It just gets worse:
A stunning new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) finds that the growth rate of CO2 emissions has tripled in recent years:
CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel burning and industrial processes have been accelerating at a global scale, with their growth rate increasing from 1.1 percent/year for 1990-1999 to >3 percent/year for 2000-2004. The emissions growth rate since 2000 was greater than for the most fossil-fuel intensive of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emissions scenarios developed in the late 1990s.
That’s right. CO2 emissions are rising faster than in the most pessimistic U.N. scenario. So much for all those ostriches and global warming delayers who say that economic growth is the key to solving global warming or that the U.N. scenarios are too extreme.
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It makes it especially painful knowing that we’ve spent at least the last 10 years over two administrations doing nothing about it.
I’m sorry, but the only sane response to this is an absolutely radical departure from what we’re doing now. I want to hear that urgency from our presidential candidates, and yes, have it show up in their policy papers.
Leaving aside the discussion as to weather CO2 is actually responsible for climate change, you have ignored an important portion of that article.
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You wish to have the new presidential campaign focus on this issue, however, the US is not responsible for that growth.
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What exactly is it you would like the POTUS to do about China’s or India’s CO2 emissions?
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If you read the full text, not just the abstract, you could see in figure 9 that the US emissions have remained constant and has shown a slight degrease in per capita CO2 emissions.
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Further, this study evaluated the growth in CO2 emissions from 2000-2004 and compares this to the IPCC prediction for emissions in the 1990’s. What are these rates compared to the TAR or AR4? What is the trend since 2004-2007 or 2000-2007? Not to mention the problems with the methodology of trying to examine anything on a global scale with such a short time period as 4 years.
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This appears to be more alarmism.
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since it’s beyond question, except in the minds of those who have partisan axes to grind.
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Second, who cares who’s making the CO2? Hell yes, the President has something to do with how much China and India spew forth — negotiating trade agreements and international treaties. If you have a President who doesn’t give a crap, then you won’t get results. QED.
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JK, your questions may or may not be worth investigating, but you then leap to a conclusion: “More alarmism.” Wonder why I don’t actually think you’re arguing in good faith?
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Troll on.
I say that all the time, Charley. When I am asked, “Was that you?”
I have been around this blog for about 6 months now. I feel I have contributed to the discussion and avoided taking cheap swings that are typically labeled “trollish” behavior. I find it offensive that you would try and label me a troll or accuse me of not arguing the issue in good faith.
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As far as your assertion that the cause of climate change is “beyond question”. That is just bullshit! This “debate is over” attitude about the cause of global climate change is baffling. The climatologists and paleoclimatologists are a long way from understand the complex interactions of our climate and what could affect a rise in temperature on a global scale. Further, they have documented changes in the earth’s climate going back far into the geologic record, in the hundreds of millions of years if not longer. There are many different theories as to what has caused these changes. Meteor impacts, volcanic events, wobbles on the earth’s axis, variations in the suns energy, variations in the earth’s orbit around the sun, variations in the ocean’s currents that can affect the carbon sinks, emissions of CO2, dust, chemicals and other GHG by man, and on and on. We are a long way from understanding all of these complex interactions to look at one area and say “yes, that’s the cause right there.”
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For you, or anyone for that matter, to try and say they know the cause of climate change is asinine. We all may have theories that we like but why is it only the pro-anthropogenic climate change crowd that feels the need to insult and demean people with opposing views? Why the need to declare the debate is over when it is still very much ongoing?
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Oh yeah, and I am really debating this with you because I have a partisan axe to grind. Puh-lease, I probably hate GWB more then most on this blog. Likely for different reasons they most. Don?t forget that he ran telling us he was a conservative, but once he was in office he completely abandon all of those conservative ideals he claimed to have. Further, he has been kowtowing to the religious right and I pretty much hate all organized religion.
…if you want to post on a comment thread on the Internet, you have to have a thick skin. I discovered that while I was posting on FreeRepublic.com in the late 1990s. I find your posts interesting, even though I don’t necessarily agree with some of them.
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I’ll have a response for you on your interpretation of the IPCC 4 executive summary tomorrow. Short: I understand your point regarding solar irradiation, but I think you’re taking a bit too hard line relying on it.
and understand your point about being thick skinned. I was offended mainly because of who it came from. Charley and I have had discussion on many topics and was put off by being reduce to a troll.
His argument was well thought out and reasoned. Hardly a troll. Why do you characterize someone who’s beliefs are different than yours a troll. That’s not trolling.
You have a lot of temerity bringing facts and reality into a hysterically emotional morass of suspect science. Carefull, the inquistors may be dropping by the house for a chat.
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To top it off your acused of having suspect motives. What’s that all about. I guess we should all put on our Al Gore CD’s and ipods for additional education.
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Perhaps if we shut down our infrastructure for two weeks a month or even better. If we deport 20 million illegal aliens we will reduce their carbon footprint and likely slow our economy down. That’s a viable solution.
… the POTUS as well as the rest of the government take the necessary steps to foster alternative energy programs in order that we may ween ourselves off of carbon based energy production, creating an opportunity to create real energy independance for the US in the world marketplace, stimulating our own economy in the technology research and infrastructure developments associated with these alternative options.
