Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[lomiller]

Furcifer, are you going to answer this or not?

LOL
Even though others were quite clear on my point, let’s assume for a second that I was saying that there isn’t even one person who disagrees. Furthermore let’s say I “concede” only 98%, how does this change the discussion?

 

[Furcifer]

I would expect that "the bureaucracy it creates" would be a cost not a benefit.
Carbon pricing does generate income which is greater than the costs to create a net benefit.
A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs

This is also seen on other schemes, read The economic impacts of carbon pricing which points something that you seem to not know since you emphasis the costs:


Studies on USA carbon pricing proposals and their impact of the USA GDP tend to cluster around a 1% increase with a couple of outliers (the article has what look like valid reasons for those studies being outliers):

and then there is the Google analysis

(my emphasis added)

More pseudoscience from the global warming pseudoscience sites, most notably the pseudoscience that sells these plans. In reality they suffer from dilution and ultimately lose money over time. They've been proven to be an ultimate failure at reducing emissions in a cost effective manner, but that won't stop AGW believers from preaching their merit.

Don't get me wrong they work in theory, but as they say so does communism.

 

[Furcifer]

Skeptical thought 101

We get our science from the scientists who work in the field under discussion, not from random people even random people who happen to have have enough higher education to call themselves "scientists".

I wish. I've been encouraging people to "get their science" from actual climate science journals and not the stuff filtered through the cargo cults at socrapclimate.com and notsoskepticalscience.com.

 

[Furcifer]

Furcifer, are you going to answer this or not? Even though others were quite clear on my point, let’s assume for a second that I was saying that there isn’t even one person who disagrees. Furthermore let’s say I “concede” only 98%, how does this change the discussion?

I thought I did. I said it was a deliberate lie and complete hyperbole to say "the entire scientific community" when you're actually talking about less than 1% of the actual scientific community.

I think you forget I have an undergrad in physics, global warming or more importantly the effect of CO2 on Earth's temperature is pretty simple stuff. More CO2 in the atmosphere means more heat trapped.

The fact that we've released CO2 on a massive scale, worldwide, for more than 100 years, means the world should have warmed a bit in the same time. I honestly don't understand how anyone could possibly say otherwise.

So while I agree that, for the most part, the entire scientific community agrees to the effects of CO2 and warming, it's utter bollocks to say so without evidence.

More importantly, the science of global warming is much, much more complicated than just the positive increase in temperature with increasing CO2. Thus the implications of saying something like "the entire scientific community agrees", means that they agree on all of the science of global warming as well. Which of course would be utter nonsense.

I hope this clarifies things for you.

 

[Trakar]

Polymer membranes are selectively permeable plastics that allow CO2 to be separated from the air. Nanometric membranes already developed allow CO2 to permeate at room temperature with high selectivity.
Projects in Europe using thin film membranes are capturing CO2 at a cost of 30 euro per ton.

Capture isn't sequestration, and at 30euros (~$42USD) per ton capture, we are looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of some 800Gt of carbon that would need to be removed to bring us down to ~350ppm and that would seem to put just the capture portion of this solution at around ~$34TUSD. The numbers I'm more familiar with for capture and sequestration are around $200/ton (USD), which would at least peg another zero on that figure ($170TUSD give or take a few trillion),...and of course this presumes the immediate cessation of all emissions and the immediate full scale commencement of extraction and storage,...the longer we wait, the greater the expense.

Roger Pielke, Jr. has made public estimates stating that 650 billion tons of carbon (roughly 650Gt x 3.67 = 2.4Tt of CO2) will need to be disposed of by 2100 to keep atmospheric concentrations of CO2 around 450 parts per million. But this presumes a practical BAU senario.

John Shepherd, who led the Royal Society study of air capture and other geoengineering technologies. - “You need 30 years of development time and 100 years of deployment before you start to see the effect you’re looking for.”

Mass of the Earth's atmosphere is 441,000 billion x 10 = 4.41 million billion tons. Of course, There's still all the carbon in the oceans which is about 50x as much as there is in the atmosphere and is going to outgas for several centuries at least, until levels are dropped enough to acheive equilibrium.

