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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Uncle Sam's estimate of the damage caused by each ton of carbon dioxide is fundamentally flawed and "grossly understates" the potential impacts of climate change, according to an analysis released July 12 by a group of economists.
The study found the true cost of those emissions to be far beyond the $21 per ton derived by the federal government.
The figure, commonly known as the "social cost of carbon," is used by federal agencies when weighing the costs and benefits of emissions-cutting regulations, such as air conditioner efficiency standards and greenhouse gas emissions limits for light trucks.
A truer value, according the Economics for Equity and the Environment Network, an umbrella organization of economists who advocate for environmental protection, could be as high as $900 per ton—equivalent to adding $9 to each gallon of gas. Viewed another way, with the U.S. emitting the equivalent of close to 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually, the higher figure suggests that avoiding those emissions could save the nation $5.3 trillion annually, one-third of the nation's economic output.*
A second, separate report released July 12 buttressed the argument, finding that the government routinely underestimates the benefits of avoiding climate change when conducting cost-benefit analysis on regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
This second report, published jointly by the World Resources
Institute, an environmental think tank, and the Environmental Law
Institute, found that government models on climate impacts often
contain "dramatic simplifications and assumptions"—such as when
calculating the social cost of carbon—that underplay the benefits society gains by curbing emissions.
Together, the two reports suggest policy makers are looking at a distorted picture as they assess the economic impacts of climate regulations.
The issue has gained urgency as efforts to create a cap-and-trade system or impose a carbon tax have stalled in Congress and federal rules—via the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency—become the primary vehicle for reducing emissions.
"Based on what we know today, the government's current range of social costs is very likely a serious underestimation of what we think those costs will be," said Kristen Sheeran, executive director of the E3 Network.
"It does not reflect the urgency of the climate crisis," she added. "It could lead to a degree of inaction on climate change that frankly is not supported by either the economics or the science at this point."
A lower social cost of carbon—particularly when combined with an underestimate of the benefits of reducing emissions—makes justifying expensive emissions-cutting regulations much harder, advocates say.
But how to value the cost of climate change has proven to be a contentious issue.
Computer models attempting to assess the economic impacts of climate change are, in many cases, streamlined affairs that can only look at impacts broadly – at a scale of hundreds of miles, instead of, say, at a particular watershed, township, or even state.
Economists at the E3 Network, an umbrella group of about 200 economists, contend many potentially costly impacts are missed: Sweltering inland temperatures are averaged with cooler coastal weather. Or an intense, deadly rainstorm never shows up in a monthly average rainfall tally.
That leads to considerable uncertainty about the severity of the damages. For example, a global model used in part by the federal government to derive the $21-per-ton price finds that a 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius) temperature rise will cost 1.8 percent of the world GDP. But University of California, Berkeley, economist Michael Hanemann, conducting a detailed review of that estimate as it applies just to the United States, found it should be four times as large.
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63 Comments
Add Comment"$900 per ton..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"close to 6 million tons of carbon dioxide annually..."
$900 * 6 million = $5.4 Billion, not $5.3 Trillion
The good news is that it looks like a $40 / per ton carbon tax or effective carbon permit price is high enough to get MOST of the cuts we need by 2030 or so. This will keep us from getting into the "danger zone" as far as the possible impacts of climate change are concerned.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince the CHEAPEST reductions are achieved via efficiency and conservation, we can actually MAKE money reducing our emissions by not generating the wasted energy in the first place. Also, clean energy costs are dropping so fast that the term "Alternative Energy" will become quaint by 2020.
Well, considering the 100% fact-free and error-ridden posts you have written in the past, I'll just keep ignoring the value judgments that you keep presenting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWait, stop the presses!!!! The only thing that the article got wrong was the 6 million tons of CO2 emitted by the U.S. each year. It's more like 6 BILLION tons, so their math actually works out just fine! I like it how geo jumped all over this without even checking the numbers themself! It's just a continuation of a pattern, though...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSA probably meant to say that the US emits around 6 BILLion metric tons, which makes the math work out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/SeriesDetail.aspx?srid=749&crid=
"Could Scientific American please start publishing science?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAhem, could you actually start present ANY science of your own to ACTUALLY make a scientific argument?
