheit” and ignore a century of science especially the paleoclimate scientists knowledge of what a planet with 750ppm or 1000ppm of CO2 looks like. Far beyond devastating!
Oh yes indeed Victor and other sociopaths who hold to such a fixated irrational mindset well-mixed with their over-inflated opinion of self-importance are fools and are not even as smart as yeast, as this video will quickly explain: Are Humans smarter than Yeast? Expotential Growth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjnXRw7limI
Thomassays
220 Andrew Spiteri an excellent comment well done. Keep at it for you are asking the right questions when focusing on the issue like “The first and most important one says that people who disagree that climate change is man made or real will change their mind when you relate to them on a personal level. I have no idea how I’m supposed to do that with people just randomly walking by me.” So do continue researching the Papers, articles and ideas on this by communication, media/advertising and sociology/psychology experts on such matters.
A few tips: Comedy can say things you cannot get away with – share this far and wide AUSTRALIANS FOR COAL https://youtu.be/tqXzAUaTUSc
Pay more attention to those who already accept the science/facts and focus on encouraging them to action such as writing phoning their local politicians no matter what ‘party’ they are in and anything else they could do to spread the ‘word’ about why this matters to everyone. share this far and wide https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLdUqbVD9bioQGgFh5kEucw
On the street etc unless doing a survey try not to ask questions that will only get a Yes or No answer. You have to ask questions that get either a YES response or forces the person to ask you a question asking for more info in reply.
eg “Would you like to see the US Govt stop giving away our Taxes as business welfare subsidies to already highly profitable multinational Corporations operating in the US?”
Have a little flyer ready to give them which details obvious examples of this occurring with figures that can be verified. Include in that urls to bonafide Govt GAO sites and not blogs, the media, or political orientated websites eg Greenpeace etc.
Find 3 good quick questions where a Yes reply will be most likely across the board, and then ask: “Would you mind if I gave this little info pack so you can look into these things in your own time?” They will answer NO but really it is a YES to taking the info pack. :-)
Search internationally for like-minded activists and already available resources info you can use http://www.green-grahamstown.org DO NOT reinvent the wheel! :-)
Rather than “flyers” or info sheets consider distributing USB sticks with the most potent videos preloaded along with a more extensive series of Info Sheets and a list of things people can do to help in their spare time – eg pro-forma emails to politicians. Good luck!
Thomassays
219 Mal Adapted says: “if insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results”, then it’s the commenters who keep responding to Victor that are insane.”
I am all but certain you do not know what commenters are “expecting” Mal Adapted. The mods let some of his comments through. What do you think they are “expecting” or hoping for by doing that MA?
I have not done a scientific nor a statistical study by I “expect” that the numbers of silent readers here number at least 1000 times more than the number of posters on RC over time. Maybe some of those will find responses to Victor of some use to them or elsewhere. I do not know for sure but it seems a reasonable “expectation” at the very least. :-)
Straw Poll
“Do you expect Victor to change his Opinions and Beliefs as a result of you responding to one of his comments on RealClimate?”
Vote here: http://goo.gl/UGo90i
Digby Scorgiesays
Thomas @228
Regarding communication and climate change, I see four types of mindset:
(1) scientific
(2) psychopath
(3) sucker
(4) psychotic
The scientific mindset accepts the reality of climate change. The psychopaths are those like the Exxon executives who acted in the 1980s to protect their installations against the effects of global warming — as predicted by their own scientists — and to take advantage of such things as the forecast warming of the Arctic, but who initiated at the same time the campaign of disinformation on climate change. The suckers are the victims of this disinformation campaign. The psychotics are the fanatics whose twisted view of the world has no place for a phenomenon — climate change — that threatens their world-view.
I conclude that it is the suckers that need to be apprised of their suckerdom. Science-minded people are already convinced. The psychopaths are obviously beyond the pale, and the psychotics will never be persuaded of any reality they don’t like — don’t try to reason with fanatics, whatever you do.
So the problem reduces to enlightening the suckers. Well, in my view one just needs to explain how they’ve fallen victim to the disinformation campaign of the fossil-fuel psychopaths. The identical disinformation campaign against smoking and cancer is a handy comparison.
There’s been some conversation upthread around electric demand reduction as a grid management tool (or maybe one should say ‘capacity management too on the grid.’)
However, that conversation did not reflect the fact that this option is already in significant use today. Came across this item this morning; it seems that PJM, the grid operator servicing a big chunk of the eastern US from the mid-Atlantic to as far west as Illinois, has 11 GW of demand reduction committed for 2016-2017. They estimate annual savings of $275 million as a result.
But if they are, I don’t see any reasonable solution to the problem, as imo severe cutbacks in fossil fuel consumption worldwide would be devastating.
Once again, “I don’t see” is the operative portion of this statement. There are numerous roadmaps to ‘severe cutbacks’ without ‘severe consequences’ to health, wealth, and well-being.
(Before Ed jumps on his nuclear high horse, let me quickly add that although that particular proposal set, as for many others, is for 100% renewable energy, one can also use some proportion of nuclear energy in the mix where political will to do so exists–and that does make the grid engineering easier. The point is, there are credible plans for kicking fossil fuel.)
Indeed, some plans for going completely fossil-free are in the process of implementation now. Stockholm, for instance:
Over the last decade, Uruguay has transitioned over from total reliance on dirty fossil fuels and is now getting more than 94 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources. What’s more amazing is that Uruguay made the switch without any government subsidies and is now providing citizens with lower monthly energy bills than before.
Moreover, there are some analyses that find that global-scale mitigation is not only possible, but will be a net economic gain (as has been the case in Uruguay):
The report by Citi Global Perspectives & Solutions (Citi GPS, a division of CitiGroup) assesses the economic costs and benefits of a low-carbon future. Citi forecasts that the sums of money to be spent on energy (both capital expenditure and fuel) over the next quarter century will be around $200 trillion. The report outlines two scenarios: a business as usual or ‘Inaction’ on climate change scenario, and a different energy mix that offers a lower carbon alternative. The report finds that out to 2040 the ‘Action’ scenario results in an undiscounted saving of $1.8 trillion over the period.
One may or may not accept all this good news at face value; there are always caveats to be made. But I think this does show that there is ample evidence that we don’t need magic new tech to make big progress on carbon mitigation.
NASA GISS has posted for April with the global anomaly +1.11ºC which is equal 3rd highest anomaly on record and thus a drop on February/March but equal to January. The El Nino of 1998 showed a similar (but single month) peak temperature in the early part of 1998 but then a slow rise for the following months to a second lower peak in June 1998. Comparing recent months with 1997/98, the temperature rise since 1997/98 is pretty-much 0.5ºC (which would yield a warming rate of 0.28ºC/decade if attributed to AGW).
