Educated" opinions on climate change - Part 4 27

[jmw]

The video is completely misrepresenting the true situation.

Take his column A where we spend the money.
If spending the money creates global economic recession when it is false, it will cause the same global economic recession if it GCC is true.
Except. He talks about Global Climate Change man-made or not.
That's the danger of re-branding half way through.
We are back again at the runaway greenhouse or the new ice age.
So his real options are:
[ul][li]GCC Warming true[/li]
[li]GCC ice age true[/li]
[li] either or but nothing we can do[/li][/ul]
Now when we act we have two options, to combat warming or to combat cooling. There is no proof of either.
SO we have far more outcomes to consider and any mismatch combination is not only going to create global economic recession (unless we do nothing) it also has a 50/50 chance of making things a whole lot worse.

Now lets go to the d nothing column. Whatever the options we have to consider that doing nothing in each case is the safest option unless we know for damn sure what the true condition is because that smiley face has aabout one appearance in five.
SO in his row 2 column 2 where the doom and gloom catastrophe is outlined, that also applies to several of the options in column 1.

We can all draw smiley faces. But at 6 minutes 47 seconds in I'm thinking this guy is pitching it perfectly to all those who believers.

This presentation is a sort of shell game. He tells you your options but you really have to list your own options and check up on him.
You must in fairness to his logic consider the various options as I've outlined them above or you are cheating as he is.

If I say you can be rich and unhappy or poor and happy, we all know we have to choose to be poor and happy.

But, you shouldn't accept that those are the only two options just because I tell you so.
You can on your own initiative ad in rich and happy and poor and unhappy.
Once you do that you realise that the optimum outcome is diametrically opposite to the original. Now instead of choosing to be poor, to suffer all sorts of global economic catastrophe, you choose to be rich. That's because being rich and unhappy is better than poor and unhappy.

In our scenario it would be a real B***ger to wake up having spent all your money and committed yourself to a global economic depession only to discover you spent it on the wrong thing because now you need even more money to fix the previous fix and fix the real problem and you don't have money.
Better to wake up one morning and have money left to help you survive.

Of course, once they can really prove not only which scenario is true but the magnitude and the true benefit/deficit of that scenario then you can do something.
If there's no time left. Too bad. The no time left scenario s true of any outcome but doubly true of any wrong choice first time round precautionary principle.

The guy says he has run this by all his friends and no one can fault his logic? Yeah? then get new friends.



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[jmw]

PS why are the ratings and comments disabled for this video?

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[jmw]

For such a long running 4th thread it is appropriate to link to a rather long Senate Minority Report which begins:

This updated report includes an additional 300 (and growing) scientists and climate researchers since the initial release in December 2007.
The over 700 dissenting scientists are more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52)who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.
The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grow louder in 2008 and 2009 as a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real world data and inconvenient developments challenged the UN’s and former Vice President Al Gore's claims that the "science is settled" and there is a "consensus." On a range of issues, 2008 and 2009 proved to be challenging for the promoters of man-made climate fears.

The full report is here .....255 pages..... it deserves to be read.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index....Store_id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[moltenmetal]

jmw: we may be happy, and consider ourselves to be rich, but the people who won the geological lottery are richer still for far less effort on their part.

Face it: the core to your argument is that changing things is risky, whereas the status quo might not be. A fine argument IF you equate change with catastrophe!

Spending money to wean ourselves gradually from utter and growing dependence on fossil fuels, a huge fraction of which is utterly and unnecessarily wasted, will not result in economic catastrophe. Saying so is baseless fear mongering. North America’s per capita energy consumption could be reduced by 30% to 50% simply by adopting the energy consumption patterns of people in Europe- people who are not poor by any stretch of the imagination.

Again the choices seem to me obvious: either keep doing what we’re already doing and run the RISK of destabilizing the earth’s climate, as one might reasonably expect by altering its content of a non-trace component by some 50% in a geological nanosecond, or choose to do something else. There will be costs and benefits to either choice, many of which will be difficult to predict.

The KEY difference between these two choices is that if we wake up fifty years from now and decide that burning fossil fuels actually represents no adverse climactic, ocean chemistry or other serious and essentially irreversible risk, we can go back to burning those fossil fuels which remain with wanton abandon.

If we’ve put the carbon into the atmosphere already and decide later that it was a very bad idea, unfortunately we’ll need to invent some brilliant “new technology” in order to undo it- in the form of a time machine.

 

[jmw]

Molten metal,
I do not believe we should "waste" resources.
I do not believe we should trash the environment.
I am happy to have lower fuel consumption and more efficient heating, more efficient and sensible use of energy.

But I don't believe you can simply use the precautionary principle as an excuse to spend money.

To act then the goals must be affordable, achievable and justifiable.

In the example posted by JospehV we had some one whose starting assumption was a very generous "We don't know." and he proceeded to construct a false logic that "justified global economic recession as a precaution by the clever strategy of postulating only a limited set of options.

