Okay, all–this is a slow developing post. I hope you can stick with me to the end here.
If you’re reading this, the chances are better than even that you are a well-educated male who is either working full time or transitioning or in retirement. That’s if respondents to last year’s survey of WUWT visitors told the truth.
If it is true, it may surprise you to learn that there is a body of medical and sociological literature written specifically about you. The theme of the literature is how to shepherd you through your fifties and early sixties and get you to your next ‘life-stage’ in good shape.
It isn’t aimed directly at you, but at your wives, doctors and nurses, which is why you may never have heard of it. The literature is big on prevention–getting you to finally put down the cigarettes, lose the weight and lay off the hard liquor so you don’t keel over too soon.
Whatever man-made climate change turns out to be, it is not a permanent state. This is something that is not often discussed, but is very true. This is a ‘life stage’ the human race is going through–probably not late middle age, but late adolescent–but it is certainly a phase, not a permanent condition.
The UN estimates that our population will peak at about 9.1 billion souls around 2075. They, and almost everyone else, estimates that our GDP will grow at roughly 3% per year during that time. This means that all except the very poorest of this 9 billion will be richer than we are today. The textile workers in Vietnam making $84 a month? Their grandchildren will be making more than our national average today.
During the next 65 years the world’s energy consumption will skyrocket, both because of more people and because so many will be adopting western energy consumption patterns. It is going to be impressive, and scary, especially if coal turns out to be the fuel powering this growth.
But it won’t be permanent. Here in the US, our energy consumption per capita is already declining, and it is declining or very stable in most of the richer countries of the world. About 20 years after world population peaks, shortly before 2100, the world’s energy consumption will peak as well, and both will start to decline.
At that point (and maybe long before, if technology does what technology normally does), our impact on this planet and its atmosphere will begin to slowly decrease. We will have passed the crisis point, and will be moving into–what? Adulthood? Middle age? I guess they’ll come up with a cute name for it.
The two points I’d like to make is, first, that whatever we do on behalf of the planet can be looked at as our generation’s contribution to a future that is almost in sight already. 90 years? Kids being born today will see it.
Second, those who are trying to push apocalyptic scenarios for political reasons need to keep their story lines straighter than they have so far. There are far more reasons for optimism than pessimism.
While I am probably a stronger advocate for renewable energy and energy efficiency than many of you reading this, it may be because I’m looking at this as just part of our generational duty–a far lighter duty than previous generations had to shoulder.
Yes, I think we should commit more of our treasure and toil towards reducing pollution, including emissions of the non-polluting CO2. Yes, I believe that we should spend more of our money on researching energy efficiency and things like utility level storage of energy.
But like most of you, I am an optimist at heart. I am truly confident that we have the system in place to find the solutions that we need and to put them in place. If we’re wrangling about it now, it’s a combination of anger at those who have blown this out of proportion and sticker shock at what the solution may cost.
But I do believe we’ll get there, and without having the revolutionary upheaval so many think is the only way to get through this.
Okay, all–this is a slow developing post. I hope you can stick with me to the end here.
If you’re reading this, the chances are better than even that you are a well-educated male who is either working full time or transitioning or in retirement. That’s if respondents to last year’s survey of WUWT visitors told the truth.
If it is true, it may surprise you to learn that there is a body of medical and sociological literature written specifically about you. The theme of the literature is how to shepherd you through your fifties and early sixties and get you to your next ‘life-stage’ in good shape.
It isn’t aimed directly at you, but at your wives, doctors and nurses, which is why you may never have heard of it. The literature is big on prevention–getting you to finally put down the cigarettes, lose the weight and lay off the hard liquor so you don’t keel over too soon.
Whatever man-made climate change turns out to be, it is not a permanent state. This is something that is not often discussed, but is very true. This is a ‘life stage’ the human race is going through–probably not late middle age, but late adolescent–but it is certainly a phase, not a permanent condition.
The UN estimates that our population will peak at about 9.1 billion souls around 2075. They, and almost everyone else, estimates that our GDP will grow at roughly 3% per year during that time. This means that all except the very poorest of this 9 billion will be richer than we are today. The textile workers in Vietnam making $84 a month? Their grandchildren will be making more than our national average today.
During the next 65 years the world’s energy consumption will skyrocket, both because of more people and because so many will be adopting western energy consumption patterns. It is going to be impressive, and scary, especially if coal turns out to be the fuel powering this growth.
But it won’t be permanent. Here in the US, our energy consumption per capita is already declining, and it is declining or very stable in most of the richer countries of the world. About 20 years after world population peaks, shortly before 2100, the world’s energy consumption will peak as well, and both will start to decline.
At that point (and maybe long before, if technology does what technology normally does), our impact on this planet and its atmosphere will begin to slowly decrease. We will have passed the crisis point, and will be moving into–what? Adulthood? Middle age? I guess they’ll come up with a cute name for it.
The two points I’d like to make is, first, that whatever we do on behalf of the planet can be looked at as our generation’s contribution to a future that is almost in sight already. 90 years? Kids being born today will see it.
Second, those who are trying to push apocalyptic scenarios for political reasons need to keep their story lines straighter than they have so far. There are far more reasons for optimism than pessimism.
While I am probably a stronger advocate for renewable energy and energy efficiency than many of you reading this, it may be because I’m looking at this as just part of our generational duty–a far lighter duty than previous generations had to shoulder.
Yes, I think we should commit more of our treasure and toil towards reducing pollution, including emissions of the non-polluting CO2. Yes, I believe that we should spend more of our money on researching energy efficiency and things like utility level storage of energy.
But like most of you, I am an optimist at heart. I am truly confident that we have the system in place to find the solutions that we need and to put them in place. If we’re wrangling about it now, it’s a combination of anger at those who have blown this out of proportion and sticker shock at what the solution may cost.
But I do believe we’ll get there, and without having the revolutionary upheaval so many think is the only way to get through this.
Thank you Mr. Fuller for an interesting post. I too am an optimist. For every problem technology causes, there is a technologicial solution.
You mention utility level energy storage. One of the best storage methods has been around for over 100 years. It’s called pumped storage, or pumped hydro. Off-peak generated electrity is used to pump water to up to a storage area (pond, lake, etc.). When additional electricity is needed, the water flows down to a lower level through hydro turbines. The following website talks about all utility level storage systems. http://www.electricitystorage.org/ESA/technologies/
TinyCO2
September 5, 2010 4:10 pm
In some ways I think the Precautionary Principle approach that Tom is hinting at is the worst of all options for three reasons.
1) If CO2 isn’t a big problem the solution is a huge waste of money and raw materials including energy. It erodes public support for any future crisis mobilisation. Windmills will be monumental structures of human stupidity. Waste is waste even for a good cause.
2) If CO2 is a big problem, the solutions aren’t anywhere near effective enough to make a difference. It’s the frog in the slowly heating pan of water. People will think that changing a light bulb is enough to save the planet. 10 years from now when the scientists say ‘now we really have the proof’, people won’t care. Billions will have been wasted on pointless activities that could have been focused where it would be needed.
3) It doesn’t give the authorities the kick up the backside needed to get the science sorted one way or the other. One of the major reasons I’m very pro sceptic is the hope we annoy The Powers That Be enough to prove to us that CO2 is really bad. Until they do I’m assuming the problem is minimal.
