The sandpit seems to be going well, so I’m starting a new one. Please continue any ongoing discussion in the old sandpit. Meanwhile, this is the place for new side-debates, matters arising, Strocchi-length theoretical expositions and so on.
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John Quiggin 
@el gordo
“The Australian” paper gives Carter’s opinion to those who choose to read it. Why waste taxpayer’s money giving him a nice little earner when all his expertise can be found already, in the newspaper archive?
CO2 against year, as measured at Mauna Lau. Satellite measurements and ground based measurements have corroborated the ML time series at the time intervals in common.
We can argue all week about how to measure, when and where to measure, and so on. None of that is much use in deciding who is right about whether AGW is going to be a growing problem, or at what point human contribution to greenhouse gases will be dwarfed by other climatic effects. The scientific case that humans are having a measurable impact upon climate has statistical merit as well as scientific merit, meaning that various climate variables are trending or accelerating in ways consistent with respect to the human-induced forces (aka forcings used in the numerical climate modelling of AGW). Whether that means humans as a whole can accept that as adequate evidence to actually try doing something about it is anybody’s guess. Personally, I currently doubt that humans will take the required steps to making the necessary (but possible insufficient) changes in behaviour to have a consequential effect.
DO said,
“Whether that means humans as a whole can accept that as adequate evidence to actually try doing something about it is anybody’s guess. ”
So Donald what you are saying is there is no need to wreck the economy based on guess work.
I agree lets see a bit more evidence before we start wrecking the economy by redistributing vast amounts of wealth.
Tony G, What is your evidence that aligning our economy with environmental feedbacks will “wreck the economy”?
There is ample evidence to price carbon.
Woods Hole is covering all bases in this recent press release.
‘It is important to clarify that we are not contemplating a situation of either abrupt cooling or global warming. Rather, abrupt regional cooling and gradual global warming can unfold simultaneously. Indeed, greenhouse warming is a destabilizing factor that makes abrupt climate change more probable.’
What is the risk assessment on doing nothing? Throw the precautionary principle in the bin, adopt Bob Carter’s Plan B and prepare for any eventuality.
@Donald Oats
El Gordo and Tony G are really a quaint minority now (is there a circus in town? They could earn good money for the show). El Gordo says he likes the sandpit but its only because he just got out of Deltoids Dungeon. Tony has been away or asleep for a while – but mention climate change and his house / car alarms all go off at once.
BTW – there is a small article somewhere today (very very low key as per ususal for the content – could be fin rev) saying Treasury has released a study that shows that government borrowings have no significant effect on interest rates here in Australia and that the US has far more effect on our interest rates. Should we rewrite the textbooks now or do we need to ask permission?
The US is a mess but seems about to run the money machine again. Bernanke is still flying in Friedman’s helicopter. Instead of employing men to dig holes they are going to drop money into banks, depreciate the currency, do a dance and pray for it to rain exports?.
Trouble is the US has already exported a lot of its exporting inustries in the big globalisation gamble. Cant see it working. The problems are structural and deep and I doubt a change in the price of money is going to kickstart the US like they hope it will (plus other countries who have grown comfortable feeding US consumption wont like it one bit). U.S. is starting to look like 1990s Japan. Despite the talk of fiscal expansion – the dollars planned are simply miniscule relative to $ values of quantitive easings so far.
The full Woods Hole quote, with a link
Alan, the records indicate tipping points because there is a sensitivity is the system, but we shouldn’t be too concerned.
Back in the days when the Norse people were more adventurous, they are just discovering that the MWP was as warm as present.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100914/lf_nm_life/us_climate_vikings_1#
el gordo, it would probably be more interesting for you to defend misquoting Woods Hole than to raise an entirely new issue.
Alan that is EG’s MO, Gish and run. Best to ignore him, he’s unconvincing and a time waster.
Tony G, I’ll be interested when you can provide that evidence I requested.
