« Don't make me go in there | Home | Strange Stuff: The Workmen's Circle and the Islamic Society of Boston »
February 10, 2007
A global warming conversation: I even wear shoes that match my pontifications
A discussion on my email list about global warming (I missed a few of the exchanges but captured most of it):
Mara:
I figured this out over the weekend as I was reading articles about global warming.
It turns out that the early sojourn of the Jews in England overlaps almost perfectly with the period of the medieval warming period:
Medieval warming period: approximately 1100-1300 Jews in England: invited by William the Conquerer sometime after 1066 - 1290, the year of the Edict of expulsion by Edward I (the King in Braveheart for those of you whose history is movie referenced g).
One would have to do much more research to support the following hypothesis, but it is certainly possible that, with the warmer weather and agricutural abundance, English society became more open to outsiders; and the reciprocal closing of society occurred as resources became scarcer and conditions generally harder. Also, note, that in the US, 1100-1300 marked the height of Anasazi culture in the Southwest. I wonder if, to the extent that cannabalism existed in Anasazi culture (research suggests that it was introduced to Anasazi culture through trade with the Aztecs), it, too, occurred as a result of worsening weather conditions, with agricultural crops harder to produce in the severe drought years. Drought, no doubt, would have adversely effected hunting conditions as well.
Ben:
Here’s what I’m actually afraid of regarding Global Warming.
Let’s assume, just for a moment, the extremist “we’re all gonna fry unless we turn off our economy now” camp is 100% correct. After all, it isn’t beyond the range of possibility, they *could* be right. Let’s assume, also, that they get their heart’s desire granted, and Hillary wins in 2008, and by 2010, a comprehensive plan to fight global warming is signed in a star-studded international conference. Then what?
Here’s what:
2020, ten years after the Al Gore Global Warming Treaty. The US economy is, of course, a shambles. But we expected that. America doesn’t have nearly enough of an economy left to deal with the long term debts it took on, and big expensive things like Social Security and Medicare are going bankrupt even faster than economists once assumed. The US standard of living is declining rapidly. Japan has the same issues, and like us, they grit their teeth and soldier on.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the French and German governments regularly pay off the Al Gore Foundation to certify these nations as “Fully Compliant”. They aren’t, but voices complaining of this are ignored. Europe’s contributions to “Greenhouse gasses” have not fallen- but this is not the “reported” truth.
Elsewhere, things are worse, though. Neither India not China ever agreed to the treaty, and both were let off the hook as developing nations. But in 2020, their greenhouse gas emissions dwarf those of the United States at its worst. Both economies continue to grow, and neither nation is interested in terminating its “developing” status. The attitude is “we’ll tell you when we’re done developing, thank you.” and no one is interested in pushing the issue- except the Japanese and Koreans. They regularly raise the China issue, and threaten to leave the treaty, but are ignored. The rest of the world is fairly irrelevant.
2100: Things are as bad as Al Gore said they would be. Small island nations have ceased to exist. Large portions of the Nile Delta are underwater, along with Bangladesh, and Florida. With the exception of a few nations, the target goals of the Treaty are only met on paper. Bribery, corruption, and straight out refusal insulates most of the industrial world, China and India (now the superpowers of the world) pump out far more carbon dioxide that the United States ever did and greenhouse gasses are still rising, not falling. In fact, they are rising faster than even before. But, the Al Gore Foundation reports steady progress. Every scientific measurement proves otherwise, but these reports are silenced because to tell the truth would mean an end to the bribery money pouring in. Weather patterns are much worse, just like Al Gore said they would be, and brutal Hurricanes, Typhoons, Monsoons, batter the world. But the American money and the American aircraft carriers that once responded to disasters simply aren’t there any more, and no one else is picking up the slack.
In 2100, 8 million die in the Philipines from massive typhoon damage, and accompanying plague and lawlessness. The UN relied effort stalls when it is found that Manila’s surviving hotels no longer provide turn down service- no UN coordinator is willign to work in such miserable conditions. Two Belgian doctors and four American missionaries simply cannot provide enough services for a nation of thirty million, although three of the orphaned children are adopted by movie stars. The global response is “poor bastards, it sucks to be you.”
Essentially, if the global warming community is 100% right, it doesn’t take a genius to understand that if you combine that with a knowledge of how the world actually works- mind you, this is a world where a million deaths does not constitute Genocide as long as the proper office in Europe has not stamped and certified a paper bearing the word Genocide - then nothing at all good will come out of any attempts to fight it. We will be better off facing the hurricanes, flooding, and heat, but with an economy that can pay for air conditioning, reconstruction, and flood mitigation.
Well, if we’re making predictions about the future, we’d have to take the Peak-oil ravings of Exxon Mobil seriously. Exxon is trying to encourage the development of alternate energy sources. From Exxon’s Outlook for Energy: A 2030 View
Ben:
I wouldn’t dismiss this as “ravings”, since we are using oil faster than the world is making it, there will come at some time a peak. More critically, the new oil deposits found are at more and more marginal locations, which raises the cost of production. Exxon is correctly hedging its bets and predicting that the time will come when the profit on alternate energy sources will compete with the profit on oil. while also predicting that for the forseeable future, the main source will be oil.
