Guest post by Richard S. Courtney
There is need for a new policy on climate change to replace the rush to reduce emissions. The attempts at emissions reduction have failed but there is a ‘Climate Change Policy’ that would work.
Climate change is a serious problem. All governments need to address it, and most do.
In the Bronze Age Joseph (with the Technicolour Dreamcoat) told Pharaoh that climate has always changed everywhere and always will. He told Pharaoh to prepare for bad times when in good times, and all sensible governments have adopted that policy since.
But now it is feared that emissions from industry could cause additional climate change by warming the globe. This threatens more sea level rise, droughts, floods, heat waves and much else. So, governments have attempted to reduce the emissions of the warming gases, notably carbon dioxide.
The UN established the Kyoto Protocol which limits the emissions from developed countries until year 2012. But the Kyoto Protocol failed. It has had no detectable effect on the emissions which continue to rise. Now the pressure is on to get a successor to that Protocol for after 2012, and negotiations are being held around the world to decide the new treaty at a conference in Copenhagen in December (CoP15).
But the negotiations have stalled. All industrial activity releases the emissions. Developing countries say they will not limit their emissions, and industrialised countries have problems reducing theirs. China releases more of the emissions than any other country, is industrialising, and says it is entitled to the same emissions per head of population as the US. So, China says it intends to increase its emissions more than four fold. India says the same. The US is having problems adopting a ‘Cap & Trade’ policy that would harm American industries and force industries from America to China. The EU adopted a ‘Cap & Trade’ policy that collapsed and has not affected the EU’s rising emissions. The Australian Parliament has recently rejected a similar policy.
Politicians have been responding to the failure of the Kyoto Protocol by showing they are ‘doing something’. They have adopted pointless and expensive impositions on energy industries, energy supplies and transportation. And the public is paying the large costs of this in their energy bills.
The Copenhagen Conference will provide a decision because it has to, but that decision will have no more effect than the Kyoto Protocol. And this will put more pressure on the politicians to be seen to be ‘doing something’ with further cost and harm to peoples and to industry.
There is as yet no clear evidence that the additional climate change is happening. But environmental groups are pressing the politicians to act “before it is too late”. And politicians are responding because of the fear of dire consequences from the additional climate change.
Politicians have decided how much additional climate change is acceptable, because they have decided that global temperature must not be allowed to rise to 2 degrees Celsius higher than it was at the start of the last century. But they need a method to overcome the urgency which is forcing them to do things and to agree things which do not work.
There is an available solution to the problem. The urgency is because of fear that the effects of the emissions may be irreversible. However, the additional climate change can be reversed, quickly, simply and cheaply. This provides a complete solution to the problems.
There is no need for the Copenhagen Conference to reach a forced, inadequate, and premature agreement on emissions. The Conference needs to decide funding to perfect the methods to reverse the additional climate change if and when that becomes necessary. This decision would give politicians decades of time to conduct their negotiations about what to do to limit the emissions. So, the politicians can agree actions that work instead of adopting things everybody knows do not work.
The solution addresses the cause of the fear of the additional climate change. Every sunbather has noticed it cools when a cloud covers the Sun, and this is because clouds reflect sunlight to cause negative radiative forcing. The fear of the additional climate change is based on an assumption that global temperature is determined by net radiative forcing, and the emissions induce additional positive radiative forcing.
The forcing can be altered in many ways. An increase to cloud cover of a single percent would more than compensate for the warming from a doubling of carbon dioxide in the air. There are several ways to increase cloud cover, for example small amounts of sulphates, dust, salt or water released from scheduled aircraft would trigger additional cloud formation. And the carbon dioxide in the air is very unlikely to increase so much that it doubles.
And there are many other ways to reflect sunlight so it is not absorbed by the ground. Crops could be chosen for reflectivity, roofs could be covered with reflective materials, and tethered balloons could be covered in reflective material.
Each of these options would be very much cheaper than constraining the emissions by 20 per cent for a single year. So, any delay to implementation of emission constraints by use of these options would save a lot of money.
