The fate of atmospheric carbon dioxide is intimately tied to the ocean, and Jacobson has written peer-reviewed papers on the question of CO2 in the ocean, so he is not scientifically unknown in these matters. In fact, his model is one of the best for the chemical relationships in the ocean.
Jacobson doesn’t do “simple models”. Unlike the tinker-toy models used by the IPCC his models are mass and charge conserving, positive definite, unconditionally stable and the most advanced in the field. He is making a clear statement in the paper that the IPCC e-folding lifetime is too long. Me, I pay attention to what he says.
I actually wrote to him last week, and will let you know when (if) he replies.
I know of no one in the field who does not calculate the change of atmospheric CO2 using exponential decay. There is no discussion of that question in the journals. The question is only the rate and nature of the decay. All of the IPCC GCMs use the so-called “Bern model” of exponential decay. This model postulates three different decays rates for different fractions of the atmospheric CO2. I have not found any explanation of how this might work.
Apologies, I should have stated explicitly that I was not contesting this, and that you’d convinced me that the BBC article figure was inflated (though the BBC don’t make up numbers from thin air since that would violate its own Charter - the 2.6 ppm figure must have been in a NOAA press release, surely? I’d be interested to know why, if so - they don’t use a different averaging method to you or something do they?)
I hereby do so (on that single particular number, which is theirs rather than “mine” but I’ll take the rap if it moves the conversation along).
Flee the arena if you must, but I still think I’m asking perfectly reasonable questions which seem to slide past you in your pursuit of something I’ve said wrong in each successive post. I’ve admitted that the BBC article I linked to used an inflated figure (for some reason I don’t understand yet). I mentioned El Nino because three of the last four years show increases in the top 6 of all time despite not being Nino years, and many respected climatologists say that this is significant, while you apparently don’t. And yes, I think a 43% increase over just three decades is a worryingly fast rise given the previous millennia at just 280 ppm or threreabouts. I want you to allay my concerns on these points, but I definitely feel I’m being conned into a false sense of security.
See, here you go again citing consensus only when it suits you. Is skepticism about whether there is such a thing not healthy?
From now, after a temporary shrink in the gap, due to the sequestration mechanisms apparently starting to fail. This only seems sensible to me right now because you have singularly refused throughout to discuss these mechanisms. Again, my mind could be set at rest if you were to tell me how eg. a decrease in phytoplankton efficiency from increased acidity would have no effect on sequestration levels.
So we need to at least try to bring them on board, too.
I don’t believe you.
And the effects of ACC will hurt them even more
And yet, according to you yourself, whether the rate of atmospheric CO2 growth will increase above the current levels is an “interesting question”. Whatever is to happen to the rate of increase, it surely not inevitable. Again, your predictions of a “safe” top-out limit seem to depend on our future emission rates, and yet you seem to suggest that it’s not worth doing anything about them!
Well, I can’t say I understand your working so I’ll merely point out yet again that this is way, way up in the most optimistic estimates of any prediction I’ve ever seen, and given your repeated emphasis on how little we know about climate modelling I’ll take it with a whole fistful of salt. But even if (and it’s a huge “if”) you’re right, might this 0.3% not make all the difference in terms of an irreversible tipping point? Again, for you to wave away even the possibility of tipping points entirely would strike a very dissonant chord with your uncertainty mantra.
Well, whatever you think of Jacobson’s climate model relative to those the IPCC uses, that is besides the point since the model we are talking about is Jacobson’s modeling the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere as obeying a simple exponential decay. This is indeed a “simple model”. There is nothing wrong in principle with simple models and the model is probably good enough to produce the sort of basic estimate of the relative effects of reducing black carbon emissions vs. CO2 emissions (which is his goal in that paper)…however, it is important to recognize the limitations of such simple models.
Great. I’ll be curious to see what he says.
Well, the Bern model that you describe is significantly different than a model that assumes that the full fraction of atmospheric CO2 has one decay rate. Therefore I stand by my statement that “there is no mechanistic reason to believe that the CO2 decay will exhibit simple exponential behavior.” A model that has 3 different decay rates for three different fractions of CO2 produces behavior that is very different from simple exponential behavior. In particular, something like 1/4 of the CO2 hangs around for thousands of years.
