Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
It’s morning here in Reno, and I thought I’d write a bit more about the Kaya Identity and the Beer Identity. My last post about the Kaya Identity was controversial, and I wanted to see if I could clarify my point. On the last thread, a commenter did a good job of laying out the objections to my work:
Sorry but I think you’ve all entirely misunderstood the point of the identity. The Kaya identity is a means of communicating the factors of which CO2 emissions are comprised, in order to explain the physical levers that are available if one wishes to control an economy’s CO2 emissions.
These are analogous to mathematical factors, for e.g. 6 = 3 x 2. This illustrates that 2 and 3 are factors of 6. This doesn’t prove anything mathematically – it’s just an identity. But it is informative nonetheless. It tells you that 6 can be broken down into factors of 2 and 3. In the same way, CO2 emissions can be broken down into factors of population, GDP per population, energy per population, and CO2 emissions per energy.
That is a very clear and succinct description of what the Kaya Identity is supposed to do. The only problem is … it doesn’t do that.
Let me take another shot at explaining why. To start with, the Kaya Identity states:
where “CO2 emissions” are the CO2 emissions of say a given country; “Population” is the population of that country; “GDP” is gross domestic production of the country, which is the total value of all the goods and services produced; and “Energy” is energy consumed by the country.
The Beer Identity, on the other hand, states the following:
Where all of the other variables have the same value as in the Kaya Identity, and “GBP” is gross beer production by the country.
I think that everyone would agree with those two definitions. They would also agree that both of them are clearly true.
Now, as the commenter said above, when we write
6 = 3 x 2
it tells us that six can be broken into factors of three and two. Not only that, but we can say that for example
(6 * 0.9) = 3 x (2 * 0.9)
That is to say, if we change one of the factors by e.g. multiplying it times 0.9, the total also changes by multiplying it by 0.9.
But is that true of the Beer Identity? Suppose we get more efficient at producing beer, so that it only takes 90& of the energy to make the same amount of beer. Will this decrease our CO2 production by 10%, such that
Well … no. It’s obvious that changing our beer production to make it 10% more energy-efficient will NOT reduce CO2 emissions by 10%. In other words, despite it being unquestionably true, we have no guarantee at all that such an identity actually reflects real world conditions. And the reason why it is not true is that it doesn’t include all of the factors that go into the emission of the CO2, it only includes the beer.
Now, I can hear you thinking that, well, it doesn’t work for gross beer production, but it does work for gross domestic production.
And up until yesterday, I was convinced that the Kaya Identity doesn’t work for GDP any more than it works for GBP … but I couldn’t figure out why. Then yesterday, as I was driving along the Lincoln Highway on my holiday with the gorgeous ex-fiancee, I realized the factor that is missing from the Kaya Identity is … me, driving along the Lincoln Highway on my holiday with my gorgeous ex-fiancee.
The problem is … I’m burning energy, and I’m emitting CO2, but I’m not part of the GDP. I’m not producing anything with that energy—no goods, no services, nothing. My CO2 emission is a part of the total, but it is not included in the Kaya Identity anywhere.
So in fact, the Kaya Identity does NOT tell us the “factors of which CO2 emissions are comprised, in order to explain the physical levers that are available if one wishes to control an economy’s CO2 emissions” as the commenter said.
And that to me is the problem with the Kaya Identity. It’s not that it is false. It is that it gives a false sense of security that we’ve included everything, when in fact we haven’t. And because it looks like mathematical truth, we have folks who take it as gospel, and object strongly when it is questioned or laughed at. Steven Mosher thinks I was wrong to laugh at the Kaya Identity, and I do respect his and the other opinions on the matter, his science-fu is strong … but in fact, the Kaya Identity is no more complete than the Beer Identity, which is why I laughed at it.
So that’s my objection. It’s not that the Kaya Identity is false. It can’t be, by definition its true.
