This is an essay professor Richard Lindzen of MIT sent to the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va for their Opinion Page in March, and was recently republished in the Janesville, WI Gazette Extra where it got notice from many WUWT readers. It is well worth the read. – Anthony
To a significant extent, the issue of climate change revolves around the elevation of the commonplace to the ancient level of ominous omen. In a world where climate change has always been the norm, climate change is now taken as punishment for sinful levels of consumption. In a world where we experience temperature changes of tens of degrees in a single day, we treat changes of a few tenths of a degree in some statistical residue, known as the global mean temperature anomaly (GATA), as portents of disaster.
Earth has had ice ages and warmer periods when alligators were found in Spitzbergen. Ice ages have occurred in a 100,000-year cycle for the last 700,000 years, and there have been previous interglacials that appear to have been warmer than the present despite lower carbon-dioxide levels. More recently, we have had the medieval warm period and the little ice age. During the latter, alpine glaciers advanced to the chagrin of overrun villages. Since the beginning of the 19th century, these glaciers have been retreating. Frankly, we don’t fully understand either the advance or the retreat, and, indeed, some alpine glaciers are advancing again.
For small changes in GATA, there is no need for any external cause. Earth is never exactly in equilibrium. The motions of the massive oceans where heat is moved between deep layers and the surface provides variability on time scales from years to centuries. Examples include El Nino, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation, etc. Recent work suggests that this variability is enough to account for all change in the globally averaged temperature anomaly since the 19th century. To be sure, man’s emissions of carbon dioxide must have some impact. The question of importance, however, is how much.
A generally accepted answer is that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (it turns out that one gets the same value for a doubling regardless of what value one starts from) would perturb the energy balance of Earth about 2 percent, and this would produce about 2 degrees Fahrenheit warming in the absence of feedbacks. The observed warming over the past century, even if it were all due to increases in carbon dioxide, would not imply any greater warming.
However, current climate models do predict that a doubling of carbon dioxide might produce more warming: from 3.6 degrees F to 9 degrees F or more. They do so because within these models the far more important radiative substances, water vapor and clouds, act to greatly amplify whatever an increase in carbon dioxide might do. This is known as positive feedback. Thus, if adding carbon dioxide reduces the ability of the earth system to cool by emitting thermal radiation to space, the positive feedbacks will further reduce this ability.
It is again acknowledged that such processes are poorly handled in current models, and there is substantial evidence that the feedbacks may actually be negative rather than positive. Citing but one example, 2.5 billion years ago the sun’s brightness was 20 percent to 30 percent less than it is today (compared to the 2 percent change in energy balance associated with a doubling of carbon-dioxide levels) yet the oceans were unfrozen and the temperatures appear to have been similar to today’s.
This was referred to by Carl Sagan as the Early Faint Sun Paradox. For 30 years, there has been an unsuccessful search for a greenhouse gas resolution of the paradox, but it turns out that a modest negative feedback from clouds is entirely adequate. With the positive feedback in current models, the resolution would be essentially impossible. [Note: readers, see this recent story on WUWT from Stanford that shows Greenhouse theory isn’t needed in the faint young sun paradox at all – Anthony]
Interestingly, according to the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the greenhouse forcing from manmade gases is already about 86 percent of what one expects from a doubling of carbon dioxide (with about half coming from methane, nitrous oxide, freons, and ozone). Thus, these models should show much more warming than has been observed. The reason they don’t is that they have arbitrarily removed the difference and attributed this to essentially unknown aerosols.
The IPCC claim that most of the recent warming (since the 1950s) is due to man assumed that current models adequately accounted for natural internal variability. The failure of these models to anticipate the fact that there has been no statistically significant warming for the past 14 years or so contradicts this assumption. This has been acknowledged by major modeling groups in England and Germany.
However, the modelers chose not to stress this. Rather they suggested that the models could be further corrected, and that warming would resume by 2009, 2013, or even 2030.
Global warming enthusiasts have responded to the absence of warming in recent years by arguing that the past decade has been the warmest on record. We are still speaking of tenths of a degree, and the records themselves have come into question. Since we are, according to these records, in a relatively warm period, it is not surprising that the past decade was the warmest on record. This in no way contradicts the absence of increasing temperatures for over a decade.
