Absolutely nothing of consequence happening today in climate news. Can’t think of what people could discuss…
Reader Interactions
251 Responses to "Unforced Variations: June 2017"
Stanley P Kopaczsays
Climate is statistically related to weather but people’s attitudes toward climate change seem to track with weather events. With an active hurricane season predicted, might be interesting for a sociological model based on this premise to be overlaid onto a climatological model. Neither a sociologist or climatologist, an engineer.
Ron R.says
From DT’s speech: “The United States, under the Trump administration, will continue to be the cleanest and most environmentally friendly country on Earth.”
Hmm, how does he think the U.S. got to be “the cleanest, most environmentally friendly country on earth” (certainly not in emissions, though). Through those very institutions that he is now trashing. The EPA, the FDA, and the hard work of millions of environmentalists through the decades. From countless court battles against corporate polluters. He seems to think that if you just give the keys off the hen house to the foxes among us, they will protect those hens so much better than the house would have.
In short, how stupid door he think Americans are?
Wait, don’t answer that.
KSsays
what’s the probability that the US goods and services will be subject to boycotts, divestment and sanctions? oh and tourism will probably take a significant dip too.
Ron R.says
Ok, now here’s a little secret. There might be a way to change Trump’s mind. Simply rename the Paris Accord the Donald Trump World Climate Agreement. To sweeten the deal, allow him to make his own small change, I’d recommend a pledge to reduce U.S. emissions even more. And Viola the deal is back on!
Ron R.says
>Donald Trump World Climate Agreement.
Scratch that. Let’s make it the Donald Trump World Climate Deal. Yeah, that should do it.
Victorsays
I love him, I love him, I love him
And where he goes I’ll follow, I’ll follow, I’ll follow
I will follow him, follow him wherever he may go
There isn’t an ocean too deep
A mountain so high it can keep me away
I must follow him, ever since he touched my hand I knew
That near him I always must be
And nothing can keep him from me
He is my destiny.
I love him, I love him, I love him
And where he goes I’ll follow, I’ll follow, I’ll follow
He’ll always be my true love, my true love, my true love
From now until forever, forever, forever
I will follow him, follow him wherever he may go
There isn’t an ocean too deep
A mountain so high it can keep, keep me away
Haha! I know. I’m scratching my head for. something to contribute as well.
Lawrence Colemansays
The longer Trump stays in power the deeper the hole the USA has to scramble out of energy wise. Many new global alliances are happening as we type to transition to renewables. To America’s credit some breakaway states such as california are virtually going it alone. If Trump should take credit for California’s initiative at some almost inevitably later date,I give anyone permission to shoot him on site. Meanwhile-hold on America your economy let along global standing is going to endure a F6 hurricane.
AICsays
Trump pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord is important, but more important are the things that his administration is doing, or attempting to do, to avoid reducing fossil fuel use. These include cutting back (eliminating?) R&D for renewable energy, de-funding the EPA Energy Star program, ignoring the Social Cost of Carbon, renewing leasing/sale of coal on Federal lands without regard to whether the coal companies are paying a reasonable price, threatening to open more Federal lands to fossil fuel extraction…the list goes on.
Brian Dodgesays
@ Richard Simons 1 Jun 2017 at 6:59 PM
Rex Tillerson probably has the expertise and competence to have decided that AGW is a fact of life, and he also had access to well informed scientists working for Exxon who explained it to him in the 80’s. Unfortunately, he is dishonest. He spent years using Exxon funds to spread Fear(you’ll lose your job if econazis get their way!!!), Uncertainty(The scientific debate isn’t settled!!!), and Deception(Willie Soon’s “deliverables”, Heartland institute “conferences”). Every year that meaningful action was delayed, meant another 40 billion in unencumbered profits. Every regulation that was weakened meant less expense for his company.
Tillerson wanted the US to stay in the Paris accord so that we could slow progress. Donald Trump is too arrogantly ignorant to understand this.
RSS TLT for the start of 2017 continues to mirror UAH TLT but with the May anomaly rating “scorchyissimo!!!!” in the RSS record.
The RSS May anomaly is given as +0.48ºC, the warmest anomaly of the year so far with previous months running Jan-Apr +0.41ºC, +0.44ºC, +0.35ºC, +0.39ºC. May 2017 is the 4th warmest May on record (after 1998 +0.67ºC, 2016 +0.54ºC, 2010 +0.53ºC) and the 30rd warmest of all months in the record.
The first five months of 2017 thus average +0.41ºC, the 4th warmest start to a year on record (after 2016 +0.77ºC, 1998 +0.68ºC, 2010 +0.55ºC and ahead of 2002 +0.37ºC. 2005 +0.37ºC, 2007 +0.34ºC, 2003 +0.30ºC, 2015 +0.30ºC).
Unlike UAH which had a very warm non-El-Nino-month (Jan 2013) pipping May 2017 to 17th warmest month on record, in RSS all twenty-nine of the months ahead of May 2017 are within the El-Nino-warmed wobbles which results in 30th-warmest-month May 2017 being the warmest non-El-Nino-warmed month and thus it merits the title “scorchyissimo!!!!”
This Is the Biggest News in Electricity Since the Light Bulb — Seriously
If the world can generate and store energy from the sun for less than the cost of fossil fuels, it literally changes everything about the energy industry.
Travis Hoium
(TMFFlushDraw)
Jun 3, 2017 at 10:07AM
The dream of using the sun’s abundant energy 24/7 took a major step closer to reality recently when utility company Tucson Electric signed a power purchase agreement last week for solar plus storage at a price of less than 4.5 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) over 20 years. That’s less than half the price of retail electricity power and a price low enough to compete with natural gas, coal, and nuclear power head to head in wholesale markets for what some might call “baseload” power.
I am deliriously happy at the withdrawal from the Paris Accord. It’s never been about the science and the climate.
I believe what Edenhofer and Figueres and Klein have said:
If they were honest, the climate alarmists would admit that they are not working feverishly to hold down global temperatures — they would acknowledge that they are instead consumed with the goal of holding down capitalism and establishing a global welfare state.
Have doubts? Then listen to the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:
“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole,” said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.
So what is the goal of environmental policy?
“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy,” said Edenhofer.
For those who want to believe that maybe Edenhofer just misspoke and doesn’t really mean that, consider that a little more than five years ago he also said that “the next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.”
Mad as they are, Edenhofer’s comments are nevertheless consistent with other alarmists who have spilled the movement’s dirty secret. Last year, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, made a similar statement.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said in anticipation of last year’s Paris climate summit.
“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”
The plan is to allow Third World countries to emit as much carbon dioxide as they wish — because, as Edenhofer said, “in order to get rich one has to burn coal, oil or gas” — while at the same time restricting emissions in advanced nations. This will, of course, choke economic growth in developed nations, but they deserve that fate as they “have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community,” he said. The fanaticism runs so deep that one professor has even suggested that we need to plunge ourselves into a depression to fight global warming.
Perhaps Naomi Klein summed up best what the warming the fuss is all about in her book “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate.”
“What if global warming isn’t only a crisis?” Klein asks in a preview of a documentary inspired by her book. “What if it’s the best chance we’re ever going to get to build a better world?”
In her mind, the world has to “change, or be changed” because an “economic system” — meaning free-market capitalism — has caused environmental “wreckage.”
This is how the global warming alarmist community thinks. It wants to frighten, intimidate and then assume command. It needs a “crisis” to take advantage of, a hobgoblin to menace the people, so that they will beg for protection from the imaginary threat. The alarmists’ “better world” is one in which they rule a global welfare state. They’ve admitted this themselves.
Here’s something that is adequate: You’re making a non-sequitur.
zebrasays
tw2017 #63,
“global welfare state”
Gotta be the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.