It is that it gives the false impression of mathematical certitude, the impression that it represents the real world, the idea that it identifies the “factors of which CO2 emissions are comprised” … but it doesn’t. This false certainty, because people think it’s “mathematically demonstrable”, leads people to not question whether it applies to the real world.
Finally, in closing let me repeat something I said in the comments on the first thread, which likely didn’t get seen because it was somewhere down around the five hundredth comment.
l hear rumblings that people think that Anthony shouldn’t have published this piece of mine, or should disavow it in some fashion. This totally misunderstands both what Watts Up With That (WUWT) does, and Anthony’s position in the game. The strength of WUWT is not that it is always right or that it publishes only the best stuff that’s guaranteed to be valid.
The beauty and value of WUWT that it is the world’s premier location for public peer review of climate science. On a personal level, the public peer review afforded by WUWT is of immense use to me, because my work either gets falsified or not very quickly … or else, as in this case, there’s an interesting ongoing debate. For me, being shown to be wrong is more valuable than being shown to be right. If I’m right, well, I thought so to begin with or I wouldn’t have published it, and it doesn’t change my direction.
But if someone can point out my mistakes, it saves me endless time following blind alleys and wrong paths. And my opinions on the Kaya Identity may indeed be wrong.
There is much value in this public defenestration of some hapless piece of bad science, whether it is mine or someone else’s. It is important to know not only which ideas are wrong, but exactly why they are wrong. When Anthony publishes scientific claims from the edges of the field, generally they are quickly either confirmed or falsified. This is hugely educational for scientists of all kinds, to know how to counter some of the incorrect arguments, as well as giving room for those unusual ideas which tomorrow may be mainstream ideas.
So it is not Anthony’s job to determine whether or not the work of the guest authors will stand the harsh light of public exposure. That’s the job of the peer reviewers, who are you and I and everyone making defensible supported scientific comments. Even if Anthony had a year to analyze and dissect each piece, he couldn’t do that job. There’s no way that one man’s wisdom can substitute for that of the crowd in the free marketplace of scientific ideas. Bear in mind that even with peer review, something like two-thirds of peer-reviewed science is falsified within a year, and Anthony is making judgements, publish or don’t publish, on dozens of papers every week.
So please, dear friends, cut Anthony some slack. He’s just providing the arena wherein in 2014 we practice the blood sport of science, the same sport we’ve had for a few hundred years now, ripping the other guys ideas to bits, also known as trying to scientifically falsify another person’s claims that you think don’t hold water. It is where we can get a good reading on whether the ideas will stand up to detailed hostile examination.
It is not Anthony’s job to decide if mine or any other ideas and expositions and claims will withstand that test of time … and indeed, it is often of value for him to publish things that will not stand the test of time, so that we can understand exactly where they are lacking.
So please don’t fill up the poor man’s email box with outrage simply because you think a post is not scientifically valid enough to be published. Send your emails to the guest author instead, or simply post your objections in a comment on the thread. Anthony is just providing the boxing ring. It is not his job to predict in advance who is going to win the fight. His job is to fill the fight cards with interesting bouts … and given the number of comments on my previous post about the Beer Identity, and the huge popularity of his website, he is doing it very well.
Regards to each and all of you, my best to Mosher and all the folks who have commented, and my great thanks to Anthony for the huge amount of work he does behind the scenes to keep this all going. I’m on the road again, and my highway CO2 emissions are still not included in the Kaya Identity …
w.
As Always: If you disagree with something that someone has said, please have the courtesy to quote their exact words. It avoids much confusion and misunderstanding.
I have a NEW Equation / Identity! Klimut Science = CO2 = GDP / CO2 = Bullshit produced * $ / CO2 THEREFORE: CO2 * Klimut Science = Bullshit produced * $ AND: Klimut Science / $ = Bullshit Produced
@Rdcii “The Kaya Identity is an identity, not an equation. The identity contains only units. ”
You can algebraically add X/X to one side of the equation CO2 = CO2, and be mathematically proper.
If you construct an identity of units, you cannot justify it algebraically – you must use a different argument than “we can add X/X to one side of the equation”.
