From the Carnegie Institution , what looks to be a throwback to the old days of central planning has been introduced, except it is twice as good as that, ten years instead of five. The only difference between the ten year carbon and science plan and what you see in the image below, is that none of the industrial elements you see will be included.
Scientists tackle the carbon conundrum
Palo Alto, CA—U.S. scientists have developed a new, integrated, ten-year science plan to better understand the details of Earth’s carbon cycle and people’s role in it. Understanding the carbon cycle is central for mitigating climate change and developing a sustainable future. The plan builds on the first such plan, published in 1999, but identifies new research areas such as the role of humans as agents and managers of carbon cycling and climate change, the direct impact of greenhouse gases on ecosystems including changes to the diversity of plants and animals and ocean acidification, the need to address social concerns, and how best to communicate scientific results to the public and decision makers.
The first carbon science plan for the U.S., published in 1999, resulted in numerous breakthroughs for understanding the carbon cycle and how it is changing in response to human pressures. For instance, researchers discovered that the huge quantities of CO2 absorbed by the oceans are causing ocean acidification, which is harming sea life and affecting the food chain. Research also characterized the large uptake of carbon by plants and soils in the Northern Hemisphere, and found that understanding land use and disturbance patterns is integral to understanding the global carbon cycle.
The new plan is the culmination of a three-year effort with input from hundreds of scientists about the current needs of the research community. Carnegie Institution for Science’s Anna Michalak, Duke University’s Rob Jackson, Appalachian State University’s Gregg Marland, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Christopher Sabine led the work on the 2011 A U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan.*
“Although there has been a bonanza of new understanding about the carbon cycle over the last decade, many new questions have arisen,” remarked Michalak of Carnegie’s Department of Global Ecology. “A U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan lays the groundwork for expanding beyond a primary focus on the ‘natural’ carbon flows between the atmosphere, oceans, and plant life, to fully integrate human impacts and the role of both intentional and inadvertent carbon management decisions.”
The team developed four science elements to drive the research. The backbone of the research strategy is to strengthen the network of observations to better monitor and track carbon as it winds its way through the atmosphere, ecosystems, oceans and society, and to find out how this changes over time. Other elements include studies of the processes that control the flows and transformations of carbon, and developing numerical models to predict future behavior.
Another important aspect of the plan is its increased emphasis on communication and making research more accessible to policy makers and the general public. It is hoped that this will lead to rational and well-informed decisions on how best to manage the global carbon cycle, especially the human impacts on it.
In an era of tight budgets and with public questions about the value of science, this plan calls for an expanded role for careful, integrated, and clear science to inform and support human objectives for a sustainable environment.
*The report is published by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research supported by NASA, DOE, USDA, USGS, NOAA, NSF, and NIST. The authors are Anna Michalak, Robert B. Jackson, Gregg Marland, Christopher L. Sabine, and the Carbon Cycle Science Working Group.
The Department of Global Ecology was established in 2002 to help build the scientific foundations for a sustainable future. The department is located on the campus of Stanford University, but is an independent research organization funded by the Carnegie Institution. Its scientists conduct basic research on a wide range of large-scale environmental issues, including climate change, ocean acidification, biological invasions, and changes in biodiversity.
The Carnegie Institution for Science (carnegieScience.edu) has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research since 1902. It is a private, nonprofit organization with six research departments throughout the U.S. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and planetary science.
Turning Point for All Nations — statement
not all evils are Atheist.. they claim to be ‘Universal’
oh how they have PROGRESSED
Why would they want to better understand something when the science is settled?
…and what’s the problem anyway? Obama said the seas would stop rising and the earth would heal…..and it has!
(sugar low)………………. 😉
As in all such recently, this will be very short on science and long on socio/economic reconfiguration.To the enrichment of the propagandists and the detriment of everyone else.
“…identifies new research areas such as the role of humans as agents and managers of carbon cycling and climate change…”
Agents and managers of carbon cycling = jackbooted ecothug warmunists.
“…huge quantities of CO2 absorbed by the oceans are causing ocean acidification…”
CO2 in the atmosphere isn’t creating enough panic (and grant money); time to change the game.
For instance, researchers discovered that the huge quantities of CO2 absorbed by the oceans are causing ocean acidification, which is harming sea life and affecting the food chain.
I don’t recall any studies that showed actual harm from acidification to date.
