Guest Post by Thomas Fuller
It is not often that I get called a ‘denialist’ and a ‘troll’ for the dark forces of Al Gore on the same day, but it does happen.
It’s because I am a ‘lukewarmer,’ one who believes that the physics of climate change are not by theselves controversial, but who believes that the sensitivity of the earth’s atmosphere to a doubling of concentrations of CO2 is not yet known, but is likely to be lower than activists have claimed.
I suppose it should bother me that I am getting slammed at activist websites such as Only In It For the Gold, Deltoid and ThingsBreak because they think I don’t go far enough, and slammed again here and at The Air Vent because I go too far. Although I want to be liked as much as the next fellow, it doesn’t, because the reasons given for slamming me never seem to match up to the reality of what I write.
Critics here have focused on a lack of substance, so I’ll try and address that in this post. I’m a bit amused at one commenter who yesterday said I understood nothing of energy. (Shh! Don’t tell my clients–I just delivered a 400-page report on alternative energy, and they’ll be ticked off…)
And I’m equally amused that I have to acknowledge that Michael Tobis (at last) got one thing right in a comment yesterday, when he wrote that the real problem we face is coal–and Chinese coal at that. (More on that in a minute.)
The LukeWarmer’s Way
The operation of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is one of the least controversial ideas in physics. The calculations that show a temperature rise of between 1 and 2 degrees Celsius if concentrations double is also widely accepted, including by all skeptic scientists without (AFAIK) exception.
We don’t know the sensitivity of the atmosphere to a doubling of CO2, so the effects of feedbacks are not know. Activists think it is 3 degrees or higher. Contrarians think it is very low–1, maybe 2, tops, some thinking it is even lower.
If activists are right we have a very big problem on our hands. If contrarians are right we don’t. If both are wrong, there is a lukewarmer’s way.
If you believe that about 2 degrees of warming is headed our way this century, it will be a problem–probably not for those reading this, because of our fortunate geography, but for those in the developing world, who will have to add droughts, floods and heatwaves to their current long list of miseries. And it’s not really the size of the temperature rise that worries me, although having a 2 degree average means it will be greater in some places, and again, probably in the least fortunate locales. But it’s really the speed of change that will make it tough to adapt to.
So as a lukewarmer I believe that if there are ‘no regrets’ options, by which I mean things that make sense for us to do no matter what happens to the climate, that we should move quickly to do them in hopes that it will a) help prepare for whatever temperature rise comes our way and b) may serve in some small way to lessen the total temperature rise and its impacts.
The devil is in the details, obviously, and a bigger devil lies in who should decide and how much authority we give them. And we probably don’t get to pick and choose at the right level of detail.
For example, I have no problem with the EPA actively encouraging power plants to shift from old coal configurations to combined cycle natural gas. It’s not a permanent solution but it’s a quick win. But I do have a problem with them classing a school with 3 buses as a major emitter of CO2 and getting them involved in the bureaucratic nightmare of emission control.
I do not want Maurice Strong to control our approach to the world’s environmental issues. I’m reading his book right now (‘Where On Earth Are We Going?, with a foreward by Kofi Annan), and it is horribly bad, and horribly wrong. I’ll give it a full review later, but suffice it to say that I wouldn’t trust him with any responsibility at all.
But there are some in both government and science who I do trust. And I’m willing to work towards helping them get to where we need to go. If a panel composed of both Pielkes, Judith Curry, Mike Kelly, John Christy, Richard Lindzen and a few others were to work on proposed solution, I’d be pretty happy. I might be alone in my joy, I realize.
Another no regrets option I’d like to see is a review of building planning, permitting and insurance in areas that are already vulnerable to tropical storms and floods. We are in the silly situation right now where middle class workers in the Midwest are subsidizing rich people who rebuild ruined but rich second homes in Florida or Malibu Canyon.
We could also allow planes to use modern technology to choose the most fuel efficient routes, descend directly rather than in stages and unblock no-fly spaces left over from the Cold War.
I’d like to see greater use of X prizes to stimulate innovation, as it did with private spacecraft. I’d love to see prizes for utility level storage or better use of composites for distribution, or improvements to HVDC transmission. Prizes almost always work.
I’d like to see more base research done on superconductors, for example, and other technologies that are threatened with being trapped in the Valley of Investment Death.
