The record of recent Man-made CO2 emissions: 1965 -2013 shows that China and the developing world is laughing at your position, Mr. President.
Guest essay by Ed Hoskins
The following calculations and graphics are based on information on national CO2 emission levels worldwide published by BP[1]in June 2014 for the period from 1965 up until 2013. The data is well corroborated by previous similar datasets published by the CDIAC, Guardian [2] and Google up until 2009 [3]. These notes and figures provide a short commentary on that CO2 emissions history.
The contrast between the developed and developing worlds is stark in terms of their history of CO2 emissions and the likely prognosis for their future CO2 output.
Since 1980 CO2 emissions from the developed world have shown virtually no increase, whereas the developing world has had a fourfold increase since 1980: that increase is accelerating.
Similarly the CO2 output per head is declining in the developed world whereas it is accelerating the developing world.
In October 2010 Professor Richard Muller made the dilemma for all those who hope to control global warming by reducing CO2 emissions clear: in essence he said[4]:
“the Developing World is not joining-in with CO2 emission reductions nor does it have any intention of doing so.
The failure of worldwide action negates the unilateral action of any individual western Nation”.
This presentation divides the world nations into seven logical groups with distinct attitudes to CO2 control:
These graphs of total CO2 emission history show that up until 2013:
§ There is stabilisation or reduction of emissions from developed economies since 1980.
§ The USA, simply by exploiting shale gas for electricity generation, has already reduced its CO2 emissions by some 9.5% since 2005[5]. That alone has already had more CO2 emission reduction effect than the entire Kyoto protocol[6] [7].
§ CO2 emissions from the developed economies rejecting action on CO2 have hardly grown since 2005.
§ The European Union (27) has reduced its CO2 emissions by ~14% since 2005.
However:
§ CO2 emissions from the developing world as a whole overtook the developed world in 2007 and are now a third larger than the developed world’s CO2 emissions.
§ there has been a very rapid escalation of Chinese CO2 emissions since the year 2000[8].
§ China overtook the USA CO2 emissions in 2006, and Chinese emissions are now ~62% greater than the USA, the escalation in Chinese CO2 emissions continues. Chinese emissions have grown by +75% since 2005 and China continues to build coal fired powerstations to supply the bulk of its electricity as demand grows.
§ India has accelerating emissions[9], growing from a low base by +63% since 2005. India too is building coal fired powerstations to increase the supply of electricity as 25% of its population still has no access to electric power.
§ there is inexorable emissions growth from the Rest of the World economies, from a low base, they have grown by +30% since 2005.
So any CO2 emissions reduction achieved by the Developed Nations will be entirely negated by the increases in CO2 emissions from Developing Nations.
However probably more significant than the total CO2 emissions output is the comparison of the emissions/head for the various nation groups.
§ The EU(27) even with active legal measures have maintained a fairly level CO2 emission rate but have managed to reduce their CO2 emissions/head by ~16% since 2005. Much of the recent downward trend is largely attributed to their declining economies.
§ The USA has already reduced its CO2 emissions/head by ~22% since in 2005, mainly arising from the use of shale gas for electricity generation.
§ Russia, Japan, Canada and Australia have only grown their emissions/head by ~1% since 2005.
§ China’s CO2 emissions/head have increased ~11 fold since 1965. China overtook the world-wide average in 2003 and surpassed the rapidly developing nations in 2006. China’s emissions / head at 7.0 tonnes / head are now approaching the level of the EU(27) nations.
§ India’s CO2 emissions have grown by 4.7 times over the period and are now showing recent modest acceleration. That increasing rate is likely to grow substantially with increased use of coal for electricity generation[10].
§ The eight rapidly developing nations have shown consistent growth from a low base in 1965 at 5.6 times. They exceeded the world average CO2 emissions level in 1997.
§ The Rest of the World (~160 Nations), 36% of world population, have grown CO2 emissions consistently but only by 2.6 times since 1965, this group will be the likely origin of major future emissions growth as they strive for better standards of living.
§ Overall average world-wide emissions/head have remained relatively steady but with early growth in the decade from 1965. It amounts to 1.6 times since 1965.
When the participating nations particularly EU(27) are compared with Chinese CO2 emissions/head, an interesting picture arises:
§ Chinese CO2 emissions at 7.01mt/head for its 1.3 billion population are already ~43% greater than the worldwide average. Those emissions are still growing fast.
§ At 5.5mt/head, France, with ~80% nuclear electricity generation, has the lowest CO2 emission rates in the developed world and is at only ~12% above the world-wide average.
§ China’s CO2 emissions/head exceeded France’s CO2 emissions/head in 2009 and are now 22% higher.
§ The UK at 7.2mt/head is now only ~48% higher than the world-wide average and only about ~3% higher than China. So China is likely to overtake the UK in the near future.
§ Germany, one of the largest CO2 emitters in Europe, has emissions/head ~100% higher than the worldwide average and is still ~49% higher than China. Germany’s emissions/head have increased recently because they are now burning much larger quantities of brown coal to compensate them for the “possibly irrational” closure of their nuclear generating capacity.
This must question the logic of Green attitudes in opposing Nuclear power. Following the Fukushima disaster, the German government position of rapidly eliminating nuclear power in a country with no earthquake risk and no chance of tsunamis should not be tenable.
If CO2 emissions really were a concern to arrest Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming / Man-made Climate Change, these results particularly from France show starkly the very real advantage of using Nuclear power for electricity generation.
Professor Fritz Vahrenholt was CEO of RWE Innogy, the major German windpower supplier, he had pioneered Germany’s significant advances in renewable energy, especially in the development of wind power.
Previously Professor Vahrenholt had fully accepted the IPCC as the foundation of his understanding of mankind’s effect on climate change. However, with his scientific background as chemist, he re-examined IPCC reports in detail. He found many errors, inconsistencies and unsupported assertions. Accordingly he has now entirely revised his position.
Professor Vahrenholt’s diagram below is from his July 2012 lecture at the Royal Society [11] [12], it shows the miniscule impact of the enormously costly efforts at decarbonisation in Germany, (die Energiewende), in comparison with the inevitable escalation of CO2 emissions from the rest of the world.
The underdeveloped nations are bound to become progressively more industrialised and more intensive users of fossil fuels to power their development and widen their distribution of electricity.
The futility of the expenditure of vast resources on Green activities in Germany becomes clear. German actions with increasing risks to its energy security and the growing risk to the German economy as its manufacturing industries seek more congenial energy / business environments, could only ever reduce Germany’s CO2 emissions by ~150,000,000 tonnes between 2006 and 2030.
That would only amount to ~1/100 of the concomitant growth in other CO2 emissions from the developing world. According to Bjorn Lomborg the $100billion German investment in solar power alone, not including other renewable investments, can only reduce the onset of Global Warming by a matter of about 37 hours by the year 2100[13].
This point is re-emphasised above, by cross comparing the annual growth in emissions from China and India with the full annual emissions from key European countries. Chinese CO2 emissions growth in some years can exceed the total UK and French emissions level and even approach the German level on occasions.
Professor Varhenholt is now convinced that it is nature and in particular the behaviour of the sun that is responsible for our continually changing climate, and as he said as the final point of his Royal society lecture:
“This change can only develop first with a revolution of our minds.”
“It’s not mankind creating climate. It’s the sun: stupid.”
Professor Varhenholt and his colleague Sebastian Luening have now published a best seller in Germany “Die Kalte Sonne”, the book now released in English as
“The Neglected Sun: Why the Sun Precludes Climate Catastrophe”[14].
