Greenhouse Hypocrisy Exposed

The indispensable columnist Robert J. Samuelson succinctly exposes the political hypocrisy over global warming policy.

BTW, I made many of the same points with my coverage of the United Nations' Climate Change negotiations here, here and here.

Comments

[joe]

Isn't a little silly to set up "technological innovation" and government mandates as independent opposites? The catalytic converter, the smoke stack scrubber, and an untold number of trash disposal practices came about because the government demanded a higher level of cleanliness.

Encouraging the technological innovations that will make large-scale carbon reduction feasible is not the alternative to Kyoto, it is the purpose of Kyoto. Projecting costs and emission levels based on a static technology model (as Samuelson does when he assumes that the growth of developing world economies will be as carbon intensive as the economic growth that has occured in Europe over the past decade) is dishonest.

[quasibill]

Much as I disagree with Joe on the underlying issue, he does have a point:

"Projecting costs and emission levels based on a static technology model (as Samuelson does when he assumes that the growth of developing world economies will be as carbon intensive as the economic growth that has occured in Europe over the past decade) is dishonest."

If you check out the 92(?) amendments to the CAA that created a cap and trade emissions market, the projected costs were wildly off the mark. The emissions credits traded at far below the expected price, despite the fact that the economy was booming.

But it is merely a symptom of the same problem I have with the projected costs of global warming, and the projections of global warming themselves. They are linear models, with no feedback mechanisms, that assume a static world in the background. As the techie in my old lab used to lecture us about the crappy lab software we used "garbage in, garbage out"...

[David Woycechowsky]

First, we should tackle some energy problems. We need to reduce our use of oil, which increasingly comes from unstable or hostile regions (the Middle East, Russia, Central Asia, Africa). This is mainly a security issue
. . .
[T]he Bush administration rightly emphasizes research and development.

Wrong, Mr. Samuelson. The administration does not emphasize energy research. Rather, they are using defense money to fund a war in Iraq, rather than fund energy research.

AND NOW FOR THE T. FOIL: It is also worth noting that the administration (Cheney in partic.) have taken great pains to keep their energy negotiations (with oil companies) a secret. Somehow I doubt that the secret is that the US is going to start emphasizing energy research. I have a feeling that the secret is something a little more favorable to the oil companies, even if energy research has to suffer a bit in order to maximize profit at the oil companies.

[zach]

DW,

to be honest, i don't know what the bush administration has done to promote energy research. but your arguments as to why the white house can obviously not be serious about energy research - "we're at war in iraq" and "there are secret meetings!" - don't do much to persuade me either way.

[Ron Bailey]

Joe:
Have you had a chance to look at some of the "static technology models" used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to project huge future increases in greenhouse gas emissions? I particularly recommend taking a look at the IPCC's absurdly implausible A1FI scenario which is the one that produced the high average global temperature increase of 5.8 degrees centigrade by 2100.

However, you're right that government mandates may be needed to regulate various open access commons (and the atmosphere is surely one of the biggest). But before singing the praises of mandated catalytic converters, consider other helpful government programs like coal gasification in the Dakotas and the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles. BTW, it's generally agreed among researchers that mandating sulfur dioxide scrubbers was the wrong way to go, and that creating a market for SO2 emissions speeded up both technical improvements and reductions in emissions.

If global warming turns out to be a possibly catastrophic problem (far from a foregone conclusion), then markets in greenhouse gases (a la Kyoto) that stimulate technological improvements in energy production will be part of the way to go rather than government mandates for things like ethanol, wind power or whatever.

[Amy Phillips]

I've been really annoyed lately at the self-congratulatory tone the EU is taking over the new fusion reactor they're planning to build in France, given that their intervention is what has kept nuclear energy from competing with fossil fuel power over the last several decades. Still, I'll be interested to see the results of the experiment, and I hope that this may help turn public opinion away from the visceral fear of nuclear technologies.

[joe]

Climate models are supposed to use a static model, when the model is developed to demonstrate what would happen if nothing is done. They are purposely designed and explained as evidence of what will happen if current trends continue.

And I'm certainly not going to argue with you about the wisdom of public/private partnership projects and market-based (or perhaps "market-shaping") efforts like the SO2 market. But still, it is important to remember that those efforts still require coercive government action.

