The limit to growth of the human race and our building is when our construction projects are expanding upward at the speed of light. We’ve got a long way to go.
Don Williamssays
1) Actually there is a lot of “compelling evidence” to back up Vilfredo Pareto’s observation that in every society a few people have most of the wealth, most of the power, and make most of the decisions.
2) The most prominent “Doomer” is Jem Bendell—author of the infamous “Deep Adaptation” paper. He spent a lot of years on sustainability programs and was invited to the Billionaire’s Prom at Davos a number of times. See the article on him in Wikipedia.
3) His experience in dealing with the people who matter is one of the reasons for his pessimism. He noted:
“My own conclusion that it is too late to prevent a breakdown in modern civilization in most countries within our lifetimes is not purely based on an assessment of climate science. It’s based on my view of society, politics, economics from having worked on probably 25 countries across five continents, worked in the intergovernmental sector of the U.N., been part of the World Economic Forum, working in senior management in environmental groups, being on boards of investment funds.”
4) Michael Mann attacked Bendell. Mann is an expert on climate science – but he is ignorant of many important things. Which is no disgrace – I am ignorant. Socrates said he was ignorant. The important thing is to recognize what you know – and what you don’t.
5) I dismiss slurs and ad hominems. I am interested in facts. Mainly so I can adapt. I hate to make you passionate guys sad but I highly doubt the Billionaires who go to the Sun Valley conference are lurking here waiting for our deep insights. And anyone who has worked in Democratic campaigns –as I have – knows of the contempt leaders like Nancy Pelosi have for mere “activists”.
6) Re Piotr’s homily “The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good” , in my experience the Enemy of the Good is Hypocrisy — who pretends to be Good’s friend so so he can slip the knife in at the opportune moment in exchange for a few crumbs from The Bad.
6) Does anyone here have Scope 1/Scope 2/ Scope 3 emissions data for the Chinese solar industry? You know –like what the SEC is demanding of US companies. If so, is the data Independently verified?
Dharmasays
Thanks for sharing that Don and for saying what you did. Those are my sentiments too.
Dharmasays
I’m very sad. As a mature student I went to university 15 years ago to do a masters in energy, environment, climate and human ecology as I thought I could help change the world we live in. The solutions we studied were basically the same as Jem highlights and run into all corners of how humans interact with our environment and the systems we have created. 15 years later nothing has changed apart from I can’t buy plastic straws anymore.
I’m tired, no one is interested and the direction our politicians and economies are taking us is not just the wrong way it’s the worst way. One reason people are in denial is because the problem is so huge and the solutions are so unfamiliar that we can’t comprehend them. Everything needs to change and changing tiny things takes a huge amount of effort. The laggards and denialists continue to take all our enthusiasm. Thank you Jem and others like young Gretta and Kevin Anderson for finding the energy to carry on talking about this.
Dharmasays
Last Jem ref from 2018
We receive bits and pieces of news, often shared by friends on Facebook or Twitter, which make us worry for a few moments, before returning to busy daily life. We may think we have already integrated an awareness of climate change into our lives, by the career choice we made, or the way we shop, recycle or don’t eat meat. Most of us are not climate scientists anyway, there’s all kinds of other things to take care of, and we have bills to pay!
That was me, anyway, until this year. I decided to look more closely at the latest information from the range of sciences that give a perspective on our situation. The last time I studied climate closely was in 1994 when I was being taught climate science at Cambridge University. I do not claim to be an expert in any one climate-related field, but as a Professor who has worked and published in a range of disciplines, I have experience in assessing knowledge claims from various sources. In this summary I provide references as much as possible, so you can investigate further.
However, given that the IPCC has proven over the past decades to be woefully inaccurate in the cautiousness of its predictions, I now agree with some of the most eminent climate scientists that the IPCC cannot be looked to for telling us what the situation is. That is why I spent a few weeks returning to primary sources in academic journals and research institute reports, and piecing together a perspective myself. Given the long time span it takes for data to appear in academic journals, I often turn to the information direct from research institutes and their individual experts. The result of that process follows below. https://jembendell.com/2018/03/22/a-summary-of-some-climate-science-in-2018/
Thanks. over to you.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
D: given that the IPCC has proven over the past decades to be woefully inaccurate in the cautiousness of its predictions, I now agree with some of the most eminent climate scientists that the IPCC cannot be looked to for telling us what the situation is.
BPL: Thank you for that classic example of a non sequitur. The syllogism is:
Major premise: If an entity fails in prediction, then it must not grasp the present situation.
Minor premise: The IPCC fails in prediction.
Conclusion: It must not grasp the present situation.
Since the major premise is false, so is the conclusion.
Dharmasays
Barton Paul Levenson says
25 Oct 2024 at 7:01 AM
Please be more respectful and reference your quotes correctly. It was Professor Jem Bendell who said : “given that the IPCC has proven over the past decades to be woefully inaccurate in the cautiousness of its predictions, I now agree with some of the most eminent climate scientists that the IPCC cannot be looked to for telling us what the situation is.”
As I do not represent him, nor speak for him, I think you should take up your disagreement with him directly. You may contact him here – https://jembendell.com/
However, for readers who have better things to do with their time than chase shadows (Barton’s disinformation): No, this passage does not seem to be a non sequitur at all.
The original statement by Professor Jem Bendell critiques the IPCC’s record by pointing out a history of cautious predictions (eg an Arctic BoE not until circa 2090), leading to a perception that the IPCC may lack an accurate grasp of the current climate situation.
This is a reasonable argument because it infers that if predictions repeatedly fall short of reality, it might reflect a limitation in the organization’s situational assessments. The argument logically follows a chain of reasoning from observed patterns in IPCC predictions to an evaluation of its reliability for present assessments.
BPL’s response suggests the argument is invalid by misrepresenting it as a “syllogism,” using a non sequitur fallacy. However, the issue is more about trustworthiness and reliability in ongoing assessments rather than strictly about logical structure.
The implied premise (not explicitly stated – see the referenced article for all the data background) could be that consistent underestimation implies an inherent cautiousness or conservatism, which might limit the organization’s capacity to accurately assess the urgency or scope of the present situation.
In summary, the original statement critiques accuracy in context, rather than presenting a strict, logical structure that would easily fall under non sequitur. The response does not seem to be a fair characterization of the original argument.
Hi, BPL
I don’t follow. If I’m looking for someone to paint my house I might drive by houses a painter has painted.
You’re saying that if all the contractor’s previous jobs are horribly inaccurate, trim paint splashed on windows and siding, etc,.. I SHOULD hire them?
Barton Paul Levensonsays
R&R: You’re saying that if all the contractor’s previous jobs are horribly inaccurate, trim paint splashed on windows and siding, etc,.. I SHOULD hire them?
BPL: 1) They’re not “horribly inaccurate.” 2) Inaccuracy in one type of thing does not carry over into a completely different area.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
R&R: You’re saying that if all the contractor’s previous jobs are horribly inaccurate, trim paint splashed on windows and siding, etc,.. I SHOULD hire them?
BPL: No, I’m not saying that. Quit with the straw men.
Richard and RePetesays
BPL,
It’s not a straw man, and we’re talking about whether scientists have been accurate about the changes brought about by humans altering the system, which is NOT the simplistic “if we hold everything constant then….”
Because we can’t hold everything constant.
This discussion is about feedbacks, acceleration, and everything, NOT the metric called “global average temperature”. Nobody cares about that. We care about real physical results, and over the years, well, I ask you, BPL, how regularly do YOU hear “It’s worse than we thought” with regard to a physical system’s reaction to warming?
Barton Paul Levensonsays
R&R: NOT the metric called “global average temperature”. Nobody cares about that.
BPL: I care about it, because it’s a good and useful metric.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
“This discussion is about feedbacks, acceleration, and everything, NOT the metric called “global average temperature”. Nobody cares about that.”
I care about it. Other climate scientists I know care about it. It’s a good basic metric of the amount of energy in the climate system.
Dharmasays
One of many Jem Bendell bookmarks;
This is what a #RealGreenRevolution would include
Posted on November 4, 2021
So am I just being defeatist? No – otherwise I would not bother writing this 7-part essay on radical and transformative policy responses to our environmental predicament. There are many systemic policy innovations that could help humanity right now, but you won’t hear them from the professionals engaged in climate policy this month (@COP26).
That is because the professional classes, who are people with time to engage in the policy jamborees, have been schooled within the ideology of our time, which defers to existing power in a global capitalist system. I know because I am one of them. I lied to myself for decades as I tried to encourage significant reform through voluntary corporate sustainability initiatives.
What’s worse, we professionals working on public challenges are surrounded by people with an unacknowledged narcissism, where the motivation to feel ethical, smart, and contemporary, trumps any depth of inquiry into what might be going on and might be possible. It is a strange but silver lining of the terrifying climate news that more of us are being forced out of such patterns through a dark night of the soul. It means we can consider again what might work, rather than what has been just easy stuff to tell ourselves https://jembendell.com/2021/11/04/this-is-what-a-realgreenrevolution-would-include/
Maybe he misspoke? Maybe the data has been updated since and he has justifiably changed his scientific opinion, again? Who knows, no one can ask him such questions now. If you do he will block you instantly.
and one last classic observation-
I have come to see that although many international civil servants do important work on the ground in some countries, many of them in the headquarters are involved in a deadly charade, where their status, income, and emotional stability lead them to lie to themselves and to the public about our planetary predicament, its causes and what to do about it. This is exemplified by their continued lie that ‘sustainable development’ is possible, despite years of data now proving the critiques from decades ago that it was capitalist-friendly ideological tosh. https://jembendell.com/2024/07/10/should-the-un-just-sod-off/
What to do when the whole system is rotten to the core? There’s very little anyone can do. Voting and activism no longer works to drive ethical systemic change.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
D: Voting and activism no longer works to drive ethical systemic change.
BPL: Then don’t vote.
Richard and RePetesays
BPL: “then don’t vote”
I’ll probably still vote, but helping to enable Armageddon is (hopefully) going to be way more effective.Remember? “040317 To the English Teacher”, which I copied at least most of here? (Or is it “For the English Teacher)?
Anyway, another of my plays might help, too: the engine is finished. Better than 2/3 efficiency and cleans the air. A YouTube kid with almost 2 million followers is wrapping his head around it.
Piotrsays
Don Williams: “ 6) Re Piotr’s homily “The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good” , in my experience the Enemy of the Good is Hypocrisy — who pretends to be Good’s friend so so he can slip the knife in at the opportune moment in exchange for a few crumbs from The Bad.”
Don, I am not sure what message you want to convey.
My, as you called” “homily”, was used in a VERY SPECIFIC context -the GOOD are doable actions that can mitigate AGW – like renewables or pricing of GHG emissions. These actions are actively discouraged by both the deniers and the doomers – the followers of the “all or nothing” fallacy, they disparage renewables for not being PERFECT (since they can’t, at least in the next few decades displace ALL fossil fuels in ALL applications) – and instead propose the non-existing hypothetical “PERFECT” – either a technological silver bullet, or utopian ideas of replacing in the next few decades the existing world’s socio-economic systems and changing the very human nature – into their theoretical, PERFECT. opposites: the centrally-controlled economy, and the New Man, willing to sacrifice their and their family ‘s good for the good of the class, nation, race, or humanity.
For this reasons, in my “homily”‘s specific context – the deniers’ and doomers’ PERFECT – is the enemy of the GOOD (renewables and pricing of GHG emissions).
Which brings me to your post – I am not sure how YOUR – “ the Enemy of the Good is Hypocrisy” – applies in context of renewables.
UNLESS you mean than the deniers and doomers are hypocrites. But that does not tell us something we didn’t know – if anything, it borders on sociological cliche.
Still, there could be one benefit of that – would make the current RC resident doomer, Darma’s, ears burn – after he rushed with compliments to endear himself to you:
Darma: “Thanks for sharing that Don and for saying what you did. Those are my sentiments too. ;-)
If this were the case, watch your six – hell hath no fury like a Darma scorned.
Dharmasays
This has surely been forgotten by now, so if I may re-post it, I think it may help refocus the US-centric issues raised as critical vs criticized.
Don Williams says
14 Oct 2024 at 10:50 AM
1) The primary problem is Overconsumption – which is caused by multiple factors: overpopulation, high consumption per capita, war or interstate competition etc.
2) US Overconsumption could be greatly reduced without lowering living standards but powerful interests/propaganda will oppose that. People make money encouraging overconsumption – there is no profit (monetary or political) from reducing it. Well, aside from Ebay (encourage reuse of products) and early Amazon (reuse books).
3) Since we don’t have a global government, any population policy will have to be handled at the national level. Here in the USA it will be blocked by powerful financial interests. Re biodiversity, I doubt that we here in the USA will protect wildlife since we tolerate the hideous practices of factory farming – in part because prostitutes in our legislatures made it illegal to tell Americans the truth about how our food is produced. The primary advocates for wildlife seem to be the hunters and fishermen but the vast majority of voters are urban dwellers largely isolated from/indifferent to Nature.
4) High consumption per capita is caused by multiple factors: advertising encouraging people to buy a bunch of worthless crap, items which require high amounts of resources (e.g, automobiles, electronics, etc ) being designed with short life spans and designed to be difficult to maintain/repair. The New York fashion industry has a very big carbon footprint due to its culture of clothing having a short period of “fashion”. The purpose of this stupidity being to force the consumer to make frequent purchases in order to drive up sales volume/profits.
5) USA energy consumption would be reduced enormously if our cities/housing/job centers were designed to provide everyone with a 10 minute commute via walking, biking or public transport. ( How many people want to go back to the office after working at home during the Covid lockdowns? ) Similarly, homes with geothermal HVAC and solar roofs could be energy independent – the obstacle is large capital investment up front which takes a while to pay for itself and so we have the slow arterial bleeding of eternal power bills.
6) Our suburbs — which consume enormous amounts of land, oil and commuting time — were the result of President Eisenhower’s Project East River – the plan to use Interstates and federal highway money to disperse the US population and industry so it would be less vulnerable to nuclear attack. (Blast pressure diminishes rapidly with distance – radius cubed.) An early Cold War policy which is gaining renewed interest
Unlike you, not everyone will take “deliberately raising the global mortality rate, off the table.”
Nigeljsays
Dharma, ok that does sum the situation up quite well. Over consumption is indeed the core issue behind our huge environmental footprint, but I would suggest our use of fossil fules as opposed to other alternatives is the core issue behind the warming problem specifically. The energy source should at least be the main focus of change, because its going to be easier changing the energy source than changing consumption habits..
Another reason for suburban sprawl might be just because rising incomes meant large numbers of people could afford a nice house on its own section and a car. Many countries have urban sprawl.
I think the walkable city is a good idea, and hopefully things go that way, but trillions of dollars of infrastrcuture are essentially designed around the car, so changing things like this is a long term 100 year (?) project, and so wont do much to curb climate change. And this all assumes enough people get behind the idea.
A walkable city requires things like bicycle lanes on roads, reduced car parks, building many small supermarkets closer to where people live, building high density living, etcetera. New Zealand has tried some of these things recently with dedicated bicycle lanes and permitting four floor apartments within established suburbs, and its getting a lot of resistance. from car owners, as well as special interest groups. Again this suggests change will be a slow process.
This is why I tend to look at the things that might make more of a difference over the next 30 years particularly like renewables. They obviously have an environmental footprint, but if we could get our consumption levels down a bit that would minimise this. Where I differ from some commenters on this website is that thier very ambitious plans to reduce consumption are just impractical.
Population growth is slowing anyway due to the demographic transition, and the global fertility rate has dropped a lot, and experts say global population looks like it will shrink later this century. Although we cannot be sure of this.
A smaller global population would obviously greaty help reduce consumption and environmental problems although this assumes per capita consumption doesn’t increase alarmingly. So I suspect its still going to require a change in values related to how much people individually consume. I can see per capita consumption maybe levelling off and dropping a bit but not hugely.
Its assumed that the main driver in the slowing population growth has been increasing incomes, and better education etc,etc, however a moderarly low income African Country (cant recall which) did an experiment where free contraception was provided in one region and the fertility rate dropped sharply. This seems to show that the key factors in low fertility rate are 1) just mildly improving incomes, 2)cheap easily available contraceptives and 3) better womens rights. There is lots governments can do to improve availability of contraceptives and better womens rights. This would help speed up the drop in fertility rate without coercive government policies.
It would be good if the UN had a population policy and some goals, but its probably not going to happen because familiy size is a sensitive social issue, like religion, and so the UN wont go near it
Richard and RePetesays
No, it isn’t overconsumption, but excessive competition. Military spending is an example. Another is stock and financial services. How many brilliant people are spending their entire productive lives trying to get stock market data a microsecond faster than their competitors?
Alllllll that talent wasted. What could it have achieved in a different system?
Ron R.says
Nigel, But thanks for the constructive polite comments.
Of course. :-) I think people choose the weak parties not because they agree with them but because they don’t want to divide the vote and thereby ensure the other party wins. Both parties are really sucky about environmental issues but the left is a little bit better.
Nigeljsays
Ron R., yes fair points. After hitting submit I realised you were probably referring to politics in America which is a presidential system where the only real choice is Dems and Republicans and anything else is a bit of a wasted vote. So In that sense your arguments are quite strong. New Zealand has a partliamentary democracy and MMP (mixed member proportional representation) which is very different. You get coalition governments of multiple parties, so voting for for a small party like the greens isnt necessarily a wasted vote.. Many commonwealth countries have a parliamentary democracy.
Dharmasays
I really dislike fake news and PR advertising spin, don’t like Musk or X, but there is always the exception to the rule.
Ford CEO Jim Farley: “I drive a Xiaomi (SU7). We flew it from Shanghai to Chicago. I’ve been driving it for 6 month now, and I don’t want to give it up”
Unfortunately for average Americans, that’s not possible because 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs batteries and RE equipment and infrastructure.
The 2023 global warming spike was driven by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation
Abstract
Global-mean surface temperature rapidly increased 0.29 ± 0.04 K from 2022 to 2023. Such a large interannual global warming spike is not unprecedented in the observational record, with a previous instance occurring in 1976–1977. However, why such large global warming spikes occur is unknown, and the rapid global warming of 2023 has led to concerns that it could have been externally driven. Here we show that climate models that are subject only to internal variability can generate such spikes, but they are an uncommon occurrence (p = 1.6 % ± 0.1 %). However, when a prolonged La Niña immediately precedes an El Niño in the simulations, as occurred in nature in 1976–1977 and 2022–2023, such spikes become much more common (p = 10.3 % ± 0.4 %). Furthermore, we find that nearly all simulated spikes (p = 88.5 % ± 0.3 %) are associated with El Niño occurring that year. Thus, our results underscore the importance of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation in driving the occurrence of global warming spikes such as the one in 2023, without needing to invoke anthropogenic forcing, such as changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases or aerosols, as an explanation.
How to cite.
Raghuraman, S. P., Soden, B., Clement, A., Vecchi, G., Menemenlis, S., and Yang, W.: The 2023 global warming spike was driven by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11275–11283, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11275-2024, 2024.
Long-run evolution of the global economy: 1. Physical basis
Timothy J. Garrett
The link of physical to economic quantities comes from a prior result that establishes a fixed relationship between rates of global energy consumption and a historical accumulation of global economic wealth. What follows are nonequilibrium prognostic expressions for how wealth, energy consumption, and the Gross World Product (GWP) grow with time. This paper shows that the key components that determine whether civilization “innovates” itself toward faster economic growth include energy reserve discovery, improvements to human and infrastructure longevity, and reductions in the amount of energy required to extract raw materials. Growth slows due to a combination of prior growth, energy reserve depletion, and a “fraying” of civilization networks due to natural disasters. Theoretical and numerical arguments suggest that when growth rates approach zero, civilization becomes fragile to such externalities as natural disasters, and the risk is for an accelerating collapse.
Summary
Linking physical to economic quantities comes from a fixed relationship between rates of global energy consumption and historical accumulation of global economic wealth. When growth rates approach zero, civilization becomes fragile to externalities, such as natural disasters, and is at risk for accelerating collapse.
Key Points
Global economic wealth is tied to rates of primary energy consumption
Rates of economic growth depend on past growth, resource availability, and decay
Human and climate systems can be coupled using essentially the same physics
While the above argument has been made extensively, it certainly cannot be said that all energy consumption equates to higher levels of well being or prosperity. I would contend that much of the energy being consumed now is wasted. I would include in such waste–at least for now–the massive consumption associated with AI, which isn’t really improving anyone’s life for now.
I would also ask if you are familiar with Rosenfeld’s Law? This was postulated by Art Rosenfeld and is an empirically derived observation that energy needed to generate $1 in GDP growth has decreased by about 1% per year over time. I note this here because of the similarity to Moore’s Law, which illustrates the potential power in such trends.
Moore’s law was originally underlain by Dennard scaling of CMOS, but that has not been true since ~2005, and Moore’s law still persists. It goes a long way toward demonstrating that we can capitalize on such trends and even accelerate them through intensive researrch and development.
If we could undertake similar efforts wrt Rosenfeld’s Law, we might be able to significantly improve well being while actually decreasing energy consumption.
jgnfldsays
Crypto is one of the better examples of silliness of the tulip variety but even sillier as at least a tulip bulb has some tiny bit of intrinsic value to others. Basically crypto records as an unimpeachable fact (well for now unimpeachable, maybe not so in the near future) that you’ve expended a huge amount of energy which is now gone for any other purpose except generating the token. It’s a sales receipt for utter waste of zero intrinsic value. Why would I want to buy it from you? It has no value whatsoever to me. In point of fact it has negative value as it has wasted resources and increased various carbon and pollution sources.
The crash will come as crashes always come to bubbles. Tulip bulbs are quite cheap these days, for example.
Nigeljsays
Ray Ladbury, I agree in principle, however although AI currently uses a lot of energy to help develop the technology, the technology might eventually lead to really important uses so it seems the high energy use might be gamble worth taking. Bitcoin also seems like a waste of energy, and seems like it really doesnt have any potential that justifies such high energy use.
On a related issue, if we make things like home appliancess more energy efficient, energy use elsewhere just goes up like travel. This is caused by Jevons Paradox as you would know. The world seems addicted to high energy use, and I suspect it wont reduce significantly until the required resources start to run out.
