It’s almost like the economist Richard Nordhaus thinks that in a much warmer world all that matters is whether the world’s factories can go on churning out goods, and probably they will. What about millions dying in tropical countries, and mass emigration from them, resource wars, loss of biodiversity, sea level rise and flooding causing communities endless stress? You can’t really put economic values on these sorts of things. Its purely a question of whether we want that sort of world. Yes or no?
jgnfldsays
Re. EP and “That’s sad. Hardly surprising (the failure of panaceas to pan out should be taken for granted), but still sad.”
So too the nuclear power you constantly promote?
Reality Checksays
#395 Ok then, I’ll repeat and explain a few things. Might help
There is no ad hominem. The article is an article written by a journo. It is not a ‘study’. These are simple facts.
I’m not wrong about what the article means.
This depends on what you think the article means, doesn’t it? I never claimed “that I’m misinterpreting the article”, I was questioning if it meant what you thought it means. I didn’t and don’t know the answer.
In fact, I am still wondering if the writer knows what it means, given what he’s actually said and what he is relying upon. Seems exaggerated, unbalanced, and over-stated.
This is OBVIOSLY a correct deduction, given the article says:
Only if the article’s content, intent, and presentation, it’s take away message, is correct – Plus – you have understood it correctly – AND checked his sources for accuracy. You may follow a different system, which is fine. Your choice.
So, nigel, do you think the unsupported (unverifed) claim in the article that goes: An early idea to increase carbon stores — planting crops without tilling the soil — has mostly fallen flat. is somehow related to, or proven true because of some study about …how much carbon dioxide was released when researchers artificially warmed the soil in a Panamanian rainforest?
Can you not see:
1) the assertion has no referenced study to support it, is frankly very poorly defined (is unscientific, lacks specificity, is a very broad generalization/assumption), and be it a fair take away idea or not;
2) such an assertion has no relevance at all – in time or place or process – to what might have happened in an artificially warmed soil in a Panamanian rainforest, a continent away, in another time and place?
Now it might be true that soil heated by 4C forced CO2 out of that soil in a Panamanian rainforest, I don’t know, but surely such a thing has absolutely no effect on the speed and quantity of uptake of CO2 as SOC in agricultural fields of Crops somewhere else. Fields that were monitored by scientists in a multitude of studies that recorded said uptake of Carbon (SOC/SOM)?
Because, what you said was: So claims made about regenerative agriculture rapidly sequestering vast quantities of soil carbon look exaggerated, … (and then a lot more)
I’m still wondering on basis do you think that? If it’s because of the content in the article, then I’m cannot see the connection. Or why you would believe such a thing. It just doesn’t add up to me and so I questioned that.
Also the article was not about regenerative agriculture, and all that it entails, but merely about no-till SOC content and longevity; and of course the Panamanian rainforest soil being heated, and a few other things.
Now, the article did present Sanderson at one point, my one example of many possible (an attempt to keep the comment short per your prior ‘advice’ as being supportive of such a conclusion. And yet looking at the evidence and misc references given (and found) this isn’t what Sanderson himself appears to believe. See my references again for clarity.
However, take whatever meaning you wish from that article. Each to their own. I am content for you to believe whatever you want to believe.
But may I say this in closing – I do not need to focus on the CONTENT of the article and prove the claims wrong – I am quite happy to review material like this and make up my own mind about what I think about it. Which I did.
I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. If anyone does it is the author, surely. I think he failed to do that. Because I checked his references and critically thought about what he was saying. I might be wrong. If so it only concerns me.
You can come to a different opinion. Fine by me. But I don’t need to convince you of anything. You can make up your own mind well enough. Still, I am entitled to question your thinking about something presented here that you’ve commented upon, as you question my comments.
In fact, I regularly question my own thinking too. And can even change my opinions and conclusions at times.
Sorry if this reply was too long, but you did raise several complex issues Nigel, they all needed to be addressed. I hope everything is clearer now. Thanks, and good luck.
Killiansays
365/375
Only a fool would consider only the top 8~12 inches of soil WRT carbon sequestration. It’s like only counting the carbon at the ocean’s surface. That drought releases carbon is well-known, not a “new” finding, which is partly why we don’t even consider thinking about soil carbon this way.
Terra preta soils are of pre-Columbian nature and were created by humans between 450 BC and AD 950. The soil’s depth can reach 2 meters. Thousands of years after its creation it has been reported to regenerate itself at the rate of 1 centimeter per year by farmers in Brazil’s Amazonian basin, who seek it for use and for sale as valuable compost.
So, no, you don’t just measure the top 12 inches, you don’t ignore carbon sequestration beyond 12 inches, you do not ignore terra preta and bio-char, you don’t ignore the intentional use of deep-rooted plants to sequester carbon meters beyond the topsoil, you don’t ignore mycelia, you don’t ignore composting, you don’t ignore that annual increase in SOC from carbon farmibg and act as if the soil just sits there depleting, you don’t ignore that regenerative practices reduce effects of driught, you don’t ignore that we can sequester carbon in soils orders of magnitude faster than Nature does, etc.
Your willfully blind acceptance (both of you are well aware of the points I raise above) of poorly contextualized science is dangerous.
Killiansays
373 Reality Check
“Time is short/time is up” – Me, 2007~present.
Hmmmm… right again.
Life on RC:
A: How *does* he do that?
B: Do what? I see nothing! I hear nothing!
A: Maybe we should ask him…
B: Ask him what? He is always wrong! He knows nothing! He sees nothing!
A: But, he did it again.
B: No he didn’t!
A: Yes, I see the wisdom of your words…
Killiansays
371 Richard the Weaver says:
28 Jul 2021 at 7:14 PM
I don’t know which would be better. Massively overbuild renewables and shovel the excess to synfuel production or make synfuel with far away nukes.
The problem is the solution: Why would we need synfuels in a simplified world?
In particular Page 62, see item (3)
In the progressive decomposition model (also called ‘biopolymer
degradation’37; or ‘the degradative concept’15,23), soil organic matter
consists of a range of organic fragments and microbial products of all
sizes at various stages of decomposition7,38 (Fig. 2). (and down the page)
and even read the rest of it. Enjoy. Pretty complex. Competing theories and new models in need of further testing and research. Too complex for me to judge. Sounds fascinating though. Competing scientists with different ideas always is.
eg the comments section:
We?d like to draw attention to a significant body of literature missing from this paper on the potential role of minerals in processes increasing the recalcitrance of organic matter, so-called ?humification?. In our opinion the role of minerals in actively promoting recalcitrance is missing from this important discussion. Lehmann and Kleber do acknowledge that minerals are important as sorptive surfaces providing physical protection. But no mention is made on the role of minerals in chemically transforming organic matter in either terrestrial or marine environments. This is important as mineral-organic reactions is growing field of interest in both marine and terrestrial environments. In terrestrial environments understanding the potential of minerals to ?humify? or build up organic matter from Light Molecular Weight (LMW) forms into High Molecular Weight (HMW) forms has important implications for geoengineering carbon into soils.
What we do know is that if we put carbon back into soils, water will follow and this potential climate change mitigation and adaptation is reason enough to explore mineral catalyzed ?humification? reactions.
Meaning?
Opinions vary on scientific theories and research conclusions. I’m not qualified to judge.
mikesays
Hey, Nigel You say “What about millions dying in tropical countries, and mass emigration from them, resource wars, loss of biodiversity, sea level rise and flooding causing communities endless stress? You can’t really put economic values on these sorts of things. Its purely a question of whether we want that sort of world. Yes or no?”
The cost of addressing climate change and global warming to address the issues you mention here is going to be astronomically high. You say we can’t really put economic values on these things, but I think that happens all the time when the cost of addressing climate change is discussed and the issue of deficits is raised as a reason for delay or inaction.
Here are some webpages that discuss the cost of addressing climate change:
It is my impression that you harbor concerns about governments printing money to fund changes that would address the problems you list. Are you starting to budge on that? Or do you have an idea about how to fund the changes that does not involve governments printing money?
I am pleased to hear that you think it’s purely a question of whether we want the kind of world that global warming is bringing to us.
Cheers
Mike
David B Bensonsays
Reality Check @399 —- Ignore Lyman and the UCS; they are grinding their ax.
nigeljsays
Reality Check @398
“I’m quite content with what I said before.”
Despite the fact it was proven to be complete rubbish at best and dishonest at worst? Sad that you are content with it.
…in places like America nuclear is slow to build and there’s a lot of public scepticism about safety.
Not just America; we have numerous examples of reactors vastly over-budget and behind schedule, besides the Vogtle and Summer fiascos:
Olkiluoto 3: 16 years construction so far (11 behind schedule)/€5.5 billion over budget Hinkley C: 10 years just to *start* construction; current estimate 8 years build time/current cost estimate £22–23 billion Flamanville 3: 14 years construction so far (9 behind schedule)/€19.1 billion, 15.8 over budget
–The Argentinian CAREM 25 MW prototype reactor is now 4 years behind schedule.
–The Indian Kalpakkam fast breeder reactor is now 11 years behind schedule.
–The Indian Kakrapar Phase 2 reactors took 11 years to build–that’s only 3 years behind.
–The Slovakian Mochovce 3 & 4 were under construction for 6 years before being mothballed due to lack of funds; construction restarted in 2008, with projected completion in 2012 & 2013. 3 is apparently now done, but still undergoing commissioning (?). Unit 4 is projected for 2023.
–Barakah 2 in the UAE is complete but AFAICT has not yet had fuel loaded; it took 8 years to get this far. Barakah 1 took 9 years to reach commercial operation.
–China’s Shidaowan HTR-PM: 9 years (5 years more than initial estimate) But I suppose you can cut them some slack; it’s the first ‘gen IV’ reactor.
The only real success story (for timely completion) is also Chinese:
–Fuqing 6 is expected to come online this year after ~6 years under construction. That’s comparable to the first 5 reactors in the complex.
And, except for Vogtle (already mentioned above), that’s it for ‘this year’s crop’ of reactors.
EP says theres no country fully or largely reliant on solar and wind so we dont really know if its feasible or cost effective at scale. MS waves around research papers saying its feasible.
Yes, E-P does say that–a lot. But IMO it’s a bit of a strawman, and even more so an argument from incredulity. First, to the strawman bit, while some aspire to see 100% RE, we’re not going to have that in very many places in the world in the next decade or two, because we are also going to have legacy nuclear & hydro capacity, plus some amount of new capacity in both categories, plus small amounts of other sources like tidal, geothermal, and–though it’s problematic–biofuels, waste & synfuels. So there’s going to be a lot of ‘firming capacity’ even before we get into the vexed question of storage. (Though I can’t forbear to mention that so far, the learning curve on storage is looking gratifying exponential, so there’s that.)
Second, and going to the argument from incredulity–is it harder to believe that we can scale up the deployment of RE by a factor of 6 or so in the next decade or two, or that we can scale up the deployment of nuclear power AT ALL in the same time frame?
Mr. Know It Allsays
How many of those behind schedule reactors and other failures were caused by over-regulation, lawsuits, bureaucracy, etc that really weren’t legitimate, but were in fact meant to delay the project until it went bankrupt?
Killiansays
400: That is the economics you and others advocate. You constantly contradict yourself and seem always oblivious. (I am not the only one to notice this.)
Killiansays
The problem with listening to who know nothing WRT a topic, yet run their mouths anyway, particularly if from certain countries that are actually exceptional in their consumption rather than close to the global norm, is they just don’t have the ability to properly critique, yet have this huge platform to misinform.
It’s a serious problem.
Here’s a good example, important because we have been told here for years now that local gardening and regenerative systems cannot save us. Yet, they always have been and still are. Globally, 70% of food is grown locally, and much of that is grown traditionally, and much of *that* is regenerative.
Don’t listen to windy know-nothings. Listen to reality:
Dacha gardening accounts for about 3% of the arable land used in agriculture, but grows an astounding 50% by value of the food eaten by Russians. According to official government statistics in 2000, over 35 million families (approximately 105 million people or 71% of the population) were engaged in dacha gardening. These gardens provide 92% of Russia’s potatoes, 77% of its vegetables, 87% of the berries and fruit, 59% of its meat and 49% of the milk produced nationally. There are several studies that indicate that these figures may be underestimated, as they don’t take into account the self-provisioning efforts of wild harvesting or foraging of wild-growing plants, berries, nuts and mushrooms, as well as fishing and hunting that contributes to the local food economy.
Home gardens, so-called “Victory Gardens” in the US accounted for 40% of fruit and vegetables during WWII after a rapid shift required so large farms could feed troops, etc.
Richard the Weaversays
NigelJ: You can’t really put economic values on these sorts of things. Its purely a question of whether we want that sort of world.
RtW: Yeah. I found an interview with a wealthy Miami real estate developer. He was totally unconcerned about the fact that the stuff he was building would be under water in a few decades because he’ll be dead by then. So, if legacy is irrelevant, why keep working? A twisted sense of purpose, I suppose. Working at what one knows is hugely destructive, but said destruction will occur after one is gone… Sorry. I can’t approve.
So my vote is for the snail darter and that owl and, well, a functioning biosphere. Converting everything physical into a metric is obviously not anything anyone wants, but for most individuals who matter the best returns can be had precisely in said conversion.
And the Amazon, the ocean, the biosphere dies of a thousand cuts…
…but rich folks can afford the multi-million dollar bungalow that some mechanic bought new many decades ago.
Was any wealth really created? Maybe. But the biosphere is way more fundamental. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and all that
Killiansays
Top-dpwn hierarchies to get complex development? Not so fast…
I’m building my refrigerator, as I think I’ve already noted. Its mech consists of a 5ft3 chest freezer, unmodified so far. I don’t know if it is worth modifying it. The industry standard design wraps the hot coil around the walls of the unit, so you can’t add extra exterior insulation to the the worst area for heat loss (where the hot coil is).