Now I’m all for minimising waste and only using what I need. I’ve mastered the art of CO2 reduction (hence the pseudonym) and I can honestly say it’s bloody difficult. It requires a huge change in lifestyle from the norm. To believe that society can change enough to reduce CO2 significantly I would need to see the captains of the good ship Anthropogenic Warming first change their lives. It’s not going to happen because they think it’s us who will make all the changes.
lrshultis
September 5, 2010 4:10 pm
Jim Barker:
That future Utopia of “betterness” again, similar to the libertarian “Wouldland” where this or that would come about if only much of government was gotten rid of. It might help with the increased liberty but only to make life’s struggle easier. There will never be a time where life is not struggle with nature, self, and others. By interfering with laws (ultimately with force), the struggle can only get more burdensome.
Greed is just an emotion to get enough to satisfy oneself and is not necessarily bad. Envy, an emotion to have something which one has not earned, is just plain bad.
D. King
September 5, 2010 4:14 pm
Philip Thomas says:
September 5, 2010 at 2:46 pm
How is Tom Fuller getting these guest posts? Has something changed at WUWT? With Tom’s occasional ‘Good on ya.’ supporters it sound like an orchestrated propaganda attack.
Yep, his entourage. Onion, dude please, peace, love and tranquility. LOL.
Commercial greenhouses operate at about 1,200 ppm of CO2 to grow more food faster.
Currently the Earth’s measured CO2 ppm is about 390. So we have a ways to go to get to commercial greenhouse levels which we might very well need to feed us all in the case we grow a population of 9 billion human beings.
From 1980 to 1999 the Earth greened by 6% as measured by satellite, since then it’s leveled off a bit, but the point is that as more and more CO2 enters the atmosphere plants will grow more faster (given that they have the other nutrients they need) and that is a very good thing for feeding people.
CO2 doesn’t get toxic will well above commercial greenhouse levels of 1,200ppm (0.12%): “Due to the health risks associated with carbon dioxide exposure, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration says that average exposure for healthy adults during an eight-hour work day should not exceed 5,000 ppm (0.5%).” – wikipedia.
With the Girma Orsenaggo’s and Steve Goddard’s analysis (published here on WUWT) it’s clear that no Temperature increases caused by CO2 have shown up since CO2 levels started rising just after WWII which clearly shows no correlation between temperature and CO2. In addition based upon first principles with Ferenc Miskolczi’s “Saturated Greenhouse Effect Theory” it’s clear that “C02 Cannot Cause Any More Global Warming”: http://pathstoknowledge.net/2010/01/13/ferenc-miskolczi%E2%80%99s-saturated-greenhouse-effect-theory-c02-cannot-cause-any-more-global-warming.
So the future with CO2 is green, as in a Greener Earth! Personally I welcome a “commercial greenhouse” Earth since it would provide additional crop production to feed the masses.
It’s very important to keep in mind when “projecting” or “soothsaying” the future that you’ll not get one possible future but MANY possible futures. All projections that assume only one future are deficient.
The other problem with projecting the future is that many “processes” in Nature are inherently chaotic and have their own built in randomness (see chapter two of A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram for the math proof) which means that you can’t predict them at all, you must actually observe them in real time to find out what will happen. Climate aka long term weather certainly qualifies. This non-predictability is a hard fact of life in the objective reality of Nature that can’t be avoided but which many need to learn.
Konrad
September 5, 2010 4:20 pm
Tom,
I recall you doing an online survey of around 3000 sceptics visiting your site. I believe the results indicated that 80% had a tertiary degree and 50% had two degrees. I would suggest this result is more significant than age or gender. Did the age or gender of those involved in Anthony’s surface station project matter?
The level of education of sceptics is what you should be taking note of. Have a think about what this means. AGW believers and luke warmers like yourself have provided the impetus and the internet has provided the means to create a genuine grass roots sceptical movement amongst educated people across the globe. It should have been clear to you after your survey that sceptics are neither anti science nor in the pay of big oil. The AGW believers are losing not just because they told lies about CO2, but also because they lied to themselves about the nature of their opposition. If there is something that the grumpy old educated men of the AGW sceptics movement should be passing on to the next generation it is the torch of scepticism.
You believe we can move on from the global warming hoax without revolutionary upheaval. In the short term this may protect the egos, reputations and careers of some AGW believers. However even if this were possible, there would be no benefit to our society as a whole. Slinking away from the CO2 hoax would be a failure to acknowledge mistakes. We cannot learn from mistakes we don’t admit to.
The benefits to a loud and painful end to the AGW hoax are many. An end to post normal science and restoring society’s trust in genuine science. An end to the environmental movement being used as a stalking horse for political advocates. A wake up call to the MSM and their culture of advocacy journalese. An early death to the Bio-Crisis and Peak Energy Crisis hoaxes, and of course the destruction of any UN plans for global socialist governance.
With so much to gain, sceptics are unlikely to relax their grip and allow the fellow travellers in the AGW hoax to weasel away, lick their wounds and come back with a new manufactured crisis. We are tired of the politics of fear and guilt. Many politicians, scientists, environmentalists and journalists may experience pain and upheaval, but should the pain of the guilty stand in the way of a future of aspiration and hope for society as a whole?
Duncan
September 5, 2010 4:21 pm
*sigh* How long do I have before my wife starts reading these books and starts ushering me to my dotage?
Excellent post, but I must disagree on one point: U.S. energy use is not declining at all – we’ve exported energy-intensive industry, but we haven’t stopped using the fruits of that industry. I see no reason to think that global energy use will decline unless global energy prices increase.
BravoZulu
September 5, 2010 4:31 pm
I agree with your basic philosophy but not about any certainties about the future projections. Right now some people are suggesting solutions where the bill is way out of proportion to the pain. I fully support alternative energy, efficiency and conservation. Those are just smart ideas by themselves. I have confidence in people and they will correct the problem when there is some actual harm or pain. Right now the so called pain sounds more like a blessing and radicals that push the doomsday nonsense don’t have realistic alternatives as cures for any problems that might arise. They are basically self loathing types whose goal is to punish us. You clearly aren’t in that category, but I suspect you are giving more weight to some of their ideas than they actually deserve.
You seem quite sure about the physics that the Earth is going to heat up because of the simple physics. Even if I bought the line that doubling CO2 will increase the watts/square meter by about 3.4 watts, that is only the amount that the sun warms about ever 30 million years since it started burning hydrogen. It gets hotter as the concentration of hydrogen gets less. The world has always had a relatively stable climate. It seems highly unlikely that is suddenly going to change since it didn’t in the past when the similar increases in forcing happened like clockwork every 30 million years. The Earth is more than a hundred times as old.
I am fairly optimistic that significant human caused climate change isn’t going to happen at all but I hold out hope that there will be a least a little warming, whatever the cause. It won’t last though. The climate has never been stable for long and it isn’t going to be in the future because of what humans are contemplating doing. It isn’t necessarily going to warmer either. We should all just hope that it will be.
There are many ways to compile a vision of the future. The nature of suggested scenarios, regardless of source or method, are most oft dictated by the viewpoint of the present as held by those developing the scenario. If the view of the present is flawed then vision of the future will be a magnification of those flaws.