I sympathize with you in regards to understanding the justification of the Bern model. I made a half-hearted attempt to try to find a reference on the web to explain it but couldn’t find anything decent. However, I guess we have different default assumptions: I tend to believe that if the experts have a certain point of view that I, with almost zero knowledge in the field, do not understand then it is more likely because I just don’t understand it (yet) and not that all the experts are wrong. Still, I agree that it would be nice if someone could provide us with a “Dummy’s Guide to the Bern Carbon Cycle Model” or something like that! Along those lines, the references in this piece are probably a useful jumping off point when I find the time!
It probably was in an NOAA press release, they are one of the biggest supporters of the AGW theory. Far as I know, there’s only one way to average, sum/count. I’ve cited the figures, do the math yourself, that’s what I do.
Take the rap? Where I come from, we call it “admitting our mistakes”.
Sentient, I ask again, did you miss the part about 2006 being an El Nino year? It has received lots of press because the AGW crowd was all on about “global warming” causing the hurricanes in 2005. When there were so few in 2006, the mantra was “It’s because it’s an El Nino year” … did all of that just slip by you? Here’s the headline from NOAA … “RETURN OF EL NIÑO YIELDS NEAR NORMAL 2006 ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON” … so once again, you are building your conclusions on untrue claims.
Yes, the general trend of the atmospheric CO2 is upwards, and yes, the average emissions over time has been slowly increasing. If it keeps up with its slow historical rate of increase, by 2100 we’ll be at an annual increase of 1%. I have given you figures for what that will mean, using the Bern model and the NASA sensitivity rate. These are extreme figures in my book, I think Bern is too large, NASA’s sensitivity is too large, and the projected increase is too large, but I have used them to in a couple posts to give us high end figures. In response, you keep accusing me of using “optimistic” figures … how do you get to that?
Is there a consensus on whether CO2 is driving the current warming? Not that I can see, there are a number of differing viewpoints on how much humans affect the climate, and how they do so. Even NASA says land-use change may have more effect than CO2.
Regarding exponential decay, on the other hand. it is in common use throughout the scientific community to describe a host of phenomena, one of which is the decay of airborne substances (aerosols, dust, CO2, etc.) I don’t see anybody saying it’s wrong to do so. You find somebody, let us know. Until then, I’ll assume it’s settled.
I’m not sure where your figures are from, or what they represent. In any case, the e-folding time has been quite constant for the last half-century, with the amount sequestered drifting up and down between two and four percent of the airborne amount. Currently, it’s about 3%. There is no sign of the “sequestration mechanisms apparently starting fail” as you say.
Many things could have an effect on sequestration levels, from plankton to the greening of the planet. On average, however, there has been no change in sequestration rates, so whatever it is you fear, there’s no sign of it yet.
Still doesn’t make sense, and it’s a citation to yourself. From the citation, you think that somehow Kyoto won’t affect the economy. Meanwhile, the reality looks like this:
Is that all the fantasy of big oil? I don’t think so. Note that the article says Kyoto -> slowing economy -> less investment in R&D -> fewer low-carbon technologies …
So we need to at least try to bring them on board, too.
[/quote]
I prefer to consider practical solutions to problems, but if you like tilting at windmills, good luck, and happy hunting.
See, this is why fighting ignorance with you is no fun. “I don’t believe you” is your response? No cite? No facts? A few seconds on Google reveals that Canada has already spent or allocated 3.6 billion dollars on Kyoto, that’s just one country, so obviously it will cost billions of dollars … since it already has.
Most of the poor will be dead long before climate change might make a difference in their lives, but they suffer now from poverty, and making that worse will definitely hurt them more. If climate change is a real danger, they will need money to fight or adapt to it. How will making the world poorer now help them?
The Copenhagen Consensus , consisting of ambassadors and representatives of many of the the poor countries, put Kyoto down at the bottom of 17 measures they thought were important … you might think you’re doing them a favor, but they don’t.
