Feb
16
Climate Change Realist
Filed Under Uncategorized | 7 Comments
Ace of Spades highlights an extract from an interview with John Christy of the University of Alabama-Huntsville. It speaks to where I am on climate change:
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: There’s also something else that’s out there. Phil Jones from the University of East Anglia, the climate research unit, the guy that was at the center of this recent e-mail controversy late last year, has said in an interview with the BBC that he has not seen any, quote, “statistically significant warming since 1995,” though he says he still believes that the earth’s temperature has warmed. And he also said that he might be missing some of the data that is responsible for his climate models.
Of course, skeptics are jumping all over this, saying the whole thing is a farce. Global warming doesn’t exist.
What do you think of the Professor Jones situation, the lack of statistically significant warming, and the fact that he may have misplaced some of the records?
JOHN CHRISTY, PROFESSOR, ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE, UNIV. OF ALABAMA- HUNTSVILLE: Well, I think what Phil Jones is saying is that Mother Nature is perfectly capable of making the temperature rise and fall through the past several hundred years. And in terms of the data problems, well, we do have to be careful when we’re talking about public policy, that means trillions of dollars, and we haven’t had that very hard and critical situation where you take care of data and make it publicly available to everyone. And that needs to be done now.
Like Immigration, the debate about climate change is an either/or argument. Believe in climate change and opponents (including myself) call you an alarmist. Be sceptical of climate change and you are denialist.
Why can’t one be a realist? Is it true that the earth has warmed over the last 100 years? Yes but only slightly. Is it true that human activity has put extra CO2 into the atmosphere and that that has contributed to the warming? Very likely but not to the extent that other natural conditions also influence climate. Is global warming potentially catastrophic? Ah. Here’s the rub. There is little evidence that this is true, and when, as seen by the latest deceitful disclosures by the IPCC, catastrophic theories are put forward, they are more often than not discounted. Himalayan glaciers, the kilimanjaro glacier, polar bear numbers, a flooded Netherlands and now hurricanes have all failed the test of a second look.
But for climate change advocates to create a transformative economic and social agenda, the catastrophic element is required otherwise where is the importance of now. The climate change realist on the other hand, whilst accepting the possibility of anthropogenic climate change, does not accept the catastrophic nature of it and therefore does not accept the need for dramatic economic and social change.
And that’s where I am right now. In other words: “yeah! So what?”
Jan
3
Gaia Copes
Filed Under Uncategorized | 3 Comments
The airborne fraction of carbon dioxide hasn’t increased in the last 150 years according to this study:
some studies have suggested that the ability of oceans and plants to absorb carbon dioxide recently may have begun to decline and that the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is therefore beginning to increase.
Many climate models also assume that the airborne fraction will increase. Because understanding of the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide is important for predicting future climate change, it is essential to have accurate knowledge of whether that fraction is changing or will change as emissions increase.
To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.
In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.
The “airborne fraction” is the amount of carbon that remains in the atmosphere after the earth’s carbon sinks have absorbed what they are able. That figure has been 45% in the past, and no matter how much extra carbon we chuck up into the atmosphere, the earth continues to absorb 55% of it. That isn’t a smoking gun to shoot down climate change alarmists with; we are still putting extra carbon into the atmosphere, but it helps debunk the theory that the carbon sinks are saturating.
And in extra news. We are not alone in global warming. Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s Triton moon and Pluto are also warming. My. What do we all have in common?
Nov
30
Whilst reading some comments at Realclimate.org, I saw a comment which for me sums up the quality of the debate on climate change and how advocates of AGW view sceptics. The comment was by a commentator CCPO and is comment no 179. Read it and weep at how real debate is no longer necessary when pushing a progressive agenda, it is now a case of having to accept liberal truth without the facility for criticism:
…it is neither in the interests of the cause of reducing CO2 emmissions, nor the greater cause of upholding science itself, to assume all skeptics are Denialists.
Why? They are. If they are so ill informed as to not know the very obvious, even as laypersons, perhaps they should not be posting, eh? Since the evidence is incredibly one-sided, and even the scientists here and elsewhere don’t dispute my contention posted here and elsewhere that there is not even one paper that in any way refutes any of the underpinnings of AGW, how can they be but a denialist?
Asking me to be “nice” will get you nowhere. We’ve been too nice, and the nuts are winning.
The only thing that will stop these pugilists is for them to have consequences. They need to find themselves in criminal or civil court.