……….1997/98 … 2015/16
Dec … +0.59ºC … +1.10ºC
Jan … +0.60ºC … +1.11ºC
Feb … +0.88ºC … +1.33ºC
Mar … +0.61ºC … +1.29ºC
Apr … +0.63ºC … +1.11ºC
May … +0.71ºC
Jun … +0.77ºC
Jul … +0.70ºC
Aug … +0.68ºC
Piotrsays
222 -Steve Fish
“My problem: The slow calcium/carbon cycle is how our excess atmospheric CO2 will be eventually drawn down. ”
But the “eventual drawdown” is by _dissolution_ of CaCO3, not by precipitating CaCO3 and taking it out of circulation (burying it). And even that would take VERY LONG TIME (see below)
And here is biogeochemical why: Formation of 1 mol of CaCO3 decreases amount of C in seawater by 1 mol, but also decreases alkalinity by 2 equivalents, with the latter increasing ocean pCO2 MORE than the decrease by the former -> the net effect of _formation_ of CaCO3 is to _increase_ oceans pCO2 and, thus, reduce its ability to take up atm. CO2. Dissolution of the already precipitated CaCO3 has the opposite effect.
As I have said – the more CaCO3 precipitation – the higher pCO2.
Hence your “eventually drawn down of excess atmospheric CO2″ will happen, but as a result of slow DISSOLUTION of CaCO3 sediments and calcareous body parts, as those of skeletons of the corals.
You also say:
>”The carbon that is removed from the air and ocean and passed through the earth’s mantle and converted to rock is 80% limestone from calcium carbonate compounds made by sea creatures. ”
First, limestone has not “passed through the mantle” – if it did they wouldn’t be limestone (it’s a sedimentary, not igneous, rock) and for the purpose of our discussion has the same relevance as CaCO3 sequestered in reefs and sediments (i.e. precipitated CO2)
– The CACO3 from sediments that happens to be subducted into the mantle – may well undergo some reverse process to those happening on the Earth’s surface, but it would take … 10s or 100s of MILLIONS of years (time scale of the movement from the seafloor from close to the mid-ocean ridge shallow enough for CaCO3 to survive, to the subduction zone, plus then the time needed “underground” for the components of the melted slab to return to the Earth’s surface via volcanism)
In other way – all pain now, salvation – thousands or millions years in the future.
Hmm – you wouldn’t be 2,000 yrs old and have nail marks on your wrists? ;-)
Nemesissays
@Andy, #232
” Anyone noticed what’s happening in the arctic this spring?”
Oh yes, me. Hot topic. 4 weeks ago I predicted a new record summer minimum at fractalplanet. And then we are in for an ice-free arctic ocean quickly.
Any thoughts anyone on further implications, when an ice-free arctic ocean in summer happens?^^… Feedbacks? Tipping points?… just asking :-)
You’ll note that this not from some “denier” site, but the EPA.
Nemesissays
@Victor
” And by the way, I’m willing to admit that the skeptics could be wrong. But if they are, I don’t see any reasonable solution to the problem.”
Uhm, after endless, nasty complaining and blocking of any reasonable solutions by the sceptics over many, many decades, that would be very bad, for the sceptics as well 8-)
Victor,
You said, “These are not small points, but go to the heart of the controversy. And by the way, I’m willing to admit that the skeptics could be wrong. But if they are, I don’t see any reasonable solution to the problem, as imo severe cutbacks in fossil fuel consumption worldwide would be devastating.”
So let me ask you this, if the solution actually benefited the economy and the environment, would you be more willing to accept the problem? Tell the truth. Is it that you are more afraid of the solution than the problem? Given you clearly decided already that any solution MUST be devastating, without even actually investigating the many many possible mitigation strategies, don’t you think you are getting the cart before the horse?
For example: Fossil-fuel consumption subsidies worldwide amounted to $493 billion in 2014, with subsidies to oil products representing over half of the total. Those subsidies were over four-times the value of subsidies to renewable energy. If you simply redirect the subsidies for fossil fuels over to renewables. Doesn’t need to cost one penny more in taxes. There would only be benefits and not necessarily any new “devastating” effects as the world transitioned to renewables.
That’s just one example. There are many things that we can do that actually are even cheaper or more profitable for business than the current AGW causing systems in place. Why would you easily come to the conclusion solutions would be “devastating” with little to no evidence to support your position, yet when it comes to the problem of AGW you seem to think millions of data points of evidence from multiple lines of enquiry can so easily be discarded?
I must say you sound a bit like the child who is afraid of the shot from the doctor, and would rather get deathly ill than risk the needle.
MMMsays
Re: Gavin’s 2016 projected record-setting estimate of >99%: we do have more information than just previous year-to-date and final-temperatures. If we use the subset of years that start in El Nino conditions, then my guess would be that the projected temperatures would be at the low end of the range that using all historical years would imply. I.e., we know that because of El Nino, the year is will likely not end as warm compared to trend as it started.
[Response: That history is already factored in, but even if you only use years that start with an El Niño you get the same projection but with slightly larger error bars because the number of samples is less. – Gavin]
188 MA Rodger inquires of Victor: “Are you really that stupid to suggest such a thing?”
You bet he is! Maybe this could help him out if he applied himself for a few years of intensive study and practice?
http://www.majortests.com/sat/reading-comprehension.php
I think his ebook subtitle said: “A Primer for Critical Thinkers who Cannot Read”
This problem seems to afflict at least 99% of all AGW/CC deniers and media reporters. The Climate Feedback website http://climatefeedback.org/ was a great tip by Anthony Patt in his recent RC article. A pity the Victors of this world won’t ever read what is there.
imo people like Victor, the manipulative Journos and all denier websites need to be called out repeatedly and thoroughly embarrassed until they learn to simply shut up or are banned from the Internet as a public safety requirement.
192 Victor says: “It is simply not accurate to claim that 97% of scientists agree”
Well of course it’s not accurate. Cook’s Paper did not say that either. Read the paper, I did when it was first published. It’s bleeding obvious.
But while you are at it, go read the actual AMS paper and survey that has been misrepresented by the manipulative and/or incompetent Dr. Judith Curry on her blog and at Congress under oath. She cannot read either!
https://judithcurry.com/2013/11/10/the-52-consensus/
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1
Survey conducted under the auspices of AMS Committee to Improve Climate Change Communication (CICCC) — George Mason University: Edward Maibach, Neil Stenhouse, Sara Cobb https://goo.gl/9WvBe4
192 Victor says: “In any case, it seems to me that Fyfe et al., with the participation, amazingly enough, of Michael Mann himself, has reinstated the hiatus in a very dramatic and surprising manner. AND …. “So as I see it, the evidence supporting the skeptical position is stronger than ever.”
Anyone who says or thinks that has either not read the Fyfe et al Paper, and/ or does not comprehend what it says. Which sounds just like a Victor and every other agw/cc denier comment made about it. No point trying to explain it to them either!
re #197
“It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming slowdown or hiatus, characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims.”