The industrial revolution and development of technologies changed life for man. They along with the an ever increasing human population has, without doubt, had an impact on earth. It is also true some of our impact has been clearly detrimental, ie; photochemical smog, preventable contamination of water, etc. On the other hand it is also true that the mere existence of man is going to have an impact on the earth. That is unavoidable. So how is that impact to be viewed?
In the eyes of many humans an ant is a pest, a termite is a live machine of destruction, and any change in the climate is man’s fault. The termite:
Statement from Wiki: are economically significant as pests that can cause serious structural damage to buildings, crops or plantation forests. Wiki does go on, however, to make further comment such as: Ecologically, termites are important in nutrient recycling, habitat creation, soil formation and quality and, particularly the winged reproductives, as food for countless predators. and As detrivores, termites clear away leaf and woody litter and so reduce the severity of the annual bush fires in African savannas, which are not as destructive as those in Australia and the USA. Thus it is clear termites serve a purpose in nature. They have for far longer than man has viewed them as a pest.
Man, from the viewpoint of many, could be considered a pest. The critical thing, however, is that man is part of nature. Yes man should be good stewards of the earth. However, we should do so with honest deliberation and care. Let us not get too cocky about what we think we know, especially in regards to climate change.
The annual energy consumption per capita in the US has declined. Due, in part, to a shift in manufacturing to other countries. Consumption in China and India has skyrocketed. We still feed a significant portion of the world and that process uses massive amounts of energy. Many of the places we feed could do far more for themselves, reducing total energy expense, if they were provided / permitted energy sources (inclusive of inexpensive coal burning power plants).
When it comes to alternative energy sources, yes would should work in that direction. We should advance in that direction for reason of the merit of such technology on its own. I do not believe that littering the landscape with 10 million faulty wind turbines or painting the land with thousands of square miles of solar panels is the answer. Nor should we bankrupt economies in an effort to force society into such follies. Those concepts are clumsy, inefficient, and not befitting a society which desires the claim of being scientifically / technologically advanced.
Some realities.
1) We know what CO2 does in a controlled atmosphere. We know that effect will occur in earth’s atmosphere. What we don’t know is the true, actual, net effect. There are too many unknowns or knowns which cannot be accurately measured.
2) We cannot agree on what historic global temperatures were.
3) We cannot agree on what present global temperatures are.
4) It seems that much of science cannot even agree on how to measure temperatures.
5) There is far more that we do not know about earth’s climate than what we do know.
With all of that confusion, and more, present society is reacting to a change in climate that is but an extremely brief period in geologic time. Less than one second.
Socioeconomic and alternative energy issues should not be connected to climate issues.
Alvin
September 5, 2010 4:47 pm
Mike says:
September 5, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Extinction is forever. Those species that we wipe out – by whatever means – are unlikely to return. Ocean acidification will likely last tens of thousands of years.
Who are you to say WE wiped them out? Aren’t you guys all about natural selection and survival of the fittest? Who are you to say that ocean critters that flourish at 7.0 don’t deserve a chance?
Tom Fuller is getting an education here in what made America great — and it certainly wasn’t because of the government; it was despite the government. Tom is in San Francisco, so maybe he should be given a little leeway. [That formerly great city, like so many others, has been hijacked by ultra-radicals who indoctrinate folks like Tom. So maybe he can’t help being a believer in post-modern ‘science.’]
Limited government has gone completely by the wayside. A giant, unproductive federal bureaucracy has become the goal. States no longer have rights; the feds can trump them despite the clear language of the 10th Amendment. The thieving, suffocating monster that we were always warned to avoid has learned to game the system, and at the current [exponentially increasing] rate of growth, spending, and unfunded liabilities, the current standard of living will remain more or less static, and possibly decline. Sure, there will be technological innovations. But average living standards and discretionary income will be far below what they would have otherwise been without an out-of-control federal bureaucracy. People will have much lower after-tax incomes.
The government has already spent more than working citizens can possibly repay. Yet they stand with both front feet in the public trough, demanding more. The CO2 scam is their chosen method, because every economic activity emits CO2. The government is using the trumped-up scare of labeling a harmless and beneficial trace gas a “pollutant” as a lever to confiscate the real, after-tax earnings of private citizens; and to jack up food and fuel prices, and to create immense and unwanted new bureaucracies. All these things are happening right now.
Tom, wake up and smell the coffee. And in November, vote with your intellect, not with your feelings — which the government has learned to easily manipulate.
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.
~ H.L.Mencken
Bruce Cobb
September 5, 2010 5:07 pm
“whatever we do on behalf of the planet can be looked at as our generation’s contribution to a future that is almost in sight already.”
The problem with that is that it’s very easy to dress something up as being “on behalf of the planet” for motives having nothing to do with either the planet or concern ones’ progeny. We are in a position now where folks in power are making decisions, which they say are for the good of the planet which will be financially costly for all, financially beneficial only for those in the green industry, and will certainly not affect climate in any noticeable way. This is nothing short of highway robbery, and people aren’t going to stand for it. Nor should they.
Mr. Fuller, there is nothing wrong with the climate. We are in fact blessed to be living during this warm period, which will not last. Your concerns about C02 are entirely misplaced, which you would know if only you were interested in researching the subject a bit more than you obviously have.
Christoph Dollis
September 5, 2010 5:14 pm
Thomas Fuller, I think you’re deluding yourself. The big problem is Moore’s Law.
Thanks Thomas!
By-the-way:
FOX News: Hannity Special: The Green Swindle
Sunday, Sep 5, 9 PM EST
damian
September 5, 2010 5:23 pm
Lots of people here have already pointed out flaws in your assumptions.
For my part I’m all for reducing our enviromental impact. What I object to is people waving the science banner to give their lies credibility. I am (was) a scientist (or reaserch engineer to be precise) and it offends me when people recruit science (pseudo science) to pursue an agenda. Science is digital, it either is or it isn’t. Demand belief and that’s not science, not never ever. Show me the data, and your methodology, and if your lucky I might agree with you.
One of the great lies of the enviromentalist movement is the notion that “we must start doing something”. We have been doing something since the industrial revolution and some here will be old enough to remember the smog and acid rain of the late 70’s that hung over so many large cities. All those cities are bigger now than they were then, yet most are LESS polluted, no thanks to fundraising organisations masquerading as enviromental advocates to attract donations.
Anyway, I read this blog to the exclusion of many others precisely because it’s “fair and balanced” 😀 Make your posts but please don’t assume we’re all enviromental terrorists out to slash and burn all in sight…
Ben D.
September 5, 2010 5:25 pm
All of the predictions including the UN’s predictions on population growth are based upon equations that have never been correct in the past, and yet somehow these equations are never rewritten from scratch, but rather just slightly modified and said “they are better now!, you should trust us on that…” Like they say, burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me.
Malthus theories have been recycled dozens of times throughout history and the common theme in them are pseudo-science equations that describe a future based on variables that will probably never be known such as X resources, or maximum capacity of getting food from the Earth. Even trying to predict energy usage 20 years in the future is futile at best. But trying to say we have even an inkling of what society will be like in 50 years is arrogant at best. Someone from 1960 would have no idea or have been able to predict where our society would be today. If asked, they would have probably guessed “our society will be wiped out by nuclear holocaust.”