Global temperature has not again reached the high it did in 1998 and has been stable since. But it could start to rise again. If it does then use of one or more of these options could be adopted when global temperature nears 2 degrees Celsius higher than it was at the start of the last century. This would be a cheap and effective counter measure while the needed emission constraints are imposed. Indeed, it would be much cheaper than the emission constraints. It could be started and stopped rapidly, and its effect would be instantaneous (as sunbathers have noticed when a cloud passes in front of the Sun).
Until then there would be no need for expensive ‘seen to be doing something’ actions such as capturing and storing carbon dioxide. Energy and financial policies would not need to be distorted, and developing countries could be allowed to develop unhindered.
Indeed, there would be no need to deploy the counter measures unless and until global temperature rises to near the trigger of 2 degrees C rise.
The various methods for reflecting sunlight need to be developed and perfected. They each have potential benefits and problems which need to be assessed. But if the problems are detectable they need not be significant. For example, the additional cloud cover could be induced over oceans distant from land. This requires much research.
Politicians know they need to be seen to be ‘doing something’ and they would be seen to be doing something worthwhile. Each counter measure experiment and demonstration provides opportunity for media coverage.
Richard S. Courtney
Energy and Environment Consultant
Richard S. Courtney is an independent consultant on matters concerning
energy and the environment. He is a technical advisor to several UK MPs
and mostly-UK MEPs. He has been called as an expert witness by the UK
Parliament’s House of Commons Select Committee on Energy and also House
of Lords Select Committee on the Environment. He is an expert peer
reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and in
November 1997 chaired the Plenary Session of the Climate Conference in
Bonn. In June 2000 he was one of 15 scientists invited from around the
world to give a briefing on climate change at the US Congress in
Washington DC, and he then chaired one of the three briefing sessions.
His achievements have been recognized by The UK’s Royal Society for Arts
and Commerce, PZZK (the management association of Poland’s mining
industry), and The British Association for the Advancement of Science.
Having been the contributing technical editor of CoalTrans
International, he is now on the editorial board of Energy & Environment.
He is a founding member of the European Science and Environment Forum
(ESEF).
h/t to Barry Hearn
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Like all good biblical drama’s with tempest and pestilence, have a look at cane toads in Australia. Man’s attempt to bio-engineer a solution to cane beetles has become a classic case of unintended consequence with the toads apparently evolving to increase their spread. Seems like they enjoy the hospitality and the dry / warm Aussie climate.
http://www.sciencewa.net.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2382%3Afasterstronger-but-doomed-by-arthritis-&Itemid=200074
http://australianmuseum.net.au/Cane-Toad
Interestinlgly “At that time, some naturalists and scientists warned of the dangers of liberating Cane Toads in Australia. The protesters included a former New South Wales Government Entomologist, W W Froggatt, and an Australian Museum Curator, Roy Kinghorn. Their protests resulted in a brief moratorium on the release of toads, but releases resumed in 1936.”
Will we ever take heed of the lessons?
Jeff L says:
So, are you saying this is the united goal of most of the climate science community, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences & analogous bodies in all the other G8+5 nations, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the councils of most major scientific societies like the AGU, the AMS, and the APS? How exactly did they all get together to agree on this strategy?
Jeff L (19:05:49) :
The base assumption in this paper is wrong – that the goal is to control the climate. What has been seen & proven over the last several years is the REAL goal is increased government control over people. They could care less if the temperature goes up or down, as long as they can stick their hands deep into your pockets.
You got that right, Pardner! They are interested in more than our money though, they want to control our behavior in all sorts of ways. The Fed already has our money and gave it to Goldman Sachs and Citi and the banks at Zero percent and they’ll very nicely let someone with only good credit say, around 700, pay 17.50% on that if they want a credit card!
1sky1 (19:27:29) :
Why would anyone want to sit out a volcano? Or dare to spit at a hurricane?
Same people that would step in front of a truck, thinking it can stop on a dime.
Only the people that dreamed up the warming hoax want to convince you step in front of the truck.
Joel Shore (18:54:58),
Still a believer that bad ‘ol CO2 is gonna getcha, I see.