 

[Mikemcc]

In what favour?

What you say and what you can prove are two different things. Who exactly is "refuting" the national scientific institutions?

Nobody of course, this is just more made up hyperbole.

You're the one arguing about what constitutes the 'scientific community'...

 

[Mikemcc]

*sigh

Try reading for comprehension, this quote:

But the regeneration step — to remove the gas from the solutions — requires high temperatures and sucks up a great deal of the plant’s energy output.

Is in regards to using aqueous solutions of amines, not micro/nano porous polymers. It's totally different technology. One is a liquid (that's what aqueous means) chemical solution that reacts with CO2, the other is a plastic membrane.

My apologies for mis-reading the article - you are correct. Though it does also point out that it is in it's infancy, but for different issues.

It would have been better received without the condescending tone of your reply though.

 

[Furcifer]

My apologies for mis-reading the article - you are correct. Though it does also point out that it is in it's infancy, but for different issues.

It would have been better received without the condescending tone of your reply though.

It's not condescension, it's frustration. These problems are only as big or as insurmountable as we make them to be. Sure the technology is in it's infancy but that's because it's not a priority, hence no funding. At least not enough funding to push the tech through on a global scale. As I mentioned, they're testing nanoporous membranes in Germany and in Canada as well. But they are testing them and that's not "business as usual", that's progress whether it's realized on a commercial scale or just part of "R&D" it's something.

 

[Furcifer]

Capture isn't sequestration, and at 30euros (~$42USD) per ton capture, we are looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of some 800Gt of carbon that would need to be removed to bring us down to ~350ppm and that would seem to put just the capture portion of this solution at around ~$34TUSD. The numbers I'm more familiar with for capture and sequestration are around $200/ton (USD), which would at least peg another zero on that figure ($170TUSD give or take a few trillion),...and of course this presumes the immediate cessation of all emissions and the immediate full scale commencement of extraction and storage,...the longer we wait, the greater the expense.

Roger Pielke, Jr. has made public estimates stating that 650 billion tons of carbon (roughly 650Gt x 3.67 = 2.4Tt of CO2) will need to be disposed of by 2100 to keep atmospheric concentrations of CO2 around 450 parts per million. But this presumes a practical BAU senario.

John Shepherd, who led the Royal Society study of air capture and other geoengineering technologies. - “You need 30 years of development time and 100 years of deployment before you start to see the effect you’re looking for.”

Mass of the Earth's atmosphere is 441,000 billion x 10 = 4.41 million billion tons. Of course, There's still all the carbon in the oceans which is about 50x as much as there is in the atmosphere and is going to outgas for several centuries at least, until levels are dropped enough to acheive equilibrium.

One of the problems I have with alarmists is the linear thinking of the "BAU" mantra.
I'm sure some of the people who saw what the Wright Brother's were doing at Kitty Hawk thought "Boy, at lot of people are going to fall to their deaths by the time this is over". How many of them actually got it right and saw present day and what flight has meant for the World? Probably not many if they thought flight was going to remain 2 people doing 50mph 4 feet off the ground.
There are so many uses for CO2, CO and O the capture is probably preferable to sequestering. It's not hard to imagine a future where large industrial plants, using cheap nuclear energy, mine the skies for CO2. History repeating itself as the waste from one generation becomes the fuel for the next.
It's one thing to put blind faith in science and say it will solve everything, and quite another to take a look at what science is already doing and say "It's already there for the taking". When you look at the space race and the problems they overcame in a relatively short period of time once we put our minds and our money to it, CO2 and Global Warming is a much easier problem to solve than figure out.(yes, I know how that sounds but it's true. The solution is simple though, reduce CO2 output to 0 and then remove it from the atmosphere)

 

[Trakar]

More pseudoscience from the global warming pseudoscience sites, most notably the pseudoscience that sells these plans. In reality they suffer from dilution and ultimately lose money over time. They've been proven to be an ultimate failure at reducing emissions in a cost effective manner, but that won't stop AGW believers from preaching their merit.

Don't get me wrong they work in theory, but as they say so does communism.

