Recently after some conversations with a former chemical engineer who provided me with some insight, I’ve come to the conclusion that many engineers have difficulty with many of the premises of AGW theory because in their “this has to work or people die” world of exacting standards, the AGW argument doesn’t hold up well by their standards of performance.
Today I was surprised to learn that one of the foremost and world famous engineers on the planet, Burt Rutan, has become an active climate skeptic. You may be familiar with some of Rutan’s work through his company, Scaled Composites:
Thanks to WUWT reader Dale Knutsen, I was provided a PowerPoint file recently by email presented by Mr. Rutan at the Oshkosh fly-in convention on July 29th, 2009 and again on August 1st, 2009. It has also now been posted online by an associate of Mr. Rutan’s.
There were a number of familiar things in the PowerPoint, including data plots from one of the USHCN stations I personally surveyed and highlighted, Santa Rosa, NM. Rutan had an interest in it because of the GISS adjustment to the data. For him, the whole argument is about the data. He says about his presentation in slide #3:
Not a Climatologist’s study; more from the view of a flight test guy who has spent a lifetime in data analysis/interpretation.
In the notes of his PowerPoint on slide #3, Rutan tells us why he thinks this way(emphasis mine):
My study is NOT as a climatologist, but from a completely different prospective in which I am an expert.
Complex data from disparate sources can be processed and presented in very different ways, and to “prove” many different theories.
For decades, as a professional experimental test engineer, I have analyzed experimental data and watched others massage and present data. I became a cynic; My conclusion – “if someone is aggressively selling a technical product who’s merits are dependant on complex experimental data, he is likely lying”. That is true whether the product is an airplane or a Carbon Credit.
Now since I’m sure people like foaming Joe Romm will immediately come out to label Mr. Rutan as a denier/delayer/generally bad person, one must be careful to note that Mr. Rutan is not your average denier/delayer. He’s “green”. Oh horrors, a “green denier”! Where have we seen that before?
From his PowerPoint, here’s his house, note the energy efficient earth walled design.
In his PowerPoint notes he says about his green interests:
My house was Nov 89 Pop Science Cover story; “World’s Most Efficient House”. Its big advantage is in the desert summer. It is all-electric and it uses more energy in the relatively mild winters than in the harsh summers – just the opposite of my neighbors.
The property has provisions for converting to self-sustaining (house and plug-in hybrid car) via adding wind generator and solar panels when it becomes cost effective to do so.
Testing Solar Water Heat in the 70s at RAF; the Rutan Aircraft Factory was converted to solar-heated water in the 70s, when others were only focused on gasoline costs.
My all electric EV-1 was best car I ever owned. Primary car for 7 years, all-electric with an 85 mile range. I was very sad (just like the guy shown) when the leased cars were recalled and crushed by General Motors. I will buy a real hybrid when one becomes available (plug-in with elect-range>60 miles). The Prius “hybrid” is not a hybrid, since it is fueled only by gasoline. A Plug-in Hybrid can be fueled with both gas and electricity. You might even see a ‘plug-in hybrid airplane’ in my future.
Interest is technology, not tree-hugging
Well that right there is reason enough to put all sorts or nasty labels on the man. Welcome to the club Burt, we are proud to have you!
Rutan’s closing observations slide is interesting:
And, in his notes he makes this mention:
Is the debate over? – The loudest Alarmist says the debate is over. However, “It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry”.
I think by the “loudest alarmist” he means Al Gore.
And his final slide:
Rutan’s PowerPoint file is posted at:
http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm
For those that don’t have PowerPoint, I’ve converted it to a PDF file for easy and immediate reading online which you can download here.
I wonder if in conversations with his biggest client, Virgin’s Richard Branson, he ever mentions Gore and their joint project? I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.
well, unfortunately asteroids and comets are not so cut and dried in the ability to defend against them. While there’s nothing we’re going to be able to do in the immediate future if it turns out that Betelgeuse is going to go supernova with a major gamma ray burst that has a half angle of 20 degrees or greater. That could create one heck of a problem here.