[1] http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/about-bp/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/31/world-carbon-dioxide-emissions-country-data-co2#data
[3] https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdFF1QW00ckYzOG0yWkZqcUhnNDVlSWc&hl=en#gid=1
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5m6KzDnv7k
[5] http://www.c3headlines.com/2013/07/a-fracking-revolution-us-now-leads-world-in-co2-emission-reductions-.html
[6]http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/project_syndicate/2012/09/thanks_to_fracking_u_s_carbon_emissions_are_at_the_lowest_levels_in_20_years_.html
[7] http://www.oilandgasonline.com/doc/u-s-fracking-has-carbon-more-whole-world-s-wind-solar-0001
[8] http://www.pbl.nl/en/news/pressreleases/2011/steep-increase-in-global-co2-emissions-despite-reductions-by-industrialised-countries
[9] http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-06-10/global-warming/29642669_1_kyoto-protocol-second-commitment-period-
[10] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/India-invokes-right-to-grow-to-tell-rich-nations-of-its-stand-on-future-climate-change-negotiations/articleshow/36724848.cms
[11] http://www.thegwpf.org/vahrenholt-lecture/
[12] http://kaltesonne.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/vahrenholt-2012-annual-gwpf-lecture.pdf
[13] http://www.lomborg.com/content/2013-03-germany-pays-billions-delay-global-warming-37-hours
[14] http://notrickszone.com
For pity’s sake, the politicians know damn well CAGW and especially CO2 is a furphy – but hey, a tax on air? How good is that? All they have to do is keep the pseudo-scientists churning out their nudged up graphs and maintain the fear factor and they have the ultimate tax weapon.
Why is it not happening in China and Russia? Because those counties leaders know damn well their people aren’t that stupid.
“The record of recent Man-made CO2 emissions: 1965 -2013 shows that China and the developing world is laughing at your position, Mr. President.”
Yes.
Just as bus loads of individuals attempting to enter our borders are laughing at President Obama’s position.
Except, in neither case is it a laughing matter.
This is a useful collection of stats. Probably would be stronger without the Vahrenholt ending section. We don’t need to offer an alternative theory to show the insanity of the current approach.
“It’s not mankind creating climate. It’s the sun: stupid.”
This is exactly what I have been saying since the 1980s. But the problem is that the propaganda machine of the left on CAGW swamps all manner of facts and logic. Your post is fabulous and informative, but the president and his men don’t give a flying [snip] about your facts and figures. They want to control people. Politics is all about making people demand to be saved from mostly imaginary dragons.
According to EPA sites the US is responsible for 19% of the global CO2 emissions.
According to EPA sites electric generation accounts for 38% of US CO2 emissions.
A reduction of 30% in CO2 from US electric generation will reduce global CO2 emissions by 2.2%. (.19*.38*.30=0.0217) Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo.
THE PRESIDENT IS ALL ABOUT NONSENSE AND SO IS MICHAEL BARBARO.
We’re living on a carbon planet.
Reducing carbon in the atmosphere is just as stupid as reducing oxigin from the atmosphere or removing water from the oceans.
It’s just plain stupid.
How much effort do we have to invest in subject that never was a problem in the first place.
Climate Change Activist’s Hedge Fund Finances Coal Projects
By MICHAEL BARBARO and CORAL DAVENPORT 3:23 PM ET
Though the environmentalist Tom Steyer has vowed to sell his investments in companies that generate fossil fuels, the projects his hedge fund bankrolled may emit carbon for decades to come.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/05/us/politics/prominent-environmentalist-helped-fund-coal-projects.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LedeSum&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
obama doesn’t give a whit that his position on CO2 is crapola. MM-global warming is a means to an end in his ongoing attack on American society. He will do or say anything in the furtherance of that end.
What he should have said at his inauguration:
“Lo, I am become become obama – destroyer of worlds”.
Not only do they not care they are totally insulated by staff from any contradiction evidence.
pity it ended with sun nonsense.
Dang, Ed Hoskins, you were doing so well until you veered off into astrology:
First, at this point, I’ve analyzed and reviewed the following climate datasets of all types in search of the 11-year solar signal, and not one of them has shown any significant sign of solar influence.
Now, you can’t prove a negative, so that doesn’t mean there is no solar influence … just that extensive searching of all kinds of climate datasets hasn’t found any evidence to support the theory.
So at this point, it’s just stupid to continue claiming that “It’s the sun, stupid” … because at this point you’ll need some evidence to back it up.
More to the point, however, you’ve badly weakened your argument by including the claim about the sun. Your point, which is excellent, is that CO2 reduction by the developed world is meaningless, because all of the emissions growth is in the developing world … so what on earth does the sun have to do with that?
One thing I’ve learned in this game is to limit the extent of my claims in a post in general, and in particular, don’t make any claims outside the ambit of your main thesis. All that does is gives people a reason to find fault with or to ignore your research … particularly when you bring in unsubstantiated claims such as you have done regarding the sun. Up until that point, I had no opinion on your critical thinking skills.
But now? … all of a sudden, you’ve left the world of CO2 facts and figures and ventured into the unsubstantiated unknown, and that can only be to the detriment of your otherwise detailed, well-supported, and overall excellent exposition of the facts about CO2 emissions.
In any case, thanks for the post. You might enjoy my 2009 post on the same subject, entitled “Why Copenhagen Will Achieve Nothing“, which had this graph to illustrate the issue:
My best to you, well done,
w.
James Hansen says anyone who opposes nuclear power is endangering the future of the world.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists-letter/
Tough job being a President now the USA is now seen as the biggest oil producer after overtaking Saudi Arabia? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-04/u-s-seen-as-biggest-oil-producer-after-overtaking-saudi.html
Americans and the world have to be punished for a gift like that.
A few thoughts on an interesting article:
1. I would speculate that stable or sightly reducing emissions in the developed world arise through economic and price pressures, together with the export of manufacturing industries and their emissions to India and China. However it may be a plausible proposition that long term emissions in the developed world could stabilise at around 10 – 12 tonnes per head.
2. Developed world accounts for approx 17% of world population and is largely replacement with limited population growth (immigration excepted). Some countries actually contracting. Population growth in the developing world is still high.
3. On the basis that developing nations aspire to (broadly) developed living standards implies approx a doubling of output per head for China and others accounting for 30% of world population at present. Assuming population growth over the next two or three decades makes a medium term demand increased by around 250% over current levels.
4. India and others account for 53% of world population and produce a relatively trivial amount of emissions – 1.5 – 2.0 tonnes per head. Assuming they do grow to developed nation levels this suggests a round a 500% increase over current levels – together with population growth may be 750% higher.
5. This simplistic analysis suggests that total demand will increase from the current total of 35000m tonnes to around 90000m tonnes over a 20 – 50 year timescale. It is questionable whether capacity exists to supply this volume of fossil fuels and I suspect market pressures will drive prices up making it economic to:
– find innovative clean solutions (including nuclear, wind, solar, tidal etc) to deliver energy, and
– initiatives/developments to improve energy efficiency (insulation, heat recovery, manufacturing techniques, transport etc)
6. Leaving aside the issue of whether carbon actually impacts on the climate, overall I have to agree with the conclusions that carbon reduction schemes are doomed to failure unless there is a coherent international agreement. Complex carbon trading schemes only partially implemented are laughable.
7. Ultimately the market will need to find the solution! Governments can help and even develop a technological lead by supporting non carbon based energy – not only through subsidies which increase the burden of general taxation, but enabling developments by minimising legal, planning, environmental and other barriers.