This is the true error in the public policy arena. If society would have gone down the path to preparing for the widely held belief that nuclear holocaust would destroy us within 50 years in 1960….we would have spent trillions on ditches (bomb shelters)that would have just needed to be filled back in 30 years later when the Soviet Union failed. This is also the issue with saying we have a responsibility for our future generations in something that may or may not take place within 50 years, namely global warming.
So in essence, if you take the widely held belief that as in 1960 (this is prior to MAD), that society will destroy us through nuclear weapons, and you apply the precautionary principle as it is held today with climate, there is no doubt that that generation owed it to my generation now (I am 29) to prepare and make sure our generation would have some resemblence of a future after the nukes came down.
I feel cheated by the way. Not only is our society not ready for nuclear war from a now non-existant country (the USSR) but two generations ago did not build me huge ditches that I could have filled in for exercise today. Also, all of that 50 year old canned food that was made could have made excellent target practicing with my guns. What were they thinking to not apply the pre-cautionary standard back then? I feel cheated!
Public Policy is the reason so many people are becoming vocal skeptics including myself. If a bunch of scientists want to sit in a corner and drool all over themselves with their malthus BS, have at it as far as I am concerned, but stay out of policy decisions if you do that. When you get the drool on my energy, it becomes my problem and I will hound you until you go back to your corner and drool on yourself for as much as you like.
This is a free country, and although you have a right to try to guilt me into living a greener lifestyle, that will have no effect. I choose to be an environmentalist not because I think I owe it to my children, or because you guilted me into it, or because the government requires it, I do it out of my own free will. And I will fight tooth and nail for you to require me to do things that I already do by the way….not because I think it isn’t right, but because I don’t believe freedom should be taken away from those who do not want to live like I do.
And for ounce, can we go a day without the stupid pre-cautionary standard, I hope my little example shows how futile it is in the end. 50 years from now people will think the world will end from something we can not even imagine, same as it was from 1960. My grandchildren will laugh at all of you applying the pseudo-science pre-cautionary principal. So will yours.
As far as the future goes, I am smart enough to realize that is the only thing I can predict to any degree of accuracy.
pat
September 5, 2010 5:26 pm
tom –
do not presume anything about those of us visiting WUWT. as a pedestrian who has never even turned a car engine on, who rarely burns a light bulb, and who picks up other people’s trash as a matter of course, i find it offensive that sceptics of CAGW and CO2 remedies are presumed to be uncaring of the environment.
however, renewables need to stand up on their own financial merit, not through taxpayer subsidies of one sort or another:
6 Sept: Bloomberg: Brian Parkin and Nicholas Comfort : Merkel Plans Nuclear Power Extension in Return for Alternative Energy Fund
Merkel has championed a revival of nuclear power saying that industry and consumers need affordable electricity until renewable energy prices fall and grid and storage capacity for the power source expands. Germans pay the third-highest rate for power in the 27-state European Union after Denmark and Italy, according to the Energy.EU Web site… http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-05/merkel-coalition-proposes-12-year-nuclear-reactor-extension-for-germany.html
add “carbon border tax” to all the other mad schemes:
5 Sept: UK Financial Times: Dieter Helm: A carbon border tax can curb climate change
The writer is professor of energy policy at the University of Oxford
Kyoto’s failed targets remain popular in part because they make Europe look good. But this is mostly because, under the system, carbon consumption is ignored. As Europe continues to de-industrialise relative to emerging economies such as China and India its production of carbon falls, displaced by carbon imports.
All of this looks fine, until you admit that energy intensive industries have been emigrating elsewhere…
But a carbon tax – initially as a floor price to the trading scheme – would be an improvement. The tax could start low and rise over time. It could also begin “upstream” by taxing coal, gas and oil, instead of finished goods. A cross-party agreement never to lower it would be even better…
The latter is more serious: it is practically impossible to work out the carbon content of each and every import. Some approximations are obviously required… http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a68bfc80-b915-11df-99be-00144feabdc0.html
John F. Hultquist
September 5, 2010 5:29 pm
Mike says:
September 5, 2010 at 12:40 pm
“Ocean acidification will likely last . . . “
WUWT readers have gone over this before. The first thing to decide on is whether having the ocean become slightly less “basic” is properly described as “acidification”. Maybe yes, maybe no – but you need to state how you want to use the term. Otherwise, some may find your statements confusing. Note that I don’t care where you come down on this terminology, only that you do.
On another thread the poster was asked to better label his charts and explain the terms used so others could understand the meaning of the post. Maybe you could help us out by doing something similar. When you write of ocean acidification, what exactly does that mean? What is the ocean now and how is it changing. Is this happening fast or slow? How much can it move from where it is now? Why doesn’t it change more rapidly (or more slowly) than it does? If it is changing one way or another, is it doing so uniformly or in selected geographic locations? If the latter, where and why?
For those of you standing up for me here, thanks–but don’t worry! I get ten times worse when I try and post on ‘warmist’ sites–you guys at least make sense, you’re always far more polite than the other guys, and some of your criticism is hitting home. So keep banging away!
Now that I’ve ticked a few of you off, I’ll be trying to go after the other side in my next few posts.
For those of you who think I’m wasting Anthony’s space, I understand. While I think it’s gracious of Anthony to let people of other opinions post guest articles, that imposes no obligation on his readers. Feel free to click out! Or, like others here, point out where you think I am in error.
Bill Illis
September 5, 2010 5:36 pm
I think this is a great post by Tom Fuller.
If anything, just to make everyone think a little deeper and a little longer about things. Which usually results in a better perspective.
We should be doing everything possible to increase the efficiency of our energy usage. We should be limiting our emissions of CO2 and pollution wherever the economic cost is reasonably small. We should be thinking about the future.
It doesn’t automatically require that one conclude global warming will be a problem. We should be doing these things regardless.
But we do need new technologies and new physics to generate energy in the future. I think we have exhausted the technology of energy efficiency based on Chemistry (and oil and coal win that battle) and we have nearly exhausted the technology of Motion including wind and gravity (hydro wins that battle and wind turbines are not efficient so fail the test). Solar? Well, we need technology that directly transforms photons/EM radiation into electricity and that may not be possible. Otherwise, solar looks to fail. Nuclear? Well, that needs to be more efficient as well and we need some way to store its electricity in better ways so that it can be used at a smaller scale, like in cars or in the home.
Which brings one full circle again. What if it eventually turns out that it is just not possible to generate energy more efficiently than we do today (it is not guaranteed that there will be more efficient technologies of course – it just might not be possible – like it just might not be possible to travel to the stars for example).
Christoph Dollis
September 5, 2010 5:39 pm
My comment above (“I think you’re deluding yourself. The big problem is Moore’s Law.”) was directed not just at Thomas Fuller, but even more at the rest of you. All the Smokeys and who have you.
The alleged CO2 ‘threat’ is overblown. But our species is at the top of the world as its apex predator par excellence precisely because we are the most intelligent. Soon, our machines will vastly surpass us in intelligence.
That will be interesting.