Clearly, some impactors might be discovered early enough so that some effort to deflect them could be done. Unfortunately, there are definite exceptions to this possibility. First is the discovery of an impactor with too little time – say less than a decade before impact. The second is the failure to discover the impactor prior to impact. A great example is the blotch near Jupiter’s pole which was evidently caused by something probably around the size of those Schoemaker Levy fragments that struck Jupiter around 10 or 15 years ago. Our first knowledge of it was shortly after the object struck Jupiter and left a splotch on the cloud tops about the size of the Pacific ocean. Those comet fragments were discovered about 2 years before they struck Jupiter. However, if they, or even just one of them had been headed towards Earth, nothing could have been done to deflect or stop it. Regardless of what we do to document potential Earth impactors, there’s always the possibility that one may come from the opposite side of the solar system – “out of the sun” – and hitting Earth prior to even our discovery of the object. However, being able to deal with even a few (if not most) of the incidents might delay the next catastrophic event by millions of years and serious but less than extinction level events perhaps by thousands of years.
As for Betelgeuse – it’s a few hundred light years away – too far to damage the Earth’s ecology by a mere supernova. It’s massive enough to undergo a core collapse supernova. It’s in the red giant phase – at the end of its life span. Massive stars like that appear to have life spans of around 10 million years – less than 1/6 th of the time frame since the dinosaurs were apparently croaked off by a large asteroid. Betelgeuse is close enough and large enough for images of the actual surface – which suggests we’re looking at one of its poles which appears be around 20 degrees off axis from our direction. Gamma ray bursts appear to be highly directional, with estimates of half angles that range from around 3 degrees to 23 degrees. The only good news at present is that the star is not roiling and broiling in such termoil that might suggest it’s going to blow soon – sometime in the next few thousand years. If all the ‘ifs’ pan out wrong for us, it’s possibly close enough to generate a serious ecological disaster – not all that different in severity from what the warmer loons are dellusional over now.
Roger Sowell (09:03:17) :
“Engineers solve problems.”
One of my favourite sayings is: “Those, who can, do. Those, who can’t, teach”.
Retired Engineer (08:12:58) : Eventually we will have alternates to fossil fuel. Academics may talk about it. Engineers like Rutan will make it happen.
You need to fix the tense. “already have made it happen”. From WWII on.
At present, the FT and related synthetic fuels are cost competitive when oil is over about $60 / bbl (depends a bit on “in which country”). Synthetic oils from waste coal tailings, at about $40 / bbl (depends on local waste disposal laws and fees), from trash at about $50 / bbl and from “tar sands” in Canada anywhere from $25 /bbl to $50 / bbl depending on which deposit you look at and method used. Oh, and Gas to Liquids at anywhere from $25/bbl to $80/bbl depending on which gas and country (and pipelines…) Oil shales are more in the $80 – $100 / bbl plus range so are “next century” fuels for now. Have to get through a lot of tar sands and coal first.
Publicly traded companies doing this on a developmental basis include SYMX Synthesis Energy Company, SYNM Syntroleum, RTK Rentech and a few others. Most notable for the “trash to liquids” “green” approach.
Companies doing it IN PRODUCTION TODAY include SSL Sasol or South African Synthetic Oil Company (who has been doing it in “country sized” quantities since the ’70s), CVX Chevron Texaco, BP British Petroleum (or Beyond Petroleum in their news spin), XOM Exxon Mobil, RDS Royal Dutch Shell, COP Connoco Philips, MRO Marathon Oil, and a half dozen others. Oh, and DD Dupont or DOW Dow Chemical are working with BP on a rollout of a biomass to butanol fuel (drop in replacement for unleaded gasoline) demo factory (I forget which one, I think it’s DOW?). Honorable mention goes to EMN Eastman Chemical who make their chemicals from coal, having never joined the rush FROM coal to oil dozens of years ago…
Now, some of the things I’ve listed are still “fossil fuels” in that they take coal or natural gas and make “petro” chemicals and motor fuels; but generally the same processes can take any carbon rich stuff, including trash and trees or even pond scum. It’s just a question of relative prices.
