In a nutshell, this new study adds numbers and detail to a home truth that the grown ups in the room know already. Basically humans want cheap energy. The free market, powered by human creativity and mass demand, will always find ways to circumvent national policies that try to force people to use more expensive energy.
In the absence of a global ruler (Copenhagen anyone?), the only way to reduce fossil fuel use is to invent or discover a better energy source. Any other national policy is simply pushing rocks uphill, like poor old Sisyphus. Manufacturing will always move to countries where cheap energy is still available.
Researchers Andrew, Davis and Peters conclude that national climate and “carbon” policies are becoming less effective every year
Global trade in energy intensive goods is growing faster than global trade in carbon credits. So as some countries slow production and reduce their emissions, they are simply buying those goods instead from other countries. The energy is still used to make the goods, but it’s done in countries that have less regulation on carbon emissions.
The figure 1 graph below is one of the most information dense graphs around. It’s a story of global geostrategic transformation (click to enlarge). It shows which countries are the largest extractors, producers, and consumers of fossil fuels, and whether they use it domestically or provide it for export. The US was the largest source of fossil fuels (bigger than China and the middle East) but since 2004 has shrunk to be smaller than both. It was the largest “producer” in 2007 but China was catching up so fast that I suspect it will lose the top dog status there too. The US is still the largest consumer and half of that consumption is now imported. Australia is so insignificant it scores a couple of reddish bars in “extraction”, but does not even rate a mention for production or consumption.
Figure 1: (Click to enlarge) Fossil-fuel CO2 emissions, 1997–2007, allocated to each of the three accounting points: (a) extraction (highlighting emissions embodied in domestic consumption and those consumed elsewhere), (b) combustion (highlighting whether the fuel was extracted domestically or elsewhere), and (c) consumption (also highlighting whether the fuel was extracted domestically or elsewhere). Countries in the EU27 are grouped.
3. Results and discussion
We find an across-the-board increase in carbon being traded internationally, both as fossil fuels and embodied in products, resulting from growth in international trade. Over the period of analysis, carbon in traded fossil fuels increased at an average rate of 3:1% yr-1, from 8.0 GtCO2 (36% of global CO2 emissions) to 10.8 GtCO2 (37%), while the carbon embodied in internationally traded products increased at an average rate of 4:6% yr-1, from 4.3 GtCO2 (20%) to 6.9 GtCO2 (24%). Combined, traded carbon grew from 12.3 GtCO2 (55% of global emissions) in 1997 to 17.6 GtCO2 (60%) in 2007 (3:7% yr-1).
Figure 1 shows fossil carbon is highly concentrated at each of the three different accounting points (extraction, production, and consumption), with the top-five regions at each point making up approximately two-thirds of global emissions throughout the period. In 1997 and 2001, the US held the top position under all three accounting methods: it was the largest extractor of fossil carbon, the largest emitter, and the largest consumer of embodied emissions. But in 2004, China took over as the largest global extractor of fossil fuels (figure 1(a)), as its domestic coal mining expanded in support of rapid industrialization (Minx et al 2011). By 2007, China had also displaced the EU27 as second-highest emitter of CO2 (figure 1(b)). Positions of consumption emissions were more stable, with the US, the EU27, and China as first, second, and the period (figure 1(c)). However, Chinese consumption emissions grew rapidly over the period, and other reports indicate that they surpassed those of both the EU27 and the US in 2009, and were 21% higher than those of the US in 2010 (Le Qu´er´e et al 2013).
About one-third of fossil-energy use worldwide relies on imported fossil carbon. However, dependence of energy use on imported carbon increased markedly in the US and the EU27 between 1997 and 2007: from 27% to 35% in the US and from 55% to 69% in the EU27 (excluding trade within the EU; figure 1(b)). In contrast to the US and EU, a large majority of the fossil fuels combusted in China, Russia, and the Middle East are extracted domestically. Yet production emissions in China became significantly more dependent on imported carbon between 1997 and 2007, increasing from 5% to 10% over the period (from 150 MtCO2 to 589 MtCO2, mostly as traded oil).
The researchers use their work to argue that we need to consider “cross border carbon adjustments”. Instead I suggest we need to get the science right. Everything in this paper assumes that reducing CO2 would be a net benefit, when there is no empirical evidence that supports that, and indeed there are hundreds of observations that show the models don’t work, and that our CO2 emissions make little difference to the climate. Even if there was a reason to reduce CO2, investing in research to produce cheap alternative energy is the most direct way to change our energy source. If solar, wind or tidal worked without subsidies, we wouldn’t need a carbon market at all, everyone would simply buy the cheap energy.
At the moment, the carbon market aims for two outcomes: 1/ It hopes to0 reduce CO2 enough to change the weather (which is abjectly futile), 2/ aims to artificially produce enough profits for manufacturers of alternative energy sources that they can use some of the profits to pay for R&D and finally discover the holy grail of energy production.
It’s another example of how “big government” comes to bizarre and unlikely uses for your tax dollar. Who’d spend their own money on this?
REFERENCES
Andrew, R.M., Davis, S.J. and Peters, G.P. (2013): Climate policy and dependence on traded carbon, Environ. Res. Lett., Vol 8 034011 (7pp) [Abstract]
World Government it’s got to be then
& who could seriously deny that’s what they’ve been working up to all along ?
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What they’ve been working for is turning the Earth into a global heritage centre, where the developed world is deindustrialised, less developed areas are held in stasis and undeveloped countries remain in a state of abject poverty. This lunatic ideal was resoundingly rejected at Copenhagen and China, India and the G88 have gone their own way ever since. It is only the unholy alliance of Deep Greens and power-hungry politicians of all opinions in the developed world who are causing irreparable damage to the fabric of their own economies. The rest of the World has turned it’s face away from such madness.
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.
Yes, but not until the herd has been culled somewhat – also a mainstay of “The Plan”.
With two to three billion likely to die from starvation and hypothermia in the next decade or so, plus another billion plus from various regional wars, the survivors will be good and cowed and ready to accept whatever the elite offers them, when the time comes.
.
In many ways I am thankful I won’t be around to see it.
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MV it feels like a vicious circle of history to me, unfortunately I will be around to see it so I’ll fight to make it better, after all what else can you do?
I think every person on the planet could be classed as the “Universal Soldier” so in effect every person fighting for something is part of the problem not solution.
Sorry for getting a bit heavy but it’s Friday night and I’m tired from fighting the good fight this week. 🙂
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Hidden away on p40 of today’s Sydney Daily Telegraph, a tiny article in an inconspicuous corner “Questions over spike in deaths” in the UK shows a sudden rise in deaths among the frail and elderly. After speculation about lacking “access” to health care ( free NHS health care obviously notwithstanding ) and antibiotic resistance ( no doubt without a shred of evidence) the good Professor eventually suggested that perhaps it was merely an accumulation of frail elderly “whose time had come”. Indeed! And I’m sure they are not the only ones whose time has come, just between you, me and the bedpost.
Of course this spike in deaths would have nothing whatsoever to do with officially sanctioned and encouraged fuel poverty, or the rank failure of the welfarist state as it squeezes the lifeblood out of those most vulnerable at the margins.
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Where’s the respect for the elders in our society?, if so called third world countries and tribes can revere and make sure the young learn from the elderly why can’t a modern progressive society do the same?
It’s because of self important bureaucrats that are so convinced their sociopathic outlook is justified for a twisted reality of the truth, which is everyone in the social Elite classes must have precedence and prevail at all cost.
Even if it means to overturn the quaint notion of showing humane respect & love for people in society who have spent their lives in various ways to better & maintain the society that you live in.
Tribes do this because it’s right and smart, you don’t survive nature by forgetting simple rules but our “betters” somehow know another way, self deluded fools I wonder if they can beat the three three’s rule?.
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Yonnie I think the answer to your question is this. Western societies are based on selling things. The young are more easily manipulated (ie, into buying things). So, even though the young have less money (though spend more of it) commerce is organised around idealizing youth, aiming everything at the young and trying to shame everyone who isnt young into pretending to be young (and imitate the spending of the young, such as on youth oriented clothing). A fifty year old man dressed like a teenager is a sad spectacle. Twenty-somethings dressed like five year olds is worse. Worst of all is a fifty year old dressed like a five year old. Its everywhere, the immaturing of society for commercial exploitation. If you havent noticed it, you will if you look.
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Well Said Winston,
Of course, since when have the environmentalists ever given a damn about human beings – unless of course it can be used to drive their ideological agenda.
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“they” (elitists) were openly discussing it on BBC radio a few weeks back. Coolly sat around a (notional )table (probably in reality all in different studios, I know, Ive been there) discussing why nation states are (in their view) invalid and the righteousness of world government. There were if I recall four voices with one modestly dissenting to say nations do have their good points…though not bold enough to oppose the world government trope. Nobody asked how this world government would actually operate.
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If you want to turn a cream cake into a cowpat, give it to the state to oversee. The state has two sacred functions namely a) defense thereof an b) the inception and maintenance of the rule of common an statuary law. Everything else is politics. Carbon markets are fecking stupid and a product of minds who are shallow and politically hidebound. How can you put a price on something you do not own, have no real control over and perhaps most egregiously do not even understand?. You just know the Left are on a very slippery downhill slope when they try to use “market” solutions for non market outcomes. Dumb shites, what did they think the outcome would be?. Money is not like water, it generally flows uphill. We may not like that fact but how we deal with it determines where we’re going. Creating phoney environmental emergencies in order to mandate social outcomes will make paupers of us all. I ask again, HOW CAN YOU PUT A PRICE ON AND SELL SOMETHING YOU NEVER OWNED?!!
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Socialism+regulated markets = crony capitalism. The closet Lib-Dem at present running the UK took a swan-dive into that fetid swamp.
Watch Mr Abbot very carefully – your saviour might just turn into yet another albatross round the neck of the Australian Electorate
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Kevin, I agree. The Paid parental scheme is one instance of buying votes for handouts that suggest we will get more of the same. I have also heard Joe Hockey enter the poor victimized women argument and say that there needs to be legislation to force companies to have at least 50% of their senior management and board of directors as women. This type of identity and victim politics and authoritarian ideology is typical of lefties and socialists and has no place in a free liberal democracy. It is funny how there is no such agitation for transport companies to have at least 50% of their long distance truck drivers as women or for hospitals to have at least 50% of their nurses as male.
I have no faith at all that they will move away from “climate action”. All of our political parties are really left wing large government collectivists and environmentalism and climate action are just such good vehicles for continued government expansion.
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A very pertinent post Jo. I’m currently in Europe and read a most unusual piece for the UK Guardian, that bastion of anthropogenically caused climate change believers, prophets of CO2 induced global doom and ardent supporters of alternative energy. The article comments that five of the six major UK energy companies have abandoned green tariffs as has a major French energy supplier. Needless to say the piece drew many anguished comments from Guardian readers
The URL is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jul/23/big-six-energy-companies-green-tariffs
I thought this comment (sorry its a bit lengthy) was particularly relevant to energy consumers in Australia.
“Last week Npower published research predicting that the average household bill will rise £240 to £1,487 by 2020, saying this was driven largely by the mounting cost of government green policies. Npower claimed energy company profits were not to blame for rising bills and said consumers should know the true cost of government investment in greener forms of energy production and efficiency programmes, which it said will be the main driver behind a rise in bills from £1,247 today to £1,487 by the end of the decade”. (my bold)
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Well, the Rt. Hon. Ed Davey will not like those numbers being bandied around. It might get him nominated for plonker of the year.
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Ideal time to launch those charities I proposed earlier. A charity that announces itself as existing to help communities impoverished by Green taxes. And charities to run drop-in centres for elderly folk at risk of hypothermia due to the Green inflated cost of energy bills.
The thing is, such charities dont need to actually do anything if no money is raised. Their operators would simply need web-sites, advertising and interviews in the media to promote their worthy cause, in which it is spelled out that there are people dying as a result of Green taxes.
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If household energy bills have gone up by only £240 (19%) by the end of the decade (7 years away) I’ll eat my hat.
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I have been saying for a number of years that we need to look at LENR. Not as per the older meaning of LENR (ie cold fusion) but the new (transmutation).
We need to get SERIOUS about this form of energy generation or we are just “marching on the spot”.
Problem is that there is SO MUCH MONEY being thrown at PRETENDERS that these REAL opportunities are still in limbo.
As Jo states above “At the moment, the carbon market aims for two outcomes: – “2/ aims to artificially produce enough profits for manufacturers of alternative energy sources that they can use some of the profits to pay for R&D and finally discover the holy grail of energy production.” and this is the conundrum. They will NEVER solve the problem while we continue to give them money – ARE WE IDIOTS??
We can either waste a sh.tload of money (which we already have) on so called renewables (what an absolute JOKE of manic proportions) OR we can divest some genuine cash into things such as this – some links below for the disbelievers.
In the interim, the world should go nuclear (if they don’t want to use bastard carbon based fuels) while the REAL scientists develop LENR (or something else not even thought of yet) to enable its commercial viability.
In the end (maybe long after I’m gone (who knows) we won’t be using carbon based fuels or solar or wind I can assure you – it WILL BE NUCLEAR (maybe LENR) – TIME WILL TELL.
Links
NASA
Toyota/Mitsubishi
Dr. Tadahiko Mizuno
When will we stop mucking around and get serious? When we STOP aiding & abetting these renewable charletons with grants & LET THE COMMERCIAL MARKET SOLVE THE PROBLEM.
Cheers,
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I agree. Just as the edifice of the cAGW scare is starting to slip, practical demonstrations of cold fusion / LENR devices producing kW of energy from tiny amounts of nickel and hydrogen are now being done. The small number of true scientists (not brow-beaten by the consensus view) should be congratulated in soldiering on (to the detriment of their careers in main stream science).
The irony is that, if the billions wasted on windmills and electric cars, had been invested wholeheartedly in LENR research since 1989 we would probably by now be well on the way to local, very low cost, carbon-free, radiation-free energy.
My own guess is that the drop in revenues to big oil, utility companies, hot fusion researchers, climate scientists and, of course, governments (to name but a few examples) might have something to do with the slow progress in this arena.
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Here you go again making this discussion look like a crankathon.
Even if you believe everything some plonkers at NASA ask for money to develop is viable (which would include James Hansen wouldnt it).WE DONT NEED IT.
Theres enough coal, gas, etc for all our needs if Eco-mania is simply laid to rest.
On top of which almost everything NASA asks for money to develop ends in crap. Look up the x43 as a brilliant, shining example. Billions spent on a shuttle replacement that had to be abandoned because the engineers couldnt figure out the way to make the v-shaped fuel tank that was the basis of the whole project. Shouldnt they have thought over that first? They probably did. They only needed to fool gullible people into thinking it was viable to get the funding. It never needed to ever stand a prospect of being realised to serve its purpose…government grants.
Same with this other crap.
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…when I( say NASA I do refer to th NASA – Industry combine.
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Ace
“Even if you believe everything some plonkers at NASA ask for money to develop is viable (which would include James Hansen wouldnt it).WE DONT NEED IT. Theres enough coal, gas, etc for all our needs if Eco-mania is simply laid to rest.”
Agree, there’s a LOT of coal & gas but it won’t last FOREVER.
And, when it does run out you might/may/possibly/could need an alternative!!
BTW – we once had “mainframe” computers that were extremely powerful, had NO hard drives but were used to control a myriad of large scale projects/(problems). (all with 384kb of memory!)
Anyone who thinks times aren’t changing will one day be shocked out of their ignorant stupor into the real (and current) world!!!!
Cheers,
50
Nothing in the physical universe lasts forever.
No civilisation has ever lasted more than a few thousand years.
No species that ever existed will last forever.
Human beings will not be around forever.
The planet WILL be swallowed by the expanding sun, eventually.
In the mean-time its debatable which will dissapear first, carbon fuel reserves or Human beings. Probably the latter (there are myriad hazards that cannot be averted.gamma ray bursts from across the galaxy for example).
It is virtually a certainty our civilisation (and that of the Chinese, which is semi-blended into ours) will be long gone before fossil fuels are exhausted. Maybe our successors will be speeding about the solar system (abundant resources) or maybe they will be back to living in caves (the more likely). Either way its pointless trying to fix their energy requirements in the here and now.
But fissionable material reserves will probably exist long after that.
And over that span of thousands of years, if nobody develops alternative energy sources, purely on the basis of profitability (without govt grants) then that would be surprising.
And all of that still begs the question: why should you, me or anyone else alive today care?
I hesitate to add this, but maybe I should:
There is only one thing that is eternal, and that is what matters. That is what needs to inform our actions in the present. Not some imaginary people thousands of years away. What humans do towards each other now.
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…and as for technology, the IT leaps ahead but engineering is regressing. Hence NASA having to bring Apollo engineers out of retirement to recreate the 1950′ J2 rocket engine they intend to use on their next booster. Its bizarre. And look at the space shuttle. Never made it work reliably, and never succeeded in producing a viable replacement.
60
Engineering is “regressing” for very clear reasons:
1. Engineering wasn’t a “fashionable” field to go into in the 1990s and early 2000s due to the Tech Boom.
2. Engineers with 5-15 years of experience are getting snapped up by the oil and gas industries due to the shale boom.
3. Many high-school graduates lack the education necessary to go into engineering.
There are probably a myriad of other reasons as well, but those are probably the top 3 (although not necessarily in the order I provided).
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…and your point is?????
00
Engineering has “regressed” because the environmental movement saw the dams, and power stations, and factories, and everything else that makes a modern civilisation as being the enemy of Gaia.
The two fields of knowledge that were common across all of this, were Science and Engineering. If they could weaken or suborn those fields, they could start on a path back towards a perfect Gaia.
They “stole” science, by creating a false scientific field, that is now held up as being the only true keeper of the climate truth.
And they “discouraged” the teaching the physical sciences in schools, and any maths higher than basic geometry and arithmetic. It is very hard to learn Physics if you can’t speak the language of mathematics, and have no knowledge of the calculus.
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The introduction of AGW into primary and secondary “science” education dumbed children down to the point of no return. The result is the “Michaels” of the world.