I haven’t checked the interior coil location yet. Maybe adding a Foamular floor will help. The bottom cubic foot or so of a chest freezer is just a graveyard anyway so the loss of space is kinda a ‘good riddance’ thing.
And, less likely, the lid can be insulated. Glue a layer to the lid, inside to maintain the exterior look or outside to maximize space.
The refrigerator uses a standard large cooler as its core. I’ve experimented with freezing salt water in the freezer to power the cooler and it works well. I wonder why saltwater, which is super cheap, isn’t used in the commercial products.
The cooler has 2″ walls. I’ve started gluing together a container for the cooler out of 2″ Foamular foam.
So the walls and top will have 4″ of insulation. But not the floor. It will have the original 2″.
The cooler will sit on top of a 12″ tall second layer of foam inside of the side and rear walls, and so creates a highly insulated (4″ walls and floor) area under the cooler.
The goal is to augment the chest freezer’s cheap freeze with a seriously cold area in the cooler and a similarly-sized cool area underneath the cooler.
Gluing foam with paint primer takes time. Two days minimum before significant handling. A week or more to really cure. I’m not using fasteners. Instead, I’m using weight to press pieces together. So two or three days times four or so steps. Done and painted in two weeks?
Richard the Weaversays
Re: chest freezers
The mech sits on the bottom to one side so the freezer’s interior has a shallow side and a deep side. The extra space represented by the deep side is not useful.
So make a 3.5ft3 (or whatever) chest freezer with a cool drawer underneath. The user gets extra freezer space and extra refrigeration space, too. And since the freezer will have a simpler shape (and digging for food will be eliminated) efficiency goes up.
nigeljsays
This arrived on my phone, one of those mostly annoying but occasionally useful google notifications:
“Scientists Find A Better Way To Turn Heat Into Electricity By Reversing A Standard Rule”
Nigel,
The problem is you don’t even know what you are reading. For example, the study on suberin and the hopes that maybe plants might be genetically engineered to produce more. Yes that particular pathway to carbon sequestration has taken a serious blow. Genetically engineered plants producing suberin in their roots is not the answer.
But that is also nothing to do with the liquid carbon pathway, which is shown already to produce those large stable humic polymers tightly bound to the mineral substrate needed for long term sequestration.
Just because one line of research is shown to be a deadend, doesn’t mean all research is equally debunked! We already know the biome that creates that mollic epipedon, it’s the grasslands/savanna biome! We know the plants don’t do it by themselves, but rather it is a byproduct of the symbiosis between the plants and the biology in the soil, primarily Mycorrhizal fungi. We also know a secondary way to achieve long term carbon in the soil artificially, terra preta/biochar.
Who knows? One day we might learn more ways too! But all that study shows is that suberin and other bioengineering attempts to produce stable long chain humic polymers that bind tightly to the mineral substrate directly by plants without that symbiosis with mycorrhizal fungi or pyrolysis have failed.
That study has nothing to do with known processes regenerative ag uses to sequester soil carbon, only showing that industrialized ag’s attempts to mimic what regenerative ag is already doing, has fallen short.
In your previous post was a similar failing to understand for similar reasons. Regarding no till as practiced by industrialized ag, yes it has fallen short. It is no secret why….. pesticides and haber process nitrogen and also even phosphorus remove the ecosystem function due to killing major portions of the soil microbiological community, not the least of which is those mycorrhizal fungi networks.
Again, regenerative ag works when industrialized ag fails not by magic, but by known biochemical processes. I am certain there is more to learn too!
But your flawed logic regarding studies on industrialized ag, somehow having relevance on what has already been proven to work, is what has put you under scorn as a “denier”. Not much different that the climate denialists logic flaws. How many times have we heard them claim CO2 emissions from humans is such a small portion of the natural CO2 cycle, it shouldn’t cause AGW? And we know the flaw in the argument. CO2 is measurable, so are temps. Both are observed to be increasing! No flawed logic can supersede observations! That’s denying what can be seen and measured! Your attempts to discredit and/or diminish Regenerative agriculture and natural biome’s OBSERVED and MEASURED sequestration rates with studies on why industrialized agriculture has failed to do similar is quite frankly as offensive to us as the climate denialist trolls that reach the borehole here. For the exact same reasons too.
Killiansays
421 Strough
AMEN.
Exemplar of Dunning-Kruger. While it is popular on this site to misuse the D-K effect to belittle comments that are in no way illustrations of that effect, this is not one of those cases. There is no insult here, only the observed behavior demonstrating D-K repeatedly over a period of years on the same topic.
Killiansays
398 Reality Check
Yes, reality is slowly dawning, but it is alarming how far from the truly necessary all of those sources are. Still, I am used by now to watching things inc their way toward where I have been standing for nearly 1.5 decades.
———————–
408 Mike
It is my impression that you harbor concerns about governments printing money to fund changes that would address the problems you list. Are you starting to budge on that? Or do you have an idea about how to fund the changes that does not involve governments printing money?
;-)
I am pleased to hear that you think it’s purely a question of whether we want the kind of world that global warming is bringing to us.
Cheers
Mike
:-)
:-)
:-)
:-)
Reality Checksays
#404 K. “you don’t ignore, and you don’t ignore repeated…” plus ” poorly contextualized science is dangerous. “
Got that right. It happens to be what denier groups are best at spinning, and selling
#409 Benson – Lehman was just a teaching moment. As was the soils article. I live in hope more people could recognize when they are being spun with clever word plays.
#410 have you noticed nigel you often throw the words proof, prove and proven like it’s confetti at a church wedding? And thanks for the kind words.
#421 scott “That study has nothing to do with known processes regenerative ag uses to sequester soil carbon” and ‘flawed logic’, and OBSERVED and MEASURED sequestration rates seen published in scientific studies ?
Yeah. Nice try. But others might learn to be more wary about how they interpret articles that sound impressive, look important, maybe compelling but aren’t – and do not mean what they think it means.
It’s true that we need to rely less on automobile transportation in general–but nevertheless, it’s good news that EVs continue to make good progress in the marketplace:
Global plugin vehicle registrations were up an impressive 153% last month compared to June 2020, scoring a record 583,000 units (or 8.7% share of the overall auto market). Add this record performance to the 700,000-plus hybrids and mild hybrids registered last month (their second best month ever) and we get over 1.3 million registrations in June with some some form of electrification … which is roughly 20% of the total market! Fully electric vehicles (BEVs) continue to outperform PHEVs (+154% YoY vs. +151%), with pure electrics representing 70% of plugin registrations. In total, there were some 407,000 registrations of BEVs, or 6.1% share of the overall auto market.
Still more interestingly:
With the YTD tally now above 2.5 million units (and 6.3% share), and knowing that the second half of the year is traditionally stronger, we should be seeing the plugin vehicle (PEV) market easily surpass not just 5 million but 6 million units this year!
…December should be the first month with double digits [market share] on a global level, as all 3 major markets (China, Europe, and USA) are expected to have record months.
It’s not surprising, in a way–forward-looking buyers know that buying another gasmobile at this point could result in a very poor trade-in value down the road a few years. That’s most drastically true in those countries banning sales of new ICE vehicles, but I expect that will be enough to put downward pressure on resale prices on a global level. Nations with policies in place that mandate fairly comprehensive measures with deadlines of 2035 or sooner:
Canada: 2035, light duty vehicles
Denmark: 2030, new vehicles
Iceland: 2030, new cars
India: 2030, all vehicles
Ireland: 2030, new cars
Israel: 2030, imported vehicles
Netherlands: 2030, new cars
Slovenia: 2030, new cars
Sweden: 2030, new cars
Thailand: 2035, new cars
UK: 2030, new cars
China reportedly plans to impose a ban, too, but is apparently still mulling the actual deadline. Also, a number of nations have deadlines for 2040 or, in a few cases, later.
Richard the Weaversays
Killian: Why would we need synfuels in a simplified world?
RtW: Ever live in an adverse situation, where survival was in serious question based on access to energy?
It ain’t fun, but one does lose all one’s body fat.
Choosing to sail without sufficient lifeboats is a Titanic error.
David B Bensonsays
Kevin McKenny @411 —- The UAE nuclear power regulators are causi8ng the go-slo in the UAE. There is an active element in the UAE government which wants to postpone nuclear power plants for as long as possible.
Richard the Weaversays
Killian: Me, 2007~present.
Hmmmm… right again.
RtW: Thanks for letting us know that you’re constantly right. Whew! I didn’t notice anything better than a repeated coin toss’ accuracy.
Mike on NigelJ: I am pleased to hear that you think it’s purely a question of whether we want the kind of world that global warming is bringing to us.
RtW I didn’t get that flavor. Wasn’t his post more a lament about consequences?
Richard the Weaversays
Scott S: We already know the biome that creates that mollic epipedon, it’s the grasslands/savanna biome!
RtW: ahh, like the inevitable Amazon savanna? Perhaps it’s time to catalog and preserve genetic code, as opposed to flailing and failing to preserve a terminal ecosystem.
(Perhaps not)
nigeljsays
Reality Check @403,
“This depends on what you think the article means, doesn’t it? I never claimed “that I’m misinterpreting the article”, I was questioning if it meant what you thought it means. I didn’t and don’t know the answer.”
This is time wasting, empty rhetoric and sophistry. Which is sad, because I agree with the majority of the SUBSTANTIVE things you post on this website.
“So, nigel, do you think the unsupported (unverifed) claim in the article that goes: An early idea to increase carbon stores — planting crops without tilling the soil — has mostly fallen flat. is somehow related to, or proven true because of some study about …how much carbon dioxide was released when researchers artificially warmed the soil in a Panamanian rainforest?”
You are conflating two different things. The article never MADE that connection and neither did I.
“1) the assertion 9About warming soils releasing carbon) has no referenced study to support it, is frankly very poorly defined (is unscientific, lacks specificity, is a very broad generalization/assumption), and be it a fair take away idea or not;”
I GAVE you another peer reviewed citation of warming effects on soil carbon that broadly backs up the article. Here it is again:
“Now it might be true that soil heated by 4C forced CO2 out of that soil in a Panamanian rainforest, I don’t know, but surely such a thing has absolutely no effect on the speed and quantity of uptake of CO2 as SOC in agricultural fields of Crops somewhere else. Fields that were monitored by scientists in a multitude of studies that recorded said uptake of Carbon (SOC/SOM)?”
You are conflating two different things. The speed soils take up carbon is not a function of warming per se. Warming increases bacterial activity which leads to soils losing carbon longer term. And that means for all the carbon we put into soils with regenerative agriculture, we are unfortunately losing a significant part of it, eventually. Think of it like two steps forwards, one step backwards. And warming increases carbon loss in all soils even although it varies with different types of soil.
This loss of carbon with warming soils together with the modest gains in soil carbon from no till agriculture, is why I think the claims SOME people make about how much carbon soils can sequester longer term look exaggerated. You were not around during those discussions. It doesn’t mean soils can’t be coaxed to sequester USEFUL quantities of soil carbon. And yes there’s more to regenerative farming than no till agriculture, but what peer reviewed science we have to date says that the effects on sequestering soil carbon are MODEST.
I’m not going to bother with the rest of what you said. It’s just annoying verbal rhetoric that achieves nothing useful for me.
nigeljsays
mike @408,
“The cost of addressing climate change and global warming to address the issues you mention here is going to be astronomically high. You say we can’t really put economic values on these things, but I think that happens all the time when the cost of addressing climate change is discussed and the issue of deficits is raised as a reason for delay or inaction……”
I’m aware of that and have read similar studies on attempts to quantify those things. Let me clarify. The point I’m making is that putting $ costs on things like biodiversity loss and mental stress is nearly impossible. We will all be arguing about it forever and there will be endless reports but no agreement. So perhaps its better we just say that these problems will be huge and we don’t want them and that is a sufficient reason to mitigate the climate problem robustly. We don’t need no “economic analysis” of THOSE things because it will be dubious anyway. But economic analysis of costs of sea level rise is obviously more plausible and is useful.
Fwiw I definitely don’t agree with at least some aspects of Nordhaus economic analysis. I have commented on it before. But the point is an economic analysis can only do so much anyway.
“It is my impression that you harbor concerns about governments printing money to fund changes that would address the problems you list. Are you starting to budge on that? Or do you have an idea about how to fund the changes that does not involve governments printing money?”
Wrong. I’ve always said governments printing money is a good solution for funding climate change projects, like subsidising wind power. This is because government debt is getting near prudent limits typically, and adding or increasing taxes is never easy. I don’t agree with wider ideas like MMT where money printing is used for for ALL government spending. I’ve said this at least three times and explained why in detail. By analogy, money printing is like morphine. A little bit is great too much can have unintended consequences.
Killiansays
I don’t agree with wider ideas like MMT where money printing is used for for ALL government spending.
What MMT teaches is not a policy. I don’t understand why you cannot accept this FACT. MMT is not a “new” theory used to suggest a new way to pay for things, it is the correct description of what actually happens and has always been happening. Economists have just been getting it wrong all this time.
Funding ALWAYS comes before taxation, so how can taxes pay for anything? They do not. Taxes reduce the amount of money in circulation which reduces how much money can be spent privately which slows the economy a bit.
It suggests when the need to spend exists it is limited only by the acceleration of inflation.
nigeljsays
Killian @412 “That is the economics (neo classical economics)you and others advocate. You constantly contradict yourself and seem always oblivious. (I am not the only one to notice this.)”
No. Theres a big difference between being critical of Nordhaus particular view of things in his climate economics study (abomination), and neoclassical economics pe se. And I’ve been very critical of various aspects neo classical economics on this website, but the difference is the ideas you post look fundamentally worse to me (for example eliminating nearly all private property, group decision making).
———————————–
Scott Strough @421
“But your flawed logic regarding studies on industrialized ag, somehow having relevance on what has already been proven to work, is what has put you under scorn as a “denier”…..”