Elon Musk is a stinkin’ rich Capitalist. Elon Musk wants to get even more stinkin’ rich by selling EV, solar panels, and batteries all over the world. How is that a “welfare state”?
This is exactly “free market capitalism”; it simply has to do with new and better technology replacing 19th-century technology. It’s called “creative destruction”. It’s about technology and manufacturing making the extraction of Fossil Fuels economically not viable, and thereby reducing, perhaps to zero, the value of those FF resources “owned” or “leased” by existing powerful actors.
Of course, those actors will do everything they can to prevent that happening. The US Civil War was not about selling cotton picked by slaves; it was about selling slaves– what was fast becoming a growing, problematic, “stranded asset”.
When the US provides money to Israel (and others) for “defence”, what happens to the money? It is used to buy US arms. Duh. So, “transferring wealth” in some form to developing countries to grow de-carbonized economies is nothing more than a subsidy for first-world manufacturers– China and Germany certainly get this, and if the US doesn’t want a piece of the action, that’s just plain stupid.
LIKE a lot of conservatives who write about public policy, my views on climate change place me in the ranks of what the British writer Matt Ridley once dubbed the “lukewarmers.”
Lukewarmers accept that the earth is warming and that our civilization’s ample CO2 emissions are a major cause. They doubt, however, that climate change represents a crisis unique among the varied challenges we face, or that the global regulatory schemes advanced to deal with it will work as advertised. And they raise an eyebrow at the contrast between the apocalyptic, absolutist rhetoric with which these schemes are regularly defended and their actual details, which seem mostly designed to enable the globe’s statesmen to greenwash the pursuit of economic and political self-interest.
Fly, RC minions! Freely engage him in robust debate! Hurt his poor little feelings, by contradicting him with documented evidence without trying to keep sarcasm out of your tone!
Causes of accelerating sea level on the East Coast of North America
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
16 May 2017Accepted Online: 15 MAY 2017James L. Davis and Nadya T. Vinogradova
Published Online : 29 MAY 2017 06:35PM EST, DOI : 10.1002/2017GL072845 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL072845/abstract/
Shorter:
We have devised an approach wherein data from previous decades (during which the long-term variation is assumed linear) are included, thereby improving the accuracy of estimated post-1990 accelerations by a factor of 3. We conclude that the spatial variability of sea level acceleration is well modeled using these multiple processes. The results indicate that multiple physical processes must be considered to understand changing sea level. We also conclude that the acceleration from Antarctic and Greenland ice loss alone is equivalent to a sea level rise in one century of 0.2 m in the north and 0.75 m in the south of this region.
tw 63: If they were honest, the climate alarmists would admit that they are not working feverishly to hold down global temperatures — they would acknowledge that they are instead consumed with the goal of holding down capitalism and establishing a global welfare state.
BPL: I am honest. I am not consumed with the goal of holding down capitalism and establishing a global welfare state. I also, quite honestly, think you ought to try looking at science issues through a science lens and not a political lens.
@ tegiri nenashi 1 Jun 2017 at 5:07 PM, who disputes accelerating sea level rise –
The massive Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets respond slowly to changes in earth’s temperature; as far as they’re concerned, the temperature rise over the last fifty years is no different from a step change. The changes in ice sheet balance would continue for many hundreds of years even if temperatures miraculously stabilized – and those changes are growing exponentially.
An improved mass budget for the Greenland ice sheet; Ellyn M. Enderlin, Ian M. Howat, Seongsu Jeong, Myoung-Jong Noh, Jan H. van Angelen, and Michiel R. van den Broeke4; Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, 866–872, doi:10.1002/2013GL059010
“The rate of loss increased from 153 ± 33 Gt/a over the period 2000–2005 to 265 ± 18 Gt/a from 2005 to 2009 and 378 ± 50 Gt/a between 2009 and 2012, giving a total acceleration of 27.0 ± 9.0 Gt/a2 since 2000. This acceleration is in good agreement with the 2003–2012 acceleration of 25 ± 9 Gt/a2 detected by GRACE [Wouters et al., 2013]”
The conversion from ice mass loss to sea level rise can be derive from Velicogna who showed “The combined contribution of Greenland and Antarctica to global sea level rise is accelerating at a rate of 56 ± 17 Gt/yr2 during April 2002–February 2009, which corresponds to an equivalent acceleration in sea level rise of 0.17 ± 0.05 mm/yr2 during this time” and “The F-test show that the improvement obtained with the quadratic fit is statistical significant at a very high confidence level.” doi:10.1029/2009GL040222
That was in 2009; a more accurate answer should include recent findings from http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6237/899.full – “We use satellite altimetry and gravity observations to show that a major portion of the region has, since 2009, destabilized. Ice mass loss of the marine-terminating glaciers has rapidly accelerated from close to balance in the 2000s to a sustained rate of –56 ± 8 gigatons per year, constituting a major fraction of Antarctica’s contribution to rising sea level. The widespread, simultaneous nature of the acceleration, in the absence of a persistent atmospheric forcing, points to an oceanic driving mechanism.”
Hmmsays
I see that these comments are all over the web, and are sourced from Investors Business Daily. If you’re going to copy and paste at least provide attribution.
I’m not claiming that the comments weren’t made, I don’t know, but 1) they are found on websites notorious for promoting fake news, 2) they are quoted out of context (a tactic that the “Right” learned from their creationist counterparts), and 3) these are just opinion quotes from a few individuals. People can have their own individual opinions and ideas about the best way to solve issues you know.
But when I click that link I see the message “Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here.” Now, maybe you’ll claim that there’s something sinister there, but I’m just telling you that it’s not there.
IBD also has a quote from Christiana Figueres and a link to it, but when I click on that it takes me to another IBD page with the quote but no source.
In the above link, I would recommend reading comments from Bart R.
I don’t see any problem with Naomi Klein’s comments.
I realize that, as ever, the Republican “Right” is ultra concerned about money. If fixing global warming were free they’d have no problem with it, (well except maybe for Trump, who seems to be fixated on spiteing everone). If they could figure out a way to make or be given money in it’s fixing they’d be doing all the leg work themselves.
Chris O'Neillsays
The ironically named Mr. Know It All says:
get a group of skeptics from the T administration together with a group of believers. I’ll bet Mr. T would provide some funds to help with such an effort
Trump providing funding for this is like O.J. Simpson searching for the real killer.
Hmmsays
By the way, tw2017, the general implied thrust of the quoted comments are probably right. The U.S. has and does use a disproportionate amount of the world’s resources which have negatively impacted the entire world’s climate and therefore does, ethically at least, bear a disproportionate responsibility for fixing things, however that is worked out, don’t you think?
Does that mean that I think that U.S. taxpayers should foot the bill for the rest of the world. No. I put that onus on those who have sought to delay repairing global climate through a history of obfuscations and outright lies, and who have done all they could to stymie innovation in this country in clean alternative energies.
68 Hank Roberts – from link scientist Sanderson says: “Therein lies the danger of the US departure, because the world’s greatest historical emitter has left the agreement, the mutual assurance that all parties are acting has now gone.”
I opine that Trump is still irrelevant. In or out of Paris the cause of the problem remains the same. This move is nothing but window dressing and changes nothing at all. The problem isn’t Trump nor the Republican Deniers per se … the cause of the problem is ALL the People of the United States of America collectively are irresponsible and immoral on this issue. Basically the entire nation is living under a constant United State of Denial.
China’s historical per capita emissions and contribution to Global Warming today is one tenth the amount of the USA
Cumulative global warming to 2016 = +1.24C – The American people’s contribution ( @4.4% world pop.) is approx. 43% of the total global warming.