"This so called carbon problem is a fantasy made up by politicians and parasite "scientists" looking for excuses to get grant money or green jobs."
Where is your proof for this statement? Considering that the top 5 oil companies made $1 TRILLION in profit over the last decade, I'd say "follow the money" of the deliberate misinformation campaign to slander the science of climate change right to Exxon's and the Koch Brothers' pocketbook.
I mean, what don't you understand, that CO2 traps heat or that we've put 40% more of it in the atmosphere over the last 150 years by burning fossil fuels? Look here if you're still confused:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Guide_to_Skepticism.pdf
"...alternative fuels, which will likely cost 10 times as much and probably really damage nature far more than any carbon ever will."
Again, please post your source. Preferrably a peer-reviewed scientific paper that we can ACTUALLY have a scientific debate about and not some dirty energy-funded pack of lies. If you take into consideration the externalities of pollution and climate change caused by dirty energy, clean, renewable energy already comes out on top:
http://solar.gwu.edu/index_files/Resources_files/epstein_full%20cost%20of%20coal.pdf
What people need to realize is that the latest climate science tells us that each ton of carbon will eventually cost us $900 in the long run. We can either force our grandchildren to fork over their wealth and sacrifice their wellbeing to make up for our laziness and greed, or we can pay around $40 per ton over the next few decades to clean up our act before then. I think it's one of the best deals in history, and we get clean air, water, food and we'll get to tell the Middle East where to shove their imported oil to boot!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know how you estimate social costs into the future. The costs are not likely to be linear with respect to MMT of CO2. That is, the difference between 290 ppm and 350 ppm might be more or less than the difference between 350 ppm and 410 ppm. There are almost certainly things that we can't predict, such as specifically when we will cross any of a number of tipping points. Costs per ton on one side of a tip might be hugely different than an the other. It would be presumptuous of me to think no one else has thought of this, but still.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think one thing we can rely on is that the changes in the climate we have seen so far are just the tip of the iceberg. I wonder what the droughts up through Texas-Kansas and the floods north of Kansas have cost. Sure, taken in isolation, these events mean little, but taken as part of larger picture of more frequent unusual weather, it adds up. Just ask the insurance companies.
The scientists claiming CO2 or carbon is damaging the environment or causing global warming need to prove their theory, not me prove a negative.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBUT to help the argument, the planet has gone through cold and warming periods, we call the ice ages and it would appear in between ice ages are warming periods.
The "proof" for carbon's evil are based on flawed computer models where non-existent concepts like "average global temperature" is invented and given plugged number the "scientists" feel must be the correct average, which always makes the computer model show this non-existent effect.
These scientists can't show by any real experiment these green house effects caused by carbon dioxide.
Then there is the fact that ANY change in the weather anytime is attributed to global warming. The butterfly effect on weather.
Scientists have shown with real effects water vapor actually does have a global warming effect, which can be recreated in a lab and is consistent with a warming sun, which in turn creates more water vapor, warming the earth. This may be a theory but is measurable but because it demonstrated global warming is natural, the pseudo scientists will not consider it.
Ice core samples actually show CO2 in between ice ages, increasing AFTER temperature increases. Which is consistent with today. The real effect we are seeing is the globe is warming and the CO2 is rising as a result of warming.
Then we get back to the actual article. "Social Cost" and any attempt to somehow create imaginary expenses because we all happen to exhale CO2 is NOT science. So sir, where is your evidence, experiment or proof which defines this Social Cost and the imaginary effect it has on the use of a molecule that is as much a part of the biosphere as oxygen is.
Social cost is actually part of this scam to take a natural phenomenon, attribute it to a naturally occurring substance, based on evidence that is invented to create an imaginary problem that scientists and governments can use to scam money. It is a perfect scam. A non-existent man made problem, attributed to a natural substance which cant be measured and given effects like "social cost" to inflate or make it seem worse. Then taxing the people to pay to Fix this problem, which does not exist. It doesn't get better than this. For proof, all they do is claim the next hurricane or sunny day is "proof".
