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No, this isn’t a joke, it isn’t a fake document, and it isn’t a misinterpretation. It is a paper published by Dr. James Hansen (and the GISS team) in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). In the paper (published in 2000, but long since buried) they make these two bold statements (emphasis mine):
..we argue that rapid warming in recent decades has been driven mainly by non-CO2 greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as chlorofluorocarbons, CH4, and N2O, not by the products of fossil fuel burning, CO2 and aerosols..
If sources of CH4 and O3 precursors were reduced in the future, the change in climate forcing by non-CO2 GHGs in the next 50 years could be near zero. Combined with a reduction of black carbon emissions and plausible success in slowing CO2 emissions, this reduction of non-CO2 GHGs could lead to a decline in the rate of global warming, reducing the danger of dramatic climate change.
Basically what Hansen is saying is that we should focus on air pollution, and some CO2 reduction, but not exclusively on CO2 alone. This is of course at odds with his famous 350ppm CO2 “safe level” upon which the activist organization 350.org is formed, along with many other pronouncements made by Hansen. I post the abstract and excerpts from the PNAS paper below. Be sure to note the item in red. – Anthony
Global warming in the twenty-first century: An alternative scenario
James Hansen*†, Makiko Sato*‡, Reto Ruedy*, Andrew Lacis*, and Valdar Oinas*§
+ Author Affiliations *National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute for Space Studies, ‡Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University Earth Institute, and §Center for Environmental Prediction, Rutgers University, 2880 Broadway, New York, NY 10025 Contributed by James Hansen
Abstract
A common view is that the current global warming rate will continue or accelerate. But we argue that rapid warming in recent decades has been driven mainly by non-CO2 greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as chlorofluorocarbons, CH4, and N2O, not by the products of fossil fuel burning, CO2 and aerosols, the positive and negative climate forcings of which are partially offsetting. The growth rate of non-CO2 GHGs has declined in the past decade. If sources of CH4 and O3 precursors were reduced in the future, the change in climate forcing by non-CO2 GHGs in the next 50 years could be near zero. Combined with a reduction of black carbon emissions and plausible success in slowing CO2 emissions, this reduction of non-CO2 GHGs could lead to a decline in the rate of global warming, reducing the danger of dramatic climate change. Such a focus on air pollution has practical benefits that unite the interests of developed and developing countries. However, assessment of ongoing and future climate change requires composition-specific long-term global monitoring of aerosol properties.
The global surface temperature has increased by about 0.5°C since 1975 (1, 2), a burst of warming that has taken the global temperature to its highest level in the past millennium (3). There is a growing consensus (4) that the warming is at least in part a consequence of increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs).
GHGs cause a global climate forcing, i.e., an imposed perturbation of the Earth’s energy balance with space (5). There are many competing natural and anthropogenic climate forcings, but increasing GHGs are estimated to be the largest forcing and to result in a net positive forcing, especially during the past few decades (4, 6). Evidence supporting this interpretation is provided by observed heat storage in the ocean (7), which is positive and of the magnitude of the energy imbalance estimated from climate forcings for recent decades (8).
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (4) has considered a range of scenarios for future GHGs, which is further expanded in its Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (9). Yet global warming simulations have focused on “business as usual” scenarios with rapidly increasing GHGs. These scenarios yield a steep, relentless increase in global temperature throughout the twenty-first century (4, 10) with warming of several degrees Celsius by 2100, if climate sensitivity is 2–4°C for doubled CO2, as climate models suggest (4, 11–13). These figures can give the impression that curtailment of global warming is almost hopeless. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which calls for industrialized nations to reduce their CO2 emissions to 95% of 1990 levels by 2012 (14), is itself considered a difficult target to achieve. Yet the climate simulations lead to the conclusion that the Kyoto reductions will have little effect in the twenty-first century (15), and “30 Kyotos” may be needed to reduce warming to an acceptable level (16).
We suggest equal emphasis on an alternative, more optimistic, scenario. This scenario focuses on reducing non-CO2 GHGs and black carbon during the next 50 years. Our estimates of global climate forcings indicate that it is the non-CO2 GHGs that have caused most observed global warming. This interpretation does not alter the desirability of limiting CO2 emissions, because the future balance of forcings is likely to shift toward dominance of CO2 over aerosols. However, we suggest that it is more practical to slow global warming than is sometimes assumed.
