Where do you stand on the GW/AGW issue?

[Slimething]

Hello to the GW scholars! To no one's surprise, I voted that I need more info.

Actually, I don't need more info because what I really meant by that reply is that this climatology thing is a new science and, as such, its practitioners do not have the experience necessary to determine what is natural and what is manmade. I got schooled in my last thread on this topic when I prejudged the IPCC report as supporting the most extreme claims from the AGW camp. In truth, I found the IPCC report to be a fairly balanced document that does NOT support either a presumption that carbon dioxide is causative of climate change or that catastrophic changes will occur therefrom. So, really, if one believes in AGW, it's really up to them to choose which version of the future to believe.

My recommendation is to sit quietly and wait as nature answers.

 

[Dr. Imago]

My recommendation is to sit quietly and wait as nature answers.

That's the problem. Those convinced of the GW/AGW scenarios do not want to let you do precisely this.

-Dr. Imago

 

[a_unique_person]

That's the problem. Those convinced of the GW/AGW scenarios do not want to let you do precisely this.

-Dr. Imago

That's because if you want the proof that would be irrefutable, by then it is too late to prevent the problem. CO2 is the most persistent of the Greenhouse gases, and the 'lag' between CO2 levels and the point where stability is reached is many years.

The models are like a blind man with his white cane. We are trying to look into the future, but the models give us a vague idea of what is to come, but it is better than having no idea and saying we had better just wait.

Have you read the AR4 yet, from the IPCC.

 

[Slimething]

That's because if you want the proof that would be irrefutable, by then it is too late to prevent the problem. CO2 is the most persistent of the Greenhouse gases, and the 'lag' between CO2 levels and the point where stability is reached is many years.

The models are like a blind man with his white cane. We are trying to look into the future, but the models give us a vague idea of what is to come, but it is better than having no idea and saying we had better just wait.

No, AUP, what is needed is a workable plan based on a scientific prognosis with measurable progress with decent confidence limits. That is, you're first jumping to the conclusion and then looking for evidence. That's not the way science works. (Religion, yes/ science, no.) You have to go where the evidence takes you. So far, you may have enough evidence to convince you there's a problem but I am different than you and, for me, there are enough questions with enough different answers to make me hesitate to reach the same conclusion. I don't think you're wrong, per se, but I do believe you're being a bit hasty. You must admit that from the back-and-forth of most of these AGW threads with both sides having what I regard as quality (not silly) data, there is too much uncertainty right now to state that a rugged conclusion can be drawn.

That brings me to a workable plan. All I've heard from the most vocal AGW propoenents is "reduce CO2 emissions by n% by 20nn" but no plan. This reminds me of the situation when bureaucrats mandate that average automobile emissions should be reduced by 30% in ten years. How that is done is left entirely to automobile makers. Can they do it? Of course. All they have to do is manufacture our car bodies of balsa instead of steel. Net result? Lower emissions and higher traffic fatalities. Is that what was really intended? I doubt it but that's what you get without a well thought-out plan, which we lack.

And, don't pooh-pooh the value of accurate, validated models. As I said above, we need something to measure progress or we won't know if what we're doing is tapping our canes in the dark, without canes. Given a number of choices on cutting down CO2 emissions, or any other remedy one could choose, how do you propose to choose without a model to tell which is the most effective choice?

So, right now, we are not prepared to do anything intelligently. We can scare each other into doing something. Something that may help or not or even harm. Needlessly. So, tell me I have to reduce my emissions by 30% by 2020. I'll just laugh at you until you tell me how to do it with minimal inconvenience and a tangible benefit. That's how it always works. Flying jets to small resort islands and telling everyone that we're all gonna die due to AGW is counterproductive.

Have you read the AR4 yet, from the IPCC.

As I wrote in my first post in this thread, I did read a few chapters. The one that made the biggest impression on me was the one about the expected increase in ocean volume because I did not believe what some were saying about meters of water with thermal expansion accounting for half of it. Remember?