Purely based on that assumption and within the terms he addressed the problem I suggested that with the more complete set of options you arrive at a quite different conclusion.

The posts about wind energy are just what they are, information on how some data is being misrepresented to us.

JosephV suggested that Germany was doing wonderfully, which may be true, but implied a link to their green policies.

Now, there really shouldn't be any obejection to using fossil fuels rather than not using them since if they are not used, they just sit in the ground.

There are several pollution aspects which, over the years, have been and are being addressed.

The issue of particulates is always relevant when the emissions are at the surface where we live.
However, to suggest the world is getting worse is false.
Data collected globally about particulates (for the impact on morbidity) shows that, in the UK for example, particulates in some inner cities does occassionally exceed the threshold but mostly it does not. Compared with pollution in the 50's particulates are actually substantially lower.
The study that hasn't been done and is yet to be done is to assess the impact of modern living on our exposure to particulates. That is to say, more of the population lives indoors these days and more and more homes and offices have air conditioning. Also more and more people have cars that have air filters and certainly are less open than in the 50s.
Another aspect is that with the mobility that populations now experience post the 50s people now commute further to work.
This, as you'd expect, increase pollution from fossil fuels. However, what it has also done is allow the migration of factories from the cities to the periphery. That move is commented on in the reports because they hav associated a significant lowering of morbidity with that move.

The inference is that particulate levels are lower today than previously and we are less exposed to them.
For example, one of the particulates we most worry about is NOX. It is harmful if released at head height but the total amount produced by man is insignificant compared to natural production by bacteria, electrical storms and so on and of the anthropogenic contribution the most significant is from agriculture.

To concede JosepheV's point SOX is rather unpleasant but the same response applies. As a fossil fuel emission it si from cars and lorries we suffered most.
SOX has another role which is as a global chilling agent. It is proposed it should be released into the atmosphere to help combat global warming.

Now you come to CO2.
That CO2 is a pollutant is rubbish. That it is a significant cause of Golbal wrming is also questionable.
To invest vast amounts of money, to invite global economic recession combatting something that does us no harm is nonsense.

I'd be quite happy to see renewables replace fossil fuels where appropriate if it were justified.

There was another link posted to Blombergs presentation which looked at cost benefits. Combating global warming will benefit far far fewer people at far far greater cost than tackling aids or malaria or something tangible and proven. Notethat Blomberg does not say AGW isn't happening or that Global warming isn't happening, he just says it the least god way to spend our money.

And no, I don't equate change with catastrophe, I built the argument on the same terms as it was presented. He suggested global economic depression (which the Stern reports leaves us no reason to doubt).
He suggested we could cgain this state by spending money because of the two smiley faces this would be best. I merely suggest that if, and only within the terms he set out, you evaluate his argument for the precautionary principle, it is a fallacious argument.

By the way, if there ever were a risk of destroying the climate in a nano second by some trace element creeping above some nominal value it has far exceeded in the past then I rather suspect it would have happened long long ago.

Things don't happen in nano seconds. Not even asteroid strikes.... they have a long way to come, or volcanic eruptions... we may not know when they will happen but we are getting more informed every day.
Frankly we have no chance of surviving any of these ELEs, by definition, but there may be any number of more probable but less severe events we should be prepared to survive.

But not if we "waste" money.
Wasting resources is never good. Wasting our ability to respond is criminal.






JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[owg]

I agree (reluctantly) that we should reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. However this is only half of the story. Some reduction will come from efficiency gains, but a lot has to come from other sources of energy. I have not seen any yet that come close to filling the gap. Can we agree that baling hay, while providing a lot of employment, is not one of the energy solutions? And neither are windmills at 20% installed capacity, and 5% operating capacity. However these two activities together make very good subjects for artists.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[josephv]

"Let's consider wind energy.
It is subsidised. Heavily." JMW

André de Moor presented a calculation where worldwide energy subsidies were $240 US billion in 2001.

Fossil fuels were subsidized to a total of $150 US billion. Note this calculation does not include the worldwide tax exemptions for aircraft and ship fuels which is around $250 US billion.

Hermann Scheer referred to this as the greatest case of corporate welfare in history.

Renewable energy was at $9 US billion. 3.7% of the total.

Imagine, these subsidies were changed, so that we benefited from less pollution, energy security, etc.

 

[jmw]

And what proportion of the total was renewable energy?

What is Andre De Moor's definition of a subsidy?
I note from one of the articles out there they say he has a new definition; his own (we listened to Gordon Brown too long to take everything he says at face value and it breeds a healthy suspicion of any incomplete or facile data presented).

Perhaps you would link to this article, that seems usual here.

It might help to know the date stamp on the data or the article.
I mean, if renewable energy only takes 3.7% of the total subsidies, then your point's fine if renewable energy is anywhere from 3.7% of the energy total and up.
But if renewables, at the time of the data, were 1%, say, and subsidies on renewables have been steadily increasing ever since, then that's something else again.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[cranky108]

It would also be nice to know the total taxes, not just the subsidies. Total taxes=taxes-subsidies.
This would give a real picture on the subsidy issue.