Jackerman @4 said
“What is your evidence that aligning our economy with environmental feedbacks will “wreck the economy”…… well…
“Wind farms would cost between $100 and $125 per megawatt hour, compared with $30 to $40 per MWh for coal.”
“Thanks to feel-good Green policies, such as the renewable energy targets, which mean that electricity will have to be generated by useless wind turbines rather than plain-old efficient coal. Power bills are already creeping up, and it will only get worse, good people of Australia:”
Increases of that magnitude will wreck the economy.
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/?p=4613
Comments like TonyG’s that the economy will be wrecked if we fix the environment are just propaganda for capitaists.
We can have a sustainable economy and a sustainable environment.
In fact this is what we need.
So no more TonyG.
So Tony’ s G’s evidence is that wind cost more that polluting coal. That is a very one sided costing Tony. It ignores the externalities of coal, and ignores the ranges of alternatives available (ie. efficiency).
You may be interested to recall that a price on carbon of $20/tonne will raise the average household electricity bills by less than 12% (less for industrial users with discount contracts).
Comparable with wide price hikes of the GST. However the revenues are surplus to the current budget and can be feed back to drive innovation.
Innovation in areas like design production, manufacturing, and agriculture. And becauase green power drives more jobs per kWh it will drive jobs on multiple fronts. I.e. that is the opposite of wrecking the economy. It is saving us and setting up our economy for the long term.
Tony G may also be interested to recall that a price on carbon is such a sound idea and so economically responsible that the Coalition under Howard promised one in their 2007 election campaign.
The GST did not ru
Fix: the GST did not “wreck the economy”, nor will are price on carbon.
If Australia turned off everything and cut emissions to zero and everybody lived under a tree in the dark, carbon would still increase in the atmosphere at 1.25 ppm per year regardless.
Coal is one of the cheapest methods for producing power, so switching to anything else is a more expensive method of power generation. If it is going to cost more, thus reducing living standards and wrecking the economy what’s the point, as it will only give feel-good Greenies an warm feeling inside and will have no effect on the ‘presumed’ AGW.
Adopting feel-good Green policies is pointless as carbon would still increase in the atmosphere at 1.25 ppm every year .
@Tony G
If, if, if …. means nothing – this is just propaganda.
Coal as a fossil fuel is the most expensive methods of producing power once you add up all the costs to society.
Adopting feel-good policies now results in a future society that actually feels good and people are protected from damage to the ecosystem.
Tony G writes: “If Australia turned off everything…”
Reads like a such an obvious strawman, are you raising the white flag and giving up on reasoned argument?
Here is hint, cross national comparison show that competitiveness rise when one prices carbon. Innovation aligned with our well being, and environmental feedbacks is what counts not burning dirty fuel.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2803099
On a humorous note lest examine this meme:
“Coal is one of the cheapest methods for producing power, so switching to anything else is a more expensive method of power generation. If it is going to cost more, thus reducing living standards and wrecking the economy what’s the point
This is logically analogous to arguing that buying insurance, will cost the economy more and hence wreck the economy. In fact, on another level its analogous to arguing that if we but better safer cars we will wreck the economy.
Interestingly the big car producers in the US make a similar claim fighting the legislation of air bags, claiming one airbag per car would wreck the industry. Today they are advertising to consumers the benefits of 6 airbags per car.
And the US industry is weak compared to the more highly regulation compliant European manufacturers.
Chris W said;
“Coal as a fossil fuel is the most expensive methods of producing power once you add up all the costs to society.”
What costs? carbon isn’t a poison, if plants didn’t have carbon to breath they would die and we would starve. There is a need for plenty of carbon in the atmosphere, 20 times more than we put up there.
Cost “$30 to $40 per MWh for coal.” everything else costs a lot more . There are no hidden costs in using coal, so it is by far heaps cheaper. In fact photovoltaic production is highly toxic to the environment and so is nuclear, they are the industries with hidden costs.
