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Guest Post: Oil Limits and Climate Change – How They Fit Together

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,

We hear a lot about climate change, especially now that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently published another report. At the same time, oil is reaching limits, and this has an effect as well. How do the two issues fit together?

In simplest terms, what the situation means to me is that the “low scenario,” which the IPCC calls “RCP2.6,” is closest to what we can expect in terms of man-made carbon emissions. Thus, the most reasonable scenario, based on their modeling, would seem to be the purple bar that continues to rise for the next twenty years or so and then is close to horizontal.

Figure 1. Summary Climate Change Exhibit from new  IPCC Report.

Figure 1. Summary global average surface temperature change exhibit from new IPCC Report.

I come to this conclusion by looking at the tables of anthropogenic carbon emission shown in Annex II of the report. According to IPCC data, the four modeled scenarios have emissions indicated in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Total anthropogenic carbon emissions modeled for in the scenarios selected by the IPCC, based on data from Table All 2.a in Annex II.

Figure 2. Total anthropogenic carbon emissions modeled for in the scenarios selected by the IPCC, based on data from Table All 2.a in Annex II.

 

The Likely Effect of Oil Limits

The likely effect of oil limits–one way or the other–is to bring down the economy, and because of this bring an end to pretty much all carbon emissions (not just oil) very quickly. There are several ways this could happen:

  • High oil prices – we saw what these could do in 2008.  They nearly sank the financial system. If they return, central banks have already done most of what they can to “fix” the situation. They are likely to be short of ammunition the next time around.
  • Low oil prices – this is the current problem. Oil companies are cutting back on new expenditures because they cannot make money on a cash flow basis on shale plays and on other new oil drilling. Oil companies can’t just keep adding debt, so they are doing less investment. I talked about this in Beginning of the End? Oil Companies Cut Back on Spending. Less oil means either a rebound in prices or not enough oil produced to go around. Either way, we are likely to see massive recession and falling world GDP.
  • Huge credit problems, such as happened in 2008, only worse. Oil drilling would stop within a few years, because oil prices would drop too low, and stay too low, without lots of credit to prop up prices of commodities of all types.
  • Rapidly rising interest rates, as QE reaches its limits. (QE for the United States was put in place at the time of the 2008 crisis, and has been continued since then.) Rising interest rates lead to higher needed tax rates and high monthly payments for homes and cars. The current QE-induced bubble in stock, land, and home prices is also likely to break, sending prices down again.
  • End of globalization, as countries form new alliances, such as Russia-China-Iran. The US is making false claims that we can get along without some parts of the world, because we have so much natural gas and oil. This is nonsense. Once groups of countries start pulling in opposite directions, the countries that have been using a disproportionate share of oil (particularly Europe, the United States, and Japan) will find themselves in deep trouble.
  • Electric grid failures, because subsidies for renewables leave companies that sell fossil-fuel powered electricity with too little profit. The current payment system for renewables needs to be fixed to be fair to companies that generate electricity using fossil fuels. We cannot operate our economy on renewables alone, in part, because the quantity is far too small. Creation of new renewables and maintenance of such renewables is also fossil fuel dependent.

If any of these scenarios takes place and snowballs to a collapse of today’s economy, I expect that a rapid decline in fossil fuel consumption of all kinds will take place. This decline is likely to be more rapid than modeled in the RCP2.6 Scenario. The RCP2.6 Scenario assumes that anthropogenic carbon emissions will still be at 84% of 2010 levels in 2030. In comparison, my expectation (Figure 3, below) is that fossil fuel use (and thus anthropogenic carbon emissions) will be at a little less than 40% of 2010 levels in 2030.

Figure 3. Estimate of future energy production by author. Historical data based on BP adjusted to IEA groupings.

Figure 3. Estimate of future energy production by author. Historical data based on BP adjusted to IEA groupings.

After 2070, the RCP2.6 Scenario indicates negative carbon emissions, presumably from geo-engineering. In my view of the future, such an approach seems unlikely if oil limits are a major problem, because without fossil fuels, we will not have the ability to use engineering approaches. It is also doubtful that there would be as much need for these engineered carbon-take-downs at the end of the period. Population would likely be much lower by then, so current anthropogenic carbon emissions would be less of a problem.

The Climate Change Scenario Not Modeled

We really don’t know what future climate change will look like because no one has tried to model what a collapse situation would look like. Presumably there will be a lot of tree-cutting and burning of biomass for fuel. This will change land use besides adding emissions from the burned biomass to the atmosphere. At the same time, emissions associated with fossil fuels will likely drop very rapidly.

Clearly the climate has been changing and will continue to change. At least part of our problem is that we have assumed that it is possible to have an unchanging world and have made huge investments assuming that climate would go along with our plans. Unfortunately, the way nature “works” is by repeatedly replacing one system with another system. The new systems that survive tend to be better adapted to recent changes in conditions. If we think of humans, other animals, and plants as “systems,” this is true of them as well. No living being can expect to survive forever.

Unfortunately economies are not permanent either. Just as the Roman Empire failed, our economy cannot last forever. In physics, economies seem to be examples of dissipative structures, just as plants and animals and hurricanes are. Dissipative structures are formed in the presence of flows of energy and matter in open thermodynamic systems–that is, systems that are constantly receiving a new flow of energy, as we on earth do from the sun. Unfortunately, dissipative structures don’t last forever.

Dissipative structures temporarily dissipate energy that is available. At the same time, they affect their surroundings. In the case of an economy, the use of energy permits the extraction of the most accessible, easy-to-extract resources, such as fossil fuels, metals, and fresh water. At the same time, population tends to grow. The combination of growing extraction and rising population leads to economic stresses.

At some point the economy becomes overly stressed because of limits of various types. Some of these limits are pollution-related, such as climate change. Other limits present themselves as higher costs, such as the need for deeper wells or desalination to provide water for a growing population, and the need for greater food productivity per acre because of more mouths to feed. The extraction of oil and other fossil fuels also provides a cost limit, as resource extraction becomes more complex, requiring a larger share of the output of the economy. When limits hit, governments are especially likely to suffer from inadequate funding and excessive debt, because tax revenue suffers if wages and profits drop.