Note that NONE of the things I’ve listed make fuel that would cost over $4 / gallon US. Most are in the $3 and many in the $2 / gallon range. (That’s wholesale before taxes are ladled on).
It just cracks me up when people talk about “someday” we’ll “develop” an alternative to oil (I know, you said fossil fuels, not oil, but what cracks me up is the ‘alternative to oil’ folks) when I’m running it in my car today. (BioDiesel for me… made from waste food oils) and Chevron and several others are selling gasoline, kerosene and Diesel from tar sands.
The basic technologies were developed between the 1930s and 1980s with ongoing work in cost reductions (plus some enhanced methods and newer catalysts and…) since then.
Oh, and this ignores all the “grow your fuels” folks. GGRN Global Green Solutions, OOIL Origin Oil, etc. More speculative, but the “Algae to fuel” folks are shooting for about $25 / bbl equivalent cost. PSUD Petrosun is an “odd duck” in that they do oil field support work AND are building out Algae ponds to make fuel in production now.
There’s more, but I think you get the point. LOTS of Engineers have solved LOTS of problems and given us LOTS of choices for our energy future. Some are production today, some a bit too costly, some just needing more “shovel time” to hit “prime time”… (SYMX, SSL, and RTK or SYNM I forget which one have contracts with China to make LOTS of synfuels plants. IIRC SSL was $billion scale and SYMX was negotiation for near that scale. Someone has clue, even if the USA has lost theirs…
So, run out of fuel? No Worries! Not going to happen.
Ever.
Yes. Ever. Really. I meant that. What, you want to know why?…
OK, in the ’70s some crafty folks at VW figured out how to make methanol motor fuel from coal, or any other carbon rich feed stock, using Nuclear Process Heat (about 75% of the energy in the fuel comes from the nuke) at about 75 CENTS / gallon of gasoline equivalent. Call it about $2.25 in todays money (more or less). Since we have a functionally infinite supply of Uranium, and trash is carbon rich…
And all this ignores all the nifty work with DME (dimethylether) and a host of other neat fuels “good to go”. The fact is that we’re up to our eyeballs in fuel choices that have already been developed. Just waiting for oil prices to get out of glut and stabilize at a stable and reliable $50 / bbl or better for more than 5 years. (i.e. that brief $35 we hit a couple of months back, bad juju..) The only real problem we have with oil is too much of it still slopping around the planet at too low a price when we hit moments of glut.
Richard M (17:20:57) : and others commenting on E.M.Smith (16:29:44),
“Keep up the good work.”
I agree. You are doing some very good work there, E.M.!
And enjoy your single malt! I’m Scottish myself and have quite a nice collection of single malts… I had a tipple of my home town malt last night: The Aberfeldy 21 year old. It is becoming a popular ‘airport duty free’ item and I bought mine in Kuala Lumpur Airport last year.
It’s hard to know where to start with the foolishness on this post and its comments. Should it be Roger Sowell who says “there’s no oil shortage, never has been, never will be” and supports the argument by pointing out that oil companies are spending billions to find oil? No, too easy.
How about Burt Rutan, a man whom I hugely admire for his creativity, innovation, and courage? A user of computational fluid dynamics in his day to day life who says “man … cannot code a computer model to predict future temperatures.” Man can code a computer model to predict the airflow from dead calm to hypersonic over an airfoil. He can code a computer model to predict combustion dynamics in a cylinder. Mr. Rutan’s credentials (much like Anthony Watts’) to comment on the validity of geophysics is exactly equivalent to my credentials to comment on air and spacecraft design. That is, we’re both smart guys (he’s no doubt smarter, but not in any way that helps), nothing more.
“His comment about oil reserves ignores the fact that they have fallen, and the source for this is not greenies or alarmists but BP…”
I remember back in the 70’s (at the height of the energy shortage that allowed Carter to foist the Dept. of Energy on us) the CEO of BP announcing that the planet would run out of oil in less than 50 years. Forty years later we’re still 50 years away from oil deprivation.