Dharmasays
Nigelj says
25 Oct 2024 at 4:48 PM Quote: “The world seems addicted to high energy use, and I suspect it wont reduce significantly until the required resources start to run out.”,
Jem Bendell, along with other scholars and experts on societal collapse and energy limitations, has indeed voiced similar concerns to the idea that the world might not reduce its energy use until resources become critically limited.
Bendell’s “Deep Adaptation” framework focuses on preparing for and adapting to societal collapse due to climate and ecological crises. He argues that high-consumption lifestyles have already led to irreversible damage to ecosystems, and he underscores the importance of resilience as we face these ongoing changes.
This aligns with his view that society’s dependency on resources, especially energy, is unsustainable and may drive societies toward collapse if not checked.
Other experts, such as the authors of the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth report, have historically pointed out that reliance on continuous economic and energy growth is unsustainable in a world with finite resources.
They warn that unless energy consumption is adjusted, depletion of resources may indeed be the catalyst forcing change, particularly as resource scarcity impacts energy production, food systems, and infrastructure stability. These views collectively emphasize that systemic changes are essential to address resource dependence before resource limits impose their own harsh constraints
This short thread is like the game of ‘Telephone: where each new reply morphs far beyond the original points and the papers content more and more. Whatever Timothy J. Garrett was hoping to convey is of no relevance. Fascinating.
Researchers in Nigeria have proposed to build inverted perovskite solar cells exclusively with all-inorganic transport materials and a lead-free perovksite absorber. Through a series of simulations, they showed these device may achieve efficiencies over 30% with low production costs.
For the cell absorber, they considered the use of a lead-free perovskite material known as methylammonium tin triiodide (CH3NH3SnI3), which has an energy bandgap of 1.3 eV. They also decided to use copper oxide (Cu2O) for the HTL and zinc oxide (ZnO) for the ETL. The cell design includes a glass substrate and an aluminum (Al) back contact.
Diagram shows thickness of layers between Al and glass is 1.44 μm.
The model identified 14 completely new perovskites, all with band gaps and high enough energetic stability to make them excellent candidates for high-efficiency solar cells.
ref: “High-Quality Data Enabling Universality of Band Gap Descriptor and Discovery of Photovoltaic Perovskites”
Haiyuan Wang, Runhai Ouyang, Wei Chen, Alfredo Pasquarello https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.4c03507
(emph. Mine):
… With this approach, we comprehensively explore up to 15,659 materials, unveiling 14 unreported lead-free perovskites with suitable band gaps for photovoltaics. Notably, MASnBr3, FA2SnGeBr6, MA2AuAuBr6, FA2AuAuBr6, FA2InBiCl6, FA2InBiBr6, and Ba2InBiO6 stand out with direct band gaps, small effective masses, low exciton binding energies, and high stabilities.
Thin-film photovoltaics (PV) offers a path to decarbonize global energy production. Unfortunately, existing thin-film solar absorbers have major issues associated with either elemental abundance, stability, or performance. Entirely new and disruptive materials platforms are rarely discovered, and their search is traditionally slow and serendipitous. Here, we report a first-principles high-throughput (HT) computational screening for new solar absorbers among 40,000 known inorganic materials. Next to band gap and carrier effective masses, we also use computed intrinsic defects as they can limit the carrier lifetime. We identify the Zintl-phosphide BaCd2P2 as a potential high-efficiency solar absorber. Follow-up experiments confirm the promises of BaCd2P2, highlighting an optimal band gap, bright photoluminescence (PL), and long carrier lifetime, even in unoptimized powder samples. Importantly, BaCd2P2 contains no critical elements and is stable in air and water. Our work demonstrates how computational screening combined with experiments can accelerate the search for photovoltaic materials.
1. In CPV, concentrating different parts of the spectrum onto different cells/devices
2. Multiple layers of luminescent concentrator (basically like the first concept, but can concentrate diffuse light)
3. Tandem/Multijunction cells
4. Producing multiple electron-hole pairs from higher-energy photons
5. Using lower-energy photons to produce single electron-hole pairs
“During just five years experimenting with our stacking or multi-junction approach, we have raised power conversion efficiency from around 6% to over 27%, close to the limits of what single-layer photovoltaics can achieve today,” said Dr. Shuaifeng Hu, Post Doctoral Fellow at Oxford University Physics.
“We believe that, over time, this approach could enable the photovoltaic devices to achieve far greater efficiencies, exceeding 45%.”
3. (2024) “Researchers build selenium–silicon tandem solar cell that could improve efficiency to 40%”
Bob Yirka https://techxplore.com/news/2024-04-seleniumsilicon-tandem-solar-cell-efficiency.html
(fig. a indicates parallel connection? (series connection requires each layer supplies the same current, requiring band gap energies’ spacing to be tuned to the spectrum to maximize efficiency))
5. (2024) “Chemically tuned intermediate band states in atomically thin CuxGeSe/SnS quantum material for photovoltaic applications”
Srihari M. Kastuar, Chinedu E. Ekuma https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl6752
A new generation of quantum material derived from intercalating zerovalent atoms such as Cu into the intrinsic van der Waals gap at the interface of atomically thin two-dimensional GeSe/SnS heterostructure is designed, and their optoelectronic features are explored for next-generation photovoltaic applications. Advanced ab initio modeling reveals that many-body effects induce intermediate band (IB) states, with subband gaps (~0.78 and 1.26 electron volts) ideal for next-generation solar devices, which promise efficiency greater than the Shockley-Queisser limit of ~32%. The charge carriers across the heterojunction are both energetically and spontaneously spatially confined, reducing nonradiative recombination and boosting quantum efficiency. Using this IB material in a solar cell prototype enhances absorption and carrier generation in the near-infrared to visible light range. Tuning the active layer’s thickness increases optical activity at wavelengths greater than 600 nm, achieving ~190% external quantum efficiency over a broad solar wavelength range, underscoring its potential in advanced photovoltaic technology.
The key issue is efficiency loss, which is when panels aren’t able to generate as much power as they did when first installed. Most solar panels are made with laminated adhesive layers that sit between the glass and the solar cells to hold them together and aid rigidity. Sun exposure can cause those laminated layers to discolor, reducing the amount of light that can reach the cells. That diminishes the energy-generation capacity, which is a problem for large commercial farms.
…
(emph. Mine):
One step toward a more recyclable solar panel might be to eliminate the use of those adhesive polymers in its construction. If a panel could just use sheets of glass with the solar cells sandwiched inside, it would be a lot easier to deconstruct. Not to mention you’d likely get a longer and better performance out of them, since there would be no polymer layers to discolor.
Thankfully, a team from the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has demonstrated that such a product can exist. Rather than gluing the layers together, femtosecond lasers weld the front and back panels of glass to each other. The solar cells are sandwiched inside, held by the bonding of the glass to its sibling, and nothing else. And when the panel eventually reaches its end of life, which may be a lot longer than 30 years, it can just be recycled by shattering the glass.
The project, led by Dr. David Young, says that if the proposals are accepted, we could see a commercial version of the panel within two to three years. He added that the rigidity offered by welding will be just as sturdy and waterproof as panels using polymer layers. …
David 21 Oct 2024 at 3:20 AM There’s too many years of overlap in the random linear fits to GAST in “A recent surge in global warming is not detectable yet”: by Claudie Beaulieu, Colin Gallagher, Rebecca Killick, Robert Lund & Xueheng Shi
The RHS intersect point has 2 very-different linear trends for ~2003-~2013 which is too long and too much difference. I was careful in April 2013 Nino. EMSO neutral & La Nina, as follows below (cut’n’paste I’ve been banging on about since 2014). I know these people are Statistician Doctors and I’m a plumber but IMO it’s poor quality for these reasons, linear fits to a time series with gaps in it and/or much overlap with a huge choice of trends for the same year is poor quality. I’m sticking with my old ……
+0.25 degrees 2020-2030
+0.31 degrees 2030-2040
+0.37 degrees 2040-2050
+0.43 degrees 2050-2060
so a total of +1.36 degrees above 2020 by 2060
That’s with +2.4 ppmv/year CO2 maintained throughout and CH4 increasing at recent rates
That’s assuming humans don’t do a huge cleanup of their aerosols air pollution.
……until the record is long enough to clarify that my projection is rubbish and then I’ll claim I don’t remember what you’re talking about, the same as everybody else does.
—————-
+0.13 degrees / decade: UAH lower troposphere 1979-2017
+0.17 degrees / decade: RSS lower troposphere 1979-2017
+0.165 degrees / decade: Surface La Nina & ENSO-neutral years 1970-2014 (me from GISTEMP)
+0.20 degrees / decade: Surface El Nino years 1966-1995 (me from GISTEMP)
+0.23 degrees / decade: Surface El Nino years 1995-2014 (me from GISTEMP, high uncertainty, sparse & varied data points)
+0.18 degrees / decade: Surface average 1966-2014 (GISTEMP)
+0.11 degrees / decade: Ocean surface 1966-2014 (GISTEMP)
+0.047 degrees / decade: Ocean 0-300M depth 1966-2010 89 / 432 = 0.206 (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, talk plots etc.)
+0.030 degrees / decade: Ocean 300-700M depth 1966-2010 76 / 576 = 0.132 (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, talk plots etc.)
+0.033 degrees / decade: Ocean 0-700M depth 1955-2010 Sid Levitus
+0.026 degrees / decade: Ocean 700-1000M depth 1966-2010 (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, talk plots etc.)
+0.15 degrees total increase: Ocean 0-1000M depth (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, Matthew England talk plots etc.)
+0.009 degrees / decade: Ocean 700-2000M depth 1966-2010 77 / 1872 = 0.0411 (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, talk plots etc.)
Note the +0.23 degrees / decade for El Nino years since 1995 and only +0.165 degrees / decade for La Nina & ENSO-neutral years. A big difference.
—————-
Quote: “Atlantic warming turbocharges Pacific trade winds Date:August 3, 2014 Source:University of New South Wales. New research has found rapid warming of the Atlantic Ocean, likely caused by global warming, has turbocharged Pacific Equatorial trade winds. Currently the winds are at a level never before seen on observed records, which extend back to the 1860s. The increase in these winds has caused eastern tropical Pacific cooling, amplified the Californian drought, accelerated sea level rise three times faster than the global average in the Western Pacific and has slowed the rise of global average surface temperatures since 2001. It may even be responsible for making El Nino events less common over the past decade due to its cooling impact on ocean surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific. “We were surprised to find the main cause of the Pacific climate trends of the past 20 years had its origin in the Atlantic Ocean,” said co-lead author Dr Shayne McGregor from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS) atthe University of New South Wales.”
—————-
Quote: “The record-breaking increase in Pacific Equatorial trade winds over the past 20 years had, until now, baffled researchers. Originally, this trade wind intensification was considered to be a response to Pacific decadal variability. However, the strength of the winds was much more powerful than expected due to the changes in Pacific sea surface temperature. Another riddle was that previous research indicated that under global warming scenarios Pacific Equatorial Trade winds would slow down over the coming century. The solution was found in the rapid warming of the Atlantic Ocean basin, which has created unexpected pressure differences between the Atlantic and Pacific. This has produced wind anomalies that have given Pacific Equatorial trade winds an additional big push. “The rapid warming of the Atlantic Ocean created high pressure zones in the upper atmosphere over that basin and low pressure zones close to the surface of the ocean,” says Professor Axel Timmermann, co-lead and corresponding author from the University of Hawaii. “The rising air parcels, over the Atlantic eventually sink over the eastern tropical Pacific, thus creating higher surface pressure there. The enormous pressure see-saw with high pressure in the Pacific and low pressure in the Atlantic gave the Pacific trade winds an extra kick, amplifying their strength. It’s like giving a playground roundabout an extra push as it spins past.” Many climate models appear to have underestimated the magnitude of the coupling between the two ocean basins, which may explain why they struggled to produce the recent increase in Pacific Equatorial trade wind trends. While active, the stronger Equatorial trade winds have caused far greater overturning of ocean water in the West Pacific, pushing more atmospheric heat into the ocean, as shown by co-author and ARCCSS Chief Investigator Professor Matthew England earlier this year. This increased overturning appears to explain much of the recent slowdown in the rise of global average surface temperatures. Importantly, the researchers don’t expect the current pressure difference between the two ocean basins to last. When it does end, they expect to see some rapid changes, including a sudden acceleration of global average surface temperatures. “It will be difficult to predict when the Pacific cooling trend and its contribution to the global hiatus in surface temperatures will come to an end,” Professor England says.”
—————-
Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus
Nature Climate Change 4, 222–227 (2014) doi:10.1038/nclimate2106 Received 11 September 2013 Accepted 18 December 2013 Published online 09 February 2014 Corrected online 14 February 2014
Matthew H. England, Shayne McGregor, Paul Spence, Gerald A. Meehl, Axel Timmermann, Wenju Cai, Alex Sen Gupta, Michael J. McPhaden, Ariaan Purich & Agus Santoso
“Here we show that a pronounced strengthening in Pacific trade winds over the past two decades—unprecedented in observations/reanalysis data and not captured by climate models—is sufficient to account for the cooling of the tropical Pacific and a substantial slowdown in surface warming through increased subsurface ocean heat uptake.”
In early 2013 when my studying started a Skeptical Science (SKS) bloke suggested working out ENSO adjustments to GMST for a few decades but instead I plotted GMST annual points 1966-2013 with separate symbols for El Nino, La Nina & ENSO-neutral with big volcanoes to exclude them and ran 3 separate trends by eye ball through those 3 ENSO types. There was no doubt that La Nina & ENSO-neutral were warming at the same rate but El Nino was “pulling away”, warming faster, than La Nina & ENSO-neutral and this “pulling away” maybe increased in 1995 but El Ninos come in too much variation and not enough years sampled to be certain. My trends eye balled from 1995 are at the end of this comment. The +0.23 for El Ninos 1995-2013 has low accuracy confidence. The +0.165 degrees / decade for La Nina & ENSO-neutral years have high accuracy confidence, good clean fits. 12 months later I came across a wind speed plot for Pacific Equatorial easterly trade winds showing that they’d increased a huge 30% (1 metre / second faster) from 1995 to 2014 though they’d been non varying for many decades before that, so now I knew why my El Nino “pulling away” from 12 months earlier was almost cartainly correct but not the underlying cause. Some months later I came across the underlying cause from scientists quoted below and their new published paper. I say it’s a classic Power Amplifier and it all started 1995. Equatorial Pacific Ocean is 2.8 times as wide as Equatorial Atlantic Ocean and that’s practically the definition of the basis of a Power Amplifier —- apply a relatively small signal (Atlantic) to the base and get a huger signal (Pacific) through the collector-emitter pair. Circa 2015 I saw a Kevin Trenberth talk about warming with GMST global pictorial and it clearly showed the vast eastern tropical Pacific Ocean having COOLED from 1982 to 2014 while practically everywhere else except 2 small Cold Blobs had warmed. That clinched it. It’s obvious what has happened. Pacific Equatorial Ocean easterly trade winds had increased a huge 30% (1 metre / second faster) from 1995 to 2014 due to warming Atlantic Ocean surface, a Power Amplifier.
183,230 TWh was the global primary energy consumption in 2023. (1st graph) this ≈ 20.92 TW average
Note that this data presents primary energy consumption via the “substitution method”. The substitution method — in comparison to the direct method — attempts to correct for the inefficiencies (energy wasted as heat during combustion) in fossil fuel and biomass conversion. It does this by correcting nuclear and modern renewable technologies to their “primary input equivalents” if the same quantity of energy was produced from fossil fuels.
29479.05 TWh was global electricity produced in 2023; ≈ 3.365 TWe
200,000 TWhe ≈ 22.83 TWe would provide 10 billion people with 2.283 kW each. I think that would eliminate a lot of poverty! Worthy goal, obviously.
(US per capita electricity generation ≈ 1.427 kWe; 8.793 kW is US primary energy use* per capita * (I’m guessing this does not account for (net) embodied energy of (net) imports) )
“”If we look at the progress towards 2030 targets, especially of the G20 member states … they have not made a lot of progress towards their current climate targets for 2030,” said Anne Olhoff, chief scientific editor of the report.”
Barton Paul Levensonsays
“”If we look at the progress towards 2030 targets, especially of the G20 member states … they have not made a lot of progress towards their current climate targets for 2030,” said Anne Olhoff, chief scientific editor of the report.”
God help us all.
Nigeljsays
Dharma complains up the page I use strawman arguments by falsely categorising him / her as a doomer. Well lets see. Dharma and other commenters like CJ and Ned Kelly put a thesis or narrative that goes something like this: Multiple problems will inevitably combine this century to cause the collapse of human civilisation, its systems and agriculture and the biosphere on which it depends, and we arent going to be able to stop this.
Dharma even said somewhere up the thread that he / she sincerely thought that “only 2 billion people would be left alive by the end of this century.”
The problems include high consumption levels, exponential population growth, industrial society, climate change, our alleged inability to fix the climate problem, peak oil, resource scarcity, the alleged impossibility of scaling up renewables, general human stupidity, government debt levels, capitalism, etcetera .
So I would have thought doomer is a reasonable depiction. But doesnt this thesis or narrative have some merits? Its nothing really new, but its certainly a possibility that cannot be 100% ruled out. So maybe these guys should just own the doomer label, and not be ashamed of it.
I just get frustrated when the doomers or pessimists portray such arrogant certainty, for example that renewables cant work because this rhetoric just makes people afraid and want to just give up trying to fix problems. A bit more nuance / subtlety would be helpful!
IMHO it seems reasonably certain that our civilisation is going to face big changes later this century maybe next century. It seems almost certain mineral resources will become more expensive to extract, and gdp growth based around resource use is likely to slow or even stop. We are unlikely to completely fix the climate problem. It may prove difficult scaling up renewables. Consumption might be forced to fall.
However this doesnt mean billions of people will die or our society would callapse in some sort of catastrophic sudden way. The capitalist economy is quite resilient and may adapt and change to suit the new reality. We saw how the world recovered form the 2008 financial crash. Even if we cant fully replace fossil fuels we could to stop the worst of climate change. It looks like population growth will stop mid or late this century from the demographic transition which would help. Human societry has shown resilience coping with past problems.
Peak oil is imminent but peak gas and coal are a longer way off. Of course we need to stop burning these things but there is likely enough fossil fuels for a transition phase to scaling up renewables. There are vast untapped mineral resources dissolved in sea water and geothermal brines and the economics of extraction are not too bad from what Ive read. And yes over consumption is a key problem, and resources are finite, but time frames matter as to how this will impact us and its easy to be both excessivly positive and excessively pessimistic. Ive seen many examples.
So there are several sides to the issues and a lot of evidence to consider.
The Doomers end game view doesnt fully convince me and lacks a bit of compelling evidence, but it is a useful warning. We better make sure we are not complacent. We better make some good decisions, and mitigate environmental problems with urgency, and develop a more sustainable society, and reform our institutions before problems do start to combine and get completly out of control, such that they overwhelm us.
Ngelj,
I wouldn’t waste too much time debunking the comments from Dharma. He is either not listening or when he does listen, does no more than double-down with yet more bunk.
Consider up-thread where he is pulled-up for presenting some overly-strong criticism of the IPCC. He responds by protesting that it is not his criticism so we should take any objection elsewhere, which is bonkers as he brought it here and is entirely responsible for it here.
But then he does dive in to defend this presented IPCC-criticism, providing an explanation for those “who have better things to do with their time than chase shadows..” But the explanation provided is no more than a nonsensical verbal salad.
Those of us who wouldn’t be expending too much of their time to “chase shadows.” can see that this criticism raised of the IPCC from Dr Jem Bendell** is based entirely two sources – (1) a certain Prof Peter Wadhams and his oh-so-bold projections of Arctic ice loss (both the headline-grabbing sea ice predictions and more recently, indeed this year, talk of 5m SLR by 2100 {à la Hansen} resulting from the currently 0.8mm/y(SLR) Greenland ice loss) and (2) the findings of the founding Director of the Apollo-Gaia Project David Wasdell who reckoned eight years ago to ECS=+8ºC.
(**Dr Jem Bendell’s Wiki page shows he apparently accepts the label “doomster” and appears happy to court controversy.)
I would hope that account is enlightening enough to drive those shadows away and assure the faint-hearted that there are no monsters hiding in the wardrobe, at least none that the IPCC don’t know about.
Don Williamssays
@MA Rodger “I would hope that account is enlightening enough to drive those shadows away and assure the faint-hearted that there are no monsters hiding in the wardrobe, at least none that the IPCC don’t know about.”
WRONG.
. One “problem” that Nigelj overlooked is accelerating competition/conflict among the major powers. Ray Dalio, creator of one of the largest hedge funds (Bridgewater) has studied history and geopolitics extensively. He is concerned we are in a period similar to the runup to WWI (rising power Germany challenging global hegemon British Empire. ) If extended global war breaks out it will make the transition to renewable energy infeasible. As least, too late to avoid tipping points.
You guys need to get out more. There is a LOT more to energy than climate science.
MA Rodgersays
Don Williams,
Your Ray Dalio isn’t talking wardrobes. The web page you link-to doesn’t even mention wardrobes. He’s on about something totally different – burglar’s coming in though the window. Perhaps a chill-out over a few pints of John Smiths is called for.
Dharmasays
Don Williams says
26 Oct 2024 at 12:12 PM “You guys need to get out more. There is a LOT more to energy than climate science.”
Unfortunately that won’t help Don.
The fallacy of “playing the man” is better known as an ad hominem fallacy. Instead of addressing the argument or point someone is making (myself or Bendell et al), this fallacy attacks the character, motives, or other personal attributes of the person making the argument. BPL goes further by falsely accusing Bendell of deploying a non-sequitur fallacy – which subsequently discredited.= using evidence. Contrary to Mr Rodgers false reporting above, BPL did not once address any of the content in Bendells article/s. nigelj follows similar faulty debating tactics. Piotrs entire modus operandi relies on this singular strategy.
The purpose of an ad hominem attack is often to undermine the credibility of the person presenting an idea rather than the validity of the idea itself. This approach can sway the conversation away from the main issue, or the referenced materials, and divert attention to personal criticisms, making it especially common in emotionally heated ideologically driven debates.
