The news that 2005 was the warmest year ever recorded in Australia comes at the end of a year in which, to the extent that facts can settle anything, the debate over human-caused global warming has been settled. Worldwide, 2005 was equal (to within the margin of error of the stats) with 1998 as the warmest year in at least the past millennium.
More significantly, perhaps, 2005 saw the final nail hammered into the arguments climate change contrarians have been pushing for years. The few remaining legitimate sceptics, along with some of the smarter ideological contrarians, have looked at the evidence and conceded the reality of human-caused global warming.
Ten years or so ago, the divergence between satellite and ground-based measurements of temperature was a big problem – the ground based measurements showed warming in line with climate models but the satellites showed a cooling trend. The combination of new data and improved calibration has gradually resolved the discrepancy, in favour of the ground-based measurements and the climate models.
Another set of arguments concerned short-term climate cycles like El Nino. The late John Daly attributed the high temperatures of the late 1990s to the combination of El Nino and solar cycles, and predicted a big drop, bottoming out in 2005 and 2006. Obviously the reverse has happened. Despite the absence of the El Nino or solar effects that contributed to the 1998 record, the long-term warming trend has dominated.
Finally, there’s water vapour. The most credible of the contrarians, Richard Lindzen, has relied primarily on arguments that the feedback from water vapour, which plays a central role in climate models, might actually be zero or even negative. Recent evidence has run strongly against this claim. Lindzen’s related idea of an adaptive iris has been similarly unsuccessful.
Finally, the evidence has mounted up that, with a handful of exceptions, “sceptics” are not, as they claim, fearless seekers after scientific truth, but ideological partisans and paid advocates, presenting dishonest arguments for a predetermined party-line conclusion. Even three years ago, sites like Tech Central Station, and writers like Ross McKitrick were taken seriously by many. Now, anyone with access to Google can discover that they have no credibility. Chris Mooney’s Republican War on Science which I plan to review soon, gives chapter and verse and the whole network of thinktanks, politicians and tame scientists who have popularised GW contrarianism, Intelligent Design and so on.
A couple of thoughts on all this.
First, in the course of the debate, a lot of nasty things were said about the IPCC, including some by people who should have known better. Now that it’s clear that the IPCC has been pretty much spot-on in its assessment (and conservative in terms of its caution about reaching definite conclusions), it would be nice to see some apologies.
Second, now that the scientific phase of the debate is over, attention will move to the question of the costs and benefits of mitigation options. There are legitimate issues to be debated here. But having seen the disregard for truth exhibited by anti-environmental think tanks in the first phase of the debate, we shouldn’t give them a free pass in the second. Any analysis on this issue coming out of a think tank that has engaged in global warming contrarianism must be regarded as valueless unless its results have been reproduced independently, after taking account of possible data mining and cherry picking. That disqualifies virtually all the major right-wing think tanks, both here and in the US. Their performance on this and other scientific issues has been a disgrace.
John Quiggin 
Let’s put some figures around the question of Kyoto costs and carbon taxes as they apply to Australia.
Click to access tracking2005.pdf
Australia’s current emissions are around 585 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year.
Assuming there was no incentive to reduce emissions as a result of a tax, a $10 per tonne charge would raise $6 billion.
(Costs of carbon emission credits in the European market have been between roughly 8 and 12 Euroes per ton of CO2 for the past year – approximately A$13-$19).
Let’s look at if from another perspective – assume a carbon tax was used to purchase reduction credits.
Credits eqivalent to 10% of Australia’s current emissions would cost between $600 million and $1.2 billion (valued at A$10-20.) A carbon tax to raise that amount would need to be set at $1-2per tonne of CO2.
Credits equivalent to 30% of current emissions would cost A$1.75-3.5 billion, equivalent to a carbon tax of $3-6 per tonne of CO2.
The long-term target recommended by scientists is a 70% reduction in emissions. Purchasing credits equivalent to 70% of current emissions would cost $4-8 billion per year equivalent to a carbon tax of $7-14 per tonne of CO2.
(the estimated cost for purchasing reduction credits is a gross figure. Assuming some proportion of the reductions were undertaken in Australia, it woudl lead to increased employment and profit, reducing the net cost ot the Australian government.)
That $8 billion is equivalent to around $400 per Australian. That isn’t to meet our initial Kyoto target, that’s to reduce our net emissions by 70%.
Let’s double that and then assume that the governemnt will compensate people not in the workforce (e.g. children and pensioners). The 8,000,000
or so Australian taxpayers would have to pay approximately $2,000 per year. (This also assumes that the current government surplus is maintained.)
I am currently reading “The Weather Makers” by Tim Flannery. From page 28:-
So it doesn’t stay up there forever but it doesn’t fall down real quick either.
(370ppm – 280 ppm) / (370ppm) = 0.24
So human generated CO2 represents about one quarter of the current total.
Thanks Ken.
(Still no offerings from the AGW sceptics).
“Steve chidio”
Sadly, someone posing as you has posted over at Steve at the Pub’s site, claiming to be trolling to see how long it would take him to get kicked off. When I get around to it, I’ll ask Steve to send me the IP of the putative impostor and we’ll get it all sorted out.
