THIS PAGE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED AS THE NEW STATESMAN BLOG IS NOW CLOSED FOR COMMENTS
At 10am this morning, the New Statesman finally closed the Mark Lynas thread on their website after 1715 comments had been added over a period of five months. I don’t know whether this constitutes any kind of a record, but gratitude is certainly due to the editor of of the New Statesman for hosting the discussion so patiently and also for publishing articles from Dr David Whitehouse and Mark Lynas that have created so much interest.
This page is now live, and anyone who would like to continue the discussion here is welcome to do so. I have copied the most recent contributions at the New Statesman as the first comment for the sake of convenience. If you want to refer back to either of the original threads, then you can find them here:
Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with all 1289 comments.
Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.
Welcome to Harmless Sky, and happy blogging.
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10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”
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Hi Peter,
You opined to Brute (regarding human CO2 emissions):
Can you be more specific on what you mean by bringing them under control?
The world currently emits some 30 GtCO2 per year primarily from fossil fuels (85%), deforestation (10%) and cement production (5%).
At which emission level would you estimate that we have brought them under control:
80% of the current level?
50% of the current level?
25% of the current level?
Which of the above emission levels would you find realistic?
Can you also explain a bit more closely what you mean by losing control?
Do you subscribe to the suggestion by James E. Hansen that we would reach a dangerous level of atmospheric CO2 at 450 ppmv beyond which uncontrollable tipping points could occur?
Is this the level at which you feel we would be losing control?
What would we be losing control of:
Our planet’s climate?
If not our planet’s climate, what then?
Do you feel we now have control over our planet’s climate?
If so, how so?
At precisely what point would you estimate that we would be losing control of whatever it is, which you feel we would be losing control of?
What evidence would you propose for your conclusions above?
You see, Peter, your blanket statement of bringing CO2 under control or losing control raises a whole bunch of questions.
For example, at the current rate of disappearance of CO2 emitted to the atmosphere, it would take us the estimated number of years below to reach Hansen’s dangerous level of 450 ppmv CO2:
At today’s emission rate: 15 years, i.e. by year 2024
At 80% of today’s rate: 18 years, i.e. by year 2027
At 50% of today’s rate: 29 years, i.e. by year 2038
At 25% of today’s rate: 59 years, i.e. by year 2068
So, it looks to me that (if we accept Hansen’s definition of losing control when atmospheric CO2 levels reach a level of 450 ppmv), we will lose control no matter what we do to bring CO2 emission levels under control, and that it is just a matter of time until we are DOOMED.
Is this really what you truly (deep down in your heart of hearts) believe?
If so, I feel very sorry for you.
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
You wrote to Brute:
?
Hey, I could ask you (and the consensus of 2,500 mainstream scientists behind the IPCC predictions for the future) exactly the same question, when it turns out (as it is already beginning to look) that their silly predictions were totally wrong.
Regards,
Max
Robin
No, he’s utterly wrong. the last 2 yrs have shown a positive trend in polar sea ice over the last two years (reference link i posted in the guardian from WUWT).
Robin
You may be right about the comparing global and artic, but tbh i’m not that interested in checking. The upshot would be 2 errors on GMs part and 1 on mine, think i’ll just take my cheese and run :)
Last time i checked the thread on the guardian they were arguing over a picture of a submarine from some link, very quickly descended to petty squabaling (again).
Robin
Ah, just checked, others have noticed the global/artic thing as well. Max has jumped in as well, have fun Max (i’m off for a day of bribery from my brother over his wedding plans :)
Max,
A couple of points. Atmosphere responds to accumulated levels of CO2. Not levels of annual emissions. So you need to rephrase your question on emissions reduction to take this into account.
I’m sure that I’ve explained this to you before but you I know you are slow learners, so I should expect that you won’t be able to take it in all at once.
Furthermore you need to look at what amount of CO2 the Earth can absorb naturally. No-one is saying that emissions have to be zero. However we are saying that we need to look at achieving a balance between absorption and emissions. Because, until that happens CO2 concentrations will continue to rise year on year just like they are doing now.
That’s what I mean by bringing CO2 levels under control. At present we don’t have control over CO2 levels. Emissions trading schemes aren’t ideal but they are at least a start. A step in the right direction.
Brute,
Any news on who’s behind these US TV ads yet? I can’t imagine why you are so reluctant to tell us about these :-)
Max: I’ve had a quick look at the Guardian thread. You started well but IMHO should not have allowed yourself to get embroiled in onthefence’s sidetrack about those Watts sub photos.
The only issue that matters is surely that Booker was completely accurate in saying that Ban Ki-moon’s comment that the polar ice caps are “melting far faster than was expected just two years ago” was false – and therefore irresponsibly alarmist, especially coming from the UN’s Secretary General. Monbiot, in contrast, was – quite simply – wrong. Incidentally, it’s interesting that Monbiot excluded Booker’s crucial first sentence from his extracted quotation.