From “Making sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown,” (http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n3/full/nclimate2938.html) by
John C. Fyfe, Gerald A. Meehl, Matthew H. England, Michael E. Mann, Benjamin D. Santer, Gregory M. Flato, Ed Hawkins, Nathan P. Gillett, Shang-Ping Xie, Yu Kosaka & Neil C. Swart
In other words, the evidence presented in this paper contradicts the claim made in the article of Mann’s you just cited (dating from last year) that “there never was any “pause” or “hiatus” in global warming.” The newer paper even rejects claims that the pause has been overstated, which is truly surprising, especially in light of the fact that Mann apparently signed off on it. What gives?
196 Edward Greisch says: “Skipping a whole lot of stuff in a comment I almost made, trying to tell people directly about GW isn’t going to work. Arguing isn’t going to work. There are a whole lot of psychological problems in the way. There must be another way to do it.”
I do know. I’m an ‘amateur’ psychologist skilled in personnel and training and multinational corporate management, plus a former advertiser & expert in marketing including as a member of http://www.aim.com.au I already offered up several refs and fields to investigate further. It’s critical to put one’s own biases and beliefs aside first in order to be open-minded enough for new knowledge to flow in. And be willing to invest the time required eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuUnMCq-ARQ
Somewhere in that lecture he states that “conservatives cannot see AGW” – the whole lecture explains why that is so – research metaphors, framing and beliefs would be a start. Learning about the influence of narcissists, sociopaths, and ASPD in the public domain and especially in business can only help. Google scholar also has hundreds of social science papers and research by pro-agw science media academics and psychology field scientists about public communication of AGW/CC and the barriers involved. The “answers” are already out there Edward. Good luck.
196 Edward Greisch says: “Skipping a whole lot of stuff in a comment I almost made, trying to tell people directly about GW isn’t going to work. Arguing isn’t going to work. There are a whole lot of psychological problems in the way. There must be another way to do it.”
I do know. I’m an ‘amateur’ psychologist skilled in personnel and training and multinational corporate management, plus a former advertiser & expert in marketing including as a member of http://www.aim.com.au I already offered up several refs and fields to investigate further. It’s critical to put one’s own biases and beliefs aside first in order to be open-minded enough for new knowledge to flow in. And be willing to invest the time required eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuUnMCq-ARQ
Somewhere in that lecture he states that “conservatives cannot see AGW” – the whole lecture explains why that is so – research metaphors, framing and beliefs would be a start. Learning about the influence of narcissists, sociopaths, and ASPD in the public domain and especially in business and politics can only help aka “Know Thy Enemy” – Google scholar also has hundreds of social science papers and research by pro-agw science media academics and psychology field scientists about public communication of AGW/CC and the barriers involved. The “answers” are already out there Edward. Good luck.
“Fossil Fuels May Not Dwindle Anytime Soon”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fossil-fuels-may-not-dwindle-anytime-soon/
“Based on its latest projections, EIA said global carbon dioxide emissions from energy activities will rise from 36 billion metric tons in 2012, the baseline year used for the 2016 outlook, to 43 billion metric tons in 2040.”
Whilst you are rage against Victor and ruin this awesome blog maybe news such as this an get some airtime:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/may/11/coal-made-its-best-case-against-climate-change-and-lost
Maybe its time to close the open discussion down and just have good more relevant articles.
Mal Adapted @193
IANAP?
Anyway, I suppose I’ve redefined a “psychotic” as someone with an irrational world-view who refuses to accept any evidence that is in conflict with that world-view. The psychologists might not like it, but as far as I’m concerned such reality-deniers are off their trolley.
EG 207, quoting EIA: “Based on its latest projections, EIA said global carbon dioxide emissions from energy activities will rise from 36 billion metric tons in 2012, the baseline year used for the 2016 outlook, to 43 billion metric tons in 2040.”
BPL: Then we’re all dead. Time to give up.
Victor the Troll @204.
You really should stop trolling the abstract of Fyfe et al (2016). If you do feel it is worthy of comment, I would suggest you read the full paper, or in your case perhaps find somebody to explain it to you.
And before you start citing Michael Mann as an author of Fyfe et al (2016), be aware he is one of our hosts here. And be aware also of his reaction to the eye-bulgingly-silly conclusions that some see in Fyfe et al (2016), conclusions pretty-much the same as the stuff you’ve been trolling out here. The Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy and serial-idiot Delingpole prompted our host to have his position published in New Scientist (although this posting of it requires no sign-in). That publication sort of makes a nonsense of your assertion, Victor the Troll @204, that Fyfe et al (2016) “contradicts the claim made in the article of Mann’s you just cited (dating from last year) that “there never was any “pause” or “hiatus” in global warming,” “ but as we all know what a stupid fellow you are, such an outcome is no surprise to us.
Interestingly for others, the defining 15-year rolling trends presented by Fyfe et al (2016) (PDF) in their Fig 2 (showing GISS & HadCRUT data) indicate there is the beginnings of a revival in the level of trend as of the end of 2014. Of course, we are now 15 months further on data-wise and for the record those trends are greatly higher now (GISS +31%, NOAA +40%, HadCRUT 62%) and in each case rapidly regaining the level of the 30-year rolling trend. That suggests to me that Kevin McKinney (quoted @174) was correct to say that he does see the so-called “pause” and that “it’s rapidly receding in my rear view mirror,” this of course the quote that got Victor the Troll up onto his high horse @192 and misrepresenting one of our hosts.
Victor, not on his way to the library, says “What?”
If Victor had a library nearby, Victor could have looked this stuff up.
https://www.google.com/search?q=tamino+slowdown
Goodbye, Victor.
Recommended reading re: EIA projections discussed above:
Renewable Energy Growth Blows EIA Forecasts Out of the Water, Again
By Ben Jervey
March 13, 2016
DeSmogBlog
Daily CO2
May 12, 2016: 408.34 ppm
May 12, 2015: 403.52 ppm
will we hit 410 or 411 this year? I think yes on both, but so what?
In any case, the 4.8 ppm spread is pretty large in what is admittedly, a very noisy number. I expect another month (may) with an increase of over 4 ppm over the past year. That does not seem like a good thing.
Should we be worried yet? Are things going to be bad by 2100 or maybe a little sooner? what if we add in a blue ocean event for 2016? Are we lining up the tipping points like dominos. But, hey, I love dominos.
Per the discussion of what it takes to reach/move/motivate people, I think it is clear from the historical record that fear is a powerful motivator. Too bad that fear clouds thinking and may trigger some counter-productive outcomes.
Another beautiful, warm day in the Pac NW. I think we will go camping on the Salish Sea today to avoid the heat, maybe stick our toes in the water.
Don’t feed the trolls!