Mary:
This brings us back to our original point: economic growth and energy demand are interdependent.
Ben:
this is absolutely true- while there are lots of loud voices complaining that the US uses more energy per capita than most other nations, the simple fact is that energy use is far more dependent on economy than population. We happen to have more economy per capita than most other nations. Looking at energy use per unit GDP instead of per capita tells an entirely different story. It becomes apparent that the most significant factors in energy consumption are GDP, and density. Among technological peers, the United States, while not nearly as efficient as super-dense Japan, is more energy efficient than low density Canada, and on par with Australia and Norway. Russia, which spreads an economy about equal to the Netherlands across a huge area, is grotesquely inefficient with energy use.
Mary:
I didn't mean to dismiss Exxon's views as 'rantings'. It was just poorly-expressed irony without the sarcasm tag. Sorry...
There are a lot of engineers and similarly rational people who are saying that our oil supply will be running out soon. Most estimates say that Saudi Arabia will be able to produce oil for years, but those estimates are based on what the Saudi princes tell us. They're not the most reliable source.
Our government (and the market)is making decisions based on unreliable information. It seems that we should be putting a lot more effort into trying to find alternates. If Gore's hysteria pushes people into doing that, it might be a good thing.
Steve:
Before the global warming hysteria, weather and climate were the textbook examples of chaotic, non-linear systems. More or less, this means that the system is so complex, had so many variables that effected the result in strange way and was so dependant on small changes here and there that it is basically cannot be modelled without knowing every little detail. The anecdote is, if a butterfly sneezes in Africa it can result in a hurricaine in Texas.
When global warming hit the headlines, all the sudden we were told that the entire climate system could be explained very simply by a few "forcings". It seemed to metamorphize instantaneously from being blindingly complex to being blindingly simple. That is why I am suspicious.
I do not agree that it takes a model to beat a model. There is no reason to assume that one of the models has to be good. They can all be wrong. The test for a model is whether it can consistently predict results. I don't mind having assigning a higher confidence value to one than the other as long as you are aware that it is an issue of confidence and not certainty.
Jim:
"It takes a model to beat a model" is not a scientific statement, just an empirical or practical one. What it is saying is that if the scientific community (or more broadly, the public) has coalesced around a particular hypothesis, the only way that changes is if a specific alternative comes along that does a better job of accounting for the facts. Merely pointing out failures of the current model ("it doesn't explain the medieval warming period," or "CO2 increases have followed, not led, increases in temperatures") tends to have no impact on the "consensus view." This applies particularly to non-experimental sciences.
As for what you say about chaotic systems, that applies to short-term variation. I'm not so sure those chaos models were also intended to apply to long-term trends. So the fact that the weather two weeks from now is extremely hard to predict does not imply that we cannot predict, say, the average temperature in the year 2020.
Steve:
I've heard that explanation before, but the same principle applies. Nobody has explained to my why the atmospheric chaos is time scale dependant. Short term weather patterns affect the global warmth. Cloud cover and ice formation which affect how much sunlight is reflected or absorbed, which in turn affects future cloud cover and ice formation. Ocean currents affect the amount of vapor in the atmosphere which affects temperature which affect the amount of vapor in the atmosphere. Changes in ocean currents can change the ability of the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide. Changes in the rate of ice melting can affect ocean currents.
The same kind of recurrence relations and feedback loops that exist on a short term scale exist on a long term scale.
I'm not so sure those chaos models were also intended to apply to long-term trends.
Ben:
They are intended to. It's a dripping faucet thing. It is impossible for a model to predict precisely when the next drip falls- chaos sets in. At the same time, predicting how much water falls per hour is simple. Predicting averages over time is almost always easier than predicting the immediate future. Whether the models do this *successfully* is another matter entirely.
Steve:
don't have time to answer this in full, but here is the idea:
We have no idea what long term trends are regarding global temperature. In the past few million years there were termperature cycles lasting hundreds of thousands of years. A cycle of a few hundred years could explain everything. And since we don't have controlled conditions it is very hard to know if the earth would reach a steady state under ideal conditions or not.
In a world that is 4 billion years old with several hundred thousand years between ice ages, how can you call 100-150 years long term? What is the earth's temperature naturally had 1000 years cycles? Then we would almost always be at either the warmest or coldest year of the past century.
Jim:
I was just going to clarify: Chaos models *might* imply that long-term trends are hard to predict, but they do not necessarily (or even likely) do so. The proverbial butterfly flapping its wings causing a thunderstorm is all about short-term unpredictability. I'm not aware of any scientific claims that the same mechanisms are relevant for long-term averages.
[Stop reading here if you don't like math.] If anyone is really (I mean really) interested, Wikipedia has the canonical example of chaotic dynamics here:
and this site lets you play with it.
You get chaos when the "a" value is close to four, but it's all short-term. The average is always close to one-half.
Mary:
"Market forces" tend to react to current shortages and/or oversupply. They're not very good at responding to problems that will occur in the future. We need something to encourage the development of new energy technologies. Al Gore is wrong, misguided and he's working in Europe's interests, not ours, but he may unintentionally be doing the right thing..
