Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Willie Soon – A climate modeller has spoken of her distress at her “pretty awful” carbon footprint, including air travel to climate conferences, and energy used to power climate supercomputers.
Climate computer modeling needs to be greener
Friederike Otto, deputy director of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute, has identified areas where she can reduce emissions but says researchers can’t tackle the problem alone.
…
“Compared to the average person, my carbon footprint is absolutely awful but it is all through air travel,” she told DW. “On the other hand, working at Oxford, my climate footprint in my daily work life is small. I do not own a car and never did, so my daily commute, school run and shopping is all on bike or foot.”
Still, Otto is frustrated by some of the challenges she can’t address alone, including her house. It is relatively new and built according to British emission standards, which are poor, she said, even though we know how to build carbon-neutral homes.
Like other scientists, she said the issue of traveling to conferences is vexing. Flying over long distances, multiple times each year, to attend meetings is part of the job for thousands in her field. Such exchanges are important in order to make scientific advances. But more could be done to reduce travel, including improving video conferencing technologies for larger gatherings, says Otto.
Running large supercomputers for complex climate modeling is also energy intensive. But these simulations are crucial to understanding the climate.
…
Read more: http://www.dw.com/en/climate-computer-modeling-needs-to-be-greener/a-42887689
I wish Friederike luck with her efforts to green her profession, but I don’t see evidence of a widespread effort to stop the proliferation of large climate conferences in luxury holiday resorts which seems to be such an essential part of making the world more carbon friendly.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Friederike Otto, deputy director of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute will eventually realize that her fears are groundless and that the extra CO2 is only helping the World’s plants and food production and greening the planet. Sadly, for her, then there will no longer be any point or high moral virtue to be gained from the proliferation of large climate conferences in luxury holiday resorts which were once such an essential part of making the world a better place.
They could all donate and purchase or commandeer a small island in the Pacific and stay there–less travel–communicate with the rest of the world by message in a bottle–also easier to measure ocean rise and acidity. I am willing to help with the cause by giving and informing my two friends
If global warming is inevitable then why a tropical island? Send them to the islands in the southern Atlantic where it will be balmy in… 10 years, and then they can lament their inability to predict 10 years.
No need to be embarrassed, Ms. Otto, you’re simply a (willing) example of the absurdity of trying to go green while still enjoying the countless benefits bestowed upon you by those wonderful fossil fuels without which modern life would be impossible. Indeed you are akin to St. Augustine who is said to have prayed “Oh Lord, make me chaste, but not yet”. In your case, that would read: Oh Lord, make me green, but not yet.
Why should she live in climate challenged housing then? She could simply pitch a tent in her friend’s garden, and also attend all her conferences by Whatsapp. Problem solved.
I would applaud their spreading the wealth (and CO2) except that most of their finance comes from taxpayers, not entrepreneurial sources. If what they were doing was paying their way… Dream on.
I wonder how quickly she would change her traveling and conference behavior if she had to pay all her travel cost out of her own pocket. In one bureau, while we didn’t make staff pick up their travel bill, we did require all their travel to come out of their project budget after their project budget total was approved and project benchmarks clearly defined. One of the benchmarks could not be “presenting results at a conference.” We also made conference travel much tougher. Not only did we require a paper be finish, through editorial board, but an explanation of why it was important for their specific paper to be given at a particular conference.
Webex, TeamViewer, Skype, LogMeIn …. there are MANY ways that she can reduce her carbon footprint. Or better yet, only schedule climate conferences in non-resort cities; Fargo, ND would LOVE to host some conferences during the winter.
Spot on there Ken/ These self important, narcissistitic hypocrites should be at the cutting edge of ‘virtual conferencing’ and have a carbon footprint no bigger than their own pets. Its not like they lack the intellignce, education, resources, motivation, access to funding etc etc etc. The only advantage I can see in going to all these flash conference locations is that in addition to attending the conference they get lots of expensive meals and wine and get laid without having the partner around to bother about.
That is indeed the reason for conferences. Unless one has minority tastes, personal interaction is so much more desirable than a virtual meeting over Skype. Party!