It has led many people to believe that “renewable energy” solutions can be engineered to meet needs – if only enough money is applied along with the removal of “naysaying” and “denialism”
51
PeterB, Rareke, Brian G, all true and each a different angle on the marvellous malti-faceted inanity (I say inanity, as opposed to insanity because meme adoption is a normal human behaviour) that is the world Ecomania has created out of Western society.
But it aint just physical sciences. Accross the board there is the phenomenon of “Post Modernism” which, strangely, started with a pair of architectural theorists, Roche and Venturi, and was fostered by the massive influnce of Prince Charles. The man who made Homeopathy into a govt funded NHS application.
In psychology it resulted in “qualitative research” which is basically researcher opinion pushing dressed up in abstruse circular jargon. EG, what that guy Lewandowsky has been doing.
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So what’s the difference between that and AGW “science”? If you take a hard look at the “math” behind that, it’s all psychbabble, really. There’s no consistent application of “conservation laws” of any sort, it’s all rearrangement of “definitions” of things they want to see in the physical world. (Look at how GHG “forcing” and “feedback” are defined.)
The only curious thing is the surprise expressed when predictions do not materialize in the physical world
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Judging by all the caps and bolding were quite an angry lot . This really gets me fuming -“Questions over spike in deaths” in the UK shows a sudden rise in deaths among the frail and elderly. -Winston #1.2.2. These are our parents and forebears, they deserve better than this rubbish. I have no doubt that many elderly will deprive themselves of heat in the face of spiraling electricity costs since they grew up in a time of stoic self reliance. We are failing them. We are also failing our children when they come home, heads full of the bullshit climastrophic twitterings of their so called educators and we do nothing to correct them. My own daughter recently asked me ( I suspect she was prompted) if I thought I was “smarter than the worlds best scientists” (her words). I replied that I wasn’t but that I may be wiser than many of them. I’ve heard nothing since.
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CeeTee
Your heartfelt thoughts brought tears to my eyes, particularly in relation to the elderly and energy use.
How could we let it come to this?
We should hallow our forebears for what they went through to make our lives better. Instead, our weak as p..ss governments allow this to happen under our very eyes.
We (Australians) need to disassociate ourselves from the UN & other Socialist entities, stick our middle finger up, and tell them to rack off!!! We can and will survive without the need to consult or ask for their assistance.
Cheers,
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CeeTee, recently I came across this story of a Digger from Ballarat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFsmiGxP5mg
The sad part was not that I hadn’t heard this man’s story it was how, in a popular local pub the RSL had made a small metal pedestal with a touchpad that plays the short film of Bull Allen in the link.
The pedestal came in my work broken at the base due to a brainless drunken twat in a bad mood, I welded the base and post back together and gave it a test run, well after watching the film I had to dry my eyes and wonder if anyone else cared about this story.
My answer came when the RSL bloke came with his Grandson to pick it up and the young kid proudly said he’d done a story on Bull Allen for school and got a good grade, you see the key to keeping the elected in check is for old bastards like us to teach the young real values, once there out of school you can correct any indoctrination and they love to listen.
That job was no charge also.
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Yes indeed, thats why we need those charities I proposed above (not simnply to provide help, but to spotlight the issue in the media).
30
Talk about real “Climate Justice”
Everyone loves the underdog’s too. 🙂
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Indeed…DO talk about “climate Justice” what a brilliant choice of words to subvert for scptical purposes.
Anti-industrials like to yabber about “externalised costs”…. thats another phrase begging to be used to undermine the people who invented it.
The externalised harms (they like making plurals out of adjectives have you noticed) of Green policies.
You see the first thing about psychological warfare…you have to say everything in your enemies own language.
90
That might work. For example, if the Greens can’t prove their policies cause no externalized harms under all circumstances, then by their own precautionary principle, their own policies must be rejected. That would trap them in a web of their own making because you cannot prove a negative. All Green Policies would go down the same drain they had planned for we doers and makers to be poured into!
I can hear them say: “yabut…yabut…yabut….” like a bunch of frogs in a pond. Except the frogs are far more useful. They eat bugs and fried frog legs are good to eat. Now if we could only train the Greens to eat bugs then they might be of some use. Not so sure about eating their legs though.
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I’m not much of a gourmand. I havent tried frogs legs although Ive had snail in tinned version. really liked those. Ive had alligator, bison and snake. All the same as chicken to me. Think Iv had this conversation before.
But it takes me back (those were the days) to the last thread and that business about Swedes. I dont think Ive ever had one, though Hannibal Lecter would I expect, legs and all.
Anyway, what im yabbering about for months may make more sense if I provide concrete examples, such as the above.
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I don’t know of any greenie “policy” that results in anything BUT harm.
Everything they do results in damage, they have no record of “benefiting” anything
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Spot on Ace!
30
From the “it had to happen … department..”
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/spain-levies-consumption-tax-on-sunlight.html
20
How Spain is digging Itself out of a ‘Green Energy’ black hole.
Should apply to wind Turdbines as well.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/26/climate-craziness-of-the-week-taxing-sunlight/#more-90493
20
I think Jo’s comment “the only way to reduce fossil fuel use is to invent or discover a better energy source” is precisely and exactly on the money. Indeed history shows that beyond dispute, no technical/social problem was ever solved by going backwards. The only lasting solutions are by going forward to new technology.
With this in mind I would ask readers to PLEASE look at the site http://www.lenrproof.com . Yes I know this is a field denigrated and denounced by the scientific establishment, the same establishment by the way that declares CAGW is certain beyond debate and denigrates dissent from that view. I also know there are many stupid and or fraudulent schlock science theories out there. However when I see that organisations such as MIT, NASA, SRI, Toyota, Mitsubishi, US navy weapons facility China Lake, National Instruments, Siemens, and many others claim to have reproduced the effect I wonder. Then I read that NASA and US navy China Lake have both obtained patent in this area and at least 4 companies are preparing commercial product releases. Further, one of these has claimed to have already delivered 2 off 1 megawatt systems to clients, and an independent third party test published on this system found excess energy release at more than 10 times what could be explained by any possible chemical process. Another company supposedly held a public demonstration of their system last week and MIT had an operating system on display to the public for 6 months during 2012. When I read all that I start to think that this is too big and too widespread to be a scam.
Then I think of the precautionary principle, if the threat is as serious as the CAGW activists would have us believe, can we afford not to look at all possible solutions? So I wonder why the CAGW activists so keen to protect the planet and the climate scientists so absolutely certain we are facing amargeddon offer no support to this research and make no mention of it while the only time the media make any mention is to hold it up as a classic example of fraudulent schlock science without bothering to report any recent findings. Finally I read up on the history and philosophy of science and I stop wondering.
I make a prediction, CAGW will never be disproved, the activists will never admit they were wrong and will always find excuses for inconsistencies. Sooner or later it will be resolved by a new technology which renders the entire debate irrelevant. I am prepared to stick my neck out and state the above could just be it.
Michael Hammer
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michal hammer:
“Yes I know this is a field denigrated and denounced by the scientific establishment, the same establishment by the way that declares CAGW is certain beyond debate and denigrates dissent from that view.”
No I think thats TOTALLY way off the mark. The entire lesson of sites criticising CAGW hysteria is precisely the opposite, that the self-proclaimed “scientists” of “climate research” do NOT reflect orthodox scientific opinion.
Rejecting one bunch of crap doesnt mean we should buy into another.
40
ace;
journals such as nature, science and magazines such as new scientist do represent the “scientific establishment” and they do overwhelmingly support the theory of CAGW. Also organisations such as CSIRO, UK weather office and UEA also represet “establishment” so I have to disagree with your comment that CAGW does not reflect orthodox scientific opinion. It is wrong but it is the “establishment” position.
Your last sentence very strongly implies that LENR or cold fusion is a bunch of crap. Question – on what basis do you say that, on the basis of what the establishment claims or on the basis of your looking at the evidence? Only the latter makes any sense in science. In that context I ask again, please look at www/lenrproof.com before commenting further. Its not a very involved website and will not take long to look at. If you don’t, be prepared to answer my next question which is – what are you scared of? I am not saying LENR is 100% certain established science. I am saying the evidence is sufficiently credible to warrant a VERY close look and just maybe it will be the next major scientific revolution substantially bettering the standard of living across the globe and especially in underdeveloped countries. I don’t think that’s at all off the topic of this blogsite.
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Michael Hammer, you invert the burdn of evidene. When you say:
“Your last sentence very strongly implies that LENR or cold fusion is a bunch of crap. Question – on what basis do you say that, on the basis of what the establishment claims or on the basis of your looking at the evidence?”
No.the onus is not on me to prove your fetish is crap…the burden of evidence is on you to prove we have any need for it.
Putting the population of Glasgow in a giant treadmill and making them rotate it to get their gin would also generate masses of power. Wed be over=flowing with it. But why?
Coal is cheap. End of story. Theres no reason to plug ANY alternative unless you are saying CO is an evil bad thing.
well that IS what you are saying, isnt it…covertly, subliminally. Except you are dealing here with someone who…quite literally…wrote The Book on psychological manipulation. And I see right through it.
20
Oh and BTW…if you think New Scientist is a science magazine then Id like to know what parallel dimension you subscribe to it on.
30
Ace, I agree New Scientists is a crap magazine. I did once subscribe many many years ago. The turning point for me was the critique they published on the book “state of fear”. Having read the critique, I went out bought and read the book and then wrote to NS cancelling my subscription and explaining exactly why.
However to address your point of why we have a need for anything other than fossil fuel, I thought I explained that. It has nothing whatever to do with global warming nor has it to do with sustainability at our current level. Have you never thought of what more we could do with more available power. I would like to have a car that didn’t need refuelling once a week. I would like to have enough power so that the 3rd world could have as much fresh water as it wanted via desalination. I would like to make space travel practical and affordable so mankind can explore further. On a more esoteric and flippant level, I suspect may people would like to have a personal flying suit. A higher energy density and lower cost power source can drive many innovations most of which are probably not conceived of today. How many of today’s technology was imagined even 30 years ago, mobile phones, 3D TV, DVD’s internet, digital books, digital cameras etc.
I agree with the sentiment that the stone age did not end because we ran out of stones. I also agree with the adage in business that a really good tactic is to try and obsolete ones own products (before someone else does it to one). ie: I believe in progress not the status quo indefinitely.
40
Michael, thanks for the link to the LENR site. I’d heard of Rossi before and being a skeptic by nature, dismissed it too quickly as a scam. It seems there could be be something real there after all. If it all works out as planned, the phrase “game changer” has a new benchmark, for millennia yet to come.
10
Well, not having to refuel your car is just laziness (or do you think it will be free), all your targets about energy and water for the third world could be done tomorrow if there was a will or profit in it (how would your snake energy change that) and as for spaceflight you clearly dont have a clue.Even if you had unlimited energy in a single device you need reaction mass to produce rocket propulsion. Or is it an anti-graviity machine as well?
Like I said, everything you write is an aid to the Green agenda.
PLUS..if you want to promote new technology then go do it on a fanboy site for that technology. Nothing you offer contributes to the undermining of CAGW. On the contrary, it would be music to the Greenies ears Im sure.
01
Ace said: “Nothing you offer contributes to the undermining of cAGW. On the contrary, it would be music to the Greenies ears Im sure.”
If your position is simply anti-green, then I can understand your anti-LENR stance. The development of LENR would indeed promote a “greener” future. I do not believe it is a requirement of contributing to a cAGW sceptic site to be anti-green. This almost smacks of the religious fervour that the people who peddle the cAGW nonsense exhibit themselves.
The stupidity of saying that CO2 is a pollutant would, however, be negated by LENR – energy for all that is cheap and without CO2 emissions removes the raison d’être for all the ridiculous measures that governments are putting in place to counter the non-existent threat.
A true sceptic should be celebrating a “game-changer” not knocking it.
10
The carbon credit market is a giant governmental “pump and dump” scheme!
The government gets the money from the original sale and the brokerage firm makes a commission. Eventually, the government stops “artificially” supporting the market and the price drops through the floor. The Kyoto protocol is a dead failure and since both US and China will never institute cap and trade the price of carbon credits are never going to be be a viable financial opportunity for anyone. It is reminiscent of the confederacy admonishing it’s citizens to hold on to their confederate money because the South shall rise again!
40
Opps, I missed comment number 4 above and some of the replies did not make it clear what the discussion was about; so old news I guess. Non the less, I think it can do with some re-inforcing. I note some of the comments are disparaging suggesting we risk reducing the credentials and respectability of this blog site. My question to those individuals, why do you so disparage climate scientists following the “establishment” view and yet you do exactly the same thing yourselves? Science is about evidence and objective assessment. If you are prepared to blog on this site why are you not prepared to put in a bit of time to look at the evidence for yourselves and then why not have the courage to form and state your own opinion based on that evidence instead of parroting the establishment line?
Fear of risking a too precious reputation is what got us into the CAGW mess in the first place.
42
Michael, its not about the freedom of various people to propose various things.I damn sure wouldnt prevent that of CAGW even or anything else. Its about whether we should a) get side-tracked into things that blunt the basic message (that theres nothing at all wrong with carbon fuels and fission nuclear) and b) if a new technology is viable it’ll pay for itself.unlike windmills, unlike solar, and unlike things that need NASA to vouch for them.
when people plug away at their favourite “alternative” solution…that makes for a crankathon.
WE DONT NEED ANY ALTERNATIVES>>>WHAT WE HAVE ALREADY IS JUST FINE.
41
Ace; the point I was trying to make is that you will NEVER convince the CAGW zealots that they are wrong no matter what the evidence and I doubt you will openly convince the politicians either. They have entrenched themselves too firmly to do a 180 degree reverse and anyway they see open disagreement with CAGW as too dangerous politically. Have you not observed how at least 50% of the population in Aus today plan to vote conservative yet the only acceptable point of view in public is strongly pro left. Look at the bias in the media for example. You need to consider what outcome is more important, to get rationality back into our society or to FORCE the CAGW advocates to back down. If you think as I do that the former is the more important then the best way to achieve that is by giving people a “way out” without losing face. LENR (if its right) would be a way out for the politicians and would also discredit the CAGW advocates not by trying to force them to admit they are wrong but to question their underlying motives.
11
Well thanks but Ive only been banging that same point away a few years now. And how many times this month have I insisted on this site that no rational argument will shift the Green regime. Maybe you aint been here much.
When you say this or that is a good alternative…you in effect surrender to their assertion that an alternative is needed. The entire point of CAGW is to prevent us freely exploiting the abundant resources and technology we already have. In effct, you want to surrender to that by having us run after some unicorn of alternativ energy.
Funny…thats what THEY want.
Think about it. You are basically saying exactly the sam thing as they are.
“You”, “they”, “troll”, it all gets very confusing when your shoe-shine is Charley and your landlady reports to the VC. Whose side are you on?
30
Fending off some junk science by advocating some other forms of it. No thanks.
20
Ace I don’t want to pick a fight with you and I don’t like aggression whether physical or verbal. For the record I have been involved with this site for a considerable time and have generated a number of articles which Jo-Anne has been kind enough to publish for comment on this site. All my articles have expressed skepticism of the CAGW concept and more specifically on the erroneous claim of massive positive feedback in the climate system.
I don’t claim to know your point of view and I have not studied your comments in detail so if you have been saying similar things to my comments above and I have not acknowledged that I apologise.
I do disagree with your claim that we don’t need anything beyond the current oil/coal/gas industry. While I agree that these fossil fuels are not about to run out and there is no Armageddon to feared from their use, I also do not particularly like paying $80 or more to fill up my car. I do not like seeing a dirty brown pall of smoke over Melbourne and other cities when I fly in. I do not like reading about oil spills like the Exxon Valdize and I do not like the wars in the middle east fought over oil supplies. I also do not like the third world living in poverty and I am sure ignoring it will lead to very undesirable repercussions. Yes we can live with all of these things just as we have for many years but if there is a better cheaper cleaner way to get energy (especially for the underdeveloped world) I am all for it. That is how society progresses.
I agree that it greatly galls me to not call the CAGW alarmists to account for the damage they are doing and have done. I do feel that at least part of their agenda is to force the western world to de-industrialise and return to a semi feudal type of existence. I am however much more concerned to avoid further damage to our society (blackouts, fuel poverty, massive deaths in the developing world from deflection of food into bio fuel production)than I am to score points. Look at comment 12 by Fijidave (I did), its frightening where this could lead.
Your comments in your latest posts still suggest yous see LENR/cold fusion as disreputable fringe science. I take it that means you have not looked at the website I mentioned. I told you what my question would be, why are you trying so hard to avoid looking at the evidence? Why not look at it and then comment whether it is just the same as hydrogen cells and other fads of the past.
51
The problem, Michael, which you highlight, is that if cold fusion were a feasible alternative to fossil fuels, a technological advance which would cut into the profitability of fossil fuels even marginally, then a pattern of disinformation would be launched to deride it as frippery and flakery, REGARDLESS of its merit. Now, that doesn’t mean those spruiking cold fusion are onto something legitimate (I have no opinion either way), or whether it is just another blind alley pushed by pseudoscientific crackpots. However, I think it is fair and reasonable to hear proponents out at least, be open minded to the possibilities and wary of counter propaganda trying to discredit it, and also to ask for some proof beyond the fringes of mere speculation.
I would say that one thing, however, and that is that governments, fossil fuel companies, electricity providers and environmentalists all share in common. They all fear, more than anything else, the development of a source of cheap, sustainable, pollution free means of energy generation that would allow individuals to power their homes and have mastery of their lives independent of them. It would be a CALAMITY of monumental proportions.
Just as a world without hunger, an absence of racism, a true equality of the sexes, a society free from disease and pestilence is also their worst nightmare, and therefore governments and those powers that be do everything in their power to foster and propagate them. Advances in these areas often runs counter to the mainstream, against the incentives of governments and the corporatocracy, and against the objections of establishment scientists.
In a world that lacks nobility, that lacks empathy or even a modicum of open-mindedness, I think it behooves us to allow people to speak, especially someone as logical and reasonable as Michael Hammer.
100
Well said, Winston and Michael.
