One engineers perspective on global warming 33

In forum1554 MVP members of eng-tips.com develop articles for publication on the Internet. This informal peer-review process has resulted in several articles being published thus far. Early indications make this seem to be an effective way to make information available to the engineering profession.

One of the articles was on my perspective on global warming. It was published today.

I would be very interested to participate in a discussion here about the article or the subject in general. There were several conversations that were started and then cut short in the Engineering Writers Guild because that group is intended to promote publication, not debate points of view. If anyone want to take up those conversations, this is the place to do it (although it is too late to correct formatting, grammar, or punctuation errors).

The article is available at: One engineer's perspective on global warming

Thank you to all of those who worked hard on this article to keep me more or less honest. I had a lot of help, but at the end of the day any errors and/or omissions are mine. I'll share the credit for the good stuff, but I own the mistakes.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[rb1957]

"Amazing we are having this wildly heated debate over nothing more than conserving a limited resource." ... no, we're not.

we're not debating whether we should conserve FF, or be more efficient in using them. in fact many carbon sequentration methods make our energy extraction less efficient (because they're focused on limiting CO2 and not the efficient use of FF).

the debate is about whether AGH are significantly affecting the climate today.

to me it makes no sense to limit CO2 creation in the first world (NA, Europe) and let the developing world (China, India) "have at it". Developing countries want (need?) cheap energy to expand and develop (and maybe sometime in the future we'll all have access to clean water?).


another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[cranky108]

Isen't it strange that the more laws we enact, the more theves and crooks we have?

This is the same problem we have with enforcing the drug laws. Not that I want to open that subject, but to make a compairson. The more laws, the more need for taxes to enforce those laws. And reductions in our freedom.

And it's the little things, like it takes me longer to drive the last 5 miles to work, than it does the first 15 miles. The difference is sitting at stop lights burning fuel for the sake of traffic calming.

 

[rb1957]

"How many would be happier with direct government mandated limits on emissions, no market, no flexibility, just jail time and property siezeure of offending facilities." ... humm, that political system has been tried ... don't think it turned out that well ...

"Or any other solution that limits fossil fuel usage" ... you want to impose rationing ? the "best" way we have to limit usage is price.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[2dye4]

""to me it makes no sense to limit CO2 creation in the first world (NA, Europe) and let the developing world (China, India) "have at it". Developing countries want (need?) cheap energy to expand and develop (and maybe sometime in the future we'll all have access to clean water?).""

Let me see if I understand. We should be unwilling to give up luxury consumption in the first world because the developing world needs to build infrastructure.

How much sense does it make to the developing world to limit their own wasteful usage if the first world will not set an example.

France, UK, Germany, Japan, Spain, Switzerland all first world countries with a little more than half the USA per capita fossil fuel usage.
Is it really so hard living in these places that are starved of energy..

The argument that we would deprive developing countries of clean water is just a bogus straw man distraction, nobody is proposing any such thing or they shouldn't be.

We could use a LOT less and not miss it once we adapted to the change.

 

[2dye4]

"" you want to impose rationing ? the "best" way we have to limit usage is price.""

Exactly , no argument there. But how without everyone howling about a government conspiracy and socialism.

Down at the root of many skeptics feelings seems to be the big bad ole guvurnment taking their money without just cause, and to be sure we do have to
watch the government carefully but what method would modify price that does not include the bad ole guvernment.

A big step would be to find some way to restore journalism in this country. We haven't had any for decades.

 

[rb1957]

"The argument that we would deprive developing countries of clean water is just a bogus straw man distraction, nobody is proposing any such thing or they shouldn't be." ... sigh, that wasn't a "straw man" ... it was meant (as it was written) as an indication of becoming more developed.



another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[beej67]

I can't believe this thread is still going on.

Now that I have some free time (been very busy the past month) I'll hit back at rconnor.

No, I'm not being over emotional. You're leading the way down a rabbit hole of bad science that is going to burn the entire environmental movement once it's exposed. And in a decade, if you're honest with yourself, you'll look back on this thread and realize that you too heavily dismissed what was obvious.

Firstly, electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles are expected to increase. More electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles plugging into a cleaner power source than the status-quo power source will further reduce emissions. So that is far from "completely made up".

Yes it is, because the EPA fact sheet didn't account for that, when it made its prediction.

Secondly, your repeated appeals to argue in some imaginary vacuum world where actions have no secondary impacts is growing stale. The world, especially the developing world, needs to see that the most powerful country and historically the biggest polluter (now 2nd largest) is taking climate change mitigation seriously.