‘Latitude says:
November 16, 2011 at 2:40 pm
…and what’s the problem anyway? Obama said the seas would stop rising’
Not if the Guardian’s got anything to do with it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/16/climate-change-report-new-york-city
‘Major storms could submerge New York City in next decade
Sea-level rise due to climate change could cripple the city in Irene-like storm scenarios, new climate report claims’
I’m engaged in a study of the effects, break-down and eventual dispersal of compounds containing carboniferous compounds as CH3Ch2OH.
I have discovered so far that the effects of this heavily-laden carbon bearing substance are multifarious; sometimes deleterious, often humorous and sometimes injurious but always micturation provoking.
More money is needed to continue as taxes have increased the price of the raw materials required.
This looks like the usual fishing trip for money:
The US Global Change Research Plan Strategic Plan for the next 10 years 2012 – 2021 is calling for comments – due Nov 29th 2010
http://strategicplancomments.globalchange.gov/
This is Congress calling for us to tell the various Govenment Agencies how they should be spending climate research money for the next 10 years.
How about starting with a criminal fraud investigation into how the last 10 years of money was spent?
Interested WUWT readers should take a good look at this call for for comment. [Anthony please note].
Tell Congress to stop these lying thieves.
Stanford is like Penn State – just bring in the money, no ethics required. This is the Schneider legacy at work.
The words “numeric code” and “prediction” appeared in their press release. I guess “Model” has too many bad associations these days.
We already know what the results will be. The study is just to justify the grant money.
Philip Bradley says: November 16, 2011 at 2:46 pm
“I don’t recall any studies that showed actual harm from acidification to date.”
It’s worse. I don’t recall any studies that showed actual acidification to date.
It is beyond me that these ‘scientists’ still have any credibility left and are still able to get publicity.
They’ve gone from a 10-year plan to put a man on the moon in the 60’s to a 10-year plan for sabatoging our already-sagging economy. Progress!
The public’s social (carbon) concerns and scientific communication are easily handled.
STOP THE ANTI-CARBON, FEAR-MONGERING PROPAGANDA!
ONLY PRESENT REAL SCIENCE!
That was soooo hard?
The big trick, however, is squashing the socialist, totalitarian agenda that is behind the AGW scam. That’s going to take time and stamina.
Believing that it is important to understand the carbon cycle is predicated on the idea that carbon, i.e., CO2, is a problem. As there is no downside to CO2, it being plant food, unable to cause ocean acidification, and, did I say, it is plant food. And it does not cause global warming. As CO2 interacts with water vapor to interfere with its ability to convert radiation to heat and also interacts with water vapor such that absolute water vapor decreases as CO2 increases, there is no problem. AND, the icing on the cake is that, if we do have 20–30 more years of cooling (according to IPCC 20–30 years without warming, at least), the oceans will begin to suck up CO2, just as they always have—there appears to be an 8-year lag once cooling commences.
The simple fact that our emissions have increased 33% in the last ten years and, not only has there been no warming—some cooling instead—but the rate of rise of atmospheric CO2 has been constant, if not slightly decreased. There is no indication that man’s emissions are having any effect on atmospheric CO2 and the global temperatures are failing to respond to the IPCC’s predictions.
So, guys, let’s save some money and not spend billions learning details of a non-issue. There are lots of other things that need attention.
We must remember, folks, there are going to be a lot of scientists out there soon looking for work, cobbling up new projects as their global warming-related funding goes bye-bye.
Green subversion knows no bounds.
and how best to communicate scientific results to the public and decision makers.
Oh dear, they still think the problem the number of believers is dropping is due to lack of communicaton. At some point, they will just force us to believe or send us off to Gulags … if we let them.
Take away their government funding; remove charitable status from WWF, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, etc. No more free lunch with an ideological and misanthropic axe to grind.
I am with Philip Bradley on this one.
I have not seen any quality studies where factual data have been used to demonstrate harm to marine life from “acidification” at current atmospheric CO2 levels.
Like Willis E is fond of saying the studies that predict harm from acidification are “models al the way down”.
If we are going to complete a ten year plan in five years we are going to need some “on the spot guidance” from The Great Leader Kim Il Sung and The Dear Leader Kim Jong Il. It worked for the West Sea Barrage at Nampo…
As a chemist, it bugs me that a lessening of pH from 8.2 to about 8.0 could be called acidification.
It is obvious that acidification is being redefined in this context to invoke fear in the ignorant.