My point, which I supported by calculations of high and low rates, is that the difference between the high and low rates is about a third of a degree. Both supporters and opponents of Kyoto agree with Tom Wigley’s estimate. Wigley, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) estimated that Kyoto (if somehow everyone met their goals, which they’re not doing) would make a difference of 0.06° to 0.11°C in 50 years. Remember, Wigley is using what I would consider high end estimates. You have different numbers, bring’em on. Until then, can we agree that the decrease is meaningless and unmeasurable?
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Read Tom Wigley’s estimate again, 0.06° to 0.11° change from Kyoto if it were successful, bear in mind that Kyoto is failing badly, and then tell me how you get from that to some practical plan where emissions controls make a difference that is big enough to make a difference in temperature. The uncertainty in the current global temperature estimate is 50-100% larger than than Wigley’s estimates, it’s a change that’s too small to measure.
Finally, regarding “tipping points”, please point to a “tipping point” in, oh, say the last 5,000 years, because I don’t know what you are talking about. An example would be very useful here. Bear in mind, however, that the ice core data shows that the earth was warmer than it is now for a good chunk of the Holocene …
Sentient, I applaud your concern for the environment, which I certainly share. However, tempering enthusiasm with facts and a proclivity for practical solutions is a necessity.
My apologies for the lack of clarity in my writing, jshore. What I meant was that Jacobson doesn’t use simpler models than are necessary to adequately describe the situation, which is why his climate model, GATOR-GCMOM, is so detailed.
He made a clear statement in the paper, which was that the e-folding lifetimes of the IPCC were too long, and that even their shortest lifetime was longer than the data shows.
You are quite correct, I misunderstood you as saying that you were objecting to “exponential behavior” rather than “simple exponential behavior”. I still don’t understand, however, how their model works in the physical world, to which you say:
In most fields of science I totally agree with you. In climate science, however, all bets are off. A big part of the problem is that much of the discussion revolves around statistics, and few of the climate scientists seem to know anything about statistics. In addition, there is a common delusion that the results of computer calculations are “data”. Because of this, I am very wary of claims by climate scientists.
w.
PS - I had come across the page you cite, and have been working my way through the references … I’ll let you know what I find.
As an interested non-climatologist, I’m curious why Jacobson seems to feature almost exclusively as a researcher of interest in this discussion. Surely there are dozens of other researchers on these topics.
As a researcher in another discipline, whenever a position relies on evidence from a single source, I regard it with heightened scrutiny. Replication is fundamental in psychology. Is that true in the study of these issues as well?
This is the only part I have to comment on from your last post in response to me. Comments on your post to Sentient Meat coming later!) I would note two things here:
(1) As I pointed out, for the purpose that Jacobson is applying the model (i.e., getting a handle on the relative effects of black carbon and CO2 primarily over the near term), his use of a simple exponential decay for CO2 is likely adequate. However, it doesn’t mean it is adequate to what you want to apply it to.
(2) Your statement about Jacobson is a bit generous. What you linked to is a correction that he published precisely because his previous model was in fact not adequate to describe the situation. And, while he tries to put the best face on it, the fact is that these corrections made a significant change to his results. For example, they decreased the period over which eliminating black carbon plus organic matter has an advantage over all decrease in anthropogenic CO2 emissions from 25-100 year to 11-13 years! That has quite important implications! So, on the basis of this, I would not conclude that Jacobson never uses a simpler model than is needed to adequately describe the situation; in fact, he did exactly that in his original paper that he now published this correction on!
You have to be a little careful. The El Nino developed late in 2006. Since the hurricane season occurs in the latter part of the year, it did seem to have a significant effect on that. However, typically, El Nino’s that start developing during a given year (at least the latter half) tend not to have a strong effect on the global temperature during that year but do on the temperature during the next year. (This is why many people are predicting that 2007 is likely to set a new record for the warmest year since the start of the global instrumental record.) I am not sure if this is also true of CO2 rises but I imagine it very well might be.