Given that the evidence (and I have noted only a few of many pieces of evidence) suggests that anthropogenic warming has been greatly exaggerated, so too is the basis for alarm. However, the case for alarm would still be weak even if anthropogenic global warming were significant. Polar bears, arctic summer sea ice, regional droughts and floods, coral bleaching, hurricanes, alpine glaciers, malaria, etc., all depend not on GATA but on a huge number of regional variables including temperature, humidity, cloud cover, precipitation, and direction and magnitude of wind and the state of the ocean.
The fact that some models suggest changes in alarming phenomena will accompany global warming does not logically imply that changes in these phenomena imply global warming. This is not to say that disasters will not occur; they always have occurred, and this will not change in the future. Fighting global warming with symbolic gestures will certainly not change this. However, history tells us that greater wealth and development can profoundly increase our resilience.
One may ask why there has been the astounding upsurge in alarmism in the past four years. When an issue like global warming is around for more than 20 years, numerous agendas are developed to exploit the issue. The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power, influence and donations are reasonably clear. So, too, are the interests of bureaucrats for whom control of carbon dioxide is a dream come true. After all, carbon dioxide is a product of breathing itself.
Politicians can see the possibility of taxation that will be cheerfully accepted to save Earth. Nations see how to exploit this issue in order to gain competitive advantages. So do private firms. The case of Enron (a now bankrupt Texas energy firm) is illustrative. Before disintegrating in a pyrotechnic display of unscrupulous manipulation, Enron was one of the most intense lobbyists for Kyoto. It had hoped to become a trading firm dealing in carbon-emission rights. This was no small hope. These rights are likely to amount to trillions of dollars, and the commissions will run into many billions.
It is probably no accident that Al Gore himself is associated with such activities. The sale of indulgences is already in full swing with organizations selling offsets to one’s carbon footprint while sometimes acknowledging that the offsets are irrelevant. The possibilities for corruption are immense.
Finally, there are the well-meaning individuals who believe that in accepting the alarmist view of climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue. For them, psychic welfare is at stake.
Clearly, the possibility that warming may have ceased could provoke a sense of urgency. For those committed to the more venal agendas, the need to act soon, before the public appreciates the situation, is real indeed. However, the need to courageously resist hysteria is equally clear. Wasting resources on symbolically fighting ever-present climate change is no substitute for prudence.
Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan professor of atmospheric science at MIT. Readers may send him e-mail at rlindzenmit.edu. He wrote this for The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va.
It seems to me that warming by other causes should exhibit similar characteristics, particularly the first three: i.e. tempering the lowest temperatures (night, high latitudes, winter) proportionaly more than raising the highest temperatures (daytime, low latitudes, summer). An the opposite should hold for periods of cooling: reducing the highest temperatures proportionally more than the lowest ones. It seems intuitively reasonable that whatever temperature-stabilizing mechanisms are at work in the biosphere, the barriers they build will be strongest near the ends of the range, that is to say: they will be most efficient at containng the expansion of the corresponding end tail during each cycle. So the assumption that warming cycles should cause high temperatures to increase *as much* as low temperatures (and viceversa for cooling cycles) I find unwarranted.
Richard S Courtney (01:39:37) :
Hmmmm.
And I think you know nothing about the subject on which you pontificate but attempt to demean Richard Lindzen because his work provides doubt to the belief system you proselityse.
I’m just talking about one branch of science – if you think “science” is a a “belief system” that one has to “proselytize” for, then I don’t think you were much of a research scientist.
PS I worked as a research scientist for a coal industry for decades and that industry’s geologists elected me to represent them.
Why don’t you continue to represent those fine coal industry geologists by pointing out a few that “know much, much more about the mechanisms of the atmosphere and its variations over time…” than the climatologists and atmospheric scientists that make it their profession to know how atmospheres vary over time.
Two citations would be a start.
Geologist lead authors, doing research on mechanisms of the atmosphere and its variations over time. Not some puff piece in an industry newsletter. Some published papers showing they know “much, much more” than the pros.
You set the bar pretty high – let’s see you attempt to jump it.
I’ll get some popcorn.
