Dec 292014
 
 December 29, 2014  Posted by at 3:53 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , ,


NPC Tank truck with plow clearing snow, Washington, DC 1922

This is an article from our friend Euan Mearns’ site, Energy Matters, written by Euan’s co-conspirator, Roger Andrews. It was originally published here.

Roger Andrews: Many people, including more than a few prominent politicians, accept that global warming must be limited to no more than two degrees C above the pre-industrial mean, or a little more than one degree C above where we are now, to avoid dangerous interference with the Earth’s climate. Let’s assume these people are right, that the 2C threshold really does represent the climatic equivalent of a cliff and that bad things will happen if we drive off it.

So how do we apply the brakes?

According to the IPCC by limiting cumulative future global carbon emissions to no more than 500 gigatons, and even then we would have only a two-thirds chance of success:

To have a better than two-thirds chance of limiting warming to less than 2°C from pre-industrial levels the total cumulative carbon dioxide emission from all human sources since the start of the industrial era would need to be limited to about 1,000 gigatonnes of carbon. About half of this amount had already been emitted by 2011.

Here we will ignore the one-third chance of failure and use 500 gigatons as the “safe” emissions limit. Can we stay below it? Figure 1 summarizes the current position. The black line (data from EDGAR) shows progress, or lack thereof, in cutting global emissions since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) started the ball rolling in 1992. The red line is a projection of the black line. The blue line, which intersects zero in 2117, amounts to 500 Gt of future carbon emissions. I assumed a linear decrease for simplicity but other pathways are of course possible:

Figure 1: Current position on cutting global emissions to “safe” levels

Obviously the world is going to have to reverse course in a hurry if it is to have any chance of keeping warming below the 2C danger threshold. What are the chances that it can? Let’s look at which countries the emissions are coming from and see what the prospects are.

The world’s emitters are commonly divided into two categories – the “developed” countries, such as the US, UK, Germany and Japan, and the “developing” countries, such as Egypt, India, Malawi and Paraguay. We will look first at the developed countries, which presently emit a third of the world’s carbon. Developed country emissions for 1970 through 2012 are summarized in Figure 2:

Figure 2: Developed country emissions from fossil fuel burning, 1970-2012

The United States accounts for 16% of global emissions (the percentages given here are from 2012 EDGAR data). US emissions have been trending down since 2005 partly because of the shale gas boom and partly because of the 2008 recession. The Obama administration recently adopted rules designed to cut US emissions further but whether they will survive is uncertain, and even if they do the chances that Congress as presently constituted will agree to emissions cuts unless the developing countries follow suit are effectively zero. The 1997 US Senate rejected US participation in the Kyoto Protocol for this reason, and given the opportunity the present Senate would do the same.

The European Union accounts for 11% of global emissions. For some years the EU has been setting an example to the world by unilaterally pursuing ambitious emissions targets, although so far with little to show for it (the downtrend in EU emissions since 2006 is largely a result of the 2008 recession and the EU’s slow recovery). The realization that the EU can’t save the planet all by itself is, however, finally beginning to sink in, and as a result the EU has hardened its negotiating position, stating at the Lima climate talks that mandatory emissions targets must now be set for all countries, not just the developed ones.

Australia, Canada and Japan collectively emit 7% of the world’s carbon. All three are presently somewhat less than enthusiastic about emissions cuts and are unlikely to become greatly more enthusiastic in the foreseeable future. They won’t move unless everyone else does.

Now on to the developing countries, which emit two-thirds of the world’s carbon and are responsible for all of the growth in global emissions since the world embarked on its quest to cut them in 1992. Developing country emissions are summarized in Figure 3:

Figure 3: Developing country emissions from fossil fuel burning, 1970-2012

China, which now accounts for 29% of global emissions (according to EDGAR; other sources put the figure at 25-26%) is the key player. The UNFCCC exempts China and the other developing countries from emissions caps – in fact it encourages them to build more power plants in order to eradicate poverty – and China wants to keep it that way. China pays lip service to the need to combat climate change but considers economic development far more important, as illustrated in Figure 4. The total disregard for the “Spirit of Kyoto” is almost comical:

Figure 4: China’s emissions before and after ratifying the Kyoto Protocol

(The lip service consists of a) China’s 2005 commitment to reduce its carbon intensity – the amount of carbon emitted per unit of GDP – by 40-45% by 2020 and b) its recent commitment to make its best efforts to peak its emissions by 2030. Figure 4 shows what happened to China’s emissions after its 2005 commitment. Its latest commitment pretty much guarantees that its emissions will continue to rise for at least the next 15 years.)

India, with 6% of global emissions, makes no bones about where it stands: “The world must accept that India’s per capita carbon emissions will need to rise rapidly if it is to eliminate poverty, the environment minister said on Friday, as delegates meet in Lima for key UN climate change talks.” Economic development takes priority over the need to combat climate change in India too, as illustrated in Figure 5:

Figure 5: India’s emissions before and after ratifying the Kyoto Protocol

The position of Russia, which accounts for 5% of global emissions, is predictable. Under Kyoto Russia committed to keep its emissions below 1990 levels and its emissions are still well below 1990 levels (Figure 3). Putin has other things to worry about anyway.

The other developing countries, which collectively contribute 26% of global emissions, include some in a reasonably advanced state of economic development, such as South Korea and Chile, but otherwise are mostly poor. The poor countries are more than willing to limit their emissions provided the developed countries pay all the costs, and in 2011 the Green Climate Fund was set up to get the ball rolling. So far, however, contributions amount to only $10 billion – a negligible sum relative to the scale of the undertaking. We can safely assume that funds on the scale necessary to reverse the 3% historic annual growth rate in other developing country emissions will not be made available, or at least not quickly enough to do any good.