40
If I may come in here, there is a similar situation when speaking of Concentrating Solar (CS) Power.
It has to do with scale.
CS suffers considerably from this ‘scale’ effect.
We are told ad infinitum that CS is the way of the future and that it can be ‘worked up’ to replace large scale coal fired power. This is wishful dreaming at the absolute best, and just because it is mooted at all,, and with the critical phrase ….. replace coal fired power ….. mentioned in the same context, then the average punter just laps it up, and it becomes a self fulfilling thing. People say it, therefore it is fact.
CS has a major (and let me stress that word MAJOR) problem, the size of the actual generator which makes the power. CS (in its two or three main forms) uses mirrors focussed to a focal point. This concentration of heat from the Sun can be used to (a) boil water to steam to drive the turbine/generator complex, or (b) make one of a number of compounds molten, and the heat from this molten compound then boils water to steam to drive the turbine/ generator complex.
The absolute critical point here is the weight of the rotor in the generator itself. This is what has to be driven ….. by the turbine ….. by the steam ….. by the molten compound ….. by the heat focussed by the mirrors.
There is no way you can hook up a large generator, say like Bayswater which uses (each unit) a 660MW generator or the Chinese ones 1000MW, or even up to 1300MW that the Chinese are now using, and even in Nukes, which can utilise 1000 to 1200MW generators.
The rotor weight is huge, sometimes up beyond 500+ tons. Hook one of them up at a CS plant and it will NEVER turn. (has that word never sunk in) The weight is too much for the steam to drive. CS can never make that amount of high temperature high pressure steam.
The best they can manage is 50MW, and when you hear of plants (the current average) of 250MW, they have 5 X 50MW units. In this case, (all with NO heat diversion) they will run for around 4 to 6 hours a day on average spread across a whole year, both Summer and Winter. It takes until around 10AM for the heat to be enough to boil the water to the required scale of steam to drive the units, and the last unit might stop around 5 to 6 PM, sometimes even later, but that would be on a really good day.
There is some hope, that with advances in technology, they may (again, let me accentuate that word may) be able to manage 250MW generators, but people working on that say it is years away yet, if at all.
So, that’s for NO heat diversion.
If there is heat diversion, then they need that compound as close to or at molten for as long as possible so it can make the steam to drive the unit.
If you can see the problem here, it all comes back to the weight of the rotor to be driven. Smaller weight, more easily turned, less steam, less heat in the compound, working backwards.
You hear of this wonderful Spanish plant, the plant in Spain did this, the plant in Spain did that, look to this Spanish Plant, wow, look at that Spanish plant.
The bloody plant in Spain.
17MW for one 24 hour period.
17MW.
The equivalent of a fart in a windsock.
The Plant in Spain. Over a whole year the average Capacity Factor came in at 60%, which is supplying its full (17MW) for 60% of the time. That comes in at just under 15 hours a day, so if there is the odd extremely hot cloud free Summer’s day where it did manage the full 24 hours, then conversely, there must be days when it does considerably poorer than that, like all Winter etc.
But it all comes down to 17MW.
Scale.
The same, or similar applies with all new technologies.
Until they can actually scale it up to a full and constant 24/7/365 operation generating LARGE amounts of electricity, it will still only be in the realms of R and D. That’s OK, but during that time, they will only be boutique plants for testing.
You have proven technology now. Large, nay HUGE scale plants, coal fired, Nuclear Stage 4, and with Stage 5 coming through, all of them already capable of providing the scale of power needed.
Not a piddling 17MW, on a 15 hour basis, with that overhyped 24 hour time that it actually did do this.
The cost of CS is huge, and the cost of CS with heat diversion (that 17MW plant) is a quantum level higher again, and they will never get any cheaper, and again there I am with that word never again.
Small advances are nice to know about, encouraging to know they are working on them, but until they reach the stage where they can supply those huge amounts of power, we just have to go with what we already have.
I know this has been long and Moderators, I apologise for that, but just mentioning the word ….. scale, and then not explaining why is just meaningless.
Tony.
101
All your talking points are standard leftist rubric. “wars in the middle East fought over oil supplies…” you parrot. Well aint that just a swell declaration of what your politics are about. I guess Bush senior was the guy who made Saddam invade Kuwait and Bush Jnr was really the guy who launched over 20,000 Jihad attacks against non-Muslim interests around the world. Oh yeah, who would you tell us demolished the World Trade Centre.
Im getting to like the way your mask slips so easily.
Youre a Green. Its getting clearer every comment.
00
No Ive said repeatedly…fringe or not.IRRELEVANT.
NOT NED\eD.
To say its needed is to imply theres something wrong with both Carbon and Fission. THAT is a GREEN position. THAT is YOUR position.
00
“The free market, powered by human creativity and mass demand, will always find ways to circumvent national policies that try to force people to use more expensive energy.”
So when is the amazing free market going to reduce my electricity bill?
30
When someone comes up with something, smaller than a fridge, and around the same cost, that’s cheap to run and capable of supplying all the power you and your family need. That’s what is so attractive about the LENR concept.
And while I agree with Ace about there being plenty of coal, oil and gas, the truth is, as some sheik put it at Copenhagen, “we didn’t leave the stone age because we ran out of rocks”.
41
What youve just said makes utterly no sense.
While theres plenty of everything else nobody needs or wants some poxy snake-oil power fridge.
I really cant believe how people who call themselves “sceptics” can be so gullible.
Your memory aint that long or have you lost the combination to the vault. Nuclear fusion was going to give us abundant free electricity….seventy years ago. and yes, after hundreds of billions have been spent on it they still keep swallowing billions more and it still aint happenning.
Any reason to think your poxy LENR would be any different.
If its such a hot proposition why does it need govt money? Why does a parade of plonkers have to waltz around the internet singing the need for govt cash, cash, cash….
As I said before, every time you tout ANY “alternative” you effectively surrender to the Green agenda. THEY want alternatives. YOU are doing their preaching for them!
53
…oh yeah…look in your vault if you can find the key and discover how hydrogen fuel cells were being touted by all and sundry. People like you. They still have a few web-shites up.
42
Hey Ace, nothing wrong with horses right?, and there’ll only ever be a market for about 3 desktop computers. For an apparently intelligent person, you have a very closed mind. Science will soon tell us whether LENR is fact or fake. Dogma will ensure the Stone Age lasts until we run out of stones.
00
The automobil didnt need govt cash to enter mass production. Nor did the PC. Come to that, if wonder-power was such a cert, why aint Bill Gates funding it, h has more personal cash than the entire worth of several countries.
The issue is whether or not CO2 is a problem?
Ranting on about an “alternative” of any kind, windmills, solar or wonder-power is to fall into a Green trap that amounts to surrender to their demonisation of CO2.
You do their work for them.
00
Actually there are many instances of government subsidies and funds for these industries. You shouldn’t just make stuff up.
This is not under any serious scientific debate. It is a problem, the only question is how big of a problem. We do not demonise CO2, it is a compound, it has many useful and necessary uses. In fact in the atmosphere it keeps our planet 30 deg c warmer than it would have been without it, basically pretty much a frozen wasteland.
But this is a balancing act as far as a habitable planet for us is concerned. For the planet to evolve to this point with the climate we enjoy and the ability to sustain 7 billion people the CO2 in the atmosphere had to be sequestered millions of years ago over a process that takes several million years. Consequently our CO2 levels cycled over the last million years between 180 – 300ppm. Now our CO2 has hit 400ppm through our burning of fossil CO2 as we release millions of years of sequestered CO2 over decades into the carbon cycle. Once out it is not easy to get back in and will keep effecting our climate for 100’s to thousands of years.
http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators/
12
Finally you get to the point where the crux of the issue is. As I have said ad nauseum, most here agree that the world has warmed, and also agree that man has had an influence, but the issue is how much of a problem is it??
This is where the projections from the models come in. You claim that the models aren’t the science, but the output from the models ARE USED TO FORMULATE POLICY with respect to either prevention or mitigation strategies. If the models overcook the figures (which they have, and you have been provided examples of peer reviewed research which discusses this) than we can overcook the response. There is little point spending billions of dollars when it isn’t required. You might be happy to sacrifice sectors of the economy to gaia willy nilly but many here don’t.
00
Actually there is plenty of evidence that it is already a big problem. Increasing trends in hot days and nights over cold ones, increasing trends in extreme precipitation events, increasing sea level, increasingly severe and unpredictable weather due to the warming arctic and a destabilising jetstream, ocean acidification and warming affecting corals and fish supplies etc etc. Policy is informed by ALL THE SCIENCE and not just a cherry picked period of a graph out of context and without science and not taking into account natural variations and long term trends.
You should go to the IPCC and check out all of AR4, there is a lot more there than models, they have their place, are useful, and are largely correct, but the science is not based upon them, they are just one of the tools. It actually seems that they have underestimated how sensitive the climate is to changes with most observations worse than predictions.
Since people are already suffering there is actually a better argument for a faster transition. Regardless we cannot know for sure how bad it will get or how fast it will get that bad, the only sensible solution is to move to an orderly transition to renewables as fast as is practicable and stop the rising concentrations of CO2 into areas higher than in millions of years. This uncontrolled experiment in geoengineering is reckless, selfish and dangerous.
You may be happy to sacrifice your children and future generations for your short term needs but somebody needs to speak for them, they are being left out of the equation.
http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators/
02
30 degrees?? Bullshit. Peer reviewed science please.
00
Bullshit. Peer reviewed science please.
00
Ace,
I didn’t say LENR worked. I’ve read all the stuff available since Andreotti first announced his “discovery”, and I STILL have no idea whether there’s anything in it, or it’s all just a big con. Given that he’s been claiming to have a unit ready for mass production and sale for going on two years now, I’m currently leaning towards “con”.
Notwithstanding all that, I:
A) – Answered RoHa’s question – the free market will solve his electricity bill issue (if and) when somebody builds and markets something practical to make him independent of the grid;
B) – Stated that it was the collective hope for something like that, that created the interested in LENR and similar devices, and
C) – Pointed out that, based on history, some form of new technology will almost certainly replace fossil fuels long before we run out of them. The same thing can be said of steel, aluminum and a thousand other things we think we couldn’t possibly live without, at the moment.
.
What’s the matter with you today – get a knock-back last night, or something?
70
Hi memory Vault; I also oscillate between “wow” and “con”. One thing I would say however, My job is research for a high tech multinational spectroscopy company. The last major technology I researched took 11 years from start to product release. Just over 2 for me in research and then a bit over 8 in development, We initially thought development would be more like 2-3 years so I know just how much slippage can occur. The fact that his promises have not all come to fruition does not greatly faze me. If it was just Rossi I would indeed be exceptionally skeptical however it isn’t. Defkalion claim to have a product far advanced in development, Brillouin claim to be developing a product as does Nichenergy. NASA and Naval research labs have both filed patents. National instruments is openly supporting it. Toyota and Mitsubishi have both claimed to have achieved reliable operation. MIT (Prof Hagalstein) claimed to have a working unit demonstrating above unity for 6 moths in 2012 and so on. There are many others. The claims are there are now thousands of successful replications in the literature. At some point the sheer number of people involved speaks against a scam or con.
If true, this development is likely to be as big as the computer revolution and could very easily change world politics and country technology rankings. Note that most of the work and development seems to be coming from Europe (Italy and Greece) not America.
What is interesting is that this work has been done almost totally without government funding – mostly by self funded private individuals. The comment from ACE, if its so great why does it need government funding is simple to answer. When I was doing the research for the product mentioned above my work added up to at most a couple of hundred thousand dollars. The development that followed after proof of concept was established cost several million. Sure,one can leave it to private individuals and eventually the money will probably be found but a government grant can sure speed it up and I for one would very much like to see the day when we became independent of chemical energy for the reasons I gave in previous posts on this thread.
40
Mr. Hammer, shouldn’t we be concerned about government monies tied to government market control? (when I say government I really mean crony government)
10
Hi Mike,
I really didn’t express myself all that well. Yes, I’ve seen and read enough, from enough different, reliable sources, to accept that “something” is demonstrably happening in the LENR process. I even know a Victorian dairy farmer who has reproduced the effect, albeit not at a usable rate of energy production.
The question is, is it enough of a “something” to produce commercially viable amounts of energy?
My comment about it possibly being a “con”, was aimed specifically at Rossi (no idea where “Andreotti” came from), not the process per se. Even then, perhaps “con” was the wrong word. It seems to me that Rossi, and maybe the others, are aiming at perfection, before they release it.
That brings to mind Ralph Sarich, and his orbital engine. He got it to the point where Volvo-Penta were ready to enter a multi-million dollar licencing agreement to use the design for a boat engine, but Sarich wouldn’t sign. He wanted perfection. So he continued dithering and tinkering until eventually the march of technology left him behind.
I think something similar might have been behind the falling out between Rossi and Defkalion, which is about when I stopped following the saga. At some point these technologies have to end up in the field and subjected to real life, before any further meaningful development can take place. If Henry Ford had waited until he had “perfected” the Model T, we’d still be getting around on horses, and cars would still be playthings of the rich.
The other disturbing development has been the shift of emphasis by the major players, away from house-size units, to industrial-scale power generation. As Winston pointed out above, the most exciting thing about these alternative technologies is not simply the COST of power, but the independence they provide from the current controlled system.
If they simply become a cheaper, “alternative” means of generating power for the existing grid system, then governments will simply make more profit in the form of taxes and charges lumped onto electricity bills, and nothing much else will change.
30
Hi Memory vault. I agree with your comments. Small “house sized” and “car sized” units are the BIG attraction. I suspect they are focusing bigger because its easier from a regulation point of view.
10
Michael:
“What is interesting is that this work has been done almost totally without government funding – mostly by self funded private individuals. The comment from ACE, if its so great why does it need government funding is simple to answer. When I was doing the research for the product mentioned above my work added up to at most a couple of hundred thousand dollars. The development that followed after proof of concept was established cost several million. Sure,one can leave it to private individuals and eventually the money will probably be found but a government grant can sure speed it up and I for one would very much like to see the day when we became independent of chemical energy for the reasons I gave in previous posts on this thread.”
“private individuals”…Have you any idea how much money corporations have for R+D? Sure you do. So why try to imply the only alternative to govt money (eg NASA) is “private individuals”.
00
He’s still warming up since last winter.
20
MmoryVault.R your Point “A”…nobody needs to invent ANYTHING nrw…thy just need the Green taxes and regulators off their backs.
In the UK 60% of the increase in energy prices is pure Green tarrif.
00
Cripes. Wrap your looking gear around this!
30
FijiDave,
I think we, and Mark Steyn et al also to their upcoming displeasure, are about to find out just how corrupt our legal system can truly be, and just how selective presentation and suppression of evidence can make a silk purse out of even Michael Mann’s sow’s ear.
This is indeed a sad era for western society, and for the integrity of what past generations struggled manfully to leave as a legacy. Concepts such as a free and independent press- gone, a fair and impartial judicial system with the presumption of innocence- gone, a separation of powers between government and the judicial system- gone, an ethical approach by health professionals to the delivery of health care for the sole benefit of the patient- gone, governments that serve the interests first and foremost of their citizens instead of themselves- gone, scientists who stand by principles of open vigorous debate and complete transparency of methodology and data- gone. Now, I appreciate that these aspirations were never fully realized in practical terms throughout the late 19th and 20th Century, but at least the intent was there, and those upholding such principles were not the minute minority. Once these functions of civilisation’s are eroded, there is only one direction that we can go, and that is down.
Stupidity and hubris, greed and dishonesty are the four horsemen of the coming apocalypse, with a genocide of the most monumental degree already in the offing. All cheered on by a passive, apathetic and anaesthetised populace.
70
You are in fine form today, Winston. Another thumbs up.
30
I was feeling crook when I posted the link, and now I’m feeling crooker, Winston. Well said!
Coincidentally, I had been reading this and this today when my brother sent me the link to the Mann vs Steyn case, and what I read there after reading the Lavoisier blog fair knocked me for a six. It is so bad, I half expect someone to own up to fact that the Judge is a figment of someone’s overheated imagination in a novel that begins, “It was a dark and stormy night….”
American law appears to be more corrupt than I had imagined. The founding fathers must be twitching in their sarchophagi.
20
To give a more considered (less Fanboy) response to RoHas questuion:
“So when is the amazing free market going to reduce my electricity bill?”
…when the Green levy is lifted.
Which aint going to happn as long as people such as above unwittingly give support to the dogma that says we need to reduce energy consumption or find alternatives. We dont.
70
The source of the electricity appears to be minor in determining actual cost . NZ is 80% renewable, mostly hydro , which cost 3-5 (US) cents / kWhr to geneerate , but I pay 19 cents/kWhr. Coal remains the cheapest way to generate, but so what?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing#Price_comparison
The best thing that i can do to reduce actual cost is to consolidate supply so that I pay as few line charges as possible. The more meters that one has , all supplied from a single incoming line, the more that one pays. I have about 11 meters but only six incoming lines. I can get down to four incoming lines and 4 meters; therefore only 4 line charges , down from eleven.
20
Then if I install three of these at hubs, and sell excess , I can get my costs down: http://www.powerco.co.nz/Divisions/BASEPOWER/BASEPOWER-Remote/
Then three of these , and I might get some stable quality power at a reasonable price:- http://www.leviathanenergyinc.com/wind-lotus.html
10
People thought EXACTLY that about roof-top solar cells.
01
Maybe you didn’t notice the diesel generator included in the basepower setup. And those Zn-Br batteries are not small. The current situation is voltage fluctuating between 215 and 250 volts and subject to outage.
How will my proposed setup be worse?
10
But what is wrong with a distributed/diesel/solar(minimal)/wind (VAWT) system such as I have illustrated? Cost? We’ll see.
00
and they were right. I have only had one positive electricity bill in 4 years, and I only have 1.5kwh on a normal metropolitan house.
14
1.5kwh
You can’t even get the terminology right, you fool.
1.5KW – 6 Panels
You know why you haven’t had a power bill.
Because I’m bloody well paying it for you, me and every other Australian.
1.5KW.
You bloody cheapskate.