…
Climate forcing by CO2 is the largest forcing, but it does not dwarf the others (Fig. 1). Forcing by CH4 (0.7 W/m2) is half as large as that of CO2, and the total forcing by non-CO2 GHGs (1.4 W/m2) equals that of CO2. Moreover, in comparing forcings due to different activities, we must note that the fossil fuels producing most of the CO2 are also the main source of aerosols, especially sulfates, black carbon, and organic aerosols (4, 23). Fossil fuels contribute only a minor part of the non-CO2 GHG growth via emissions that are not essential to energy production.
Aerosols cause a climate forcing directly by reflecting sunlight and indirectly by modifying cloud properties. The indirect effect includes increased cloud brightness, as aerosols lead to a larger number and smaller size of cloud droplets (24), and increased cloud cover, as smaller droplets inhibit rainfall and increase cloud lifetime (25). Absorbing aerosols cause a semidirect forcing by heating the atmosphere, thus reducing large-scale cloud cover (5). In addition, absorbing aerosols within cloud drops and in interstitial air decrease cloud brightness.
Forcing by atmospheric aerosols is uncertain, but research of the past decade indicates that it is substantial (4, 26–28). The aerosol forcing that we estimate (6) has the same magnitude (1.4 W/m2) but a sign that is opposite that of the CO2 forcing. Fossil fuel use is the main source of both CO2 and aerosols, with land conversion and biomass burning also contributing to both forcings. Although fossil fuels contribute to growth of some of the other GHGs, it follows that the net global climate forcing due to processes that produced CO2 in the past century probably is much less than 1.4 W/m2. This partial offsetting of aerosol and greenhouse forcings has been discussed (29–31). Offsetting of global mean forcings does not imply that climate effects are negligible.
A corollary following from Fig. 1 is that climate forcing by non-CO2 GHGs (1.4 W/m2) is nearly equal to the net value of all known forcings for the period 1850–2000 (1.6 W/m2). Thus, assuming only that our estimates are approximately correct, we assert that the processes producing the non-CO2 GHGs have been the primary drive for climate change in the past century.
…
An Alternative Scenario
Let us propose a climate forcing scenario for the next 50 years that adds little forcing (Fig. 5), less than or about 1 W/m2, and then ask whether the elements of the scenario are plausible. The next 50 years is the most difficult time to affect CO2 emissions, because of the inertia of global energy systems, as evidenced by Fig. 4. The essence of the strategy is to halt and even reverse the growth of non-CO2 GHGs and to reduce black carbon emissions. Such a strategy would mitigate an inevitable, even if slowing, growth of CO2. By midcentury improved energy efficiency and advanced technologies, perhaps including hydrogen-powered fuel cells, should allow policy options with reduced reliance on fossil fuels and, if necessary, CO2 sequestration.
…
Summary
Business-as-usual scenarios provide a useful warning about the potential for human-made climate change. Our analysis of climate forcings suggests, as a strategy to slow global warming, an alternative scenario focused on reducing non-CO2 GHGs and black carbon (soot) aerosols. Investments in technology to improve energy efficiency and develop nonfossil energy sources are also needed to slow the growth of CO2 emissions and expand future policy options.
A key feature of this strategy is its focus on air pollution, especially aerosols and tropospheric ozone, which have human health and ecological impacts. If the World Bank were to support investments in modern technology and air quality control in India and China, for example, the reductions in tropospheric ozone and black carbon would not only improve local health and agricultural productivity but also benefit global climate and air quality.
==============================================================
So the strategy should be to focus on air pollution, not CO2
Think I made all this up? Read the paper at PNAS here.
(Big hat tip to WUWT reader Nick.)
Backup link in case it disappears like so many other things is here.
Now for the other shocker. This paper was published in the year 2000. So what happened to Hansen since then? He’s totally lost the plot from then, which from my perspective, seems reasonable, and one I could get behind.
Instead we have pronouncements like this:
2008 from a non peer reviewed paper published on Hansen’s personal website –
If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.
2009 in a article in the UK Guardian. Hansen says –
“The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.”
And this:
Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know. Carbon dioxide would increase to 500 ppm or more.
May 10th, 2012 Game over on Climate, New York Times op-ed –
Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.
No mention of the other GHG’s, carbon soot, and aersols in that op-ed.