Jeremy (19:40:33) :
One of the slides has a nice list of other big “scares” that proved false or exaggerated – like the Ozone hole nonsense. And like DDT.
DDT is a persistent poison – it does not quickly break down to safe compounds.
Mosquitoes breed rapidly and DDT resistant strains were developing. To continue to spray DDT to eradicate the non resistant mosquitoes would be pointless. Why poison the world eradicating fewer and fewer mosquitoes
From 1952:
http://www.ajtmh.org/cgi/content/abstract/1/3/389
http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/control_prevention/vector_control.htm
Resistance to DDT and dieldrin and concern over their environmental impact led to the introduction of other, more expensive insecticides. As the eradication campaign wore on, the responsibility for maintaining it was shifted to endemic countries that were not able to shoulder the financial burden. The campaign collapsed and in many areas, malaria soon returned to pre-campaign levels
an interesting bit:
http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_07_02_a_ddt.htm
DDT killed some and not other bugs leading to bed bugs ! etc.
In Malaysian villages, the roofs of the houses were a thatch of palm fronds called atap. They were expensive to construct, and usually lasted five years. But within two years of DDT spraying the roofs started to fall down. As it happened, the atap is eaten by caterpillar larvae, which in turn are normally kept in check by parasitic wasps. But the DDT repelled the wasps, leaving the larvae free to devour the atap.
In Greece, in the late nineteen-forties, for example, a malariologist noticed Anopheles sacharovi mosquitoes flying around a room that had been sprayed with DDT. In time, resistance began to emerge in areas where spraying was heaviest. To the malaria warriors, it was a shock. “Why should they have known?” Janet Hemingway, an expert in DDT resistance at the University of Wales in Cardiff, says. “It was the first synthetic insecticide. They just assumed that it would keep on working, and that the insects couldn’t do much about it.”
DDT was abandoned not because of greenies but because
it was becoming ineffective
It was killing other beneficial bugs.
the money dried up
It was being improperly applied.
To Sparkey, et al:
It’s off topic for this post but yes, there’s lots of oil left. About half, to the best estimates of those who search for it for a living. There are two problems:
1. The second half is dramatically more difficult to get to than the first.
2. Exponential growth in the consumption of a finite reserve means that, basically, we’ll use as much oil in the next 30 years as we have in all previous history if rates of growth in consumption continue.
The good thing is, those rates won’t continue. Oh wait, is that a good thing??
About oil reserves. It’s in oil companies’ interests to keep the oil price as high as possible. Saying that it is going to run out is a good way of doing this as any.
When the UK North Sea came on production around 1970 they all said it would run out by 2000. This got them very favourable tax and licencing deals with Labour the government of the day.
@ur momisugly Jimmy Haigh
North Sea production peaked in 1999.
RW (09:49:31) : Yes, it’s easy to say, isn’t it? Strange that you provide no examples. Ever wondered why countries at 60N are far, far more prosperous than those at the equator? How does that observation fit your “warm is good” theory?
OK, Medieval Optimum, Roman Optimum, Neolithic Subpluvial, (all the Saharan Subpluvials for that matter), Bollinger Allerod interstadial, and the modern optimum; just for starters.
On the cold is bad side we have:
The iron age cold period. The Dark Ages. The Little Ice Age. Migration Era Pessimum and the various Bond Events that correlate with several “pessiums”.
Warm is good, cold is bad. 15,000 years plus of history and archaeology say so.