Here (again) is the full quotation:
Go for it.
Max: re the above, you may prefer this (about the Arctic & Catlin) from the Telegraph. Interesting that it’s posted under “religion”. Hmm. (Telegraph comments very different from Guardian comments – no surprise, I suppose.)
Max
You needed this over at the Guardian.
http://www.athropolis.com/sun-fr.htm
During Mid March there is strong twilight all day at the North Pole. it is NOT dark!It is perfectly possible to read and to see things.
The light levels in the photo look to fit in this category perfectly. Why would the Skate surface in ther dark when they wanted to take photos?
tonyb
tonyb
I was amused that at 6198 tempterrain (aka Peter Martin) implies that the dangerous AGW hypothesis is an “important scientific discovery”. Yet this comes from someone who has failed to provide any reference to research demonstrating how the hypothesis is validated by test against empirical evidence. Huh.
PS to Brute: the Roy Tucker email puts it well.
Pete,
Where does it go to? Is it simply gobbled up into the bottomless CO2 muncher? You mentioned trees……..do trees live forever?
I didn’t know I was supposed to research this and frankly, I don’t care.
Who’s behind the WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE FROM GLOBAL WARMING! television ads?
Brute,
We don’t get TV ads about AGW in Australia. Just ads about soap powder and petrol etc. I don’t think they have them in the UK either. I’m not sure if they would be legal. There are government agencies which enforce adverising standards in most developed countries. For instance, here in Australia tobacco ads aren’t allowed and ads that may misrepresent the nutritional content of various junk foods wouldn’t be permitted either.
I guess that ads about the desirability of continually increasing atmospheric CO2 content would treated the same way.
We don’t have “we’re all going to die from AGW” ads either. But if we did I’d be just as interested to know who was funding them.
So maybe you’d like to tell us all the AGW ads in the USA and who is funding both sides of the argument?
Brute,
I forgot to answer your “Where does it [CO2] go to?” question.
Yes healthy forests do soak up some of it. The trees down live for ever that’s true but they can lock up CO2 for several hundred years or more. Aren’t some of your giant redwoods in the USA over a thousand years old?
Conversely when forests are depleted or burnt CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere.
The main CO2 sink has been the oceans. They have done a pretty good job of soaking up about half of all human CO2 emissions so far. However, they aren’t going to be able to keep doing that indefinitely.
Pete,
Honestly, I haven’t seen any “anti” global warming ads on television; however, we are bombarded constantly with “green” advertising. The “green” advertising comes from many sources; primarily any company that wants to jump aboard the hysteria bandwagon to sell the exact same product that they were selling 60 years ago as “new and improved”.
Other forms of advertising come from organizations like Greenpeace and World Wildlife Federation or from George Soros/Democrat Party funded front groups to frighten and “heighten awareness” of global warming to propagandize the voters to forward their political agenda/policies and solicit donations.
Car companies and even companies such as Waste Management weave “environmentalism” into their ads to show their “concern”. Oil companies also have begun painting themselves as “green” (the ultimate irony).
I’m not certain how advertising works in other areas of the world, (maybe Max would be a better source as a world traveler) but essentially, American companies use whatever is popular, stylish and “chic” at the moment to promote whatever they’re selling.
Maybe this is a uniquely American thing……………lying (embellishment) to sell whatever crap you are offering (including government policy). Hollywood, Wall Street and Madison Avenue all are complicit in promoting the hysteria to make a buck.
Recently, General Electric has been hyping the global warming angle as the Chief Executive Officer has been appointed to the Obama Administration, produces windmills, (amongst other things including heat seeking missiles and refrigerators) and also owns NBC television. A pretty cozy set up and definitely a conflict of interest if you asked me.
Perception is reality Pete……..”Reality” (in this case) isn’t the truth, “reality” is how it’s marketed and “sold” to the public.
As far as your 6212 comment goes, I’ll leave that one to Max…..I don’t have time tonight.
Basically, whatever is “here” is “here” in one form or another. The oceans will trade the CO2 with organisms that consume CO2.
I posted a while back a reference that shows that plant life is exploding due to higher levels of CO2 (which will trade the CO2 for oxygen)………like maggots feasting on carrion.
An endless, self balancing cycle…….
Brute,
You write “An endless, self balancing cycle…….”
Yes its a nice thought. However the paleontological climate record shows that we’ve had ice ages and also very warm periods. The evidence is that the Earth’s climate hasn’t been at all stable, but slides from one quasi-stable state to another with just a bit of a push.
Yes the amount of carbon that is here on earth is fixed. There is a fair bit of loose talk about ‘low carbon’. Carbon in coal is fine. No problem at all. It’s when carbon, or coal, is burned to create carbon dioxide that causes the problem.