People who haven’t thought much about the situation often believe that we can simply get along without our current economy. If we think about the situation, we would lose a great deal if we lost the connections that our current economy, and the financial system underlying it, offers. We as humans cannot “do it alone”–pull out metals and refine them with our bare hands, dig deeper wells, or keep up fossil fuel extraction. Re-establishing needed connections in a totally new economy would be a massive undertaking. Such connections are normally built up over decades or longer, as new businesses are formed, governments make laws, and consumers adapt to changing situations. Without oil, we cannot easily go back to horse and buggy!

Unfortunately, much of the writing related to dissipative structures and the economy is in French. François Roddier wrote a book called Thermodynamique de l’évolution on topics related to this subject. Matthieu Auzanneau writes about the issue on his blog. Roddier has a presentation available in French. One paper on a related topic in English is Energy Rate Density as a Complexity Metric and Evolutionary Driver by E. Chaisson. Causal Entropic Forces by Wissner-Gross and Freer provides evidence regarding how  societies self-organize in ways that maximize entropy.

The IPCC’s Message Isn’t Really Right 

We are bumping up against limits in many ways not modeled in the IPCC report. The RCP2.6 Scenario comes closest of the scenarios shown in providing an indication of our future situation. Clearly the climate is changing and will continue to change in ways that our planners never considered when they built cities and took out long-term loans. This is a problem not easily solved.

One of the big issues is that energy supplies seem to be leaving us, indirectly through economic changes that we have little control over. The IPCC report is written from the opposite viewpoint:  we humans are in charge and need to decide to leave energy supplies. The view is that the economy, despite our energy problems, will return to robust growth. With this robust growth, our big problem will be climate change because of the huge amount of carbon emissions coming from fossil fuel burning.

Unfortunately, the real situation is that the laws of physics, rather than humans, are in charge. Basically, as economies grow, it takes increasing complexity to fix problems, as Joseph Tainter explained in his book, The Collapse of Complex Societies. Dissipative structures provide this ever-increasing complexity through higher “energy rate density” (explained in the Chaisson article linked above).

Now we are reaching limits in many ways, but we can’t–or dare not–model how all of these limits are hitting. We can, in theory, add more complexity to fix our problems–electric cars, renewable energy, higher city density, better education of women. These things would require more energy rate density. Ultimately, they seem to depend on the availability of more inexpensive energy–something that is increasingly unavailable.

The real issue is the danger that our economy will collapse in the near term. From the earth’s point of view, this is not a problem–it will create new dissipative structures in the future, and the best-adapted of these will survive. Climate will adapt to changing conditions, and different species will be favored as the climate changes. But from the point of view of those of us living on the planet earth, there is a distinct advantage to keeping business as usual going for as long as possible.  A collapsed economy cannot support 7.2 billion people.

We need to understand what are really up against, if we are to think rationally about the future. It would be helpful if more people tried to understand the physics of the situation, even if it is a difficult subject. While we can’t really expect to “fix” the situation, we can perhaps better understand what “solutions” are likely to make the situation worse. Such knowledge will also provide a better context for understanding how climate change fits in with other limits we are reaching. Climate change is certainly not the whole problem, but it may still play a significant role.

 

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Sun, 04/13/2014 - 08:25 | 4653558 Element
Element's picture

 

 

 

Solar Periodicity
Posted on April 10, 2014    by Willis Eschenbach
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/10/solar-periodicity/

 
More support for Svensmark’s cosmic ray modulation of Earth’s climate hypothesis
Posted on April 10, 2014    by Anthony Watts
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/10/more-support-for-svensmarks-cosmic...

 

... and something for duff

 

Methane: The Irrelevant Greenhouse Gas
Posted on April 11, 2014    by Anthony Watts
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/11/methane-the-irrelevant-greenhouse-...

 

Of course this is just posts from a couple of days this week, representing the sort of excellent work being done all the time on the subject, which zh sees none of in posts.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 09:39 | 4653724 Seer
Seer's picture

Glacial cycles are a given.  Top soil loss.  All this other stuff is focusing on the wrong things.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 01:14 | 4655906 Element
Element's picture

It's not focusing in the wrong things, or have you not noticed the political circus, money-grubbing and scientific perversion around AGW?

My taxes are affected and so is my energy bills, so don't try to pretend to me and the millions like me that this focuses on the 'wrong things', while you waffle about the next glaciation, which no one can change.

You want to ignore it is all but you better realize they're coming for your money and effort as well, so don't whine if you find out the hard way that AGW is a stalking-horse, it's about bridling the human species and riding it into the ground. They have openly said this is their intent.

And you want to talk next glaciation as a 'threat'? Who's focusing on the wrong things again?

Just for that, here's another: :D

Cosmic Rays, Sunspots, and Beryllium
Posted on April 13, 2014    by Willis Eschenbach
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/13/cosmic-rays-sunspots-and-beryllium/

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 02:31 | 4655993 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

At least some applications don't need top-soil. Big farms do. But smaller-scale gardens can use sand + sawdust using the Mittleider gardening method. It can work on a larger scale too but for one problem: no one has reason for a large Mittleider 'garden' when you can't get a tractor over it. Sand & sawdust are so soft you'd crush everything and sink your tractor into it. We'd need a newer, lighter kind of robot to trawl the fields at harvest time. Mittleider's been developed over 60 years and works great but the intention was always to do it by hand.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 02:29 | 4655990 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

That methane article is in error.

Plain as day the light that doesn't get absorbed by H2O would normally then keep traveling right out of the atmosphere and did without excess methane.

But we have excess methane growing beyond exponentially as more permafrost thaws out. It's not just fuels we burn, that's stage 1, stage 2 is in effect now with arctic melt. It's irreversible until the next ice age & we won't be around anymore by then. Thats what makes global warming 100% extinction-level event for us humans and beyond a doubt, provably true.

 

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 13:09 | 4657389 detached.amusement
detached.amusement's picture

so do you have any theories that dont rely on particular and catastrophic cascades of events?

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 23:42 | 4672058 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

Nothing new at this time. I merely validate the claims, or find them invalid, which are given. My field is computer science and normally the closest we'd get to climate science is the software for handling the computations, databases for storing collected data & ensuring sensors work properly which collect the data. I understand how the science works so far, and you don't, but because I'm a computer scientist, not a climate scientist, I won't be publishing ground-breaking science on this topic.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 09:37 | 4653718 Seer
Seer's picture

"Climate change - is due to that massive ball of fusing elements in the sky. Surely you don't think that driving a car is having an impact upong the climates of Uranus, Mars and the moons of Juipiter and Saturn?"

