Sorry for the low rate of posts this summer. Lots of offline life going on. ;-)
Meantime, this paper by Hourdin et al on climate model tuning is very interesting and harks back to the FAQ we did on climate models a few years ago (Part I, Part II). Maybe it’s worth doing an update?
Some of you might also have seen some of the discussion of record temperatures in the first half of 2016. The model-observation comparison including the estimates for 2016 are below:
It seems like the hiatus hiatus will continue…
Secular Animist quotes “A new study of European countries, published in the journal Climate Policy, shows that the most progress towards reducing carbon emissions and increasing renewable energy sources – as set out in the EU’s 2020 Strategy – has been made by nations without n…”
AJ: Yes, when the science is irrefutable, that your team is being trounced, then define all of the other side’s achievements as negatives and your team’s scores as positive. You’ll win every time.
But if you happen to like science, then (for a rough estimate) you just have to look up carbon emissions per capita. Our two “poster countries” are (2011 Wiki figures):
Germany, at 8.9 tonnes per capita per anum and 32.04 cents per KWH
and France, at 5.2 tonnes per capita per anum and 19.39 cents per KWH
No contest, eh?
a 334: Hillary is a warmonger
BPL: Good, since we’re at war. Apparently you haven’t noticed. Perhaps if you lived in New York, or San Bernardino, you would have noticed. Or if you lived in Arizona, where the Russians just tried (again) to rig a US election. Or in Korea or Japan, where China keeps trying to claim international waters.
a: the military-industrial complex is one of the very worst polluters, FF-guzzlers and CO2-generators.
BPL: About 1.5% of our energy use, yes. Too bad about that.
a: That is apart from the very serious risk of confrontation with Russia
BPL: No way out of that, since they are vigorously causing trouble for us.
a: eventuating in global nuclear war
BPL: Non sequitur. Confrontation doesn’t have to be direct military confrontation. I would like to see us crack down on the fascist Russian regime, but it doesn’t have to involve lobbing nukes. We can cut off trade, cease allowing Russian tourists, throw out their embassies and consulates, etc.
a: Stein wants to dismantle — incrementally, of course, as needs must be — the MIC
BPL: Great! We can just let other powers walk all over us. See, that kind of unrealistic thinking is one more reason I can’t support Stein.
a: Hillary will support and expand it.
BPL: Good! We haven’t got enough air force to deal with all the problems we’ve got overseas. I’d like to see us cut the number of big expensive projects and build more of the small, cheap, deadly weaponry, and Hillary is astute enough to do that. Stein would indiscriminately gut the military because of her knee-jerk anti-defense attitude.
a: Stein’s “Green New Deal” is a fantastic idea and indeed the only proposal that even begins to seriously address climate change at the necessary fundamental level, in context with concurrent serious economic issues. Hillary does not even come close.
BPL: She doesn’t have to, although her proposal to put in half a billion solar panels her first term will help. The costs of wind and solar are falling off a cliff. All she has to do is not prop up the fossil fuel industry, and it will go out of business by itself. That’s good enough for me.
alan2012, #334
TY for your support and for these great words:
“Stein’s “Green New Deal” is a fantastic idea and indeed the only proposal that even begins to seriously address climate change at the necessary fundamental level, in context with concurrent serious economic issues. Hillary does not even come close. No other candidate comes close. Stein is the candidate, the ONLY candidate, of sanity and, quite possibly, survival.”
Well said, and again raises the question of why US climate scientists are not unanimously supporting Jill Stein in the current 2016 election cycle.
Lack of survival instinct? Or a conscious decision to avoid sticking their necks out? In any case, their silence is deafening, and their detachment from the plight of the 99% will come back to haunt them.
Jill Stein: “I will have trouble sleeping at night if Donald Trump is elected. I will also have trouble sleeping at night if Hillary Clinton is elected. And as despicable as Donald Trump’s words are, I find Hillary Clinton’s actions and track record is very troubling.”
@mike 339,
Gavin sounds a little too excited with this quote: “Maintaining temperatures below the 1.5C guardrail requires significant and very rapid cuts in carbon dioxide emissions or co-ordinated geo-engineering. That is very unlikely. We are not even yet making emissions cuts commensurate with keeping warming below 2C.”