As I said in my original post, lets have a publication that prints real science, not fantasies invented to line pockets with money.
This so called 900 dollars per ton is based entirely on statistics. So is the so called green house effect, the "human caused global warming", the global average temperature, the "normal amount of CO2" in the atmosphere. Statistics are NOT science or proof of anything. At some point a theory must be proven by experiment, not statistical manipulation of assumed, plugged or invented numbers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about we focus the desire to clean the environment on actual pollutants and toxins. Such as NOT forcing all people to use mercury laden light bulbs. How about completely banning any toxin or substance from being dumped in a river.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTell me, how will CO2 reduction cause any effect on real toxins or pollutants? Not to mention, if this cost is traded on some sort of pollution rights exchange, with countries like india having an unlimited amount of carbon pollution rights to sell to the evil polluters, all you end up with is money moving to line pockets, more CO2, no effect on any real pollutant and a world that has only changed by growing more expensive.
Next you will tell me we should do carbon sequestering or some other scheme, to which I will add, do we really want pseudo scientists and their politician masters fooling around with the biosphere? All that carbon started out in the environment. Artifical means of removing it will permanently take that carbon and the "needed by humans" oxygen out of the biosphere. You are insane if you think flawed computer models can predict what the real long term effect is if humans start permanently removing carbon and oxygen out of the biosphere.
It is absolutely true there is no effective way to understand costs applied to the future.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs to the cost of drought or floods, etc... none of these events are unusual or inconsistent with earth's history going back millions of years and long before humans could have any possible effect on the global environment, if it is even possible for humans to be able to have such an effect.
The drought of today in Texas is nothing compared to the dust bowl of the 30s and according to the global warmists, humans did not yet have enough time to accumulate the CO2 required to cause drought induced by human pollution.
So the cost is not relevant because there have been droughts and floods long before the industrial revolution and many in the past were in fact far worse than today.
@priddseren, "BUT to help the argument, the planet has gone through cold and warming periods, we call the ice ages and it would appear in between ice ages are warming periods." unbelievable. Did you just wake up? Are you new to this planet? That argument is as old as it is idiotic. Asked and answered. Look it up simple jack! If you do not have enough interest in the subject to keep up then why bother coming here and sharing your ignorance? Surely you could do something else with your time, like playing a banjo on your front porch. You are contributing nothing to this discussion other than reaffirming what most of us already know, deniers are a scientifically illiterate group of right wing fanatics on the payroll of the fossil fuel lobby. I guess evil has many user names it just seems to share one brain cell.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think those ice cores prove there were in fact ice ages and warm episodes in between. Not to mention the extremely simple logic that there had to be warming periods between ice ages or we would only have had one ice age.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy contribution to this discussion is to point out that the CO2 based human caused global warming is a fantasy. There is no experiment that proves it. Also, the global warmist theory has no condition that can prove it false. Everything that happens is proof that we have global warming. Heat wave, must be global warming, cold winter, must be warming, warm winter must be warming, bird craps on a leaf, 15 feat from a sidewalk on the 4th day of the month, yes that is proof of global warming.
For a hypothesis to be provable, it has to have conditions or a measures that show both true or false. If every possible combination of weather is proof always of this being true, you don't have a real theory.
I suggest you step out of the realm of pseudo science with an agenda and look at the so called proof.
I will give some simple ones right off to help.
By what definition or experiment does the value average global temperature even exist and have any meaning on climate?
If the global temperature average is somehow useful, then what average is correct, the one from last year, 20 years ago, 1000 years ago, a million years ago? Which of these is the real average.
But what reasonable method can we take temperature readings of less than 1000th% of the atmosphere covering only a minor percentage of land area and derive an average global temperature?
How can the same global temperature averages be calculated on temperature information from decades or 100 years ago when even less of the atmosphere was being measured and still call these averages.