BTW, have you looked at Brazil lately? Hot as a pistol, growing like a weed, prosperous modern democracy. Gotta love it. What, it’s on the Equator? Who knew… How about Australia. One of the best, most stable economies on the planet and doing fine, thank you very much (modulo a certain number of brain dead political hacks we all seem to accumulate). No where near 60N, more like 30S. Or maybe that little backwater called the U.S.A. most of it but Alaska south of Latitude 45 or so on down to 20N (yes, Hawaii counts too …) And those little nowhere places of Japan and China at 35N to 45N or so. Both with thousands of year old cultures and one with lots of present wealth, the other recovering from communism but with historical great wealth and a stellar future. Then there is The Muslim World, most all of it south of about 40N. Not like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Emirates have any prosperity or most of the worlds money…
Do you even bother to think before you hit enter? Heck, even most of Europe is south of 60N (and a lot of it is only a decent place to live thanks to the accident of the Gulf Stream…). And need I remind you that Europe almost evaporated in a stew of intense poverty as the rich Muslim world invaded all the way to Austria on one side and France on the other? (During a cold period, BTW…)
Sheesh. Go read a book on history, please. After that, some economics. Then a bit of geology and some geography wouldn’t hurt either. If you get through that, add some archeology and a bit of ancient cultures studies (the Indus Valley Culture, Hittites, Persian Empire, and a bit of Egyptology and maybe even some of the Nubian history would also help you come to understand that the world does not begin with Europe and the 45N latitude.) THEN you can take on the question of why (not if, why) it is that Warm IS Good.
Rob Ryan (21:24:15) :
“North Sea production peaked in 1999.”
Is that UK, Norway or total? Anyway it didn’t run out.
So what, the cheerleader in charge is not only arguing that CO2 is a pollutant, but colder is better than warmer? No wonder rational science is struggling, it’s up against lunacy.
Mark
I have now had time to look at the slides with all the notes. It’s a pretty good presentation. No wonder the alarmists are worried – they are being rumbled and the momentum against them is increasing.
I also think Branson could be ‘educated’.
Hoystory (12:08:32) : If only the world had more Cal Poly SLO grads!
Rutan class of ‘65. Says me — class of ‘94.
Golly… My niece is summa cum laude class of 2009. Go SLO!
Most rigorous engineering school I know. Great programming talent.
Should’a known Rutan would be an alumni.. If fits his style. Elegant, lateral thinking. Great rigor in the details and math. No excuses for error allowed. Complete mastery of the subject matter.
Rob Ryan,
So, my point is easy, huh? Go look at this site,
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/fsheets/real_prices.html
and ponder the little red line. Note that it descends for decades, since 1919. Then remember that every decade, peak oil was thrown about as happening next year…when clearly it did not. Even with gas guzzler cars, and long economic expansions with multiple cars per family, the real price of gasoline decreased. The only time the price increased shortages (1980 era) and speculators (2008 era).
Note also that technology for finding oil makes finding the oil cheaper and cheaper. Note also that, as E.M. Smith pointed out above, there are serious alternatives for petroleum at many price points. Even with OPEC striving mightily to maintain their monopoly, by keeping prices as low as they can, we are not running out of oil. Then note that the Bakken field was recently discovered…plus another oil field of roughly the same size just below that one…then ponder that most of the earth’s surface has not been drilled to substantial depths…
Then note that the U.S.A. has mandated very high miles per gallon for vehicles in the very near future, and that gasoline sales are declining.
Then come back and tell us that we are running out of oil. But bring some facts this time.
I’ll put my money on Rex and the boys at ExxonMobil. They don’t spend billions expecting to find a dry hole.
As I have said many times . . .
Peak Oil: Peek and ye shall find.
bluegrue (12:41:33) : You seem to posit that because this task is too daunting climate science must be wrong. I’m just asking, because apart from bold assertions you evade the science and go for the politics in all your arguments.
I don’t see it as “going for the politics” so much as pointing out that the “cure” being mandated for this minor headache (giving the benefit of the doubt to AGW for this argument only) is economic decapitation… Something of an important point to consider…
I live in California. I’m watching the State die.
I was born here and know what it was, and what it could be again. The blatant stupidity of this law (whatever numbers apply) at a time when we are so far up the brown creek without a paddle is just astounding. To watch the rest of my country want to embrace the same idiocy, with us as an existence proof of the insanity of it; well, it just is beyond belief.
We’re somewhere between $20 BILLION and $40 BILLION in the hole (depending on which smoke and mirrors you believe), as a State, for this year. We have had a massive exodus of working people, jobs and factories for the last decade (long before the latest recession) and it is not getting better. And now they want to put this choke hold on us too?