Here’s how an ad hominem attack typically unfolds:
Initial Argument or Claim: One person presents an argument or opinion, generally addressing a topic or issue with supporting points or evidence.
Response Targets the Person: Instead of responding to the argument’s content, the other person responds by criticizing the speaker. For example, they might call into question their expertise (you don’t understand how science works), suggest ulterior motives (you are communist, a MAGA nut, or a fanatical doomer), or belittle their intelligence ( the explanation provided is no more than a nonsensical verbal salad).
Redirection from the Argument: The focus shifts from the argument itself to the character or credibility of the person, diverting attention from the actual topic. This distracts from any valid points in the original argument and encourages others to disregard it.
Escalation or Repetition: If the discussion continues, it often becomes further derailed as the original speaker may feel compelled to defend themselves personally rather than re-focus on the topic.
Which brings me to main point, that refocusing on the topic or material shared already will remain a wasted effort here, as mentioned already. They are not interested and repeatedly deny its existence. Therefore I present what I consider relevant information and then move along without any expectation of an intelligence evidence based conversation.
In essence, “playing the man” is used to win an argument by discrediting the person instead of challenging the actual issue, making it a distraction technique that clouds rational discussion.
Nigeljsays
Don Williams
I’m sure the IPCC are aware of global geopolitics and the possibility of WW3. But its not something they can factor into warming projections or mitigation plans because theres way too much uncertainty about geopolitics. In comparison warming projections factor in population trends because those can be estimated at least approximately. So its not clear what you expect the IPCC to say about geopolitics and war..
Mr. Know It Allsays
Interesting article. Seems to be accurate. Looking at his graph of the USA-China conflict risk gauge, there is a leveling of the risk level during Trump’s term as president, but a steep rise under BOTH the Obama and Harris/Biden terms. He says:
“History has taught us that when there are leadership transitions and/or weak leadership at the same time that there is big internal conflict, the risk of the enemy making an offensive move should be considered elevated.”
Clearly, the 2012 re-election of weak Obama, and the 2020 “election” of cognitively impaired Biden/Harris and their subsequent totally inept performance on the world stage that was witnessed in horror by the entire world, resulted in Putin invading Ukraine under BOTH Obama AND Biden, BUT NOT UNDER TRUMP. Weak leaders Harris/Biden also resulted in Iran/Hamas/Hezbollah attacking Israel. Of course that was facilitated by BOTH Obama AND Biden’s poor decision to give Iran billions of dollars enabling them to fund those attacks. China is thinking seriously about taking Taiwan. If Harris is elected president, it WILL happen, These weak, inept “leaders” are just about to get a nuclear war started in several places at once. When that happens, CLIMATE CHANGE will no longer be on anyone’s list of concerns. A significant risk in the next few days is that they will intentionally get it going and use that as an excuse to cancel the election since they appear to be about to lose, and we have seen in their coup against Biden after his failed debate performance that there is NOTHING Democrats will not do if it will enable them to hold on to power.
Elections have consequences.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
DW: You guys need to get out more. There is a LOT more to energy than climate science.
BPL: Undoubtedly. But this is a web site about climate science.
Nigeljsays
MAR, I hear people like Dharma and a few others, making claims that the IPCC and climate science community at large are conservative or reticient and that they are badly understimateing the climate problem and people like Hansen are right, etcetera. My undertanding is Scientific organisations tend to be a bit conservative for good reason to ensure they maintain credibility. For example if a climate orgainsation was too alarmist and proven to be wrong maybe a decade later, it blows their credibility and would destroy efforts to mitigate the climate problem, while if they underestimate things a little bit its going to be less damaging to their credibility and efforts to mitigate the problem. So I assume the IPCC projections are a bit conservative, but unlikely to be hugely so.
The real question for me is whether the IPCC are badly underestimating the climate problem. Getting it horribly wrong. As opposed to just being a bit conservative. Im not persuaded. Warming is tracking in the middle of IPCC projections, SLR a little bit towards the upper range, heatwaves are increasing as predicted. Greenland had a short spurt of very accelerated melting about 20 years ago (?) but since then that seems to have slowed down back to the longer term trend since the 1970s, so it appears the acceleration was caused by natural variation. Of course such an accelerated short period might happen again, but even with that it doesnt look like Greenland is melting way above IPCC expectations.
Hansens views on SLR are at the extreme end and are not really apparent in the data yet so who knows. Some of the severe weather events seem to be getting worse faster than the IPCC projected and this may be one area where the IPCC have underestimated things, but its a specific area of things not the overall picture. So maybe the IPCC are underestimating things a little bit, but generally I dont believe that the IPCC are badly or hugely underestimating things.
To me its all a bit academic, because the IPCCs projections even if a bit conservative leaning all look very serious and more than enough reason to mitigate the climate problem. I really doubt that higher numbers would mean more efforts go into mitigation. And the IPCC are not rigid. They have revised their SLR projections upwards quite significantly over the years, but has this increased mitigation efforts? Not really, so people who wring their hands over the IPCC projections and think they are letting us down dont seem very observant.
The problem is not the IPCC and / or its projections. Even the middle range projections are scary. The problem is lack of motivation to mitigate the climate problem, and this has many causes.
Dharmasays
Nigelj says
25 Oct 2024 at 3:00 PM
Nigelj, your whole post is playing the man – an ad hominem attack primarily using strawman arguments to falsely categorise me and falsely misrepresent and distort the meaning and framing of my prior comments. Intentional or not, the outcome is the same.
Readers are quite capable of understanding my comments and referenced materials without your misguided interference by distorting it. I have nothing to defend and nothing else to say that has not already been said.
“Nigelj, your whole post is playing the man – an ad hominem attack primarily using strawman arguments to falsely categorise me and falsely misrepresent and distort the meaning and framing of my prior comments. Intentional or not, the outcome is the same.”
I did not use any ad hominems.
An ad hominem attack is where someone attacks a person, or their qualifications, rather than the content of what they say. I made no reference to your qualifications and I have no idea what they are. I didnt attack you personally and I just stated my understanding of your position. Go back and read my post. That is my evidence. You have provided precisely zero evidence of an ad hominem. And Ad hominems have nothing to do with a strawman fallacy.
I did not use any strawman arguments.
From wikipedia: A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion. I quoted your own words and paraphrased other points you have made as best I understand them and in good faith. At most its possible I have you partly confused with someone else, but I dont think so. You have not provided any EVIDENCE that you have different views from what I stated in my post. For example you have not summarised and clarified your position on collapse of civilisation, or provided any copy and paste of what you said previously, together with precise details on when and where you made the comments.
I will just clarify one point I previously made. .I think the doomers various views are interesting and not totally crazy and deserve serious discussion, but I do think they are a bit too pessimistic as I explained.
Mr. Know It Allsays
Ron DeSantis schools reporter on the history of tropical storms in Florida. Basically he said they’ve always happened and the worst storms ever were in the late 1800s; same with record highs around the USA. He correctly said that there’s nothing new under the sun.
Fires have “always happened” too (well since the Great Oxygenation Event). I can quite correctly predct that if you build a bonfire in your living room and light it, you will quite “naturally” immolate yourself and your house.
Let me give you a tiny hint concerning you and Guv D’s so-called “logic”: Don’t pile up a bonfire in your living room and light it. You will not really like the completely “natural” consequences.
Geoff Miellsays
Mr. Know It All: – “Ron DeSantis schools reporter on the history of tropical storms in Florida.”
I don’t see Ron DeSantis having any background in science, let alone climate science. So why would his opinion be relevant to lecturing people about whether there’s a worsening climate crisis, or not? https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ron-DeSantis
Meanwhile, joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, Johan Rockström, in the YouTube video titled Climate Extremes (Full Documentary), duration o:52:20, says (from time interval 0:03:38:
“One-point-five is a big number. How can it be that people in general don’t understand what 1.5 °C of global mean surface temperature rise really means, that it is a really big number? And to explain that, one has to look back at our planet’s journey over time.
For the past 3 million years, which is the geological epoch we call the Quaternary, which is, in my view, the only time of relevance for us, because it’s only in the Quaternary that we’ve had a planet that resembles biologically, chemically, physically, the planet that we know today. With ice sheets, with the biological cycle with the carbon cycle with the oceans, with the continents, you know. That the planet that we know is the planet of the Quaternary.
Our understanding today is that the temperatures on Earth during this entire 3 million year period have never exceeded two degrees.
So the warmest global mean surface temperature, the deviation from the 14 degrees Celsius, that’s what we use as a reference point, 14 degrees Celsius is the average temperature before we started burning fossil fuels.
So over the past 3 million years, we’ve gone, you know, stayed under 16. It’s only plus two and deep ice age is minus six. So I call this today the Corridor of Life. That everything we know, everything we cherish, everything we depend on, has been evolving within this very narrow range, never exceeding two, never going below minus six. Minus six, deep ice age, plus two, warm interglacial. So in the last 3 million years we’ve had 6 to 8 warm interglacials.
And it’s only in the last 1 million years that we entered what is called the Pleistocene, where the planet start dancing between these 100,000 year long ice ages and shorter interglacials. And that’s what is called the Milankovitch Cycling, and is all driven by our journey around the sun and the wobbling of the axis of planet Earth.
So that is the 1 million years that, that we understand and have as a reference point.
We have as modern humans existed on planet Earth during the two most recent ice ages, so only 250,000 years.
So we’ve had two ice ages and two interglacials. One is the Eemian 100,000 years ago, and then the Holocene, the most recent 10,000 year period.
So the Holocene is a warm interglacial. It is a 14 degrees Celsius planet. It’s inside this, this Corridor of Life, the plus two maximum warmth to minus six. But it’s even more narrow. It’s actually 14 degrees Celsius, plus /minus zero-point-five, 0.5.
So already today, at 1.45, we are actually almost a magnitude three times outside of the warmest temperature on Earth since we left the last ice age. I mean, 1.5 is a very big number, and this impacts everything on planet Earth. It changes the oceans, it changes biology. It changes temperatures, it changes heat, it changes freshwater flows. Every one degree Celsius of warming adds another 7% of moisture in the atmosphere, where we’re simply powering up the whole system with more energy, more water, more extremes, and, and that is, what happens already at these, at is what can be perceived as low numbers, but they’re actually gigantic numbers because the Corridor of Life is so narrow.” https://youtu.be/U8pLrRkqbb0?t=218
An assessment was published in the journal BioScience on 8 Oct 2024, titled The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth, by William J Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Jillian W Gregg, Johan Rockström, Michael E Mann, Naomi Oreskes, Timothy M Lenton, Stefan Rahmstorf, Thomas M Newsome, Chi Xu, Jens-Christian Svenning, Cássio Cardoso Pereira, Beverly E Law, & Thomas W Crowther. It begins with:
We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis. For many years, scientists, including a group of more than 15,000, have sounded the alarm about the impending dangers of climate change driven by increasing greenhouse gas emissions and ecosystem change (Ripple et al. 2020). For half a century, global warming has been correctly predicted even before it was observed—and not only by independent academic scientists but also by fossil fuel companies (Supran et al. 2023). Despite these warnings, we are still moving in the wrong direction; fossil fuel emissions have increased to an all-time high, the 3 hottest days ever occurred in July of 2024 (Guterres 2024), and current policies have us on track for approximately 2.7 degrees Celsius (°C) peak warming by 2100 (UNEP 2023). Tragically, we are failing to avoid serious impacts, and we can now only hope to limit the extent of the damage. We are witnessing the grim reality of the forecasts as climate impacts escalate, bringing forth scenes of unprecedented disasters around the world and human and nonhuman suffering. We find ourselves amid an abrupt climate upheaval, a dire situation never before encountered in the annals of human existence. We have now brought the planet into climatic conditions never witnessed by us or our prehistoric relatives within our genus, Homo (supplemental figure S1; CenCO2PIP Consortium et al. 2023).
As extreme weather events worsen, they will become increasingly more difficult for us to adapt to, and have massive social and economic consequences.
The Earth System is transitioning away from the ‘Corridor of Life’ compatible for maintaining human civilisation. This has dire consequences for billions of people’s lives and their livelihoods around the world within the next few decades.
John Pollacksays
Thanks for providing us with a blatantly incorrect summary of this short segment. Or, perhaps I’ve hallucinated. Can you provide for us the times in the news segment that you’ve linked where DeSantis
1. states that “The worst storms ever were in the late 1800s” (hint: the Labor Day Hurricane was in 1935) and
2. states that the record highs around the USA were in the late 1800s?
Mr. Know It Allsays
Ah yes, you are correct. At ~ 1:40 he said the Labor Day storm was in the 1930s. At around 0:40 he said there is precedent for this in history. We know that many record high temps in the USA occurred in the early 1900s, or even earlier, and some of those have not been broken TO THIS VERY DAY.
FYI, storms appeared to be getting less deadly in pre-1900 Florida:
“There is precedent for this in history” seems to be in the context of Florida hurricanes. Bringing in record high temperatures is your agenda.
As for hurricane deaths, I agree that storms have become less deadly. As communications and science have advanced, the warnings have gotten better, and people are more likely to hear them and heed them. This does not reflect the actual intensity of the storms. It is also not a guarantee that the trend will continue. As we saw hinted with Milton, if a storm develops rapidly and threatens a heavily populated segment of the lower Florida peninsula, there may not be adequate time to evacuate people, or to pre-position supplies sufficient for them either evacuate or remain in place without serious shortages. This is relevant because warmer ocean water allows storms to intensify more rapidly, and thus can reduce the time available for evacuation.
Dansays
The people with actual facts at the National Hurricane Center would disagree with you and DeSantis (both proven anti-science liars of course).
Piotrsays
KiA: “ DeSantis schools reporter […] that there’s nothing new under the sun.”
Show me your intellectual inspirations and will know who you are … Your DeSantis parrots a worn-out deniers cliche: If X happened before us then we can’t do X
I can already see the lawyers in Miami using the “DeSantis defense” ;
– “Your Honor, my client couldn’t have possibly started the forest fire, despite being caught with two empty gas cans near the origin of the said fire. With the Court’s permission I would like to introduce into evidence the words of the America’s Great Leader, Ron DeSantis:
“Forest fires are nothing new under the Sun.”
And since these fires had been happening long before humans, then obviously no human could possibly start a forest fire. Unless, of course, these are the Zionists who used their lasers from space to start forest fires in our beloved USA, as bravely spoken of by the United States Representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene,
Or perhaps:
– “Your Honor, humans have been killing humans long before the invention of firearms, therefore according to the Teachings of Rev. Ron DeSantis (R) – my client could not have killed any these people with his trusty AR-15. In fact, no lesser an authority than Moses himself – declared: “Guns don’t kill people!” Therefore, I ask the Court to dismiss this case with prejudice, and protect my client from any further, wholly underserved, damage to his reputation. “
In climate change circles, there are Deniers, while in peak oil circles, the equivalent is Cornucopians.
I don’t know about doomers, just the realists that realize fossil fuel is a finite & non-renewable resource.
Nigelj said:
“Peak oil is imminent but peak gas and coal ”
Peak crude oil is past. Having to go to the last resort of fracking.
Coal is either anthracite, bituminous, or lignite, descending in order of grade.
Anthracite is all but gone, see the classic peak coal graph for Pennsylvania which hit zero awhile ago.
Bituminous is the stuff that they blow up West Virginia mountain-tops to get at. Not smart. Try telling that to the Chinese. UK bituminous went to officially zero as the easy seams disappeared years ago.
Sub-Bituminous is in Wyoming and Montana, open-pit because there’s lot of space
Lignite is brown coal, one step removed from peat moss. What Germany is trying to give up on.
Natural gas is predominately fracked now. The fear may be in gas hydrates, which evidently is huge but impractical to extract.
The realist view is that we should consider ourselves lucky that there is actually so little in terms of high-grade fossil fuel available. Doesn’t sound doomerish in that regard.
Going to extreme measures to extract slim pickings is the only path left for fossil fuels, as the cornucopian fantasies should be non-existent. Yet, make a comment on xitter, and the cornucopians will emerge, claiming many centuries-worth of reserves.
Nigeljsays
Paul Pukite
You say peak oil is already passed. Im not sure what your source is. My statement peak oil is imminent was made on the basis of the following from Predicting the timing of peak oil, wikipedia:
“Predicting the timing of peak oil involves estimation of future production from existing oil fields as well as future discoveries. The initial production model was Hubbert peak theory, first proposed in the 1950s. Since then, many experts have tried to forecast peak oil. As of 2024, the International Energy Agency predicts that peak oil will happen by 2030, while the US Energy Information Administration forecasts a peak in 2050[1] and the OPEC does not see a peak in oil demand before 2045.[2] ”
However I concede its possible oil might have already peaked, but I like to make statements I know I can back up with a source like the IEA. Im not a peak oil cornucopian. I lean more towards your view. Cornucopians who think there are near limitless supplies of oil left dont seem to undertsand how oil was formed and how only a few geological periods were favourable. I. have recently read a university textbook on phyiscal geology because of a curiosity about the subject. This was rather illuminating.
Peak coal is a bit more complicated. According to peak coal on wikipedia,and other sources, extraction of coal may have already peaked due to efforts to mitigate climate change. Fortunately for us.
My post related to this. Some of the Doomers think we will run out of fossil fules quite soon within about 30 years or so before we can properly build a renewables grid so we will be left with a severe shortage of energy. Thus we are allegedly doomed.
My point was there appears to be enough fossil fuels to get us through a transition phase of building a renewables grid by 2050 and before oil (and coal and gas) runs out. There is about 50 years of proven oil reserves oil left at current rates of consumption and 50 years of gas left and 130 years of coal left (worldometer). In reality we will make some new discoveries as well. Probbaly not many as the rate of discoveries of new fields has steadily declined, but it just suggests there are enough fossil fuels left to build out renewable energy generation at scale.. If society gets moving, which is the difficult bit.
Piotrsays
Nigel – According to peak coal on wikipedia,and other sources, extraction of coal may have already peaked due to efforts to mitigate climate change.”
I have thought that concept of peak oil was only in terms of supply – once we pass the peak – even if we wanted to buy more oil, there is not enough of it left. In this context, the peak oil is a concept describing depleting of the remaining amount of nonrenewable resource.
Now if we stop extracting coal NOT because we run out of the coal in the ground, but because we reduced the demand – that’s to me a different concept, one describing changes in our preferences for energy-sources – either as you write “to mitigate climate change”, or as it has been in the US – because gas-generated electricity was cheaper than coal-generated one.
Of these two – the second concept is much more relevant to climate policies than the first one – we CAN’T COUNT for reduction in GHG emissions brought on by the reduction in the supply (the first meaning), we have to reduce them much faster -by reducing the demand and constraining supply via environmental regulation and pricing of the GHG emissions. That’s behind the statement that we have to leave a lot of gas, oil and coal “in the ground“.
In addition to our short-term self-interest (keeping survivable climate) – it has also implication to far-in-time descendants – IF humans survive long enough into the future – the surplus of CO2 that cancelled the current glaciation would be gradually mopped up via reaction of Co2 with carbonate and silicate rocks – and if our far-descendant face the next glaciation – the most effective way to geoengineer out of it would be … to burn the remaining fossil fuels.
But if we use too much of them now …. then there may be not enough left to avert future glaciations.
Nigeljsays
Piotr, I think that with hindsight my use of peak coal in terms of demand peak was a bit of an unhelpful choice of definitions. The main point I was making was that the doomers view that we dont even have enough fossil fuels left to help build a renewables system at scale isnt really correct when you look at the dates for peak oil in terms of supply (2030 – 2050) and reserves of coal and oil left (50 – 100 years). I couldn’t find a number for peak coal in terms of supply assuming todays consumption rate was to continue (although it appears to be around 2050 – 2100) so I threw in the number for peak coal in terms of demand which is confusing.
Clearly we should reduce our use of fossil fuels as fast as we can and faster than we are. But we are reliant on using some fossil fuels to engineer the new system, thats the trade off.
Yes peak coal and oil in terms of demand is more relevant to the climate issue per se and what you say about it is quite right.
“and if our far-descendant face the next glaciation – the most effective way to geoengineer out of it would be … to burn the remaining fossil fuels.”
Killian also suggested this plan. It does seems to be the most effective way, but the problems are 1) it would cause ocean acidification and 2) It would be difficult to get the rate of warming just right to avoid potentially causing SLR. 3) It would be challenging to get the world to agree on such a plan, and make it work 4) world population may be small and mobile enough to migrate south, so that we dont need to worry about glaciations and 5) we may have already accidentally cancelled the next ice age, or greatly reduced it, so its not necessary to geoengineer anything. Please refer:
Nigel in response to my: “and if our far-descendant face the next glaciation – the most effective way to geoengineer out of it would be … to burn the remaining fossil fuels.”
“ It does seems to be the most effective way, but the problems are
1) it would cause ocean acidification ”
less than we have today – we need only as high CO2 in the air as to prevent the INCREASE in ice, NOT to increase CO2 beyond it causing the net melting that we have seen for decades
2) It would be difficult to get the rate of warming just right to avoid potentially causing SLR.
See p. 1 – we just need to keep the ice constant. Thus no SLR..
3) It would be challenging to get the world to agree on such a plan, and make it work
You assume a symmetry with the current situation where It’s been hard for the world to agree to REDUCE using cheap fossil fuel energy to save the planet from climate change.
But In the future – you will be asked to save the planet from climate change BY USING cheap fossil fuel energy. A very DIFFERENT threshold fro convincing people to go along …
4) world population may be small and mobile enough to migrate south, so that we dont need to worry about glaciations
It may be a solution for humans, not so great for the rest of life on land – low lats ecosystems would face increased pressure from people migrating there, while the high latitudes ecosystem …. would experience ICE AGE.
Furthermore, life on land has survived previous glaciations because it had refugia in low latitudes – now those refugia would be overrun by people.
5) we may have already accidentally cancelled the next ice age, or greatly reduced it, so its not necessary to geoengineer anything
we may have DELAYED the onset of the next glaciation, we haven’t cancelled future glaciations, nor even the rest of the next glaciation .- once we run out of fossil fuels – the atm CO2 will start dropping due to natural uptake, and we will be back into Ice Age conditions.