The bottom line is that the developed countries won’t commit to emissions cuts of the magnitude necessary to stay below the 2C threshold unless the developing countries shoulder at least some of the burden, but the developing countries aren’t going to sacrifice economic development on the altar of climate change, threshold or no threshold. The most they are likely to agree to is token measures that get good publicity but which don’t cut emissions, as China has already done. As a result the developed countries will again be left to go it alone, which as shown in Figure 6 is an exercise in futility:

Figure 6: Developed and developing country carbon emissions, 1970-2012

The conclusion is inescapable. However desirable it may be to protect the Earth from the dire consequences of a runaway climate the chances that the world will agree to cut its emissions quickly enough to stay below the 2C threshold are somewhere between zip, zilch and zero. (There’s also the question of whether cuts of the magnitude necessary would be politically, economically and technologically achievable if the world does agree, but we’ll leave it aside here.)

Now imagine that you are one of the prominent politicians – Obama, Kerry, Merkel, Ban Ki-moon, Hollande, Cameron, Davey, whoever – who have publicly and repeatedly stated that climate change is the greatest threat facing the world, that the world is in serious trouble if nothing is done to stop it but that a solution is still within our reach. What do you tell people when next year’s make-or-break Paris climate talks show that it isn’t?

Home Forums What If The World Can’t Cut Its Carbon Emissions?

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  • #17923

    NPC Tank truck with plow clearing snow, Washington, DC 1922 This is an article from our friend Euan Mearns’ site, Energy Matters, written by Euan’s co
    [See the full post at: What If The World Can’t Cut Its Carbon Emissions?]

    #17925
    barbelll
    Participant

    Assuming that this is all true..the real problem is…that second world countries,want to be first world consumers,like North americans,and Europeans….and as long as first world countries,are content to let the rest of the world piss in the pickle jar,so they can have cheap goods,,how can things change?…do we condem the whore,or those who procure the service?

    #17927
    Dr. Diablo
    Participant

    You’re insane. Clearly we do not have working climate models. After 1+ decade of Global Warming-to-infinity rhetoric, there has been no warming for 10 years and now Global Warming scientists are with a straight face and I kid you not, advocating Global Cooling and in Ice Age as a sign of…Global Warming. (What??)

    Aside from this overwhelming failure to predict the climate even over decades, and the inability to model basic functions, like water vapor, they can claim to accurately predict the exact temperature and exact PPM that would cause a tipping point climactic change!

    Have these scientists not heard of Significant Digits, where you round off the numbers appropriate to your measurements, not to introduce a false appearance of accuracy? Even if the theory is totally sound, it is entirely unscientific at this point to pretend to know the exact PPM and degree change. Where is their accurate data set? The last times the climate tipped up or down, no humans were recording the change and process with any accuracy. The levels of inference just to wrest out accurate CO2 estimates from previous Ice Ages are themselves tenuous and astounding marvels of scientific inquiry–but you can’t then attribute perfect accuracy to them either, as we cannot cross-check them. So we have a cross-tested data set of…zero? That’s a lot of inference to assume a level of exactly 2c — not 3c, not 7c, is the exact point.

    Furthermore, by the nature of the math of chaos–or the math of systems with large numbers of variables–the tipping point can change wildly, radically, with tiny alterations in input measurements. So wildly that something huge that happens NOW, might indeed not happen in any reasonable time frame with a small adjustment in just a few input variables. That’s a ground ripe for data-fixing.

    Third, and this is just a footnote compared to the systemic, paradigm-breaking objections above, is that he does not issue a statement of timescale, or of homeostatic adjustment. That is, if the temperature were to change 4c in an hour, and stay that way for 1,000 years, it would indeed be more likely to be disruptive than if the temperature rose 1c every 250 years. Indeed, the most likely thing, from all geological and ecological theory that we have, is that an attempted rise in temperature and CO2 on the scale of 1,000 years would be absorbed by the earth (plant life + oceans) and never happen, as the earth is a living organism that absorbs incredible inputs (like volcanic dust and gasses) and still adjusts to near-homeostasis. That’s why the last time the earth went into an Ice Age, it didn’t just get infinitely colder until it resembled Neptune. And last time it got warmer, it didn’t get infinitely warmer until it resembled Mars. Why, and what exact speed it takes to upset the balance is subject to debate, but I’m quite sure no one knows. Anyone claiming to is a fool, and no offense, but those who believe such mind-altering levels of false accuracy are credulous ninnypants. Thought about for 10 minutes with a napkin and a dull pencil you could see we couldn’t possibly know this, or when, or how, even if the theory given is completely and unalterably true.

    In short, you’re insane.

    Luckily, as the article outlines, we don’t need to know, because nobody’s doing or going to do the slightest thing to alter it anyway. We will rely on the earth’s natural homeostasis, or we won’t, but men at this time are not going to voluntarily change, and in my opinion, they won’t have to. Peak Oil, peak resources, and collapse will solve it all for them.

    #17928
    E. Swanson
    Participant

    Looking at country based emissions of Carbon, aka: CO2 can be rather misleading. That’s because there’s a large component of the emissions which are counted for developing nations is actually used to produce products for the developed nations. Thus, the apparent reduction in carbon emissions seen in the data for developed nations, such as the US, is an illusion as we still are the ultimate cause of the emissions. Further more, the emissions from cross ocean shipping between nations is not credited to any nation, even though the fuel used promotes the trade and the final consumption in the developed nations.

    That’s the result of the globalization process in which major corporations have shifted production from nations with high labor costs to nations with much lower costs. The process has been facilitated by various trade agreements, such as NAFTA and the WTO. The result has been massive shift in imports of manufactured goods from Asian nations to the US and the EU. The next step in this process is the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. As Naomi Klein reports in her new book “This Changes Everything”, these treaty agreements have been used in legal challenges to prevent various renewable energy projects based on supposed free market limitations. The multinational corporations have gone to great lengths to lock in the present patterns of carbon emissions and thus there’s little chance that the world’s governments will actually reduce emissions, as seen by the fossil fuel industries virtual capture of the US government as the result of the last election.

