climate change times are a changin'

[Kepler]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

We don't even know if gravity is real.

It is, after all, only a theory.

[dxmnkd316]

Well, is there any doubt that unilateral US action will be ineffective?

and how does one define "effective"? Do we use a cost-benefit analysis? How will it help the situation if we force substantial additional poverty on millions of people in exchange for a minor, perhaps trivial, incremental change in global emissions?

Shutting down all coal-fired electrical generation plants immediately seems to be the EPA's goal. I just don't see how that is cost-effective. My surmise is that if we were to promote substantial additional economic growth and then use the incremental additional wealth created to relocate people away from problem areas, we'd have a more cost-effective solution.

We don't even know whether global warming will occur or not. The models say that it will happen -- in 25 or 30 or 50 years -- unless there is a major volcanic event in the interim. The odds of such an event seem to be ~ 15% - 25% depending upon who you read.

I caught zero logic in that. And that last part? Pure gibberish.

[FreshFish]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

I recently heard about a proposed revision to the climate change models that seems to explain and correct for the failure of the prevailing models to account for the hiatus in warming over the past 15 years.

In this revision, while there is still some long-term global warming, it is not occurring at as fast a rate as had been thought. Apparently there is a long-term convection cycle in the ocean: over about a 15-year period, heat stored in the ocean is brought to the surface, and then over the next 15-year period, heat from the atmosphere is stored in the ocean.

The implications are that the extrapolations in previous models had over-stated the warming caused by human activity by commingling with it warming that was occurring due to this convection cycle: part of the warming from 1984 - 1999 (say) was from human activity and part was from the heat released from the ocean.

Then, from 1999 - 2014 (say), heat being stored in the ocean helped mitigate the warming from human activity.

Under this revised version, human activity still contributes to global warming, but the slower rate of change in the warming allows us to address the warming in far less drastic ways than have been proposed so far.

[Kepler]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

Translation: now that it's impossible to be a Denialist anymore, we're going to go with "but we don't have to do anything anyway!"

Whatever it takes to keep the money pouring in. I hope the shills are getting a slice.

[LynahFan]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

You can always keep adding new features to models until you get the output you need. Do they have any evidence that this convection cycle happens in the real world? Or is it just filed under "crap we added to the model to make it work?"

[FreshFish]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

You can always keep adding new features to models until you get the output you need. Do they have any evidence that this convection cycle happens in the real world? Or is it just filed under "crap we added to the model to make it work?"

Yes, the evidence of the convection cycle was from an article in a scientific journal. I don't have the details handy but the whole conversation was a group of scientists from weather / climate fields. I've also read in several places about discoveries in the past several years about how the ocean stores and releases heat.

For example, there supposedly is a glut of lobsters coming onto the market from Maine because of warmer-than-usual water off the coast there.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/us...ters.html?_r=0 for example.

[FreshFish]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

Whatever it takes to keep the money pouring in. I hope the shills are getting a slice.

You do know that this statement has been the single biggest criticism of the zealots, right? that they have exaggerated the problem to keep their funding rolling in.


Neither "side" has distinguished themselves very well in this debate, IMHO. Any time anyone says "I am 100% right and anyone who deviates even the slightest from what I say is 100% wrong" immediately arouses suspicion from people who have no direct stake in the debate one way or the other.

When your predictions diverge from reality and your response is to say that reality is wrong, that doesn't help much either. "I don't like this data: I know, let's adjust the data!" That episode did not help convince anyone at all.

[Slap Shot]

Yes, the evidence of the convection cycle was from an article in a scientific journal. I don't have the details handy but the whole conversation was a group of scientists from weather / climate fields. I've also read in several places about discoveries in the past several years about how the ocean stores and releases heat.

For example, there supposedly is a glut of lobsters coming onto the market from Maine because of warmer-than-usual water off the coast there.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/us...ters.html?_r=0 for example.

You have no links to the journals but have a story about lobsters that inhabit a tiny fraction of the entire planet?