I do have to argue with your last 'graph, however. Waiting until the problem is advanced enough that we start seeing the destruction and dislocation is irresponsible and self destructive. This is why we call out the public and National Guard to stack sandbags BEFORE the town gets flooded, not when the water is already up to the top step of the general store.

[David Woycechowsky]

ZacH:

If we were spending as much on energy research on the war (or even close), you would know about that. You would hear about the periodic breakthru's, the hopes, the setbacks, the prototypes.

For example, I don't know if you are old enough to remember, but when the US landed on the moon, there was extensive media coverage. Heck, there was even coverage of lesser space events.

Let me explain why this is true, Zach. Ya see, when the government spends the kind of money that it spends on the space program or the war in Iraq, they give us some level of updates so that we don't complain too much about the spending and/or its associated opportunity costs. People wanna see some progress for their $$$. However, you don't hear anything about Dept of Defense (non-miltary) energy research. because it ain't happening.

Anyway, why would you be willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt on this important issue? The man lies.

[David Woycechowsky]

Follow up question for Zach:

What kind of evidence would convince you that US DoD is not doing considerable energy research?

[quasibill]

"They are purposely designed and explained as evidence of what will happen if current trends continue."

Except we know for a fact that the climate is not static, even in the absence of human interference. So static models are extremely poor predictors of what will happen. Just like static models are pretty poor at predicting future costs. Nature and human behavior are both known to have feedback mechanisms and are "fluid" equilibriums, not static.

[zach]

the money being spent on iraq could be spent on any number of things, like trying to end domestic poverty, or the national deficit. whether or not you agree with the war, the existence of the war itself is not evidence that we don't care at all about domestic poverty or the deficit. granted, it does mean that we care more about the war.

and i never said i was giving bushie the benefit of the doubt, far from it. all i said was your arguments are unconvincing.

[fyodor]

joe,

Believe it or not, libertarians are not actually against all government coercion. Only coercion that is not a response to actions already taken that violate others' rights (or clearly threaten to do so). That is why some of us favor solutions that tie penalties to harmful emmissions and allow the market to do the rest. It's centralized planning with its arbitrary decision making (and thus arbitrary penalizing of those who don't follow the plan) that's truly anathema. (And then there's the question of whether rights are really being violated, ie whether anthropomorphic climate change is real, harmful and unfairly so, but I'll leave that alone for the moment.)

[drf]

Amy:

the Danes are absolutely hysterically against nuclear power. Many Austrians are, too. And even chest pumping in the rest of the EU won't help. It's amazing. And it doesn't seem to be the NIMBY syndrome, either. Especially in Denmark is the fear at a level where science education suffers. Big surprise...

The (former) East German Author Christa Wolf's "Incident" (alt title: "Accident"), about the 1986 Tschernobyl disaster still feeds into the anti atom sentiment.

http://politiken.dk/VisArtikel.sasp?PageID=380486

check out the pic of the little mermaid.

The Danes have even gone so far as to claim that there are greater rates of cancer along Copenhagen's north shore - right across the sound from the Swedish plant, Barsebaeck!

sigh.

[zach]

DW, follow up response. it's impossible really to point out evidence of what the government isn't doing. if i knew more about the subject, i might be able to judge the evidence in support of the position that it is. but again, i don't, and again, i was just pointing out the immediate flaws in your argument.

[joe]

OK, now we're getting into semantics.

I'm using "static" to mean "the inputs won't change." The same energy from the sun, the same composition of gasses in the atmosphere, and human carbon output expanding at the estimated rate given the "do nothing scenario."

You're using it to refer to the internal dynamics of the climate.

My point was that the models estimating the costs of efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses are static, in my sense - that they don't account for the fact that one of the inputs (technology, ie, the cost of each unit of reduction) will change.

Mr. Bailey responded that the climate change models are themselves static, by my definition. They assume that the rate of carbon emission will also not change, or rather, that their increase will be that predicted by assuming that future expansion of economic activity will be just as carbon-intensive as modern economic activity.

I responded by saying that the climate models are supposed to offer a static view. Their purpose is to tell us what will happen if we do nothing - that is, if the rate of carbon emission per unit of economic activity remains constant - so we can understand the importance of lowing that rate.