The only group that I can think of who would agree with your ‘self-balancing’ cycle theory would be the ‘young earth’ Creationists. You sure you aren’t one of them?
You mentioned your church previously. Which church is it , if you don’t mind my asking?
Robin, Reur 6206; you wrote in part:
1) Well, I believe that Max, in concert with others have done an excellent job in making Onthefence (OTF) dig himself into an ever deepening hole. I firmly believe that people like OTF are one of our greatest aids in discrediting the alarmist posits. (because of viewings by other readers). It is also FUN to see fruitcakes like him, with every exchange, digging himself into an ever deepening hole, possibly to emerge in the Antipodes. I think that Max has similar thoughts.
2) I don’t agree that it is the only issue, but would agree that your 2) is indeed a very important issue!
BTW, I dislike the expression IMHO. IMO is perfectly truthful (probably) and totally adequate!
Hi Peter,
You opined to Brute (6216):
Let us analyze your statement:
That the amount of carbon on Earth is FIXED is almost a FACT (except for any CO2 that diffuses into outer space from our atmosphere, any C-14 created from nitrogen in our atmosphere from neutrons created by cosmic rays or any trace amounts of carbon carried in by meteorites or other extra-terrestrial matter).
That it causes a PROBLEM, when it is burned to form carbon dioxide, which enters the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere, etc. is NOT FACT.
It is a SUGGESTION, based on a particular interpretation of the as yet unsubstantiated (by physical observation) greenhouse THEORY, with (at least partially refuted) ASSUMPTIONS on the sign and magnitude of feedbacks, without which there is NO PROBLEM.
So, on analysis, your statement is only a bit less than half-true.
It is always best to make sure that your definitions are exact when making proclamations.
Just a tip.
Regards,
Max
Hi Robin,
Agree with both you and Bob.
The blatantly stupid argumentation of OTF (on the Guardian site) in attempting to discredit Anthony Watts for citing an officially archived U.S. Navy photograph of an officially archived event (i.e. the surfacing of the USS Skate at the North Pole on March 17, 1959), was just too tempting to ignore, although such silly arguments are usually best to simply avoid.
The amazing part to me was that OTF kept on with his silly argumentation until many other (up until then silent) bloggers jumped in and hammered him, and he, himself, finally had to realize that his argumentation lacked all credibility.
My objective was to let him demonstrate for all to see just how irrational some of the pro-AGW arguments have become, and I think it worked.
Regards,
Max
PS BTW, have you both noticed that “AGW” is now being quietly replaced with “ACC” (anthropogenic climate change) in the “believers'” terminology? A good hedge when we have seen a cooling trend so far over the 21st century; it will make it easier to switch over to the next “ice age scare” if the trend keeps up. (Stephen Schneider, where art thou, when thy movement needs thee?)
Hi Robin,
UN Sectretary General, Ban Ki Moon, is no newcomer to either hyperbole or scare-mongering to sell his organization’s AGW pitch.
In November 2007 (shortly before the Bali boondoggle) the International Herald Tribune (now part of The New York Times) carried a BKM op-ed article (with a cool photo-op of the Sec.Gen. on the deck of a ship supposedly off the coast of Antarctica, casting a firm-jawed, concerned look out over the floating icebergs).
In this op-ed BKM (believe-it-or-not!) stated that the breakup of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (with 6-meter high inundations) could occur in 100 years or in 10 years, and then wrote (this is the astounding part) that he did not believe in scare-mongering!
Ouch!
Regards,
Max
Max,
I notice you are still hiding behind this ‘its down to you guys to prove what you are saying to our satisfaction’ argument. Of course we know that you’ll keep shifting the goalposts so that you never will be satisfied.
But if you were really being honest you should also accept that its really you who should justify changing the composition of our atmosphere. We like it just the way it is (or at least it was!). We don’t want ever increasing quantities of CO2 pumped into our atmosphere.
If you caught me peeing in your swimming pool you’d tell me to stop. Right? I might suggest that I’d been peeing in it for years and you’d never objected before. I might say that the chemicals were harmless and were part of the natural life cycle and shouldn’t be considered a pollution at all. Plants liked it. It helped them grow better. Any anyway they were only a few hundred parts per million when diluted in your pool and nothing to worry about at all.
I think that the least that you might do was challenge me to show what I was saying was in fact true. I doubt if my argument that it was ‘down to you to show that what I was doing was harmful’ would cut any ice at all. Or would it?
Hi Peter,
In the ongoing debate surrounding AGW, you are quite good at graphical demonstrations. But you have an inherent weakness when it comes to analogies.
You equated human CO2 emission into the atmosphere with you pissing in my swimming pool (6221).
