Looks like we do not have to do anything about global warming...

[ERD50]

Not true. But the only way to logically restrict carbon pollution is on a per capital basis, not by a country's aggregate pollution.

Really? I thought it was called "global warming", not "per capita warming"?

So if we are going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (as unclemick points out, we need to look at all gasses based on their contribution), we need to do it wherever they are. And since we live in a world where countries govern their people, we need to call on those countries to limit their emissions.

And to take your argument to its logical conclusion, we would need to lower our standard of living to that of a Chinese peasant, and they would not be allowed to raise their standard of living. Partially offset by limited, expensive, renewable energy sources which still have an environmental impact - check out that "Conservation without the hot air" pdf for more details.

So therefore the U.S. per capita emissions have to come down to a level that is sustainable. Meanwhile, other countries who are polluting at a level that is below the level the world can sustain, still have room to increase their pollution up to, but not above, a sustainable per capita rate.

And what is this "sustainable rate" that will keep Bangladesh from flooding? The data I've seen indicates we already have emitted enough CO2 to do that. Do you have other data?

It's nice to say that no single person deserves to pollute any more than any other person. But I guess we can extend that to the idea that no single person deserves any more wealth than any other person. While my heart may feel some of that, I just don't think that you will get too many to go along with throwing all our belongings in a pot and dividing it up equally across our brothers and sisters worldwide. Same with our energy wealth.

-ERD50

 

[Gone4Good]

The argument is that those fossil fuels are creating a higher standard of living for the Chinese - are we really in a position to say "don't do that"? But if we let them go on:

List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

. . .

The rest of this is addressed above

 

[samclem]

If the goal is to reduce carbon emissions while doing the least damage to individual standards of living and the world economy (rather than doing social engineering) , then the country in which a particular CO2 molecule is emitted is irrelevant (just as the atmosphere makes no distinction). What's important is maximizing efficiency--getting the most productivity for each gram of CO2 produced. It doesn't matter where that CO2 is made--if this greenhouse gas issue is so darn important, then let's address it directly. Those who want a real solution should want to drive out wasteful producers of CO2 and encourage those who get the most productivity for each gram emitted.

If this is a worthwhile endeavor, and if we decide (as a planet) that reducing carbon emissions is worth the reduction in world living standards that higher energy prices will bring, then a straightforward increase in the price of carbon combustion, through a tax mechanism enforced in all countries uniformly, is the purest way to do it. It drives out inefficient C02 production everywhere, and that's what must be done f this is a global problem. Many will cheer the fact that big per capita energy users will be heavily affected. Lots of poor people will also be much worse off--but some believe that's a small price to pay for maybe reducing a possible problem many decades in the future--and, I suspect, bringing wealthy people (and the countries they live in) down a peg is a nice plus to many folks.

 

[Gone4Good]

Really? I thought it was called "global warming", not "per capita warming"?

So reconcile your views with U.S. emissions vs. Germany emissions.

So if we are going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (as unclemick points out, we need to look at all gasses based on their contribution),

All greenhouse gases are included in pending legislation and credits are weighted by how potent the gas is. This is not new.

And to take your argument to its logical conclusion, we would need to lower our standard of living to that of a Chinese peasant,

This is not the logical conclusion of my point. Talk about strawman arguments, my word. Our per-capita emissions haven't grown since before 1990. We did that without even trying. Imagine what we could have achieved if we actually tried to do better.

Why is the assumption that doing ANYTHING to improve the situation entails the most dramatic, cataclysmic, adjustment imaginable.

And what is this "sustainable rate" that will keep Bangladesh from flooding?

Is this even relevant? If we're heading into an unavoidable car crash do we keep pressing the accelerator because some damage is unavoidable. Of course not.

It's nice to say that no single person deserves to pollute any more than any other person. But I guess we can extend that to the idea that no single person deserves any more wealth than any other person.

Nice try, but you're comparing apples and oranges. Wealth has no natural limit. As long as the rules of the game are fair, one person's wealth does not prohibit another from being wealthy.