Clearly he seems to have abandoned the idea that seemed so reasonable and workable in his 2000 paper for the idea that CO2 reduction and removal of fossil fuels from the energy equation is the only possible scenario.
I think he was affected by the money, power, and hoopla surrounding Al Gore’s success with the alarming fabrications in An Inconvenient Truth as well as the hoopla and fame associated with the Nobel prize for the 2007 IPCC report. (Added: it is important to note that all of this backpedaling occurred after Hansen’s 1988 Senate testimony where he and sponsoring Senator Tim Wirth were so sure of the science blaming CO2 saying “that it was 99 percent certain that the warming trend was not a natural variation but was caused by a buildup of carbon dioxide and other artificial gases in the atmosphere.” that they had a thermostat malfunction in the hearing room, it came after Rio Earth Summit 1992, and the subsequent Kyoto protocol. Now Hansen has flip-flopped again with more recent CO2 pronouncements.)
When you go from scientist to arrested activist, the reasonable path just doesn’t get people stirred up. It seems Dr. Hansen has gone over to the dark side of the forcings.
Ask Dr. Hansen’s acolyte Bill McKibben how well reasonable approaches work in all the wailing hippie protests he organizes. You can connect the dots.
UPDATE: graph added, thanks to Joshua Halpern of Howard University who says:
Eli Rabett on 2012/06/03 at 10:42 am says:
That was 2000, this is 2012. As that paper said, the alternative strategy would buy time, not solve the problem. We didn’t follow it and are now running out of time. Twelve years is a while.
REPLY: Yes as noted clearly in red, that was 2000. Twelve years without warming is a while.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2000/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2000/trend
What’s the rush? Meanwhile:
NOAA: Carbon dioxide levels reach milestone at Arctic sites
NOAA cooperative measurements in remote, northern sites hit greenhouse gas milestone in April
– Anthony
UPDATE2: It gets stranger. WUWT reader Jimbo points out in comments, that Hansen wrote a paper blaming soot for the Arctic ice melt, calling it twice as effective as CO2.
Soot climate forcing via snow and ice albedos James Hansen* †‡ and Larissa Nazarenko* †
Plausible estimates for the effect of soot on snow and ice albedos (1.5% in the Arctic and 3% in Northern Hemisphere land areas) yield a climate forcing of 0.3 Wm2 in the Northern Hemisphere. The ‘‘efficacy’’ of this forcing is 2, i.e., for a given forcing it is twice as effective as CO2 in altering global surface air temperature.
Global Warming. Soot snowice albedo climate forcing is not included in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change evaluations. This forcing is unusually effective, causing twice as much global warming as a CO2 forcing of the same magnitude. This high efficacy is a straight-forward consequence of positive albedo feedbacks and atmospheric stability at high latitudes. Our estimate for the mean soot effect on spectrally integrated albedos in the Arctic (1.5%) and Northern Hemisphere land areas (3%) yields a Northern Hemisphere forcing of 0.3 Wm2 or an effective hemispheric forcing of 0.6 Wm2 . The calculated global warming in an 1880–2000 simulation is about one quarter of observed global warming
Source: pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2004/2004_Hansen_Nazarenko.pdf
catweazle666 says:
June 3, 2012 at 12:00 pm
>>Twelve years without warming is a while.<<
REPLY: Well you know if I’d used 15 yrs, “Eli” would whine and say no fair!, So I used his numbers. So far silence – Anthony
Rattus Norvegicus says:
June 3, 2012 at 2:12 pm
Anthony,
About that graph you added. Why not use the more up-to-date and seemingly more accurate HADCRUT4? You might see something different:
You have to keep in mind that Hadcrut4 only goes to the end of 2010. So what I did was get the slope of GISS from December 2000 to the end of December 2010. Then I got the slope of GISS from December 2000 to the present. The DIFFERENCE in slope was that the slope was 0.005 lower for the total period. The positive slope for Hadcrut4 was 0.004 from December 2000. So IF Hadcrut4 were totally up to date, and IF it then were to trend like GISS, I conclude it would show no slope for at least 11 years and 5 months going back to December 2000. So it would not help much.(By the way, doing the same thing with Hadcrut3 gives the same end result, but GISS comes out much sooner each month.) See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000/to/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000.9/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2000/plot/gistemp/from:2000.9/to:2011/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2000.9/trend
Lazy Teenager, your use of Ohm’s Law was not satisfactorily utilized to explain your opposition to David M Hoffer’s statement. That aside, tell me how, “…there will be cyclic variations in temperature…” (from Hoffer) is terribly different from, “…temperature gradient can change as the effective thermal impedance of the atmosphere changes.” (from lazy teenager)?