I’d agree on the “self important, narcissistic hypocrites,” but you might be surprised at the “carbon footprint” of those internet based conferences. Just think of all that audio/video equipment and displays, and those servers, humming away trying to keep the stream in “real time,” so said “self important, narcissistic hypocrites” can quack on about the non-existent human-induced climate catastrophe.
If they really want to get serious, they should return to cave life, and start chasing down their dinner with a stick that they sharpened on a rock. Otherwise they’re nothing but hypocrites who need to STFU.
Canadian Climate Minister Catherine McKenna (aka Climate Barbie) recently traveled from Ottawa to Cancun, Mexico for a climate conference about women, thereby saving the planet by escaping global warming here
&f=1
&f=1
and suffering even warmer temperatures here
To be fair, the next UN Climate Conference (COP 24) is to be held in Katowice, Poland – one of the most polluted cities in Europe. I wonder how many of the usual delegates will make an excuse and not turn up.
This is the “conference” you allow your subordinates to attend on your behalf. I wonder how many surrogates will be attending.
Quit, you *bleeping* hypocrite.
Some people seem to enjoy wallowing in guilt. It’s futile but can be entertaining to watch.
Except that guilt wallowing is literally bringing Western civilisation to it’s knees in several crucial ways. These crazies will bring millennia of development crashing down in a couple of short generations.
It’s more like “humble bragging”, she’s wearing her supreme virtue on her sleeve for all to see.
Eric, what luxury holiday resorts would those be? I’m honestly curious, I don’t know what kind of places they meet.
Kristi,
Use this Link: https://ipcc.ch/scripts/_calendar_template.php?wg=8
This is a list of meetings for the UN IPCC for 2018.
The main COP meetings (past) are listed here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Climate_Change_conference
Some of the meetings have many thousands of people heading to the chosen city.
I’m not sure why, or who, but I’ll bet if you want, you can get funds to go.
Enjoy.
Kristi:
I’ve used this link provided by John Hultquist (https://ipcc.ch/scripts/_calendar_template.php?wg=8) to extract 2018 IPPC meeting cities:
Cairns, Australia (2 separate conferences on different dates)
Christchurch, New Zealand
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Gabarone, Botswana
Geneva, Switzerland
Guangzhou, China
Paris, France
Quito, Ecuador
Trieste, Italy
4 conference locations for 2018 are TBD
For those keeping score at home, that’s 14 meetings in 12 months.
Career Opportunities in Climate Scientology. See the world on the taxpayers dime! Visit historic cities. Thrill at the endless sites to see, Luxuriate in the finest hotel accommodations. Dine with the rich and famous. and enjoy the worlds finest cuisine before drinking in the finest sunset views whilst sipping on your after dinner drinks, all at taxpayers expense.
Most importantly, learn how to scare the hell out of the taxpayer with the latest and greatest hyperbole disseminated at every event. Never let make believe future disasters go to waste today. Your career depends upon it.
Why is she embarrassed? She’s feeding the plants that feed the planet.
” … but of the Tree of the Fruit of CO2, thou shalt not eat …”
Original sin, with bonus guilt, fitting for a new religion, and also based on nothing verifiable, with revelatory doom predictions, plus Saints and Sinners, for if thou art lukewarm I shall spew thee out of my mouth! But if you repent, and confess your sins, ye shall be Saved!
And that’s it! All forgiven. You’re good to go. No more Sin!
It’s a good religion.
Excellent sarcasm, WX. But let’s not leave people with the wrong impression.
If the fruits of the movement are considered, it’s a bad religion. Self-loathing humans should never be in charge of any policy that endangers the existence of others.
“Running large supercomputers for complex climate modeling is also energy intensive. But these simulations are crucial to understanding the climate.”
But the debate on climate change is beyond debate sweetheart – the science is proven. Now’s the time to crawl into your carbon neutral house – in reality it would need to be a sparse hobbit hold to qualify – and try not to use any cold or hot water, your microwave , air conditioning or heating.
You have to set an example sweetheart. 😉
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Don’t worry, the town will find something to do with the land, probably a big park…
Don’t do as I do. Just do as I say.