In the meantime, it’s apparent that everyone here regards your comments as being
(a) intended in jest
(b) not very funny
so I think you need to work on your style if you are going to be effective.
On the issue of carbon sinks – especially plantations – a Dr Frank Nicklason
on
http://tasmaniantimes.com
is claiming a report has been produced inclusive of CSIRO input critical of the benefits of plantations sinks.
If true, how do plantations then play into the Kyoto protocol requirments?
__________________________________
Nicklason writes:
Continuation of the current pattern of increased frequency of extreme weather events as a consequence of global environmental change is amongst the challenges we will all face in coming years.
Carbon sequestration in tree plantations is included in the toolkit of tactics which has been opened to help reduce the impact of so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ produced (amongst other things) by human activities, in particular the burning of fossil fuels.
Just before Christmas an international group of scientists,including some from our own CSIRO, published a paper in the prestigious journal Science which provides a warning of detrimental environmental effects of largescale (particularly monoculture) tree plantations.
Monoculture plantations such, as are being widely established in Australia, maximise carbon storage but have been demonstrated by these studies to have negative effects on water quality and yield.
The authors of this paper concluded by stating:”We believe that decreased stream flow and changes in soil and water quality are likely as plantations are increasingly grown for biological carbon sequestrationâ€?.
This work agrees with the research findings of Tasmanian geo-hydrologist Dr David Leaman and the observations of many of our own farmers and rural community members.
The scientists caution that new carbon trading schemes will need to take a comprehensive view of both negative and positive effects of plantations.
It is time for Treasury to review the conditions for tax concessions available for tree farm developments.
Dr Frank Nicklason
West Hobart
Katz,
I am an AGW sceptic. I am sceptical because the models are extremely complex (despite claims to the contrary upthread), contain large numbers of adjustable parameters that are not based on physical measurements, and are quite sensitive to small variations in those parameters (eg, check out http://www.climateprediction.net).
On the non-scientific front, there are too many in the pro-AGW camp (I suspect including JQ himself) who _hope_ that AGW is true because it gives justification for their political views, including large state-intervention in the economy, and stagnationist anti-development environmentalist philosophy. Thus, I am deeply sceptical of the motives of many in the pro-AGW camp.
My scientific scepticism will be reduced by reducing the number of free parameters in the climate models, improving the models so that they are less sensitive to the settings of any remaining free parameters, and demonstrating a fit between the model predictions and the actual values of global aggregate climate numbers such as mean temperature.
IPCC vs CASTLES & HENDERSON
Q said “in the course of the debate, a lot of nasty things were said about the IPCC, including some by people who should have known better. Now that it’s clear that the IPCC has been pretty much spot-on in its assessment (and conservative in terms of its caution about reaching definite conclusions), it would be nice to see some apologies.”
I presume that Q is referring to the Castles/Henderson critique here. My earlier reading of the C/H critique and the IPCC response was that the latter was all at sea. However, perhaps there have been some more recent developments that have revealed a serious flaw(s) in the C/H position. If so, can someone update me on the latest on this matter.
Thanks, Tom
Terje,
Your bridge analogy in reply to Paul is flawed. One gets zero benefit for half a bridge. For GH emmissions, the benefit is to some extent proportional to the quantity of emmissions avoided.
I’d suggest that there’s substantial, but not yet entirely convincing evidence for the AGW hypothesis. The rational course of action seems to be to draw up a list of “things that would help”, and rank them in order of economic costs. Those things which are postive for the economy, implement now. Those things roughly neutral or mildly negative, put in the plannign pipeline for implementation in 5-10 years time. Very expensive things we do last.
There are a range of actions for AGW which will assist – some are cheap or indeed cost positive, and some are very expensive. For instance, currrrently the government is putting in regulations to reduce the “standby” currant use fo electrical devices. Apparently 11.6% of residential electricity used goes into devices on “standby” but this (they estimate) can be halved, essentially for zero cost for new devices, which will ultimately give us a few percent less GHG emmissions and have a positve effect on the economy (as these resources are now freed up to be used elsewhere). SImilar effects could be reached by limiting/taxing high capacity engines in new cars and tax breaks for zero emmisions vehicles (as they tend to be more fuel-efficient); the vehicle fleet effectively gets turned over every 10-15 years, so we’d be substantially low/zero emissions based in 10 years. Similarly ban tungsten light globes. Setting up a decent nuclear regulation system costs nothing, and has the potential for huge gas savings if we decide to build plants.
Kyoto now, progressing to something stronger later (when the evidence is more substantial) fits in well with this strategy.
Dogz – “On the non-scientific front, there are too many in the pro-AGW camp (I suspect including JQ himself) who _hope_ that AGW is true because it gives justification for their political views,..”
Speaking for myself this could not be further from the truth. While I do not admire the totally free market economy and consider that some corporations could do with some more controls I would like nothing more than the skeptics to be 100% correct. This is the best outcome possible and would be a wonderful thing.