Warm regards,
Mike
1712 Victor response to #188 MARodger: Oh dear pot kettle black. Someone can’t tell the difference between AGW and the variability in rainfall or the difference between ‘weather’ variations in the Indian Ocean and planet earth’s rising temperatures. :-0
http://www.mcpheeandrewartha.com.au/humility-is-a-leadership-skill/
BPL at 209: “Then we are dead. Time to give up.”
that is a reasonable projection, but projections are just that. I believe projections are not destiny or fate. All the models are wrong as Gavin has stated.
As it becomes more and more apparent that our situation is dire, our species has the opportunity to make some very fundamental changes in the way we live, the way we share the planet and how we want to proceed into the sixth great extinction.
the great percentage of species that have ever existed are now extinct. I suspect that none of the species simply projected/calculated their demise and gave up. A lot of individuals almost certainly tried to adapt, struggled to avoid extinction, struggled to survive and reproduce. That is our biological heritage. Extinction or no, I think our species is in the unusual and perhaps unique position of seeing extinction on the horizon. We can see it coming. I believe we understand extinction events in a way that is new on the planet. That’s an interesting and challenging situation to be in. I think we can change and not meet various projections, such as the one that EIA has provided, but I don’t know if we will change or if we will change fast enough. As long as we keep talking about how bad it might be in 2100, our species will not act to change. Homo sapiens know enough to run and hide from a tornado or a tsunami, but we are poorly evolved and equipped to address global warming.
All of that assumes you believe in theory of evolution, which I think everyone here but Victor probably accepts. We can laugh at the trolls, but we should engage them.
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.” – George Bernard Shaw Nuff said?
Hey, Hank, I loved the pony reference. There has to be a pony in this AGW mess somewhere, right?
Cheers
Mike
#192, Victor–The ‘recession’ of the hiatus I referred to–and yes, that was my phrase–has nothing to do with Karl et al. It has everything to do with the fact that over the last 2-plus years, natural variability stopped interfering destructively with the anthropogenic warming trend, and started reinforcing it. The result has been 2 record-warm years, with a possible third in the offing (though it remains to be seen how temps will play out as ENSO transitions out of the El Nino phase once again.)
That’s what happens with variability.
Killian, whatever the heck number that was:
“I declare Victor the One Ring that Binds Them, Master of the Dark Propagandist Arts… and all y’all his playthings.”
Well, I at least find some amusement in the proceedings, so I think it’s open to question just who is playing whom.
@Digby Scorgie:
“IANAP”: I Am Not A Psychiatrist. And on second thought, if “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results”, then it’s the commenters who keep responding to Victor that are insane.
#196 Edward Greisch / #190 Zebra
Skip to the last couple paragraphs if you want a more direct answer to your question.
I’m getting paid to collect signatures for a petition to get an initiative to ban fracking on Michigan’s ballot this November. When people disagree with me they generally say they don’t agree with me and keep walking. I’ll tell them I can give them more information on it, they tell me already know all about it. I tell them I’m sure they don’t know everything, but apparently they do. (I know they haven’t read scientific studies or the actual law exempting it from the Clean Water Act, nobody ever goes that deep. I wrote up my own information sheet that had links to studies in peer reviewed journals showing it’s effects on groundwater and the exact language in the Clean Water Act and where to find it, they wouldn’t even look at it.)
When they do stop to talk to me I’ll tell them that oil, gas, and coal have permanent tax breaks written into law while alternative energy has nothing of the sort and it’s against free market ideology. I told one guy it was because of Republicans, he told me that I thought it was all about politics then, which isn’t true at all. I told another guy alternative energy would undercut fossil fuels if they were give these tax breaks, that guy said he didn’t believe me. Would he take some info on it, no he already knows all about it. People walk by me all the time, they say they don’t know enough about it, I offer to give them some more information, give them a pamphlet. No. It is nothing but the fact that people don’t care about learning. They literally do not care about learning or looking at another point of view.
Here’s the real kicker. I think Republicans knew they were postponing action on climate change so the fossil fuel industry when we were about to ratify Kyoto in the 2000-2001. They thought it was so far in the future though that we have time. Now, they are out of office and the Tea Party is in. The Tea Party Republicans know nothing of these deals. They think the Republicans positions are real and that Democrats and climate scientists are literally trying to push us into a planned economy. I think this is making it so that we will have literally no chance to change course in the near future, maybe the next decade.
I would say definitely the next decade because it looks like Hillary Clinton will be the next Democratic nominee and a recent poll that came out had her losing to Trump by multiple points in Ohio and winning by only one point in Florida and Pennsylvania respectively. She has no chance without Ohio. That probably means a Republican Presidency, both houses of Congress, and a Supreme Court for decades.
Here is what hope I do have. I’ve read some studies, the first might just be an observation by Katherine Hayhoe, in the past few weeks on changing peoples minds on climate change. The first and most important one says that people who disagree that climate change is man made or real will change their mind when you relate to them on a personal level. I have no idea how I’m supposed to do that with people just randomly walking by me. I know one woman who collects for us tells them she is a Republican and I’m sure she can relate to people that way. That might work, I’m pretty liberal so I don’t know what to do. I don’t think I can even do it with my family. The other one looked at some random people, who were Audubon members, I think. They had them write some short essays on random things or the dangers of climate change on a personal or the dangers of climate change from a societal/humanitarian level. The people who wrote on about the societal level said they would give more money to the cause of preventing climate change. That was persistent after for a while after the study had been done. That might not apply to deniers because I imagine deniers aren’t as likely to be Audubon members. That’s that though.
To Zebra’s point, I definitely think you have to use more immediate impacts when talking about climate change as a danger. Wildfires, droughts, famines. Those are more immediate and those will happen very soon. Look at California, they are in the midst of a bad drought and are losing water faster than they are replacing it. The land is sinking they are losing so much from their aquifer in central California. Their agriculture is very water intensive because they grow things that were not meant for their climate. Their landscaping is the same way. Agriculture is an enormous part of California’s economy and California is an enormous part of the US economy, in fact if California were a country it would be the fifth largest economy in the world. Finally, if California were to experience the kind of drought where it pumps its aquifers near dry you would see a ton of climate refugees. This is not to mention the droughts we will see in the South and Mexico within a few decades. It’s not pretty.
What convinced me the most that climate change was real was, I’ve watched the world news since I was five so about 24 years, every year the amount of wildfires there have been out west have hit a record high. Every single year. If that doesn’t mean the climate is shifting I don’t know what does. The budget to fight fires has gone up every year and the budget to prevent fires goes down because fighting fires cuts into it. The greenhouse effect makes sense to me. Inside Climate/LA Times and another study from somewhere else just ran some pieces on how climate models were originally funded by oil companies, specifically Exxon, to see how carbon release would effect the climate. Then when the results came out indicating global warming in a couple years they started denying climate change. If climate scientists were only doing this to make more money why would they have bitten the hand that feeds them. It makes no sense. And now Attorney Generals from multiple states are suing fossil fuel companies under RICO laws. It’s beautiful.