Pollution doesn't work that way. If the earth can only sustain a certain amount of pollution, than allowing one person to pollute more necessarily restricts another person's ability to pollute. And as long as the ability to pollute is correlated with the ability to create wealth, allowing some people to pollute more necessarily stacks the deck against those who have to pollute less.

While my heart may feel some of that, I just don't think that you will get too many to go along with throwing all our belongings in a pot and dividing it up equally across our brothers and sisters worldwide. Same with our energy wealth.

Nobody is suggesting you do that. You can have anything you want. You just can't have it in a way that causes hardship for other people.

 

[ERD50]

I don't have time today to address all your points - but I will tackle this one:

Why is the assumption that doing ANYTHING to improve the situation entails the most dramatic, cataclysmic, adjustment imaginable.

Ummm, because the IPCC says so? From the SPM2feb07.pdf.

# Scenario A1T - * A1T - Emphasis on non-fossil energy sources.
* Sea level rise likely range [20 to 45 cm] (8 to 18 inches)

# Scenario A1FI - * A1FI - An emphasis on fossil-fuels.
* Sea level rise likely range [26 to 59 cm] (10 to 23 inches)

A1T - non-fossil fuel energy sources dominate.

Note the overlap. We go from an emphasis on fossil fuels to non-fossil fuels dominating and they can't predict whether that will even do anything at all.

We might have 18" of sea level rise if we go "green", and we might have only 10" even if don't. I can see why it would be tough to convince a citizen of an industrialized country that they need to cut back while we have no commitment from China to do the same (or even start slowing their increases).

Read that "without the hot air" document, and you tell me if moving to predominately "green" energy sources isn't a dramatic shift for us.

-ERD50

 

[Gone4Good]

Those who want a real solution should want to drive out wasteful producers of CO2 and encourage those who get the most productivity for each gram emitted.

Which is exactly what cap and trade is designed to do.

then a straightforward increase in the price of carbon combustion, through a tax mechanism enforced in all countries uniformly, is the purest way to do it. I

The shortcoming of a tax is that it sets a price that is completely divorced from volume. If the goal is to reduce the volume of emissions to a certain level, than the tax rate will have to be set at the right price to achieve that outcome. But no one knows what that price is. So instead, you cap volumes at the desired level and let the market set a price that gets you there.

 

[Gone4Good]

Ummm, because the IPCC says so? From the SPM2feb07.pdf.

. . .

Read that "without the hot air" document, and you tell me if moving to predominately "green" energy sources isn't a dramatic shift for us.

-ERD50

It would be easier if you would provide links to your sources . . . SPM2feb07.pdf doesn't register a definitive hit, even at the IPCC web site.

and I assume "without the hot air" references this . . .David MacKay FRS: Sustainable Energy - without the hot air: Contents which I'll take a look at.

But keep in mind, that any analysis done today is based on a static view of the world and known technologies. We won't know what alternatives get invented once we start putting a price on carbon. Already someone claims to have invented a device that removes carbon from the atmosphere. Who knows?

. . .

So I'm scanning the "hot air" document and nowhere do I see a recommendation that everyone in the UK be forced to live like a "Chinese Peasant". Instead I see he thinks that by 2050 transportation should be electrified, electricity should be produced from "clean sources", buildings should be really well insulated, some crop land is devoted to bio fuels, move to light emitting diodes, etc, etc.

And his estimated cost to do this in today's dollars . . . ₤14,635 / per person.

Yeah, so? For the U.S. that works out to be about one half of one year's GDP. A big number, for sure, but it doesn't drive us back to the stone age (or even the 1990's)

 

[samclem]

Already someone claims to have invented a device that removes carbon from the atmosphere.

Somebody invented a tree?

 

[samclem]

The shortcoming of a tax is that it sets a price that is completely divorced from volume. If the goal is to reduce the volume of emissions to a certain level, than the tax rate will have to be set at the right price to achieve that outcome. But no one knows what that price is. So instead, you cap volumes at the desired level and let the market set a price that gets you there.

That's the wonder of it all. The goal obviously can't be to "reduce volume of emissions to a "certain level," because no one knows what that "certain level" is. Even those most on fire about this issue can't tell us what that "certain level" is--they just want the carbon emissions reduced by some amount--the amount apparently corresponding to their level of fervor more than any level based on science. And do it immediately. And everyone feel guilty, too. Hairshirts for everyone.