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After having done good for ourselves, these technologies we could be leading the world in developing could eventually become available to china, india, or anyone else who wants to buy.
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Just a thought.
than this crazy idea to develop genetic engineering as fast as possible. If we have to have new industries to stimulate the economy, alternative energy is just about the best one. We don’t want other states to get all that industry, do we?
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Why are we so crazy about developing genetic engineering and same-sex conception? It’s unnecessary and harmful to the planet. We need to conserve energy, and it takes lots less energy to have sex than to have a lab create an embryo and implant it, especially a genetically engineered embryo.
about whether dinner or a movie makes a better first date, just to see how you manage to tie genetic engineering into it.
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“well people who goes to the movies on a first date are more likely to genetically engineer children……”
But take other issues that matter, and I could probably show you how the situation would be improved if we stopped genetic engineering with an egg and sperm law. People are failing tragically to grasp how pivotal this issue is. Why are they insisting on pursuing genetic engineering and same-sex conception even though it is a huge contibutor to global warming? You can’t scoff at that claim, it’s got the highest CO2 to need ratio of just about anything besides NASCAR and Die Hard movies. Huge amounts of public money are being spent on it. We can’t really stop people from making dumb movies or driving their cars, but we can stop this whole industry.
you will be putting a pro nuclear power plant bumper sticker on your 1980 Renault LeCar(Hatchback).
…In the mid- to late- 1950s, General Electric, in its plant in Evendale OH, was in the process of designing and building a nuclear power plant for an airplane. (The Evendale plant mostly known for its being the “large jet engine” component of GE’s jet engine work, while Lynn is generally medium and small jet engines.) I know, because my father worked on the project. The engines were intended for relatively small planes by today’s “large plane” standards.
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They actually had a working design. The only problem was, they could not figure out how to contain the radiation in the event of a crash.
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Aside from that, I’m actually moderately pro-nuclear power. There was an article a few years ago in IEEE Spectrum about modern designs of nuclear power plants from which it is pretty much impossible to result in a release of radiation even in the event of an accident. Even accidents resulting from operator error. Operator error led to both Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
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Regarding the exchange between JK and Charley on the MTA above, Charlie is correct in saying that the science behind APG (anthropogenic global warming) is on target. But JK is also correct in saying that anything the US does to reduce its emissions will dwarf any increase in emissions in the developing world, including China and India. Charley suggests negotiating trade agreements (presumably with penalties for failure of China and India to meet their negotiated targets), but it isn’t going to be done–or at least the penalties will not be enforced–because US companies and US residents want to have cheap access to the goods and services that they produce.
Well, it has to be done. We don’t have a choice. You’re envisioning a world where our short-term interests will perpetually outweigh our long-term survival. We simply can’t think that way anymore.
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“Sink or swim” — ah, that’s an unfortunate metaphor, isn’t it?
two mass extinctions by extraterrestial cause. We have had volcanic eruptions that have caused remarkable climate change. We have had climate changes due to unknown causation.
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The poisoning of our water, as well as an increasing dearth of freshwater, decreasing amounts of foodstuffs,
changes in our global temperatures, changes in our atmosphere are all directly proportional to the burgeonong population of earth. Cut earth’s population by two thirds and you will decrease our current difficulties proportionally. Simple mathematical equation. Like it or not that is the ultimate solution. You can’t put ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag. What precipitates the mass cull is in the hands or mother nature or perhaps mankind itself.
It’s interesting that you take the two extraterrestrial mass extinctions as gospel but discount that the rise in co2 if effecting climate change. Why?
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Sorry, but I have to ask – are you volunteering to be in the 2/3 group because I’m not!
It’s interesting that you take the two extraterrestrial mass extinctions as gospel but discount that the rise in co2 if effecting climate change.
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…interpret what MCRD wrote in that manner. I interpreted MCRD as saying that a substantially reduced population would substantially reduce demands for transportation fuel, electricity (much generated by combusted coal), products that require release of CO_2 in their manufacture–and that includes agricultural products, by the way, you don’t have harvests without tractors*–and so forth.
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As to the two possibly-asteroid-related mass extinctions (actually there may have been more than two), I find the theories intriguing. (Yes, I know what “theory” means in science) and I find the evidence for them persuasive. Are they 100% correct? Hell, I don’t know. I wasn’t there. Are there other possibilities? Well, yes.
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As an aside, I find it somewhat strange that I am defending MCRD.
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*Actually, you can have harvests without a tractor. Get a large field. Plant your desired crops. Harvest them using a cycle and a scythe. Put the potatoes and carrots in a root cellar. Have a few goats out back for milk and meat. That’s how you do it. BTW, do you think I’m kidding? I most certainly am not. That describes the little farm that used to be where my spouse’s house is in the outskirts of Munich. And they were operating it until well into the late 1950s. They sold off most of the land to raise money to build the house. But that farm was how the family survived the ravages of WWII.
…by
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substantially reduced population would substantially reduce demands
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I meant to say
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substantially lower population would result in a substantially lower demand
I wasn’t arguing that the extra terrestrial events didn’t occur (the very well may have), but questioning why that can be taken for fact (because of I assume a preponderance of scientific data) but that global warming cannot (although, and of course many will argue to the contrary, there is a preponderance of data indicating so).