“…it may surprise you to learn that there is a body of medical and sociological literature written specifically about you…”
How could something that everyone knows be surprising?
“Whatever man-made climate change turns out to be, it is not a permanent state.”
Note the niftily inserted assumption that AGW is real.
“…whatever we do on behalf of the planet can be looked at as our generation’s contribution to a future that is almost in sight already…”
That conventional alarmist message is almost in sight already.
“While I am probably a stronger advocate for renewable energy and energy efficiency than many of you…”
That’s fine. Personally, I’ve never met anyone who’s against motherhood or renewable, efficient energy. It’s the expensive wind turbines manufactured and boosted by coal power that bother me. They waste precious coal power.
“…reducing pollution, including emissions of the non-polluting CO2.”
Even non-polluting CO2 is pollution? That’s some bad gas!
Thomas, because of a previous generation of activists concerned with the “planet”, my country, Australia, has failed to extend hydro and has no nuclear industry worth mentioning, though we have the most uranium. The trillions that might be spent on useful things like “utility level storage of energy storage” are being frittered on non-solutions to non-problems. If you are going to conduct some fruitful generational studies, I suggest you study the damage done by pious and fetishistic activists. The mentality of Australia’s anti-hydro, anti-nuke generation of the 80’s would be a great place to start.
And, Thomas, now that the whole AGW edifice is looking shaky, getting down with the skeptics to sing Kumbayah is not a convincing strategy.
Tom_R
September 5, 2010 5:43 pm
Mr. Fuller,
>> I think temperatures will increase a couple of degrees in a short period of time <<
By theory a doubling of CO2 will raise temperatures 1.1C. That additional increase comes at a CO2 level of 780 ppm. Another doubling would make the total increase 2.2C at a CO2 level of 1560 ppm. That's about 4 degrees F, or the temperature change in about an hour for a typical mid-latitude morning.
Do you expect that we could reach 1560 ppm in a short period of time? How do you define a short period of time. Or do you buy the premise that each CO2 doubling will raise temperatures more than 1.1C through positive feedback? Common sense says that any water vapor feedback will increase cloud cover, and that small albedo changes due to increased cloud cover have a very strong cooling effect, making any feedback negative.
What if things go in the other direction, and the Earth starts getting colder? Historically we are overdue for an ice age. Wouldn't it be more prudent to keep wealth and productivity growing as fast as possible to be able to handle a climate problem in either direction should one actually arise?
Paddy
September 5, 2010 5:47 pm
Hey Mike: For every species that becomes extinct, there is at least one that evolves or adapts into distinctly different genetic form. After all. extinction is evolution in action.
I have to credit wildlife biologists and Malthusians, the prime movers who founded ecology along with Progressives. They took advantage of the strong environmental emotions that they manufactured in the late 1960s. They created the Endangered Species Act to be an adjunct to the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. This ragout of procedure of administrative process gave the environmental movement the tools needed to control most land uses. As their procedural mess evolved, they were able enrich themselves and to corrupt politicians beyond all expectations.
Trial lawyers were part of the game too. It is their influence that led to the provisions for citizen suits as part of the enforcement in all of the major environmental protection laws. It made trial lawyers and the public interest law firms bounty hunters. Winning was easy because the Peter Principal Principal coupled with sympathetic judges ensured that bureaucrats rarely could negotiate the morass of process needed to authorize and implement executive management policy and practices.
Remember Mike, the essence of Darwin’s law is that the unfit are extirpated by the fit.
Thank you Mr. Fuller for an interesting post. I too am an optimist. For every problem technology causes, there is a technologicial solution.
You mention utility level energy storage. One of the best storage methods has been around for over 100 years. It’s called pumped storage, or pumped hydro. Off-peak generated electrity is used to pump water to up to a storage area (pond, lake, etc.). When additional electricity is needed, the water flows down to a lower level through hydro turbines. The following website talks about all utility level storage systems.
http://www.electricitystorage.org/ESA/technologies/
In some ways I think the Precautionary Principle approach that Tom is hinting at is the worst of all options for three reasons.
1) If CO2 isn’t a big problem the solution is a huge waste of money and raw materials including energy. It erodes public support for any future crisis mobilisation. Windmills will be monumental structures of human stupidity. Waste is waste even for a good cause.
2) If CO2 is a big problem, the solutions aren’t anywhere near effective enough to make a difference. It’s the frog in the slowly heating pan of water. People will think that changing a light bulb is enough to save the planet. 10 years from now when the scientists say ‘now we really have the proof’, people won’t care. Billions will have been wasted on pointless activities that could have been focused where it would be needed.
3) It doesn’t give the authorities the kick up the backside needed to get the science sorted one way or the other. One of the major reasons I’m very pro sceptic is the hope we annoy The Powers That Be enough to prove to us that CO2 is really bad. Until they do I’m assuming the problem is minimal.
Now I’m all for minimising waste and only using what I need. I’ve mastered the art of CO2 reduction (hence the pseudonym) and I can honestly say it’s bloody difficult. It requires a huge change in lifestyle from the norm. To believe that society can change enough to reduce CO2 significantly I would need to see the captains of the good ship Anthropogenic Warming first change their lives. It’s not going to happen because they think it’s us who will make all the changes.
Jim Barker:
That future Utopia of “betterness” again, similar to the libertarian “Wouldland” where this or that would come about if only much of government was gotten rid of. It might help with the increased liberty but only to make life’s struggle easier. There will never be a time where life is not struggle with nature, self, and others. By interfering with laws (ultimately with force), the struggle can only get more burdensome.
Greed is just an emotion to get enough to satisfy oneself and is not necessarily bad. Envy, an emotion to have something which one has not earned, is just plain bad.
Philip Thomas says:
September 5, 2010 at 2:46 pm
How is Tom Fuller getting these guest posts? Has something changed at WUWT? With Tom’s occasional ‘Good on ya.’ supporters it sound like an orchestrated propaganda attack.
Yep, his entourage. Onion, dude please, peace, love and tranquility. LOL.
I agree with Pops. This site deserves better.
Commercial greenhouses operate at about 1,200 ppm of CO2 to grow more food faster.
Currently the Earth’s measured CO2 ppm is about 390. So we have a ways to go to get to commercial greenhouse levels which we might very well need to feed us all in the case we grow a population of 9 billion human beings.
From 1980 to 1999 the Earth greened by 6% as measured by satellite, since then it’s leveled off a bit, but the point is that as more and more CO2 enters the atmosphere plants will grow more faster (given that they have the other nutrients they need) and that is a very good thing for feeding people.
CO2 doesn’t get toxic will well above commercial greenhouse levels of 1,200ppm (0.12%): “Due to the health risks associated with carbon dioxide exposure, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration says that average exposure for healthy adults during an eight-hour work day should not exceed 5,000 ppm (0.5%).” – wikipedia.
With the Girma Orsenaggo’s and Steve Goddard’s analysis (published here on WUWT) it’s clear that no Temperature increases caused by CO2 have shown up since CO2 levels started rising just after WWII which clearly shows no correlation between temperature and CO2. In addition based upon first principles with Ferenc Miskolczi’s “Saturated Greenhouse Effect Theory” it’s clear that “C02 Cannot Cause Any More Global Warming”: http://pathstoknowledge.net/2010/01/13/ferenc-miskolczi%E2%80%99s-saturated-greenhouse-effect-theory-c02-cannot-cause-any-more-global-warming.