I don’t really know what you are even saying here. The whole soil carbon issue has uncertainties in it, so I tend go by what the peer reviewed studies show, which is that various agricultural techniques can coax soils to sequester MODESTLY more carbon per unit time, and enough to be useful but not the HUGE amounts claimed made by people like Killian and yourself (to some extent). Some of us analysed the numbers in depth on this website last year.
These studies are published in reputable journals like Nature. Are you seriously trying to imply they are somehow useless or corrupted in some way? They tend to be on specific elements of regenerative agriculture like mulching or tilling, or they review combinations of things like this. I’m really not sure what else you would expect.
Without getting into huge technical detail yes you get carbon formation deep in soil as due to mineralisation processes, but the carbon is initially in a surface layer where its humus and with a warming climate this is going to be losing a lot of carbon before it mineralises at lower depths in the soil.
Regenerative Agriculture still looks like a great idea because of the overall environmental benefits. Hype just makes me grind my teeth as do people who talk down to me saying “I dont even know what Im reading” especially when they then concede the content of the article is accurate on several points, as I suggested it was.
I note amongst the CarbonBrief’s Daily Briefing for 2 Aug is a report of developments in the UK Tory party’s climate debate with one source stating “Boris Johnson’s green dream is already turning toxic.” (Those with any knowledge of what are BoJo’s ‘dreams’ will know they are normally more fantasy than realistic, so a “turning-toxic” development isn’t entirely a big surprise.)
The CarbonBrief report begins by reporting moves to form a new Tory group which wants to dampen-down the UK’s climate policies. “They don’t want to deny the science, but they do want to rail against what [prospective group leader and MP for South Thanet Craig] Mackinlay has described as an “overwhelming Westminster consensus” around the urgency of getting greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050 – whatever the cost.”
So they say they don’t deny the science but just want to do naff-all about it.
I note also CarbonBrief mention the Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy now (since May) have got one of the more prominent swivel-eyed Brexiteer/Climate-Denier Tories onto their Board of Trustees, with Steve Baker MP replacing the dimbo Tory Peter Lilley MP. (For balance, when they took on Lilley, back in 2015 the GWPF recruited a Brexiteer/Climate-Denier from the other bunch of parliamentary dinosaurs, Graham Stringer MP.)
Carbomontanussays
416
RtW
Excuse me for bothering again
I leant all thats worth knowing of isolation from 1 liter milk boxes that were isolated with 1/2″ Isopor, containing liquid air or nitrogen.Open at the top at windstill. That kept for one day. More is not needed, but the tiniest gap in the isolations gave an avalance of frost outside. Isopor is obviously exellent and several inches is never needed. Liquid air at room temperature is 200 deg gradient and you only have to isolate for 40 deg delta T.
Heat is mainly exchanged by convection in such systems, so convections must be rigidly stopped first. By tape, and by PRAVDA! 6-7 loose layers of Pravda is also phaenomenal…. in coldest Siberia.
We have isolated bee- hives in winter simply with Pravda or you can take The Washington Post.
Next rule is the hot air balloon. It is open underneeth, but the tiniest scratch at the top makes it leak and fall and even cololapse catastrophically.
Theese rules ar how to isolate a house or a whasps nest or an igloo. To keep chill contained, simply think opposite and turn it all upside down.
The bees do all they can to make that hot air balloon around their nest and allways strugge also the best they can to make a tiny hole at the top for ventilation, where one bee is allways sitting with antennas and feelings and give message downwards on how to adjust the system of water and sugar and CO2 and heat and oxygen. It says bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…al the time in deepest winter and keeps exactly 37 celsius in the center, where the queen is sitting.
I calulated the heat from the consumption of sugar and found 3 watts at -20 outdoor. Try and do the same with a 3 watt electric bulb.
It is not the lacks of handwidts of rockwool, and “heat bridges” is widespread supersticion due to crooky sales promotion, who know that thermography must be made at rapidly falling outdoor temperatures to fool naive, paying customers.
4″ common dry wood cannot possibly “conduct” living room heat out at -10 C outdoor temperature, being itself an isolator near the qualities of rockwool and isopor.
1 ” reindeer fur isolates normal body temperatures against arctic winter.
Simply find those leaks in your hot air balloon and glue over with Pravda.
2 glasses in 1/2″ distance with dry air in between gives a “Termopan” window as good as anything else in that house.
Canvas with wallpaper inside and proper tight stucca under the roof and in the top corners was very efficient when cunningly done..
This rules upside down for refrigerators. But there you must also have a diffusion- tight foil or plate outside to stop diffusion and H2O dew frost on the cooler.
Richard the Weaversays
Carbonmontanus: Heat is mainly exchanged by convection in such systems, so convections must be rigidly stopped first.
RtW: good point and thanks for the interest. Great Stuff crack and crevice sealer is also polystyrene so it both glues and seals. The alternative is caulk inside and out, along with the PPG Gripper (an agressive primer) I’m using as my primary glue.
Fortunately it is an interior application so wind and temperature swings won’t be an issue. If I seal it right it should stay completely airtight.
Both the freezer and the colder refrigerator section are top loading, which will help with convection. Only the 55F or so warmest section has a front-opening door (but only on the top half of its front wall so as to minimize convection when the door/plug is open). I’ll let you know where the temperatures settle at. The goal is 0F (which is guaranteed by the freezer control), 33-35F, and 50-55F.
Richard the Weaversays
NigelJ: Are you seriously trying to imply they are somehow useless or corrupted in some way? They tend to be on specific elements of regenerative agriculture like mulching or tilling, or they review combinations of things like this.
RtW: A holistic system with twenty pillars will probably perform like shit if only one or three pillars exist in a test.
Killiansays
432 nigelj
No. Theres a big difference between being critical of Nordhaus particular view of things in his climate economics study (abomination), and neoclassical economics pe se. And I’ve been very critical of various aspects neo classical economics on this website
Yet, you remain a Chicago School neo-classicist. See what I mean? It’s barking words.
but the difference is the ideas you post look fundamentally worse to me(for example eliminating nearly all private property, group decision making).
Again… see? Neo-c;assical/classical/orthodox Econ got us into this mess, but what I post are the characteristics of how all humans lived for 290k years or so, how most still did up to 4k years ago, and how the only regenerative societies in existence still do.
Maybe you do not understand what “fundamentally worse” means. “Your” Econ literally cannot solve any of the problems it has created. I remind you that Einstein suggest you can’t fix a problem with the same thinking that created it. Why do you persist in calling him a fool?
Scott Strough @421
[You just knew this was coming, folks! Get your popcorn…]
”But your flawed logic regarding studies on industrialized ag, somehow having relevance on what has already been proven to work, is what has put you under scorn as a “denier”…..”
I don’t really know what you are even saying here.
That. Was. Truly. Beautiful.
The whole soil carbon issue has uncertainties in it, so I tend go by what the peer reviewed studies show
Because terra preta does not exist, apparently. Created a thousand years ago with the simplest of actions, still there, meters deep, orders of magnitude faster and richer than anything Nature can do on her own, yet you keep repeating this “uncertainty” in the face of factual evidence, of history.
Terra preta is a key part of Regen Ag – true Regen Ag, not the bullshit, single-issue trash you keep claiming represents studies of holistic systems. The existence of that one thing, all by itself, invalidates everything you have ever said contrarily about Regen Ag.
You comments amount to, “So says YOU! But my mommy told me…”
which is that various agricultural techniques can coax soils to sequester MODESTLY more carbon per unit time
Because they do not, are not, measuring holistic, regenerative systems in any way, shape, or form, which has been demonstrated to you ad naudeum.
This is the behavior of denialists, not intelligent, logical debaters.
and enough to be useful but not the HUGE amounts claimed made by people like Killian and yourself (to some extent).
Look. At. The. Pictures. Terra Preta (bio-char) soils are as much as 20% carbon. Do that worldwide, we’d have the opposite problem of triggering an interglacial.
Some of us analysed the numbers in depth on this website last year.
No, you didn’t. See comments above. You ignore 9/10 of Regen Ag.
These studies are published in reputable journals like Nature.
And none of them study Regen Ag. No-till does not= Regen Ag. Again, it is solutions denial to pretend they do.
Are you seriously trying to imply they are somehow useless
No. It is nice to have them, much like the blind men and the elephant, bits we already know or bits we did not specifically know, but understand the systemic results of. But that you take them as evidence of the inadequacy of Regen Ag is denial, pure and simple. You know they do not represent studies of Regen Ag systems.
They tend to be on specific elements of regenerative agriculture like mulching or tilling, or they review combinations of things like this. I’m really not sure what else you would expect.
Studies of regen ag, not just scattered techniques used by all sorts of farmers, many not even thinking in terms of regen ag?
yes you get carbon formation deep in soil as due to mineralisation processes
See? Denial. No, we don’t get deep C sequestration merely from mineralization. We plant deep-rooted plants and trees and manage them in such a way as to rapidly deposit organic matter deep in the soils. We grow then intentionally cut down or roll and crimp various plants/trees to encourage root die-off, thus getting SOM seeply sequestered orders of magnitude faster than Nature. We use legumes, plants and trees to sequester nitrogen deep in the soils, or accumulators like comfrey to bring it to the surface.
Your willful ignorance the sole reason for these long discussions that are a perfect example of denialist False Equivalence. You do not have a legitimate voice in this conversation and are willfully misleading our Dear Readers.
Please stop.
but the carbon is initially in a surface layer
See above. All carbon does not enter via humus. The reason there were meters of rich, black soil all across the great plains was not just because of humus, but because the natural grasses are often very deep-rooted. As they died off in winter and were eaten by herbivores or burned in ewildfires or by proscribed fires, those roots we left deep underground and acted on biologically and mineralogically. I’ve seen statements of 15 METERS of soils in the Great Plains. At the very least, several meters. All gone now because people like you think tech/chem is necessary.
where its humus and with a warming climate this is going to be losing a lot of carbon before it mineralises at lower depths in the soil.
We can build it faster than it is lost. We already are.
Regenerative Agriculture still looks like a great idea because of the overall environmental benefits. Hype just makes me grind my teeth
I repeat, there is no hype, only your willful ignorance.
as do people who talk down to me saying ”I dont even know what Im reading”
Do you know why MAGAs get so angry? Because they are deeply ignorant and get angry when they are told this because, as I have already pointed out, the ignorant often do not realize how little they know. That is the case here. Scott did not “talk down” to you, nor have I in this post – and many others. You don’t understand the depth of your own ignorance, nor how rude and disrespectful it is to repeatedly tell us we don’t know what we are talking about or are “hyping” or “exaggerating”, etc. Facts are not hype.
Talk down to: to talk to (someone) in an overly simple way which suggests that he or she is not intelligent
We have not spoken to you like a child, we have corrected you, informed you, and called you out. You feel talked down to because you think you have something to say on this topic, but you do not. You need to learn, then speak, but refuse yo. You need to assimilate the evidence into your constructs, but refuse to. It is, in fact, your own obstinance that is the problem. It is that you believe your views are equal in merit when they are not. False Equivalence.
You are making yourself look and feel small. Nobody is doing it to you.
especially when they then concede the content of the article is accurate on several points, as I suggested it was.
Concede? There was no concession, there was a correction of your perception the paper implied something it did not. The paper was accurate, we assume, in the extremely limited measuring it did, but for anyone to tout that as bringing down all of soil sequestration as a major tool? That was either ignorance or dishonesty. To be clear, there was nothing wrong with the science, but with the bullshit extrapolated from it. So, you got a victory for a claim never made by Scott? Straw Man.
Will you never stop relying on them?
Killiansays
428 Richard the Weaver
Killian: Me, 2007~present.
Hmmmm… right again.
RtW: Thanks for letting us know that you’re constantly right. Whew!
You’re welcome. It’s important to know whom to listen to.
I didn’t notice anything better than a repeated coin toss’ accuracy.
1. You just lied trying to be snarky. 2. You haven’t been around long; it’s more like a long, nearly perfect record across multiple disciplines.
But you do you and be one of many that think it is better to insult accurate analyses rather than ask, “Nobody else is doing that. What can we learn from this person?”
The keys to your response are 1. your insecurity and 2. assuming I said what I said out of arrogance rather than frustration and the hope people will consider adding another way of thinking to their repertoire so we can solve our problems more quickly.
Please, stay out of the Peanut Gallery. It’s a dark, dark place.
Reality Checksays
#430 for the record, again, this is what you said verbatim nigel at #375 – Study posted by Sid on soil carbon is rather important: (quotes) So claims made about regenerative agriculture rapidly sequestering vast quantities of soil carbon look exaggerated, as I’ve been saying all along.
For the record I never thought, nor said “The speed soils take up carbon is not a function of warming per se.”
about your new false claim about me: “You are conflating two different things. The article never MADE that connection and neither did I.”
Yes you did. And the article directly conflates the two things: it’s the core intent and purpose of the article. It says: “The consequences go far beyond carbon sequestration strategies. Major climate models such as those produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are based on this outdated understanding of soil (i.e. the amount of the sequestration of SOC specifically). Several recent studies indicate that those models are underestimating the total amount of carbon that will be released from soil in a warming climate. In addition, computer models that predict the greenhouse gas impacts of farming practices — predictions that are being used in carbon markets — are probably overly optimistic about soil’s ability to trap and hold on to carbon.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-soil-science-revolution-upends-plans-to-fight-climate-change-20210727/
You admit to conflating the two things again right here: “And that means for all the carbon we put into soils with regenerative agriculture, we are unfortunately losing a significant part of it, eventually.”
The problem here is that you do not know that. You do not know the Quantity of Carbon that could be put into soils using RegenAg, either now or the future at scale. The carbon loss mentioned in those papers are purely theoretical, not proven. They do not apply across all soil types nor regions or type of agricultural uses.
The article is SIMPLISTIC. Cherry picking an opinion of a few soil scientists about a topic he has just heard about, based on two things: 1) GENETIC studies of increasing SOC in industrial ag that have failed, and 2) hypothetical experiments of the loss of SOC in manually warmed rain forest soils. The article’s point above was not in reference to Regenerative Agriculture practices, nor studies of RA. You added that conflation yourself.