My post above (09:26:27) was in response to this:
TLM (08:20:22)
Warming forced by CO2 (as opposed to natural internal variability) will have the following characteristics:
– More warming at night than during the day
– More warming in winter than in summer
– More warming at high latitudes than at low latitudes.
– More warming in the troposphere than in the Stratosphere.
Richard S Courtney (02:51:52) :
Anu:
Additionally, I point out that your selective quotation of me misleads.
I wrote:
“Yes, and the reason is that “meteorologists and geologists” know much, much more about the mechanisms of the atmosphere and its variations over time than the collection of substandard computer modellers and incompetent statisticians who call themselves ‘climatologists’.”
And you quote:
““… geologists” know much, much more about the mechanisms of the atmosphere and its variations over time…”
What’s misleading ?
That I emphasized “geologists” because it is absurd ? Do you think grouping them in with “meteorologists” gives them a better chance at knowing much, much more about the mechanisms of the atmosphere and its variations over time?
Sorry, no.
As for your personal attacks on climatologists, your quote is still right there, in this thread, if you think some hypothetical reader is lacking your quote “context”.
So, back to proving your point.
Two citations.
Slaon (08:55:56) :
@ur momisugly Anu,
Quote: ““….It’s no secret that meteorologists and geologists are the scientists that least agree with climate scientists about global warming.”
Anu, have a look at JamesE. Hansen’s latest award:
– 2009 Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal, American Meteorological Society,
(http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/cv/cv_hansen_200912.pdf)
What are you talking about dude???
Gee, and he won a Medal from the American Geophysical Union, too.
And an Award from the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and more than a dozen others. Maybe he has some awards from the Geological Society of America, also, but didn’t have room on his CV to list them.
Even in those fields that have the most individual scientists that don’t believe in AGW, they are still a minority that cannot stop their representative bodies from honoring people like Dr. Hansen for their good work.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/eco.globalwarmingsurvey/index.html
Petroleum geologists – only 47% believed in AGW. But there are lots of non-petroleum geologists.
Meteorologists – only 64% believed in AGW. But that’s still a majority.
See how it’s all consistent, dude ?
The “other side” is tiny, and they don’t control many Awards.
Anu:
I quote your entire post at (09.33.36) because it is so absurd. It says:
“Richard S Courtney (02:51:52) :
Anu:
Additionally, I point out that your selective quotation of me misleads.
I wrote:
“Yes, and the reason is that “meteorologists and geologists” know much, much more about the mechanisms of the atmosphere and its variations over time than the collection of substandard computer modellers and incompetent statisticians who call themselves ‘climatologists’.”
And you quote:
““… geologists” know much, much more about the mechanisms of the atmosphere and its variations over time…”
What’s misleading ?
That I emphasized “geologists” because it is absurd ? Do you think grouping them in with “meteorologists” gives them a better chance at knowing much, much more about the mechanisms of the atmosphere and its variations over time?
Sorry, no.
As for your personal attacks on climatologists, your quote is still right there, in this thread, if you think some hypothetical reader is lacking your quote “context”.
So, back to proving your point.
Two citations.”
Are you deliberately trying to look foolish?
Meteorologists know much more about mechanisms operating in the atmosphere than than Mann, Hughes, Jones, Hansen et al. because meteorologists use their understanding to predict weather while those named ignore important effects of e.g. clouds and their formation when constructing models that pretend to ‘project’ climate for decades ahead.
Geologists study past climates as part of their basic work. For example, they analyse rocks to determine likely presence of minerals formed under past geographic and climate conditions.
Stick to your quasi-religious belief in AGW if you want: that is your right as a human being. But leave comment on matters of science to people who understand the sciences until you gain some such understanding.
Richard
Smokey
“If you re-phrase your questions so I can understand exactly what you’re asking, I will respond.”
My initial post was a reaction to Lindzer’s text, which says
L1 ‘To be sure, man’s emissions of carbon dioxide must have some
impact’.
L2 Climate has always exhibited (large) variation
L3 There is no cause for ALARM
L4 ‘One may ask why there has been the astounding upsurge in alarmism
in the past four years’?
(his answer= interests of environmentalists (donations), bureaucrats
and politicians (regulation and taxation) carbon permit trade, ENRON &
Al Gore)
My questions to you
1) you already answered this one; you are a true sceptic, ready to acknowledge AGW as soon as you see evidence thereof. But, then you
add quickly: it will never happen! Lindzer seems to concede more
(L1 above). No matter, I have your answer.