You sucked up a Government subsidy to fit the damned things and then sucked up a Government subsidy for the pitifully minutely tiny amount of power you feed back to the grid.
And you have the damned hide to gloat about it. You people make me sick.
If you’re so damned certain of what you say, do it right. Take yourself off the grid. Power your whole home yourself. Buy the correct system to fill your whole residential electrical needs, and then buy the correct sized battery bank, oh, and you’ll need a new Battery bank every five to 7 years. Go look up what all that’s going to cost you, but hey don’t worry, because that’s subsidised BY ALL OF US also. Support yourself. Don’t ask us to support you and then come here and gloat about it.
More than three quarters of your electricity consumption still comes FROM the grid, from coal fired power in the main.
You f[self snip] hypocrite.
By the way. 1.5KW system. One positive power bill in 4 years. Liar!
Tony.
71
Cool.Tony thats a top dollar put down. Cheers!
20
Thanks 🙂
Nope. As things needed replacing I switched to high star rating appliances. More efficient fridge, brought one of those small desktop ovens because we rarely ever need the big one, turn off standby appliance at the powerpoint. Basically the only thing running during the day while I am producing some renewable power for you is my energy efficient fridge. That way I maximise what I supply and minimise what I use.
Your the liar, you make these grand negative assumptions about me without having a clue, most times I produce as much as I use.
Your welcome.
04
“Thanks :-)”
Arrogant thief stealing money from other electricity users. So noble.
10
Michael,
You lying b[self snip]
Your 6 panels (the lowest number you can actually buy with other people’s money) generates power while the Sun actually shines on the panels. The power being generated is consumed by the residence first, and if anything is left over that is fed back to the grid, a piddlingly tiny amount of power that is of less than zero use to anybody, let alone driving the grid.
At around 5PM at the absolute latest, solar power cuts out and the grid cuts in.
This period of time is when household power consumption is at its highest, power ….. FROM the grid, in the main, coal fired power.
You say that you make as much as you use.
You f[self snip] liar.
You make the absolute minutest tiniest amount of power with your panels.
You SELL what is left after your home uses what it needs to the grid.
You are not generating green power for me to use. The excess you sell back to the grid is NOT USED BY ANYONE.
You use power from the grid.
You can’t have it both ways. You sell the power to the grid. You can’t then claim it’s as much as you use.
The grid is not your own personal battery, you dolt, and even if it was, you’ve already sold the power ….. and I’m paying for it, along with every other Australian via the increased costs of power.
Liar.
Hypocrite.
Moron.
Every other ad hom I can think of.
Tony.
40
Actually is this amount of abuse allowed? Is there a moderator?
You are very arrogant in your ignorance. My bill tells me how much kwh I have produced and sold back to the grid and how much I have used, I have had several bills where those amounts where around the same amount. In fact come to think about it that would mean I have actually produced more than I used and so a net positive of power produced. Because that means the power I have sold back to the grid is in excess of what I am using (which would not show).
So throw as much ad hominem attacks as you like, you are a very nasty spiteful little man who uses personal attacks to disguise his ignorance.
03
Michael,
let’s actually reduce this from your sublime to the actual ridiculous.
You have a 1.5KW system.
Let’s actually pretend that the amount of power not consumed by your residence, eg, the power that is returned to the grid is contributing towards the power available at that grid, which it isn’t, but hey, let’s pretend anyway.
That amount of power you return to the grid across ONE FULL DAY is the same amount of power being generated by Bayswater in, umm 1.15 MILLISECONDS.
0.00115 Seconds.
No wonder you gloat so much.
Tony.
40
You have left the realms of reality in your efforts to vilify me. Shame on you, how is that a fair comparison, I am one house, why am I supposed to be compared to the powering of a whole suburb? Your desperation and hate for me has blurred your senses. I feel sorry for you.
I am merely a normal taxpayer who accepts the science and is trying to do what he can for his kids and their future.
04
You wouldn’t make them conform to every quack idea that is posed out there and labeled “science,” would you?
It is exactly what you are doing now, you’re like the people who withhold childhood vaccinations because it is “scientifically proven” to be harmful.
If you carry on this way with your children you haven’t done them a bit of good, or anyone else for that matter, you have only conformed to some Government rattling that they snicker about when you do.
30
Jo off topic here: I don’t know if you’ve seen this paper. Supports Murry Salby’s research all the way.
Suggest all bloggers on this site have a look. Paper is not paywalled.
“The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658
21
Cold In Oz.you are NOT off topic. You are exactly ON topic. Its a bunch of Popular-Mechanic readers who are off-topic and have hi-jacked this thread. As they tend to do every time. In the UK we call such people “twitchers”…train spotters and middle aged men who can distinguish between types of Sixties motor by the tread marks they leave on the road.
12
Except this lot leave skid marks.
01
the globalist agenda was a great trick, and they nearly pulled it off.
in hindsight, it seems to me, the science was merely a backdrop to provide an opportunity to financialise carbon dioxide, which was to make trillions for the carbon trading cowboys & nuclear/renewable industries, using the savings of the baby boomer generation.
hopefully, we can ensure an ETS never gets off the ground, at which point CAGW will fade away & the scientific method will be saved in the process.
60
Actually 97% of the climate science, 97% of climate scientists and nearly 100% of internationally recognised scientific organisations say otherwise. This is based on observations, not models, such as temperature trend (2001-2010 hottest decade on the instrumental record), extreme precipitation events up 7%, trends in hot day&night records broken over cold ones, lowest arctic sea ice extent last year, record greenland surface melt last year, deep ocean warming, sea level rising, rising ocean acidification, increasing extreme weather, especially in the NH due to the jetstream from arctic melting, NH species moving north and up, stratospheric cooling while troposphere warming and much much more.
If this was true then why do fossil fuels need subsidies?
ccording to the IMF global fossil fuel subsidies cost about 1.9 trillion dollars annually, which represent about 8% of total government revenue. I always love this attack on renewable subsidies while ignoring the huge and much bigger subsidies to fossil fuels. It is always the case that new industries get help to get going, so renewables have a valid excuse, but what excuse does fossil fuels have? This is also ignoring that the price of fossil fuels does not take into account externalities such as air pollution and CO2.
http://www.imf.org/external/np/pp/eng/2013/012813.pdf
18
.
Just two things Michael:
Can you give us an example of a “fossil fuel subsidy” here in Australia, and
Where can I get me a sample of this “acidified ocean” water?
An “acidified”, heavily buffered alkaline solution sounds like fascinating stuff from a chemistry point of view.
.
Don’t worry about the rest of your claims. They have all been so debunked (in peer reviewed, published literature, no less), that further discussion would be boring.
71
Michael,
Renewables do not work, can never work and are, IMHO, designed to never threaten fossil fuels in any meaningful way. That’s why big oil companies like BP and Shell are investing in them, because they know they can scam money out of gullible governments with useless technology with no threat whatsoever to their bottom line. The renewables sector will only EVER be a boutique, expensive curio in the global energy mix. When push comes to shove and the inevitable bottom drops out of their brief tenure in the spotlight, we will have a legacy of rusting edifices that resemble the Easter Island totems as testimony to human stupidity. How naive are you FFS?
Wind and solar power are given unwarranted prominence by government “experts” and environmentalists as supposed large scale, base load alternatives to efficient fossil fuels like natural gas, oil and coal. But, both technologies suffer from their irredeemable intermittency that intrinsically makes them unsuitable for the provision of 24/7 base load power. They also introduce unwanted and dangerous instability into power grids, in both voltage and generated power, while delivering often a fraction (~15-20% on average, and note that averages say nothing of the predictable delivery of power at a given moment in time- an important concept where these modes of generation fail hopelessly) of their capacity factors. They are also inherently reliant on fossil fuel back up of the same nameplate MW capacity (e.g. Nat. Gas or Nuclear) and they are prohibitively expensive (as a consequence of their inefficiency, cost of manufacture and infrastructure gold-plating required for stability of the grid) to the point of rendering the industries and commercial interests reliant upon them increasingly uncompetitive and uneconomic. A list of just some of the more prominent American renewable companies to have gone bankrupt, or are on the verge appears below, with the estimated taxpayer subsidy losses in brackets:
Solyndra ($535 million)
SunPower ($1.2 billion)
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
Abound Solar ($400 million)
A123 Systems ($279 million)
Johnson Controls ($299 million)
Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
To make matters worse, the government subsidies used to artificially prop up this ineffective and impractical technology has been systematically misappropriated, and these subsidies have failed in their alleged task of making most if not all of these ventures eventually competitive or viable. The subsidised renewable industry has failed to garner the expected technological innovation (that was supposed to happen by magic) required to allow large scale storage of any power generated, nor to scale up these facilities to a level sufficient to provide more than an expensive token percentage of our overall power needs without importing it (usually at a premium) from elsewhere, as Sth Australia is currently finding out.
In addition, neither wind or solar technologies can be truly considered renewable, they have far shorter life spans than advertised (10-15yrs -not 25-30yrs- compared to coal fired power stations at 50yrs+) and are a looming toxic burden on the environment, exemplified by rare earth metals mining required for the magnetos used in wind turbines (lifespan 10-15yrs with diminishing power yields after 4-5yrs), or the highly toxic and carcinogenic substances (Arsenides, Lead, Cadmium, Chromium VI, Sulphur Hexafluoride, Thiourea, CCl4, SiCl4, Selenium Hydride, Germane, etc) required in the manufacture of photovoltaic solar panels (Noting that over 4 tonnes of toxic waste and chemicals is required for every tonne of photovoltaic material manufactured) and the upcoming issue of their disposal en masse at the end of their life within the next decade, especially with a flood of poorly made cheap Chinese panels of limited yield and lifespan. While not necessarily more toxic than alternative modes of generation by any means, both wind and solar are neither as “clean” nor as “renewable” as pretended by advocates.
Wind power also requires enormous areas of often arable land for wind farms, requires intensive forest and land clearing, needs copious transmission lines, uses huge amounts of steel and concrete in construction, and kills enormous numbers of bats and birdlife (est. 200-670 bats/turbine/year, 110-330 birds/turbine/year) especially vulnerable birds of prey (many of whom are endangered) such as various species of eagles, vultures and other migratory and seabirds. In addition wind farms also dramatically alter local weather and microclimates by raising the surrounding temperatures by up to 1 deg C, changing local wind speeds, altering local atmospheric moisture content and increasing localised fog, as well as acting as visual blots upon often pristine landscapes and noise pollution (both audible and infrasonic), with as yet unexamined potential for adverse health effects to those persons living nearby.
Hardly sounds like quite the Brave New World you wish to paint it to be, Michael, now does it?
60
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/climate_carbon_energy/energy_solutions/renewable_energy/sustainable_energy_report/
Companies failing is not proof of anything. They are commercial enterprises in new developing industries, this is common regardless of the business. Mining companies fail too.
Iceland is 80%+ renewables as is Norway.
There are many different ways to go renewable and many new technologies being used, built, costs falling and efficiencies increased. As I said earlier this is a new growing industry with many research programs globally.
Concentrated solar thermal plants have already been built with many more on the drawing board, plus there are many other ways to store energy for later use to get around the intermittent issues. There are also ways to mix wind, solar and to do power sharing with other areas to get around intermittent issues. Problems with connecting to the grid are technicalities being worked on and there are other ways to top up the power, such as with gas.
The big issue you seem to be ignoring is that the costs of health issues with fossil fuels both in particulate pollution and issues with respiratory and other such issues plus the changes to the climate by CO2 emissions, are borne by society and not factored into the price of fossil fuels. Add these to the costs, remove subsidies and you would probably find that renewables are already cheaper by a long shot.
‘Economic impact of global warming is costing the world more than $1.2 trillion a year, wiping 1.6% annually from global GDP’
‘Climate change is already contributing to the deaths of nearly 400,000 people a year and costing the world more than $1.2 trillion, wiping 1.6% annually from global GDP, according to a new study.’
‘Air pollution caused by the use of fossil fuels is also separately contributing to the deaths of at least 4.5m people a year, the report found.
The 331-page study, entitled Climate Vulnerability Monitor: A Guide to the Cold Calculus of A Hot Planet and published on Wednesday, was carried out by the DARA group, a non-governmental organisation based in Europe, and the Climate Vulnerable Forum. It was written by more than 50 scientists, economists and policy experts, and commissioned by 20 governments.’
http://m.guardiannews.com/environment/2012/sep/26/climate-change-damaging-global-economy?cat=environment&type=article
http://daraint.org/about-us/what-we-do/
06
I’ll spot you a wager, Michael.
I bet any money you like to nominate that government energy policies and the upcoming monstrous planned “carbon economy” (if it “succeeds”), and their consequent combined effects of escalating global food prices (already happening-see Egypt), maintaining and entrenching poverty in the third world, encouraging fuel poverty in the developed world (already begun- see above), and other indirect effects due to biofuels, reduced food production due to carbon offsets and other Green lunacy, will kill many more people than “climate change” directly and irrefutably due to mankind’s influence (as opposed to natural climate change which has been the norm since time immemorial) will ever achieve.
It takes a special kind of blindness, not to mention callous indifference, to participate in such a harmful anti-humanist movement (whether knowingly or not) without recourse to conscience or even the slightest doubt as climate scientists and their faithful followers have done. Instead to spout nonsense about consensus as though knowledge and fact is a democratic process, formed by agreement rather than a comprehensive and dispassionate evaluation of the evidence in its entirety.
I know I have a clear conscience in trying to help highlight the folly of what is being perpetrated, I wonder in years to come whether you will be able to say the same. I sincerely hope, Michael, for your sake that you still can.
40
I agree.
“A new Oxfam report released today hopes to close this understanding gap between climate change and global food prices, arguing previous research grossly underestimates future food prices by ignoring the impact of severe weather shocks to the global food system.
The report, “Extreme Weather, Extreme Prices,” argues current research paints only some of the picture by relying on steady increase in temperatures and precipitation. To get a more accurate picture, researchers threw down wild cards — the crazy weather events like droughts, hurricanes, and floods we’ve come to increasingly expect — to “stress-test” the system.” http://grist.org/food/how-extreme-weather-supersizes-global-food-price-tags/
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/publications/extreme-weather-extreme-prices
“The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland,” said the paper’s lead author, Aradhna Tripati, a UCLA assistant professor in the department of Earth and space sciences and the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091008152242.htm
“Wells are drying up and underwater tables falling so fast in the Middle East and parts of India, China and the US that food supplies are seriously threatened, one of the world’s leading resource analysts has warned.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/jul/06/food-supply-threat-water-wells-dry-up
06
Self fulfilling prophesy. Nice plan that. Cause the problem, deliberately I might add, through the agency of such vanguards of truth and justice as Goldman Sachs (as they already did transparently in 2008), then falsely claim that climate is the cause. How convenient. Killing people was never so profitable.
Meanwhile, Pontius, please tell us how the IMF is lessening poverty in the 3rd world (when they are actually doing everything in their power to keep the poorest nations in perpetual poverty), and how biofuels are not diverting food production out of the mouths of the poor into the fuel tanks of the wealthy and egregiously further distorting already manipulated markets (with global crop yields at an all time high thanks to CO2 I might add, and ample to feed the world’s population were it distributed accordingly, contrary to your assertions ).
There is absolutely no justification for stating that climate as has occurred up to now has caused anyone to go hungry or die due to anthropogenic influence. That problem is entirely geopolitical and completely deliberate malfeasance on the part of governments. Michael, you are aiding and abetting an evolving mass murder, which you will airbrush away with a ready made scapegoat in the form of climate change. In so doing you absolve yourself in any complicity in perpetuating the mechanism by which this will occur, getting rid of what Kissinger referred to as “useless eaters”.
When global climate takes a turn over the next thirty years, when the lag from solar ocean warming wends its way out of the system, global food production will indeed reduce, in spite of (not because of) CO2 rises, and even though cooling is occurring, people like you will continue to falsely and deceptively attribute it to rising CO2, even though exponential warming (which is not happening) is what your experts have repeatedly predicted.
You see, as per Lysenko, it is easier to lie and cause the deaths of millions than to admit you were in error or making premature prognostications on the flimsiest of evidence. Pride goeth before a fall. What will soon follow will be a test of integrity, not to mention IQ, and on both counts so far I think you are failing. Then again, when you are “saving the world” what’s a bit of collateral damage between friends.
50
Proof please and simplistic nonsense. While a certain amount of CO2 might be good for some plants there are many other issues involved in food production that are negatively affected by AGW.
1. Plants need water at the right time and the right amount. AGW is causing longer heatwaves, droughts and when it does rain it is raining in intense bursts, which are damaging to crops.
2. Too high a concentration of CO2 can actually reduce photosynthesis in some plants and reduce nutritional quality.
3. Initial fast growth can often affect the amount of nitrogen available for further growth.
4. It can make plants more vulnerable to insects.
Obviously the worst consequence is 1. as is already being shown around the world as extreme weather destroys crops. Read the articles I posted, wide ranging dismissive attacks does not make you right or the report wrong, it means you are suffering from confirmation bias and avoiding anything that does not fit it.
Meanwhile I will throw in some actual examples for you…
“Last month, I spent a week traveling with my NRDC colleague Bob Deans through the drought-decimated corn and wheat fields of Colorado and Kansas, talking to farmers knocked flat by one of the hottest summers ever. This is ground zero for one of the worst droughts in recent history; more than half the counties in the US have been declared disaster areas and corn and soybean futures are soaring as a result.”
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/rkistner/in_a_kansas_corn_field_a_droug.html
“Serbia has been particularly badly hit by the heatwave across the western Balkans, which has seen temperatures of up to 40C, damaging crops and triggering hundreds of wildfires.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19386527
“Drought: the new norm?
A new study published in Nature-Geoscience suggests that drought in the western U.S. between 2000 and 2004 may have been the worst in nearly a millennium, depleting water resources and causing significant declines in river flows and crop yields.” http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/07/world/drought-around-world/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
05
Obviously, Michael, there are such things as irrigation, fertilizer and modern agricultural practices.
Perhaps you may have heard of them.
10
I am not sure you quite get the concept of drought, flood and predictability on crops. Or the ability of all crops to benefit from extra CO2 despite missing other critical components.
