This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Climate Change: Summary of Current Science
Cap and Trade, Global Warming, and Climate Change all have significant implications for we humans. The following analysis was done by Cato scholar, Andrei Illarionov, formerly Vladimir Putin's chief economic advisor. As an economist he studied the available literature and synthesized the current state of the scientific evidence on climate change and global warming. It is significant in that the "solutions" coming out of Copenhagen are really political in nature and not necessarily based on the best science or the best economics.
For the record, I believe in climate change and global warming, as the science suggests. The issue is the extent and impact of human behavior ("anthropogenic factors"). I think the scientific evidence presented by Illarionov and Cato, as well as the Competitive Enterprise Institute is pretty good.
I will also refer you to RealClimate.org which is run by four climatologists, and who have excellent resource materials. I will not comment on their objectivity or accuracy because I am not a climatologist. So, you can compare some of their data to those that Illarionov and Cato present. I checked a few and there is some agreement on the data, but perhaps not the overall view of things.
I will say that much of what is written about global warming and climate change is bunk. I think that it is the latest movement around which people who hate capitalism and free markets gravitate toward. And I am skeptical about the political solutions offered, especially those coming out of Copenhagen. My guess about Copenhagen: nothing major will happen.
A Few Notes On Climate Change
By Andrei Illarionov
December 11, 2009 at 5:33 pm
As the Copenhagen Climate Conference is taking place, it is appropriate to clarify once again what is more or less accurately known about the climate of our planet and about climate change.
Obviously, a brief post can not substitute for detailed studies of professionals in a variety of scientific disciplines – climatology, atmospheric physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and economics. However, a short post can summarize basic theses on the main trends in climate evolution, on its forecasts, and on its actual and projected effects.
1. The Earth’s climate is constantly changing. The climate was changing in the past, is changing now and, obviously, will be changing in the future – as long as our planet exists.
2. Climatic changes are largely cyclical in nature. There are various time horizons of climatic cycles – from the annual cycle known to everyone to cycles of 65-70 years, of 1,300 years, or of 100,000 years (the so called Milankovitch cycles).
3. There is no fundamental disagreement among scientists, public figures and governments about the fact that the climate is changing. There is a broad consensus that climate changes occur constantly. The myth, created by climate alarmists, that their opponents deny climate change is sheer propaganda.
4. Current debate among climatologists, economists and public figures is not about the fact of climate change, but about other issues. In particular, disagreements exist on:
- Comparative levels of modern day temperatures (relative to the historically observed),
- The direction of climate change depending on the length of record,
- The extent of climate change,
- The rate of climate change,
- Causes of climate change,
- Forecasts of climate change,
- Consequences of climate change,
- The optimal strategy for human beings to respond to climate change.
5. Unbiased answers to many of these issues are critically dependent on a chosen time horizon – whether it is 10 years, or 30 years, or 70 years, or 1000 years, or 10,000 years, or hundreds of thousands or millions of years.Depending on the time horizon, the answers to many of these questions may be different, even opposite.
6. The current level of global temperature in historical perspective is not unique. The average temperature of the Earth is now estimated at about 14.5 degrees Celsius. In our planet’s history there have been few periods when the Earth’s temperature was lower than the current – in the early Permian period, in the Oligocene, and during periodic glaciations in the Pleistocene. For most of the time during the last half billion years, the air temperature at the Earth’s surface greatly exceeded the current one, and for about half of this period it was approximately 25°C, or 10°C higher than the current temperature. Regular glaciations of cold periods during the Pleistocene era lasted for approximately 90,000 years, with a low temperature of approximately 5°C below that of the present, alternated by warm interglacial periods (for 4,000-6,000 years) with temperatures of 1-3°C higher than at present. Approximately 11,000 years ago the last significant increase in temperature began (of approximately 5°C), during which time a huge glacier, that covered a considerable part of Eurasia and America, had melted. Climate warming has played a key role in humanity’s acquisition of the secrets of agriculture and in its transition to civilization. Over the past 11,000 years there were at least five distinct warm periods, the so-called “climatic optima” when the temperature of the planet was at 1-3°C higher than at present.
7. The focus of climate change depends critically on the choice of time horizon. In the past 11 years (1998-2009 years) global temperature was flat. Before that, in the preceding 20 years (1979-1998 years) it increased by about 0.3°C. Before that, during the preceding 36 years (1940-1976 years) the temperature fell by about 0.1°C. Before that, for the preceding two centuries (1740 – 1940 years), the overall trend in global temperature was mainly neutral – with periodic warming, followed by cooling, and then again warming. Over the past three centuries (from the turn of 18th century), the temperature in the northern hemisphere has increased by approximately 1.3°C, from the trough of the so-called “Little Ice Age” (LIA) during the years 1500-1740 years, followed by the contemporary climatic optimum (CCO), which started around 1980. During the three centuries preceding the LIA, the temperature in the northern hemisphere was falling compared to the level it was during the medieval climatic optimum (MCO) in the 8th – 13th centuries. Depending on the chosen time frame the long-term temperature trend has a different trajectory. For periods of the last 2,000 years, the last 4,000 years, and the last 8,000 years, the trend was negative. For periods of the past 1,300 years, the last 5,000 years, and the last 9,000 years it was positive.