And I don’t think that list of no regrets options is too controversial, either here or with the activists. (I’m sure I’ll hear about it if it is.)
But the real problem is counting to 3,000. Because a straight line extension of energy consumption gets us to 3,000 quads (quadrillion BTUs) by 2075, with 9.1 billion people developing at present trends and GDP growing at 3% per year.
If those 3,000 quads are supplied by burning coal, we’ll choke on the fumes, no matter what it does to temperatures. China has doubled its energy use since 2000, it may do so again by 2020, and 70% of their energy is provided by coal. The massive traffic jam into Beijing a couple of weeks ago, 90 miles long and lasting three or four days, was composed primarily of small trucks bringing coal into China’s capital. And the pollution and soot that is caused by China’s coal travels–to the Arctic, hastening ice melt and over the rest of the world, as small particulates and just general haze.
So I also advocate pushing for renewable and nuclear energy. I think we’ll need them both. Nuclear is ready to roll right now, but it’s expensive and time consuming to put up as many plants as we’re going to need. Solar is on the verge, and I’d like to give it an extra push. Natural gas is a temporary solution in terms of emissions, but at current prices we can’t ignore its advantages.
We also need to push piecemeal solutions that will not solve our problems by themselves, but are important contributors at a local level, such as geothermal power, or small hydroelectric and run-of-river installations.
No matter what you or I believe about climate change, we face an energy issue that we need to address today. Our coal plants are dramatically cleaner than they used to be. China’s are not. If we don’t want the air we breathe to taste of China’s coal, we need to work on better solutions.
And the worst of all possible worlds is where we don’t do the right thing on energy because we are at war with each other about climate change.
I’m a firm believer in markets, and I like free markets better than the other sort. I also think they work better with light regulation. I think it’s legitimate to nudge the energy market in the direction we want it to go, without giving the reins and the saddle to government bureaucracy. And I do think it can and probably will work.
So I’m not a ‘denialist.’ I’m not a ‘skeptic.’ I’m a lukewarmer–and I’m right.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
Thomas Fuller
There would be no global warming without new technology. And that’s not because new technology uses so much energy.
It’s because new technology has allowed us to measure new phenomena, and old phenomena with radically more powerful tools.
Mike Smith gives us an example in his book ‘Warnings’, a great story about how technology addressed the warning system for U.S. tornadoes (and which is advertised here on the right hand column). He notes that many tornadoes that are called in to reporting centers today would never have been noticed before, thanks to a growing American population and the ubiquity of mobile telephones.
The same is more or less true of hurricanes. Before satellite coverage began in 1969, we really didn’t know exactly how many hurricanes actually happened in a given year, nor how strong they were. If they didn’t make landfall, they would only be catalogued if planes noticed and reported them, and they would only be measured if specially equipped planes basically flew through them and charted their strength.
It’s certainly also true of measurements of ice extent, volume and area, which would not be possible without satellite imagery.
New technology has had a radical effect on the time series of measurements made for extended periods before the technology was adopted. Sailors used to measure sea surface temperatures using a thermometer in a bucket lowered into the sea. When Argos buoys began providing a network of more accurate measurements, there was a break in the timeline. When surface stations converted to electronic thermocouples on a short leash, the adjustments required caused another break in the data series. (I guess readers here might know something about that already.) Scientists have worked hard to make adjustments to correct for the new sources of data, but the breaks are still pretty noticeable.
The sensible thing would be to give the new technologies time to develop an audited series of measurements long enough to determine trends, rather than grafting new data on top of older, less reliable series. But there are two objections to this: First, who’s to say another new measurement technology won’t come along and replace our brand new toys and resetting the clock to zero? Second, and of more concern, there is a whole scientific establishment out there saying we don’t have time to wait for a pristine data set. Some say we’ve already waited too long, others say that if we start today (and they really mean today), we just might avoid climate disaster.
And if you start to muse on the remarkable coincidence that warming apparently started at the same time as we got all this new-fangled technology, why that makes you a flat-earth denialist. Or something.
As it happens, while serving in the U.S. Navy I took sea surface temperatures with a thermometer in a bucket. There were not many detailed instructions involved. Should I have done it on the sunny side or the shady side? Nearer the pointy end of the ship (that’s technical talk) or the flat back end? How long was I supposed to leave the thermometer in the water?