When I was finally shamed into reading the IPCC chapter on the topic, I found that I had pretty much been right. The entire ocean will not participate in thermal expansion, only the top 700 m or so. The thermal expansion will be, at worst, a few cm. This will contribute half to a very credible tidal increse of yet another few cm. Yet this 50% contribution is being used by AGW extremists even in the unlikely scenario that tidal encroachment will be measured in meters! I pointed out that this type of alarmism is nothing more than lies. Do you disagree?

 

[bigred]

Both Global Warming and Anthropogenic Global Warming are real. The question is, how does the former relate to the latter, and what is the scope. The average global temperature has increased by .5 to .75 degrees Celsius over the past century depending on who you ask, so global warming is indeed a real phenomenon.

And based on my admittedly limited knowlege, that is quite an alarming rate. Nothing I suspect will exactly turn the world on its ear in our or a number of lifetimes to come perhaps, but in the bigger picture.....

 

[mhaze]

With all due respect, can we please stop talking about "models" and the "predictions" and "projections" for a moment. I'm already very well familiar with those aspects of this debate.

I just want to see if anyone knows whether or not it has been specifically studied, in a controlled setting, what CO2 actually does at the concentrations described.

It seems the bulk of the "pro-warming" argument rests on CO2 as a major "forcer" of climate change. Should we not understand precisely what this molecule does at the concentrations described?

-Dr. Imago

And they do not know. Quantum computing might help. 20-30 years off.

 

[rockoon]

Have you read the AR4 yet, from the IPCC.

Have you read the AR4 reviewer comments yet?

 

[a_unique_person]

Yeah, Vincent Gray is good for a ROFLMAO.

 

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by Slimething
My recommendation is to sit quietly and wait as nature answers.

​

-Dr. Imago

That's the problem. Those convinced of the GW/AGW scenarios do not want to let you do precisely this.-Dr. Imago

Shotgun now, rifle later?

 

[a_unique_person]

No, AUP, what is needed is a workable plan based on a scientific prognosis with measurable progress with decent confidence limits.

That's exactly what the IPCC has been doing for over ten years now. If you want what's obvious to everyone stage, that's going to happen when it happens. For now the environment has been monitored, probed, and modelled. According to the IPCC, AGW is happening as predicted. The prediction for the future is what has been observed will get to the stage where it becomes a real problem. But by then, it will be too late to do anything to prevent it.

That is, you're first jumping to the conclusion and then looking for evidence. That's not the way science works. (Religion, yes/ science, no.) You have to go where the evidence takes you. So far, you may have enough evidence to convince you there's a problem but I am different than you and, for me, there are enough questions with enough different answers to make me hesitate to reach the same conclusion. I don't think you're wrong, per se, but I do believe you're being a bit hasty. You must admit that from the back-and-forth of most of these AGW threads with both sides having what I regard as quality (not silly) data, there is too much uncertainty right now to state that a rugged conclusion can be drawn.

I'm not being hasty. The word from the IPCC is act now, acting later will be too late. Once the CO2 is up there, it's not going anywhere for a long time.

That brings me to a workable plan. All I've heard from the most vocal AGW propoenents is "reduce CO2 emissions by n% by 20nn" but no plan. This reminds me of the situation when bureaucrats mandate that average automobile emissions should be reduced by 30% in ten years. How that is done is left entirely to automobile makers. Can they do it? Of course. All they have to do is manufacture our car bodies of balsa instead of steel. Net result? Lower emissions and higher traffic fatalities. Is that what was really intended? I doubt it but that's what you get without a well thought-out plan, which we lack.

The Kyoto plan was to reproduce the CFC plan, and leave it to market forces. The market decided to go crying to Congress in the US directly, because some part of it would lose out.

And, don't pooh-pooh the value of accurate, validated models. As I said above, we need something to measure progress or we won't know if what we're doing is tapping our canes in the dark, without canes. Given a number of choices on cutting down CO2 emissions, or any other remedy one could choose, how do you propose to choose without a model to tell which is the most effective choice?

