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Some global warming graphs

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Robert Tulip

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Re: Some global warming graphs

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Interbane wrote:
You are in widespread company Interbane with your political assumption that emission reduction is the key to climate stabilisation.
I never said it was the key Robert. This tangent started when I disagreed that reduction of emissions would have no impact. Of course it will have an impact.
Okay, there are differences of emphasis – I took your description of reducing emissions as "effective" as implying that it is effective at climate stabilisation, which was the context of the debate.

You have pointed out that emission reduction is effective at reducing waste, but my question is whether people are too quick to jump from a demonstrated effectiveness in reducing waste to an undemonstrated effectiveness in stabilising climate.

Consider the comparison to vehicle brake maintenance. In approaching a head-on collision, well maintained car brakes could reduce the impact speed by say half. But even good brakes often do not stop the collision from happening – that depends on other factors, such as fatigue, road design, etc.

Putting all our eggs in the emission reduction basket is a bit like saying road crashes are inevitable and the only thing we can do about them is design safer cars. And yet, if we build roads so that cars won’t collide, using dual carriage way, the safety impact can be bigger than a focus just on car design and maintenance. In this analogy, emission reduction = better brakes, and CO2 removal = dual carriageway freeways.
Interbane wrote: I also understand that if we stopped emissions this very instant to zero, our problems would continue. The key is removing the stuff from the air, down to the point where we started, or perhaps some other nearby figure. We don't disagree on that point.
I have laboured that point because, even if you agree, it is not widely agreed in the broader political debate, which is not particularly evidence-based.

A first mention of CO2 removal appeared in the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change 5TH Assessment Report of 2013. It states (for the first time in a UN document as far as I know) that “A large fraction of anthropogenic climate change resulting from CO2 emissions is irreversible on a multi-century to millennial time scale, except in the case of a large net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere over a sustained period.” This is a significant change from the widespread false assertion that once CO2 is added to the air it stays there for ever (on which see your link below). We can remove CO2 industrially, as a form of mining.

The new scientific consensus reflected in that IPCC quote actually recognises that Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is the only way to prevent climate change. But this IPCC recognition has not catalysed political debate, given the reputational investment in emission reduction among its political advocates. The Haida Iron Seeding fiasco illustrates that CDR remains a pariah concept in the UN political context. I think that is a scandal, showing the corruption, nihilism and incompetence of the UN system.
Interbane wrote: The idea isn't to put more costs on energy producers that aren't warranted. I don't think it's a bad idea for them to pay for the ambiguous externalities of their pollution, which they haven't been. There are costs associated with their externalities, we all breath the same air. My point in mentioning economics is that if the costs of one energy source (coal) are increased, and another (solar/wind/biofuel?) are decreased, the point on the graph at which they cross is when the switch will happen. The costs of cheap energy would go up if we could cut through the ambiguity of externalities - how to quantify their impact both financially and morally - and force them to pay accordingly. Putting our waste in the landfill costs money, so why doesn't putting waste into the air cost money? There are associated costs to these things, and any morally sound market would take them into account. Pressure to create sustainable and renewable energy sources will make them cheaper, year by year.
That is all sensible. It depends though how much credence you give to the ‘race to the bottom’ arguments, which say that industry will shift to jurisdictions that have lax regulation. The problem with CO2 as a pollutant is that its impact is global, slow and invisible.

The cost of getting businesses to pay for the externality of using the atmosphere as a CO2 dump is that the political reaction tends to outweigh the moral argument – a classic example of the free trade problem. Sound policies benefit everyone a small amount, while unsound policies benefit a small number of people a lot. The directly affected people who gain from unsound policies can organise to lobby politicians to allow their activities, undermining the broad moral case.