I do not have a swimming pool (few in Switzerland do), but I am told that the average home swimming pool contains around 70 m^3 of water, so a good, healthy p— of 150 cc would represent a bit more than 2 ppm in the pool (a rather insignificant amount, as we both can probably agree).
But aside from the fact that your peeing in my pool would be seen as an unfriendly act regardless of its inconsequential effect on the quality of the pool water, you have many other less obnoxious alternates available to you. You could simply pee into your toilet, with no more effort than using my pool to relieve yourself.
The world economy is based on the consumption of energy. As economies have grown and standards of living have improved from fairly bleak pre-industrial days to today (for a large part of the world), energy consumption has risen at a slightly slower rate, but still pretty much in lock step.
Abundant energy has been dependent on the availability of inexpensive fossil fuels.
With the exception of some hare-brained sequestration proposals, the CO2 generated from the combustion of fossil fuels has nowhere else to go but to the atmosphere, where it adds around the same amount annually to the atmosphere as your pee into the swimming pool. Some gets absorbed by the ocean , some by additional plant growth, some gets diffused out into space, but a bit remains in the atmosphere, increasing the concentration there ever so slightly on a year-by-year basis.
But the main weakness in your analogy is not in the amount of CO2 or pee being emitted, but in the alternatives that present themselves to eliminate these emissions.
In the case of peeing, it is very simple (and even logical) to do this somewhere else rather than in my pool.
In the case of CO2 generated from fossil fuel combustion to sustain our economical standard of living the alternates are not easy to visualize.
I have shown you earlier that a reduction to 80% of current levels would result in reaching Hansen’s magic “dangerous level” of 450 ppmv by 2027 while cutting back to 50% would mean that the dangerous level would be reached in 2038
You will certainly agree that with world population continuing to grow it would be very painful to cut back to 50%, yet it would only postpone the inevitable disaster by less than 30 years, while forcing the developing nations to halt their plans to improve the standard of living of their populations and dooming the poorest nations to continued lack of access to cheap energy and abject poverty.
It is hardly worth choosing this alternate based on such shaky predictions of climate disaster, which most recently appear to be falling apart based on the physically observed facts on the ground (or rather in the air just above the ground).
We know for sure that cutting back world CO2 emissions to 50% of today’s level will be very painful for the entire world.
We do not know that it will achieve anything.
Even if we were to believe the most shrill and alarming predictions (Hansen et al), we know that it would only slow down the inevitable doomsday by less than 30 years.
Looks like a no-brainer to me, quite unlike your flawed swimming pool analogy.
Regards,
Max
Pete,
God I love you.
I don’t remember involving what I do on Sunday mornings into this thread but since you’ve brought it up, I do mind you asking………primarily because it isn’t any of your business and secondly because it has no bearing on the discussion at hand,(TonyN will be happy to read this).
You seem to continually dodge the specific points brought up in these posts and meander off into some type of inquisition into other’s personal religious beliefs or some casual, 50 times removed, link to big oil or big coal. When I play your gave of casual links of Alarmists figures to special interest groups you dismiss my assertions as irrelevant or inconsequential.
I have told you that I’m a LEEDS Engineer, which is about all you need to know concerning my professional credentials. As I have previously written, this particular aspect of my field is what is stylish and chic right now and I’m making the most of it. Times will change, the global warming/environmental hysteria will die down and I’ll probably latch onto the next craze relating to my specific vocation.
The Earth (and in turn, the universe) and it’s mechanisms are immense…………Everything that is created by mankind will (eventually) return to their base elements with time. You seem to be of the personality type that will scream FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! in a crowded theatre as you run out pushing women and children to the floor, (as Robin has described).
Do you really understand the term PARTS PER MILLION? Can you truly grasp the dilution level of that ratio?
Yes, I’d be upset if you peed in my swimming pool, but I don’t think a few ounces or even a few gallons amongst tens of thousands of gallons would even be detectable………hence the term, “pissing in the ocean”. I know, I know………next you’ll write: “suppose everyone did it”…………
You keep me entertained, I have to admit.
Max,
Looked over your shoulder at the Guardian discussion………God bless you…………you are a patient man.
Hey Wax !
You do not have a swimming pool (few in Switzerland do), but I am told that the average home swimming pool contains around 70 m^3 of water, so a good, healthy p— of 150 cc would represent a bit more than 2 ppm in the pool (a rather insignificant amount, as we both can probably agree).
But aside from the fact that your peeing in your pool would be seen as an unfriendly act regardless of its inconsequential effect on the quality of the pool water, I have many other less obnoxious alternates available to me.
I could simply pee into your toilet, with no more effort than using your pool to relieve yourself.
But the main weakness in your analogy is not in the amount of CO2 or pee being emitted, but in the alternatives that present themselves to eliminate these emissions.
But why should I ?
You’re pissing in my pool so why should I not reciprocate ?