America: right or wrong? 29 April 05

I am not sure I would endorse America’s green credentials, just because they have poked some holes in the Kyoto treaty.

I, also, have have strong reservations about Kyoto can really achieve – but I think it could be part of a multi-pronged approach to deal with climate change. Other key areas are to do with reducing our energy consumption, and technology standards. By technology standards, I mean that energy appliances (such as cars, planes, houses, fridges) should be required to have certain minimum standards – and so all suppliers know that they would have to meet these standards to stay in business.

Whilst I think about it, I have come across no-one better at writing about green issues today then George Monbiot – see recent article about wind power below. He seems to go far beyond a sense of believing that wind-power is either a good thing or a bad thing. I hope he keeps up the good work!

An ugly face of ecology

We need to be honest. Wind farms are a necessary evil, but they will not overcome the crisis of climate change

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1470240,00.html George Monbiot Tuesday April 26, 2005 The Guardian

I’ve read both the Meyer and Monbiot articles and feel they both have valid points.

Aubrey Meyer says that some of the US objections to Kyoto were valid. Few would argue with that, although one might allege they had their own agenda, linked to short-term financial security for the US.

Monbiot believes that green NGOs have to be honest and consistent in their message, rather than politic in their speech. If we who are concerned about environmental issues are consistent in what we say, we can more easily hold politicians to their promises.

As to the US being right over Kyoto and being ready to join the C&C movement, I think that is being rather optimistic. This week, US President Bush said that he would pressure oil producing nations to increase production to ease pressures on US consumers.

Still, it is no reason not to campaign for his administration to take up the C&C standard. I’m trying so hard not to be a cynic here.

Bush, does accept CC is occuring (see my postings below), he just has a technocentric/market driven view for its solution.

I also do not think he is very far down the road to realising the urgency of the matter, his measures may well get ramped up in the next few years.

A look at the abject failiure rates for EU implementation of environmental regulations, might also alarm those who dont like Bushs approach. Regulation, is a form of intervention in the market, Bush is ill disposed to such tinkering. He seems to have good grounds for caution here.

With the Pentagons report last year (warning of dangerous CC related consequences), oil prices hitting him in the ratings, and his saudi buddies letting him down time & again; Bush is definately starting to move in the right direction.

The jury will stay out for a little while longer tho’, just to see what his next move is.

If some don’t like gov regs, they can cut subsidies. I think then gasoline and oil would probably double in price in the U.S.

Then if they added in all the expense involved in procuring a & securing oil (including billions in military spending – I think it fair to attribute at least 1/4 of our Iraqi war expenses to that), then gasoline might jump to $15 per gallon or so.

Then if we add in all the cost of the harms done by oil & coal (from local pollution to acid rain to global warming), then the price might go up to $100 per gallon or more.

Yeah, I think we can lick this problem without gov regs – just charge the correct cost (plus some profit) for the products.

exactly, I posted some time ago, about how if fossil fuels were allowed to find their true market value, and other costs were internalised too, then renewable energies might have a fair go.

By the way $100 per barrel of oil is now seriously being considered as a possibility, for the near future.

That might shock you americans, but imagine us here in the UK, where oil prices are already buffeted by huge taxes. I think Blair (when he is reelected) has an even more urgent dilemma on his plate than Bush. (There are fuel demonstrations going on right now in the UK, and they are growing).

cheers Brendon.

PS. it would be really useful if someone could work out how to build in the environmental costs (that you mentioned Lynn) to fossil fuels. It would require analytical skills way beyond mine, but such a tool could make the energy market fairer.

Boy, brendon, I’d like to see externalities internalized. But corporations wouldn’t, so I don’t see it happening. Good thought, tho…

D

would that occur ofcourse. i was more thinking of a tax, scalable down, according to GHG emission levels, thus creatin an incentive to internalise.

Was really just a crazy notion

How would it be assessed, implemented, accounted?

yeah back to the drawing board.

cheers.

From Newsweek April 28, 1975. http://federalistpatriot.us/news/EarthDay1975.pdf

and fascinating that you find this April 4, 1975 issue of Newsweek relevant to even bring up!

It is 2005 Norbert and I think that comparisons to today’s understanding to those of 1975 or ancient proxy data are less relevant than the current assessments of a mostly matured science which can now make more sense of the data which led to that Newsweek article.

Finally, from your own 1975 article it says quote:

“our knowledge of the mechanisms of climate change is at least as fragmentary as our data” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report… “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not know enough to pose the key questions”.

Now Norbert, do you really think that the people on this blog site who are more or less current on the issues would be fascinated by this 1975 Newsweek article?