8. The rate of contemporary climate change is much more modest in comparison with the rate of climatic changes observed earlier in the history of the planet. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes the increase in the global temperature by 0.76°C over the last century (1906-2005 years) as extraordinary. There is reason to suspect this temperature value is somewhat overstated. However, the main point is that previous rises in temperature were greater than those in the modern era. Comparable data demonstrate that the increase in temperature, for example, in Central England in the 18th century (by 0.97°C) was more significant than in the 20th (by 0.90°C). The climatic changes in Central Greenland over the past 50,000 years show that there were at least a dozen periods during which the regional temperature increased by 10-13°C. Given the correlation between changes in temperature at high latitudes and globally, those shifts in temperature regime in Greenland meant a rise in global temperature by 4-6°C. Such a rate was approximately 5-7 times faster than the actual (and, perhaps, slightly exaggerated) temperature increase in the 20th century.
9. The rate of current climate change (the speed of modern warming) by historical standards is not unique.According to IPCC data, the rate of temperature increase over the past 50 years was 0.13°C per decade. According to comparable data, obtained through instrumental measurements, a higher rate of temperature increase was observed at least three times: in the late 17th century – early 18th century; in the second half of the 18th century; and in the late 19th century – early 20th century. The centennial rate of warming in the 20th century is slower than the warming in the 18th century that was instrumentally recorded and slower than the warming in at least 13 cases over the past 50,000 years that were measured by palaeoclimatic methods.
10. Among the causes of climate change in the pre-industrial era there were hardly any anthropogenic factors – due to modest population size and mankind’s limited economic activities. But the range of climatic fluctuations and their rate and peak values in the pre-industrial era exceeded the parameters of climate change recorded in the industrial period.
11. During the industrial age (since the beginning of the 19th century) climate change is believed to be under the impact of both groups of factors – of natural and of anthropogenic character. Since the rate of climate change in the industrial age is so far noticeably smaller than at some time in the pre-industrial age, there is no basis for the assertion that anthropogenic factors had already become as significant as natural factors, even less for the assertion that they overwhelm natural factors.
12. Factors of anthropogenic climate change are rather diverse and can not be confined to carbon dioxide only.Mankind impacts local, regional and global climate by constructing buildings and structures, heating houses, industrial and public premises, by logging and planting forests, plowing arable land, damming rivers, draining and irrigating lands, leveling and paving territories, conducting industry, issuing aerosols, etc.
13. There is no consensus in the scientific community on the role of carbon dioxide in climate change. Some scientists believe that it is crucial, others believe that it is secondary to other factors. There are also serious disagreements on the nature and direction of possible causality between concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and temperature: some researchers believe the former causes temperature to rise, others argue the opposite – that fluctuations in temperature cause changes in carbon dioxide concentration.
14. Unlike carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) is harmless to humans; in contrast to aerosol, a harmful and dangerous substance, carbon dioxide does not pollute the environment. It has neither a color, nor a taste, nor a smell. Therefore, popularly used photos and videos showing factory chimney stacks emitting smoke and cars emitting exhaust to illustrate carbon dioxide are just misleading – CO2 is invisible; what is visible in those images are pollutants. It should also be noted that the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the air has a positive impact on the productivity of plants, including agricultural crops.
15. The relationship of the concentration of carbon dioxide to climate change remains a subject of intense scientific debate. True, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past two centuries increased from 280 parts per million of air particles in the early 19th century to 388 particles in 2009. It is also true that the global temperature in that period rose by about 0.8°C. But whether these two factors are connected is unclear. The dynamics of CO2 concentration did not correlate well with the expected changes in temperature. The significant and rapid increases in global temperature during the interglacial periods of the Pleistocene, during the Medieval Climatic Optima, in the 18th century, were not preceded by an increase in carbon dioxide concentration. In the industrial age, an increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was not always accompanied by a rise in global temperature. In 1944-1976 CO2 concentration increased by 24 units – from 308 to 332 particles, but the global temperature fell 0.1°C. In 1998-2009 CO2 concentration increased by 21 units – from 367 to 388 particles, but the global temperature trend remained flat. In the first half of the 1940’s the decline in the concentration of carbon dioxide by 3 units (as a result of the massive destruction caused by World War II) did not prevent the global temperature to rise by 0.1°C.