Jonathan Davidsays
Not claiming any expertise on my part, but to me it seems that the concept of peak oil may be most simply stated as “the end of cheap oil” NOT “the end of oil” as I have seen it frequently characterized online. Oil produced by fracking is advanced as a refutation of peak oil. In fact, it’s a confirmation of the concept. Once peak oil is reached, attempts to expand production to meet growing demand will inevitably lead to ever-increasing market price for the commodity. Market supply and demand as well as physical availability of fossil fuels are all interrelated. Particularly, as fossil fuels become evermore expensive to produce, at some point a collapse in market demand is inevitable. At that point production and market supply will cease to be profitable. Whatever is left in the ground will remain.
You say peak oil is already passed. Im not sure what your source is”
It’s well known but not in official circles. You can find the peak charted out in our book “Mathematical GeoEnergy” published by Wiley/AGU January 2019. We were just discussing this recently and the appropriate chart is Figure 9.15. The discussion took place on a blog titled Pe*kOilBar*el dot com which can’t be linked to here otherwise this comment will go into a black hole.
In many ways, that blog is a the inverse of RC. My co-author maintains it and does no moderation unless necessary, and splits it into petroleum and non-petroleum topics, the latter which includes climate change discussion. It’s very active for a blog, which are otherwise considered dead, because it’s all technical thus attracting die-hard analytical types..
Dharmasays
I find it amazing how confused people are about what peak oil means, but don’t know they are, in the past and today. Some make up their own definitions as they go.
what’s the long term expectation on energy supply?
It’s Drain America first, it’s dangerous and a bit of history like the US used to be OPECx2 supplying 55% of global oil supply.
from Here’s Why Energy Prices & Shortages Are Going Berserk Globally | Art Berman On Oil, Gas & Coal
BPL: “then don’t vote”
I’ll probably still vote, but helping to enable Armageddon is (hopefully) going to be way more effective via the end of American Impunity and its spawn, Israeli apartheid. Remember? “040317 For the English Teacher”, which I copied at least most of here?
Or was it “To the English…”? Anyway, another of my plays might help, too: the engine is finished. Better than 2/3 efficiency and cleans the air. A YouTube kid with almost 2 million followers is wrapping his head around it.
My ghost dog RePete says hi. He’s grown into quite the sentient partner.
Dharmasays
To Whom It May Concern:
When it comes to political and international geopolitical news, The Wall Street Journal often leans more toward narrative manipulation than accuracy. Think Fox News, though occasionally taking the opposite stance from Fox’s usual editorial slant. It’s worth approaching their content with a high degree of caution. My polite way of saying buyer beware of the lies and the unfounded spin. Unless confirmation bias is your thing, then please ignore.
The September SAT anomalies for GISS & NOAA have been posted showing a continuation of the gradual warming trend 4 months long. The ERA5 daily numbers at ClimatePulse are showing this warming trend will extend for a fifth month into October. This warming trend follows a sharper cooling Jan-May, down from the height of the “bananas” anomalies of late 2023, a cooling now half reversed.
These cooling/warming trends are a NH thing but are not evident in the TLT NH numbers (STAR, RSS & UAH) which show the anomalies running along at the “bananas” values. The UAH TLT even managed a ‘scorchyisimo!!!’ NH Land anomaly for October. (And on the subject of UAH temperature records, I see Spencer & Christy are up for retirement and trying to sort out how to keep the UAH satellite temperature records running, apparently no easy task for self-proclaimed “lukewarmers” like Spencer & Christy.)
So how is our understanding of what the “bananas” was all about? And what direction are the global temperature anomalies going next?
I could attempt some sort of very lengthy answer, likely starting with Exhibit One, my graph showing the last decades-worth of NH & SH ERA5 data (sourced from the Uni of Maine ClimateReanalyser webpage and voilà!! this graphic Exhibit One is posted HERE 28/10/25)
But perhaps a more sensible answer would concern a more stable measure showing the declining anomalies dropping down from the heights of the “banana” anomalies, a measure-use which could dodge some ultra-nerdy digressions. That measure is perhaps the ERA5 SST 60N-60S anomaly provided at ClimatePulse. (The area of SST 60N-60S comprises some 68% of the globe.)
This 60-60SST anomaly pre-“bananas” had only managed to fleetingly top +0.4ºC for a handful of days, that during the 2015-16 El Niño. Since 2016 it had been wobbling along at roughly +0.2ºC in the following years. (The 60-60SST record since 1979 is graphed out & posted in the graph below Exhibit One.) OLS shows the rate of warming since 1990-2020 running at +0.15ºC/decade(+/-0.3ºC @2sd) so a ‘normal’ 2024 anomaly would be expected at +0.3ºC.
The arrival of the “bananas” temperatures saw 60-60SST rise above +0.4ºC early June 2023 where its been ever since, managing top-banana mid Jan 2024 (+0.73ºC), then slowly cooling, 2024 running below year-before-2023 since mid July.
Now thinks.
Whatever the cause of the “bananas,” if it was an event rather than something more permanent we should perhaps expect this cooling. And if the event was El Niño, perhaps that cooling would be similar to previous El Niño cooling. So a graphic comparing 60-60SST with two previous El Niño has also been posted below Exhibit One.
The cooling 60-60SST is pretty-much as per previous El Niño, other than that cooling hitting a bit of an upward wobble through September which has since been reversed through October.
So the question in my mind is whether that cooling will continue and (eventually/soon) drop back below +0.4ºC to more ‘normal’ values. If it does it would be suggestive of a causal event rather than some permanent situation.
Dharmasays
Maybe another example of recent energy history predicting the future?
Despite the corporate acronym organisations – G7, IMF, World Bank, IEA, WEF, etc. – predicting $200-per-barrel oil by 2020, the high prices either side of the 2008 crash devastated economies around the world, with the western economies being hit hard. Put simply, an oil price above $60-per-barrel (at 2008 rates) was sufficient to plunge the world’s consuming economies into a depression from which they have never fully recovered. https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/04/28/playing-seesaw/
D: Put simply, an oil price above $60-per-barrel (at 2008 rates) was sufficient to plunge the world’s consuming economies into a depression from which they have never fully recovered.
BPL: “Never” being four years later.
Mr. Know It Allsays
We’ve been in a depression since the 1999/2000 dot com crash. The bread lines are at the grocery store. Tens of millions get their food with food stamps.
Ray Ladburysays
Oh please! Do you even have any concept of the words you use? Hint: If the economy is growing, it’s not a depression. It’s not even a recession.
Look, Mr. KIA, you have already established that you are an imbecile. There’s no need to keep proving it!
Nigeljsays
KIA, America has not been in an economic depression since the 1990s, and is not currently in an economic depression. An economic depression is defined as a a steep and sustained drop in economic activity featuring high unemployment and negative GDP growth (Investopedia). America hasnt been in that situation for a long time and isn’t currently.
America had one year of negative gdp growth in 2009 and one year of negative gdp growth in 2020 (recessions) Apart from that gdp growth has been positive and quite strong since the 1990s. Economic growth has been positive under the Biden administration and higher than most other developed countries. Refer:
Unemployment has been reasonably low since the 1990s and is only approx. 4.2% presently. Compare that to 25% during the 1930s depression. So there is no economic depression now. The Economist Journal is well reputed centre right leaning and says Americas economy is one of the best performing in the world over the last 4 years.
Poor people have been using food stamps for decades and while there have been some bread lines at grocery stores, it is not widespread like in the economic depression of the 1930s, a real economic depression. The queues have been caused by inflation in food prices. Most people had some wage rises that compensated or other assistance from governments but some didn’t, and have been hit hard. Inflation has come down over the last few years to back near its target band.
Its important to realise that while inflation hurts and is not good, it is not the same as an economic depression. The definitions are different, and the characteristics are different , although if inflation gets very high above 10 % for sustained periods it could cause an economic depression. Admittedly some of the outcomes of high inflation and depressions can be the same.
The cause of the inflation is related to covid supply chain difficulties, labour shortages, and related policies like financial stimulation. There was no inflation in 2020 because there were enough goods in the warehouses so that you didnt get inflation immediately.. Instead it emerged when inventories became low, and so during the Biden administration. There would have been inflation regardless of who the president was during or after covid.. Other countries like the UK have had the same pattern where inflation emerged a year or two after the 2020 covid peak, eg the UK.
Look at facts, history, logic, and patterns, and reputable economic data from people like the Economist Journal, not useless nonsense on youtube.
Dharmasays
Barton Paul Levenson says
27 Oct 2024 at 7:07 AM
Dharma =: I’d like to continue discussing the content of these important topics—rather than having comments dismissed with mockery. So, maybe you can set the sarcasm aside?
BPL: Sure, when you set the doomism and attacks on the web site and the people who run it, and on the scientific community in general, aside.
Dharma: I have done no such things. Stop with the dishonest manipulative Strawmen fallacies and your false allegations.
Susan Andersonsays
OMG:: DeSmog Blog has provided a superb new resource.
The accompanying graphic is a simple straightforward linking of funds and connections. It’s short and easy to use.
Andrew Simmonssays
I keep seeing assertions, often in public-facing science news sites like the link below, that climate models don’t account for this phenomena or that. (In this case it’s declining carbon uptake by biological sinks, specifically trees, in the context of the preprint “Low latency carbon budget analysis reveals a large decline of the land carbon sink in 2023” (Piyu Ke, Philippe Ciais, Stephen Sitch, Wei Li, Ana Bastos, Zhu Liu, Yidi Xu, Xiaofan Gui, Jiang Bian, Daniel S Goll, Yi Xi, Wanjing Li, Michael O’Sullivan, Jeffeson Goncalves de Souza, Pierre Friedlingstein, Frederic Chevallier).
I’m not remotely qualified to know if the claim’s right or wrong. I realise “climate models” covers a large range of model types, complexities and resolutions, but surely things like declining land or ocean sink take-up (or ocean freshening due to ice melt, with weakening effects on the AMOC) are pretty well-known and accepted as expected feedbacks to warming. As an interested lay-person I tend to assume such things are accounted for in, say, the CMIP models and others that are used as inputs for synthesis efforts like the IPCC Assessment Reports.
Firstly, climate models do not model the carbon cycle so to “factor in the collapse of carbon sinks” is something done outside the models.
I cold start blathering-on about the paper’s use of the NOAA MLO growth numbers which yields the “record high since observations began in 1958.” But suffice to say the highest values in that record are for 2023, 2016 & 1998, these El Niño years. And do note that the preceding year 2022 saw the lowest on record for over a decade, for 14 years which only ever happened once before, in 1992, (although it would have happened in 1999 without the 1991 Pinatubo eruption).. As these are rate-of-growth numbers, the will generally averaging out the ups-&-downs over time. So you should expect low numbers to result in high numbers down the line. And it is this low-year:high-year that yields the 86% increase, an extremely silly value to be waving about.
Beyond this eye-candy, there is a serious issue here.
The Global Carbon Project numbers (now with its own Global Carbon Budget website has not yet published for 2023. Their numbers show the global land sink accounting for an annual average of 3.5Gt(C) over the last decade which is thus preventing CO2 increases of +1.5ppm/y. That’s about 30% of our emissions & 65% of the remaining annual atmospheric fraction.
But that may not be a good marker for the scale of what a failed global CO2 land sink would be. The global land sink could do more than block up. It could become a net source and this could be dramatic with say the Amazon rainforest burning down.
For illustration of the issue of technology improvement, we note that one of the studies that Ferroni and Hopkirk refer to (Nawaz and Tiwari, 2006) assumes 350 µm-thick Si wafers and losses of 300 µm from slicing the Si ingot, which represents the single most energy intensive input of the PV system. This assumption corresponds to Si ingot use of around 16 g/Wp. Since 2013 the average value for PV production has been below 6 g/Wp (Fraunhofer ISE, 2016, p. 30), which implies that the same weight of ingot material input would generate 2.7 times more output today than assumed in the Ferroni and Hopkirk reference. In terms of numbers, this aspect alone reduces the calculated CED by 416 kWhel/m2 or 30%.
From abstract:
“ The current polysilicon demand by the PV industry in 2021 is equivalent to the consumption of 2.9–3.3 kt GW−1.” [I believe “polysilicon” is solar grade (SoG) Si.]
“An electricity requirement for purification, ingot pulling, and wafering of ≈360–380 kWh kg−1 for silicon wafers…”
…
From section 2.1:
Over the past 8 years, the poly-Si required per watt in the PV industry has substantially reduced by a factor of ≈2.5. These rapid reductions in poly-Si are primarily due to the reduced wafer thickness, improved diamond wire sawing to reduce kerf-loss, and continual improvements in cell efficiency/module power output. From this work, we estimate a halving in poly-Si consumption from 2015 to 2020. …
Farther down:
Referring to fig. 1:
… With the cell thickness (t), efficiency (η), and utilization rate (U) of 170 μm, 20%, and 70%, respectively, for example, the poly-Si consumption is estimated to be 2.83 kt GW−1. …
Ideally, a finished 166 mm solar cell with a thickness of 175 μm contains ≈11.2 g of poly-Si. With an efficiency of 22.8% based on an industrial passivated emitter and rear contact (PERC) cell,[ 9 ] the estimated poly-Si consumption is 1.79 kt GW−1.
0.00166² m² (setting aside absent corners?) * 175 μm * 2.33 g/cm³ ≈ 11.236 g
(175 μm → 0.4078 kg/m² ; η = 22.8% → 228 Wp/m² )→1.788 kg/kWp; “estimated poly-Si consumption” above must be referring to wafer, excluding kerf losses etc. If 62% of Sog Si ends up in the final wafer, then the SoG Si demand would be 2.884 kg/kWp in this case.
(I’ve gotten the impression that the removed SoG Si from ‘~squaring off’ the cylindrical ingots prior to wafer slicing can be recycled – into another ingot?).
0.024 kWh(e) Mining, produces 4.02 kg “Quartzite Silicon Ore”
18.2 kWh(e) Refining, produces 1.4 kg metallurgical grade (MG) Si
41.1 – 113 kWh(e) Purification, produces 1.0 kg SoG Si
41.0 – 101.6 kWh(e) “Ingot casting & slicing” , produces 0.62 kg of Mono-Si wafer,
(total 100-233 kWh(e) / kg SoG Si)
“Mining and production of metallurgical grade (MG) silicon require ≈18.2 kWh of electricity for each 1.4 kg of MG silicon,[ 12 ] which in turn is used to make 1 kg of highly purified solar-grade poly-Si. It also requires 70–90 kWh of direct electricity in newer-generation Siemens reactors.[ 29 ] Ingot growth from 1 kg of solar-grade poly-Si requires ≈41 kWh of electricity for crystal growth and wafering to produce 0.62 kg of Si wafers. The total value gives an estimated direct electricity requirement of ≈161–375 kWh kg Si wafer−1.”…
[ (100 – 233) kWh(e) / 0.62 kg ≈ (161.3 – 375.8) kWh(e) / kg ]
… [(had a little trouble following the math past that point; must be other C or kWh inputs… eg. diamond cutting wire …?)]
…“The total emissions from processing and electricity demand are 360–680 kg CO2-eq kg Si wafer−1, which can be converted to 0.59–1.1 tonne CO2-eq kW−1 with 1.64 kg Si wafer kW−1.”
…
Another method could be reducing the electricity requirements for purification in the vicinity of 25 kWh kg−1 of SoG Si using a fluidized bed reactor (FBR) or upgraded metallurgical-grade (UMG) silicon.
(161-375) kWh(e) / kg wafer * 1.64 kg wafer / kWp(e) = 264 – 615 kWh(e)/ kWp(e) = (@1700 kWh (sun)/ (m² yr) * 0.8 or 0.7 )
≈ 0.194 or 0.222 – 0.452 or 0.517 years EPBT* (*for this part of it)
(for 2.884 kg SoG Si / kWp(e), (100 – 233) kWh(e) / kg SoG Si,
EPBT* ≈ 0.212 or 0.242 – 0.494 or 0.565 years)
… 0.11 kg H2 used per kg SoG Si; 5 kWh(e)/kg H2 to supply (green?) H2. C and carbonaceous material input…? TBcont.
Si: 2.93 , 3.44 (mult by 0.62 gives 1.82 , 2.13, which fits the layer thicknesses (170 , 180 μm) and density of Si, *if* given cells filling ~ 90% (89.5 , 91.6 %) of the module area)
A very good wide ranging discussion on Decouple Media with author Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, a French historian of science and technology, challenges our understanding of energy history. In this episode, he unravels the myth of energy transitions, revealing the symbiotic relationships between coal, wood, and oil that have shaped our world in unexpected ways.
His latest book is called “More and more and more.” He explains how climate change was well known in the 1970s and 80s in western Govt circles and it was decided then little could be done or would be done – adaption would be key. Eventually. The US could handle a +3C world eg by moving agriculture to more suitable locations. It was a big country, loads of room. Others believed fast breeder nuclear and electricity and hydrogen would be a panacea. It’s an interesting telling of history politics and energy.
Fressoz challenges the notion of an energy transition to “Net Zero,” arguing that it is far from reality. Global oil and gas demand remains strong, especially as countries like India experience growth, and it’s unlikely that we’ll reach Net Zero by 2050 or 2070. This perspective aligns with mainstream views from organizations like the International Energy Agency and U.S. counterparts, which often take an even more pessimistic outlook.
Instead of focusing solely on technological solutions, which dominate current climate strategies, the speaker advocates for adaptation, sufficiency, and even degrowth as necessary strategies. Economists and climate experts have traditionally overlooked these approaches, but there’s growing interest. For example, a recent study on economic stagnation’s role in reducing emissions appeared in IPCC’s reports (WG3), though topics like sufficiency are still underrepresented.
Fressoz also acknowledges the complexity of implementing degrowth, as it’s politically unfeasible, but warns that failing to address the limits of growth, especially with peak oil on the horizon, could lead to severe economic and environmental consequences.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:08 Book: More and More and More
04:16 Energy symbiosis
07:51 The symbiosis of wood and coal
12:20 Of coal and oil
22:15 Of wood and oil
26:06 Are we burning more wood than ever?
28:33 Drax Power Plant
35:33 Raw materials never go out of fashion
37:31 Oil didn’t save the whales
41:09 The atomic origins of “energy transition”
49:51 Hydropower hope
53:01 Utopianism
1:00:23 Climbing down the energy ladder
1:06:33 Too little too late: the need for climate adaptation
1:16:46 Book publication date
Dharmasays
Useful references and content to consider and discuss meaningfully during November 2024.
Not a denier, not a social media troll, not a purveyor if fallacies, but a genuine evidence based research scientist, a professor, a geologist, an internationally recognized Science Communicator and an energy expert – meet Dr. Scott W. Tinker https://www.beg.utexas.edu/people/scott-tinker
Inspiring An Energy Educated Future https://switchon.org/
An Honest & Sensible Conversation about Global Energy | Scott Tinker @ ARC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTfwqvNuk44
Premiered on 24 Oct 2024
Join Dr. Chris Keefer, host of the renowned Decouple podcast and founder of Canadians for Nuclear Energy, for a deep dive into Canada’s nuclear energy journey. From Ontario’s coal phase-out in the 1980s to the revitalization of nuclear stations for modern industries, Canada’s nuclear story is filled with innovation and valuable lessons.
Why did Canada develop its own unique reactor design? Why is nuclear energy thriving in some regions while others remain skeptical? And how does nuclear fit into today’s renewable energy landscape? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sDr4xDTnWI
5 Sept 2024 Decouple Podcast
Mark P. Mills returns to Decouple to challenge our understanding of energy scarcity and efficiency. In this episode, he unravels the paradox of how pursuing energy efficiency often leads to increased consumption, and explains why he believes our energy resources are functionally limitless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAMkUYqRyB0
The Atlantic hurricane season has been quiet for a while, not a squeak since Hurricane Oscar bounced off Cuba and fizzled out.
The 2024 season was forecast to be massive but has proved a bit ambivalent in its ‘massiveness’ with a record breaking lull mid-season. And the recent quiet period followed on from the earlier weeks of October which did manage to topple 2016’s record for ‘highest ACE during October’ (this the record for the period since 2000), 2024 racking up ACE=67 to 2016 ACE=66.
As November arrives, potential storms are again being plotted by NOAA NHR. The years 2000-23 show one-in-3 years with zero activity past October, while one-in-8 years show activity amounting to ACE well into double figures and past the teens.
2020, for instance managed a couple of Cat4 storms striking Nicaragua while 2001 saw Cat4 Michelle slam into Cuba on November 4th.
NOAA NHR are not predicting anything that could spin up close/quickly enough to the US to unsettle the views of those voting next week. (And best of luck with that. From this side of the pond it looks like you’ll need it.)
Nigeljsays
Radge Havers
Regarding your comments @ 28 OCT 2024 AT 5:33
“Your (Zebras) mention of chips v. bonobos is interesting. I think you could draw a couple of axes intersecting the axis of evolutionary biology between those two apes. You could draw one covering culture (regressive– progressive), but I’m primarily thinking of one for governance which would measure the degree of hierarchy, one end being a flattened organization, the other representing a pointy pyramid. Complexity would probably require a separate function in that scenario.”
Interesting points. Harvard University did a study that found that humans are inherently hierarchical, but are capable of learing to be egalitarian in the right circumstances. This probably explains why hunter gatherer culture was egalitarian because it suited the circumstances of small population size and simple economies to organise and minimised the conflcits you get with hierearchies. We moved back towards hierarchies with the invention of farming and particularly industrial society, perhaps because the size and complexity of modern society and the vast number of products, required hierarchies and bureaucracies to work efficiently.
Personally I like the idea of an egalitarian culture but not everyone does. Many people acually like hierarchies apparently. However organisations do generally combine both systems to some extent, because some things suit hierarches and some things suit group input / desion making. However experiments with wide use of group decision making across all areas of things havent had great results.
Zebra mentions that with smaller population and abundant resources you reduce hierarchies to some extent. This sounds right. You would not need such a large justice system or militaries. But you would still have a complex industrial culture to organise.