Economic beatings will continue until business morale improves!
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/csd-california-socialism-disorder/
About a decade ago I was told that any presentations we made to a local venture capitalist (a large Name) MUST have our China strategy in it. How were we going to outsource or relocate to China (or equivalent). That this was being required for ALL “pitches” made to them.
I knew then that it was just a matter of time. One by one, then dozens by dozens I watched companies close up and move out (some went under or merged). But unlike the prior 3 decades when new businesses popped up to replace them, funded by venture capital: I saw more IPO’s in China. More China news. And more empty buildings sitting for years with For Rent signs in the windows.
Now add to that:
1) No electricity supply growth.
2) Massive price increases for electricity.
3) Massive reductions in fuel availability with hugh price hikes for any shipping of product out or raw materials in.
4) Escalating labor costs (hey, the folks will need more money to cover their fuel and electricity bills.
5) Non-functional transportation systems (how will they work with little to no fuel and rising labor costs?) BTW, BART just announced a fair hike, since ridership was down. Typical left solution. Attract more people with more pain…
6) Massive government intervention (must make sure you are not cheating and using any non-approved materials or fuels…).
7) Basic commodities and products needed for manufacture banned.
8) Really Big tax burden to pay for all the government intrusion you didn’t want in the first place AND to pay for their GreenDoggle projects and their excessive fuel costs.
Now, you must decide where to put your business. In California with the above Big 8 (and a whole gaggle of smaller issues) or in Nevada without those problems?…
So, in recent news, the State of California announced they were sending a blue ribbon commission to Nevada to find out why so many folks and businesses were leaving California and moving to Nevada. Yup. They really did that…
My neighbors have bought land in S. America and are leaving “soon”.
I have the OK from my spouse that in 1.5 years when kids are done with college, we can leave (if it’s not collapsed before then).
My mechanic is talking, seriously, about how to relocate to Brazil.
Get the picture? Folks with business and degrees leaving. Folks with MediCal, Welfare, and State checks staying. What happens when these two lines cross? Oh Wait! We already had that, $40 Billion Hole.
But the good news it that I recently did an 8 AM prime commute hours run down the freeway at 65 MPH! A time and place that 5 years ago was jammed solid with folks going to work. Don’t know where they all went, but man it’s nice having no body going to work in the morning! Just need to get some “stimulus money” to keep the roads fixed (since the gas tax is drying up…)
BTW, I’ve talked with my Son (who graduates UC next year) about where he will relocate to. No idea yet, but staying in California was not discussed…
Will the last one out the door turn off the lights? Oh wait, their already out…
Government Peon (13:57:55) : I’m agreeing with Anthony that RW isn’t worth another single keystroke. Signing off…
NOW you tell me! (I know, read ALL, then post…)
(Inspecting stubs of fingers… pondering if I could have gotten GIStemp STEP2 and STEP3 benchmarked and profiled instead… deciding mocha cures a lot… yea, that’s it… time to get the mini-espresso machine out… THEN hit GIStemp STEP2 and STEP3 Profile of Fiction task… 😎 Who needs sleep!
E.M.Smith,
Bullseye, with both barrels.
As the old song says, The Times, They are a Changin.
Curiousgeorge:
Thankyou for your advise and attempted help.
You say:
“To be effective an argument must be presented to the target audience – those whose behavior or attitude you wish to change – and in a manner, venue, and format that they will be inclined to absorb. It does no good, for example, for me to lecture someone on their failure to appreciate my viewpoint; which is what I see a lot of lately from both sides.”
I very strongly agree.
JunkScience intends to circulate the matter to journal Editors.
But if one cannot get one’s own side on-board then there is no hope with the opposition.
I have been plugging this for years but it has been ignored until recently. I think there are two reasons for the recent interest. Copenhagen is imminent, and the recent success in Australia has demonstratd that direct involvement in the political process can benefit the climate realist cause.