Just as in the healthcare debate, it is unacceptable to the liberal nuttery for anyone to question their assertions. Because they are backed by ’science’, we peasants should just blindly accept their judgements. They are the modern catholic church, only allowing the chosen few to interpret their ‘religious’ texts. But 15th century Catholicism was challenged by a sceptical protestant revolution and todays sceptics are becoming more and more motivated by the dogmatic left to play that protestant role.
Nov
25
These infamous e-mails. I don’t think they are necessarily the Rosetta stone that proves that AGW is a massive fraud perpetrated on human kind. Even though “hide the decline” and the “tricks” are damning statements, they don’t necessarily deny the existence of AGW. But it is the unscientific actions of these scientists at the Climate Research Unit that bothers me. Not because I’m suddenly enamoured by science, but because “peer-reviewed science” was the weapon used by AGW advocates against those that are sceptical.
It is peer-reviewed studies that advocates use to legitimise their global warming theories, it is the absence of dissent within peer-reviewed literature that AGW exists that is used to discredit scepticism:
This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect…But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.
But as these leaked e-mails reveal, it’s no wonder that there is no dissent in peer-reviewed research, they’ve acted to nobble that very process
“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.
and:
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. K and I will keep them out somehow-even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
and from Realclearpolitics:
You can also see from these e-mails the scientists’ panic at any dissent appearing in the scientific literature. When another article by a skeptic was published in Geophysical Research Letters, Michael Mann complains, “It’s one thing to lose Climate Research. We can’t afford to lose GRL.” Another CRU scientist, Tom Wigley, suggests that they target another troublesome editor: “If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.” That’s exactly what they did, and a later e-mail boasts that “The GRL leak may have been plugged up now w/new editorial leadership there.”
I’ve seen the Climate Research Unit described as the “Pentagon” of the AGW argument. The fact that they have behaved so unscientifically seriously discredits their argument and helps to demonstrate that this issue is a political, rather than a scientific one.
What these e-mails reveal is that the science is most definitely not settled, just that the nature of the debate has been deliberately manipulated to make it appear that way.
Oct
10
Cooling On Climate Change
Filed Under Uncategorized | 21 Comments
The BBC no less.
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.
It’s quite simple. If the climate models couldn’t predict the cooling, it calls into question everything the climate models show.
The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO).
For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle, that means warmer than average. And observations have revealed that global temperatures were warm too.
But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down.
These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years.
Wasn’t the climate news 30 years ago one of entering a new Ice age? What a coincidence.
The whole theme of this article is that the advocates and the sceptics can’t agree on whether AGW exists. It’s clear to me, that if there is no consensus in the scientific community, how can it be settled science?
And it matters. Governmental measures to curb CO2 emissions have a negative impact on the economy. Right now, that’s not a good thing. When the scientists get their act together, then we can talk, but for now, government should leave the hell alone on this issue.
Oct
8
Ice Ice Baby
Filed Under General Politics | 29 Comments
From the NYT:
The National Snow and Ice Data Center released its summary of summer sea-ice conditions in the Arctic on Tuesday, noting a substantial expansion of the extent of “second-year ice” — floes thick enough to have persisted through two summers of melting. The result could be a reprieve, at least for a while, from the recent stretch of remarkable summer meltdowns.
According to the center, second-year ice this summer made up 32 percent of the total ice cover on the Arctic Ocean, compared with 21 percent in 2007 and 9 percent in 2008. The percentage of ice that was many years old, forming thick pancaked expanses, was at its lowest since satellite observations began 30 years ago. But that could change next year as the second-year ice adds mass through the long winter freeze.
It must be annoying for global warming advocates when reality keeps undermining their scare-mongering:
The shifting conditions raise a question. None of the sea-ice specialists I’ve interviewed since 2000 on Arctic trends ever predicted a straight-line path to an open-water Arctic, but quite a few have stressed the longstanding idea that as white ice retreats, solar energy that would have been reflected back into space is absorbed by the dark sea, with that heat then melting existing ice and shortening the winter frozen season.
Question. Do all the different guesstimates (sorry, I meant scientific models) model the recent global cooling? If they don’t, doesn’t that make the whole case for global warming, which is based on those models, redundant?
Oct
2
John Kerry And His Emissions
Filed Under American Politics | 1 Comment
John Kerry along with Barbara Boxer has proposed a new emissions capping bill in the Senate. He doesn’t seemed to have squared the circle between a thriving economy and a reduction in CO2 emissions:
Let me emphasize something very strongly as we begin this discussion. The United States has already this year alone achieved a 6 percent reduction in emissions simply because of the downturn in the economy, so we are effectively saying we need to go another 14 percent.