#209 BPL / #216 mike
I don’t think we are dead. I think we can save ourselves no matter what happens, it would just take some extreme focus and action. Specifically, finding a way to absorb CO2 and CH4 from the atmosphere and sequester it. There is a guy named Klaus Lackner at Columbia, now Arizona State. He created these CO2 trees that absorbed CO2 from the atmosphere, then he thought you could sequester it underground. Now I don’t think sequestering underground is the best idea because it can always escape. He has another way to sequester it though, make it into plastic. Now he thinks it’s to expensive to do, but at some point that will come money is not going to be an object and we’re going to willing to spend a hell of a lot of it, maybe even forget it exists. If we need to collect it from the upper atmosphere put a whole lot of engineering into a low/zero emission plane that can be mass produced. Maybe you can use fuel cells. I don’t know but I’m sure we could engineer a way out of it. If taliks form and we can’t find a way to absorb methane from the atmosphere dredge the permafrost and absorb the CO2. Do something, civilization is important, money is not an object at that point, I mean it’s a social construction, it serves us.
Comment by Piotr — 10 May 2016 @ 10:27 PM, ~#153
“Hope it clarifies things a bit.” I am sorry to say that I am not clarified and am now, at best, only partly translucent. How about a link to an explanation for the general public and one or two scientific articles that cover this topic?
My problem: The slow calcium/carbon cycle is how our excess atmospheric CO2 will be eventually drawn down. The carbon that is removed from the air and ocean and passed through the earth’s mantle and converted to rock is 80% limestone from calcium carbonate compounds made by sea creatures. The rest is organic carbon that makes, for example, shale, and a small amount of fossil carbon (e.g. coal, oil, gas). See- http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/page2.php for example. This process makes it hard for me to see how corals, and other calcium carbonate creating organisms actually cause an increase in atmospheric or dissolved CO2.
Steve
#216 mike
One more thing, humans always discount the future. That’s probably why we are so bad at saving for retirement. There was a study that looked how future oriented various peoples were, or maybe just Germans and Americans. Germans have a more future oriented language than English and the plan for the future to a greater extent. So, maybe that will help some way.
216 mike says: “..our species has the opportunity to make some very fundamental changes in the way we live, the way we share the planet and how we want to proceed into the sixth great extinction.”
Hear hear! It is a huge opportunity. How many will rise to the occasion is as yet unknown. But it’s looking better than a decade ago today. Typically with all the noise going on (especially media wise and ongoing spot wars) it is hard to tell the forest from the trees.
213 SecularAnimist says: EIA projections
The IEA energy stats for 2015 seems based on 2013/2014 data. Still it is a worthy comparison to consider against what the EIA may say from time to time.
https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld_Statistics_2015.pdf
Do note page 6 graphs World¹ total primary energy supply (TPES) from 1971 to 2013
by fuel (Mtoe) for geothermal, solar, wind, heat, etc is 1.2% and it’s not changed significantly since then.
And pg 11 crude oil use for United States production 509 Mt and imports 391 Mt ~900Mt or 21.5% of the world’s total and still rising (on my rough calcs).
Pg 13 natural gas use for United States production 730 bcm and imports 33 bcm ~763bcm or 21.65% of world total and still rising.
Coal is about 11% of the world total consumption. US population is 4.7% of the world.
But good job with increasing renewables use in electricity output up to ~13.5% of US total electricity production. No point getting carried away or overly excited though, for that would be like peeing in the ocean and expecting sea levels to rise. :-)
It is better than the opposite direction of course but worth keeping it in perspective, because EIA errors are not that big a deal. Bringing global GHG emissions down to a net zero is and of course everyone would agree on that.
Mike @ 216: “All of that assumes you believe in theory of evolution, which I think everyone here but Victor probably accepts.”
Which theory of evolution are you referring to, Mike? And no, I don’t “believe” in evolution any more than I “believe” in any other scientific theory. For my thoughts on this topic, see
http://music000001.blogspot.com/2010/07/317-some-thoughts-on-evolution-natural.html
I’m probably a bit late to the discussion here, but i’m just wondering – Victor, I see that you are walking a fine line between troll and devil’s advocate, and I have to ask you; do you deny altogether that climate change is taking place? Or do you just hold that it might not be happening in the way that climate scientists predict? If your answer is the latter, why contest the smaller points rather than working to contribute to the body of work to find an answer that you are satisfied with? It seems to me that it would be far more effective to come up with an original body of work with a new take on things than to just disagree with what is already out there.
Regards,
Cody
OK so while everyone comes at the issues surrounding AGW/CC Science from different interests and perspectives the consensus of most posters here seems to be one of a building frustration of being unable to make much progress. The personal frustrations that arise from ‘deniers’ such as Victor is, imo, merely an effect of deeper underlying personal feelings of frustration – collectively not being able to reach the goals that have been articulated by the scientific research going back decades.
Would that be a fair generalized state of play – not only on this site but across all similar sites as RC? OK, well maybe it might help to put all that aside for a few minutes and to allow yourself to be taken on a short journey of the mind:
Prof George Lakoff on how he started his work on conceptual metaphor, particularly the ‘LOVE IS A JOURNEY’ metaphor. https://youtu.be/Eu-9rpJITY8 (only 8 mins)
Your ‘homework’ is to take the gist of what that video spoke about and then apply it to your personal situation regarding AGW/CC and why you are here in the first place. To also think about the barriers to communicating the implications of climate science to people who do not want to hear it. Why is it more critical now that real fundamental and widespread changes begin now and not in 2030?
Your homework is to think about the possible blockages that are in fact caused by other people’s entrenched ‘mindsets’ – their own conceptual metaphorical ways of thinking about Life and climate science and their reactions to AGW/CC. To think about how it is that Politicians all over this world seem to be doing and saying the same things despite coming from totally different cultures and systemic beliefs. They too have ‘mindsets’ and can only think in conceptual metaphors too (if Lakoff is correct) so what could those be?
In another comment I used the phrase “know thy enemy” – but I was not speaking about ‘people’, groups or classes of people. For example AGW/CC Deniers are not enemies they are simply people, they are not the enemy. The real ‘enemy’ is ‘mindsets’ aka internalized belief systems that people cling to – their conceptual metaphors.
The most critical mindset to deal with first is your own. Until one is fully aware of their own particular ‘mindset’ then you do not have a chance in hell of successfully engaging another person or group of people to listen to your pov until you first understand where they are coming from and how they see and think about things.
Good Luck – there will be a test. ;-)
Like most online forums there seems to be a predominance of Americans on RC. Issues about the US often tend to be raised. So as an ‘unbiased’ non-American I figure it’s fair to raise the fact that politics does play a significant if not overwhelming role regarding the acceptance or rejection of the AGW/CC science and it’s implications over the long haul. It is an election year yes? In that light (and as a one off thought experiment) I believe that it’s time the US had a woman as President. No no no, not that woman, this woman: https://youtu.be/obQ51NP4DZc
Maybe tally up a list of the items you can agree with against those you reject. Which column is larger? I repeat this is simply a ‘thought experiment’ so no further discussion or comment is required – it’s your business only. Do think about it though as much as you wish. :-)
Re: 218 Kevin, Ummmmm….. nope. Repetition favors the troll 100% of the time.