[David Woycechowsky]

Samuelson said that energy is a security issue. I agree (altho I would quibble with use of the indefinite article mod'ing "security issue"). That is why defense money should go to energy research. That is the natural implication of labelling energy as a "security issue" (as contrasted with a welfare issue or a freedom issue).

From your 2 posts, not clear where you stand:

first post says to presume that DoD is doing energy research.

2d post says that DoD shouldn't be doing the research because the Iraq war is a more important security issue.

which is it?

[phocion]

For the record, I'm doing Bush admin-funded, non-military energy research for a living right now.

[David Woycechowsky]

In general terms, how does your budget stack up against the Iraq war budget? Are there orders of magnitude in the difference when making the relevant comparisons?

[David Woycechowsky]

Cancel that last question, Pho. U r not doing research as a defnse item or as a security issue. Your work is probably useful, but not relevant to this discussion.

[phocion]

For the record, I'm also switching over to a new DoD research job in the fall. My job will be developing new kinds of nuclear reactors for more than 20 years down the road.

I'm not quite sure what your point is.

[Sandy]

I agree with you, joe, except for one point: the static climate models aren't helpful if they don't take into account the natural nature of technology to improve and emissions to reduce even without special political programs. So assuming that energy use per computer will expand with the number of computers based on 2000 data, when Pentiums could fry eggs and LCD monitors were virtually unused, doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

So if the climate models straw-man the increase, it makes it easier for ostritch types to dismiss them entirely.

A more accurate climate model would also be a better benchmark against which to measure any policies you want to implement--Best Available Technology regimes would look worse in that model compared to targets and tradeable permits, for example.

[fyodor]

joe,

Sandy is right, of course. But to look at it another way, your "do nothing scenario" ignores that humans are always doing something, regardless of whether government does!

[phocion]

Civilian energy research is generally handled by the DoE, by the way. The DoD does a lot of classified energy work that won't be relevant for energy markets in the near future.

[Don Mynack]

I think the point is that Mr. Woycechowsky has no point. He's hijacked a post about climate change into a rant against the Iraq war. The fact that there never was such a ridiculous choice ("Should we invade Iraq or research alternate energy solutions, because we certainly can't do both!"), plus the fact that you have now proven that we are actually doing both, completely invalidates his rather tiresome hypothetical argument.

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." - Winston Churchill

[joe]

Sandy,

The problem with that theory is that our carbon output continues to increase - it just increases slightly slower than economic activity. The decrease in carbon intensity per economic unit doesn't translate into less carbon, but more carbon and more economic activity.

The private-sector responses to the global warming problem don't disprove the climate models, but respond to them.

[zach]

mynack, you were just waiting for a chance to use that quote, weren't you?

[joe]

Back to the original point, the hypocrisy in question can be seen by the fact that the efforts that European countries have implemented are still too new to bear fruit?

If a hausfrau tells her neighbor her kitchen floor is dirty, while mopping her own floor, does the neighbor get to complain about hypocrisy because the hausfrau hasn't finished mopping yet?

[David Woycechowsky]

My point is that the race to new energy sources and techniques are a lot more important than the Iraq War.

It is not important because it will help people live better lives (but that is nice).

It is not important because military subs need good power sources (but that is nice, too).

Rather, energy is important because it will be crucial to defending US borders in the long run. To spell it out for you, when the energy runs out, some nations will do desparate and violent things to get a share of the dwindling oil remnants. When you realize that, you realize what a silly waste of money the Iraq War was and is.

Pho, your research is nice, but it sounds like it is seen as some kind of economic stimulant, rather than a security issue. If energy were seen as a true security issue you wouldn't have time to be on this board. You would be working overtime like our women and men stationed in Iraq are.

[David Woycechowsky]

Mr. Woycechowsky *quoted* the relevant portion of the Samuelson article. The nexus is clear. Stop being a jerk.

[rafuzo]

I'm wondering what administrative position Mr. Woycechowsky holds that permits him to authoritatively decide what is and is not a worthwhile expenditure of government funds.

[David Woycechowsky]

Citizen, voter, taxpayer.

[David Woycechowsky]

and all-round hyper-intelligent guy, to boot.