Rather like captialism and democracy,...they are fine sounding ideals, but when you attempt to apply them in the real world, they don't work as advertised and most often require hybridization and constant monitoring, heavy regulation, and regular tweaking to even approximate functionality,...that, unfortunately is the nature of reality. As the saying goes, "men plan, gods laugh."

 

[Trakar]

I thought I did. I said it was a deliberate lie and complete hyperbole to say "the entire scientific community" when you're actually talking about less than 1% of the actual scientific community.

You seem to be saying that less than 1% of the scientific community agrees with and supports the mainstream scientific understandings regarding AGW. These statements sound rather hypocritical given your above remarks regarding hyperbole and lying.

I think you forget I have an undergrad in physics, global warming or more importantly the effect of CO2 on Earth's temperature is pretty simple stuff. More CO2 in the atmosphere means more heat trapped.

Claims of personal achievements are easy to make on the internet, but the proof is in the pudding and so far there is little in what you serve up that compellingly supports your claims and assertions. If you begin basing your arguments upon assertions of personal expertise then those claims of personal expertise should be held to the same standards of evidentiary support that would be applied to any other claim. If you are unwilling to support such claims then you should stop trying to assert that which you are unwilling or unable to provide compelling support for.

The fact that we've released CO2 on a massive scale, worldwide, for more than 100 years, means the world should have warmed a bit in the same time. I honestly don't understand how anyone could possibly say otherwise.
So while I agree that, for the most part, the entire scientific community agrees to the effects of CO2 and warming, it's utter bollocks to say so without evidence.
More importantly, the science of global warming is much, much more complicated than just the positive increase in temperature with increasing CO2. Thus the implications of saying something like "the entire scientific community agrees", means that they agree on all of the science of global warming as well. Which of course would be utter nonsense.

The scientific community overwhelmingly supports and agrees with the effects of CO2 and warming and generally agree with and support the broader sciences and scientific understandings of global warming. This support extends well beyond the limits of dependent and related fields of science and academia. You simply continue to refuse to acknowledge and accept the obvious and well-evidenced nature of this support, which seems rather curious given the nature of your protestations and asserted personal academic history.

 

[Trakar]

Capture isn't sequestration, and at 30euros (~$42USD) per ton capture, we are looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of some 800Gt of carbon that would need to be removed to bring us down to ~350ppm and that would seem to put just the capture portion of this solution at around ~$34TUSD...

My mistake 800GT of Carbon is more properly equivilant to 2.9Teratons of CO2 and would, at this capture value equal an investment requirement closer to $120TUSD

 

[casebro]

Froma quote up thread- "Capture isn't sequestration, and at 30euros (~$42USD) per ton capture, we are looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of some 800Gt of carbon that would need to be removed to bring us down to ~350ppm and that would seem to put just the capture portion of this solution at around ~$34TUSD. The numbers I'm more familiar with for capture and sequestration are around $200/ton (USD), which would at least peg another zero on that figure ($170TUSD give or take a few trillion),... "

Umm, do these concepts include an unspoken budget of energy consumption? I would think that a major part of the $200/ton is the energy used- lots of it. And since the worlds largest source of energy is coal burning, is this a 'rob Peter to pay Paul' kind of proposal with no actual net gain? Like the idea of cutting a foot off one end of your blanket and sewing it to the other end , then claiming you have gained 12" ?

 

[Furcifer]

Rather like captialism and democracy,...they are fine sounding ideals, but when you attempt to apply them in the real world, they don't work as advertised and most often require hybridization and constant monitoring, heavy regulation, and regular tweaking to even approximate functionality,...that, unfortunately is the nature of reality. As the saying goes, "men plan, gods laugh."

A fair point. The difference however is that carbon trading is having no measurable effect on that for which it is intended. Say what you will about government and how it's run, but there are roads, and bridges and schools.

The problem with carbon schemes is they put a figure to what they think it's worth only because the scheme is feasible at that point. Once it dilutes, it's no longer feasible and it hemorrhages money. Despite the best of intentions this pattern is repeating itself over and over again.