I fervently hope that I am wrong and AGW is wrong is there is no damaging climate change. I am sure that I most AGW proponents are much the same. The problem is that the physical evidence coupled with experiments in computers, research into the atmospheric climate systems, and the instrument record all tell the same story – AGW is happening will cause some degree of climate change in the future.
Tom, I wasn’t particularly thinking of Castles and Henderson. Google IPCC along with any negative word you care to think of and you’ll see what I mean.
That said, I think the Castles critique is a complete beatup. Up to a first approximation, it makes no difference, for an exercise like this, whether you use PPP or exchange-rate conversions.
Look here or search the site for more.
“On the non-scientific front, there are too many in the pro-AGW camp (I suspect including JQ himself) who _hope_ that AGW is true because it gives justification for their political views,..�
On the contrary, I have an ample supply of areas in which I’d like to promote intervention (schools, hospitals, and so on) without any need to dream up more claims on a limited budget. And it’s obvious that AGW strengthens the case for nuclear power, which I don’t like, though it’s still well down the list of options in terms of cost-effectiveness.
Patrick Caldon has said:
‘For instance, currrrently the government is putting in regulations to reduce the “standbyâ€? currant use fo electrical devices. Apparently 11.6% of residential electricity used goes into devices on “standbyâ€? but this (they estimate) can be halved, essentially for zero cost for new devices…’
Yes, I’d read that worldwide, the consumption of power for ‘standby’ appliances (TVs, DVDs etc) might be as high as 15 Gigawatts and that in the US it might be at least a Gwatt.
In the AFR today, it was mentioned that Pakistan has decided to buy up to eight nuclear reactors from China for about 9.6-13.6 billion AUD. That’s an vast order.
The recent stand-off between Russia and Ukraine about natural gas flows was very worrying. During the 1980s, the Americans opposed West European investment in the Soviet pipeline because (they claimed) it opened Europe to energy blackmail. Plus ca change.
Terje wrote : Kyoto protocol seems to have little benefit. Any idea what it might cost?
Terje, I accept that you weren’t entirely serious when you wrote these words, but can’t you see how ironic it is that so many proponents of neo-liberal capitalism, supposedly our most efficient and perfect economic system ever, have also opposed the adoption of the Kyoto protocols on the basis, as they have argued, that even the most minimal measures required by these protocols would have caused so many terrible far reaching consequences for the world economy?
Action needed now to minimise harm of global warming
If worldwide environmental catastrophe can be averted, it can only happen if our global society resolves to marshal whatever social, economic and natural resources it has on hand to combat the global warming menace as well as the even more serious (I believe) threat posed by the looming exhaustion of our fossil energy resources. These resources would be used to embark on projects, similar to US President Roosevelt’s New Deal projects of the 1930’s, which put millions of unemployed Americans to work, except on an even larger scale, and, wherever possible, in every country across the globe.
Professor Ian Lowe (at the Greenhouse at Woodford in Dec 04) said that he understood that if an area of land the size of India were replanted with trees, it would be sufficient to sequester all of the world’s excess carbon dioxide.
Another, possibly more effective, way of sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would be to increase the fertility of our soil. (I don’t understand this very well, but late last year a caller to Radio National’s “Australia Talks Back” program in which GW was discussed, put this to Tim Flannery who was on the program panel, and he agreed that it seemed to him to be a viable solution.)
Our governments must, as a matter of urgency, undertake serious studies to establish the feasibility, or otherwise, of embarking on such massive projects (and if they don’t, they must be called to account for their continued wanton neglect). And in the meantime, we should all still do whatever we are able to at the local grassroots level in order to begin to put some momentum into the process.
If it were to be found that such ‘New Deal’ style measures could make a worthwhile difference, they would require much of our economy to be reorganised. As an example, many people now engaged in many largely socially unproductive areas – advertising, property speculation, litigation, finance, stock markets, insurance, construction of high rise buildings, etc – could, instead, be engaged in these programs. Also, many of today’s unemployed, forced early retirees, or working poor would jump at an opportunity to direct their efforts towards such a worthwhile ends.
We should also abandon, immediately, any large scale building or infrastructure projects which do not help our society to achieve the goal of long term sustainability. These would include the ludicrous North South Bypass Tunnel and related projects in Brisbane, and any new high rise construction projects. All of the resources which are to be wasted on these projects should be redirected towards more worthwhile projects.
Reduce our exports of fossil fuels
Our government should also announce our country’s intentions to wind back, as fast as is feasible, the quantity of our exports of non-renewable fossil fuel overseas. Clearly, it won’t be possible, or even desirable, to immediately halt all such exports, and, and for some time to come, it will be necessary to continue with these exports on a large to prevent the outright collapse of the economies to which these resources are now being exported.
However, from the standpoint of our planet, and of future generations, it is immoral for this society to encourage our trading partners to continue to squander so much of the world’s fossil fuel endowment on throwaway consumables which are currently finding their way into landfill, typically, after a few short years of use, at most.