    The fact that the Earth is a finite place and that fossil fuels are of finite quantity never seems to enter either the political or economic discussions and the climate limits are routinely ignored. So, 2 C is likely to be just a place mark on the rush to burn it all as fast as possible. It would appear that humanity is headed for species suicide as we continue to destroy the only known planet upon which humans can survive.

    #17929
    SteveB
    Participant

    The apparent premise that nations, and governments, would be the change-makers makes this whole exercise a distraction from what’s much more likely to result in change: finance, technology, economics, and geology, roughly in that order. I’d put politics somewhere below religion in the list of significant drivers of change in this area.

    #17933
    E. Swanson
    Participant

    Dr. Diablo clearly fails to understand the physics of the situation. The surface temperature is a balance between the incident solar energy and the radiant energy energy leaving at the top of the atmosphere. There has been very little variation in the solar input and the energy which exits the atmosphere is a function of the fourth power of the temperature (mol). Those two facts imply that the Earth’s temperature has been relatively stable in the recent past. Sure, we know that there were Ice Ages, in fact, we are still in a period dominated by Ice Ages. No one in the scientific community suggests that temperatures will “get infinitely warmer until it resembled Mars”, which BTW is very much colder than Earth. Perhaps the “D-Man” is thinking of Venus, where the surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead, but what the heck it’s just a small typo error, right?

    The rest of the post is also full of errors, like the claim that “the earth is a living organism that absorbs incredible inputs (like volcanic dust and gasses) and still adjusts to near-homeostasis”, when we know that a single large volcanic eruption can cool the Earth temporarily due to the sulfate cloud introduced into the stratosphere. To be sure, the impact fades as the cloud dissipates, but what humans are doing isn’t going to fade for centuries. Other very large eruptions seen in the geological record have had serious impacts, such as Kuwae about 1452 CE, which caused major crop failures in China and elsewhere, such as Greenland, and the Tambora eruption in 1815 which is said to have resulted in “The Year Without a Summer” in New England during 1816. Even a relatively minor eruption like Pinatubo is said to have reduced the average temperature about 1 C. Such evidence tells anyone who is listening that the Earth’s climate is much more sensitive to changes in the atmosphere than the “D-man” contends.

    #17934
    Diogenes Shrugged
    Participant

    The December 28 Debt Rattle included an article that attributed flooding in Bangladesh to rising sea levels. The article was clearly “climate change” propaganda. Flooding in Bangladesh is the result of subsidence, not rising sea levels. An enterprising Dutchman might identify Bangladesh as an opportunity to build a system of dikes, but only a shyster would suggest that carbon credits offer a better method of holding back the sea. My comments on the 28th also addressed the SINGLE GREATEST HUMAN-CONTROLLED FACTOR affecting climate change. It is a factor that is carefully omitted from every single one of the models. It is again glaringly omitted from today’s article.

    The climate change scam is no different from the Obamacare scam, the drug war scam, the too-big-to-fail scam, the Social Security scam, and a hundred other socialist government scams. It’s all about confiscating your money, initially through fraud and lies, and later by force. And even at a website like this one, where the financial scams are exposed and lamented, there is no shortage of suckers for similar scams.

    Governments are instituted among men to build empires around scams. These empires must be preserved at all costs. You were forced to pay for their construction and your children will be forced to pay for their maintenance, and not a single one of them will ever achieve the objective for which it was originally set up.

    It’s tempting to think that there are only two kinds of people in the world – – crooks and chumps. If somebody could convince me that those two groups would be the first to go when the human population crashes, I’d suddenly be in favor of whatever genocidal plans the elites have in mind. But the crooks need their chumps. So it’ll be that third group that must be eradicated.

    Anyway, it’s eighteen degrees Fahrenheit where I’m located today, and I can’t begin to tell you how overjoyed I am that it’s not two or three degrees warmer (sarc).

    #17935
    E. Swanson
    Participant

    Diogenes Shrugged suggests that the “chem trails” story is the cause of recent climate changes. I watched the video you posted and I’m not at all convinced. For starters, local weather modification isn’t the same as global warming. The US lower 48 is less than 1.8% of the surface area of the Earth and those “chem trails” would need to have a much larger area to have an impact on global climate. I’ve not noticed anything which looks like the claimed “chem trails” around here, though I’ve seen low level smog blowing in from the flat lands. Those videos looking skyward probably include local smog in the picture and there’s no way to separate the two from the video. One of the conference participants claimed that the “chem trails” were the result of injecting aluminum oxide into the jet engines, which was supposed to be reduced to pure aluminum during combustion. But, aluminum normally burns rapidly when heated and the hot exhaust would quickly mix with the air, providing lots of oxygen to return any pure aluminum nano particles to oxide. Besides, what sane pilot would mix the very abrasive aluminum oxide with the fuel which keeps the aircraft aloft? Lots of other hype on the video as well, for example, how often is this “spraying” done and where? Without considerably more hard data, I remain skeptical.

    #17936
    Ken Barrows
    Participant

    Gee, I don’t know. I just look at this website every day. The data will tell:
    https://cci-reanalyzer.org/DailySummary/
    Of course, anyone not agreeing with the data can claim it is fraudulent.

    #17938
    huckleberryfinn
    Participant

    Ken Barrows:
    “Huck,
    Back from the holiday, I see. Here’s the trend (whether it includes shadow banking, I don’t know) for the USA. I don’t think it’s better, actually maybe worse, in quite a number of other countries.

    https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/TCMDO

    I don’t expect a response but at least you can see it.”