Here’s Obama’s preposterous position on this problem–one that unfortunately will make sense to many of his fans (from his U. Cal.: Irvine speech):
How could the US Secretary of State continue criticizing and dictating to developing countries if US has not done what they are talking. Actually the US has made several reservations on the Rio Declaration on environment and development that it could rely to diverge from the position of the other developed countries such as the EU, Canada, etc. who did not make any reservations. While all the countries promised to implement the principles of the Rio declaration ( principle 27) in their domestic and international practices, the Rio declaration is a non-binding agreement except when those principles are incorporated in specific binding agreements such as treaties and protocols. The principle of common but differentiated responsibility ( principle 7) is one of those principles of the Rio declaration that is incorporated in the UNFCCC. The discussion on how the emissions from the developed countries has declined and the emissions from the developing countries have increased is nothing more than the implementation of principle 7 of the Rio declaration. What is contentious is the implied results of principle 7 when implemented simultaneously with principle 5 read which is commonly called convergence or equality.. Should equality or convergence be measured by country or should it be measured in per capita basis? The developed countries looks at it on per country basis, that means China has bigger emissions than US and India is not far behind. To the developing countries, it is on per capita basis in which case the US and developed countries will have to cut their emissions by around 40 to 50 per cent while leaving China to increase its emissions by another 100 per cent compared to 2000 level. China has a population almost 5 times bigger than the US. Well there are other issues with larger economic significance than carbon pricing and reduction. It will not be surprising if China will have some form of emission trading to placate the developed countries. This was the case of Russia. When EU and the other developed countries announced their reluctance to buy the “hot air” carbon credits from Russia ( hot air carbon credits are the carbon dioxide reduction caused by the large reduction in manufacturing activities in Russia after the collapse of the USSR), Russia was not expected to ratify the Kyoto Protocol but there were larger economic issues than the value of the hot air carbon credits.
PS: William James divided people into the tough-minded and the tender-minded. One’s view of the likelihood vs. the unlikelihood of the leaders or populations of developing nations curtailing their CO2 emissions is a beautiful litmus test of those dispositions.
(Michael Barone wrote a book on a somewhat similar theme, Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation’s Future at http://www.amazon.com/Hard-America-Soft-Competition-Coddling-ebook/dp/B000FC1LQ0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404519324&sr=1-1&keywords=Hard+America+%2F+Soft+America.)
It’s all rather silly since fossil fuel emission has little if any correlation to atmospheric CO2. http://notrickszone.com/2013/03/02/most-of-the-rise-in-co2-likely-comes-from-natural-sources/
Observations, i.e. measurements, are showing that atmospheric CO2 concentration has nothing to do with “Climate” and nothing to do with “Climate Change”, by anyones definitions of the nouns.
Perhaps the CO2 Intelligentsia should ask “Prof. Mr. Freddy Kruger” for a detailed ruling about the physiology of CO2 phantasmagoria.
🙂
PS: OCO2
We will C
The president is a numbskull, you’re aiming at the wrong target.
Do you think the US President is unaware of the situation? All the leaders in the developed world as well as activists are aware that all their efforts won’t make a jot of difference to the TOTAL amount of man-made co2 between now and 2050. The agenda is not about reducing co2.
For once Muller talked a great deal of sense by simply stating the obvious.
For the developing world to actually participate is basically asking their people to UNdevelop whatever they have developed so far. Back to burning dung for millions of Indians. Chop down more trees for Haitians. Let’s remember why we no longer hunt whales for their oil.
VIDEO: 2 July: CNS News: Apollo Astronaut: Climate Alarmism Is the ‘Biggest Fraud in the Field of Science’
Climate alarmism is “the biggest fraud in the field of science” and the 97% consensus claim is nonsensical, Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham tells MRCTV in a preview of his presentation at the upcoming Heartland Institute climate conference, July 7-9.
“Since about 2000, I looked farther and farther into it,” Col. Cunningham (USMC, Ret.) tells MRCTV in an exclusive interview. “I found that not one of the claims that the alarmists were making out there had any bearings, whatsoever. And, so, it was kind of a no-brainer to come to the conclusion.”
Cunningham rejects the notion of man-made climate, not only as fact – but also as even qualifying as an actual “theory”:
“In the media, it was being called a theory. Obviously, they didn’t know what it means to be a theory.”
“If we go back to the warmist hypothesis – not a theory, but, a hypothesis – they’ve been saying from the very beginning that carbon dioxide levels are abnormally high, that higher levels of carbon dioxide are bad for humans, and they thought warmer temperatures are bad for our world, and they thought we were able to override natural forces to control the earth’s temperature. So, as I’ve looked into those, that’s the problem that I’ve found, because I didn’t find any of those to be correct – and, they certainly were not a theory, it was just their guess at what they wanted to see in the data they were looking at.”…
Cunningham notes that, while climate alarmists are concerned that the atmosphere currently contains 400 parts per million of CO2, that’s only a tenth of the level his spacecraft had to reach before causing concern. In his Apollo craft, an alarm would go off when CO2 reached 4,000 parts per million and, in today’s space shuttle, the trigger is 5,000. And, in submarines where crewmen may be on three-month missions, CO2 has to reach 8,000 parts per million before the alarm is activated…
“To me, it’s almost laughable, it’s the biggest fraud in the field of science, certainly in my lifetime, maybe the biggest one in centuries.”…
Worst of all, Cunningham says, media are promoting the “nonsensical” claim that there’s scientific consensus accepting the hypothesis of man-made climate…
http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/craig-bannister/apollo-astronaut-climate-alarmism-biggest-fraud-field-science
Another Message to the POTUS on “Independece Day” .
I agree with others above. Bringing the sun into it is only a distraction from the main point.
re: the Sun – correlation does not equal causation and there is precious little correlation. It isn’t the Sun.
The sun IS the main point.
Simply thermodynamics shows that energy from the sun is partially blocked by clouds. More clouds, less energy reaches Earth’s surface.
Roger Sowell says:
July 4, 2014 at 7:57 pm
The sun IS the main point.
Simply thermodynamics shows that energy from the sun is partially blocked by clouds. More clouds, less energy reaches Earth’s surface.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So what you just said Roger is that it is NOT the sun, but variations in cloud cover, quite contrary to your first sentence.
I agree with others upthread, this article is stronger without the sun reference at the end.
This eaay by Ed Hoskins is all about effectiveness of emissions reductions. Emissions reductions are totally unnecessary because demonstrably addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere does not cause warming. The warmists who promote global warming have finally run out of their pseudo-scientific arguments supporting the existence of global warming. It so happens that there is no greenhouse warming or any other kind of warming today. And there has been none for the last 17 years while atmospheric carbon dioxide steadily increased. Their greenhouse theory goes back to nineteenth century scientist Svante Arrhenius. It predicts that if you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere it will start to absorb outgoing IR, warming the air as a result, and causing global warming. Every day for the last 17 years their greenhouse theory has predicted warming but nothing at all has happened. If your theory predicts warming and for 17 years nothing happens you know that theory is no damn good and belongs in the waste basket of history. There is a place for it right next to phlogiston, another failed theory of heat. You have not been told that, but carbon dioxide is not even the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Water vapor is, and there is 25 times more of it, on the average, than carbon dioxide. The only greenhouse theory that can handle more than one greenhouse gas simultaneously absorbing in the IR is the Miskolczi greenhouse theory (MGT). It tells us that water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere form a joint optimal absorption window whose optical thickness is fixed at 1.87. This corresponds to an IR transmittance of 15 percent or absorbance of 85 percent. If you now add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere it will start to absorb, just as Arrhenius says. But this will increase the optical thickness. And as soon as this happens, water vapor will start to diminish, rain out, and the original optical thickness is thereby restored. As a result, no warming will take place despite the fact that carbon dioxide has increased. This is exactly what we have now: warming has ceased but carbon dioxide simply keeps on increasing. As a result, all climate models emanating from IPCC show raising temperature in the twenty-first century and completely pass by the real temperature which has been a level, horizontal line for 17 years. It is easy to understand where this stupidity comes from: they are all programmed to equate carbon dioxide rise with temperature rise which is simply untrue. Unfortunately such faulty model results end up in reports to governments, as part of the National Climate Assessment, and in media outlets. One very important consequence of the lack of this greenhouse warming is the fact that there can be no such thing as anthropogenic global warming. It follows that belief in the existence of AGW is nothing more than an illusion, a pseudo-scientific fantasy of scientific illiterates.No amount of emissions reductions can have any influence on these processes. The entire concept of emissions reductions is therefore not even science but a pseudo-science, costing us huge sums of money that are totally wasted.