Which brings us back to my original question: does the article mean what you think it means? Even after your ‘defensive explanations’ I am saying no, it doesn’t. I think Scott agrees.
The broad conjecture and conflation in that article is flawed, in my view. At best it is far from clear to the average reader. The conflation of issues is not supported by the known science and neither are your comments.
I am trying to point that out, rationally and respectfully. Sorry you do not have ears to hear this. As to who is the one most guilty of time wasting, empty rhetoric and sophistry, or conflating two different (unrelated) things” readers can and will decide for themselves. The wise will continue to ignore it all.
As for what the peer reviewed science we have to date says (what) the effects on sequestering soil carbon are, especially from RegenAg methodologies, may I humbly recommend reading the Refs and google scholar search links I have provided, especially the NZ white paper?
Nothing is as Certain, or modest, as you (and the author of that article) say it is. Only time and better quality research will tell. I don’t mind patiently waiting while I withhold judgment. I think maintaining an open mind is always a good idea. But I respect your right to do otherwise and will drop it. I think that’s best.
Reality Checksays
#425 ““… it’s good news that EVs continue to make good progress in the marketplace”
That’s what they want us to believe Kevin. So that the “logical” (sic) conclusion is to assume to “mandate fairly comprehensive measures with deadlines of 2035 or sooner:” is equally good progress.
I do accept what you’re saying and why, so nothing personal here. However I believe there is another way to think about this topic :
1) Really understand the dire implications of the science as we know it today – yes, even pre-COP26 and pre-AR6 reports in 2021.
2) The Precautionary principle – extreme weather and other impacts already upon us can only become more dire even if ALL GHG emissions stopped tomorrow.
3) Knowing coal, oil and gas are not viable, are irrational doomed energy products in a rational world.
4) Knowing that +1.5C and +2C is already baked in no matter what they say or actions they commit to at COP26 for 2030 or 2035 or 2050.
5) Real Transportation needs analysis of societies and individuals and rational action plans by Governments world wide can be disconnected from any pre-existing emotional and pseudo-Economic need that we MUST keep using energy inputs from coal, oil and gas in the discussions.
and
6) That historic systemic change could be implemented tomorrow. As easily as Lincoln said all Slaves were hereby Declared Free on X date.
Simplistically, I am saying it is quite rational, responsible and possible for the Sale of all new Fossil Fuel Passenger Vehicles be Banned from 12:01 AM on the 1st September, 2021.
That that is far preferable, and rational, than waiting until 2035 or later. Which is clearly not rational and I posit is also insane clearly dangerous thinking.
The world would not stop spinning on it’s axis. The people of the world would immediately adjust to this new reality. Including the Economic Markets and Global Trade almost overnight.
Like every other day for the last 2000 years on Earth, there will be winners and loses waking up the next morning. No big deal. Such is life. The 1929 Stock Market Crash was Life. Look at is today? 90 years later.
The Cubans survived not having new cars for 60 years. (Now watch the greedy and ideologically self-serving go to town on that last comment, while ignoring it’s all encompassing obvious lesson.) Because so did the Russians, the Chinese, Pakistanis and the Indians survived too. Not every American citizen owned their own horse in 1901. They survived and thrived through the coming systemic changes as well.
Imagine, overnight reason and rationality by ‘Industry and Governments’ (i.e. Them) would suddenly, and for the first time be applied to the notion of EVs being fit for purpose, with no subsidies, and yet priced appropriately. Alternative more cost efficient more practical transport options would immediately become viable and popular long term. Indulgent travel would be priced accordingly.
The entrenched Systemic Barriers to efficient cost effective transportation systems for the masses and business and agricultural products would disappear overnight. Government funded airlines would collapse as unnecessary expensive wasteful dinosaurs of industry.
Life on planet Earth would immediately be better for everyone, over the short and long term. Even for those who lost their jobs or lost their capital. Hope would be restored in younger generations of the world.
Flowers would bloom and birds would sing a happy song.
Then again, I could be wrong. Habitual ways of thinking are near to impossible to change by Will alone. It typically requires catastrophic events to do that.
Reality Checksays
#433 “So they say they don’t deny the science but just want to do naff-all about it.”
They are all the same everywhere. No need to single out the UK, Boris Johnson or the Tories. But I do take your point. It’s a good example of thousands just like it.
They being, those who run the G7, the G20, and the 38 in the OECD ‘system’. All of them. Collectively the richest people and highest income earners on Earth, whose populations are directly behind ~90% of all historical GHG emissions, an excessive waste of resources, driving the other AGW drivers, and the long term systemic environmental ecosystem destruction.
COP26 gives them (and us) another opportunity to momentarily look better and more intelligent than we really are. Besides, there is far more denial of the science than we are willing to admit.
nigeljsays
Kevin McKinney @425 adding to your comments on EV’s and PHEVs. New Zealand has just introduced a couple of different schemes to encourage uptake of electric cars and hybrids:
Kevin McKinney @425, my next car will be an EV or PHEV. Haven’t decided which yet. I might even buy the top of the range Tesla. But no I will probably end up buying a Kia Nero (looks rather nice and asian cars are reliable). It’s all I really need.
Reality Checksays
#411, you may enjoy this historical piece.
By the 1880s, 15,000 dead horses were being removed from the streets of New York City each year.
Paradoxically, the advent of the steam locomotive and the construction of intercity railway links, starting in the 1830s, had helped make the problem worse.
The result was more horses, more manure – and steadily worsening congestion.
Pollution, congestion and noise were merely the most obvious manifestations of a deeper dependency.
Horses and stables, the newspaper observed, “are wheels in our great social machine, the stoppage of which means injury to all classes and conditions of persons, injury to commerce, to agriculture, to trade, to social life”.
By the turn of the century there was one horse for every 10 people in Britain, and one for every four in the US.
Feeding the US’s 20 million horses required one-third of its total crop area.
Horses had become both indispensable and unsustainable. To advocates of a newly emerging technology, the solution seemed obvious: get rid of horses and replace them with self-propelling motor vehicles, known at the time as horseless carriages. Today, we call them cars. (cont’) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/aug/03/lost-history-electric-car-future-transport
Richard the Weaversays
Nigel to Scott: I don’t really know what you are even saying here.
RtW: Seems you two agree. The question becomes one of education. Regenerative agriculture is systems design MacGuyver style. You see what is growing and thriving where you happen to be. And you tinker and add and whatever, using the thought styles that Killian has been describing.
Add in Scott’s carbon science and the whole definition of yield warps. And really, how many pounds of plastic supermarket tomatoes are equal in value to a single perfectly ripened one-pounder from the garden. Killian speaks of value, not calories, and I agree. There are plenty of calories available. But quality food is expensive. That one-pounder is hard to provide…
…unless we build sanely, with attached greenhouses. They regulate temperature, provide fresh air, and really really really improve a household’s mental outlook.
Oh, and they make that one-pounder free.
I digress. Back to the fields and forests..
It takes time. It takes education. It takes brainstorming with others. It takes failure. And failure. And semi-success.
But traditional agriscience is about reducing things to a single variable. Maybe two. OK, three if you’re an extreme maverick.
How the heck are you going to get valid data when the leap from industrial agriculture to regenerative changes a zillion variables? Even the crops are different. Yes, a bit of corn. Some wheat and soy, too. But ask Killian how many different food plants are on a typical properly managed five acre plot.
@ 432 Nigelj,
“I don’t really know what you are even saying here.”
Exactly. Admitting that is a start.
“These studies are published in reputable journals like Nature. Are you seriously trying to imply they are somehow useless or corrupted in some way?”
Of course not. Read my post again. I fully agree with the studies and even specifically pointed out the context in which the studies are true. I even gave a brief explanation as to expanding why they are true in the context they apply. This is another typical strawman logic flaw found in many of your posts. Because you don’t know enough about the subject (which is glaringly apparent to anyone who does), you jump to false conclusions in many of your posts.
I generally try to stay out of it with you, simply because you know not what you say. But I certainly need to add the context when you post reputable studies, followed by poor conclusions on your part. All studies have a context. The best example I can give you to make you understand this is Newtonian physics vs Einsteinian physics. Newton’s laws are absolutely correct within their context, but fail outside their context. Einstein’s theories also are absolutely true within their context, but also have areas of context where they fail to describe the physical world as well. You have taken very good studies published in very reputable journals, and tried to apply them outside their context where they are true. This is simply because you don’t know enough about the subject to make an informed commentary. I am pointing this out not to belittle you, but rather to urge you to be more careful and to get that education first.
Try maybe asking when you don’t know? Rather than drawing a false conclusion?
You could have posted something like, “this study in Nature shows no till has failed to generate soil carbon increases described by other studies, why?”; and then your posts when answered by someone who does know, would not be denialist in nature, but potentially educational for you and others as well.
If you had asked that instead, I could have easily posted a few studies why. For example, this study: Phosphorus and nitrogen regulate arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis in Petunia hybrida DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0090841
And for context pointed out that the NPK fertilizers used in modern commercial no till GAP (good agricultural practices) inhibit the symbiosis between the crops and the mycorrhizal fungi. I would then refer you to further research by the USDA Agricultural Research Service that shows this symbiosis is indeed critical for soil carbon sequestration (by this method). https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2008/glomalin-is-key-to-locking-up-soil-carbon/
Then everyone benefits! You learn more about why standard industrialized ag fails, and you also learn more about why regenerative ag succeeds when industrialized ag using NPK fertilizers cant. And no need for scorn here on this forum.
@ 429 RtW: “ahh, like the inevitable Amazon savanna?”
Be careful. You are getting very close to drawing conclusions similar in scope as Nigelj. But since you did ask this as a question rather than a statement, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. The answer is no. You do not restore the Amazon rain forest by cutting down most the trees and turning it into a savanna. That action is a source, not a sink. This is not a useful way to decrease stocks of carbon found in the atmosphere. Although I did mention in that same post a proven useful tool for that rainforest biome that does indeed lock up carbon into geological timeframes, terra preta/biochar.
Instead of applying my statement to a biome it was not intended, it would be better to apply that quote to restoring the grasslands/savannas degraded by poor cropland and rangeland management. ie You don’t try to convert rain forests into savannas, instead you covert corn and soy fields back into their original biomes, then manage those for both human and wildlife use. A win/win for both the environment and human society.
@ 424 Reality Check says:
“Yeah. Nice try. But others might learn to be more wary about how they interpret articles that sound impressive, look important, maybe compelling but aren’t – and do not mean what they think it means.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Reality Checksays
(news article, long read, and a contentious polarised issue)
With arguments by the pros and cons.
eg “More than 11,000 scientists signed William Ripple’s 2019 letter “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency,” which argues “our goals need to shift from GDP growth and the pursuit of affluence toward sustaining ecosystems and improving human well-being by prioritizing basic needs and reducing inequality.”
The 2021 updated report recently shared here.
Reality Checksays
#432 “Regenerative Agriculture still looks like a great idea because of the overall environmental benefits.”
Thanks for clearing that up.
#432 “Some of us analysed the numbers in depth on this website last year. These studies are published in reputable journals like Nature.”
Would you please share the Refs to those studies with numbers, if handy?
#430 “It’s just annoying verbal rhetoric that achieves nothing useful for me.”
Ain’t that the truth! And a two-edged sword. :-)
Reality Checksays
Lastly, to tie up a couple of loose ends in my mind:
#430 “And warming increases carbon loss in all soils even although it varies with different types of soil.”
This sounds intuitively logical on the surface, though I haven’t myself seen it quantified for the real world long term.
What we also probably know from history, soils research, climate reports, and observation is:
-Deforestation increases carbon loss in all soils, has done for thousands of years.
-Many other Land Use Changes and Irrigation practices increases carbon loss in all soils.
-Intensive Industrial Agriculture accelerates Carbon loss in all soils.
i-Produces top soil loss, irreparable erosion and degradation in all soils.
ii-Raises Salt Concentration and affects Ph values in all soils.
-Extended Drought and Wild fires increases carbon loss in all soils.
-Carbon, SOC and SOM, is really good for soils, water content, plant health, agriculture and so on.
-Also
“The estimate is that we are now losing about 1 percent of our topsoil every year to erosion, most of this caused by agriculture.”
“Half of the topsoil on the planet has been lost in the last 150 years. In addition to erosion, soil quality is affected by other aspects of agriculture.”
A reasonable rhetorical question could be: On a scale of one to ten, how important is the possible increases in carbon, SOC/SOM Loss in soils from future global warming, versus the other known destructive impacts? And can these matters be reliably quantified on a global scale yet?
Quoting the article ending: Lehmann is pushing to replace the old dichotomy of stable and unstable carbon with a “soil continuum model” of carbon in progressive stages of decomposition. But this model and others like it are far from complete, and at this point, more conceptual than mathematically predictive.
[Some] Researchers agree that soil science is in the midst of a classic paradigm shift. What nobody knows is exactly where the field will land — what will be written in the next edition of the textbook.
So that suggests to me the ‘jury’ is still out. There is no overriding scientific consensus as such. Which confirms what I already thought was the case. Good to know.
nigeljsays
Scott E Strough @446,
You are wrong about this. Remember what I posted originally: That the huge claims you and Killian make about how much carbon soils can be made to sequester CLEARLY comes under question when you read the article posted originally by Sid “A Soil-Science Revolution Upends Plans to Fight Climate Change.” And also consider the general scope of the peer reviewed science on soils.
Your defence against this is largely a lot of empty rhetoric, and assertions about the glomalin pathway. But this pathway has not yet been properly quantified with field trials so we have no real soild idea of its potential. You KNOW this, because you are doing field trials yourself to try to improve that situation. So quit with the BS. Refer:
Neo classical economics:
https://profstevekeen.medium.com/economic-failures-of-the-ipcc-process-e1fd6060092e
It’s almost like the economist Richard Nordhaus thinks that in a much warmer world all that matters is whether the world’s factories can go on churning out goods, and probably they will. What about millions dying in tropical countries, and mass emigration from them, resource wars, loss of biodiversity, sea level rise and flooding causing communities endless stress? You can’t really put economic values on these sorts of things. Its purely a question of whether we want that sort of world. Yes or no?