Where we do, over a longer period, continue to export fossil fuel, it must be for the purpose of helping overseas societies to establish true long term sustainability. It may also be appropriate to continue to export our fossil fuels to help them to bridge the gap until they are able to establish sustainable food production systems.
Politicians of all but very few political stripes these days have, and, undoubtedly, will continue to, dismiss these idea as politically unrealistic, but for anyone who has truly grasped the seriousness of the threat, it must be obvious that it is far less realistic to hope for a decent future for ourselves, our children and grandchildren, if we only adopt ineffective tokenistic measures to deal with this threat.
—
One other point: Whilst I would not wish to advocate censorship, I wish it were possible to put the content of the contributions made by the global warming deniers elsewhere (perhaps, with brief precises and links on this page). At the moment, I have no more interest in debating global warming deniers, than I do in debating those who uphold the Ptolemaic model of our Solar System, or who wish to deny that cigarette smoking is harmful. It’s time we left these people behind and got on with the job of attempting to fix the problem.
But you don’t have a global threat to humanity to help kick intervention along.
“My scientific scepticism will be reduced by reducing the number of free parameters in the climate models, improving the models so that they are less sensitive to the settings of any remaining free parameters, and demonstrating a fit between the model predictions and the actual values of global aggregate climate numbers such as mean temperature. ”
Thanks Dogz.
What are the more important free parameters are you referring to? When does the excision you recommend become susceptible to the charge of reductionism?
What would be a credible yardstick against which to mesure the correlation between the model and a credible measure of a rise in global temperature?
e scarioni has said:
‘ “…anthropogenic CO2 which will stay in the atmosphere on average for many thousands of yearsâ€?
This is just not the case. All the CO2 in the atmoshere is part of the carbon cycle. ‘
I believe that’s correct. As soon as you plant a tree you are absorbing CO2. If we were able to cover all of Australia with new trees – impossible – we might stop greenhouse warming. If we try to move from coal to methane, we will inevitably have to consider the potent effect of methane as a greenhouse gas. Methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2.
The future should be solar with hydrogen, but I’m not all that worried about nuclear power. Uranium might be better than coal.
Volcanoes and coal stations pump out dirt-haze that cools the atmosphere. Should we consider artificially blowing sulfur dioxide (or water) haze into the upper atmosphere to slow warming, a synthetic Tambora (1815)?
Meanwhile, we could ask Brazil to stop rainforest clearance (which causes haze, which is…)
The future should be solar with hydrogen
This would only happen if money was free. Solar is the most expensive option, and throwing hydrogen into the mix increases the prices significantly.
The second part of that statement does not necessarily support the first part. You also need to know the growth rate of human CO2 production. After all, if all the CO2 we have ever liberated was produced last year, then 56% remaining would indicate a very short half-life.
“Worldwide, 2005 was equal (to within the margin of error of the stats) with 1998 as the warmest year in at least the past millennium.”
Interesting. What was the worldwide temperature average for 2005? And what was the worldwide temperature average for, say, 1105?
Ken said:
“Peel and Stick solar sheeting, roads paved with solar cells and batteries that can power trucks and ships and planes – these are what the world needs. I haven’t heard that they are beyond our capabilities to produce. ”
Oh, well, then allow me. There isn’t enough energy from solar radiation hitting the Earth to put even a minor dent in our energy needs, even assuming 100% efficient solar panels. As far as batteries go – you realize they are made from finite resources, yes? The trick is not just making them efficient, but also not making them out of materials that will be quickly expended for their production (I expect the knee-jerk response to that will be “Recycle!” As if recycling is energy-cost-free.)
I know some folks like to think that the big problem is evil greedy rich guys who don’t want to give up their old-energy cash cows, but that assumes the non-existence of evil greedy want-to-be-rich guys who would love to make billions out of solar cells and uber-batteries and what-all. Not a very logical position when you think about it, is it?
JS,
If you believe (as I do) that solutions based on private enterprise and civil society are generally better than solutions based on government force then of course you are likely to be more hesitant to accept the need to deploy government based solutions. It should not surprise anybody that proponents of neo-liberal capitalism are more sceptical than left wing socialists.
When the Kyoto protocol was announce I personally saw it as a victory for the neo-liberals because it was a market based solution. Intially a lot from the left opposed a market based solution so its ironic that they now appear to be its champion. A sweet irony I would say.
My more recent opposition (or hesitation) towards the protocol is more to do with its inability to deliver much. I have read more about the lack of benefits than the size of the costs. I don’t claim to have a good grip on the latter.
Regards,
Terje.
I’m not an engineer or a physicist, but I’ve always wondered at the extraordinary solar exposure that Australian roads (and roof tops) receive each day, even during winter. Quantities of petrochemicals went into making all our asphalt roads and footpaths: is it do-able to cover them with tough photovoltaic sheets that could withstand cars, feet etc and feed to local residents?
Gazing from a suburban house on a summer day, there seems to be much potential for improvement. If we can all have wires that bring us the juice, why not rooftops that feed watts back into the flow? If we can afford n-thousand dollar First Homebuyer grant, why not cough up for some cells? Australia should be a leading solar nation.