As I have pointed out, the Bern model used in the IPCC report does not produce simple exponential decay. In fact, it predicts that ~25% of the CO2 we release stays in the atmosphere for many thousands of years.
Well, yes, you might want to consider your source, which apparently is this piece by Benny Peiser in Canada’s National Post. Peiser is a climate change skeptic famous for making claims that he was forced to retract regarding Naomi Oreske’s article in Science investigating the strength of the consensus on climate change in the peer-reviewed literature (see, for example, here). And, the National Post is a conservative newspaper that has pretty much been on a crusade to undermine Canada’s participation in Kyoto.
Is Europe’s attempts to implement Kyoto going perfectly? No. However, I don’t think Peiser is an objective source to evaluate just how well or badly they are going.
Your own link notes the many criticisms that have been made about the Copenhagen Consensus project, which was something organized by Bjorn Lomberg. Not surprisingly, it arrived at results compatible with what Lomberg had previously been claiming in “The Skeptical Environmentalist” book.
I think what we can agree on, as I have pointed out before, is that this estimate of the effect of Kyoto is essentially meaningless. Of course, limiting our emissions for 5 years according to Kyoto will not result in much difference in global temperatures in 50 years. Hell, even if we stopped emitting all greenhouse gases for 5 years and then went back to our old ways, we would only delay the warming by about 5 years…which would be a pretty small number in terms of degrees. This is a factoid that is essentially meaningless and which in fact I have never seen given with enough context to understand what the assumptions were for emissions after the 2008 to 2012 time period. (I presume that Wigley may have provided this context when he originally made the statement, but I have not seen the original source.)
Kyoto is a first step and its importance is two-fold:
(1) It starts us along the path of stabilizing our CO2 emissions.
(2) It provides the necessary market incentives to develop the technologies to lower our greenhouse gas emissions or sequester them. In other words, it puts an end to the market failure whereby everyone is allowed to use our atmosphere as a free sewer for greenhouse gases.
In my opinion, the second aspect is probably the more important one. Look, we are going to have to eventually get off of our addiction to fossil fuels anyway given that they are a finite resource. The point is to provide the market the necessary signals so that happens sooner…before we have drastically altered the earth’s climate…rather than later.
Hentor, an interesting question. "his is a fundamental problem in climate science. No two computer models give the same answer. Thus, every researcher’s claim is unique. The range of warming of the models goes from 1.5 to 8°C or so, which is a range of over 400%!. No replication there.
Jacobson’s model is unusual in that it actually is built on physical first principles, rather than being an ad-hoc collection of parameters and approximations with very little grounding in reality. Here’s an example of the latter, from James Hansen’s GISS model:
C**** pond_melt accumulates in melt season only
if ((J.gt.JM/2 .and. (jday.ge.152 .and. jday.lt.212)) .or.
* (J.lt.JM/2 .and. (jday.ge.334 .or. jday.lt.31))) then
pond_melt(i,j)=pond_melt(i,j)+0.3d0*RUN0
end if
What this means is that the “pond melt season” is defined as the entire months of June and July in the Arctic, and December and January in the Antarctic, and nothing else … I wonder if anyone has notified the polar bears that the pond melt can only accumulate in June and July …
Because of this, if you’re looking for agreement between modelers, climate science is not the place to look.
Actually, the El Nino of 1998 persisted through 1999 and 2000, without affecting the temperature or the CO2 much in either of those years. The linkage is nowhere near as tight as SentientMeat seems to think it is.
Actually, 15%, and yes, it is complex exponential decay rather than simple. I still haven’t found anyone who can tell me how it works physically, despite much more looking.
Not going perfectly? Only a couple of the countries in Western Europe are anywhere near meeting their methods, and that’s for one-off reasons. The rest are way above meeting their targets. It has already cost billions, and gone nowhere. Canada has been discussing opting out, because the costs are so high.
While there are many criticisms that could be made of any such gathering, the fact is that the poor have many, many problems which are far more pressing than whether CO2 level is at 0.38% or 0.55%.