Irwin
If by "unintentionally doing the right thing" you mean "encouraging the development of new energy technologies," there's nothing "unintentional" about Gore's strategy, nor is it controversial. It's an idea that has been part of the national debate at least since the 1970s oil embargoes. Bush endorses new energy technologies. Is there anyone who doesn't? The report you cite makes clear that even Exxon thinks that way.
Al Gore + Exxon = Partners for a Better, Brighter Tomorrow.
Augusto:
The main reason for Exxon's "change of mind" (that is, now finantially supporting the alarmists) is quite simple... Exxon is focusing on the American domestic energy matrix. If enough people are convinced of the so-called global warming catastrophe, people will put pressure to curb the most polluting industry of all: coal-powered powerplants.
The most obvious alternative to coal is natural gas and, to a certain extent, oil. And guess who would profit from a major shift from coal to gas??
Steve:
What I was talking about did not require resorting to chaos theory. My main point was that the climate system is complex with lots of feedback loops can change on its own (linearly or non-linearly), without changes to its external inputs. Global Warming scientists (including my neighbor who works at the Earth Institute of Columbia University) make the glib assumption that the climate would have been stable this past century without carbon dioxide from human activity. I do not know how they can make that assumption.
The issue of whether climate is subject to the same kind of chaos as weather has been discussed in the meteorlogic community since the1960s. The same man, Lorenz, who discovered the nonlinear problems with weather forecasting found similar problems with climate forecasting. This article, from the American Institute of Physics talks about the chaos of climate as well as weather
(By the way, the author is NOT a global warming skeptic).
The article seem to say that climate was thought to be not as chaotic as weather but still having a chaotic component. This is what I learned back in the 80s. The author believes that the climate's potential sensitivity to small inputs is the real danger from CO2. It is a valid point, but the opposite of what most atmospheric scientists are now claiming. It came as a suprise to me in the late 90s when people began to talk about the climate as something that could be predicted so confidently.
Here are some excerpts that are particularly relevant:
1 A high-level panel on climate change agreed in 1974 that "we may very well discover that the behavior of the system is not inherently predictable."2 For example, a pair of scientists wrote a simple system of equations for the exchanges of carbon dioxide gas among the Earth's atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere, and ran the equations through a computer. The computations tended to run away into self-sustaining oscillations. In the real world that would mean climate instability — or even fluctuations with no regularities at all.
3 That did not necessarily apply to the climate system, which averaged over many states of weather. So Lorenz next constructed a simulacrum of climate in a simple mathematical model with some feedbacks, and ran it repeatedly through a computer with minor changes in the initial conditions. His initial plan was simply to compile statistics for the various ways his model climate diverged from its normal state. He wanted to check the validity of the procedures some meteorologists were promoting for long-range "statistical forecasting," along the lines of the traditional idea that climate was an average over temporary variations. But he could not find any valid way to statistically combine the different computer results to predict a future state. It was impossible to prove that a "climate" existed at all, in the traditional sense of a stable long-term average. Like the fluid circulation in some of the dishpan experiments, it seemed that climate could shift in a completely arbitrary way.(18)
Steve:
Tierney's column was great. It points out how little we know. Even better, the scientist
quoted used my favorite global warming phrase, "natural climate variability".
Any reply to a scientific article that calls the author a "reactionary social critic" is ridiculous.
Irwin:
Louis Massano comments at length to John Tierney's column on glacial melting:
Tierney's column totals 519 words. It includes two lengthy quotes from a
climatologist. Minus the quotes, Tierney wrote 282 words.
Massano replies with 1,084. Did you know that "the outmoded 18th and 19th
century pseudo-intellectual pontifications of libertarians are largely
responsible for the disastrous mess our nation's polity and economy is in
right now"?
At least he didn't blame The Usual Suspect.
I so love being a pseudointellectual pontificator. I even wear shoes that match my pontifications, and my handbag.
Judith | 02/10/07 at 08:51 PM | Categories: Natural disasters
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.keshertalk.com/cgi-bin/mtb.cgi/6146
Comments
Ben, here's a link to Al Gore's list of Ten Things To Do to fight global warming. It's a 1 meg PDF file; in case you don't feel like downloading that, I'll summarize the ten things here:
1. Replace regular light bulbs with compact fluorescents.
2. Drive less (walk, carpool, take mass transit).
3. Recycle more.
4. When you do drive, keep your tires properly inflated.
5. Use less hot water.
6. Avoid products with lots of packaging.
7. Adjust your thermostat by 2 F degrees.
8. Plant a tree.
9. Turn off electronic devices when they're not in use.
10. Spread the word.
Do you think you could point out which of these things would destroy our economy? I'm at a loss.
Avram | February 11, 2007 01:08 AM
Well I recycle regularly, Avram. Why? More or less, because it makes me feel good because I'm helping the earth. So, I was pretty struck by this short film up at LGF, on the absurdity of recycling everything but aluminum cans
I've heard much of this before, in one form or another. But it still makes me take stock seeing it laid out like this. Though, no doubt I'll continue to recycle. Why - its the law and I was conditioned from elementary school on to do this kind of (absurd) thing.