The Kaya Identity may in fact be proper, but it cannot be justified via algebra – you need a different argument.
Yes unfortunately GDP is not linked to energy use in any formal sense, though there might be a loose association, such the GC02-e rises at the same time as GDP. The question is one of causality, which is unproven. I think you are making a case for the green argument such that they claim to believe that economies can be uncoupled from carbon energy. Though I don’t think they really know how.
Longtime lurker here. This lively but almost entirely polite and learned exchange prompts me to paraphrase William F. Buckley Jr: I would rather have our state and country managed by the contributors and commenters of WUWT than by our current President, Congress, California Governor & state legislature.
Andrew N @6:15 pm:
Whether it is “fundamentally correct” depends on whether the variables do what they are claimed to do. Which is another topic. (See #2 of my comment @5:03 pm.)
That said, I suspect you are right that we are dealing with confusion due to how the Kaya Identity was presented (by Willis, Wikipedia, and who knows who else). The way you have outlined it @6:15 makes sense and is a bona-fide, legitimate calculation.
Ironically, some here who seem intent on arguing that the “identity” is useful and meaningful are arguing over the wrong thing. The way Willis (and Wikipedia) present the Kaya Identity, it *cannot possibly* be meaningful. Thus, those who want to support the Kaya Identity should be arguing over what the Kaya Identity really is — the proper way to write the equation — not digging in their heels with the indefensible position that if we put an (X/X) on one side of the equation then we have done something meaningful.
So, on the generous assumption that all the smart and clever people who have been using the Kaya Identity in actual practice for years aren’t clueless, I’m tempted to assume for the time being that you are correct and that what we are dealing with here is an initial failure to properly state what the Kaya Identity actually is.
Hi Willis,
Once again your post on this subject is eliciting a lot of comments. I will add one more.
I do not think the purpose of the identity is to capture reality with perfect fidelity; it is just a simplified model of reality. A broad strokes model, if you will. I think it does show reasonably clearly the most important factors which influence CO2 emissions, and more importantly, it points toward the real-world obstacles to reducing CO2 emissions, especially in light of the growing wealth (and rapidly growing energy demand) in developing countries and in mid-income countries. The identity points to the great difficulty (indeed, many would say the near impossibility) of a rapid reduction in global CO2 emissions.
I think the value of the identity is that it helps to move the political discussion away from non-sensical, wasteful, impractical, and even impossible approaches for large CO2 emissions reduction, and toward a more realistic analysis of global energy production and use. What gets Roger Pielke Jr in hot water with the entire loony-green left (like most of the climate science pooh-bahs and Paul Krugman… and his many mindless sycophants) is that he uses the identity to point out that every ‘green energy’ approach the loony-green left adores is just not going to cut CO2 emissions in a world of rapidly growing wealth (and modestly growing population). It forces the loonies to face reality….. and they hate it.
It is very funny to see them go ballistic every time Pielke uses the identity to point out the magnitude of the problems they face in implementing their policy fantasies. That is utility enough for me.
Willis, have you looked at the talk tab on the Kaya Identity page?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kaya_identity
climatereflections @6:40pm
Actually I feel that it is a bona fide equation, not an identity. In other words, if you change any of the variables, Population, GDP intensity, Energy intensity or CO2 intensity then the total CO2 emitted changes. I believe that Population and CO2 Intensity are independent variables. The other two would most likely be reduced to one variable, as freely available energy is the basis of all advanced economies. CO2 intensity could theoretically be reduced to zero if you had 100% nuclear power producing electricity, hydrogen via an Iodine reaction and liquid fuels from the hydrogen and CO2. That of course would leave CO2 emitted by a presumably breathing population.
Dang. I just knew it would sooner or later come down to beer. I have for decades gleefully released CO2 from copious amounts of beer. Brown bottles, clear bottles, cans and kegs. The choice based upon situational impact from supply, cost and demand, flavor not with standing in the matrix.