REF: Global Temps 1880-1920 base period = +1.24C in 2016 … http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/ .. which is old news repeatedly ignored/downplayed and rarely not reported accurately – including by RC in their latest article.
New Monthly CO2 Record set in May 2017 – just shy of 410ppm
43% of the rapid increase in CO2 ppm lays at the feet of all Americans historically and today – only 4.4% of the world’s population. Collectively they are denying their responsibility for serious harm to the rest of the world’s people now and into the future.
Ground Zero for Climate Science Denial is also America. Ground Zero for the mythical beliefs of Neoliberal Ideology is likewise in America. Clinton – Bush – Obama – Trump or Clinton makes no difference. The cause is the same. The outcome will be the same (eventually).
imo. Trade tariffs, then trade and financial embargoes and eventually punitive Sanctions by the rest of the world matched by the closure of +1000 Mil/Intel & CIA Black Sites around the world. That is where this is heading. It will take many years for something like this to occur, I will be long gone, but given the American people are so resistant to ‘reality’ and ‘facts’ and ‘truth’ and collective responsibility, I cannot see it going in any other direction long term.
Doesn’t matter if I am right or wrong, doesn’t matter if the US is in the UNFCCC or out of it, whether Trump is President or not.
Whether AGW is real or not will never be decided by our comments here. Most folks on the street don’t understand the science, including those who say it is real. So the debate among the general population is not about “science” it is about what people “believe”. As of yet, I’ve seen no clear and concise explanation of the “science”. Not saying the science is false – but it would be good to see a good explanation of the radiation physics with actual numbers, etc – not a dumbed down “the IR bounces off the CO2 and goes back down to warm the earth” presentation.
Thus, all the scary talk on temperature is meaningless. Michio Kaku (sp?) said on Science Fantastic that AGW will not stop the next ice age so there’s hope. :)
None of our arguments matter. The Paris agreement doesn’t matter. If renewable energy proponents are correct that RE is cheaper than fossil fuels, then FF will be replaced by RE, without any agreements.
By causing the hysteria we see about AGW, Trump has probably done more than any agreement to cause those who believe in AGW to take more swift action. IF AGW is a real and serious threat then he may have saved the world. He’s smart enough that he may understand this. He may even be planning on another agreement which requires more action by China, etc, and which will do more than the Paris agreement. We’ll see. No need for hysteria – just do your part. Order your solar panels, electric car, bicycle, garden soil and seeds, tree seeds, beano, etc and get to work. Stop whining and start acting.
Putin also told NBC he had no relationship with Trump and had never met him, regardless of Trump’s previous travel to Russia as a businessman. Putin noted that executives from perhaps 100 American companies were currently in Russia.
“Do you think we’re gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something?” Putin asked, before saying: “Have you all lost your senses?”
imo the answer is clearly a big Yes!
Now if American’s really want to do something about agw/cc and specifically the extremely high cumulative and ongoing contribution to global warming by the USA then maybe they should do something about Citizen’s United?
“What people ‘believe’ about global warming doesn’t reflect what they know. It expresses who they are.”
— Dan Kahan, a Yale researcher who studies political polarization.
1. “A know-it-all or know-all is a person who constantly presents their input as though they were professionally trained, schooled or have firsthand insight into subjects when it is evident this is not the case.”
2. noun (Informal) One who is obnoxiously self-assertive and arrogant: malapert, witling. ( Informal) Smart-Ass, windbag, braggart, saucebox, smart aleck, smarty, smarty-pants, wisenheimer. ( Slang) wiseacre, wisecracker, wise guy.
Over night I thought to look in Internet Archives. There I found that there was an article on the Global Warming Policy Foundation website. My guess they it’s that it was removed because it was being misunderstood. Anyway,Edenhofer doesn’t speak of first world countries sending their money to third world countries but about the redistribution of “global emission rights”. He was advocating allowing third world countries to develop and thereby become the carbon emitters in fairness since “developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community.”…. “it is no longer just our luxury, our environment. Developing countries have realized that causes of climate change lie in the north and the consequences in the south.”
Why not just allow everyone to emit carbon freely? He answers, “Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet – and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 – there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.”
Besides allowing third world countries to become the emitters while we cut back he also says, “We will see in Africa with climate change a decline in agricultural yields. But this can be avoided if the efficiency of production is increased – and especially if the African agricultural trade is embedded in the global economy. But for that we need to see that successful climate policy requires other global trade and financial policies.”
Speaking of “cooperation” (not not third world countries dominating first world countries) he says, “one cannot solve the climate problem alone”.
So he is saying that we should be fair to those countries to which our defacto climate policies to date (meaning our industrial emissions) have negatively affected their futures by allowing them to grow too while we cut back on our own emissions via “global CO 2-tariffs”, by supporting their economies via agricultural trade (and of course to do that we’d have to have the money to buy their agricultural products) and by “technology transfer” (i.o.w., knowledge sharing).
He also makes the following statement, “Ethics always play a role when it comes to power. China and Latin America, for example, always emphasize the historical responsibility of developed countries for climate change. This responsibility is not to deny, but it is also a strategic argument for these countries. I would accept the responsibility for the period since 1995 because we know since then, what is causing the greenhouse effect. To extend the responsibility to the industrial revolution is not ethically justified.” This doesn’t sound like the reasoning of some anti-capitalist commie to me, but someone who is trying to figure out how to be fair.
Lastly, Edenhofer says this, “The book contains a parable: A group of hikers, who represent the world community, walks through a desert. The industrialized nations drink half of the water and then say generously: ‘Let us share the rest.’ The others reply: ‘This is not possible; you have already drunk half of the water. Let us talk first about your historical responsibility.’ I think if we are arguing about the water supply because we cannot agree on the ethical principles, then we will die of thirst. What we need to look for is an oasis that is the non-carbon global economy. It’s about the common departure for this oasis.”
Now the word, “common” there, that includes first world countries. So to sum up, he was not advocating the destruction of first world economies despite what right-wing fear mongers would have you believe, just trying to figure out how we ALL can get to the non-CO2 “Oasis”.
One last thing to remember is, again, that these are the thoughts of one guy trying to think of ways too make this work for everyone.
KIA 79: As of yet, I’ve seen no clear and concise explanation of the “science”.
BPL: Do you honestly want one? Because, if you and the editors of RealClimate will agree, I’d be glad to give you a simple course in how planet surface temperatures are determined. If they don’t want it here, you and I could do it in email. No charge.
Th 80: “Do you think we’re gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something?” Putin asked, before saying: “Have you all lost your senses?”
imo the answer is clearly a big Yes!
BPL: You probably mean the answer to the second question is Yes? Because in my not-so-humble-opinion, the answer to the FIRST question is UNDOUBTEDLY “Yes.” The Chekists have operated about the same way since the Russian Civil War, and to assume they’ve stopped because Russia is now, technically, a republic is insupportable. OF COURSE they’re investigating each and every possible foreign visitor of any economic or political power, and OF COURSE they’re looking for something compromising on them. Seriously, how naive are you?
Stephan Lewandowsky, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Bristol, told the World Conference on Research Integrity that “open data is highly political” and that there is a danger that some people will use scholarly information as “noise, nonsense, commercial interests or political propaganda”, to further their own interests.
Hmm @74,
First thing to note is that while the first of those sources (the webpage editorial at Investor’s Business Daily) dates to last year, it references a post on the Planet Wattsupia that dates back to 2010. This is when the alleged comments were made by Ottmar Edenhofer in an interview with Bernard Potter. The link from the webpage on the Planet Wattsupia indeed does not work but the target page at the offices of the Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy (GWPF) does still exist. Of course, the GWPF are a bunch of bare-faced liars (which is pretty bad given they are supposed to be an educational charity!!) so anything they set out has to be in the first instance considered wrong and only accepted if it can be demonstrated to be otherwise. The target page at the GWPF offices was evidently considered lies as it was moved and now resides here within the “Forum” which is allowed to continue with the lies and the spreading of untruth because it is not officially part of the charity.