The increase in the US emissions has been less than many of the signatories, which should give you a clue. In addition, much of the Kyoto reduction has come through “carbon credits” of dubious value. If you think reducing CO2 is a good thing, pick some other means than Kyoto, it’s not working. The claim that only five years won’t make a difference is meaningless, since zero gain times X years is always zero.
Me, I like to start with the basics, like “is the current warming unusual”? Statistics say no, history says no. The current warming is not anomalous, whether compared to the last 150, the last 1000, or the last 10,000 years. Until somebody can show me that there is something odd, strange, or unusual about the world warming up, I’ll worry about more pressing problems like
• the spread of HIV and AIDS
• malnutrition and hunger
• trade liberalization
• controlling and treating malaria
• improving sanitation and water quality
Call me crazy, but with problems that size, spending money on what might happen in a hundred years doesn’t make much sense. I always laugh when someone says “Kyoto is a first step”. If the first step acheives nothing and costs billions, I don’t think I want to know what you want to do for the second step.
Look, I agree that we need to get off of fossil fuels, for reasons both physical and political. Not because we’re running out, there’s enough coal for hundreds of years, but because it has a host of other problems associated with it. But Kyoto is not achieving that goal.
And most importantly, we need to do it in such a way than does not impoverish the already poor. I have lived a good chunk of my life in dirt-poor countries, and the people making a dollar a day always seem to be forgotten at the discussions of the wealthy. Kyoto is a perfect example.
Just noticed I didn’t answer one question. Here’s the answer, from the NCAR web site.
Considering this last “Kyoto continues” scenario, since the average of the GCM forecasts for the temperature rise to 2100 are on the order of 2.5°C, this means a reduction of about a third of a degree in a century … assuming that the Kyoto countries could meet their goals, which, given the lack of success so far, is incredibly improbable. You may be willing to take billions of dollars away from solving real problems and put it on the roulette wheel with a one-in-hundred chance of a third of a degree reduction in a hundred years … me, I’d put that way down on the list, just like the folks at the Copenhagen convention did. Too much money for too little return when we have real problems to solve.
I think you are confused. In fact, the El Nino in 1997-1998 was followed by a La Nina for 1998-2000. See here. I won’t disagree with your statement that the linkage may not be very tight. I guess you could use this graph along with plots of the change in CO2 levels each year to see exactly how strong the correlation is.
First of all, most scientists in the field disagree with you about the current warming…and, of course, it is just the beginning of what is to come. Furthermore, there is a lot of inertia associated with both the climate system and our societal political and economic systems. Hence, it is important to start making changes now. As I have noted previously, coal power plants built today will likely operate for something like 50 years. Choices made now will determine how cost-effective it will be to retrofit them to sequester CO2. This is why many of the power companies are now asking the federal government to put emissions regulations into place so they know what to expect.
As for the other problems, yes, these problems exist but I don’t think it is because of money we are spending to improve the environment. It is always somewhat annoying to hear people who, as far as I know, remained silent…or even supported…the waste of money on the quagmire in Iraq or the Bush tax giveaway to the top 1% of the population realize all these important world problems that need to be solved when the alternative is improving our environment. I agree that our priorities are utterly f-cked up but it is not because we are wasting resources on preventing environmental catastrophe…It is because of the other crap we are wasting resources on.
Actually, I believe the numbers for coal are something like 200 years left for using the current estimated reserves at current rates. However, if you assume exponential growth in its use…even at a fairly low percentage per year, that cuts things down considerably. For example, see [url=]here.
I know that Kyoto is not perfect…and I am certainly open to other ideas. However, the point is that we can’t go on living in this fantasy world where the market sees zero cost associated with using the atmosphere as a free sewer for CO2 emissions.
Thanks for the link. It is nice to get the actual assumptions used. Of course, the point of this exercise is that eventually it can’t just be the industrialized countries that cut emissions. China and the other developing countries are going to have to start cutting emissions down the road too. The only way that is going to happen is if new technologies are developed and commercialized…and the only way that is going to happen is if there are economic incentives to do so.