Chris W said;
“Coal as a fossil fuel is the most expensive methods of producing power once you add up all the costs to society.”
What costs? carbon isn’t a poison, if plants didn’t have carbon to breath they would die and we would starve. There is a need for plenty of carbon in the atmosphere, 20 times more than we put up there.
Cost “$30 to $40 per MWh for coal” everything else costs a lot more . There are no hidden costs in using coal, so it is by far heaps cheaper. In fact photovoltaic production is highly toxic to the environment and so is nuclear, they are the industries with hidden costs.
Jackerman there is proof that airbags reduce the road toll, but as Donald said above, there is no ‘proof’ that man can control the climate outside of his car.
Suggest everyone stop feeding these two.
What costs?
Climate change
Only fools say there is a need for 20 times as much carbon in the atmosphere, so I hope this is not what you intended to say.
Tony, science don’t work by proof, it works by preponderance of evidence. There is strong evidence that our rising GHG concentration poses a serious risk.
But regardless there are economic reasons to price carbon.
there is proof that airbags reduce the road toll
Interestingly that did not stop the lobby machine fighting it. BTW I’m sure I could mimic denialist conspiracy theory’s to put a disingenuous denialist argument that airbags do not reduce the road toll.
Alan, I agree with Woods Hole.
“Only fools say there is a need for 20 times as much carbon in the atmosphere, so I hope this is not what you intended to say.”
No Chris, there is a need for 20 times more carbon in the atmosphere than we put up there.
Less than 5% of the carbon in the atmosphere comes from anthropological sources, the other 95% comes from non man made sources; either way 100% ( i.e non and anthropological sources) is naturally occurring as man is the apex predator of the earth’s natural environment.
Chris if you started reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere our ecosystem would start dying.
J
Jackerman,
Nothing in science can be ‘proved’, but the scientific method usually dictates whether some thing is scientific.
The Scientific Method generally has 3 components;
1. Make Observations.
2. Propose a Theory.
3. Use the Theory to Predict Future Observations.
then Falsification. An important point here is that if the prediction fails then the theory must be discarded or changed; as was the case with AGW; they couldn’t prove it was getting warmer so they invented a new foe, climate change. (something that has always changed; it is a bit hard to advocate non climate change)
Climate Change is an Unscientific Theory, nothing more. If your theory makes no prediction, then it cannot be tested and hence it is not scientific. It still might be the correct explanation, it is just not scientific because the scientific method cannot be used to falsify it. There are many theories out there which cannot be tested, masquerading as scientific theories in order to have credibility Climate Change is one of them. Be on the lookout for for others.
Tony, Fourier and Arrhenius did this work a long time ago. Back in the 1980s it was hypothesized that given the rise in GHGs a warming signal should be detectable, so observations were conducted and that hypothesis was supported.
The AGW theory is supported with multiple lines of evidence. And it certainly does not require monotonic warming to support it. the rate of warming approx 0.015 deg C per year is such that is its swamped by internal variability in the short term. non the less on th scale of 15 -20 years the GHG forced warming dominate internal variability.
Climate change/Global warming is certainly a sound scientific theory with strong supporting evidence.
Tony G lied as follows:
It is very clear. Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are AT LEAST equal to the current atmospheric concentration less the longterm pre-industrial range. i.e Current (390ppmv) – pre-industrial (180ppmv-280ppmv) i.e AT LEAST 110ppmv/390ppmv i.e. approx. 28% of current atmospheric concentrations.
Anthropogenic augmentation of CO2 to the total biosphere is of course far larger as the above calculation does not include those emissions held in marine and terrestrial sinks, biota etc and which are therefore part of the flux. If sinks had not absorbed these post-industrial emissions and instead remained static, atmospheric concentrations would be far higher than at present.
It is worth noting that these sinks are themselves a finite resource. Their past capacity to absorb and temporarily hold CO2 cannot be relied upon, especially in circumstances where the Earth is warming, the upper clines of the ocean are becoming saturated with CO2, phytoplankton are being harmed, forests are in retreat, and a new pulse will follow decomposition of the Arctic tundra permafrost.