04
Once again, you haven’t demonstrated the instance of any drought or flood or crop failure that is caused by man made alteration to climate. You have the onus of proof upon you. None of these episodes you “describe” (in the vaguest and most nonspecific way, with a complete paucity of specifics) are unprecedented, especially extreme or unusually severe. Your bias doesn’t allow you to acknowledge this. It MAY eventuate the way you say, anything is possible, but this contention of yours is so tenuous, and evidence is conspicuously lacking.
Instead you spout speculative nonsense which you pretend at least to believe, as a means of justifying the actions of Western governments which I believe will cause tremendous harm to the world economy, which in turn will most specifically effect those at the most marginal end of the economic spectrum, for whom even a 20% increase in food prices due to higher fuel prices is enough for them to starve. This is happening right now, and yet you pretend that this is because of non-existent supranormal climate events. Global cereal production, according to the UN’s own recent report is at an all time high and outstripping demand at present, yet Egyptians for example can’t currently afford to feed themselves due to rising fuel costs, not climate.
I want and expect alarmists to provide proof, and I want and expect some form of response that can be clearly demonstrated to act to alter in practical terms any weather event you claim to be liable to occur as a result. You have really nothing concrete upon which to justify a transition to forms of energy generation which don’t work. Give me a practical alternative form of energy generation that makes sense then I’m all ears, otherwise I see nothing in anything you are selling that is worth buying. Wind and solar will never be an alternative to fossil fuels, ever. A blind alley delaying innovation.
I suppose it is lucky that your ineffective and ill-conceived solutions are to a non-existent problem. Pity we have to spend a couple of trillion dollars in order to find that out, and a few million people have to die before you acknowledge it. I look forward to your future mea culpa, Michael. You’ll have a lot to apologize for when the realization occurs that you’ve been deceived. When you get into bed with the UN, the IMF, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Maurice Strong, the Bilderbergers, BP and Shell don’t be surprised what you might catch. Make sure you wear a condom, coz you never know where any of them have been.
40
Oh, I just figured out who you are! You are Michael Flannery, Tim’s long lost brother:
You have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that that anything unusual is happening with climate or weather events.
Longer heatwaves?? I think you need to go back in history to see some real heatwaves in comparison to a couple of mildly hot days which get labelled as “The Angry Summer” by the Climate Commission.
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
10
Michael is a scientific poseur, the variety most easily duped by AGW.
Michael, did you know that Briffa, Mann and others were laughing at people like you in emails they thought were “private” released in Climategate? They were laughing because they duped people like you!
40
“Iceland is 80%+ renewables as is Norway.”
And not one wind turbine in sight !!
Iceland is blessed with usable geothermal, a rare blessing.
Norway is 99% hydro, because they can !!
Again, you use examples that cannot be done in the vast majority of places.
You are a propaganda merchant, through and through.
It won’t work here !!!
40
And nobody here is going to even bother looking at articles from the Grist or the Guardian, both are rabidly infected AGW promoters who deal in 3% truth and 97% mis-information.
And you fall for it every time… gullible twit.
30
And did you forget to mention that Norway is the third largest oil exporter on Earth (8th largest producer), producing around 3 million barrels of oil/day, and the world’s sixth largest producer of natural gas.
Well done Norway, keep that CO2 flowing. 🙂
30
You guys said it could not be done. Examples exist and there are many different ways to do it.
Norway are torn between making a living and accepting and wanting to do something about AGW. It is a fine line but the idea is a strong global carbon tax. We cannot turn off fossil fuels tomorrow, that will cause to much hardship, but we need to encourage a faster transition and encourage development of renewables. Norway are trying to walk that fine line. You guys think in absolutes and do not look for solutions.
“In the latest example of the widening gap in climate change policies between the USA and Europe, the Government of Norway last week announced the world’s largest new tax on carbon emissions, stating in explicit terms its desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate against global warming — just two weeks after the US House of Representatives passed legislation which, to the extreme opposite, explicitly bans the regulation of greenhouse gas.
On October 8, the Government of Norway announced that it would nearly double the carbon tax rate for its offshore oil and gas production in 2013, setting one of the highest carbon tax rates in the world. The announcement is part of a comprehensive “Climate Agreement” provision within the national budget plan for 2013. The budget will:
increase funding for climate research
increase funding for sustainable technology development
increase energy use requirements in building regulations
increase funding for public transport
increase funding to prevent deforestation
increase funding to assist developing countries to exploit renewable sources “instead of using fossil energy sources”
prioritize public transport, including increased funding for footpaths and cycle paths
increase CO2 taxes for passenger vehicles, along with incentives for public transport, in order to “reduce private automobile use””
http://planetsave.com/2012/10/17/climate-change-policy-gap-between-usa-and-europe-widens-as-norway-announces-worlds-largest-carbon-tax/
02
$5.6 billion in the fuel tax credit scheme.
“Since the industrial revolution, ocean acidity has increased by 30%. Is increased CO2 to blame for this increased acidity?”
http://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/carbon/7a.html
Nope. For starters the consensus. I can provide peer reviewed for all other claims or data from scientific organisations. Let me know if you want me to. Opinions are a bit overrepresented here. I am happy to prove what I say.
97% of the climate science, 97% of climate scientists and nearly 100% of internationally recognised scientific organisations
“82% of 3146 Earth Scientists responding to a survey agreed that man is contributing to warming. As their specialty in climate science increased so did their belief in mans contribution to warming to a whopping 97% for the most active climate scientists.”
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
“Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.”
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf+html
“The number of papers rejecting AGW is a miniscule proportion of the published research, with the percentage slightly decreasing over time. Among papers expressing a position on AGW, an overwhelming percentage (97.2% based on self-ratings, 97.1% based on abstract ratings) endorses the scientific consensus on AGW.”
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article
http://www.theconsensusproject.com/
“The list contains scientific organizations around the world that acknowledge the global impact of rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations from human activities. While many more organizations could likely be added, the list is limited to those that have either issued a singular statement of their own or signed in agreement to a collective statement regarding the anthropogenic impact of rising emissions on global climate and the global biosphere.
All statements have been issued since 2001.
At present, there are 171 organizations on the list that span all continents outside of Antarctica.”
http://scentofpine.org/consensus/
05
http://www.theconsensusproject.com/
The title sorta says it all really. As far as the Doran survey, I would have answered “yes” to both questions. What do you think that proves exactly? And I note how you pretend that it was 97% of 3146, not 75 out of 77, but you know that don’t you. Quite disingenuous.
30
I provide a full quote. Starts with 82% of earth scientists and increasing to 97% as their speciality and experience in climate science increases. Also more than one source. The consensus project is peer reviewed and was then corroborated by self reviews from the scientists themselves. The self reviews actually came out a touch higher.
Feel free to present your own peer reveiwed surveys of actual climate scientists, the peer reviewed papers and a list of internationally recognised general scientific organisations that have statements that do not agree with AGW.
Not disingenuous, all open, reviewed and factual.
08
“Not disingenuous, all open, reviewed and factual.”
There sure aren’t any like that about at the moment !! Comic farce at best.
20
Lol.
Wow Michael. So many posts tonight.
Sorry I couldn’t be here, but I went out for dinner with family and spent the rest of the night with them. I suppose for you that would rank a distant second place to researching references and writing verbose responses on this blog on a Saturday night. What a life you lead!
I also love it when the good old 97% is trotted out, especially when referencing the Doran paper. Given the two questions asked, I would be shocked if less “climate scientists” would answer them any differently, being such a small fraternity and quite competitive for funding. I am curious though, the figure was 75 out of 77 responding to a survey . How many “climate scientists” were sent the survey but didn’t respond?? 10,257 Earth scientists were asked to participate of which 3146 (30.7%)thought the issue important enough to bother responding. Only 5% of the respondents were “climate scientists” so if we assume that the 5% is consistent across the whole of earth sciences, then there would be 512 “climate scientists” who received the survey, but only 77 (15%) were so concerned about climate consensus that could be bothered responding.
Anyway, like most argumentum ad populum, what is the point of the 97%?
I could probably ask the bloggers here if they think that you are an arrogant annoying [snip]and would probably get a 97% response in the affirmative.
Does that make it true??
Amusing for a guy who prides himself on only accepting peer reviewed literature (unless, as discussed earlier, it suits your argument), that you argue from consensus to make your point.
Also amusing is the fact that you continue to try and convince everyone here that the planet has warmed and that man has contributed to that warming, yet a vast majority here don’t dispute that, but you are so hell bent on blowing the AGW horn, that you have missed that point, repeatedly.
Anyhow, off to bed to join my wife. I guess your wife (or boyfriend) will have to wait whilst you come up with some other amusing responses to posts on this blog.
40
“Wow Michael. So many posts tonight.”
He must be on overtime, Big Al is feeling generous.
40
Actually I argue from every point possible. Most of the science, scientists, scientific organisations, data, observations and experiments are on my side. Also the surveys I presented were peer reviewed. Also there is many more than one. Also, if you guys disagree how about doing your own peer reviewed survey of climate scientists. Also your assumption has no merit
“so if we assume that the 5% is consistent across the whole of earth sciences, then there would be 512 “climate scientists” who received the survey, but only 77 (15%)”
Why? It is just as valid to say that climate scientists would be more motivated to complete the survey so that may represent all of them. Also you always forget that 82% of the total agreed. Also 30% for a voluntary survey is a pretty good return, these are busy people.
04
Spin spin spin. No wonder you are an ALP supporter.
So, if 97 percent of bloggers here think you are an arrogant annoying dickhead, based on observations of your posts, will you accept that they are correct? They must be correct if there is a consensus. Yes?
10
No. They would need to be experts in the field of being annoying, practising and publishing in expert journals that specialise in the theory of annoying. Otherwise they are just general members of the population that think they are experts due to their frequent visits to blog sites and facebook pages that profess to know everything about being annoying, but without the actual support from the science and experts in the field of annoying.
Actually come to think of it… they may be correct 🙂
04
lol. Actually half funny but not quite correct.
The Doran paper asked climate scientists (experts in the field of climate science) their opinion on 1. Whether they considered it had warmed and 2. Whether they considered man had influenced the warming.
In my example, the survey would ask blog participants (experts in the field of participating in blogs) their opinion on 1. Whether they considered you are arrogant and 2. whether they consider you an annoying dickhead.
To paraphrase your comment above, they would need to be experts in the field of participating in blogs (not experts in annoying as you claim), practicing and publishing in blogs that specialise in blogging (Lots of comments, so these bloggers are ‘published’). Otherwise they are just general members of the population that think they are experts due to their infrequent visits to blog sites and profess to know everything about being participating in blogs, but without the actual support from the science and experts in the field of blog participation.
If you are happy to wear the title, sure, but I reckon you wouldn’t consider yourself an arrogant annoying dickhead, even if it was the ‘consensus’ position.
10
Actually I am quite happy to be considered this way if the reason people felt this way was because they found it difficult to dismiss me because the majority of what I say is scientifically correct, logical, reasoned and displays how much I care about my kids future and that of future generations.
03
Michael says here:
And yet you couldn’t care less about more than 2 billion people, who, because of your scotoma, you will be denying access to the cheap electrical power that you take so utterly for granted.
You have absolutely no comprehension whatsoever about how those people will remain in the most abject poverty because you demand that they not have that access to that electrical power.
Then, on top of that, you demand that we go back and join them.
I called you a hypocrite, and I stand by it.
You haven’t even bothered to find out.
Tony.
10
I have never demanded any such thing. Your blinded by hate and greed. Don’t pretend to give a stuff about the poor and the third world, they are the ones most affected by the changing climate. They rarely get the cheap power you are really only interested in for yourself, at their, your kids, and future generations expense.
Those who have contributed the least to climate change are likely to have the worst negative effects.
http://130.111.193.18/moral_hazard.pdf
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00632.x/abstract
04
Oh, and Michael,
it’s not called the Third World any more.
It’s referred to as the Developing World.
You really need to get up to date.
Tony.
20
Hey Tony, never argue with an idiot.
They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
You can picture it though. Kids sitting around bored as daddy spends hours on the computer researching references to argue with us fossil fuel funded bloggers.
00
No. Michael himself makes it true.
10
“Since the industrial revolution, ocean acidity has increased by 30%. Is increased CO2 to blame for this increased acidity?”
Oh dear, you really need to go and learn some chemistry instead of quoting stuff that is designed to scare ignorant little fools, which it seems to have done very easily in your case.
There may have been a 30% increase in the hydrogen ion concentration, but you can only increase acidity when something is acid. Seas water is basic, and will remain that way, always.
There would need to be an increase of something like 1300% in hydrogen ion concentration just for it to become neutral.
Makes that little 30% increase seem pretty meaningless doesn’t it. And it is meaningless.
They say there has been a change of about 0.11 in pH. Do you really think they can measure the whole ocean pH that accurately even now, and certainly they had no chance back before the industrial revolution.
No, the change they say they have found is well within any possible measurement error, be it by proxy or direct measurement.
This is the new big scare they are trying to foist on the public now, because they know their other scares have fallen apart.
And you have fallen for it hook line and sinker. GULLIBLE !!
People are laughing at the skeletons and the ugly masks.
They are no longer scary because people know they are fake.
30
ps.. A far more accurate statement for the very minor change in pH that they say they have found, would be to state that..
“The oceans have become SLIGHTLY LESS CAUSTIC“. See, sounds much better. 🙂
CO2 is nothing except BENEFICIAL
Warmer, Less caustic oceans, Enhanced plant life.
Toward 700ppm 🙂
31
Proof thanks. There is no science involved in that opinion. Observations and science would suggest otherwise.
“One affected species, foraminifera, a sand grain-sized plankton, is responsible for the sequestration of 25 to 50 percent of the carbon the oceans absorb and thus plays a major role in keeping atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations at much lower levels than they would be otherwise. Now scientists have learned that foraminifera (forams) shells are much thinner in oceans made more acidic by the enormous volumes of CO2 released in the burning of fossil fuels.”
http://www.ipsnews.net/2009/03/climate-change-acid-oceans-altering-marine-life/
“This pH is probably lower than has been experienced for hundreds of millennia and, critically, at a rate of change probably 100 times greater than at any time over this period.”
http://royalsociety.org/policy/publications/2005/ocean-acidification/
http://pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification
http://pmel.noaa.gov/co2/file/Hawaii+Carbon+Dioxide+Time-Series
“The oceans may be acidifying faster today than they did in the last 300 million years, according to scientists”
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=123324&org=NSF
“Until recently, we really didn’t think that having fewer carbonate ions would affect sea creatures for a century or more. Unfortunately, we were wrong.
Late in 2012, it was reported that one particular sea creature was actually having its shell dissolved by the increasing acidity of the ocean. It’s the pteropod — a free-swimming sea snail that moves about thanks to wings like a butterfly. It lives for two years or longer and grows to have a shell about 1 centimetre in diameter.
Down in the Antarctic, it is the main sea creature that makes calcium carbonate. In fact, over the whole planet, these sea butterflies account for some 12 per cent of the entire flux of carbonate on our whole planet.”
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/12/11/3650065.htm
15
Bwahahahahaha. Wall of Michael.
Get a life you loser…..
31
The Moon was most likely formed from collision with the original Earth, so the initial position is uncertain, tidal dissipation results in the Moon drifting away about a cm per century, the Sun will be a red giant before the moon is out of orbit, it is a shame that your scientific ability isn’t as good as your ability to pule when people call you on your SHIT
00
So how is that much different to what I said? The moon is moving away, so it was obviously closer (I did not say how much). I DID say it was with a collision with Earth and I did say the moon will grow and envelope us. Basically I said the same thing in a different way. Are you so desperate to attack me that you disagree even when you agree?
Here is what I said…
“The planet started as a molten swirling ball of cosmic dust, at some stage early in its form it was hit by a meteor that knocked it of its axis and spewed dust into space that became the moon. I don’t think there were many humans around then (and you would have been burnt to a crisp). The atmosphere has changed drastically since then, from at some times not even having one, to one without oxygen and a lot of CO2. It was fiery, frequent big geological upheavals, there was one great big super continent etc etc. Starting to get the picture?
Initially the sun was not as bright as today, being a main sequence star it grows with time, and will eventually engulf us (but don’t worry that is billions of years away). The moon was much closer (greater gravity effects and upheavals), and is drifting away from us over time, and may eventually just fly off. At one time there is evidence it even went into a snowball stage, it has had an exciting time from a flaming ball to a ball of ice 🙂
Eventually the climate started changing, the continents seperated, oxygen started being produced and CO2 started being sequestered through natural biological long term processes. Millions of years went by to eventually give us the atmosphere, climate and continental arrangement that 7 billion people developed in and we now enjoy.
Now over a mere couple of hundred years we have emitted enough CO2 to take our planet back to where it was at least a million years ago and likely more. It was not as friendly for humans then.
Really you guys need to go and understand science a bit better. Go and learn some physics, investigate the evolution of the planet, look further, think more widely, then you will see how an argument like ‘the climates changed before’ is such a silly argument. It is not even an argument, it is a basic fact that no scientist disagrees with. Science is fascinating, eye opening and mind broadening. Did you know that we are 99% space? nothing is really solid. Or that a billion neutrinos from the sun go right through every square cm of us every second?
Please think.
“Recent estimates suggest CO2 levels reached as much as 415 parts per million (ppm) during the Pliocene. With that came global average temperatures that eventually reached 3 or 4 degrees C (5.4-7.2 degrees F) higher than today’s and as much as 10 degrees C (18 degrees F) warmer at the poles. Sea level ranged between five and 40 meters (16 to 131 feet) higher than today.”
http://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/what-does-400-ppm-look-like/“
00
Poor little M. Posts a link that says CO2 rapidly once in the past, to 1800ppm.
What caused that, where were the coal power stations and SUV’s?
When was the tipping point?
Why isn’t the world a burnt crisp?
31
missed a word due to Weetbix consumption ..
first line should be ” says CO2 levels climbed rapidly…..
31
Don’t you believe in the evolution of the planet? Do you think the planet was formed instantaneously intact and in its current form?