    You did not just throw that extremely inane derivatives argument at me did ya?
    Seriously how retarded are the collective people here.
    Derivatives totals represent the underlying. So they are notional. No person on the planet will ever lose that much money. 98% of it are Interest rate linked and 95% of that is under 2 years maturity.
    Even if I had your IQ and actually got scared looking at those “Liabilities”, then you need to understand that all those “liabilities” are also someone else’s “Assets”. So if you count them on one side count them on the other.

    What you should focus is Net exposure, that takes into account potential losses after Margin requirements already put up are exhausted. That is around 12 Trillion dollars. Yes 12 Trillion in a world with Net assets (assets minus debts) exceeding 1 Quadrillion dollars. We are so fucking doomed.

    #17939
    Diogenes Shrugged
    Participant

    E. Swanson:

    Chemtrailing also occurs outside the U.S., including over the oceans. I’m unable to find the link I had in mind to show this, but these two provide a start:

    The World Awakens: America Sleeps – Chemtrails from Around the Globe, a Satellite View

    https://beforeitsnews.com/chemtrails/2014/10/chemtrails-swiss-govt-and-swiss-media-refuse-to-acknowledge-their-roles-in-the-chemtrail-depopulation-agenda-despite-massive-evidence-2449316.html

    You are correct about the chemistry of aluminum. The reference in that video to Al2O3 in jet fuel was news to me. I would expect aluminum to be a very soft metal compared with the metals in jet engines, but Al2O3 is extremely hard. Perhaps its abrasive qualities are attenuated due to the nano- particle size.

    There is an enormous amount of information and evidence available on the Internet concerning chemtrails (a.k.a. geoengineering), but it takes a great deal of time to sort through even a small part of it. Chemtrailing operations are secretive, so there is no single go-to place where the information is comprehensively assembled or peer-reviewed. Most websites addressing chemtrails are sensationalized with fear-mongering and calls for action, making an academic search for understanding frustrating.

    Chemtrails are not figments of crazy people’s imaginations. They are not a form of smog. If they are indeed altering the path of the jet stream with these things, and in conjunction with this, heating upper layers of the atmosphere with radio frequencies, it’s become far more than simply making it rain via cloud seeding. If climate models included the measured effects of chemtrails, I wouldn’t be here writing this. My concern is that this potentially consequential factor is carefully ignored. I’d like to know why that is. I’m a scientist, and it isn’t science when variables that affect measurements are ignored.

    All of that said, I included two videos in comments after the December 16 Debt Rattle conceding that chemtrails might have nothing to do with climate change in the first place.

    https://www.theautomaticearth.com/debt-rattle-december-16-2014/

    Wouldn’t you like to know for sure what this is all about yourself? Good luck.

    #17940
    Diogenes Shrugged
    Participant

    Sorry to be so long-winded here, but the topic of today’s article demands it. I just want to add a couple of observations.

    Water vapor is much more responsible for the greenhouse effect on Earth than carbon dioxide. For one thing, water vapor is measured as a percentage, whereas CO2 is measured in parts per million. Chemtrails are the visible condensations of atmospheric water on materials sprayed from jets. I have personally witnessed chemtrails near Denver stretching nearly from horizon to horizon, persisting all day long, day after day last summer when the skies were otherwise uniformly blue. They’re often especially heavy over Colorado Springs (south of me) where the Air Force Academy and NORAD are located. If you’re not seeing them where you live, that probably accounts for your disinterest (and easy dismissal).

    If the next step in the chemtrails program does in fact involve sprays that cannot be seen (hear the end of the third video I provided after the December 16 Debt Rattle, linked above), then what you will need to notice next year is that the chemtrails have seemingly vanished. I can only assume that will indicate to you that all is well and that I’m a nut. Well, you’ll be at least be half right.

    Also, I should have said “alarmism” rather than “fear mongering” in my previous comment.

    #17942
    Tulsatime
    Participant

    Wow, many loads of denial are spread out before us tonight. But the simple facts are before us, and as DD said, collapse will take care of it anyway. It seems quite organic and part of a loop that our particular life form would discover the substances that would both send it to the moon and overflow the flexibility of the planet to provide life as we know it. How many examples do we need from the past to see that humans are incapable of an off switch? It makes me curious to know what comes after this epoch. Will it be the small pockets of savages in the ruins, or a transcendant post homo sapiens mutation, or just one more ravaged planet in orbit?

    #17944
    E. Swanson
    Participant

    Diogenes Shrugged wrote: “If climate models included the measured effects of chemtrails, I wouldn’t be here writing this. My concern is that this potentially consequential factor is carefully ignored.”

    Pardon my curiosity, but, given the claim that “chem trails” are claimed to be some sort of super secret government project, why would you expect that the civilian scientists who run those climate models be expected to include any such impacts of these classified activities? Who would the modelers be able to obtain the parameters for input to the GCM’s???

    Next, you comment about water vapor, which is included in the models and is another source of warming. But, the physics tells us that the quantity of water vapor is a function of temperature, thus the value is the result of other forcings, i.e., greenhouse gases or aerosols. BTW, clouds, such as those claimed to be from “chem trails”, are aerosols, not water vapor. That’s why you can see them, just as you can see smoke. If the “chem trails sprays” can not be seen, they won’t interact with the incoming the sunlight either. If this latest version is invisible, how do you know it’s there, or, is their apparent lack now your evidence of their existence?