You need to freeze, and stop, and think.

If it takes us 8 billion dollars to avert 0.02 degrees of warming, then it's going to take some other country another 8 billion to avert another 0.02 degrees. That's not 8 billion for 0.04 degrees of rise averted, it's 16 billion. If we want to avert 1.25 degrees of rise, it will take half a trillion dollars from someone, or some combination of someones. And that's half a trillion dollars that again could have been spent in conservation instead.

Just like in the science, the policy justifying this insane spending for such tiny gains only makes sense when you cheat on the control volume.

Your entire argument that "showing the rest of the world we're doing X" will cause them to do X, could apply to conservation just as easily. We could buy and preserve 75,000 square miles of rain forest, and then another developed country could preserve another 75,000 square miles of rain forest instead of doing their 0.02 degree CO2 mitigation project, etceteras. We'd have every rain forest in the entire planet permanently preserved for a fraction of the cost of half a degree of warming mitigation.

Do the math.

Fourthly, you really don't see there being any political or economic issues with the US spending $8 billion to prevent any forestry or agricultural or urban growth in the entirety of South America? Really? "We'd own it"? Every inch of forest in South America? No political issues? No economic qualms? In fact, it would be welcomed by the South Americans? Really? I guess maybe in this magical vacuum world this would be a serious alternative.

If your plan is to save the world by letting South America burn all the rain forests down while monkeying about with phantom carbon taxes, then your plan is dead as fried chicken.

If you feel that the ACC theory is destroying support for forest conservation, then why does the Woodland Trust's website say "Planting new native woods in the UK increases the size of the carbon "sink", helping to mitigate the effects of some of our greenhouse gas emissions"?

Because you goddamn carbon freaks have hijacked all of environmentalism, so the only way they can get any play is by claiming to be a carbon sink.

That's why.


Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

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[GregLocock]

Meanwhile the UN is is declaring a WOFF. it'll be interesting to see them take on China and India and persuade them to cut down on coal. Popcorn and beer recommended.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[MartinLe]

I have some problems with zdas04 article. First, this argument:

Man's track record at being able to manage nature has been horrible. We want to stabilize a river bank so we bring in foreign species of plant, the new species pushes out the native species and becomes invasive. We bring in a beetle to attack the invasive and it spreads out of control to the native plants, etc. We eradicate the large predators from Yellowstone, and life is so easy for the deer, elk, and moose that they congregate near the rivers, destroying the vegetation that stabilizes the river bank, clogging the pristine mountain streams with mud. We fight fires and create an abundance of fuel that turns "just a fire" into a "fire catastrophe".​

... is basically correct: Time and again, someone screwed up trying to manage nature. But digging and drilling up every bit of available carbon and adding it to the athmosphere is also 'managing nature'. Just in a totally unplanned way.

There's a connected issue in the article: You (zdas04) say that models can't prove anything. We are talking about probable future events. If you rule out modeling out as a base for decisions, what base have you left?
But what would it take to convince you?

Your guess is:

If we fail to respond to ACC, and ACC is a real threat, then the result will be environmental change that engineers will be in the forefront of the efforts to adapt to. If ACC is not actually changing the climate, then sunspots, the Yellowstone Caldera, falling stones from space, or space aliens will create change that engineers will have to rally to combat.​

So the model in your head says environmental change due to ACC will be managable (if it happens). This is of course not proovable, just as I can't prove that it's wrong. The model in my head says that the adaption to global warming will be hard, given 'our' track record of managing nature. Where do you take your optimism from?

 

[beej67]

ECS estimates continue to fall in the literature.

http://niclewis.files.wordpress.com..._clim-dyn2014_accepted-reformatted-edited.pdf

http://climateaudit.org/2014/09/24/...y-of-ar5-forcing-and-heat-uptake-estimates-2/

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[GregLocock]

I can't answer for zdas, but my optimism comes from

a) the sensitivity of the global surface temperature to CO2 seems to be falling, as it is more rigorously analysed, away from the funny numbers that were being used to scare people back down towards the number you'd expect from lab measurements.

b) therefore the expected temperature rises due to CO2 are rather small

c) small increases in average global surface temperature are generally good news for human beings. 2 deg C would be fine, according to the IPCC. Yes, there would be some locally bad effects, but these are outweighed by the good ones.

d) all things being equal a prosperous world can afford to build more seawalls and other rather more necessary works than a poor world.

and of course no amount of ringing of hands and weeping and wailing by the rich and fat will affect the nasty truth that neither China nor India intend to do anything other than build more power stations to burn more coal at a rate that more than compensates for any token actions in the first world.