Well, it is pretty obvious that focusing on pollution instead of CO2 makes sense.
davidmhoffer says:
June 3, 2012 at 2:33 pm
Just plot Hadcrut4 starting in 1998 instead….
Here is what Hadcrut4 says about the last 15 years. Hadcrut4 only goes to December 2010 so what I did was get the slope of Hadcrut4 from April, 1997 to the end of December 2010. Then I got the slope of Hadcrut3 from April, 1997 to December 2010. Then I got the slope of Hadcrut3 from April, 1997 to the present. The difference in slope was that the slope was 0.0037 lower for the total period. The positive slope for Hadcrut4 was 0.0077 from April, 1997 . So IF Hadcrut4 were totally up to date, and IF it then were to trend like Hadcrut3, I conclude it would show a positive slope of 0.0040/year over the last 15 years. See the graphs below to illustrate this.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/to:2011/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997.25/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997.25/trend
Now as to whether 0.0040/year over 15 years is significant or not, I would like to quote Phil Jones from an earlier interview where he said: “I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level.” So while the numbers are a bit different now, if 0.12 C per decade was not significant then over a 15 year period, there is no way that 0.040 C/decade is significant now over a 15 year period.
[snip – policy – links to LaRouche political document – Anthony]
LazyTeenager;
The problem with attempted humor and faking the point of view of a physicist is that it falls flat when you don’t understand the physics. >>>>
Well it wasn’t an attempt. It has been published in a couple of rags, posted on multiple blogs, sometimes by people who had been sent it in an email and didn’t know who to attribute it to.
LazyTeenager;
Please wrap your head around the concept of an atmosphere and the temperature gradient between top-of-atmosphere and bottom of atmosphere.>>>>
Yes lazy you are correct. Increasing CO2 cannot change the energy balance of the planet, thanks for stipulating to that. Much appreciate your support on the matter. By extension, CO2 cannot change the average temperature of the planet. What it can do, in theory, is change the temperature gradient from surface to TOA, just as you point out. One of the fundamental problems of the debate is that people have the impression that CO2 alters the energy balance of the earth, which you correctly point out is not the case. As for the temperature gradient changing, we have little or no data to suggest that this is the case, suggesting that the net of the feedbacks is zero.
Once again, thankyou for stipulating to the fact that CO2 does not alter the energy balance of the earth. I will treasure the opportunity to quote you on that matter in the future. Not as much fun as I had with getting Phil Clarke to stipulate to the fact that Briffa’s Yamal series could not possibly represent the temperature of the planet, or the bet I won with R. Gates about the physics behind Al Gore’s on air experiment, but a treasure nonetheless.
I really thought this was a new feature. The Sunday Funnies if you will, but it is real!
James Reid:
Except there is. Slope is ~0.003 (using 5/4 rounding). Not much and not significant, but there. However, I should point out that I was just using Anthony’s start and end points. I suppose I should have commented on the fact that the chosen period is too short to produce a statistically significant trend.
Alexander Harvey says:
June 3, 2012 at 4:36 pm
Link provided: Hansen’s Open Letter: http://naturalscience.com/ns/letters/ns_let25.html
Quoted from that letter as follows:
The bottom line:
Our job is not to place any construction on the paper. Our bottom line is that in our letter to Nature: “Our aim is to produce the most objective quantitative analysis that we can. In the end, that is likely to serve the public best.”
===================
Thank you. What has happened with regards to Hansen?
Of course, there hasn’t been any “rapid” or any other significant warming since this was published. What a crock of………
Truly Lazy (or perhaps, not really familiar with anything more than simple DC circuits?); a better analogy would include an AC power source and the circuit topology would include one or more energy storage devices (e.g. a capacitor or an inductor) where ‘energy’ would be transferred from one reactive, energy-storage device (caps via electric and inductors via a magnetic field) to another (via electron flow) for small changes in time (dt). This would better analogize a planet possessing ‘rotation’ and illuminated/irradiated by a heat/’light source.