Also, do we collectively believe that Al Gore is taking mass transport? And that he has compact flourescents up in his house, in places other than the closets and the rooms no one uses in his palatial estate. Does John Edwards, in his new house, which is the largest estate in his county?
I think that Al Gore believes he is the Gaia priet to the world, head missionary, and flying around everywhere on private jets to convert the little ignorant people. If he is doing anything at all, it looks like this:
Carbon offsetting has become an ultra-fashionable way for the wealthy middle classes to assuage their green guilt by use of a little cash and equally scant thought. The theory behind carbon offsetting is simple: you can repair the damage created by your flight - in the form of emissions of carbon dioxide (the main man-made greenhouse gas) - or other profligate consumption, such as driving a gas-guzzling car, by paying an offset firm to fund the cutting of CO2 production elsewhere, for example by planting trees.
So you can still fly to the Caribbean and the conscience-free answer is to grow a shrub. Actually, someone else grows it for you - but it doesn't matter, your guilt is still expunged. Such is the popularity of carbon offsetting that scores of projects, such as the preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, will be labelled 'carbon neutral'.Pop bands have also jumped on the bandwagon, claiming to be carbon-free in terms of their tours. Banks, insurance companies, hedge funders and diplomats are all offsetting like crazy. These schemes sound wonderfully simple. But how do they work? Indeed, do they work?
Alcibiades | February 11, 2007 11:40 AM
Alcibiades, you didn't answer, or even address, the question I asked Ben. Ben said that Al Gore's plans to fight global warming, if put into effect, would wreck the US economy. I pointed him at a list of steps Gore has advocated, and asked which would wreck the economy. He hasn't answered, and neither have you.
As far as that Penn & Teller piece goes, I've seen it before. I had problems with it. For example, as praise of aluminum can recycling, penn claims that since can recycling is cost-effective, we are paid to do it, implying that this is somehow a manifestation of the free market. In actuality, we aren't paid to recycle cans. People who live in states with recycling laws are charged a deposit when they buy a can of soda, and this deposit is returned when they return the can. It's government action, not the free market, and it's not payment.
When talking about the trees planted by paper makers, they don't address the fact that those tree farms don't have the positive ecological effects of the natural forests they replace. When discussing landfills, they neglect to mention that landfills are supported by government subsidy.
The episode was very funny (the scenes with the long list of many-colored garbage cans was great), but not quite honest, and it put me off the whole series, which is a shame, because up till then I was a fan of Penn & Teller.
As far as Gore's behavior, we don't "collectively believe" anything. You believe things, and I believe things. And you're comments about Gore as "high priest of Gaia" are just nonsense, not even masquerading as mature discussion.
Avram | February 11, 2007 02:23 PM
And you're comments about Gore as "high priest of Gaia" are just nonsense, not even masquerading as mature discussion.
It's true I was using a bit of hyperbole there that amused me, but the fact is that he has called himself a missionary to the world on global warming. There's a whole priest going to convert the ignorant natives element going on there that I find a major turnoff.
As for Penn and Teller and aluminum cans, the point I got was that homeless people regularly collect them to make money, which is true, and that moreover, recycling cans has some value beyond that, because it is easier to turn them back into cans, than to start the process anew. Though, obviously, I may be misremembering some of the finer details.
Personally, I'm still not convinced not to recycle, because I think without recycling, landfills would have to be much bigger than they are today - and it's good to keep that at a minimum, because it minimizes damage to the environment. But that is an emotional and aesthetic argument rather than one based in pure science and economics.
Alcibiades | February 11, 2007 04:02 PM
Avram,
Sorry for the longish post, but this is not a bumper sticker issue.
I’m going over the IPCC’s SPM and the CO2, CH4, and NO2 charts on page 3 are logarithmic spikes in the last 50 years. I am actually for most of the items on your list, but we are up against the same problem as the energy conservation debate of the 70’s thru 90’s. Conservation won’t get us there by itself. Not even close.
What I fear and believe likely is that Kyoto or any cap/trade/tax scheme will put the brakes on global economic growth and actually hurt worst the people in the third world whose boats are being lifted by the globalization wave.
Question back to you, do you think the list above can do the job? If not, what else did you have in mind?
Look at the Radiative Forcing Component chart on SPM page 4. The black bracket lines are the uncertainty that the IPCC team is acknowledging. These are large uncertainties. Another thing to consider is that the Green House Gases forcing values listed are not directly and empirically known. They are inferred by correlation. That is, they are known to cause warming, and there is warming, and if no other factors are known or allowed for, the GHG’s are assigned the value. The debate on this is not over, despite the trumpeting in the press.
IPCC is not showing any discussion on anthropogenic warming due to agriculture during the last 8000 years, and solar attenuation of cosmic ray flux – though they did discuss it in the 2001 report. In short they are very weak on historical data and clouds. I predict these and other issues will hit the mainstream discussion when the true cost of Kyoto is faced by the decision makers.
Some links:
Ruddiman on agriculture
Nir Shaviv on new solar forcing theory
There is a lot more, but I mention these because one puts a big dent in the IPCC underlying assumptions about the historical GHG growth and the other is a real contender for explaining a big percentage of the current warming.
Bottom line, I am not denying warming, but the UN’s IPCC science needs to sharpen up (and maybe publish the detail with or before the policy summary).