That explains why energy reform proposals are so growth limiting. And there we were thinking that 9.7% unemployment was a bad thing.
Environmental reform won’t get public support if it means making personal sacrifices. I thought that Obama’s proposals to promote green industry might be a possible way to improve the environment and grow the economy, after all, it was the massive growth of tech companies in the nineties that helped bring America out of deficit. But it can’t be done by top-down micro management, and it can’t be done if the green technologies that do exist are too ineffectual to accommodate America’s energy needs.
But mainly this post was written just to say. Thank God John Kerry never became President.
Sep
28
The AGW Debate
Filed Under General Politics | 46 Comments
Intersting debate on AGW in the comments, which I’d like to hijack and centralise here if you don’t mind. I do so, so that I can credit Martin Meenagh with another interesting post of which I thought his opening paragraph was particularly true:
The twenty years before 1999 brought forth many pathologies. One was a crazy worship of ideal market systems and their imposition on everyday life, regardless of people; others included neoconservatism, faith-based abusive atheism, uncontrolled tort and human rights law, the definition of men and women as sexual beings alone, and Pelagian approaches to criminals. Another was global warming.
I’m not totally comfortable with the science on this issue, but my scepticism needs AGW to be proven, and I think we’re a long way from that.
I’ll leave Martin with the final word:
Don’t stop thinking. Don’t turn off your critical rationality. Just don’t treat grant dependent scientists as priests, or let the media-political class think for you.
Jul
10
From Investors Business Daily via HotAir.com
The Government Accountability Office have reported that hybrid and electric cars are not the saviours of the world that the environmental lobby would have us believe:
A government report says reliance on electric cars will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may merely shift our dependence on foreign sources from one set of dictators to another.
If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country’s electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?” asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report itself notes: “Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy.”
The GAO report says a plug-in compact car, if recharged at an outlet drawing its power from coal, provides a carbon dioxide savings of only 4% to 5%. If the feeling of saving the environment from driving an electric car causes people to drive more, that small amount of savings vanishes entirely.
I am sceptical about AGW. But if I was fully accepting of it, I would want my Government to make substantive efforts to reduce the risk. Unfortunately, what we seem to be getting are costly and ineffectual measures, whether it is a Cap and Trade plan that will have no effect on global temperatures, or making a bailout of GM conditional on the production of the hybrid and electric cars that the GAO refer to.
The problem of what to do has been discussed in the comments thread of a previous post and the debate has been fascinating. The trouble is, most of the measures that might alleviate AGW are either ineffectual (solar/wind) or too expensive (nuclear). I think the AGW advocates have made a rod for their own back. The sensationalist scare-mongering and heavy handed centralised approach to the issue has probably minimised the one remedy that I think could work: the voluntary hairshirt.
As more and more information on AGW was being made available, a public consensus was developing that accepted the premise of AGW and the fact that we had to ration our consumerist activities. If the AGW lobby had focused entirely on education and encouraging us to consider how we use energy, it is likely that we would have started the process of disciplining ourselves. We’d consider mileage as a factor when buying a new car, we’d use our cars less or more efficiently, we’d upgrade to more efficient lightbulbs, we’d turn off our electrical appliances rather than leave them on standby. And this self-disciplining would have fed into the private marketplace. As we’d start to demand more efficient appliances and products, industry would adapt to the new demand dynamic and provide us with what we’d want. And this would be an accumulatory process. As new efficiencies became available, we, the newly concerned citizens, would demand even greater efficiencies. Even sceptics like myself could be persuaded by arguments about energy independence or the polluting effects of excessive energy consumption.
But the environmentalists and their liberal political masters aren’t able to trust us. When a perceived crisis presents itself, the left wing machine kicks into overdrive, the crisis becomes an opportunity to empower the political classes and impose itself on the public. Mandating immediate and dramatic change becomes the strategy, rather than gradualist volunteerism. And this causes resentment and distrust which diminishes our desire for, and support of, self-rationing. If our political masters are acting on our behalf, why do we need to act ourselves? And when the actions of our political masters fail, our own inaction then exacerbates the problem.
Left alone, we might well have saved the world. But if the world is truly imperiled, the overarchingly didactic approach and incompetence of those who wish to rule us has put us at an even greater risk.