What grabbed my attention was your comment: “I’ll go a little further and say that the world’s track record with the complexities posed by climate change is one indication that maybe humans have, once and for all, hit some kind of ceiling when it comes managing problems. Just some pessimistic speculation on my part…”
‘This is exactly what I’ve been thinking. The climate problem is just to big for us and too complicated. People are also probably scared that solving the problem might crash the economy, so they resist bold climate mitigation policies. I dont think things would crash but I can understsand peoples fears.
However maybe we are solving the climate problem to some extent partly by good fortune. We have at least attempted some soultions like solar and wind power, and costs fallen dramatically, and this may help solve the worst of the climate problem.
That Other Hockey Stick!
https://substack.com/home/post/p-150553681
The limit to growth of the human race and our building is when our construction projects are expanding upward at the speed of light. We’ve got a long way to go.
1) Actually there is a lot of “compelling evidence” to back up Vilfredo Pareto’s observation that in every society a few people have most of the wealth, most of the power, and make most of the decisions.
2) The most prominent “Doomer” is Jem Bendell—author of the infamous “Deep Adaptation” paper. He spent a lot of years on sustainability programs and was invited to the Billionaire’s Prom at Davos a number of times. See the article on him in Wikipedia.
3) His experience in dealing with the people who matter is one of the reasons for his pessimism. He noted:
“My own conclusion that it is too late to prevent a breakdown in modern civilization in most countries within our lifetimes is not purely based on an assessment of climate science. It’s based on my view of society, politics, economics from having worked on probably 25 countries across five continents, worked in the intergovernmental sector of the U.N., been part of the World Economic Forum, working in senior management in environmental groups, being on boards of investment funds.”
4) Michael Mann attacked Bendell. Mann is an expert on climate science – but he is ignorant of many important things. Which is no disgrace – I am ignorant. Socrates said he was ignorant. The important thing is to recognize what you know – and what you don’t.
5) I dismiss slurs and ad hominems. I am interested in facts. Mainly so I can adapt. I hate to make you passionate guys sad but I highly doubt the Billionaires who go to the Sun Valley conference are lurking here waiting for our deep insights. And anyone who has worked in Democratic campaigns –as I have – knows of the contempt leaders like Nancy Pelosi have for mere “activists”.
6) Re Piotr’s homily “The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good” , in my experience the Enemy of the Good is Hypocrisy — who pretends to be Good’s friend so so he can slip the knife in at the opportune moment in exchange for a few crumbs from The Bad.
6) Does anyone here have Scope 1/Scope 2/ Scope 3 emissions data for the Chinese solar industry? You know –like what the SEC is demanding of US companies. If so, is the data Independently verified?
Thanks for sharing that Don and for saying what you did. Those are my sentiments too.
I’m very sad. As a mature student I went to university 15 years ago to do a masters in energy, environment, climate and human ecology as I thought I could help change the world we live in. The solutions we studied were basically the same as Jem highlights and run into all corners of how humans interact with our environment and the systems we have created. 15 years later nothing has changed apart from I can’t buy plastic straws anymore.
I’m tired, no one is interested and the direction our politicians and economies are taking us is not just the wrong way it’s the worst way. One reason people are in denial is because the problem is so huge and the solutions are so unfamiliar that we can’t comprehend them. Everything needs to change and changing tiny things takes a huge amount of effort. The laggards and denialists continue to take all our enthusiasm. Thank you Jem and others like young Gretta and Kevin Anderson for finding the energy to carry on talking about this.
Last Jem ref from 2018
We receive bits and pieces of news, often shared by friends on Facebook or Twitter, which make us worry for a few moments, before returning to busy daily life. We may think we have already integrated an awareness of climate change into our lives, by the career choice we made, or the way we shop, recycle or don’t eat meat. Most of us are not climate scientists anyway, there’s all kinds of other things to take care of, and we have bills to pay!
That was me, anyway, until this year. I decided to look more closely at the latest information from the range of sciences that give a perspective on our situation. The last time I studied climate closely was in 1994 when I was being taught climate science at Cambridge University. I do not claim to be an expert in any one climate-related field, but as a Professor who has worked and published in a range of disciplines, I have experience in assessing knowledge claims from various sources. In this summary I provide references as much as possible, so you can investigate further.
However, given that the IPCC has proven over the past decades to be woefully inaccurate in the cautiousness of its predictions, I now agree with some of the most eminent climate scientists that the IPCC cannot be looked to for telling us what the situation is. That is why I spent a few weeks returning to primary sources in academic journals and research institute reports, and piecing together a perspective myself. Given the long time span it takes for data to appear in academic journals, I often turn to the information direct from research institutes and their individual experts. The result of that process follows below.
https://jembendell.com/2018/03/22/a-summary-of-some-climate-science-in-2018/
Thanks. over to you.
D: given that the IPCC has proven over the past decades to be woefully inaccurate in the cautiousness of its predictions, I now agree with some of the most eminent climate scientists that the IPCC cannot be looked to for telling us what the situation is.
BPL: Thank you for that classic example of a non sequitur. The syllogism is:
Major premise: If an entity fails in prediction, then it must not grasp the present situation.
Minor premise: The IPCC fails in prediction.
Conclusion: It must not grasp the present situation.
Since the major premise is false, so is the conclusion.
Barton Paul Levenson says
25 Oct 2024 at 7:01 AM
Please be more respectful and reference your quotes correctly. It was Professor Jem Bendell who said : “given that the IPCC has proven over the past decades to be woefully inaccurate in the cautiousness of its predictions, I now agree with some of the most eminent climate scientists that the IPCC cannot be looked to for telling us what the situation is.”
As I do not represent him, nor speak for him, I think you should take up your disagreement with him directly. You may contact him here – https://jembendell.com/
However, for readers who have better things to do with their time than chase shadows (Barton’s disinformation): No, this passage does not seem to be a non sequitur at all.
The original statement by Professor Jem Bendell critiques the IPCC’s record by pointing out a history of cautious predictions (eg an Arctic BoE not until circa 2090), leading to a perception that the IPCC may lack an accurate grasp of the current climate situation.
This is a reasonable argument because it infers that if predictions repeatedly fall short of reality, it might reflect a limitation in the organization’s situational assessments. The argument logically follows a chain of reasoning from observed patterns in IPCC predictions to an evaluation of its reliability for present assessments.
BPL’s response suggests the argument is invalid by misrepresenting it as a “syllogism,” using a non sequitur fallacy. However, the issue is more about trustworthiness and reliability in ongoing assessments rather than strictly about logical structure.
The implied premise (not explicitly stated – see the referenced article for all the data background) could be that consistent underestimation implies an inherent cautiousness or conservatism, which might limit the organization’s capacity to accurately assess the urgency or scope of the present situation.
In summary, the original statement critiques accuracy in context, rather than presenting a strict, logical structure that would easily fall under non sequitur. The response does not seem to be a fair characterization of the original argument.
Accuracy matters.
Ref as at 2018 – https://jembendell.com/2018/03/22/a-summary-of-some-climate-science-in-2018/
Hi, BPL
I don’t follow. If I’m looking for someone to paint my house I might drive by houses a painter has painted.
You’re saying that if all the contractor’s previous jobs are horribly inaccurate, trim paint splashed on windows and siding, etc,.. I SHOULD hire them?
R&R: You’re saying that if all the contractor’s previous jobs are horribly inaccurate, trim paint splashed on windows and siding, etc,.. I SHOULD hire them?
BPL: 1) They’re not “horribly inaccurate.” 2) Inaccuracy in one type of thing does not carry over into a completely different area.
R&R: You’re saying that if all the contractor’s previous jobs are horribly inaccurate, trim paint splashed on windows and siding, etc,.. I SHOULD hire them?
BPL: No, I’m not saying that. Quit with the straw men.
BPL,
It’s not a straw man, and we’re talking about whether scientists have been accurate about the changes brought about by humans altering the system, which is NOT the simplistic “if we hold everything constant then….”
Because we can’t hold everything constant.
This discussion is about feedbacks, acceleration, and everything, NOT the metric called “global average temperature”. Nobody cares about that. We care about real physical results, and over the years, well, I ask you, BPL, how regularly do YOU hear “It’s worse than we thought” with regard to a physical system’s reaction to warming?
R&R: NOT the metric called “global average temperature”. Nobody cares about that.
BPL: I care about it, because it’s a good and useful metric.
“This discussion is about feedbacks, acceleration, and everything, NOT the metric called “global average temperature”. Nobody cares about that.”
I care about it. Other climate scientists I know care about it. It’s a good basic metric of the amount of energy in the climate system.
One of many Jem Bendell bookmarks;
This is what a #RealGreenRevolution would include
Posted on November 4, 2021
So am I just being defeatist? No – otherwise I would not bother writing this 7-part essay on radical and transformative policy responses to our environmental predicament. There are many systemic policy innovations that could help humanity right now, but you won’t hear them from the professionals engaged in climate policy this month (@COP26).
That is because the professional classes, who are people with time to engage in the policy jamborees, have been schooled within the ideology of our time, which defers to existing power in a global capitalist system. I know because I am one of them. I lied to myself for decades as I tried to encourage significant reform through voluntary corporate sustainability initiatives.
What’s worse, we professionals working on public challenges are surrounded by people with an unacknowledged narcissism, where the motivation to feel ethical, smart, and contemporary, trumps any depth of inquiry into what might be going on and might be possible. It is a strange but silver lining of the terrifying climate news that more of us are being forced out of such patterns through a dark night of the soul. It means we can consider again what might work, rather than what has been just easy stuff to tell ourselves
https://jembendell.com/2021/11/04/this-is-what-a-realgreenrevolution-would-include/
on twitter use this mirror link https://nitter.poast.org/jembendell/with_replies
for example
Any journo who talks with Mann should ask him about his declaration in 2009 that if emissions weren’t coming down by 2020 then we’re definitely blasting past 2C. If they don’t then they seem less like journos than propagandists of establishment narratives
https://nitter.poast.org/jembendell/status/1799992237511921692#m
Maybe he misspoke? Maybe the data has been updated since and he has justifiably changed his scientific opinion, again? Who knows, no one can ask him such questions now. If you do he will block you instantly.
and one last classic observation-
I have come to see that although many international civil servants do important work on the ground in some countries, many of them in the headquarters are involved in a deadly charade, where their status, income, and emotional stability lead them to lie to themselves and to the public about our planetary predicament, its causes and what to do about it. This is exemplified by their continued lie that ‘sustainable development’ is possible, despite years of data now proving the critiques from decades ago that it was capitalist-friendly ideological tosh.
https://jembendell.com/2024/07/10/should-the-un-just-sod-off/
What to do when the whole system is rotten to the core? There’s very little anyone can do. Voting and activism no longer works to drive ethical systemic change.
D: Voting and activism no longer works to drive ethical systemic change.
BPL: Then don’t vote.
BPL: “then don’t vote”
I’ll probably still vote, but helping to enable Armageddon is (hopefully) going to be way more effective.Remember? “040317 To the English Teacher”, which I copied at least most of here? (Or is it “For the English Teacher)?
Anyway, another of my plays might help, too: the engine is finished. Better than 2/3 efficiency and cleans the air. A YouTube kid with almost 2 million followers is wrapping his head around it.
Don Williams: “ 6) Re Piotr’s homily “The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good” , in my experience the Enemy of the Good is Hypocrisy — who pretends to be Good’s friend so so he can slip the knife in at the opportune moment in exchange for a few crumbs from The Bad.”
Don, I am not sure what message you want to convey.
My, as you called” “homily”, was used in a VERY SPECIFIC context -the GOOD are doable actions that can mitigate AGW – like renewables or pricing of GHG emissions. These actions are actively discouraged by both the deniers and the doomers – the followers of the “all or nothing” fallacy, they disparage renewables for not being PERFECT (since they can’t, at least in the next few decades displace ALL fossil fuels in ALL applications) – and instead propose the non-existing hypothetical “PERFECT” – either a technological silver bullet, or utopian ideas of replacing in the next few decades the existing world’s socio-economic systems and changing the very human nature – into their theoretical, PERFECT. opposites: the centrally-controlled economy, and the New Man, willing to sacrifice their and their family ‘s good for the good of the class, nation, race, or humanity.
For this reasons, in my “homily”‘s specific context – the deniers’ and doomers’ PERFECT – is the enemy of the GOOD (renewables and pricing of GHG emissions).
Which brings me to your post – I am not sure how YOUR – “ the Enemy of the Good is Hypocrisy” – applies in context of renewables.
UNLESS you mean than the deniers and doomers are hypocrites. But that does not tell us something we didn’t know – if anything, it borders on sociological cliche.
Still, there could be one benefit of that – would make the current RC resident doomer, Darma’s, ears burn – after he rushed with compliments to endear himself to you:
Darma: “Thanks for sharing that Don and for saying what you did. Those are my sentiments too. ;-)
If this were the case, watch your six – hell hath no fury like a Darma scorned.
This has surely been forgotten by now, so if I may re-post it, I think it may help refocus the US-centric issues raised as critical vs criticized.
Don Williams says
14 Oct 2024 at 10:50 AM
1) The primary problem is Overconsumption – which is caused by multiple factors: overpopulation, high consumption per capita, war or interstate competition etc.
2) US Overconsumption could be greatly reduced without lowering living standards but powerful interests/propaganda will oppose that. People make money encouraging overconsumption – there is no profit (monetary or political) from reducing it. Well, aside from Ebay (encourage reuse of products) and early Amazon (reuse books).
3) Since we don’t have a global government, any population policy will have to be handled at the national level. Here in the USA it will be blocked by powerful financial interests. Re biodiversity, I doubt that we here in the USA will protect wildlife since we tolerate the hideous practices of factory farming – in part because prostitutes in our legislatures made it illegal to tell Americans the truth about how our food is produced. The primary advocates for wildlife seem to be the hunters and fishermen but the vast majority of voters are urban dwellers largely isolated from/indifferent to Nature.
4) High consumption per capita is caused by multiple factors: advertising encouraging people to buy a bunch of worthless crap, items which require high amounts of resources (e.g, automobiles, electronics, etc ) being designed with short life spans and designed to be difficult to maintain/repair. The New York fashion industry has a very big carbon footprint due to its culture of clothing having a short period of “fashion”. The purpose of this stupidity being to force the consumer to make frequent purchases in order to drive up sales volume/profits.
5) USA energy consumption would be reduced enormously if our cities/housing/job centers were designed to provide everyone with a 10 minute commute via walking, biking or public transport. ( How many people want to go back to the office after working at home during the Covid lockdowns? ) Similarly, homes with geothermal HVAC and solar roofs could be energy independent – the obstacle is large capital investment up front which takes a while to pay for itself and so we have the slow arterial bleeding of eternal power bills.
6) Our suburbs — which consume enormous amounts of land, oil and commuting time — were the result of President Eisenhower’s Project East River – the plan to use Interstates and federal highway money to disperse the US population and industry so it would be less vulnerable to nuclear attack. (Blast pressure diminishes rapidly with distance – radius cubed.) An early Cold War policy which is gaining renewed interest
Unlike you, not everyone will take “deliberately raising the global mortality rate, off the table.”
Dharma, ok that does sum the situation up quite well. Over consumption is indeed the core issue behind our huge environmental footprint, but I would suggest our use of fossil fules as opposed to other alternatives is the core issue behind the warming problem specifically. The energy source should at least be the main focus of change, because its going to be easier changing the energy source than changing consumption habits..
Another reason for suburban sprawl might be just because rising incomes meant large numbers of people could afford a nice house on its own section and a car. Many countries have urban sprawl.
I think the walkable city is a good idea, and hopefully things go that way, but trillions of dollars of infrastrcuture are essentially designed around the car, so changing things like this is a long term 100 year (?) project, and so wont do much to curb climate change. And this all assumes enough people get behind the idea.
A walkable city requires things like bicycle lanes on roads, reduced car parks, building many small supermarkets closer to where people live, building high density living, etcetera. New Zealand has tried some of these things recently with dedicated bicycle lanes and permitting four floor apartments within established suburbs, and its getting a lot of resistance. from car owners, as well as special interest groups. Again this suggests change will be a slow process.
This is why I tend to look at the things that might make more of a difference over the next 30 years particularly like renewables. They obviously have an environmental footprint, but if we could get our consumption levels down a bit that would minimise this. Where I differ from some commenters on this website is that thier very ambitious plans to reduce consumption are just impractical.
Population growth is slowing anyway due to the demographic transition, and the global fertility rate has dropped a lot, and experts say global population looks like it will shrink later this century. Although we cannot be sure of this.
A smaller global population would obviously greaty help reduce consumption and environmental problems although this assumes per capita consumption doesn’t increase alarmingly. So I suspect its still going to require a change in values related to how much people individually consume. I can see per capita consumption maybe levelling off and dropping a bit but not hugely.
Its assumed that the main driver in the slowing population growth has been increasing incomes, and better education etc,etc, however a moderarly low income African Country (cant recall which) did an experiment where free contraception was provided in one region and the fertility rate dropped sharply. This seems to show that the key factors in low fertility rate are 1) just mildly improving incomes, 2)cheap easily available contraceptives and 3) better womens rights. There is lots governments can do to improve availability of contraceptives and better womens rights. This would help speed up the drop in fertility rate without coercive government policies.
It would be good if the UN had a population policy and some goals, but its probably not going to happen because familiy size is a sensitive social issue, like religion, and so the UN wont go near it
No, it isn’t overconsumption, but excessive competition. Military spending is an example. Another is stock and financial services. How many brilliant people are spending their entire productive lives trying to get stock market data a microsecond faster than their competitors?
Alllllll that talent wasted. What could it have achieved in a different system?
Nigel, But thanks for the constructive polite comments.
Of course. :-) I think people choose the weak parties not because they agree with them but because they don’t want to divide the vote and thereby ensure the other party wins. Both parties are really sucky about environmental issues but the left is a little bit better.
Ron R., yes fair points. After hitting submit I realised you were probably referring to politics in America which is a presidential system where the only real choice is Dems and Republicans and anything else is a bit of a wasted vote. So In that sense your arguments are quite strong. New Zealand has a partliamentary democracy and MMP (mixed member proportional representation) which is very different. You get coalition governments of multiple parties, so voting for for a small party like the greens isnt necessarily a wasted vote.. Many commonwealth countries have a parliamentary democracy.
I really dislike fake news and PR advertising spin, don’t like Musk or X, but there is always the exception to the rule.
Ford CEO Jim Farley: “I drive a Xiaomi (SU7). We flew it from Shanghai to Chicago. I’ve been driving it for 6 month now, and I don’t want to give it up”
Unfortunately for average Americans, that’s not possible because 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs batteries and RE equipment and infrastructure.
https://x.com/CarlZha/status/1848973647291289914#m
A new paper to make Mr Rodger very happy
The 2023 global warming spike was driven by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation
Abstract
Global-mean surface temperature rapidly increased 0.29 ± 0.04 K from 2022 to 2023. Such a large interannual global warming spike is not unprecedented in the observational record, with a previous instance occurring in 1976–1977. However, why such large global warming spikes occur is unknown, and the rapid global warming of 2023 has led to concerns that it could have been externally driven. Here we show that climate models that are subject only to internal variability can generate such spikes, but they are an uncommon occurrence (p = 1.6 % ± 0.1 %). However, when a prolonged La Niña immediately precedes an El Niño in the simulations, as occurred in nature in 1976–1977 and 2022–2023, such spikes become much more common (p = 10.3 % ± 0.4 %). Furthermore, we find that nearly all simulated spikes (p = 88.5 % ± 0.3 %) are associated with El Niño occurring that year. Thus, our results underscore the importance of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation in driving the occurrence of global warming spikes such as the one in 2023, without needing to invoke anthropogenic forcing, such as changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases or aerosols, as an explanation.
How to cite.
Raghuraman, S. P., Soden, B., Clement, A., Vecchi, G., Menemenlis, S., and Yang, W.: The 2023 global warming spike was driven by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11275–11283, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11275-2024, 2024.
For reference (Gavin added the preprint last month to the RC post covering 2023 matter) :
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https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/05/new-journal-nature-2023/
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And as FYI, one of several excellent comments by MARodger on 2023:
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https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/09/unforced-variations-sep-2024/#comment-824486
Followed by a 2014 paper to ignore or laugh about
Long-run evolution of the global economy: 1. Physical basis
Timothy J. Garrett
The link of physical to economic quantities comes from a prior result that establishes a fixed relationship between rates of global energy consumption and a historical accumulation of global economic wealth. What follows are nonequilibrium prognostic expressions for how wealth, energy consumption, and the Gross World Product (GWP) grow with time. This paper shows that the key components that determine whether civilization “innovates” itself toward faster economic growth include energy reserve discovery, improvements to human and infrastructure longevity, and reductions in the amount of energy required to extract raw materials. Growth slows due to a combination of prior growth, energy reserve depletion, and a “fraying” of civilization networks due to natural disasters. Theoretical and numerical arguments suggest that when growth rates approach zero, civilization becomes fragile to such externalities as natural disasters, and the risk is for an accelerating collapse.
Summary
Linking physical to economic quantities comes from a fixed relationship between rates of global energy consumption and historical accumulation of global economic wealth. When growth rates approach zero, civilization becomes fragile to externalities, such as natural disasters, and is at risk for accelerating collapse.
Key Points
Global economic wealth is tied to rates of primary energy consumption
Rates of economic growth depend on past growth, resource availability, and decay
Human and climate systems can be coupled using essentially the same physics
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013ef000171
While the above argument has been made extensively, it certainly cannot be said that all energy consumption equates to higher levels of well being or prosperity. I would contend that much of the energy being consumed now is wasted. I would include in such waste–at least for now–the massive consumption associated with AI, which isn’t really improving anyone’s life for now.
I would also ask if you are familiar with Rosenfeld’s Law? This was postulated by Art Rosenfeld and is an empirically derived observation that energy needed to generate $1 in GDP growth has decreased by about 1% per year over time. I note this here because of the similarity to Moore’s Law, which illustrates the potential power in such trends.
Moore’s law was originally underlain by Dennard scaling of CMOS, but that has not been true since ~2005, and Moore’s law still persists. It goes a long way toward demonstrating that we can capitalize on such trends and even accelerate them through intensive researrch and development.
If we could undertake similar efforts wrt Rosenfeld’s Law, we might be able to significantly improve well being while actually decreasing energy consumption.
