NASA’s Dr. James Hansen once again goes over the top. See his most recent article in the UK Guardian. Some excerpts:
“The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.”
And this:
Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know. Carbon dioxide would increase to 500 ppm or more.
Only one problem there Jimbo, CO2 has been a lot higher in the past. Like 10 times higher.
From JS on June 21, 2005:
One point apparently causing confusion among our readers is the relative abundance of CO2 in the atmosphere today as compared with Earth’s historical levels. Most people seem surprised when we say current levels are relatively low, at least from a long-term perspective – understandable considering the constant media/activist bleat about current levels being allegedly “catastrophically high.” Even more express surprise that Earth is currently suffering one of its chilliest episodes in about six hundred million (600,000,000) years.
Given that the late Ordovician suffered an ice age (with associated mass extinction) while atmospheric CO2 levels were more than 4,000ppm higher than those of today (yes, that’s a full order of magnitude higher), levels at which current ‘guesstimations’ of climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 suggest every last skerrick of ice should have been melted off the planet, we admit significant scepticism over simplistic claims of small increment in atmospheric CO2 equating to toasted planet. Granted, continental configuration now is nothing like it was then, Sol’s irradiance differs, as do orbits, obliquity, etc., etc. but there is no obvious correlation between atmospheric CO2 and planetary temperature over the last 600 million years, so why would such relatively tiny amounts suddenly become a critical factor now?
Adjacent graphic ‘Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time’ from Climate and the Carboniferous Period (Monte Hieb, with paleomaps by Christopher R. Scotese). Why not drop by and have a look around?
The planet has still not reached C02 levels for optimum plant growth. That level is 800 to 1,000 ppm.
I’ve often wondered if there’s not a solution to the AGW nonsense in this little fact. If Congress and Obama propose regulations for CO2, can’t critics force an environmental impact review of those regulations? And if the regulations can be shown to be threatening or harmful to plant life, can’t they be stalled through lawsuits?
Environmentalists have perfected the art of using environmental impact studies and lawsuits to stall changes they do not like. Why can’t we turn the tables and surprise them with a forced environmental impact study of carbon regulation, followed by lawsuits to “save the plants”? If they’re able to tie things up in court a decade or more, why can’t we? And if we’re able to tie it up for a decade, by the time it’s resolved our current cooling cycle may have forced everyone to wake up and realize that AGW theory is nonsense.
I wish I had the legal expertise to evaluate this strategy…
I would be much more concerned with the pollutants emitted during combustion than with CO2. Increasing CO2 concentrations directly affect the photosynthesis process, resulting in increased water-use efficiency and, in some cases, increased nitrogen-use efficiency. The radiative forcing of CO2 is positive (absorbs infrared radiation), but past climate variability is much more in line with cycles of solar activity if you apply the right temporal scale. I’m worried about the integrity of this planet’s ecosystems, but my concern is based primarily on land-use changes imposed by the increasing population of our species (the cause of the sixth mass global extinction event). If the climate forcing effect of CO2 turns out to have been overestimated (modellers exclusively use high end estimates for forcing parameters in the derivatives of the Arrhenius equation – eg. alpha), the net effect of increasing CO2 may actually turn out to be one of the only beneficial environmental impacts of humanity. The products of photosynthesis (hydrocarbons) have been excessively trapped for millions of years and are finally being re-released to the biosphere [though, rather unfortunately, with many pollutants – which, for the record, do NOT include CO2].
“Only in the past few years did the science crystallise…”
… and it crystallized actually already in the 1980’s in the brain of a remarkable human being, who’s duty since then was to lead the leaders of the world and tell them kindly what they have to do.
Neil Crafter:
When sold-out, I have heard that the CO2 concentration in certain facilities during sporting events can exceed 10 000 ppm. I have not verified this, but I have measured concentrations over 1400 ppm in my classrooms. The crowd (at the sporting event) does tend to get a bit sleepy, but they’re all fine – 2xCO2 is about 5.6 % of the closed stadium levels. The students in my lecture halls get sleepy too, but I blame that more on myself than CO2.