 

[lomiller]

I wish. I've been encouraging people to "get their science" from actual climate science

Where in this thread have you used a peer reviewed climate paper to support your position?

and not the stuff filtered through the cargo cults at socrapclimate.com and notsoskepticalscience.com.

Really because those sites don’t seem to call up anything when I link to them. It seems likely that the sites you really object to are the ones like:
http://www.realclimate.org/
Of course it’s trivial to verify that the contributors there are in fact active published climate scientists and even if they were not the commentary extensively cites peer reviewed climate papers.

I thought I did. I said it was a deliberate lie

Please stick to arguing the facts instead of inventing ad-hom attacks.

when you're actually talking about less than 1% of the actual scientific community.

Nope, I’m talking about things agreed to by nearly 100% of the climate science community. You haven’t been managed to find a single publishing climate scientists that agrees with your potion, but I will concede that I know of at least one (who is also an open proponent if Intelligent design) so I will certainly concede that the number is only close to 100% but I think you are the only person who interpreted my comment as meaning anything other than that.

I hope this clarifies things for you.

Nope.
Atmospheric CO2 levels will continue to rise if we do not cut our CO2 emissions dramatically and soon.
The earth has warmed by ~1 deg in the last century
The earth is warming by ~2 deg per century right now
We can expect 2-3 deg more by the end of the next century if CO2 levels continue to rise.
That’s 3-4 Dg C of warming over 200 years. In comparison the earth warmed by ~6 deg C over 5000 years at the end of the last glaciations.

None of these things are particularly controversial among climate scientists, in fact agreement on them is near 100% yet you insist on saying it’s nothing more than “hysteria spread by alarmists”. Just because you happen to agree with a couple vague statements doesn’t mean your position is anywhere close to what’s in the mainstream scientific literature.

 

[lomiller]

One of the problems I have with alarmists is the linear thinking of the "BAU" mantra.
I'm sure some of the people who saw what the Wright Brother's were doing at Kitty Hawk thought "Boy, at lot of people are going to fall to their deaths by the time this is over".

Many people saw demonstrations of flying cars in the 50’s and thought that by today we wouldn’t need roads any more. People have always been suckers for pie in the sky technology demonstrations and you appear to be falling into that trap here.

 

[Furcifer]

Where in this thread have you used a peer reviewed climate paper to support your position?

What's my "position" exactly? I find this claim amusing since I don't know what my position is.
That being said I'm not going back to re-cite the numerous articles from scientific journals and not pseudoscience.com's, I have tried to discuss in this thread.

Of course it’s trivial to verify that the contributors there are in fact active published climate scientists and even if they were not the commentary extensively cites peer reviewed climate papers.

And a cargo-cult by definition. It's agenda driven filtering of science for the willing ignorant masses.

Please stick to arguing the facts instead of inventing ad-hom attacks.

A deliberate misrepresentation is called a lie. It's not an ad-hom, it's a statement of fact. I don't believe for a moment that anyone would ever consider a small group of actively publishing scientists "the entire scientific community".

Nope, I’m talking about things agreed to by nearly 100% of the climate science community.

Which is that in the last 150 years the global average temperature has risen a little more than a degree, mostly due to CO2 released by us humans.

I would be very much interested in what "the entire scientific community" actually thinks. Too bad alarmists are so overbearing most sensible scientists don't even bother weighing in on the subject.

You haven’t been managed to find a single publishing climate scientists that agrees with your potion, but I will concede that I know of at least one (who is also an open proponent if Intelligent design) so I will certainly concede that the number is only close to 100% but I think you are the only person who interpreted my comment as meaning anything other than that.

This is another lie. You don't know what my position is, because I don't. I repeat, I don't know what my position is.

Nope.Atmospheric CO2 levels will continue to rise if we do not cut our CO2 emissions dramatically and soon.

Another non-sequitur. What does a poll have to do with rising CO2

The earth has warmed by ~1 deg in the last century
The earth is warming by ~2 deg per century right now
We can expect 2-3 deg more by the end of the next century if CO2 levels continue to rise.
That’s 3-4 Dg C of warming over 200 years. In comparison the earth warmed by ~6 deg C over 5000 years at the end of the last glaciations.