[illegitimate son of dwight eva]

Right, well, so am I, but I don't take that as license to tell someone that the research they do is or is not important to the people funding it.

[rafuzo]

Sorry, that's my alter ego. Sometimes I get myself confused with myself.

[David Woycechowsky]

I did not say that any research was *unimportant.* I did say that someone's research was not *relevant for the present discussion.* That is a different thing. Hyper-intelligent ppl can see this distinction. Learn it.

[zach]

joe, samuelson's argument is distinguishable from your analogy in that, in the case of mopping a floor, it's obvious that mopping it will eventually result in its being clean. whether or not the measures adopted by the ED will eventually result in significant decreases in global warming is at the very least less obvious.

i don't want to argue the point, since i admittedly don't know much on the issue, but i thought it was worth clarifying what the argument is.

[zach]

that is, the EU, obviously. too much Kelo bullshit lately.

[ed]

Good column, until I came to this part:

"What should we do? Even with today's high gasoline prices, we ought to adopt a stiff oil tax and tougher fuel economy standards..."

(sigh)

It's not easy being consistent.

[joe]

zach, perhaps that is true, but it is wholly irrelevant to the issue of hypocrisy.

[rudy]

There are HUGE uncertainties in these CO2 models. For instance:

"... Total human CO2 emissions primarily from use of coal, oil, and natural gas and the production of cement are currently about 5.5 GT C per year.

To put these figures in perspective, it is estimated that the atmosphere contains 750 Gt C; the surface ocean contains 1,000 Gt C; vegetation, soils, and detritus contain 2,200 Gt C; and the intermediate and deep oceans contain 38,000 Gt C (3). Each year, the surface ocean and atmosphere exchange an estimated 90 Gt C; vegetation and the atmosphere, 60 Gt C; marine biota and the surface ocean, 50 Gt C; and the surface ocean and the intermediate and deep oceans, 100 Gt C (3).

So great are the magnitudes of these reservoirs, the rates of exchange between them, and the uncertainties with which these numbers are estimated that the source of the recent rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide has not been determined with certainty (4). Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are reported to have varied widely over geological time, with peaks, according to some estimates, some 20-fold higher than at present and lows at approximately 18th-Century levels (5).

The current increase in carbon dioxide follows a 300-year warming trend: Surface and atmospheric temperatures have been recovering from an unusually cold period known as the Little Ice Age. The observed increases are of a magnitude that can, for example, be explained by oceans giving off gases naturally as temperatures rise. Indeed, recent carbon dioxide rises have shown a tendency to follow rather than lead global temperature increases (6)..."

Source and references:

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

[zach]

you're right, unless the non-mopping-woman adopts the opposite stance that mopping a floor could in no way result in the cleanliness of the floor, and moreover that the mopping woman has secretly known this all along. which is definitely a problem with samuelson's logic; that is, he admits that it's uncertain what's going to happen, but that the EU are still a bunch of hypocrites.

now if they claim that their measures are definitely, beyond the shadow of a doubt going to result in significantly reduced global warming worldwide, that wouldn't make them hypocrites, just good old-fashioned liars.

[Externalities.]

Good column, until I came to this part:

"What should we do? Even with today's high gasoline prices, we ought to adopt a stiff oil tax and tougher fuel economy standards..."

(sigh)

It's not easy being consistent.

Externalities.

[joe]

rudy,

Would you be ok if I raised the level of mercury in your blood to 400 parts per million? That ratio would be far smaller than the ratio between human CO2 emissions and natural sources.

Let's not play the "Gee, that's a big/small number" game.

[Paul]

Joe:
Isn't a little silly to set up "technological innovation" and government mandates as independent opposites? The catalytic converter, the smoke stack scrubber, and an untold number of trash disposal practices came about because the government demanded a higher level of cleanliness.

You're making the classic, and in your defense, very common mistake of confusing 'cleanliness' with reduced carbon dioxide. Both politicians and media types equate things like catalytic converters and smoke stack scrubbers with reductions in carbon dioxide 'pllutants'. Co2 is not a pollutant, and more importantly, there is no 'trap' for c02. Currently, the only solution is to burn less fuel. Therefore, C02 is a fuel economy solution. This is the argument that was made recently in the state of washington which is/was preparing to adopt Californias fuel emissions standards. The detractors of these standards rightly said, that CO2 is NOT an emissions issue, as there is no trap to block co2. Therefore the issue is one of fuel economy- ie burning less fuel.