Detachment is not apathy, as somebody said recently.







Cheers

Greg Locock


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[zdas04]

MartinLE,
Sorry, I am on a hiatus from discussing this topic. The answers to all of your questions are in the 200+ posts I've made in the various threads on this topic.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. —Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[cranky108]

Interesting article:

http://www.theguardian.com/environm...s-scientists-and-sceptics-suspend-hostilities

 

[hokie66]

And linked in cranky's article:

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20060825/53143686.html

 

[rconnor]

While there is much that I disagree with in GregLocock's last post, I'll focus on his first point regarding sensitivity. As he uses this as the basis of the rest of his argument, I feel it's a rather good place to start.

Climate sensitivity is an important topic and rather than tack it onto this drawn out, jumble of a thread, I'll start my own thread discussing Lewis and Curry 2014 and climate sensitivity in general. I'd invite GregLocock and others to off their input as well.

 

[beej67]

You mind addressing my 22 Sept post before ducking out?

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[rconnor]

I'll leave your tired and weak argument with the following: we need forest conservation AND we need a clean power supply. I hope we can agree on that. I'll let you have the final word beej67

We’ve had enough back and forth. You continue to talk around my points (I noticed you didn’t even bother addressing my third point) and claim I’m doing the same to your points. I told you I’d give you the final word. You have and I have bit my tongue.

I care very little that you so desperately cling to a single, non-reviewed study from a dubious institution and the lengths to which you stretch the conclusions are completely illogical and unsupported. The article was a (purposefully) misguided attempt to throw some mud against the wall, that was rightly never given the time of day in any serious settings. So I’ve said my part and see no use in addressing this point any further.

 

[beej67]

If we had infinite money we could fix all of the world's problems. We've covered that.

The CATO article was not a single-non-reviewed study. It wasn't a study at all. It was a simple application of the same model the EPA is using. To discredit its results, you must also discredit the EPA. Is that what you're defaulting to, at this point? You cannot poison this well without also poisoning the same well you're drinking from.

The point is of paramount importance, because the science is being used to drive policy. I want you to either support the current administration's policy of spending the available money on CO2 mitigation and ignoring conservation, or abandon it.

When you choose whether to support or abandon the current administration's policy, I would like you to reach sideways to the healthcare thread, and remember the part where we both vehemently agreed that all politicians are bought. And then ask yourself what's driving the policy. Think hard.



Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[rconnor]

See my third point, which you failed to discuss. The application of the model was done incorrectly (and I would say purposefully so).

Furthermore, the conclusions you've chosen to draw from the incorrect and inappropriate application of the model are even more outlandish. To conclude that it costs $8 billion for every 0.02 dec C drop in temperature is just flat out wrong (…even if we ignore the fact that the 0.02 deg C/$8 Billion value is based on an incorrect application of the model). To conclude that you could have spent the $8 billion (...spread out from 2014 to 2050 by the way...) on conserving every square inch of rain forest in South American, such that the US would “own the freaking land” (your words), without any political, social or economic issues is baffling ignorant.

This will be the last I say on this topic.

(You believe that because politicians are bought, EVERY action they take is counter to the people’s best interest. I believe that because politicians are bought, it’s DIFFICULT to enact progressive policy that’s in the people’s best interest. Hence why so many politicians, deep in the pockets of the oil and gas industry, have an ideological rejection of climate science. And if you feel that the Green Lobby is more powerful than the oil and gas lobby, you’re kidding yourself. It’s the “science lobby” and the people that are pushing for climate change action.)

 

[beej67]

It does not cost 8 billion for every 0.02 degree drop. It costs 8 billion for that particular 0.02 degree drop. One might reasonably assume the next 0.02 degree drop would cost more, due to the law of diminishing returns, but I've given you the benefit of the doubt on that in my rain forest preservation comparison.

For you to think you can solve the climate problem without preserving the rain forests is a lot more baffling than anything else I can think of in this thread. Your position of completely disregarding it due to nebulous, unspecified, social or economic issues confuses me, especially considering the investment we'd be making in conservation would aid their economy, and set a precedent for other first world nations to do the same.

I'll help you out with that last bit. The lobby that's pushing carbon credits is Goldman Sachs. And yes, they do have money. They were given a big pile of it by the government, remember?

I'm pretty sure I've posted this link before, but it bares reposting..

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405

also worth mentioning

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=d000000085

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybe...ing-a-killing-on-anti-carbon-investment-hype/

http://www.insidermonkey.com/hedge-fund/generation+investment+management/146/

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com