Since the CO2 is the main cause of the warming, I'd pick CO2 as the thing we act on, and which we can act on.

So, right now, we are not prepared to do anything intelligently. We can scare each other into doing something. Something that may help or not or even harm. Needlessly. So, tell me I have to reduce my emissions by 30% by 2020. I'll just laugh at you until you tell me how to do it with minimal inconvenience and a tangible benefit. That's how it always works. Flying jets to small resort islands and telling everyone that we're all gonna die due to AGW is counterproductive.

If the biggest economy in the world would help out at the start, it would make a huge difference, rather than doing everything it can to hinder progress and protect the status quo.

As I wrote in my first post in this thread, I did read a few chapters. The one that made the biggest impression on me was the one about the expected increase in ocean volume because I did not believe what some were saying about meters of water with thermal expansion accounting for half of it. Remember?

When I was finally shamed into reading the IPCC chapter on the topic, I found that I had pretty much been right. The entire ocean will not participate in thermal expansion, only the top 700 m or so. The thermal expansion will be, at worst, a few cm. This will contribute half to a very credible tidal increse of yet another few cm. Yet this 50% contribution is being used by AGW extremists even in the unlikely scenario that tidal encroachment will be measured in meters! I pointed out that this type of alarmism is nothing more than lies. Do you disagree?

The IPCC has predicted what it felt was pretty well conclusive, while also telling us what was possible. When you plan for risk, do you just cover what you know will happen, or what could happen? My company backs up it's data every night and places it in secure offsite storage. Will our building ever burn down? I doubt it, but it could.

As it is, the progress of change has suddenly accelerated in recent years, eg, the Arctic ice coverage. The AR4 is already out of date.

 

[Slimething]

That's exactly what the IPCC has been doing for over ten years now. If you want what's obvious to everyone stage, that's going to happen when it happens. For now the environment has been monitored, probed, and modelled. According to the IPCC, AGW is happening as predicted. The prediction for the future is what has been observed will get to the stage where it becomes a real problem. But by then, it will be too late to do anything to prevent it.

The IPCC has, IIRC, promulgated four separate scenarios and general pathways, not detailed plans. The more agressive plans are not workable as they demand free-trade economies to nationalize high-emission industries so that's a non-starter.

The bolded sentence is not true. AGW is not happening as predicted. First, the A in AGW is still a lively source of discussion among climatologists. Second, you can't claim that predictions are accurate then turn around and admit that you have no validated model. That's a non-sequitur. Warming is happening, of that we can be sure. We're still blind as to what's going to happen if the A in AGW is a fact.

I'm not being hasty. The word from the IPCC is act now, acting later will be too late. Once the CO2 is up there, it's not going anywhere for a long time.

When I said you were hasty, I was referring to your concluding that AGW was indeed correct. Suppose that I this moment became convinced that AGW was indeed occuring. Still, I would not know how to act responsibly without some measurement device to ensure me that:

1. I was on the right track
2. Help me choose among the several action plans I have
3. Make sure the other economies were doing their part

The Kyoto plan was to reproduce the CFC plan, and leave it to market forces. The market decided to go crying to Congress in the US directly, because some part of it would lose out.

What's your point here? If true, isn't this an indication that the Kyoto plan is untenable in free-market economies?

Since the CO2 is the main cause of the warming, I'd pick CO2 as the thing we act on, and which we can act on.

You're being hasty here also. What if you're wrong about CO2? To be fair, if AGW is occuring, I cannot conceive of a different cuasative agent than CO2 but I've been surprised before.

However, you missed my point. What I was saying is that, sure we can monitor atmospheric CO2, but doubt persists that this is a causative agent. If it is not or if it is not the primary agent, you will merely be chasing the wrong kite string. You may wind up harming the planet or humanity more than you are helping it. For that reason, we need to establish that AGW is occuring and, if it is, develop a tool to measure the activity of the causative agent(s) with as little lag time as possible.

If the biggest economy in the world would help out at the start, it would make a huge difference, rather than doing everything it can to hinder progress and protect the status quo.