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In an earlier post in this thread MCRD commented
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Which seemed to indicate his doubt regarding co2 as a cause of global warming and of course calls into question his proposed solution of population reduction (what for if co2 is not a problem).
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But you maybe right Raj and I may have misinterpreted him.
MCRD?
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IMHO ? the fact that you would agree with MCRD given what I assume are diametrically opposed positions on most issues is to your credit.
It could be because the same scientists that study the earth’s past (extinction events and climate) do not believe that the current state of climate change is man induced, simply because they have document many different climate changing episodes that are more rapid and more drastic. Paleoclimatologists, for the most part, believe we do not have enough information to say one way or the other what is causing climate change.
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This is even reveled in the IPCC AR4 summary for policy makers. In the summary is Figure SPM-2 in which a basic analysis of radiative forcing is compared. There are two key things in this figure that are often ignored. The first is the far right column that is assessed level of scientific understanding (LOSU). If you examine this column you would see that there is an admitted “low” level of scientific understanding of solar irradiance, which is one of the most widely accepted competing theories to man induced global climate change by paleoclimatologists. They tend to favor this theory because it offers a more complete explanation of climate change that has been observed in the geologic record going back hundreds of millions of years if not longer.
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In addition, this statement is included in the text below the figure:
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And this statement in the IPCC report:
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Originally read “No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the climate change observed to date] to anthropogenic causes.? But this was changed by the policy makers involved in the IPCC report process.
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As far a mass extinction events, they know they have occurred, it’s in the fossil record, but also don’t know the cause of these events. There are many theories, meteor impact being the most prominent at the time, but no one knows the cause of the mass extinction events.
IPCC AR4 Summary(pdf file)
I?m not quite following. First the summary of that report states.
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Here is the explanation of what a very high level of confidence means.
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I read that to say that we are now more confident that humans are causing (some level – I don?t know how to interpret those numbers) global warming?
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I’m not a scientist but looking for a cause for global warming that aligns with something that happened in the past in the midst of a new unprecedented event (human generated co2 emissions) seems backwards.
The Earth will certainly survive global warming. The worst case scenario is that Earth becomes like Venus. Completely uninhabitable, but still a planet. We do not have the means of destroying a planet. If we put all of mankind into the effort, we might be able to destroy a large asteroid, but probably not. Even our huge nuclear arsenal cannot defeat the intrinsic survivability of self-gravitating bodies.
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Ignoring the worst-case scenario (Earth heating up by a few hundred degrees), life on Earth will survive. Even if it gets hot enough to boil off the oceans, life will probably survive in some way. It won’t include people or anything non-microscopic, but there will be life.
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The worst-case predicted scenarioes over the next 100 years for the most part still don’t predict killing all of humanity.
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The argument here isn’t about whether we are going to destroy the planet or wipe out all life on the planet, both of which are nearly impossible. The argument is about how much changing the climate will affect people’s lives, and how many people will die as a result. There are some people who think that allowing a few billion people to die because we don’t want to bother cutting our greenhouse gas emissions is unacceptable. There are other people who think it is fine.
Well, it has to be done. We don’t have a choice. You’re envisioning a world where our short-term interests will perpetually outweigh our long-term survival. We simply can’t think that way anymore.
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Actually, we do have a choice. Actually, we have several choices. One choice is to go on our merry way doing what we’ve been doing. In a hundred years, the earth will be a very different place, but we’ll all be dead and gone in a hundred years, and we have no children who might suffer the consequences. Note that the concentration of CO_2 in the atmosphere is a cumulative effect, so we are still dealing with the emissions from the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.
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But, as I said, I seriously doubt that the US can do much of anything about it. The developing countries will increase their emissions beyond anything much that the US can do to reduce the concentration of CO_2 in the atmosphere. There is a difference between the total concentration concentration of CO_2 that is in the atmosphere and annual emissions of CO_2. It is the same difference as between the national debt and the annual deficit
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I’ll give you an analogy regarding the problem. You mentioned use of trade agreements. How do you enforce them, when you are trying to enforce them in connection with a substance (in this case CO_2) that is basically fungible? Starting in the 1970s, OPEC attempted to impose production quotas on its member states to keep the price of oil high, and found that more than a few of its member states were cheating on their quotas. And those were states, products from which could have been readily monitored (that’s why they discovered the cheating). What do you do to monitor CO_2 emissions in countries with which you have trade agreements, when there will be numerous sources of CO_2 emissions in those countries–fixed sources (power plants) and mobile sources (automobiles)?
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As I indicated here some time ago, I monitored nighttime temperatures at several cities around the globe for a while last winter, and they were disturbingly high. (Nighttime temperatures indicate the amount of radiational cooling. Through daytime feedback, of course, the daytime temperatures are also increasing (our stay in Munich from mid-March to mid-May (or so) was quite comfortable at about 70 degrees a day). But there was disturbingly little rainfall. APG is very real.
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I’ll venture off into a tangent. Are you familiar with Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. Basically, the theme of the first book was that people don’t react to a crisis until it comes to a head and they have no other option. The problem with APG is that it is creeping up on us, and there will probably be no head to come to, to which people will react. We can try to nibble at the edges (photovoltaics, etc–and that’s another choice), but APG will continue. But Americans obviously do not want to have to bear the lion’s share of the brunt of the nibbling.