In the meantime, I do intend to plant a tree.
jdwill ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.keshertalk.com/nav-commenters.gif)
| February 11, 2007 07:09 PM
Ben's contributions contain the obligatory drive-by rubbishing of anything to do with the United Nations, while adding a couple of free shots at Europe (especially France and Germany). I shall wear those bullet holes with pride. But the poor boy must be losing his touch: all those words expended and nothing about the wicked Muslims whom he normally blames for all the world's ills? I thought he'd be blaming the melting of the icecaps on suicide bombers in Jerusalem at the very least.
Rob | February 11, 2007 09:42 PM
I think Ben (a NYC resident not to be confused with anti-Chomskyite Benjamin who lives in Beersheva) doesn't yet know that I posted that thread, so I'll tell him so he can join the conversation.
Judith | February 11, 2007 10:51 PM
Avram,
In an ideal world, those ten very sensible things would be all Al Gore was advocating for. I myself try to do most of them as much as I could.
But, don't come here and disingenuously claim that that's the full extent of Gore's "plan". You know it's not true...
For example, Gore - using VERY faulty science, that has been shown false over and over again - claims CO2 is a pollutant (it isn't), is the most important greenhouse gas (it isn't - water vapor is), etc. Having that in mind, he is pushing for the implementation of caps / restrictions on CO2 emmissions like that on the Kyoto Protocol.
Such restrictions on one side would require a major cutting down of production levels across many important manufacturing industries (in special those that use oil, gas or coal for energy), and on the other, more nefarious side, would introduce the whole concept of "carbon offsetting" and "buying / selling carbon credits", which would in turn introduce an unnecessary inneficiency in the productive cycle, having a major impact on the final cost of production.
A rise in costs would impact on all prices, cascading through industries and, like a snowball, diminishing the comparative advantage of American products on the domestic and international markets. That would mean a plunge in income and a shift of trade balance away from the American interests. With more money being sucked by the "carbon offset" blackhole and less money circulating in the economy, you would soon see an increase of unemployment (especially among less qualified, poorer families), a rise in inflation, etc.
And that is the obvious impacts of just ONE of Gore's real recommendations. You can check his movie and his book if you don't believe me.
(I hope I was clear enough, English is not my native language, and it's quite late down here in Brazil and I'm sleepy)
Augusto | February 11, 2007 10:53 PM
I just rescued jdwill's post from the junk file (too many URLS - I'm going to reset that parameter), so sorry if some of these responses are out of sequence. Continue to discuss amongst yourselves......
Judith | February 11, 2007 11:06 PM
Darn it. And there's me just taking another Rob to task elsewhere in KT. Too many Robs, too many Bens. I apologise for mixing up my Bens and Benjamins (though Benjamin calls himself Ben in some places). And of course they do evidently share a lot of attitudes.
I suppose I should look out for those "Cross-posted on...." tags to identify Beersheva Benjamin, as he generally does double up.
Anyway, sorry to NYC Ben for imputing the other Ben's Islamophobic paranoia to him.
Rob | February 11, 2007 11:14 PM
Argh... too many typos and grammar mistakes. Mental note: do not try to discuss serious issues at 2am on a school night.
as they say on other forums, PIMF! ("Preview is my friend")
Good night
Augusto | February 11, 2007 11:24 PM
Rob, there's Benjamin, who lives in Beersheva, the anti-chomskyite. And also another Ben who posts occasionally on Kesher Talk. And there's another Ben who comments.
These comments in this discussion is from the Ben who occasionally posts on Kesher Talk.
Alcibiades | February 11, 2007 11:26 PM
"Anyway, sorry to NYC Ben for imputing the other Ben's Islamophobic paranoia to him."
Oh, you can impute that to all of us...... :-)
Judith | February 11, 2007 11:39 PM
Jdwill, I don't expect that those ten items are sufficient by themselves, but Gore is also talking about a variety of other strategies. Not just carbon emissions limits, but increasing reliance on solar, wind, biofuels, etc.
Augusto, I have seen An Inconvenient Truth, and when I got home afterwards, I immediately went online to look up criticism of the movie. One of the things that convinced me of the film's truth was that the quality of the criticism was terrible.
Now, It's been a few months since I've seen it, so my memory is a bit hazy. As I understand it, water vapor is the gas that contributes the most to the greenhouse effect, but it's also a gas we can't do much about, so it doesn't make much sense to focus political attention on it.
As for whether CO2 is a pollutant -- that's a subjective judgment. If you're in a room with very poor ventilation, CO2 will rapidly seem like a pollutant. On the other hand, if there were no CO2, most plant life would die off. (Claims like "CO2 isn't a pollutant" are the sort of things I meant when I talked about the poor quality of criticism of the movie. Most of the criticism was meaningless semantic nitpicking like that.)
As far as the Kyoto Protocol goes, environmentalists claim that Gore sabotaged US support of Kyoto by convincing Clinton not to submit it to the Senate. Brad DeLong, a Clinton appointee, has a slightly different angle on the matter. And I just don't think carbon offsetting will be as economically disastrous as you imply. The criticisms of current offset projects that I've seen are of a totally different nature -- like Ugandan villagers living near an offset forest being harassed by guards.