So the future with CO2 is green, as in a Greener Earth! Personally I welcome a “commercial greenhouse” Earth since it would provide additional crop production to feed the masses.
It’s very important to keep in mind when “projecting” or “soothsaying” the future that you’ll not get one possible future but MANY possible futures. All projections that assume only one future are deficient.
The other problem with projecting the future is that many “processes” in Nature are inherently chaotic and have their own built in randomness (see chapter two of A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram for the math proof) which means that you can’t predict them at all, you must actually observe them in real time to find out what will happen. Climate aka long term weather certainly qualifies. This non-predictability is a hard fact of life in the objective reality of Nature that can’t be avoided but which many need to learn.
Tom,
I recall you doing an online survey of around 3000 sceptics visiting your site. I believe the results indicated that 80% had a tertiary degree and 50% had two degrees. I would suggest this result is more significant than age or gender. Did the age or gender of those involved in Anthony’s surface station project matter?
The level of education of sceptics is what you should be taking note of. Have a think about what this means. AGW believers and luke warmers like yourself have provided the impetus and the internet has provided the means to create a genuine grass roots sceptical movement amongst educated people across the globe. It should have been clear to you after your survey that sceptics are neither anti science nor in the pay of big oil. The AGW believers are losing not just because they told lies about CO2, but also because they lied to themselves about the nature of their opposition. If there is something that the grumpy old educated men of the AGW sceptics movement should be passing on to the next generation it is the torch of scepticism.
You believe we can move on from the global warming hoax without revolutionary upheaval. In the short term this may protect the egos, reputations and careers of some AGW believers. However even if this were possible, there would be no benefit to our society as a whole. Slinking away from the CO2 hoax would be a failure to acknowledge mistakes. We cannot learn from mistakes we don’t admit to.
The benefits to a loud and painful end to the AGW hoax are many. An end to post normal science and restoring society’s trust in genuine science. An end to the environmental movement being used as a stalking horse for political advocates. A wake up call to the MSM and their culture of advocacy journalese. An early death to the Bio-Crisis and Peak Energy Crisis hoaxes, and of course the destruction of any UN plans for global socialist governance.
With so much to gain, sceptics are unlikely to relax their grip and allow the fellow travellers in the AGW hoax to weasel away, lick their wounds and come back with a new manufactured crisis. We are tired of the politics of fear and guilt. Many politicians, scientists, environmentalists and journalists may experience pain and upheaval, but should the pain of the guilty stand in the way of a future of aspiration and hope for society as a whole?
*sigh* How long do I have before my wife starts reading these books and starts ushering me to my dotage?
Excellent post, but I must disagree on one point: U.S. energy use is not declining at all – we’ve exported energy-intensive industry, but we haven’t stopped using the fruits of that industry. I see no reason to think that global energy use will decline unless global energy prices increase.
I agree with your basic philosophy but not about any certainties about the future projections. Right now some people are suggesting solutions where the bill is way out of proportion to the pain. I fully support alternative energy, efficiency and conservation. Those are just smart ideas by themselves. I have confidence in people and they will correct the problem when there is some actual harm or pain. Right now the so called pain sounds more like a blessing and radicals that push the doomsday nonsense don’t have realistic alternatives as cures for any problems that might arise. They are basically self loathing types whose goal is to punish us. You clearly aren’t in that category, but I suspect you are giving more weight to some of their ideas than they actually deserve.
You seem quite sure about the physics that the Earth is going to heat up because of the simple physics. Even if I bought the line that doubling CO2 will increase the watts/square meter by about 3.4 watts, that is only the amount that the sun warms about ever 30 million years since it started burning hydrogen. It gets hotter as the concentration of hydrogen gets less. The world has always had a relatively stable climate. It seems highly unlikely that is suddenly going to change since it didn’t in the past when the similar increases in forcing happened like clockwork every 30 million years. The Earth is more than a hundred times as old.
I am fairly optimistic that significant human caused climate change isn’t going to happen at all but I hold out hope that there will be a least a little warming, whatever the cause. It won’t last though. The climate has never been stable for long and it isn’t going to be in the future because of what humans are contemplating doing. It isn’t necessarily going to warmer either. We should all just hope that it will be.
There are many ways to compile a vision of the future. The nature of suggested scenarios, regardless of source or method, are most oft dictated by the viewpoint of the present as held by those developing the scenario. If the view of the present is flawed then vision of the future will be a magnification of those flaws.
The industrial revolution and development of technologies changed life for man. They along with the an ever increasing human population has, without doubt, had an impact on earth. It is also true some of our impact has been clearly detrimental, ie; photochemical smog, preventable contamination of water, etc. On the other hand it is also true that the mere existence of man is going to have an impact on the earth. That is unavoidable. So how is that impact to be viewed?
In the eyes of many humans an ant is a pest, a termite is a live machine of destruction, and any change in the climate is man’s fault. The termite:
Statement from Wiki: are economically significant as pests that can cause serious structural damage to buildings, crops or plantation forests. Wiki does go on, however, to make further comment such as: Ecologically, termites are important in nutrient recycling, habitat creation, soil formation and quality and, particularly the winged reproductives, as food for countless predators. and As detrivores, termites clear away leaf and woody litter and so reduce the severity of the annual bush fires in African savannas, which are not as destructive as those in Australia and the USA. Thus it is clear termites serve a purpose in nature. They have for far longer than man has viewed them as a pest.
Man, from the viewpoint of many, could be considered a pest. The critical thing, however, is that man is part of nature. Yes man should be good stewards of the earth. However, we should do so with honest deliberation and care. Let us not get too cocky about what we think we know, especially in regards to climate change.
The annual energy consumption per capita in the US has declined. Due, in part, to a shift in manufacturing to other countries. Consumption in China and India has skyrocketed. We still feed a significant portion of the world and that process uses massive amounts of energy. Many of the places we feed could do far more for themselves, reducing total energy expense, if they were provided / permitted energy sources (inclusive of inexpensive coal burning power plants).
When it comes to alternative energy sources, yes would should work in that direction. We should advance in that direction for reason of the merit of such technology on its own. I do not believe that littering the landscape with 10 million faulty wind turbines or painting the land with thousands of square miles of solar panels is the answer. Nor should we bankrupt economies in an effort to force society into such follies. Those concepts are clumsy, inefficient, and not befitting a society which desires the claim of being scientifically / technologically advanced.
Some realities.
1) We know what CO2 does in a controlled atmosphere. We know that effect will occur in earth’s atmosphere. What we don’t know is the true, actual, net effect. There are too many unknowns or knowns which cannot be accurately measured.
2) We cannot agree on what historic global temperatures were.
3) We cannot agree on what present global temperatures are.
4) It seems that much of science cannot even agree on how to measure temperatures.
5) There is far more that we do not know about earth’s climate than what we do know.
With all of that confusion, and more, present society is reacting to a change in climate that is but an extremely brief period in geologic time. Less than one second.
Socioeconomic and alternative energy issues should not be connected to climate issues.