I do not think so! I think they, like me, may be more fascinated as to why you would be?

Later,

Dan

600 years ago most were convinced that the world was flat & the sun went around the earth, and they practiced blood-letting.

Then we thought the world was cooling (& it was a bit), but we weren’t sure if it might continue cooling.

Now we know the earth is warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse emissions.

What next? Maybe that we have reached the point of no return because of delaying action, and that 80% of life on earth will die out. Who knows? But if that is what you would like to see, then maybe if you keep emitting more & more GHGs, who knows, maybe it will happen. We just don’t know for sure at this point, but it could happen.

I believe that the legend that scientists believed the earth to be flat when Columbus set sail is just that, a legend. The Greeks as early as 600 BC recognized that the earth is a sphere. Pythagoras, Aristotle, Euclid and Aristarchus all wrote about and calculated the properties of a spherical earth. I believe that Euclid was the Greek who estimated the diameter of the earth by measuring the distance between two wells and the time difference between the sunshine reaching their bottoms. Knowing the fraction of a day between the vertical azimuths allowed him to know the fraction of the diameter represented by his measured difference.

A few early Christian theologians apparently took Psalms 104:2, 3 to be literal, but tens of thousands of theologians, poets, artists, and scientists took the spherical view throughout the early, medieval, and modern church. No educated person believed otherwise.

In the present context, I do not believe that many present day scientists believe that AGW is so potent that it will eliminate 80% of the species on earth. I do not believe that many believe that even a significant number will go extinct.

contains much prose that is similar to the comments that the National Academy of Sciences made 30 years ago. Our understanding of the mechanisms of our climate may be improved, but we are a long way from an understanding that is sufficient to make the kinds of prognostications that IPCC is making today.

since it was designed to sow seeds of confusion rather than provide clarity to your negative assessment of any ICPP prognostications!

I would rather you respond back to the request by Robert Cameron in his recent post on a specific section of the IPCC report. The IPCC link Mr. Cameron provided seems to indicate that you may be making a false assumption when you state:

“..we are a long way from an understanding that is sufficient to make the kinds of prognostications that IPCC is making today…”

Robert Cameron’s post below:

http://www.marklynas.org/wind/message/1269.html

I reviewed the same link and believe Mr. Cameron makes a good point and added my comments requesting even further details explaining your position against the IPCC

http://www.marklynas.org/wind/message/1270.html

Your response to Mr. Cameron’s post would actually be more relevant than your 1975 Newsweek article was in providing more evidence on your assertions about the ICPP. I hope you can do this adequately enough to both satisfy the curiosity of both Mr. Cameron and I.

Later,

Dan

No further comment is necessary!

Dan

Hans Von Storch and Nico Stehr wrote an essay for Der Spiegel in January. They discuss the current state of climate science and the escalation of the tenor of its reporting. http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000343a_climate_of_staged_.html

You can read an excellent review of James Hansen’s latest paper at: http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/04/earths-energy-balance.html

Please read the items that I linked below.

we are a long way from an understanding that is sufficient to make the kinds of prognostications that IPCC is making today.

They aren’t prognostications. They are scenarios.

There is a difference.

Decision-makers make decisions with much less information every day.

HTH,

D

Yes, I’m glad Pielke has stated that Crichton’s book is largely factually untrue [thanks for the link, Norb] , because the contrascientists certainly escalate their tenor whenever any little crumb comes out.

You can see Lubos’...er…interesting comments on Usenet, although not so much any more as I think he is just ignored.

D

Scientists are cautious about making guesses, in order to preserve their reputations (and you apparently think they became uncrediable because some suggested the possibility of a global cooling theory in the 70s – which was hyped as more certain by the media).

However, we don’t really know for certain what evidence might start coming in next year, next decade, next century. AGW is trending in a dangerous direction – they’ve gone from scientific uncertainty before 1995 to .05 certainty to increasing evidence each year since then from a variety of different sources.

If there is a point of no return, at which GW spirals out of control, or cannot be abated or reduced by human GHG reductions, we might not know about it until it is too late, partly due to scientific conservatism (the waiting for .05), and partly due to the sluggishness of the earth in reacting to our A-GHGs.

Paleo-evidence suggests runaway GW happened several time before (due to natural inputs of GHGs).

Should we be taking such a risk? Especially when avoiding the risk saves money & strengthens the economy, and solves a host of other environmental & non-environmental problems & would probably make us healthier & happier people?

As they put on the edges of the flat earth maps: Here be dragons!

go back to Robert Cameron’s post concerning the IPCC statements and then proceed to Mr. Cameron’s link to the specific IPCC section he is commenting about and then read my additional comments since I went to that same link.