Then, over ‘steady-state’ conditions power in would equal power out, but start-up (where t=0) conditions or shut-down conditions as well as instantaneous conditions yield markedly different observed voltage and current values …
.
When Professor Curry asked for everyone’s best shot for a different GW theory, my effort was entitled ‘Global Warming in the _20th_ Century: An Alternative Scenario’ because I had read Dr Hansen’s paper. It was easy enough to find.
You quote the Prof: ‘Soot, snow, ice albedo climate forcing is not included in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change evaluations. This forcing is unusually effective, causing twice as much global warming as a CO2 forcing of the same magnitude.’
You, Prof Hansen, do not allow for the disruption of the usual negative feedback controlling climate response by our major pollution of the ocean surface. If you (OK, not you, others in climate science) stopped b***ering about with the data then it would stand out like a canine’s gonads: in WWII the oil pollution of the oceans bumped up surface temps by .5 deg C. This was caused by the Kriegesmarine offensive. A city of 5 million people spills the equivalent of a major tanker disaster every year, just from the oil drip from its vehicles onto the roads. The Kriegesmarine Effect is a direct result of our careless pouring of pollution into the rivers. We are preventing the CCN and DMs response of the oceans to warming.
Dump the adjustments. Look at the reality. Ask, with Tom Wigley ‘why the blip?’
JF
Meanwhile here in Australia, Crazy Julia the self proclaimed “reformed” socialist of old, has painted herself in a corner of her own making with a carbon tax that the drovers dog, knows will do nothing but collect tax and destroy industry.
The fact she lied on her intention to bring in the tax before an election, but had to sell out to the equally crazy anti industry greens and worse still independents who corrupted their principles for short term money and attention. Is history, as she will become after the next election.
Even more sickening is the spectacle of people (incompetents ?) who call themselves “scientists” who sold themselves (and science) to shore up a most dubious and highly paid Climate Commissioner known for his stupid and rabid predictions.
But never mind voters, its all in the name of saving the planet, that your energy and grocery prices will wise, and don’t worry that you don’t have jobs anymore, “our government” she says, will bribe you with cheques in the mail, and we hope you vote us back into power.
Just forget or put aside the fact that taxes are forever and you will get less and less as the carbon tax bites, but we are exporting more and more of that dastardly black coal overseas and even working on sending our abundant “dirty brown coal”? overseas too. And that is for the greater good, you might think of that, when you can’t afford electricity to heat your homes, because we can’t burn that brown coal to make power here in Australia any more.
Now shut up the whinging, its un Australian, and help Julia send all that dirty coal to China and India so they can burn it there…big time… Its the Green thing to do!!
So sad!
Perhaps he discovered it’s a lot harder to tax methane than CO2?
Tom in Florida says:
June 3, 2012 at 12:24 pm
It appears that over the years they have moved the goal posts so many times that they have completely lost them.
Perhaps they lost their goal posts in a boating acccident???
Very nice one, davidmhoffer. With a few more characters and a bit more fleshing out, this could be a riveting play.
Good grief, Anthony! You make the most misleading and misunderstood post you’ve probably ever presented “…a top post for a day or two”? Talk about “doubling down!
REPLY: It wasn’t misleading, but it was misunderstood by instant conclusionsists. Yes, lets use your fractured logic, and hide it it because a few people jumped the gun and didn’t apparently read beyond the read more line (including you). The story is important, like it or not. It stays. – Anthony
ntesdorf says:
June 3, 2012 at 8:37 pm
Very nice one, davidmhoffer. With a few more characters and a bit more fleshing out, this could be a riveting play.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ask and ye shall receive…
The Oil Tycoons and the Climatologist; Follow the Money
Part of the ridiculous premise posed by the global warming theorists is that CO2 concentrations of double the long term average will result in a 3 degree rise in temperature with most of the new CO2 coming from fossil fuel consumption. I always wondered why “Big Oil” didn’t jump in and explain why that assuming continued acceleration of oil consumption was impossible, but they seem to have been pretty quiet. I think they have met with the climatologists, and I am thinking I know how it went:
Tex; OK boys, settle down, I am calling this meetin’ of Big Oil together. Now we all know each other, but we got’s us a special guest, a climatologist from the IPCC. Now Mr. Climatologist, my name’s Tex and I reckon you can guess from that where I’m from. These here are some of my trusted colleagues. Over there is Fayad, buddy of mine from the middle east, and Sergei next to him is Russian. Next to him is Joe, he’s from Canada, and Jose here is from Mexico.