16. So far global climate models demonstrate their limited effectiveness. The complex nature of the climate system is not reflected adequately enough in the global climate models whose use has recently spread around the world. The projections developed on their basis in the late 1990s through the early 2000s predicted the global temperature to rise by 1.4-5.8°C till the end of the 21st century with a 0.2-0.4°C increase already in the first decade. In reality during 1998-2009 the temperature was flat at best.
17. Forecasts of global climate change made at the beginning of this decade by Russian scientists (from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, the Voejkov Main Geophysical Observatory) predicted a fall in the global temperature by 0.6°C by 2025-2030 in comparison with a temperature peak reached at the end of the 20thcentury. So far the actual temperature for the last decade has not risen.
18. Implications of climate change for human beings differ greatly depending on their direction, size and rate. An increase in temperature leads as a rule to a softer and moister climate, while a decline in temperature leads to a harder and drier climate. It was a climatic optimum in the Holocene period with temperatures 1-3°C higher than today that greatly contributed to the birth of civilization. Conditions for people’s life and economic activities in warmer climates are usually more favorable than in colder environments. In warmer climates there is usually more precipitation than in drier areas, the cost of heating and volume of food required to sustain human life is lower, while vegetation and navigation periods are longer, and crops’ yields are higher.
19. Methods “to combat global warming” by reducing carbon dioxide emissions suggested by climate alarmists are not only scientifically unfounded in the absence of extraordinary or unusual changes in climate during the modern era. Such measures, if adopted, are especially dangerous for mid- and lower income countries. Those measures would effectively cut those countries off the path to prosperity and hinder their ability to close the gap with more developed nations.
20. The impact of all anthropogenic factors (not only CO2) on climate is unclear when compared with factors of nature. Therefore, the most effective strategy for humanity in responding to different types of climate change is adaptation. That approach is exactly the way that humans have reacted to the larger-scale climatic changes in the past, even though they were less prepared then for such changes. Now mankind has greater resources to adapt to lesser climate fluctuations and it is better equipped for them scientifically, technically and psychologically. The adaptation of humanity to climate changes is incomparably less costly than other options being proposed and imposed by climate alarmists. Human society has already adopted to climate change and will continue to do so as long as economy and society are vibrant and free.
Andrei Illarionov is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. From 2000 to December 2005 he was the chief economic adviser of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Illarionov also served as the president's personal representative (sherpa) in the G-8. He is one of Russia's most forceful and articulate advocates of an open society and democratic capitalism, and has been a long-time friend of the Cato Institute. Illarionov received his Ph.D. from St. Petersburg University in 1987. From 1993 to 1994 Illarionov served as chief economic adviser to the prime minister of the Russian Federation, Viktor Chernomyrdin. He resigned in February 1994 to protest changes in the government's economic policy. In July 1994 Illarionov founded the Institute of Economic Analysis and became its director. Illarionov has coauthored several economic programs for Russian governments and has written three books and more than 300 articles on Russian economic and social policies.
»
- Econophile's blog
- 11336 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Everyone has their favorite way of using the internet. Many of us search to find what we want, click in to a specific website, read what’s available and click out. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because it’s efficient. We learn to tune out things we don’t need and go straight for what’s essential.
www.onlineuniversalwork.com
Dollars are toast and "Carbon Credits" are to be the new currency.
And of course, this new currency has to be one that can be 'printed' and 'managed' by developed countries.
Now that developing countries are catching up in technology and skills - they will be told they can't develop their infrastructure because they don't have enough 'Carbon Credits'.
two things that are very likely
1. when the climate shifts due to the continued pumping of CO2 into the atmosphere, the pro carbon energy people will never admit the connection
and
2. those same people will never come forward as a group and stipulate reasonable tests and evidence they would deem as sufficient to believe, to a significant level of confidence, that global warming by human induced green house gases is hadppening
I see a lot of of people loving this Lord Monckton character, but I'd really prefer you guys stop using him as a legitimate source.
He's neither a lord, nor a Nobel Laureate, so those don't count in his favor. He made up both of those things, and that dings his credibility in my book. He once ran for a position in the House of Lords but lost, and he was awarded a faux pin by a Rochester professor. He doesn't count.
He is the former science advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - she was the worlds most powerful female head of state, you are not a mysogenist are you?
As a member of the IPCC, he recently shared in the Nobel prize along with the rest of the IPCC. He claims to have pointed out some inaccurate data to the group.
He is a lord from birthright as it was inherited.
I'm a natural born skeptic so I sniffed out the scoop on this clown with very little investigation. I find it remarkable that many on ZH let this slip through their own filters of credibility. Next chance I get, I will lay out the case for debunking Mr. Debunking.