Last one: How to gain access to transform structures so that they are Life affirming and not destructive.
Nonviolent Communication and Corporations (Govts & Gangs) with Dr. Marshall Rosenberg (Psychologist) in 2006
https://youtu.be/YvFeY5GXtQo?t=4m35s (listen for 3 minutes and continue if it makes sense)
Refs:
Speak Peace in a World of Conflict: What You Say Next Will Change Your World By Marshall B. Rosenberg
Life-enriching Education: Nonviolent Communication Helps Schools Improve …By Marshall B. Rosenberg
The Basics of Nonviolent Communication (NVC)
Most of us have been educated from birth to compete, judge, demand and diagnose — to think and communicate in terms of what is “right“ and “wrong“ with people.
We express our feelings in terms of what another person has “done to us.” We struggle to understand what we want or need in the moment, and how to effectively ask for what we want without using unhealthy demands, threats or coercion. As founder of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D. says,
“What others do may be a stimulus of our feelings, but not the cause.”
At best, thinking and communicating this way can create misunderstanding and frustration, or simply keep us from getting what we want. It can also keep us from the fulfilling relationships we deserve. And still worse, it can lead to anger, depression and even emotional or physical violence.
Since developing the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) process in the 1960’s, Marshall Rosenberg’s vision has been to teach people of any age, gender, ethnicity or background a much more effective alternative.
http://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/aboutnvc/aboutnvc.htm
Anyone noticed what’s happening in the arctic this spring? Surely this should be more of a focus than arguing with a tin of hot air.
from Robert Scribbler: “An event many scientists thought wouldn’t be possible until the 2070s or 2080s as little as ten years ago. A Blue Ocean Event that is now a very real risk for 2016.”
Peter Wadhams looking like the winner on the blue ocean sweepstakes.
Daily CO2
May 13, 2016: 407.80 ppm
May 13, 2015: 403.80 ppm
we are bumping along at about 4 ppm over last year. I think El Nino is down around neutral. We are posting up some big numbers. Where is the CO2 coming from? Will we see a spike in methane ppb this year? Not as easy to track as CO2. I love the co2.earth website. Have been asking them to expand to ch4.earth. CO2 is the big dog, but CH4 is like a mean little sister. I guess the good news is that CH4 breaks down to CO2 after about a decade. We can all make it through a hot decade or two, can’t we?
Every point up on either increases global warmth. Every point up on either increases ocean acidification. It’s all about these numbers folks.
Victor – earth, flat or round? You make me laugh, guy. Don’t argue with the trolls, just giggle at their foolishness.
Cheers
Mike
#227 Thanks, Cody, for the civil response. Your question is meaningful so I’ll try to answer as best I can.
“I’m probably a bit late to the discussion here, but i’m just wondering – Victor, I see that you are walking a fine line between troll and devil’s advocate,”
I prefer “gadfly.” But “skeptic” fills the bill nicely, imo.
“and I have to ask you; do you deny altogether that climate change is taking place? Or do you just hold that it might not be happening in the way that climate scientists predict?”
What we see time and again from typical “denialists,” “skeptics” what have you, is the phrase “the climate is always changing.” That, of course, is simply a truism, so I won’t repeat it here. What I’ll say instead is that, in the words of the old song, “the temperature’s rising.” It’s apparently somewhere around 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it was in the 1880’s. Does that mean “we’re havin’ a heat wave”? Well, certainly not “a tropical heat wave,” no. In fact such an increase, given all the many difficulties and uncertainties involved in taking the temperature of the whole earth, seems hardly worth noticing. But, for the sake of argument, I’m willing to take the word of climate scientists that things could get a lot worse if the temperature gets significantly higher. There’s certainly been a lot of research in that area and I’m not qualified to contest it.
“If your answer is the latter, why contest the smaller points rather than working to contribute to the body of work to find an answer that you are satisfied with? It seems to me that it would be far more effective to come up with an original body of work with a new take on things than to just disagree with what is already out there.”
It’s not so much that I disagree. It’s that I don’t see the evidence linking the relatively small amount of warming we’ve seen so far with either CO2 emissions or disastrous consequences. And there’s nothing original about my take on this, nor do I have any ambition to come up with anything original. A great many very competent scientists and critical thinkers have taken more or less the same position.
What would satisfy me, and no doubt many others, would be clear evidence that 1. CO2 emissions contribute in a significant way to increased global temperatures; and 2. that increased temperatures of only 1, 2 or 3 degrees Fahrenheit have the power to produce a significantly higher rate of extreme weather events. Finding reasons for the lack of a consistent correlation between temperature and CO2 is not the same as producing a correlation. But if the same set of reasons (forcings, factors, what have you) were to be applied across the board, to all periods in question, that would go a long way toward making the “warmist” position more convincing.
As far as extreme weather events are concerned, much of the research on the history of such events seems to have been biased by differences in the degree to which such events have been reported over widely different time periods. Once the bias, produced by greater diligence in recent years, is removed, then, as more recent studies have shown, the incidence of almost all such events does not seem any greater in recent years than it ever was.
These are not small points, but go to the heart of the controversy. And by the way, I’m willing to admit that the skeptics could be wrong. But if they are, I don’t see any reasonable solution to the problem, as imo severe cutbacks in fossil fuel consumption worldwide would be devastating.
Andrew Spiteri:
Well, I’ve saved enough for a comfortable retirement, and I probably won’t live to see the worst impacts of AGW. If I were thirty years younger, though, I might ask myself “why bother saving for retirement when AGW will cause civilization to collapse, and take my savings down with it?”
234 Victor the Non-Thinker says: “And by the way, I’m willing to admit that the skeptics could be wrong. But if they are, I don’t see any reasonable solution to the problem, as imo severe cutbacks in fossil fuel consumption worldwide would be devastating.”
Devastating to who Victor, devastating to who? There is the “mindset” in clear view.
What non-thinkers are unable to do is prove they are right, while pretending the issue might be they could be wrong but no one error by scientists or GCMs is acceptable.
Well Victor you can own your opinion but you do not own the atmosphere! 7,000,000,000 other human beings own it on a strata-title plan – you do not. Your unthinking delusional opinion does not count anywhere but inside your own home and in the voting booths.
So Victor’s call to arms is to turn the taps on for fossil fuels now and into the future. Burn it all because like the neanderthal like anti-science religious fanatic ex-PM of Australia Tony Abbott asserted “Coal is Good for Humanity.” That’s the ‘mindset’ that is the enemy of humanity. Foolishness writ large.