There is technology being proposed to 'defer' or 'sequester' co2, but the co2 is still produced. You simply have to put it somewhere else. In the ground, in your soda pop, allow plants to absorb it etc. While I understand your overall point, the problem with Kyoto is that the only way to achieve it is to burn less fuel- read: quit driving, use nuclear. And the political issues surrounding these are too hot for politicians to fess up to and face. So political grandstanding rules the day, while nothing changes.

Paul

[paul]

the smoke stack scrubber,

Joe:

And furthermore, the smokestack scrubber, in the end, caused a whole set of other problems. It subsidized dirty factories by forcing newer, cleaner factories to install the same scrubbers, even though theey werent' needed. Therefore preventing older burners from having to 'compete' with the newer ones. Old, dirty plants LOVED smokestack scrubbers because it allowed them to keep burning the same old fuel types with the same old technology. It protected them from innovation.

Paul

[rudy]

Joe, the precision of data measurements and their order of magnitude is what science deals with.

Any computer model that does not is not worth relying on.

By the way, Joe, you seem a bit hostile ... it would be better for you to try to disprove the data cited in the references than to wish to poison the messenger ... that is the way real science works.

[joe]

Paul,

1) I didn't refer to C02 as a "pollutant," or suggest that it can be cleaned.

2) The growing technology of sequestration leaves your "efficiency only" argument hanging by only the semantic thread of the word "currently."

3) I also included household waste disposal techniques in my list of technological advances.

4) Why should I care whether a factory achieves it air quality mandates with scrubbers or with better processes? They either put crap in the air I breathe, or they don't.

[joe]

rudy, I don't have to disprove data to point out its irrelevance. You've stated that human CO2 output is just a fraction of total atmospheric CO2, in an effort to demonstrate that it is not a significant determinant of temperature.

I pointed out the irrelevance of your point. That your point is also accurate doesn't matter.

[rudy]

Joe, it is both accurate and relevent:

..."There is such a thing as the greenhouse effect. Greenhouse gases such as H2O and CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere decrease the escape of terrestrial thermal infrared radiation. Increasing CO2, therefore, effectively increases radiative energy input to the Earth. But what happens to this radiative input is complex: It is redistributed, both vertically and horizontally, by various physical processes, including advection, convection, and diffusion in the atmosphere and ocean.

When an increase in CO2 increases the radiative input to the atmosphere, how and in which direction does the atmosphere respond? Hypotheses about this response differ and are schematically shown in figure 9. Without the greenhouse effect, the Earth would be about 14 ?C cooler (25). The radiative contribution of doubling atmospheric CO2 is minor, but this radiative greenhouse effect is treated quite differently by different climate hypotheses. The hypotheses that the IPCC has chosen to adopt predict that the effect of CO2 is amplified by the atmosphere (especially water vapor) to produce a large temperature increase (14). Other hypotheses, shown as hypothesis 2, predict the opposite that the atmospheric response will counteract the CO2 increase and result in insignificant changes in global temperature (25-27). The empirical evidence of figures 5-7 favors hypothesis 2. While CO2 has increased substantially, the large temperature increase predicted by the IPCC models has not occurred (see figure 11).

The hypothesis of a large atmospheric temperature increase from greenhouse gases (GHGs), and further hypotheses that temperature increases will lead to flooding, increases in storm activity, and catastrophic world-wide climatological changes have come to be known as ''global warming'' a phenomenon claimed to be so dangerous that it makes necessary a dramatic reduction in world energy use and a severe program of international rationing of technology (29).

The computer climate models upon which ''global warming'' is based have substantial uncertainties. This is not surprising, since the climate is a coupled, non-linear dynamical system in layman's terms, a very complex one. Figure 10 summarizes some of the difficulties by comparing the radiative CO2 greenhouse effect with correction factors and uncertainties in some of the parameters in the computer climate calculations. Other factors, too, such as the effects of volcanoes, cannot now be reliably computer modeled.