Copenhagen has been suspended.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8411898.stm
Regardless of whether the earth is out of balance, up or down,several things can be agreed on. The general condition of humanity can be improved and it's important to preserve the planet. I think it can also be generally agreed upon that it unlikely that the oil industry and Wall Street are best suited for the decision making process. I don't think that carbon credit accounting entries will improve the climate or the condition of the human race. Although technology can help, the missing factor is that those in power lack the desire and motivation to do good.
There is no point trying to argue with those married to the theory of AGW. To the originators of this bunk I give credit as AGW has become a very well crafted lie fooling millions the world over into the self attributed grandeur of the human species over an ancient planet.
Let's all put a face on what we are really dealing with: AGW has become a religion. Any attempts to shift the 'believers' line of thinking will prove futile.
And vice-versa offcourse...
But always be prepared, boy scout motto :P
kurt,
fwiw, have the same view of the future
Denying AGW is like denying the Holocaust: sheer antisemitism.
Great... we now have a fucking economist giving his 2 cents on science. These fuckers with PhDs in finance can't fucking run a bank properly and now they're science experts?
I'm a physicist myself and even in my field there are heated debates about many issues and consequently in the future some physicists will be proven right while others will be proven wrong. However, I don't want any fucking economist to give his opinion on these issues since they have no fucking clue about them. For this reason, I'm totally on the fence about climate change, and these idiots from the Cato Institute will do us all a great deal of good if they just STFU. This guy's opinion on climate change is as valuable as Al Gore's and it amounts to bupkis. However, useful idiots will always be happy to get behind one side or the other without knowing shit about the subject. Sadly, many on this site are also experts in climate change and are quick to cite some obscure websites, usually maintained and paid for by people with clear interests on this subject. In their eyes, science is just a whore ready to be had in a back alley for a few cents. In the end, however, the scientific fact will reign supreme, as nature doesn't really give a shit about what douchebag from the Cato institute thinks about it.
\end{rant}
>the scientific fact will reign supreme, as nature
>doesn't really give a shit about what douchebag
>from the Cato institute thinks about it.
Oh for the days when researchers where given grants without strings attached. They competed based on competency and based on donors actually caring about truth, for the benefits their children will gain, and there grand children will gain ... That humanity will gain.
The problem I fear is that the truth will not be available in time to overcome the lies.
Me, I've got lots of University paperwork stating I know something about engineering and science, and even have some papers with "honors" on them saying the same thing ... They are all framed and now collecting dust in a closet ... I've spent the last decades learning about the reality these "respected" organizations never told me about. Still not sure what all the paperwork they handed me really means, although at one time I was sure I did know and so I had them framed ....
I don't care what anybody has for "credentials" these days, they are all meaningless. The very curruption that I think brings most of us to this site speaks volumes of that fact.
Like the virgin mind of a child asking a question without bias, or making a claim without bias, it's best to leave "the creds" at the door with all debates. Let everyone give their opinion, and then we all apply Occam's Razor ruthlessly.
We learn NOTHING by being right, we only learn by being wrong, that's part of being human. Beware those with all the answers ....
Thus everyone should speak up and expect to be torn apart. I know, it's hard not to take it personally, but if you do nobody learns anything .....
In academic circles, that's called a defense. Anyone who believes scientists are not held to a high level of scrutiny has never been exposed to the rigors of peer review.
Q Boy:
I understand that you are a physicist, but so what. How do you know the economist isn't qualified to make these statements? How do you know if Cato is right or wrong? You can close your mind and rant all you want but you are missing the point.
It is well known that scientists choose data they want to prove their point, as you well point out. So, who to believe in this so-called hard science climate change debate? Are you saying that no one can have a valid opinion unless they are climatologists? How do you know if the guys you listen to aren't prejudiced in favor of AGW?
Basically you have no clue about the economist author or Cato and their credentials, so you just rant and libel Cato. If you wish to rant fine, but it doesn't add anything to the debate.
Please tell us then, how we are to make judgments in this debate?
I choose the scientists who have excellent credentials and who can’t be accused of skewing the data in favor of draconian restrictions on my liberty, and who have convinced me that we aren’t in any great peril thus far. If there were great peril, they would have no stake in denying it.
That being said I would appreciate it if you would go back to Cato and read this: Cato Policy Handbook, Chapter 45. Before you dismiss it, I am reprinting the resume of Pat Michaels of Cato who wrote it. After that, then I would be interested in hearing your opinion on the related political and economic issues.
Quantum,
Can you lend your expertise on a question which I keep wondering might be fundamental to all this. That is, the role of CO2 and the 2nd law of thermodynamics (ie how can a cooler body - co2 - can "trap" and "radiate" heat to a warmer body - the earth)? I am not being sarcastic, but confused on the whole physics behind "greenhouse".
Disclosure: I am a banker and indeed we are finding many ways to make a buck on carbon trading, green tech financing using tax payer money guarantees and other initiatives so there is a bit of me who applauds the political motivations due to the massive amounts of money to be made.