Crypto is one of the better examples of silliness of the tulip variety but even sillier as at least a tulip bulb has some tiny bit of intrinsic value to others. Basically crypto records as an unimpeachable fact (well for now unimpeachable, maybe not so in the near future) that you’ve expended a huge amount of energy which is now gone for any other purpose except generating the token. It’s a sales receipt for utter waste of zero intrinsic value. Why would I want to buy it from you? It has no value whatsoever to me. In point of fact it has negative value as it has wasted resources and increased various carbon and pollution sources.
The crash will come as crashes always come to bubbles. Tulip bulbs are quite cheap these days, for example.
Ray Ladbury, I agree in principle, however although AI currently uses a lot of energy to help develop the technology, the technology might eventually lead to really important uses so it seems the high energy use might be gamble worth taking. Bitcoin also seems like a waste of energy, and seems like it really doesnt have any potential that justifies such high energy use.
On a related issue, if we make things like home appliancess more energy efficient, energy use elsewhere just goes up like travel. This is caused by Jevons Paradox as you would know. The world seems addicted to high energy use, and I suspect it wont reduce significantly until the required resources start to run out.
Nigelj says
25 Oct 2024 at 4:48 PM
Quote: “The world seems addicted to high energy use, and I suspect it wont reduce significantly until the required resources start to run out.”,
Jem Bendell, along with other scholars and experts on societal collapse and energy limitations, has indeed voiced similar concerns to the idea that the world might not reduce its energy use until resources become critically limited.
Bendell’s “Deep Adaptation” framework focuses on preparing for and adapting to societal collapse due to climate and ecological crises. He argues that high-consumption lifestyles have already led to irreversible damage to ecosystems, and he underscores the importance of resilience as we face these ongoing changes.
This aligns with his view that society’s dependency on resources, especially energy, is unsustainable and may drive societies toward collapse if not checked.
Other experts, such as the authors of the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth report, have historically pointed out that reliance on continuous economic and energy growth is unsustainable in a world with finite resources.
They warn that unless energy consumption is adjusted, depletion of resources may indeed be the catalyst forcing change, particularly as resource scarcity impacts energy production, food systems, and infrastructure stability. These views collectively emphasize that systemic changes are essential to address resource dependence before resource limits impose their own harsh constraints
REFS:
Resilience https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-18/i-was-wrong-to-conclude-collapse-is-inevitable/
Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Adaptation
.
This short thread is like the game of ‘Telephone: where each new reply morphs far beyond the original points and the papers content more and more. Whatever Timothy J. Garrett was hoping to convey is of no relevance. Fascinating.
Happy News: Photovoltaic materials research:
(2024) “Lead-free inverted perovskite solar cells without transparent conducting oxides may achieve 30% efficiency”
Emiliano Bellini
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/05/27/lead-free-inverted-perovskite-solar-cells-without-transparent-conducting-oxides-may-achieve-30-efficiency/
Diagram shows thickness of layers between Al and glass is 1.44 μm.
(2024) “Machine learning accelerates discovery of solar-cell perovskites”
Nik Papageorgiou, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
https://phys.org/news/2024-05-machine-discovery-solar-cell-perovskites.html
ref: “High-Quality Data Enabling Universality of Band Gap Descriptor and Discovery of Photovoltaic Perovskites”
Haiyuan Wang, Runhai Ouyang, Wei Chen, Alfredo Pasquarello
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.4c03507
(emph. Mine):
(2024) “Discovery of the Zintl-phosphide BaCd2P2 as a long carrier lifetime and stable solar absorber”
Zhenkun Yuan, et al.
https://www.cell.com/joule/abstract/S2542-4351(24)00100-4?uuid=uuid%3Ab62240c9-95b3-4bb9-8396-ad34b87e4c59
in “Summary” (emph. Mine):
Doctor Jane Foster: : … “If It’s Color We Need, Let’s Bring The Rainbow.” Improving the efficiency by making better use of solar energy’s spectrum
5 ways (that I can think of):
1. In CPV, concentrating different parts of the spectrum onto different cells/devices
2. Multiple layers of luminescent concentrator (basically like the first concept, but can concentrate diffuse light)
3. Tandem/Multijunction cells
4. Producing multiple electron-hole pairs from higher-energy photons
5. Using lower-energy photons to produce single electron-hole pairs
3. “New tandem solar cells break efficiency record—they could eventually supercharge how we get energy from the sun”
3. “ Solar energy development could reduce need for solar farms”
3. (2024) “Researchers build selenium–silicon tandem solar cell that could improve efficiency to 40%”
Bob Yirka
https://techxplore.com/news/2024-04-seleniumsilicon-tandem-solar-cell-efficiency.html
(fig. a indicates parallel connection? (series connection requires each layer supplies the same current, requiring band gap energies’ spacing to be tuned to the spectrum to maximize efficiency))
5. (2024) “Chemically tuned intermediate band states in atomically thin CuxGeSe/SnS quantum material for photovoltaic applications”
Srihari M. Kastuar, Chinedu E. Ekuma
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl6752
(~150? nm Au; Fig.3; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold 19.283 Mg/m³; ~ 3 g Au /m² ? All necessary?)
See also https://techxplore.com/news/2024-04-quantum-material-efficiency-solar-cells.html
Solar Panel/Module recycling:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technology/what-happens-when-solar-panels-die/ar-AA1rHEeY?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=5bf5dfd83994458a98ac558b63683c7a&ei=23
(a lot of good info here)
…
(emph. Mine):
See also:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/startup-develops-method-to-safely-recycle-99-of-used-solar-panels-a-small-mine-of-precious-elements/ar-BB1qkIh3?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=5d44c68c40884091a50c1228eaa67c63&ei=24
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/scientists-develop-innovative-method-to-derive-valuable-materials-from-old-solar-cells-potential-to-have-a-significant-influence-on-the-circular-economy/ar-AA1rqbCf?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=feece95dfa9644fa824d7b273980ecf8&ei=9
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technology/scientists-discover-game-changing-method-to-recycle-solar-panels-using-less-energy-paving-the-way-to-a-circular-economy/ar-BB1pOYTn?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=d8bfb19d3ec54ac8d0838ee769b255a4&ei=7
“Undecided with Matt Ferrell”: “What REALLY happens to used Solar Panels?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCtEWveySsA
First reference is excellent.
David 21 Oct 2024 at 3:20 AM There’s too many years of overlap in the random linear fits to GAST in “A recent surge in global warming is not detectable yet”: by Claudie Beaulieu, Colin Gallagher, Rebecca Killick, Robert Lund & Xueheng Shi
The RHS intersect point has 2 very-different linear trends for ~2003-~2013 which is too long and too much difference. I was careful in April 2013 Nino. EMSO neutral & La Nina, as follows below (cut’n’paste I’ve been banging on about since 2014). I know these people are Statistician Doctors and I’m a plumber but IMO it’s poor quality for these reasons, linear fits to a time series with gaps in it and/or much overlap with a huge choice of trends for the same year is poor quality. I’m sticking with my old ……
+0.25 degrees 2020-2030
+0.31 degrees 2030-2040
+0.37 degrees 2040-2050
+0.43 degrees 2050-2060
so a total of +1.36 degrees above 2020 by 2060
That’s with +2.4 ppmv/year CO2 maintained throughout and CH4 increasing at recent rates
That’s assuming humans don’t do a huge cleanup of their aerosols air pollution.
……until the record is long enough to clarify that my projection is rubbish and then I’ll claim I don’t remember what you’re talking about, the same as everybody else does.
—————-
+0.13 degrees / decade: UAH lower troposphere 1979-2017
+0.17 degrees / decade: RSS lower troposphere 1979-2017
+0.165 degrees / decade: Surface La Nina & ENSO-neutral years 1970-2014 (me from GISTEMP)
+0.20 degrees / decade: Surface El Nino years 1966-1995 (me from GISTEMP)
+0.23 degrees / decade: Surface El Nino years 1995-2014 (me from GISTEMP, high uncertainty, sparse & varied data points)
+0.18 degrees / decade: Surface average 1966-2014 (GISTEMP)
+0.11 degrees / decade: Ocean surface 1966-2014 (GISTEMP)
+0.047 degrees / decade: Ocean 0-300M depth 1966-2010 89 / 432 = 0.206 (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, talk plots etc.)
+0.030 degrees / decade: Ocean 300-700M depth 1966-2010 76 / 576 = 0.132 (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, talk plots etc.)
+0.033 degrees / decade: Ocean 0-700M depth 1955-2010 Sid Levitus
+0.026 degrees / decade: Ocean 700-1000M depth 1966-2010 (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, talk plots etc.)
+0.15 degrees total increase: Ocean 0-1000M depth (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, Matthew England talk plots etc.)
+0.009 degrees / decade: Ocean 700-2000M depth 1966-2010 77 / 1872 = 0.0411 (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, talk plots etc.)
Note the +0.23 degrees / decade for El Nino years since 1995 and only +0.165 degrees / decade for La Nina & ENSO-neutral years. A big difference.
—————-
Quote: “Atlantic warming turbocharges Pacific trade winds Date:August 3, 2014 Source:University of New South Wales. New research has found rapid warming of the Atlantic Ocean, likely caused by global warming, has turbocharged Pacific Equatorial trade winds. Currently the winds are at a level never before seen on observed records, which extend back to the 1860s. The increase in these winds has caused eastern tropical Pacific cooling, amplified the Californian drought, accelerated sea level rise three times faster than the global average in the Western Pacific and has slowed the rise of global average surface temperatures since 2001. It may even be responsible for making El Nino events less common over the past decade due to its cooling impact on ocean surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific. “We were surprised to find the main cause of the Pacific climate trends of the past 20 years had its origin in the Atlantic Ocean,” said co-lead author Dr Shayne McGregor from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS) atthe University of New South Wales.”
—————-
Quote: “The record-breaking increase in Pacific Equatorial trade winds over the past 20 years had, until now, baffled researchers. Originally, this trade wind intensification was considered to be a response to Pacific decadal variability. However, the strength of the winds was much more powerful than expected due to the changes in Pacific sea surface temperature. Another riddle was that previous research indicated that under global warming scenarios Pacific Equatorial Trade winds would slow down over the coming century. The solution was found in the rapid warming of the Atlantic Ocean basin, which has created unexpected pressure differences between the Atlantic and Pacific. This has produced wind anomalies that have given Pacific Equatorial trade winds an additional big push. “The rapid warming of the Atlantic Ocean created high pressure zones in the upper atmosphere over that basin and low pressure zones close to the surface of the ocean,” says Professor Axel Timmermann, co-lead and corresponding author from the University of Hawaii. “The rising air parcels, over the Atlantic eventually sink over the eastern tropical Pacific, thus creating higher surface pressure there. The enormous pressure see-saw with high pressure in the Pacific and low pressure in the Atlantic gave the Pacific trade winds an extra kick, amplifying their strength. It’s like giving a playground roundabout an extra push as it spins past.” Many climate models appear to have underestimated the magnitude of the coupling between the two ocean basins, which may explain why they struggled to produce the recent increase in Pacific Equatorial trade wind trends. While active, the stronger Equatorial trade winds have caused far greater overturning of ocean water in the West Pacific, pushing more atmospheric heat into the ocean, as shown by co-author and ARCCSS Chief Investigator Professor Matthew England earlier this year. This increased overturning appears to explain much of the recent slowdown in the rise of global average surface temperatures. Importantly, the researchers don’t expect the current pressure difference between the two ocean basins to last. When it does end, they expect to see some rapid changes, including a sudden acceleration of global average surface temperatures. “It will be difficult to predict when the Pacific cooling trend and its contribution to the global hiatus in surface temperatures will come to an end,” Professor England says.”
—————-
Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus
Nature Climate Change 4, 222–227 (2014) doi:10.1038/nclimate2106 Received 11 September 2013 Accepted 18 December 2013 Published online 09 February 2014 Corrected online 14 February 2014
Matthew H. England, Shayne McGregor, Paul Spence, Gerald A. Meehl, Axel Timmermann, Wenju Cai, Alex Sen Gupta, Michael J. McPhaden, Ariaan Purich & Agus Santoso
“Here we show that a pronounced strengthening in Pacific trade winds over the past two decades—unprecedented in observations/reanalysis data and not captured by climate models—is sufficient to account for the cooling of the tropical Pacific and a substantial slowdown in surface warming through increased subsurface ocean heat uptake.”
In early 2013 when my studying started a Skeptical Science (SKS) bloke suggested working out ENSO adjustments to GMST for a few decades but instead I plotted GMST annual points 1966-2013 with separate symbols for El Nino, La Nina & ENSO-neutral with big volcanoes to exclude them and ran 3 separate trends by eye ball through those 3 ENSO types. There was no doubt that La Nina & ENSO-neutral were warming at the same rate but El Nino was “pulling away”, warming faster, than La Nina & ENSO-neutral and this “pulling away” maybe increased in 1995 but El Ninos come in too much variation and not enough years sampled to be certain. My trends eye balled from 1995 are at the end of this comment. The +0.23 for El Ninos 1995-2013 has low accuracy confidence. The +0.165 degrees / decade for La Nina & ENSO-neutral years have high accuracy confidence, good clean fits. 12 months later I came across a wind speed plot for Pacific Equatorial easterly trade winds showing that they’d increased a huge 30% (1 metre / second faster) from 1995 to 2014 though they’d been non varying for many decades before that, so now I knew why my El Nino “pulling away” from 12 months earlier was almost cartainly correct but not the underlying cause. Some months later I came across the underlying cause from scientists quoted below and their new published paper. I say it’s a classic Power Amplifier and it all started 1995. Equatorial Pacific Ocean is 2.8 times as wide as Equatorial Atlantic Ocean and that’s practically the definition of the basis of a Power Amplifier —- apply a relatively small signal (Atlantic) to the base and get a huger signal (Pacific) through the collector-emitter pair. Circa 2015 I saw a Kevin Trenberth talk about warming with GMST global pictorial and it clearly showed the vast eastern tropical Pacific Ocean having COOLED from 1982 to 2014 while practically everywhere else except 2 small Cold Blobs had warmed. That clinched it. It’s obvious what has happened. Pacific Equatorial Ocean easterly trade winds had increased a huge 30% (1 metre / second faster) from 1995 to 2014 due to warming Atlantic Ocean surface, a Power Amplifier.
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption
183,230 TWh was the global primary energy consumption in 2023. (1st graph) this ≈ 20.92 TW average
https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix
29479.05 TWh was global electricity produced in 2023; ≈ 3.365 TWe
200,000 TWhe ≈ 22.83 TWe would provide 10 billion people with 2.283 kW each. I think that would eliminate a lot of poverty! Worthy goal, obviously.
(US per capita electricity generation ≈ 1.427 kWe; 8.793 kW is US primary energy use* per capita * (I’m guessing this does not account for (net) embodied energy of (net) imports) )
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-electricity-source-stacked?country=OWID_WRL~CHN~IND~USA~JPN~DEU~GBR~BRA~FRA~CAN~SWE~ZAF~AUS
This just in:
“Climate change: UN report says planet to warm by 3.1 C without greater action”
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-set-warm-by-31-c-without-greater-action-un-report-warns-2024-10-24/
“”If we look at the progress towards 2030 targets, especially of the G20 member states … they have not made a lot of progress towards their current climate targets for 2030,” said Anne Olhoff, chief scientific editor of the report.”
“”If we look at the progress towards 2030 targets, especially of the G20 member states … they have not made a lot of progress towards their current climate targets for 2030,” said Anne Olhoff, chief scientific editor of the report.”
God help us all.
Dharma complains up the page I use strawman arguments by falsely categorising him / her as a doomer. Well lets see. Dharma and other commenters like CJ and Ned Kelly put a thesis or narrative that goes something like this: Multiple problems will inevitably combine this century to cause the collapse of human civilisation, its systems and agriculture and the biosphere on which it depends, and we arent going to be able to stop this.
Dharma even said somewhere up the thread that he / she sincerely thought that “only 2 billion people would be left alive by the end of this century.”
The problems include high consumption levels, exponential population growth, industrial society, climate change, our alleged inability to fix the climate problem, peak oil, resource scarcity, the alleged impossibility of scaling up renewables, general human stupidity, government debt levels, capitalism, etcetera .
So I would have thought doomer is a reasonable depiction. But doesnt this thesis or narrative have some merits? Its nothing really new, but its certainly a possibility that cannot be 100% ruled out. So maybe these guys should just own the doomer label, and not be ashamed of it.
I just get frustrated when the doomers or pessimists portray such arrogant certainty, for example that renewables cant work because this rhetoric just makes people afraid and want to just give up trying to fix problems. A bit more nuance / subtlety would be helpful!
IMHO it seems reasonably certain that our civilisation is going to face big changes later this century maybe next century. It seems almost certain mineral resources will become more expensive to extract, and gdp growth based around resource use is likely to slow or even stop. We are unlikely to completely fix the climate problem. It may prove difficult scaling up renewables. Consumption might be forced to fall.
However this doesnt mean billions of people will die or our society would callapse in some sort of catastrophic sudden way. The capitalist economy is quite resilient and may adapt and change to suit the new reality. We saw how the world recovered form the 2008 financial crash. Even if we cant fully replace fossil fuels we could to stop the worst of climate change. It looks like population growth will stop mid or late this century from the demographic transition which would help. Human societry has shown resilience coping with past problems.
Peak oil is imminent but peak gas and coal are a longer way off. Of course we need to stop burning these things but there is likely enough fossil fuels for a transition phase to scaling up renewables. There are vast untapped mineral resources dissolved in sea water and geothermal brines and the economics of extraction are not too bad from what Ive read. And yes over consumption is a key problem, and resources are finite, but time frames matter as to how this will impact us and its easy to be both excessivly positive and excessively pessimistic. Ive seen many examples.
So there are several sides to the issues and a lot of evidence to consider.
The Doomers end game view doesnt fully convince me and lacks a bit of compelling evidence, but it is a useful warning. We better make sure we are not complacent. We better make some good decisions, and mitigate environmental problems with urgency, and develop a more sustainable society, and reform our institutions before problems do start to combine and get completly out of control, such that they overwhelm us.
Ngelj,
I wouldn’t waste too much time debunking the comments from Dharma. He is either not listening or when he does listen, does no more than double-down with yet more bunk.
Consider up-thread where he is pulled-up for presenting some overly-strong criticism of the IPCC. He responds by protesting that it is not his criticism so we should take any objection elsewhere, which is bonkers as he brought it here and is entirely responsible for it here.
But then he does dive in to defend this presented IPCC-criticism, providing an explanation for those “who have better things to do with their time than chase shadows..” But the explanation provided is no more than a nonsensical verbal salad.
Those of us who wouldn’t be expending too much of their time to “chase shadows.” can see that this criticism raised of the IPCC from Dr Jem Bendell** is based entirely two sources – (1) a certain Prof Peter Wadhams and his oh-so-bold projections of Arctic ice loss (both the headline-grabbing sea ice predictions and more recently, indeed this year, talk of 5m SLR by 2100 {à la Hansen} resulting from the currently 0.8mm/y(SLR) Greenland ice loss) and (2) the findings of the founding Director of the Apollo-Gaia Project David Wasdell who reckoned eight years ago to ECS=+8ºC.
(**Dr Jem Bendell’s Wiki page shows he apparently accepts the label “doomster” and appears happy to court controversy.)
I would hope that account is enlightening enough to drive those shadows away and assure the faint-hearted that there are no monsters hiding in the wardrobe, at least none that the IPCC don’t know about.
@MA Rodger “I would hope that account is enlightening enough to drive those shadows away and assure the faint-hearted that there are no monsters hiding in the wardrobe, at least none that the IPCC don’t know about.”
WRONG.
. One “problem” that Nigelj overlooked is accelerating competition/conflict among the major powers. Ray Dalio, creator of one of the largest hedge funds (Bridgewater) has studied history and geopolitics extensively. He is concerned we are in a period similar to the runup to WWI (rising power Germany challenging global hegemon British Empire. ) If extended global war breaks out it will make the transition to renewable energy infeasible. As least, too late to avoid tipping points.
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/2562049/ray-dalio-commentary-when-internal-disorder-and-external-disorder-happen-together
You guys need to get out more. There is a LOT more to energy than climate science.
Don Williams,
Your Ray Dalio isn’t talking wardrobes. The web page you link-to doesn’t even mention wardrobes. He’s on about something totally different – burglar’s coming in though the window. Perhaps a chill-out over a few pints of John Smiths is called for.
Don Williams says
26 Oct 2024 at 12:12 PM
“You guys need to get out more. There is a LOT more to energy than climate science.”
Unfortunately that won’t help Don.
The fallacy of “playing the man” is better known as an ad hominem fallacy. Instead of addressing the argument or point someone is making (myself or Bendell et al), this fallacy attacks the character, motives, or other personal attributes of the person making the argument. BPL goes further by falsely accusing Bendell of deploying a non-sequitur fallacy – which subsequently discredited.= using evidence. Contrary to Mr Rodgers false reporting above, BPL did not once address any of the content in Bendells article/s. nigelj follows similar faulty debating tactics. Piotrs entire modus operandi relies on this singular strategy.
The purpose of an ad hominem attack is often to undermine the credibility of the person presenting an idea rather than the validity of the idea itself. This approach can sway the conversation away from the main issue, or the referenced materials, and divert attention to personal criticisms, making it especially common in emotionally heated ideologically driven debates.
Here’s how an ad hominem attack typically unfolds:
Initial Argument or Claim: One person presents an argument or opinion, generally addressing a topic or issue with supporting points or evidence.
Response Targets the Person: Instead of responding to the argument’s content, the other person responds by criticizing the speaker. For example, they might call into question their expertise (you don’t understand how science works), suggest ulterior motives (you are communist, a MAGA nut, or a fanatical doomer), or belittle their intelligence ( the explanation provided is no more than a nonsensical verbal salad).
Redirection from the Argument: The focus shifts from the argument itself to the character or credibility of the person, diverting attention from the actual topic. This distracts from any valid points in the original argument and encourages others to disregard it.
Escalation or Repetition: If the discussion continues, it often becomes further derailed as the original speaker may feel compelled to defend themselves personally rather than re-focus on the topic.