You could be documenting a phenomenon called “urban heat island“.
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…and clearly understood. It was an informal monitoring. It was certainly not of scientific rigor, nor was it intended to be.
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But, let me posit you this. In this last winter, our little hovel just outside of Munich (elevation above mean sea level, 450 meters–pretty high up) never, ever, saw a low night temp of less than a degree or two below zero (all temps in Celsius) That is in stark contrast to about a dozen years ago when the nighttime temps would be well below zero. This was in a suburban area, no noticeable change in what might be called the “urban heat island” effect.
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That is highly suspicious (although very nice for us while we were there for the last few weeks) because of the elevated nighttime temps in a relatively suburban area.
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It strikes me that you really need to separate a few issues.
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One, globale Warmung is real.
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Two, what’s the cause? Or, more explicitly, what are the causes, and what should Americans consider doing about it to the extent that they can do anything about it?
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It is the last question that I will leave you with tonight, and I’ll have further comment on the IPCC executive summary in the morning.
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BTW, I do not claim to be a climatologist (nor do I play one on TV). But I am a lawyer (who can evaluate evidence) who has a scientific background (Masters in physics) and the combination allows me to somewhat evaluate evidence.
One, I agree that the global climate has shown a temperature increase, the temperature of the earth is constantly changing along with concentrations of various components of the atmosphere (i.e. CO2, O2, nitrogen, dust and ash, poly aromatic hydrocarbons, etc.)
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Two, I personally believe the cause of climate change is natural, a combination of natural carbon cycling and variations in the earth’s orbit around the sun and tilt on its axis. I am not willing to rule out that man has had influence on this system but I believe this is more do to land use change (cutting down and clearing of vegetation that is a carbon sink) then CO2 emissions. This is primarily due to the logarithmic relationship between CO2 concentrations and temperature change and the relatively minor GHG affects of CO2 compared to other naturally occurring compounds in the atmosphere.
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Three, I believe we need to demonstrate personal responsibility to be good environmentalists or stewards of the land. However, I don’t believe we should do this because of the possibility of anthropogenic climate change but just to be better people. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. (by the way, thanks Stomv, this weekend will be one month of reducing my plastic bag use, down to about two a week, mainly for fruit and veggies) As I just pointed out, reduce our use of unneeded items. Reduce our fuel and energy consumption. This can be done in several ways, some ride bikes to work and other places, this doesn’t work for me since my office is 35 miles from my house so I telecommute one to two days a week. Choose reusable containers and items over one time use ones. Two quick example, in my lunch cooler I put ice in one of those plastic containers that can be washed and reused instead of a zip lock bag and instead of buying individual water bottles, get a water cooler that takes those big, 5-gallon containers and use a nalgene reusable bottle. Encourage recycling, our town is looking to do this by going to a pay as you throw program for trash with recycling being free.
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To your last point, I do claim to be a scientist. A geologist not a climatologist. While this gives me a background to understand some of the science, the complexities of the climate require more specialized knowledge to fully understand the issues and theories.
Two, I personally believe the cause of climate change is natural, a combination of natural carbon cycling and variations in the earth’s orbit around the sun and tilt on its axis.
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that you apparently are assuming that global climate change is the result of non-human activity, thereby excluding the possibility of a human component. In my view, that is false assumption. Note that we are discussing AGW, anthropogenic global warming–the theorized component of global warming due to human activity. There is no doubt that there are other components contribute to global climate change, including the last two things that you mentioned (variations in the earth’s orbit around the sun and tilt on its axis, as well as variations in the sun’s radience, mentioned in your IPCC executive summary). But it is difficult to believe how carbon cycling can contribute to any significant degree, since carbon cycling, on a major scale, would mean that the level of CO_2 in the atmosphere would remain pretty much constant.
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I recognize that correlation does not mean causation, but comparing the graphs shown here and here show a fairly strong relationship between the two. Aside from the fact that the beginnings of the large increase in both temperature and CO_2 levels coincided with the significant increase in use of previously sequestered carbon (i.e., fossil fuels), and the fact that it is difficult to hypothesize a scenario in which global warming would induce an increase in CO_2 levels, it is difficult to believe that the significant increase in CO_2 levels due to combustion of fossil fuels is not the primary forcing factor in the significant temperature rise.
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BTW, I have a science background, too. Physics, not climatology.
I love having the debate at this level instead of calling each other names.
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The first point I would like to address is this:
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I agree that would be a false assumption, but that is not my position. As I wrote before “I am not willing to rule out that man has had influence on this system but I believe this is more do to land use change (cutting down and clearing of vegetation that is a carbon sink) then CO2 emissions.”
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This leads to my second point which I also already made up thread:
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As you said, correlation does not mean causation. Both of these scenarios also coincide with massive changes in land use (i.e. clear cutting and development). We both acknowledge that there are many other factors operating that are influencing both of these scenarios. As I wrote before, my biggest issue with attributing the temperature rise to CO2 concentration rise “is primarily due to the logarithmic relationship between CO2 concentrations and temperature change and the relatively minor GHG affects of CO2 compared to other naturally occurring compounds in the atmosphere.” None of this even addresses the problems of accuracy in the measurements. Some of the CO2 and temp results being compared are from ice cores and other circumstantial evidence and others are from direct read instruments. This could be problematic in the degree of accuracy and there may not be as big of a difference as is being portrayed in the graphics.