Leave my beer alone. Beer is CO2 neutral. No more CO2 goes into it than comes out of it. Kinda like cow flatulence. Attack that on a transportation generated by products basis and I will rabidly counter with the same relative cost applied to wines, liquors, cordials, aperitifs, coffees and bottled water.
Beer is good. Latte is very bad. Bottled water is horrid.
Go ahead, econazis, mess with my beer. I can exist on home brew beer or even backyard vodka and tap water if needs be. You will wither and babble even more than now when you see how much carbon tax you have to pay for your elitist tipples.
Leave beer alone. You have been warned! 😉
I’ve been wondering. What does all this have to do with the price of tea in China?
Given: CO2(POP,GDP,E,CO2)=POP*(GDP/POP)*(E/GDP)*(CO2/E), an equation of CO2 that is a function of POP, GDP, E and CO2.
I was taught in Physics that one thing that must be true if an equation is correct: the units must match on both sides of the equal sign. That is true in this case, so we have one thing correct.
The next thing that I was taught is that to predict things you use calculus. So what happens when we increase population or other factors without changing anything else?
dCO2/dPOP=0 or CO2 doesn’t increase if POP does and everything else stays the same.
dCO2/dGDP=0 or CO2 doesn’t increase if GDP does and everything else stays the same.
dCO2/dE=0 or CO2 doesn’t increase if E does and everything else stays the same.
dCO2/dCO2=1 or CO2 increases linearly if CO2 does and everything else stays the same.
Well, that doesn’t tell us much!
Scott used an extreme example, but that doesn’t make his argument any less valid. Countries vary greatly in the amount of energy they generate/consume per capita, per unit of GDP, or GDP per capita.
The Kaya equation assumes that each term is independent of the others. That is an absurd assumption. If you double the population you may quadruple the GDP, so the GDP / person ratio then also doubles.
Admittedly, simplifying equations such as this can be useful. Consider the simple business equation total income = widgets sold * price per widget.
In the case of the Kaya equation, it is useless.
Hans Erren says:
July 12, 2014 at 9:39 am
The Kaya Identity shows wat happens if you change the contributing parameters, if population goes up, another factor needs to go down if you want to keep the total emission constant. In a world with a continuous global recession and population increase the total emission could remain constant.
A very useful tool.
No…its not. In fact, it is a counter productive tool. The counter productivity has nothing to do with its mathematical correctness or its ability to identify the factors of CO2 production. The problem is the assumption that this helps decision makers make good decisions, which is most certainly false. That’s because it is a linear representation of a non-linear world, and the decision makers who use it as the rationale for their decisions will almost certainly make bad ones.
Let me demonstrate this with an example from history. Consider a Kaya identity for the late 19th century problem of horse manure in New York City. You can develop your own factors, but certainly human population, horse population, GDP and sanitation services would be among them. Decision makers would look at this Kaya identity for horse manure and conclude that they would have to dramatically increase the sanitation effort or reduce the horse population through draconian regulation, or reduce the human population or reduce the GDP. All of these solutions would result in costly, negative impacts that might have exceeded the problem of the manure.
The invention of mass manufactured automobiles ultimately reduced the number of horses dramatically, but this ‘solution’ was not, and could not have been derived from the Kaya identity for horse manure! Even if some clever city councilman decided that they could reduce the number of horses with some new invention that would make horses less necessary, the result would have been the horse manure equivalent of Solyndra.
The solution came from left field; it came from someone not even trying to solve the problem, and had a completely positive impact with no draconian regulation required. The Kaya identity does not allow for such solutions. It closes the minds of decision makers to a very small, linear way of thinking, shutting out the infinitely more creative and resourceful non-linear world. Ultimately, it gives decision makers the permission to make bad decisions much more quickly and effortlessly than ever before.
And there’s the rub. That is the problem that so many of us have sensed when we looked at the Kaya identity. That is what gives us the heebee-jeebees! It may be the correct equation to describe the problem, but when it comes to solutions, it is a recipe for disaster. It is a false map to a positive solution, and as such, will likely cause much more harm than good.