Lastly a direct quote from Al Gore, about the GW issue from Grist in May 2006 (underscore is mine): "Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis. "
snowman, while we await quantum's answer, a question for you:
ignoring the current political & scientific realities for a moment and approaching this from purely a design perspective, is there a possibility of creating an open-source, fully transparent, free market-based global carbon exchange that is based on voluntary contribution of wealth (wealth being defined in the broadest sense, including land, labor, resources & capital) and incentivizes the long-term value of the asset and discourages volatility?
i'm not a banker, so excuse me if i'm not using the proper termonology, but i guess what i'm thinking is like an ebay for carbon or an open-source trading mechanism where everyone is able to contribute on equal terms if they choose to do so.
curious to hear your thoughts based on your knowledge from being in the inner sanctum...thanks.
tip-e,
I don't think so. Carbon exchanges face the same 80/20 rule concentration-of-players issues as other exchanges. First, there are the "issuers", ie those companies who have carbon to exchange. They tend to be big industrial or service firms who in turn dominate their industries (Exxon, Walmart, Toyota etc). Just like the S&P or a commodities (Cargill) exchnage dominated by relatively few companies who supply the inputs.
then you need market makers who supply pricing and maintain liquidity. Again, due to economies of scale (e.g, scale of capital, scale of risk management, scale of pricing arbitrage information), this would be concentrated to relatively few players. It is no secret Goldman (must we mention them once again??) has a vested interest in being big in this feld, success transfer of algo/HFT and "data intelligence" of the value chain can provide enormous advantages. Deutsche Bank is along the same lines, leveraging their leadership in FX.
Could a system be available for the common man to participate? Sure, just like you can participate in equities, fixed income and FX. But the deck will be stacked against you.
thanks snowman for bringing me back to earth. i guess it's a mix of idealism & ignorance that made me think that somehow someway something radical could be structured in the security itself that would force that 80/20 concentration of capital to play on equal terms with the reverse 80/20 concentration and that somehow a free exchange could be set up that wasn't controlled by the squid and their bretheren.
maybe next liftetime...
Based on the majority of reasoned comments I have read in this and the other weather change thread, my hope that truth and sanity will prevail over greed and power has been bolstered.
Thank You Zero-Hedge community.
-Objective Soul
funny how these posts get more sensible as the east coast falls asleep
People in the north-central part of the Canadian province of Ontario are digging out after one of the worst snow storms on record.
Some areas north of Toronto received as much as 100 centimetres of snow over the past three days.
The main highway through the region re-opened for the first time in days, but nearly all side roads remain closed, blocked by a thick blanket of snow, in some areas chest high.
More than 100,000 people have been affected by the storm, either cut off in smaller communities, or in their cottages, or stranded by the road closures.
In one town the mayor declared a snow emergency, shutting schools and businesses.
Watch the latest episode of the Simpsons... Homer ask Lisa if there's global warming, then why is it snowing in Springfield... you remind me of Homer...
I still think we could all plant trees in our yards. Every tree breathes in CO2 and breathes out O2. How can you lose?
i agree...unfortunately the econazis have given greenturds a bad rap, but mother earth don't care if we come from the left side or the right side or the upside or downside. she just wants us to plant seeds.
Drought? In California? Well that clearly proves global warming. Now THAT'S science!
Actually it's raining like crazy where I am in California, but what does that have to do with anything?
*Winces at post*
It's always nice to see a post claiming to have the summarized "facts" of the climate change debate (even though the "facts" are being relayed to us by a policy institute with both a strict anti-intervention agenda and who've been responsible for providing congressional testimony countering any and all evidence supporting the theory of climate change)!
Ahhh, to hell with peer-reviewed journals of professional science and their politically-packed, crackpot hypotheses. Academic scientists don't know jack. I'm gonna get my scientific facts from Cato's staff of economists and policy analysts. Hell, maybe I'll get them from the American Enterprise Institute or the Competitive Enterprise Institute. They seem reputable. Shiiii....maybe I'll just make up my own facts. I'll start right now!!!
*Goes into kitchen, turns faucet on and off*
I'm in California, and they say there's a massive drought here. Puh-leeeez! The tap water out of my faucet works fine. I say this drought is bullshit. Probably just a left-wing authoritarian scam to federalize water resource authority and prevent competitive resource production from the free market. Don't take my word for it, though. My buddy, Dave, works for Sparkletts. The water company. He doesn't think there's a water shortage, and he WORKS with and for water suppliers. He'll e-mail you his/my talking points if you want.
Yeah, now I'm on the right track!!!
The water shortage isn't about you. It's NaNa Pelosi using her fish trick to turn Cali farm land into affordable housing. Besides Mexico has tomatoes that's what NAFTA is for.