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Again, correlation does not mean causation. Why do the two have to be related? They may be completely independent and are coincidentally following the same pattern. But here are two little hypotheticals to consider, if temp were to increase quickly, for what ever the reason, it could stress the vegetation. Stressed vegetation is less productive and therefore not as efficient as a carbon sink. Second, if temp were to increase quickly, again for what ever the reason, this could increase the temperature of the ocean water and affect the currents that flows throw the ocean. This could serve to decrease the ability of the ocean to work as a carbon sink. By the way, scientists are noticing a decrease in the ability of the oceans to work as a carbon sink.
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The article does go on to say that the researchers believe CO2 emissions are to blame for this as well. However, the strength of the wind can be related only to increases in the heat absorption of the ocean and land from the increases in temperature.
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For the record, I was not bragging about being a scientist (I stopped doing that when one day at the bar, shortly after graduating, I was bragging to a friend about being a scientist while he was just a bean-counting accountant. He responded by showing me his pay check. I haven’t bragged about being a scientist since.) I was merely responding to your previous point about your background. For the record, my point was that the complexities of the climate are such that you really need to be specialized in the field to truly begin to grasp all of the different factors acting to produce the climate of the globe.
…to avoid indentation to right margin hell.
the graph shown here indicates that the sun is currently on a downward slope of irradiance (and the peaks seem to be receding as well), and that the irradiance has been within a fairly narrow range for the last 30 years, varying less than a watt per square meter. Given the average of about 1366 watts per square meter, percentage-wise that is a very low variation.
First, how long does it take for the observed variance in the sun’s out put take to affect the earth? As far as I am aware there is no good answer to that questions as of yet.
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Second, if percentage or degree of increase is the basis for legitimacy, then why is global warming a big deal. Based on this graph you present before, the average global temperature has increased less then 0.4 degrees C. That is a small percentage of the total average temperature and the “Little Ice Age” had a bigger temperature variance by more then double (over 0.8 degrees C). And the climate responded to that on its own, so why should we be concerned by an increase of half of that?
… to think that an increase of radiation from the sun could somehow aviod being absorbed in real time? Isn’t the greenhouse effect a ‘real time’ effect? I’m not aware of any natural system that ‘sequesters’ solar radiation. As such, it seems to me in the absence of some demonstrable mechanism, it should be safe to assume that increased solar radiation affects the earth in real time.
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Not a scientist here… anybody?
“sequester” solar radiation. As does the land.
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…is an odd use of the verb “sequester.” They absorb heat, for the later, but not much later, exchange with the atmosphere. I believe that most people would consider “sequestration” to refer to removal for a substantial period of time.
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Like carbon in fossil fuels–apparently millions of years, instead of merely days or months.
… the constant circualtion of aquatic systems, and their constant interaction with the atmoshpere, my gut (again, not a scientist here) says that any ‘sequestration’ that occurs probably has a maximum timeframe measured in months.
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Is there any other ‘sequestration’ mechanism for solar radiation?
… here to affect anything is the creation of alternatives, and that means technology. One thing that I do still have faith in is our ability to solve technological problems. Our past solutions have inded changed the world on a global scale. We have changed (and are still changing) the ways in which the entire world communicates, and in less than 50 years. Aviation alone is only about a century old and its impact socialogically is incalculable. I’m not saying it will happen, only that it could. Question is,.. do we want it?
Americans per se will not put the brakes on their voracious consumption. Take a look at Al Gore, John Edwards and their minions. They talk the talk, but walk the walk—-naaaaaah. That’s for the other guy. When a calamity occurs, then USA will get the message. If it’s too late—-oh well.
… aviation is going to be the sticky wicket in any attempt to get off of carbon. I don’t have alot of technical citations, but my gut says that the kind of energy output we have become used to in aviation may not be possible to sustain without carbon. More than that, I’m not sure that the difference can be made up with more efficient designs for the non-power plant parts. The only efficiency we could gain that might make up the difference would be speed performance, and we have become very accustomed to our travel times in aviation.
We could make airplanes run off of fuels that we can produce. Then we can make the fuels using spare power in the grid at night and other off-peak times. Making hydrogen to fuel airplanes actually makes sense, because you can fuel them right before the flight, so you don’t have to store the fuel for as long (unlike cars, where you need a low-leakage hydrogen tank). You can also make various hydrocarbons given enough water, CO2, and power. So it is possible to shift the fuel consumption burden back to power plants. As a bonus, you can vary the rate at which you produce hydrocarbons to match whatever excess capacity is in the grid, which makes it easier to have larger, more efficient power plants.
… of hydrogen is that it is not comparable to the burning of other hydrocarbons. My recolection is vague but I do seem to remember hearing that in regards to aviation fuel.
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My only other issue is that, obviously, burning other hydrocarbons isn’t carbon free. I’m not being snarky, but that was one of the criteria I pointed out.
Hydrogen is not a hydrocarbon. As such it does not emitt carbon as a byproduct of combustion.
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Hydrogen is fine as a fuel for aviation and is actually used in the space shuttle.