Please stop citing business as usual models. Everyone knows that's not the case.
It looks foolish, to me at least, when alarmists improperly take the results from a study and cite the parameters ie, business as usual, as anything based in reality. It's a control, it's what scientists use as a starting point in order to build upon.
I remember reading an article years ago about cars in the 50's, based on the trends at the time by now cars should be something like 200 feet long and weigh 20 tons, or some nonsense to that effect. Using trends is a valid method in science, but it's not meant to reflect reality. It's a "what if?".

None of these things are particularly controversial among climate scientists, in fact agreement on them is near 100% yet you insist on saying it’s nothing more than “hysteria spread by alarmists”. Just because you happen to agree with a couple vague statements doesn’t mean your position is anywhere close to what’s in the mainstream scientific literature.

And it's tired misrepresentation of fact. It's entirely laughable that a simple poll of American climate scientists (the ones willing to participate) a few years ago showing they agreed it's warmed a degree over the last 150 years, has now become consensus from "the entire scientific community".

There isn't a legitimate scientist on the planet that would say this. I can only suspect that's what the cargo-cult at these pseudoscience sites have been feeding the unknowing general public who come looking for confirmation of their beliefs. I seriously expect more from this forum.

 

[Furcifer]

Many people saw demonstrations of flying cars in the 50’s and thought that by today we wouldn’t need roads any more. People have always been suckers for pie in the sky technology demonstrations and you appear to be falling into that trap here.

You're confusing what people "want" with something they "need". Flying cars were a fantasy, a novelty, but never became practical for obvious reasons. If we wanted flying cars by now we would have them. And they do very much exist, they just don't exist as people saw them in their fantasy.

But if CO2 sequestering or capture is something we don't need, then sure, it will remain like the flying car, something available if you want it, but not widely implemented.

 

[Furcifer]

You seem to be saying that less than 1% of the scientific community agrees with and supports the mainstream scientific understandings regarding AGW. These statements sound rather hypocritical given your above remarks regarding hyperbole and lying.

Nonsense. I said all that can be proven is that some 2500 American climate scientists agree that it's warmed about a degree in the last 1550 years due mostly to human influence.
I would be personally surprised if the rest of the scientific community, that other ~99%, didn't agree with about the same degree of certainty.

Claims of personal achievements are easy to make on the internet, but the proof is in the pudding and so far there is little in what you serve up that compellingly supports your claims and assertions. If you begin basing your arguments upon assertions of personal expertise then those claims of personal expertise should be held to the same standards of evidentiary support that would be applied to any other claim. If you are unwilling to support such claims then you should stop trying to assert that which you are unwilling or unable to provide compelling support for.

If only it were true, I could have ducked my student loans.

The scientific community overwhelmingly supports and agrees with the effects of CO2 and warming and generally agree with and support the broader sciences and scientific understandings of global warming. This support extends well beyond the limits of dependent and related fields of science and academia. You simply continue to refuse to acknowledge and accept the obvious and well-evidenced nature of this support, which seems rather curious given the nature of your protestations and asserted personal academic history.

I don't know what to tell you just because the American Physical Society says: "The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now." (November 2007)"
doesn't mean the membership agrees. I don't care if the Young Republicans of Denver "Don't think it's happening", that doesn't mean there's consensus among Republicans on Global Warming either.
I said I would be surprised if an overwhelming majority of the scientific community didn't believe that it's warmed in the last 150 years due to anthropogenic CO2. But since I don't have evidence of that claim I don't make it.
Feel free to make the claim, but don't be surprised when it's called out for the lie we all know it to be. That's all I can say about that.

 

[BenBurch]

Furcifer?

How many degrees on the negative side do you imagine separates now from the peak of the last glacial period when Toronto was under a couple of MILES of ice?

Do you know that fact?

It's around six degrees C.

Does not sound like much, does it? But that six degrees melted many cubic miles of ice and raised global sea levels 120 meters, around 400 feet. And it took a long time for that change in average temperature to happen.

So, please tell me again how a three degree change in average global temperature in the course of a single century is no big deal?