Re. EP and “That’s sad. Hardly surprising (the failure of panaceas to pan out should be taken for granted), but still sad.”
So too the nuclear power you constantly promote?
#395 Ok then, I’ll repeat and explain a few things. Might help
There is no ad hominem. The article is an article written by a journo. It is not a ‘study’. These are simple facts.
I’m not wrong about what the article means.
This depends on what you think the article means, doesn’t it? I never claimed “that I’m misinterpreting the article”, I was questioning if it meant what you thought it means. I didn’t and don’t know the answer.
In fact, I am still wondering if the writer knows what it means, given what he’s actually said and what he is relying upon. Seems exaggerated, unbalanced, and over-stated.
This is OBVIOSLY a correct deduction, given the article says:
Only if the article’s content, intent, and presentation, it’s take away message, is correct – Plus – you have understood it correctly – AND checked his sources for accuracy. You may follow a different system, which is fine. Your choice.
So, nigel, do you think the unsupported (unverifed) claim in the article that goes: An early idea to increase carbon stores — planting crops without tilling the soil — has mostly fallen flat. is somehow related to, or proven true because of some study about …how much carbon dioxide was released when researchers artificially warmed the soil in a Panamanian rainforest?
Can you not see:
1) the assertion has no referenced study to support it, is frankly very poorly defined (is unscientific, lacks specificity, is a very broad generalization/assumption), and be it a fair take away idea or not;
2) such an assertion has no relevance at all – in time or place or process – to what might have happened in an artificially warmed soil in a Panamanian rainforest, a continent away, in another time and place?
Now it might be true that soil heated by 4C forced CO2 out of that soil in a Panamanian rainforest, I don’t know, but surely such a thing has absolutely no effect on the speed and quantity of uptake of CO2 as SOC in agricultural fields of Crops somewhere else. Fields that were monitored by scientists in a multitude of studies that recorded said uptake of Carbon (SOC/SOM)?
Because, what you said was: So claims made about regenerative agriculture rapidly sequestering vast quantities of soil carbon look exaggerated, … (and then a lot more)
I’m still wondering on basis do you think that? If it’s because of the content in the article, then I’m cannot see the connection. Or why you would believe such a thing. It just doesn’t add up to me and so I questioned that.
Also the article was not about regenerative agriculture, and all that it entails, but merely about no-till SOC content and longevity; and of course the Panamanian rainforest soil being heated, and a few other things.
Now, the article did present Sanderson at one point, my one example of many possible (an attempt to keep the comment short per your prior ‘advice’ as being supportive of such a conclusion. And yet looking at the evidence and misc references given (and found) this isn’t what Sanderson himself appears to believe. See my references again for clarity.
However, take whatever meaning you wish from that article. Each to their own. I am content for you to believe whatever you want to believe.
But may I say this in closing – I do not need to focus on the CONTENT of the article and prove the claims wrong – I am quite happy to review material like this and make up my own mind about what I think about it. Which I did.
I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. If anyone does it is the author, surely. I think he failed to do that. Because I checked his references and critically thought about what he was saying. I might be wrong. If so it only concerns me.
You can come to a different opinion. Fine by me. But I don’t need to convince you of anything. You can make up your own mind well enough. Still, I am entitled to question your thinking about something presented here that you’ve commented upon, as you question my comments.
In fact, I regularly question my own thinking too. And can even change my opinions and conclusions at times.
Sorry if this reply was too long, but you did raise several complex issues Nigel, they all needed to be addressed. I hope everything is clearer now. Thanks, and good luck.
365/375
Only a fool would consider only the top 8~12 inches of soil WRT carbon sequestration. It’s like only counting the carbon at the ocean’s surface. That drought releases carbon is well-known, not a “new” finding, which is partly why we don’t even consider thinking about soil carbon this way.
https://www.azimuthproject.org/azimuth/show/Terra+preta
So, no, you don’t just measure the top 12 inches, you don’t ignore carbon sequestration beyond 12 inches, you do not ignore terra preta and bio-char, you don’t ignore the intentional use of deep-rooted plants to sequester carbon meters beyond the topsoil, you don’t ignore mycelia, you don’t ignore composting, you don’t ignore that annual increase in SOC from carbon farmibg and act as if the soil just sits there depleting, you don’t ignore that regenerative practices reduce effects of driught, you don’t ignore that we can sequester carbon in soils orders of magnitude faster than Nature does, etc.
Your willfully blind acceptance (both of you are well aware of the points I raise above) of poorly contextualized science is dangerous.
373 Reality Check
“Time is short/time is up” – Me, 2007~present.
Hmmmm… right again.
Life on RC:
A: How *does* he do that?
B: Do what? I see nothing! I hear nothing!
A: Maybe we should ask him…
B: Ask him what? He is always wrong! He knows nothing! He sees nothing!
A: But, he did it again.
B: No he didn’t!
A: Yes, I see the wisdom of your words…
371 Richard the Weaver says:
28 Jul 2021 at 7:14 PM
I don’t know which would be better. Massively overbuild renewables and shovel the excess to synfuel production or make synfuel with far away nukes.
The problem is the solution: Why would we need synfuels in a simplified world?
EG consider what this ref (given in said article) means:
The contentious nature of soil organic matter
Johannes Lehmann & markus Kleber 2015 – 1125 Citations
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/publ/Nature%20528,%2060-68,%202015%20Lehmann.pdf
In particular Page 62, see item (3)
In the progressive decomposition model (also called ‘biopolymer
degradation’37; or ‘the degradative concept’15,23), soil organic matter
consists of a range of organic fragments and microbial products of all
sizes at various stages of decomposition7,38 (Fig. 2). (and down the page)
and even read the rest of it. Enjoy. Pretty complex. Competing theories and new models in need of further testing and research. Too complex for me to judge. Sounds fascinating though. Competing scientists with different ideas always is.
eg the comments section:
We?d like to draw attention to a significant body of literature missing from this paper on the potential role of minerals in processes increasing the recalcitrance of organic matter, so-called ?humification?. In our opinion the role of minerals in actively promoting recalcitrance is missing from this important discussion. Lehmann and Kleber do acknowledge that minerals are important as sorptive surfaces providing physical protection. But no mention is made on the role of minerals in chemically transforming organic matter in either terrestrial or marine environments. This is important as mineral-organic reactions is growing field of interest in both marine and terrestrial environments. In terrestrial environments understanding the potential of minerals to ?humify? or build up organic matter from Light Molecular Weight (LMW) forms into High Molecular Weight (HMW) forms has important implications for geoengineering carbon into soils.
What we do know is that if we put carbon back into soils, water will follow and this potential climate change mitigation and adaptation is reason enough to explore mineral catalyzed ?humification? reactions.
Meaning?
Opinions vary on scientific theories and research conclusions. I’m not qualified to judge.
Hey, Nigel You say “What about millions dying in tropical countries, and mass emigration from them, resource wars, loss of biodiversity, sea level rise and flooding causing communities endless stress? You can’t really put economic values on these sorts of things. Its purely a question of whether we want that sort of world. Yes or no?”
The cost of addressing climate change and global warming to address the issues you mention here is going to be astronomically high. You say we can’t really put economic values on these things, but I think that happens all the time when the cost of addressing climate change is discussed and the issue of deficits is raised as a reason for delay or inaction.
Here are some webpages that discuss the cost of addressing climate change:
https://www.globalgiving.org/learn/cost-to-end-climate-change/
https://unfccc.int/news/the-cost-of-climate-change
https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/05/15/172849/how-much-will-it-cost-to-solve-climate-change/
It is my impression that you harbor concerns about governments printing money to fund changes that would address the problems you list. Are you starting to budge on that? Or do you have an idea about how to fund the changes that does not involve governments printing money?
I am pleased to hear that you think it’s purely a question of whether we want the kind of world that global warming is bringing to us.
Cheers
Mike
Reality Check @399 —- Ignore Lyman and the UCS; they are grinding their ax.
Reality Check @398
“I’m quite content with what I said before.”
Despite the fact it was proven to be complete rubbish at best and dishonest at worst? Sad that you are content with it.
nigel, #386–
Not just America; we have numerous examples of reactors vastly over-budget and behind schedule, besides the Vogtle and Summer fiascos:
Olkiluoto 3: 16 years construction so far (11 behind schedule)/€5.5 billion over budget
Hinkley C: 10 years just to *start* construction; current estimate 8 years build time/current cost estimate £22–23 billion
Flamanville 3: 14 years construction so far (9 behind schedule)/€19.1 billion, 15.8 over budget
–The Argentinian CAREM 25 MW prototype reactor is now 4 years behind schedule.
–The Indian Kalpakkam fast breeder reactor is now 11 years behind schedule.
–The Indian Kakrapar Phase 2 reactors took 11 years to build–that’s only 3 years behind.
–The Slovakian Mochovce 3 & 4 were under construction for 6 years before being mothballed due to lack of funds; construction restarted in 2008, with projected completion in 2012 & 2013. 3 is apparently now done, but still undergoing commissioning (?). Unit 4 is projected for 2023.
–Barakah 2 in the UAE is complete but AFAICT has not yet had fuel loaded; it took 8 years to get this far. Barakah 1 took 9 years to reach commercial operation.
–China’s Shidaowan HTR-PM: 9 years (5 years more than initial estimate) But I suppose you can cut them some slack; it’s the first ‘gen IV’ reactor.
The only real success story (for timely completion) is also Chinese:
–Fuqing 6 is expected to come online this year after ~6 years under construction. That’s comparable to the first 5 reactors in the complex.
And, except for Vogtle (already mentioned above), that’s it for ‘this year’s crop’ of reactors.
Yes, E-P does say that–a lot. But IMO it’s a bit of a strawman, and even more so an argument from incredulity. First, to the strawman bit, while some aspire to see 100% RE, we’re not going to have that in very many places in the world in the next decade or two, because we are also going to have legacy nuclear & hydro capacity, plus some amount of new capacity in both categories, plus small amounts of other sources like tidal, geothermal, and–though it’s problematic–biofuels, waste & synfuels. So there’s going to be a lot of ‘firming capacity’ even before we get into the vexed question of storage. (Though I can’t forbear to mention that so far, the learning curve on storage is looking gratifying exponential, so there’s that.)
Second, and going to the argument from incredulity–is it harder to believe that we can scale up the deployment of RE by a factor of 6 or so in the next decade or two, or that we can scale up the deployment of nuclear power AT ALL in the same time frame?
How many of those behind schedule reactors and other failures were caused by over-regulation, lawsuits, bureaucracy, etc that really weren’t legitimate, but were in fact meant to delay the project until it went bankrupt?
400: That is the economics you and others advocate. You constantly contradict yourself and seem always oblivious. (I am not the only one to notice this.)
The problem with listening to who know nothing WRT a topic, yet run their mouths anyway, particularly if from certain countries that are actually exceptional in their consumption rather than close to the global norm, is they just don’t have the ability to properly critique, yet have this huge platform to misinform.
It’s a serious problem.
Here’s a good example, important because we have been told here for years now that local gardening and regenerative systems cannot save us. Yet, they always have been and still are. Globally, 70% of food is grown locally, and much of that is grown traditionally, and much of *that* is regenerative.
Don’t listen to windy know-nothings. Listen to reality:
https://smallfarmersjournal.com/russian-dacha-gardens/
Dacha gardening accounts for about 3% of the arable land used in agriculture, but grows an astounding 50% by value of the food eaten by Russians. According to official government statistics in 2000, over 35 million families (approximately 105 million people or 71% of the population) were engaged in dacha gardening. These gardens provide 92% of Russia’s potatoes, 77% of its vegetables, 87% of the berries and fruit, 59% of its meat and 49% of the milk produced nationally. There are several studies that indicate that these figures may be underestimated, as they don’t take into account the self-provisioning efforts of wild harvesting or foraging of wild-growing plants, berries, nuts and mushrooms, as well as fishing and hunting that contributes to the local food economy.
Home gardens, so-called “Victory Gardens” in the US accounted for 40% of fruit and vegetables during WWII after a rapid shift required so large farms could feed troops, etc.
NigelJ: You can’t really put economic values on these sorts of things. Its purely a question of whether we want that sort of world.
RtW: Yeah. I found an interview with a wealthy Miami real estate developer. He was totally unconcerned about the fact that the stuff he was building would be under water in a few decades because he’ll be dead by then. So, if legacy is irrelevant, why keep working? A twisted sense of purpose, I suppose. Working at what one knows is hugely destructive, but said destruction will occur after one is gone… Sorry. I can’t approve.
So my vote is for the snail darter and that owl and, well, a functioning biosphere. Converting everything physical into a metric is obviously not anything anyone wants, but for most individuals who matter the best returns can be had precisely in said conversion.
And the Amazon, the ocean, the biosphere dies of a thousand cuts…
…but rich folks can afford the multi-million dollar bungalow that some mechanic bought new many decades ago.
Was any wealth really created? Maybe. But the biosphere is way more fundamental. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and all that
Top-dpwn hierarchies to get complex development? Not so fast…
https://phys.org/news/2021-07-metal-artifacts-southeast-asia-long-held.html
I’m building my refrigerator, as I think I’ve already noted. Its mech consists of a 5ft3 chest freezer, unmodified so far. I don’t know if it is worth modifying it. The industry standard design wraps the hot coil around the walls of the unit, so you can’t add extra exterior insulation to the the worst area for heat loss (where the hot coil is).
I haven’t checked the interior coil location yet. Maybe adding a Foamular floor will help. The bottom cubic foot or so of a chest freezer is just a graveyard anyway so the loss of space is kinda a ‘good riddance’ thing.