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The current problems with hydrogen as a fuel source are two fold. One, the problems with explosion and leak detection. Two, the only current way of manufacturing involves “fracing” from fossil fuels and expells CO2.
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to:
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Two, the only current economically viable of manufacturing involves “fracing” from fossil fuels and expels CO2.
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Because of course H2 can be produced through the electrolysis of water. But that takes massive amounts of energy.
… imply hydrogen was a hydrocabon. Was only comparing hydrogen with hydrocarbons. Ebo’s point is well taken as well. Just like peak-oil only being relative to price. Once the price goes up the number of natural stores that become economically viable to explore goes up.
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Similarly, as the parice the hydrocarbon methods of hydrogen production goes up, other production methods become economically viable.
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I don’t know how all this will play out in the future, but one potentially interesting idea about a hydrogen based economy is that hydrogen has many paths of production resulting in that no one geographically limited area can have a stranglehold on world supplies.
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Jeremy Rifkin’s book “Hydrogen Economy” was an interesting read. I wonder how much of it is really applicable though.
Maybe we should do something else with the billion dollars Governor Patrick wants us to spend on genetic engineering research? That industry has a huge carbon footprint, and pursuing it at breakneck speed exacerbates it. And the other things we could do with that money could reduce our reliance on China for all of our stuff. Shipping pants over here to sell at Target for $10 is obvioulsy sketchy. Somewhere there is a real cost, and it’s carbon.
I dunno ’bout youse guys, but I’m usin’ one square of TP. (Those Hollywood people… Is there anything they don’t know?)
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Aren’t the streets in Beantown such a mess because the founders thought there was no need to plan a city because the end of the world was at hand? Wasn’t the science doctrine that the Ice Age was coming back after WW2? Should I sell my Florida swampland and buy a bog in Nova Scotia?
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Well, if CO2 is going up faster than the UN thought, must be time to p-p-p-p-panic! Goodness, the UN is never wrong. If anything is in print it must be true. Should I bring a pitchfork or torch to the ramparts?
You may thing that using one square of toilet paper is over the top, hotshot. But, let me tell you this: Once I started using one square, the weirdos on the subway wouldn’t get close to me. So, it has advantages.
…whether or not there is global warming. All the time, there are real places in this country and around the world that are poisoned. No money and effort on a real problem. Where is the outrage?
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No wonder the politicians consider us fools. They’re right.
whether to be amazed, appalled or amused by the amount of ridiculousness put forth in this thread by those who keep their eyes closed in the face of simple, literally inescapable facts. You know, maybe “CO2 levels are rising quickly” means just that, and not that cosmic rays are actually responsible instead, or whatever.
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And I’m still perplexed as to why so many folks would deny said facts simply because they don’t flatter their partisan fellow-travelers: What’s in it for an independent-minded, good-faith conservative? Is it Al Gore? Would it kill you to just admit that the libs have been right about something?
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I honestly don’t post this stuff as bait, but it sure acts that way.
…what are the people of the Untied States of America* supposed to do to significantly reduce the amount of CO_2 emissions global-wise, when it is clear beyond peradventure that the developing countries will continue CO_2 emissions at a much higher level that the USofA can ever hope to reduce?
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Listen up and listen well. The eastern states of the Untied States of America can’t even get the midwestern and western states to reduce their emissions so as not to pollute our atmosphere on the east cost. What makes you believe (not think, believe) that the US would be able to get China, India, and other developing countries to reduced their greenhouse emissions merely because it’s nice that they do so?
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*Untied States of America was a running theme of a very funny American history book from the early 1960s.
That’s a new one. Do China and India like selling goods and getting investment capital from the US? There are boatloads of carrots and sticks we have to affect their: Carbon “tariffs”, for example. But in any event, it’s a matter of shared destiny.
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As I said in the original post, the necessary measures are quite radical. But there’s no other way out.
Do China and India like (i) selling goods and (ii) getting investment capital from the US? (indicia added)
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As to (i), just how long do you believe that US retailing companies like Wal-Mart (but not limited to them) would allow a trade embargo with China to last?
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Listen up, and listen well. The USofA is not China’s only market. And, you can be sure that, like Canada (after the Bushians screwed them under Nafta–increased tariffs on hardwood, steel), China is also seeking other markets for their products.
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As to (ii), just who is investing in whom? The Chinese are buying American treasuries, among other things American.
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China is awash in foreign currency reserves–mostly because of trade with the US. Can the same be said of the USofA?
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You might have a point if China, in a moment of pique, decided to dump all of its holdings of US treasury bonds on the open market at once. That would certainly depress the market value of treasury bonds (and also the US$ in international currency exhange markets) but it is highly unlikely that they would do that. What they might more likely do is to sell them off slowly, and not buy any more. Either way, you’re screwed.
don’t find a way to do business with each other, both are screwed.
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If China and the US don’t find a way to stop global warming, both are screwed.
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Simple. We’ve got to do both.
…What I wrote was to the effect that nobody cares about what might happen ten, twenty, fifty or a hundred years from now. You haven’t provided any evidence to suggest otherwise.
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When American based companies are judged on their (calendar year) quarterly returns, instead of what might come 10 years from now, what would you expect?
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As to
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If China and the US … don’t find a way to do business with each other, both are screwed.
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Well, I had been led to believe that they had found a way to do business with each other. The evidence to that is manifest.
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As to
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If China and the US don’t find a way to stop global warming, both are screwed.
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Probably. But that won’t happen for a number of years.
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And that’s the point I thought I was making. People can rant and rail about Global Warming all they want, but until a crisis comes along, the vast majority of people will ignore it. The problem of global warming is that it creeps up on you slowly (as I’ve mentioned elsewhere here). Unlike a hurricane or an earthquake.
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I’m not talking about science. The science is clear. The only question is what people are willing to do about the ramifications of the scientific evidence.
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Do you understand the difference?
Ich hab’ gut upgelistened. No need to remind.
…”listen up and listen well” might be directly translated as
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“Hoer zu, und hoer gut”. (“oe” is “o” with Umlaut–the two little dots over the “o.” I don’t do Umlauts in HTML)
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On the other hand, I despise when someone wants to fake German.
I speak German Ok-ish (not quite Mittelstufe level), and I sing German all the time. I know more Goethe poetry than your average blogging shut-in.
Hold alt and use the numerical keypad:
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132 = ä
142 = Ä
148 = ö
153 = Ö
129 = ü
154 = Ü
225 = ß
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I do miss the keyboards in Germany with the buttons just on them.
…and they never worked.
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Thanks for the tip though.
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Maybe the problem is that I compose my comments in Notepad and that program doesn’t recognize the “alt” thing.
In notepad, hold alt, type 0228 on the numerical pad and release, should give you “ä”. You have to use the numerical pad though, not the 1-9 above the letters. If its a laptop with the blue numerical pad in the letters, hold your “fn” key along with alt.
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if it works, lemme know and I’ll give you the other umlaut codes.
Whether you want us to be the Global Police or not. We can use trade tariffs til we’re blue in the wallet, but they are still sovereign countries who can do whatever they want. You want drastic? Us going in there and shutting off their smokestacks whether they like it or not.
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Charley, if you put into effects these ridiculous laws that prevent US businesses from operating effectively, you could see prices go up, jobs get lost and a lot of other bad things that will cause people to stop caring about global warming. “Sure, the temperature is going up, but I don’t have money to buy food.” The Government steps in to help pay for food, and the machine gets bigger and bigger.
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You can call me a crazy right-wing nutjob all you want, but the global economy is too intertwined and interdependent for us to shut out and penalize every country that is tossing a lot of crap up in the air.
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Want one of my pragmatic ideas? Excise tax brackets on autos that are in echelons based on fuel mileage.
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Want a drastic one? Privatize airspace.
Citizen: You polluted my air. I’m suing you.
Company: Ohhh snap. I’m paying mad $$$. Time to invest in clean industry!
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So here we come to our problem with other nations. Do we violate their sovereignty and impose our environmental will or not? Do we decide that our science is so infallible that we could potentially economically devastate millions with economics “pressure” to do what we say?
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You guys are pretty damn sure that global warming is man-caused and here to stay. They were pretty damn sure 30 years ago about global cooling. Fact is, the libs could be wrong. Hell, you could be right. But if is a dangerous word when we’re talking about global reforms that impact almost every country on Earth.
First, you assertion that this is “simple, literally inescapable facts” and that people who don’t buy into the theory of anthropogenic climate change are doing so because of partisan politics are insulting. This is not “simple” science. Trying to understand the climate on a global scale is one of the more complex things we have ever tried to study and understand. And the bottom line is that we are just not there yet and maybe never be in our life times.
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And to assume this is something to do with partisan politics is the part that is the most insulting to me and what I have the biggest issue with on this entire subject. Yes, I can’t stand Al Gore on this issue, but this is not because he is on the left or the right, it is because he is politicizing the science of the issue and, IMHO, intentionally misleading people in his book and movie. Inserting politics into science is the biggest issue I have with this subject. The problem of this becomes confirmation bias; which is always a problem in science but is increasingly so when politics are added to the situation.
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Second, part of the problem here is nonscientists practicing science. You make statements like “simple, literally inescapable facts” but that is not what we are dealing with. We have a series of observations, CO2 concentrations have increased by about 100 ppm in the last 150 years, temperature has risen by about 1.6 degrees (F) in the last 50 years, CO2 is a minor green house gas and human activities have CO2 emissions. These lead you to the theory that human activities have caused the global temperature to rise. But there are other observations that need to be taken into account. The temperature and CO2 concentrations have fluctuated more rapidly and with greater difference in time periods before human activities could have affected it, the temperature of other planets in the solar system appear to be rising, there are other sources of CO2 other then human activities, etc. These lead to alternative theories, like the ones I previously mentioned, but these are not getting coverage in the MSM. And when they do they are being portrayed as some fringe whack job or scientist that is in the pocket of big oil or being partisan. If you were to read through the various trade journals you would see that there is still an active debate among scientists as to the cause of climate change. In the past I made this post about a blog done by people in the field where you can read postings from the scientists (some of the ones who have participated in the IPCC) as they debate various aspects of climate change and climate science.
alas.
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When I became an environmental activist naerly 30 years ago, it was possible to say that the solutions were not only within our grasp (as they are today) but easy, by any measure less painful than the alternatives.
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Alas the question is becoming how bad will things get and how painful will the remedies be on the day that we finally embrace them–if ever?