    #17945
    jonabark
    Participant

    Rather disappointing to see so many global warming deniers on a website I like. I even like Ron Paul ( the only political clue from Ilargi)apart from Paul’s abysmal denial of the need for ecological environmental regulation. Both libertarianism and Keynesian economics fail to include the role of a healthy ecosystem as the foundation of life and wealth. Still, I would take a sincere antiwar libertarian over either major US party.The idea that Climate Change is a socialist scam is funny. There are virtually no socialists with global power. All the big players are tied to fossil fuels and have nothing to gain by promoting the scientific consensus. In fact all the efforts of the true powers have been to suppress or discredit climate science and the threat from greenhouse gases, fracking, nuclear waste, and also to threaten the spineless politicos with economic devastation if they actally get serious about stopping the burning.. The US is much more of a functional international military and economic police state such as Mussolini would have celebrated as vindication of the glories of fascism, than anything resembling a liberal socialism.
    How long the denials will continue as the planet heats, the oceans acidify, the storms, floods and droughts devastate, the glaciers melt will probably get pretty weird.
    Anyway, I am glad you brought up the topic, but think you should take a more clear personal position.
    I also think Ilargi should give some acknowledgement in the blog of the work of Naomi Klein. She does impressive research and analysis on the ties between economic ideologies and social, political consequences.

    #17961

    jona,

    I do mention Naomi just about every chance I get, have done for years. Big fan of the Shock Doctrine.

    #17963
    Dr. Diablo
    Participant

    Mr. Swanson, you are correct. The example was Venus, not Mars.

    Your example of Tambora and Kuwae are just what I was looking for as the perfect example of rapid homeostasis. Naturally, the word “rapid” is relative to planetary scale, but here we have a dramatic, astounding influx of CO2 and ash, blocking out the sun not just measurably, but visibly crushing crops and climate on earth worldwide. And then? In a year, five, ten, gone like it never was. In geological terms, that’s as close to immediate as you’re going to get. Question is, where did it go? What happened to allow the earth to recover so fast? Again, the change did not tip infinitely to cold or to hot. Yet we claim to know the tipping point?

    This leads to my single point neither you nor Jonabark want to pick up, which is that we cannot know with adequate certainty many of the things which pop science is pretending to. Real science may understand its own limitations, but this is lost in translation to the public. Is admitting we don’t know things with adequate certainty now ‘denial’? It would seem more of an ‘admittal’. Admitting we don’t have the foundation to state with certainty where the geological tipping points are from within an infinitely complex feedback system and a very poor data set of previous examples just seems common sense. Again, the math alone, even with a very good but imperfect data set would tell you this.

    Okay, hate to do this, but let’s trot out the canard of the science itself: there remain many books of the “New Ice Age” scare of the 1970’s. They were certain we were headed to an Ice Age, even though the 1940s were arguably colder than the 1970’s and the temperature had been rising overall since the Medieval ‘Little Ice Age’–and note that’s way before humans were burning fossil fuels, or indeed fuels of any size. The Little Ice Age, if anything, may have caused areas of Europe to de-populate in disease and crop failure, and re-forest themselves. Nevertheless it got WARMER, not cooler with reforestation and lack of wood-fuel burning. Okay, back to the point: so after the 1970’s ‘New Ice Age’ was discredited, climate went dormant for a while until the “Global Warming” science books. Okay, fine, that can certainly be true. But 10 years since it hasn’t gotten warmer, which in geological terms neither proves nor disproves anthropogenic CO2-based warming (although since CO2 burning at this point is astronomic, like 1 cubic mile per year in oil alone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil and the model suggests temps ought to rising sharply). And now, I see Warming re-branded to Climate “Change”, and starting this year new pop science on how we’re going back into a cooling!

    I mean, seriously, this is my point. The breathless certainty that the world was cooling, then warming, then cooling — within the same generation of scientists! — is amazing to me. Fine, science is like that: we add new things, re-think things, yes! But what we DON’T do is seeing directions flip-flop every 15 years then believe ourselves absolutely, positively SURE we’re right this time. It doesn’t matter if Global Warming is real, or CO2 based, or anthropogenic, or reversible, or if it’s a natural variation, or will be easily subsumed by natural homeostasis, or if caused by microwave weather engineering as some suggest. The point is that we can’t be so gol-darned sure, although I’m sure we’d all like to be and it’s frustrating to admit that what we don’t know is a lot.

    That’s my point. We don’t know a lot, and we know a lot less than we think we do. Follow history of science, then human belief back as far as it goes and you’ll see a litany of what we don’t know and/or mis-thought. It’s humbling.

    But I’m sure we’re all much smarter than those guys and finally, this time WE KNOW FOR SURE. Exactly. Precisely. Where all the tipping points are. Honest.

    #17964
    E. Swanson
    Participant

    Dr. Diablo, you completely misunderstand the impacts of a large volcanic eruption. The CO2 added to the atmosphere is trivial as it hardly registers on the global measurements, the climate impact is the result of the sulfate cloud in the stratosphere, which causes a cooling for a few years. The atmosphere recovers rather quickly, since the mass of air is much smaller than the oceans, since if the atmosphere were a liquid with the density of water, it would be only 10 meters (34 ft) deep compared to the oceans which are kilometers deep. You apparently fail to understand that, while science never offers completely certainty, we have learned much more as the scientific method is applied and the models now capture most of the important aspects of both weather and climate.

    You repeat the often debunked denialist claim that there was agreement among the climate community in the 1970’s that the Earth was entering another Ice Age. To be sure, the evidence tells us that we are in a period of recurring Ice Ages and thus another round is likely to begin at some point in the future. But, the few reports in the media, such as that in TIME magazine, or the book “The Cooling” by Lowell Ponte (a science writer for Reader’s Digest), do not prove the denialist claims. The models have improved considerably since 1979, as any effort to understand the work over the 35 years since then will show you. The so-called “Little Ice Age” is likely to have been the result of more vigorous volcanic activity, in addition to the two very big ones I mentioned. As for your claim of 10 years with no warming, please explain why the sea-ice in the Arctic has exhibited a steady decline during that period. Lastly, it appears that 2014 will be found to be the warmest year in the record, since it is almost there after the first 11 months.