Avram | February 12, 2007 01:19 AM
Avram,
What kind of "terrible" criticism have you read?
Have you heard of, for example, of this very comprehensive book length point by point criticism of AIT?
http://www.cei.org/pages/ait_response-book.cfm
A Skeptic's Guide to An Inconvenient Truth
All the arguments here are fully documented and referenced to articles on peer-reviewed journals. So much for "consense", huh?
This (quite long) movie on youtube is well worth it as well (at the website mentioned on it you can have access to all the references):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ3EM2a1Qjg
video
Augusto
P.S. About CO2 not being a pollutant, I didn't write more about it because I don't think this is the proper forum to be discussing science in detail. Yes, it is a common "talking point" on the skeptic community, but that does not invalidate the extensive science supporting it.
Augusto | February 12, 2007 08:05 AM
Oh look, I'm finally here!
Avram:Do you think you could point out which of these things would destroy our economy? I'm at a loss.
Well, that is a good question. And the answer is: the question is meaningless. For the question to have meaning, the terms must be further specified. The issue is global warming, and economic impact. So we must specify:
To what extent will each of these activities impact global warming?
Even as far as we can answer "to what extent will each of these activities reduce emissions of CO2?" we have not answered the question, because the CO2-global warming link is unknown. (Have your seen the lates Sci-Am and the article on Methane?)
Further, we are not so clear on the secondary impacts of each of these activities. What is the economic cost of recycling 50% of household waste? Are we sure? Bear in mind, even what little recycling we already do is an economic cost. There is no profit in running a recycling center without heavy subsidy and cheap labor- that is why they have not popped up like Starbucks coffee shops. Ergo, it is a loss. How much loss can we afford? We don't know, because no one, not even Al Gore, has broken down the costs for us.
Finally, these little things, while provide a carbon dioxide feel-good, do not go nearly as far as the other proposals Al Gore has made, which could easily hamstring any economy which adopts them- and no other economy would adopt them.
So- to answer your question, we need to know:
1) What are the real costs of each action?
2) What are the real benefits?
3) Does your list represent the totality of actions we must take to achieve the needed benefit?
And what to make of Rob's blathering on about the UN, which does not appear anywhere in my essay? And he's bent out of shape that I am critical of France and Germany? Rob, stuff it. France and Germany regularly fail to meet their own Kyoto standards they have agreed to: at least the US has the balls not to smile, nod and agree to an environmental treaty it has no intention of honoring. (Something you Europeans can actually learn from a much older, more seasoned culture- like China. I have far more respect for people who simply say "no" than those who say yes and lie.) I'm all for saving our environment, especially seeing that ours, unlike the European environment, is genuinely worth saving. (If you can toss a frisbee across its full length, Europe, it is far to small to call it a PARK) But signing on to any global initiative that will merely put all of the heavy lifting on to our far to agreeable shoulders is no answer. You can cut our emissions down to zero and China and India will STILL take up the slack in less than a generation, and the outcome will be No Change in the air, but a crippled United States- that is my concern. Without China and India, and a way to enforce honesty in Europe, no agreement has any value whatsoever.
Ben
Ben | February 12, 2007 10:27 AM
You have to read the transcript of the Czech President on global warming - it's hilarious, for one.
Read it all now, flash links at Drudge never last.
Or alternately, it's translated here, at the blog of Harvard Professor Lubos Motl.
Here's a taste:
Q: Isn't there enough empirical evidence and facts we can see with our eyes that imply that Man is demolishing the planet and himself?•
A: It's such a nonsense that I have probably not heard a bigger nonsense yet.•
Q: Don't you believe that we're ruining our planet?•
A: I will pretend that I haven't heard you. Perhaps only Mr Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person can't. I don't see any ruining of the planet, I have never seen it, and I don't think that a reasonable and serious person could say such a thing. Look: you represent the economic media so I expect a certain economical erudition from you. My book will answer these questions. For example, we know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one side and the wealth and technological prowess on the other side. It's clear that the poorer the society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa.• It's also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature - by eliminating private ownership and similar things - much more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007, Nature is protected uncomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago.• That's why I ask: how can you pronounce the sentence you said? Perhaps if you're unconscious? Or did you mean it as a provocation only? And maybe I am just too naive and I allowed you to provoke me to give you all these answers, am I not? It is more likely that you actually believe what you say. ...
[English translation from Harvard Professor Lubos Motl]
Alcibiades | February 12, 2007 11:13 AM
Avram,
Recycling costs more energy than it saves.
Want to learn more about Global Warming Science? Read Clouds.
Here is a fusion reactor that would help a lot.
M. Simon | February 12, 2007 11:21 AM
Global Warming may be an almost totally sun driven thing.
Read my bit on Clouds above.
If what I say is true expect global cooling to be the next problem.
M. Simon | February 12, 2007 11:24 AM
Avram,
I live in a state with no recycling laws. In a town of 160,000.
We have at least two or three aluminum recycling kiosks in town. Put in your aluminum, get paid cash.
Aluminum recycling is profitable without government mandates.