Victor of course cannot count and is stuck in the past by trotting out foolish fallacies such as “increased temperatures of only 1, 2 or 3 degrees Fahrenheit” means something meaningful when it does not.
Victor refuses to add up the physics based maths of increasing CO2 PPM (and CO2e like SO2/NOx etc) from 408 today to 500 in two decades. Of CO2 at 600 PPM a decade later in 2045. Of 750 PPM in 2075 when hitting higher growth rates if his “opinion” gets it’s way …. so Victor wants to remain stuck in the past that the issue is “of only 1, 2 or 3 degrees Fahrenheit” and ignore a century of science especially the paleoclimate scientists knowledge of what a planet with 750ppm or 1000ppm of CO2 looks like. Far beyond devastating!
Oh yes indeed Victor and other sociopaths who hold to such a fixated irrational mindset well-mixed with their over-inflated opinion of self-importance are fools and are not even as smart as yeast, as this video will quickly explain: Are Humans smarter than Yeast? Expotential Growth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjnXRw7limI
220 Andrew Spiteri an excellent comment well done. Keep at it for you are asking the right questions when focusing on the issue like “The first and most important one says that people who disagree that climate change is man made or real will change their mind when you relate to them on a personal level. I have no idea how I’m supposed to do that with people just randomly walking by me.” So do continue researching the Papers, articles and ideas on this by communication, media/advertising and sociology/psychology experts on such matters.
A few tips: Comedy can say things you cannot get away with – share this far and wide AUSTRALIANS FOR COAL https://youtu.be/tqXzAUaTUSc
Pay more attention to those who already accept the science/facts and focus on encouraging them to action such as writing phoning their local politicians no matter what ‘party’ they are in and anything else they could do to spread the ‘word’ about why this matters to everyone. share this far and wide https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLdUqbVD9bioQGgFh5kEucw
On the street etc unless doing a survey try not to ask questions that will only get a Yes or No answer. You have to ask questions that get either a YES response or forces the person to ask you a question asking for more info in reply.
eg “Would you like to see the US Govt stop giving away our Taxes as business welfare subsidies to already highly profitable multinational Corporations operating in the US?”
Have a little flyer ready to give them which details obvious examples of this occurring with figures that can be verified. Include in that urls to bonafide Govt GAO sites and not blogs, the media, or political orientated websites eg Greenpeace etc.
Find 3 good quick questions where a Yes reply will be most likely across the board, and then ask: “Would you mind if I gave this little info pack so you can look into these things in your own time?” They will answer NO but really it is a YES to taking the info pack. :-)
Be topical regarding current news about AGW/CC – seems like you do that already. This may help a lot http://climatefeedback.org and http://climatechangenationalforum.org/ to have ready responses to media disinformation. This will help too re the implications of the COP21 treaty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVJ8lMIm9-c
re: “initiative to ban fracking” this will help by an independent senator http://senatorlazarus.com/senator-lazarus-tables-landmark-unconventional-gas-mining-interim-report-in-the-senate/
Toughest Regs on earth atm (fracking csg has been Banned in agricultural and aquifer regions) http://www.resourcesandenergy.nsw.gov.au/landholders-and-community/coal-seam-gas/codes-and-policies
The flip side by the same State Govt http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/mining-protesters-face-seven-years-jail-under-baird-government-csg-plans-20160310-gnfdi8.html
Search internationally for like-minded activists and already available resources info you can use http://www.green-grahamstown.org DO NOT reinvent the wheel! :-)
2013 AR5 ipcc report explainer by Prof Hans Rosling – 200 years of global change for everyday people AGW/CC, Population and Energy Use in a nutshell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grZSxoLPqXI&feature=youtu.be
also a fact based worldview http://www.gapminder.org/
Rather than “flyers” or info sheets consider distributing USB sticks with the most potent videos preloaded along with a more extensive series of Info Sheets and a list of things people can do to help in their spare time – eg pro-forma emails to politicians. Good luck!
219 Mal Adapted says: “if insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results”, then it’s the commenters who keep responding to Victor that are insane.”
I am all but certain you do not know what commenters are “expecting” Mal Adapted. The mods let some of his comments through. What do you think they are “expecting” or hoping for by doing that MA?
I have not done a scientific nor a statistical study by I “expect” that the numbers of silent readers here number at least 1000 times more than the number of posters on RC over time. Maybe some of those will find responses to Victor of some use to them or elsewhere. I do not know for sure but it seems a reasonable “expectation” at the very least. :-)
Straw Poll
“Do you expect Victor to change his Opinions and Beliefs as a result of you responding to one of his comments on RealClimate?”
Vote here: http://goo.gl/UGo90i
Thomas @228
Regarding communication and climate change, I see four types of mindset:
(1) scientific
(2) psychopath
(3) sucker
(4) psychotic
The scientific mindset accepts the reality of climate change. The psychopaths are those like the Exxon executives who acted in the 1980s to protect their installations against the effects of global warming — as predicted by their own scientists — and to take advantage of such things as the forecast warming of the Arctic, but who initiated at the same time the campaign of disinformation on climate change. The suckers are the victims of this disinformation campaign. The psychotics are the fanatics whose twisted view of the world has no place for a phenomenon — climate change — that threatens their world-view.
I conclude that it is the suckers that need to be apprised of their suckerdom. Science-minded people are already convinced. The psychopaths are obviously beyond the pale, and the psychotics will never be persuaded of any reality they don’t like — don’t try to reason with fanatics, whatever you do.
So the problem reduces to enlightening the suckers. Well, in my view one just needs to explain how they’ve fallen victim to the disinformation campaign of the fossil-fuel psychopaths. The identical disinformation campaign against smoking and cancer is a handy comparison.
April 111
There’s been some conversation upthread around electric demand reduction as a grid management tool (or maybe one should say ‘capacity management too on the grid.’)
However, that conversation did not reflect the fact that this option is already in significant use today. Came across this item this morning; it seems that PJM, the grid operator servicing a big chunk of the eastern US from the mid-Atlantic to as far west as Illinois, has 11 GW of demand reduction committed for 2016-2017. They estimate annual savings of $275 million as a result.
Here’s how it works:
https://www.pjm.com/~/media/about-pjm/newsroom/fact-sheets/demand-response-fact-sheet.ashx
Victor, #234–
Once again, “I don’t see” is the operative portion of this statement. There are numerous roadmaps to ‘severe cutbacks’ without ‘severe consequences’ to health, wealth, and well-being.
Global overview:
https://100.org/wp-addons/maps
(Before Ed jumps on his nuclear high horse, let me quickly add that although that particular proposal set, as for many others, is for 100% renewable energy, one can also use some proportion of nuclear energy in the mix where political will to do so exists–and that does make the grid engineering easier. The point is, there are credible plans for kicking fossil fuel.)