Climate change is the result of ALL activities.  To say that humans have no affect is POOR logic (none, actually, as it fails simple logic tests).  I've never state how much affect: sadly, all the nutters throw out logic and start knee-jerking as though I'm a "global warming" supprter (I support nothing but logic- lets focus).

The car question is rediculous.

"Oil - As prices rise, more oil will become economical to extract"

Really?  Remember: everyone's borke.  Your logic is kind of like that of getting out of debt by more printing.  And, if this were the case then I'd expect that the oil companies wouldn't be spending the insane amount of money on drilling miles under the ocean floors.

Economies of scale in reverse.  I'll stand by my record on forecasting.

"Thorium reactors will provide all the power needed to desalinate water, generate electricity, and synthesis petro-fuels."

Yup, heard that one before.  Are you new on the block?

"There is in excess of 10,000 years of Thorium just laying about in piles on the surface of Earth."

At what rate of consumption?

"Is that a long enough timefrane to be 'sustainable'"

It's the WRONG question.  See my above question.

"or do you wish to plan out 500,000,000 years ahead?"

Listen, you cannot claim sustainable unless you specify over what timeframe.  It's already established that this is a finite planet and that it's not possible to have anything laslt indefinitely.  Again, I'm applying sound logic.

"**In 500 million years Sol will have increased its solar output such that life as we have on this planet now, won't be possible."

Well, there you go!  Humans cannot achieve immortality.  I just wish more people would come to this conclusion.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 13:09 | 4654193 Leraconteur
Leraconteur's picture

To say that humans have no affect is POOR logic (none, actually, as it fails simple logic tests).  I've never state how much affect: sadly, all the nutters throw out logic and start knee-jerking as though I'm a "global warming" supprter (I support nothing but logic- lets focus).

 

Human activities are dwarfed by the sun, galactic wind, solar wind, cosmic rays, solar flares, the bow wave shock as the solar system moves through the galaxy, and other inputs.

We could revert to living in grass huts and the planet would still be warming 90%+ of what it is - well, if it WAS warming. It hasn't since 1997.

But that's just a detail - Global Warming without the warming. I am sure you can work that into your theology.

 

Are you new on the block?

 

Nope, are you?

Thorium has enough quanities just sitting in coal slag ash to power the planet at USA levels of consumption for all nations for 10,000 to 100,000 years. Not enough for you? Then you are irrational. Doesn't even include dregging up top soil to sort out the Thorium, let alone MINING for it. More than enough to last until the next Ice Age and create all the synthoil, energy, and drinking water we need.



Sun, 04/13/2014 - 15:23 | 4654562 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Yawn....

Humans have increased C02 levels by 40% in ~150 years...

As for thorium, show me a commecial reactor optimized for a Thorium fuel cycle despite billions spent to make one work....

And if you really think Thorium is the answer, you are clearly pulling for Tesla to make the electric car viable.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 20:33 | 4655325 Leraconteur
Leraconteur's picture

...and there is scant proof that CO2 increases earth's temperatures with all of the other processes and buffereing effects that we don't understand. Should it? Yep - but that's not science, that's conjecture and Pascal's Wager (religion IOW).

 

Here's one:

CO2 FOLLOWS temperature rise. Sun warms earth, plants generate more CO2.

 

And another:

The constant for X ppm of CO2 increase == Y degrees of warming was manufactured from goal-seeking tree ring data from a few dozen trees, picked to show a thesis.

When one goes back to the same forest and takes a more representative sample, that unit of degrees Celsisus rise per unit of ppm CO2 is 10% of what is 'now agreed upone and settled science'.

This undercuts all AGW computer models.

 

And a third:

There has been NO warming as measured by AGW proponents own metrices since 1997. Oops.

 

And a fourth:

Water vapour (clouds and hydrogen auto exhaust) is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2 by volume, quantity as well as a given unit of H20 vs. CO2.

 

And a fifth:

The models ALL adjust temps UP when data needs to be 'smoothed' (go look inside the program comments). This indicates that ALL measuring devices and methods worldwide are flawed, OR the scientists are lying to save us from ourselves because they know better. Truly random 'bad data' would have data points all over in a scatter graph, not all data points always too cold and needing to be warmed up to prove a thesis and goal seek.

Once scientists in a field of study prove they are lying to 'do what's best for us', all they have said and 'proven' is suspect.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 23:37 | 4655757 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Write a paper and demonstrate to the scientists where they went wrong...

Or do you really think that you figured it all out and the experts got it wrong...

Your fucking deluded to wasting your time here, as you should clearly be making millions by overturning a century of climate science, the Kochs and the API would pay you huge bucks. Not to mention all coal folks.....

Don;t you think that is someone who is willing to spend 100 million of their own money to influence an election that they would not be adverse to rewarding the guy that overturned the theory of AGW? 

Why are there not more competent people trying that?

You are either a calculating liar or a complete moron.... Your choice...

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 03:51 | 4656027 Element
Element's picture

 

 

I know you're not really interested at all in empirical evidence or facing the fact that AGW was falsified within the Earth sciences decades ago, but a little reminder of what recent data shows:

Inconvenient study: Arctic was warmer than the present during the Medieval Warm Period
Posted on January 28, 2014 by Anthony Watts
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/28/inconvenient-study-arctic-was-warm...

So now is colder than it was in the middle ages, in the Arctic.

Natural variability had made then hotter than now huney-bumps ... mmmkay?

 

Which means AGW is up shits creek without a paddle on the science data.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 13:24 | 4657439 detached.amusement
detached.amusement's picture

Flake, the problem is, anything that disagrees with your predetermined conclusion, you wont even look at or consider.  Your mind is made up, and no amount of new evidence is going to change that.  Anything that implicitly agrees with your premise you will flaunt like you had a supermodel on your arm, anything that disagrees you turn away from like the nice funny-faced chick you'll never know, because she is ugly to you.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 02:24 | 4655982 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

#1 plenty of warming has been detected where you say there is none:

NASA Analysis: 2011 Was Ninth Warmest Year in History : global warming is real and proven, note to skeptics

NASA - 2009: Second Warmest Year on Record; End of Warmest Decade

2009 Ends Warmest Decade on Record : Image of the Day

#2 CO2 deflects infrared back to Earth so more CO2 absolutely means more heat back at us from the sky, especially the night sky where we can detect both the direction (sky) and the source (not the sun: night means no sun).