And, less likely, the lid can be insulated. Glue a layer to the lid, inside to maintain the exterior look or outside to maximize space.
The refrigerator uses a standard large cooler as its core. I’ve experimented with freezing salt water in the freezer to power the cooler and it works well. I wonder why saltwater, which is super cheap, isn’t used in the commercial products.
The cooler has 2″ walls. I’ve started gluing together a container for the cooler out of 2″ Foamular foam.
So the walls and top will have 4″ of insulation. But not the floor. It will have the original 2″.
The cooler will sit on top of a 12″ tall second layer of foam inside of the side and rear walls, and so creates a highly insulated (4″ walls and floor) area under the cooler.
The goal is to augment the chest freezer’s cheap freeze with a seriously cold area in the cooler and a similarly-sized cool area underneath the cooler.
Gluing foam with paint primer takes time. Two days minimum before significant handling. A week or more to really cure. I’m not using fasteners. Instead, I’m using weight to press pieces together. So two or three days times four or so steps. Done and painted in two weeks?
Re: chest freezers
The mech sits on the bottom to one side so the freezer’s interior has a shallow side and a deep side. The extra space represented by the deep side is not useful.
So make a 3.5ft3 (or whatever) chest freezer with a cool drawer underneath. The user gets extra freezer space and extra refrigeration space, too. And since the freezer will have a simpler shape (and digging for food will be eliminated) efficiency goes up.
This arrived on my phone, one of those mostly annoying but occasionally useful google notifications:
“Scientists Find A Better Way To Turn Heat Into Electricity By Reversing A Standard Rule”
https://www.iflscience.com/physics/scientists-find-a-better-way-to-turn-heat-into-electricity-by-reversing-a-standard-rule/
sidd @387:
That was brought to us in 1954 by Lewis Strauss, the then chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_cheap_to_meter
400
BTW, Nordhaus’ neo-classical, Chicago School nonsense has been discussed before, more than once, yet has never seemed to impact your thinking – or that of others here. E.g.: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/09/unforced-variations-sep-2020/#comment-775951
Unsurprisingly, David Archer found Nordhaus quite credible back in 2006. I wonder if he still does? Some of the more conservative scientists, and posters such as yourself and MAR, etc., undoubtdly would have/would be drawn to a future so easily paid for and holding so little danger even at mor than +3C. https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/buying-a-stairway-to-heaven/comment-page-4/#comments
Nigel,
The problem is you don’t even know what you are reading. For example, the study on suberin and the hopes that maybe plants might be genetically engineered to produce more. Yes that particular pathway to carbon sequestration has taken a serious blow. Genetically engineered plants producing suberin in their roots is not the answer.
But that is also nothing to do with the liquid carbon pathway, which is shown already to produce those large stable humic polymers tightly bound to the mineral substrate needed for long term sequestration.
Just because one line of research is shown to be a deadend, doesn’t mean all research is equally debunked! We already know the biome that creates that mollic epipedon, it’s the grasslands/savanna biome! We know the plants don’t do it by themselves, but rather it is a byproduct of the symbiosis between the plants and the biology in the soil, primarily Mycorrhizal fungi. We also know a secondary way to achieve long term carbon in the soil artificially, terra preta/biochar.
Who knows? One day we might learn more ways too! But all that study shows is that suberin and other bioengineering attempts to produce stable long chain humic polymers that bind tightly to the mineral substrate directly by plants without that symbiosis with mycorrhizal fungi or pyrolysis have failed.
That study has nothing to do with known processes regenerative ag uses to sequester soil carbon, only showing that industrialized ag’s attempts to mimic what regenerative ag is already doing, has fallen short.
In your previous post was a similar failing to understand for similar reasons. Regarding no till as practiced by industrialized ag, yes it has fallen short. It is no secret why….. pesticides and haber process nitrogen and also even phosphorus remove the ecosystem function due to killing major portions of the soil microbiological community, not the least of which is those mycorrhizal fungi networks.
Again, regenerative ag works when industrialized ag fails not by magic, but by known biochemical processes. I am certain there is more to learn too!
But your flawed logic regarding studies on industrialized ag, somehow having relevance on what has already been proven to work, is what has put you under scorn as a “denier”. Not much different that the climate denialists logic flaws. How many times have we heard them claim CO2 emissions from humans is such a small portion of the natural CO2 cycle, it shouldn’t cause AGW? And we know the flaw in the argument. CO2 is measurable, so are temps. Both are observed to be increasing! No flawed logic can supersede observations! That’s denying what can be seen and measured! Your attempts to discredit and/or diminish Regenerative agriculture and natural biome’s OBSERVED and MEASURED sequestration rates with studies on why industrialized agriculture has failed to do similar is quite frankly as offensive to us as the climate denialist trolls that reach the borehole here. For the exact same reasons too.
421 Strough
AMEN.
Exemplar of Dunning-Kruger. While it is popular on this site to misuse the D-K effect to belittle comments that are in no way illustrations of that effect, this is not one of those cases. There is no insult here, only the observed behavior demonstrating D-K repeatedly over a period of years on the same topic.
398 Reality Check
Yes, reality is slowly dawning, but it is alarming how far from the truly necessary all of those sources are. Still, I am used by now to watching things inc their way toward where I have been standing for nearly 1.5 decades.
———————–
408 Mike
;-)
:-)
:-)
:-)
:-)
#404 K. “you don’t ignore, and you don’t ignore repeated…” plus ” poorly contextualized science is dangerous. “
Got that right. It happens to be what denier groups are best at spinning, and selling
#409 Benson – Lehman was just a teaching moment. As was the soils article. I live in hope more people could recognize when they are being spun with clever word plays.
#410 have you noticed nigel you often throw the words proof, prove and proven like it’s confetti at a church wedding? And thanks for the kind words.
#421 scott “That study has nothing to do with known processes regenerative ag uses to sequester soil carbon” and ‘flawed logic’, and OBSERVED and MEASURED sequestration rates seen published in scientific studies ?
Yeah. Nice try. But others might learn to be more wary about how they interpret articles that sound impressive, look important, maybe compelling but aren’t – and do not mean what they think it means.
It’s true that we need to rely less on automobile transportation in general–but nevertheless, it’s good news that EVs continue to make good progress in the marketplace:
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/08/01/plugin-vehicles-have-record-month-globally-in-june-tesla-model-3-model-y-take-1-2/
Still more interestingly:
It’s not surprising, in a way–forward-looking buyers know that buying another gasmobile at this point could result in a very poor trade-in value down the road a few years. That’s most drastically true in those countries banning sales of new ICE vehicles, but I expect that will be enough to put downward pressure on resale prices on a global level. Nations with policies in place that mandate fairly comprehensive measures with deadlines of 2035 or sooner:
Canada: 2035, light duty vehicles
Denmark: 2030, new vehicles
Iceland: 2030, new cars
India: 2030, all vehicles
Ireland: 2030, new cars
Israel: 2030, imported vehicles
Netherlands: 2030, new cars
Slovenia: 2030, new cars
Sweden: 2030, new cars
Thailand: 2035, new cars
UK: 2030, new cars
China reportedly plans to impose a ban, too, but is apparently still mulling the actual deadline. Also, a number of nations have deadlines for 2040 or, in a few cases, later.
Killian: Why would we need synfuels in a simplified world?
RtW: Ever live in an adverse situation, where survival was in serious question based on access to energy?
It ain’t fun, but one does lose all one’s body fat.
Choosing to sail without sufficient lifeboats is a Titanic error.
Kevin McKenny @411 —- The UAE nuclear power regulators are causi8ng the go-slo in the UAE. There is an active element in the UAE government which wants to postpone nuclear power plants for as long as possible.
Killian: Me, 2007~present.
Hmmmm… right again.
RtW: Thanks for letting us know that you’re constantly right. Whew! I didn’t notice anything better than a repeated coin toss’ accuracy.
Mike on NigelJ: I am pleased to hear that you think it’s purely a question of whether we want the kind of world that global warming is bringing to us.
RtW I didn’t get that flavor. Wasn’t his post more a lament about consequences?
Scott S: We already know the biome that creates that mollic epipedon, it’s the grasslands/savanna biome!
RtW: ahh, like the inevitable Amazon savanna? Perhaps it’s time to catalog and preserve genetic code, as opposed to flailing and failing to preserve a terminal ecosystem.
(Perhaps not)
Reality Check @403,
“This depends on what you think the article means, doesn’t it? I never claimed “that I’m misinterpreting the article”, I was questioning if it meant what you thought it means. I didn’t and don’t know the answer.”
This is time wasting, empty rhetoric and sophistry. Which is sad, because I agree with the majority of the SUBSTANTIVE things you post on this website.
“So, nigel, do you think the unsupported (unverifed) claim in the article that goes: An early idea to increase carbon stores — planting crops without tilling the soil — has mostly fallen flat. is somehow related to, or proven true because of some study about …how much carbon dioxide was released when researchers artificially warmed the soil in a Panamanian rainforest?”
You are conflating two different things. The article never MADE that connection and neither did I.
“1) the assertion 9About warming soils releasing carbon) has no referenced study to support it, is frankly very poorly defined (is unscientific, lacks specificity, is a very broad generalization/assumption), and be it a fair take away idea or not;”
I GAVE you another peer reviewed citation of warming effects on soil carbon that broadly backs up the article. Here it is again:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6359/101
“Now it might be true that soil heated by 4C forced CO2 out of that soil in a Panamanian rainforest, I don’t know, but surely such a thing has absolutely no effect on the speed and quantity of uptake of CO2 as SOC in agricultural fields of Crops somewhere else. Fields that were monitored by scientists in a multitude of studies that recorded said uptake of Carbon (SOC/SOM)?”
You are conflating two different things. The speed soils take up carbon is not a function of warming per se. Warming increases bacterial activity which leads to soils losing carbon longer term. And that means for all the carbon we put into soils with regenerative agriculture, we are unfortunately losing a significant part of it, eventually. Think of it like two steps forwards, one step backwards. And warming increases carbon loss in all soils even although it varies with different types of soil.
This loss of carbon with warming soils together with the modest gains in soil carbon from no till agriculture, is why I think the claims SOME people make about how much carbon soils can sequester longer term look exaggerated. You were not around during those discussions. It doesn’t mean soils can’t be coaxed to sequester USEFUL quantities of soil carbon. And yes there’s more to regenerative farming than no till agriculture, but what peer reviewed science we have to date says that the effects on sequestering soil carbon are MODEST.
I’m not going to bother with the rest of what you said. It’s just annoying verbal rhetoric that achieves nothing useful for me.
mike @408,
“The cost of addressing climate change and global warming to address the issues you mention here is going to be astronomically high. You say we can’t really put economic values on these things, but I think that happens all the time when the cost of addressing climate change is discussed and the issue of deficits is raised as a reason for delay or inaction……”
I’m aware of that and have read similar studies on attempts to quantify those things. Let me clarify. The point I’m making is that putting $ costs on things like biodiversity loss and mental stress is nearly impossible. We will all be arguing about it forever and there will be endless reports but no agreement. So perhaps its better we just say that these problems will be huge and we don’t want them and that is a sufficient reason to mitigate the climate problem robustly. We don’t need no “economic analysis” of THOSE things because it will be dubious anyway. But economic analysis of costs of sea level rise is obviously more plausible and is useful.
Fwiw I definitely don’t agree with at least some aspects of Nordhaus economic analysis. I have commented on it before. But the point is an economic analysis can only do so much anyway.
“It is my impression that you harbor concerns about governments printing money to fund changes that would address the problems you list. Are you starting to budge on that? Or do you have an idea about how to fund the changes that does not involve governments printing money?”
Wrong. I’ve always said governments printing money is a good solution for funding climate change projects, like subsidising wind power. This is because government debt is getting near prudent limits typically, and adding or increasing taxes is never easy. I don’t agree with wider ideas like MMT where money printing is used for for ALL government spending. I’ve said this at least three times and explained why in detail. By analogy, money printing is like morphine. A little bit is great too much can have unintended consequences.
I don’t agree with wider ideas like MMT where money printing is used for for ALL government spending.
What MMT teaches is not a policy. I don’t understand why you cannot accept this FACT. MMT is not a “new” theory used to suggest a new way to pay for things, it is the correct description of what actually happens and has always been happening. Economists have just been getting it wrong all this time.
Funding ALWAYS comes before taxation, so how can taxes pay for anything? They do not. Taxes reduce the amount of money in circulation which reduces how much money can be spent privately which slows the economy a bit.
It suggests when the need to spend exists it is limited only by the acceleration of inflation.
Killian @412 “That is the economics (neo classical economics)you and others advocate. You constantly contradict yourself and seem always oblivious. (I am not the only one to notice this.)”
No. Theres a big difference between being critical of Nordhaus particular view of things in his climate economics study (abomination), and neoclassical economics pe se. And I’ve been very critical of various aspects neo classical economics on this website, but the difference is the ideas you post look fundamentally worse to me (for example eliminating nearly all private property, group decision making).
———————————–
Scott Strough @421
“But your flawed logic regarding studies on industrialized ag, somehow having relevance on what has already been proven to work, is what has put you under scorn as a “denier”…..”
I don’t really know what you are even saying here. The whole soil carbon issue has uncertainties in it, so I tend go by what the peer reviewed studies show, which is that various agricultural techniques can coax soils to sequester MODESTLY more carbon per unit time, and enough to be useful but not the HUGE amounts claimed made by people like Killian and yourself (to some extent). Some of us analysed the numbers in depth on this website last year.
These studies are published in reputable journals like Nature. Are you seriously trying to imply they are somehow useless or corrupted in some way? They tend to be on specific elements of regenerative agriculture like mulching or tilling, or they review combinations of things like this. I’m really not sure what else you would expect.
Without getting into huge technical detail yes you get carbon formation deep in soil as due to mineralisation processes, but the carbon is initially in a surface layer where its humus and with a warming climate this is going to be losing a lot of carbon before it mineralises at lower depths in the soil.