Indeed, some plans for going completely fossil-free are in the process of implementation now. Stockholm, for instance:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/34920519/Roadmap%20for%20a%20fossil%20fuel-free%20Stockholm%202050.pdf
Or, for a national-level plan, Denmark:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/briefings/climate/2014/BRIEFING-Denmarks-commitment-to-100pct-renewable-energy.pdf
Shouldn’t forget Costa Rica, which has essentially completed the decarbonization of its electric generation capacity mix:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/costa-ricas-fossil-fuel-free-electricity-use-wins-praise-from-leading-experts-a6873556.html
Uruguay has done almost as well:
http://usuncut.com/climate/uruguay/
Moreover, there are some analyses that find that global-scale mitigation is not only possible, but will be a net economic gain (as has been the case in Uruguay):
http://climateobserver.org/reports/energy-darwinism-citi-report/
One may or may not accept all this good news at face value; there are always caveats to be made. But I think this does show that there is ample evidence that we don’t need magic new tech to make big progress on carbon mitigation.
NASA GISS has posted for April with the global anomaly +1.11ºC which is equal 3rd highest anomaly on record and thus a drop on February/March but equal to January. The El Nino of 1998 showed a similar (but single month) peak temperature in the early part of 1998 but then a slow rise for the following months to a second lower peak in June 1998. Comparing recent months with 1997/98, the temperature rise since 1997/98 is pretty-much 0.5ºC (which would yield a warming rate of 0.28ºC/decade if attributed to AGW).
……….1997/98 … 2015/16
Dec … +0.59ºC … +1.10ºC
Jan … +0.60ºC … +1.11ºC
Feb … +0.88ºC … +1.33ºC
Mar … +0.61ºC … +1.29ºC
Apr … +0.63ºC … +1.11ºC
May … +0.71ºC
Jun … +0.77ºC
Jul … +0.70ºC
Aug … +0.68ºC
222 -Steve Fish
“My problem: The slow calcium/carbon cycle is how our excess atmospheric CO2 will be eventually drawn down. ”
But the “eventual drawdown” is by _dissolution_ of CaCO3, not by precipitating CaCO3 and taking it out of circulation (burying it). And even that would take VERY LONG TIME (see below)
And here is biogeochemical why: Formation of 1 mol of CaCO3 decreases amount of C in seawater by 1 mol, but also decreases alkalinity by 2 equivalents, with the latter increasing ocean pCO2 MORE than the decrease by the former -> the net effect of _formation_ of CaCO3 is to _increase_ oceans pCO2 and, thus, reduce its ability to take up atm. CO2. Dissolution of the already precipitated CaCO3 has the opposite effect.
see for instance Fig.1 in http://www.phys.ocean.dal.ca/~helmuth/papers/geilfus_et_al_2012.pdf
As I have said – the more CaCO3 precipitation – the higher pCO2.
Hence your “eventually drawn down of excess atmospheric CO2″ will happen, but as a result of slow DISSOLUTION of CaCO3 sediments and calcareous body parts, as those of skeletons of the corals.
You also say:
>”The carbon that is removed from the air and ocean and passed through the earth’s mantle and converted to rock is 80% limestone from calcium carbonate compounds made by sea creatures. ”
First, limestone has not “passed through the mantle” – if it did they wouldn’t be limestone (it’s a sedimentary, not igneous, rock) and for the purpose of our discussion has the same relevance as CaCO3 sequestered in reefs and sediments (i.e. precipitated CO2)
– The CACO3 from sediments that happens to be subducted into the mantle – may well undergo some reverse process to those happening on the Earth’s surface, but it would take … 10s or 100s of MILLIONS of years (time scale of the movement from the seafloor from close to the mid-ocean ridge shallow enough for CaCO3 to survive, to the subduction zone, plus then the time needed “underground” for the components of the melted slab to return to the Earth’s surface via volcanism)
In other way – all pain now, salvation – thousands or millions years in the future.
Hmm – you wouldn’t be 2,000 yrs old and have nail marks on your wrists? ;-)
@Andy, #232
” Anyone noticed what’s happening in the arctic this spring?”
Oh yes, me. Hot topic. 4 weeks ago I predicted a new record summer minimum at fractalplanet. And then we are in for an ice-free arctic ocean quickly.
Any thoughts anyone on further implications, when an ice-free arctic ocean in summer happens?^^… Feedbacks? Tipping points?… just asking :-)
Just a quick followup to my post at 234. Here’s a graph representing US heat waves from 1895 through 2014: https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/indicator_figures/high-low-temps-figure1-2015.png
You’ll note that this not from some “denier” site, but the EPA.
@Victor
” And by the way, I’m willing to admit that the skeptics could be wrong. But if they are, I don’t see any reasonable solution to the problem.”
Uhm, after endless, nasty complaining and blocking of any reasonable solutions by the sceptics over many, many decades, that would be very bad, for the sceptics as well 8-)
Make a comment on a proposed bulk coal terminal in Cowlitz County in the state of Washington at
https://public.commentworks.com/cwx/mbtldeiscommentform/
Story at http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/article77806392.html
Victor,
You said, “These are not small points, but go to the heart of the controversy. And by the way, I’m willing to admit that the skeptics could be wrong. But if they are, I don’t see any reasonable solution to the problem, as imo severe cutbacks in fossil fuel consumption worldwide would be devastating.”
So let me ask you this, if the solution actually benefited the economy and the environment, would you be more willing to accept the problem? Tell the truth. Is it that you are more afraid of the solution than the problem? Given you clearly decided already that any solution MUST be devastating, without even actually investigating the many many possible mitigation strategies, don’t you think you are getting the cart before the horse?
For example: Fossil-fuel consumption subsidies worldwide amounted to $493 billion in 2014, with subsidies to oil products representing over half of the total. Those subsidies were over four-times the value of subsidies to renewable energy. If you simply redirect the subsidies for fossil fuels over to renewables. Doesn’t need to cost one penny more in taxes. There would only be benefits and not necessarily any new “devastating” effects as the world transitioned to renewables.
That’s just one example. There are many things that we can do that actually are even cheaper or more profitable for business than the current AGW causing systems in place. Why would you easily come to the conclusion solutions would be “devastating” with little to no evidence to support your position, yet when it comes to the problem of AGW you seem to think millions of data points of evidence from multiple lines of enquiry can so easily be discarded?
I must say you sound a bit like the child who is afraid of the shot from the doctor, and would rather get deathly ill than risk the needle.
Re: Gavin’s 2016 projected record-setting estimate of >99%: we do have more information than just previous year-to-date and final-temperatures. If we use the subset of years that start in El Nino conditions, then my guess would be that the projected temperatures would be at the low end of the range that using all historical years would imply. I.e., we know that because of El Nino, the year is will likely not end as warm compared to trend as it started.
[Response: That history is already factored in, but even if you only use years that start with an El Niño you get the same projection but with slightly larger error bars because the number of samples is less. – Gavin]