#3 "Sun warms earth, plants generate more CO2."

Incorrect and in fact backwards.

Plants INHALE CO2 and EXHALE O2.

You are an idiot. Science is not for you. Might I suggest basket-weaving, politics or perhaps a call center for your future careers?

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 13:25 | 4657442 detached.amusement
detached.amusement's picture

you got a hard time understanding that net heat flow concept, dont you.

 

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 23:43 | 4672060 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

No, but you do. The net heat flow is reduced to the empty space surrounding Earth. It's contained in the atmosphere & the ocean and they are warming as a result.

You follow a cult religion where your initial assumption is cooling and you will invent any story you can, no matter how it's in defiance of measured reality, to stick to your assumption which was always wrong.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 21:35 | 4655491 BigJim
BigJim's picture

I'm sorry? When were 'billions' spent to try to make a commercial Thorium reactor work?

Billions were spent on the Uranium fuel cycle because the byproducts were useful for atomic weaponry. Show me a single 'commercial' Uranium reactor that would have got off the ground without enormous government subsidy.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 23:43 | 4655764 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Exactly....

So it clear that you are proposing a massive statist solution to the energy question? Correct?

Do you even think about what you type first? 

You clearly have no shame in being intellectually bankrupt...

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 10:12 | 4656628 BigJim
BigJim's picture

 Exactly....

So it clear that you are proposing a massive statist solution to the energy question? Correct?

Do you even think about what you type first? 

You clearly have no shame in being intellectually bankrupt...

Little Miss Non-Sequitor strikes again. Why would commercial companies spend billions on Thorium research when governments are spending tens or even hundreds of billions (ie, subsidising) Uranium reactors, that they'd have to compete against?

You really don't get this economics stuff, do you? Maybe you should go back to cherry picking climate data for a living. Oh yeah, that's right - you already have.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 02:16 | 4655976 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

Billions? Normally you're good on sources & references, evidence, but this one I think you'll stumble on. Russia, perhaps, but billions of roubles isn't the same as billions of dollars. Thorium reactors worked in a totally safe, stable manner before & were shut down for one reason only: they don't make bombs. It's easy enough to start again where we left off.

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 23:28 | 4655973 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

You got it. I stumbled upon something, an ammonia re-uptake system for hydrogen.

http://www.voxsolaris.com/ammonia.html

"The ammonia mollecule has 3 hydrogen atoms and 1 nitrogen atom. It contains absolutely no carbon whatsoever. It is easy to make on an industrial scale by means of the Haber process in which nitrogen from the air is combined with hydrogen at pressures of around 200 atmospheres and temperatures of the order of 500°C in the presence of an iron catalyst. And it is easy to use as a fuel. It can be reformed back into nitrogen and hydrogen so that the latter can be used in fuel cells although there are fuel cells that can operate directly from ammonia. And it can be burned directly in an internal combustion engine albeit with some modification, resulting in an exhaust of water and nitrogen. Ammonia is therefore, a good 'carrier' of hydrogen."

Very clever. Hopefully it gets used some time considering there's no shortage of ammonia.

Given all patterns of transport for a person or freight there's no reason to rely so heavily on trucks when trains can be used. They can use the fuels you list plus on-grid electric power while there is a grid. That will easily displace enough liquid petrol for those applications that need it the most (e.g. bug-out vehicles, motorbikes, some models of generators).

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 06:09 | 4653471 Seer
Seer's picture

"oil limits shouldn't matter one bit. if all those oil CEOs didn't have their heads up their own asses they would have realized long ago that oil is unsustainable."

Why is it that there's no end to who can be blamed for the predicament we're in, other than oneself of course?  Woe is me...

Oil CEO have known and have been talking about it.  BUT... as a CEO do you really want to scare the shit out of your investors to such a degree that the current system goes totally unstable?  Ever think that this is why we're only ever going to jsut muddle along, slowly grind it down until the lights flicker and fade?  Just sample the response here and you'll see that there is NO way that you can NOT be a criminal or conspiring to "fuck eveyone over."  Oil CEOs are running businesses, business that, well, are centered on oil.  What other industry do you know of that has been chomping at the bit to tell people that what they are depending on isn't going to hold up?  EVERYWHERE we're told that we can make MOAR because "growth" will [magically] make it so.

Of all the crap out there that's jammed down our throats that we do NOT need, the pure dishonesty of it, and the one industry that actually provides one heck of a product for a very good price is dishonest?

No, while I wouldn't say that these folks are benevolent, I do not believe that they are necessarily sinister.  Cunning business folks?  Isn't that the capitalist way?  You want then to NOT be cunning?

Do you believe in growth?  If so, then you're dishonest, as there cannot be perpetual growth (on a finite planet).  At the end of the day, when you drill into all the perspectives and all the arguments it is "growth" that you will finally settle on and you will be faced with this startk reality that we have based everything on a totally impossible premise.  But yeah, it's those arrogant oil company CEOs that are really to blame (just as they were in the collapse of Easter Island).

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 06:46 | 4653487 dogfish
dogfish's picture

Seer

All well said.I like the refference to the crack dealer,so true.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 07:34 | 4653512 7againstThebes
7againstThebes's picture

Thanks, Seer,

    Very little that you say seems inaccurate to me.

   Well, except for one consideration.  The amount of effort that you have expended has to reflect a kind of optimism.

      I find myself tending to agree with with an adage coming from the ancient Greeks.   "In the face of human stupidity, even the Gods despair."

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 07:46 | 4653524 Seer
Seer's picture

"In the face of human stupidity, even the Gods despair."

I'd like to say that my memory will allow me to rember this one :-)

Human hubris.  And, to be fair, we were given some really bad advice to begin with: Go forth and multiply; it was an incomplete set of parameters- for how long? (it's a finite planet, at some point this won't hold up!)  So... I see it as people being too humane, that we just cannot cull oursleves without creating wars in which to hide it.  And, frankly, I don't pretent to endorse the notion of culling, nor any other "solution" for that matter: the very word "solution" denotes permanance, and given that we're mortals and subject to at ticking clock there cannot be any such thing (other than death, and that, according to populatrreligions, isn't all that clear).

A good friend of mine tends to ease his mind by saying that "humans are funny."  I've found that this has helped me quite a bit: I'm always looking to adopt the good traits I see in others- I construct myself from the things I like about others, though I never seek to become them.  And, well, I can be "funny" too...