I wouldn’t want to make momentous decisions based on the quality of data I retrieved from that thermometer, which wasn’t calibrated–I think the U.S.N. stock number was like 22, or some other low number indicating great antiquity. I much prefer what comes out of Argos.
But there are times I wish all those fancy instruments on the satellites were pointing at another planet.
Thomas Fuller href=”http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
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Mr Fuller Sir,
Where I come from those that sit on the fence are called Charlie Brown, after the Peanuts cartoon character, whom the little red head girl Lucy called him wishy washy. In the light of real science that is emerging since the cabal of the unreal scientists had the rug pulled out from under them, plus the fact that the sun went on a rampaging bender for a few decades and is now nackered. History tells us that it may be in re-hab for a few decades. Maybe you noticed that the northern winter was far from pleasant, well the southern one has been no better. South america copped a reasonable dose of global warming that killed millions if not billions of critters and hundreds of people. This week in our spring in australia has been real special 16c below normal in tropic climes, rain and snow and cold in temperate zones. Tasmania our southern island state just had their coldest days EVER, 140 kph wind, rain and snow all over, 18.4 Metre waves, for us no problem. How ever the largest storm noted in the southern ocean is descending with plunging temperatures on the poor old Kiwis, some what like the day after tomorrow. Either CO2 needs a minus sign in front of it or it is the sun playing its normal game and those sucked in to the AGW nonsense are the pawns.
The time for fence sitting has lapsed, if the politicians decide that increased power supplies are a no no, buy a chain saw and start harvesting a real renewable resource.
Old Sol is a worry at the moment, for history shows when Sol slumbers the earth tremors, volcanos awaken, our magnet field has a funk and the outer atmosphere behaves badly giving less protection from space nasties. Sir it is time to get off the fence and take a good long look around. Chart the difference between advocacy, spin and real scientific knowledge, the fog will clear. Wayne
ADD droughts, floods and heatwaves?!? I thought we/they had them already.
Well, if you put a greenhouse gas into a non-greenhouse, who cares?
Fuller:
If you believe that about 2 degrees of warming is headed our way this century, it will be a problem–probably not for those reading this, because of our fortunate geography, but for those in the developing world, who will have to add droughts, floods and heatwaves to their current long list of miseries.
________________________________________________________
And don’t forget, that two degrees may well be mostly warmer nights. That is unlikely to add droughts and floods and …” Interesting that two opposite effects frequently get mentioned in people’s concern with global warming. I understand but somehow it always makes me chuckle.
But the way, could you send some to that two degree, probably night time temperature increase my way. I just came in from outside from doing some chores (it is 5 am here) and it is a nippy minus 5 Celsius. I wouldn’t mind a couple of those warmist degrees up here right now. http://www.theweathernetwork.com/index.php?product=hourlyfx&hourlytype=hourlytable&interval=1&placecode=caab0005&ref=widgetwxhourlyv2&var1=0
PS. If AFAIK (I had to look it up btw) is your baseline, it’s not good enough, laddy. At least be scientific. ‘As far as you know’ isn’t necessarily actual knowledge.
Lukewarmer is a bad choice of an epithet:
King James Bible, <>
“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”
Middle of the road is better. Or the camel’s way: They asked the camel,” would you rather ride uphill or downhill”, and she replied: “what is wrong with the level road”?
I am all for supporting changes that in any case, irrespective of the CO2 specter, clean the air, conserve energy and resources and are good “housekeeping”.
Unfortunately with the CO2 banner wavers, instead of persuading/helping China to clean up its coal factories they want China to commit energy harakiri on flimsy nonexistent evidence of the dangers of CO2.
BTW, what is so bad if the temperatures at night instead of being -10C are -8C or even -4C? Last winter the arctic went from -45 to -30C and that huge anomaly was counted in the warming .
I should have added one further objection to the 1 C rise for a doubling of CO2 without feedbacks. This number can never be measured; any attempt to do so would be confounded by the feedbacks. So why any physicist would believe in a number that, theoretically, can never be measured, I have no idea.
All the value I find in this post is from the comments.
RW says:
September 17, 2010 at 1:06 am
>“So I’m not a ‘denialist.’ I’m not a ‘skeptic.’ I’m a lukewarmer–and I’m right.”