In effect, an experiment has been performed on the Earth during the past half-century an experiment that includes all of the complex factors and feedback effects that determine the Earth's temperature and climate. Since 1940, atmospheric GHGs have risen substantially. Yet atmospheric temperatures have not risen. In fact, during the 19 years with the highest atmospheric levels of CO2 and other GHGs, temperatures have fallen.

Not only has the global warming hypothesis failed the experimental test; it is theoretically flawed as well. It can reasonably be argued that cooling from negative physical and biological feedbacks to GHGs will nullify the initial temperature rise (26, 30).

The reasons for this failure of the computer climate models are subjects of scientific debate. For example, water vapor is the largest contributor to the overall greenhouse effect (31). It has been suggested that the computer climate models treat feedbacks related to water vapor incorrectly (27, 32).

The global warming hypothesis is not based upon the radiative properties of the GHGs themselves. It is based entirely upon a small initial increase in temperature caused by GHGs and a large theoretical amplification of that temperature change. Any comparable temperature increase from another cause would produce the same outcome from the calculations.

At present, science does not have comprehensive quantitative knowledge about the Earth's atmosphere. Very few of the relevant parameters are known with enough rigor to permit reliable theoretical calculations. Each hypothesis must be judged by empirical results. The global warming hypothesis has been thoroughly evaluated. It does not agree with the data and is, therefore, not validated..."

op cit

[Eric the .5b]

Waiting until the problem is advanced enough that we start seeing the destruction and dislocation is irresponsible and self destructive. This is why we call out the public and National Guard to stack sandbags BEFORE the town gets flooded, not when the water is already up to the top step of the general store.

Yes, but we don't call out the National Guard every time the meteorologist think it's more likely than not to rain, either.

[Shawn Smith]

"... Total human CO2 emissions primarily from use of coal, oil, and natural gas and the production of cement are currently about 5.5 GT C per year...

...Each year, the surface ocean and atmosphere exchange an estimated 90 Gt C; vegetation and the atmosphere, 60 Gt C; marine biota and the surface ocean, 50 Gt C; and the surface ocean and the intermediate and deep oceans, 100 Gt C (3)...

(emphasis mine)

joe, wrt your 400ppm Hg comment, rudy's post pointed out that the annual exchange occurring "naturally" was one or two orders of magnitude larger than human CO2 emmissions. It might have been more appropriate for you to offer to change the barometric pressure of the air in his house by up to 7mm Hg (each year.)

[Eric the .5b]

Strike that "either".

[Paul]

Joe:

I didn't refer to C02 as a "pollutant,"

Not directly, but you bundled the subject along with pollutant scrubbers and 'waste disposal'. "Removing co2" is on an entirely different plane. We're mixing a discussion energy conversion (physics) with a 'cleaner environment'. The media and politicians repeatedly use the word CO2 and 'pollutant' interchangably.

your "efficiency only" argument hanging by only the semantic thread of the word "currently."

Yes, but this requires a broad discussion of physics- which makes for blog posts too long for anyone to care.

Why should I care whether a factory achieves it air quality mandates with scrubbers or with better processes?

You obviously missed the point. The point was to draw the comparison with Kyoto. IF the factories would achieve air quality standards WITHOUT the mandates, or the specific mandates required, then all you have is an empty mandate. The problem with Kyoto is it creates an empty mandate. It would be NO different than a treaty which stated: "Poverty will be reduced by 10% below 1990 levels". Blank out.

The kyoto protocol seeks to fix something which may not be a problem, is overstated, and admitted to be such even by many of the supporters, and makes no mention of proces or cost, and will most likely cause greater co2 emissions to be thrown into the air by reducing the overall wealth and economy of nations which can afford to implement kyoto.

Reducing CO2 is a perk of wealthy nations. It's like double-tall latte with whip cream vs. a poor mans meal of bread and water. In fact, as has been repeatedly proven time and time again, the protection of the environment is in and of itself only possible by a wealthy nation and wealthy people. When a people are struggling to make a living from the dirt, there's not a lot of time to sit and ponder the environment- only time to get your next meal and build a shelter.

[joe]

rudy,

Good job cutting and pasting from the non-peer reviewed Oregon Institute paper.