Patrick,
I have said it before and I will say it again. All metaphors are flawed. That does not stop them from having value.
My point was not that Kyoto has no benefit like a half built bridge. It was that we can’t assume the benefit of “Kyoto+post Kyoto extras” but only consider the cost of “Kyoto”. If you are going to do a cost/benefit analysis you have to compare apples to apples. The bridge example is an extreme case of halving costs but reducing the benefits by 100%.
In Sydney a detailed cost benefit analysis was done for the state government with regards to building a new train line from Chatswood to Paramatta. Shortly after construction started the government announced that due to the costs involved they would only build the train line half the distance (ie Chatswood to Epping). No new cost benefit analysis seems to have been prepared. This approach is fine if costs and benefits scale in a linear fashion. However as my bridge example was meant to illustrate they often don’t.
If Kyoto is insufficient then we would be foolish to do a cost benefit analysis on this basis and then add bits later. We should develop a multiphased plan and properly cost the benefits as well as the costs of each phase. It is not enough to cost the whole and assume that you can get half the benefit for half the cost. Nor is it appropriate to assume that you get twice the benefit for twice the cost.
To employ another metaphor. The low hanging fruit will be cheaper than the fruit higher up the tree.
Regards,
Terje.
Not that it matters much, but the CSIRO document “Greenhouse: Questions and Answers” at http://www.cmar.csiro.au/e-print/open/gh_faq.htm#gh10 says
“How long do the greenhouse gases last in the atmosphere?
Carbon dioxide persists for more than a century in the air. Methane’s average lifetime is about 11 years.
Nitrous oxide and some of the CFCs stay in the air for more than a century.”
btw, in today’s Oz (p8), a geologist, Ian Plimer, reckons a few metres here and there on the sea level won’t matter much anyway. So what is all the fuss about? AND, there were two hurricanes in 1915 just like Katrina and Rita so that PROVES there is no effect on weather (as opposed to climate). At least, I think that’s what he’s saying – it’s all terribly confused.
I wasn’t advocating excision of those free parameters, just conversion from free to bound (for want of a better word). There are 20 of the most poorly understood parameters listed here: http://www.climateprediction.net/science/parameters.php
Just looking at the top one: vf1 – ice fall speed through clouds. I don’t know what the valid range for this variable is (you could probably dig it out from the site), but let’s say it is from 5m/s to 20m/s. If the model is sensitive to that parameter, it’s predictions will change dramatically depending upon whether you set it to 6m/s or 12m/s (say). When you multiply that by 20 poorly understood parameters, you get an enormous space of possible parameter settings which leads to a large variability in the model predictions. So if we can go out and measure the value of vf1 and hence reduce its range in the model, we’ll be more confident of the model’s predictions.
Monte Carlo simulation starting from known initial conditions and anticipated boundary conditions. Eg, initialize the model with the climate data from 1990 and evolve it forwards to 2005. Do we get the same kind of warming we have seen? Repeat for many different periods.
Ken Miles has said, in reponse to my comment about sunlight:
‘This would only happen if money was free. Solar is the most expensive option, and throwing hydrogen into the mix increases the prices significantly.’
That’s unfair, Ken. I’ve never believed that money is free, especially not after certain periods of genteel poverty. If we are discussing options for tackling greenhouse warming, then expensive (or non-cheap options) are important. In the long-term, solar energy is important.
If everyone in the world woke up tomorrow passionately convinced that the only way to save the planet was to plant billions of eucalypts, then money would grow on trees! %—)
But John,
I thought exchanging someone’s IP was considered breaking privacy laws. I guess it doesn’t apply to you just yet.
I was never trying to be funny. I was trying to articulate like you by using words that would get me into the club (like neo-con and Howard/Hilter etc).
Trouble is John, as a researcher, you of all people should know 1 year’s worth of data does not make climate. It makes weather. Scaring the shit out of people because the temp on a large unpopulated landmass in the southern hemisphere hit a record doesn’t really deserve serious consideration does it? Sure it is something to look but you certainly don’t make policy as a result….. Unless of course next year is the coldest year and we change accordingly.
Like Fydor I am awaiting further evidence that this is a real issue…. just like most serious scientists have suggested. If you care to read serious stuff rather than junk passed off as serious on the ABC or SBS. Research should be peer reviewed before it is passed on as meritorious. Most serious science I have read keeps repeating the same mantra, which is we do not know enough yet to make better than long odds guesses.
This happens for two reasons
1. We simply need more information and,
2. Even if the likelihood of climate change is AGW we need to know whether there are large costs associated with it.
As you are aware we can’t even model an economy to any degree of accuracy let alone weather. To be honest, the models most of these scientists use are fairly rudimentary compared to the mass computing power some institutions use to model economies.
It is still not warm enough for people to populate Greenland, like they were in the middle ages.
As the same people involved in terrifying people to death about GM foods are us telling to worry about AGM, I’d prefer to wait. How about you? Or are you on the same wave-length as the GM food Chicken Littles?