I have to admit that this type of statement made me wince when I heard it used during the coverage of the latest global meeting. The statement makes no sense and it smacks more of politics than of a need for environmental action.

Let me be specific. Suppose a first-world country demurs from action. Per the above statement, no one does anything. If that's the case, the effort is already doomed. I am no psychic but I can predict right now that the US will not be able to achieve the emission cuts demanded by AGW supporters due to the very nature of its economy and government.

I will go on to categorically predict that, whereas many other industrialized or industrializing nations may ink the accord, they won't honor it. Why? Because you don't have the enforcement tools. Suppose major emitter signs but does not achieve their goal, how would you tell? Climatologists have already told you that the only reliable measurement of CO2 in the atmosphere must be taken on some remote location. THat being the case, how would you differentiate Chinese, US, French, German, Australian CO2? You must admit that signing and not complying would give your country quite an economic advantage over close competitors who sign and comply. Sorry to be so cynical but this is the way governments think. I've heard it often said that the US' achilles heel is that it tries to be fair and admired by other countries whereas other countries could not care less about those two goals.

The IPCC has predicted what it felt was pretty well conclusive, while also telling us what was possible. When you plan for risk, do you just cover what you know will happen, or what could happen? My company backs up it's data every night and places it in secure offsite storage. Will our building ever burn down? I doubt it, but it could.

To manage risk, you must know causative factors. To insure against any possible risk, you take preventive measures such as backing up data. That's a bad analogy, though. How often have you needed to recover backed-up data? The cost of backing up data is not tantamount in scale to what you are asking industrialized nations to do.

As it is, the progress of change has suddenly accelerated in recent years, eg, the Arctic ice coverage. The AR4 is already out of date.

Does that really matter? Will another report make a difference? Yes, the IPCC continues valuable research into climate change and those data must be analyzed and reported but why do we need another over-generalized and murky report about AGW?

 

[mhaze]

To be fair, if AGW is occuring, I cannot conceive of a different cuasative agent than CO2 but I've been surprised before.

Land use change, deforestation, black soot, Asian brown cloud.

For these you tax and control poor nations.

CO2....

For this you tax rich nations.

Now, what would you like to tax and control?

 

[a_unique_person]

Land use change, deforestation, black soot, Asian brown cloud.

For these you tax and control poor nations.

CO2....

For this you tax rich nations.

Now, what would you like to tax and control?

Conspiracy theories again? That forum is down the hall, second door on your right.

 

[Slimething]

Land use change, deforestation, black soot, Asian brown cloud.

For these you tax and control poor nations.

CO2....

For this you tax rich nations.

Now, what would you like to tax and control?

Conspiracy theories again? That forum is down the hall, second door on your right.

Actually, as I'm not as well-read as most of you here, I hadn't though of those other possibilities. So, we have other candidates than CO2? That means that these factors must be tested and modeled. Suddenly, the task is not so simple.

Science rarely is when there's this many variables involved. The scientific method requires not only the probable identification of a cause but also the debunking of other possible causes.

 

[fsol]

What's your point here? If true, isn't this an indication that the Kyoto plan is untenable in free-market economies?

The Kyoto plan is to use the market to reduce GHG emissions. This, the reasoning goes is the most efficient way of doing this.

I will go on to categorically predict that, whereas many other industrialized or industrializing nations may ink the accord, they won't honor it. Why? Because you don't have the enforcement tools. Suppose major emitter signs but does not achieve their goal, how would you tell? Climatologists have already told you that the only reliable measurement of CO2 in the atmosphere must be taken on some remote location. THat being the case, how would you differentiate Chinese, US, French, German, Australian CO2?

As far as I can tell...

In the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) what they do is this. They define schedule 1 industries. These are the industries that are complelled to enter into the ETS. Each individual installation then has to account for the GHG it emits. You can do this by measuring on site at each installation. Any other way wouldn't work because each installation is set an allocation of allowances (1 allowance = 1 Mt CO2 eq.) and at the end of they year they must hold as enough allowances to cover their emissions. If they emit too much they must buy allowances, if they emit less they can sell their surplus.