The planet started as a molten swirling ball of cosmic dust, at some stage early in its form it was hit by a meteor that knocked it of its axis and spewed dust into space that became the moon. I don’t think there were many humans around then (and you would have been burnt to a crisp). The atmosphere has changed drastically since then, from at some times not even having one, to one without oxygen and a lot of CO2. It was fiery, frequent big geological upheavals, there was one great big super continent etc etc. Starting to get the picture?
Initially the sun was not as bright as today, being a main sequence star it grows with time, and will eventually engulf us (but don’t worry that is billions of years away). The moon was much closer (greater gravity effects and upheavals), and is drifting away from us over time, and may eventually just fly off. At one time there is evidence it even went into a snowball stage, it has had an exciting time from a flaming ball to a ball of ice 🙂
Eventually the climate started changing, the continents seperated, oxygen started being produced and CO2 started being sequestered through natural biological long term processes. Millions of years went by to eventually give us the atmosphere, climate and continental arrangement that 7 billion people developed in and we now enjoy.
Now over a mere couple of hundred years we have emitted enough CO2 to take our planet back to where it was at least a million years ago and likely more. It was not as friendly for humans then.
Really you guys need to go and understand science a bit better. Go and learn some physics, investigate the evolution of the planet, look further, think more widely, then you will see how an argument like ‘the climates changed before’ is such a silly argument. It is not even an argument, it is a basic fact that no scientist disagrees with. Science is fascinating, eye opening and mind broadening. Did you know that we are 99% space? nothing is really solid. Or that a billion neutrinos from the sun go right through every square cm of us every second?
Please think.
“Recent estimates suggest CO2 levels reached as much as 415 parts per million (ppm) during the Pliocene. With that came global average temperatures that eventually reached 3 or 4 degrees C (5.4-7.2 degrees F) higher than today’s and as much as 10 degrees C (18 degrees F) warmer at the poles. Sea level ranged between five and 40 meters (16 to 131 feet) higher than today.”
http://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/what-does-400-ppm-look-like/
13
Proof thanks. There is no science in all the non peer reviewed self promoting links you post.
From you, we will only accept peer reviewed research papers.
00
That is a really pathetic argument, and fairly meaningless. If the ph is reducing then it is becoming more acidic or it is less alkaline, same thing.
15
No it isn’t it points to your continued use of language tricks to exact maximum propaganda value. Propaganda hoping to give your false cause (saving the world) some traction in the general public and political circles. Propaganda because his “science” is too weak to stand up on it’s own.
Much like his repeated “97%” where he doesn’t realize how stupid it sounds. Every time he says it I ask myself why isn’t 100%? If the science is so clear, so irrefutable, why is there ANY 3% out there? He uses it because he thinks it has propaganda value. I laugh.
Too bad for Michael it isn’t working here. We specialize if ferreting out propaganda. Propaganda exposed to daylight fails to work. In fact, once propaganda is exposed, it works quite in reverse. The population becomes irritated and pushes back. Michael, keep it up. Your blatant use of propaganda is working quite in reverse of what you think.
30
Proves how little you understand science. No science is 100%, there are varying theories on gravity, quantum physics, evolution and plate tectonics. There isn’t one major branch of science where everybody agrees, science is a competitive area and there is always a scientist looking to make the next breakthrough, overturn conventional wisdom etc. You display a laymans understanding of science, 97% is pretty much as high as it gets, on a par with all the major theories out there.
Less alkaline is more acidic, the scale is a continuous one. Grow up and put up a real argument, oh wait, you can’t because the science does show the oceans becoming less alkaline and the increasing acidity is already causing problems to the ecosystems of the oceans. So all you have is pedantic misdirection and excuses.
03
I sense a little anger.
Good.
You are a devout warmist here on a skeptic blog acting like an arrogant annoying dickhead and expect everyone to bow to every word you say.
Ain’t going to happen, but if all this research and commenting time is taking you away from other things, I am happy to keep responding to you and wasting your time.
10
No science is 100%, there are varying theories on gravity, quantum physics, evolution and plate tectonics.
The correct form for this sentence should be: “no voluntary response poll results in 100%” right? After all the 97% you puke out all the time isn’t science. You’d think that all the zealots responding would have skewed the results to 100%
You demonstrate such a lack of thinking ability. Actually comparing actual theories to the results of a poll. Really!
I asked you elsewhere if Dr. John Christy was counted in the “study”. What is your answer? Was he in the 97% or the 3%?
I predict you won’t answer that question. I predict that the study you quote from claiming 97% is crap. I propose that it is the result of poor statistics and not at all scientific. You can search Google yourself: “debunking 97% climate” If you want anyone to take you seriously you need to stop claiming it represents science.
All this from someone claiming to trust the science …..
10
Michael tries to add a patina of authenticity by calling it “peer-reviewed science.”
Nobody in their right mind calls “science” “peer-reviewed” science. That is just advertising their fears that it just may very well be junk science.
10
Which study? There are several.
01
Only people not in their right mind cannot see the difference with opinions as espoused by self proclaimed experts on opinion blogs (creators and commentors) and the actual science that has been researched, peer reviewed, corrected, peer reviewed again and then published in a scientific journal read by other experts in the field, who can then examine it, critisise it and right their own peer reveiwed article correcting it. That is how science proceeds.
Science is held back by the vast range and variety of special interest groups and their supporters that can post any crackpot theory or opinion and it is taken as gospel by large swathes of people who have no formal training in the areas they are making judgements about.
02
I was right again.
Brian, I don’t see patina I see outright corrosion.
10
Darn, you are showing your IGNORANCE !!!
21
You mean like having $10,000 in the bank on day then $9,700 in the bank next day puts you more in debt.
21
No, the use of the words “acid” and “acidify” is what’s pathetic.
It displays either total ignorance or total propaganda, to scare little children like you.
Do you still use a night-light to ward off the boogy-man ??
21
Less alkaline is more acidic, the scale is a continuous one. Put up a real argument, oh wait, you can’t because the science does show the oceans becoming less alkaline and the increasing acidity is already causing problems to the ecosystems of the oceans. So all you have is pedantic misdirection and excuses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AYool_GLODAP_del_pH.png
03
NO it is you that are using the “acid” word..
That is TOTALLY INCORRECT.
The oceans NEVER will be acid.
So don’t use the word, unless you are a lying pack of S**T
11
Feel free to give me a scientific explanation of the technical difference between an acid and an alkaline. Again, as the science, and not me, says,
“Since the industrial revolution, ocean acidity has increased by 30%. Is increased CO2 to blame for this increased acidity?”
http://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/carbon/7a.html
02
Michael, fill in the blanks in the following sentences for us:
CO2 dissolved in water, results in carbonic acid, a weak acid, and the salts of weak acids are (blank) in solution. The carbonate ion is (blank) by the equilibrium with the bicarbonate ion in solution.
10
I just love it when fools like you come to sites like this, apparently for no better reason than to display your ignorance.
Michael, a long time ago now, fuels to power vehicles didn’t attract a lot of taxes, levies and excises. Then the grubbermint of the day decided to put a levy on fuels “to pay for road maintenance and infrastructure”. Primary producers and miners pointed out that they used a lot of diesel, and none of it was used on roads built and maintained by the grubbermint, so they shouldn’t have to pay the levy.
The grubbermint could hardly argue otherwise without exposing the fact that the levy was little more than a tax grab, so diesel used for primary production and mining was quite rightly exempted from the levy. So diesel fuel used for primary production and in mining, is exempt from the levy to cover road construction and maintenance. In no way does this amount to a “subsidy”.
At the moment the grubbermint tax around 30% of what I earn. By your logic, the 70% they let me keep is a “subsidy”.
I repeat my request: where can I get a sample of this “acidified” ocean water? The truth is, sea water is an alkaline solution buffered by a large amount of dissolved and undissolved carbonates. There is enough alkaline buffer that we could burn all known sources of fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas), PLUS all the forests and other sources of carbon, and the oceans could absorb ALL the resultant CO2 eighty times over without the water even becoming neutral, let alone “acidic”.
As I said in my original post, all your other claims have already been debunked so many times in peer-review literature (including the “magic 97% consensus”) that they’re not worth discussing.
.
So, back to my original requests:
A) – An bona-fide example of a subsidy to the fossil fuel industry in Australia, and
B) – A source for a sample of this magical “acidified” sea water.
80
MV,
A lack of knowledge, not only of science, but also economics and history is requisite for all climastrologists. It’s a course requirement, don’t you know.
30
Oh, it is so sad that you do not know the difference between income tax and a fuel subsidy. Let me help, You earn income, the mining company earn income and you are then taxed on that income. But when you go to buy fuel (and other goods and services) they attract other purchase type taxes that are not related to your income. But you have to pay these taxes while the mining company do not have to, ie a subsidy. You will similarly try to misrepresent any other subsidy I put forward, a meaningless game. Go and read the IMF report on the 1.9 trillion dollars globally in subsidies.
Meaningless misdirection, if the ocean is becoming less alkaline it is becoming more acidic. Please see my rebuttal above rather than repeating myself.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/07/the-real-free-market-is-making-the-fake-carbon-markets-pointless/#comment-1300486
Words are just words, where is it? You said ALL MY claims have been debunked in the peer-review literature. Provide the links please. Do you have ANYTHING of substance?
06
Ah! Now I understand.
In bygone days when the resident robber baron did his rounds, anything he didn’t rob and pillage from the the hapless and helpless victims was a subsidy from him.
Yeah, right Michael.
Dunce!
50
Other Mark (Mark the 1st) where have you been?
Thumbs up too.
20
G’day Mark D.
Yep, I’ve been a bit preoccupied lately but it has to be said that you and the other regulars have all done good in the meantime.
10
Obviously you don’t.
Here I will help you out…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy
04
And if you choose not to see the difference for leftard reasons then that’s your choice.
If you can’t (or more likely won’t) see the difference where someone receives a benefit not having paid any tax at all and someone else is allowed some concession on the tax they do pay then you are yet another example of the worst type of deadbeat, sad sack socialist that’s dragging this once great country down to Grecian status.
10
Yes, by the very broad definition in your linked wikipedia article, you could draw a loooooong bow and call the fuel tax credit scheme a ‘subsidy’ but it isn’t what most people consider a subsidy at all.
Essentially the fuel tax credit scheme is a full or partial (depending on use) rebate of the Fuel excise (that everybody pays) when the fuel is used by a business in the act of EARNING AN INCOME. It is closer to a tax deduction than a subsidy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_deduction
If I use your solar installation as an example, you received a SUBSIDY (from the government) when you installed it which reduced the price you paid. The government had money allocated for this purpose, and directly contributed some of it toward your installation.
All fuels have a fuel excise of around 38c per litre. If the fuel is used by a business in machinery, plant, equipment or heavy vehicles, then the ATO have determined that you are exempt from the excise, which is either fully or partially refunded via the fuel tax credit scheme. The government does not have money allocated for the scheme, they just don’t take in as much money in excise.
Essentially the fuel tax credit scheme is not really a fossil fuel subsidy at all, but a method of providing a reduced rate of tax for businesses using fuels for certain things. If you want to call it a subsidy, then every tax deduction you make when compiling your tax return would also be a subsidy.
20
I assume you must be independently rich as you have clearly never filled out a tax return and realised the difference.
03
Re-read my first paragraph.
It isn’t what most people commonly call a subsidy.
20
Like the IMF?
http://www.imf.org/external/np/pp/eng/2013/012813.pdf
03
Where in the linked document does it say that the Australian Fuel Tax Credit Scheme is a subsidy??
10
Alway interesting when the subsidy issue comes up, that someone trots out how much more fossil fuels are subsidised then renewables, and the even include every externality they can think of to make the figure look worse. One Greenpeace (ooohhhh balanced!!) report apparently even regarded state funding of roads as a fossil fuel subsidy, you know because cars drive on roads and the use fuel… etc. Fail to mention that public transport and bicycles also use them but that doesn’t support their argument now does it. It’s a bit like saying that education funding is really a subsidy for whiteboard manufacturers.
Anyhow, I stumbled upon this website when I was trying to find statistics on worldwide statistics for renewable subsidies (funnily enough, these subsidies are well hidden from easy view).
It primarily discusses subsidies with respect to electricity production, and lists subsidies to fossil fuels used for electricity generation as $131B and Subsidies to renewables as $88B (Based on IEA data). They then have a whinge about how unfair it is that fossil fuels are subsidised more than renewables.
Data from the OECD shows that renewables only supplied 8.4% of electricity worldwide on 2011.
So the costs in subsidies for electricity are $131B for 91.6% and $88B for 8.4% of the energy produced.
For each percent of energy, renewables cost $10.48B and fossil fuels cost $1.43B
This works out that electricity renewables are subsidised SEVEN TIMES that of fossil fuels.
The IMF report lists electricity subsidies (post tax including externalities) at $179B, so even if we use that figure, it still results in FIVE TIMES the subsidy.
Note before you go off on a tangent, I am referring to subsidies dealing with ELECTRICTY PRODUCTION only, as comparing total fossil fuel subsidies to renewables is not comparing apples with apples.
10
What the hell, I’ll even add the coal and natural gas subsidies from the Earth Policy Institute report into the equation, because they are both used to power the generators that produce electricity.
So we have Coal @ $3B PLUS Natural Gas @ $104B PLUS Electricity @ $131B = $238 B
Renewables still have FOUR TIMES the subsidies for Electricity generation.
Only if you use the IMF report, and assumed ALL coal and natural gas subsidies (post tax including externalities) was for electricity generation ONLY, then, and only then, do you get 1:1 parity vs renewables.
But we don’t just use coal and natural gas for electricity production, so it still stands that on a bang for buck basis, renewable electricity is more highly subsided than more traditional fossil fuel methods od producing electricity.
10
What the hell, I’ll even add the coal and natural gas subsidies from the Earth Policy Institute report into the equation, because they are both used to power the generators that produce electricity.
So we have Coal @ $3B PLUS Natural Gas @ $104B PLUS Electricity @ $131B = $238 B
Renewables still have FOUR TIMES the subsidies for Electricity generation.
Only if you use the IMF report, and assumed ALL coal and natural gas subsidies (post tax including externalities) was for electricity generation ONLY, then, and only then, do you get 1:1 parity vs renewables.
But we don’t just use coal and natural gas for electricity production, so it still stands that on a bang for buck basis, renewable electricity is more highly subsided than more traditional fossil fuel methods of producing electricity.
10
Proof please. I have a report from a respected global institution that says you are wrong, your opinion is not relevent.
02
Calculated from the report you linked to and I have provided links to the other sources.
I assume you are talking about the IMF report that you gleefully link to repeatedly in this thread. Please point out the page/para/figure which explains how much renewables are subsidised globally. A little difficult to prove me wrong based on this report when it doesn’t provide the figures for renewables subsidies for fair comparison. All it does is have a sook about the amount of fossil fuel subsidies. It lists post tax with externalities subsidies for electricity production at $179B for 2011. OECD Data shows that renewables provided 8.6% of electicity for 2011. The only reference I could find, was an article on the Earth Policy Institute (linked above) which stated it used data based on estimates from the Global Subsidies Initiative and the International Energy Agency (IEA) and found “In contrast, just $88 billion went to subsidies for renewable energy, most often paid to the producer.”
So, we have $179 Billion for Fossil Fuel electricity generation and $88 Billion for Renewables.
$179B subsidises 91.4% of production and $88B subsidises 8.6% of production.
Do the math.
Also,
http://www.iisd.org/gsi/sites/default/files/power_gen_subsidies.pdf
This is from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
Established in 2005 by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) is dedicated to analyzing subsidies – transfers of public money to private interests – and how they support or undermine efforts to achieve sustainable development.
Hardly a website that you would consider sceptical.
10
I thought that once as well, I wanted proof that God exists once so i went and asked an expert………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….the priest gave me many examples that he believed proved the existence of God i considered his opinion as not relev”a”nt.
20
(now who said that, Michael?)
I have a note from my mum that says you are a dick head.
10
Nope, you took both figures from your report.
If you want to take both reports then it is 1.9 trillion for fossil fuels and 88 billion for renewables.
Fossil fuel is an old established technolgy, why does it need subsidising at all? Also renewables are a new industry which are often given subsidies to get them on their feet. Also you do not take into account the cost of externalities of particulate pollution on people and wildlife and the future damage to the habitability off the planet dues to changes of climate.
03
No Dickhead. Learn to read and comprehend.
I CLEARLY stated that I was only referring to ELECTRICITY subsidies.
Using the IMF report, the figure for ELECTRICITY is $179B. Not $1.9T.
This report also shows that ELECTRICITY subsidies for renewables far outweigh fossil fuels
http://www.iisd.org/gsi/sites/default/files/power_gen_subsidies.pdf
Nuclear Power Generation (estimated subsidy = 1.7 US cents/kWh):
Non-hydroelectric Renewable Power Generation (estimated subsidy = 5.0 US cents/kWh):
Fossil-fuel Based Power Generation (estimated subsidy = 0.8 US cents/kWh).
10
– Welfare improvements through lower costs to consumers
– Widen access to energy and realize related social benefits, particularly in rural areas
– Subsidies for switching across fossil fuels (e.g. from coal to gas)
– Development of local fossil-fuel sources (particularly otherwise stranded assets)
– Stimulate national economy (or segments thereof) through lower costs to business
– Stimulate and support economic growth
– Meet growing consumer and industry demand
– Generate employment and social benefits
Source.
I got the figure from your IMF report, which claims ” On a post tax basis which also factors in the negative externalities from energy consumption“. Interestingly, I doubt that the $88B figure includes externalities from renewables, such as the creation of toxic lakes from the mining of Neodymium for wind turbine generators, nor does it include the energy costs of manufacturing the bloody things in the first place.
10
Oh, that’s for Michael’s children and future generations to go swimming……
10
Yeah. Didn’t think you would be back on this subject.
00
You really, really, really don’t have a clue, do you?
Even my ten year old granddaughter knows what happens when you mix vinegar and baking soda, and more importantly, why.