Just those alone debunk the global warming caused by humans myth. Or at least CO2 being the cause. Maybe it is human caused but it is not CO2.
priddseren
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The scientists claiming CO2 or carbon is damaging the environment or causing global warming need to prove their theory, not me prove a negative. "
A guy named Tyndall figured out that atmospheric gases absorb and emit different wavelengths of light about 150 years ago. A guy named Arrhenius worked out that more CO2 would cause warming about 100 years ago. His idea was initially met with great skepticism, but has prevailed through much research done by many, many people over the years. It's about as proven as things get in the realm of science. If you have done research which overturns all that, please publish it; I can just about guarantee fame and fortune.
Otherwise, yours is just another baseless opinion.
"..there have been droughts and floods long before the industrial revolution and many in the past were in fact far worse than today. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou missed the part where I said that what matters is the frequency of the events. Sure, any set of dice will roll a 12 once in a while, but if you catch someone playing with dice that roll 12 1 out of 20 times instead of 1 out of 36, you should be suspicious that those aren't normal dice.
"There is no experiment that proves it. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think Robert is right; you must be new to this argument. There are a great many experiments. I suppose you are right that in is not proven in the strictest sense, but then, neither is gravity, and I'm not betting against gravity.
"There are multiple lines of direct observations that humans are causing global warming."
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
#40
Sault: "What people need to realize is that the latest climate science tells us that each ton of carbon will eventually cost us $900 in the long run'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow ridiculous. Science is about physical evidence... and is not about ventures into voodoo social speculation. This article has little to do with 'science'. A lump of metal might be 'gold'...science can identifg the element. Science, however, has nothing to do with putting a value on a lump of gold any more than it does on a lump of lead.
Why then do you continue to waste electrons hanging around here?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the measurement of temperature and the determination of averages:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.skepticalscience.com/OfAveragesAndAnomalies_pt_1A.html
It's not a simple matter.
"The "proof" for carbon's evil are based on flawed computer models where non-existent concepts like "average global temperature" is invented and given plugged number the "scientists" feel must be the correct average, which always makes the computer model show this non-existent effect."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn point of fact the climate models (there's something like 22 of them) recreate past climate quite well. Interestingly, if the numbers for CO2 forcing are removed from the models, the resulting projections grossly underestimate the observed temperatures seen in the instrumental record.
"The drought of today in Texas is nothing compared to the dust bowl of the 30s..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Dust Bowl was triggered and exacerbated by ruinous agricultural practices.
It seems odd to me that according to the media,there is nothing , repeat nothing that is improved / better from this Warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is enough to make me a skeptic.
There are some winners; there are more losers. There are less winners as the effects progress. This information is available. So, you are skeptic because you are ill-informed; I see.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt looks like all the head-in-the-sand deniers will NEVER stop bringing up their zombie arguments that JUST WON'T DIE!!! And to top it off, the facts do nothing to stop their staggering advance! They're worse than Creationists because at least those guys are tragically funny, having dinosaurs with saddles in their Evolution Denial museum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeriously, though. The ysay forget CO2 and deal with "real" pollution, but then they protest the EPA's actions to deal with mercury, soot, NOx, and acid gas standards for coal boilers. My question is, how do we solve the problem using your (the deniers') methods? Voluntary measures are a complete failure and our dysfunctional political / media complex kept any reasonable laws on dealing with this problem from being passed. Then, you have several leading presidential candidates saying they want to "repeal" the EPA, whatever that would actually mean...
Mankind has an overwhelming influence on the planet. That cannot be denied, well unless you prefer fact-free discussions. The greedy and the powerful who derive their wealth and power by making everyone else pay to deal with their mess see the misinformation campaign that their little denier foot soldiers are addicted to as a great investment. If you buy their lies, you're either a sucker or getting paid by them to spread their unfounded talking points.
No sault, it looks as if the zealous believers in the one true 'religion of global warming' will never be willing to look at the overwhelming proof that they are wrong. The evidence is out there, you only need to look.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPostman1 - I've been tracking this issue since the news of Dr. Reid Bryson's immanent ice age broke. That's, what? 35 years? Something like that...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn light of the historical record (weight of evidence), I find your assertion to be wrong, if not disingenuous.
