This is a continuation of a remarkable thread that has now received 10,000 comments running to well over a million words. Unfortunately its size has become a problem and this is the reason for the move.
The history of the New Statesman thread goes back to December 2007 when Dr David Whitehouse wrote a very influential article for that publication posing the question Has Global Warming Stopped? Later, Mark Lynas, the magazine’s environment correspondent, wrote a furious reply, Has Global Warming Really Stopped?
By the time the New Statesman closed the blogs associated with these articles they had received just over 3000 comments, many from people who had become regular contributors to a wide-ranging discussion of the evidence for anthropogenic climate change, its implications for public policy and the economy. At that stage I provided a new home for the discussion at Harmless Sky.
Comments are now closed on the old thread. If you want to refer to comments there then it is easy to do so by left-clicking on the comment number, selecting ‘Copy Link Location’ and then setting up a link in the normal way.
Here’s to the next 10,000 comments.
Useful links:
Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with 1289 comments.
Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.
The original Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs thread is here with 10,000 comments.
Pete,
I’m reminded that you’ve never explained to the rest of us where all of the “hidden heat” is……….
PeterM
The questions I raised are of paramount importance, if we wish to continue living in a democratic society rather than an autocratic dictatorship.
Until these are answered in a manner that ensures a democratic process, it is hardly worth moving to step 2.
But let’s quickly discuss the personal carbon quota anyway.
– How do we ensure that this is equitable?
– Who will decide this?
– Does a resident of Dhaka get the same as a resident of Washington, DC?
– Does an urban resident of Shanghai get the same as a poor peasant in NW China?
– Would I get the same allotment as Al Gore?
– How about President Obama?
– Who will pay for the bureaucratic apparatus to manage this all?
– How will it be funded?
Peter, this proposal sounds horrible the more one looks at it. I’m afraid you’d have a hard time selling it to anyone in a democratic society. Even forcing it down someone’s throat at gunpoint might be hard to do.
But let’s move on to the last part. You wrote:
– So we start where we are today, and implement this plan by 2015.
– Then we squeeze everyone’s allotment by, let’s say 2% every year.
– Sounds good, so far, but how do all these individuals get by with 2% less “carbon footprint” per year, i.e. what actionable proposals are there to achieve this? (Ride the bike to work, change out light bulbs, eat more raw rather than cooked food, etc.)
– No actionable proposal = no carbon reduction (by definition).
– How will one measure an individual’s “carbon footprint”?
– Will a child of 15 years of age receive the same quota as an adult?
– Will that child’s allotment be decreased every year or increased when it becomes an adult?
– What about newborns? Do they receive a carbon allotment at birth?
– If so, doesn’t this increase the overall carbon footprint of a society if its population increases?
Wow! I’m getting a headache from all this, and I still haven’t been able to calculate whether or not there will be any climate impact, but I can see that there will be one helluva negative impact on our democratic society.
Just think of the “anti-carbon-quota tea parties” that will spring up all over the non-autocratic world.
There might even be massive “tea-party-like” demonstrations such as those we’ve just seen in Cairo that toppled Mubarak.
OK.
Now to the impact on our climate:
Let’s say this scheme gets fully implemented by 2015.
Let’s say population grows by a CAGR of 0.28% on average to a level of 9 billion by 2100 (UN “middle growth” case)
Let’s say we reduce everyone’s quota by 2% per year, based on the last year’s allotment.
And let’s assume that everyone stays within the reduced quota, reducing it by 2% below the previous year every year.
In this way the “new” CO2 emitted will be reduced by 2% of the last year’s value per year.
Today’s human CO2 emissions are around 30 Gt/year
This results in an annual increase of 2 ppmv in atmospheric CO2 today.
Today’s atmospheric CO2 concentration is 390 ppmv
So, running the numbers out to year 2100, we would have an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 580 ppmv if we continued at the current CAGR of 0.44% per year (close to IPCC Case B1).
If we implement the above plan, we will have an atmospheric CO2 concentration by year 2100 of 480 ppmv, so a net reduction of 100 ppmv.
What temperature impact would this have (even using the inflated IPCC 2xCO2 temperature impact assumptions)?