Relax. Read E.M. Smith’s posts demolishing the CO2 warming conjecture. CO2 is the ultimate red herring, intended to distract from the taxman behind the curtain.
And I note that every alarmist scare has eventually been debunked, every single one: ocean acidification [alarmists never heard of buffering?], disappearing glaciers, vanishing polar ice, warming oceans, rising temperatures, drowning polar bears, mysterious tipping points, worldwide droughts, the disappearing ozone hole, Cap & Trade, rising sea levels, runaway global warming, “consensus”, increasing forest fires, more hurricanes, ‘the debate is over’ [wait, what?? When was the debate??], the UN/IPCC’s scary projections, wind turbines, coral bleaching, postal rate increases, warmth kills. And etc., etc. The alarmist bunkum never ends. And in the end, it’s always debunked.
By accepting that CO2 is beneficial, not harmful, the scales will fall from your eyes, and you will see that you were worrying about a black cat in your dark bedroom. But when you turn on the light… there’s no cat! And there never was.
Mike Bryant says:
Could you please remind me who accuses whom of “alarmism”? Or, have we now defined “alarmism” to mean “alarming climate scenarios backed up by scientific evidence” and to specifically exclude “alarming socioeconomic scenarios backed up by no evidence”?
Sorry, but I felt as though I were reading a grade 10 science essay. Regardless, history shows that the only “triggers” we need worry about are ones that cause ice ages. Fooling around with these sorts of measures seems at best foolhardy; at worst homicidal.
How about consistently nailing a 5 day forecast first, then moving on to the Dr. Evil stuff?
@Kevin Kilty (19:07:51) :
“[…] Maybe the real answer is mass therapy for people who feel compelled to micromanage both humanity plus our planet.”
Now that is a practical solution to AGW alarmism! Cheap and effective, eh? It’d cost what; $6-8-10 billion? Problem solved and we can all get on with our lives.
Hey, Gene Nemetz,
Thanks. You cheered my day!
Kevin,
“Joel Shore (19:47:32) :
“alarming climate scenarios backed up by scientific evidence””
Where is the evidence that is not based on a model?
Joel Shore (19:41:26) says: “So, are you saying this is the united goal of most of the climate science community, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences & analogous bodies in all the other G8+5 nations, …? How exactly did they all get together to agree on this strategy?”
Different people’s actions can appear coordinated without any conspiracy. Most mothers tell their children the three little pigs, but they do not conspire together and agree on any strategy. With climate change, some are true believers and some are opportunists. The true believers could in theory be swayed with evidence, but the opportunists have no interest in the truth. Many scientists now have their careers at stake, which is no small hurdle to cross. Politicians love power and tax money, both of which can be theirs through AGW theory.
“How about consistently nailing a 5 day forecast first, then moving on to the Dr. Evil stuff?”
How difficult could it be to predict the number, strength, track, and landfall of all the hurricanes, for the several month hurricane season? Call me when you can do this, then I’ll listen to your 100 year predictions.
Smokey (19:44:27) : “By accepting that CO2 is beneficial, not harmful, the scales will fall from your eyes, and you will see that you were worrying about a black cat in your dark bedroom. But when you turn on the light… there’s no cat! And there never was.”
MONEY!
Give up Joel. What “alarming climate scenarios backed up by scientific evidence” can you prove??
You can’t. You can just “prove” alarming climate scenarios backed up by failed climate models and their accompanied clergy.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Good analogy, Craigo.
In New Zealand, early settlers released rabbits for sport and food. But the rabbits bred like, well, rabbits actually and began to compete with sheep for grass.
No problem; introduce weasels, stoats and ferrets. They’ll fix the rabbits. But the rabbits can run faster than New Zealand’s flightless birds, so the weasels, etc, ate them instead. Now we have weasels, ferrets and stoats and rabbits and a the fabulous bird-life was all but lost. The successes we have had have been hugely expensive feats of dedicated conservation.
Add deer, goats, wild pigs, possums, rats, wild cats, gorse and wilding pines (to name a few) and you can see the folly of intended and unintended introductions to a fragile ecology.