2) I refer to both L2 and L3; stating that climate has always varied and
there is no cause for alarm is in my view deeply irresponsible! You
cannot make a general statement like that without looking at the
context, the real world as it is: we are 6.8 billion and there are regions
where masses of people live on climate sensitive so-called ecosystem income, the resilience of these socioecological systems being very low.
For the sake of the argument, even without any AGW, there is clearly
cause for ALARM if these climate variations hit the least resilient
regions. Again, the 10th consecutive year of drought in Australia,
even if not caused by AGW, is one example and that is rich country,
which can cope. But there are densely populated, water-stressed nations, which are close to the critical limit. Do you think Lindzer’s stories about ‘skating on the Thames’ or ‘crocodiles on Spitzbergen’ will cheer them up
until the next ‘Natural variation’ hits?
I have written this paragraph about 5 times already in this thread; sorry,
for being overbearing, but I don’t think you have a keen ear for this kind
of reasoning? Therefore I have to shout. Is it with you, as it evidently is
with MIT Professor Lindzen, that the heat of the debate in this ‘war of websites’ prevents you from thinking of all the consequences of your
words? You have to get your priorities right: real world or academia
fights, which are more important?
3) Given that a true sceptic should concede some role for AGW (L1),
given that climate variation is a cause for alarm as such, would you
support a climate policy based on some cap and trade, assistance for adaptation, REDD, climate research funding?
Taking into consideration that these policies would create incentive
for a gradual transition to low carbon societies, which offers economic stimulus through Green technology, which contributes to solving our
fossil fuel dependence. It is a win-win situation, with costs of course.
OK, it is obvious you will not concede much on AGW. But, when
designing policies for an uncertain future, where the consequences are severe, if you are wrong in the end, you would in any other issue do a cool-headed risk assessment. In this case are you really prepared to
set the risk at zero and reject these policies?
kadaka (11:43:40) :
From mikael pihlström (09:09:52) :
“The next ice age is more distant in time than warming. When it comes,
one countermeasure would be to burn fossils as hell, but to have any
left at that point we need to transit to a low-carbon society now, which
might save this century also.”
kadaka:
“First off, I would have to find validity in CO2 being a miraculous green
house gas that could provide the extra insulating properties to retain
the heat needed to offset such a global cooling trend.”
I am not insisting on this conjectural theory. It is based on a Nature
article sometime ago, where the authors proposed that the next ice
age will be persistent for a very long time; they said that the preceding
ones in our geological era were exceptionally short if you look at the
complete time span of Earth. In the end of the article they do put forth
the possibilty of protection by CO2; I think there reasoning was that it
could push forward some tipping point, beyond which albedo would be
‘eternally’ self-reinforcing.
Dave F
I assume that orbital changes would be very early warning systems…
Re TLM (10:59:00) 4/11/2010
“The point is that in order for clouds to be an effective negative feedback to CO2 forcing there needs to be a gradual and persistent increase in global cloud coverage as the temperature of the earth rises……..and in order to be an effective negative feedback they would need to stay cloudier, all the time…..Yes! They would go down – and quite quickly I would bet.
Now we have a colder earth. What would that do to cloud cover?……
Right, you’ve got it – the cloud would have to decrease, because there would not be enough heat getting through to evaporate the water to create the clouds.
………Now do you get the picture? Clouds act as a negative feedback only in the very short term – a matter of hours, days or seasons. However, CO2 does not rise and fall with the temperature on an hourly, daily or even yearly basis. It stays more or less the same, with a slight positive shift in response to temperatures over decades. It is a positive feedback to rising temperatures.”