If we did know the "certain level" then it would be a straightforward matter to adjust the carbon tax so that level was achieved, over time. But it would only work if every significant player participated (rich, poor, developed, loinclothed-- a CO2 molecule is a CO2 molecule). The goal is worldwide carbon efficiency, not transferring a competitive advantage to People's Shirt Factory Number 7 at the expense of industries elsewhere.

 

[donheff]

An interesting argument... kind of like the answer I got from a friend a long time ago when we were talking about if we believed in God... he said he did... which surprised me... his reasoning is like Pascal... IF God exists, then believing in him will get you to heaven... if he does not, then who cares.... he did not change what he did... he just 'believed'..

It looks like the conversation moved on but I came back in late so...

The problem with Pascal's argument is there are so many gods to choose among. How do choose the right one? And what if you choose the wrong one and the right one is a vindictive SOB who is more PO'd at you for choosing some looser deity than if you had just said no in the first place?

 

[ERD50]

It would be easier if you would provide links to your sources . . .

Yes, guilty as charged and I apologize - bad form on my part. I was trying to get out the door, and I just didn't have time to dig up the links.

SPM2feb07.pdf doesn't register a definitive hit, even at the IPCC web site.

Curious - I have it downloaded to my computer. When I searched I found many refs to a link on the ipcc website, but that appears to be dead now, and a site search comes up empty?

***www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf*** <<< dead link?

They may have newer data on this, but they should keep the old around for reference. OK, the same data is in the 18 page summary, linked from wiki:

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Warming and sea level rise will continue for centuries, even if greenhouse gas was not used any more, the amount of warming and sea level rise depends on how much fossil fuel is burnt for the next 100 years (pages 13 and 18)[7].

ref # 7 is here:

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/WG1AR4_SPM_Approved_05Feb.pdf

and I assume "without the hot air" references this . . .David MacKay FRS: Sustainable Energy - without the hot air: Contents which I'll take a look at.
...

So I'm scanning the "hot air" document and nowhere do I see a recommendation that everyone in the UK be forced to live like a "Chinese Peasant". Instead I see he thinks that by 2050 transportation should be electrified, electricity should be produced from "clean sources", buildings should be really well insulated, some crop land is devoted to bio fuels, move to light emitting diodes, etc, etc.

And his estimated cost to do this in today's dollars . . . ₤14,635 / per person.

Yes, that is it. But I don't see your ₤14,635 / per person number - can you point it out? What I see is:


[page 111-112]

To make a difference, renewable facilities have to be country-sized. ... To get a big contribution from wind, we used wind farms with the area of Wales. To get a big contribution from solar photovoltaics, we required half the area of Wales. To get a big contribution from waves, we imagined wave farms covering 500 km of coastline. To make energy crops with a big contribution, we took 75% of the whole country. To sustain Britain’s lifestyle on its renewables alone would be very difficult. A renewable-based energy solution will necessarily be large and intrusive.

And page 103, his 'red stack' is consumption, his 'green stack' is production of renewables - he manages to get them to almost match, but...

The red stack in figure 18.1 adds up to 195 kWh per day per person. The green stack adds up to about 180 kWh/d/p. A close race! But please remember: in calculating our production stack we threw all economic, social, and environmental constraints to the wind. Also, some of our green contributors are probably incompatible with each other: our photovoltaic panels and hot-water panels would clash with each other on roofs; and our solar photovoltaic farms using 5% of the country might compete with the energy crops with which we covered 75% of the country. If we were to lose just one of our bigger green contributors – for example, if we decided that deep offshore wind is not an option, or that panelling 5% of the country with photovoltaics at a cost of £200 000 per person is not on – then the production stack would no longer match the consumption stack.

-ERD50

 

[Texas Proud]

One of the points of the article was that a reduction in emissions does nothing... repeat.. nothing... for the long term rise in sea level... there is already enough global warming gasses in the air to do the damage...