I’m concerned that these schemes to ‘geo-engineer’ may go just as badly wrong because we simply don’t know all of their effects and downstream consequences. Because any project big enough to actually change the global climate would have to be huge, everyone would have to share any adverse consequences with the clowns who perpetrated them in the first place.
My Minnesota Xcel Energy bill that just came says the last billing month (mostly July) was 6 F cooler than the same period last year. So, this raises some questions…
Since it is based on 30 day average, is that long term weather or short term climate?
How much additional CO2 can I release to avoid this unwanted, cool, wet Summer in the future?
(rubs chin, scratches head, and smiles).
Joel Shore (19:41:26) :
Jeff L says:
” The base assumption in this paper is wrong – that the goal is to control the climate. What has been seen & proven over the last several years is the REAL goal is increased government control over people.”
So, are you saying this is the united goal of most of the climate science community, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences & analogous bodies in all the other G8+5 nations, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the councils of most major scientific societies like the AGU, the AMS, and the APS? How exactly did they all get together to agree on this strategy?
Let me give you a simple example of how mass delusions happen, and scientific bodies can join in the delusion, seeing the image of the virgin mary in the clouds too, and finally politicians acting on things.
In 1981 we had a large earthquake 70 km from Athens, with aftershocks that lasted for a month and it felt as if we were living on a shaking tree. Immediately after that scientific interest from all science fields came to an extreme peak and every scientist studied seismology. A solid, solid state scientist , then a junior professor at the university, expert in piezoelectric phenomena, started studying the telurian currents, currents that appear in the earth due to the pressure changes in fault lines ( presumably). And he came up with a theory and system that he and his team said, predicted earthquakes. There were lectures, presentations, bad use of statistics and correlations, but there was no way, due to the high adrenalin from the shakings, to convince scientists who had never used statistical methods that they were swimming in treacherous waters. The theory persists still, after cornering politically the market of grants for a while, and of course it does not predict earthquakes, otherwise it would be widely known.
There was no conspiracy. There was a confluence of worry and delusion and politicians and media blowing up the subject because of ignorance and the chicken little syndrome.
Scientific bodies can be caught in the chicken little syndrome,particularly because scientists are prone to trust scientists from other disciplines . Of course once it gets into the grants and positions and subsidies and pork barrel state and the appetite for taxes is whetted, as AGW has reached now, the momentum is great and I do not see how it can be stopped, except if the Thames freezes over.
I vote to do nothing.
Well, good gracious and gravy train! Shades of what we heard in the 1960’s about the earth about to freeze over in the next ice age, but don’t worry, children, we have the technology to spread ground-up charcoal all across the snow as it advances!
Reflective balloons, and white rooftops!
The reality is that engineers have the answers, should we ever need them. Workable, economic, good solutions to warming the earth if needed, or cooling the earth if that is indicated.
If water vapor truly gets too high, meaning the warmists of today are correct (and that is a very big if, for those who follow what I write about this), it is very simple to dehumidify the atmosphere as much or as little as needed. It only requires energy, which is abundant and free from windmills, waves, and solar. Intermittency issues will not at all be a problem for a dehumidifier system.
We can also extract out CO2 from the air, and have that concentration be anything we choose. Again, all it takes is energy. We can scrub CO2 out of coal-fired power plant smokestacks, and the same for natural gas fired smokestacks, again it only takes energy.
We can also create and eject benign aerosols into the air, among other things.
We can also create artificial hurricanes, and dissipate vast amounts of heat in just a few days. I wouldn’t recommend this one, though, as there would be substantial legal liability for any damage and loss of life.
Hey, he proposed ridiculous ideas. Why can’t I?
Joel Shore (19:41:26) says: “So, are you saying this is the united goal of most of the climate science community, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences & analogous bodies in all the other G8+5 nations, …? How exactly did they all get together to agree on this strategy?”
Follow the money trail Joel.
Anna V “There was no conspiracy. There was a confluence of worry and delusion and politicians and media blowing up the subject because of ignorance and the chicken little syndrome. Scientific bodies can be caught in the chicken little syndrome,particularly because scientists are prone to trust scientists from other disciplines . Of course once it gets into the grants and positions and subsidies and pork barrel state and the appetite for taxes is whetted, as AGW has reached now, the momentum is great and I do not see how it can be stopped, except if the Thames freezes over.”