So, in keeping to the truth, how do the Gentlemen do in this case?
According to GWPF
“Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection,” says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.
The interview cited by GWPF was conducted in German and the direct quote above is a good translation of a sentence within that interview. (“Man muss sich von der Illusion freimachen, dass internationale Klimapolitik Umweltpolitik ist. Das hat mit Umweltpolitik, mit Problemen wie Waldsterben oder Ozonloch, fast nichts mehr zu tun.”) And the description of the Cancún summit is as Edenhofer describes. GWPF translate Edenhofer thus:-
“The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War.”
So at face value you could be forgiven in thinking that the GWPF do not in this instance spread lies. But this is not so. The comment about Cancún precedes the direct quote. And the reason for describing Cancún in that manner is immediately described:-
“Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet – and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 – there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.”
It is to emphasis the economic significance of this situation, a situation dictated by climate science, that Edenhofer makes the statement that the decision-making is not about climate anymore, but about the economics. The important word is “anymore.” The GWPF intention was always that you wouldn’t spot this word and would, as in the webpage editorial at Investor’s Business Daily, explain the quote as saying that AGW always was some big conspiracy and it was never about the environment.
The Christiana Figueres quote is also correct as a quote but does not in any way support the assertion that the intention of AGW is to spoof the world into an new mode of economic development. You would have to be seriously delusional to hold such a view.
Someone might already know that America’s national cumulative contribution to global warming is about 25% of the total despite only being 4.4% of the world’s population today but that is neither here nor there…. the effect is the same, the cause is the same the solution is the same.
It is not comparing like for like when US agw apologists inaccurately compare what’s happening today with China vs the cumulative impact of the USA.
Nor is it like for like to compare the US GHG emissions with China’s or India’s who together represent ~2.75 billion people or 37% of the world’s population.
It’s quite understandable that so many American’s would want to avoid confronting their historical legacy head on, to spin minimize or deny such facts, and even to want to get out of the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC at any cost.
Christopher Hogansays
@41. I don’t think you’re an American. Not only because of your unusual phrasing, but because you don’t seem to realize that America is a republic. That is, we elect and give authority to office holders. We don’t directly vote on matters of state.
So, the last time any regular American citizen voted on a treaty was … never. In the US, we don’t do that. Possibly they do in your country. But not here.
Just like we didn’t vote to remove ourselves from the Paris Agreement.
So when you point out that I didn’t vote for the treaty … well, that’s true. By definition. Because this is a republic. But … somehow you didn’t know that?
On the permanent dust bowling of America, well, if you bothered to google the term, you’ve seen the soil moisture projections that I’m relying on. Based on analysis of projected temperatures and rainfall.
So, what set of projections are you using, when you say that can’t happen, that it’s just a scare tactic? None? Yeah, none. It has to be none, because there are no physics-based projections of future soil moisture under business-as-usual that result in soil moisture similar to what we enjoy currently.
In other words, you’re just making stuff up. You have no evidence on your side.
And you might stop and think a bit, about what else was happening when the US had its last dustbowl episode. In the 1930s, we had two climate events: Warmest temperatures seen in the US to date, and a temporary dustbowl. Hmmm.
In any case, understanding dust-bowlification requires little more than simple physics.
Take a damp sponge, put it on a table, let it sit, and it will dry out. Warm it up, and it will dry out faster. Simple physics. The only thing we could have to argue about is how much dryer the warm sponge will be.
In short, the warm sponge dries out faster than the cool sponge.
Now substitute “the soil of Iowa” for sponge. The only thing we have to argue about is how much dryer the soil of Iowa will be, once it is a projected 12 degrees F warmer than it is now, by the year 2100.
Far as I can tell from the research, scientists who have studied this do not ask whether soil moisture will reach dust-bowl levels, in the typical year, if we continue to burn fossil fuels under a business-as-usual scenario. The only real uncertainty is when – 2050, 2100, somewhere in that range appears to be the consensus.
I believe what Edenhofer and Figueres and Klein have said:
Heh. What Edenhofer has actually said came up at Stoat about a year ago. I’ll bet you got your first quote, in English, from WUWT or another dedicated AGW-denier source, amirite? It’s originally from a newspaper interview published in Schwyzerdütsch in the New Zurich Times, and apparently translated into English by someone at the GWPF.
Climate scientist Victor Venema (H/T), a native German speaker, translated the Edenhofer interview for us himself. Victor doesn’t think Edenhofer meant what the GWPF wants you to think he did.
Killiansays
Re #86 Hmm said …common oasis…
Happily, sustainability is ultimately local.
Brian Dodgesays
“AGW will not stop the next ice age so there’s hope. ” Nope.
“Even for a total of 500 Gt C cumulative emissions, which is only slightly above the present-day value, the evolution of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets is affected over tens of thousands of years (Fig. 4). In the 1,000 Gt C scenario, the probability of glacial inception during the next 100,000 years is notably reduced, and under cumulative emissions of 1,500 Gt C, glacial inception is very unlikely within the entire 100,000 years. This confirms our conclusions from the critical insolation threshold for gla-cial inception. Because all 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios—except Representative Concentration Pathway 2.6 (RCP2.6), which leads to the total radiative forcing of greenhouse gases of 2.6 W m−2 in 2100—imply that cumulative carbon emission will exceed 1,000 Gt in the twenty-first century, our results suggest that anthropogenic interference will make the initiation of the next ice age impossible over a time period comparable to the duration of previous glacial cycles.”
Critical insolation–CO2 relation for diagnosing past and future glacial inception; A. Ganopolski, R. Winkelmann & H. J. Schellnhuber doi:10.1038/nature16494
It seems that sustained denialism requires alternative facts.
Hmmsays
Thanks to MA Rodger and Mal Adapted. It occurs to me that it’s really the same group of people on the right that are so good at quoting out-of-context. They’ve discovered that cherry picking the uncarefully spoken words of experts is really a good way to fool people. I believe they’ve learned this from Creationists who have made a specialty of it.
Talk Origins has an area dedicated to these quotes, which are numerous, called the Quote Mine Project. Maybe someone should put together something like that for climate science?
Everyone would know how much the Saudis and other Gulf states argued all night until to sunrise for days with scientists/authors other Govts over every aspect of the last IPCC reports summaries. And their approach to the UNFCCC and Paris accord. Yes?
Qatar is in the news over other issues as well. Situation normal and to be expected from the usual class of liars and manipulative Govt rhetoric of who si the ‘bad guys’.
Richard Simonssays
Re #93 and the Dust Bowl:
My understanding is that in some years rainfall amounts have been less than during the Dust Bowl period, but better crop/soil management practices have avoided serious wind-blown erosion.
Thomassays
91 Hank Roberts says “So what’s with the global average here, apparently going down of late?”
It’s called which Base Period one is basing those charts on Hank Roberts.
It’s also called making very short term visual charts of the Anomaly to that Base Period Hank Roberts.
Don’t worry global cooling has not begun. Nor is it a “pause”. :-)
Climate is statistically related to weather but people’s attitudes toward climate change seem to track with weather events. With an active hurricane season predicted, might be interesting for a sociological model based on this premise to be overlaid onto a climatological model. Neither a sociologist or climatologist, an engineer.
From DT’s speech: “The United States, under the Trump administration, will continue to be the cleanest and most environmentally friendly country on Earth.”