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 08:05 | 4653539 SmallerGovNow2
SmallerGovNow2's picture

Anthropogenic CO2 is less than 5% of world contributions and NOTHING compared to all other natural planetary sources.  Other than that I think Gail's thinkings on finite resources and growth are spot on...

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 09:43 | 4653727 Seer
Seer's picture

I have no problems accepting this!

BUT, again, a small number does not meant that that doesn't represent a tipping point.  Our economic system works on a very small percentage of growth: if small numbers don't matter that much then try and remove that small number and let's see how stable our economic system is.

I digress... Gail's primary concerns have to do with resources and economics.  I think that her intent here is to diminish all the focusing on "global warming" because that is being used in an attempt to create some "fix" for the economic system and there is no fix (because of the cumulative depletion of resources).

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 00:24 | 4655854 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

Nope.

The industrial output of human machines burning oil is more CO2 output than the rest of nature because it's in excess. Outside of us there is balance: while CO2 is emitted by soil & volcanoes the plant life adapted with this and soaks it back up. WE disrupted this: we burn fuels (excess CO2) then kill plants (leveling areas for cities & roads) reducing intake of CO2 (which we added to). Now the warming is so bad the methane locked in the soil for thousands of years is being released at the arctic and is estimated to be 8x as powerful at retaining heat than CO2, though it dissipates more quickly.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 04:06 | 4656043 Element
Element's picture

 

 

Now the warming is so bad the methane locked in the soil for thousands of years is being released at the arctic and is estimated to be 8x as powerful at retaining heat than CO2, though it dissipates more quickly.

And if so it's doing a whole lot of nothing-burger dumbass:

The latest global temp data for 17 years:

https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/clip_image0021.png

 

What the hell don't clowns like you not grasp about a very simple thing like zero global temperature rise in getting close to two decades now?

Are you actually retarded, did your mum drop you down the stairs at some point? Can you really expect to be taken seriously as a thinking being, when you contradict the global thermometer instrumentation with hyperbolic bullshit-nozzle fantasies like that? Was your last job with a circus?

Dumbest of the dumb

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 08:29 | 4656303 headhunt
headhunt's picture

Element - We all heard 0bama pronounce the causation of global warming that is how we know it is so.

As a footnote you really need to see Al Gore's movie - it is so factual.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 08:19 | 4653552 Winston of Oceania
Winston of Oceania's picture

"How do the two issues fit together?"

PROPAGANDA- must control the great unwashed and get rid of religion at the same time. Too many values and the sheeple won't be shameful enough to do anything the oligarchs want.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 08:47 | 4653594 d edwards
d edwards's picture

Climate change is the biggest fucking hoax ever commited. It's designed to cripple industry and everything else. Now they want to cripple agriculture because of COW FARTS!

Meanwhile members of the gov't regime fly all over the world with 900 person entourage and 45 vehicles, and we fly Moochelle and her entourage to China for vacation.

 

Peopel have been banging the peak oil drum (no pun intended) for years now and with fracking we've got more oil and nat gas than ever.

 

I call bullshit on the whole thing!

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 11:24 | 4653981 massbytes
massbytes's picture

Your only intelligent point is the one about the government flying all over the world with their over done entourages.  Other than that, you are completely wrong.  The oil and gas we are producing is the dregs and extremely expensive to produce.  If we have so much, why is the price staying over a $100 a barrel?  Conspiracy?  And I would like to see where there is any kind of initiative to restrict raising cows because of climate change concerns.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 00:20 | 4655844 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

You're calling bullshit on THERMOMETERS? You think we can't actually go MEASURE the temperature changes? We have and it's increasing.

CLIMATE CHANGE IS A HOAX? Really? See the new changes in where rains go & where droughts are? That's CLIMATE CHANGE. Do you deny REALITY ITSELF?

The only way any person can conclude climate change is a hoax is to be both blind and unable to feel heat on the skin.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 04:14 | 4656055 Element
Element's picture

 

 

You're calling bullshit on THERMOMETERS? You think we can't actually go MEASURE the temperature changes? We have and it's increasing.

 

Latest global temp data for the past 17 years - shows flat to slow temperature decline trend:

https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/clip_image0021.png

 

You truly are the most retarded uninformed commenter on this topic at zh ever - congratulations!

Wed, 04/16/2014 - 05:53 | 4663878 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

Incorrect.

Wattsup seems to be unable to use actual facts.

Here's the actual facts:

  1. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
  2. http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2013/november/tlt_update_bar112013.jpg
  3. http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2014/february/tlt_update_Feb2014.jpg
  4. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
  5. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A.gif

Pay attention to #5 there, it's a dead-ringer for a kick in your balls. I think I shall refer to it as the Roshambo chart.

And some more

  1. hemispheres, 1880 to date, compared: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A3.gif
  2. three latitude bands http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.B.gif
  3. and just the USA showing your thermometers are not broken, it's your eyeballs http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.D.gif

 

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 08:54 | 4653615 spanish inquisition
spanish inquisition's picture

I will say it again. Global warming and cooling may have something to do with the giant fucking furnace we circle....

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 09:21 | 4653687 headhunt
headhunt's picture

Crazy talk - I bet you want to use facts and shit too.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 00:10 | 4655818 Ocean22
Ocean22's picture

Amen brother.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 00:18 | 4655842 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

And you would be wrong again. The changes in how the sun works have had no such effect on us: solar output didn't increase to match temperature increases, zero correlation. In fact what happened is that heat retained at night increased, where there is no sun, thus proving beyond all doubt it isn't the sun, it's the atmosphere.

For double proof look at the moon: the moon has had none of the temperature increases we've had. Nothing changed there. It has no atmosphere, and that's the reason.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 04:27 | 4656077 Element
Element's picture

 

 

Let me get this straight; Someone measured the moon's temp over a series of observations during the solar cycle but it doesn't have any atmosphere to measure, and they detected no change in the temperature of the atmosphere that it doesn't have. due to a solar variability causation?

 

You seem to have the brain-processing and logic threading capacity of a three day old sauage.

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 23:31 | 4672029 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

incorrect and you know why: the SURFACE is what you measure.

Astonishing: you didn't realize both the earth and moon have SURFACES and they have TEMPERATURES?

You're astonishingly stupid.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 08:51 | 4656372 headhunt
headhunt's picture

So the frozen moon in a zero atmosphere stays frozen - astonishing.