Mike says:
September 5, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Extinction is forever. Those species that we wipe out – by whatever means – are unlikely to return. Ocean acidification will likely last tens of thousands of years.
Who are you to say WE wiped them out? Aren’t you guys all about natural selection and survival of the fittest? Who are you to say that ocean critters that flourish at 7.0 don’t deserve a chance?
Tom Fuller is getting an education here in what made America great — and it certainly wasn’t because of the government; it was despite the government. Tom is in San Francisco, so maybe he should be given a little leeway. [That formerly great city, like so many others, has been hijacked by ultra-radicals who indoctrinate folks like Tom. So maybe he can’t help being a believer in post-modern ‘science.’]
Limited government has gone completely by the wayside. A giant, unproductive federal bureaucracy has become the goal. States no longer have rights; the feds can trump them despite the clear language of the 10th Amendment. The thieving, suffocating monster that we were always warned to avoid has learned to game the system, and at the current [exponentially increasing] rate of growth, spending, and unfunded liabilities, the current standard of living will remain more or less static, and possibly decline. Sure, there will be technological innovations. But average living standards and discretionary income will be far below what they would have otherwise been without an out-of-control federal bureaucracy. People will have much lower after-tax incomes.
The government has already spent more than working citizens can possibly repay. Yet they stand with both front feet in the public trough, demanding more. The CO2 scam is their chosen method, because every economic activity emits CO2. The government is using the trumped-up scare of labeling a harmless and beneficial trace gas a “pollutant” as a lever to confiscate the real, after-tax earnings of private citizens; and to jack up food and fuel prices, and to create immense and unwanted new bureaucracies. All these things are happening right now.
Tom, wake up and smell the coffee. And in November, vote with your intellect, not with your feelings — which the government has learned to easily manipulate.
“whatever we do on behalf of the planet can be looked at as our generation’s contribution to a future that is almost in sight already.”
The problem with that is that it’s very easy to dress something up as being “on behalf of the planet” for motives having nothing to do with either the planet or concern ones’ progeny. We are in a position now where folks in power are making decisions, which they say are for the good of the planet which will be financially costly for all, financially beneficial only for those in the green industry, and will certainly not affect climate in any noticeable way. This is nothing short of highway robbery, and people aren’t going to stand for it. Nor should they.
Mr. Fuller, there is nothing wrong with the climate. We are in fact blessed to be living during this warm period, which will not last. Your concerns about C02 are entirely misplaced, which you would know if only you were interested in researching the subject a bit more than you obviously have.
Thomas Fuller,
I think you’re deluding yourself. The big problem is Moore’s Law.
Thanks Thomas!
By-the-way:
FOX News: Hannity Special: The Green Swindle
Sunday, Sep 5, 9 PM EST
Lots of people here have already pointed out flaws in your assumptions.
For my part I’m all for reducing our enviromental impact. What I object to is people waving the science banner to give their lies credibility. I am (was) a scientist (or reaserch engineer to be precise) and it offends me when people recruit science (pseudo science) to pursue an agenda. Science is digital, it either is or it isn’t. Demand belief and that’s not science, not never ever. Show me the data, and your methodology, and if your lucky I might agree with you.
One of the great lies of the enviromentalist movement is the notion that “we must start doing something”. We have been doing something since the industrial revolution and some here will be old enough to remember the smog and acid rain of the late 70’s that hung over so many large cities. All those cities are bigger now than they were then, yet most are LESS polluted, no thanks to fundraising organisations masquerading as enviromental advocates to attract donations.
Anyway, I read this blog to the exclusion of many others precisely because it’s “fair and balanced” 😀 Make your posts but please don’t assume we’re all enviromental terrorists out to slash and burn all in sight…
All of the predictions including the UN’s predictions on population growth are based upon equations that have never been correct in the past, and yet somehow these equations are never rewritten from scratch, but rather just slightly modified and said “they are better now!, you should trust us on that…” Like they say, burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me.
Malthus theories have been recycled dozens of times throughout history and the common theme in them are pseudo-science equations that describe a future based on variables that will probably never be known such as X resources, or maximum capacity of getting food from the Earth. Even trying to predict energy usage 20 years in the future is futile at best. But trying to say we have even an inkling of what society will be like in 50 years is arrogant at best. Someone from 1960 would have no idea or have been able to predict where our society would be today. If asked, they would have probably guessed “our society will be wiped out by nuclear holocaust.”
This is the true error in the public policy arena. If society would have gone down the path to preparing for the widely held belief that nuclear holocaust would destroy us within 50 years in 1960….we would have spent trillions on ditches (bomb shelters)that would have just needed to be filled back in 30 years later when the Soviet Union failed. This is also the issue with saying we have a responsibility for our future generations in something that may or may not take place within 50 years, namely global warming.
So in essence, if you take the widely held belief that as in 1960 (this is prior to MAD), that society will destroy us through nuclear weapons, and you apply the precautionary principle as it is held today with climate, there is no doubt that that generation owed it to my generation now (I am 29) to prepare and make sure our generation would have some resemblence of a future after the nukes came down.
I feel cheated by the way. Not only is our society not ready for nuclear war from a now non-existant country (the USSR) but two generations ago did not build me huge ditches that I could have filled in for exercise today. Also, all of that 50 year old canned food that was made could have made excellent target practicing with my guns. What were they thinking to not apply the pre-cautionary standard back then? I feel cheated!
Public Policy is the reason so many people are becoming vocal skeptics including myself. If a bunch of scientists want to sit in a corner and drool all over themselves with their malthus BS, have at it as far as I am concerned, but stay out of policy decisions if you do that. When you get the drool on my energy, it becomes my problem and I will hound you until you go back to your corner and drool on yourself for as much as you like.
This is a free country, and although you have a right to try to guilt me into living a greener lifestyle, that will have no effect. I choose to be an environmentalist not because I think I owe it to my children, or because you guilted me into it, or because the government requires it, I do it out of my own free will. And I will fight tooth and nail for you to require me to do things that I already do by the way….not because I think it isn’t right, but because I don’t believe freedom should be taken away from those who do not want to live like I do.
And for ounce, can we go a day without the stupid pre-cautionary standard, I hope my little example shows how futile it is in the end. 50 years from now people will think the world will end from something we can not even imagine, same as it was from 1960. My grandchildren will laugh at all of you applying the pseudo-science pre-cautionary principal. So will yours.
As far as the future goes, I am smart enough to realize that is the only thing I can predict to any degree of accuracy.
tom –
do not presume anything about those of us visiting WUWT. as a pedestrian who has never even turned a car engine on, who rarely burns a light bulb, and who picks up other people’s trash as a matter of course, i find it offensive that sceptics of CAGW and CO2 remedies are presumed to be uncaring of the environment.
however, renewables need to stand up on their own financial merit, not through taxpayer subsidies of one sort or another:
6 Sept: Bloomberg: Brian Parkin and Nicholas Comfort : Merkel Plans Nuclear Power Extension in Return for Alternative Energy Fund
Merkel has championed a revival of nuclear power saying that industry and consumers need affordable electricity until renewable energy prices fall and grid and storage capacity for the power source expands. Germans pay the third-highest rate for power in the 27-state European Union after Denmark and Italy, according to the Energy.EU Web site…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-05/merkel-coalition-proposes-12-year-nuclear-reactor-extension-for-germany.html
add “carbon border tax” to all the other mad schemes:
5 Sept: UK Financial Times: Dieter Helm: A carbon border tax can curb climate change
The writer is professor of energy policy at the University of Oxford
Kyoto’s failed targets remain popular in part because they make Europe look good. But this is mostly because, under the system, carbon consumption is ignored. As Europe continues to de-industrialise relative to emerging economies such as China and India its production of carbon falls, displaced by carbon imports.