40
Bullshit! Something is not “acidic” until it is…. acidic
Let me explain it in a way that you will understand:
You Michael are a deadshit. Each day you become more of a deadshit. You will never be cool, because you will always be a deadshit. Perhaps one day you will shut your trap and somebody may even think you are less of a deadshit, but you will never be cool.
Got it now?
11
Michael
You quote WWF and The Guardian as sources in a serious discussion? Go away.
31
now the Boomers will step in for Bernanke!!!
25 July: Financial Times: Michael Stothard: Bonds to benefit from ageing population
There is a storm looming on the horizon for fixed income investors, as the Federal Reserve plans this year and next to reduce its $85bn a month bond buying scheme.
Some fear it spells the end of a 30-year bull run in bonds…
But many with a longer-term view argue that there is one key supporting factor – a ray of sunshine – the bond market pessimists are failing to factor in: the rapidly ageing population across the western world…
There are a lot of assets to shift. Around 70 per cent of all world equities are owned by mutual funds and wealthy individuals, according to a white paper by the Network for Sustainable Financial Markets, all of whom can shift their allocation.
This all comes as global pensions funds, which own 20 per cent of all equities, are also expected to increase their exposure to fixed income over the coming decades…
Others argue that corporate bonds will do particularly well out of the ageing population…
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c8ba4162-f446-11e2-8459-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2aEceECZc
00
Are Michael and Michael Hammer the same person?
20
NO
40
That’s a cruel thought Ace.
Michael Hammer doesn’t keep a suppository of nonsense up his a***.
32
You have GOT to be kidding, right?
30
No…I*m perfectly serious.
They BOTH advocate the same thing.
They both tout “alternative energy”.
If it walks like a Green and quacks like a Green…
11
Congratulations, Ace.
You’ve managed to go from interesting, to irrelevant, to boring, to argumentative, to obnoxious, all in the space of one thread.
00
There is NO NEED for any alternative energy, except where power lines can’t go.
A well operated, coal fired (or other fossil fuel), biosphere enhancing power station is the cheapest, most reliable, most efficient, and most environmentally sound power supply available.
Nothing else come close, (except maybe hydro in areas with a very high rainfall and a very steep topology)
21
Ace, grab something solid (get a grip) take a deep few breaths. Then start shooting at Michael. You’ve lost control of your weapon.
40
Ace:
Not too many Greens touting LENR/CANR, at least the Pros keeping Alarmism alive and profiting from it!!
Heck, I am for ANY technology, IF DONE RIGHT AS A PAYING BUSINESS and not a Welfare Queen!!!
I am also for A HEALTHY GREEN ENVIRONMENT, as long as it is not forced on us by FASCIST GUBMINTS!!!
If you call that walking and quacking like a duck, so be it. I would suggest you would be wasting your time attacking me and have definitely wasted your and our time attacking M Hammer though.
20
[…] In a nutshell, this new study adds numbers and detail to a home truth that the grown ups in the room know already. Basically humans want cheap energy. The free market, powered by human creativity and mass demand, will … […]
00
“real free market is making the fake carbon markets pointless”
I think you mean the DESTRUCTION of the real free market is shrinking the economy and ability to use fossil fuels and is making the fake carbon markets pointless.
That is very true as the point of the Gorebull Warming scare was CONTROL and DESTRUCTION of Western Civilization.
10
Ace; I don’t think you realise just how insulting you are. If you think I am in favour of the green agenda I suggest you read some of my articles on this site or maybe ask Joanne Nova. Please get your facts right before you engage in insults. The truth is that I disagree strongly with the green agenda but I put good science ahead of prejudice. I will not lie or exaggerate simply to make the greens look foolish. Actually there is no need to do that, they look foolish enough without.
The comment that CO2 has raised the temperature on earth by 33C as someone commented is simply wrong. The total CO2 contribution to retained heat is around 27 watts/sqM and at around 3.5 watts/sqM/C that’s about 8C before feedbacks. Warmists claim massive positive feedback from water vapour, in fact its almost certainly wrong. Consider if there was no water on earth the planet would be receiving 343 watts/sqM not 243 watts/sqM because the albedo would be so much lower without clouds. Using Stefan Boltzman law the temperature would then be 279K or about +6C. So the planet as a whole is 8C warmer than it would be with an atmosphere without any greenhouse gases. Hmmm now CO2 contributes 8C of warming so that leaves …… 0C for water. Opps, is water not a green house gas after all? Of course it is, its the most significant one of all. So how do we reconcile this apparent paradox? Easy, the green house warming of water vapour is logarithmic with concentration like all green house gases but cloud cooling is close to linear. ie: double the fractional cloud cover, close to double the amount of energy reflected back out to space. At very low concentrations the warming effect of water dominates but as the concentration rises the cooling impact rises faster than the warming impact and eventually dominates(long before we get to the current water vapour concentration). In short, water vapour sets and stabilises an operating point (by negative feedback) for Earth’s climate. Without any feedback doubling CO2 adds about 2.7 watts/sqM which amounts to about 0.8C but the negative feedback of water vapour reduces that impact to something significantly less – maybe at a guess around 0.4C which is of course completely insignificant.
Ace it seems to me there are 3 “sides” to this debate. The first is the warmists which want to force us back to a pre industrial (agrarian) civilization. The fact that this would condemn a large fraction of the population to starvation worries them not at all and their sight is so blighted that they cant see it would also decimate the environment. The second group wants to maintain the status quo at all costs. No change, keep doing what we have been doing for decades – I hope you recognise your arguments on this blog! The third group wants mankind to keep advancing to discover more and give our children more opportunities than we had. I subscribe to the third group. There was nothing “wrong” with vinyl records but CD’s are better. There is nothing wrong with film cameras but digital ones are better, there is nothing wrong with mail but email is better and so it goes. There is nothing wrong with coal and oil but LENR (if it works) is better. I want the better option.
By the way with regard to space travel, there is a saying (which is quite true from the point of view of delta V)achieving orbit is half way to anywhere. At present we need to use rockets to get to orbit however with LENR the problem of limited flame front velocities may be overcome in which case 80% or more of the energy needed to get to orbit could come from SCRAM jets not rockets(the reaction mass is the air through which the craft flies (until it gets to thin with altitude of course but at the velocities attainable with scram jets that’s very high) and that would indeed open up space travel like never before.
A last point, I consider it extremely likely that rising CO2 is overall beneficial. The climate impact is negligible but the impact on plant growth is far from negligible. I can conceive of a time after we have found an alternative to fossil fuels when we will choose to burn coal not for energy but simply to increase the atmospheric concentration of CO2 to stimulate plant growth and make this planet more verdant. I sincerely hope that mankind’s use of fossil fuels is indeed raising the CO2 levels because that would mean we do have a control lever. Alas, I find that claim less than certain.
40
Just been reading some of the other contributions since I went out for the day. So many different threads. I note Michael claims hydrogen ion concentration has increased 30% since pre industrial times. Wow how misleading! you see hydrogen ion concentration is another of these logarithmic relationships. Even assuming we accept the 30% figure and assume its all down to human fossil fuel use it means the pH of the oceans dropped by about 0.1 units. To put that in perspective, my soil is around pH 4.5. Vegetables like a pH of around 7 so if I want to grow vegetables I need change the hydrogen ion concentration by about 32000 percent or about 1100 times as much as the change in ocean pH. Then again Peonies which I love like pH 8 (320000 percent) whereas liliums which I also love like pH as low as 4 (-300 percent).
In my previous comments I suggested there might be some question over whether man is responsible for the change in CO2 levels. I know many would consider it self evident but consider, during the 19th century many very skilled and reputable scientists measured the CO2 concentration in remote areas using wet chemical techniques. Readings by different people done at the same time agree reasonably well but the variation in readings done in different decades vary greatly with some readings above the current level of 400 ppm. The warmists simply accept those readings which agree with their thesis (all done in the late 19th early 20th century)and disregard the others claiming “operator error”. These are measurements done by very skilled and reputable scientists using a methodology which has been reconfirmed today. Such blatant contemptuous dismissal of earlier work which does not fit their cherished thesis strikes me as unacceptable bias. If your are going to disregard such a large body of prior work there had better be a very good demonstrable reason.
Then again, photosynthesis drives a large portion of the carbon cycle on earth and human emissions are a very small fraction of the natural CO2 turnover which means a small change is photosynthesis rate can balance it out. Now we know that more CO2 favours faster plant growth (it has been confirmed both in glass houses and more recently on the planet as a whole from satellites). More plant growth means greater CO2 absorption ie: its a feedback system. In that case human emissions should progressively be balanced by greater plant growth thus the atmospheric CO2 pattern should be a exp (-t/tor) type of rise to a new higher equilibrium level yet Mauna Loa claims the rise is a linear fraction of annual emissions. Sorry, the pattern does not fit, someone has to explain how what should be a curve of the form exp(-t/tor) ends up linear before its convincing. The details really do matter, many major theories have been disproven though discrepancies just like this.
So as I say maybe humans are responsible for the rise in CO2 but to me there is still considerable reason for skepticism. I don’t deny I simply am not yet convinced.
30
I seem to be dominating this thread at the moment but another point on CO2 levels. There is very little air exchange between north and south hemispheres. The north and south Hadley cells are almost independent of each other (which is why there are the doldrums at the equator). Now 90% of humanity lives in the northern hemisphere so that’s where most of the oil and coal are burnt. f its really due to man’s use of fossil fuels shouldn’t the CO2 level be rising much faster in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere? Data I have seen suggest it isn’t – the level in both hemispheres is similar. Also shouldn’t therefore global warming be greater in the northern hemisphere than the southern hemisphere. I have not seen warmists address these issues.
Another point, the alarmists claim enormous time constants for CO2 levels so that even if we stopped using fossil fuels it would take 1000 years for CO2 levels to return to pre industrial levels. How is that compatible with CO2 levels changing very significantly with the seasons which is what the Mauna Loa data clearly shows. How can the same parameter have a time constant of 1000 years yet change significantly in 0.5 years?
Trouble is these arguments are too technical for most and warmists simply ignore them when they are raised.
30
Hi Mike,
Just two points on your latest comments. First Ace:
If you carefully track his comments over three threads, what he said, and the time zone he is in (probably California), I think Ace was three parts over the yard-arm before he even started, and a lot worse for wear by the time he announced he was going to bed. I have been guilty of the same thing myself.
Ace has commented here before – sensibly – and I can only assume there has recently been something that has riled him. Personally, I would suggest taking it with a pinch of salt and a smile – I copped abuse too – and expect him back more his old self again, in the not too distant future.
.
Second, Michael:
Lecturing Michael on hydrogen ion (proton) exchange is pointless, as I have no doubt he doesn’t even realise you are referring to his comments on acidity / alkalinity, such is the level of his lack of understanding. Michael’s comments clearly show he thinks acidity / alkalinity are merely degrees of the same thing, instead of two very clearly defined states with a fence line between.
No point in arguing with him. He is a product of our modern, very misnamed “education system”, wherein truth, even truth in physics, chemistry and mathematics, is simply a state of mind.
40
Thanks for the comments MemoryVault. I take your point on both issues. The situation has its amusing side since most of the time I cop abuse for being too far the other way. I also realise if one comments on blog sites one can expect some strong disagreement at times so there is not really any problem. My concern with ACE is that he seems more intent on proving the CAGW advocates wrong than preventing damage to our society. I sympathise with his apparent point of view and of course I believe that the CAGW crowd are grossly exaggerating the situation in order to trump up a non existent problem. Also that at least some have ulterior motives for doing so, but realistically preventing more damage to our society is the issue of critical importance. And sometimes giving people (especially politicians) a graceful way out is more important than just being right.
LENR if it is real would be a genuine huge step forward for mankind and a way out for politicians. On the other issue, those activists who are pushing CAGW for their own ulterior motives would be most frustrated in having their rationale made redundant.
20
Michael H.,
Regarding the origin of current CO2 rise…
I’m getting sick of explaining [1,2,3] the carbon accounting argument. Presumably you’ve heard of it and seen the data and conversion constants that it relies on for the repository flow calculations. If so, then what part of that argument don’t you accept?
Before answering, please at least skim all 3 of the linked comments above and look at the 2 main supporting diagrams (hosted on imgur), as they may answer some Frequently Asked Questions about this hypothesis, in particular the weak points or sources of error in the calculation.
~ ~ ~
With regards to NH/SH [CO2] discrepancy, you could try arguing it the other way. If the ocean was the main source of recent [CO2] rise, and since the SH is mostly ocean and the NH has most of the land area, you’d hypothesize the SH should have higher CO2. You say the measurements you’ve seen put the NH and SH at basically the same level. Surely you must admit the facts take priority over hypothesis? So despite the only two candidates for CO2 origin being disproportionately distributed over the two hemispheres (and in opposite ways), the facts show that CO2 mixing between hemispheres must be occurring fairly well.
I think this is easy to explain. Diffusion will happen unless there is latitudinally centrifugal winds to keep them apart at *all points* along the equator. That condition is impossible to satisfy. There is always a section in the ITCZ where the latitudinal component of velocity of two neighbouring air masses is zero, so while they are ascending they can diffuse CO2 prior to splitting into different hemispherical destinations.
20
Michael, as pointed out above this displays a misunderstanding or ignorance of the carbon cycle. Yes it is a very dynamic constantly changing cycle between the atmosphere, land and ocean, but it IS A CYCLE. This means the amount is constantly being absorbed and emitted in rough balance, as can be seen over the CO2 record where it has cycled between 180-280ppm in concert with the orbital cycles over at least a million years. Now what we are doing is adding fossil fuel CO2 to that cycle that has not been there for millions of years. The processes that permanently remove that CO2 from the system are exceedingly slow, therefore, even though the lifetime of a particular CO2 molecule may be the order of 5 years, its effect on the carbon cycle are of the order of hundreds to thousands of years.
Learn the Carbon Cycle (specifically the slow cycle)
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/page5.php
I have explained this many many times, problem is those that are more interested in their hip pocket than future generations refuse to go and learn them.
Not alarmists, actual scientists and the peer reviewed science. I actually don’t like the term alarmist but prefer realist or pro science, as I read and accept the basic science and what the majority of the science and scientists are telling us.
“Ample physical evidence shows that carbon dioxide(CO2) is the single most important climate-relevant greenhouse gas in Earth’s atmosphere. This is because CO2, like ozone, N2O, CH4, and chlorofluorocarbons, does not condense and precipitate from the atmosphere at current climate temperatures, whereas water vapor can and does. Noncondensing greenhouse gases, which account for 25% of the total terrestrial greenhouse effect, thus serve to provide the stable temperaturestructure that sustains the current levels of atmospheric water vapor and clouds via feedback processes that account for the remaining 75% of the greenhouse effect. Without the radiative forcing supplied by CO2 and the other non condensing greenhouse gases, the terrestrial greenhouse would collapse, plunging the global climate into an icebound Earth state.”
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2010/2010_Lacis_etal.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/330/6002/356/DC1
“CO2 is a well-mixed gas that does not con-dense or precipitate from the atmosphere. Water vapor and clouds, on the other hand, are highly active components of the climate system that re-spond rapidly to changes in temperature and air pressure by evaporating, condensing, and precip-itating.”
“Furthermore, the atmospheric residence time of CO2 is exceed-ingly long, being measured in thousands of years.”
03
“Noncondensing greenhouse gases, which account for 25% of the total terrestrial greenhouse effect, thus serve to provide the stable temperaturestructure that sustains the current levels of atmospheric water vapor and clouds via feedback processes that account for the remaining 75% of the greenhouse effect.”
So the long lived 25% of the green house effect provides the negative feedback to stabilise the highly dynamic short term 75%. I don’t think so, feedback works by reponses which act to reduce the initial perturbation and long term processes by definition cannot respond to short term processes so i think you have got that backwards.
“The processes that permanently remove that CO2 from the system are exceedingly slow, therefore, even though the lifetime of a particular CO2 molecule may be the order of 5 years, its effect on the carbon cycle are of the order of hundreds to thousands of years.” and yet the CO2 level in the atmosphere can change significantly over 6 months. A time constant is a property of the system, it cannot be simultaneously short and long. Oh and by the way, check out the phase of the change (ie: does it drop in the northern hemisphere during summer when all the trees are green and rise over the winter when the trees are bare? Or is the change in the opposite direction? Like to hazard an explanation as to why? Oh, and while you are at it check out the size of the change versus latitude. Largest near the equator where there is most vegetation?, or in the mid latitudes where most of the deciduous vegetation is?, or near the poles where there is little vegetation? I think you might get a surprise. Seemly little issues like this are not trivial, they are absolutely fundamental to understanding what is going on.
“Without the radiative forcing supplied by CO2 and the other non condensing greenhouse gases, the terrestrial greenhouse would collapse”. Oh really!!!! so we would get snowball earth, no clouds in the sky because its too cold for much evaporation so the albedo would be low thus the earth would be receiving 343 watts/sqM not the current 243 watts/sqM which by the SB equation would put it at +6C. Of course at +6C there would be substantial water evaporating (not exactly snowball earth) so substantial green house effect from that water which contributes 75% of the total green house effect on earth according to your own statements.
Michael are you thinking about what you write or are you simply blindly parroting the words of others?
10
Yes and yes. The quotes above came from actual peer reveiwed science. So if you are such an expert in climate science that you can ridicule the published efforts of others, you must be a celebrated publishing and qualified climate scientist in your own right. From which journal can I read your science from?
At the very least you should write an article in the journal the quote came from to explain to the scientists why they are so wrong, that is how the peer reviewed system works.
So you obviously did not read my link to the explanation of the slow and fast carbon cycle. The seasons balance out as the natural systems emit and absorb the carbon in the cycle. As we add carbon to the cycle, it stays in the cycle. That does not mean it is always in the atmosphere, or always in the land, but that since the slow parts of the cycle that can permanently sequester the carbon take so long, the carbon will keep having an effect in the cycle for centuries. Please go and learn instead of misunderstanding from ignorance, and arrogantly speaking like an expert in the field.
01
Nothing in the Lacis paper shows any real evidence of CO2 being a strong greenhouse gas.