    #17965
    Snowleopard
    Participant

    “Many people, including more than a few prominent politicians, accept that global warming must be limited to no more than two degrees C above the pre-industrial mean, or a little more than one degree C above where we are now, to avoid dangerous interference with the Earth’s climate. Let’s assume these people are right, that the 2C threshold really does represent the climatic equivalent of a cliff and that bad things will happen if we drive off it”
    ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

    This is indeed what has happened. Politicians made assumptions then hired “scientists” and created the IPCC to “validate” their assumptions. The so called consensus (a political, not scientific action) was in place even before the validation research began. Then a massive psyop was launched to program the sheeple. Many scientists wanting to do research to falsify the assumptions were denied funding and sometimes lost their positions.

    Let’s withdraw the assumption(s).

    We are indeed in a period of global warming, aka the Holocene interglacial, which started ~12.7ky BP with a “catastrophic” temperature rise of 8-11C in ~300yr and caused a sea level rise of ~400 ft.

    https://www.rockyhigh66.org/stuff/gisp2temperaturexaxispr.png

    Until ~3ky BP the average temperature of the Holocene was 2C above current. Until recently that period was called the Climactic Optimum. Since then it has been cooling and by most accounts we are nearing the end of this interglacial period:

    https://www.iceagetheatre.ca/ice_age_canada/gisp2-ice-core-temperatures_1.jpg

    If it were possible to continue that graphic to the present, it would show a small new spike above the trendline called “modern warming” and the beginning of a decline.

    https://s90.photobucket.com/user/dhm1353/media/Climate%20Change/HolHad.png.html

    CO2 is often used in commercial greenhouses. It does not raise the greenhouse temperature but does increase plant growth and temperature tolerance. Optimum levels are 700-1000ppm depending on crop.

    So bottom line, if we do indeed double atmospheric CO2 and it caused a 1.+C rise in average atmospheric temperature (doubtful) it would have the possible effect of delaying the oncoming ice age and the certain effect of increasing plant growth and temperature tolerance.

    #17970
    E. Swanson
    Participant

    Oh, no, another denialist pops up from out of nowhere. Snowleopard, begins it’s attack with serious errors, getting the date for the warm up at the end of the Younger Dryas wrong, giving the date for the beginning of that cool down instead. In support, we are given 3 graphs of the GISP2 ice core data for delta O18 to look at, apparently without realizing that that data does not represent GLOBAL temperature, only the temperature of the source precipitation which was later deposited in the snow pack. It’s well known that the high latitudes are more sensitive to changes in climate because of the snow/land and sea-ice/ocean albedo feedbacks. The difference in global temperature between the Last Glacial Maximum (about 20k years BP) and the pre-industrial value may have been only 5K colder. In addition, the sea level at LGM was some 120 m (400 ft) below present, but the melting of the glaciers after LGM had already resulted in a rise of about 80 m by the beginning of the Y-D period.

    Then, we are told that just because commercial greenhouses use increased CO2 in a closed environment with adequate water and other nutrients that we should look forward to increased plant growth and temperature tolerance. Other research efforts have shown such a conclusion is not warranted in real world situations which would likely include less water available for crops. Plant growth is limited by Liebeg’s Law of the Minimum. But, hey, don’t let a little science stand in the way of your rants.

    #17972
    Golden Oxen
    Participant

    Hi Snowleopard, Great to hear from you again and know you are well. Another winter before us my friend, hope it’s not as bad as last year. Regards, GO

    #17973
    Snowleopard
    Participant

    @ GO: Hi. Hoping you are well too. I’ve been busy IRL, and don’t post much these days. But sometimes, when I have time, defenders of the big lies can motivate me!

    @ Swanson: Thanks for the warm welcome!

    I have two family members who own/manage different greenhouse operations, so have long been aware of the CO2 greening effect. Liebeg’s Law notwithstanding,(and yes surely it imposes limits) I’ve had anecdotal reports from outdoor growers, hay makers and tree trimmers that increased growth is already happening. I’ve also noticed more rapid growth and increased cold tolerance in my own garden. While interesting and perhaps indicative these are “only” anecdotes. I suspect the effect is widespread and easy to confirm by those willing to do the work. One group has done a bit:

    https://www.csiro.au/portals/media/deserts-greening-from-rising-co2
    It is possible the global temperature drop in the last ice age was less severe than the GISP cores suggest, but there are no pre Eemian ice cores from Greenland, suggesting that the climate cycle is getting colder.

    Yes, I made two errors in my Holocene comments, one was a typo, and I meant Holocene to start ~11.7Ky not ~12.7 Ky BP. I also forgot to subtract the pre YD sea level rise from the total. That said, neither error changes the main thrust of the argument. To restate: Both temperature and sea level changed rapidly from their ice age state to the interglacial state, CO2 did not cause these changes. The point of showing the ice core graphs is to illustrate where we are in the climate cycle and how fast things could change back to what has become Earth’s “normal” climate, Increasing CO2 may delay, but will not prevent an eventual rapid return to the ice age state.

    #17974
    TonyPrep
    Participant

    I share jonabark’s disappointment that so many deniers are present on a site that tries to show the reality of what we’re facing but happily surprised that Energy Matters would implicitly support the notion of AGW (but I may have that wrong).

    The basic physics is well known and increasing numbers of studies show that increased CO2, and all of its effects, will not benefit humanity. CO2 traps heat, the energy imbalance (sunlight in versus heat escaping) shows that the earth as a whole continues to warm (hint, only a tiny proportion of the excess energy is taken up by the atmosphere, though 2014 looks like being the warmest on record). I agree with Roger Andrews that the political 2C limit is beyond us. That “limit” is set to be reached in less than 20 years, 30 years if we do something significant but the effects will be even more obvious than now, well before that.