All of this looks fine, until you admit that energy intensive industries have been emigrating elsewhere…
But a carbon tax – initially as a floor price to the trading scheme – would be an improvement. The tax could start low and rise over time. It could also begin “upstream” by taxing coal, gas and oil, instead of finished goods. A cross-party agreement never to lower it would be even better…
The latter is more serious: it is practically impossible to work out the carbon content of each and every import. Some approximations are obviously required…
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a68bfc80-b915-11df-99be-00144feabdc0.html
Mike says:
September 5, 2010 at 12:40 pm
“Ocean acidification will likely last . . . “
WUWT readers have gone over this before. The first thing to decide on is whether having the ocean become slightly less “basic” is properly described as “acidification”. Maybe yes, maybe no – but you need to state how you want to use the term. Otherwise, some may find your statements confusing. Note that I don’t care where you come down on this terminology, only that you do.
On another thread the poster was asked to better label his charts and explain the terms used so others could understand the meaning of the post. Maybe you could help us out by doing something similar. When you write of ocean acidification, what exactly does that mean? What is the ocean now and how is it changing. Is this happening fast or slow? How much can it move from where it is now? Why doesn’t it change more rapidly (or more slowly) than it does? If it is changing one way or another, is it doing so uniformly or in selected geographic locations? If the latter, where and why?
For those of you standing up for me here, thanks–but don’t worry! I get ten times worse when I try and post on ‘warmist’ sites–you guys at least make sense, you’re always far more polite than the other guys, and some of your criticism is hitting home. So keep banging away!
Now that I’ve ticked a few of you off, I’ll be trying to go after the other side in my next few posts.
For those of you who think I’m wasting Anthony’s space, I understand. While I think it’s gracious of Anthony to let people of other opinions post guest articles, that imposes no obligation on his readers. Feel free to click out! Or, like others here, point out where you think I am in error.
I think this is a great post by Tom Fuller.
If anything, just to make everyone think a little deeper and a little longer about things. Which usually results in a better perspective.
We should be doing everything possible to increase the efficiency of our energy usage. We should be limiting our emissions of CO2 and pollution wherever the economic cost is reasonably small. We should be thinking about the future.
It doesn’t automatically require that one conclude global warming will be a problem. We should be doing these things regardless.
But we do need new technologies and new physics to generate energy in the future. I think we have exhausted the technology of energy efficiency based on Chemistry (and oil and coal win that battle) and we have nearly exhausted the technology of Motion including wind and gravity (hydro wins that battle and wind turbines are not efficient so fail the test). Solar? Well, we need technology that directly transforms photons/EM radiation into electricity and that may not be possible. Otherwise, solar looks to fail. Nuclear? Well, that needs to be more efficient as well and we need some way to store its electricity in better ways so that it can be used at a smaller scale, like in cars or in the home.
Which brings one full circle again. What if it eventually turns out that it is just not possible to generate energy more efficiently than we do today (it is not guaranteed that there will be more efficient technologies of course – it just might not be possible – like it just might not be possible to travel to the stars for example).
My comment above (“I think you’re deluding yourself. The big problem is Moore’s Law.”) was directed not just at Thomas Fuller, but even more at the rest of you. All the Smokeys and who have you.
The alleged CO2 ‘threat’ is overblown. But our species is at the top of the world as its apex predator par excellence precisely because we are the most intelligent. Soon, our machines will vastly surpass us in intelligence.
That will be interesting.
“…it may surprise you to learn that there is a body of medical and sociological literature written specifically about you…”
How could something that everyone knows be surprising?
“Whatever man-made climate change turns out to be, it is not a permanent state.”
Note the niftily inserted assumption that AGW is real.
“…whatever we do on behalf of the planet can be looked at as our generation’s contribution to a future that is almost in sight already…”
That conventional alarmist message is almost in sight already.
“While I am probably a stronger advocate for renewable energy and energy efficiency than many of you…”
That’s fine. Personally, I’ve never met anyone who’s against motherhood or renewable, efficient energy. It’s the expensive wind turbines manufactured and boosted by coal power that bother me. They waste precious coal power.
“…reducing pollution, including emissions of the non-polluting CO2.”
Even non-polluting CO2 is pollution? That’s some bad gas!
Thomas, because of a previous generation of activists concerned with the “planet”, my country, Australia, has failed to extend hydro and has no nuclear industry worth mentioning, though we have the most uranium. The trillions that might be spent on useful things like “utility level storage of energy storage” are being frittered on non-solutions to non-problems. If you are going to conduct some fruitful generational studies, I suggest you study the damage done by pious and fetishistic activists. The mentality of Australia’s anti-hydro, anti-nuke generation of the 80’s would be a great place to start.
And, Thomas, now that the whole AGW edifice is looking shaky, getting down with the skeptics to sing Kumbayah is not a convincing strategy.
Mr. Fuller,
>> I think temperatures will increase a couple of degrees in a short period of time <<
By theory a doubling of CO2 will raise temperatures 1.1C. That additional increase comes at a CO2 level of 780 ppm. Another doubling would make the total increase 2.2C at a CO2 level of 1560 ppm. That's about 4 degrees F, or the temperature change in about an hour for a typical mid-latitude morning.
Do you expect that we could reach 1560 ppm in a short period of time? How do you define a short period of time. Or do you buy the premise that each CO2 doubling will raise temperatures more than 1.1C through positive feedback? Common sense says that any water vapor feedback will increase cloud cover, and that small albedo changes due to increased cloud cover have a very strong cooling effect, making any feedback negative.
What if things go in the other direction, and the Earth starts getting colder? Historically we are overdue for an ice age. Wouldn't it be more prudent to keep wealth and productivity growing as fast as possible to be able to handle a climate problem in either direction should one actually arise?
Hey Mike: For every species that becomes extinct, there is at least one that evolves or adapts into distinctly different genetic form. After all. extinction is evolution in action.
I have to credit wildlife biologists and Malthusians, the prime movers who founded ecology along with Progressives. They took advantage of the strong environmental emotions that they manufactured in the late 1960s. They created the Endangered Species Act to be an adjunct to the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. This ragout of procedure of administrative process gave the environmental movement the tools needed to control most land uses. As their procedural mess evolved, they were able enrich themselves and to corrupt politicians beyond all expectations.
Trial lawyers were part of the game too. It is their influence that led to the provisions for citizen suits as part of the enforcement in all of the major environmental protection laws. It made trial lawyers and the public interest law firms bounty hunters. Winning was easy because the Peter Principal Principal coupled with sympathetic judges ensured that bureaucrats rarely could negotiate the morass of process needed to authorize and implement executive management policy and practices.
Remember Mike, the essence of Darwin’s law is that the unfit are extirpated by the fit.