However, only a few hours ago I obtained an email from aclimate realist that said:
“I would think many alarmists would be negative to climate control qua
geo engineering.
Besides, isn’t it tantamont to admitting the AGW or something akin to
it is “real” or authentic? (“If and when …”)
Bunk is bunk, and encouagement to consider “doing something” to
prevent the consequences of bunk to me is pointless.
But I do understand your point as something akin to “buying time ’till
the public forgets” –
… I’m lukewarm. If there are no ghosts, we shouldn’t invent
measures to “counteract” them.”
I replied saying:
“There may be no ghosts but there are dragons; i.e. C&T, CCS, windfarms, etc.
You may be “lukewarm” but you will get burned like the rest of us when the dragons breath on you. You can say “there are are no ghosts” as I do, but I want to slay the dragons, too. People will forget their fear of the ghosts given time.”
Richard
Gene Nemetz (15:37:15) :
Why are so many feeding trolls here?
The Obesity Epidemic …
And hoping for an infarction…
To Jimmy Haigh (20:11:24)
Does it make you good to insult the entire teaching profession!!
Do you have some uresolved anxiety issues from school that you need to make such insulting comments.
There are plenty on my teahcers who i have had who can do!!
Damian M (Climate scientist) :
You say:
“I think Rutan should probably stick to planes, with naive comment like “warm period are good, not bad, it would be beneficial to have more warming than present””
Pot and kettle? In the same post you say:
“His comment about oil reserves ignores the fact that they have fallen, and the source for this is not greenies or alarmists but BP
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a6.7NWiQ5wGw
they have even attached a figure “The world has enough reserves for 42 years at current production rates” The likelihood of current demand staying the same is slim as throughout the history of our use of oil demand has only ever grown.”
But oil reserves were about 40 years throughout the twentieth century while oil demand grew. They are still about 40 years, and they always will be.
No resource exhausts. Humans did not run out of flint, antler bone, bronze or iron.
The cost of a resource increases as the scarcity of the resource increases. And the increased cost has two effects; viz.
1. people look for additional sources of the resource because more expensive sources become cost effective
and
2. people look for alternatives to the resource.
Thus, sources of any resource are maintained or increased. Why look for additional sources when there is a plentiful supply available? The available reserve of crude oil was about 40 years supply throughout the twentieth century. It still is about 40 years supply because there is no point in looking for more when there is known to be 40 years supply available.
But ‘low fruit are picked first’. The amount of available resource may remain or increase but the cost of obtaining the resource increases with time. This increasing cost encourages search for alternatives. And the found alternatives often turn out to have advantages (e.g. iron had advantages over bronze but was more difficult and more costly to obtain).
However, you say you are a “Climate scientist” who believes in AGW and, of course, that gives no confidence that you know what you are talking about.
Richard
Richard M (17:20:57) : Keep up the good work.
Jimmy Haigh (20:45:08) : I agree. You are doing some very good work there, E.M.!
And enjoy your single malt! … The Aberfeldy 21 year old.
I’ll look some up and tipple in your honor, sir! I’ve a bit of a bottle of something I can’t pronounced fetched back here for me by a native Scotsman some 15 years ago that was made in the year of my birth (now over 55 years gone, not saying exactly how many over ;-). About every 2 to 4 years I allow myself a weee dram… Cost more than I care to think about, and worth more than gold to me now. That’s what I’ll be pouring a full jigger of, should the day come to celebrate!
John Michalski (18:20:02) : I have been following your GIStemp series on your blog. I’ve watched all day waiting for your response to:
To all, thank you for your kind words. Glad it was worth the wait…
Had to get the percentages enhancements in, then had to spend some time in the zones code. Then… Finally got a break and visited here… The result, you’ve seen. 😎
My, but it is satisfying to put the actual numbers in front of folks. When the data whisper in your ear that they know the truth, would you help them speak up just a wee bit, well, the feeling is wonderful.
Great Post. It was worth the wait. Keep up the good work.