– Friederike Otto, Hypocrite Extraordinare
I hereby suggest that we hold a WUWT 1st Annual Convention, to held in some warm jurisdiction where we can all congregate and meet each other. Nothing too Fancy…maybe Las Vegas or some other such local destination with reasonable weather. We skeptic’s don’t spend much on jetting around to our ‘conferences’, and I think adding to the WUWT legacy for such an endeavour would add to its legitimacy as a global force of intelligent common sense in communicating climate issues. Invite our comrades from the other side to attend, and have a friendly debate about being able to communicate climate issues better to the global public. I would sign up for something like this, and not worry too much about any carbon footprint.
Can you persuade the taxpayer to fund this jamboree, like he (she, it) does all the other boondoggles?
They could always unplug the super computers .they dont get anything right anyway.
Bitcoin production would suffer significantly
Im sure Al Gore could give her a few tips……
I do drive — mostly to reach trails in the mountains that require attention. I have no problem justifying this.
I haven’t flown in 18 years.
For a small fee (indulgence) I will allow her to claim 18 flights. I was doing about 1 a year, when I did fly.
Oh, I’ve never been to a climate conference, and the climate never noticed.
Friederike Otto just identified herself as a devout believer.
Friederike Otto’s ability to program a neutral program is extremely doubtful. Let alone her ability to interpret any results.
And all the work and travel is for “nothing”, as we German would say, because even after such long time they don´t have models, which are valid for future times and also not for past times
Especially if you use them to mine bitcoins. (Headline: Police raid Bureau of Meteorology over cryptocurrency operation)
Does anyone else find it passing strange that with all their doomsday rhetoric about CO2 and climate, NONE of these prophets and virtue-signalling types ever hold video conferences?
It makes it VERY obvious it’s the junket that matters, not the content.
Yes, it does seem strange for people who claim to believe that we are all doomed if we don’t cut our carbon emissions drastically and immediately. But what’s the fun in holding video conferences? Making the sacrifice to lower one’s carbon footprint is something they expect from us non-elites. They, on the other hand, fully expect to live in the farmhouse with all the conveniences, while the rest of us are relegated to the cold, leaky barn.
“Climate computer modeling needs to be greener”
Why not do the computer modeling by abacus? The models are fudged to output what they want them to output, so using ancient green technologies won’t change the results.
“A climate modeller has spoken of her distress at her “pretty awful” carbon footprint, including air travel to climate conferences, and energy used to power climate supercomputers.”
She bears her pain with fortitude for the common good.
I am very pleased to announce my new organisation set up to provide green indulgences. These are based on the Roman Catholic version
“In the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, an indulgence is “a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins.”[1] It may reduce the “temporal punishment for sin” after death (as opposed to the eternal punishment merited by mortal sin), in the state or process of purification called Purgatory.”
Due to the busy lifestyles of those who have green-sinned, the recipient need do nothing more than pay money in order to be forgive for their un-greeness and general environmental awfulness in doing such things as flying, driving and buying bottled water. Our Committee are examining whether breathing should be on the list of unfriendly planet destroying actions
This money, although nominally payable to me, shall be used to undertake lots of good works to mitigate the green-sinners offences to our planet. Like…er….I shall plant trees or something and lots and lots of other environmentally friendly actions far too numerous to enumerate here.
As I have noted that many of those commenting here do not seem to take their green sins seriously enough the organisation will be launched with a special offer to readers. Buy one get ioe free.
Payment taken in all currencies. Energy guzzling Bit coin miners charged double.
tonyb
With him there rode a gentle pardoner
Of Rouncival, his friend and his compeer;
Straight from the court of Rome had journeyed he.
Loudly he sang “Come hither, love, to me,”
The summoner joining with a burden round;
Was never horn of half so great a sound.
This pardoner had hair as yellow as wax,
But lank it hung as does a strike of flax;
In wisps hung down such locks as he’d on head,
And with them he his shoulders overspread;
But thin they dropped, and stringy, one by one.
But as to hood, for sport of it, he’d none,
Though it was packed in wallet all the while.
It seemed to him he went in latest style,
Dishevelled, save for cap, his head all bare.
As shiny eyes he had as has a hare.
He had a fine veronica sewed to cap.
His wallet lay before him in his lap,
Stuffed full of pardons brought from Rome all hot.
A voice he had that bleated like a goat.
No beard had he, nor ever should he have,
For smooth his face as he’d just had a shave;
I think he was a gelding or a mare.