The small number of people who benefit in profit by being able to dump CO2 into the air from power stations etc have shown their ability to get a hearing from politicians. The only way this will change is when we work out a valuable use for CO2. For example coastal power stations could pump all their CO2 into algae farms, reusing the CO2 as a valuable commodity.
Interbane wrote:
Improved economic efficiency is a good thing, we just should not pretend it can make a difference to the global climate.
There are presumptions to what you're saying. How do you know the point in time that is the threshold, once crossed, that we can't recover from? Let's say it's fifty years from now, and all our efforts to scrub co2 from the air run into snags, despite the best efforts of people such as yourself. We hit the 49th year and realize we still need 2 more years. If only we had cut back emissions a little more, we could make the deadline.
Now Interbane, you said earlier that I was reaching just because I got an argument from a bad site. This one from you is very hypothetical, and does not match to how innovation actually happens. If governments decide in a few years’ time to implement an Apollo-scale Algae Project, its feasibility will be clear well before any ‘bought time’ resulting from emission reduction. But nice try.
Interbane wrote: If the entire world cut emissions by half, rather than doubling them over the next 25 years, what would the ppm difference be at the end of the century? I don't know the figures, so it's an honest question. I'm not sure if this site is accurate, but it's useful. http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/v ... ns-of-co2/ If we released 20 gigatons per year rather than 80 per year by 2050, it appears to be a difference that would be measurable. That's 600 gigatons over a decade. Either I have a bad source, I'm bad at math, or you mean something different. Do you mean that the figures are so hopeless that we could never accomplish them? Wouldn't the deadline be easier to meet with 600 gigatons less co2 in the air to remove? Or is doomsday going to happen before 2050-2100? These aren't sarcastic questions, I'm pulling numbers I've never seen before and making many assumptions. Point out which assumption is wrong and I'll be happy to dig deeper.
Thanks Interbane, that diagram is excellent as a discussion starter, although some of its assumptions and assertions can be challenged. Here it is again Image
You will note among its accurate (and speculative) data and claims it also states “Time needed to re-absorb all this CO2 from the atmosphere – 300,000 years”. That flatly assumes we cannot scrub CO2 out of the air as a feedstock for hydrocarbons etc, illustrating perfectly the false argument spread by those who see no alternative to emission reduction.

I do not accept the premise in that diagram that adding the CO2 estimated to cause two degrees of warming is safe. As an ecological experiment on global scale, we just don’t know if feedback loops could kick in to accelerate change, especially if melting the Arctic Ocean could cause massive methane release from the tundra, or if poleward drift or acidification could cause sudden mass extinctions.

So this whole premise of ‘buying time’ through emission reduction is fatally flawed, a form of Russian Roulette, with every extra fifty gigatonnes another bullet in the revolver.
Interbane wrote: the frog could very well jump out of the boiling water at five minutes and five seconds, which means the small difference would turn out to be all the difference in the world. If only we knew.
Apparently that old frog in the pot story is not true, since when people tried it out they found the frog jumped out as the water heated, and did not go to sleep and boil as per the fable. But anyway, it is a good story, a cliché like carrot and stick which has come to mean something completely different from its origin.

The frog would probably die when the temperature reached 80 degrees Celsius, so the extra time before boiling would do it no good. The only way the frog can save its life is by reversing direction before it gets into a dangerous situation, having the sense to jump out as soon as the water starts to warm up. That is exactly analogous to our need to reverse direction before we allow CO2 ppm to get to dangerous level.
Interbane wrote: Reading between the lines, I'm sensing your problem is with public investment. You're saying that the main thrust of our investment should be into removal of co2 from the air, rather than reduction of emissions. The emphasis on reduction of emissions makes us feel as if we're accomplishing something, so we turn our business to other matters, since time in our daily (and political) lives is limited. This would be a frustrating position for those who understand the situation better. This makes sense and I think you're right, but you haven't been clear at articulating this point. You have to realize I'm skeptical to the core, and saying that reducing emissions has zero impact is not the way to sell me. You don't need to debate with me as if I'm a politician Robert.
Thanks for summarizing my view so clearly, and sorry if my presentation of it was not as clear.

I should say though, you were the one who introduced the “zero impact” phrase. What I said was that “emission reduction does nothing for climate stability”. When you are on an unstable trajectory, slowing the speed does not make the trajectory stable, as per the head-on collision analogy I gave above.

Emission reduction only delays the crunch of a dangerous climate tipping point. There are other things we need to do to stop the dangerous point approaching. As the IPCC comment I quoted indicates, that means “a large net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere over a sustained period.”
Interbane wrote: I'd be happy to add my two cents to every conversation regarding climate change from now on. We need to focus on scrubbing co2 rather than emission reduction, with emphasis on the former but ignoring neither.
My takeout is that yes, emission reduction is a good thing, but no, we should not pretend it has anything to do with preventing dangerous climate change. Emission reduction diverts scarce resources and attention and time away from solutions that could actually stabilise the climate.
Last edited by Robert Tulip on Mon Jul 21, 2014 3:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Some global warming graphs