Which brings me to main point, that refocusing on the topic or material shared already will remain a wasted effort here, as mentioned already. They are not interested and repeatedly deny its existence. Therefore I present what I consider relevant information and then move along without any expectation of an intelligence evidence based conversation.
In essence, “playing the man” is used to win an argument by discrediting the person instead of challenging the actual issue, making it a distraction technique that clouds rational discussion.
Don Williams
I’m sure the IPCC are aware of global geopolitics and the possibility of WW3. But its not something they can factor into warming projections or mitigation plans because theres way too much uncertainty about geopolitics. In comparison warming projections factor in population trends because those can be estimated at least approximately. So its not clear what you expect the IPCC to say about geopolitics and war..
Interesting article. Seems to be accurate. Looking at his graph of the USA-China conflict risk gauge, there is a leveling of the risk level during Trump’s term as president, but a steep rise under BOTH the Obama and Harris/Biden terms. He says:
“History has taught us that when there are leadership transitions and/or weak leadership at the same time that there is big internal conflict, the risk of the enemy making an offensive move should be considered elevated.”
Clearly, the 2012 re-election of weak Obama, and the 2020 “election” of cognitively impaired Biden/Harris and their subsequent totally inept performance on the world stage that was witnessed in horror by the entire world, resulted in Putin invading Ukraine under BOTH Obama AND Biden, BUT NOT UNDER TRUMP. Weak leaders Harris/Biden also resulted in Iran/Hamas/Hezbollah attacking Israel. Of course that was facilitated by BOTH Obama AND Biden’s poor decision to give Iran billions of dollars enabling them to fund those attacks. China is thinking seriously about taking Taiwan. If Harris is elected president, it WILL happen, These weak, inept “leaders” are just about to get a nuclear war started in several places at once. When that happens, CLIMATE CHANGE will no longer be on anyone’s list of concerns. A significant risk in the next few days is that they will intentionally get it going and use that as an excuse to cancel the election since they appear to be about to lose, and we have seen in their coup against Biden after his failed debate performance that there is NOTHING Democrats will not do if it will enable them to hold on to power.
Elections have consequences.
DW: You guys need to get out more. There is a LOT more to energy than climate science.
BPL: Undoubtedly. But this is a web site about climate science.
MAR, I hear people like Dharma and a few others, making claims that the IPCC and climate science community at large are conservative or reticient and that they are badly understimateing the climate problem and people like Hansen are right, etcetera. My undertanding is Scientific organisations tend to be a bit conservative for good reason to ensure they maintain credibility. For example if a climate orgainsation was too alarmist and proven to be wrong maybe a decade later, it blows their credibility and would destroy efforts to mitigate the climate problem, while if they underestimate things a little bit its going to be less damaging to their credibility and efforts to mitigate the problem. So I assume the IPCC projections are a bit conservative, but unlikely to be hugely so.
The real question for me is whether the IPCC are badly underestimating the climate problem. Getting it horribly wrong. As opposed to just being a bit conservative. Im not persuaded. Warming is tracking in the middle of IPCC projections, SLR a little bit towards the upper range, heatwaves are increasing as predicted. Greenland had a short spurt of very accelerated melting about 20 years ago (?) but since then that seems to have slowed down back to the longer term trend since the 1970s, so it appears the acceleration was caused by natural variation. Of course such an accelerated short period might happen again, but even with that it doesnt look like Greenland is melting way above IPCC expectations.
Hansens views on SLR are at the extreme end and are not really apparent in the data yet so who knows. Some of the severe weather events seem to be getting worse faster than the IPCC projected and this may be one area where the IPCC have underestimated things, but its a specific area of things not the overall picture. So maybe the IPCC are underestimating things a little bit, but generally I dont believe that the IPCC are badly or hugely underestimating things.
To me its all a bit academic, because the IPCCs projections even if a bit conservative leaning all look very serious and more than enough reason to mitigate the climate problem. I really doubt that higher numbers would mean more efforts go into mitigation. And the IPCC are not rigid. They have revised their SLR projections upwards quite significantly over the years, but has this increased mitigation efforts? Not really, so people who wring their hands over the IPCC projections and think they are letting us down dont seem very observant.
The problem is not the IPCC and / or its projections. Even the middle range projections are scary. The problem is lack of motivation to mitigate the climate problem, and this has many causes.
Nigelj says
25 Oct 2024 at 3:00 PM
Nigelj, your whole post is playing the man – an ad hominem attack primarily using strawman arguments to falsely categorise me and falsely misrepresent and distort the meaning and framing of my prior comments. Intentional or not, the outcome is the same.
Readers are quite capable of understanding my comments and referenced materials without your misguided interference by distorting it. I have nothing to defend and nothing else to say that has not already been said.
Readers please see my references which unpack the problems involved:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/science-is-not-value-free/#comment-826080
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/science-is-not-value-free/#comment-825849
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-826067
AND
https://jembendell.com/2024/10/21/the-freedom-in-truth-launching-cayendo-juntos/
Dharma
“Nigelj, your whole post is playing the man – an ad hominem attack primarily using strawman arguments to falsely categorise me and falsely misrepresent and distort the meaning and framing of my prior comments. Intentional or not, the outcome is the same.”
I did not use any ad hominems.
An ad hominem attack is where someone attacks a person, or their qualifications, rather than the content of what they say. I made no reference to your qualifications and I have no idea what they are. I didnt attack you personally and I just stated my understanding of your position. Go back and read my post. That is my evidence. You have provided precisely zero evidence of an ad hominem. And Ad hominems have nothing to do with a strawman fallacy.
I did not use any strawman arguments.
From wikipedia: A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion. I quoted your own words and paraphrased other points you have made as best I understand them and in good faith. At most its possible I have you partly confused with someone else, but I dont think so. You have not provided any EVIDENCE that you have different views from what I stated in my post. For example you have not summarised and clarified your position on collapse of civilisation, or provided any copy and paste of what you said previously, together with precise details on when and where you made the comments.
I will just clarify one point I previously made. .I think the doomers various views are interesting and not totally crazy and deserve serious discussion, but I do think they are a bit too pessimistic as I explained.
Ron DeSantis schools reporter on the history of tropical storms in Florida. Basically he said they’ve always happened and the worst storms ever were in the late 1800s; same with record highs around the USA. He correctly said that there’s nothing new under the sun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ2vp42JtCQ
Fires have “always happened” too (well since the Great Oxygenation Event). I can quite correctly predct that if you build a bonfire in your living room and light it, you will quite “naturally” immolate yourself and your house.
Let me give you a tiny hint concerning you and Guv D’s so-called “logic”: Don’t pile up a bonfire in your living room and light it. You will not really like the completely “natural” consequences.
Mr. Know It All: – “Ron DeSantis schools reporter on the history of tropical storms in Florida.”
I don’t see Ron DeSantis having any background in science, let alone climate science. So why would his opinion be relevant to lecturing people about whether there’s a worsening climate crisis, or not?
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ron-DeSantis
Meanwhile, joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, Johan Rockström, in the YouTube video titled Climate Extremes (Full Documentary), duration o:52:20, says (from time interval 0:03:38:
“One-point-five is a big number. How can it be that people in general don’t understand what 1.5 °C of global mean surface temperature rise really means, that it is a really big number? And to explain that, one has to look back at our planet’s journey over time.
For the past 3 million years, which is the geological epoch we call the Quaternary, which is, in my view, the only time of relevance for us, because it’s only in the Quaternary that we’ve had a planet that resembles biologically, chemically, physically, the planet that we know today. With ice sheets, with the biological cycle with the carbon cycle with the oceans, with the continents, you know. That the planet that we know is the planet of the Quaternary.
Our understanding today is that the temperatures on Earth during this entire 3 million year period have never exceeded two degrees.
So the warmest global mean surface temperature, the deviation from the 14 degrees Celsius, that’s what we use as a reference point, 14 degrees Celsius is the average temperature before we started burning fossil fuels.
So over the past 3 million years, we’ve gone, you know, stayed under 16. It’s only plus two and deep ice age is minus six. So I call this today the Corridor of Life. That everything we know, everything we cherish, everything we depend on, has been evolving within this very narrow range, never exceeding two, never going below minus six. Minus six, deep ice age, plus two, warm interglacial. So in the last 3 million years we’ve had 6 to 8 warm interglacials.
And it’s only in the last 1 million years that we entered what is called the Pleistocene, where the planet start dancing between these 100,000 year long ice ages and shorter interglacials. And that’s what is called the Milankovitch Cycling, and is all driven by our journey around the sun and the wobbling of the axis of planet Earth.
So that is the 1 million years that, that we understand and have as a reference point.
We have as modern humans existed on planet Earth during the two most recent ice ages, so only 250,000 years.
So we’ve had two ice ages and two interglacials. One is the Eemian 100,000 years ago, and then the Holocene, the most recent 10,000 year period.
So the Holocene is a warm interglacial. It is a 14 degrees Celsius planet. It’s inside this, this Corridor of Life, the plus two maximum warmth to minus six. But it’s even more narrow. It’s actually 14 degrees Celsius, plus /minus zero-point-five, 0.5.
So already today, at 1.45, we are actually almost a magnitude three times outside of the warmest temperature on Earth since we left the last ice age. I mean, 1.5 is a very big number, and this impacts everything on planet Earth. It changes the oceans, it changes biology. It changes temperatures, it changes heat, it changes freshwater flows. Every one degree Celsius of warming adds another 7% of moisture in the atmosphere, where we’re simply powering up the whole system with more energy, more water, more extremes, and, and that is, what happens already at these, at is what can be perceived as low numbers, but they’re actually gigantic numbers because the Corridor of Life is so narrow.”
https://youtu.be/U8pLrRkqbb0?t=218
An assessment was published in the journal BioScience on 8 Oct 2024, titled The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth, by William J Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Jillian W Gregg, Johan Rockström, Michael E Mann, Naomi Oreskes, Timothy M Lenton, Stefan Rahmstorf, Thomas M Newsome, Chi Xu, Jens-Christian Svenning, Cássio Cardoso Pereira, Beverly E Law, & Thomas W Crowther. It begins with:
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biae087/7808595
As extreme weather events worsen, they will become increasingly more difficult for us to adapt to, and have massive social and economic consequences.
The Earth System is transitioning away from the ‘Corridor of Life’ compatible for maintaining human civilisation. This has dire consequences for billions of people’s lives and their livelihoods around the world within the next few decades.
Thanks for providing us with a blatantly incorrect summary of this short segment. Or, perhaps I’ve hallucinated. Can you provide for us the times in the news segment that you’ve linked where DeSantis
1. states that “The worst storms ever were in the late 1800s” (hint: the Labor Day Hurricane was in 1935) and
2. states that the record highs around the USA were in the late 1800s?
Ah yes, you are correct. At ~ 1:40 he said the Labor Day storm was in the 1930s. At around 0:40 he said there is precedent for this in history. We know that many record high temps in the USA occurred in the early 1900s, or even earlier, and some of those have not been broken TO THIS VERY DAY.
FYI, storms appeared to be getting less deadly in pre-1900 Florida:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Florida_hurricanes_(pre-1900)#Deadly_storms
Same thing from 1900 to 1949 – storms appear to be getting less deadly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Florida_hurricanes_(1900%E2%80%931949)#Deadly_storms
Same from 1950 to 1974:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Florida_hurricanes_(1950%E2%80%931974)#Deadly_storms
Same from 1975 to 1999:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Florida_hurricanes_(1975%E2%80%931999)#Deadly_storms
And the same from 2000 to present:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Florida_hurricanes_(2000%E2%80%93present)#Deadly_storms
“There is precedent for this in history” seems to be in the context of Florida hurricanes. Bringing in record high temperatures is your agenda.
As for hurricane deaths, I agree that storms have become less deadly. As communications and science have advanced, the warnings have gotten better, and people are more likely to hear them and heed them. This does not reflect the actual intensity of the storms. It is also not a guarantee that the trend will continue. As we saw hinted with Milton, if a storm develops rapidly and threatens a heavily populated segment of the lower Florida peninsula, there may not be adequate time to evacuate people, or to pre-position supplies sufficient for them either evacuate or remain in place without serious shortages. This is relevant because warmer ocean water allows storms to intensify more rapidly, and thus can reduce the time available for evacuation.
The people with actual facts at the National Hurricane Center would disagree with you and DeSantis (both proven anti-science liars of course).
KiA: “ DeSantis schools reporter […] that there’s nothing new under the sun.”
Show me your intellectual inspirations and will know who you are … Your DeSantis parrots a worn-out deniers cliche: If X happened before us then we can’t do X
I can already see the lawyers in Miami using the “DeSantis defense” ;
– “Your Honor, my client couldn’t have possibly started the forest fire, despite being caught with two empty gas cans near the origin of the said fire. With the Court’s permission I would like to introduce into evidence the words of the America’s Great Leader, Ron DeSantis:
“Forest fires are nothing new under the Sun.”
And since these fires had been happening long before humans, then obviously no human could possibly start a forest fire. Unless, of course, these are the Zionists who used their lasers from space to start forest fires in our beloved USA, as bravely spoken of by the United States Representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene,
Or perhaps:
– “Your Honor, humans have been killing humans long before the invention of firearms, therefore according to the Teachings of Rev. Ron DeSantis (R) – my client could not have killed any these people with his trusty AR-15. In fact, no lesser an authority than Moses himself – declared: “Guns don’t kill people!” Therefore, I ask the Court to dismiss this case with prejudice, and protect my client from any further, wholly underserved, damage to his reputation. “
In climate change circles, there are Deniers, while in peak oil circles, the equivalent is Cornucopians.
I don’t know about doomers, just the realists that realize fossil fuel is a finite & non-renewable resource.
Nigelj said:
Paul Pukite
You say peak oil is already passed. Im not sure what your source is. My statement peak oil is imminent was made on the basis of the following from Predicting the timing of peak oil, wikipedia:
“Predicting the timing of peak oil involves estimation of future production from existing oil fields as well as future discoveries. The initial production model was Hubbert peak theory, first proposed in the 1950s. Since then, many experts have tried to forecast peak oil. As of 2024, the International Energy Agency predicts that peak oil will happen by 2030, while the US Energy Information Administration forecasts a peak in 2050[1] and the OPEC does not see a peak in oil demand before 2045.[2] ”
However I concede its possible oil might have already peaked, but I like to make statements I know I can back up with a source like the IEA. Im not a peak oil cornucopian. I lean more towards your view. Cornucopians who think there are near limitless supplies of oil left dont seem to undertsand how oil was formed and how only a few geological periods were favourable. I. have recently read a university textbook on phyiscal geology because of a curiosity about the subject. This was rather illuminating.
Peak coal is a bit more complicated. According to peak coal on wikipedia,and other sources, extraction of coal may have already peaked due to efforts to mitigate climate change. Fortunately for us.
My post related to this. Some of the Doomers think we will run out of fossil fules quite soon within about 30 years or so before we can properly build a renewables grid so we will be left with a severe shortage of energy. Thus we are allegedly doomed.
My point was there appears to be enough fossil fuels to get us through a transition phase of building a renewables grid by 2050 and before oil (and coal and gas) runs out. There is about 50 years of proven oil reserves oil left at current rates of consumption and 50 years of gas left and 130 years of coal left (worldometer). In reality we will make some new discoveries as well. Probbaly not many as the rate of discoveries of new fields has steadily declined, but it just suggests there are enough fossil fuels left to build out renewable energy generation at scale.. If society gets moving, which is the difficult bit.
Nigel – According to peak coal on wikipedia,and other sources, extraction of coal may have already peaked due to efforts to mitigate climate change.”
I have thought that concept of peak oil was only in terms of supply – once we pass the peak – even if we wanted to buy more oil, there is not enough of it left. In this context, the peak oil is a concept describing depleting of the remaining amount of nonrenewable resource.
Now if we stop extracting coal NOT because we run out of the coal in the ground, but because we reduced the demand – that’s to me a different concept, one describing changes in our preferences for energy-sources – either as you write “to mitigate climate change”, or as it has been in the US – because gas-generated electricity was cheaper than coal-generated one.
Of these two – the second concept is much more relevant to climate policies than the first one – we CAN’T COUNT for reduction in GHG emissions brought on by the reduction in the supply (the first meaning), we have to reduce them much faster -by reducing the demand and constraining supply via environmental regulation and pricing of the GHG emissions. That’s behind the statement that we have to leave a lot of gas, oil and coal “in the ground“.
In addition to our short-term self-interest (keeping survivable climate) – it has also implication to far-in-time descendants – IF humans survive long enough into the future – the surplus of CO2 that cancelled the current glaciation would be gradually mopped up via reaction of Co2 with carbonate and silicate rocks – and if our far-descendant face the next glaciation – the most effective way to geoengineer out of it would be … to burn the remaining fossil fuels.
But if we use too much of them now …. then there may be not enough left to avert future glaciations.
Piotr, I think that with hindsight my use of peak coal in terms of demand peak was a bit of an unhelpful choice of definitions. The main point I was making was that the doomers view that we dont even have enough fossil fuels left to help build a renewables system at scale isnt really correct when you look at the dates for peak oil in terms of supply (2030 – 2050) and reserves of coal and oil left (50 – 100 years). I couldn’t find a number for peak coal in terms of supply assuming todays consumption rate was to continue (although it appears to be around 2050 – 2100) so I threw in the number for peak coal in terms of demand which is confusing.
Clearly we should reduce our use of fossil fuels as fast as we can and faster than we are. But we are reliant on using some fossil fuels to engineer the new system, thats the trade off.
Yes peak coal and oil in terms of demand is more relevant to the climate issue per se and what you say about it is quite right.
“and if our far-descendant face the next glaciation – the most effective way to geoengineer out of it would be … to burn the remaining fossil fuels.”
Killian also suggested this plan. It does seems to be the most effective way, but the problems are 1) it would cause ocean acidification and 2) It would be difficult to get the rate of warming just right to avoid potentially causing SLR. 3) It would be challenging to get the world to agree on such a plan, and make it work 4) world population may be small and mobile enough to migrate south, so that we dont need to worry about glaciations and 5) we may have already accidentally cancelled the next ice age, or greatly reduced it, so its not necessary to geoengineer anything. Please refer:
https://www.edf.org/human-emissions-just-cancelled-next-ice-age-heres-why-we-should-care#:~:text=With%20the%20burning%20of%20fossil,triggered%20the%20next%20ice%20age.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/01/13/scientists-say-humans-have-basically-canceled-the-next-ice-age/
https://www.carbonbrief.org/human-emissions-will-delay-next-ice-age-by-50000-years-study-says/
Nigel in response to my: “and if our far-descendant face the next glaciation – the most effective way to geoengineer out of it would be … to burn the remaining fossil fuels.”
“ It does seems to be the most effective way, but the problems are
1) it would cause ocean acidification ”
less than we have today – we need only as high CO2 in the air as to prevent the INCREASE in ice, NOT to increase CO2 beyond it causing the net melting that we have seen for decades
2) It would be difficult to get the rate of warming just right to avoid potentially causing SLR.
See p. 1 – we just need to keep the ice constant. Thus no SLR..
3) It would be challenging to get the world to agree on such a plan, and make it work
You assume a symmetry with the current situation where It’s been hard for the world to agree to REDUCE using cheap fossil fuel energy to save the planet from climate change.
But In the future – you will be asked to save the planet from climate change BY USING cheap fossil fuel energy. A very DIFFERENT threshold fro convincing people to go along …
4) world population may be small and mobile enough to migrate south, so that we dont need to worry about glaciations
It may be a solution for humans, not so great for the rest of life on land – low lats ecosystems would face increased pressure from people migrating there, while the high latitudes ecosystem …. would experience ICE AGE.
Furthermore, life on land has survived previous glaciations because it had refugia in low latitudes – now those refugia would be overrun by people.
5) we may have already accidentally cancelled the next ice age, or greatly reduced it, so its not necessary to geoengineer anything
we may have DELAYED the onset of the next glaciation, we haven’t cancelled future glaciations, nor even the rest of the next glaciation .- once we run out of fossil fuels – the atm CO2 will start dropping due to natural uptake, and we will be back into Ice Age conditions.
Not claiming any expertise on my part, but to me it seems that the concept of peak oil may be most simply stated as “the end of cheap oil” NOT “the end of oil” as I have seen it frequently characterized online. Oil produced by fracking is advanced as a refutation of peak oil. In fact, it’s a confirmation of the concept. Once peak oil is reached, attempts to expand production to meet growing demand will inevitably lead to ever-increasing market price for the commodity. Market supply and demand as well as physical availability of fossil fuels are all interrelated. Particularly, as fossil fuels become evermore expensive to produce, at some point a collapse in market demand is inevitable. At that point production and market supply will cease to be profitable. Whatever is left in the ground will remain.
on fossil fuel consumption – 30% drop in energy soon – from 600 exajoules down to 400 exajoules per year
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsbtt-6Dpww&t=1981s
WEP 2019 lecture by Professor Tadeusz Patzek, director of the Ali I. Al-Naimi Petroleum Engineering Research Center (ANPERC)
One of an uncountable number of experts pointing in the same direction
Nigelj said:
It’s well known but not in official circles. You can find the peak charted out in our book “Mathematical GeoEnergy” published by Wiley/AGU January 2019. We were just discussing this recently and the appropriate chart is Figure 9.15. The discussion took place on a blog titled Pe*kOilBar*el dot com which can’t be linked to here otherwise this comment will go into a black hole.
In many ways, that blog is a the inverse of RC. My co-author maintains it and does no moderation unless necessary, and splits it into petroleum and non-petroleum topics, the latter which includes climate change discussion. It’s very active for a blog, which are otherwise considered dead, because it’s all technical thus attracting die-hard analytical types..
I find it amazing how confused people are about what peak oil means, but don’t know they are, in the past and today. Some make up their own definitions as they go.
a good backgrounder with comments from 3 years ago Art Berman (an expert among others on the topic.)
https://youtu.be/HB1eGDpEeQY?si=t16m8R5FjwP-1Ica&t=2027
what’s the long term expectation on energy supply?