With no “quota” scheme, we would have a calculated equilibrium dT of 1.83C above today.
With this “quota” scheme, we would have a calculated equilibrium dT of 0.96C above today.
So this (IMHO undoable) scheme would reduce the temperature in year 2100 by 0.87C – less than 1 degree!
(By 2050, the impact is much less, of course.)
Yep, not only is this “carbon quota” scheme undoable in a democratic society, but it is also a completely “harebrained” scheme (because it achieves nothing), as I am sure you can see
Max
But, but………..Al Gore said that it was supposed to get Warmer!
“The Earth has a fever” – Al Gore
Produce prices skyrocket with freeze in Mexico, Southwest
http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Produce-prices-skyrocket-overnight-115985429.html
Cross posted from the Nurse thread
Peter #50
You resolutely fail to answer specific questions raised to you.
That the global historic temperature is garbage you must know as well as I do as you refuse to engage on it. SST’s measured by throwing buckets over the side in an ad hoc fashion? Land emperatures recorded in a variety of highly inconsistent ways using inaccurate devices and severely compromised by an overwhelming number highly contaiminated by uhi.
I have provided figures as to how much it would cost to reduce global temperatures by one tenth of a degree. $500-750 billion per year indefinitely.
You have not disputed them or given your own. Why won’t you engage on this? Is it because you realise that even IF the calculations of co2 effects are correct there is nothing we can effectively do about it and the money woud be far better spent in other ways.
The Uk can’t aford to find our ‘share’ to reduce our miniscule share of the temperature rise at some £50 billion a year.
Why do you think it necessary to wear hair shirts in order to remove one tenth of a degree in total?
If you dispute them why not come up with your own figures?
Whilst you’re about it please answer the question as to why you believe the historic SST figures-created by fishermen- but not the historic co2 record created by scientists?
I have cross posted this on the other thread as I suspect this has been done in the wrong place.
tonyb
Max 3552
All the calculations and proposals on tackling dangerous climate change have already been carried out by the British Govt.
“The Government must shape and inform public opinion so that the UK will be able,
if needed, to reduce its emissions at rates in excess of what is possible currently.
(Paragraph 12)
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmenvaud/228/228i.pdf
The above is from the environmental audit committee who in the past have have suggested carbon ration cards but whilst keeping this very much on the agenda are more circumspect in their language-personal carbon allowances is the watch word.
Everyone in the world will have the same.
Unfortunately the UK govt are world leaders in tackling the ‘problem’, everyone resding here will follow in our footsteps. As Brute said it is a very dark place. And for what? A tempetature reduction of one tenth of a degree for an expenditure of $500 billion a year.
Complete state sponsored lunacy.
tonyb
A New Low?: BBC compares ‘climate change deniers’ to ‘pedophiles’ and ‘racists’
http://www.realclimategate.org/2011/02/the-bbc-say-in-the-loathsome-corner-with-paedophiles-and-climate-change-deniars/
Max,
The sentence:
“Until these are answered in a manner that ensures a democratic process, it is hardly worth moving to step 2”
illustrates the fallacy of your argument. The laws of Physics, unfortunately for us, don’t yield to any notions we might hold on the desirability of the democratic process. I don’t share your pessimism about the resilience of the democratic process, but even if I were wrong and you were right on that point, it wouldn’t mean that the Physics behind AGW theory was wrong too.
Brute,
You ask where is the “hidden heat”. I’m sure you really don’t want to know the answer to this question and ,I’m not sure why I’m bothering to give you an answer but here goes:
You’re not going to find hidden heat by looking in any particular place and its not a term I would use. It really means that there is a time delay between cause and full effect.
Your room doesn’t get instantly warmer when you switch on the central heating. Headaches don’t disappear instantly on swallowing a few pain killers.
I’m sure you can think of plenty of examples of your own. Its not that hard.
Blimey! I quickly looked at Brute’s link and thought that the Realclimate people had used the word “deniars”
That would have been embarrassing. But, I should have looked more carefully. “Realclimategate”, I’ve no doubt, is run by “deniars” themselves. So maybe we should bow to their wishes and redefine the way the word should be spelled.