If you want to find out if a country has complied with the scheme then the data is all there.

The Market sets the price of allowances, so the number of allowances in the scheme has to be less than projected business as usual emissions. This didn't happen in Phase I and the price jumped about before dropping to the floor as a result. A charitable reading of this is that the installations said "we emit loads and loads so we need a big allowance," and no one really knew any diffrent. A less charitable reading would be that individual member states deliberately set allocations that they knew would be easy to conform to.

Anyway...part of the Phase I process of the ETS was to get this GHG measurement system up and running so that in Phase II (2008 - 2012), when they start to address the Kyoto targets, they have historical data on which to set the new allocation of allowances so that they are scarce enough to make the system work. The European Commision rejected most of the first national allocation plans for Phase II on the basis that the caps weren't tough enough so we wait to see whether it works, and what kind of teeth they have when it comes to forcing compliance.

 

[a_unique_person]

Actually, as I'm not as well-read as most of you here, I hadn't though of those other possibilities. So, we have other candidates than CO2? That means that these factors must be tested and modeled. Suddenly, the task is not so simple.

Science rarely is when there's this many variables involved. The scientific method requires not only the probable identification of a cause but also the debunking of other possible causes.

Apparently in the IPCC aren't too stupid to consider other factors, despite the claims by people such as Mhaze.

The Asiain Brown cloud has been subject to scrutiny, and is repsonsible for increased rainfall in the NW of Australia.

 

[fsol]

...Any other way wouldn't work because each installation is set an allocation of allowances (1 allowance = 1 Mt CO2 eq.) and at the end of they year they must hold as enough allowances to cover their emissions...

This should be 1 allowance = 1 tonne CO2 eq.

 

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by mhaze
Land use change, deforestation, black soot, Asian brown cloud.
For these you tax and control poor nations.
CO2....
For this you tax rich nations.
Now, what would you like to tax and control?
​

Conspiracy theories again? That forum is down the hall, second door on your right.

Ducking and dodging a wee bit? What was the IPCC's opinion of deforestation?

 

[Slimething]

As far as I can tell...

In the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) what they do is this. They define schedule 1 industries. These are the industries that are complelled to enter into the ETS. Each individual installation then has to account for the GHG it emits. You can do this by measuring on site at each installation. Any other way wouldn't work because each installation is set an allocation of allowances (1 allowance = 1 Mt CO2 eq.) and at the end of they year they must hold as enough allowances to cover their emissions. If they emit too much they must buy allowances, if they emit less they can sell their surplus.

If you want to find out if a country has complied with the scheme then the data is all there.

The Market sets the price of allowances, so the number of allowances in the scheme has to be less than projected business as usual emissions. This didn't happen in Phase I and the price jumped about before dropping to the floor as a result. A charitable reading of this is that the installations said "we emit loads and loads so we need a big allowance," and no one really knew any diffrent. A less charitable reading would be that individual member states deliberately set allocations that they knew would be easy to conform to.

Anyway...part of the Phase I process of the ETS was to get this GHG measurement system up and running so that in Phase II (2008 - 2012), when they start to address the Kyoto targets, they have historical data on which to set the new allocation of allowances so that they are scarce enough to make the system work. The European Commision rejected most of the first national allocation plans for Phase II on the basis that the caps weren't tough enough so we wait to see whether it works, and what kind of teeth they have when it comes to forcing compliance.

Thanks for running through the efforts of the EU to maintain an effective and fair method of enforcing emissions limits. I've read the occassional article on how well this is going but, as we know, only the bad news makes the front page. As I've written previously, I am very pessimistic over these efforts. They're fine and dandy when the added costs are voluntary but you'll get anything from grumbling to outright fraud once the system is made mandatory.

So, for this too, I sit and watch.

 

[a_unique_person]

Ducking and dodging a wee bit? What was the IPCC's opinion of deforestation?

The claim is absurd, it deserves no response at all.