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 23:30 | 4672028 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

Therefore atmosphere, not the sun, is in question, the methane & the CO2. Thanks for proving you understand I'm right.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 09:19 | 4653680 headhunt
headhunt's picture

The amount of propaganda in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is disgusting. The shortage of fact in their 'studies' is driven by their leftist ideal of carbon taxing every living human into slavery - for the greater good of course. Their studies and projections spit out exactly what they have written the computer program code to do with their predetermined outcome.

I suggest we actually educate the billions of wasted individuals who are being paid to do nothing other than to vote for some leftist communist wanker for their daily dose of free shit and maybe out of these billions of wasted brains we will come up with the next technological breakthrough in the field of energy.

Or... we could just eliminate 80% of government and all unions and the net effect I suggest would be the same.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 09:47 | 4653741 Seer
Seer's picture

Now I know why people watch Dancing With The Stars...

Talk about a total derailing from the point of this article... the economy WILL collapse (not because of carbon taxes or whatever; PLEASE NOTE that because I say this that it does not mean that I support any such tthing! but, the clowns out here will do their best, failing, as they do, to conjure up any sense of logic as they attempt to do so)) and you all will still be knee-jerking to the climate change issue.

Thanks for playing!

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 12:02 | 4653841 deflator
deflator's picture

ac·a·dem·ic

 


2. not of practical relevance; of only theoretical interest.   Anthropogenic climate change and PO are not of practical relevance from a government and corporate policy making perspective.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 10:28 | 4653851 Cloud9.5
Cloud9.5's picture

 

Exploration, drilling, fracking, the mining of tar sands all require money.  The money comes from investors.  Much of the happy talk within the industry is designed to garnish capital just to keep the system going.  If you don’t understand that then you have never tried to sell an investment idea to anybody.  Consequently much of what you hear in the oil industry is puff talk by a salesman.  You should consider it for what it is.

 

The true picture comes from looking at long term production rates from existing fields.  The world is replete with examples of oil fields that have been exhausted.  Look at the North Sea and look at Mexico for recent examples of oil production declines.   Simply stated, oil is a finite resource and over time, production rates decline.  The decline of energy production in the face of insatiable growing demand is our real problem.

 

The core of our monetary system is based on debt.  Money is borrowed into existence.  That system works if the economy continues to grow at three or four percent a year.  Every hedge fund, pension plan and business model is predicated on the mime of exponential growth.  That mime works as long as growth continues.

 

Our entire political system is based on promises of entitlements that are to be funded by the fiction of never ending growth.  Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and the ever expanding largess of governmental growth and spending are all predicated on the mime that growth will go on forever.  These promises buy votes.  That political model has been phenomenally successful over the last half century and has shifted ever increasing portions of our population into dependency on the ever growing nation state. School teachers, IRS Agents, the legions that are on Social Security and welfare, all depend on government largess for survival.   Ten thousand boomers go on to Social Security every day.

 

Everything we see around us was built on the back of cheap oil.   Cheap oil is gone.   The suburbs, the highways, the urban sprawl, the mega cities, all of it are a consequence of cheap gasoline. These systems cannot be sustained without cheap gasoline. 

 

A simple review of fields that have been in production over the last forty years clearly reveals that oil production is contracting.   Kerogen and bitumen are distorting the figures.  Crude oil production on a world wide scale has been contracting since 2005. That contraction is being mirrored in our economic and political systems.   The Arab Spring, the bankruptcy of Detroit, the explosion of the deficit are all manifestations of the contraction brought on by the decline of cheap oil production.  As the cheap stuff is replaced by the more expensive stuff the contraction accelerates.

 

Neither the political systems nor the monetary systems we have in place can survive this.  At some point the bankruptcy can no longer be denied.  Then we will shift to something else.

 

 

 

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 23:57 | 4656096 Element
Element's picture

Very nicely stated. I'll try to respectfully not trample on your message.

 

"Our entire political system is based on promises of entitlements that are to be funded by the fiction of never ending growth.  Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and the ever expanding largess of governmental growth and spending are all predicated on the mime that growth will go on forever.  These promises buy votes."

I would just say that all real-resources are swapped for what are almost always abstractions, as a 'payment'. The entitlement payments and promises are also all abstraction. But what they really want is the resources they can swap for them. So if you cut to the chase you're really just giving people access to resources, and pretending the money means something other than access.

So access is really what is being promised offered and traded, so the question is can access be supplied?

I think we can do a lot in that regard, for we have barely even attempted to genuinely economize and be frugal, as yet, such as actually eliminate elective use of transport for non essential uses, or to close automated factories that use energy to make shit we don't even need.

The thing is, this will not happen globally, as energy resources are not up with the ideal of equality of distribution. Geographically, some don't have the energy, and they must adjust first. We just saw a closure of NPPs in Japan and people adjusted. So we will do what we have to, and I think you know the world will not end, it will adjust.

A political system that provides resources access and facilitates smooth adjustment is what we will need. But what we will get? Who knows. 

Then we will shift to something else.

I'm quite sure we will, as we are a long way from the end of the options available to us, but again, some will have better access than others to that easier energy access, and that has also always been the historic situation.

To take it a bit tangential here, I would say that those who gripe endlessly about the woes of high population and thus consumption trends seem the least interested in actually doing something about birth rate and voluntary euthanasia. But let's just call it easy and painless access to the suicide option, for the oldies in particular.

If Eskimos could do it, rationally, to save the rest of the family in hard times, I'm sure we can culturally adjust as well, as required to not just 'collapse' and keep going down and down.

That's isn't how we work, we're adaptive critters, first and foremost (which you seem to understand).

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 10:56 | 4653920 fzrkid
fzrkid's picture

We have been at peak oil since Nixon took the USD off the gold standard. Yet it seems every couple years new reserves are found that dwarf earlier findings..

 

Anyone ever think the SUN, the largest, hottest sphere near earth could have a greater effect on the earths temperature??!!??!?!?!

 

Look up MAUNDER MINIMUM

 

Might just be that CO2 should be written as CO$ cuz there are a handful of 'helpful' organizations that are reaping very large profits from the idea. Growing up we were confronted with Acid Rain, that changed to global warming and now it is morphing to climate change since the numbers do not support an increase in temperature. (do the research, dont just take a couple clips as evidence)

Effective propoganda will have a tag line that is diffecult to take a side for or against or be especially diffecult to be very negative towards. Climate Change fits that well, yes we experience 'WEATHER' every day, does it change, sure does, has it changed since the beginning of time, sure has.