Pete,
Ok, so now it’s patently obvious that;
a) You know that there has not been any increase in the amount of energy retained and don’t want to admit it.
Or……….
b) You have absolutely no clue of what you’re talking about.
Good day sir!
PeterM
You wrote:
Forget the “laws of physics”. The GH theory is not the topic of conversation here, nor is it being questioned.
It is the proposal you brought up to induce every person in this world to reduce his/her carbon footprint by assigning a “carbon quota”, which is reduced over time.
That requires a political process by which everyone agrees to do this. In a democratic society, this would have to be done by majority vote, either directly or through democratically elected representatives.
In an autocratic dictatorship, this policy could be imposed from the top down (at gunpoint, if necessary) but fortunately many of us do not live in such a repressive society.
Is this what you would like to see, in order to “save the world”?
Max
PeterM
Back to my long post 3552, where we established the “equilibrium” temperature difference by year 2100 of imposing (and enforcing) a world-wide carbon quota on every man, woman and child.
This turned out to be 0.87C.
But wait!
This was based on the IPCC estimate of 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of 3.2C.
There are physical observations out there (Spencer et al.) that tell us this could be 0.6C instead.
Let’s say it’s somewhere in between: 1.0C (assumes all feedbacks cancel one another out).
That would put the temperature “savings” at o.27C at “equilibrium”
But hold on!
We have “heat hidden in the pipeline”, right?
So only around two thirds of this energy will already show up by 2100, and the difference will be reduced to even less: probably around 0.17C.
Ouch! We can’t even measure this!
Peter, the more we look at this non-democratic scheme the more “hare-brained” it becomes.
My advice to you (in New Yorkese): fuggidaboudit!
Max
Brute,
The sun does a pretty good job of creating energy – it loses mass of course but that’s another story.
The Earth both absorbs energy from the sun and radiates energy out into free space. Depending on whether one is greater than another the Earth warms or cools. However, you’ll know from your own experience that warming or cooling takes a finite time, particularly when large thermal masses are involved. That’s a better description than ‘hidden in the pipeline’.
I know you understand this – you’re just throwing up flak because you don’t want to understand it.
Max,
So you are saying, even if AGW were in fact the problem conventional science says it to be, a democratic system would be incapable of solving it? “That requires a political process by which everyone agrees to do this.”
Actually it’s not everyone, just a majority will do.
That’s democracy isn’t it? Maybe you could campaign to be conscientious objectors and keep your V8s etc. I doubt it somehow.:-)
…..
Is 2 x CO2 as low as 0.6degC? Unfortunately no. We’ve already had more warming than that with just a 40% increase in CO2.
The measured empirical results for AGW are quite consistent with the IPCCs 3 deg C figure.
PeterM
You wrote to Brute:
No. You’ve got it all wrong about “hidden in the pipeline” (this has nothing to do with “warming or cooling large masses”).
If you really want to know how Hansen et al. came up with this canard, I’ll be glad to go through their original paper on this.
The “pipeline” in which the “missing energy” was supposedly being “hidden” was the upper ocean.
This story worked well enough, as long as there were no good measurements of upper ocean temperature, as was the case when there were only the very crude XBT measurements (which were later shown to introduce a warming bias, as Josh Willis, the team leader – and co-author of the “pipeline” paper – conceded).
Then came the ARGO measurements in 2003. These were quite costly to install and de-bug, but gave a much more accurate and comprehensive picture of upper ocean temperature (down to a few hundred meters) than had previously been available.
But wait a minute!
Everyone was surprised to see that these showed that the upper ocean was cooling, instead of warming. Team leader, Willis was baffled, and referred to it as a “speed bump”. Craig Loehle got all the data together and wrote a study concerning the net cooling that has occurred.
Now to the dilemma (Trenberth called it a “travesty”).
At the same time (as you know), the atmosphere cooled both at the surface and in the troposphere – in other words, our planet cooled.
This “unexplained lack of warming” of our planet directly falsifies Hansen’s “pipeline” postulation, because the “missing energy” is not “hiding” in the “upper ocean” as postulated by the theory. It has “vanished”. Gone. Disappeared.
Frantic attempts were made to show that it might have by-passed the upper ocean (undetected?) to go into the deep ocean, but these have been discounted.