(I have not read all the other posts, so if someone else has already commented along this line, my apologies for the repetition.)
Willis wrote that something like “… two-thirds of peer-reviewed science is falsified within a year …” above.
This makes one wonder how many of the remaining third of papers is falsified the second, third and subsequent years… and how much actually survives unscathed from any given year? Are there years where none remain unscathed?
Is there a site that tracks published papers and their falsification status? That sure would be useful although it might be controversial if people can’t agree that a paper is falsified or not.
Willis Eschenbach (or anyone else) do you know of any references or sources on the rate of falsification of old and new peer reviewed papers?
I’m curious about that. It would be revealing to see graphs of those statistics for various science fields as well as the alleged science fields such as “climate science”.
Are there any papers on this topic that collect such statistics and provide analysis that themselves haven’t been falsified? [;-)]
Thanks in advance.
Dear Willis, I usually am in agreement with your rants and discussions and presentations.
Once again, it is a badly symbolized equation, true, but it holds as an algebraic equation if one does not confuse units/dimensions with constant values.
The last in a row for example is a constant measured in a chemistry lab which tells us how much CO2 is emitted in producing a gram of , in units of grams/joule.
energy/GBP is a constant . a number, measurement of the total energy spent in producing beer , somebody has to measure it in units of joules per gram.
GBP/population is also a measured constant in grams/(number of people)
and finally somebody has to measure the population.
These are a series of measurable constants and will give different results for different inputs.
And finally this is a CO2 constant/contribution in grms from beer production in a specific country. This will be reduced by 10% if beer production per unit emits less CO2 by 10%. It will ofcourse become insignificant in the total CO2 sum.
So it is true that it is a badly expressed algebraic equation where units and constants are mixed up but there is some sense in it, and that is why you are getting all these comments.
The long answer (because even I don’t like my first attempt at explaining what I don’t like about the Kaya Identity).
Given something simple like CO2(E, CO2perE)=E*CO2perE, or CO2 emitted equals total energy units used times CO2 per unit of energy, we have a working equation. Notice that CO2perE is CO2/E unit wise but the CO2 on the right isn’t the same as CO2 on the left. The CO2 on the right is a constant amount of CO2 emitted per unit of energy.
We can add more variables to the equation, but they don’t have any effect on the final result because their derivatives are zero:
CO2(POP, GDP, E, CO2perE)=POP*(GDP/POP)*(E/GDP)*CO2perE
In other words, population and GDP are useless additions. Now that doesn’t suggest that they don’t have an effect on total E use in the first valid equation. That would be a whole other discussion. It just simply means adding them doesn’t tell us anything useful.
Continued:
It is also true that the equation does not count all of the CO2 emitted on earth by biological organisms , as we all are, we are not adding to the GDP by existing ( except in some countries where there is a head tax) . But it is also true that the GDP is strongly connected to energy consumption and it must be true as an algebraic relationship to first order. How much GDP has a poor nation in Africa? Isn’t our argument that CO2 reduction hits the poor much more as it does not allow them to expand in energy usages which is important for the enrichment of an economy?
If we did not burn fuels other than wood we would still be in the stone age. What is the GDP of a stone age economy.
So the algebraic equation is a first order equation of the multitude of variables that enter such estimates.
Dave38: Sorry to disagree with you but “grue ” is a valid english word old
Thanks for the update. I had used it colloquially a couple times, but I did not know it was considered valid.
This discussion makes me think of some analogies with tools:
a. an axe is still an axe after you chop into a rock pile a couple dozen times; it didn’t stop being an axe just because you buggered the blade.
b. a cordless drill can be used to drive screws, but not if you have drill bits in it instead of screw bits.
c. a hatchet can be used to drive tent pegs, but you do want to be careful how you wield it; contrariwise, the blunt edge isn’t good for preparing kindling..