Eloquently said. Beyond eloquent, actually.
And its unfortunate that so many a brilliant singular scientist is caught up in the system of mass delusion, which may start with a small error but then cascades into one error after the next.
Before long, the consensus, like the failed climate models, end up GRANDLY askew….removed from all gravity, all truth, all reasoning…powered by the special interests and politicians that supply all the funding.
This phenomenon of the AGW will go down in the annals of history as not being a major advancement for science, or humankind, but as a psychological study of mass delusion, powered by big $$$ interests.
We went from Dick Cheney’s Haliburton…to Al Gore’s company that stands to make mucho dinero on cap and trade.
Meanwhile….the world languishes. Have we not learned anything?
Thankfully…many bright scientists and engineers….[many on here] and even some at the IPCC…are saying HELL NO….and trying to reverse that trend.
Godspeed.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I am disappointed with the replies here,because he is not advocating that we support stopping climate change.Here is the very first paragraph of his post,that appears to be forgotten:
“There is need for a new policy on climate change to replace the rush to reduce emissions. The attempts at emissions reduction have failed but there is a ‘Climate Change Policy’ that would work.”
and,
“Politicians have been responding to the failure of the Kyoto Protocol by showing they are ‘doing something’. They have adopted pointless and expensive impositions on energy industries, energy supplies and transportation. And the public is paying the large costs of this in their energy bills.”
and one more,
“There is an available solution to the problem. The urgency is because of fear that the effects of the emissions may be irreversible. However, the additional climate change can be reversed, quickly, simply and cheaply. This provides a complete solution to the problems.
There is no need for the Copenhagen Conference to reach a forced, inadequate, and premature agreement on emissions. The Conference needs to decide funding to perfect the methods to reverse the additional climate change if and when that becomes necessary. This decision would give politicians decades of time to conduct their negotiations about what to do to limit the emissions. So, the politicians can agree actions that work instead of adopting things everybody knows do not work.”
I believe that Richard is trying to point out that it is possible for the lawmakers to drop the failed emission control schemes and work on something far cheaper and and much less damaging to economies of the world.This would then have them back off and consider the alternatives that can take a few years to discuss and decide,while the worlds climate continues to cool down,thus stopping the mad rush “to do something to fight climate change” anyway.
It is an attempt to get the lawmakers go in a new direction AWAY from Emission controls proposals,that have failed miserably,onto something simpler and cheaper to reduce the much talked about PROJECTED warming trend of at least 1.5C to year 2100.
I for one support the idea of ending the mad rush to do something about CO2 emissions,by trying something new and better way to deal with the PROJECTED warming of the future.A way out for the lawmakers from having to rush legislation to show they are doing something about it,to one where they can slow down and work on much more thought out policies to deal with their fear of future warming.
The irrational rush to do something that has repeatedly failed with expensive economic cost needs to end,and Richard has suggested a way out with his guest post.
Rather than have scheduled aircraft release aerosols to reflect the sunlight, we could take the scrubbers off our coal power plants. Cheaper electricity, reduced global warming, almost as many jobs saved as the current President has saved – everyone’s a winner.
As for knowing when we’ve reached the 2°C mark, that’s what GISS is for. Our government is on top of the problem, folks, and we’ll all have green jobs real soon now.
I see hundreds of millions of reflective parasols (I recommend a parabolic configuration). No one allowed outside without their parasol! We’d have to be careful because China alone could reflect enough energy to fry the moon if they pointed all their parasols in that direction. Once global temperature has dropped to levels satisfactory to the IPCC, I envision a U.N. Parasol Commission the function of which would be world-wide parasol modulation; in recognition of all his fine work, I nominate Dr. James Hansen to head this commission with the title of “Parasol Grand Poo Bah”.
james allison (21:08:57) :
People of Joels ilk use these same worn out arguments.
I see he didn’t mention the APS this time. 😉
sunsettommy (21:26:55) :
Can you please condense into one sentence your position please? Your post above is circular and hard to follow.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA