A question about climate change/global warming.

Speaking from my own personal position in the energy field, I would tell any kid coming up who wants to make a shitload of money to get an energy engineering degree.

Bill Broad took to the pages of the paper of record to establish that there is significant concern in the scientific community about the accuracy of Gore's movie. To do so, he trotted out scientific outliers, non-scientists, and hacks with discredited arguments. In at least two cases (Pielke Jr. being a scientist and the NAS report contradicting Gore) he made gross factual errors. As for the rest, it's a classic case of journalistic "false balance" -- something I thought we were done with on global warming. I guess when it comes to Al Gore, the press still thinks it can get by on smear, suggestion, and innuendo.

I'm talking just normal citizens who do not work for the Hoover Institute, Exxon, etc.

There's no investment in public relations from environmentalists then, Tracer?

Dandy Don Weiner on Thursday, March 22, 2007 2:01 PM (10 minutes ago)

There's no investment in public relations from environmentalists then, Tracer?

With 2.7 percent of the country's population — 8.2 million of 300 million — the average New York City resident contributes less than a third of the emissions generated by a typical American. This is largely due to the popularity of the city's mass transit system, which cuts down on car emissions, officials said.

Moreover, Adler might have heard that Crichton and two full-fledged scientists recently beat some leading global warming scientists in a debate.

Can someone redirect me to the thread about the Bali climate talks, if it exists?

So the talks yielded an agreement on a framework to work on updating the existing framework on climate change in two years. For the next two years, there will be no binding restraints on carbon emissions in the U.S. and China, among others.

In other words, a complete failure.

The talks were notable for the loud booing and hissing directed at the United States delegates during the last day for its "refusal to agree to language requiring rich countries to provide measurable technical assistance and money to poorer countries that take meaningful steps." (link) Props to the delegate in Papua New Guinea who said “We seek your leadership, but if for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please, get out of the way.”

Wow, I forgot about the massive response to the last post I made there.

So, over the past week or so, I've come to the realization that all of these dudes I'm living with this summer all think climate change is a hoax. Or, rather, they acknowledge but the planet is warming, but then they go into the "the world has been going through cycles of cold and warm for the past million years, before humans even existed" argument. Also, these dudes have made fun of me for playing Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on my DS, they said watching Lost was "gay", although under further questioning they revealed that they had never seen it before. This is hell.

Anyway, I'm just going to post on here whenever one of them says something hilarious about global warming. One of them asked me, "So...seriously, do you really think there's going to be some sort of global warming CRISIS? LIke in within the next 100 years?", and then when I mentioned something about receding minimum summer arctic iceshelf levels they countered with news about glaciers in Greenland getting much bigger.

Also, another has had his mouth open like a goat for the past two weeks. I want to go over there and press his jaw up a little so his teeth clack together.

Also, someone directed me to this earlier as evidence:

http://www.petitionproject.org/gwdatabase/GW_Article/GWReview_OISM150.pdf

Apart from the global warming they seem pretty spot on.

lol Z S you might be young and healthy and dating a cutie but you live with MORONS I win

I am old and healthy and dating a cutie and live with a GENIUS

Only two more months. This is only temporary, this is only temporary...

You can make it. Although I think you should kill them.

I feel you dude, I lived in barracks with all manner of jackasses for, like, four months or so

then we got to pick our own roommates and I never dealt with such as you speak of ever again

don't worry ZS, at the end of the movie you get to save their lives and you all become sunshine happy friends together.

and
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Oregon_Institute_of_Science_and_Medicine

more extensively
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/oregon-institute-of-science-and-malarkey/

Morons are underrated.

It's alright, the sunspots have gone and saved us all!
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/06/the-sunspot-mys.html

Uhm I think we should avoid liberal guilt here, or the kind of fear mongering thats been placed on us. People don't want to hear it because they live in a society where market incentives and likewise bullshit as well as 'TURNING OFF A FUCKING LIGHTBULB' etc are used in place of actual long term solutions so they choose to ignore it and submit to an agentic state but I don't think that people are ignorant or apathetic more overwhelmed.
The kind of excesses brought about by capitalism and the state's support of that system are the real culprits. We can't just be promoting lifestylism and individualist action while the real root and cause carries on, anarchism...WOAH-too far?
Anyway my point is; its not really our fault but we should get together, organise etc and tackle the real problem.

major lulz at the sourcewatch link. The first thing I did when they showed me the global warming debunking "report" was go to the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine homepage, where the authors of the paper work. I said, "Why is there a link to an article on how to survive a nuclear war on this page?", a question they ignored before redirecting me to a cool graph showing that the world had, astonishingly, seen above-average temperatures in the past.

www.350.org

I should post this here, too:

http://globalmicrowave.orgfree.com/satellites.htm

Grist posted the entire "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic" series in a point-by-point response to the denial talking points
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics

Doesn't cover the "political" argument my last boss had - of course the science will point towards global warming! That's where all the money is! They get paid to say this shit! - I guess trying to draw parallels between the global warming "industry" and big pharma.

Of course he never said who was providing all this money, or why it was in their best interests to prove global warming if combating it is going to be so disasterous for the global economy.

(other that that it is a great resource)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7472532.stm

http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update69.htm
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4081
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/389/2008/acp-8-389-2008.pdf
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e780d216-5fd5-11dc-b0fe-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2043724,00.html
http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/ditcted20067_en.pdf
http://www1.umn.edu/umnnews/Feature_Stories/Ethanol_fuel_presents_a_cornundrum.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/business/worldbusiness/19palmoil.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin
http://www.cfr.org/publication/14293/oecd.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html?hp
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/05/biofuels.food

My grandfather, long retired from Exxon, where he worked his whole career as a research chemist (figuring out ways to make the industry more environmentally friendly, btw), also trots out the "natural long-term cycles of warming & cooling" defense when climate change comes up, though he also hedges his bets by saying that in his opinion, petroleum should never have been used as a fuel anyway, but rather reserved for its useful chemical properties.

first the salmon, now the oysters

Overheard this afternoon from a bagger to a cashier at, of all places to hear this, Whole Foods. This is verbatim as near as I can remember:

"There was a program on the other night that looked at all the temperatures, at least as far back as they can, and the whole carbon footprint and global warming thing, if you look at it scientifically, it's really kind of a hoax."

I so wanted to turn to him and say, "Yeah, I think I saw that program. Was it called 'Things James Inhofe Pulled Out Of His Lying Ass?'" Bagger was at least 60, too.

what is the age at which because it's on the teevee, it's true? or is age not the operative factor?

Grim

Fuck.

pee-drinking manfish, it's your time to shine

http://images.digitalmedianet.com/2006/Week_33/61rboolg/story/waterworld-1.jpg

What is really up for grabs at the moment though is the exact extent of climate change. Some scary-ass scenarios to ponder here.

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/slugoftime-podcast/2008/04/a-bite-of-stars-a-slug-of-time-and-thou-episode-2/

Humanity reduced to a few survivors eking out a living in polar refuges. Most of life on Earth has been snuffed out, as temperatures rise higher than for hundreds of millions of years.

Mark Lynas

Interesting? Click here to explore further

Terry Rapson: We found something extraordinary... extraordinary and disturbing, that is. You remember saying in New Delhi about how melting of the polar ice can disrupt the North Atlantic current?

Jack Hall: Yes.

Terry Rapson: Well... I think it's happening.

Comments section to a WashPo article that refutes George Will

The range of stupidity displayed in these comments is nothing new:

ThisIsReality wrote:
What weasels these warmists are. This character is seriously trying to maintain that global cooling wasn't being loudly predicted in the 1970's? And the warmists have no, none, zip, doodah explanation for why the climate has cooled recently. Hah! The warmists are to the climate what Geithner is to the treasury.

devesh_f10 wrote:
Dear kenonwenu: You are right, increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere does make it absorb more heat. But did you know that despite all the hoopla, human activity accounts for less than 15% of the green house gases released into the atmosphere?
The rest is actually released naturally, as has been going on for millions of years.
Now one might argue that we are tipping the marginal balance of green-house gases, but really, it appears unlikely given the small share we add.

GaryEMasters wrote:
As a retired science librarian with an earned PhD, I take an expanded view and wonder if warming will be good or bad. Yes, we can make the Earth warmer. But few will ask if there is an ice age in our immediate future. If so, we may well want it warmer. If not, we may want to cool the Earth. But few debate that position and if it is brought up, one is called a "denier."

I do not deny we can make the climate warmer. I ask if it is good or bad.

LOL at GaryEMasters, if the whole thing wasn't so fucking frightening.

After reading Matt Taibbi's article about the global financial debacle, in which he makes the point that the vast VAST majority of the public is completely unable to even begin to understand the mechanisms that led to the crisis, I wonder if the same point can't be made about climate change. Math and science comprehension has declined in the U.S. over the last several decades, and as a result we're looking forward to a century where the "debate" often begins with addressing basic educational deficiencies.

• Unfamiliarity with statistical concepts

• No grasp on systems thinking

• No grasp on feedback loops

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/images/2006/10/19/dmu_head_in_hands_315x420.jpghttp://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/images/2006/10/19/dmu_head_in_hands_315x420.jpghttp://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/images/2006/10/19/dmu_head_in_hands_315x420.jpg

If you're into scary scenarios, there was a great CBC radio documentary series by Gwynne Dyer about military scenario planning for climate change outcomes. Hint, don't worry about rising seas, worry about starving due to rainfall shifts:

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/climate-wars/index.html

If you're into REALLY scary scenarios, consider one of the positive feedback mechanisms (seabed methane hydrate releases):

http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/go/dorritie/

If you're into scary scenarios, there was a great CBC radio documentary series by Gwynne Dyer about military scenario planning for climate change outcomes. Hint, don't worry about rising seas, worry about starving due to rainfall shifts

Not to mention the fossil fuel reserves in the Arctic that are becoming available due to melting. The U.S., Russia, Canada and others are already sparring with each other for exploration/drilling rights. Can't WAIT to see how that works out.

the ukcp09 is out today
http://ukcp09.defra.gov.uk/

article on the beeb
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8107014.stm

for anyone interested

local Burger King franchise tells us what's what

http://www.memphisflyer.com/SingAllKinds/archives/2009/05/27/burger-king-calls-global-warming-baloney

Burge king calls globval warming baloney, immediately places said baloney between two buns and sells for $6

OMG the comments in that link.

WOW! That's great! I am going to stop by BK on my way home from work and buy me a big fat juicy burger to show my support!

About time some people recognize AGW for what it REALLY is!

Good for BK! The truth is slowly coming out. We need more of this

I have not eaten at a Burger King in almost 10 years (been on a health kick) - but I WILL CERTAINLY BUY ONE WHOPPER A DAY FOR THE NEXT MONTH just to show my support. Why is it that liberals can make some assanine statement and get praised for their stand but every time a conservative makes a statement he has to get crucified? Thanks for being bold and being AMERICAN, Burger King. By American, I mean you use your freedom of speech. Thanks! I almost thought they had succeeded in taking that one away from us! OK - gotta run now - going out to buy my Whopper!

yeah. this place is real fucked up. also, there are a number of trolls/ pale-conservatives that tend to hang out on the MemFlyer (primary alt-weekly) comments section making asses of themselves on the daily

paleo-conservatives.

but i bet they're pretty pale, too

About a year ago I did a proposal for these people; we wound up not doing the website but it will be pretty cool when it completely launches: http://www.climatecentral.org; they are a non-profit, scientific organization who will be posting non-politically biased, scientific information regarding climate change and global warming.

(and i didn't really mean "paleo-conservatives"; just your typical ignorant asses making a racket)

Is Monbiot getting a bit carried away?
It's no use pretending this isn't a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I'm dismayed and deeply shaken by them.

i couldn't tell whether or not he was just taking the absolute piss there.

hilariously over-done email though

Taking the piss surely?!?!?

i dunno, seems legit

Monbiot always gets carried away. The thrust of his argument is dead right though - a handful of highly dubious emails does not disprove the basic science.

This (selecting data consistent with preconceptions, misleading/obfuscatory conclusions, etc., etc.) goes on in science a lot more than we'd like to admit, and climate science is no better than any other are of science. In fact, it's probably worse because of the political dimension.

what the spluttering fuck...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/29/nick-griffin-bnp-copenhagen-summit

nice one, maybe they plan to humiliate him in front of the WORLD

"The anti-western intellectual cranks of the left suffered a collective breakdown when communism collapsed. Climate change is their new theology…"

This is exactly the narrative that Martin Durkin was pushing in The Great Global Warming Swindle.

Critics say Griffin addresses environmental issues when he believes he can use them to advance anti-immigration policies. His party claims that it would improve Britain's transport infrastructure and reduce carbon dioxide levels by reducing the number of immigrants in Britain using roads, cars, trains and buses.

You couldn't make this shit up.

i love that they use the egg-pelt photo of griffin in this story

lol @ the "leaked e-mail exchange".

responding to the op, i think the refusal to consider scientific evidence reflects the growing belief (on every side of whatever political divide you have in mind) that information is inherently political. it's not so much that these people are ignorant or apathetic, but rather that they see the validity of any supposedly factual claim - especially when it comes to complex gray areas like this - as a product not of available evidence, but of political implication.

not only leftist argument but "leftist information" is therefore automatically invalid. and i don't think this sort of politicized information analysis is solely an affliction of the right-minded. leftists and progressives can be equally hostile to information and ideas that seem to challenge their core beliefs, and just as likely to dismiss them as meaningless spin.

well, or at least nearly as likely. or somewhat likely... i admit that there is a deeply entrenched anti-intellectual/anti-academic/anti-scientific streak in american right-wing politics that doesn't find an easy analog on the left - maybe the oft-mentioned liberal hostility towards religion?

N!ck Gr!ff!n calls other people bullying, fraudulent cranks, film at 11

xp Yeah, it's Olver Wendell Holmes' "hydrostatic paradox of controversy":

"You know that, if you had a bent tube, one arm of which was of the size of a pipe-stem, and the other big enough to hold the ocean, water would stand at the same height in one as in the other. Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way. And the fools know it."

Just been to a great seminar on this topic and some interesting things came up.

1) The climate change science community has been worried about the paleoclimatelogical work has been suspect for some time. Even without the emails Mann and other have been doing some very dodgy work; misusing datasets, not publising their own data or deliberately obfuscating it.
2) CO2 data is beyond doubt as is the radiative forcing effect.
3) There is still considerable uncertainty about the effect of atmostpheric aerosols but not enough to change the need for a policy of massive CO2 reductions.
4) Mann and the CRU guys have done a massive disservice to the climate science community and just as theygave undue weight to any hockey sticks in their proxy data, this controversy is unfairly weighting the policy debate when there is still a real need for action.
5) Minesotans for climate change have a really amusing video but haven't realised the explosion in the mosquito population that they are rooting for.
6) 20 years of paleoclimatet data needs to be re-evaluated from the ground up.
7) People need to stop using the temperature hockey stick graph, right now.

The climate people and resource limits people are just beginning to talk.

The IPCC base case assumes unlimited fossil fuels through this century, whereas we're past peak conventional crude (2005), near peak liquids (2011 or so), and peak coal occurs in the first half of the century. The real unknown is the available natural gas resource, if gas bearing shales are exploited as they've just begun to be exploited in the U.S., there's a hell of a lot of methane to be produced.

As far as I know, the most credible C02 ultimate projections using resource constraints so far are those by David Rutledge of Caltech. He places peak atmospheric carbon in 2059-63 at 442-7 ppm, with simple radiative forcing temperature increase of 1.7 C by the early 22nd century. That is lower than any of the IPCC scenarios, but doesn't include positive runaway feedback (melting arctic ocean, lower albedo, permafrost outgassing). Also Rutledge (being a scientist rather than a E&P investor, doesn't seem to know about the gas shales.

One interesting fact made clear in the video lecture is that since the C02 will have a atmospheric residence time in hundreds of years, it doesn't matter for most of the milennium if we release it now or more slowly through 2200. The ultimate atmospheric C02 is about the same. So rather than make an allowance for additional CO2 emissions, it makes far more sense to simply place some fossil carbon entirely off-limits indefinitely. No cap-and-trade to enrich Goldman Sachs: instead halt new leases of Federal owned coal in Wyoming and Montana.

hello friends i would like to post in this thread to lol @ the saudis

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVGGgncVq-4
"Please Help the World", film from the opening ceremony of the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 (COP15) in Copenhagen from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. Shown on December 7, 2009 at COP15.

I've seen Rutledge speak and I like his methodology, but I think it is a little bit of a stretch to extend it to Carbon and when he was challenged on that pointand agreed that it was no excuse not to act (and that shale's becoming economic had not been factored in to his calculations).

One interesting thing that came up when he spoke is that china is very near peak coal and the conjecture is that their new found vigor wrt to COP15 comes from this resource constraint in particular.

lol @ the "leaked e-mail exchange".

responding to the op, i think the refusal to consider scientific evidence reflects the growing belief (on every side of whatever political divide you have in mind) that information is inherently political. it's not so much that these people are ignorant or apathetic, but rather that they see the validity of any supposedly factual claim - especially when it comes to complex gray areas like this - as a product not of available evidence, but of political implication.

not only leftist argument but "leftist information" is therefore automatically invalid. and i don't think this sort of politicized information analysis is solely an affliction of the right-minded. leftists and progressives can be equally hostile to information and ideas that seem to challenge their core beliefs, and just as likely to dismiss them as meaningless spin.

well, or at least nearly as likely. or somewhat likely... i admit that there is a deeply entrenched anti-intellectual/anti-academic/anti-scientific streak in american right-wing politics that doesn't find an easy analog on the left - maybe the oft-mentioned liberal hostility towards religion?

― a dimension that can only be accessed through self-immolation (contenderizer), Monday, November 30, 2009 9:54 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

yeah... you probably need to read up on the history of the left, son.

(though more than on any other issue using "left"/"right" is retarded. the green party in britain is very conservative. they don't really bother to hide that for them this is a moral reckoning with sinful modernity.)

LOL @ "using left/right is retarded" followed by "the green party in britain is very conservative".

It's more of a class issue in the UK isn't it (if you really wanted to generalize)? Upper class twits like "Lord" Christopher Monkton and working class spokestwats like Garry Bushell versus the wishy-washy academics and media types in the middle.

At the risk of sounding unpopular, the government places the blame squarely on you, the voters.

The blame for what?

Your username for a start.

Okay. Thanks for the clarification.

Viscount Monckton calls young climate activists 'Hitler Youth'

LOL @ "using left/right is retarded" followed by "the green party in britain is very conservative".

― everything, Tuesday, December 8, 2009 1:14 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark

"conservative" seems to me to mean more than "right-wing", and the two obviously are not identical.

Yeah, I'm familiar with "conservative" being used to denote moderation or conventionality. All political parties are "conservative" in that way. So what's your point then?

good job CNN:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/18/dc-snowstorm-chills-pelosis-global-warming-trip/

What a disaster this whole damn conference was.

who knew

I'm only posting to say: this thread is too exhausting to post on. I can't be alone on this one.

Here's the groundbreaking document that came out of Copenhagen this year: Copenhagen Accord

After yet another disappointing climate conference, it was nice that for once the United States wasn't the #1 villain - way to go China! I agree completely, agreeing to have your GHG emissions monitored would be a slap in the face, unconscionable!

I think the monitoring thing is kind of a secondary issue and focussing on that is a bit of a political dodge. The main thing is agreeing on the right level of cuts in carbon emissions that need to be made and then making these cuts in a fair way, and that's really something that the West should be leading on. This thing they've cooked up sounds like a huge backwards step from that POV.

The main thing is agreeing on the right level of cuts in carbon emissions that need to be made

Agreed on that, and China's stance was disappointing in that regard as well. Using carbon intensity as a measure is the definition of a "political dodge". Check out this WRI analysis. It's from 2007, but China was already signaling that they would aim for 40% reduction of carbon intensity by 2020, 80% by 2050.

...China’s GDP is projected to grow around 400% by 2020. So even with a 40% intensity cut, emissions in the absolute sense would increase by 250%. That growth would make China the biggest national emitter by far, and a daunting challenge for reducing GHG emissions.

Great...we may already be on the precipice of several tipping points, and even the most conservative use of the precautionary principle would overwhelmingly suggest that we make strong, immediate emission cuts, but here we have the biggest GHG emitter in the world agreeing to increase emissions by 250% over the next ten years.

Then there's this article highlighting the perverse incentives that result from using carbon intensity:

China’s target of reducing 40-45% by 2020 requires annual reductions of 4%, but since the target is based on GDP, the amount of emission reduction required changes as GDP changes: lower GDP requires higher reductions in emissions to achieve the same reduction in carbon intensity, which is hard to achieve because less growth means less new (and therefore more efficient) equipment in the system.

Yeah that carbon intensity stuff does seem to be confusing bullshit. But on the other hand, if you look at historical emissions and at emissions per capita, then we really have a huge responsibility to act here.

Yeeeeeep. We're all screwed if the U.S. and China don't take the lead in reducing emissions, and soon.

Haha yeah, I've always been a Contraction and Convergence stan, but that's being totally eclipsed by a panicky part of me that's just screaming for someone to do *something* to get us rolling on this. Whole conference felt like a terrible step backwards. The EU apparently went there with an offer of a 30% reduction by 2020 up its sleeve and after a lot of pretty words, it just stayed right up there. Really is time for them to shit or get off the pot.

What a fucking fiasco. Our only hope now is to make low carbon technology really really profitable, the economically best option. Its the only way we can modify behaviour it seems.

A price on carbon would go a long way toward making low carbon technology the economically best option, though, right? I did some research a few years ago showing that even a $20/ton price on carbon would make wind the lowest-cost option for utilities in the interior west of the United States.

newt gingrich:

As callista and i watched what dc weather says will be 12 to 22 inches of snow i wondered if God was sending a message about copenhagen
about 7 hours ago from TwitterBerry

$20 a ton seems a little low. Europe, admittedly with limited cap and trade is up around €14/Mg. The major barrier to significant wind penetration is a lackof storage. Its very hard to displace baseload and you end up with a lot of peaker plants that are pretty inefficient. I've seen some modelling work that suggests that CO2 emissions can actually rise when you add significant amounts of intermitted generation.

Its all about the storage, I'm very happy that low cost bulk storage is my job.

(NB low cost bulk storage is my job and if you talk a wind industry person he will not say the same, however I can point to research that isn't funded by GE or Vestas)

What is good about the mountain west though is it is rich in both wind and good sites for subterranean compressed air energy storage (although this still needs natural gas to work).

We are getting there and China will hit peak coal very soon which will change the game somewhat. I think there is a growing awareness in China that they would be foolish to squander their economic gains on increasingly expensive imported energy when they can provide it renewably at home. The best hope for us all is that China sees both the danger to itself (pressure on costal populations from rising sea level and the dessertification of the west) and the economic opportunity. I am not sure that they are all the way there yet but significant portions of the Chinese political establishment are.

As for the US I am resigned to any significant efforts coming at the state level or lower. Unfortunately the best hope for reconfiguring the US is probably high oil prices and I have no confidence in OPEC discipline over the next few years and the recent Iraqi oilfield auctions are a disaster in this regard. (That said the Iranian capture of an Iraqi oil well seems to be a calculated move to keep the market jumpy).

What are the main options for energy storage at the moment Ed?

(Apologies if you rather not talk shop on a Saturday night)

I wholeheartedly agree about the importance of wind storage and the difficulty in actually displacing baseload. However, I do note that many countries have much larger portions of their electricity generated from wind. Denmark, for example, generates 20% of its wind from wind, and is expected to ramp up toward 50% over the next few decades. They are able to address wind's fluctuating generation because of the strength and extensiveness of Europe's grid.

Despite my comments in this thread, I've been heartened in recent months by some of the clean energy advances that China has proposed in their own country. I'm just pissed that they played the lead role in derailing Copenhagen this year.

As far as oil prices go, considering that production didn't jump up even when prices were at a peak during the summer of 2008, and new discoveries have dropped off due to the recession (affecting new production over the next decade), I'd say prices are bound to rise higher than ever as the recession eases off.

Ed's list of storage technologies:

1) Pumped Hydro

This is cheapest and oldest, essentially pumping water up hill and releasing it when necessary. Capital intensive but long lived so very low lifetime unit service costs. Unfortunately it is very geographically constrained and in the US and Europe most of the good sites are already in use. There is talk about re-engineering some of the western dams and the great lakes power plants such as Niagara to make them reversible but these are colossal undertakings and mucking around with great lakes water is hard and nearly impossible in the West. Norway has some spare capacity and already stores a lot of Danish wind power but new interconnects are required to both Denmark and the UK before any new sites can be considered.

Sustainability wise, Dams are a pretty big ecosystem changer and pretty permanent.

2) CAES - Compressed air energy storage

Essentially compressing air and then releasing it to drive a turbine. There are many different forms, all really at pilot stage. The biggest is the so-called subterranean CAES, where air is pumped into underground geological formations, often pumped out oil and gas wells. This is also potentially pretty cheap on a lifetime basis. Downsides, to maximise efficiency you need to burn gas in the outlet turbine so it is not operationally zero carbon but its way better than peak gas plants. This is geographically constrained but, not surprisingly big in Texas although there is competition from subterranean natural gas storage and forthcoming Carbon Capture projects. There's big money behind, especially from gas storage folk, who incidentally are the only people out there who talk about doing bulk electricity arbitrage profitably.

Other things in the pipeline is "adiabatic" CAES which removes the natural gas from the equation and undersea CAES where the air is compressed in giant bags (University of Nottingham are doing some demos this year IIRC). There is surface CAES as well where you have a lot of steel pressure vessels but this pushes the cost up a lot. There has been talk about using the towers of Wind Turbines as pressure vessels but I'm not sure if anyone has done this yet.

3) Sodium Sulphur

This is probably the most mature of the battery technologies. Developed by NGK in Japan, it is relatively cheap and can last 15 years if treated right. Initially this was developed to address specific Japanese needs, essentially to defer capital upgrades to substations in powerlines in japanese cities by shifting peak loads. There are several installations in the US as well some experimenting with wind smoothing.

Downsides, you have to heat these to 350˚C before they work and this means that your net AC-AC efficiency is around 70%. You also have to over size your plant as to get 15 year life you can only discharge to a 30% state of charge. The other issue is buying them is next to impossible. The current plant is sold out for the next 5 years and a much larger plant, now under construction, is sold out for its first 2 years.

4) Lithium-Ion

Lots of people have high hopes for lithium Ion connected to the grid, either new or as cast off from all the hybrid vehicles we are meant to be buying. Without some major technical breakthrough Li-Ion will never be cheap enough for large scale bulk storage. The Bill of materials for the average Li-Ion cell is higher than the on the dock price for sodium sulphur and Li-Ion cells are expensive to manufacture.

They do have their uses, though, theya re great for fast charge and discharge applications. Both A123 and Altairnano have grid products and these work great for frequency regulation or ramping. Freq Reg is the process of adding supplementary power into the grid to account for all of the tiny fluctuations in demand. Currently this is done with single cycle jet engine derived gas turbines which are much less efficient than combined cycle and performing this function knackers their useful life and efficiency.

Ramping basically turns a gas generator from something that takes 15 minutes to spin up into an instant on resource. Currently a gas turbines are kept spinning with electric motors and warm so they can start quickly. A big battery can act as a buffer so they can be brought up from cold but still be offered as 'spinning reserve' power.

5) Flywheels

These work well for Freq Reg as above but are much longer lived. Esstetially you spin flywheels with motors and then tap the energy as required. Really good for short term storage. NYSERDA and NYISO are working with Beacon Power to put a massive 20MW facility in the New York area which should be interesting to see if it works. (New York is a great place to do storage as it has some of the highest ancillary service prices in the world which makes it easy to be profitable)

6) What I'm working on

Something that is as modular as NAS, super efficient and as cheap as CAES. I might have something to show and sell by the end of next year but till then we are being relatively quiet about it.

7) Other Things - hot salt storage with solar thermal, other forms of heat storage, Superconducting magnetic electric storage, flow batteries etc.

The US utility industry seems to have come round to the idea of storage as a necessity which is good. However I am concerned that Shale gas is changing the game, making gas turbines attractive again. We'll have to see though. the DoE is pouring money into storage right now so there is a good window of opportunity. That said West texas has significant negative elctricity prices, as do Demark and Spain because of wind and solar and more gas turbines cannot fix that. Storage can.

Maine is trying another interesting approach with their immense offshore wind resource. The private Ocean Energy Institute, which already has a few turbines up supplying island communities, is planning on building hundreds of deepwater moored turbines and manufacturing ammonia with off-peak and off-season power. Ammonia can be used directly in internal combustion engines with a few fuel line modifications, and it can be applied to cropland as nitrogen bearing fertilizer, replacing Haber process fertilizers made (with a large CO2 footprint) from natural gas.

Wait, if you burn ammonia, won't you end up with a load of NO2 being pumped out the back of your car? NO2 is a *horrible* air pollutant healthwise, and also a really potent greenhouse gas.

and quite a good hit, for about 20 seconds

i'm hardcore, me

Ed, thanks a lot for the primer, I'm going to digest that at leisure. ONe thing with the pumped hydro: reservoirs are totally dependent on predictable rainfall etc - isn't that going to be a lot more of a guessing game as the effects of climate change kick in? Also I'd worry about the downstream impacts, particular in times of increased water stress.

LJ - you're thinking of N2O I think! Laughing gas yeah? NO2 is nasty stuff and if you wanted to inhale that shit I wish you all the best.

Nitrogen dioxide is toxic by inhalation, but this could be avoided as the material is acrid and easily detected by our sense of smell. Symptoms of poisoning (lung edema) tend to appear several hours after one has inhaled a low but potentially fatal dose.

it's cool i'm a science journalist

(oops)

Just remember:

N2O - ho ho ho
NO2 - you're gonna go blue

I keep seeing these proposals to use ammonia as energy storage, they scare the wits out of me, not just because of the NOx pollution which is a significant risk but also Ammonia is really nasty stuff.

The worst was a proposal from denmark which proposed using it as a car fuel in internal combustion engines as a "hydrogen store". I can't imagine the horror of a fuel tank rupture in an accident.

Ammonia combustion: 4 NH3 + 3 O2 ===> 2 N2 + 6 H2O (nitrogen and water vapor)

Yep, I wouldn't be too comfortable with using ammonia, one of the most significant chemicals (by quantity of releases) on EPA's RMP toxic chemical list, as a tool to move toward a "clean energy" future!

I suspect that the crunch for liquid fuels from 2013-2025 won't permit us to choose. There will be a lot of methanol and ammonia conversions made.

Ammonia combustion: 4 NH3 + 3 O2 ===> 2 N2 + 6 H2O (nitrogen and water vapor)

Ah, okay, those are much less scary products!

imo HNO3 unfairly missing out there

Thinking about this, catalytic converters would take out a lot of the secondary nasties.

It's not complete combustion I am worried about, its everything else. I wonder how big the catalytic converter and how much platinum it would need to make any ammonia combustion engine truly pollution free at the tailpipe.

esquire got me ready for a world of nuclear energy

Evidently one can also use the ammonia fuel as an active reagent to do a complete reduction of any NOx incomplete combustion products. I'm really not terribly familiar with the chemistry.

I did think it was an interesting alternative to methanol, or much worse, gas-to-liquids & coal-to-liquids as a short term solution as international market crude plummets 2013 and on. The automobile population turns over only once every 14+ years (in a good economy). Even if every car sold was a plug-in hybrid, it'll be a long time before ICE only cars are off the road.

Ammonia, methanol, gas-to-liquids/coal liquefaction, oil shale, nuclear...

How about conservation? Public Transit? Car-pooling? Teleworking? Sweaters?

I understand the pressure to maintain the status quo lifestyle of the West is overwhelming, but I'm much more comfortable pushing efficiency and conservation in tandem with a strong price on carbon, ideally with a double-dividend mechanism in place to offer incentives to lower-income people.

Z_S, you're preaching the Climate Protestor line! Hence, a line that is both OTM and slightly doomed. You get all sorts of right-wing/libertarian assholes all 'HOW DARE THEY CONTROL OUR LIVES' and you're all 'nonono you can do what you like just have some respect for your planet and show a bit of maturity/reserve' and they're all 'FASCISTS' and everyone is unhappy

The right to have a Hummer and a massive fucking mansion for a 4-person family is a bit like the right to defend one's home with automatic weaponry tbh - nobody with a conscience would take advantage of such a right, because it is inhuman and not within the standards of our current society - and if it could be challenged then only bastards who don't belong in society would react negatively - they are still free to do so much fucking awesome stuff with their lives - if they are narrow-minded it is their fault they are suffering

Z S, those will be done too, first. Everyone in the room agrees conservation is the cheapest energy out there.

Its just that some people on places like the Oil Drum are looking at scenarios in which while crude production drops 3%/annum 2013-on, international exports drop 8-9%. We (in the U.S.) have an absolutely enormous misallocation of capital in suburban sprawl that won't be replaced or be repurposed in the neccessary timeframe. The trick isn't just getting from A to B, its getting from A to B without serious collapses in the economy and production of food etc. Finding liquid fuel alternatives for the existing fleet of ICE vehicles is part of the transition.

We have the technology right now to make internal combustion powered vehicles significantly more efficient right now. All it will take is stricter legislation. I hope Obama or california institutes a serious CAFE standard soon. this is without public transport, densifying cities or even asking people to change their behaviour all that much. It's shaping choices and preferences.

The problem with ammonia, hydrogen electric and other alternative fuel vehicles is the massive infrastructure that will be needed to support them just isn't there and it seems ridiculous to invest in it when we can use today's technology, legislation and the existing infrastructure to make savings starting right now.

We need to start cutting emissions right now so lets start with the things we can do right now.

I mean, there is so much low hanging fruit lets grab that first.

esquire got me ready for a world of nuclear energy

― born loser (CaptainLorax), Sunday, December 20, 2009 8:50 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

The only thing McCain said during the campaign that I liked (and he probably wasn't serious about it) was the idea of a new Manhattan Project for clean energy. Clean nuclear would indeed solve the world's energy problems.

What about better solar panels? They harness so little of the energy that hits them, are there any good ideas about increasing that?

do I have to mention Desertec again?

Lots of money invested into this idea. An idea which is bright but which requires quite a lot of international diplomacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec

Who's going to pay for that?

Clean nuclear would indeed solve the world's energy problems.

Too bad new nuclear electricity, ie, building new plants, is one of the most expensive options currently available. And unlike a host of other low-carbon alternatives, the cost curve isn't bending down over time for nuclear.

Btw, what is "clean nuclear" as opposed to just "nuclear"? There's a clean version that doesn't involve storing nuclear waste?

Z_S OTM again. Nuclear energy isn't clean, oh no. Until fusion happens, that is.

Ed, a load of German banks have pledged billions of euros towards that idea, and it'll take a bit of governmental support, but I think it could be feasible...

Nuclear waste disposal for light-water reactors is more a matter of politics than geology. There are plenty of deep salt domes on the Gulf coast that are intrinsically a lot more resistant to ground water seepage than Yucca mountain, and the places in the world we could just drill under some igneous province overlaying sediment and drop or pump pretty much any amount down with no chance of any returning to the biosphere in 10s of thousands of years

But in terms of clean nuclear, I think one of the most interesting ideas are the molten fuel Thorium reactors, in which thorium is mixed in sodium and bred into U-233. This is nice because there's a LOT more thorium than U-235 in the world, and the waste products of the thorium-U233 cycle aren't nuclear proliferation risks. The U.S. had a molten salt reactor experiment for several decades demonstrating the concept, and evidently a Japanese consortium led by Fuji is engineering a modular production version.

Will any of the "clean nuclear" be ready for large-scale deployment in the next 20 years, when the big energy crunch is likely to occur in the next half decade? And will anything change in the next decade or two that will make nuclear remotely cost-effective without massive subsidies?

Nuclear IS cost effective without massive subsidies. See the experience in France. The problem the first time around in the U.S. was that there were not pre-approved standardized designs, so every build was a bit unique, every regulatory change required a substantial reengineering and delay. In France, they adapted a Westinghouse and built dozens of reactors to the same design. The U.S. decided to adopt that policy only after Three Mile Island and the subsequent issues with public opinion. So we're all breathing in dozens of times more radioactivity from coal plants than we would have had we went the nuclear route decades ago.

had we gone obv...

To be honest, derelict, a good chunk of my stance on the high cost of new nuclear power comes from Joe Romm at ClimateProgress, and pieces such as this article, which among other things notes that:

New nuclear power plants are currently far and away the most expensive form of carbon free power you can (try to) buy...

The most detailed independent cost estimate of nuclear power published this year — here on Climate Progress by a leading expert in power plant costs, Craig A. Severance — puts the generation costs for power from new nuclear plants at from 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour — triple current U.S. electricity rates!

... Time magazine noted that nuclear plants’ capital costs are “out of control,” concluding:

"Most efficiency improvements have been priced at 1¢ to 3¢ per kilowatt-hour, while new nuclear energy is on track to cost 15¢ to 20¢ per kilowatt-hour. And no nuclear plant has ever been completed on budget."

This aligns with a lot of cost estimates that I read on nuclear, but I'd be more than happy to read through anything that convincingly argues that new nuclear power isn't expensive.

(On clean energy) Btw, that esquire article did say that all the nuclear waste could be taken care of pretty well z_s

Yes, cost is the problem initially

Z S, there's a problem comparing intermittant renewable energy without integral storage and base-load generation plants that would be competive with nuclear. I suspect concentrating solar thermal with enough heat storage for off-peak generation is very close to competitive with new build nuclear for base-load, but we'll have to see how the Spanish pilots work out.

This OECD/IEA joint report found the levelized costs at a 5% finance cost in $USD/MWh:

nuclear energy: 21-31
natural gas: 37-60
coal: 25-50

At the same finance cost, and correcting for availability/capacity factor:

wind: 35-95 (but most below 60)
hydroelectricity: 40-80
solar: 150-175 in US southwest, 300+ in much of Europe

As renewables go, there's no question wind is the way to go. And if we had a large enough network of say the 765 kv DC transmission lines so that wind power generated in blustery North Dakota could be used in Chicago, then wind would probably be competitive with nuclear.

Btw, what is "clean nuclear" as opposed to just "nuclear"? There's a clean version that doesn't involve storing nuclear waste?

― Quiet, I'm making my Youtube Star Wars Review (Z S), Sunday, December 20, 2009 9:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

There isn't one that I know of, yet. Which is why we would need the Manhattan Project-like endeavor in the first place...

Finding a use for the waste, or using radioactive material which breaks down into non-radioactive or non-dangerous material would be the way around this problem, and as you see people are working on it.

Nuclear IS cost effective without massive subsidies. See the experience in France

you had me until you said France. EDF and Areva have received massive subsides and protections from competition.

That IEA nuclear LCOE figure just does not ring true with me, and plenty of other studies would put it much higher. No nuclear plant has ever been built on time and on budget. The Finish experience is bearing this out. I am not opposed to more nuclear, I am just sceptical as to how much and how quickly it can make a contribution.

Those Gulfcoast salt domes seem to be the solution to everything; Gas storage CAES, CCS.

http://www.energy.gov/news/1500.htm

The principal findings of the Chicago study demonstrate that future nuclear power plants in the United States can be competitive with either natural gas or coal. Whereas the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for coal is $33 to $41 per MWh and $35 to $45 per MWh for gas-fired production, new nuclear plants would have costs of $31 to $46 per MWh once early plant costs are absorbed.

That doesn't mean what you think it does. They're using the same calculation as for the coal and gas plants, and as the OECD/IEA report did for renewables, amortizing the so-called 'overnight construction costs' over the the expected life of the plant. With a low enough finance cost (OECD used 5% per annum), up front costs can seem pretty reasonable.

The only reason it works, of course, is that uranium is dirt cheap with repect to the energy that can be extracted compared to coal and gas. All the costs are up-front, with fuel amounting to around 6-10% of the levelized cost. For coal and natural gas, fuel amounts to 70+% of the cost.

On the other hand, there's a good chance uranium prices have been depressed for the past 10+ years as 45% of U.S. demand has been met by decommissioned Soviet weapons (and 5% from U.S. weapons). That cosy agreement ends in 2013, so uranium prices could go substantially higher to bring marginal supply in.

I understand the LCOE methodology very well, and I don't see how you can get to those figures for Nuclear. I've combed through that IEA report and can't find too much as fault although I find that pricing non-fuel O&M in power rather than energy to be somewhat odd. Figures I have seen put non-fuel O&M at around $14/MWh. OK so these are figures for 1996 from a 1999 study but I can't see that having fallen much.

$1500/kW over 40 years at 5% Discount rate 85% capacity factor is around $12/MWh. Fuel from the above study is $6/MWh. That's already $32/MWh in 1999 dollars. This doesn't factor in waste handling and storage or decommissioning.

really interesting account of why copenhagen failed by someone who was in the room as the deal was (un)done:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas

that's not really interesting, sorry

Saying that Copenhagen was even an effort to succeed at something is a lot more interesting, but only in the diagnosis of mental illness.

oh well, you're clearly the expert. but i thought it was interesting a) to read an inside account of how global summits play out, particularly seeing how china uses its growing power, and b) that china blocked western countries from making their own 80 per cent target in emissions reduction, even though it wouldn't affect developing nations.

I apologize.

You have to admit, though, this whole "Copenhagen" hoo-ha is a bit of a paper tiger in the larger debate.

hey joe, i thought that was pretty interesting, thanks for posting it, not really sure whats up kenans butt

I read that too, it was a bit depressing. What the heck happens next?

not really sure whats up kenans butt

I admit my tone was ill-advised, politically. I should have paid more attention to my status in the eyes of ILX, and not negotiated with max for said political status.

That article is not about the climate, the control of emissions, or anything like it.

After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.

Oh go fucking drain your pussy, it's hugely swollen.

did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or what

Yes I did.

Look... Copenhagen is a joke, no matter what country you're in. For that matter, Kyoto was a joke. We're not talking about treaties and agreements, we're talking about developing countries utilizing the tech they have vs. falling behind. Meanwhile, it's also about the US investing in the tech we have, making it standard, and phasing out dirty energy. This isn't about making agreements. It never was, and it never is.

i dont see what that has to do with being mean about joes article

I apologized earlier, because you're right.

cool sounds like were all covered here

Who wants cookies? :)

now that sounds like an agreement to me

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/uploads/2007/10/va_treaty.jpg

ha! Bit tentative, that.

I meant you no personal offense, joe, and I apologize again. I just tend to get heated up about what I feel is people (not you) missing the point entirely.

By staging publicity stunts like Copenhagen, for instance.

jeez louise

It looks to me like a polite enquiry from someone concerned about climate change. Delingpole, however, saw it as a "nauseating email" which must have come from a "disgusting eco-fascist organisation", though he didn't know which organisation this might be. His post was headlined "Conservative candidates stalked by eco bullies". Much worse, he published the man's name and home address.

Delingpole's bootboys took the hint and immediately swung into action. Within a few minutes of the comments opening, they had published the man's telephone number and email address, a photo of his house ("Note all the recycling going on in his front garden"), his age and occupation. Then they sought to tell him just what a low opinion they had of "stalking" and "bullying".

Here is the "nauseating email", btw:

"Dear Edwin Northover

I was concerned to note the results of a survey of 140 Conservative candidates for parliament that suggested that climate change came right at the bottom of their priorities for government action.

I hope you can reassure me that you recognise the importance and success of climate change action by the UK government at home and internationally.

Can you clarify that:

You accept that climate change is caused by human activity?

Do you support the target to achieve 15% renewable energy by 2020?

Do you support the EU imposing tougher regulation to combat climate change?

Kind Regards, *** ***".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5nNbPWYHOA

"We also need to have an appreciation for King Coal."

- Tim Pawlenty, describing his "energy plan" on Meet the Press about 20 seconds ago.

http://i50.tinypic.com/10py6vs.jpg

On a serious work-related note, I'm trying to compile a listing of climate skeptic blogs. I've tried using Technorati and Google Blogs and they're both a bit rubbish at providing results.

Who am I missing?

Climate Audit - http://www.climateaudit.org Watts Up With That? - http://wattsupwiththat.com

Climate Skeptic - http://www.climate-skeptic.com

The Air Vent - http://noconsensus.wordpress.com

Anybody?

Bishop Hill - http://bishophill.squarespace.com

The Blackboard: Where Climate Talk Gets Hot! - http://rankexploits.com/musings

Errors in IPCC climate science - http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog

The Clamour Of The Times – http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times.html

JoNova - http://joannenova.com.au

Dudes who wrote 'superfreakonomics' are pretty sceptical about humans being the cause given the time span and quality of data.

Good suggestion, but they have to be bloggers who focus solely on climate change.

Like this lot above or these guys - http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/

The most widely read "climate skeptic" blog is probably http://wattsupwiththat.com

Uuuugggh

Any good tools for finding which blogs are the most linked / trafficked? This is stuff I used to know but frankly I'm a bit out of touch with it all now.

This guy:

http://itsfaircomment-climategate.blogspot.com/

there's a list of skeptical blogs here: http://climatedebatedaily.com/

Philip Stott:
http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times.html

Oh you had that one already.

Cheers guys

http://home.earthlink.net/~ponderthemaunder/

by a schoolkid or something

http://i45.tinypic.com/a42b1g.jpg

http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-debate-works.html

sigh

http://i47.tinypic.com/qzhbnr.jpg
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/BOYKOFF-AAAS-22-February-2010-slides.pdf

The Guardian is liveblogging the run-up to the release of the Independent Climate Change Email Review.

It's, like, well exciting innit.

I'm not sure why this report is getting much attention since Phil Jones (of CRU) was exonerated in March, and the rest of the CRU scientists were exonerated way back in April, but for what it's worth, here's another exoneration.

Link to the report

On the allegation of withholding temperature data, we find that CRU was not in a position to withhold access to such data or tamper with it.

On the allegation of biased station selection and analysis, we find no evidence of bias.

The overall implication of the allegations was to cast doubt on the extent to which CRU’s work in this area could be trusted and should be relied upon and we find no evidence to support that implication.

On the allegations that there was subversion of the peer review or editorial process we find no evidence to substantiate this in the three instances examined in detail.

On the allegations that in two specific cases there had been a misuse by CRU scientists of the IPCC process, in presenting AR4 [the Fourth Assessment] to the public and policy makers, we find that the allegations cannot be upheld.

In particular, on the question of the composition of temperature reconstructions [in AR4], we found no evidence of exclusion of other published temperature reconstructions that would show a very different picture. The general discussion of sources of uncertainty in the text is extensive, including reference to divergence.

Of course, the infuriating part of being falsely accused is that few people ever hear about the exoneration. MAN ACCUSED OF BRUTAL RAPE/DOUBLE MURDER. (weeks later, on bottom of section H19: man is not guilty, sorry)

Your monthly "this is the hottest year on record so far but it's getting close to zero attention, again" update:

NASA's data shows that this is the hottest global January-June on record.

http://i26.tinypic.com/24zxb0y.gif

more

Not going to link it but the most recent post on Joannenova.com.au about the EU and N1ck Gr1ff!n is fucking disgusting.

Haha, she took it down. Anthony Watts also posted about it this morning and deleted it after about 15 minutes. Still on the SPPI blog, though.

'Watts up with that?’ is ranked as the number one most read “science” blog in the world according to Wikio – and it has become the hub for the climate denial community online. Its lead blogger, Anthony Watts, is often quoted in mainstream media outlets such as The Times and his blog was winner of “best science blog” at the Weblog awards.

So you might be surprised (or not – if you already doubted the credibility of his sources) to learn that Anthony Watts’ latest source of information is none other than the Br1t1sh N4tion4l Party – yes, those known to the rest of us as the Br1t!sh N4z1 Party.

Anthony Watts blogged today at 15.30 GMT about how “climate scepticism could become a criminal offence in UK” – and his source? BNP leader, N1ck Gr1ff!n. Unsurprisingly, by 16.11, the page had disappeared. No doubt, after one of his friends in the UK pointed out it doesn’t look great when you post N4z1 propaganda on your blog and twitter feed.

This is pretty big news.

The dead sea: Global warming blamed for 40 per cent decline in the ocean's phytoplankton

The microscopic plants that support all life in the oceans are dying off at a dramatic rate, according to a study that has documented for the first time a disturbing and unprecedented change at the base of the marine food web.

Scientists have discovered that the phytoplankton of the oceans has declined by about 40 per cent over the past century, with much of the loss occurring since the 1950s. They believe the change is linked with rising sea temperatures and global warming.

If the findings are confirmed by further studies it will represent the single biggest change to the global biosphere in modern times, even bigger than the destruction of the tropical rainforests and coral reefs, the scientists said yesterday.

more here

for those interested in such things, this study would be a good thing to reference the next time you're talking to someone who doesn't give a shit about climate change and it's obvious that they think the effects of it won't take hold until decades from now. climate change is happening. IS happening.

Don't know if I've mentioned it on ILX before, but the 3 hour audio documentary Climate Wars by Gwynne Dyer for the CBC is one of the best discussions of consequences we'll see in our own lifetime, and it places the focus on things which might concern your right leaning family members: droughts at 20-40 degrees latitude and a flood of climate refugees to the North. The Pentagon and UK MoD are already wargaming scenarios like "Fortress Britain".

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/07/29/climate-change-study-noaa.html

Jeff Id lets one of his readers 'expose' the 'global governance angles' of the leaked COP15 negotiating text and the draft document of the IPCC Emissions Scenarios report:

B1 SD is the path they are trying to shepherd us toward. It leads to the slaughterhouse. It is their first priority. There is nothing conspiratorial in nature about their plans because they put them right out there for all to read. Here are some of my favorite terms/phrases from the negotiating draft you should familiarize yourself with: historical climate debt; transparent system of governance; compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity; environmental justice; green fund; levies on CO2 emissions; taxes on carbon-intensive products and services; levies on international and maritime transport; levies on international transactions; penalties or fines for non-compliance; ODA additional to ODA targets; adaptation debt; 2 per cent of gross national product; and uniform global levy.

What a wonderful world the AGW control freaks have in store for us. This movement in its current form is less concerned with environmental issues than it is with power and control. Not me. Not my son. Free will is a damned thing, isn’t it? Why is it so difficult for these folks to admit that this is far less a scientific endeavor than a political one? Why do they find it so hard to admit that this is more about control of humanity than it is about saving the world? It’s a simple equation: AGW = political movement. AGW fraud deniers can lobby for superficial groupthink and cry heretic and big oil and conspiracy all they want, but the evidence speaks for itself.

The first part of Roger Harrabin's Uncertain Climate documentary series was just on Radio 4. It's pretty even-handed.

http://i51.tinypic.com/in6czd.gif

Obviously the main takeaways from this new study (via CP are that women have a better understanding of climate science than men do, but still rate themselves as being less knowledgeable than men.

But for me, the interesting part of the data is the close correlation between the % of those who who "believe that most scientists believe global warming is happening" (66% of women, 60% of men) vs the % who "believe the effects of global warming have already begun to happen" (59% of women, 54% of men). Cause is not correlation, of course, but to me it seems that it demonstrates that most people that realize that there is an overwhelming consensus among climate scientists about global warming also believe that the effects of global warming are already happening.

This is significant to me because I don't believe that there is any way that someone could plausibly argue that there isn't a consensus among climate scientists on global warming. Study after study has shown this, with a recent relatively well-publicized study putting the % of climatologists who believe that global warming is "real" at 97% or so. So going back to the results at the top, the 34% of women and 40% of men who don't realize there's an overwhelming consensus among climate scientists on global warming, well...there may be hope for winning them over yet. "Debate" on the likely effects of climate change, physically, economically, etc..., I can just barely understand how someone would be susceptible to the disinformation campaign that was unleashed so long ago. But not realizing that there's a huge consensus? That's like "Earth is the third planet from the sun" level, and the media has to take the lion's share of the blame, but at least there's hope that the fact will be communicated better in the near future.

In Australia, the second-last election involved the winning party getting a strong mandate for doing something on climate change. They talked a lot, did fuck-all. Then, when it became apparent people might have to pay a little bit more for electricity, etc, the idiot population got cold feet and then, most recently, voted for the party led by a climate change denier.

We are all fucked.

But not realizing that there's a huge consensus?

I guess this is a function of certain parts of the media (all of them? Extreme points of view make better stories than confirmation of the consensus) giving a disproportionate amount of attention to deniers. For some outlets, this is just disinformation, but I suppose for some them this is a misguided attempt at 'balance' i.e. having one pro and one anti on the show, when this distorts where the debate is happening.

And if every discussion of climate change contains one fringe theorist alleging that dissenting voices are being silenced in service of a manufactured consent then this is going to shake people's confidence in the existence of a consensus.

I would be curious to read about media coverage of the risk of smoking back in the late 50s/early 60s.

The new 250 page study, Strange scholarship in the Wegman Report (exec summary, full report) by John Mashey (with considerable assistance from Canadian blogger Deep Climate) finds that:
* a third of the Wegman Report was plagiarised from other sources, without attribution
* half of the references in the bibliography are not cited in the main text, and one reference is to “a fringe technology publication by a writer of pseudoscience”
* a graph of central England temperatures from the first IPCC report was distorted and misrepresented
* the supposedly impartial Wegman team were fed papers and references by a member of Republican Congressman Joe Barton’s staff
* Wegman’s social network analysis of the authorship of “hockey team” papers was poor, and did not support the claims made of problems with peer-review in the field

Given the involvement in this "report" by a sitting congressman, this should be a Climate-gate-esque scandal that is covered breathlessly by newspapers across the world, right? Right?

Aaahahahahaha, shit.

(New Yorker) As the World Burns: How the Senate and the White House missed their best chance to deal with climate change

Loads of interesting new details (new to me, anyway) on the demise of the climate bill, and serves as a valuable epilogue to Eric Pooley's excellent The Climate War. Like a shortlist of the Republicans who might have voted for the bill:

Kerry, the de-facto leader of the triumvirate, assured him that there were five Republicans prepared to vote for the bill. One of them, Lindsey Graham, was sitting at the table. Kerry listed four more: Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Scott Brown, and George LeMieux. With five Republicans, getting sixty votes would be relatively easy. The Obama White House and the Three Amigos would be known for having passed a bill that would fundamentally change the American economy and slow the emission of gases that are causing the inexorable, and potentially catastrophic, warming of the planet.

McCain's final demise into the Realm of the Blowhard:

By late January, 2009, the details of the Lieberman-McCain bill had been almost entirely worked out, and Lieberman began showing it to other Senate offices in anticipation of a February press conference...

But the negotiations stalled as the bill moved forward. In Arizona, a right-wing radio host and former congressman, J. D. Hayworth, announced that he was considering challenging McCain in the primary. McCain had never faced a serious primary opponent for his Senate seat...

By the end of February, McCain was starting to back away from his commitment to Lieberman. At first, he insisted that he and Lieberman announce a set of climate-change “principles” instead of a bill. Then, three days before a scheduled press conference to announce those principles, the two senators had a heated conversation on the Senate floor. Lieberman turned and walked away. “That’s it,” he told an aide. “He can’t do it this year.”

Some people in the WH were a lil' worried about expanding offshore drilling, but Browner was there to ease the pain:

The strategy had risks, including the possibility that expanded drilling off America’s coast could lead to a dangerous spill. But Browner, the head of the E.P.A. for eight years under Clinton, seemed to think the odds of that were limited. “Carol Browner says the fact of the matter is that the technology is so good that after Katrina there was less spillage from those platforms than the amount you spill in a year filling up your car with gasoline,” the White House official said. “So, given that, she says realistically you could expand offshore drilling.”

Stabenow (D-MI) has no idea what is going on:

The top ask of Senator Debbie Stabenow, of Michigan, was to insure that incentives given to farmers for emissions-reducing projects—known as “offsets”—would be decided in part by the U.S.D.A., and not just the E.P.A. “Ultimately, farmers aren’t crazy about letting hippies tell them how to make money,” Rosengarten said.

God, if only Stabenow knew how unhippy-like the EPA is (unfortunately).

For those (on ILX and elsewhere) that like to pretend that Fox News doesn't have an outsized influence on politics:

But, back in Washington, Graham warned Lieberman and Kerry that they needed to get as far as they could in negotiating the bill “before Fox News got wind of the fact that this was a serious process,” one of the people involved in the negotiations said. “He would say, ‘The second they focus on us, it’s gonna be all cap-and-tax all the time, and it’s gonna become just a disaster for me on the airwaves. We have to move this along as quickly as possible.’ ”

After Obama's offshore drilling announcement, I was totally bewildered that they got NOTHING IN RETURN from the Republicans for a HUGE CONCESSION. Nice to see that others were bewildered too, and that in fact, the giveaways were a persistent, destructive pattern:

But there had been no communication with the senators actually writing the bill, and they felt betrayed. When Graham’s energy staffer learned of the announcement (ZS: Obama's expanded offshore drilling), the night before, he was “apoplectic,” according to a colleague. The group (ZS: Kerry, Lieberman and Graham) had dispensed with the idea of drilling in ANWR, but it was prepared to open up vast portions of the Gulf and the East Coast. Obama had now given away what the senators were planning to trade.

This was the third time that the White House had blundered. In February, the President’s budget proposal included $54.5 billion in new nuclear loan guarantees. Graham was also trying to use the promise of more loan guarantees to lure Republicans to the bill, but now the White House had simply handed the money over. Later that month, a group of eight moderate Democrats sent the E.P.A. a letter asking the agency to slow down its plans to regulate carbon, and the agency promised to delay any implementation until 2011. Again, that was a promise Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman wanted to negotiate with their colleagues. Obama had served the dessert before the children even promised to eat their spinach. Graham was the only Republican negotiating on the climate bill, and now he had virtually nothing left to take to his Republican colleagues.

also: Kerry striking a deal with the man who sabotaged his presidential campaign; David Axelrod blows;details surrounding Graham's exit from the bill;the impact of the oil spill on bill;etc

And an appropriate closing:

As the Senate debate expired this summer, a longtime environmental lobbyist told me that he believed the “real tragedy” surrounding the issue was that Obama understood it profoundly. “I believe Barack Obama understands that fifty years from now no one’s going to know about health care,” the lobbyist said. “Economic historians will know that we had a recession at this time. Everybody is going to be thinking about whether Barack Obama was the James Buchanan of climate change.”

I guess I went overboard on October 3rd, sry.

Thought I'd share this little gem here:

“Carbon regulation, cap and trade, it’s all just a money-control avenue,” Ms. Khuri added. “Some people say I’m extreme, but they said the John Birch Society was extreme, too.”

(from Climate Change Doubt Is Tea Party Article of Faith)

looooooooooooooooool

Can anyone help me find a map of areas that will get hit by glacial floods?

http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/space1/worldice.gif

http://i53.tinypic.com/34tbmlk.jpg

NYT

God, I'd love for the NYT's coverage to avoid unnecessary hedging, just for once

is it normal for it to be summer-snowing in australia?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8213932/Wintry-weather-brings-snow-to-Australia-in-midsummer.html

i don't know, but nine of the hottest 10 years ever recorded all happened.. in the last 10 years.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/globaltempanom.jpg

Just deleted three(!!) more people from my Facebook list for variations of the "lol global warming is such a joke because there is snow" bullshit. I'm afraid I may become incoherent with rage and punch anyone that says that to me irl/

http://ifglobalwarmingisrealthenwhyisitcold.blogspot.com/

YES

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_rpiegz3et3E/S2EP3FeEYzI/AAAAAAAAALI/yGktwwyuK0w/s1600-h/33o18ud.jpg

Unfortunately, the chances of persuading someone who thinks of the coldness of winter or a heavy snow as evidence against climate change to read this is about .000000001%, but at least you can be happy to know that a relatively easy to read quick guide exists!

Global Warming and Cold Winters

That harsh winter that we are experiencing, it is not proof that global warming is not happening, but rather serves as proof that it is indeed happening, and even a bit faster than we might like to think. It also shows why the phrase "Climate Change" is a better term to describe the effects of man on his environment.

That post mainly just covers the coldness itself (partly caused by increased heat in the arctic ocean combining with the polar air above it to create the Arctic Corridor), but then there's plenty of other stuff that "climate skeptics" (most charitable term I can force myself to use) apparently refuse to read that explain the increased precipitation, which of course in winter takes the form of snowfall in many places. Climate Progress has a quick overview with plenty of links.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/columnists/2011/1/21/1295623019230/Adam-Blog--James-Delingpo-007.jpg

lol

delingpole = nobber

well that wasn't too difficult

that was lovely to watch but i wanted more

ugh no more delingpole pls

if you've got the time, this series of videos is pretty great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52KLGqDSAjo

that's part 1, they're about 10 mins apiece, and there's 13 of them i think

The Delingpole segment referenced above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Xu3SQcIE0

"I am an interpreter of interpretations"

THAT is the guy who broke the climategate e-mails?

how do people like this gain any authority or trust whatsoever?

I am forced to actually transcribe his closing statement just to stare at it:

'it is not my job to SIT DOWN and READ peer-reviewed papers because I simply haven't got the time, I haven't got the scientific expertise. What I rely upon is people who HAVE got the time and the expertise to DO IT and write about it and interpret it. I am an interpreter of interpretations.'

That is jaw dropping. What a prat.

That's a lot like the explanation some medical cranks give when someone asks them why they haven't done any scientific testing to see if their particular brand of snakeoil actually works: "I don't have the time to find out if I'm full of shit or not! I'm too busy saving lives!"

that quote needs to make the rounds. it needs to be his representative quote, that and perhaps the one about 'truly there just aren't enough bullets'. any paper of note that ever gave time to both sides of the debate in an attempt at objectivity needs to do a story on this and just publish that quote near the top of the page, to make it clear that one of the sides represents world scientific consensus and the other side is basically led by a twit in an angry clown mask who becomes incomprehensible under the slightest questioning.

Heads are going to roll for this, they’ll have to. But however many heads do roll it won’t be enough. Always remember this: the Warmist faith so fervently held and promulgated by the Met Office is exactly the same faith so passionately, unswervingly followed by David Cameron, Chris Huhne, Greg Barker, the Coalition’s energy spokesman in the Lords Lord Marland, and all but five members of the last parliament. And also by the BBC, the Prince of Wales, almost every national newspaper, the European Union, the Royal Society, the New York Times, CNBC, the Obama administration, the Australian and New Zealand governments, your children’s schools, our major universities, our minor universities, the University of East Anglia, your local council….

Truly there just aren’t enough bullets!

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100069327/climate-change-there-just-arent-enough-bullets/

Almost all the responsible and/or intelligent people in the world disagree with my conclusions. Therefore, they should be shot.

Truly an example of conservative 'humor' at its 'finest'.

from tonight's SOTU:

"Now, clean energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they’re selling. So tonight, I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: by 2035, 80% of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources. Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all – and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen….."

Wait a second...did "clean energy" just get redefined as including nuclear, clean coal and natural gas?

Obama's been pro-coal since his Illinois state house days. I can see a plausible case for creating incentives (carbon tax) for converting existing coal plants to natural gas over, say, 5 years as an inexpensive interim solution that would reduce electricity generation GHG emissions by 40-45% (while utility scale nuclear, wind, solar thermal, etc are built over a generation). We're not going to get that from an Illinois (or Wyoming, or Montana) politician.

We're not going to get that from an Illinois (or Wyoming, or Montana) politician.

― Pauper Management Improved (Sanpaku), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 5:47 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

Or Pennsylvania, or West Virginia or Kentucky etc. We're fucked.

If the only way to get a massive boost for solar, wind and small-head hydro projects is to feed the corporate pigs some subsidies for (*ahem*) "clean coal", then I am willing to hold my nose and go ahead with it. Something needs to happen that to change the present fossil fuel-centric equation in favor of cleaner energy. This is a case where half a loaf is still likely to be a long term disaster, but at least smaller, slower disaster than preserving the status quo.

The argument I often hear in favor of clean coal goes along these lines: It's in our own best interests to perfect & distribute Clean Coal technology to China & Russia since they're doing it anyway.

I can see a plausible case for creating incentives (carbon tax) for converting existing coal plants to natural gas over, say, 5 years as an inexpensive interim solution that would reduce electricity generation GHG emissions by 40-45% (while utility scale nuclear, wind, solar thermal, etc are built over a generation). We're not going to get that from an Illinois (or Wyoming, or Montana) politician.

― Pauper Management Improved (Sanpaku), Wednesday, 26 January 2011 00:47 (13 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Converting coal to NG is not negligible thing to do. Since you are replacing baseload you want to be operating combined cycle which means new turbines and new or heavily modified boilers. There's not much saving or benefit over build new especially as you have to get that base load power from somewhere else. So essentially you are building new at ~ $750/kw. Cartbon tax would have to be huge to negate the effect of fully depreciated assets.

They need to change the rules on how thermal plants are costed. Fuel costs don't have to be factored in right now which means they look cheaper than they should compared to renewables.

The sad fact is that there is no way of passing an energy bill without votes from those bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry. It means that way more than lipservice has to be paid to 'clean' coal and shale gas.

A gently effective demolition of Christopher Monckton just now on Storyville on BBC4.

rockin' the faulty thyroid look

it's ok tho 'cause he can cure aids and cancer and meningitis

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00y5j3v/Storyville_20102011_Meet_the_Climate_Sceptics/

Can somebody (hello, Z S) summarise why the latest kerfuffle about peer review is the crock of shite it inevitably must be?

xp Ed:

Coal-fired generation sites already have the water supply, facilities site and transmission lines, so replacing them with combined cycle gas would be relatively cheap (ca $1/W installed). Far, far cheaper than achieving similar emissions reductions via coal gassification and C02 sequestration. The 309 GW of coal fired generation in the US could be replaced for about $309 billion, about 20% of this year's fiscal deficit. Not all at once, mind you (it would take time, a decade or so, for shale gas production to ramp to required needs), and it would make no sense whatsoever if the coal was exported to be burned elsewhere.

But the point is to create a wedge issue to divide the political bloc of fossil extraction states. Before shale NG became economic this decade, it was believed there was only two decades of supply left. Once the general plausibility of an interim NG, long-term renewables & nuclear policy becomes accepted, then the consuming states & NG states would have the mass to halt further coal leases by the BLM in the Powder River Basin etc. The goal is to make coal off-limits globally, and quickly. When we're back below 350ppm in 1000 years any survivivors will have the records of the famines of the bottleneck century, and can decide whether exploiting the remaining coal is worth the risk.

xpost james

I have to confess that I'm not sure what the latest kerfuffle about peer review is!

This kerfuffle: http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/wrong-is-wrong-a-reply-to-the-real-noise-at-real-climate/

Where does that $1/W figure come from. I generally carry $750/kW as a figure for capital cost of new gas generation so that seems higher. That said, that's an industry number held almost as a talisman and I should probably look at the EIA numbers again. I'd be very happy with a $1/W figure, it makes selling batteries $250/kw more profitable.

OK, confusion in my mind between Conventional Turbine and Combined Cycle.

xpost, that's funny, I read the original RealClimate post on the day it was published, but had no idea that there was a "controversy" that emerged out of it!

To be honest, I read O'Donnell's response at ClimateAudit.org, and then Steig's rebuttal to the rebuttal back at RealClimate - and both sides of course claim to be completely correct and basically claim victory - but I'm having trouble getting over the fact that O'Donnell is choosing Steve McIntyre's ClimateAudit.org as his platform! And that the link to the kerfuffle has a big ad for a book about "climategate" side, which of course has been repeatedly exonerated by a number of commissions (though, predictably, the exonerations got about 1/10000000000th the media coverage as the accusations). McIntyre is pretty renowned for being full of shit constantly, from the petty to the libelous (and renowned among skeptics as a hero), and like many other prominent skeptics, isn't even a climate scientist (he's an expert in the business aspects of mineral exploration . Anthony Watts, of WattsUpWithThat, another prominent skeptic blogger, is a weathercaster. Mark Morano, of ClimateDepot, is a professional trashbag).

So, I don't know...based off of what I've seen published in ClimateAudit in the past, it's really, really, REALLY hard to support O'Donnell's side. Then again, even the National Enquirer breaks a legitimate story every once in a while, so...? No, I can't do it. ClimateAudit is irredeemable!

uuuuuuuuugh

NOAA and NSIDC estimate that thawing permafrost will turn the Arctic from a carbon sink to a carbon source by the mid-2020s, a feedback loop "strong enough to cancel 42–88% of the total global land sink". AND, I'm assuming to simplify the study, they made the assumption that all of the carbon in the thawing permafrost would be released as CO2, and none as methane (many times more heat-trapping than CO2), even though it's known that much of the carbon in permafrost is contained as methane.

http://i54.tinypic.com/2nu6h5k.gif
Carbon emission (in billions of tons of carbon a year) from thawing permafrost

Wish more people would listen to this dude:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6TXXDSQwCE

From one of my local Twitter contacts this morning, after a major snowstorm hit Cleveland last night/today:

I just had to drive through nearly a foot of global warming in my driveway. #AnInconvenientBlizzard

To which I followed up with:

Confusing weather and climate = Not A Good Look

"My house's thermostat says it's 67 degrees, so how can there be ice in my freezer?!"

Global warming=hotter air=holds more moisture=makes more snow when a cold front hits. #nothardtounderstand

lol @ thermostat line

"say, why do we drive in the parkway and park on the driveway?!?
#icanalsiveannoyingandstupid

this made me laugh. a climate skeptic's graph, via tim lambert's deltoid:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/upload/2011/02/12we22.gif

i guess this quick lil' post is aimed toward people who get the feeling that all this climate change stuff is a little blown out of proportion, but i wanted to highlight the first comment on Friedman's op-ed today, which was written by Australia's former Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull:

Recently I was visiting with an Asian Environment Minister I knew well from my own days as Australia's Environment Minister. We discussed these issues and he said to me "My conclusion is that the short sightedness and greed of mankind - especially in the rich developed world - is so great that in a hundred years this planet will be uninhabitable for billions of people."

Turnbull goes on to counter that with a more guarded view ("I don't share that gloom and remain optimistic that before it is too late we will cut global greenhouse gas emissions and contain, if not stop, global warming. But there are some environmental challenges which are profoundly existential"), but I think it's worth mentioning that at least some political environmental leaders of the world recognize the gravity of the situation, and apparently they discuss this openly with each other.

PS sorry for linking to Friedman!

And really, this soon-to-be unanswered post belongs just as much, if not more, in the Energy thread. Or really, in a food/energy/water/climate change thread. I think there's already one like that, but the subject matter is so relentlessly gloomy that it attracts rolling eyes.

I dont get why people say things like "DO you belive in global warming" - is it really a question of belief when ~90% (yay tilda!!) of the world's scientists say it is valid? I guess the question is whether you believe in science at all

I wonder where all the, "look, there's snow on the ground in late April, global warming is such bullshit" people go when we hit record-breaking triple-digit temps in early June.

Yeah, one of the worst common perceptions is that global warming means no more cold temperatures. When in fact, there will continue to be record-setting low temperatures. It's the trends that matter, of course. I always thought this chart was instructive:

http://i54.tinypic.com/2j424nm.jpg

Romney draws early fire from conservatives over views on climate change

His views about climate change in particular put him at odds with many in his party’s base.

“Bye-bye, nomination,” Rush Limbaugh said Tuesday on his radio talk show after playing a clip of Romney’s climate remark. “Another one down. We’re in the midst here of discovering that this is all a hoax. The last year has established that the whole premise of man-made global warming is a hoax, and we still have presidential candidates that want to buy into it.”

Then came the Club for Growth, which issued a white paper criticizing Romney. “Governor Romney’s regulatory record as governor contains some flaws,” the report said, “including a significant one — his support of ‘global warming’ policies.”

And Conservatives4Palin.com, a blog run by some of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s more active supporters, posted an item charging that Romney is “simpatico” with President Obama after he “totally bought into the man-made global warming hoax.”

All this criticism, even though Romney's position on mitigating climate change is predictably weak and muddy:

“I don’t speak for the scientific community, of course, but I believe the world’s getting warmer,” he said. “I can’t prove that, but I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that. I don’t know how much our contribution is to that, because I know that there have been periods of greater heat and warmth in the past, but I believe we contribute to that.”

Romney added that “it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors.” He also said he does not support a cap-and-trade policy, saying it would put American companies at a competitive disadvantage in the world. “We don’t call it ‘America warming,’ ” he said. “We call it ‘global warming.’ ”

But it was his line that “humans contribute” that sparked the conservative backlash.

It does seem that the right has backed off on denying that the globe is warming, with them now just saying it's not man-made.

either way better weather proof your house or rent

can someone tell me when the first "cooling center" opened in the u.s.? were they common out west and i just never knew about them? cuz whenever they mention on the news that cooling centers are open in various cities it makes me think of dystopian sci-fi books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooling_center

We had them after Hurricane Charley hit--hurricanes tend to soak up every bit of atmospheric moisture when they hit, so there was nothing to protect us from the horrid effects of South Florida's summer sun. Also, we didn't get power back everywhere for a few weeks.

Sorry, about the long quote here, but this is so mind boggling I had to share it. This is the full transcript of the caller on Rush Limbaugh's show that generated the quote in the WashPo article about Mitt Romney that I posted yesterday. It's like arguing with a doorknob.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Mike in Hanover, New Hampshire. Welcome, sir, to the EIB Network. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Thank you, Mr. Limbaugh.

RUSH: Hi.

CALLER: I was actually quoted by you yesterday. I was the person who asked Mr. Romney at the town hall meeting about his position on global warming. And you, unlike almost everybody else, actually did me the courtesy of quoting some of my questions before you gave the answer. Anyway, I read the transcript that you provided, I read the transcript of your show yesterday --

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: -- and just had a few comments on it.

RUSH: Go ahead. Fire away.

CALLER: Well, sir, first of all --

RUSH: Let me first, by the way, here's his question. This is the guy who asked Mitt Romney at his announcement meeting, the question was, "Nearly all other candidates suggest that there's no scientific consensus on climate change. Some insist it's not even occurring. We can't have a meaningful discussion about solutions until there's agreement about the problem. Will you, sir, state now that under a Romney administration, global warming will be accepted as reality, and this reality will form the foundation for all climate energy policies?" That's the question and you're the guy that asked it.

CALLER: Right. Right.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: Prior to that question, however, I provided a bit of context. If you don't mind I'd like to read that piece, too. First of all, I wanted to specify the difference between policy and science. I said that how to deal with climate change is a policy issue; science of climate change is not. Anyway, my question was not about policy, that is, how do we mitigate global warming, do we do cap and trade or carbon credits or whatever, but it was about the recognitions of science. And I specifically quoted from a 2010 National Academy of Sciences report, and two quotes here. The first is, they concluded -- and, by the way, the National Academy of Sciences, as you know, is considered the Supreme Court of science in this country. It was founded in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln, and it's charged with giving the Congress unbiased scientific information. Now, their conclusion was, quote, "A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems."

RUSH: Then they've lost all credibility. It's a bogus claim.

CALLER: Let me go on. They then went on to say, "Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found wrong is vanishingly small. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities. And then I asked my question, so that's the context of the question. Your response was that there was evidence even in the last year that established this whole premise of manmade global warming is a hoax.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: I don't know where you're getting the hoax from, sir. I mean I'm looking at --

RUSH: It's called the University of East Anglia in England and the Hadley Centre for Climate Change Research where they basically made it all up, pure and simple. It's a hoax. There's nothing true about it.

END TRANSCRIPT

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_060811/content/01125112.guest.html

!

he is funny

4 tornadoes in Maine this year - I'm just sayin' - don't be hatin' on the global warmin! aint suualy no 'nadoes in lobsterland!

well, if anybody would know, it'd be rush

here's a hilarious chart:

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/07/238287/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MediaMatters1.png

no surprises with fox, but to me the bigger story is WTF CBS? WTF NBC? WTF ABC? WTF CNN? and to a lesser extent, WTF MSNBC. it's not so much that fox has way more anti-environment people on their shows in comparison to supporters, it's more that the other channels don't even cover the issue.

There's a new report out that's being proclaimed by deniers as evidence that we're about to enter an ice age, and that all of climate change is really just solar cycles that we can't control (instead of something that has to do with CO2 that we pump into the atmosphere).

It's already being headlined at Fox as "Global Warming Be Damned, We Might Be Headed for a mini-Ice Age"

For those that care, here's the inevitable debunking that won't get covered:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/15/246202/sun-hibernation-deniers/

they basically made it all up

Yeah, basically. I want an asteroid to hit Rush Limbaugh.

One of the many frustrations of this debate is illustrated by that Rush caller: the difference between denying the science and denying it's happening at all. Even if these asshats deny the science, that shouldn't preclude them from working on solutions to what's happening. They can blame it on natural cycles, they can blame in on Jesus, but, man, something is clearly happening. The radical temperature and weather fluctuations here over the past two weeks have been scarier than some old coot predicting the Rapture.

stumbled across a recent article at FrumForum called "Confessions of a Climate Change Convert", which contains a nice little nugget that might be useful when debating a scientific/policy issue with people who don't care to discuss science or policy:

"I’d argue that conservatives and libertarians should strongly support regulation to reduce carbon pollution, since pollution by one entity invariably infringes upon the rights of others (including property rights), and no entity has a constitutional right to pollute."

no entity has a constitutional right to pollute.

Except cigarette smokers.

I think the conservative stance on any pollution is "my right to make a profit trumps your rights, because it's not really pollution, and you're being a whiner about it."

man, WHY did i start reading through the comments section below that article??

*SLAMS CARDOOR ON HEAD REPEATEDLY*

http://cosy.com/Science/CO2-pineGrowth100120_400.gif

Of course, as part of this guy's study, I'm sure he imposed drought or flood conditions on the high ppm plants

"look here, if climate change takes place in my garage and i control the temperature and amount of water the plants get, everything's gonna be fine!"

"Only the profound retardation of government school K-12 math and science education can explain how so many are duped by this GlobalStatistStupidity against the very molecule upon which all life is built and without double digit concentrations of which life would have been very unlikely to have gotten a toehold on the planet .

From what I’ve observed , you can get a PhD in climate science without ever learning how to calculate the temperature of a radiantly heated colored ball"

looooooooooooooooool

These fucking people! It's like saying 'Oxygen is important for us to breathe, therefore it's OK if we pump up the O2 in ther atmosphere."

Even though pure oxygen is toxic over long periods, and has a tendency to make things spontaneously combust.

http://climateconference.heartland.org/

how much oil money do these guys get for showing up?

During an appearance on "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday morning, Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty acknowledged the reality of climate change, but expressed skepticism that humans contribute to the environmental process.

"There's always been climate change, but until recently people were worried as much about global cooling," he said when asked to define his position on the issue. "The reality of it is the science indicates that most of it, if not all of it, is caused by natural causes and as to the potential human contribution to that, there's a great scientific dispute about that very issue."

drop dead

I'm sure the hosts on Fox and Friends vigorously contested his invocation on the widely debunked "global cooling" meme. People like Pawlenty that say things like "until recently people were worried as much about global cooling" are really just revealing that they can't distinguish between legitimate scientists and media sensationalists, because the people that were "worried" about global cooling were overwhelmingly the latter.

Of course, I doubt he even believes most of what he's saying. He recognizes that being anti-environment is now a litmus teat de conservatives.

Uh, iPhone fail, but I kind of like "litmus teat de conservatives" better tbh

Anyway, not sure what to do when presidential candidates repeat widely debunked lies, and rarely get called out on it. Post-fact society, here we come (are?)

uh http://www.grist.org/i/assets/usa_today_sun_ilovecharts_tumblr

no way that wasnt on purpose

like, there's no reason to have that hand there lol

incredible

the sun is watching footage of a supernova

like, there's no reason to have that hand there lol

yeah, i thought the same thing! maybe the sun is supposed to be leaning on a pole (lol) after a long run or something?

My cock does not go up to 130-degrees. :(

xpost maybe the sun is indicating the current temperature?

Wonder if there's an accompanying graphic of a moon shot.

Seems Luke a really heavyhanded way to indicate the temperature. Pointing would be just fine, rather than a sweaty deathgrip!

Luke=like

Wow, looks like someone took the idea of 'boiling-hot cum' literally.

lol

Dear Lord Monckton

My predecessor, Sir Michael Pownall, wrote to you on 21 July 2010, and again on 30 July 2010, asking that you cease claiming to be a Member of the House of Lords, either directly or by implication. It has been drawn to my attention that you continue to make such claims.

In particular, I have listened to your recent interview with Mr Adam Spencer on Australian radio. In response to the direct question, whether or not you were a Member of the House of Lords, you said "Yes, but without the right to sit or vote". You later repeated, "I am a Member of the House".

I must repeat my predecessor's statement that you are not and have never been a Member of the House of Lords. Your assertion that you are a Member, but without the right to sit or vote, is a contradiction in terms. No-one denies that you are, by virtue of your letters Patent, a Peer. That is an entirely separate issue to membership of the House. This is borne out by the recent judgment in Baron Mereworth v Ministry of Justice (Crown Office) where Mr Justice Lewison stated:

"In my judgment, the reference [in the House of Lords Act 1999] to 'a member of the House of Lords' is simply a reference to the right to sit and vote in that House ... In a nutshell, membership of the House of Lords means the right to sit and vote in that House. It does not mean entitlement to the dignity of a peerage."

I must therefore again ask that you desist from claiming to be a Member of the House of Lords, either directly or by implication, and also that you desist from claiming to be a Member "without the right to sit or vote".

I am publishing this letter on the parliamentary website so that anybody who wishes to check whether you are a Member of the House of Lords can view this official confirmation that you are not.

David Beamish
Clerk of the Parliaments

it'll be interesting to see how he attempts to talk himself out of this one, but he will try, doubtlessly.

Americans are more likely to attribute the increased severity of natural disasters to global climate change than to signs of apocalyptic biblical prophecy.

• Nearly 6-in-10 (58%) Americans say that the severity of recent natural disasters is evidence of global climate change, compared to 44% of Americans who say that the severity of recent natural disasters is evidence of what the Bible calls the 'end times.' -White evangelical Protestants and Republicans are an exception to this pattern:
• Among White evangelicals, 67% believe that natural disasters are evidence of what the Bible calls the 'end times' compared to 52% who see it as evidence of global climate change.
• Among Republicans, 52% believe that natural disasters are evidence of what the Bible calls the 'end times' compared to 41% who see it as evidence of global climate change.

http://www.publicreligion.org/research/?id=519

i guess i'm supposed to be happy that overall, slightly more Americans attribute the increased severity of recent natural disasters to science rather than Catbeast, but http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/images/2006/10/19/dmu_head_in_hands_315x420.jpg

Sorry to spam multiple threads, but if I can even get one person to participate in this I think it's worth it.

Some of you may have heard about the Tar Sands protests at the White House, running every day from Aug 20th - Sept. 3rd. 322 arrests have been made so far.

The media coverage is starting to pick up steam:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/08/tar-sands-xl-keystone-pipeline-protest.html
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/why-far-off-canadian-tar-sands-have-become-a-make-or-break-issue-for-obama-with-enviros.php?ref=fpb
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61837.html#ixzz1W4D5RzZZ

If any of you are willing to join me on Sept. 3rd, here's a pretty detailed account of what you're in for:

http://www.tarsandsaction.org/adam-maynard-we-shall-overcome-tar-sands/
http://www.tarsandsaction.org/update-from-legal-support-team/

"Processing once we arrived at the jailhouse was relatively painless. One by one they snapped off our plastic cuffs and led us to a long table staffed with officers who had us fill out paperwork for our release. Because of the low severity of our crime – we were charged with failure to obey a lawful order (aka get off the sidewalk) – and the benevolence of the Park Police, we were granted a “post and forfeit” release. Under these terms we could pay a $100 fine instead of staying overnight in jail and arranging a date in court. Thankfully we were instructed to have cash on us beforehand, and we were all out of police custody by 2:00 or so. Not so bad considering arrests had started around 11:30. I also want to make a point of saying that the DC Park Police were courteous and professional throughout the process, and I hope they spend my $100 wisely."

After being relative assholes on the first day (the Park Police decided to try to deter future protesters by holding them for 2 days overnight in jail), all of the protesters are now getting charged with "Failure to Obey" (a traffic charge less than a misdemeanor) and a "post and forfeit" release, which entails a $100 fine and an immediate release.

Sept. 3rd is the last day of the protests, and will probably have the most people and the most coverage. If any of you want to kick it in the paddywagon with me for an hour or so on the 3rd I'd welcome your company. Or, of course, if you can make it on any other day, even just to register your support (no arrest/fine), please do.

Join your friends on the right wing in interpreting the interpretations of'Climategate II'.

Jesus fucking christ. Reading stuff like that makes my head explode. I've want to bitterly rant at length but I'm iphoning it so I'll save it for later.

*sounds of people removing bookmark from thread*

Wow, it didn't even take them 24 hours (via Washington Monthly/Steve Benen)

A Koch-financed study of climate data, which many on the right agreed to accept no matter the outcome, just concluded that global warming is real and the scientific consensus is legit.

But it snowed yesterday in parts of the Northeast, so we once again have to deal with nonsense like this:

From Eric Bolling’s Twitter feed:

“Hey A Gore…earliest snow in NYC since the Civil War…where’s your global warming now, see?:

Last night on his Fox Business program, Bolling also pointed to the snowstorm to try to rebut climate change. On-screen text during the segment read, “Global Warming: A Scam?”

Ari Fleischer, recently hired by CNN to be one of the more respectable Republican voices, went there, too.

“This is freaky. The temp is dropping & the snown is sticking like crazy. Al Gore - get rewrite”

Does every freak snow storm have to bring out the worst in climate deniers? Is all of this really necessary?

People (including my dad, who does the same) need to have the difference between "climate" and "weather" tattooed on their faces

Well, the Daily Mail is certainly an unbiased and trustworthy source.

peepee in Canada

Well, isn't this just dandy...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/04/greenhouse-gases-rise-record-levels

The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide has jumped by a record amount, according to the US department of energy, a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.

The figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.

"The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing," said John Reilly, the co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2012/01/01fotos/Newspaper-550.jpg/image_large

sure is a graph

well tbf they're shitty newspapers on every other subject in the world too

it's the trend of increasing shittiness that's annoying

2011 the 9th warmest year on record in last 130 years. http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2011-temps.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoOrtvYTKeE

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/02/15/breaking-news-a-look-behind-the-curtain-of-the-heartland-institutes-climate-change-spin/

i wonder if this will get 1/1,000,000th of the coverage that the Climategate non-scandal received

hey my generation, you suck

In 2011, the largest chunk of respondents, 67 percent, said they aren't certain global warming is happening. Meanwhile, 23 percent were concerned or alarmed, and at the other end, 10 percent are not worried or don't believe it is happening.

excuse me for a second.

http://www.getgreatcodes.com/graphics/funny/16/funnypic171.gif

Political affiliation also mattered. Zero conservative Republicans were alarmed, while only 10 percent were concerned.

excuse me for a second.

http://www.getgreatcodes.com/graphics/funny/16/funnypic171.gif

Going to have to kill me some people

Climate scientist Michael Mann lets National Review Online and Mark Steyn know that they're facing a defamation lawsuit.

been so depressed since reading that McKibben piece

i'm really glad that his article is reaching a somewhat wider audience, but there wasn't much in there that was new, right?

not really, it's just the starkness of the math and the lack of progress/lateness of the hour

i confess that this isn't an issue that worries me, but maybe a pressing urgent fear isn't a pre-req for policy change?

why doesn't it worry you

lack of urgent fear hasn't worked out so well so far tbh

i kinda feel like if it weren't such an emotionally charged issue, people could accept pro-environment policy changes as just normal and sensible things to do.

ah yes, normal, sensible humanity

so eager to give up things that make their lives easier

I think I've already accepted that we won't change any of this and I'm just kind of preparing myself for living in a radically different world in 10, 20, 30 years.

i can easily imagine some really fucked up scenarios for 30 years out, biased toward sustaining the privileges of the developed countries and grotesquely unfair to poor people.

like, maybe in 30 years there will be children born with fins composed of billions of microscopic small ridges that will allow them to dissipate heat at an extraordinarily high rate, also they will be able to subsist on algae and alfafa, the only two viable crops farmed by humans then, or will we even be called humans? maybe heat-ans

^and everyone drinks their own pee, of course

naturally!

the best way to spur action on this front would be to outlaw air conditioners, imo

Especially scary combined with the growth in population. The LA Times just started a series on world population by 2050 - Africa will double (including 390 million in Nigeria, to the US's 400M), India will have more than China. I suspect the carrying capacity of the planet will prevent these projections from coming true.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/population/

Over 80 percent of the U.S. is now under drought conditions.

http://www.examiner.com/article/70-percent-of-people-u-s-now-believe-climate-change

gonna set up a kickstarter for my stillsuit company

from the LA Times article:

William G. Lesher, a former chief economist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said the brightest minds in the field haven't figured out the solution.