Interesting paper on Co2 levels in the 19th and 20th century.
http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/180_years_accurate_Co2_Chemical_Methods.pdf
Rachel (15:32:50) : Come on people, grow up a bit. You know that I was talking about global average concentrations of CO2,
No, I don’t know that. All I can know are the words you posted. They were ambiguous enough to allow other interpretations. I would have had to ‘interpret’ your posting and add to it ‘global average’; and we all now that changing or adding to the data are wrong behaviours…
Peter: “20,000 people die of the cold in Britain alone every winter” – not really. If it’s the cold that kills them, why is it observed that colder countries have lower winter excess mortality?
The key here is ‘excess’. That just means that cold places are better prepared to deal with cold than hot places. No surprise. But the cold still kills in both places.
In cold places, folks know how to deal with cold better. So the degree to which folks in cold places die faster in the cold is lower than in hot places having a cold spell. No big surprise. (If I own skis and a parka I’m probably not as cold sensitive or unprepared as someone who owns a single linen wrap.) But more people still die in cold and cold snaps than die in heat or heat waves. It’s just a fact. Cold kills, heat makes you lazy & thirsty.
And in hot places they know how to deal with hot. I grew up in “110 in the shade and thar aint no shade!”. I find it positively funny when people complain about the heat and it’s only in the 90’s. I’ve worked (on a farm, bucking hay and fruit picking) in full sun at noon in 105F (drink lots of water…) and don’t really get bothered until it’s 120F+. (When the tarmac was melting in Phoenix, well, that was a bit much… the radio was reporting 128F at the airport, but I don’t think that was official..)
Heck, one of the ‘good jobs’ when I was a kid was working the fruit dryer. You worked inside the oven at about 160F I think it was. Why was it a good job? You worked 20 minutes then got to lay around in the ‘cool’ of 90F, doing nothing, to cool off for 30 or so minutes! Move racks of fruit for 20 minutes then flake out with a coke? What could be better! (Heck, people PAY to do that in saunas…)
Compare that with 0 to 40 below where you lose noses, ears & fingers in minutes if you are not very prepared; and you die in a few hours if you are only “mostly prepared”… Now I’m not a wimp in cold (I’m OK in sport shirt, T shirt, slacks, shoes – no coat, no gloves, no hat – at 10F for about 1/2 hour and I’ve often walked barefoot in the snow because I didn’t feel like bothering to put shoes on) but I’ve been in -4F to -10F and decided that I don’t do below if I can avoid it.
So yes, cold kills. And cold kill more than heat kills. The adaptive behaviour needed for heat is ‘overdrink’ (i.e. drink lots of water) which works for soldiers in 60+ pounds of gear in 120F+ deserts doing intense physical activity. It’s a lot harder and takes far more ‘gear’ to survive in extreme cold… Ask an Alaskan how fast you die if you screw up in the extreme cold. (For example, whatever you don’t, don’t work up a sweat or you die…and don’t breath in too fast or you freeze your lungs.)
@Ron de Haan,
(previously posted – I’ll trott this out once again)
When Green Chickens Come Home To Roost.
Somewhere in the USA, Sometime in 2018…
FADE IN.
OUTSIDE: EARLY EVENING – NOVEMBER.
– A weary group of men and women, chained into a gang, trudge along a city road. Their guards carry rifles, and short whips. A light dusting of snow is falling.
– They pass a Primary (Elementary) school where the teachers and students have assembled to watch them pass. The Principle of the school turns and faces the assembled children and staff and raises her arms.
Principle: (Stern Encouragement) “Now children all as one – Sceptics are Septics”.
Assembled Children and Staff: (Chanting) “Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics…”
– Some of the chained people steal glances at the children.
Guard: “Eyes Front!”
– The guard smashes his whip across the face of one of the chained men and bright blood splashes onto the snow.