JK @ Thu May 24, 2007 at 13:49:49 PM EDT
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First, two items.
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For the record, I was not bragging about being a scientist…
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I didn’t consider it bragging. It is always of interest to know the credentials of the people one is conversing with. I wasn’t bragging, either. But it’s nice to know when, if I post a link to a graph, the commenter knows how to read a graph 😉 It isn’t always obvious.
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I love having the debate at this level instead of calling each other names.
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I have no emotional attachment to this issue. I just find it interesting from an intellectual standpoint. We are in our late 50s, so it is highly likely that any significant climate change will occur long after we are dead and gone, and we have no children who may be effected.
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Regarding As you said, correlation does not mean causation. Both of these scenarios also coincide with massive changes in land use (i.e. clear cutting and development).
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If you look at Figure SPM-2 of your cited summary, it appears that “Land Use” actually has a lowering on radiative forcing (actually ranging from zero to a lowering effect). So that should have no effect on global climate change. (Actually, human activity can have local effects, as was shown by the effects of the Soviets’ destruction of the Aral Sea).
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Regarding
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I understand your issue, and don’t disagree with it. But from the graph (actually graphs from a number of reconstructions and one (in black) from direct measurements linked to here–I posted the link earlier, but repeat it for your convenience) it appears that all of the reconstruction graphs follow similar patterns, even if they don’t have exactly the same values. As I mentioned, I am not a climatologist, and I don’t know how the models used for the reconstructions were arrived at, but they all show similar features: the medieval warming period, the little ice age, and the substantial increase in temperature since the beginning of extensive fossil fuel use in the early 1800s, much higher than the peak of the medieval warming period. Are the reconstructions circumstantial? Yes. Is it all the evidence that we have to go by? Again, yes. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to science with the evidence that you have, not the evidence that you might like to have.
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Regarding your statement that the the effects of GHG such as CO_2 are relatively minor, I’ll again refer to Figure SPM-2. According to that figure, CO_2 is actually the largest component of radiative forcing, more than all the other components–methane, NO_2, halocarbons–combined. I don’t know why they left out water vapor–maybe it’s not considered a “long-lived GHG,” but it’s actually the primary one. And, as the temperature of the atmosphere increases due to other warming factors, the ability of the atmosphere to take up water vapor increases, exacerbating its GHG effect. Increased water vapor may lead to increased cloud cover (clouds are not actually water vapor–they are actually water droplets in suspension) that reduce insolation by reflecting sunlight.
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Regarding
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Very true. Unfortunately, though, we don’t have a laboratory to test whether they are completely independent, or, if one causes the other, which is the cause and which the effect. As far as I’m concerned, the major issue is whether and to what extent human activity–combustion of fossil fuels (and I emphasize that)–is causing global warming. If global warming is cause primarily by natural forces, there is little that people can do to stop it–we can only retard it by reducing our contribution.
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I know nothing of botany, but I’ll take your word for it. The temperature rise, as indicated in the above-cited graph is on the order of one degree Celsius (9/5 degree Fahrenheit) which may not be enough to stress the vegetation*. But, I’m not sure that’s relevant. If stressed vegetation is less efficient as a carbon sink, where what caused the increase in temperature that caused the stress?
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But that raises the same question I posed above. What caused the increase in temperature that caused the decrease in the ability of the ability of the ocean to sink carbon?
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I’m not sure that that is totally accurate. I’m also not a meteorologist, but IIRC from my high school science courses (lo these many years ago), wind is due to temperature differentials between two areas, not absolute temperature–all subject to coriolis pseudo-forces, of course. (It’s the coriolis pseudo forces that cause the high- and low-pressure areas.) If temperatures in two areas rise in lockstep, the strength of the wind shouldn’t increase. If they don’t increase in lockstep, it will.
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BTW, I’m not quite sure why you are citing this. From what I have read, increases in sea-surface temperatures have been observed, and that’s what led to the expectation that hurricanes will likely be more violent than in the past. (Although perhaps not more numerous, since hurricane formation is a complicated process, that is only peripherally related to temperature.)
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*It may be that increased irrigation and fertilizer use could reduce stress in agricultural areas, but that would cause other environmental problems.
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From your next comment
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I don’t know, either, but from the cited graph, it appears that the irradiance has little effect on temperature variation. There have been several cycles in irradiation since 1975, but no noticeable change in the slope of the temperature curve after 1975. There was a noticeable change in the slope of the temperature curve between 1945 and 1975, incomparison to before and after, but that is attributed to an increase in sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere, which reflect sunlight. I have no idea where the sulfate aerosols came from. But they also resulted in acid rain (sulfates combined with water vapor form sulfuric acid).
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No, that is the increase over the peak reconstructed temperature for the medieval warm period. The increase in temperature from about 1800 to the present is on the order of 1 degree C. If you do a quick eyeball of the reconstructions, the difference in average (reconstructed) temperatures between the medieval warm period and the little ice age appears to be on the order of 0.2 degrees C.
I’m not sure that we want to stress the oceans as a carbon sink. CO_2 dissolved in water forms carbonic acid (H2CO3). Something like Coca-Cola. Fish and other acquatic life-forms have enough problems dealing with humans’ other pollution as it is.