Climatologist; Pleased to meet all of you
Boys; Howdy/Salaam/Da!/How’s it going, eh?/Si, senor.
Tex; Now let me get right to the point here. We been hearing all about this carbon tax thing of yours, and we got to admit, we’re concerned. We got a way of life, and we kinda got accustomed to it. Like just this morning me and Sergei and Jose went car shopping. We each picked out a brand new Lambourghini and before me or Sergei could even blink, Fayad here paid for all of them.
Fayad; it was only fair Tex, you got breakfast.
Joe; Hey! Nobody invited me!?
Tex; No offense Joe, but you stick out something awful in that stupid hat of yours.
Joe; You guys all got stupid hats too….
Fayad; Infidel! You dare to insult the head dress of 200 generations?
Sergei; An insult! Vile capitalist dog, hat is made of mink. Yours is like sock puppet.
Tex; OK, OK everyone settle down. They got a point Joe. I’m wearing an $800 dollar Stetson, you got a knitted toque. Mr Climatologist, ya see what I got to put up with? Now point is, if you could explain to us how makin’ an honest living is messing with the climate, maybe we can work something out. Now our understanding is that this here planet we live on is up against a 3 degree rise in temperature because of CO2 doubling. Have I got it right so far?
Climatologist; That’s the estimate, yes.
Tex; OK, so how much more can she take?
Climatologist; huh?
Tex; How much more can she take before she comes apart? 5 degrees? 10?
Joe; I could live with another 10 I think. I’d even dump the toque.
Climatologist; It doesn’t work like that, we don’t know for sure.
Jose; Don’t listen to gringo Joe. They so cold up there they think snow is normal. Look Mr Climatologist, I’m listening to you. But the first three degrees, wasn’t so bad, si? We can go maybe six?
Climatologist; Uhm… I’m thinking you’ve misunderstood. We’ve only gone up about a half a degree.
Sergei; No… I am reading report. Look here. It says CO2 double, tree degrees. Tree!
Climatologist; Yes, but that’s an estimate. CO2 hasn’t doubled yet, and we’ve only gone up a half a degree.
Sergei; Vatt? Right here in report…
Fayad; Infidel dog lied to whole world?
Tex; Whoa up everyone. Let’s not pull out the hangin’ rope just yet. Now Mr Climatologist, you can see we’re just a might confused. What you’re saying is that CO2 doubling and 3 degrees is just a prediction?
Climatologist; well… its a scientific prediction.
Tex; Well now then we got something to work with if it ain’t happened yet. So how much CO2 is we supposed to have on this planet anyway?
Climatologist; 280 parts per million.
Sergei; Vatt means million? Is that the one smaller than billion? I don’t tink vee use millions anymore in Russia oil field.
Tex; You got it Sergei, but this is climate not oil. Now if 280 is what we supposed to got, how much we got up to so far?
Climatologist; We’re at about 380 parts per million.
(long silence)
Tex; We didn’t even start drilling for oil in a big way before 1920 or so.
Fayad; I heard western world using “new math”, I thought it was infidel plot to short pay invoices. Climatologist, it will take another 180 years at current production rates to get to double.
Climatologist; Well true, but we’re basing our scientific prediction on continued acceleration of fossil fuel consumption.
Tex; OK, you got me jiggered there. What the sam heck is continued acceleration?
Climatologist; Well, if we look at oil consumption from 1920 to 1990, we see that it about doubled every 15 years or so. We just extrapolated from there. We’ll be at four times 1990 consumption by 2020, eight times by 2035. It won’t take 180 years, it will be less than 20.
(silence)
(long silence)
(uproarious laughter)
Climatologist; What? What’s so funny?
(laughter, gasping for breath, more laughter)
Climatologist; WHAT?
Joe; Hate to break it to you buddy, but we can’t do it.
Jose; We want to….
Sergei; If vee could, vee vould. Trust me. Vit dat much money, vee buy you new planet.
Climatologist; Huh? What?
Tex; Pardner, I’m glad you explained, cuz I think we got your problem licked. You see, we ain’t got that much oil. If we put every cent we have into drilling from now on, and every hole we drill hits oil, we STILL couldn’t pump that much oil.
Climatologist; I don’t believe you.