Dateline, upper Great Lakes. The late 1960s and 1970s were colder. The 1980s and 1990s were warmer. The late 1990s were blazing hot. The 2000s have been really colder again. Like record setting cold and snowy. Anthropogenic global warming my ass. Someone's running a scam and they want my money.
1) I distinctly recall having global *cooling* propaganda forced on me in grade school in the early 70s
2) Even if AGW is real - I sure don't think it is - we'll destroy our ape-species-selves long before the climate will. Does anyone really believe humans will exist in say, 500 years?
New Orleans is below see level so it's not necessary to read anyone to know it's doomed. As for Miami, hey if Orrin Pilkey says it's doomed, I guess it's doomed. Who the hell are you @17:00 to tell Yanks what their lifestyle should be? Are you a wannabe dictator? There are enough real ones and the pipeline to the top is full already, you're not gonna make it.
I would rather die from woble garming than commit suicide from reading one more word about this inane subject.
The main problem here is the not so bright Yanks who don't want their "lifestyle" changed. What's so great about driving their fat asses in a SUV to an empty mall?
Rising sea levels? Cities like Miami and New Orleans are already doomed. Read Orrin Pilkey.
This will all be moot after the asteroid hits-
I have said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating here:
Marshall Macluhan wrote "All myth is compressed wisdom".
The operable myth for climate change is neither "Chicken Little", nor "A Stitch in Time".
It is "King Canute".
There is no man-made global warming. Deny it proudly. Don't focus on the hypocricy of the limousing and private jet liberals. Focus on the lie. There is not science there. There are no falsifiable predictions that came true. There is nothing but a list of natural disasters that always happened being attributed to global warming.
The liars and the squishy middle often want to focuse on the goodness of reducing the use of fossil fuels. Don't let them. Even if doing something because of a lie will lead to some good results, that's not enough to continue spreading the lie. They are evil. They are like the Roman church that burned heretics. They either believe in a hoax or want you to believe in a hoax, it doesn't matter. Deniers of the world unite!
Some weather recording stations have been taking data for over a century. There has been significant urbanisation around many of these stations but little talk of the "Heat Island effect" on their data.
global warming is a totalitarian hoax invented by the oligarchs and other cancers on humanity to extend their control of peoples' lives....
the earth has always experienced temperature changes none of which is attributable to human activity....if you want to eliminate co2 emissions then empty the oceans....if you don't like the temperature oscillations get rid of sun spots or better yet get rid of the sun....
it's a game of greed and power....and arrogance...
Regarding population control:
How is it that people on a financial website can forget that improved economic status reduces the birth rate as parents no longer feel the need to hedge by having large families to compensate for the loss of a high percentage of their children?
Taxing people into poverty increases family size.
Poluting the environment increase the death rate and thus family size.
Focusing on polution reductions in turn causes the development of new clean technologies which builds new industries for which all can participate in. But then the dirty corps have no place to get rid of their waste, and so they continue to lobby to prevent transistion to clean technologies - They distract us with plant food, AKA CO2.
Next up: DHMO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAI1JAYj53k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkcxSWErLvA
As we come to the end of the line here in many ways: Terminal population expansion, terminal natural resources, and terminal climatic tolerance, judgement has simply disappeared.
I was once told: Strangely, organically intelligent people can individually, and en masse, act in such a way as to insure there own destruction. In fact, they will often act in such a way as to lose the ability to maintain self preservation.
It doesn't matter what they do in Copenhagen--it's too late, and like it or not humanity is preparing for a little trip through the Olduvai gorge.
Nah, hardly the Olduvai gorge. There is still, when you get down to it, a great deal of plentiful energy in the world, and we have in the last half century developed an understanding of the structure of matter and energy to such an extent that, if our backs are against the wall, we will figure out how to use it.
The challenge we face today is the operating system. Petroleum implies its own operating system - centralized control over energy production and shipping, centralized control over the financial systems, continent-sized nation states with their own petroleum fueled armies, factory oriented manufacturies, the centralization of money (though not value) creation, and so forth. Because we are part of the system, it is difficult to see it from an outside perspective, but there's nothing that formally requires that this be the primary operating system we work from.
I think that the next few decades are going to truly challenging, because we're going to have to shift to a different operating system; petroleum will play a role, but it will need to shift to more localized power distribution, will require the shift to a more "open standards" and "open source" approach to energy production as well as intelligence at both the production and consumption standpoint, will require a rethinking about political and financial structures, and will otherwise challenge much of the status quo. Since the status quo is very much likely to fight any such changes from the top, most of this will end up taking place at the bottom, primarily through the mechanism of deprivatizing local energy systems into local governmental hands.
I think privatization and market economics have a necessary role to play (nationalizing car production, or mortgage origination for that matter, seems to me to be assinine). Energy, on the other hand, is the foundation for everything else - from effective food production to transportation to the political structure itself, and a big part of the problem that we face today has to do with the fact that we've let the national power structure become captured by a small group of very wealthy individuals and corporations who have no self-interest in making that energy available at production cost.