Note also that you are in the position of cherry-picking certain things from Wigley while disagreeing with his conclusions:
We are less than 2 years into Kyoto (i.e., since it officially went into effect) and you are already declaring failure. That is a bit premature. This is the beginning of a long project. Noone said that weaning us off of fossil fuels will be easy or would happen overnight and noone claimed there would not be some growing pains with a complex international agreement such as this one.
And, if you want to propose rescinding all of Bush’s tax cuts that go to the top 1% and using this money (or even half of this money) to for a global fight on hunger and malnutrition, you won’t find any argument from me.
It’s only one data point about why I say the fight against global warming is harming the poor, but I noticed this in the San Mateo (California) Times today:
jshore, I’d rescind Bush’s tax cuts and use them for that purpose in a heartbeat.
However, regarding Wigley, you say:
I disagree very strenuously to the term “cherry-picking” as being both inaccurate and insulting. Two reasonable people can look at the same facts and come to different conclusions, as you and I have done. You and Wigley, for example, seem to think that a chance of achieving a quarter to a half degree of avoided temperature rise (Wigley’s figures) is worth spending billions of dollars on. I wouldn’t spend a dime on it.
But neither of us is “cherry-picking”, we just view the facts differently.
jshore, the El Nino is a curious phenomenon, in that there is are many ways to measure its. These include the El Nino Southern Ocean Index (SOI), the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) you have cited above, the Bivariate ENSO Time Series (BEST), the Nino 1+2, Nino 3, Nino 4 and Nino 3.4 surface temperature indices, and the Tropical Pacific EOF. You are correct, I was misled by using the SOI.
El Niño and La Niña are defined as sea surface temperature anomalies greater than 0.5°C across the central tropical Pacific Ocean. However, various areas (Nino 1+2, 3, 3.4, and 4) are used for the temperatures.
Depending on the area of the Pacific used for the calculation, you get different answers. In addition, each of the indices (MEI, SOI, BEST, and EOF) gives a different answer. I was looking at the SOI, and you, at the MEI. Wikipedia sez:
Note that this includes a number of years where the temperatures and CO2 growth were not unusual.
My dear friend, if we knew that “this is just the beginning of what is to come” for any kind of weather or climate, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Why do you think people pray for rain, but not for eclipses?
Because we can predict eclipses …
Second, I am well aware that many climate scientists disagree with me, but that does not surprise me. For many of them, their jobs depend on the validation of the AGW theory. As my quote above shows, California just cut money for the poor and at the same time created 231 new jobs for climate folks. How much time do you think they will spend looking for opposing information that might cost them their job?
But in truth, that doesn’t matter, because fortunately science is ultimately decided by facts, not by votes …
I could not agree more with you that our priorities are wrong. The difference is that I include Kyoto in the wrong priorities. Spending many, many billions of dollars on a “first step” that will make a tenth of a degree difference in 50 years if it works … that’s way too much money for way too little gain at a time when people are dying for lack of clean water.
Your link didn’t work, but the coal reserves are large. However, I caution you in the strongest terms to avoid assuming long-term exponential growth in anything. Thomas Malthus made the same mistake, as did the Club of Rome and Paul Ehrlich, and all of their predictions went badly awry.
My best wishes to you, this discussion is a great pleasure.
Well, this media story chose to juxtapose the cuts in welfare and the new spending on global warming reduction efforts. However, there is no clear evidence that they are related. The $63.2 million to be spent on global warming reduction efforts representsless than 0.05% of the $143.4 billion spending plan.
Glad to hear it. This is something that we would both agree on.
Okay…Fair enough. The word “cherry-picking” may have been a bit harsh. However, if you are citing an authority as a source of information, it seems most fair to include the conclusions that he draws from that information.
And, your logic would pretty much doom any policy initiative that was too big to solved all at once and thus would have to be handled in stages…because any such early stage would likely never get you close to the desired goal.
Well, I don’t think the claim was that the correlation was perfect but rather that years of anomalously-high CO2 growth in the past had tended to be in El Nino years. (Since it was not my claim, I am sort of winging it here a bit. Maybe Sentient Meat can state it more clearly.)