If by Geo-engineering he means Biological carbon capture and storage (Bio CCS) as a way to store carbon in soil, I would say that he is spot on. This needs to be done rapidly so as not to lose the window of opportunity in which it can be effective. In as little as 30 years this opportunity may be lost. Radically cutting emissions may extend that window a little bit, but ultimately it can’t last forever, and the delay between starting the plan, and full implementation is such that 30 years may seem a long time, but actually is razor thin. So yeah, it is very important it starts right away.
Regarding this: “China aims for an 18 percent cut in carbon intensity in five years from 2015 levels”, the reference is to the current 5-year plan, 2016-2020. Note that China takes its 5-year plans quite seriously, and usually achieves what it sets out to do, sometimes exceeding what it set out to do. It would be nice if the U.S. had a comparable long-range plan, and political will to carry it out.
………….
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2016-06/27/content_25868139.htm
China decarbonizes for greener growth
2016-06-27
TIANJIN – The Chinese economy is decarbonizing fast as it has made building a clean, low carbon energy system a priority for the upcoming five years.
“This indicates China’s strong determination to transform its energy system into a low carbon one, with an aim to fulfill its international responsibility,” said Li Zheng, head of the Department of Thermal Engineering under Tsinghua University, on Sunday at a meeting of World Economic Forum in north China’s coastal city Tianjin.
China aims for an 18 percent cut in carbon intensity in five years from 2015 levels.
and:
http://www.ecowatch.com/5-most-important-things-to-know-about-chinas-5-year-plan-1882194899.html
snip
The plan [the 13th and current 5-year plan] sets out a new round of targets for the carbon and energy intensity of China’s economy. With China’s new target for an 18 percent reduction in carbon-intensity from 2015 levels, we estimate that China will actually reduce its carbon intensity 48 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, exceeding its original target of a 40-45 percent reduction by that year. It will also be a first step toward achieving its Paris agreement pledge to reduce carbon intensity 60 to 65 percent by 2030. The plan also includes a goal to reduce energy intensity by 15 percent, suggests that China’s most-developed eastern regions will be the first to peak their carbon emissions and builds on efforts to increase China’s forest stock.
and: detailed bullet-point overview of the current 5-year plan (DAMN we need stuff like this!):
http://www.china-brain.com/Resources/Blueprint-for-the-13th-Five-Year-Plan-for-2016-2020-/195.html
Th 348: Barton P Levenson, if I was you, I’d be seeking some help.
BPL: If you were me, you’d be smarter, saner, and better-looking.
http://www.china-brain.com/Resources/China–the-Green-Energy-Superpower/229.html
China, the Green Energy Superpower
Investment in green energy is on the rise, and a world powered entirely by renewables is no longer a distant dream. It is the developing countries however, and China in particular, that is driving this green revolution. And these charts, from the REN21 Renewables 2016 Global Status report and the United Nations Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2016 report, show how China is paving the way to a clean energy future.
snip
…….
See the striking graphic charts at the above link. The West, with the exception of Germany, is failing (or stagnating) as a global leader in renewables development, while the rest of the world, led by China, is racing ahead. See especially figure 4 (green bars) at the bottom: global new investment in renewables, developed v. developing countries, 2004-2015. Wow. Their will is strong; ours is weak.
341 SecularAnimist, my brief review of the article doesn’t show up anything too surprising to me.
However this from sect. 3 is surely going right out on a limb, despite being ref’ed by peer-reviewed studies?
As one environmentalist lamented in the 1970s: ‘The increased deployment of nuclear power facilities must lead society toward authoritarianism. Indeed, safe reliance upon nuclear power as the principal source of energy may be possible only in a totalitarian state’ (Winner, 1999 Winner, L. (1999). The social shaping of technology. In MacKenzie, D., & Wajcman, J. (Eds.), The social shaping of technology (pp. 8–40). London: Longman., p. 19). Entrenchment of nuclear technologies require the structuring of social environments in particular ways (Winner, 1986 Winner, L. (1986). The whale and the reactor: A search for limits in an age of high technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press., p. 32). Put simply, the distinctive nature of nuclear technologies provides a convenient means for reinforcing wider pressures towards concentrated power and authority.
and
The sheer scale of a typical NPP reflects a very particular notion of progress, highlighting principles of gigantism, scientific expertise, and the presumed domination of people over nature.
To me that’s just “hand-waving” and “poisoning the well”. It’s rhetoric not science nor objective social science analysis, imho.