>Even if you were right, that would be a grotesquely smug line. But you’re wrong.
I thought you got banned.
I disagree.
“We are in the silly situation right now where middle class workers in the Midwest are subsidizing rich people who rebuild ruined but rich second homes in Florida or Malibu Canyon.”
And we middle class workers in Florida continue to subsidize those in the Midwest who get hit with tornadoes and ice storms every year. Face it, everywhere someone lives gets hit by natural destructive events. It is only the nature of those events that differ.
Your apparently loath successful people. It’s no wonder that you are a lukewarmer.
Just realised I posted this on an old article by mistake. Sorry to duplicate it. It is more suitable here as in this post TF deals with criticism
Thomas Fuller
Thank you for answering my previous questions. However, I would like to question you further on a couple of points.
“Philip Thomas says:
September 13, 2010 at 6:09 am
‘[Major media campaigns] ignore IPCC scientists so they could insist that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035.’
I was under the impression that this claim was made by the scientists in the IPCC report. These facts were reiterated on numerous occasions by Rajendra Pauchari.
Here is the IPCC’s statement on the matter.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/presentations/himalaya-statement-20january2010.pdf
Unless I have greatly misunderstood what you have said, it seems completely incorrect to say that the media pushed these errors in the face of IPCC protest.”
You answered:
“Mr. Thomas: An IPCC scientist brought the news of the IPCC’s error to Mr. Pachauri’s attention in (I believe) 2004, but Mr. Pachauri paid no heed and in fact was rather dismissive of it all. But the scientist was from IPCC.”
It was well reported that the Himalayan claim was questioned by scientists outside of the IPCC before the report was published and long before they claimed the mistake had been brought to their attention by IPCC scientists. I believe the internal revelation was damage limitation on the part of the IPCC.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/20/himalayan-glaciers-melt-claims-false-ipcc
Your answer does not support the direction of your original article that the IPCC and its scientists are innocent and the media is to blame for excessive AGW claims. Pauchari does not fall into the media category by a long stretch.
Secondly:
“On Googling your name I was led to a testimonial you gave: http://www.pep-partnership.co.uk/testimonials.asp
‘Bill understands how business happens in the governmental sector, especially the European Commission. He’s a hard worker and next time I need a big proposal for an E.C. tender, there’s no doubt that he’s the guy to go to.
Tom Fuller, Managing Director, nQuire Services Ltd’
[Edit: PEP partnership specialise in EC grants]
Can you elaborate on your business interests with the EC? Do you worry that the tenders would be less forthcoming if you were critical of the accepted climate science consensus?”
You answered:
“..and if you found my recommendation for Bill Blakemore, how is it you could find so little about me? My tracks are much easier to trace. I have no current interests with the EC, btw.”
Your on-line biographies suggest you have worked in market research and marketing for most of your life but nothing jumps out as an obvious link to ‘a big proposal for an E.C. tender’ unless you were you offering marketing products/services to the E.C.
You have previously stated that you are not a scientist (it seems that you are a journalist and market analyst/salesman), which begs the question, why were you a green technology consultant to the UK Government? Was this in a capacity as a market research or salesman capacity?
This piece you have written today recommends our heavy investment in green technologies. Do you see a need to make your interests in green technologies, if you have any, explicit?
Please excuse my hard interview.
The massive traffic jam into Beijing a couple of weeks ago, 90 miles long and lasting three or four days, was composed primarily of small trucks bringing coal into China’s capital.
Were there photos of this? Or was a survey of the vehicles done? How did you arrive at this statement? I’m not being sarcastic. I just would like to know how you know this.
And the pollution and soot that is caused by China’s coal travels–to the Arctic, hastening ice melt and over the rest of the world, as small particulates and just general haze.
Would you provide the evidence for why you believe this is true?
If we don’t want the air we breathe to taste of China’s coal
You don’t really believe that the smell of Chinese coal power plants can cover the world—do you? That’s a serious question by the way, not sarcasm.
Thomas Fuller
You were once MD of Interactive Prospect Targeting that does market research and supplies sales leads for green technology companies. This particular propaganda website they run pretends to be an environmental help site but is infact just a fishing tool for green companies to sell their wares.
http://www.ipt-ltd.co.uk/howgreenareyou
http://www.howgreenisyourhome.co.uk/
Did you begin your green interests through your marketing employment? Are you today heavily invested financially in the sale of green technology to the public.