Regenerative Agriculture still looks like a great idea because of the overall environmental benefits. Hype just makes me grind my teeth as do people who talk down to me saying “I dont even know what Im reading” especially when they then concede the content of the article is accurate on several points, as I suggested it was.
I note amongst the CarbonBrief’s Daily Briefing for 2 Aug is a report of developments in the UK Tory party’s climate debate with one source stating “Boris Johnson’s green dream is already turning toxic.” (Those with any knowledge of what are BoJo’s ‘dreams’ will know they are normally more fantasy than realistic, so a “turning-toxic” development isn’t entirely a big surprise.)
The CarbonBrief report begins by reporting moves to form a new Tory group which wants to dampen-down the UK’s climate policies. “They don’t want to deny the science, but they do want to rail against what [prospective group leader and MP for South Thanet Craig] Mackinlay has described as an “overwhelming Westminster consensus” around the urgency of getting greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050 – whatever the cost.”
So they say they don’t deny the science but just want to do naff-all about it.
I note also CarbonBrief mention the Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy now (since May) have got one of the more prominent swivel-eyed Brexiteer/Climate-Denier Tories onto their Board of Trustees, with Steve Baker MP replacing the dimbo Tory Peter Lilley MP. (For balance, when they took on Lilley, back in 2015 the GWPF recruited a Brexiteer/Climate-Denier from the other bunch of parliamentary dinosaurs, Graham Stringer MP.)
416
RtW
Excuse me for bothering again
I leant all thats worth knowing of isolation from 1 liter milk boxes that were isolated with 1/2″ Isopor, containing liquid air or nitrogen.Open at the top at windstill. That kept for one day. More is not needed, but the tiniest gap in the isolations gave an avalance of frost outside. Isopor is obviously exellent and several inches is never needed. Liquid air at room temperature is 200 deg gradient and you only have to isolate for 40 deg delta T.
Heat is mainly exchanged by convection in such systems, so convections must be rigidly stopped first. By tape, and by PRAVDA! 6-7 loose layers of Pravda is also phaenomenal…. in coldest Siberia.
We have isolated bee- hives in winter simply with Pravda or you can take The Washington Post.
Next rule is the hot air balloon. It is open underneeth, but the tiniest scratch at the top makes it leak and fall and even cololapse catastrophically.
Theese rules ar how to isolate a house or a whasps nest or an igloo. To keep chill contained, simply think opposite and turn it all upside down.
The bees do all they can to make that hot air balloon around their nest and allways strugge also the best they can to make a tiny hole at the top for ventilation, where one bee is allways sitting with antennas and feelings and give message downwards on how to adjust the system of water and sugar and CO2 and heat and oxygen. It says bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…al the time in deepest winter and keeps exactly 37 celsius in the center, where the queen is sitting.
I calulated the heat from the consumption of sugar and found 3 watts at -20 outdoor. Try and do the same with a 3 watt electric bulb.
It is not the lacks of handwidts of rockwool, and “heat bridges” is widespread supersticion due to crooky sales promotion, who know that thermography must be made at rapidly falling outdoor temperatures to fool naive, paying customers.
4″ common dry wood cannot possibly “conduct” living room heat out at -10 C outdoor temperature, being itself an isolator near the qualities of rockwool and isopor.
1 ” reindeer fur isolates normal body temperatures against arctic winter.
Simply find those leaks in your hot air balloon and glue over with Pravda.
2 glasses in 1/2″ distance with dry air in between gives a “Termopan” window as good as anything else in that house.
Canvas with wallpaper inside and proper tight stucca under the roof and in the top corners was very efficient when cunningly done..
This rules upside down for refrigerators. But there you must also have a diffusion- tight foil or plate outside to stop diffusion and H2O dew frost on the cooler.
Carbonmontanus: Heat is mainly exchanged by convection in such systems, so convections must be rigidly stopped first.
RtW: good point and thanks for the interest. Great Stuff crack and crevice sealer is also polystyrene so it both glues and seals. The alternative is caulk inside and out, along with the PPG Gripper (an agressive primer) I’m using as my primary glue.
Fortunately it is an interior application so wind and temperature swings won’t be an issue. If I seal it right it should stay completely airtight.
Both the freezer and the colder refrigerator section are top loading, which will help with convection. Only the 55F or so warmest section has a front-opening door (but only on the top half of its front wall so as to minimize convection when the door/plug is open). I’ll let you know where the temperatures settle at. The goal is 0F (which is guaranteed by the freezer control), 33-35F, and 50-55F.
NigelJ: Are you seriously trying to imply they are somehow useless or corrupted in some way? They tend to be on specific elements of regenerative agriculture like mulching or tilling, or they review combinations of things like this.
RtW: A holistic system with twenty pillars will probably perform like shit if only one or three pillars exist in a test.
432 nigelj
No. Theres a big difference between being critical of Nordhaus particular view of things in his climate economics study (abomination), and neoclassical economics pe se. And I’ve been very critical of various aspects neo classical economics on this website
Yet, you remain a Chicago School neo-classicist. See what I mean? It’s barking words.
but the difference is the ideas you post look fundamentally worse to me(for example eliminating nearly all private property, group decision making).
Again… see? Neo-c;assical/classical/orthodox Econ got us into this mess, but what I post are the characteristics of how all humans lived for 290k years or so, how most still did up to 4k years ago, and how the only regenerative societies in existence still do.
Maybe you do not understand what “fundamentally worse” means. “Your” Econ literally cannot solve any of the problems it has created. I remind you that Einstein suggest you can’t fix a problem with the same thinking that created it. Why do you persist in calling him a fool?
Scott Strough @421
[You just knew this was coming, folks! Get your popcorn…]
”But your flawed logic regarding studies on industrialized ag, somehow having relevance on what has already been proven to work, is what has put you under scorn as a “denier”…..”
I don’t really know what you are even saying here.
That. Was. Truly. Beautiful.
The whole soil carbon issue has uncertainties in it, so I tend go by what the peer reviewed studies show
Because terra preta does not exist, apparently. Created a thousand years ago with the simplest of actions, still there, meters deep, orders of magnitude faster and richer than anything Nature can do on her own, yet you keep repeating this “uncertainty” in the face of factual evidence, of history.
Terra preta is a key part of Regen Ag – true Regen Ag, not the bullshit, single-issue trash you keep claiming represents studies of holistic systems. The existence of that one thing, all by itself, invalidates everything you have ever said contrarily about Regen Ag.
You comments amount to, “So says YOU! But my mommy told me…”
which is that various agricultural techniques can coax soils to sequester MODESTLY more carbon per unit time
Because they do not, are not, measuring holistic, regenerative systems in any way, shape, or form, which has been demonstrated to you ad naudeum.
This is the behavior of denialists, not intelligent, logical debaters.
and enough to be useful but not the HUGE amounts claimed made by people like Killian and yourself (to some extent).
Look. At. The. Pictures. Terra Preta (bio-char) soils are as much as 20% carbon. Do that worldwide, we’d have the opposite problem of triggering an interglacial.
Some of us analysed the numbers in depth on this website last year.
No, you didn’t. See comments above. You ignore 9/10 of Regen Ag.
These studies are published in reputable journals like Nature.
And none of them study Regen Ag. No-till does not= Regen Ag. Again, it is solutions denial to pretend they do.
Are you seriously trying to imply they are somehow useless
No. It is nice to have them, much like the blind men and the elephant, bits we already know or bits we did not specifically know, but understand the systemic results of. But that you take them as evidence of the inadequacy of Regen Ag is denial, pure and simple. You know they do not represent studies of Regen Ag systems.
They tend to be on specific elements of regenerative agriculture like mulching or tilling, or they review combinations of things like this. I’m really not sure what else you would expect.
Studies of regen ag, not just scattered techniques used by all sorts of farmers, many not even thinking in terms of regen ag?
yes you get carbon formation deep in soil as due to mineralisation processes
See? Denial. No, we don’t get deep C sequestration merely from mineralization. We plant deep-rooted plants and trees and manage them in such a way as to rapidly deposit organic matter deep in the soils. We grow then intentionally cut down or roll and crimp various plants/trees to encourage root die-off, thus getting SOM seeply sequestered orders of magnitude faster than Nature. We use legumes, plants and trees to sequester nitrogen deep in the soils, or accumulators like comfrey to bring it to the surface.
Your willful ignorance the sole reason for these long discussions that are a perfect example of denialist False Equivalence. You do not have a legitimate voice in this conversation and are willfully misleading our Dear Readers.
Please stop.
but the carbon is initially in a surface layer
See above. All carbon does not enter via humus. The reason there were meters of rich, black soil all across the great plains was not just because of humus, but because the natural grasses are often very deep-rooted. As they died off in winter and were eaten by herbivores or burned in ewildfires or by proscribed fires, those roots we left deep underground and acted on biologically and mineralogically. I’ve seen statements of 15 METERS of soils in the Great Plains. At the very least, several meters. All gone now because people like you think tech/chem is necessary.
where its humus and with a warming climate this is going to be losing a lot of carbon before it mineralises at lower depths in the soil.
We can build it faster than it is lost. We already are.
Regenerative Agriculture still looks like a great idea because of the overall environmental benefits. Hype just makes me grind my teeth
I repeat, there is no hype, only your willful ignorance.
as do people who talk down to me saying ”I dont even know what Im reading”
Do you know why MAGAs get so angry? Because they are deeply ignorant and get angry when they are told this because, as I have already pointed out, the ignorant often do not realize how little they know. That is the case here. Scott did not “talk down” to you, nor have I in this post – and many others. You don’t understand the depth of your own ignorance, nor how rude and disrespectful it is to repeatedly tell us we don’t know what we are talking about or are “hyping” or “exaggerating”, etc. Facts are not hype.
We have not spoken to you like a child, we have corrected you, informed you, and called you out. You feel talked down to because you think you have something to say on this topic, but you do not. You need to learn, then speak, but refuse yo. You need to assimilate the evidence into your constructs, but refuse to. It is, in fact, your own obstinance that is the problem. It is that you believe your views are equal in merit when they are not. False Equivalence.
You are making yourself look and feel small. Nobody is doing it to you.
especially when they then concede the content of the article is accurate on several points, as I suggested it was.
Concede? There was no concession, there was a correction of your perception the paper implied something it did not. The paper was accurate, we assume, in the extremely limited measuring it did, but for anyone to tout that as bringing down all of soil sequestration as a major tool? That was either ignorance or dishonesty. To be clear, there was nothing wrong with the science, but with the bullshit extrapolated from it. So, you got a victory for a claim never made by Scott? Straw Man.
Will you never stop relying on them?
428 Richard the Weaver
Killian: Me, 2007~present.
Hmmmm… right again.
RtW: Thanks for letting us know that you’re constantly right. Whew!
You’re welcome. It’s important to know whom to listen to.
I didn’t notice anything better than a repeated coin toss’ accuracy.
1. You just lied trying to be snarky. 2. You haven’t been around long; it’s more like a long, nearly perfect record across multiple disciplines.
But you do you and be one of many that think it is better to insult accurate analyses rather than ask, “Nobody else is doing that. What can we learn from this person?”
The keys to your response are 1. your insecurity and 2. assuming I said what I said out of arrogance rather than frustration and the hope people will consider adding another way of thinking to their repertoire so we can solve our problems more quickly.
Please, stay out of the Peanut Gallery. It’s a dark, dark place.
#430 for the record, again, this is what you said verbatim nigel at #375 –
Study posted by Sid on soil carbon is rather important: (quotes) So claims made about regenerative agriculture rapidly sequestering vast quantities of soil carbon look exaggerated, as I’ve been saying all along.
And Scott has said what he succinctly said at #421 https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/07/forced-responses-july-2021/comment-page-9/#comment-793632
For the record I never thought, nor said “The speed soils take up carbon is not a function of warming per se.”
about your new false claim about me: “You are conflating two different things. The article never MADE that connection and neither did I.”
Yes you did. And the article directly conflates the two things: it’s the core intent and purpose of the article. It says:
“The consequences go far beyond carbon sequestration strategies. Major climate models such as those produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are based on this outdated understanding of soil (i.e. the amount of the sequestration of SOC specifically). Several recent studies indicate that those models are underestimating the total amount of carbon that will be released from soil in a warming climate. In addition, computer models that predict the greenhouse gas impacts of farming practices — predictions that are being used in carbon markets — are probably overly optimistic about soil’s ability to trap and hold on to carbon.”
https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-soil-science-revolution-upends-plans-to-fight-climate-change-20210727/
You admit to conflating the two things again right here: “And that means for all the carbon we put into soils with regenerative agriculture, we are unfortunately losing a significant part of it, eventually.”
The problem here is that you do not know that. You do not know the Quantity of Carbon that could be put into soils using RegenAg, either now or the future at scale. The carbon loss mentioned in those papers are purely theoretical, not proven. They do not apply across all soil types nor regions or type of agricultural uses.
The article is SIMPLISTIC. Cherry picking an opinion of a few soil scientists about a topic he has just heard about, based on two things: 1) GENETIC studies of increasing SOC in industrial ag that have failed, and 2) hypothetical experiments of the loss of SOC in manually warmed rain forest soils. The article’s point above was not in reference to Regenerative Agriculture practices, nor studies of RA. You added that conflation yourself.
Which brings us back to my original question: does the article mean what you think it means? Even after your ‘defensive explanations’ I am saying no, it doesn’t. I think Scott agrees.
The broad conjecture and conflation in that article is flawed, in my view. At best it is far from clear to the average reader. The conflation of issues is not supported by the known science and neither are your comments.
I am trying to point that out, rationally and respectfully. Sorry you do not have ears to hear this. As to who is the one most guilty of time wasting, empty rhetoric and sophistry, or conflating two different (unrelated) things” readers can and will decide for themselves. The wise will continue to ignore it all.