This essay by Ed Hoskins is all about effectiveness of emissions reductions. Emissions reductions are totally unnecessary because demonstrably addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere does not cause warming. The warmists who promote global warming have finally run out of arguments supporting the existence of global warming. It so happens that there is no greenhouse warming or any other kind of warming today. And there has been none for the last 17 years while atmospheric carbon dioxide steadily increased. Their greenhouse theory goes back to nineteenth century scientist Svante Arrhenius. It predicts that if you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere it will start to absorb outgoing IR, warming the air as a result, and causing global warming. Every day for the last 17 years their greenhouse theory has predicted warming but nothing at all has happened. If your theory predicts warming and for 17 years nothing happens you know that theory is worthless and belongs in the waste basket of history. There is a place for it right next to phlogiston, another failed theory of heat. You have not been told that, but carbon dioxide is not even the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Water vapor is, and there is 25 times more of it, on the average, than carbon dioxide. The only greenhouse theory that can handle more than one greenhouse gas simultaneously absorbing in the IR is the Miskolczi greenhouse theory (MGT). It tells us that water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere form a joint optimal absorption window whose optical thickness is fixed at 1.87. This corresponds to an IR transmittance of 15 percent or absorbance of 85 percent. If you now add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere it will start to absorb, just as Arrhenius says. But this will increase the optical thickness. And as soon as this happens, water vapor will start to diminish, rain out, and the original optical thickness is thereby restored. As a result, no warming will take place despite the fact that carbon dioxide has increased. This is exactly what we have now: warming has ceased but carbon dioxide simply keeps on increasing. As a result, all climate models emanating from IPCC show raising temperature in the twenty-first century and completely pass by the real temperature which has been a level, horizontal line for 17 years. It is easy to understand where this stupidity comes from: they are all programmed to equate carbon dioxide rise with temperature rise which is simply untrue. Unfortunately such faulty model results end up in reports to governments, as part of the National Climate Assessment, and in media outlets. One very important consequence of the lack of this greenhouse warming is the fact that there can be no such thing as anthropogenic global warming. It follows that belief in the existence of AGW is nothing more than an illusion, a pseudo-scientific fantasy of scientific illiterates.No amount of emissions reductions can have any influence on these processes. The entire concept of emissions reductions is therefore not even science but a pseudo-science, costing us huge sums of money that are totally wasted.
I reject the impression left that China is building coal plants left and right, and nothing else. China HATES coal plants and, considering their smog, rightfully so. Of course, their coal plants are a lot dirtier than our coal plants. China is on a nuclear building binge and isn’t stopping before the end of the century, when they plan to have 1600 nuclear reactors, 16 times more than we currently have. At this moment they have 37 nuclear plants under construction and hundreds more being planned. But it takes time to build a nuclear plant – these days normally between 36 to 48 months.
So they are also buillding entry ports to accept LNG, along with electric power generators to burn the gas. In just the past few weeks, three Chinese nuclear plants began operation. They have the ability to build a nuclear plant entirely within country, without the assistance of Western engineers or technicians. India is also emphasizing nuclear power and is active in this area. So is the Middle East and Eastern Europe and England.
Mark Stoval: “Politics is all about making people demand to be saved from mostly imaginary dragons.”
Never let a crisis go to waste.
Corollary – Don’t waste time waiting for a crisis, create one.
davidmhoffer would disagree with me if I said that local gravity pulls things toward the Earth’s center. Such a contrarian. And wrong, as usual. Perhaps davidmhoffer is unaware of the link between the sun and clouds. It made the news.
For those who want to read about the sun’s influence, see Dr. S. Fred Singer and Dr. Dennis T. Avery’s work on D-O cycles. This is from September 2005, so is certainly not new. It cites the Dansgaard and Oeschger paper from 1984, 30 years ago so certainly not new. The link is at
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st279?pg=3
It certainly IS the sun.
Roger Sowell says:
July 4, 2014 at 8:12 pm
davidmhoffer would disagree with me if I said that local gravity pulls things toward the Earth’s center. Such a contrarian. And wrong, as usual.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You contradicted yourself, its right there upthread for everyone to see.
When called on it, you added a qualifying statement and reference as if it was part of your original statement. Your lawyer striped are showing.
I could refer you to the many comments and references from Willis and Leif which disprove your reference, but then we’d just be having a “my reference is better than your reference” argument. Thanks, because this exchange demonstrates exactly why the claim about the sun should not have been in the article in the first place. It provides more distraction than value.
Willis Eschenbach: “I’ve analyzed and reviewed the following climate datasets of all types in search of the 11-year solar signal,”
Even though you haven’t found a simple 11-year solar cycle; that does not mean Prof. Varhenholt was incorrect at pointing to sun. The overall effect of sun on our global climate could be a combination of numerous factors involving sun. Thus, a complex varying year solar signal. A complex solar signal that perhaps a few Global Warming Climatologists long ago found, but remained silent about knowing their was no money in reporting.
messages to the President from China & India:
(2 pages) 3 July: Washington Times: Ben Wolfgang: Obama pleas to China, India to forgo use of coal falls on deaf ears
Far East shuns renewables for cheap energy
Coal may have played an integral role in turning the U.S. into the world’s top economic superpower, but President Obama is actively pushing China, India and other emerging economies to ignore the fuel that powered the Industrial Revolution and instead embrace renewable sources favored by those on the political left.
As part of his passionate push on climate change, the president recently implored developing countries to “leapfrog” old energy sources, which are the primary drivers of carbon emissions…
So far, however, there’s little evidence those countries intend to listen to Mr. Obama, with China’s coal consumption, for example, skyrocketing and projected to keep growing for the foreseeable future. The country now accounts for nearly 50 percent of all global coal consumption, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Some energy analysts say that expecting the president’s sermon — in which he urges nations to now do as we say, not as we did for more than a century — to dramatically alter the worldwide energy landscape is a glaring example of the “dream world” that Mr. Obama and his backers in the environmental movement call home…
“The left used to look at telling the rest of the world what to do as something to be frowned upon when the U.S. was doing it. Now they seem to practice it with a lot of gusto,” said Dan Kish, senior vice president of policy at the Institute for Energy Research. “The idea that they’re going to forgo the Industrial Revolution, which really was an energy revolution, and go to forms of energy that [Mr. Obama] finds really cool is a dream world.”…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/3/obama-pleas-to-china-india-to-forgo-use-of-coal-fa/
Willis – it might help if you had an explanation why the Earth’s climate is determined entirely by the sun even while the effects of the sun’s varying TSI go unseen. That can be as simple as a comment: “something has be changing but we don’t know what”. Unless you know that varying TSI is incapable of forcing something on Earth to respond. If so, say so, but that would be one of those remarkable claims that requires remarkable proof.
Even if we agree (we do) the cyclic TSI effects go unseen we have no explanation why that is. Obviously something is changing – something must – how can it not? What is that which is changing? I don’t know but given the effect is small I’m leaning toward including a biological response as well as your emergent phenomena. Alone neither has the energy budget. That response is easy to lose in the noise given it is distributed around the world, wet or dry. A simple feedback can’t do it – for feedbacks to work there must be an error signal proportional to the feedback. When that error drops to zero so too does the feedback. Biology doesn’t understand that and can respond by overshooting or closing the error signal to zero because predators lag the prey. It is the fox and rabbits game. Or hysteresis as it is known in the world of closed loop systems. I think too we’re not seeing a response because we don’t know how to look for it or worse, think it unimportant.