– One of the schoolchildren breaks ranks and staggers forward through the snow.
Schoolboy: (Falteringly Disbelief) “That’s my Dad!?”
– The principle turns abruptly towards the boy and signals to green frocked School Proctors, who leap forward and grab the boy before he can reach the road.
– The struck man slumps to the ground, barely conscious, the man chained next to him takes his arm and drags him to his feet.
Principle: (Outraged) “Shocking behaviour. Samuel Taylor – A months detention. Proctors remove him to the holding room.”
– The proctors drag the boy away.
Assembled Children and Staff: (Continue Chanting) “Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics…”
– Two school cleaners stand quietly to the side of the assembly, not being teaching staff or students they are not required to join in. They talk quietly together.
Cleaner One: “So the Higgs Boson has been found at CERN?”
Cleaner Two: “Yes, the Paper by Peebles gives an excellent demonstration of the existence of the Higgs Boson.”
Cleaner One: “Do you miss the research at MIT?”
Cleaner Two: “Of course – but at least I’m able to feed my little girl. – and what choice did I have, Particle Physics isn’t Environmental Science is it.”
Cleaner One: “Same with Nuclear Engineering – now that all the reactors have been shut down – there’s just no more work for a PHD in Engineering in my field.”
– Cleaner Two nods towards the steadily moving chain gang.
Cleaner Two: “Still it’s better than what that lot are facing.”
Cleaner One: “Which is?”
Cleaner Two: “5 Years Hard Labour in the Pig Methane Plant.”
Cleaner One: “Shovel Pig manure for 18 hours a day and get fed…”
Cleaner Two: “Which would you prefer – that – or the alternative?”
– Cleaner one shivered from more than the cold, and drew his coat more tightly around his thin frame.
Cleaner One: “The fertiliser plant – but that’s just for capital crimes isn’t it?”
Cleaner Two: “Apparently “Carbon Denial” is set to become a capital crime – rumour has it, that it’s to be the next Presidential Emergency Directive.”
Cleaner One: (Quietly) “Oh my god… what have we become?”
– Cleaner Two nods silently in agreement.
– The Principle signals a halt to her students and staff.
Principle: (Smug) “Now everyone – we have todays new mantra, lets chant it together for the benefit of these poor deluded people.”
All: (Chanting in practised unison) “Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling… Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling… Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling…”
FADE OUT.
My dear Rachel, you don’t reference your quotes.
According to Nottingham University, the 2003 heatwave caused 15,000 excess deaths in France and 2,000 in the UK.
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/iss/research/Current-Research-Projects/Staff_projects/DingwallHeatwave.php
The French figure is attributed to the large number of French who take their holidays during August, leaving the major cities & heading for the coast, leaving behind their elderly relatives.
It does quite dramatically demonstrate the Human Island Effect, cities heating up greatly more than the countryside.
Cold weather kills far more elderly.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=574
The mild 2007/8 winter in the UK lead to an estimated 23,500 excess deaths, the colder 98-99, 99-00 winters had double that level.
And the rest of Europe?
http://www.nea.org.uk/excess-winter-mortality/
A mean 16% increase in mortality during winter months.
Dr Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the UK Facility of Public Health, said there was a known correlation between the weather and mortality rates. For every 1C the temperature falls below the winter average, there are some 8,000 extra deaths in Britain
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jan/11/elderly-death-rates-winter
It’s cold that kills.
Other animals suffering in winter? Camels in Mongolia http://www.edgeofexistence.org/edgeblog/?m=200901
80% of Mongolia is snow-covered currently, so they can’t get down to grass to feed.
The UK has an extra 25,000 deaths every winter.
Globally winter is the killer season.
Without King Coal there would many more deaths in the past.
Without a suitable, sustainable, replacement to coal there will many deaths in the future.
Coal is a life saver, a life giver.
James Hansen has crossed a line in this debate, he is to be pitied more than harangued.