Nice little thought experiment, but you need to take it one step further. Based on Spencer’s analysis, which seems as reasonable as any counterargument I’ve seen, clouds do act as a real time, more or less instantaneous negative feedback. It is exactly what you have described. The radiation comes in. The sea surface temperature rises. Clouds form and reflect the radiation(reflecting more of the incident radiation compared to the relatively small amount of long wave radiation they reflect back to the sea). The net effect is that clouds are a negative feedback that damps and tends to reverse any SST rise. The individual cloud does not have to be long-lived as long as the mechanism(cloud formation in response to SST) is a consistent and persistent phenomenon. It certainly appears to be. You can see it almost everyday in the summer. Little or no clouds in the morning. Warming temperatures during the day, resulting in building clouds, often growing into large thunderstorms. The next day the cycle repeats. It occurs over the oceans too, particularly in the tropics. The clouds tend to reflect during the hottest times of the day, maximizing the radiation reflected. Then, as the day wanes and the air cools, it rains and all that latent heat radiates out through a less cloudy night sky.
Given the small intrinsic effect of CO2, it would only take a very small change in daily cloud cover to completely cancel the CO2 absorption, on the order of 2%. It’s too small a change for any satellite measurement to accurately measure at this time. There isn’t even a satellite up there that can measure the radiation changes over a 4-5 kilometer area.
You’d also need ground and lower atmosphere data at the same time to measure temperatures, absolute humidity, and LWR backscatter under a cloud while other instrumentation is measuring the incoming and outgoing radiation over the cloud. As a climate scientist I’d really like to see this experiment done, and soon.
mikael pihlström (11:35:32),
You are misrepresenting what I said. You claim that regarding new evidence of AGW, I said: “…it will never happen!”
I certainly did not say that, and I would never say that new evidence can not be discovered.
I was clearly referring to the lack of empirical evidence available. I was not saying that new evidence can’t be discovered. Here is what I answered, verbatim:
If misrepresenting what I said is how you play, I’m not wasting any more time trying to help you understand. Good luck with someone else.
Smokey
OK. I should have cited you verbatim. But, you ended with the
phrase “But if there were such evidence, it would have been presented.”
That is kind of obvious? so it left me with a vague feeling. I mean
you did not either say right out what you are saying now: that if in the
future …. and that was precisely my question.
But, technically you are right. It was misrepresenting
But, I also start getting a feeling that my question number 2 is avoided
by all and sundry and I am not sure why?
mikael pihlström (11:35:32) :
………..
3) Given that a true skeptic should concede some role for AGW (L1),
given that climate variation is a cause for alarm as such, would you
support a climate policy based on some cap and trade, assistance for adaptation, REDD, climate research funding?
Taking into consideration that these policies would create incentive
for a gradual transition to low carbon societies, which offers economic stimulus through Green technology, which contributes to solving our
fossil fuel dependence. It is a win-win situation, with costs of course.”
Supporting climate policy base on some sort of cap and trade, assistance, green technology which contributes to solving our fossil fuel dependence only makes sense if the costs are less than the benefits, otherwise it is a lose-lose proposition, and not just for wealthy nations, but for the poor folks living in subsistence conditions. And, the end result has to be sustainable at the highest possible economic level in order to encourage a change from the poor/large family model to the well-off/small family model. From all I have seen, all of these programs are designed to benefit a select few(through fraudulent trading schemes) at a catastrophic cost to everyone else, including the poor caught in subsistence conditions. Given the poor job the dunderheaded IPCC has done showing that there are economic externalities that could be amended by cap and tax and economic aid, there is no reason to believe that any castastrophic consequences will come from a further rise of 1-2 deg C. over the next 50 years.
As a side bar, consider that since 1900 or so most of the “poor, third world developing” nations have crossed the economic border and joined the”developed” world. See the presentation by Dr. Rosling:http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html
Smokey
I’m not wasting any more time trying to help you understand
I missed this phrase. I thought we were discussing – help me
understand?
Richard S Courtney (11:22:26) wrote :
Anu:
I quote your entire post at (09.33.36) because it is so absurd.
Are you deliberately trying to look foolish?
======================
I think Anu’s gesticulations can be distilled down to the irresistible human urge to flash one’s finger at those who choose to be on the officially wrong side of things. Dissenters. It’s understandable. She or he is doing the best he can. CAGW is one of the most formidable feeding troughs ever assembled for scientists and non-scientists, as this extraordinary list of links confirms http://tinyurl.com/y44ook2
CAGW supporters can be classified in various categories, from the bottom up. Near the base of the pyramid you find great portions of the public who have neither the time nor the desire (or in some cases the ability) to attempt to grasp the long stack of conjectural hypothesis that make up this house of cards. Among them are legions of generally well-meaning lambs who think that, regardless of the merits, this theory has immense social benefits, and it does not hurt to be cautious in any case. Entities like the Tyndall Center and Mike Hulme labor to make sure this line of thinking prospers, and they can be amazingly candid: “The idea of climate change should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identities and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us,” writes Hulme in a book of his titled “Why We Disagree About Climate Change. And then he adds: ”we will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilise them in support of our projects.”