Hmm, how does he think the U.S. got to be “the cleanest, most environmentally friendly country on earth” (certainly not in emissions, though). Through those very institutions that he is now trashing. The EPA, the FDA, and the hard work of millions of environmentalists through the decades. From countless court battles against corporate polluters. He seems to think that if you just give the keys off the hen house to the foxes among us, they will protect those hens so much better than the house would have.
In short, how stupid door he think Americans are?
Wait, don’t answer that.
what’s the probability that the US goods and services will be subject to boycotts, divestment and sanctions? oh and tourism will probably take a significant dip too.
Ok, now here’s a little secret. There might be a way to change Trump’s mind. Simply rename the Paris Accord the Donald Trump World Climate Agreement. To sweeten the deal, allow him to make his own small change, I’d recommend a pledge to reduce U.S. emissions even more. And Viola the deal is back on!
>Donald Trump World Climate Agreement.
Scratch that. Let’s make it the Donald Trump World Climate Deal. Yeah, that should do it.
I love him, I love him, I love him
And where he goes I’ll follow, I’ll follow, I’ll follow
I will follow him, follow him wherever he may go
There isn’t an ocean too deep
A mountain so high it can keep me away
I must follow him, ever since he touched my hand I knew
That near him I always must be
And nothing can keep him from me
He is my destiny.
I love him, I love him, I love him
And where he goes I’ll follow, I’ll follow, I’ll follow
He’ll always be my true love, my true love, my true love
From now until forever, forever, forever
I will follow him, follow him wherever he may go
There isn’t an ocean too deep
A mountain so high it can keep, keep me away
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JVhbusBDi4
Haha! I know. I’m scratching my head for. something to contribute as well.
The longer Trump stays in power the deeper the hole the USA has to scramble out of energy wise. Many new global alliances are happening as we type to transition to renewables. To America’s credit some breakaway states such as california are virtually going it alone. If Trump should take credit for California’s initiative at some almost inevitably later date,I give anyone permission to shoot him on site. Meanwhile-hold on America your economy let along global standing is going to endure a F6 hurricane.
Trump pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord is important, but more important are the things that his administration is doing, or attempting to do, to avoid reducing fossil fuel use. These include cutting back (eliminating?) R&D for renewable energy, de-funding the EPA Energy Star program, ignoring the Social Cost of Carbon, renewing leasing/sale of coal on Federal lands without regard to whether the coal companies are paying a reasonable price, threatening to open more Federal lands to fossil fuel extraction…the list goes on.
@ Richard Simons 1 Jun 2017 at 6:59 PM
Rex Tillerson probably has the expertise and competence to have decided that AGW is a fact of life, and he also had access to well informed scientists working for Exxon who explained it to him in the 80’s. Unfortunately, he is dishonest. He spent years using Exxon funds to spread Fear(you’ll lose your job if econazis get their way!!!), Uncertainty(The scientific debate isn’t settled!!!), and Deception(Willie Soon’s “deliverables”, Heartland institute “conferences”). Every year that meaningful action was delayed, meant another 40 billion in unencumbered profits. Every regulation that was weakened meant less expense for his company.
Tillerson wanted the US to stay in the Paris accord so that we could slow progress. Donald Trump is too arrogantly ignorant to understand this.
RSS TLT for the start of 2017 continues to mirror UAH TLT but with the May anomaly rating “scorchyissimo!!!!” in the RSS record.
The RSS May anomaly is given as +0.48ºC, the warmest anomaly of the year so far with previous months running Jan-Apr +0.41ºC, +0.44ºC, +0.35ºC, +0.39ºC. May 2017 is the 4th warmest May on record (after 1998 +0.67ºC, 2016 +0.54ºC, 2010 +0.53ºC) and the 30rd warmest of all months in the record.
The first five months of 2017 thus average +0.41ºC, the 4th warmest start to a year on record (after 2016 +0.77ºC, 1998 +0.68ºC, 2010 +0.55ºC and ahead of 2002 +0.37ºC. 2005 +0.37ºC, 2007 +0.34ºC, 2003 +0.30ºC, 2015 +0.30ºC).
Unlike UAH which had a very warm non-El-Nino-month (Jan 2013) pipping May 2017 to 17th warmest month on record, in RSS all twenty-nine of the months ahead of May 2017 are within the El-Nino-warmed wobbles which results in 30th-warmest-month May 2017 being the warmest non-El-Nino-warmed month and thus it merits the title “scorchyissimo!!!!”
https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/06/03/this-is-the-biggest-news-in-electricity-since-the.aspx
I am deliriously happy at the withdrawal from the Paris Accord. It’s never been about the science and the climate.
I believe what Edenhofer and Figueres and Klein have said:
If they were honest, the climate alarmists would admit that they are not working feverishly to hold down global temperatures — they would acknowledge that they are instead consumed with the goal of holding down capitalism and establishing a global welfare state.
Have doubts? Then listen to the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:
“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole,” said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.
So what is the goal of environmental policy?
“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy,” said Edenhofer.
For those who want to believe that maybe Edenhofer just misspoke and doesn’t really mean that, consider that a little more than five years ago he also said that “the next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.”
Mad as they are, Edenhofer’s comments are nevertheless consistent with other alarmists who have spilled the movement’s dirty secret. Last year, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, made a similar statement.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said in anticipation of last year’s Paris climate summit.
“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”
The plan is to allow Third World countries to emit as much carbon dioxide as they wish — because, as Edenhofer said, “in order to get rich one has to burn coal, oil or gas” — while at the same time restricting emissions in advanced nations. This will, of course, choke economic growth in developed nations, but they deserve that fate as they “have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community,” he said. The fanaticism runs so deep that one professor has even suggested that we need to plunge ourselves into a depression to fight global warming.
Perhaps Naomi Klein summed up best what the warming the fuss is all about in her book “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate.”
“What if global warming isn’t only a crisis?” Klein asks in a preview of a documentary inspired by her book. “What if it’s the best chance we’re ever going to get to build a better world?”
In her mind, the world has to “change, or be changed” because an “economic system” — meaning free-market capitalism — has caused environmental “wreckage.”
This is how the global warming alarmist community thinks. It wants to frighten, intimidate and then assume command. It needs a “crisis” to take advantage of, a hobgoblin to menace the people, so that they will beg for protection from the imaginary threat. The alarmists’ “better world” is one in which they rule a global welfare state. They’ve admitted this themselves.
Oops. Dagnabbit!
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/208989/20170603/methane-domes-hint-of-potential-arctic-sea-floor-reveal-methane-explosions-in-the-future.htm
#50 Alastair B. McDonald:
Here’s something that is adequate: You’re making a non-sequitur.
tw2017 #63,
“global welfare state”
Gotta be the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.
Elon Musk is a stinkin’ rich Capitalist. Elon Musk wants to get even more stinkin’ rich by selling EV, solar panels, and batteries all over the world. How is that a “welfare state”?
This is exactly “free market capitalism”; it simply has to do with new and better technology replacing 19th-century technology. It’s called “creative destruction”. It’s about technology and manufacturing making the extraction of Fossil Fuels economically not viable, and thereby reducing, perhaps to zero, the value of those FF resources “owned” or “leased” by existing powerful actors.
Of course, those actors will do everything they can to prevent that happening. The US Civil War was not about selling cotton picked by slaves; it was about selling slaves– what was fast becoming a growing, problematic, “stranded asset”.
When the US provides money to Israel (and others) for “defence”, what happens to the money? It is used to buy US arms. Duh. So, “transferring wealth” in some form to developing countries to grow de-carbonized economies is nothing more than a subsidy for first-world manufacturers– China and Germany certainly get this, and if the US doesn’t want a piece of the action, that’s just plain stupid.
More ‘balance’ on the NYTimes OpEd pages, this time by Ross Douthat: Neither Hot Nor Cold on Climate. It starts thus:
Fly, RC minions! Freely engage him in robust debate! Hurt his poor little feelings, by contradicting him with documented evidence without trying to keep sarcasm out of your tone!