As for what the peer reviewed science we have to date says (what) the effects on sequestering soil carbon are, especially from RegenAg methodologies, may I humbly recommend reading the Refs and google scholar search links I have provided, especially the NZ white paper?
Nothing is as Certain, or modest, as you (and the author of that article) say it is. Only time and better quality research will tell. I don’t mind patiently waiting while I withhold judgment. I think maintaining an open mind is always a good idea. But I respect your right to do otherwise and will drop it. I think that’s best.
#425 ““… it’s good news that EVs continue to make good progress in the marketplace”
That’s what they want us to believe Kevin. So that the “logical” (sic) conclusion is to assume to “mandate fairly comprehensive measures with deadlines of 2035 or sooner:” is equally good progress.
I do accept what you’re saying and why, so nothing personal here. However I believe there is another way to think about this topic :
1) Really understand the dire implications of the science as we know it today – yes, even pre-COP26 and pre-AR6 reports in 2021.
2) The Precautionary principle – extreme weather and other impacts already upon us can only become more dire even if ALL GHG emissions stopped tomorrow.
3) Knowing coal, oil and gas are not viable, are irrational doomed energy products in a rational world.
4) Knowing that +1.5C and +2C is already baked in no matter what they say or actions they commit to at COP26 for 2030 or 2035 or 2050.
5) Real Transportation needs analysis of societies and individuals and rational action plans by Governments world wide can be disconnected from any pre-existing emotional and pseudo-Economic need that we MUST keep using energy inputs from coal, oil and gas in the discussions.
and
6) That historic systemic change could be implemented tomorrow. As easily as Lincoln said all Slaves were hereby Declared Free on X date.
Simplistically, I am saying it is quite rational, responsible and possible for the Sale of all new Fossil Fuel Passenger Vehicles be Banned from 12:01 AM on the 1st September, 2021.
That that is far preferable, and rational, than waiting until 2035 or later. Which is clearly not rational and I posit is also insane clearly dangerous thinking.
The world would not stop spinning on it’s axis. The people of the world would immediately adjust to this new reality. Including the Economic Markets and Global Trade almost overnight.
Like every other day for the last 2000 years on Earth, there will be winners and loses waking up the next morning. No big deal. Such is life. The 1929 Stock Market Crash was Life. Look at is today? 90 years later.
The Cubans survived not having new cars for 60 years. (Now watch the greedy and ideologically self-serving go to town on that last comment, while ignoring it’s all encompassing obvious lesson.) Because so did the Russians, the Chinese, Pakistanis and the Indians survived too. Not every American citizen owned their own horse in 1901. They survived and thrived through the coming systemic changes as well.
Imagine, overnight reason and rationality by ‘Industry and Governments’ (i.e. Them) would suddenly, and for the first time be applied to the notion of EVs being fit for purpose, with no subsidies, and yet priced appropriately. Alternative more cost efficient more practical transport options would immediately become viable and popular long term. Indulgent travel would be priced accordingly.
The entrenched Systemic Barriers to efficient cost effective transportation systems for the masses and business and agricultural products would disappear overnight. Government funded airlines would collapse as unnecessary expensive wasteful dinosaurs of industry.
Life on planet Earth would immediately be better for everyone, over the short and long term. Even for those who lost their jobs or lost their capital. Hope would be restored in younger generations of the world.
Flowers would bloom and birds would sing a happy song.
Then again, I could be wrong. Habitual ways of thinking are near to impossible to change by Will alone. It typically requires catastrophic events to do that.
#433 “So they say they don’t deny the science but just want to do naff-all about it.”
They are all the same everywhere. No need to single out the UK, Boris Johnson or the Tories. But I do take your point. It’s a good example of thousands just like it.
They being, those who run the G7, the G20, and the 38 in the OECD ‘system’. All of them. Collectively the richest people and highest income earners on Earth, whose populations are directly behind ~90% of all historical GHG emissions, an excessive waste of resources, driving the other AGW drivers, and the long term systemic environmental ecosystem destruction.
COP26 gives them (and us) another opportunity to momentarily look better and more intelligent than we really are. Besides, there is far more denial of the science than we are willing to admit.
Kevin McKinney @425 adding to your comments on EV’s and PHEVs. New Zealand has just introduced a couple of different schemes to encourage uptake of electric cars and hybrids:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/the-feebate-govt-confirms-rebates-for-buyers-of-electric-cars-but-petrol-car-buyers-will-cop-it/TEJ3V5CF72YFTT5NPQTOWJ3AAE/
https://driveelectric.org.nz/individuals/ev-incentives/
It’s already lead to a big jump in sales:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/300362300/feebate-huge-uptick-in-electric-vehicle-and-plugin-hybrid-sales-in-early-weeks-of-new-scheme
Kevin McKinney @425, my next car will be an EV or PHEV. Haven’t decided which yet. I might even buy the top of the range Tesla. But no I will probably end up buying a Kia Nero (looks rather nice and asian cars are reliable). It’s all I really need.
#411, you may enjoy this historical piece.
By the 1880s, 15,000 dead horses were being removed from the streets of New York City each year.
Paradoxically, the advent of the steam locomotive and the construction of intercity railway links, starting in the 1830s, had helped make the problem worse.
The result was more horses, more manure – and steadily worsening congestion.
Pollution, congestion and noise were merely the most obvious manifestations of a deeper dependency.
Horses and stables, the newspaper observed, “are wheels in our great social machine, the stoppage of which means injury to all classes and conditions of persons, injury to commerce, to agriculture, to trade, to social life”.
By the turn of the century there was one horse for every 10 people in Britain, and one for every four in the US.
Feeding the US’s 20 million horses required one-third of its total crop area.
Horses had become both indispensable and unsustainable. To advocates of a newly emerging technology, the solution seemed obvious: get rid of horses and replace them with self-propelling motor vehicles, known at the time as horseless carriages. Today, we call them cars. (cont’)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/aug/03/lost-history-electric-car-future-transport
Nigel to Scott: I don’t really know what you are even saying here.
RtW: Seems you two agree. The question becomes one of education. Regenerative agriculture is systems design MacGuyver style. You see what is growing and thriving where you happen to be. And you tinker and add and whatever, using the thought styles that Killian has been describing.
Add in Scott’s carbon science and the whole definition of yield warps. And really, how many pounds of plastic supermarket tomatoes are equal in value to a single perfectly ripened one-pounder from the garden. Killian speaks of value, not calories, and I agree. There are plenty of calories available. But quality food is expensive. That one-pounder is hard to provide…
…unless we build sanely, with attached greenhouses. They regulate temperature, provide fresh air, and really really really improve a household’s mental outlook.
Oh, and they make that one-pounder free.
I digress. Back to the fields and forests..
It takes time. It takes education. It takes brainstorming with others. It takes failure. And failure. And semi-success.
But traditional agriscience is about reducing things to a single variable. Maybe two. OK, three if you’re an extreme maverick.
How the heck are you going to get valid data when the leap from industrial agriculture to regenerative changes a zillion variables? Even the crops are different. Yes, a bit of corn. Some wheat and soy, too. But ask Killian how many different food plants are on a typical properly managed five acre plot.
@ 432 Nigelj,
“I don’t really know what you are even saying here.”
Exactly. Admitting that is a start.
“These studies are published in reputable journals like Nature. Are you seriously trying to imply they are somehow useless or corrupted in some way?”
Of course not. Read my post again. I fully agree with the studies and even specifically pointed out the context in which the studies are true. I even gave a brief explanation as to expanding why they are true in the context they apply. This is another typical strawman logic flaw found in many of your posts. Because you don’t know enough about the subject (which is glaringly apparent to anyone who does), you jump to false conclusions in many of your posts.
I generally try to stay out of it with you, simply because you know not what you say. But I certainly need to add the context when you post reputable studies, followed by poor conclusions on your part. All studies have a context. The best example I can give you to make you understand this is Newtonian physics vs Einsteinian physics. Newton’s laws are absolutely correct within their context, but fail outside their context. Einstein’s theories also are absolutely true within their context, but also have areas of context where they fail to describe the physical world as well. You have taken very good studies published in very reputable journals, and tried to apply them outside their context where they are true. This is simply because you don’t know enough about the subject to make an informed commentary. I am pointing this out not to belittle you, but rather to urge you to be more careful and to get that education first.
Try maybe asking when you don’t know? Rather than drawing a false conclusion?
You could have posted something like, “this study in Nature shows no till has failed to generate soil carbon increases described by other studies, why?”; and then your posts when answered by someone who does know, would not be denialist in nature, but potentially educational for you and others as well.
If you had asked that instead, I could have easily posted a few studies why. For example, this study: Phosphorus and nitrogen regulate arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis in Petunia hybrida DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0090841
And for context pointed out that the NPK fertilizers used in modern commercial no till GAP (good agricultural practices) inhibit the symbiosis between the crops and the mycorrhizal fungi. I would then refer you to further research by the USDA Agricultural Research Service that shows this symbiosis is indeed critical for soil carbon sequestration (by this method). https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2008/glomalin-is-key-to-locking-up-soil-carbon/
Then everyone benefits! You learn more about why standard industrialized ag fails, and you also learn more about why regenerative ag succeeds when industrialized ag using NPK fertilizers cant. And no need for scorn here on this forum.
@ 429 RtW: “ahh, like the inevitable Amazon savanna?”
Be careful. You are getting very close to drawing conclusions similar in scope as Nigelj. But since you did ask this as a question rather than a statement, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. The answer is no. You do not restore the Amazon rain forest by cutting down most the trees and turning it into a savanna. That action is a source, not a sink. This is not a useful way to decrease stocks of carbon found in the atmosphere. Although I did mention in that same post a proven useful tool for that rainforest biome that does indeed lock up carbon into geological timeframes, terra preta/biochar.
Instead of applying my statement to a biome it was not intended, it would be better to apply that quote to restoring the grasslands/savannas degraded by poor cropland and rangeland management. ie You don’t try to convert rain forests into savannas, instead you covert corn and soy fields back into their original biomes, then manage those for both human and wildlife use. A win/win for both the environment and human society.
@ 424 Reality Check says:
“Yeah. Nice try. But others might learn to be more wary about how they interpret articles that sound impressive, look important, maybe compelling but aren’t – and do not mean what they think it means.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
(news article, long read, and a contentious polarised issue)
Can we save the planet by shrinking the economy?
The “degrowth” movement to fight the climate crisis offers a romantic, utopian vision. But it’s not a policy agenda.
By Kelsey Piper Aug 3, 2021
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22408556/save-planet-shrink-economy-degrowth
With arguments by the pros and cons.
eg “More than 11,000 scientists signed William Ripple’s 2019 letter “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency,” which argues “our goals need to shift from GDP growth and the pursuit of affluence toward sustaining ecosystems and improving human well-being by prioritizing basic needs and reducing inequality.”
The 2021 updated report recently shared here.
#432 “Regenerative Agriculture still looks like a great idea because of the overall environmental benefits.”
Thanks for clearing that up.
#432 “Some of us analysed the numbers in depth on this website last year. These studies are published in reputable journals like Nature.”
Would you please share the Refs to those studies with numbers, if handy?
#430 “It’s just annoying verbal rhetoric that achieves nothing useful for me.”
Ain’t that the truth! And a two-edged sword. :-)
Lastly, to tie up a couple of loose ends in my mind:
#430 “And warming increases carbon loss in all soils even although it varies with different types of soil.”
This sounds intuitively logical on the surface, though I haven’t myself seen it quantified for the real world long term.
What we also probably know from history, soils research, climate reports, and observation is:
-Deforestation increases carbon loss in all soils, has done for thousands of years.
-Many other Land Use Changes and Irrigation practices increases carbon loss in all soils.
-Intensive Industrial Agriculture accelerates Carbon loss in all soils.
i-Produces top soil loss, irreparable erosion and degradation in all soils.
ii-Raises Salt Concentration and affects Ph values in all soils.
-Extended Drought and Wild fires increases carbon loss in all soils.
-Carbon, SOC and SOM, is really good for soils, water content, plant health, agriculture and so on.
-Also
“The estimate is that we are now losing about 1 percent of our topsoil every year to erosion, most of this caused by agriculture.”
“Half of the topsoil on the planet has been lost in the last 150 years. In addition to erosion, soil quality is affected by other aspects of agriculture.”
A reasonable rhetorical question could be: On a scale of one to ten, how important is the possible increases in carbon, SOC/SOM Loss in soils from future global warming, versus the other known destructive impacts? And can these matters be reliably quantified on a global scale yet?
Quoting the article ending:
Lehmann is pushing to replace the old dichotomy of stable and unstable carbon with a “soil continuum model” of carbon in progressive stages of decomposition. But this model and others like it are far from complete, and at this point, more conceptual than mathematically predictive.
[Some] Researchers agree that soil science is in the midst of a classic paradigm shift. What nobody knows is exactly where the field will land — what will be written in the next edition of the textbook.
“We’re going through a conceptual revolution,” said Mark Bradford, a soil scientist at Yale University. “We haven’t really got a new cathedral yet. We have a whole bunch of churches that have popped up.”
(end quotes) https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-soil-science-revolution-upends-plans-to-fight-climate-change-20210727/
So that suggests to me the ‘jury’ is still out. There is no overriding scientific consensus as such. Which confirms what I already thought was the case. Good to know.
Scott E Strough @446,
You are wrong about this. Remember what I posted originally: That the huge claims you and Killian make about how much carbon soils can be made to sequester CLEARLY comes under question when you read the article posted originally by Sid “A Soil-Science Revolution Upends Plans to Fight Climate Change.” And also consider the general scope of the peer reviewed science on soils.
Your defence against this is largely a lot of empty rhetoric, and assertions about the glomalin pathway. But this pathway has not yet been properly quantified with field trials so we have no real soild idea of its potential. You KNOW this, because you are doing field trials yourself to try to improve that situation. So quit with the BS. Refer:
https://skepticalscience.com/strough-interview.html