Further up, there are innumerable scientists who have learned that, whatever the merits of the theory, going with the flow makes life a lot easier. They are the ones who find it useful to insert the ritual phrase “in the context of climate change” at the end of every grant proposal, and items like the list of news links provided above are made possible by their understandable urge to make as good a living as possible. It is also understandable that they get irritated by those who try to expose CAGW as a sham, since they generally have enough wits to perceive that this would make them somewhat part of the sham, and nobody likes to be called a crook.
Then you have the ones who work directly in climate science, which has obviously become hijacked by CAGW, and almost entirely reduced to it. Many of them probably believe in CAGW, and many others don’t believe in anything except the prudence of not biting the hand that feeds you, and the wisdom of licking it lovingly, like a baby licks his mother’s breast, whenever possible.
Finally, the high priests: Gore, Pachauri, Hansen, Mann, Santer, Schmidt, Jones…
I think Hansen and Gore are probably borderline insane, aside from being crooked. The others.. it’s hard for me to think of their clammy souls without anything but deep repulsion. Had “climate change” not been carefully catapulted to the forefront of Science, they would have led obscure little academic lives and would never have been heard of by anyone. Being providentially chosen to play leading roles as “The Scientists” in this comedy, certainly beats that, I suppose. Nothing but smoke and mirrors can be expected from them.
kadaka (11:43:40) :
low-carbon society
Good points. I was simplifying the picture to Western countries versus
climate-sensitive poor countries. I do realize the realities of world politics.
Let’s take China – without doubt it is a tough player and I believe that the
rest of us have to find a common front to constrain it’s influence in this century.
In world economics for instance; one could maintain that China is slowing up
recovery all over, by not appreciating it’s currency, but it is adjusting e.g.
the domestic demand to manage this cleverly. Hard players but rational.
– China does not want the western countries to cap CO2 right now (see
Copenhagen). But we should do it (a) to counter the argument that we are
responsible for most of the existing excess CO2 ergo China does not have
to do anything, (b) to boost US and EU green technology – when it starts
giving profits – do you think China will let us monopolize that business?
No they will follow and try to overtake.
Inevitably a lot of coal will burn meanwhile and nuclear energy is not stoppable I think. In the poorer countries you mention -I guess the basic
thing are the grids you mention, but does that require high carbon-intensity?
So my point is more to start a gradual transition to low-carbon, in high-GDP
areas first.
mikael pihlström
“2) I refer to both L2 and L3; stating that climate has always varied and
there is no cause for alarm is in my view deeply irresponsible! You
cannot make a general statement like that without looking at the
context, the real world as it is: we are 6.8 billion and there are regions
where masses of people live on climate sensitive so-called ecosystem income, the resilience of these socioecological systems being very low.”
You write that it is deeply irresponsible to say there’s no cause for alarm and that you have to look at the context. But are we supposed to accept as fact that there are people living on climate sensitive ecosystem income without asking what that even means? It sounds like something you might read in a Greenpeace brochure. So how does one attempt to discuss the point?
I’ll start by making an assumption – by climate sensitive ecosystem income you mean hunter gatherer type societies and agricultural peasants, who basically subsist from what they can get out of the ground or from the surrounding biota. The AGW alarmists would then say “look if we don’t do something now, these people will be ravaged by droughts, floods or dissapear beneath the waves.
My response to that is twofold. We do not know, despite all alarmists attempts to show otherwise, what the net effect will be of a small rise in global average temperature in a world with raised CO2 levels. In the past, such conditions have been very fertile and life thrived, so it is by no means a given that people will be worse off.
Secondly, and more importantly, the best defence against such dire consequences as dreamed in the minds of alarmists, is for the world to develop as fast as possible. The very poorest of the worlds inhabitants want what the rest of us take for granted – hospitals, schools, warmth and light.