Robert, I don’t quite get it. You first state the heat wave in 2006 made no lproblem and than this:
“2006 was the only that the “four day marches of Nijmegen” where cancelled because of the heat, 2 people died of a heat-stroke and hundreds more where taken to hospital.”
The heat wave in France was far less terrible than in 2003, as I said. Moreover, you can expect people to be more prepared. Anyway, what’s the connection with CO2?
Hi Neil. You said:
“I think we all know there were no human beings on this planet 50 million years ago. However, our direct ancestors, small mammals, certainly were alive then and these animals were adapted to whatever CO2 conditions were like at that time, These animals had lungs and breathed similarly to us. So what’s your point? My point is that our ancestors were alive then and survived and thrived.”
My point is that there is nothing in this fact that shows that everything will be all right for us, in the sense that we have no idea of how man will adapt to such conditions. Anyway, I’m by no means stating that humans will “die” because the inhale too much CO2!
Ron de Haan (18:21:14) :
Another response the the Guardian Publication of Hanson can be found here:
According the author, Hanson suffers from authoritarianism and megalomania
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/the-political-philosophy-of-james-hansen-4961
Ron,
Usually your links provide good reading. This one I’m a little dubious about. The author states “Hansen is not even a citizen of Germany, Britain, or the United Kingdom”
I would like to point out that Britain and the UK are one and the same. I would hope the Author would have that one correct!
But keep up the good work, I always enjoy reading your info.
Hansen has to go. How can NASA be made to sack him ?
I have always been a ‘space buff’, but Hansen is a discredit to NASA and is bringing them into ‘disrepute’. Tjis cant go on !
Hansen has to go. How can NASA be made to sack him ?
I have always been a ‘space buff’, but Hansen is a discredit to NASA and is bringing them into ‘disrepute’. This cant go on !
If America’s infrastructure is to be improved via the new president’s weird ideas, then all that fly ash will be necessary to improve the concrete.
http://www.flyash.com/
http://www.coventry.ac.uk/researchnet/d/674/a/4460
As it happens, the German U-boat pens in L’Orient, France were constructed using fly ash. The Keroman Submarine Base is still there!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorient
Posted this on a couple of other sites.
The man (Hansen) is clearly deranged.
Dear Antony,
your 2nd figure seems to imply, that the long past high CO2-levels would contradict the assumed AGW-forcing. foinavon has a point when he points out, that at that times the solar constant (and the earth distance from the sun) was differnet. Probably I missunderstood, but could you or anyone clarify that?
Well, my real concern is the nazi comparison, where I strongly recommend to read a little bit about the not to recent past before anyone makes any funny comment or comparisnons!
The transportation of coal has nothing whatsoever to do with the crimes done by the nazis and I cannot understand how a sensitive being can make such a comment like Hansen or some of the posters here!
I almost fully agree with:
Ron de Haan (13:16:26) :
“The analogy of the “death trains” and “death factories” with the “Holocaust”….
I have no words for it, absolutely tasteless.
We have found ourselves a Dr. Menken of climatology.”,
beside the name you are looking for was Mengele and I recommend to read about him and the like before writing about coal and Death trains in the same sentence.
Robert Bateman (16:09:06) : I can’t think of a scientific reason for using CO2 emission & heat from Coal-fired plants, but I can think of an economical and energetic one:
Conservation of resources.
Agriculture today is petroleum intensive. Why burn it twice when you can get two for the price of one? Forget about the C02 and get the truly toxic stuff. Let the plants eat the C02. Maybe we can find plants that will biologically consume the mercury and the sulfur. Bury the mercury.
Couple of things:
Not all agriculture is petroleum intensive, and it certainly does not need to be. “Petro”chemicals can be made from any carbon source, including plants. (I own Braskem stock, BAK ticker, in Brazil. They make plastics and such from plants, among other things). We use oil when it’s cheap, natural gas when it’s not, and can use coal or plants when we want too. Eastman Chemical EMN uses coal today.) Fertilizer energy is mostly the NH3/NO3 production, and that can run off of any energy supply. The tractors and equipment runs fine on biodiesel. You can eliminate all petroleum in farming fairly quickly by substituting coal or even plants; though costs would go up a little.