Why are we spending millions on this nonsense? Oh yeah. In addition to being able to legislate (vote for climate) the weather, we can now learn how to legislate (vote against carbon pollution) all life and death on earth.
These billions will have no effect on us, our children or grandchildren.
“IF” CO2 is a real driver of climate.
“increased emphasis on communication” Hmmmmm…. Now what would that be ‘code’ for I wonder?
Yep big problem, the ocean has gone from as alkaline as baking soda to almost as alkaline as baking soda —– not acidic yet, or any time in the near future.
Unfortunately the general public has no clue about ph. Few realize that almost all our foods are acidic. Sea water ph ranges from about ph 8.25 to 8.14, but common foods are orders of magnitude more acidic.
ph of common substances are often acidic.
8.3 Baking Soda
8.25 – 8.14 Sea Water
7.4 Human Blood
7.0 Pure Water: Neutral
6.6 Milk: Acid
4.5 Tomatoes
4.0 Wine and Beer
3.0 Apples
2.2 Vinegar
2.0 Lemon Juice
Larry
I thought they’ve been telling us for 2 decades they understand it.
Now they’re coming up with a decade-long plan to understand it.
I’m pretty sure they don’t understand it much at all, they’re just in it for the money, and they’ve been a pack of deceptive wolves for 20 years now. Leader of the pack is AL Gore and The Team just follows along. Too bad they’re not contributing to real enivonrmental problems–one could easily say their disdain for carbon dioxide is equivalent to disdain for life itself. But then, these were alway a bunch of hateful wolves.
I can imagine the epitaph on some of their gravestones 20-, 30-, 40-years hence:
(Just a rather telling understatement.)
Stephen Brown says:
November 16, 2011 at 3:09 pm
And you shall sleep soundly tonight from the effort expended in the honest work of your study.
Scarface says: November 16, 2011 at 3:25 pm
It’s worse. I don’t recall any studies that showed actual acidification to date.
J Floor Anthoni, real oceans expert both in theory and hands-on, said he feared “acidification” would be the next $queal when people saw through AGW. Acidification is shameless nonsense, because there are always reserves of essentially-alkaline CaCO3 to draw on, worldwide, in the case of increases in pH.The whole system is in dynamic balance and has been so for millions of years. Moreover the oceans’ CO2 content is vastly, vastly higher than our cumulative emissions. The reason for CO2 still rising steadily is probably the 800-year lag from the rise of the MWP: CO2 dissolves and sinks at the poles and outgasses at the equator, and 800 years is the order of timescale of the complete thermohaline cycle. Simple. Easy-peasy. Too simple for academic priests, and contemplating the size and mass of the oceans is too far removed from aircon labs and offices. Check this out: click my name and find all the refs. Enjoy.
hotrod (Larry L) says:
November 16, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Yep big problem, the ocean has gone from as alkaline as baking soda to almost as alkaline as baking soda
==================================================
LOL………….As the pH drops, it dissolves more calcium carbonate……..which buffers it
I have not seen any quality studies where factual data have been used to demonstrate harm to marine life from “acidification” at current atmospheric CO2 levels.
This is easy to test in a laboratory. The only studies I have seen, use CO2 acidification levels well above current levels to find an effect on marine life.
I think we can safely assume that experiments using current levels of CO2 acidification have no measurable effect.
Нефтяники больше нефти Родине
At least the Bolsheviks understood that oil creates jobs and makes the motherland grow.
I salute your noble endeavours, having much expertise in the field myself, but I fear you may struggle to get funding in the face of competition from tens of millions of students majoring in the same…
Anyone seriously worried about “ocean acidification” should be immediately fire from any educational or governmental organization for being a bloody idiot.
For the vast majority of time life on this planet thrived under CO2 concentrations that were much higher than they currently are. If ocean acidification didn’t destroy all life back under levels 10-20 times the present then it certainly isn’t going to be causing much, if any, harm under the slight increases we are currently seeing.
5 year plan, 10 year plan, 50 year plan, 100 year plan, what some people won’t come up with to make a living.
Vaclav Klaus is familiar with plans proposed by those who wish to have control:
Philip Bradley says:
November 16, 2011 at 4:41 pm
This is easy to test in a laboratory.
=====================================
Philip, it’s almost impossible to test in a laboratory…
….first you would need a limitless pool of calcium carbonate
If you start with that….there’s nothing else to test
The way they “test” this in a laboratory, is add acid until they deplete the buffer..