When I look at the very first graphic on this blog, I see the effect of the financial meltdown on the economies of the developing world. Economic recession is what has caused our emissions to fall.
All we need to do is destroy our economies by anti-CO2 policies and we will achieve the North Korean level of Gaia-happy CO2 emissions and the North Korean standard of living.
Then, if voters in the developing world permit their descent into poverty, India and China will soon become the predominant world powers.
Hold on a minute. This ignores Russia. Perhaps the Russians will not follow other developed countries. Perhaps Russia will become with its new-found ally China, the next axis of world power.
If you still regard Russia as an undeveloped country, you need to catch up with economic history and possibly economic development theory.
Willis Eschenback: “So at this point, it’s just stupid to continue claiming that “It’s the sun, stupid” … because at this point you’ll need some evidence to back it up.”
“Some evidence” would seem to be, to close to Sun and you have deadly hot temperatures of Mercury, to far away deadly freezing temperatures of Neptune. Or closer to home, warm temperatures around equator at sea level vs. cold temperatures at poles. Then there is our moon with nearly plus 250 to 400 F degree days and over minus 240 to 300F degree night temperatures, with nearly a zero atmosphere.
I don’t think this is really OT, considering the upstream traffic
A solar observation asset is not going to be a consistent performer moving forward.
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/solar_conjunction.shtml
China laughs at the potus but in reality the potus is laughing at the US.
A dream come true for a guy who despises everything great about the USA.
Darren Potter says:
July 4, 2014 at 9:06 pm RE: “some evidence”
Perhaps, Darren, you can read the post and comments and realize that while you have stated some facts they have nothing to do with the idea of climate change, global warming, or global cooling. What folks are looking for is an explanation of why the climates (uncertain as the definitions may be) of Earth appear to change on a time frame longer than weather. If I missed something in your comment that adds to the discussion, please explain.
Assuming for a moment that CO2 emissions are a problem.
Monetary policy has everything to do with it and IS the ultimate cause of increasing CO2 emissions.
The monetary system that was imposed in the USA in 1913 and then gradually imposed in Europe and, through US$ reserve status, gradually expanded to other countries, effectively ties all these countries to US monetary policy.
The monetary system in question is predicated on the perpetual expansion of debt and the monetary base – i.e. the expansion of debt – in other words, perpetual, aggressive and artificial induction of inflation.
This is a compounding dynamic that eventually goes exponential. For illustrative purposes, just think that the US monetary base has DOUBLED under Obama.
This monetary dynamic conforms to the law of diminishing marginal utility. Thus ever more debt (inflation) is required in order to achieve the same result.
The aggressive expansion of debt compresses in time the production and consumption cycles. This dynamic leads inevitably to industrial overcapacity. Industrial overcapacity necessarily results in the exploitation of resources at a faster clip than otherwise necessary. Overexploitation leads to things like the depletion of fish stocks or water tables due to overuse in a compressed time frame thus precluding repopulation and/or replenishment.
Predicated on the perpetual and aggressive expansion of debt on one hand, but debt having a diminishing effect over productivity, this dynamic also results in a myriad other arithmetical realities.
One of the realities brought about by this monetary system is that due to the diminishing effect of debt on the productivity of the economy, government must gradually intervene at ever greater and deeper degrees. Thus government must, perforce, become the largest actor in the economy.
And so it is that as ever more debt is required in order to keep this monetary system going, government must imperatively get into the business of picking champions upon whom to lavish great sums of money to “make work”. By the same token, government must find myriad creative ways to expand credit markets. It is in this light that things like the United Nations, the IMF or the World Bank must be viewed and understood. All these entities either in their financing or in their inner working are singularly devoted to the expansion of the credit markets. Empirically speaking, the UN is the poster child of the “make work” doctrine. It is financed out of the sovereign deficits of its member countries; it churns prodigious amounts of funds on lavish salaries and perks for its staff; it spends astronomical sums to maintain operations that never reach the stated aim.
We could go on.
Empirically speaking therefore, if CO2 truly was a problem, the only effective way to fight it would be sound monetary policy premised on balanced budgets and increased productivity rather than on the financialization of our economies.
Other than the above, to think that man could have an effect on climate is to believe that we could alter the trajectory of earth in space. It is reminiscent of the geocentrism of the dark ages.
how scare are they CAGW zealots?
4 July: UK Daily Mail: Darren Boyle: BBC slammed by listeners and criticised by its own compliance unit after Radio 4 Today programme gave ‘undue prominence’ to climate change sceptic
Successful complainant accused the BBC of ‘acting irresponsibly’
The BBC’s Editorial Compliance unit has blasted its flagship Today programme over its failure to provide balance on a debate on climate change.
The show’s editorial team was found to have given minority views and opinions ‘equal footing’ to those of the scientific consensus.
The programme, broadcast in February during the major flooding crisis featured climate change scientist Sir Brian Hoskins from Imperial College London who was debating the issue with a founder of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which is sceptical as to its impact…
The main complaint for made by former Green Party councillor and low-energy specialist Chit Chong who said the BBC acted irresponsibly in allowing the debate to consider the existence of climate change.
Speaking today Mr Chong said: ‘Dismissing climate change today is the same as trying to argue that smoking is not harmful. The science has proved the existence of climate change.
‘By broadcasting programmes that question the existence of climate change, the BBC is confusing people, allowing them to deny what is actually happening. It is not responsible journalism.
‘Politicians look at the public mood when considering policy and if sections of the population are sceptical to climate change, the government’s policy decisions will reflect that.’…
Several listeners complained to the BBC’s Editorial Compliance unit who, according to The Independent, will criticise the show’s approach in a report due to be released later today.
According to Fraser Steel, head of the unit: ‘Minority opinions and sceptical views should not be treated as if it were on an equal footing with the scientific consensus.
‘Lord Lawson’s views are not supported by the evidence from computer modelling and scientific research and I don’t believe this was made sufficiently clear to the audience.
‘I do not believe it was made sufficiently clear that Lord Lawson’s views on climate change are not supported by the majority of climate scientists, and should not be regarded as carrying equal weight to those of experts such as Sir Brian Hopkins.’ …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2680370/BBC-slammed-listeners-criticised-compliance-unit-Radio-4-Today-programme-gave-undue-prominence-climate-change-sceptic.html#ixzz36YxdO6tu
typos… should have been:
“how scared are the CAGW zealots?”
Terry says:
July 4, 2014 at 5:05 pm
and
eo says:
July 4, 2014 at 5:12 pm
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The charts show something very interesting and one seems a bit out of synch. The first ones show constant CO2 growth in China and the last one shows a dip in concert with the developed nations. Perhaps I have misunderstood the nuances. But I think the chart that shows most countries including China with a dip in CO2 around the 2008 recession is a big signal. While the stock market in the US has recently hit new highs, unemployment in the western world has stayed high. We used to talk about 4% unemployment as “normal”, now 7% adjusted for those no longer working is normal. Egalitarianism brings up the standard of living of poor nations and the economic “conservation of energy” would suggest that richer nations must decline in “real” values. (That is just a comment, not a hypothesis.) In addition, it seems that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer while the middle class struggles. Meanwhile politicians divert attention from issues with “climate”. Classic misdirection. Where is the pea?
I think Terry and eo both have good points which are political. Which is fine as I often have trouble following the math.
But don’t forget that as countries develop and the population is educated (especially women) the birth rate drops. There is great hope for the world.
What is the control knob? Is it the sun, or clouds, or ENSO or … Or is there in fact a hundred?