This IPCC section talked specifically about both the natural and human GW contributions with impressive graphs and even how the IPCC addressed the uncertainties.

Now, your first link was useless to me and your second link was interesting but did not add any clarity concerning those IPCC statements.

So, I ask you to PLEASE direct specific comments to that IPCC section to confirm it correct, confirm it incorrect, or just claim that you just do not have the competency to make a comment.

Either the IPCC is not telling the truth or you are not telling the truth and I am giving you a real opportunity to present your case against the IPCC on this blog!

Thanks,

Dan

Hans Von Storch wrote the article that says, “Despite a good deal of factually untrue – and thus all the more striking – compression, Crichton has quite correctly observed the dynamic of the paths of communication among scientists, environmentalist organizations, the state and the civilian population.”

You should read the essay. It says much about the current state of hype in the AGW controversy.

He (Von Storch) also says that although he believes that some AGW is ongoing, that the alarmist tenor of the popular press and this site are counterproductive.

Von Storch also says, “In October 2004, we were able to demonstrate in the specialist journal “Science” that the methodological bases that led to this hockey-stick curve are mistaken.”

I am convinced that you ignore Lubos, as you appear to ignore most who disagree with you. However, your claim has not convinced me that the ignorance is widespread.

What do you think his (and others) recent publication in Science will have?

Despite a good deal of factually untrue – and thus all the more striking – compression, Crichton has quite correctly observed the dynamic of the paths of communication among scientists, environmentalist organizations, the state and the civilian population.

HTH,

D

James Hansen, you have excellent credentials.

I am confused as to who you are directing your comments to, which author you are talking about, and which publication in Science. There are so many posts right now that I am unable to find the one you are referring to and I am interested in what you have to say.

Dan

I provided a verbatim quote from the Von Storch, not Pielke, essay.

You copied the same text into your post and then accused me of having re-characterized it.

What are you smoking?

1. You’re right – the text was from the VS essay.

2. You said I said the whole book was factually untrue (your post title). I did not.

D

I just was curious about what you had to say and could not find the Science reference.

You posted your original question under the title “America Right or Wrong”.

Maybe, that is why I was confused!

I have made many comments already on the earth’s heat imbalance and one post where I calculated that 0.85W/m2 results in an energy influx of almost half a billion megawatts of extra energy warming the earth when we consider the earth’s surface area of 509,600,000 sq km.

I find the ocean temperatures helpful because we have no urban heat-island temperatures on any ocean surface that I know of (joke) and I read where the ocean satellite data was collected for 10 years with a precision of 3 significant figures.

It seems that 10 years may be insufficient as others may point out but it seems to correlate with other data and simulations at some level so the evidence is very compelling.

Since the land temperatures were also increasing along with the ocean temperatures, it shows the energy flux is out of balance since it is not being taken up elsewhere on the planet.

I am an engineer and not a climate scientist but these were my impressions so far. I made other comments as well.

Sorry for any confusion! I post regularly on Mark’s site and maybe you would like to hear from Mark or someone else. It is just that you directed your comments in the wrong place and you did not clarify adequately enough for me to know precisely what you were talking about and to whom so I asked my question only because I was curious. I do hope you continue to post comments on Mark’s blog site.

Best Regards,

Dan

I think that Mayer is partly right – what the USA says it wants is effectively C&C. however, this is a classic stalling tactic. They oppose anything that isn’t perfect so that they do not need to do sanything. He is certainly right that Kyoto is an awful treaty, but that does not give the USA an excuse to unilaterally increase its per capita emissions year on year. If the USA really believed that it should sign up to C&C and abandon Kyoto, it would be drastically reducing its emissions by taxing fuel and replacing the 50% of their energy production which comes from coal. Otherwise it would end up paying through its teeth for carbon credits from other countries. The USA is simply using proffesed support for C&C as anexcuse to do nothing at all.

To Paul: -

I appreciate the constructive nature of your comments.

Thank you.

Hope lies in the fact that GWB is relevant till 2008 and post-Kyoto only starts 2013.

The US is more than GWB and the oil-industry. The Arabs can’t produce oil they don’t have and the US – like everyone else – isn’t exempt from climate-change related damages.

They need, we all need a C&C or C&C-equivalent deal on emissions to avoid the latter and a long-term strategy on alternatives to oil for the former and the latter.

C&C was the most frequently cited post-Kyoto option in the Bonn negotiations just completed <http: /> . . . and the Canadians are begging people to arrive at COP-11 with a plan.

We don’t need to have faith to see where this is going. The writing is increasingly on the wall: – build-on C&C or we lose the planet.

Aubrey