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/climate-scientist-explains-worst-can-happen-after-paris-withdrawal-n767811
Causes of accelerating sea level on the East Coast of North America
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
16 May 2017Accepted Online: 15 MAY 2017James L. Davis and Nadya T. Vinogradova
Published Online : 29 MAY 2017 06:35PM EST, DOI : 10.1002/2017GL072845
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL072845/abstract/
Shorter:
Like Champagne bottles popping, ancient methane explosions results in Ocean craters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q3c9CErdmA
tw 63: If they were honest, the climate alarmists would admit that they are not working feverishly to hold down global temperatures — they would acknowledge that they are instead consumed with the goal of holding down capitalism and establishing a global welfare state.
BPL: I am honest. I am not consumed with the goal of holding down capitalism and establishing a global welfare state. I also, quite honestly, think you ought to try looking at science issues through a science lens and not a political lens.
Be of good courage– The Guardian says the waxworms will save us !
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2017/06/wasnt-martin-luther-at-diet-of-waxworms.html
@ tegiri nenashi 1 Jun 2017 at 5:07 PM, who disputes accelerating sea level rise –
The massive Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets respond slowly to changes in earth’s temperature; as far as they’re concerned, the temperature rise over the last fifty years is no different from a step change. The changes in ice sheet balance would continue for many hundreds of years even if temperatures miraculously stabilized – and those changes are growing exponentially.
An improved mass budget for the Greenland ice sheet; Ellyn M. Enderlin, Ian M. Howat, Seongsu Jeong, Myoung-Jong Noh, Jan H. van Angelen, and Michiel R. van den Broeke4; Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, 866–872, doi:10.1002/2013GL059010
“The rate of loss increased from 153 ± 33 Gt/a over the period 2000–2005 to 265 ± 18 Gt/a from 2005 to 2009 and 378 ± 50 Gt/a between 2009 and 2012, giving a total acceleration of 27.0 ± 9.0 Gt/a2 since 2000. This acceleration is in good agreement with the 2003–2012 acceleration of 25 ± 9 Gt/a2 detected by GRACE [Wouters et al., 2013]”
The conversion from ice mass loss to sea level rise can be derive from Velicogna who showed “The combined contribution of Greenland and Antarctica to global sea level rise is accelerating at a rate of 56 ± 17 Gt/yr2 during April 2002–February 2009, which corresponds to an equivalent acceleration in sea level rise of 0.17 ± 0.05 mm/yr2 during this time” and “The F-test show that the improvement obtained with the quadratic fit is statistical significant at a very high confidence level.” doi:10.1029/2009GL040222
That was in 2009; a more accurate answer should include recent findings from http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6237/899.full – “We use satellite altimetry and gravity observations to show that a major portion of the region has, since 2009, destabilized. Ice mass loss of the marine-terminating glaciers has rapidly accelerated from close to balance in the 2000s to a sustained rate of –56 ± 8 gigatons per year, constituting a major fraction of Antarctica’s contribution to rising sea level. The widespread, simultaneous nature of the acceleration, in the absence of a persistent atmospheric forcing, points to an oceanic driving mechanism.”
I see that these comments are all over the web, and are sourced from Investors Business Daily. If you’re going to copy and paste at least provide attribution.
http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/another-climate-alarmist-admits-real-motive-behind-warming-scare/
I’m not claiming that the comments weren’t made, I don’t know, but 1) they are found on websites notorious for promoting fake news, 2) they are quoted out of context (a tactic that the “Right” learned from their creationist counterparts), and 3) these are just opinion quotes from a few individuals. People can have their own individual opinions and ideas about the best way to solve issues you know.
Anyway onto the quotes, IBD references an article from WUWT, which has an interview (supposedly) with Ottmar Edenhofer with the following link provided as a source, http://www.thegwpf.org/ipcc-news/1877-ipcc-official-climate-policy-is-redistributing-the-worlds-wealth.html
But when I click that link I see the message “Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here.” Now, maybe you’ll claim that there’s something sinister there, but I’m just telling you that it’s not there.
IBD also has a quote from Christiana Figueres and a link to it, but when I click on that it takes me to another IBD page with the quote but no source.
Anyway, about the specific quotes, some context.
https://skepticalscience.com/message-to-trump-from-climate-scientists.html
Various commenters
https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2016/10/11/fox-guest-bursts-their-bubble-climate-change-one-most-important-issues-florida-politics/213760
In the above link, I would recommend reading comments from Bart R.
I don’t see any problem with Naomi Klein’s comments.
I realize that, as ever, the Republican “Right” is ultra concerned about money. If fixing global warming were free they’d have no problem with it, (well except maybe for Trump, who seems to be fixated on spiteing everone). If they could figure out a way to make or be given money in it’s fixing they’d be doing all the leg work themselves.
The ironically named Mr. Know It All says:
Trump providing funding for this is like O.J. Simpson searching for the real killer.
By the way, tw2017, the general implied thrust of the quoted comments are probably right. The U.S. has and does use a disproportionate amount of the world’s resources which have negatively impacted the entire world’s climate and therefore does, ethically at least, bear a disproportionate responsibility for fixing things, however that is worked out, don’t you think?
Does that mean that I think that U.S. taxpayers should foot the bill for the rest of the world. No. I put that onus on those who have sought to delay repairing global climate through a history of obfuscations and outright lies, and who have done all they could to stymie innovation in this country in clean alternative energies.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/big-oils-big-lies-about-alternative-energy-20130625
Note that it is the Trump Republicans that just killed the Clean Power Plan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU3YxNNbtmI
But, again, those are just my opinions.
68 Hank Roberts – from link scientist Sanderson says: “Therein lies the danger of the US departure, because the world’s greatest historical emitter has left the agreement, the mutual assurance that all parties are acting has now gone.”
I opine that Trump is still irrelevant. In or out of Paris the cause of the problem remains the same. This move is nothing but window dressing and changes nothing at all. The problem isn’t Trump nor the Republican Deniers per se … the cause of the problem is ALL the People of the United States of America collectively are irresponsible and immoral on this issue. Basically the entire nation is living under a constant United State of Denial.
China’s historical per capita emissions and contribution to Global Warming today is one tenth the amount of the USA
Global Warming Contribution per billion people – USA 0.51 C — China 0.05 C
Science Paper Ref (reposted again) http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/1/014010/article
Cumulative global warming to 2016 = +1.24C – The American people’s contribution ( @4.4% world pop.) is approx. 43% of the total global warming.
REF: Global Temps 1880-1920 base period = +1.24C in 2016 … http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/ .. which is old news repeatedly ignored/downplayed and rarely not reported accurately – including by RC in their latest article.
New Monthly CO2 Record set in May 2017 – just shy of 410ppm
43% of the rapid increase in CO2 ppm lays at the feet of all Americans historically and today – only 4.4% of the world’s population. Collectively they are denying their responsibility for serious harm to the rest of the world’s people now and into the future.
Ground Zero for Climate Science Denial is also America. Ground Zero for the mythical beliefs of Neoliberal Ideology is likewise in America. Clinton – Bush – Obama – Trump or Clinton makes no difference. The cause is the same. The outcome will be the same (eventually).
imo. Trade tariffs, then trade and financial embargoes and eventually punitive Sanctions by the rest of the world matched by the closure of +1000 Mil/Intel & CIA Black Sites around the world. That is where this is heading. It will take many years for something like this to occur, I will be long gone, but given the American people are so resistant to ‘reality’ and ‘facts’ and ‘truth’ and collective responsibility, I cannot see it going in any other direction long term.