It’s Drain America first, it’s dangerous and a bit of history like the US used to be OPECx2 supplying 55% of global oil supply.
from Here’s Why Energy Prices & Shortages Are Going Berserk Globally | Art Berman On Oil, Gas & Coal
also by charles hall
How much oil remains for the world to produce? Comparing assessment methods, and separating fact from fiction
July 2022 Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 4(2):100174
DOI:10.1016/j.crsust.2022.100174
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362050842_How_much_oil_remains_for_the_world_to_produce_Comparing_assessment_methods_and_separating_fact_from_fiction
and more recently the obvious facts of the matter- Charles Hall Q&A Canada Limits to Growth
https://youtu.be/t8jUyQz5Onk?si=uhSJ6-iUkJKC0Dk7&t=5318
BPL: “then don’t vote”
I’ll probably still vote, but helping to enable Armageddon is (hopefully) going to be way more effective via the end of American Impunity and its spawn, Israeli apartheid. Remember? “040317 For the English Teacher”, which I copied at least most of here?
Or was it “To the English…”? Anyway, another of my plays might help, too: the engine is finished. Better than 2/3 efficiency and cleans the air. A YouTube kid with almost 2 million followers is wrapping his head around it.
My ghost dog RePete says hi. He’s grown into quite the sentient partner.
To Whom It May Concern:
When it comes to political and international geopolitical news, The Wall Street Journal often leans more toward narrative manipulation than accuracy. Think Fox News, though occasionally taking the opposite stance from Fox’s usual editorial slant. It’s worth approaching their content with a high degree of caution. My polite way of saying buyer beware of the lies and the unfounded spin. Unless confirmation bias is your thing, then please ignore.
Reality. It is a funny thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPG9qxXdwlY
The September SAT anomalies for GISS & NOAA have been posted showing a continuation of the gradual warming trend 4 months long. The ERA5 daily numbers at ClimatePulse are showing this warming trend will extend for a fifth month into October. This warming trend follows a sharper cooling Jan-May, down from the height of the “bananas” anomalies of late 2023, a cooling now half reversed.
These cooling/warming trends are a NH thing but are not evident in the TLT NH numbers (STAR, RSS & UAH) which show the anomalies running along at the “bananas” values. The UAH TLT even managed a ‘scorchyisimo!!!’ NH Land anomaly for October. (And on the subject of UAH temperature records, I see Spencer & Christy are up for retirement and trying to sort out how to keep the UAH satellite temperature records running, apparently no easy task for self-proclaimed “lukewarmers” like Spencer & Christy.)
So how is our understanding of what the “bananas” was all about? And what direction are the global temperature anomalies going next?
I could attempt some sort of very lengthy answer, likely starting with Exhibit One, my graph showing the last decades-worth of NH & SH ERA5 data (sourced from the Uni of Maine ClimateReanalyser webpage and voilà!! this graphic Exhibit One is posted HERE 28/10/25)
But perhaps a more sensible answer would concern a more stable measure showing the declining anomalies dropping down from the heights of the “banana” anomalies, a measure-use which could dodge some ultra-nerdy digressions. That measure is perhaps the ERA5 SST 60N-60S anomaly provided at ClimatePulse. (The area of SST 60N-60S comprises some 68% of the globe.)
This 60-60SST anomaly pre-“bananas” had only managed to fleetingly top +0.4ºC for a handful of days, that during the 2015-16 El Niño. Since 2016 it had been wobbling along at roughly +0.2ºC in the following years. (The 60-60SST record since 1979 is graphed out & posted in the graph below Exhibit One.) OLS shows the rate of warming since 1990-2020 running at +0.15ºC/decade(+/-0.3ºC @2sd) so a ‘normal’ 2024 anomaly would be expected at +0.3ºC.
The arrival of the “bananas” temperatures saw 60-60SST rise above +0.4ºC early June 2023 where its been ever since, managing top-banana mid Jan 2024 (+0.73ºC), then slowly cooling, 2024 running below year-before-2023 since mid July.
Now thinks.
Whatever the cause of the “bananas,” if it was an event rather than something more permanent we should perhaps expect this cooling. And if the event was El Niño, perhaps that cooling would be similar to previous El Niño cooling. So a graphic comparing 60-60SST with two previous El Niño has also been posted below Exhibit One.
The cooling 60-60SST is pretty-much as per previous El Niño, other than that cooling hitting a bit of an upward wobble through September which has since been reversed through October.
So the question in my mind is whether that cooling will continue and (eventually/soon) drop back below +0.4ºC to more ‘normal’ values. If it does it would be suggestive of a causal event rather than some permanent situation.
Maybe another example of recent energy history predicting the future?
Despite the corporate acronym organisations – G7, IMF, World Bank, IEA, WEF, etc. – predicting $200-per-barrel oil by 2020, the high prices either side of the 2008 crash devastated economies around the world, with the western economies being hit hard. Put simply, an oil price above $60-per-barrel (at 2008 rates) was sufficient to plunge the world’s consuming economies into a depression from which they have never fully recovered.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/04/28/playing-seesaw/
This other thoughtful history based article is worth considering when looking forward.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/09/02/the-long-and-the-short-of-it-three-a-failure-of-communication/
D: Put simply, an oil price above $60-per-barrel (at 2008 rates) was sufficient to plunge the world’s consuming economies into a depression from which they have never fully recovered.
BPL: “Never” being four years later.
We’ve been in a depression since the 1999/2000 dot com crash. The bread lines are at the grocery store. Tens of millions get their food with food stamps.
Oh please! Do you even have any concept of the words you use? Hint: If the economy is growing, it’s not a depression. It’s not even a recession.
Look, Mr. KIA, you have already established that you are an imbecile. There’s no need to keep proving it!
KIA, America has not been in an economic depression since the 1990s, and is not currently in an economic depression. An economic depression is defined as a a steep and sustained drop in economic activity featuring high unemployment and negative GDP growth (Investopedia). America hasnt been in that situation for a long time and isn’t currently.
America had one year of negative gdp growth in 2009 and one year of negative gdp growth in 2020 (recessions) Apart from that gdp growth has been positive and quite strong since the 1990s. Economic growth has been positive under the Biden administration and higher than most other developed countries. Refer:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/188165/annual-gdp-growth-of-the-united-states-since-1990/
Unemployment has been reasonably low since the 1990s and is only approx. 4.2% presently. Compare that to 25% during the 1930s depression. So there is no economic depression now. The Economist Journal is well reputed centre right leaning and says Americas economy is one of the best performing in the world over the last 4 years.
Poor people have been using food stamps for decades and while there have been some bread lines at grocery stores, it is not widespread like in the economic depression of the 1930s, a real economic depression. The queues have been caused by inflation in food prices. Most people had some wage rises that compensated or other assistance from governments but some didn’t, and have been hit hard. Inflation has come down over the last few years to back near its target band.
Its important to realise that while inflation hurts and is not good, it is not the same as an economic depression. The definitions are different, and the characteristics are different , although if inflation gets very high above 10 % for sustained periods it could cause an economic depression. Admittedly some of the outcomes of high inflation and depressions can be the same.
The cause of the inflation is related to covid supply chain difficulties, labour shortages, and related policies like financial stimulation. There was no inflation in 2020 because there were enough goods in the warehouses so that you didnt get inflation immediately.. Instead it emerged when inventories became low, and so during the Biden administration. There would have been inflation regardless of who the president was during or after covid.. Other countries like the UK have had the same pattern where inflation emerged a year or two after the 2020 covid peak, eg the UK.
Look at facts, history, logic, and patterns, and reputable economic data from people like the Economist Journal, not useless nonsense on youtube.
Barton Paul Levenson says
27 Oct 2024 at 7:07 AM
Dharma =: I’d like to continue discussing the content of these important topics—rather than having comments dismissed with mockery. So, maybe you can set the sarcasm aside?
BPL: Sure, when you set the doomism and attacks on the web site and the people who run it, and on the scientific community in general, aside.
Dharma: I have done no such things. Stop with the dishonest manipulative Strawmen fallacies and your false allegations.
OMG:: DeSmog Blog has provided a superb new resource.
Mapped: How 6 Billionaire Family Fortunes Fund Project 2025: Unraveling a $122 million web of climate denial, political extremism, and Trump campaign ties.
https://www.desmog.com/2024/10/25/project-2025-trump-mapped-how-6-billionaire-family-fortunes-fund-climate-denial/
The accompanying graphic is a simple straightforward linking of funds and connections. It’s short and easy to use.
I keep seeing assertions, often in public-facing science news sites like the link below, that climate models don’t account for this phenomena or that. (In this case it’s declining carbon uptake by biological sinks, specifically trees, in the context of the preprint “Low latency carbon budget analysis reveals a large decline of the land carbon sink in 2023” (Piyu Ke, Philippe Ciais, Stephen Sitch, Wei Li, Ana Bastos, Zhu Liu, Yidi Xu, Xiaofan Gui, Jiang Bian, Daniel S Goll, Yi Xi, Wanjing Li, Michael O’Sullivan, Jeffeson Goncalves de Souza, Pierre Friedlingstein, Frederic Chevallier).
I’m not remotely qualified to know if the claim’s right or wrong. I realise “climate models” covers a large range of model types, complexities and resolutions, but surely things like declining land or ocean sink take-up (or ocean freshening due to ice melt, with weakening effects on the AMOC) are pretty well-known and accepted as expected feedbacks to warming. As an interested lay-person I tend to assume such things are accounted for in, say, the CMIP models and others that are used as inputs for synthesis efforts like the IPCC Assessment Reports.
Can anyone help clear up my confusion?
Thanks in advance…
This might help, an old favorite, The Emergent Patterns of Climate Change (Gavin Schmidt, 2014)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrJJxn-gCdo
Andrew Simmons,
My apologies for not spending much time reading the analysis being used to support the comment you link-to (which is now published Ke et al (2024) ‘Low latency carbon budget analysis reveals a large decline of the land carbon sink in 2023’), and also for giving the comment you link-to even less attention. (There is a perhaps less breathy commentary here.)
Firstly, climate models do not model the carbon cycle so to “factor in the collapse of carbon sinks” is something done outside the models.
I cold start blathering-on about the paper’s use of the NOAA MLO growth numbers which yields the “record high since observations began in 1958.” But suffice to say the highest values in that record are for 2023, 2016 & 1998, these El Niño years. And do note that the preceding year 2022 saw the lowest on record for over a decade, for 14 years which only ever happened once before, in 1992, (although it would have happened in 1999 without the 1991 Pinatubo eruption).. As these are rate-of-growth numbers, the will generally averaging out the ups-&-downs over time. So you should expect low numbers to result in high numbers down the line. And it is this low-year:high-year that yields the 86% increase, an extremely silly value to be waving about.
Beyond this eye-candy, there is a serious issue here.
The Global Carbon Project numbers (now with its own Global Carbon Budget website has not yet published for 2023. Their numbers show the global land sink accounting for an annual average of 3.5Gt(C) over the last decade which is thus preventing CO2 increases of +1.5ppm/y. That’s about 30% of our emissions & 65% of the remaining annual atmospheric fraction.
But that may not be a good marker for the scale of what a failed global CO2 land sink would be. The global land sink could do more than block up. It could become a net source and this could be dramatic with say the Amazon rainforest burning down.
I note Ke et al do reference Bustamante et al (2023) ‘Ten new insights in climate science 2023 (spot the common author) which does discuss the CO2 land sink as well as the ocean sink which together are Number 4 on their list of 10 insights.
Generally, this work all demonstrates the wisdom of keeping AGW below +1.5ºC.
And how are we all doing at that? Not so good!!!
Dagdabbit, I missed the link. Sorry —
https://www.sciencealert.com/trees-struggling-to-absorb-co2-leading-emissions-to-skyrocket reports the Low latency carbon budget” paper I mentioned above. It claims:
EROEI Cont. from https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/09/unforced-variations-sep-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-824958 ,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-825119 … https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-825628
(2017) Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems in regions of moderate insolation: A comprehensive response
Marco Raugei et al https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516307066
emph. mine:
(2022) “A Polysilicon Learning Curve and the Material Requirements for Broad Electrification with Photovoltaics by 2050”
Brett Hallam, et al.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/solr.202200458?_gl=1*62zpkb*_gcl_au*MTkzMzE5ODU0MS4xNzI3MjMwNTIyLjgwMTcyNDg1My4xNzI3Mjg1MzYzLjE3MjcyODUzNjM.
I skimmed/skipped over some parts, but here’s what I’ve gotten from it… hope I didn’t misunderstand anything…
From abstract:
“ The current polysilicon demand by the PV industry in 2021 is equivalent to the consumption of 2.9–3.3 kt GW−1.” [I believe “polysilicon” is solar grade (SoG) Si.]
“An electricity requirement for purification, ingot pulling, and wafering of ≈360–380 kWh kg−1 for silicon wafers…”
…
From section 2.1:
Farther down:
Referring to fig. 1:
(That’s 2.83 kg/kW, assuming t is for metric ton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonne )
0.00166² m² (setting aside absent corners?) * 175 μm * 2.33 g/cm³ ≈ 11.236 g
(175 μm → 0.4078 kg/m² ; η = 22.8% → 228 Wp/m² )→1.788 kg/kWp; “estimated poly-Si consumption” above must be referring to wafer, excluding kerf losses etc. If 62% of Sog Si ends up in the final wafer, then the SoG Si demand would be 2.884 kg/kWp in this case.
(I’ve gotten the impression that the removed SoG Si from ‘~squaring off’ the cylindrical ingots prior to wafer slicing can be recycled – into another ingot?).
Fig. 3: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/c2e1b6a8-940a-4a2d-8fe0-a3864024869f/solr202200458-fig-0003-m.jpg electricity consumption per 1 kg solar grade (SoG) Si:
0.024 kWh(e) Mining, produces 4.02 kg “Quartzite Silicon Ore”
18.2 kWh(e) Refining, produces 1.4 kg metallurgical grade (MG) Si
41.1 – 113 kWh(e) Purification, produces 1.0 kg SoG Si
41.0 – 101.6 kWh(e) “Ingot casting & slicing” , produces 0.62 kg of Mono-Si wafer,
(total 100-233 kWh(e) / kg SoG Si)
…
(161-375) kWh(e) / kg wafer * 1.64 kg wafer / kWp(e) = 264 – 615 kWh(e)/ kWp(e) = (@1700 kWh (sun)/ (m² yr) * 0.8 or 0.7 )
≈ 0.194 or 0.222 – 0.452 or 0.517 years EPBT* (*for this part of it)
(for 2.884 kg SoG Si / kWp(e), (100 – 233) kWh(e) / kg SoG Si,
EPBT* ≈ 0.212 or 0.242 – 0.494 or 0.565 years)
…
0.11 kg H2 used per kg SoG Si; 5 kWh(e)/kg H2 to supply (green?) H2.
C and carbonaceous material input…? TBcont.
————–
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon : 2.33 g/cm³
2.33 g/cm³
Calc. from https://iea-pvps.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IEA-PVPS-LCI-report-2020.pdf , Table 2: for mono-Si (η(panel?) = 19.5 %) and multi-Si (η(panel?) =18%) (note updated values in https://iea-pvps.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Task-12-Fact-Sheet-v2-1.pdf : 20.9%, 18.0%)
kg / kWp(e)
Si: 2.93 , 3.44 (mult by 0.62 gives 1.82 , 2.13, which fits the layer thicknesses (170 , 180 μm) and density of Si, *if* given cells filling ~ 90% (89.5 , 91.6 %) of the module area)
Al: 11.1 , 12.1
Glass: 45.1 , 49.1
Cu: 0.525 , 0.574
Ag (g/kWp(e)): 16.9 , 18.5
…
on 2 million years of human technology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsbtt-6Dpww&t=3606s
WEP 2019 lecture by Professor Tadeusz Patzek, director of the Ali I. Al-Naimi Petroleum Engineering Research Center (ANPERC)
The “Energy Transition” is a Myth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AxsZtwIhFw
A very good wide ranging discussion on Decouple Media with author Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, a French historian of science and technology, challenges our understanding of energy history. In this episode, he unravels the myth of energy transitions, revealing the symbiotic relationships between coal, wood, and oil that have shaped our world in unexpected ways.
His latest book is called “More and more and more.” He explains how climate change was well known in the 1970s and 80s in western Govt circles and it was decided then little could be done or would be done – adaption would be key. Eventually. The US could handle a +3C world eg by moving agriculture to more suitable locations. It was a big country, loads of room. Others believed fast breeder nuclear and electricity and hydrogen would be a panacea. It’s an interesting telling of history politics and energy.
Fressoz challenges the notion of an energy transition to “Net Zero,” arguing that it is far from reality. Global oil and gas demand remains strong, especially as countries like India experience growth, and it’s unlikely that we’ll reach Net Zero by 2050 or 2070. This perspective aligns with mainstream views from organizations like the International Energy Agency and U.S. counterparts, which often take an even more pessimistic outlook.
Instead of focusing solely on technological solutions, which dominate current climate strategies, the speaker advocates for adaptation, sufficiency, and even degrowth as necessary strategies. Economists and climate experts have traditionally overlooked these approaches, but there’s growing interest. For example, a recent study on economic stagnation’s role in reducing emissions appeared in IPCC’s reports (WG3), though topics like sufficiency are still underrepresented.
Fressoz also acknowledges the complexity of implementing degrowth, as it’s politically unfeasible, but warns that failing to address the limits of growth, especially with peak oil on the horizon, could lead to severe economic and environmental consequences.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:08 Book: More and More and More
04:16 Energy symbiosis
07:51 The symbiosis of wood and coal
12:20 Of coal and oil
22:15 Of wood and oil
26:06 Are we burning more wood than ever?
28:33 Drax Power Plant
35:33 Raw materials never go out of fashion
37:31 Oil didn’t save the whales
41:09 The atomic origins of “energy transition”
49:51 Hydropower hope
53:01 Utopianism
1:00:23 Climbing down the energy ladder
1:06:33 Too little too late: the need for climate adaptation
1:16:46 Book publication date
Useful references and content to consider and discuss meaningfully during November 2024.
Total system costs to meet consumer needs? An expert panel discussion
The Realities of Energy Transition ARC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtPnkMq8TU4
Not a denier, not a social media troll, not a purveyor if fallacies, but a genuine evidence based research scientist, a professor, a geologist, an internationally recognized Science Communicator and an energy expert – meet Dr. Scott W. Tinker
https://www.beg.utexas.edu/people/scott-tinker
Inspiring An Energy Educated Future
https://switchon.org/
An Honest & Sensible Conversation about Global Energy | Scott Tinker @ ARC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTfwqvNuk44
Premiered on 24 Oct 2024
Join Dr. Chris Keefer, host of the renowned Decouple podcast and founder of Canadians for Nuclear Energy, for a deep dive into Canada’s nuclear energy journey. From Ontario’s coal phase-out in the 1980s to the revitalization of nuclear stations for modern industries, Canada’s nuclear story is filled with innovation and valuable lessons.
Why did Canada develop its own unique reactor design? Why is nuclear energy thriving in some regions while others remain skeptical? And how does nuclear fit into today’s renewable energy landscape?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sDr4xDTnWI
5 Sept 2024 Decouple Podcast
Mark P. Mills returns to Decouple to challenge our understanding of energy scarcity and efficiency. In this episode, he unravels the paradox of how pursuing energy efficiency often leads to increased consumption, and explains why he believes our energy resources are functionally limitless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAMkUYqRyB0
The Atlantic hurricane season has been quiet for a while, not a squeak since Hurricane Oscar bounced off Cuba and fizzled out.
The 2024 season was forecast to be massive but has proved a bit ambivalent in its ‘massiveness’ with a record breaking lull mid-season. And the recent quiet period followed on from the earlier weeks of October which did manage to topple 2016’s record for ‘highest ACE during October’ (this the record for the period since 2000), 2024 racking up ACE=67 to 2016 ACE=66.
As November arrives, potential storms are again being plotted by NOAA NHR. The years 2000-23 show one-in-3 years with zero activity past October, while one-in-8 years show activity amounting to ACE well into double figures and past the teens.
2020, for instance managed a couple of Cat4 storms striking Nicaragua while 2001 saw Cat4 Michelle slam into Cuba on November 4th.
NOAA NHR are not predicting anything that could spin up close/quickly enough to the US to unsettle the views of those voting next week. (And best of luck with that. From this side of the pond it looks like you’ll need it.)
Radge Havers
Regarding your comments @ 28 OCT 2024 AT 5:33
“Your (Zebras) mention of chips v. bonobos is interesting. I think you could draw a couple of axes intersecting the axis of evolutionary biology between those two apes. You could draw one covering culture (regressive– progressive), but I’m primarily thinking of one for governance which would measure the degree of hierarchy, one end being a flattened organization, the other representing a pointy pyramid. Complexity would probably require a separate function in that scenario.”
Interesting points. Harvard University did a study that found that humans are inherently hierarchical, but are capable of learing to be egalitarian in the right circumstances. This probably explains why hunter gatherer culture was egalitarian because it suited the circumstances of small population size and simple economies to organise and minimised the conflcits you get with hierearchies. We moved back towards hierarchies with the invention of farming and particularly industrial society, perhaps because the size and complexity of modern society and the vast number of products, required hierarchies and bureaucracies to work efficiently.
Personally I like the idea of an egalitarian culture but not everyone does. Many people acually like hierarchies apparently. However organisations do generally combine both systems to some extent, because some things suit hierarches and some things suit group input / desion making. However experiments with wide use of group decision making across all areas of things havent had great results.
Zebra mentions that with smaller population and abundant resources you reduce hierarchies to some extent. This sounds right. You would not need such a large justice system or militaries. But you would still have a complex industrial culture to organise.
What grabbed my attention was your comment: “I’ll go a little further and say that the world’s track record with the complexities posed by climate change is one indication that maybe humans have, once and for all, hit some kind of ceiling when it comes managing problems. Just some pessimistic speculation on my part…”
‘This is exactly what I’ve been thinking. The climate problem is just to big for us and too complicated. People are also probably scared that solving the problem might crash the economy, so they resist bold climate mitigation policies. I dont think things would crash but I can understsand peoples fears.
However maybe we are solving the climate problem to some extent partly by good fortune. We have at least attempted some soultions like solar and wind power, and costs fallen dramatically, and this may help solve the worst of the climate problem.