Since you and the rest of the 'denier'/paid disinformer community are disputing accepted theory the burden of proof is on you. Kindly support your assertions with actual evidence. That would be stuff like facts and data.
PS - Unsupported accusations eg, greedy scientists or political conspiracy theories to raise taxes are not evidence. They are, however, a measure of your incompetence.
Your comment may make sense on your planet of origin, but it is nothing but nonsense in English.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease re-translate and restate in an understandable form.
We Earthlings wouldn't want to misunderstand your argument.
Postman, you are quite simply a liar. You have a political agenda and you use this forum to announce it. I guess the upside is that you clearly show the low moral character of the denier movement. There is no doubt about the facts because people like you don't have any. I guess there will always be those who think the world is flat, not much we can do about it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@priddseren, "I think those ice cores prove there were in fact ice ages and warm episodes in between. Not to mention the extremely simple logic that there had to be warming periods between ice ages or we would only have had one ice age." well you are partly right. Your argument is extremely simply, it just isn't logical. That is probably one of the most idiotic statements I have read here and believe me, there is alot of competition. Please look up dunning-kruger. You are today's poster child. If you didn't just pop out of an egg you would likely have heard this one, "forest fires happen naturally, therefore it is impossible for any forest fire to be caused by arson." or "people die naturally, therefore murder is a hoax by the correction system to fill jails". Your 'arguments' have been brought up before and shot down. A simple search would find them. Again, the fact that you haven't taken the time to do so reflects on you. It tells us that you are not interested in the facts just in promoting your agenda. It shows that you are blissfully ignorant, something that has no value on a science site. It shows that you don't understand science or simple logic, also not useful for a science site. You are vacuous and the only reason you don't know it is because you are so ignorant that you are not aware of just how ignorant you are. Now it's ok to be ignorant. I am about sports. But I don't hang out on sports sites telling everyone why they are wrong. Know your limitations. "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." Mark Twain
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSit in an oven and turn up the temperature. I'm sure something good will come of it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPokerplyer -
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm thinking you have been so brainwashed by the insultingly simplistic propaganda spewed by the energy industry that you will call any attempt to support, even promote, a reduction in the use of carbon based energy sources a carbon tax. That's too bad. I'm sorry for you; a washed out brain is a pitiful thing.
The whole point is to wean this nation - and hopefully the rest of the world - off carbon based energy while we can still afford to make the switch. How much 'blood and treasure' as the politicians like to style it, are you willing to spend to keep this dying horse pulling the cart? Will you be trotting down to the recruiter's office any time soon?
You want to whine about taxes? Who do you think pays all those subsidies to the big energy companies? God? We do. You and I. And the stockholders and CEOs are laughing all the way to the bank on their way to their vacations on the Riviera.
Reduce consumption? That'd be great. Efficiency and conservation are the two best roads out there to drown the oil sheiks in their oil, but they're not going to turn the tide. Americans aren't going to accept any big sacrifices. We're too spoiled by subsidized oil prices to kick the habit.
The trick is to find new ways to support our habit - and keep all that money at home instead of sending it to our false friends overseas.
I watched a big windfarm get built here on the Southern High Plains a few years ago. All those struggling ranchers got $4,000 to $6,000 per lease per year for the use of their land. Do you hear them complaining? Well - NO. Buncha socialist hippies...
I'd like to remind you that in challenging the currently accepted theory the burden of proof is on you, not the rest of us. At least that's the way it works here on Planet Earth... All the spurious, disingenuous arguments spewed by the industry propaganda mills have been refuted so thoroughly and so often that their continued use can be seen as nothing but a well funded effort to LIE to the American People.
So - what you got? Where's your evidence? You know - data, numbers, stuff like that.