For all those wanting to get a better handle on Kyoto. Take a look at the carbon trading market in Europe. Credits have shot up about 50% from $20 to $32. And the result? They are all going to miss their budgets. Wow! Kyoto is really going to change the way the world works isn’t it. The only thing this market has done is added costs to consumers in the form of another hidden tax. I guess that works doesn’t it.
I know you would never go for it, but the only way out of a potential problem is to ensure technology is allowed to progress at a faster pace. You can only do that by increasing the savings pool, which means don’t do anything to hinder growth because it’s growth that creates wealth through savings.
I must say to your credit that you have supported moving towards nuke energy, however most of the people aligned on your side of the fence don’t agree and therefore being a 50/50 nation it won’t go anywhere. However sending large capital input like coal fired generators into retirement has enormous costs associated with it. It would simply cost billions. Would you be prepared to support a policy that reduced welfare to the extent that it paid for the change over? After all, someone has to pay for it; so why should our pockets get picked again.
Recent numbers coming out of the US EPA shows that the US has met Kyoto like emission standards, which is not a surprise when one considers what Alan Greenspan said in a testimony to Congress. He mentioned that the US economy was as of 2000 3 times bigger than it was in 1970 and 25% lighter. That is if we picked up GDP in 2000 and weighed it, it would be 25% less than 30 years ago. This is an extraordinary change and something the chicken littles of this world ought to consider before throwing away the baby with the bath water.
There isn’t enough energy from solar radiation hitting the Earth to put even a minor dent in our energy needs, even assuming 100% efficient solar panels.
It would be hard to be more wrong than you on this point.
Read up on how much solar energy reaches the ground each day. It’s massive, and completely dwarfs our energy needs.
Like Fydor I am awaiting further evidence that this is a real issue…. just like most serious scientists have suggested. If you care to read serious stuff rather than junk passed off as serious on the ABC or SBS. Research should be peer reviewed before it is passed on as meritorious. Most serious science I have read keeps repeating the same mantra, which is we do not know enough yet to make better than long odds guesses.
Judging by that paragraph, you haven’t read any peer reviewed scientific literature on the topic. Here’s a hint, it strongly supports the opposite.
You were better off sticking to bad satire.
Dave S – “Oh, well, then allow me. There isn’t enough energy from solar radiation hitting the Earth to put even a minor dent in our energy needs, even assuming 100% efficient solar panels.”
Are you sure about this statement? The incident energy from sunlight is approx 750W/m^2. Assuming, as you do, 100% solar cells then the required land area is
Global electricity in 2002 (est)
14,280,000,000,000 kWh for a full year is 1,630,136,986Kw for 8760 hours
Land area required is 1,630,136,986Kw / .75kW = 2,173,515,982 m^2 = 2,173 Km^2 which is a bit less that the area of the earth. Even if you factor in a 30% load factor then you would only need 6000km^2 or so.
I am not saying that this is a realistic solution as we do not have 100% cells, just that you should be careful about making statements without calculating them first. A recent study showed that there is enough wind power potential offshore the US to power the whole of the USA – you should not underestimate the potential of renewable power just because it looks less solid and reliable than fossil fuels.
http://www.masstech.org/renewableenergy/press/pr_9_30_05_wind.htm.
Any renewable solution would include wind solar and biomass. Battery electric cars can be used for grid storage.
Ref:
Electricity Consumption http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2042rank.html
Dogz, one of the results of climateprediction was that fiddling with variables in virtually all cases didn’t lead to exciting new results. It is next to impossible to get a low climate sensitivity. In some rare combinations, it is possible to get a very high climate sensitivity – so if anything, climate scientists are underestimating the effect of CO2 (note: I don’t believe that this is true).
“There isn’t enough energy from solar radiation hitting the Earth to put even a minor dent in our energy needs, even assuming 100% efficient solar panels.”
Got some calculations or references to back that up?
>For all those wanting to get a better handle on Kyoto. Take a look at the carbon trading market in Europe. Credits have shot up about 50% from $20 to $32. And the result? They are all going to miss their budgets. Wow! Kyoto is really going to change the way the world works isn’t it. The only thing this market has done is added costs to consumers in the form of another hidden tax. I guess that works doesn’t it.
Over what period and according to what source?
This BBC article shows prices falling from 13 Euroes in January 2004 to around 7 Euroes in January 2005. That’s roughly from A$20 to A$11.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4269021.stm
JQ,
I think you’re way of the mark in suggesting that 2005 has been a good year for the AGW crowd.
It’s interesting you mention the “hockeystick”. Despite the recent attempts to argue that MBH et al “don’t matter”. I think you and I agree that the paleo-reconstructions matter a lot, because they are the only “record” we have of past climate variability in the mellenial range, Nobody suggests that the earth isn’t warming (although rate and magnitude might be in dispute). The key question is whether this warming is unusual or unprecendted. If Earth’s temperature is natuarally variable, the current warming might not be unusual.
Sadly, the hockeystick reconstructions pretty much got the stake through the heart in 2005. not just via M&M, but also von Storch and more recently Bürger and Cubasch.