– The Pardoner’s Tale – Geoffrey Chaucer (1300’s)
What a sanctimonious little pr*t.
Lucky Oxford is really flat, being on the nice picturesque Thames plain.
It’s easy to claim low emissions and the ability to cycle or walk anywhere when it’s about as hilly as a Dutch village.
If she lived in Cumnor or the Cotswolds, eg, like Burford , no doubt she would be wheezing up and down the hills and buy a car really quick!
Good news, Concorde is no longer flying in and out of Fairford or nearby Brize Norton, or she would find another target to rave at!
tomas
A review of the location of green activists would be an interesting exercise.
Here in very hilly Devon, bikes are restricted to a few flatter corridors such as green and flat Exeter close by. Similarly flat Oxford and flat Cambridge are both very keen on other people adapting their beliefs.
I think an international conference somewhere warm and scenic is required in order to debate this further. Any takers?
tonyb
.
Guys knock it off with the feeble cycling excuses. Hills are no debarment.
Only to maniacs. Slowing to a crawl going up hills seriously sucks to those used to flat land.
Everything goes in cycles, for every uphill there’s a downhill.
Hills are verboten. The extra CO2 produced during the huffing and puffing to get up the hill is in no way compensated by the relaxing as one speeds down the slope – vis-a-vis the time factor alone, let alone the heating due to lowered wind factors on the upslope.
Therefore we need to eliminate all hills.
This will create lots of jobs as people are employed to remove the acculualted dirt and rock. The debris can be dumped at the beaches to increase the amount of land available for solar and wind emplacements.
those compaining about losing their swimming areas can be consoled by the fact the sun they used to ‘bathe’ in is now providing a concentration of heavy metals that were once dangerously scattered in the ground, waiting for an unwary gardener to dig into. 😀
I have done a lot of international cooperation by e-mail, websites, phone and video conferencing. I have long criticised the climate alarmists for not doing the same. I did things that way for cost reasons, whereas the climate “scientists” are not only wasting taxpayer’s money they are doing something they claim will damage the climate.
As an aside “even though we know how to build carbon-neutral homes.” I wish the “we” would tell the rest of us. If you are daft enough to believe in carbon-offsets then you may think your home is carbon neutral; however, you are still going to emit a lot of CO2 building and operating a house.
Hah. Does the phrase “hung by own petard” ring any bells?
In order to produce to we need to spend more.
The alternative is to go back to eating berries and (for non vegans) worms and watching 2/3 of our kids die before age five.
I would rather spend effort and energy to make stuff which I can then use.
I suggest that any climate activists in waiting should spend a few years as a mechanic first.
You only get to refuse something if you can do it competently in the first place
Frederika is scared by her own fairy tale. Is this proof that after all there is a god?
EZ
Absolutely not. Ms Otto is simply virtue-signaling at the top of her lungs.
FYI: list of 2018 IPPC conferences (all 14 of them):
Cairns, Australia (2 separate conferences on different dates)
Christchurch, New Zealand
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Gabarone, Botswana
Geneva, Switzerland
Guangzhou, China
Paris, France
Quito, Ecuador
Trieste, Italy
4 conference locations for 2018 are TBD
Ooh-er… Christchurch. Should we encourage ALL the priests of AGW to go to that one? With the earthquakes and the extra weight of 1000 hets and many thousands of overblown pollies and virtue-signallers they might all just slide into the ocean… 😀
Jets… a thousand JETS… 😀
Wish we could edit these posts.
WUWT readers:
Upon further review of Ms Otto’s travel, I believe we may have been too harsh. A quick calculation (great circle) shows round-trip London to the 10 scheduled IPPC conferences requires 113,000 miles (about 170,000KM) of flying.
Assuming the 4 “TBD” conferences involve 5,000 round-trip miles each (1/2 the average of other conferences), totaling 20,000 miles, the GRAND TOTAL flown is about 133,000 miles (200,000KM).
Ms Otto is a saint for tolerating this CO2 footprint in the name of saving humanity, It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it!
We’re all ‘just’ part of the carbon cycle, essential for life; climate modellers have mortgages to pay also 🤪🤣.
Yea, but they suck up other people’s tax dollars to do it.