…that’s the only way they can do it
If they continued to add buffer……nothing would happen
What an absolutly wonderfull example of modern Marxist rhetoric!
Philip Bradley says:
November 16, 2011 at 2:46 pm
For instance, researchers discovered that the huge quantities of CO2 absorbed by the oceans are causing ocean acidification, which is harming sea life and affecting the food chain.
I don’t recall any studies that showed actual harm from acidification to date.
______________________________________
That is because the oceans are very well buffered and ocean acidification is just another “Lets scare the beJeez out of people” piece of propaganda.
Ocean buffering: http://www.co2web.info/esef4.htm
Lots more info and PDFs at http://www.co2web.info/
With a comment like “For instance, researchers discovered that the huge quantities of CO2 absorbed by the oceans are causing ocean acidification, which is harming sea life and affecting the food chain”, it obviously cannot be scientific. The oceans are not acidic but rather thay are alkaline. At most, the CO2 being absorbed by the oceans is neutralising the oceans.
Most of the CO2 being absorbed by the ocean is natural in origin and the CO2 absorbed levels were probably higher in the LIA and during the ice age and yet ocean life survived. What evidence is there that CO2 absorption causes any long term problems or is in any way harming the sea life and affecting the food chain? One suspects that if harm is on going it is due to over fishing and/or other pollutants
R. Shearer says:
November 16, 2011 at 3:57 pm
As a chemist, it bugs me that a lessening of pH from 8.2 to about 8.0 could be called acidification…..
________________________________
Agreed. Perhaps we should use a different word like neutralization? And start correcting acidification every time we see it. (what say you Anthony?)
Some how Neutral just doesn’t have quite the “Scare factor” as Acid does.
10-year plan? I need a barf bag!
I can’t imagine they wouldn’t start by taking a look at the overall pH of the ocean and see how lifeforms vary through out the ocean. Heck, we even have a graph w/i WUWT which shows the pH worldwide and I’d have to say from a layman’s view, there is life throughout the ocean with diversity level.
Why does this remind me of the Great Leap Forward…?
The best way I can think of to “manage” carbon is for all those who believe CO2 is causing climate change/global warming to stop breathing. That way we kill (pun intended) two birds with one stone – human CO2 output is reduced and we won’t have to listen to those idiots anymore.
The increasing contempt for rent seeking and grant farming of tax payers by the alarmist, catastrophe promoting cabal of opportunistic climate warming scientists and their administrators and their various ethics free hanger ons is becoming very obvious on the skeptic blogs as can be seen in the comments above.
Maybe the the skeptic commenters are the most outspoken on this at the moment but they quite likely reflect a growing contempt in the public domain for the constant barrage of predicted “catastrophic unless we get more money” predictions from [ climate warming ] scientists.
The end result is a now increasing attitude amongst the public of an increasing sense of doubt and cynicism about science in general.
The increasing contempt for the grasping, greedy, arrogant and contemptuous of the inferior intelligence and understanding of the public climate warming scientists, the same public that has given those scientists and science of all disciplines the enormous latitude to pursue what lines of research they wish without ever being beholden or accountable to that public for the public funds they spend, is now starting to wear off to a stage when all science is starting to come under heavy scrutiny and considerable doubt as to it’s need or use or contribution to our society and questions on just what science is still worth financing for it’s potential contribution to our future society.
This particularly so as the public sees the global financial situation deteriorating further day to day and the increasing realisation that savage cuts will have to be made by governments to anything and anything that is not of immediate use to the public’s needs.
The public increasingly are reaching a stage where they will no longer accept situations where there is a lack of any useable results or a complete lack of accountability by scientists, both individually and collectively and by their institutions.
Or unlike public accountability in any other sector in our economy, why so much of the so called research never amounts to anything worthwhile in either science advances or in useable technologies for the public who have granted so much freedom and money without strings to those same non productive scientists to follow their choice of science research.
The glory days of science and the respect that science and scientists have had for some 200 years is drawing to a close as we, the tax paying public are exposed through the medium of the internet, to ever more corruption and rent seeking and grant farming from third and fourth rate science and scientists.
For some 200 years science and scientists have been placed on a high public pedestal that has far exceeded all other professions in the respect and latitude that the public has accorded science.