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Further to comments quoted below, yes I do find it frustrating that prominent public comments on emissions and climate, such as the one quoted from The Economist, normally a leader in logic and intelligence, have a logical hole that you could steer an ocean liner through. The fact that people can’t see this error appears to be a sign of some cultural pathology, a wilful blindness. I have found that when I point it out to people they get irrational and angry. This logical hole in the emission reduction theory of change is as follows, with my comments shown as dash points below each statement from The Economist
The Economist wrote: "PREVENTING catastrophic climate change, most people agree, will mean reducing the level of man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere."
- No, most people don’t agree with that, and it is astounding that such a reputable newspaper could make such a palpably false claim.
- I am not even talking about denialists disagreeing here, but about the political consensus among those who accept that global warming is happening.
- The consensus “scientific” view is that we can prevent catastrophic climate change by reducing the amount of CO2 we add to the atmosphere.
- That is a completely different thing from reducing the amount of CO2 in the air. The Economist has blatantly confused these two different scenarios.
The Economist wrote:That, in turn, will require the widespread use of “low carbon” technologies such as solar and wind power, more energy-efficient buildings, and so on.
- Again, a flatly ridiculous error.
- None of these worthy technologies reduce the level of CO2 in the air.
- They simply slow down the speed at which we are increasing the level of CO2.
- Slower increase is not reduction.
- Adding dirt to a pile does not reduce the height of the pile.
- That difference is not pedantry, it is tragedy.
The Economist wrote:Some countries have pledged to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions by 80% by 2050, and campaigners are calling for cuts of 90% or even 100%. New Zealand, Costa Rica and Norway are racing to become the world's first “carbon neutral” country.
- Preventing climate change requires net emission cuts of 200%.
- That can only happen if we find profitable ways to mine and store carbon, by converting CO2 into hydrocarbons and other useful products.
- The whole ‘geosequestration’ dream is ridiculous. The only way it ever pays for itself is by squeezing out more gas and oil, thereby enabling more emissions.
- Techniques that don’t pay for themselves are not sustainable or scaleable.
- Reducing CO2 means converting it into hydrocarbons and storing it in carbon banks for later use, for example in big fabric bags at the bottom of the sea.
The Economist wrote:But some researchers think there might be a simpler way to reduce the level of CO2 in the atmosphere: to build “air capture” machines that, as their name suggests, grab it from the air."
- The only “simpler way” is algae, using sunlight to convert the CO2 into something useful.
- ‘Air capture’ methods will go nowhere until they are profitable, and that means having useful commodities to sell.
Interbane wrote: When we reference belief in aggregate - ie the "current belief", what is the process for finding out what the current belief is? I envision a spectrum of various independent beliefs, with peaks and valleys representing beliefs that are more or less commonly held. The peaks would correspond to coverage on news stations or good arguments. This misses the nuances that each individual holds, and those nuances matter. For example, I think we are doing something(as opposed to absolutely nothing) to combat global warming by passing a few regulations. I also think there are bad regulations in the mix. Based on Robert's input here, I also think the primary solution is to focus on scrubbing vs reduction.

See this article from the Economist from 2009. http://www.economist.com/node/13174375

See this excerpt, emphasis mine: "PREVENTING catastrophic climate change, most people agree, will mean reducing the level of man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. That, in turn, will require the widespread use of “low carbon” technologies such as solar and wind power, more energy-efficient buildings, and so on. Some countries have pledged to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions by 80% by 2050, and campaigners are calling for cuts of 90% or even 100%. New Zealand, Costa Rica and Norway are racing to become the world's first “carbon neutral” country. But some researchers think there might be a simpler way to reduce the level of CO2 in the atmosphere: to build “air capture” machines that, as their name suggests, grab it from the air."

This captures Robert's frustration clearly. The first part of that paragraph is about reducing emissions as if it's the primary solution. The last sentence offers scrubbing as an "alternative" solution, as if reducing emissions actually reduces the amount of CO2 rather than slows the rate at which it accumulates.

I'm starting to agree with Robert more and more. The language we use to discuss these ideas needs to be catered to the audience. Depending on the soundbites used and which ones go viral, less effective solutions will have the most buy-in. But I also think there are intelligent people who will see the issue with the argument that reduction has "zero impact", and will lock on to it in the same way I have. The discussion must be truthful, which requires a well thought out narrative that eliminates the potential to polarize. Pay lip service to the small effects, but emphasize what's important.
Last edited by Robert Tulip on Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:15 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Some global warming graphs

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Temperature anomaly change pauses, but the trend line is upward:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47
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