An analogy... we have all heard that it takes a long time to stop or turn an oil tanker... and I remember reading an article from this reporter who was on a training simulator for driving a ship.... he was in some narrow passage and did not make the turn when he should have.... the instructor told him he was going to crash.. IIRC it took 5 minutes for the ship to crash... but when the instructor told the guy, it was already to late...


From what I am reading from a lot of the articles... we have past the point and we are going to crash... maybe the question is can we do anything to make the crash 'softer' or not... but we are going to crash none the less... all the people who talk about limiting the global warming gasses seem to imply that we can avoid the crash... but when push comes to shove they seem to admit that 'something' will happen... and they do not know the real answer to what that 'something' really is.... and they can not tell us if the crash that will happen will be X amount greater or lessor if we did what they want... the range of errors overlap... so we can be not so bad if we do nothing.. or we can be really bad even if we do everything...

I just want to know what benefit I will get with the tens of thousand of dollars they want me to spend to 'pollute' less.... now, with a lot of the older problems... we got cleaner air, cleaner water... stuff that was easy to see the benefits... here I can not see for sure any real benefit when it comes to the water rising... again, there might be clean air benefits and some other good things that can come out of some of this... we will see...

 

[lets-retire]

As I read through the pages a few things that occurred to me.

Britain, from what I've heard, is already having trouble meeting it's electricity requirements.

The warmest modern year on record was 1998. Atmospheric CO2 has continued to increase in the last 11 years, but the temperature has not. This causes a huge question in my mind as to how important CO2 really is at effecting the weather.

As to Pascal's argument, believing because it is better then not believe is not belief. It is covering your bases. Personally I choose not to believe.

We already have the technology to lower our carbon footprint. From reports I've read the majority of our oil and coal consumption comes as a result of the production of electricity. Simply changing to nuclear power plants would reduce the CO2 output. I do agree that the problem of disposal of nuclear waste is an issue. But as a nuclear scientist once told me, "The solution to pollution is dilution." I don't know, but would it be possible to maybe take the nuclear waste and basically reverse enrich it? So instead of pulling radioactive atoms out of unenriched material we put it back in non-radioactive material.

 

[ERD50]

The warmest modern year on record was 1998. Atmospheric CO2 has continued to increase in the last 11 years, but the temperature has not. This causes a huge question in my mind as to how important CO2 really is at effecting the weather.

While I understand the difference between short term changes and long term trends, I found this piece to be very interesting. The New York Times, no less, reporting that reputable scientists propose we may not see any global warming over a 30 year period (emph mine):

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/science/earth/23cool.htm?_r=1

Mojib Latif, a prize-winning climate and ocean scientist from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Kiel, in Germany, wrote a paper last year positing that cyclical shifts in the oceans were aligning in a way that could keep temperatures over the next decade or so relatively stable, even as the heat-trapping gases linked to global warming continued to increase.

... faced with an intricate challenge: building momentum for an international climate treaty at a time when global temperatures have been relatively stable for a decade and may even drop in the next few years [ERD50 note - see how they changed "the next decade or so" to "the next few years"?].

Interesting spin. 30 years (the past 10 plus two more decades) of no global warming isn't a good thing according to NYT, it is an inconvenience for those people who are trying to tell us how bad global warming is. We can't let a little detail like no increase in global temperature affect our thinking on global temperature!

30 years! Gosh, I probably won't even live long enough to know how this turns out. Darn it!


-ERD50

 

[samclem]

I'm guessing Dr Latif won't be getting an invitation to Al Gore's Christmas party at the mansion.

If we get a decade or two of stable temps, we can all just hop in our flying cars to go to higher ground before the water comes up.

Even the most ardent believers in man-made GW concede that higher CO2 levels will lead to higher CO2 uptake and binding (by more algae, phytoplankton, etc). If this accelerated re-uptake, together with a reduction in the growth rate of man-made CO2 in the atmosphere (via whatever means) starts reducing overall atmospheric CO2 before the present cyclical climate cooling described by Latif runs its course, we might dodge the global warming bullet entirely (or mostly).

I think a lot of people are having trouble accepting that the climate modellers really know what is coming. The "there's no more need for debate, we have consensus" crowd loses a lot of credibility when the "consensus" model requires frequent significant adjustment in the face of real-world data. "Okay, this time we really mean it" is getting tiresome. Scientific progrss demands continued inquiry and skepticism.