Through their own despicable actions, climate warming scientists as a group are destroying the very public’s support that has respected, sustained and generously supported all science for the many tens of decades past.
And recognition of this trend by scientists of every ilk and the demand for a drastic cleaning of science’s Augean Stables is just simply non existent in science of any sort.
You know, if Carnegie wants to pay for these dip-weeds, that’s fine. But we taxpayers are also paying for this drivel – that’s what irks me.
“In an era of tight budgets and with public questions about the value of science …”
Gee, I wonder why that’s happening … too bad it’s mostly the bad economy and some but not enough public realization that they’re being had by a bunch of flim-flam artists.
Why do they need to do any more research? There conclusions have already been predetermined….”huge quantities of CO2 absorbed by the oceans are causing ocean acidification, which is harming sea life and affecting the food chain” and “calls for an expanded role for careful, integrated, and clear science to inform and support human objectives for a sustainable environment” and “will lead to rational and well-informed decisions on how best to manage the global carbon cycle, especially the human impacts on it.”
They have obviously already concluded that human generated CO2 is bad; that humans are not currently living a sustainable lifestyle – ie cheap and reliable energy is bad; and that “the standard progressive fixes to all of these supposed problems” need to use the cloak of “science” to justify their implementation (or “well informed decisions as they call it).
Oh, man, that poster brings back memories! Reminds me of the other slogan I used to see all the time: “Proletariats of all countries, unite!”
There is another “scary” article link further down the page of the Carnegie document.
http://carnegiescience.edu/news/testing_geoengineering
“While it is clearly premature to consider testing solar radiation management at a scale large enough to measure the climate response, — ”
“Solar radiation management” sort of stares you in the eye.
Must require a lot of funding.
Philip, it’s almost impossible to test in a laboratory…
I was referring to the whatever the generally accepted PH change is, which wikipedia tells me is -0.11 in the industrial era. Setting up 2 tanks with a PH difference of -.11 and seeing the effect on some marine animal is something that an undergrad could do.
Whether this value is correct or not, I haven’t looked into.
Latitude said:
November 16, 2011 at 4:35 pm
hotrod (Larry L) said:
November 16, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Yep big problem, the ocean has gone from as alkaline as baking soda to almost as alkaline as baking soda
==================================================
LOL………….As the pH drops, it dissolves more calcium carbonate……..which buffers it
———————————————————————————
Acid + calcium carbonate = salt and H2O and – OH NOES! CO2!!!
WE’RE DOOMED!!!!!
Stephen Brown says:
November 16, 2011 at 3:09 pm
I’m engaged in a study of the effects, break-down and eventual dispersal of compounds containing carboniferous compounds as CH3Ch2OH.
I have discovered so far that the effects of this heavily-laden carbon bearing substance are multifarious; sometimes deleterious, often humorous and sometimes injurious but always micturation provoking.
More money is needed to continue as taxes have increased the price of the raw materials required.
Stephen – good thinking. While you’re doing that, I’m going to be looking for similar funding for my research into C21H30O2. I’ve got more carbon to look at so my project may take longer.
U.S. scientists have developed a new, integrated, ten-year science plan to better understand the details of Earth’s carbon cycle and people’s role in it.
Which scientists? Who are they? How many of them are there? Why do they think that us free peoples of the world want to have our lives controlled based on their dogma? Send these bastards to North Korea where they belong!
“The Department of Global Ecology was established in 2002 to help build the scientific foundations for a sustainable future. ”
This is what it’s all about. More “State” Control back up by “Science”.
A very Soviet idea the ten year plan and look what happened to them.
“inadvertent carbon management decisions”
Only a technocrat can twist the language so beautifully and nonsensically.
How best to communicate scientific results to the public and decision makers?
Simple; stop lying.
. . . . . “nonprofit organization with six research departments throughout the U.S. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and planetary science. . . . . . and “””tax benefits for nonprofit organizations with six research departments U.S. Carnegie”””
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=hp&q=tax+benefits+for+nonprofit+organizations+with+six+research+departments+U.S.+Carnegie&pbx=1&oq=tax+benefits+for+nonprofit+organizations+with+six+research+departments+U.S.+Carnegie&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=28000l28000l4l29078l1l1l0l0l0l0l750l750l6-1l1l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=b28a33e2348ae498&biw=1152&bih=562
just trying to be a little circumspect . . .