Tex; Well I can understand, we ain’t got such a good reputation, and Joe in his stupid hat-
Joe; Itsa toque! A TOQUE!
Tex; Ok, toque….Makes him look pretty shady. Let me explain. You see, in 1920 oil was pretty easy to find. Well we done pumped out most of the easy stuff by the 1970’s. The stuff’s been getting harder to find, and what we do find is more expensive to get out. Joe here is getting it out of tar if you can believe it. Now we’ve been keeping up with demand, but just barely. The only reason we can keep up is because the prices have gone up. When the prices go up, it curbs demand because folks can’t afford like they used to and they cut back consumption. I can let you talk to my accountant, he calls it a negative market feedback.
Climatologist; We don’t believe in negative feedbacks.
Tex; Well this ain’t climatology son, this is the real world of business, and in the real world, when you are running out of stuff and what you got left is a lot more expensive to pump, you get a negative feedback.
Climatologist; Well it doesn’t matter, the science is settled. We’re going forward with the carbon tax. We need to save the planet. We’re going to tax you and use the money to reduce demand.
Sergei; Vait vun second capitalist pig-
Climatologist; I’m a socialist actually
Fayad; Actually you are an infidel dog, a thief, a liar-
Tex; Easy Fayad, you’ll spontaneously combust if you get any angrier. Now let me get this straight. You’re going to tax us to prevent us from doing something that we can’t do in the first place?
Climatologist; Have you seen the graphs? If we don’t do something the temperature will shoot up like a hockey stick-
Joe; I’ll show you what a hockey stick is good for-
Jose; Let’s call a press conference. Let’s expose lying thieving gringo-
Climatologist; Go ahead.
(silence)
Tex; Go ahead?
Climatologist; Who is the world going to believe? A bunch of greedy, filthy rich, selfish oil tycoons? Or a bunch of poor, hard working, UN climatologists trying to save the planet?
(silence)
Sergei; Vun Qvestion. Vatts in it for you?
Climatologist; Finally. I thought you would never ask. Let me bring my colleague in. You may already know him. Before he became a climatologist trying to save the world, he was a humanitarian saving children in Iraq while Sadam was still in power. You remember how the “oil for food” thing worked don’t you? I thought you might….
I always point to the sidelining of the ‘Hansen Alternative Scenario’ in my teaching and much of my published research on climate change policy. It was the ‘wrong problem’ because it did not demand immediate and rapid decarbonisation. The Union of Concerned Scientists excoriated Hansen over this. And then, of course, Bush was elected, so no easy solutions could be allowed.
The warming effects of the Asian Brown Cloud have, as I recall (I’m travelling), been confirmed by subsequent research.
I know there was a goalpost around here somewhere…
Some cat using the handle Dave S., an author at an intelligent design creationism website of all places, nailed the black carbon bandito way back in 2007.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22dave+s.%22+%22black+carbon%22+site%3Auncommondescent.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Actually I know Dave S.
Dave S. is a friend of mine. He’s a member here too. A member of the band that is…
Play it again, Sam.
And a wan and a too and a tree. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
“But this was 12 years ago. Climate science has gained so much more knowledge since then.”
Robbie, I think you meant to say: “But that was 12 years ago. ‘Climate scientists’ have profited so much from manipulating knowledge since then.”
@ur momisugly Rattus Norvegicus says: June 3, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Be consistent: Either the period is too short or it is not regardless of HadcruT 3 or 4. Yet in your “Rattus Norvegicus says: June 3, 2012 at 2:12 pm ” comment you suggest using the HadcruT4 for the SAME period…
“The global surface temperature has increased by about 0.5°C since 1975 (1, 2), a burst of
warmingpencil whipping that has taken the global temperature to its highest level in the past millennium”Fixed that for ya!
Take away SHAP and TOBS adjustments to the raw data and the trend since ’75 is prit’near as flat as Stephen Schneider’s alpha waves are right now.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_pg.gif
“4 eyes says:
June 3, 2012 at 3:55 pm”
It’s worce than I thought in Aus. We have ads on TV stating Tasmanian hydro power generation is green and clean, been that way for decades we are told (Must be something to do with Bob Brown and alient technology). And then one company featured in the list of 250 (Where’s the other 250 Gillard?) top “carbon polluters” is Snowy Hydro, in Victoria. You simply cannot make this stuff up!