Doesn’t matter if I am right or wrong, doesn’t matter if the US is in the UNFCCC or out of it, whether Trump is President or not.
75 – CN
Are you really John Kerry? He said the same thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uitQZYjUKOI
6/4
8:53pm
Whether AGW is real or not will never be decided by our comments here. Most folks on the street don’t understand the science, including those who say it is real. So the debate among the general population is not about “science” it is about what people “believe”. As of yet, I’ve seen no clear and concise explanation of the “science”. Not saying the science is false – but it would be good to see a good explanation of the radiation physics with actual numbers, etc – not a dumbed down “the IR bounces off the CO2 and goes back down to warm the earth” presentation.
The comments by tw2017 in #63 above are what many skeptics believe and with good reason. It looks like we’re just in another ice age warming period, right on time, as happens every 100K years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age#/media/File:Vostok_Petit_data.svg
Thus, all the scary talk on temperature is meaningless. Michio Kaku (sp?) said on Science Fantastic that AGW will not stop the next ice age so there’s hope. :)
None of our arguments matter. The Paris agreement doesn’t matter. If renewable energy proponents are correct that RE is cheaper than fossil fuels, then FF will be replaced by RE, without any agreements.
By causing the hysteria we see about AGW, Trump has probably done more than any agreement to cause those who believe in AGW to take more swift action. IF AGW is a real and serious threat then he may have saved the world. He’s smart enough that he may understand this. He may even be planning on another agreement which requires more action by China, etc, and which will do more than the Paris agreement. We’ll see. No need for hysteria – just do your part. Order your solar panels, electric car, bicycle, garden soil and seeds, tree seeds, beano, etc and get to work. Stop whining and start acting.
from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/05/vladimir-putin-denies-he-has-compromising-material-on-donald-trump
Putin also told NBC he had no relationship with Trump and had never met him, regardless of Trump’s previous travel to Russia as a businessman. Putin noted that executives from perhaps 100 American companies were currently in Russia.
“Do you think we’re gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something?” Putin asked, before saying: “Have you all lost your senses?”
imo the answer is clearly a big Yes!
Now if American’s really want to do something about agw/cc and specifically the extremely high cumulative and ongoing contribution to global warming by the USA then maybe they should do something about Citizen’s United?
and this:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presidency
and this
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/05/get-me-roger-stone-donald-trump-netflix/526296/
and this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black,_Manafort,_Stone_and_Kelly
and this
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/25/seymour-hersh-blasts-media-for-uncritically-promoting-russian-hacking-story/
Sorry, but the 30,000 climate scientists in the world and the UNFCCC can not fix that for you. You’re on your own.
Sorry, KIA: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992
A neat anecdote quote:
“What people ‘believe’ about global warming doesn’t reflect what they know. It expresses who they are.”
— Dan Kahan, a Yale researcher who studies political polarization.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/us/education-climate-change-science-class-students.html
See, I am not on my ‘pat malone’. Thousands of scientists and academics agree. :-)
tw2017 says:
3 Jun 2017 at 6:33 PM
I am deliriously happy at the withdrawal from the Paris Accord. It’s never been about the science and the climate.”
Where did you come from and how soon will you be leaving? We’ve already got some trolls that spew rightwing nonsense.
Victor says:
2 Jun 2017 at 6:00 PM
I love him, I love him, I love him
And where he goes I’ll follow, I’ll follow, I’ll follow…
Who are you, Victor Victoria?
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9c/f3/a8/9cf3a82bb110aff339d75f8b78fbed3d.jpg
Mr. Know It All says:
1 Jun 2017 at 3:04 PM
“I am pleased that the USA has withdrawn from the Climate Treaty.”
KNOW-IT-ALL Definition~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know-it-all
1. “A know-it-all or know-all is a person who constantly presents their input as though they were professionally trained, schooled or have firsthand insight into subjects when it is evident this is not the case.”
2. noun (Informal) One who is obnoxiously self-assertive and arrogant: malapert, witling. ( Informal) Smart-Ass, windbag, braggart, saucebox, smart aleck, smarty, smarty-pants, wisenheimer. ( Slang) wiseacre, wisecracker, wise guy.
See Also – Dunning-Kruger Effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Over night I thought to look in Internet Archives. There I found that there was an article on the Global Warming Policy Foundation website. My guess they it’s that it was removed because it was being misunderstood. Anyway,Edenhofer doesn’t speak of first world countries sending their money to third world countries but about the redistribution of “global emission rights”. He was advocating allowing third world countries to develop and thereby become the carbon emitters in fairness since “developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community.”…. “it is no longer just our luxury, our environment. Developing countries have realized that causes of climate change lie in the north and the consequences in the south.”
Why not just allow everyone to emit carbon freely? He answers, “Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet – and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 – there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.”
Besides allowing third world countries to become the emitters while we cut back he also says, “We will see in Africa with climate change a decline in agricultural yields. But this can be avoided if the efficiency of production is increased – and especially if the African agricultural trade is embedded in the global economy. But for that we need to see that successful climate policy requires other global trade and financial policies.”
Speaking of “cooperation” (not not third world countries dominating first world countries) he says, “one cannot solve the climate problem alone”.
So he is saying that we should be fair to those countries to which our defacto climate policies to date (meaning our industrial emissions) have negatively affected their futures by allowing them to grow too while we cut back on our own emissions via “global CO 2-tariffs”, by supporting their economies via agricultural trade (and of course to do that we’d have to have the money to buy their agricultural products) and by “technology transfer” (i.o.w., knowledge sharing).
He also makes the following statement, “Ethics always play a role when it comes to power. China and Latin America, for example, always emphasize the historical responsibility of developed countries for climate change. This responsibility is not to deny, but it is also a strategic argument for these countries. I would accept the responsibility for the period since 1995 because we know since then, what is causing the greenhouse effect. To extend the responsibility to the industrial revolution is not ethically justified.” This doesn’t sound like the reasoning of some anti-capitalist commie to me, but someone who is trying to figure out how to be fair.
Lastly, Edenhofer says this, “The book contains a parable: A group of hikers, who represent the world community, walks through a desert. The industrialized nations drink half of the water and then say generously: ‘Let us share the rest.’ The others reply: ‘This is not possible; you have already drunk half of the water. Let us talk first about your historical responsibility.’ I think if we are arguing about the water supply because we cannot agree on the ethical principles, then we will die of thirst. What we need to look for is an oasis that is the non-carbon global economy. It’s about the common departure for this oasis.”
Now the word, “common” there, that includes first world countries. So to sum up, he was not advocating the destruction of first world economies despite what right-wing fear mongers would have you believe, just trying to figure out how we ALL can get to the non-CO2 “Oasis”.
One last thing to remember is, again, that these are the thoughts of one guy trying to think of ways too make this work for everyone.
KIA 79: As of yet, I’ve seen no clear and concise explanation of the “science”.
BPL: Do you honestly want one? Because, if you and the editors of RealClimate will agree, I’d be glad to give you a simple course in how planet surface temperatures are determined. If they don’t want it here, you and I could do it in email. No charge.
Are you interested?
Th 80: “Do you think we’re gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something?” Putin asked, before saying: “Have you all lost your senses?”
imo the answer is clearly a big Yes!
BPL: You probably mean the answer to the second question is Yes? Because in my not-so-humble-opinion, the answer to the FIRST question is UNDOUBTEDLY “Yes.” The Chekists have operated about the same way since the Russian Civil War, and to assume they’ve stopped because Russia is now, technically, a republic is insupportable. OF COURSE they’re investigating each and every possible foreign visitor of any economic or political power, and OF COURSE they’re looking for something compromising on them. Seriously, how naive are you?