Firstly neither the existence nor strength of the greenhouse effect is proven by statements such as this: “The difference between the nominal global mean surface temperature (TS=288K) and the global mean effective temperature (TE= 255K) is a common measure of the terrestrial green-house effect (TE= 33 K). ”
If you subtract an imaginary theoretical number from a real measurement you end up with an imaginary theoretical number, NOT a measurement of a real phenomenon.
They then go on to pay homage to their high priests Fourier and Arrhenius’ belief in a greenhouse effect controlling climate, but their experiments could not take into account negative feedbacks from clouds, so are not fully representative of the Earth’s climate. They also do not establish CO2 as being a major player, only that some combination of CO2 and H2O makes the effect. The fact that CO2 does NOT undergo phase transition at Earth temperatures is an obvious reason for it NOT being the main factor in the vertical redistribution of heat, because it has no latent heat transport ability like water. Its rarity relative to water vapour only diminishes its role further. You keep forgetting that 14.8-15.2μm is the only band where CO2 can make any difference at all.
Then Lacis et al try to argue CO2 is the main contributor of the greenhouse effect via simulation output from computer models which were built to assume that CO2 was a strong factor, which is circular reasoning. It’s not a real measurement so it’s not evidence.
They start by alluding to “Ample physical evidence” and then show nothing of the sort.
Stop referencing nonsense simply because it’s published nonsense and start learning to spot pseudoscience. When your NASA heroes write stuff like this:
…you should recognise that as a self-contradiction and therefore impossible nonsense.
The snake oil sales continue:
Just think of the scale of energy involved. These people are actually trying to tell you that if it were not for the ongoing GHE of CO2, all the clouds would rain out, humidity would drop, and the missing water vapor would never be replaced by any more evaporating water.
This implies the GHE backradiation of CO2 alone, which they estimate in their flat earth model as 30W/m^2, is capable of evaporating an amount of water equal to 20% of the world’s average total daily rainfall, since with water vapour feedback they can evaporate the rest. That’s infeasible, but if you want to believe that is occurring just try figuring out how much energy is needed.
The global averaged daily rainfall is 990L/m^2 and you have to evaporate 198L/m^2 with a average daily dose of 2592kJ of energy per square metre. See how far you get evaporating all that water with CO2 alone. Hehehee.
The latent heat of vaporization is 44kJ/mol, so you can only evaporate 58mol of water per square metre, which is 1060g or just over 1L. That’s too low by a factor of 200 times. Your heroes have sold you on a theory which is impossible by a factor of 200.
Models aren’t evidence.
Trace gases whose absorption spectra overlap with a far more abundant GHG have no way to cause a strong climate influence.
The backradiation of CO2 is presently incapable of evaporating even 1% enough water to warm the climate to the extent Lacis implies, which means getting rid of the CO2 would not lead to an ice age earth.
20
Spot on Andrew, thumbs up from me on that one, among many other valid points you raised. Pity its at the bottom of an oldish thread, it deserves better.
20
Oh great, another expert whos mere words are enough to nullify the overwhelming body of published scientific evidence for AGW. Have I read your peer reviewed published rebuttal anywhere? or do I just accept that you know everything?
Neither is opinion and bold definitive statements without proof
They also have positive feedback effects, which are likely to nearly cancel out, and regardless will not overly affect the science.
No it is not. CO2 has an effect in the atmosphere on the order of hundreds to thousands of years, water vapor reacts very quicly but has a short lifetime of the order of about a week or so. So CO2 has the long term stabilising effect of continuous forcing, water vapor merely reacts to that. Did you not understand that? It was the point of them being non condensing long lived gases.
I don’t think you understand that we are talking about a planet. Small global changes have large effects on the system as a whole. Just look at any temp scale of the last 1 million years. The rough difference between an interglacial like now and an ice age with montreal under a couple of km of ice is a mere 6 degrees and 100ppm of Co2. Your comment is meaningless and not science.
The spectra do not completely overlap
“The global mean greenhouse effect can be defined as the difference between the planetary blackbody emitting temperature(inbalance with the absorbed solar irradiance) and the global mean surface temperature.The actual mean surface temperature is larger (by around 33°C,assuming a constant planetary albedo) due to the absorption and emission of long‐wave (LW) radiation in the atmosphere by a number of different “greenhouse” substances…
We quantify the impact of each individual absorber in the total effect by examining the net amount of long‐wave radiation absorbed in the atmosphere.”
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010JD014287.shtml
Comparison of Spectrally Resolved Outgoing Longwave data between 1970 and present.
http://spiedigitallibrary.org/proceedings/resource/2/psisdg/5543/1/164_1?isAuthorized=no
There are many lines of evidence for AGW including
“ We examine the Earth’s energy balance since 1950, identifying results that can be obtained without using global climate models. Important terms that can be constrained using only measurements and radiative transfer models are ocean heat content, radiative forcing by long-lived trace gases, and radiative forcing from volcanic eruptions. We explicitly consider the emission of energy by a warming Earth by using correlations between surface temperature and satellite radiant flux data and show that this term is already quite significant. About 20% of the integrated positive forcing by greenhouse gases and solar radiation since 1950 has been radiated to space. Only about 10% of the positive forcing (about 1/3 of the net forcing) has gone into heating the Earth, almost all into the oceans. About 20% of the positive forcing has been balanced by volcanic aerosols, and the remaining 50% is mainly attributable to tropospheric aerosols.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009JD012105/abstract
List of laboratory experiments on CO2
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/papers-on-laboratory-measurements-of-co2-absorption-properties/
01
Michael blabs:
Do you have any evidence to support the very scientific word “likely”? How about “overly affect the science”? Actually, start with correcting that sentence so that it even makes sense. Do you really mean overly effect the climate? Your use of the word science is hilarious.
So Michael apparently thinks that ALL water vapor condenses out of the atmosphere and somehow isn’t replenished on a continuous basis. That demonstrates just how little Michael understands about the water cycle.
Michael please provide the peer reviewed science that measures all water components in the atmosphere and provides evidence to support how water cannot moderate the effects of CO2. That the positive and negative forcings of water “likely” cancel out.
Really?
00
When did I say that? I pointed to science that says that non condensing longlived greenhouse gases have a cumulative warming effect (over hundreds of years) and that water vapor more reacts and has a very short term effect on the order of weeks. It is not cumulative and not long term.
So fairly blatant attempt at misrepresenting me.
00
We’ll see about that.
Where are the links to science I asked for?
00
Your kidding right? I have presented links to science above and all I get is opinion. How about some proof for all the opinion presented above.
01
Michael, you claim that
I’m claiming that to be unproven because of the effect of water in all forms. I’m claiming not enough science has been done (even COULD be done) to prove your claim. In essence I cannot give you proof because it can’t be measured, it hasn’t been quantified. We know the physics of the water cycle, we know (and you admit) it is an active part of the atmosphere. What you have NOT provided is proof of how the positive and negative effects of the water cycle, as you claim “nearly cancel out” Or perhaps they do “nearly cancel out” and the difference is the same amount as what CO2 causes?
The simple truth is you don’t know. Cannot know.
What is known is that the percentage of water in the atmosphere (in all forms) dwarfs the percentage of CO2. It is active and dynamic. It is able to cool instantly by changes in albedo and evaporation.
What you have done here is post lots of science that presents anecdotal observation with a presumption of the cause. That is all you’ve got. Some of it is interesting, I don’t mind that people do the science, what I do mind is people like you claiming that you know enough to dictate political policy. You do not.
00
Hello Andrew; I read your comment and then I looked in detail at your 3 references not just a skim read. It seems as though you are saying that since the total atmospheric CO2 mass is rising slower than anthropogenic emissions that means nature is a net sink for CO2 and if it is a sink it cannot also be a source hence the rising level has to be anthropogenic. If that is what you are saying I disagree with your argument but more significantly I don’t see what that has to do with the point I was trying to make. If I have failed to understand what you are getting at I can only say sorry.
To explain my concern: and let me first point out that I don’t know your background so if some of what I say sounds like I am talking down to you please accept my apologies in advance. Since many people read this blog maybe it will anyway be of use to some others.
Consider first a very simple system, a pot of water being heated on a gas flame. The pot gains energy from the gas flame but it also loses it by convection and radiation to the environment. As the temperature of the water rises, the loss to the environment increases but the energy input from the gas flame does not change. Eventually the energy loss balances the energy gain and the water temperature stops rising and then remains constant. If the gas flame is increased the energy input increases so the water heats up further but as it does so the energy loss also increases further. Thus the water temperature does not continue to rise indefinitely, it will rise to a new equilibrium level. This is of course negative feedback in action and the plot of temperature versus time will show an initial rapid rise which slows more and more as the new equilibrium is approached. Mathematically the form of the curve follows the expression (1-exp(-t/tor). This sort of feedback is stabilising, if net energy input changes all that happens is a slight shift in temperature and a new stable equilibrium point is achieved.
Now imagine a second situation, the pot is extremely well insulated so that there is negligible loss to the environment. Now if it is heated by the gas flame the temperature will rise and will continue to rise at a steady rate until the pot boils. This is an open loop system, one without any feedback. For an open loop system , if there is initially a balance between energy input and output, any increase to the energy input would make the temperature rise indefinitely.
A third situation is possible. Imagine we had some chemicals in the water which could react releasing heat and further, the hotter the water the faster the reaction. Now in our well insulated pot we inject some energy, the temperature rises but that rise increases the reaction rate and thus energy release in the pot so the temperature starts to rise even faster. Thats positive feedback and its clearly an unstable situation. It does not always have to cause runaway (in this case uncontrolled further rise in temperature) but it certainly threatens such an outcome.
Now the claim of the warmists is that the rise in atmospheric CO2 year by year tracks the amount of anthropogenic emission (yes at only half the rate but a constant 50%). That’s remarkable because it suggests a zero feedback situation (an increase in input causes a steady never ending rise in level). If mankind releases a more or less constant amount of CO2 per year (I know the claim is its rising year by year but not much over the last decade or so) with negative feedback one would expect the rise to drop off year by year as the new equilibrium point is approached. yet the warmists claim this monotonic rise will continue for a century or more. Lets remember that using your numbers the natural annual emission is 150 GT whereas mans contribution is 5 GT or 3.3%. It’s a small fraction so one would expect only a small shift in equilibrium level. For example, if the system were reasonably linear for small changes (most systems become more and more nearly linear as the size of the perturbation is decreased) a 5% change in emission might give rise to a 5% change in equilibrium level or a shift from 280ppm to 294ppm. The change to 400 ppm is already HUGELY larger than one might expect from a feedback system. yet we have abundant proof that there are strong negative feedbacks, NASA has confirmed greening in the mid latitudes with an estimated 10% increase in biomass and we know from VERY well established chemistry that CO2 dissolving in water in an equilibrium reaction, as the partial pressure in the gas phase increases so does the concentration in the water at equilibrium.
That means there is a paradox, the form of the rise is unexplained. Its linear whereas it should be (1-exp(-t/torr). This may seem a small point but it is not. Its a huge point and in less controversial science would be more than enough to destroy a theory. One way of course that a system which has negative feedback can still give a close to linear response if if the time constant is much longer than the observation time. In that case one only sees the very beginning of the curve and it looks linear. Trouble is the atmospheric CO2 level changes rapidly with the changing seasons. If the system is capable of responding substantially in a period of 6 months it clearly does not have a long time constant (which also puts paid to the claims that the extra CO2 will hand around for 1000 years).
For those inclined to claim that there is close to zero feedback while claiming steady CO2 at 280 ppm for the last 1000 years it implies an EXACT balance between CO2 emission and absorption open loop, no stabilising mechanism. If that were the case then for example every volcano should cause a step increase in CO2 levels which does not decay back down again. Since there have been many volcanic eruptions over the last 1000 years and the CO2 level is claimed to have remained constant that is clearly not tenable. There is something we have not adequately explained and that means claims that the rise is due to man are questionable.
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Typical, a whole lot of kitchen science and then some ‘warmist claims’ comments. Newsflash buddy, warmists don’t ‘claim anything’ they present the science. Arrogant is people who keep thinking they know more than the majority of scientists.
“Since 1959, approximately 350 billion tonnes of carbon have been emitted by humans to the atmosphere, of which about 55 per cent has moved into the land and oceans. Thus, identifying the mechanisms and locations responsible for increasing global carbon uptake remains a critical challenge in constraining the modern global carbon budget and predicting future carbon–climate interactions.” http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7409/full/nature11299.html
“Since 1850 – 2000 (figures are in petagrams of carbon)
Addition to atmosphere
Land Use 154 PgC
Fossil Fuels 282 PgC
Cement Manufacture 5.5 PgC
Adds up to 441.5 PgC
Over that time CO2 in atmosphere grew by 174PgC (81.5ppmv)
This demonstrates that 40% of the CO2 caused by man has stayed in the atmosphere and 60% has gone into the oceans and terrestrial biosphere.
40% of 441.5 = 174 PgC
60% of 441.5 = 265.9 PgC”
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/faq.html#Q4
The correlation between mans emissions and the rise in CO2
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/images/graphics_gallery/original/mlo_seas_adj_ff.pdf
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Hi michael H,
I am not interested in the “time constants” of [CO2] decay and have said nothing about them.
My response directly addressed your statements in #22:
“In my previous comments I suggested there might be some question over whether man is responsible for the change in CO2 levels. …. So as I say maybe humans are responsible for the rise in CO2 but to me there is still considerable reason for skepticism.”
I showed by reference to the carbon accounting argument, which you do appear to have correctly understood, that there is no room for differing opinion about this issue. The main source of current CO2 rise is industrial.
I didn’t bother to read much further than your first paragraph above, wherein you established that you did understand the argument, and yet you haven’t shown which part of that argument was wrong, you just dodged it and substituted some other wild goose chase argument in its place.
Certainly there is no point in proposing any more complicated curve shape related reason or labyrinthine Salby-esque reason for believing in a predominantly natural CO2 source when the simplest reason of all, arithmetic, shows that to be impossible. (Insert standard Feynman quote here.)
I would prefer to falsify the simpler argument for which we already have all necessary evidence before moving on to a more complicated argument which (you admitted) we may not yet have enough evidence to falsify.
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You expect me to read your input (which I did) but openly admit you cant be bothered reading mine. From your comments it is clear that you can only understand or are only willing to understand very simplistic arguments such as the one you put up. Unfortunately understanding the truth is not always simple. It saddens me that you think you have irrefutable answers yet appear either incapable or unwilling to look at serious analysis. With respect to your comment “there is no room for differing opinion about this issue” decorum prevents me from expressing my opinion directly, lets just say I utterly reject your argument. Its incredibly simplistic and in essence worthless.
As a very successful research scientist/engineer working for a major multinational spectroscopy company for the last 35 years I can claim some understanding of both spectroscopy and control/feedback theory. The point I made was a serious one but you obviously think its beneath your dignity to even look at it. You display the arrogance of the “true religious believer” and frankly I am not prepared to waste any more of my time on you or Michael. Have a nice life.
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There is no point in puffing up your credentials because I didn’t ever attack them. It’s irrelevant.
We’re talking about the CO2 in the atmosphere, not you. Chucking a temper tanty doesn’t help anyone.
There’s nothing to be gained by insisting that I follow some other argument and pretending it is some indignity if I don’t. I explained an efficient and parsimonious reason for postponing that argument, but you have no reason to totally ignore the mass balance principle now. Besides, the time constant argument is not even attempting to directly answer the question you posed, which was: where is the CO2 mainly coming from today, nature or industry. The shape of the CO2 curve may help tell us how feedbacks from contributing factors affect the trends as they evolve over several decades, but that is quite secondary from determining where most of it has come from this year. You can fine tune it later with feedbacks to make a predictive model, but you only need arithmetic to determine what has happened already.
And you’re still unable to say exactly what is wrong with applying the mass balance principle in this way to these observations. The argument is simple, but not simplistic. It is not simplistic to apply the mass balance principle to the observations of carbon movements because the mass balance principle is inviolable in the climate, and there is enough observational data to apply it to this situation. It is not simplistic to partition the planet into Industry, Air, and Other, because that is exactly the question under study.
Since you interpreted one sentence out of context to justify your dummy-spit, let’s debunk that. I never implied it was irrefutable, you made that up. When I said “I showed by reference to the carbon accounting argument that there is no room for differing opinion about this issue”, this meant the lack of room for opinion did not spring axiomatically from nowhere, it was the product of a reasoning process. The answer is irrefutable only in the sense that 8 – 4 > 0. But even if this one sentence out of many could have been phrased better, it doesn’t give much excuse for ignoring everything else I have actually done here.
If I really believed the argument was absolutely irrefutable, I would not have asked people to find the problem with it on TWO prior separate occasions in this forum, in 2011 and 2012.
If I didn’t want the argument to be seriously challenged, I could have asked a warmist lightweight to find problems with it.
If I really religiously thought I had an irrefutable answer, I would not have specifically urged you (of ALL the people I could have asked) to lend your considerable experience towards finding problems with it.
If I really believed the argument was irrefutable, I would not have asked people on NoTricksZone to find the flaw with it, where it was essentially my data against Salby’s hand-waving and yet nobody could say exactly why the argument was wrong.
Nobody has ever shown why this argument can’t or doesn’t give the true answer. If you can find the flaw you will be the first, and if correcting the flaw proves the opposite it will be magnificent.
So just to clarify the originally intended meaning of my words (though it comes too late to prevent you exploiting an ambiguity as a convenient exit door):
* IF the argument is correct, the result is irrefutable.
* IF the argument is not correct, the result can be refuted by specifically identifying some wrong or omitted relationship in the model or data error in the inputs.
That’s the irony of it.
I supplied a simple model, supplied the source of data for it, demonstrated that the answer it produces IS IN THEORY FALSIFIABLE FROM OBSERVATIONAL DATA, showed you previous counterarguments that had been addressed already, and then asked you to find the problem in it – an example of the empirical scientific method. You then have the cheek to accuse me of being a stupid arrogant dogmatist, when you are the one who ignores the counterarguments and walks off in a huff. I could not script a sitcom better.
The validity of the hypothesis was always, and still is, open to question.
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