M. Simon | February 12, 2007 11:50 AM
For the record, I think it's pretty clear the climate is changing. I have been in many places reading signs that tell me that in year such and such, the glacier extended this far, but has since retreated. Granted, mostly in North America, but it strains coincidence.
I also think the "Is it our fault" question is not key. I think the key questions are "Is it bad?", "Can we do anything about it?" and "Is the cure worse than the disease?", with questions of blame being relevant only as possible guides to fixes.
Possible, but not the only guides. Simply put, if Human Activity X causes Bad Climate Change, it does not logically follow that the best fix is "Reduce Activity X". It may be that better results can be obtained by continuing Activity X, but changing in some way Activity Y. If exercise is causing you pain, the correct approach may be to add a stretching routine, not cutting back on your exercise.
I really think we have a paucity of accurate, honest answers, in part due to the political leanings of most of the leadership involved in the problem. The Kyoto treaty and plans of its ilk are jokes, not because it the problem does not exist (it might, and if it does, it's huge) but because a significant global problem is seen primarily as a means to control the wicked Americans- all others somehow evade the most serious terms of the treaty. Europe has made no real changes, nor will it. China and India, the most important elements to the equation, are missing entirely. Russia, OPEC, and OPEC's money, do not care, in fact, will work vigorously against it. The whole idea of environmentalism gets co-opted and corrupted as an "anti-America" weapon. Let's recall that the Green Left was remarkably silent about the ecological crimes of Saddam- between the willful and intentional destruction of habitat in Kuwait, the Gulf, and the marshes of Southern Iraq, thats three counts of eco-cide on scales unheard of. But there was no "let's get America" way to spin that, not when the USA is the main reason the southern Iraq marsh habitat is actually recovering today, so it has become a non-issue, outside of some wildlife enthusiasts.
Let's see some attention to the real issue of the environment- the destruction, globally, of remaining wilderness and natural habitat. In the USA, we're doing remarkably well. Our area of wilderness is increasing (albeit thanks largely to modern agriculture and the abandonment of large areas of farmland). Canadians can also take pride.
How can we get the rest of the world to follow suit?
Ben
Ben | February 12, 2007 12:00 PM
Wow, M. Simon
Very nice summary of the solar / cosmic-rays hypothesis!
As soon as I launch my blog (in a couple of weeks, I hope), I'll look into it more...
Augusto
Augusto | February 12, 2007 02:40 PM
Ben
"And what to make of Rob's blathering on about the UN, which does not appear anywhere in my essay? Rob, stuff it."
Remember this?
"The UN relied effort stalls when it is found that Manila's surviving hotels no longer provide turn down service - no UN coordinator is willign to work in such miserable conditions."
You may be too lazy to look back and see what you posted, or you may just be an inept liar. Pretty ridiculous either way. Consider it stuffed, Ben; hope it wasn't too sore.
Oh, and according to Wikipedia Europe is 10.4 million sq km and the United States is 9.6 million sq. km. So you can shove your Frisbee where your inept rejoinder went. Glad you despise our environment so much, though, as presumably you won't be troubling our "park" with a visit.
Now I can tell Ben from Benjamin. Benjamin K may be a nutter, but he reads his own posts; indeed he's pretty careful about what he writes. New York Ben: posts so fatuous he doesn't even read them himself.
Rob | February 12, 2007 08:16 PM
Well Rob, you caught me on missing the UN reference in my own essay. Wow. And to think, you area actually offended by this, when it is actually a reference to the UN's real behavior after the I.O. Tsunami. Must have hit too close to home on that one. Rob must be one of those greedy, nasty little UN excrements who "helps others" primarily by ensuring that he is helped first, best, and only, or at least he actually supports them. Don't worry, Rob, if you are ever faced with a real life disaster, I will support any and all UN attempts to "coordinate" in response to your plight!
However, you ignoramus, it wasn't "my post", which you falsely called it, it was essay written placed by me, but posted by another, that I had written some time prior. No, I do not habitually re-read everything I've ever written. Deal with it.
You are also very wrong on your presumptions- but that's only to be expected of you, I guess. I am very familiar with the geography of Europe, and travel there. And I will continue to do so. But I laugh (HA!) at your Wikipedia reference, only a true idiot would think to use a gross area reference and NOT include anything on population, distribution, density, or the coverage and quality of national parks and other ecological reserves. Dimwit, don't you know these things? Exactly how much wilderness has Europe preserved, how is it trending, and in what condition is it? How many of Europe's biodiversity hot zones are endangered and why? And your parks and wilderness areas, other than those in Scandinavia and Russia, are tiny, yes. Deal with it. You probably have never actually seen them, as you live your whole life in your mother's poorly ventilated attic, but I assure you, the land area we call a midling sized preserve, you call a County. Or whatever, based on your nation. (Russia is a bizarre special case here.) Unless you are Scandinavian, Rob, again, stuff it.
(And on behalf of America, thankyou, Scandinavia, for dealing with issues of population density in the past by exporting your most adventurous souls here. It's as we say in the US, a Win-Win: you got the beautiful and unspoiled wilderness, we got the most daring and opportunistic you had to offer!)