"Hypotheses differ" about evolution, as well. A paper that made it through peer review would probably contain some language about the likelihood of various hypotheses being true, and the level of consensus among researchers in the field about various hypotheses' reliability - but then, such language would undercut the authors' efforts to muddle the science.

Eric, the climatologists aren't saying things like "more likely that not."

[joe]

"and will most likely cause greater co2 emissions to be thrown into the air by reducing the overall wealth and economy of nations which can afford to implement kyoto."

Because, of course, the economic impacts of environmental regulation are never overstated by the industries effected. Did you that if the United States bans leaded gasoline, there will be no automobile manufacturing in the U.S. by 1975.

And, of course, the technologies created by innovative, wealthy countries don't ever filter down to developing countries.

[joe]

"In fact, as has been repeatedly proven time and time again, the protection of the environment is in and of itself only possible by a wealthy nation and wealthy people."

What has also been proven time and time again (Easter Island, anyone?) wealthy nations and wealthy people are only possible, for any extended period of time, when the environment is adequately protected.

When you put these two irrefutable statements together, you get the concept known as "sustainable development."

Zero-sum wars between capitalists and environmentalists are soooooooo 1970s.

[Eric the .5b]

Eric, the climatologists aren't saying things like "more likely that not."

If you get past the activists, ideologues, and media hangers-on, that's precisely what they say. At the current time, more evidence supports that some degree of human-caused global warming is happening than not.

More specifically, more climatologists think it is happening than don't. However, even the ones that do think global warming is happening have widely varying opinions on how much is taking place. The data simply aren't clear enough, yet.

Enforcing massive government regulations on some nations like the US to attempt to address some point on the spectrum of possibilities is rather like calling out the National Guard because the weatherman predicts 90% chance of rain, with rainfall around 0.5 to 20 inches.

[rudy]

joe, the paper analyzes data, cites the data, and presents an analysis that peers can accept or refute. If you can refute the sources cited or rebut the logic in the analysis, then let's hear it.

The site also links to a supporting letter from Frederick Seitz, Past President, National Academy of Sciences, and President Emeritus, Rockefeller University, as well as the names of nearly 20,000 peers who are on record as sharing the concerns reflected in the paper

And for another kind of peer reviewed analysis, on the relative benefits of various global initiatives,try

http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/

[Andrew Ian Dodge]

You want to see hypocrisy check out the Climate Change piece on BBC's Newsnight.

[Sandy]

Joe--

Even if the models don't show a reduction (you were assuming things about my argument that weren't there, such as a reduction), they are more accurate than models that don't show it. So while you have an increase in both, the slower increase is in the progress-adjusted model, for the same growth.

So if you have a scheme that reduces the growth of emissions at the cost of innovation, and that reduction is less than the innovation would bring naturally, it's not a good scheme.

[M1EK]

Eric and Rudy,

You guys are flirting with outright lies by claiming that climatologists' surety about global warming is best classified as "more likely than not". An honest observer of the science would classify it as "sure enough to justify spending trillions of dollars", since that's, in fact, what they're advocating, since they've seen how their science has become politicized by their adversaries in the same exact way the tobacco companies did in the last century.

[grylliade]

An honest observer of the science would classify it as "sure enough to justify spending trillions of dollars", since that's, in fact, what they're advocating

And, of course, even if that's true, climate scientists are the people in the best position to decide whether those trillions of dollars are best spent on global warming or on other things. Because there are no tradeoffs involved, or anything. So we should just listen to the experts, and do as we're told.

[freedom4all]

The state and its scientific lackeys will always try to keep us in an infantile state by concocting gloomy scenarios. Oppose misguided attempts to predict earthquakes. Free agents can take care of themselves.

[M1EK]

grylliade,

I sure as hell trust climate scientists funded by universities more than I trust the handful of bought skeptics paid for by the oil companies.

[Anonymous]

Uh-huh, no need to actually examine what they're saying, eh?

[grylliade]

I sure as hell trust climate scientists funded by universities more than I trust the handful of bought skeptics paid for by the oil companies.

I trust that they are giving us their best guess as to climate. I think there are reasons to be skeptical that they're as certain as they think they are, but I'm willing to grant that they're not being dishonest. The problem is, if they're right, what to do about it. And that's where I'm not going to give a climate scientist the benefit of the doubt. Everyone thinks that their pet project is the most important one, and that if it's not fully funded to the level that they demand immediately, disaster will occur.