“As a chemist, it bugs me that a lessening of pH from 8.2 to about 8.0 could be called acidification. ”
According to Wikipedia, “Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14,[3] representing an increase of approaching 30% in “acidity” (H+ ion concentration) in the world’s oceans.”
Um, how do we know that the PH of the ocean was 8.25 back wayin 1751?
And how do we know it was human activity which caused the change?
The sign says
“Oilworkers – (deliver) more oil to the Motherland”
Then below
“Let’s Fulfill the five-year (plan) in 4 years!”
Like a lot of Soviet Era art, it has an ironic overtone.
Please, WHAT sea life has been harmed and WHAT food chain has been affected, by minuscule decreases in alkalinity?! More fiction… or rather… SHINOLA. GK
Stephen Brown–
“I’m engaged in a study of the effects, break-down and eventual dispersal of compounds containing carboniferous compounds as CH3Ch2OH.
I have discovered so far that the effects of this heavily-laden carbon bearing substance are multifarious; sometimes deleterious, often humorous and sometimes injurious but always micturation provoking.
More money is needed to continue as taxes have increased the price of the raw materials required.”
Stephen, although you express yourself much more eloquently than the guy who occasionally approaches me in the Safeway parking lot, I’m afraid my response to you is the same as to him–“Sorry, no, I don’t have any spare change.”
CAPITALISM vs. CLIMATE
The assessment of the state of the world by Naomi Klein is a colorful manifesto of totalitarian alternatives to a market economy and the rule of law. Fascism soon went down in military defeat while Communism sank into bankruptcy after seventy years of misrule. The manifesto has the support of Hugo Chavez, who blames capitalism for the death of an advanced civilization that once flourished on Mars. Such opinions show that if a cat has nine lives, then totalitarian doctrines have the sum of the lives of nine cats. They will be around for a long time.
The doctrine of Green activists rests on three tenets they accept with an act of faith:
We are running out of space. World population is already excessive on a limited planet and grows at exponential rates, with dire effects.
We are running out of means. The planet’s non-renewable resources are being depleted by consumption at a rate that renders further economic expansion unsustainable.
We are running out of time before tipping points are reached. Carbon dioxide emitted by economic activity causes global warming that will soon render the planet uninhabitable.
When such tenets are quantified, the contrast between true and false stands out sharply.
Is overpopulation a grave problem? The sum of urban areas of the United States is equivalent to 2% of the area of the country, and to 6% in densely inhabited countries such as England and Holland. And there is plenty of green in urban areas. If comparison is limited to land covered by buildings and pavements the occupied land in the whole world amounts to 0,04% of the terrestrial area of the planet. It has been held that 7 billion inhabitants could live a comfortable urban life on 100 000 square miles, the area of Wyoming. With more that 99.9% of unoccupied space the idea of an overcrowded planet is an exaggeration.
Population forecasts are uncertain but the most accepted ones foresee stability of world population to be reached in the 21st century. According to some, world population may begin to decline at the end of this century. Ageing populations is the real current problem. With so much elbowroom it is untenable that world population is excessive or shall ever become so.
The Green shibboleth is that ultimately a finite planet cannot support infinite growth, but ultimately no natural resource is non-renewable in a universe ruled by the Law of Conservation of Mass. In popular form it holds that “Nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is transformed.” Human usage is not subtracted from the mass of the planet, and in theory all material used may be recycled. The possibility of doing so depends on availability and low cost of energy. When fusion energy becomes operative it will be available in practically unlimited quantities. The source is deuterium, a hydrogen isotope found in water, in a proportion of 0.03%. One cubic kilometer of seawater contains more energy than can be obtained from combustion of all known petroleum reserves of the world. Since oceans hold 3 billion cubic kilometers of water, energy will last longer than the human species. Potable water need not be a limitation; nano tube membranes may yet cut energy costs of desalination to one tenth of current costs and conceivably cheap enough for irrigation purposes. Why assume that technology will stagnate at current levels?
There is no growing shortfall of resources signaled by rising prices. Since the middle of the 19th century The Economist publishes consistent indices of values of commodities and they have all declined, over 150 years, due to technological advances. The decline has been benign. The cost of feeding a human being was 8 times greater in 1850 than it is today. In 1950, less than half of a world population of 2 billion had an adequate diet, above 2000 calories per day. Today, 80% have the adequate diet, and world population is three times greater.