[dxmnkd316]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

I'm not necessarily 100% right, but I am about 97% sure that I'm right.

[geezer]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

A new report (in summary) says we can cancel out the cost of developing all-renewable energy simply by ending oil company subsidies. If the numbers are vetted and real, who could be against it, besides oil companies? My biggest question is, how does this affect consumer costs in the short term? Is it knowable? Is it flexible besides by new subsidies and/or carbon taxes?

[FreshFish]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

A new report (in summary) says we can cancel out the cost of developing all-renewable energy simply by ending oil company subsidies. If the numbers are vetted and real, who could be against it, besides oil companies? My biggest question is, how does this affect consumer costs in the short term? Is it knowable? Is it flexible besides by new subsidies and/or carbon taxes?

If federal income taxes paid by individuals were to be reduced dollar for dollar with the reduction in subsidies for renewable energy companies and subsidies for oil and gas companies combined, then theoretically it would be a wash transaction to consumers as a whole. I suppose we could even have a "reverse progressive" distribution to taxpayers so that lower-income taxpayers would receive more (including through the EITC to satisfy those who would carp "but what about those who don't pay taxes"). So realistically, there's no way that would ever work. Too many people with too much clout making too much money.

As Unofun pointed out many posts ago, there is a far better alternative to carbon taxes, and that is to establish a market for carbon futures instead. One was used years ago to reduce SO₂ (sulfer dioxide) emissions from power plants and was tremendously effective: it gave a direct and forceful economic incentive for the development of new technologies that removed SO₂ from power plant combustion output, either before it left the combustion chamber or before it left the smokestack. Now the technology is so effective that SO₂ futures are really low in price, because no one needs them any more.

In theory this would be an ideal solution for CO₂ as well. The problem is how to implement it. Much of the opposition to the proposals is related to people's suspicion that the government doesn't play fair. Being run by fallible human beings, many times the people who work in government either deliberately or unconsciously favor one group over another. If you let the Chicago Board of Trade, say, operate the CO₂ futures market, and make it open and transparent, then you are much more likely to control CO₂ emissions than you ever would under a government program.

Look at how successful it has been in reducing litter to require deposits on bottles and cans. It is amazing the lengths that some people will go to to collect them and redeem them at $0.05 per unit. You don't have to go to any special government office, you can go all sorts of places. You don't need any special permit, anybody who shows up with the bottle or can gets the money.

Use that as an analogy to CO₂ futures. Too many solutions rely too much on "command and control" and centralization. There's no reason for that element, and plenty of reasons to believe the more widespread the involvement and the larger number of avenues to make a difference, would be far more effective.

There are lots of things people can do to trap and hold CO₂. Let anyone who wants to collect it and trap it and bring it to a local redemption center (just like all those pawn shops who advertise on late-night TV on how they will buy peoples' gold jewelry: they smelt it into ingots and re-sell it; we bring our "jewelry" to the CO₂ pawn shop and they sequester it). Who knows what technologies might be invented in such a system? Everyone makes a little bit of money and lots of energy and creativity are unleashed.

[goldy_331]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

http://online.wsj.com/articles/clima...ightTopStories

[Foxton]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

http://online.wsj.com/articles/clima...ightTopStories

Oh hello opinion piece filled with misinformation already debunked earlier in the thread. Welcome back for another go around!

[Slap Shot]

http://online.wsj.com/articles/clima...ightTopStories

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/22..._r=0&referrer=

[Old Pio]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

Bobby Kennedy, jr. on a roll, blaming the Koch brothers for everything wrong with the world. And acting like the pompous bully he is. Doesn't this reporter realize his father and Uncle Jack screwed Marilyn Monroe? And that Uncle Ted (long before he asked that young lady in Florida if she wanted to "suck it") had killed a girl then ran away and hid and lied about it for the rest of his worthless life? What's really enlightening is to hear this wealthy p.o.s. talk about "rich" folks, by which he presumably means the microscopic percentage of Americans who have more money than he does. What an arse hole.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...footprint.html