    #17985
    E. Swanson
    Participant

    Snowleopard, there’s more to the CO2 impact on crops (as opposed to grasses, weeds and trees) than the fertilization effect. In a warmer world, evaporation increases and if that increase is greater than any positive change in precipitation, the net effect is less soil moisture. Also, increased rainfall intensity tends to increase runoff, thus the water doesn’t have enough time to soak into the ground, the net effect again being lower soil moisture.

    The sea level reconstructions show that SL continued to rise well past the beginning of the Holocene. Indeed your GISP2 graphs show another cooling spike which has been called “the 8200 year event”, after which time the SL again rose rapidly, noted as “melt water pulse 1 C” in the link I posted above, with glacier melting essentially finished around 6,000 to 5,000 BP. The total rise of around 120 meters took about 14,000 years, or about 0.9 meters per century. But, during that time, the CO2 level also increased as a result of warmer conditions. While the CO2 level apparently lagged the glacial cycle, CO2 would still have acted as an amplifier of the underlying forcing over that time period. Such rapid rates of SL rise could reappear from melting of both the Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheets as the Greenhouse warming increases.

    The Greenland core data appears to end during the Eemian, since the drilling hit bedrock, AIUI. Still, it’s been shown that the end of the Eemian was somewhat warmer than today, which may have resulted in the melting of essentially all the ice over Greenland. That raises the intriguing possibility that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet was a causal factor in the beginning of the following 100k year round of Ice Ages beginning at ~120k years BP.

    #17986
    TheTrivium4TW
    Participant

    Hi All,
    I would like to throw in my 3 cents on the various issues being discussed here.
    From DS – “But the crooks need their chumps. So it’ll be that third group that must be eradicated.”
    Now that’s what I call insightful, accurate, and concise!

    Climate is exceedingly complex. Micro, macro, whatever – it is complex. The data I’ve seen, coupled with basic common sense, indicates to me that people who claim to know what temperatures will be 10 years out are 10 years away from making all kinds of excuses as to why they were wrong. The extremist global warming crowd back in 1998 have found themselves in this predicament since NONE of their Debt Money Monopoly finianced models turned out correct. Let’s go over what we know…

    1. The #1 root cause of CO2 emissions are the Debt Money Monopolists who ultimately blew the world’s largest debt bubble via their control over the mega banks and the the Federal Reserve System. I would hope this fact, once laid bare, is obvious to most folks here, but if not, please consider that it takes money (debt – money is a literaly debt receipt) to buy things, it takes energy to make things, and it takes CO2 emissions to produce the energy. You will find that CO2 emissions correlate rather tightly to the debt bubble blown by the Debt Money Monopolists through their various front corporations (including the Federal Reserve System they PRIVATELY CONTROL).
    2. We know that more man made CO2 has been emitted into the atmosphere in the last 15 years than in any previous 15 year period.
    3. We know that the projected warming (circa 1998 – 2000) didn’t materialize.
    4. We know the main root cause of CO2 emission, the debt bubble blowing Banksters (Debt Money Monopolist corporate fronts) are trying to set up a carbon exchange market.
    5. We know the Banksters manipulate the stock market for corporate gain – including trading on insider infromation, rigging Libor, bribing governments (officials went to jail, not Banksters), you get the idea.
    6. We know that carbon credits enshrine the current Debt Money Monopoly corporate structures as effective monopolies. After all, if current Bankster enshrined energy company A gets free carbon credits for emitting its current level of carbon and a new competitor B GETS NO CARBON CREDITS AND HAS TO PAY FOR THEM, then company B operates at a serious disadvantage and must charge higher prices – IF IT CAN EXIST AT ALL. “Competition is sin.” ~John D. Rockefeller. Indeed.
    7. We know that an insider in Britain leveraged the carbon credit system in order to pocket about $1 billion
    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2009/12/etpo-d21.html
    8. We know that endless wars produce an untold amount of CO2 emissions and other damage to the environment and to life. It also creates a lot of profit for the Debt Money Monopolists who finance the war efforts and, once a nation is conquered (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine), the Debt Money Monopolists steal the wealth of the country and set up a debt money system that starts the systematic asset stripping of the host population.
    9. We know the media covers up the top two low hanging fruit root causes of CO2 emissions – the debt money bubble (which always presages a bust – no exceptions ever) and the endless war campaigns that install more debt money systems and take out oil competitors tot he Debt Money Monopoly oil corporate fronts.
    10. The Debt Money Monopoly multinational corporate fronts moved much of their manufacturing away from relatively clean emission American plants to China where Hell level of pollution can be observed. The net effect IS TO INCREASE WORLDWIDE POLLUTION AND EMISSIONS OF CO2.
    11. The Debt Money Monopoly financed media complex ignores this reality as well.

    While I don’t know exactly how the climate works to be able to accurately predict world temperatures 10 years out (and neither do you outside your personal delusion – if you think anyone does then lets put all your assets in escrow and when, not if, you are substantially wrong I’ll take your assets off your hands), I DO KNOW THAT THE DEBT MONEY Monopoly Monsters, THE #1 ROOT CAUSE TO THE CO2 EMISSIONS ISSUE (if it is a significant one), has rigged the system for personal gain.

    I KNOW that.

    “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. In their totality and in their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat with demands the solidarity of all peoples. But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap about which we have already warned namely mistaking systems for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.” (present company of the world’s greatest consumers excepted, no doubt)
    ~”The First Global Revolution”, A Report by the Council of the Club of Rome by Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider 1991.