The point is, even if anthropogenic global warming is as serious as the doomsayers believe, that doesn't mean that they're right about the solutions. The trillions of dollars that they're demanding to stop global warming might be better off spent to adjust to global warming. Or it might not. The climate scientists aren't the ones to decide; they get their input, but a lot of other people need to be in on the decision too. Including us ordinary schmoes, with our demands that our quality of life not be compromised too much. Maybe that won't be doable, but we sure as hell shouldn't take a hit to our quality of life just because the climate scientists insist that that's the only way to avert disaster.

[M1EK]

grylliade,

That's fine; but the other people on your side of the fence are (dishonestly) throwing up whatever they think will stick, whether it's claiming that consensus about GW happening at all doesn't exist (bull), that there isn't consensus about a big chunk being human-caused (bull), that there isn't consensus about it being BAD NEWS (bull, but you yourself flirted with that one...)

Anybody who understands science would assume that messing with the big complicated climate machine when there isn't a lot of slack left in the food supply is foolish. Even if GW just ended up being something as simple as a +3 F change everywhere in the world, some of the habitat where important species would need to migrate to is now inaccessible for a variety of reasons (think how much potential replacement farmland in this country is covered with suburban crap, for instance).

[geezer bob]

M1EK

Frankly, I don't give a shit if you believe that crap about GW.

I'm glad I'll be dead before luddite fuckers like you put everyone on the planet back in caves.

[M1EK]

geezer bob,

Fuck off.

[Amara]

It is certainly worth to continue learning and studying the Sun-Earth system, in general, and the global warming in particular, in order to be able to separate man-made causes from natural reasons, and to estimate the costs. The climate change question is perhaps the most crucial question today that science should answer for the policy-makers.

As a person not working in the climate field, but as a scientist (astronomer), nevertheless, I have listened to many scientific arguments (pro and con). When I read detailed climate change reports, all pointing to real man-made warming trends, within a short ~1/2-year in the well-researched and close-to-mainstream press: _The Economist_, _New Scientist_, and _Physics Today_, then I notice, because surely these cannot all be the results of the scientists riding the gravy train, as the skeptics claim.

I suggest for the readers to pick up:

1) The Economist: ''A Canary in the Coal Mine'', November 13, 2004.

2) Fred Pearce, ''Climate Change: Menace or Myth?'', New Scientist, 12 February 2005.

3) Judith Lean ''Living with a Variable Sun,'' June 2005 Physics Today.

From 1), you will read that the (very sensitive) Arctic _is_ warming, and such a warming could have alarming consequences on global climate. Are we sure that there is a man-made warming trend, though? Yes, if you read in detail the next two references.

Reference 2) states the primary physics of what gases (for example, CO2) in the atmosphere trap infrared radiation emitted by the Earth's surface, which leads to a greenhouse effect, and the article shows the increase of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere over the last 60 years. Increased atmospheric heat is the simple physical and chemical result. The warming is real, but how does that compare to 'natural' warming in Earth's history, due to variabilities in the Sun's output?

The third 3) reference describes the Sun-Earth energy flow in detail, and what should be particularly interesting to readers of this subject are the terrestrial responses to solar activity. The author Lean writes (pg.37):

''Contemporary habitat pressure is primarily from human activity rather than solar. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased 31% since 1750. A doubling of greenhouse-gas concentrations is projected to warm Earth's surface by 4.2K. Solar-driven surface temperature changes are substantially less, unlikely to exceed 0.5K and maybe as small as 0.1K (points to Fig 3). Nevertheless, they must be reliably specified so that policy decisions on global change have a firm scientific basis. Furthermore, climate encompasses more than surface temperatures, and future surprises, perhaps involving the Sun's influence on drought and rainfall, are possible.''

[rudy]

The solar influence, linked to sunspot activity which has been extremely high lately, may indeed be a primary cause of both our warming and the recent rapid increase in melting/subliming of the polar icecaps on Mars.

I don't think the Martian melting has much to do with CO2 levels.

What else would cause both Earth and Mars to evidently be in a slow warming phase?