Sulphur is a common component of fertilizers. Several key proteins depend on sulphur. Sulphur is good and needed for life. Don’t scrub the sulphur out in an agricultural feed system! I don’t endorse the following page, but it was much more readable than the .edu pages as a general idea where sulphur goes in living things:
http://www.supplementswizard.yourpower2be.com/sulphurcontainingaminoacids.html
Notice how essential sulphur is to proteins?
Murcury. Yeah, it’s a problem. Best to trap it and use it for something industrial (or even ‘sequester’ it.) But the reality is that life absorbs mercury. The plants that turned into coal absorbed the mercury in the first place, and other plants would absorb it again. But I wouldn’t want to recycle it in this way. It really does screw up enzyme systems…
Sidebar: “The Curve of Binding Energy” by McPhee
In this book about Taylor, our best boutique nuclear bomb designer. Taylor, toward the end, discusses one of his later ideas. Powering the country via sugarcane grown in greenhouses in the Arizona desert.
Now this guy is is no lightweight on math, so I’m sure his numbers are right. What he proposed was to load a greenhouse once with soil, water, CO2, etc. then close it up and grow cane that would be burned to power generators in a close system with the nitrate, water and CO2 rich exhaust sent back to the greenhouses. Basically, it’s a big solar collector. Plants love engine exhaust as it is typically rich in the water, CO2, nitrates, sulphates, warmth, etc. that plants want and need. IIRC he proposed using Diesel engines to burn the fuel so as to get extra nitrates (though that might be another plan I remember using dried algae in the air intakes and hot exhaust to dry the algae…)
The point? You could do the same thing with coal or natural gas power plant exhaust on an open loop basis.
We have so much excess production from land and farms that this sort of thing has not been of much interest, but in fact we could combine our power generation with greenhouses and get hugh increases in produce along with ‘pollution’ capture and recycle. There are a couple of companies looking to do this with algae for motor fuel production (capturing CO2 from coal plants.)
This is one of those technologies that I love the most; that never gets done. Oh Well. That’s the dismal science of Economics for you…
Flanagan (22:34:01) :
Concerning the CO2 thing: yeah, right, it was 2 times higher 50 millions years ago, and contrary to what the author seems to insinuate, every (paleo)geologist knows that. The question is: how many human beings were on earth at that time?
This clearly means that CO2 is not dangerous for the planet by your own admission.
Ron de Haan (18:21:14) :
Another response the the Guardian Publication of Hanson can be found here:
According the author, Hanson suffers from authoritarianism and megalomania
He has so much influence on world temperature (well, the GISS record anyway) that he thinks he is semi-divine.
Suffers from authoritarianism: Well yes! he’s been ‘muzzled’ dontcha know! 😉
Sorry, try that again with closing tags…
Flanagan (22:34:01) :
Concerning the CO2 thing: yeah, right, it was 2 times higher 50 millions years ago, and contrary to what the author seems to insinuate, every (paleo)geologist knows that. The question is: how many human beings were on earth at that time?
This clearly means that CO2 is not dangerous for the planet by your own admission.
Flanagan (22:34:01) :
Concerning the CO2 thing: yeah, right, it was 2 times higher 50 millions years ago, and contrary to what the author seems to insinuate, every (paleo)geologist knows that. The question is: how many human beings were on earth at that time?
You’re right! It must have been the dinosaurs holding BBQ’s and riding round in SUV’s!
It was 20 times higher 500 million years ago, around 8000ppm. Just when the ‘explosion of life’ happened.
Animals, plants and bacteria alive today are adapted to the current conditions of their individual niches. It does not matter one iota that their ancestors were used to more/less amounts of CO2 or Oxygen millions of years ago. Move any organism out of its optimum conditions and it will weaken, it may ot kill it directly but it will be prone to diseases or may be outcompeted by more adaptable species. This will result in a reduction of biodiversity.