My whole life I was an anti-nuker, but when new information came along that showed without any doubt that nuclear power plants can be built totally separate to the nuclear weapons cycle, and were safe in regards to both meltdown and accidental radiation leaks, plus were capable of processing old weapons grade plutonium etc back to a safe handling level for storage, I was compelled to shift my opinions/beliefs about nuclear power generation.
That being said I acknowledge that some of the planned new NPPs are not safe GenIV nor thorium based HTGRs. China’s approach makes way too much sense to me to ignore on the basis it’s a one party system govt. Science and Tech stands alone. When Shandong comes online next year many more people will pay attention. China is already pre-selling these Modular designs eg to the Saudis that can built in ~3 years.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600757/china-could-have-a-meltdown-proof-nuclear-reactor-next-year/
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/generation-iv-nuclear-reactors-safer2c-more-efficient2c-with-/6384118
http://www.datenna.com/industry/china-to-develop-gen-iv-supercritical-water-cooled-reactor/
thx
alan2102 334: Hillary is a warmonger and given BPL @352 so is he. And a self-appointed expert on international affairs. Where does he get the time? :-O Pity he doesn’t know he’s talking about imo. Obviously forgotten the US political system and the MSMedia are both incompetent and spreading gross disinformation 24/7 about who are the so-called ‘enemies’ of the free-world (sic). No surprise to me, it’s what happens over and over and over again.
Want some distant perspective from a conservative Allie?
http://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/review-dangerous-allies-by-malcolm-fraser/
Seriously US foreign policy be it the Kyoto Protocol or TPP/TIPP trade or China or Syria or Russia, or Turkey or the Saudis or Iran or Iraq is off with the faeries and has been for decades.
324 Chuck Hughes says: “The Green Party, for all of their well meaning intentions are not viable as a political party.”
Whether a political party can win office in it’s own right is utterly irrelevant to it being viable as a political party or not. The Greens make significant differences to the political government process in Oz, and Germany and dozens of others. So do other small parties and independents. Your using a flawed yardstick to come to conclusions that are incorrect Chuck.
There was low election vote in 2012 for Jill Stein, I ask so what?
She’s now Polling ~3.8% and in some places several times more. If enough Voters get behind the greens with some rational idealism she could gain >5% at the general election, and solidify the Greens in the democratic (undemocratic process) in 2020. That’s worth voting for imho.
In 2020 they could grow that 5% to 10% with the support of the people and some decent financial backing to get their policies heard instead of being drowned out by the Cowtowing Biased Narrow-Minded Media.
From ~10% they could be pulling 20% in 2024 and putting real Policy pressure onto the Demorats.
In 2028 The Greens Presidential candidate, after global climate disasters and unnecessary Wars could get a bounce to 35% and win the Presidency in their own Right. In as little as 12 years from today.
But no in 2016 too many people are too narrow minded and stuck in the past and cultural norms to be able to think outside the boxes of belief they have created out of nothing.
And so it is that the RepDems and the Corp.Media will easily keep manipulating the gullible using their tricky sophistry and layers of bull dust. Because they can!
Th 359: Hillary is a warmonger and given BPL @352 so is he.
BPL: Right, I don’t like ISIS and Al Qaeda killing, raping, torturing and enslaving people, including our people. I don’t like Russia marching into Chechnya and Georgia and Crimea. I don’t like China laying claim to vast areas of what used to be international waters. Therefore, I am a “warmonger.”
Th: And a self-appointed expert on international affairs. Where does he get the time? :-O Pity he doesn’t know he’s talking about imo.
BPL: uo ain’t that accurate, from what I’ve seen. And how steeped in foreign affairs do you have to be to remember 9/11 and San Bernardino and Fort Hood? Perhaps you think 9/11 was faked by the Bush administration? Or the Jews? Maybe the Reptoids?
Th: Obviously forgotten the US political system and the MSMedia are both incompetent and spreading gross disinformation 24/7 about who are the so-called ‘enemies’ of the free-world (sic).
BPL: Isis and Al Qaeda are not enemies of the free world? Russia, with its fascist president-for-life who assassinates any reporter who says a bad word against him? Do you understand what “free” means?
Th 360: the RepDems and the Corp.Media will easily keep manipulating the gullible using their tricky sophistry and layers of bull
BPL: Don’t forget the Jews, the Vatican, the New World Order, and FEMA’s black helicopters. Also, the FBI may be trying to read your mind with radio signals. I recommend fashioning a cranial shield with layers of aluminum foil.