One thing I know from reading here everyday is that I don’t have a clue. An opinion perhaps. Seems no one can even tell me what the real temperature is. But I do keep my trout pond below 22 degrees C +- the measurement error. 😉 Currently 22 at surface and 18 at 3 metres, but is it relevant? (Just Joshin’)
I am surely glad I live in the country where I can eke out a living as long as it rains, the sun shines and the grass grows. Keep pumping out that plant food folks.
Love reading all the opinions here.
Thanks to all.
90 % of The factors/processes affecting weather and climate is scientifically not known or badly known.
Earth is made up of leftover from old dead stars and life and climate as we know it is on earth is based on the energy from a nearby living star, called the Sun.
The problems are also the quality of the Data and the constant adjustments to support the UNFCCC and UNEP political Agenda, The Plan.
Making sense of it all is pretty difficult?
Northern Norway and Arctic above 70 deg North is today not warmer than the 1930s. Why haven’t they followed the global temperature and warmed up? Maybe it’s UHI and not global warming since the 1930s?
Much of the recent downward trend is largely attributed to their (EU) declining economies.
This ignores the changes from coal fired domestic heating to gas fired domestic heating, the tripling, soon to be quadrupling in fuel economy of family cars, the ongoing improvements in efficiency of electrical devices, and so on.
And the improvements in house insulation and building standards.
Willis Eschenbach says:
July 4, 2014 at 5:01 pm
“…Now, you can’t prove a negative, so that doesn’t mean there is no solar influence … just that extensive searching of all kinds of climate datasets hasn’t found any evidence to support the theory….”
//////////////////////
I [too] share the view that the section on Professor Varhenholt was both unnecessary and detracts from the thrust of the article.
The article is about policy response and is not dependent upon whether the science that calls for a a response to be made is sound or not. The article deals with the futility of the favoured response in that it will not achieve its primary goal of significantly reducing on a global level CO2 levels (I am ignoring whether the primary is goal is control or tax take etc).
Willis is right to point out that one cannot prove a negative. None of his many articles into the effects of the sun (however sound his underlying analysis of the data that he has reviewed may be) establishes that it is not the sun, or that the sun is an insignificant player in driving climate and changes thereto.
We may in the coming years one again be given the chance to see whether there is correlation between a ‘quiet’ sun and cooler temperatures on planet Earth. If in the coming years the sun is ‘quiet’ and temperatures cool then this does not prove “It’s not mankind creating climate. It’s the sun: stupid.”, but it will add weight to the view that the sun is a ‘real’ player in all of this, through mechanisms not yet fully known or understood.
It will also add weight to the argument that CO2 may not be a particularly significant driver of temps and/or that whatever forcing it has at current levels (say circa 380 ppm and above) is not as large as the forcings created by natural variation.
However, all of that is not of primary relevance. What is clear beyond doubt is that mitigation of CO2 emissions is a non starter. Indeed, why should the developing world live in the dark ages? Why should they not enjoy the benefits that we take for granted? Who thinks about the marvel behind switching on a light switch, who would wish to live their lives without the benefit of reliable electricity accessible at the flick of a switch?
Here in the UK, we are having a debate about whether we should exploit our shale reserves. I continually make the point “The USA, simply by exploiting shale gas for electricity generation, has already reduced its CO2 emissions by some 9.5% since 2005[5]. That alone has already had more CO2 emission reduction effect than the entire Kyoto protocol[6] [7]”
It is ironic that the US which was much critised for not signing up to Kyoto, is the one country in the developed world that has achieved really substantial reduction in CO2 emissions. And it has done this without over emphasising renewables but instead by switching to a ‘cleaner’ fossil fuel (one that has a higher calorific content and thereby produces less CO2 per megawatt hour produced). .
By contrast in the UK, such reduction that we have seen in our CO2 emissions these past 10 years has been achieved by relocating heavy industrial users overseas (at great loss to our economy and with social implications for those made under-employed and those who no longer have the future employment prospects that that business would have brought etc), and/or by cutting our surplus capacity from about 15% to 5%. We use to run the grid with a surplus capacity of about 15% over and above the usual needs, but now this has been reduced to about 5%. This reduction could have been achieved without building one single windfarm, just merely by edict. The problem is that with such low surplus capacity in severe winter conditions when needs may be higher than usual, we run the risk of brown outs or even blackouts. There is much discussion about this, the government solution being to ask industry to stop working after 4pm in cold winter conditions and to use diesel powered [generators] of large public utilities (eg., hospitals transport networks and some new dedicated purpose build generator packs) to switch on if needed. This adds CO2 since diesel generators have lower efficient compared to eirther coal or gas powered generating stations, and adds greatly to the cost of electricity production. A mad world solution.
PS. I am sceptical of the low per capita European figure of 7.7 tonnes of CO2. This is about the figure that I have seen quoted many times fior France which is significantly lower than the European average due to using nuclear for the majority part of its electrical generation.
Further that figure seems so out of step with the rest of the developed world. OK, I know that Europe is not a manufacturing hotspot (well apart from Germany) and may be backwards compared to the States (and it is only in Southern Europe where aircon is needed, but these tend to be poorer countries such that the majority of citizens live without much aircon), but still I find the figure surprising. If it were correct, one would want to know how Europe can enjoy its quality of life on such a low figure, and there would appear to be plenty of room for the States to reduce its per capita figure down to say 14 tonnes without (which would still; be nearly double that of the cited European figure) without restraining the quality of life too much.
I am not advocating that the States needs to [make] such a reduction. I am [merely] questioning whether the European figure is correct. It seems anomalous to me.
Unfortunately my above post contained a few typos. This is because I type directly into the comment box, and I rarely proof read my response before sending because where I am presently living we have an unreliable electricity supply and it frustrates me if I have spent 10 mins typing a comment only to find it lost due to a power out. This year (to date it has been good) but last year it probablyy dropped out about 20 times per month. Often for relatively short periods. My neighbour has his computer coupled to standby batteries, and has an automatic diesel generator (it will power all his major appliances including aircon and swimming pool pump) which cuts in within 1 or 2 seconds of power outs.
I don’t intend to correct the typos, but having read what I said, I don’t want Willis to interpret my comments as a suggestion that his many articles may have contained an unsound analysis. I am not suggesting that. I am merely pointing out that we may not fully know how the sun influences our climate, and hance what we are looking for in the underlying data.
I do consider that IF in the coming years we see a quiet sun and cooling temperatures, many people will wish to reconsider their position. Of course, that does not mean that the analyses peformed by Willis at the time he performed the analysis was unsound. It merely suggests that there might be more to it than first thought.
If I’m reading the first graph correctly world wide man made CO2 emissions in 1965 were approx 12 billion tonnes and are now 35 billion tonnes ?
A threefold increase how does this compare to natural emissions?
Which leads on to why is the atmospheric increase in CO2 so relatively small and why is the global temperature not increasing.
Help! 🙂
The third world countries, for all their negatives regarding their governments, know instinctively that energy is life and cheap energy is prosperity. It’s comical for the Western nations to even consider having the third world commit generational suicide. Might even make Nuremberg charges appear childish.
“A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.”
What if America leads the fight and falls on its face, as the EU has been busy doing? That will discredit renewables even more.
Leaders in the East can see that the EU’s CO2 reduction policies have been futile and economically destructive–and that their full destructiveness hasn’t yet come home to roost.
They can infer that, if the USA follows in the EU’s footsteps. more futility and economic destruction will follow.
Perhaps, they think, in 30 years, sea levels will rise or there will be more weird weather. But, they say to themselves, “If I act, will it hurt or help my political prospects at home in the next five or ten years? And will it hurt or help my populace? And, if I act, will all others act too?” If the answers are Hurt, Hurt, and No, all they will do is ask for reparations from the West–which will let them off the hook and stalemate things forever.
Finally, they think, perhaps in 30 years sea levels and weather won’t be acting as the doomsters foretell. They can see that 97% of the CMIPs (sp?) that embody the 97% consensus have been wrong (too hot).