Move to a system where you can run your transportation infrastructure primarily on an electricity grid and the means of power production become irrelevant. Move to a system where you can use multiple redundant energy systems and the big challenges to integrating solar or wind systems into the network - irregular load factor - become much less of an issue as well. Provide open communication standards and intelligent framing and it makes it easier to insure that power goes to where the demand is, rather than being wasted in attenuation when demand is low. Shift investment away from the costs of drilling for and catalysing oil products and towards materials research and you can get more R&D into storage capacity, fusion generators and extraplanetary microwave transmission. That you coincidentally cut your carbon footprint is no small win either, but you're not going to reduce your carbon footprint by buying up existing forests and then bartering them as chits - that only serves to consolidate power in the hands of the status quo.
Kurt, Are you suggesting the government control the energy system? Are you serious? If it's good for energy, why not have them control everything in a rational, logic, central planning way? Can you think of anything the government runs that is efficient and not politically controlled? Who is to decide all these things? Bureaucrats. No discipline from market, profit and loss, or consumer demand? Is this some sci fi thing where the technocrats of the future with incredible large bald domes press buttons for our benefit?
Suggesting nothing of the kind - I am suggesting that local power supply needs to be controlled at a local level, not a federal level. I'm saying that we're better off with lots of localized distributed power systems working with common standards for power interchange, and that at least some of those DO need to be controlled by governments, but only at the local level - think power co-ops or similar mechanisms.
I think a better way of putting this is that I feel that it is the responsibility of a municipality to insure the integrity of their own power supply. So far, most of the experiments I've seen in power privatization have been disasters - PGE comes to mind, or Enron. Profitability came before infrastructure investment, the potential for corruption was (and is) huge, and quite frequently power - one of the more essential commodities in modern life - was denied to people who were too poor to pay in order that the shareholders received their dividends.
When your power system is centralized and requires massive investments to bring new power online, such systems are usually run at a loss, though there were local profits that could be made by market manipulation - this was a big part of the reason that governments undertook these and acted as the bonding agents in the first place.
What I see instead is the emergence of microproducers, a mix of public and private concerns all pushing power into the grid as well as pulling it out. I see companies like Google selling their excess electrical power production into the Silicon Valley grid, for instance, or even people selling their excess solar pV power back in. The role of government in that case basically ensures that the ensuing markets remain fair and that standards exist for that level of interchange.
At some point in the not too distant past, this was the role of governments in the financial sector, until that sector effectively took over the government. The same was true of the electrical system before Reagan decided to privatize everything. Before that time, the Public Utility Districts generally managed to keep the lights on and the power flowing, and people weren't fleeced in the process, a la Enron. The danger comes from too much consolidation and centralization and too little accountability, a problem that seems just as endemic within the private sector as it does in the public.
Some large scale power investments will still be necessary and be made - investments that frankly should be made by governments rather than private companies; however, as much as possible these should also take advantage of the local power generative capability - geothermal (nice piece earlier on Geothermal on this site that should be read) where you have adequate thermal gradients, hydro and hydrothermal, wind and solar where conditions are conducive. Beamed emission, biofuels (a company near where I live runs a county-wide biofuels generator that runs on cow manure, and is doing quite well, thank you), and yes, natural gas, oil, shale, coal, and so forth in the areas that have it. If you shift to hybrid fuel systems you'll still need the oil, just not as much of it.
However, the mantra here is keeping it local, manage your own resources first, and only then sell off your excess into the open market. The effect of that is going to be profound in the long term - reshaping of cities and larger political units, regions of the country that will simply end up off the grid because they either failed to invest or the cost of living in those areas is too high compared to the energy expenditure, and quite possibly significant political realignments to more accurately reflect the new power distributions.
I say do away with power monopolies enforced by the government and let the market sort it out. If you want local, decentralized power, great. The consumer will determine how and where power is produced. No top down stuff. And, if we really value property rights, I can sue you for polluting my air. Deregulation has been a joke. In California, they deregulated by stripping the utilities of their power plants, deregulated the price they would pay for power, and regulated what they could charge customers for power. Result: chaos. Most of the problems can be traced to government manipulation of utilities and enforced monopolies. The free market can produce everything else we need, power is just another product.
The world has gone mad. Whether it's "let's spend trillions to combat the non-existing AGW problem" or "let's spend trillions to save our economy from collapse", this liberal mass psychosis of betting everything on clearly insane solutions BY GOVERNMENTS to sometimes non-existing problems seems to indicate that we are determined to cause our own demise.