When the truth is on your side, and the facts in your hip pocket, and their code running on your box: Then you are inside their house and turning on some very bright lights. Their “baffle ’em with BS” (as one wag puts it: Bad Science) then can not work. “They” can claim that GIStemp zones will do something, I can tell them exactly what line of code does which thing and were the integer divide truncates or the float rounds…
Roger Sowell (23:31:41) :
E.M.Smith,
Bullseye, with both barrels.
Thank you! I do have a very nice old double 12 ga I’m fond of… deep red wood finish… Some day I’d like to collect an English Drilling double bbl rifle in one of the obsolete large bore calibre Africa guns. Not too keen on the modern over / under stuff. (Yeah, I know it’s better. Doesn’t make it right though…)
As the “old hands” here know, I’ve been shoving my brains through the GIStemp code for quite a while now (seems like years, but I’m sure it’s less than one… hope it’s less than one…). Finally reached the “payoff” stage.
When you hit “pay” it’s all worth while. The speculation ends. The pointless dead ends end. The “what if” and “maybe this” and “why bother” and “will it ever be worth it” all evaporate. It’s replaced by “I Know“; and that feels pretty darned good.
I’m at that point now with GHCN and GIStemp.
I know the original data, and what’s wrong with it.
I know what they try to do, and what they actually do.
I know where the big problem is (in the march of the thermometers).
I know that they can not fix the holes in the data the way they claim to fix them. It’s just “a bridge too far”. (How do you interpolate a zero thermometer Southern Warm band in the baseline?…)
And I’ve shown you the evidence (dare I say it: the Proof) that this is a major problem and can not be wished away. (And GIStemp is no longer a “black box” of obfuscation. It’s now a well illuminated bit of code that is laying on my morgue table being dissected… with Ducky telling it not to worry…)
All that remains is a mechanical process of documenting the flow through the remainder of the code; the actual changes to the benchmarks and magnitudes along the way in the “anomaly” stages; showing that the original skew to the data flow through as the AGW “signal”; and making the code free for all to duplicate. And documenting any odd “little issues” in the code along the way. Things like characterizing the “tuning” of reference station distances – just what DOES 1 km vs 1000 km vs 1500 km do to the results?
Oh, and learning how to do graphics on the internet 8-}
Ought to be done in a couple of more months…
And as soon as I know something, you will know it too. If I learn anything interesting, it goes up same day or next day. This is as close to Real Time Science as you can get.
So we learn things together. Things like STEP0 has a dodgy F to C convert and warms the data by about 1/1000 C. An issue, but a little one. But that The March of the Thermometers has a huge impact and carries all the warming signal. And that the stable set of long lived records have no warming… And that the warming happens only in the winter months of the data, not in the summer months.
And once you have 27% of the data showing NO warming in any months, then it isn’t “Global” since the spacial domain is now no longer showing consistent warming.
And once you have 1/2 or so of the data showing warming only in the winter months, with summers steady at 20C over 150 years; then it isn’t CO2, since no AGW theory lets CO2 take summers off. The temporal domain of the data are now inhomogeneous with respect to rise, and CO2 requires a monotonic increase in temperatures that does not happen.
And there can be no “tipping point” since the winters data rises, but the summers do not. The exact opposite of the behaviour with a positive coefficient of a tipping point. Hotter months just top out at 20C average and halt. “Tipping” would require broader ranges and more spikey rises (only falling back as external events prevented the runaway This Time…)
And if it isn’t Global, and it isn’t CO2, then exactly WHY do we need to do anything about CO2?
And that’s a very nice thing to have learned together.
But more, it isn’t opinion. It isn’t about what I think or believe. It’s all in the data for anyone to see and anyone to explore. Basically, it isn’t about me. I’m just here to hand out flashlights and maps of the cave… Anyone can repeat what I’ve demonstrated and Anyone can do what they want with it.
One can only hope that someone will slide the data, and the code, and a little note about the need for real clothing in public under the noses of some folks in danger of being ridiculed for the rest of their carriers… because this is not going to just lay quietly and be ignored. It’s just too easy to see the truth that the data want to speak …