A wealthy, developed world is one that is many times more resilient to natural disaster. Whereas an earthquake in California might damage property and cause a few deaths, another in somewhere like Haiti leads to tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths. Arguing that we should deny them their future prosperity and keep them in a cycle of dependence on “ecological income” in order to save them from “climate change” is the sort of cruel perversity that only an enviromentalist could dream up.
mikael pihlström
“Taking into consideration that these policies would create incentive
for a gradual transition to low carbon societies, which offers economic stimulus through Green technology, which contributes to solving our
fossil fuel dependence. It is a win-win situation, with costs of course.”
Please mikael, don’t fall for that line. Open your eyes. We know this low carbon “green energy” is being pushed by all the companies wanting to get a slice of the subsidies, but the fact is, the numbers just don’t stack up. If they did, we would be using this technology already.
Look, our ancestors used wind power for centuries, then ditched it when something much better came along. The difference between wind power and coal power was as night and day. The physical problem with all these so called renewable energies, and the one problem they all suffer from, is that of energy density. The energy density of wind is so low that you have to cover tens of square kilometers with wind turbines to capture the energy of a good sized coal power station that occupies a few hectares. To capture that energy by solar power you also need huge areas. Although the temperature at surface of the sun is 5800K, by the time it has spread out across 93 million miles of space it is too diffuse. Hold one hand up to the sun and put your other hand in a coal fired furnace to feel the difference – you won’t be disappointed.
We all know that “green energy” is going to cost much, much more. A recent report by OfGem in the UK showed that the average electricity bill will more than quadruple to £5,000 by 2020 if all carbon mitigation programs are enacted in full. That cost has to be borne by industry as well as draining the wealth out of consumers. Basic economics 101 tells us what to expect. Increase the cost of inputs, and the supply curve moves up and to the left. Less goods are produced at a higher price.
Less goods at a higher price equates to society becoming poorer. Environmentalists talk about creating “green jobs”, but according to economics 101, these green jobs will be low paid jobs. In fact all jobs will become low paid jobs because rising energy costs necessitate falling productivity. There is nothing clever or wonderful about creating full employment if everyone is poorer for it. You can do away with agricultural machinery and put people back onto the land tilling the soil behind horses and you will then have your “green jobs.”
But “green jobs” is now the fashion of the day, and no amount of reasoned argument will make it go away, only the hard experience of reality. I look forward to that day when the UK picks itself up from the economic ruins in 2020, dusts itself off and says “never again.”
Re: mikael pihlström (12:08:00)
You mentioned burning fossil fuels as a countermeasure. Thus indicating something that could counteract the global cooling, instead of indicating something that would be used to cope with the cooling. Thus it seemed silly to think of burning them for raw heat to warm up the planet: not enough, too messy, etc. Thus it appeared you were indicating burning them for CO2 generation as CO2 is a powerful global warming agent per the CAGW proponents, which would constitute a countermeasure against global cooling.
Was this in error?
“Supporting climate policy base on some sort of cap and trade, assistance, green technology which contributes to solving our fossil fuel dependence only makes sense if the costs are less than the benefits, otherwise it is a lose-lose proposition”
I mean in the long run win-win, the price of fossils would also be rising due to scarcity and costly technology (CSS). Inevitably the cost calculation would be dependent on your estimation of warming trends, because the externalities sum total would vary greatly accordingly?
I am hoping more to convince ‘sceptics’ by ethical arguments, that you would assign some risk probability to a AGW scenario, and decide that it would hurt
too many exposed poor people to chance it.
It is not enough; as you say poverty has decreased a lot in the last decades
and there is no other way but development and Societal change. Climate policy is more like a basic security provider.
Kadaka
Thus it appeared you were indicating burning them for CO2 generation as CO2 is a powerful global warming agent per the CAGW proponents, which would constitute a countermeasure against global cooling.
Yes, I meant that: CO2 generation. But, I can’t remember the specifics.
But are we supposed to accept as fact that there are people living on climate sensitive ecosystem income without asking what that even means?