Jun
24
Last week, the CBO released an analysis of the costs incurred by the consumer in relation to Barack Obama’s Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade Bill that is, at present in committee stage in the House but is expected to hit the floor on Friday.
Previous reports of how much Cap and Trade would cost the consumer, approximately $1,600 per household has been dramatically reduced, and now the CBO are projecting that costs to consumers will only be $175 per household per year. So why the discrepancy? Well, the initial analysis didn’t take into account rebates, either direct to the consumer or to businesses.
Taking into the account the gross cost associated with complying with the cap ($110 billion); the allowance value that would flow back to U.S. households ($85 billion), both in the form of direct relief and indirectly through allocations to businesses and governments (all of which would eventually benefit households in people’s various roles as consumers, workers, shareholders, and taxpayers); and the additional transfers and costs discussed above (providing net benefits of $2.7 billion), the net economywide cost of the GHG cap-and-trade program would be about $22 billion—or about $175 per household.
So this is good news, not only for American users of energy, but also for Obama, who was caught at the tail end of the election saying:
“Under my plan of a cap and trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Businesses would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that cost onto consumers.”
Now I’m not going to question the CBO, an independent body whose analysis I’ve used to hammer Obama before over their projections of Obama’s deficits. However, there are some causes for concern in the CBO report.
Firstly, this report presupposes that the rebates to consumers, which the government can afford because of the auctioning off of energy allowances, will be passed on to the consumer on a 1:1 basis. I cannot imagine that any government who has a new source of income will ring-fence all of it to pass back to the consumer. Selling carbon allowances will net the government in the region of $130 billion to $140 billion, a very tempting pot for any government, nevermind a spend happy one like this one.
Secondly, as The Heritage Foundation report in their analysis of this report, the CBO fail to make some fairly important assumptions:
Most problematic is their complete omission of economic damage from restricting energy use. Footnote three on page four reads, “The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap. The reduction in GDP would also include indirect general equilibrium effects, such as changes in the labor supply resulting from reductions in real wages and potential reductions in the productivity of capital and labor.” That’s a pretty big chunk of change to ignore. In The Heritage Foundation’s analysis of the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation, the GDP hit in 2020 was $161 billion (2009 dollars). For a family of four, that is $1,870 that they ignore.
The report also has one marked assumption that seems to deny the normal dynamic of political life, namely that the government won’t try to curb inflation:
The distribution of the gross cost of complying with the policy would be quite different if the price level did not increase as a result of the cap—if, for example, the Federal Reserve adjusted monetary policy to prevent such an increase. In that case, the compliance costs would fall on workers and investors in the form of lower wages and profits.
“lower wages and profits” seems to me to be a particular negative for this proposal, but then maybe that’s just me.
So that looks at the Waxman-Markey bill from a cost to consumer position. But what about the cost to the economy.
The CBO addresses this in passing, noting that their analysis of the cost to the consumer does not include the transitional costs that will effect employers (and employees) as they adjust to reducing their emissions:
The measure of costs described above reflects the costs that would occur once the economy had adjusted to the change in the relative prices of goods and services. It does not include the costs that some current investors and workers in sectors of the economy that produce energy and energy-intensive goods and services would incur as the economy moved away from the use of fossil fuels.
Thus, investors would see the value of some stocks decline, and workers would face higher risk of unemployment as jobs in some sectors were eliminated.
Some of those job losses might be mitigated by an increase in green technology investment but this doesn’t fit very well with the experiences of Spain who tried the transition from older to greener technologies – for every green job created, 2.2 jobs were lost in the old economy. So there are great risks to employment from this bill. That seems somewhat foolish at a time of recession and already high unemployment.
I don’t view this bill as entirely negative, there are some things to like. Firstly, a reduction on the use of fossil fuels will lessen America’s dependence on foreign oil (a key plank of the GOP party it should be noted). Secondly, transitioning to newer technologies and retiring dirtier and less efficient older technologies is a normal part of economic development. However, the timing of this bill is all wrong it seems to me. Passing it once America is through a recession would make much more sense, there is a lot of potential for short term pain (unemployment, lower wages, lower profits) before any possibility of long term gain.
And as for that long term gain, doesn’t the key argument become “any pain is worthwhile if this bill helps lessen future climate change?”. According to climatologist Chip Knappenberger, the effect on global temperature in 2050 that this bill results in will be nine hundreths of one degree fahrenheit. Gosh!!!!