 

very much like Support Our Troops. Of course we support our troops even if we are totally against what they are doing.  You never hear lame stream media trying to promote  "the US occupation of IRAQ or the many other countries." But nearly everyone can agree to support the troops any buy little yellow magnets to stick on their cars.

 

I do not side with any political party, to me they are all the same. They each spend money they dont have and expect the citizens to work and pay taxes to cover the expenses. If this was not the case the USA would not be 17+++ TRILLION dollars in debt..

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 12:21 | 4654129 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

I feel sorry for you...

To be so misguided and devoid of understanding is sad to see...

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 00:13 | 4655826 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

"Anyone ever think the SUN, the largest, hottest sphere near earth could have a greater effect on the earths temperature??!!??!?!?!"

Nope.

If it were true we'd see the same changes everywhere the sun hits: like other planets and the moon.

And we would not see: excessive retention of heat at night time, you know, when there's no sun.

But we are seeing that ONLY EARTH has these changes and the heat retention AT NIGHT is way, way up.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 13:49 | 4657510 detached.amusement
detached.amusement's picture

take the fkn blinders off already, you sound like a fool.  the earth is unique in its composition of feedback mechanisms, why would it manifest exactly the same as other places that have a hundred times the atmosphere, or no atmosphere at all?

 

did you miss the changes on mars?

did you miss the polar vortex on saturn?

did you miss that basically nothing happened on venus?

 

can't figure out why? 

 

yup, that's why we tell you that your halfassed conclusions are full of shit.  you cant even parrot well.

Tue, 04/15/2014 - 00:00 | 4659567 Element
Element's picture

I suspect cannabis abuse or similar, the guy has scrambled-egg where his brain should be, but still apparently considers that he was once able to think straight.

Tue, 04/15/2014 - 22:58 | 4663904 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

cannabis is a medicine: I have no need of that medicine. "abuse" is in the eye of the beholder: quite a few here admit indulging in vodka, whiskey or scotch, which all have the solvent ethanol, whereas cannabis doesn't do any permanent damage to any part of the body at all.

You sound confused or poorly educated. Americans are very badly indoctrinated about drugs, legal and illegal.

Tue, 04/15/2014 - 22:56 | 4663901 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

Mars had no changes like us, not even the same direction as us. Mars didn't suddenly warm. I didn't "miss it" it didn't happen.

I don't parrot: I find liars and out them. You're that lucky liar today.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 02:29 | 4672285 Seek_Truth
Seek_Truth's picture

sycophant squared

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 11:02 | 4656123 Element
Element's picture

Since the Maunder minimum solar radiance increased a total of only 3 watts per meter squared and the radiance variation between solar cycles is only about 0.8 watts per meter squared in recent cycles, and it's been oscillating around the same solar radiance level since about 1950 while temp kept rising slowly until it peaked rather sharply in 1998, then fell back again and basically stopped rising at all.

So the sun does not fit what we measure (even if we assume the temp numbers were tweaked, which we know in some detail they were tweaked, or rather corrupted, by the archive gate-keepers). So the waters have been muddied and as a result any analysis is always dealing with retrospective edits of the temp records.

But there was a rise in temp to 1998, after which CO2 kept rising fast, but temp stopped rising at all, and has maybe fallen a tiny bit. The Solar radiance appears to not be a factor in either the former rise, nor in the lengthy flat-spot in the data now.

So;

1. We do not know what causes the rise or the flat spot

2. The flat spot shows us that temp change is in fact not correlating with CO2 rise.

3. We do know that the Medieval warming period was even warmer in the arctic than it is right now, and we know that a proportionate CO2 rise was also not the cause of that warming phase.

So these things are indicating that we humans do not actually understand the climate system on this planet almost at all yet. But the Medieval warming period was entirely natural, as was the cooling little ice age that followed, and so too most probably is the warming that has just occurred.

Personally, it's clear to me that CO2 is also a correlation, not a causation, just like the maunder minimum, except CO2 does not correlate at all with either the Medieval warming or the cooling that followed, so I think we can forget about the CO2 warming scare, as it clearly is not the underlying cause, though it could be a lower-order contributing factor to warming, but certainly is not a primary driver.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 13:45 | 4657502 detached.amusement
detached.amusement's picture

"but certainly is not a primary driver."

 

crux right there.  one needs to use bad stiatistics and unrealistic models in order to reach the conclusion that CO2 could in any way shape or form be considered a primary driver.

Tue, 04/15/2014 - 00:33 | 4659604 Element
Element's picture

Yes, I knew that the moment I read the first IPCC report, what they were doing was ignoring all that we already had data on that falsified the entire concept. The data was more than good enough in 1985 to discount the possibility of AGW being a primary driver of a warming phase. the problem was only the geologists knew it from esoteric data that no one else understood or even knew about, and the entire 'greenhouse' agenda was concertedly and decidedly not the slightest bit interested in listening to the actual earth sciences discipline (a major branch of science itself being ignored!) about earth's climatic history and its known extreme natural climate variability ranges with time.

The most apt description of what occurred there is that extreme ignorance drive consensus and simple-isms became highly fashionable.

And that is the only way the IPCC ever got rolling in the first place, they exploited ignorance and smeared and undermined the data we already had that proved them wrong.

And people also wanted to accept and to assert that humans must be responsible for climate variations, somehow. It's been a real throw-back to the pig-ignorance of earlier centuries. Prior to AGW I had read a lot of history of science and society and basically thought humanity had come so far away from that sort of ability for ignorance and myths to rule the day. But AGW demonstrates that civilization is just as susceptible to it as we ever were. It just changes form but the underlying befuddlement, derailment and redirection constructs remain the same. I recognize the same catastrophically stupid consensus-building and ego-driven processes undermining understanding as in earlier centuries.

So the very commonly held idea of the "progress of science" away from all that was also a delusion, because consensus masquerading as a valid part of 'science' created the same structure, with the same radical polarizing quasi-fundamentalist deleterious effect.

 

The very idea that legit scientific skepticism itself would be continuously attacked had never even crossed my mind until the full-scale shameless pig-ignorance of AGW emerged.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 11:30 | 4653993 NoTTD
NoTTD's picture

Let me guess:  The first is a verifiable fact and the second a nonsenical, ascientific leftwing fantasy?  Is that how they "fit together"?  Do I win?