Besides, even if it had disappeared into the deep ocean, it is gone forever, because the “heat sink” there is so great and the postulated resulting temperature increase so minimal that it will never be seen again.
So the “hidden in the pipeline” postulation has been falsified and can “Rest In Peace”.
Max
Pete,
If the planet absorbs increasingly more energy from sunlight than it radiates back into free space (theoretically due to being trapped by greenhouse gases), the temperature on the planet (somewhere) would rise.
The temperature hasn’t risen in the atmosphere, on the surface or within the oceans……hence, Trenberth’s, Hansen’s, Gore’s, Mann’s and Jones’ admitted “travesty”.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed…………so, where is it?
Energy can be measured………Sensible and latent heat can be measured…..where is it?
Sorry Max,
I basicaly repeated your post…………..
PeterM
Since you are covering several topics here, let’s go through your 3562 step by step:
Lots of blab here, Peter. A democratic process (as I described it):
Got that: “majority vote” – and. believe me, you cannot get a majority of the world’s people to vote for the hare-brained scheme you proposed!
Correct, Peter. But we have also had natural forcing factors involved. Have these caused half of the warming as several solar scientists have concluded? Since they were apparently responsible for the “lack of warming” of the past decade (despite record CO2 increase), it is quite reasonable to assume that they also were responsible for a major part of earlier warming, particularly of that portion, which occurred in the early 20th century, prior to significant human CO2 emissions, which cannot be explained by GH warming alone.
To myopically assume that all of the observed 20th century warming came from human CO2 would be absurd.
Which “measured empirical results” are you referring to here, Peter? Please be more specific.
I am aware of “measured empirical results” from CERES satellites reported by Spencer and Braswell, which show that net cloud feedback is strongly negative, rather than strongly positive as assumed by the IPCC model simulations. Lindzen and Choi refer to “measured empirical results” from ERBE satellites, which come to a similar conclusion.
Correcting the IPCC assumed 2xCO2 climate sensitivity for these new data, would put it well below 1C (Spencer has estimated 0.6C).
[We have discussed this all “ad nauseam” earlier on this thread, but it appears that you are suffering from memory lapses.]
So it looks like you are wrong on all your points.
Keep trying.
Max
Brute
Re ur 3565
No problem.
Maybe hammering Peter from two sides will get his attention a bit better (wishful thinking?)
Max
Brute,
If you and your partner are cold at night and put on a blanket you won’t warm up instantly.
She might complain she’s still cold and you could say something like ‘don’t worry the heat is in the pipeline, or the heat is on its way”. But, if she’s not the brightest of people she’ll say “What pipeline? And just exactly where is this extra heat you are talking about?”
Max,
You could well be right that a majority may prefer to tackle the problem a different way. Carbon taxes , cap and trade etc. I don’t much care providing the measures are effective and reduce CO2 emissions.
But there are two separate issues here.
Firstly the science and secondly the politics. On the latter, I’m not underestimating the difficulty in coming up with a scheme which is fair to everyone and will be generally acceptable. There are many devils in lots of details.
However, you’ve strayed into the position of logical fallacy by using the difficulties on the latter point to justify your erroneous position on the former point.
Partner? You mean my wife?
May we conclude that if my wife doesn’t “heat up” after 13 years that maybe the blanket is not functioning?
PeterM
You wrote, regarding a) the “science” supporting your proposed carbon quota scheme and b) the difficulties of implementating this scheme in a democratic society:
No “logical fallacy” on my part, Peter. We have discussed the “former point” ad nauseam here.
The “science” to support such a scheme is flawed. You have not been able to cite empirical evidence, based on physical observations or reproducible experimentation, which validates your premise that AGW, caused principally by human CO2 emissions, has been the major cause of 20th century warming and that it represents a serious potential threat to humanity or our environment.
In addition, I have calculated the impact of your scheme on global temperature by year 2100, and shown you that it is negligible, underscoring the statement I have made over and over again:
So much for the “science”. Now to the second part. Not only would the resulting impact be negligible, the “difficulties” of implementing such a scheme are insurmountable. The scheme you proposed will never be implemented in a democratic society, for the many reasons I cited.