I am glad you point that out, Jackerman, yes the imagined rate of warming is indeed swamped by the variability of the observations. The variability is thousands of times wider than your percieved warming in both directions This renders any hypothesis as to a rate or direction of any temperature change to be scientifically inconclusive.
It still might be the correct explanation, it is just not scientific or conclusive, just as Donald outlined above. Therefore, there is no necessity at this point in time to wreck the economy by implementing a massive new carbon tax, one which will do nothing except redistribute wealth from the productive to the non productive in our society.
@Tony G
Dont you mean lets avoid ” a great big new tax on everything” Tony G. Oh puhleese. This is a tired Abbott argument – in fact as I recall its his only policy – why doesnt Abbott just come out and say “lets avoid doing anything at all about anything”.
@Tony G
The Scientific Method is a wooden construction by anthropologists, made by examining the behaviour of scientists across a few disciplines, and then summarising in a neat conclusion. The dogma of the Scientific Method is useful in aiding discussion or perhaps the initial education of a person into the notional view of what it is that scientists do; what distinguishes them from, for example, a bunch of broomsweepers or car mechanics. In actual fact, by the process of observation – neat irony intended – it may be established that scientists do not work in such a manner. With a metaphorical mallet in hand, perhaps some hours here or there in the business of doing science could be belted into the Scientific Method, but that should clearly be too little to use as the exemplar of Scientific Method.
The point I try to make time and again – unsuccessfully, apparently – is that there is strong corroborating evidence that we are in a period of Anthropogenic Global Warming, not that we are in a period of all regions on Earth warming simultaneously. The changes that may take place are profound, and exactly as the press release above says, these changes may at first sight seem contradictory – paradoxial – to the notion of AGW. The point is that closer examination and thought applied to the question of what can happen and what is likely to happen, is the domain of scientists. It is their specialty.
I’ve recommended Richard Alley’s book [Abrupt Climate Change – Inevitable Surprises, NAP Books, 2002], in which he discusses abrupt climate change – disruptive climate change – and I’ve recommended Imbrie & Imbrie [“Ice Ages”, Harvard University Press, 1979], and Wally Broecker’s [“Fixing Climate”, Hill and Wang, 2008], and Peter Ward’s [“Under a Green Sky”,Collins, 2007]. For an appreciation of where scientists were at 15 odd years ago on the subject of natural variability, have a gander at the e-book (free) Natural Climate Variability, especially the conclusions.
Two other interesting items by Richard Alley I give here.
First, there is his 2002 book called The two-mile time machine: ice cores, abrupt climate change, and our future. Chapter V, called “Fuelish” gives a fairly clear statement as to what is meant (back in 2002 or earlier) by “scientific consensus”. Suffice to say, anyone whinging about how it’s impossible to get “consensus” on AGW should read Alley’s books first, noting that several pre-date “the science is settled” whoopla, which was specifically due to comments at the 2007 IPCC meeting.
Then there is the cheerfully dissonant talk given by Alley in which many of these strands are brought together in a stark depiction of where humanity is choosing to venture through its actions.
Tony, I note that the fragility of your claims requires you to cherry pick and hence misrepresent my argument. Just as you did with Don statement.
The warming trend is approx 0.15 degrees per decade for 40 years. That being sufficient time for the forced trend to dominate internal variability.
Making false claims is not convincing Tony. In fact it has the opposite effect.
BTW Tony, you failed to sustain your claims of “wrecking the economy” hence falling back on that now is logical fallacy. First sustain it before your rely on it.
Jackerman, Specifically, what known fallacy are you referring to? the one where the variability in temperature readings is a thousand times wider than any purported temperature trend?
Alice, that does more accurately describe the tax!