A point above and often mooted is that plants and animals do better at higher CO2 levels. If that were the case how come there is greater biodiversity now (or at least just prior to the movements of Homo sapiens out of Africa) than there has ever been?
It is well known that sea levels have been higher in the past, however in the past there weren’t metropolis’ inhabited by millions of people. Sea levels are rising, fact http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global_sm.jpg , and as this continues storm surges become more dangerous and people will be displaced.
Climate shifts are becoming more rapid, these will/are changing jet streams/ocean currents etc resulting in changes to precipitation patterns. Rains may come later/sooner in tropical/sub tropical areas, not at all or in huge floods. I know you will say ‘Always has, always will’ and you would be right, it is the frequency of these events that is changing and will change. The benefits to agricultural crops (as discussed above ‘wild’ plant diversity will suffer from small changes in atmospheric composition) will be more than negated by changes in precipitation and/or temperatures.
As regards the above graph, there are issues with it, not least the absense of error bars. From the GEOCARB III analysyis I understand there is great uncertainty of CO2 levels in pre-Permian atmospheres and also during the Jurassic and Cretaceous.
As for the temperatures on the graph they seem to be very much over-simplified. The chart here using changes in δ18O would give a clearer picture http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png
Before the usual comments about proxy measurements bear in mind that every time you read your mercury thermometer your are taking a proxy measurement.
Rachel (11:57:02) wrote: Apart from that graph being pure fiction, …
Aside from your comment being capriciously aggressive, miss Rachel, and discourteous to our host, it certainly generated some fascinating information on CO2 and “levels” … which almost, just almost, redeems it.
Perhaps you could assist me from your knowledge as a G.P. in Western Australia on the role of CO2 as a trigger for human breathing? A link to this knowledge would be fine.
It is impossible for CO2 to cause global warming. The laws of physics preventit. CO2 absorbs IR in only three narrow spectral bands absorbing only a small %. The remainder upto 90% disappears through an open window into space. Also radiation is completely filtered out from those wave bands in a short distance through the atmosphere. Doubling CO2 to 700ppm would only shorten the distance and not absorb any more radiant heat.
Paul Shanahan (15:54:00) :
Not really Paul. The graph is inaccurate as a means of assessing the relationship between atmospheric CO2 levels and global temperature in the deep past. Onviously if one is interested in assessing this relationship properly one needs to have discrete sets of data where both proxy CO2 and proxy temperature covering the same period (i.e. contemporaneous). Otherwise one is going to be horribly mislead. An example descibed on this thread is the Late-Ordovician glacial period that appears (if one were to use the sketch in the top article) to coincide with high CO2. However the CO2 data in the sketch is from a very broad brush model with 10 million year temporal “resolution”, and can’t be used to assess true CO2 levels associated with discrete time periods. There isn’t a proxy CO2 data set that directly coincides with the Late-Ordovician glaciation, and so drawing a conclusion from the sketch is spurious. In fact what data there is indicates a steady drop in atmospheric CO2 throughout the middle towards the late Ordovician due to changes in the carbon cycle, and so it is quite reasonable that atmospheric CO2 levels dropped below the thresholds (much higher then!) for glaciation. However until we get a truly contemporaneous set of proxy CO2 data for this discrete period we won’t know…
Where one does have discrete sets of contemporaneous paleoproxy CO2 and paleoproxy temp data, there is a rather strong relationship between the two. In other words where paleoCO2 levels are high, so is the paleotemperature and vice versa. There’s a lot of data on this as indicated by the summary of papers cited in my post [foinavon (15:32:49)].
One has to be careful not to rely on material that is knowingly incorrect! One could for example get a much better idea of the broad evolution of temperature in the past from a much more up to date compilation such as the one on Wikipedia, which is properly sourced and so on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png