We have an elitist group of politicians and scientists, who believe they know better what is good for the general populace than the people themselves do.
But, in the democratic society in which we live, these elitists will have to go through the democratic process to get such a scheme approved and implemented; and this will be their stumbling block, as we are seeing all over the world.
Abraham Lincoln said it best of all:
So to sum it up:
We have a proposal to saddle the world with a direct or indirect “carbon tax”, which will never be approved in a democratic process and which will end up costing trillions but cannot be shown to result in any perceptible change in our global climate.
Sounds like a sure-fired loser to me, Peter. You’d better come up with a “Plan B”.
Max
Just to jump into your conversation Max…..
Peter,
Using your own criteria regarding climatology; unless you have earned a doctorate in political science I don’t think that you’re qualified to speak on the topic of politics.
In the same vein, because you do not possess a degree in economics, your uninformed opinions regarding taxation and monetary policy are invalid and should not be considered.
Brute,
You draw attention to an interesting point regarding Politics and Economics. In some ways those who study both these disciplines do like to think of them as sciences. However, unlike the other main sciences , Biology, Chemistry, Physics etc, there isn’t anything like unity of thought amongst them. They never do reach a consensus. You certainly don’t need a PhD in Politics to make a significant contribution. That’s being made right now on the streets of Egypt for instance by everyone who can walk, hold a banner and chant a slogan.
The old joke is that if you have ten economists in a room you’d have eleven different opinions. The same with politics of course. Any politician can choose whatever shade of expert economic opinion he likes, ranging right across the political spectrum.
My personal view is that you can any opinion you like on these sort of subjects providing you can back it up with intelligent argument.
However, its come as a bit of a shock to see the right wing of politics associated with climate denialism in recent years. I’d never previously felt that those of a quite different political opinion were in any way less intelligent, but I must say I’ve come to question whether or not I may have been wrong about that.
Brute,
I did think about including the phrase “although the time scales are of course much longer” when I wrote down my blanket analogy. I rejected that idea on the grounds that you were intelligent enough to appreciate that. Seems you’ve proved me wrong. Well done! You have a knack of being able to do that :-)
I guess you are harking back to 1998. The old “AGW stopped in 1998” argument. The period around 2010 was certainly warmer, according to all research groups, but the “in the pipeline” description isn’t really about that. It means the AGW so far measured isn’t all there is. It means, even if the GHGs in the atmosphere are stabilised, AGW will continue for a number of years yet.
PeterM
What is commonly called “climate science” (a field which is still in its infancy) is not a clearly defined scientific discipline like Physics, Chemistry or Biology (even these have overlaps, of course).
A “consensus” in Chemistry on a well-defined and scientifically tested and validated hypothesis is a totally different thing from a non-validated “consensus” among a group of climate scientists regarding the potential threat of AGW from human CO2 emissions.
I’m sure you are able to see the distinction here, Peter, right? (It’s pretty obvious.)
Max
Max,
Climate science, your particular bete noir, can’t be considered to be a distinct branch of science like biology or chemistry. Like meteorology, its just a sub branch of Physics. Or, to put it another way its just a bunch of Physicists, Mathematicians and perhaps a few Chemists working together on a particular problem.
Look up the background of your least favourite people in this world. Jim Hansen -Mathematics and Physics. Gavin Schmidt – Mathematics. Michael Mann – Mathematics and Physics. I’m sure I could go on , but really there is no need to.
I know these guys, not personally, but in the sense that I’ve worked with Maths and Physicists and I’m one myself. By and large people don’t study these subjects with the idea of subverting society. If we are known for anything, it’s being a bit nerdy and boring. I’m certainly remember being a bit of an oddity being both a Physics undergrad and having leftish opinions.
I very much doubt that any climate scientist has ever said anything like:
“I had originally thought of studying revolutionary politics at the the Sorbonne or the LSE, but I’ve just had a marvellous idea. I’m going to get into physics and maths, then later into climate science so I can write papers about CO2 emissions being a real problem and that they’ll need to be brought under control to avoid catastrophic global warming. That’ll fix those wicked capitalists and usher in world socialism. How clever is that? Move over Karl Marx! “