Recommended by Retraction Watch:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/calls-open-data-adjudicator-combat-disinformation
Hmm @74,
First thing to note is that while the first of those sources (the webpage editorial at Investor’s Business Daily) dates to last year, it references a post on the Planet Wattsupia that dates back to 2010. This is when the alleged comments were made by Ottmar Edenhofer in an interview with Bernard Potter. The link from the webpage on the Planet Wattsupia indeed does not work but the target page at the offices of the Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy (GWPF) does still exist. Of course, the GWPF are a bunch of bare-faced liars (which is pretty bad given they are supposed to be an educational charity!!) so anything they set out has to be in the first instance considered wrong and only accepted if it can be demonstrated to be otherwise. The target page at the GWPF offices was evidently considered lies as it was moved and now resides here within the “Forum” which is allowed to continue with the lies and the spreading of untruth because it is not officially part of the charity.
So, in keeping to the truth, how do the Gentlemen do in this case?
According to GWPF
The interview cited by GWPF was conducted in German and the direct quote above is a good translation of a sentence within that interview. (“Man muss sich von der Illusion freimachen, dass internationale Klimapolitik Umweltpolitik ist. Das hat mit Umweltpolitik, mit Problemen wie Waldsterben oder Ozonloch, fast nichts mehr zu tun.”) And the description of the Cancún summit is as Edenhofer describes. GWPF translate Edenhofer thus:-
So at face value you could be forgiven in thinking that the GWPF do not in this instance spread lies. But this is not so. The comment about Cancún precedes the direct quote. And the reason for describing Cancún in that manner is immediately described:-
It is to emphasis the economic significance of this situation, a situation dictated by climate science, that Edenhofer makes the statement that the decision-making is not about climate anymore, but about the economics. The important word is “anymore.” The GWPF intention was always that you wouldn’t spot this word and would, as in the webpage editorial at Investor’s Business Daily, explain the quote as saying that AGW always was some big conspiracy and it was never about the environment.
The Christiana Figueres quote is also correct as a quote but does not in any way support the assertion that the intention of AGW is to spoof the world into an new mode of economic development. You would have to be seriously delusional to hold such a view.
So what’s with the global average here, apparently going down of late?
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/RecentT.png
that’s from this page
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/
Someone might already know that America’s national cumulative contribution to global warming is about 25% of the total despite only being 4.4% of the world’s population today but that is neither here nor there…. the effect is the same, the cause is the same the solution is the same.
It is not comparing like for like when US agw apologists inaccurately compare what’s happening today with China vs the cumulative impact of the USA.
Nor is it like for like to compare the US GHG emissions with China’s or India’s who together represent ~2.75 billion people or 37% of the world’s population.
It’s quite understandable that so many American’s would want to avoid confronting their historical legacy head on, to spin minimize or deny such facts, and even to want to get out of the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC at any cost.
@41. I don’t think you’re an American. Not only because of your unusual phrasing, but because you don’t seem to realize that America is a republic. That is, we elect and give authority to office holders. We don’t directly vote on matters of state.
So, the last time any regular American citizen voted on a treaty was … never. In the US, we don’t do that. Possibly they do in your country. But not here.
Just like we didn’t vote to remove ourselves from the Paris Agreement.
So when you point out that I didn’t vote for the treaty … well, that’s true. By definition. Because this is a republic. But … somehow you didn’t know that?
On the permanent dust bowling of America, well, if you bothered to google the term, you’ve seen the soil moisture projections that I’m relying on. Based on analysis of projected temperatures and rainfall.
So, what set of projections are you using, when you say that can’t happen, that it’s just a scare tactic? None? Yeah, none. It has to be none, because there are no physics-based projections of future soil moisture under business-as-usual that result in soil moisture similar to what we enjoy currently.
In other words, you’re just making stuff up. You have no evidence on your side.
And you might stop and think a bit, about what else was happening when the US had its last dustbowl episode. In the 1930s, we had two climate events: Warmest temperatures seen in the US to date, and a temporary dustbowl. Hmmm.
In any case, understanding dust-bowlification requires little more than simple physics.
Take a damp sponge, put it on a table, let it sit, and it will dry out. Warm it up, and it will dry out faster. Simple physics. The only thing we could have to argue about is how much dryer the warm sponge will be.
In short, the warm sponge dries out faster than the cool sponge.
Now substitute “the soil of Iowa” for sponge. The only thing we have to argue about is how much dryer the soil of Iowa will be, once it is a projected 12 degrees F warmer than it is now, by the year 2100.
Far as I can tell from the research, scientists who have studied this do not ask whether soil moisture will reach dust-bowl levels, in the typical year, if we continue to burn fossil fuels under a business-as-usual scenario. The only real uncertainty is when – 2050, 2100, somewhere in that range appears to be the consensus.
tw2017:
Heh. What Edenhofer has actually said came up at Stoat about a year ago. I’ll bet you got your first quote, in English, from WUWT or another dedicated AGW-denier source, amirite? It’s originally from a newspaper interview published in Schwyzerdütsch in the New Zurich Times, and apparently translated into English by someone at the GWPF.
Climate scientist Victor Venema (H/T), a native German speaker, translated the Edenhofer interview for us himself. Victor doesn’t think Edenhofer meant what the GWPF wants you to think he did.
Re #86 Hmm said …common oasis…
Happily, sustainability is ultimately local.
“AGW will not stop the next ice age so there’s hope. ” Nope.
“Even for a total of 500 Gt C cumulative emissions, which is only slightly above the present-day value, the evolution of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets is affected over tens of thousands of years (Fig. 4). In the 1,000 Gt C scenario, the probability of glacial inception during the next 100,000 years is notably reduced, and under cumulative emissions of 1,500 Gt C, glacial inception is very unlikely within the entire 100,000 years. This confirms our conclusions from the critical insolation threshold for gla-cial inception. Because all 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios—except Representative Concentration Pathway 2.6 (RCP2.6), which leads to the total radiative forcing of greenhouse gases of 2.6 W m−2 in 2100—imply that cumulative carbon emission will exceed 1,000 Gt in the twenty-first century, our results suggest that anthropogenic interference will make the initiation of the next ice age impossible over a time period comparable to the duration of previous glacial cycles.”
Critical insolation–CO2 relation for diagnosing past and future glacial inception; A. Ganopolski, R. Winkelmann & H. J. Schellnhuber doi:10.1038/nature16494
It seems that sustained denialism requires alternative facts.
Thanks to MA Rodger and Mal Adapted. It occurs to me that it’s really the same group of people on the right that are so good at quoting out-of-context. They’ve discovered that cherry picking the uncarefully spoken words of experts is really a good way to fool people. I believe they’ve learned this from Creationists who have made a specialty of it.
Talk Origins has an area dedicated to these quotes, which are numerous, called the Quote Mine Project. Maybe someone should put together something like that for climate science?
Qatar vs Saudis, Trump, Repubs and Denialists
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/climate-science-belief-system-170601094253379.html
Everyone would know how much the Saudis and other Gulf states argued all night until to sunrise for days with scientists/authors other Govts over every aspect of the last IPCC reports summaries. And their approach to the UNFCCC and Paris accord. Yes?
Qatar is in the news over other issues as well. Situation normal and to be expected from the usual class of liars and manipulative Govt rhetoric of who si the ‘bad guys’.
Re #93 and the Dust Bowl:
My understanding is that in some years rainfall amounts have been less than during the Dust Bowl period, but better crop/soil management practices have avoided serious wind-blown erosion.
91 Hank Roberts says “So what’s with the global average here, apparently going down of late?”
It’s called which Base Period one is basing those charts on Hank Roberts.
It’s also called making very short term visual charts of the Anomaly to that Base Period Hank Roberts.
Don’t worry global cooling has not begun. Nor is it a “pause”. :-)