I was not thinking of hunter/gatherers, which would be easier to assist,
rescue, at extreme resettle. I am thinking, for instance central China and
India with a serious water shortage, masses of people. Unfortunately dense populations often coincide with aridity. It is a vicious cycle, you
pump deeper for water, to get more wheat, because you have to eat –
these necessities don’t go away even if the economy is growing fast. I
have nothing against growth and would like to see ecosystem dependence diminish fast. There are other areas, e.g. both sides of the Meditteranean. Another story are lowland deltas (Bangladesh, Egypt) for different reasons. Whether extreme weather events would really increase or be predictable in any way, I’m not sure. Of course warming would increase crop productivity
somewhere else, but not where it is most needed.
Vincent (14:09:36) :
“Please mikael, don’t fall for that line. Open your eyes. We know this low carbon “green energy” is being pushed by all the companies wanting to get a slice of the subsidies, but the fact is, the numbers just don’t stack up. If they did, we would be using this technology already.”
Companies will always look after their interests, I don’t see why they
should be more succesful in this area. One point is that the technology
is not ready; indeed the investments in research have been too long very marginal (also in the USA). I guess your evaluation of this issue, depends on to what degree you are a believer in technology. Personally, as an environmentalist /ecologist I can see a role for our lot in wise management
of natural resources, but the spearhead driver of sustainable development rest on engineers?
You are right, at this moment we have to be very critical toward renewables.
Fossils should be understood, not as something dirty, but as excellent
energy sources (thus benchmarks) – the only problem was the side-effects and the scarcity. I am not sure about your economic argument – but it is
quite late over here and I have to stop.
Anu (09:13:05)
I can see I was mistaken in taking you seriously; warming has been occuring since 1850;
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:1910/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1940/to:1976/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1976/to:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2010/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1940/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/to:2010/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1850/to:1880/trend
The little ice age which stopped around this time is well documented as is the increase in TSI.
As for your nonsensical idea that “If each decade warmed at exactly 0.2C that would still make each new decade “the warmest on record”; not in any meaningful way because as I say it is not the absolute anomalous amount which is important in a generally [and naturally] warming system; solar heating is sustained so there will be a build-up but whether that build-up is accelerating or declining is the issue;
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1970/to:1980/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1980/to:1990/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1990/to:2000/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2000/to:2010/trend
The gap at the end of the 70’s is due to the step in temperature caused by the PDO phase shift and is known as the Great Pacific Climate Shift; but it is clear that the rate of increase is declining from the 90’s to the noughties; the statement that the noughties is the warmest is therefore misleading; but what else is new with AGW.
mikael pihlström (04:19:23) :
I am not qualified to judge the climatology/meteorology arguments. To me the middle part of Lindzens is intellectually stimulating and well written, but
I would have to read the ‘IPCC people’ arguments also.
I suppose nobody here has mentioned to you that Dr. Lindzen was one of those “IPCC people”:
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/558.htm
Chapter 7. Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks
Lead Authors
R.S. Lindzen Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
also his good friend
K.E. Trenberth National Center for Atmospheric Research, USA
and one of his Contributing Authors:
M.E. Mann University of Virginia, USA
Yup, his good buddy and co-author, Michael E. Mann – named one of the 50 leading visionaries in Science and Technology by Scientific American, and winner of the outstanding scientific publication award of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
That Michael E. Mann. Plays hockey, I think.
Dr. Lindzen was also one of the reviewers for the IPCC, in the United States of America team:
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/559.htm
You know, going over every single page to make sure there are no mistakes on any page, paragraph or sentence. Impossible, in a 3000 page document ? Sure, but they gave it their best shot.
cohenite (16:38:19) :
Central England temperatures (instrumental readings from 1659 to 2009) (world’s oldest instrumental dataset)
http://www.c3headlines.com/2010/01/cet-temperatures.html
Prague’s Clementinum (second oldest instrumental dataset):
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/02/climate-czechgate-pragues-klementinum.html
“…this robust old station, despite the urban effects, shows that there’s been no statistically significant warming in Prague since 1800 (and at most 0.5 °C or so in 200 years, and I haven’t subtracted any corrections for the intensification of Prague’s urban heat island which may be as much as 0.6 °C per century and which would probably revert the 200-year trend to a significant cooling!), has been deliberately censored from the GHCN data in some way, without a known scientific reason, and replaced by some gapped and strangely artificially adjusted data from the Prague International Airport (Ruzyně, a Western suburb of the Czech capital).”