 

[owg]

The fossil fuel industry must be a wonderful thing. It can receive massive subsidies from States, Provinces, and countries while paying massive amounts into the economies of States, Provinces, and countries, making them rich beyond the dreams of avarice. How do they do that? Maybe its a timing variance.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[jmw]

Here is a very interesting article and quite thought provoking.
For one thing it raises the question of the extent to which soot and particulates impact on albedo affects.... the ice caps are actually primarily radiative rather than reflective.

So, have a read.
Interestingly the variability of the sun and the relative stability of the temperature over the last few billion years necessarily must involve some kind of temperature regulating mechanism, what ever it is.
This is not counter to the argument that climate depends on solar activity since it does conform to the idea that small climate changes can be driven by solar activity but that the regulator mechanism prevents those solar effects becoming extreme.

Incidentally, note the importance of ocean currents in a number of recent papers about missing AGW predicted effects.

It says a lot for the value of water to life on this planet.
Here is the link:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/14/the-thermostat-hypothesis/

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[rb1957]

agreed, an interesting read. my 2c ...

1) if the global temperature as be stable (within a few %) whilst the phyical climate has changed in and out of ice ages, then it isn't a good predictor of anything !

2) increased storm activity, which seems to me to be consistent with the thermostat hypothesis, is a prediction of the CC lobby.

 

[jmw]

In case anyone is persuaded that China is a convert to AGW and Kyoto, note that they have made a lot of well judged and "friendly" noises about limiting their increasing emissions of CO2,but committed to nothing.

On the other hand their campaign to acquire all the fossil fuels they can continues as this article, here taken from the telegraph but easily found elsewhere from internet searches, shows quite well.
Nigeria has some pretty impressive reserves and 1/6 is significant.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...a-seeks-a-sixth-of-Nigerias-oil-reserves.html

Of course, the more reserves that China acquires the less there is for anyone else unless we see that made up from elsewhere and at higher prices.
This ongoing campaign to acquire fuels ad minerals by China is their right. But what it does expose is the danger to western energy supplies.
The great renewable energy crusade has had the effect of spoiling forward planning for conventional energy (including nuclear) and left countries very much exposed for fossil fuels.
In the Uk energy poverty is likely to come fairly soon.
There is no way to build enough win farms, enough gas or oil fired or even coal fired power stations and certainly not nuclear in anything like time enough to cover the shortfall.

That means buying electricity from France.
This has usually been the case anyway since France produces excess which it does sell to the UK.

However, if you believe in the AGW publicity, be very afraid.

This year the warm dry weather meant France had to buy electricity from the Uk. This is because the French Nuclear power stations are on rivers and river flows were lower so cooling water was not as available.

The whole mess created by AGW is that CO2 concerns were not enough to encourage investment in nuclear power. The same CND types proved as susceptible to the green message as to the nuclear, and thus there has been an abdication of responsibility for forward energy planning.

Tough times are ahead.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[tinfoil]

I have a 'Kyoto' carbon question:

A country produces X bushels of wheat, producing Y tonnes of CO2 as a by-product. (Let Y contain whatever you want, including fertilizer production, water pumping, transportation, tractor fuel, tractor production, etc).

Therefore, each bushel of wheat 'costs' X/Y=Z tonnes CO2 per bushel.

Now, assume a large portion of that wheat is exported to another country.

My question: Which country should be held responsible for the carbon footprint of the wheat? The one that MADE the wheat, or the one that CONSUMED it? What if the ship that moved the wheat was registered to a third country? Where does THAT carbon footprint get recognized?

 

[cranky108]

tinfoil, Does the wheat not include carbon that was once in the air? And in the growing process did the plant not release the oxygen?
So for the few old farmers, that use horses, and old style maneure, would there not be a carbon credit, not a footprint?

Yes I've seen these guys driving there horse buggies down the side of the road.

And which country is to pay for the footprint for the steel used in wind power plants? Or the energy to make photovoltaic panels?

 

[btrueblood]

Yeah, but once the wheat is eaten, all that trapped CO2 in the carbohydrates gets released by the human/goat/chicken/whatever that digests it. Although, more CO2 by weight is trapped in the cellulose stems (straw) than in the wheat kernels...so maybe we need to figure out how to tax the bacteria that digest the straw...hmmm.

 

[GregLocock]

China has already announced that it has no intention of accepting responsibility for CO2 used for export goods, that CO2 will be assigned to the end user.

That's not unreasonable if you think about it.



Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[cranky108]

Traped CO2? Sounds like I could just open it up and release it.

So you did not give an answer on the second part.

 

[jmw]

I hear they will ban CO2 in beer.....









............just kidding.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[btrueblood]

Those pesky yeast!