Fran said “as the above calculation does not include those emissions ”
It is convenient to ignore the source of 95% of carbon in the atmosphere isn’t it Fran?
Fluxing clearly indicates that 5% of the carbon in the atmosphere comes from anthropological sources, the other 95% comes from non man made sources.
the variability in temperature readings is a thousand times wider than any purported temperature trend?
Yes that is complete bunk. The radiative forcing of CO2 changes is between 1-2 W/m^2. This is a magnitude such that even large internal cycles ten times that size are dominated by the relentless cumulative forcing adding year on year.
Hence you get this trend despite the noisy cycles.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/plot/gistemp/mean:240/plot/gistemp/last:240/trend
Specifically, what known fallacy are you referring to? the one where the variability in temperature readings is a thousand times wider than any purported temperature trend?
This one:
This renders any hypothesis as to a rate or direction of any temperature change to be scientifically inconclusive.
And this one:
to wreck the economy by implementing a massive new carbon tax, one which will do nothing except redistribute wealth from the productive to the non productive in our society.
Both unsupport, both contradicted, hence both fail the logical fallacy test.
@Tony G
Note, non-responsive:
He simply repeats the lie in another form.
Australia contributes 1.28% of world carbon emissions. If Australia cut emission by 100% that would still leave 98.75% of the 1.5ppm annual carbon accumulation unchanged.
Jackerman you can put your ‘argumentum ad ignorantiam’ where it fits, because the logical conclusion to draw is 1.25% of 1.5ppm pa is sweet FA.
Taxing carbon in Australia is illogical unless your argument stated that the top ten emitters who are responsible for 66% of emissions were also going to do meaningful cuts or a tax at the same time.
They ain’t so…..
Your carbon tax doesn’t bring the big emitters on board, until it does it will only give feel-good watermelons a warm feeling inside and it will have no effect on the ‘presumed’ AGW. Also, it will redistribute the wealth unnecessarily and put the Australian economy at a disadvantage to the economies of the big emitters who do not have tax or restrictions on carbon.
Fran The IPCC’s AGW theory states that 95% of the carbon going into the atmosphere is naturally occurring and 5% is anthropogenic, yet 95% of the 1.5ppm that stays there each year is miraculously anthropogenic, I know this is confusing but take it up with the IPCC.
Fran FYI,
Natural CO2 fluxes
into and out of the atmosphere exceed the human contribution by more
than an order of magnitude. The sizes of the natural carbon fluxes
are only approximately known, because they are much harder to measure
than atmospheric CO2 and than the features pointing to a human origin
of the CO2 rise.
People please! Tony G is not a liar (unless he’s being paid to peddle his nonsense, something I find hard to believe) – he’s a guy trying to save the world just like everybody else. In his case he sees the threat as economic, posed by any action that might put a price on carbon emissions. Where others see the great promise of new industries in clean and renewable energies and the possibility of economic growth, Tony fears economic armageddon by carbon tax. It’s simply economic alarmism, if you like, but it remains to be seen how this story pans out. Tony may be right to fear economic catastrophe – it’s possible!
However on the matter of Tony’s denial of the fact that we are wrecking the dynamic balance of Earth’s greenhouse atmosphere with excessive CO2 and other GHG emissions, the perfectly nice bathtub-filling analogy, used recently by the late lamented Stephen Schneider on Insight, can be adapted to answer. (If Tony’s listening then that’s great but really this is for anyone else unfortunate enough to have been taking him seriously): consider water running into a bathtub at a rate, for argument’s sake, of 100 litres per minute while simultaneously the tub drains through its open plughole at the same rate of 100l/min. Inputs and outputs are balanced so the level of water in the tub is not changing – it is constant at 100mm, or 1000mm, or whatever it’s been.
Now suppose that to the incoming stream of water we add just 1 litre per minute of anthropogenic CocaCola. It’s a small fraction of the “natural” flow of 100 l/min but bear in mind that until now the natural inflow has been precisely balanced by an outflow also of 100 l/min. In the case of our atmosphere, by the way, the atmospheric level of CO2 had been in balance at quite close to 280ppm for a remarkably long period of time up until the advent of industrialisation a couple of centuries ago.