I’ve been following the climate debate for about six years (ironically perhaps, it was the hockeystick that first got me interested. I’ve gone from an AGW agnostic to a sceptic, and I think 2005 might have been my most sceptical year yet. Cheers.
James,
If we assume that all temperature reconstructions aren’t useful, it doesn’t change much. Simply by using the past observed temperature record, the conclusions remain the same.
There has been no serious scientific study that can explain the past 150 years of observed temperature changes that doesn’t include greenhouse gas forcings. If you have seen a study which contradicts this I’d be very interested. Unless one posits that a very large and undetectable force has been altering our climate (magic perhaps?), then the global warming sceptic position is untenable.
“Despite the absence of the El Nino … effects [in 2005]”.
The SOI was mostly negative throught 2005. On what basis do you claim that 2005 was not an El Nino year?
I would like to know what Prof Q and others make of the piece by Ian Plimer in todays Australian. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17729019%255E7583,00.html
I am not aware of Plimer being a Creationist or a captive of the coal industry or any right wing think tank. Rather Plimer is a Geologist and tends to see time from a Geological perspective. There have indeed been massive fluctuations in temperature, atmospheric composition and sea levels over long periods. Wasn’t Tasmania once joined by land to Australia, within the period of human habitation of Australia?
Seen in Geological time we may merely be going through a periodic fluctuation where the earth is indeed warming, to be followed by a period of cooling.
I support a transition to cleaner energy sources and clearly some fossil fuel sources are going to become scarce within the relatively short term of a generation or so. The sun provides a massive amount of energy impacting on our planet and indeed drives the whole weather system including such massive destructive releases of energy as hurricanes which are frequently compared with nuclear weapons in the amount of energy unleashed.
Solar, wind and other means simply harness such energy without intermediate biological processes.
Then there are massive geothermal resources to be investigated and harnessed.
Graeme,
Geothermal resources? Good Lord, man, are you made? Have you not seen Doctor Who: Inferno???? Some things in nature were not meant to be tampered with!
Super Volcano?
From the perspective of Geological Time, global warming is indeed pretty trivial.
Of course, from the perspective of Geological Time, the Asian Tsunami, the AIDS epidemic, World War II, and for that matter the entirity of human history is pretty trivial.
Tim T may not have heard of an area of ‘hot rocks’ in South Australia which holds an enormous amount of energy and is being investigated to find a feasible means of tappint it.
I would not base my science on Doctor Who, much as I used to enjoy watching with my sons.
Forgive my lack of knowledge on the details of the arguments, but can anyone sceptical of AGW actually answer the problem of why “greenhouse gases (esp CO2) + land clearing + time = global warming” is wrong in laymens terms? Seems like a straightfoward argument to me.
Kind of like that 9/11 “truth” doco on last night, a whole pile of proposals for what could have “really” happened, but no explanation as to where a plane full of people disappeared to.
Matt,
One possible source of doubt is that the total amount of CO2 produced by humans is dwarfed by that amount produced by natural causes. A fairly small increase in CO2 output from one source does not necessarily lead to catastrophic outcomes. It may, if the system is very finely balanced, but it depends on the system.
One other source of doubt is that the land clearing may act to counteract the increase in CO2 by reflecting more heat back into space than would otherwise have been the case. The action of clouds could also be the same – and many of the models do not take into consideration the likely increase in cloud cover as the planet warms (if it does) to mitigate the effects of warming. You also need to consider the increases in particulate matter in the atmosphere and many, many other variables.
In the end, I believe the case is improving that there is a problem, but to call the debate ‘over’ is, IMHO, premature.
“China, already enduring its coldest winter in 20 years, is preparing for a cold snap that will see temperatures drop by as much as 16 degrees Centigrade (29 degrees Fahrenheit).”
ho hum.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/02/060102044332.yp07id4u.html
John, you are an economist. Your opinion is your own, but has nothing to enable you the certitude you have expressed. Since the 1970s, the envirodoomscreamers have predicted:
1. We were all going to die of global cooling. (You remember ‘Global Cooling’ and the imminent ice age due to mankind polluting the planet, don’t you?)
2. Global famine by 1979, with millions starving even in first world nations, and the end of civilisation.
3. Civilisation was going to collapse because all the oil would be gone by the early 80s.
4. Global famine by 1989, with millions starving even in first world nations, and the end of civilisation
5. Civilisation was going to collapse because all the oil would be gone by the early 90s.
6. We were all going to die and civilisation would collapse due to global warming.
7. Global famine by 1999, with millions starving even in first world nations, and the end of civilisation
8. Civilisation was going to collapse because all the oil would be gone by the early 00s.
The ‘remedy’ for each of these was the same: changes to the global economy which would amount to abandonment of technological civilisation, etc etc
The ‘science’ behind it was all the same flavour, too, Joh Bjelke style, ‘don’t you worry about that’, from people making their careers by pandering to the envirodoomscreamers, politicians on the make for votes, and the deluded. Basically, this sort of twaddle is a form of secular religion for folks who enjoy a good bit of doomscreaming. It is a risible hobby, but people seem to like it.