"We're going to have to produce more food in the next 40 years than we have the last 10,000," he said. "Some people say we'll just add more land or more water. But we're not going to do much of either."

Most of Earth's best farmland has already come under hoof or plow, and farmers are losing ground to expanding cities and deserts. Soil erosion, chemical contamination and salt buildup from irrigation are despoiling prime acreage.

Climate change will make all of these challenges more daunting. Higher temperatures and violent weather will stunt or destroy crops. Increased flooding will imperil millions living in low-lying regions. More severe droughts could displace masses of people, leading to conflict.

By 2050, the United Nations predicts, there could be as many as 200 million "climate refugees."

Despite these trends, population growth has all but vanished from public discourse.

OneOrdinaryCitizen at 7:15 AM July 23, 2012
Just one little problem with this article. How can falling fertitlity rates lead to a population explosion? In fact, world population growth rates have been falling since 1970. The current population growth rate of 1% per year is down from over 2% per year in the early 70s. While an additional 1% or 70,000,000 people per year is enourmous and presents many challenges, Nature has a way of dealing with populations that exceed the capacity of their environment.

once again, the inability for some people to understand subjects that require even a little bit of math/science education is such a limiting factor. the article explained, at length, with various analogies, why population could continue to rapidly grow even as overall fertility rates decline.

Well isn't this news just dandy?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/24/greenland-ice-sheet-thaw-nasa

also:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/earth-from-space-whats-floating-down-the-fjord-today-dear/260296/

been so depressed since reading that McKibben piece

― the alternate vision continues his vision quest! (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, July 23, 2012 11:57 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i know what will cheer you up! you can watch this important discussion on environmentalism that the good folks at the American Enterprise Institute are hosting tomorrow!

Humanity once looked in the mirror and saw something precious, worth protecting and fighting for -- indeed, worth liberating. But now we are beset on all sides by propaganda promoting a radically different viewpoint: that humans are endangering the earth’s natural order.

“Merchants of Despair,” by leading thinker Robert Zubrin, traces the pedigree of antihumanist ideology and exposes its deadly consequences in startling detail. The book names the chief prophets and promoters of antihumanism over the last two centuries and exposes the worst crimes perpetrated by the movement, including eugenics campaigns in the U.S. and genocidal antidevelopment and population-control programs around the world.

Please join us for a lunch discussion of this important new book.

http://www.aei.org/events/2012/07/26/merchants-of-despair-radical-environmentalists-criminal-pseudo-scientists-and-the-fatal-cult-of-antihumanism/

there was a Sunday NYT opinion piece this week about how ppl simply can't imagine a drastically different world. until it arrives.

title was something like "we are all climate idiots"

Man, that's some spin. "Antihumanism" -- who could possibly find fault with THAT?

Zubrin's change in course from pro-Mars/Space Exploration guru to anti-climate change zealot is even more depressing to me! I have always been a huge proponent of getting into outer space.

if anything, climate change scenarios make me want to get off this stupid planet even more

http://haysvillelibrary.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/how-to-live-on-mars.jpg

Mars wouldn't be so bad if we could get wifi there

also a NYT op today about interstellar travel not happening for centuries yet.

interplanetary travel's gonna happen a lot sooner. interstellar is a whole different ballgame.

can't remotely imagine us surviving to do interstellar.

not in our present form

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/a-climate-and-energy-stalemate/

The public is divided, with fervent minorities at either end of the debate and a broad crowd in the middle that believes that human activity is altering the climate but remains conflicted over what government, corporations and individuals should do about it. Attuned to the public’s ambivalence, both political parties and their presidential candidates are playing down the climate issue. Instead, what passes for an energy debate in the United States is rivalry over which party is more devoted to extracting oil and gas from the ground and the seabed.

Over the new few months, we hope to jump-start a discussion about energy and climate policy in the United States. We’ll have experts weigh in and welcome readers’ opinions on broad questions that may be neglected on the campaign trail.

Is climate change a real and present danger? Why does the United States lag behind many other industrialized nations in addressing it? Do Americans need to reduce their energy consumption? Should there be limits to where and when and how they drill for oil, frack for gas and mine coal? How far should regulators go in trying to reduce air pollution and emissions of greenhouse gases? Should the federal government subsidize alternative sources of energy like the sun, wind and biofuels?

FUUUUUCK YOOOOOOU JOHN BROOOOOOOODER

seriously, head-thumping-repeatedly-on-wall.gif, fuck you john broder

would stab

i can't WAIT to see the "experts" that he invites to "weigh in" on this important "debate", making sure to invite plenty of people from the American Enterprise Institute and Competitive Enterprise Institute to provide balance. although who knows, maybe broder will make me shit my pants and bring in 98 climate scientists who were convinced that climate change is a real and present danger decades ago, vs 2 deniers who can't get their stuff published in peer reviewed journals and also happen to take tons of funding from big oil. that would be a accurate portrayal of the debate

i'm going to my happy place now

i'm floating in an ocean with sunglasses on, god exists, i have no job and don't need a job, elizabeth kolbert is the lead science writer for the new york times...

An electoral motive to redefine climate-change policy? naaahhhhhhh

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/24/six_weeks_to_save_the_planet/

u read salon too much, Doc. But I guess we all do.

6 percent of undecided voters (w/ a margin of error of...11) believe that climate change is the single most important issue for their vote

that 55% believe it is "one of several issues" (as opposed to 69% of democrats) says basically nothing. if elections could be won on this issue in 2012 we wouldn't need some poorly constructed poll to inform us.

The big news on climate change this year was the Arctic ice extent, and Americans had to turn on their ACs and pay more for meat, but buried as a page 16 story was the biggest human impact story of 2012 climate change, which was the failure of the Indian monsoon. When one considers how quickly Indian farmers are depleting their aquifers, things are likely to get pretty ugly there pretty soon.

http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/pix/user_images/kd/highlights/glob_precipch_whbk_1920x1080.png

Scotland is going to get more rain?!

HEXIGTEN, China (AP) — Deep in the hilly grasslands of remote Inner Mongolia, twin smoke stacks rise more than 200 feet into the sky, their steam and sulfur billowing over herds of sheep and cattle. Both day and night, the rumble of this power plant echoes across the ancient steppe, and its acrid stench travels dozens of miles away.

This is the first of more than 60 coal-to-gas plants China wants to build, mostly in remote parts of the country where ethnic minorities have farmed and herded for centuries. Fired up in December, the multibillion-dollar plant bombards millions of tons of coal with water and heat to produce methane, which is piped to Beijing to generate electricity.

It's part of a controversial energy revolution China hopes will help it churn out desperately needed natural gas and electricity while cleaning up the toxic skies above the country's eastern cities. However, the plants will also release vast amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, even as the world struggles to curb greenhouse gas emissions and stave off global warming.. .

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/coal-gas-boom-china-holds-climate-change-risks

i suppose china's position is that there won't be a global price on carbon anytime soon, and/or that they won't cooperate with such a scheme even if it did exist.

Over their lifetimes, current Chinese coal gassification projects will emit three times the carbon as a fully developed Canadian oil sands.

These schemes are also intended to help out the Chinese coal industry, with 70% of firms now operating at a loss.

Are you there, God? It’s me, climate scientist.

I'm taking a side discussion from the latest US politics thread here, damn the torpedos.

On climate change I'm afraid that them moving past outright denial isn't necessarily any kind of progress on the issue. It's getting to where outright denial is becoming politically untenable and I'm convinced that they long ago mapped out their future strategy of morphing from 'it isn't happening' to 'it's too late to do anything about it/it doesn't matter what we do cause China and India'.

― viborg, Tuesday, December 10, 2019 6:53 AM

Office buildings are being evacuated in Sydney because the fire alarms won't stop going off. the Prime Minister says it's "not the time" to discuss whether climate change is involved, is approving more coal mines, refuses to meet with firefighters or allot emergency services any emergency funding, but is pushing one piece of legislation today: to make it legal again to refuse employment or services to gay and trans people

― insecurity bear (sic), Tuesday, December 10, 2019 9:12 AM

Australian politics is a bit baffling to me because at first glance it seems significantly better than the USA but then you look more closely and it seems a lot less pleasant. I will maintain that this reflects the campaign of disinformation I argue for particularly in light of friggin Rupert Murdoch's influence in both countries. Also there was some serious progress with carbon pricing under Julia Gillard's leadership afaik but I'm no expert there.

Of course meanwhile in Brazil you have Jair Bolsanaro basically arresting firefighters accused of starting the massive fires there this past summer (and he's also accused Leonardo DiCaprio of arson).

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-brazil-environment-wildfires/brazil-frees-volunteer-firefighters-accused-of-setting-amazon-blazes-idUKKBN1Y22AX

So yes denial is still strong, fair point. And I'm not trying to claim there's some center of climate change disinformation plotting all of the lies and bullshit being spread on the issue, a lot of my perspective is just from reading somewhat informed discussions online with a range of views that sometimes includes FUD (basically, Reddit etc). But it wouldn't be hard to present a case for some consistent unified strategy for denial and disinformation being deployed throughout the media landscape, with funding largely originating from a few central culprits.

(Hope this isn't totally redundant, I'll read the whole thread but just recovering from wallowing thru a few other massive threads. The one about the end of the golden age of the internet -- so many thoughts!)

Global Warming's Terrifying New Math gets more action, most of it is good excepting my recent contributions.

And I'm not trying to claim there's some center of climate change disinformation plotting all of the lies and bullshit being spread on the issue

there are two centers: the koch brothers and the oil and gas industry supply the motives and the money, and bullshit front organizations like the heartland institute provide the public face

It is a mistake to believe that the climate disinformation campaign was NOT a deliberate choice made by powerful people who saw the prospect of government action to regulate fossil fuels as a direct threat to diminish their wealth and power and acted to protect it through sowing doubt, fear and anger among the public. It was exactly that and nothing else.

The real mind-fuck is that the fossil fuel regulation they fought so hard in the 1990s would not have *destroyed* their wealth and power, but would only have temporarily diminished it, allowing them to transition their capital holdings over time to a new and sounder footing, where no doubt they would have maintained their all-mighty position at the top of the heap anyway. The criminality of it is simply stunning.

Aimless otm

Also there was some serious progress with carbon pricing under Julia Gillard's leadership afaik but I'm no expert there.

yeah, this is the case, emissions dropped significantly. but much like the US has aimed to revoke every humane advance of the first black president, Gillard was the first female prime minister, sooooo we have increased emissions to above the previous levels in the years since she was deposed.

All otm. The US Chamber of Commerce is another org with a horrible record on the issue. It would be interesting to see some kind of chart of what lies are being pushed most strongly at the moment based on Twitter bots etc. In terms of just stats I also wonder about the significance of the energy industry for the economies of Australia vs the USA. It's tiny in the UK in comparison I guess.

It is a mind fuck and to me it seems incredibly shortsighted as well, I try to understand their motives a little bit but the worldview of an energy industry executive to me seems almost as foreign as Genghis Khan.

sic, really interesting point -- I see much of current US politics as a backlash against the first black president and was wondering if there was a major backlash against carbon pricing in Aus as well but maybe the gender factor is even more major.

don't even get me started on the chamber of commerce, neither national nor local. it's the most cynical anti-everything that could negatively affect the expansion of the collective business bottom line that could exist, and nationally was started as a bullshit balance against the labor movement

more insidiously, local groups sponsor "young professional" groups that are ostensibly social mixer situations where you can also do business networking. after the diminishing of local groups that were more civic-minded, the chamber-sponsored one got much larger. later, some people were shocked when the most shitheaded conservative politicians were invited to speak to the chamber -- their parent organization! -- despite that being the status quo all along

Shitheels all of them.

I missed the link to the Global Warming's Terrifying New Math thread there, I thought that was more for specifically science and data-focused talk. (Also it's a shame it doesn't have 'climate change' in the title, I tried searching for it but forgot the exact wording at first.)

It's about 5 years overdue for a "Herein we commiserate about our mutual assured destruction in the climate crisis" thread, but aside from the Grimes thread at ILM, my threads disappear into the memory hole...

was wondering if there was a major backlash against carbon pricing in Aus as well but maybe the gender factor is even more major.

Bigger factors are Murdoch's domination of all media being finally entrenched by Facebook (the last two remaining broadsheets in the country sold themselves to a commercial TV company last year), and the LNP's twin-factor reactionary reinforcement, but the sexism throughout Gillard's tenure (a productive legislative one) was monstrous, and openly led by Abbott, the next man elected PM after her: he campaigned in front of signs reading "JuLIAR" and "burn the witch."

Office buildings are being evacuated in Sydney because the fire alarms won't stop going off. the Prime Minister says it's "not the time" to discuss whether climate change is involved

Air levels in Sydney are still eleven x above "hazardous", smoke is filling indoor shopping centres, and employers are withholding pay from workers who are declining to work outdoors.

twin-factor reactionary reinforcement