The same goes for retirement portfolio modeling, by the way.

 

[harley]

It appears this issue of decreased oil production is even more critical than we previously knew! It effects other issues that are of extreme importance.

The Hubbert Peak Theory of Rock, or, Why We’re All Out of Good Songs | Overthinking It

via http://reason.com/blog/

 

[eridanus]

The warmest modern year on record was 1998.

2005

 

[eridanus]

Interesting spin. 30 years (the past 10 plus two more decades) of no global warming isn't a good thing according to NYT,

First, the last 10 years have seen 4/5 of the hottest years in modern records. The year 2008 was #10.

Second, Latif was mis-quoted. His presentation was about the variability of single-year records compared to the long-term warming trend. In fact, Latif believes in AGW.

So it looks like he'll be at Al Gore's party after all.

 

[Maurice]

Who would have guessed there were so many climatologists on this site?

 

[ERD50]

First, the last 10 years have seen 4/5 of the hottest years in modern records. The year 2008 was #10.

Second, Latif was mis-quoted. His presentation was about the variability of single-year records compared to the long-term warming trend. In fact, Latif believes in AGW.

So it looks like he'll be at Al Gore's party after all.

Yes, I did get the impression that Latif believes that there are underlying, long term global warming mechanisms in action. And that these 30 year stable temperatures he predicts are masking those.

But I find the NYT response interesting. Seems OK to refer to last ten years as some kind of "proof" of AGW, but thirty years of stable temperature must be explained away. Global temperatures only seem important if they match your view.

And Latif may be right on all counts, but that does give us 30 years to understand this better. Unless we really are at a tipping point now, but in that case I think our future is set anyhow. I suspect that we will get a clearer picture and find better solutions (if needed) in the future.

I like harley's graph - looks like better correlation than anything I've seen in that Nobel Award winning book. I wonder how that would correlate with "years the Rolling Stone Contributors were in their teens"? I'm unable to explain the rise of "great songs" in the late 80's. We should probably throw those samples out, they don't agree with my beliefs .


-ERD50

 

[FinanceDude]

Al Gore is welcome to come up to Wisconsin anytime this winter, whereupon I will promptly throw him into a snowbank..........

 

[Texas Proud]

First, the last 10 years have seen 4/5 of the hottest years in modern records. The year 2008 was #10.

Second, Latif was mis-quoted. His presentation was about the variability of single-year records compared to the long-term warming trend. In fact, Latif believes in AGW.

So it looks like he'll be at Al Gore's party after all.

Seems the story is gone from the link.... (so not sure you are talking about the original or not)...

But I do not think he was mis-quoted. IIRC, he did believe in global warming... what he said that was not what a lot of other people have siad is 'its to late'... even if we did not put any more global warming gasses into the atmosphere, we will have a large rise in the oceans...

 

[eridanus]

Yes, I did get the impression that Latif believes that there are underlying, long term global warming mechanisms in action. And that these 30 year stable temperatures he predicts are masking those.

But I find the NYT response interesting. Seems OK to refer to last ten years as some kind of "proof" of AGW, but thirty years of stable temperature must be explained away. Global temperatures only seem important if they match your view.

His presentation was actually about these very arguments. He didn't predict that there would be 30 years of stable temperatures. He suggested that this could happen...and then people would be calling him up and asking why he "lied" about global warming when, in fact, it was still occurring but was masked by a giant heat sink. Of course, the heat sink is easily measured.

 

[harley]

That's funny. I posted that little laugher chart in this thread as a joke, just because it seemed like the most appropriate place to put it. Then the conversation, which had ended 40 days ago, continued just like there hadn't been a break at all.

It's like when your dvd hangs up for a while, then picks right back up. We've got some accomplished arguers on this forum.

 

[TromboneAl]

Here's a link that works:

Two meter sea level rise unstoppable: experts | Science | Reuters

Reducing the earth's population from 6 billion to 2 billion over the next 300 years would make it a lot easier to deal with the decreased amount of real estate.