Message to the president!!! I wouldn’t bother. How can anyone explain to the president that which the president will never understand? I’m not talking about the climate science. I am talking about the lies and misinformation he is being fed… like a pig is drawn to its feeding trough!
davidmhoffer says:
July 4, 2014 at 8:32 pm
Your ox get gored?
He said it was the sun. Now let us take that reasoning a little further. If the sun controls the clouds as some papers suggests is it or is it not the sun?
I disagree with Roger frequently on other matters. But I do think here he has a point here.
And BTW I’m no lawyer. In fact I don’t have a degree in anything. I worked my way up from bench technician to aerospace engineer though. If that counts for anything.
===================
I really don’t get why EVIDENCE that the climate is controlled by the sun draws so much fire. It may be true. It may not. But isn’t it SCIENCE to reexamine the evidence even in SETTLED questions? Some guy won a Nobel for work he did while he was working a day job in a patent office for such an evidence reexamination.
I suppose it is just further evidence that Max Planck was correct.
“Truth never triumphs — its opponents just die out. Thus, Science advances one funeral at a time” Max Planck
==================
I do like the solar explanation – this week – but I’m willing to change my mind – again. One thing I’m sure of – it is NOT CO2.
Its disingenuous to site the better fuel economy of cars and home insulation for the drop in CO2 emissions in the west Average mileages have also risen (not by 3 times but then neither has fuel economy dropped that much!) and the better home insulation gives an even more comfortable home . We all know the recession of the last ten years or so has decimated industry and the CO2 witch hunt has sent industry abroad (thank you unions for the lack of jobs) In the UK the Victorians used CO2 in greenhouses to promote growth (remember it was dangerously low after the LIA) I wonder if that is where the name came from, Ive read the holly theory about CO2 and IR but they all seem to leave out convection and I don’t see how this sparse molecule could be absorbing this IR and re emitting at a different frequency without becoming excited and therefore lighter? and isn’t this effect logarithmic? and we are way over the slope? The whole AGW think is snake oil and the YSA has the biggest salesmen in bongo and his gang, they will cost us dear. One silver lining from this demonic cloud is we now know who the honest scientists and politicians are, because all on the AGW bandwagon are either liars or senile!
I don’t quite understand the use of the word “futile”. Wouldn’t “pointless” better serve your headline and your message? Warmers view humanity as its own worst enemy, an existential threat to itself. Existence (in this sense) may be futile, but we environmentally-enlightened few (… er 97%) plod on heroically for the good of all.
I hate to think of the warmers engaging in this kind of self-congratulatory back-patting… the Sisyphean “futility” of their endeavor, as it were.
On the other hand, “pointless” communicates that CO2 reductions serve humanity no more effectively than Al Gore cutting back on the amount of eau de Cologne that he slaps on his puss before he heads out for another 5-digit speaking engagement.
@ Chris Edwards. Years back, certainly within the time frame of the graphs shown, the various cars I drove would get typically 20mpg. For the last 5 years I have had a car that gets 60mpg, in 9 weeks time I will take delivery of a new car that according to the government figures gets 88mpg (UK gallons, statutory combined mileage figure, Skoda Octavia Greenline III, 94mpg extra urban figure). I have no idea what the average improvement in fuel economy for the UK has been over the same period, but I would have thought a 3 fold improvement may not be too wild a guess.
Household insulation for new builds has improved dramatically over the last 20 years, as have the heat retention figures for double glazing.
Certainly manufacturing industry within the UK has been decimated and then some, a short sighted disaster in my view. I don’t know if any figures for energy reduction due to that loss exist.
It would be interesting to have a more detailed breakdown of energy usage and co2 of the various parts of an economy to see if improvements in efficiency have made a significant difference.
PS. I will get that 88mpg as I mostly drive like a geriatric pushing a zimmer frame. I will make an attempt to get that magical 100mpg from a tank, then I will go back to driving normally. My expectation of an average 80mpg seems reasonable where I live, not in a large city, with by and large uncluttered roads.
I agree the ability of co2 to have any additional influence on temperatures is insignificant. The only players are the oceans, clouds and the sun which is the only energy input.
The air is for free, you may inhale all you want…
Discovering that CO2 change, and therefore human activity, does not cause global warming is a start. But this leaves the question of what actually does drive average global temperature change.
Two primary drivers of average global temperature have been identified. They very accurately explain the reported up and down measurements since before 1900 with R2>0.9 (correlation coefficient = 0.95) and provide credible estimates back to the low temperatures of the Little Ice Age (1610).
The influence of CO2 change is insignificant.
Coefficient of determination, R2 = 0.9049 considering only sunspots and ocean cycles.
R2 = 0.9061 considering sunspots, ocean cycles and CO2 change.
Solar cycle duration or magnitude fail to correlate but their combination, expressed as the time-integral of solar cycle anomalies, gives an excellent correlation. A solar cycle anomaly is the difference between the sunspot number for a year and an average sunspot number for many years.
The calculations use data since before 1900 which are publicly available.
The coefficients of determination are a measure of how accurately the calculated average global temperatures compare with measured.
Everything not explicitly considered (such as the 0.09 K s.d. random uncertainty in reported annual measured temperature anomalies, aerosols, CO2, other non-condensing ghg, volcanoes, ice change, etc.) must find room in the unexplained 9.51%.
The tiny difference in R2, whether considering CO2 or not, demonstrates that CO2 change has no significant effect on climate.
The method, equation and data sources are provided at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com and references.
I think all analysts realize that CO2 emissions in this century will be primarily a function of emissions in the rest of the world. If the US and EU went zero carbon today it would not by itself materially change the trajectory of CO2 emissions or concentrations. What is true though is that per capita emissions are much higher in the EU and US, though China has risen to significant levels. It is not obvious to assume that the path of per capita emissions in developing countries are fated to a certainty. Up till 1999, it was assumed that developing countries would eventually build out landline phone coverage similar to EU/US. That of course never happened, cellular is the way they went. If solar/wind reach grid parity, and electric/high mileage vehicles become cost competitive, and we solve the issue of energy storage (all reasonable possibilities in next 30 years), then per capita emissions will not soar. Currently, global emissions of carbon (not carbon dioxide) is about 9 gigatons. Extreme fossil fuel intensive scenarios posit that to rising to over 30 gigatons by 2050, but other scenarios do not. If we made a political agreement that as a planet we would keep emissions to 1 ton per capita (with permit trading) by 2050, then emissions will stay flat over the next 35 years. At that point we would also have a much better sense as to how much if any warming is really happening and whether we need to drive emissions even lower.
The role of emission reductions in the EU/US is primarily to develop low carbon technologies that will eventually be adopted in the 2020’s and 2030’s by developing countries. The EU and US and can show how the world can have very high living standards with low emissions. While the US is still a high 5 tons per capita, the French are at 1.5 tons. To suggest 1 ton per capita in 2050 (even for the US, an 80% reduction which is what John McCain supported in 2008) is not outrageous. Trying to limit Peru’s emissions today is irrelevant.
The important questions involve the future, not the past! No one seems to notice that China’s emission will be DOUBLE those of the US THIS YEAR (2014). How long before Chinese emissions will be TRIPLE those of the US? Triple is only another 50% increase. Some of the coal-fired power plants that will result in tripling are already being built or authorized. Although it is difficult to forecast the growth of Chinese GDP, their current policy is to reduce the energy intensity of their economy by 3% a year. So 8% annual growth in GDP would translate into 5% growth in emissions and triple our emission in 8 more years. Unless the growth rate of the Chinese economy drops to that of a typical developed country (which would leave about half the people in poverty), China’s emissions will be triple those of the US sometime in the 2020’s. Since China will have four times the population of the US at that point, their emissions per capita will be similar to ours and probably higher than those of most other developed nations.