Wait, I thought we all now agree everyone is an Evolutionist (at least all of the Democratic Presidential candidates indicated such in an early debate). So why wouldn't humans just evolve to handle hotter or colder temperatures? We are the moral equivalent of dogs and cock roaches you know. Why spend any resources trying to change things?? Maybe we can evolve to yet a higher form.....sorry, can't do that since nothing is really higher or lower - we are equal to all other species.
And if per chance the human race was eliminated by such heating or cooling, why would that be bad?? Are we happy or sad the dinosaurs got wiped out??
What is the "correct" temperature for the earth?? The one humans like the best?? How self centered is that? Consider what other species may evolve and thrive in a colder or hotter envirionment. Who is looking out for them (our moral equivalents)??
Oh you misguided pathetic narrow self centered humans who may think you are somehow different than a cock roach.
For some time now, I have imagined an article in The Onion from The Galactic Times with the following headline: Carbon-based life form declares war on carbon.
I also agree, somewhat, with Kurt and Ned.
For folks who love charts and predictions and such, I find it amusing how the focus is not on population versus commodities, the true driver of living standards.
Peak Oil, when you have one huge economy designed on cheap oil in all spread sheets and minds is extremely disrupting.
Also people societies do not change until they are forced too change thru huge pain.
France and the 1970's oil shock forced them into nuclear, and Brazil ethanol, due too intrinsic limits in their societies.
Now, why I say "somewhat" is because I still have not personally adjusted in my own mind to the kleptocracy and financial elites idea of they are sheer geniuses. This is most likely due to upbringing believe systems and such.
As I study more history though, over the last five years to somewhat get a grasp on it all, I must say the feelings of it's all a folly, a tragedy, or perhaps it is just the simple fact of that society by nature will always be classed based, and as a young man everyone preached all men are equal, which I don't disagree, yet, in my own vein I feel I have misjudged the pyramid of things, and that power and money will always be the driving influence due to that fact it has in certain ways unlimited strategies or dozens more than the average folk to control what they want when they want.
The trouble I have not resolved in that one is the continuation pattern, and again perhaps I am making it more complex than it is. They can, so they do, for ones ownself thine be true.
+1 excellent Kurt!
Following up on what Kurt said:
1. we are bumping up against peak "fossil fuels" in the economic sense: there will still be resources left to use, but they will be of lower quality and higher cost to extract and therefore I venture to predict that due to their increasing costs, and the law of supply and demand, fossil fuels will automatically be used in lower quantities over time. The era of extremely intense (and carbon dioxide "freeing") burning of fossil fuels is shifting into non-growth mode, and will go to shrinking growth mode, by itself for reasons other than a voluntary tapering due to perceived ill effects of same. Lesson from Human Nature 101: reality is that no one will stop using fossil fuels voluntarily, while they are such a powerful and efficient source of energy.
2. Switching to green energy, and cutting back on consumption all-together, will be the natural response to Peak Fossil Fuel. But you need those fossil fuels to build, transport and install wind towers, solar panels and nuclear plants. Nonetheless, alternative energy and energy conservation will happen, by themselves, as a response to Peak Fossil Fuels. An important reality check: this may or may not happen in time to "beat" the eventual exhaustion of the fossil fuels themselves, if you happen to believe such an event can occur - many do, and many do not. But reality does not care if we are right or wrong, survive or perish.
3. Whether the data supports or does not, what everyone needs to understand is that the current carbon cap and trade proposals are without a doubt the work of the "of like mind" elitist/globalists: it requires vast government intervention, it centralizes control, it restricts our activities, and, there can be no doubt, it will enrich the few - the global corporations and their mercenaries - at the great cost and to the detriment of the many. The few promote this on the altruistic premise that the great unwashed are incapable of taking care of themselves, and since they know what is best for the rest of this, they will nobly undertake the task of getting this done, and as their just reward for saving us from ourselves, profit immensely. The profit motive so strongly criticised as the motivation behind those who oppose carbon legislation turns out to be the same motive powering the proponents, who wear black tie instead of blue collar.
4. Celebrity politicians are trotted out to shovel the propaganda, those who question it are attacked and criticized, and our normally remarkably sluggish and unresponsive US legislative process now races to make this carbon regulation nonsense law with nary a speed bump in the way. Compare that against another remarkable legislative achievement in the face of huge public opposition: the TARP bailout (ask yourself: who paid, and who benefited?) Then consider our elected "representatives" cannot pass even one legislative sentence that effectively regulates a demonstrably clear and present danger, our rogue TBTF financial institutions that blew up last fall.
So contrary to what you might think, the legislation being pursued now is not being pursued for altrusitic objectives, i.e, our general good or welfare, but rather for the profit of the global elites, the empowerment of whom in this decade is growing by leaps and bounds. Even promoters of this need to step back and think about who they are empowering by pushing this, in their unquestioning allegiance to a seemingly innocent and laudable objective of saving the world, and consider the concrete and calculable collateral damage to our rapidly eroding political freedoms.