@350 correction, Scientists are clever buggers … I am not. :-)
BPL 352, 361, 362 = Sophistry, clever but fallacious reasoning. Cherry-picking, misrepresentation, disinformation, false claims, wrong assumptions, woolly thinking, disingenuous, and list of logical fallacies too long to list. LOL
Intellectual giants don’t have deep and meaningfuls discussing complex issues on Twitter. That’s for sharing urls, brief retorts, and basic ideas that may inspire additional research, motivate some others to look deeper and think far more slowly and much more carefully. Horses for Courses. :-)
#352 Barton P Levenson:
“a 334: Hillary is a warmonger
BPL: Good, since we’re at war.”
WarMONGERING is good, because we’re at war?! That’s wonderful. That’s possibly the most dumb remark I’ve seen this election cycle, which is remarkable.
BPL: “Arizona, where the Russians just tried (again) to rig a US election.”
You’ve got to be kidding. You really buy such rubbish?
http://theantimedia.org/russia-rigging-dnc/
Clinton Campaign: Russia Rigging US Election by Exposing How We Rigged Election
July 28, 2016 | Nick Bernabe
Philadelphia, PA — Russia is manipulating the 2016 U.S. presidential election by leaking hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) servers — emails that show the DNC rigged and manipulated the Democratic primary in favor of Hillary Clinton. Call it an exercise in hypocrisy, or call it a deflection to detract from the fact that America’s political process is corrupt beyond belief. Either way, this is the narrative prevailing in the media as the Democratic Party, led by Clinton surrogates, attempts to downplay its own internal corruption by pinning the blame on Russia in what can be described as a “neo-Red Scare.” end quote
BPL: “China keeps trying to claim international waters.”
Gotta STOP those insane Red Chinese, right? Damned commies want to take over the world! Remember the domino theory!
Here’s a backgrounder for you; or rather, for readers of sufficient intelligence and objectivity to deal with this issue:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shen-dingli/china-sovereignty-south-china-sea_b_7499186.html
Why China Has the Right to ‘Build Sovereignty’ in the South China Sea
“a: the military-industrial complex is one of the very worst polluters, FF-guzzlers and CO2-generators.
BPL: About 1.5% of our energy use, yes. Too bad about that.”
It is much worse than that, as you would know if you were not a neocon war-machine apologist with no serious interest in climate remediation.
See:
https://newint.org/blog/2015/11/19/the-military-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
The elephant in Paris – the military and greenhouse gas emissions
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3181:the-military-assault-on-global-climate
The Military Assault on Global Climate
“BPL: The costs of wind and solar are falling off a cliff. All she has to do is not prop up the fossil fuel industry”
… which the record indicates is precisely what she WILL do.
“a: eventuating in global nuclear war
BPL: Non sequitur. Confrontation doesn’t have to be direct military confrontation.”
No, it does not have to. But Hillary’s neocon advisors would like it to. Not only military confrontation, but nuclear confrontation. As Bill Kristol remarked, “what good are nuclear weapons if you can’t use them?”. The Kristol/neocon types have come flooding out of the Republican Party and are near-unanimous Hillary supporters, and for good reason. She is an aggressive warmonger — just their type.
“a: That is apart from the very serious risk of confrontation with Russia
BPL: No way out of that, since they are vigorously causing trouble for us…. I would like to see us crack down on the fascist Russian regime”
You’re a ridiculous cartoon character, straight out of the cold war and McCarthy era. Seriously. You parody yourself.
Reading your post, I literally LOL’ed. I’m going to save your post to re-read a few times, for laughs, albeit morbid laughs.
……………..
#353 Andre Derrick Balsa:
Thanks, and cheers! Sanity lives on realclimate.org!
#348 Thomas:
“333 alan2102, thanks, no surprises there hey? the U.S. citizenry stands well to the left of America’s Orwellian corporate media and political class on numerous key issues. Now ain’t that the Truth!”
Yep. As Chomsky has been saying for decades, the mass of Americans are clearly on the left with respect to the actual issues — whether or not they would call themselves “left”. Most of them would not want to call themselves “left” because of the massive (and successful) multi-decade effort on the part of wealthy reactionary elements (the “Orwellian corporate media and political class” as you put it) to slander the left and make “left” a term of opprobrium.