    “In addition… future developments may well include automated or manned space warships, deep-sea installations, chemical and biological weapons, death rays, and still other forms of warfare–even the weather may be tampered with.*

    “In addition, it may be possible–and tempting–to exploit for strategic-political purposes the fruits of research on the brain and on human behavior. Gordon J. F. MacDonald, a geophysicist specializing in problems of warfare, has written that timed artificially excited electronic strokes could lead to a pattern of oscillations that produce relatively high power levels over certain regions of the earth…. In this way, one could develop a system that would seriously impair the brain performance of very large populations in selected regions over an extended period…. No matter how deeply disturbing the thought of using the environment to manipulate behavior for national advantages to some, the technology permitting such use will very probably develop within the next few decades.”

    “As one specialist noted, ‘By the year 2018, technology will make available to the leaders of the major nations, a variety of techniques for conducting secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need be appraised. One nation may attack a competitor covertly by bacteriological means, thoroughly weakening the population (though with a minimum of fatalities) before taking over with its own armed forces. Alternatively, techniques of weather modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm….(Gordon J. F. MacDonald, “Space,” in Toward the year 2018, p.34). ”
    ~Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages, circa 1970; Chief Debt Money Monopoly Technocrat

    #17987
    TheTrivium4TW
    Participant

    To Huck:

    >>You did not just throw that extremely inane derivatives argument at me did ya?
    Seriously how retarded are the collective people here.
    Derivatives totals represent the underlying. So they are notional. No person on the planet will ever lose that much money. 98% of it are Interest rate linked and 95% of that is under 2 years maturity.
    Even if I had your IQ and actually got scared looking at those “Liabilities”, then you need to understand that all those “liabilities” are also someone else’s “Assets”. So if you count them on one side count them on the other.
    What you should focus is Net exposure, that takes into account potential losses after Margin requirements already put up are exhausted. That is around 12 Trillion dollars. Yes 12 Trillion in a world with Net assets (assets minus debts) exceeding 1 Quadrillion dollars. We are so fucking doomed.”

    Let’s run an example.

    1. Bank A has $20 trillion in derivatives exposure to Bank B on rates going up and $20 trillion on rates going down
    2. Bank A has $20 trillion in derivatives exposure to Bank B on rates going up and $20 trillion on rates going down
    3. Bank A has $20 trillion in derivatives exposure to Bank B on rates going up and $20 trillion on rates going down
    4. Bank A has $20 trillion in derivatives exposure to Bank B on rates going up and $20 trillion on rates going down

    Each of these banks has $1 trillion in assets.
    If I am interpreting your argument correctly, you would conclude there is $0 net exposure and, therefore, there is nothing to worry about.
    Let’s run a little experiment through the system…
    Let’s say rates rise such that the derivatives expose each bank to a $2 trillion liability.
    Bank A owes $2 trillion to bank B. Bank A has $1 trillion, but owes $2 trillion. Bank A goes under and its $1 trillion is tied up in bankruptcy.
    Bank B gets $0 trillion from Bank A and owes Bank C $2 trillion.
    Bank B goes under, too. It pays nothing to Bank C.
    The same effect occurs to Bank C and Bank D…
    Voila – NO MORE BANKING SYSTEM.

    No more debt money producing banks THEN NO MORE DEBT RECEIPTS YOU THINK OF AS MONEY FOR SOCIETY.

    I think you’ve swallowed Bankster Kool-Aid engineered to keep the dangers hidden from you.

    #17989
    TheTrivium4TW
    Participant

    >>Diogenes Shrugged suggests that the “chem trails” story is the cause of recent climate changes. I watched the video you posted and I’m not at all convinced.<<

    Yes, but are you convinced it has no substantial impact at all?

    Geoengineering And The Collapse Of Earth 2014

    “The more aerosols in the air, the less it will rain overall.”

    If that statement is true, if aerosols, even scientifically engineered ones, in the atmosphere inhibit rain, well, that inhibits snow, it inhibits drinking water and it will BRING A POPULATION DOWN TO ITS KNEES… or just maximize profits.
    Or, perhaps, it will make farmland cheap so multinationals can buy it up and “turn on the rain,” as it were. Don’t lack imagination here – the Debt Money Monopolists have plenty of imagination to screw you and yours over.

    Now, I don’t claim I know exactly what is going on here – but SOMETHING is going on.
    To not question and investigate to reach substantial answers is, IMHO, foolish.

    “In addition… future developments may well include automated or manned space warships, deep-sea installations, chemical and biological weapons, death rays, and still other forms of warfare–even the weather may be tampered with.*

    Alternatively, techniques of weather modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm….(Gordon J. F. MacDonald, “Space,” in Toward the year 2018, p.34). ”
    ~Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages, circa 1970; Chief Debt Money Monopoly Technocrat

    #17991
    TheTrivium4TW
    Participant

    7.5.2.1 Aerosol Effects on Water Clouds and Warm Precipitation

    https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch7s7-5-2-1.html

    “Aerosols are hypothesised to increase the lifetime of clouds because increased concentrations of smaller droplets lead to decreased drizzle production and reduced precipitation efficiency (Albrecht, 1989).”

    “In addition… future developments may well include automated or manned space warships, deep-sea installations, chemical and biological weapons, death rays, and still other forms of warfare–even the weather may be tampered with.*

    Alternatively, techniques of weather modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm….(Gordon J. F. MacDonald, “Space,” in Toward the year 2018, p.34). ”
    ~Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages, circa 1970; Chief Debt Money Monopoly Technocrat

    #18092
    marksircus
    Participant

    Problem with this essay is fatal. It is based on someone’s fantasy about global warming and carbon dioxide. First we have never had man made global warming.In fact we have had 19 years of gradual cooling and now rapid cooling and the predicted (by astrophysics) coming mini ice age. Sun is dropping in activity quickly and we have record breaking volcanoes putting massive amounts of sun blocking materials high up into the atmosphere. Global warming is a religion and has no science behind it at all. A wishful thinking dreamed up simulated computer model got everyone thinking about something that never existed.

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