Even if the US could cut emissions by the recommended 80% (say by 2050), the growth in Chinese emissions before 2030 will negate those reductions and keep CO2 increasing at 2 ppm per year.
The goal of every underdeveloped nation in the world is to emulate what the Chinese have accomplished over the last few decades in getting their people out of poverty.
Nice essay Ed.
If only the British politicians trying to deliberately force up the price of our energy whilst seemingly trying to make it more scarce, would realise how inconsequential we are. It is the big players that need to clean up their emissions act, should anyone believe that the co2 element is itself of much consequence.
tonyb
The planet does not distinguish between CO2 emitted by China, the USA or any other country. It is the accumulation in the atmosphere that is the key matter.
Saying that the West should do nothing because China and other developing countries are increasing their emissions is a perverse argument. The measures taken to reduce emissions anywhere in the world help to curb the rate of increase and the eventual peak in concentration. Abandoning such measures just means the peak will be higher and will be reached earlier.
In saying that, I hope we will not be led down the anti-science cul-de-sac that it does not matter how high concentration goes as there will be little or no temperature response.
Also, the green energy is too expensive/won’t work/is nuts lobby should reflect on the fact that investment continues strongly in many countries, generation rates are increasing and generally its popular:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/uk-switches-on-to-green-power-9566508.html
According to Lomborg (sp?), Germany’s $100 billion investment in renewables will push back the peak in global warming in 2100 by 37 minutes. Was that $100 billion well spent, in your opinion, or were there better uses for it?
If you dispute his 37-minute estimate, how many minutes, or hours, or days, or weeks, or months, or years of deferred peak-warming would make that price tag a bargain?
Sending a message to the President that ‘CO2 Reduction is Futile’ would be futile. President Obama has clearly demonstrated that he is more interested in image than in actual results, and he’s willing to use fake data to prop up the facade. Just this past week he bragged about his rapidly improving economy and the best employment numbers since 1999. The problem is almost all the job gains last month were part-time jobs. Also, the civilian labor force participation rate, which was 66% in 2008, is currently 62.8 percent — a 36-year low. So if he is willing to twist facts to brag about the economy, he certainly won’t let the facts stop him from continuing to promote his agenda on climate change.
rogerknights
Bjorn Lomborg’s main argument is that whilst climate change due to rising CO2 may be happening, we need not worry about it too much because the main impacts will be well into the future.
In response:
Firstly, he, like the rest of us, does not know exactly what the impacts will be, nor their magnitude, nor when they will occur. We can only look at ranges of likely outcomes.
Secondly, extrapolating cost-benefit analysis into the future a century from now is pure guesswork. So for example, how on Earth could people in 1914 have any idea of what the world’s economy, population, science etc would look like in the year 2000 ?
So I am not going to join in with such pointless projections. However, as a point of fact, if countries choose to abandon measures to reduce emissions, then it is highly likely that future peak CO2 concentration will be higher, and will come sooner, than if they do not. That is the significant risk. It is better to act now. If it turns out we overplayed the impacts, how much would we have lost ? We would have moved more quickly to wean the economy away from fossil fuels which are a finite resource – something we will have to do anyway.
James Abbott;
That is the significant risk. It is better to act now.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You just went in to great detail to explain that we cannot calculate the risk, so by extension, you cannot conclude that it is better to act now.
If it’s not the sun let’s just reduce the heat from the sun by 10% and see what happens to interglacial warming. Global warming is the wrong term. It’s warming between glacial periods. It’s cyclical and not permanent. In a few hundred years the ice will be back, Now let’s relax and stop thinking all this theorizing will prevent the ice coming back. The Earth abides – no matter what you think about CO2.
It is NOT about President Obama and truth and facts about his position that the “science is settled” or that CO2 control is futile on the part of the U.S. or not. It is about winning the debate. Mr. Obama wants to win the debate. It doesn’t matter if he is arguing constitutional law or climate chnage. It doesn’t matter who is “right” or “wrong”: it is about winning a position. If he were an injury lawyer, and his client was a fake with a contrived neck injury and brace… it wouldn’t matter to Mr. Obama… because it is about winning, despite all facts.
Just remember: “if you like your insurance, you can keep it !”. Mr. Obama picks a fight, then argues and decides coal and oil is bad, and hopes his position sticks so he wins the argument. Win. Do ANYTHING to win. We will cripple the economy while China does what it wants because they need the bucks (darn that communism!…let’s get the cash!)
Sad… repeat the lie often enough, then sheep will believe it. But even more sad: I voted for him, twice.
Why let facts get in the way of a political agenda? The ‘CO2 reductions’ have nothing to do with CO2 at all. They have to do with punishing Western Civilization as it is represented by America. O’Bama is a hard-core ideologue who HATES America and Americans. CO2 is just a cover for economy-destroying, life-wrecking, power-grabbing tyranny.
Mike says:
July 5, 2014 at 8:50 pm
Sad… repeat the lie often enough, then sheep will believe it. But even more sad: I voted for him, twice.
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I’m conducting something of an informal survey. Let me ask: Were you voting against Bush? If so, did the fact that Bush wasn’t running for reelection bother you at all?
davidmhoffer sed:
David – what energy source creates the clouds and causes them to vary?
Someone asked, “David – what energy source creates the clouds and causes them to vary?” I thought this was a rather good question. At first a number scientists thought it was cosmic rays from the Sun causing the lower cloud layer (as opposed to the upper layer) to increase or decrease. However over the past twenty years this notion has been challenged by researchers from the U. of Copenhagen who now have a long set of data showing it to be from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. That means the Sun provides the heat and our home galaxy provides the cooling cloud cover. Find actual data at http://www.friendsofscience.org .
Here’s a good counterpoint to his claim:
Since the Clinton years the unemployment rate has not counted the long-term unemployed. If the Clinton metric had been used in the past, the unemployment rate in the 30s would have been half or a third of what it actually was–25%.
PS: Too bad Hoover wasn’t as slick as Willy.
That may be his main argument, but it wasn’t the argument I quoted. Per the article,
James Abbott: In response: Firstly, he, like the rest of us, does not know exactly what the impacts will be, nor their magnitude, nor when they will occur. We can only look at ranges of likely outcomes.
Secondly, extrapolating cost-benefit analysis into the future a century from now is pure guesswork. So for example, how on Earth could people in 1914 have any idea of what the world’s economy, population, science etc would look like in the year 2000 ?
As I said, that’s beside the point. Lomborg was talking about the trajectory of future CO2 emissions of the developed vs. the developing world. There’s not much dispute about them under a BAU scenario.
Is it? Is reaching peak warming a few hours or days or weeks or months later than under Business As Usual a significant risk? (I asked you that already.)
What if Lockheed’s skunk works comes out with its breakthrough nuclear reactor (fusion?) in 2017, as is rumored. Then almost all the money that’s gone into renewables prior to that time will have been wasted. That’s Lomborg’s argument–wait until there’s a technological breakthrough, or at least significant technological progress in current renewables. And it’s one not unacceptable to you in principle either, based on this: “how on Earth could people in 1914 have any idea of what the world’s economy, population, science etc would look like in the year 2000 ?”
Also, we (in the US) won’t have to wean ourselves from fossil fuels for centuries, because coal can be gasified, because we have lots of natural gas, and because we could mine methane hydrates if necessary. Peak fossil is decades away. If by weaning you mean moving to some advanced form of nuclear, I have no objection there. Some versions of it are sustainable.
Oops–I didn’t indent James Abbott’s second salvo.
PS:
James Abbott: “If it turns out we overplayed the impacts, how much would we have lost ?”
The latest estimate is that the global cost to decarbonize enough to prevent CAGW is $800 billion per year until 2050 (IIRC).