‘Global warming’ is just the latest typhoon of BS, hot air, junk science, and pseudo-religious fervour. Pilmer notes:
‘For about 80 per cent of the time since its formation, Earth has been a warm, wet, greenhouse planet with no icecaps. When Earth had icecaps, the climate was far more variable, disease depopulated human settlements and extinction rates of other complex organisms were higher. Thriving of life and economic strength occurs during warm times. Could Greenpeace please explain why there was a pre-Industrial Revolution global warming from AD900 to 1300? Why was the sea level higher 6000 years ago than it is at present? Which part of the 120m sea-level rise over the past 15,000 years is human-induced? To attribute a multicomponent, variable natural process such as climate change to human-induced carbon emissions is pseudo-science.’
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17729019%255E7583,00.html
I have heard it all before over the past 30 years. It was all junk science and BS then, and nothing has changed now. The planet changes, the climate changes, so what? When the first humans occupied Papua New Guinea forty or fifty millennia ago, the sea level was TWO HUNDRED METRES lower than now.
been some changes since – and it had nothing to do with humans. But I do not begrudge envirodoomscreamers their fun, just don’t expect anyone who has not heard it all before for decade after decade to regard it as anything but a very tired joke.
MarkL
Canberra
From Plimer’s article:
“Does it matter if sea level rises a few metres or global temperatures rise a few degrees?”
I advise anyone who leaves near a beach to drop by during a king tide and mentally add “a few metres” to the water level.
There are literally hundreds of millions of people around the world who live within “a few metres” of sea-level.
JQ’s original points about misinformation and down right political and scientific fraud are views I am comfortable with. Only today we have our illustrious ministerial idiot for the environment blathering on about Ozzie miracles for climate change, the usual codswallop about policy settings, measures etc. Were it not so serious it would be pythonesque. This government and those aligned with US and Asian interests are simply a disgrace to humanity and a monument to human folly.
Curiously half the blogs here are still running down the right wing rabbit hole for the mad hatters tea party to discuss energy replacement, industry survival and disputable science.
I don’t really care what the scientific niceties are, but in case some of you had’nt noticed, or think you live on another planet to this one then it has been getting hotter and hotter and drier and drier. If you look carefully at the climate models you will see like all changes these are not straight line, so it gets hotter, but some days are normal, its the number of dry days and hot days that increases over time from a small number to a big number. The old frog in boiling water syndrome.
Apart from being an amateur economist I make my living as an aviator, funny thing but I am in the weather your discussing in many different places at various altitudes, so I get to sample the effects personally from WA to NT to QLD to NSW. For years I have noticed that the meterology I learnt in detail and rely upon was becoming increasing unreliable other than in more general cause and effect, the cloud has increased in some places and decreased in others, in all places the water droplets inside are smaller hence less rain on the ground. The violence of air current movements (wind and cloud air movement) is at times unpredictable others bizarre. So as far as I am concerned I see the proof daily, like farmers do, I do not need some fancy eulogy to convince me we have made some serious and fundemental errors of judgement about our fondness for machines of all description. But really despite the models it comes back to two clear issues, too many people and too few trees, they appear to inversely correlated.
As for the costs well just continue as we are and see what the cost of doing nothing are, any reputable insurance mathematician has factored them into their costs already and they are still being caught by surprise. As Diamond hypothesised in ‘Collapse’, ‘What did the person who cut down the last tree on Easter Island think they were doing?’
– Greenhouse gases and land use are just two of hundreds of variables that influence the temperature of the planet.
– The temperature varies nonlinearly as a function of those variables, so knowing the temperature for one configuration of the variables doesn’t necessarily tell you much about neighbouring configurations.
– The way temperature varies as a function of all the variables is still not all that well understood.
If the debate is over, why is John still arguing with people in comments?
Tim,
John just wants to end the debate, so it’s over.
Thanks guys.
I hate to sound ignorant but I dont see how either of those comments answered my question.
According to wiki:
“As of 2004, the earth’s atmosphere is about 0.038% by volume (380 µL/L or ppmv) or 0.053% by weight CO2. This represents about 2.7 × 1012 tonnes of CO2.”
“Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased by approximately 110 µL/L or about 40%, most of it released since 1945.”
If these figures are correct, and the co2 concentrations are 40% higher, is that a valid figure to expect from natural ’causes’? Or is there a noticeable human influence in that value? Doesn’t clearing the forests slow the carbon cycle? Doesn’t increasing ocean temperature (particularly at the poles) slow the carbon cycle?
And even if those are all resolved and the carbon cycle isn’t slowed by the deforestation and increased ocean temps (neither of which are disputed, to my knowledge) Won’t the extra co2 in the atmosphere still contribute to the problem, even if marginally, and couldnt that push be the one that stops the process from reversing as it has in the past, where co2 levels were higher than they currently are?
I hope that isn’t just a rambling of non-sensical questions and some of them are actually coherent. Is there a better figure for the amount of carbon presently in the atmosphere as a result of human ‘interference’? Or is the whole debate about the credulity of those figures?