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 00:13 | 4655825 MeelionDollerBogus
MeelionDollerBogus's picture

You win a Darwin award: if everyone thinks like you do we'll all kill ourselves pretending cyanide isn't really poison.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 12:23 | 4654097 Rhal
Rhal's picture

Lets keep in mind humanity only contributes about 2% of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Piers Corbyn, the guy who actually predicts weather accurately, points out that we are more likely entering a mini ice-age.

That means plant growth will slow and crops will fail. I bet in 30 years we will start burning hydrocarbons desperately to prop up plant growth!

Thats just how the carbon cycle works in the absence of bureaucrats. 

And still we ignore the elephant in the room. There are thousands of cheap/free energy technology  patents suppressed to support the oil industry. We need an open energy economy, not this oil crap.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 12:23 | 4654132 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

You should sign up for the remedial Earth Sciences class... 

Pretty clear you failed the first time round...

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 16:42 | 4654825 Bull_Colapse
Bull_Colapse's picture

I could not think of a more unprobable senario if i tried. Yawn. 

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 05:03 | 4656104 Element
Element's picture

Well spotted, you win the complementry toffee apple. Don't eat it all at once, there's a famine coming I hear.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 17:10 | 4654906 JeffB
JeffB's picture

I think she's largely right about "peak oil", and even some of her other conjectures, but a few of them seem rather shaky at best.

For instance this assertion, "Future oil extraction will have to be subsidized, which means it will actually weaken the larger economy."

Why will oil extraction "have to be" subsidized?

 

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 23:44 | 4655768 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

It is already...

Look up depletion tax credit...

While you are at it, how many countries subsidize the price of fuel, cooking gas, etc....

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 14:40 | 4657668 JeffB
JeffB's picture

Even if it is currently subsidized, that doesn't explain why it "has to be" subsidized.

From the way she worded it, I got the impression she felt it would be necessary to subsidize it's extraction to "meet demand".

My feeling is that we'd be far better off to just let the market decide what it will pay to extract it. If the benefits exceed the costs, it'll be extracted. If not, it won't be. Or more likely/accurately, they will extract it up until the supply and demand curves meet at some particular price point, whatever that may be.

Government subsidies to make sure enough is extracted to "meet demand" at some higher price point as determined by (whom?) is not only not necessary, but counterproductive from my point of view.

 

 

Tue, 04/15/2014 - 00:42 | 4659623 Element
Element's picture

I agree with you, but I also just watched an ENRON doco and see the problem with that approach too.

Either way you go the system becomes corrupted by greed and thieves and rips your guts out if you have energy demands you want and need supplied.

The private system of supply was many times worse, and continued to get worse again, and was much more criminal and insidious than the central state control option, within the ENRON debacle. And it wasn;t just ENRON, all the major electron suppliers were doing it, it's just that ENRON did it more than was tollerable or viable - they almost killed their host.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 23:56 | 4655792 MEAN BUSINESS
MEAN BUSINESS's picture

"BERLIN, 13 April -- A new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that global emissions of greenhouse gases have risen to unprecedented levels despite a growing number of policies to reduce climate change. Emissions grew more quickly between 2000 and 2010 than in each of the three previous decades."

------------

AR5; WG3 38,315 comments, WG2 50,000 comments, WG1 55,000 comments


Mon, 04/14/2014 - 04:55 | 4656100 Element
Element's picture

The latest global temp data for past 17 years:
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/clip_image0021.png

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 18:42 | 4658568 MEAN BUSINESS
MEAN BUSINESS's picture


"Berlin, 13 April 2014 – An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report launched here today confirms that it is still possible to avoid the worst effects of climate change – but only if the international community takes urgent and ambitious actions to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

“Last year, the IPCC stated that limiting the warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions to a 2°C rise will require that our future emissions of carbon dioxide be dramatically lower than the total amount of all our past emissions. Today’s report on Mitigation of Climate Changepresents what we need to do to meet this profound challenge,” said Michel Jarraud, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization, which, together with the UN Environment Programme, sponsors the IPCC.

According to the IPCC’s Physical Science Basis, to have more than a two-in-three chance of limiting the global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions alone to below 2°C, cumulative CO2emissions must stay below about 1 000 gigatonnes of carbon (GtC). As of 2011, more than half this amount, or 515 GtC, had already been emitted since the beginning of the industrial era. When the warming effects of other greenhouse gases are included, cumulative CO2would need to be even lower – some 790 GtC – to keep below a 2°C warming.

Because greenhouse gases can last for decades or longer in the atmosphere, past and current emissions will continue to affect the climate for many years to come. The World Meteorological Organization and its Members continuously monitor atmospheric concentrations of these heat-trapping greenhouse gases. These measurements confirm that atmospheric concentrations have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years."

 

Dr. Michel Jarraud 31MAR14 : "there is no pause"

Tue, 04/15/2014 - 00:49 | 4659633 Element
Element's picture

 

 

Yeah, right, let's ignore the very best global satellite empirical temp data over almost the past 20 years, and just go with IPCC and professor dingbat crank instead.

Got it.

 

But no, persona and .org stuffed-shirt does not trump multi-decade systematic global empirical temp measurement. 

 

Bugger off dimwit.

Tue, 04/15/2014 - 02:47 | 4659759 MEAN BUSINESS
MEAN BUSINESS's picture

Jarraud's bio says researcher, not professor. Multi-term Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization which co-sponsors the IPCC. Married, father of two.

looks like the dingbat crank prize is all yours Element. Thanks for playing.

/ignore on

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 00:08 | 4655811 Ocean22
Ocean22's picture

((((((((P2.6 Scenario indicates negative carbon emissions, presumably from geo-engineering. ))))))

Yes , as " geo- engineering" aka chemtrails does it's magic , the negative carbon emissions come from WERE ALL FUCKING DEAD from poison aluminum in the air and soil. But Monsanto will ride to the rescue with aluminum resistant seeds.

Wake up people your being killed.

Tue, 04/15/2014 - 00:50 | 4656102 Element
Element's picture

 

 

Wake up people your being killed.

yeeaah ... it's just taking longer than ever before is all.

But let's not go into the geochemical fact that Aluminum oxide is one of the most common molecules on Earth's surface and makes up one of the major components of the planets crustal and mantle silicate mineralogy, as it might start a panic.

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