How can you satisfy me that your series of articles are not part of a new marketing campaign?
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
September 17, 2010 at 5:45 am
A major news story for many days which was covered by print, broadcast, and Internet media extensively inclusive of still and video images. The question is…. how could anyone NOT know about it?
Tom, I don’t think they have the science right.
Me thinks Mr/Dr Fuller does much too much armchair science here and not enough looking out the window. He does not appear to consider what the planet is really doing in the face of CO2 rise. The lack of warming in the last 15 years and current cooling appears to not enter into his thinking.
To not at least acknowledge the possibility that natural cycles and the Sun’s effects could very well swamp out any effects by CO2 is to over-inflate the importance of CO2’s effect, particularly as our CO2 production, even if it does affect concentrations, is sure to vary over time, rising and eventually falling in the not too distant future. If the Sun really does a Minimum for the next 30 some years, our CO2 peak might mostly pass in the meantime.
By remaining fuzzy and NOT connecting or touching base with the real world, by looking outside, he leaves his armchair work in the air without a realtime anchor and thus has little sway with the warmists or some skeptics, in my opinion.
Pielkes, Judith Curry, Mike Kelly, John Christy, Richard Lindzen
John Christy on fossil fuels
Ross McKittrick on cleaning the environment by using coal:
I have a problem with labeling people or accepting a label. I care about humanity and the biosphere.
Atmospheric CO2 increases are positive for the biosphere. Commercial greenhouses inject CO2 to increase plant yield and plant growth rate.
In addition to higher yield and faster growth rates, higher levels of CO2 enable plants to make more effective use of water.
Currently plants waste approximately 50% of the water they absorb due to low levels of CO2. As the level of CO2 increases C3 plants produce less stomata and hence lose less water.
If the planet’s response to increase forcing is negative rather than positive (cloud cover increases or decreases like an iris to regulate planetary temperature to resist rather than to amplify forcing changes. There are multiple papers and observations to support that assertion.), then there will be less than 1C planetary temperature increase due to a doubling of CO2. A slight warming of the planet with most of the warming occurring at higher latitudes is positive not negative. (Rainfall increases with warmer temperatures for example. There is less temperature differentiate to drive extreme storms and so on.)
No one is disagreeing with energy conservation, more fuel efficient cars and houses.
The IPCC is advocating spending billions and billions of dollars on CO2 sequestration and carbon trading programs. The IPCC is advocating that billions and billions of dollars should be spent to develop a world bureaucracy to monitor and police mandatory CO2 emission levels.
Life on this planet is carbon based. Adding the CO2 to biosphere is one of the few changes is beneficial to biosphere.
The problem is the promotion of an incorrect scientific paradigm that makes any practical action very, very difficult.
Those people who truly care about humanity and promoting a healthy productive biosphere should be advocating for efficient advanced gasification combined cycle coal plants, energy conservation, pollution control, and addressing the problem of corrupt governments in Africa rather than CO2 sequestration.
The calculations that show a temperature rise of between 1 and 2 degrees Celsius if concentrations double is also widely accepted, including by all skeptic scientists without (AFAIK) exception.
The strength of negative feedback of H2O when increasing CO2 has not been settled. We do not know how much warming will come from CO2, if any. Increasing co2 may have a cooling effect. Or it may turn out that it has no effect at all, that it is neutralized by H2O.
Lee Kington
A major news story for many days
I knew about the traffic jam. I did not know it “was composed primarily of small trucks bringing coal into China’s capital”. This is what I want proof of.
I for one, welcome your inputs. I don’t agree with all of them, but it’s important for this dialog to take place and I’m very happy that this blog allows for these contra (for this blog) opinions to be aired, unlike some of the more partisan blogging sites that I could mention. As it is, there’s a surprising amount that we do all agree on, hype, hysteria, poorly conducted/communicated/recorded science etc etc
Our main difference is over the effect of man made CO2 and the our climates sensitivity to it, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t all talk and exchange views and that doesn’t mean that we can’t all learn something from that exchange.
So, there’s no need for any existential angst – It may be a difficult place for you to be, but IMHO (Ok, I know that no opinions are humble) we’re all the better for it, so please keep up the good work.