Don’t blame the tool just because you can, should you choose a particular set of options, render it useless.
pwl – will these help?
http://therefusers.com/refusers-newsroom/90-of-peer-reviewed-clinical-research-is-completely-false-greenmedinfo/#.U8IG27FCx8E
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020124
By the way, in my posting, I inadvertently substituted GBP for GDP. I blame my cat for the error. However, the reasoning is the same. If population increases, for instance, it won’t change anything, because the population number is going to cancel itself to a one. Same with energy and GDP. Unless these grouped terms can be morphed into some other form (which is what we did in trig identities), this is an equation that is totally meaningless. If you could just turn a few of the terms into a series, or a trig function, or a partial derivative, we might have something to work with.
Those are excellent Robert in Calgary. Any for climate science?
Our education system is in serious need of a makeover. Based on this thread more than half the people are below average at math. Unprecedented, worse than we thought.
Sadly, Willis has blown two chances to get it right. Where is the pile-on that Dr. Evans suffered for his notch filter? Hey Leif – show some consistency.
Yes that is an impossible claim, but humorous and makes a point that many won’t understand because they’re part of the below average majority.
Someone brought it up earlier but credibility is the victim here.
Willis Eschenbach: consider things like the flaring of gas from oil wells, or the CO2 coming from underground coal fires in Pennsylvania, India, and China. None of them are in the Kaya identity, but all of them emit copious quantities of CO2.
In common with most mathematical expressions in science, the Kaya equation does not have everything relevant in it. The first mathematical expression for conservation of energy, for example, was way off because entropy had not yet been discovered and included. Later Einstein added in a constant times mass, though the correction is not needed in most analyses of electrical generation from fuel. In pharmacokinetic equations (used for computing dosing regimens) most important factors are omitted and “blended” (aka “confounded”) in just a few rate equations among non-physical concepts such as “apparent volume”. In fact, “apparent volume” is a ratio: total dose in the body divided by concentration in the plasma; for drugs that concentrate in the fat, or bones, etc, the “apparent volume” may greatly exceed the actual volume of the animal, hence the abstract name “apparent volume”. Science is full of incomplete equations of this nature, that are nevertheless useful in planning or other ways.
GDP is a limited measure of the rate of growth of wealth, but urinary melatonin metabolite is a limited measure of the rate of secretion of melatonin and melatonin metabolism. To a greater or lesser degree, every measurement type has limitations of accuracy; the existence of known limitations of GDP hardly disqualifies every particular use for it.
Has nobody actually put numbers into the equation and watched what happens? Come on people.
According to the “formula” (it isn’t a formula, of course, it’s an identity), delta CO2 for ANY change in population, GDP, or energy (or any combination of changes) is ZERO. Don’t believe me? Put numbers in and actually try it.
Its obvious. The only variable which can actually change CO2 is CO2. Otherwise the equal sign in the equation would be broken.
Please tell me that I’m not the only one to recognize this.
anna v has it right, and I am astounded at the large number of commenters who don’t apparantly understand the first thing about math, and proceed to display their ignorance in spades.
In the Kaya Identity, the UNITS cancel, but not the VALUES.
For instance, the population term is in units of people, so the first term is the total population VALUE, but the second term expressing per-capita GDP the population term is in UNITS of 1 person – that’s the definition of per-capita.
The same goes for the other terms – the denominator is expressed as single units (People, dollars, joules, kegs, whatever) which don’t vary, and the numerator is what’s possible to vary to determine the effect on the output.
The appropriateness of the selected variables can be argued for certain, as can the unexpressed interdependencies of the variabiles (e.g., if population is halved what really happens to GDP/population? If practical nuclear fusion is achieved, what happens to energy/GDP and co2/energy?) – but as presented the Kaya identity seems to be a reasonable first-order estimation tool.
The one thing that’s interesting to me about the Kaya Identity is that the way it’s composed, the only way to reduce the output is to reduce one or more of the inputs – a handy policy tool indeed.