The bathtub’s balance has now been slightly upset and all else equal, if water and CocaCola continue to flow in at a combined rate of 101 l/min while outflow stays limited to the “historical” rate of 100 l/min …… well nobody I think will need much persuading that the volume of fluid in the tub will now be rising at a nett rate of 1 l/min.
What is perhaps tripping up Tony is that, even when the tub is getting perilously close to overflowing, because the Coke is only 1 part in 101 of the inflow at all times the mixture of fluid in the tub at any time should be at least 100 parts water to every part CocaCola. That sounds like a small fraction of anthropogenic Coke in the mix so where’s the problem? To Tony G, that the tub is about to overflow and possibly wreak havoc on things around it doesn’t seem anywhere near as alarming as the thought of having to pay more for his CocaCola (the horror!)
Tony won’t want to understand this analogy (to the fact that our carbon emissions have already badly upset Earth’s greenhouse balance despite their fraction of the atmosphere at any time remaining small) because, I suppose, he’s petrified by economic alarmism; but I hope this may have helped someone else.
I clearly understand your parable frankis, but I do not share your faith. It is not coke, it is all water (carbon) and you can not differentiate one litre (ppm) from another.
Tony may be right to fear economic catastrophe – it’s possible!
Hardly plausible given its comparable to the cost of the GST, and will bring forward and job intensive innovation, setting up industry for the future.
Tony, your bunk about Australia’s portion of emissions is bunk because it is in the context of establishing a global agreement.
Being among the richest nations, being among the nations with the greatest capacity to cut emission quickly, and being among the highest per capital polluters, it is a moral duty to reverse our role as a chain dragger and catch up with the leadership nations.
It just so happens that there are also economic incentives to taking this moral step. Not to mention health benefits.
Around 115,000 BP there was a warm spike before we slumped into glacial conditions.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v431/n7005/full/nature02805.html
The authors don’t mention CO2 at the end of the Eemian.
Tony you don’t understand it; perhaps if you’d try to explain to someone where you think it is in that parable that faith becomes involved – it doesn’t – you might in the process discover what you’ve been misunderstanding. In the parable it is all fluid, but the anthropogenic Coke makes all the difference to the fluid balance. So it is in our atmosphere, with our gas emissions throwing the CO2 balance out from 280ppm to ~390ppm today. Add to that our other GHG emissions such as methane, CFCs, etc.
@frankis
Of course Tony G is a liar. He repeats something he knows to be false, in order to oppose economic changes that contradict his cultural preferences.
His cultural preference is also a form of obsessive, fetishistic, fundametalist madness, but that’s beside the point. Like his fellow culture warriors on the right, knowing that the truth is inconvenient, and perhaps fatal to the cause, he is prepared to lie outright to secure his end.
Some would say he already has his end in hand, and that should be enough, but I’m too polite to go there.
I don’t know whether David Irving is a liar or whether the tobacco industry are liars, but like them TonyG is not trying to “save the world”.
He is trying to save his growth-first economy at the expense of the atmosphere, and in prosecution of this, threatens great horror (wrecking the economy) to muddy the waters and disrupt normal consideration of these issues.
All the serious underlying objective research has been published and verified, so his motive can only be political.
An economy that does not increase CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is the only option and this can be a perfectly reasonable and desirable free from incompetent provocations such as “wrecking’.
…. a perfectly reasonable and desirable economy free from ….
If we look for instance at #41 – wouldn’t delusionalism suffice to explain Tony’s irrelevant reference to “faith”, and his complete missing of the analogy’s point? It’s about arithmetic, Tony’s certain it’s about faith.
I suspect Tony G is talking to himself as much as anyone, repeating this nonsense over and over to help him maintain his belief system.