And it's not that I blame Europe or Europeans, it's just reality that the continent was long "tamed" before any thoughts of conservation arose. It's really a new thing. The first English in Massechussetts called it a "Howling Wilderness"- and they meant it in a bad way. Environmentalism is new. And Europe's poor marine environmental health is largely a factor of small, landlocked seas surrounded by heavy human activity- but is the Baltic making the comeback of the Great Lakes? Where are the programs aimed at redress? (If you're in the UK, that's actually a rhetorical question, as I know of several, good job with the canal restoration thing, UK.) The real question is, where is the trend with habitat preservation now and why? Go ahead Rob, find some minor oversight I've made and do your Beavis-and-Butthead giggle, that's all you've got. No real thinking, though. Sad.
Remember what I said about being Liberal, Rob? Well, this is it. You aren't. You are more concerned with insults to your fat and festering bureaucracy, and the sweet graft it can channel, than with actual issues that count, like environmental degradation. That's not liberal. Your just another tool of the neo-fascist kleptocrat machinery.
BTW, if you ARE in the UK, where the F*** are your efforts to control the populations of invader species? In a few decades, Canada Geese will have overrun most of England- just like the damn Gray Squirrels- and the beauty and diversity of your native waterfowl will be destroyed. Kill them. Now. Before it's too late and they own everthing between the River Dee and St. James park. (Which we CAN throw a frisbee across.)
Ben
Ben | February 13, 2007 10:48 AM
Not offended - or even surprised - by your inability to read, Ben, merely amused that you smirked away that I was blathering about something you hadn't written when any casual visitor to KT could see that you had. I don't re-read everything I've written either, but I don't specifically deny writing something that's sitting a couple of hundred lines overhead in the post on which I am commenting.
I'm sure you loved the opportunity to use the word "ignoramus" at my failure to recognise your "essay", but where it's sitting now is in what people call a "blog post", with your name under it. Perhaps you feel that Judith should have made it clearer that she wasn't simply quoting a mere post but was in fact citing a serious work of scholarship, but that's not my problem. And I'd never dare call Judith an ignoramus. Nor, if I were you, would I get on my high horse about the precise description of what is, post or essay, a piece of ill-written trash.
You say that your drive-by rubbishing of the UN is based on actual behaviour after the Indian Ocean tsumani, so I'm sure you will be able to give me a reference from a primary source (not just a mention in another of your student essays), showing that UN workers refused to work somewhere during the tsunami relief operation because they couldn't obtain turn-down hotel service. I had assumed it to be mere rhetorical overkill, but no: you tell me it refers to real events. So no vague bloviation, and no backtracking that the UN did THIS or THAT which is almost half-similar to what you suggest. You have made a specific accusation, so either bring out your evidence - in which case I shall be appalled but grateful - or be named and shamed as a piece of libelling scum.
Do I remember what you said about being liberal? No. Can I find any reference to being "liberal" anywhere in your post/essay/egregious bollocks above? No. Does it bother me in the slightest? No.
The glow of pride (not to say hoot of laughter) with which I received your description of "tool of the neofascist kleptocrat machinery" you could hardly, I think, imagine. To quote your more intelligent (certainly more intelligible) KT namesake, I consider gratuitous insult the highest form of flattery, even from a zero such as yourself. I thank you, and have polished that one for the mantlepiece. Not since the leaden prose of Leonid Brezhnev can such a fabulously tin-eared and clunky phrase have been coined.
I also love the clumsy way you have tried to backtrack from saying, without qualification, that the European environment isn't worth saving. First of all you slyly exclude enormous areas of Europe (Russia and Scandinavia) from consideration, which is rather like trying to discuss US wilderness areas after first excluding everything west of the Rockies. Then you flail wildly about, prattling about canals and Canada Geese in an attempt to distract attention from your careless generalisation. I know size isn't the most important thing when it comes to wilderness, Ben: YOU were the one claiming that our environment wasn't worth saving because apparently you could toss a frisbee across our national parks. (I couldn't help grinning as you seem to think St James's Park is that kind of park - like mixing up Central Park and Yosemite - and if you really can throw a Frisbee the whole length of even that, in front of witnesses, I will buy you a drink.) Hence my bringing in the Wikipedia figures to demonstrate just what bilge you were talking.
Oh, and as for my never having seen our national parks because I've spent my whole life in my mother's poorly-ventilated attic, I spent my teenage years about two miles outside the Peak District NP, and I currently own a flat in the Cairngorms NP; not far in fact from one of my best friends who is a member of the park management board. Some attic. Some ventilation.
Rob | February 13, 2007 09:59 PM
I hear no reply, so I now know that Ben is a libellous coward who pumps out drive-by smears at easy targets which will score him points with his coterie of fellow-trabvellers, and then runs a mile when asked to substantiate anything.
But how can I despise even a gutless liar such as Ben when he gave me the wonderful gift of that slogan which now proudly adorns my Blogger profiles, and has reduced everyone I know to either abject envy or helpless giggles?
"Tool of the neofascist kleptocrat machinery", and proud of it.
You may be inept at slandering people who are your moral superiors in every way I can imagine (the toilet cleaners at the UN have more claim to my admoration than you), but you're one of the most ridiculous and risible idiots I've ever been overjoyed to encounter online. So thank you, Ben.
Rob | February 21, 2007 08:03 PM