There is a problem with the alleged global warming. It stopped in 1998, having risen in the 23 previous years, and unleashing a scare over its effects. Since 1998 it has been followed by 13 years of declining temperatures, in a portent of a cold 21st century. This shows that there are natural forces shaping climate, more powerful than manmade carbon dioxide and anything mankind can do for or against world climate. The natural forces include cyclical oscillation of ocean temperatures, sunspot activity and the effect of magnetic activity of the sun on cosmic rays. All such cycles are foreseeable, but there is no general theory of climate with predictive capacity. What knowledge exists comes from one hundred fields, such as meteorology, oceanography, mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, paleontology, biology, etc. with partial contributions to understanding climate.
Devoid of support of solid theory and empirical evidence, the mathematical models that underpin alarmist forecasts amount to speculative thought that reflects the assumptions fed into the models, in response to the political agendas of the sponsors. Such computer simulations offer no rational basis for public policies that inhibit economic activity “to save the planet”. And carbon dioxide is not a pollutant; it is plant nutrient for the photosynthesis that supports the food chain of all living beings of the planet.
Stories of doom circulate daily. Anything that happens on earth has been blamed on global warming: a Himalayan earthquake, the Iceland volcanic eruption, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, tribal wars in Africa, heat wave in Paris, recent severe winters in North America, the hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico, known for five centuries, the collapse of a bridge in Minnesota. Evo Morales blames Americans for the summer floods in Bolivia.
Global warming is not a physical phenomenon; it is a political and journalistic phenomenon that finds parallel in the totalitarian doctrines that inebriated masses deceived by demagogues. As Chris Patten put it: “Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off”. In the view of Professor Aaron Wildavsky global warming is the mother of all environmental scares. “Warming (and warming alone), through its primary antidote of withdrawing carbon from production and consumption, is capable of realizing the environmentalist’s dream of an egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population’s eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally.”
Mr Green Genes……whilst you are conducting your research please remember that ALL experiments should be described in detail and methodologies clearly defined so that other researchers may try to replicate ( sorry!) your results.
Look forward very much to your paper.
Carnegie. Iron. Carbon. Steel. If Carnegie had no carbon we’d have no steel, no libraries in small towns, no concert hall, no lots of stuff. Carbon is our friend.
Communist dictates arriving thick and fast, looks like capitalism but aint.
Palo Alto, CA—U.S. scientists have developed a new, integrated, ten-year science plan to better understand the details of Earth’s carbon cycle and people’s role in it.
Two things (a) according to every estimate of CO2 levels over the past 600M years, CO2 levels fall year on year. There is no cycle. (b) At the rate atmospheric CO2 has been ‘fixed’ (reduced) over the last 600M years there will be no life (as we know it) on earth once it drops below 150ppm. The final extinction.
Humans and their ‘fossil fuel fetish’ may well have bought all life on Earth a few million bonus years . Remember – CO2 is not a pollutant, it is the very base of the planetary food chain. Remember, ‘a large brain’ is just another Earth experiment and may not work out. Some of the ‘largest brains’ want to legislate against our food chain – I’m thinking that the experiment may already be a failure. Funny that species have gotten smaller and smaller almost as atmospheric CO2 has fallen. Um yea – strange that.
It seems that the protagonists -so called climate scientists – and politicians are so vain and full of grand superiority complexes, in true Hegelian style, that they would take the credit for mankind, and foremost themselves for inventing the universe, if they could get away with it.
However, this folly of vanity, with quasi scientific justification to give it some pretend authority is nothing better than the madman in the harbour who thinks that all the ships are his.
How can Co2 be in the atmosphere heating up the world, and at the same time, be in the oceans making them acidic.
The mission statement starts right off with several outright but essential falsehoods, and proceeds directly to making a claim on global carbon governance. Notwithstanding the Carnegie Institute’s dreams of glory, the wheels are already coming off. JAXA’s revelations are enough to blow the whole enterprise to smithereenies, once taken on board, for example.
Carnegie would spit glowing red rivets if he came back and saw how his legacy was being perverted. That’s the trouble with Foundations: they are almost instantly captured by professional progressives who fancy themselves to be Doers-Of-Good, in fact the only real ones.
Or maybe not. He’d actually caught the rich man’s guilt complex by the time he established the Foundation. IAC, the desire to Improve Mankind with Great Works is the very tempting royal road to autocracy or tyranny. In the end, all such Vast Plans turn out to be Half-Vast.