But, just to clarify, are you withdrawing your claim that the El Nino of 1998 persisted into 1999 and 2000? None of the Nino 1+2, 3, 3.4, and 4 temperature indices would support this claim. In fact, they all seem to agree with there being a La Nina at that time.
What are “climate folks”? Are you claiming that the new jobs are for climate scientists in California? I find no evidence for this.
And, how far do you propose taking your apparent policy of not relying on scientists in fields to advise on the science relevant to policy issues because they might be biased in favor of keeping their jobs? Also, if climate scientists were just supporting AGW to keep their jobs, why did it take them so long to get around to it? The possibility of AGW is now more than a century old…and yet it seems to have taken a long time for scientists to jump on the bandwagon! How do you think it will affect their long-term careers if they really supported a scientific theory that was not well-founded?
True enough…although policies are decided throught the democratic process relying on the expertise of the scientists. In this case, the scientists have been very clear through the recognized channels for such advisement, like the IPCC and the National Academy of Sciences.
Well, one of the reasons that they go awry is that people make policy changes, such as passing the Clean Air Act in the case of traditional air pollutants, in order to reverse such growth. So, in some sense I agree with you…We won’t continue using coal at an exponentially-increasing rate because we will seriously impact the environment of our planet. However, to avoid doing this requires us to actually get off our butts and act, not to sit around and just hope it doesn’t happen.
Thanks for the ongoing interesting discussion, intention.
Gotta confess, jshore, it’s so pleasant to discuss this question, rather than shouting about it. My thanks to you.
You ask, are they related? They are related by the fact that we have limited funds. The truth is, a dollar can only be spent once. If you spend it on A, you can’t spend it on B. Every dollar spent on a noble but misguided effort to affect the climate cannot be spent on some other worthwhile purpose.
I suspect we might agree on most things, actually.
That makes no sense at all. You and I might disagree about the conclusions, but agree about the facts. In this case, the facts are important precisely because they are calculated by a supporter of AGW, so no one can accuse him of exaggeration. However, the conclusion from those facts is very different.
Not at all. I just require that each stage move us a reasonable amount towards the desired goal, and be cost-effective. Kyoto is neither.
Thought I was specific about that when I said “You are correct, I was mislead by using the SOI.”
While some of them are likely to be climate scientists, most will likely be bureaucrats. However, all of them, scientists and bureaucrats, will owe their job to the theory of AGW, and will not rock the boat by looking for anything to disturb that theory.
Several questions here:
If there is controversy in a scientific field, it is foolish to ignore it and just rely on mainstream science.
Science has fads just like everything else. I suspect it took a while because until James Hansen started the modern craze, there was no money in climate science. Now there is billions. These days, scientists go where the money is, and I don’t blame them.
If they supported a scientific theory that turns out to be false, it will be very costly for them. Because of this, they will do anything to make sure that doesn’t happen … which makes them very unreliable witnesses.
Unfortunately, this has not been the case. Several scientists have quit the IPCC because they have been frustrated that their views have not been represented in the IPCC documents. Others have not been recommended by their respective countries. Others have been recommended but refused by the IPCC. Finally, the opinions of outside experts have been refused. For example, despite the clear recommendations of Castles and Henderson that the MER used by the IPCC for their economic projections be replaced by PPP, and despite the fact that PPP is used by every other UN agency, the World Bank, the World Trade Commission and every other major economic body, the IPCC has just ignored that.
In an example that combines several of the issues I just listed, here’s a report from the British House of Lords regarding Dr. Paul Reiter’s testimony before them:
So no, you are 100% wrong that the voice of the scientists has been clear through the IPCC and like bodies. What you are hearing are the voices of selected scientists only, and often far from the best scientists, selected because they agree with the AGW storyline. Believe them at your own risk, they have huge vested interests.
Whoa, bro’. Paul Ehrlich predicted mass starvation by the 1980s from exponential growth. Surely you’re not claiming that this was avoided by policy changes? Malthus predicted that famine would inevitably occur because of exponential population growth. Are you seriously saying that some policy like the Clean Air Act stopped this from happening?