Another way of saying it is that the mass of Americans are sane and rather sensible. The overwhelming unpopularity and distrust of BOTH Trump and Clinton reflects this general sanity and sensibility. No fully-sane person of fair intelligence could possibly like and trust either of them.
But, along with them, we have a substantial contingent — though a minority — of Americans who are effectively insane, who buy-in to the rubbish pumped-out ceaselessly by that “Orwellian corporate media” and the well-funded network of right-wing think-tanks and other propagandists who promote and/or apologize for war, fossil fuels, neoliberalism, neofeudalism, environmental destruction, outrageous inequalities, etc., etc.
BPL is a textbook example of the type: effectively insane.
The insane contingent functions as a block of useful idiots for the plutocracy and for the neoliberal global order that is impelling us toward hell.
Perhaps they could be defended, on grounds of “temporary insanity due to pervasive propaganda and persistent brainwashing”, or something like that.
More News on US Political Polarization :
While virtually all climate scientists and the world’s leading scientific academies have long agreed that the burning of fossil fuels is causing climate change, only about half Republicans accept the science.
A Republican controlled Congress, the article says, would be a “huge step backward in our nation’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” and could also undermine international cooperation, especially if Republican nominee Donald Trump won the Presidency.
“Whether, and how, individual Americans vote this November may well be the most consequential climate-related decision most of them will have ever taken,” the authors conclude.
http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/08/31/americans-now-more-politically-polarized-climate-change-ever-analysis-finds
Journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development
Volume 58, 2016 – Issue 5
The Political Divide on Climate Change: Partisan Polarization Widens in the U.S.
Riley E. Dunlap, Aaron M. McCright & Jerrod H. Yarosh
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00139157.2016.1208995
Obama rips climate science skeptics in Tahoe
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article99155137.html
The Greens Power to the People Plan
My Power to the People Plan creates deep system change, moving from the greed and exploitation of corporate capitalism to a human-centered economy that puts people, planet and peace over profit.
http://www.jill2016.com/plan
Jill Stein on 11 key issues
http://www.syracuse.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/08/jill_stein_on_11_key_issues_where_does_green_party_presidential_candidate_stand.html
http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Jill_Stein_Environment.htm
Jill Stein calls for ‘green New Deal’ to address climate change
Stein said she would look to create 20 million jobs in the clean-energy sector in a “wartime-scale mobilization” to prevent climate change, which she tied to the flooding. She said the United States should aim to produce 100 percent renewable energy by 2030.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/292326-stein-green-new-deal-needed-to-address-climate-change
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/20/jill-stein-green-party-climate-state-of-emergency
Obviously, these ideas will never work and no Greens Presidential candidate will ever get elected in the US. Someone has to foil those dastardly plans of Russia and China to invade the US asap and turn the whole population into Gulags of worker-bee slaves for their own fame, fortune and glory as Rulers of the World.
Cognitive Dissonance – the inability to walk and chew gum at the same time.
The Cognitive Dissonance Effect – the inability to see beyond the tip of one’s own nose. :-)
Note from ‘The Political Divide’ in reference to my prior comments regarding the reality of ‘broken campaign promises & inaction’ by elected Presidents vs the Congress:
“Many autopsies of the death of federal legislation aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions have been written, highlighting the Obama Administration’s initial failure to prioritize it, national environmental organizations’ reliance on partnering with corporate leaders rather than building grass-roots support, an upsurge in organized climate change denial, and of course the declining salience of climate change and most other issues in the face of our nation’s severe economic recession.7
“But another critical factor was the growing degree of partisan polarization (of the RepDems), in the United States, a phenomenon that escalated significantly in response to Obama’s election.8 Indeed, we now know that during the evening of Obama’s inauguration, Republican leaders were strategizing over dinner about how best to undermine his administration, in retrospect making his early overtures for bipartisanship both futile and naive.9″
The system is broken or it’s fantastic and the Best in the World? You decide.
“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.” John Ono-Lennon
“We are the Government. The People are the Government and the People have the Power, but we must make them aware of this.” John Ono-Lennon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbKsgaXQy2k
re: 362. And don’t forget the “chemtrails”! ;-)
> safe reliance upon nuclear power as the principal source of energy may be possible only in a totalitarian state’
I’d modify that to say “only in an intelligently designed and well managed totalitarian state”
Take the US nuclear Navy under Rickover, as a shining example.
Compare that to the mess the USSR’s militaries made of nuclear power.