Cigarette consumption is inversely related to the tax rates on them. Hey, if you want to throw away the basics of Economic Theory, feel free, but don't try to participate in grownup debates if you're still trying to master drinking from your sippy cup.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've looked at your best "proof" already and have been thoroughly unimpressed. I have pointed you to skepticalscience.com and you dismiss ALL of their proof out of hand without actually responding to their scientific arguments. I think it's YOU who needs to look past your ideology and actually do some science for yourself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"For a hypothesis to be provable, it has to have conditions or a measures that show both true or false. If every possible combination of weather is proof always of this being true, you don't have a real theory. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's reduce this statement a bit - 'For an hypothesis to be viable it must be testable'. That's the problem with String Theory; elegant as the mathematics are, nobody can figure out how to test it. Now, to climate science: The physics of CO2, air and long wave radiation were first proposed in the mid 19th century. The hypothesis that CO2 captured and re-radiated long wave energy was hotly contested and finally proven incontrovertibly around the beginning of the 20th century. That's history.
Try this:
Find an unshaded area with a uniform substrate, say your local WalMart parking lot. Now - build 2 hermetically sealable enclosures out of a transparent material like Visqueen. Flood both with a reasonably inert gas like nitrogen and add some CO2 to one of them. Record the temperature of both over the course of a sunny day. What do you find at the end of this high school science fair project? The enclosure with the added CO2 is significantly hotter than the one without CO2.
This experiment and numerous variations on the theme have been performed many times with the same result. Add carbon dioxide to an experimental atmosphere and it retains heat. Simple as that. Testable, tested, proved.
"All that carbon started out in the environment. Artifical (sic) means of removing it will permanently take that carbon and the "needed by humans" oxygen out of the biosphere"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat all that carbon started out in the atmosphere is perfectly true. It was then sequestered as coal and oil during particularly warm periods like the Carboniferous and the Cenozoic by plants. Now we're digging it up and releasing it back into the atmosphere.
As for that "needed by humans" oxygen, try to keep in mind that it is continually replenished, again by plants. We'll be fine on that account.
"Tell me, how will CO2 reduction cause any effect on real toxins or pollutants?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is nothing more than a red herring devised by the industry propaganda mills to divert attention from the real issue.
In point of fact though, since CO2 + H2O yields carbonic acid and most metals dissolve more easily into low pH solutes, a reduction of CO2 will have some small effect on the mobilization of metals (and plant nutrients for that matter) in the environment.
As for the control of releases to the environment of toxic materials, that effort has to be ongoing.
"real toxins" - CO2 is a real toxin. Just ask the villagers from Lake Nyos (google it). Oh, that's right - they're all dead. All 1,200 of them...
We expel CO2 from our bodies because it poisons us once it reaches a certain threshold. CO2 removal is a very big deal on submarines and space craft. Remember Apollo 13?
More evidence that CO2 has caused climate change....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum
http://www.eidyiasolutions.com/news_articles/scrolls/4_12_10_art_834.swf
This is sheer lunacy you are peddling. The greenhouse effect is 19th century science. Global climate change caused by the Industrial Revolution was first considered by Arrhenius in the 19th century and was a recurring issue throughout the 20th century. The computer models are accurate but could be more precise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you want to commit suicide, do it on your own time. We cannot stop climate change that is already underway but perhaps we can save some semblance of what we presently enjoy-living in houses with clean piped water on demand, electricity, affordable food and transportation. If we do it right we can create economic momentum by increasing energy efficiency and introducing new technologies to reduce demand for fossil fuels. But the people who benefit from production and sale of fossil fuels have all the money and they would rather see most of us dead or living as peasants than sacrifice their wealth, power and control. There will be no resolution of climate issues until the people seize control of the fossil fuel industry and regulate it like a utility, rather than as a government subsidized gold rush.
It’s interesting to me that agw advocates decry the
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnon-climate scientists who are skeptical of agw. When did economists become climate scientists?
Funny how nobody even talks about how many trillion dollars it will COST to avoid the 5 trillion dollars of damage being estimated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven funnier how it sounds like they think that if everybody in the country would just pony up $5,000 each we could just pay for the damages and everything would be fine.
Funniest of all is the idea that we can all somehow each make an EQUAL sacrifice to fix this problem. I'm not saying that nothing should be done or that no sacrifices should be made, but who decides who makes what sacrifices?
There is no formula, no theory which can provide these answers. No one can tell me what I have to give up completely, what I have to cut down on or how much I have to cut down on it.
In fact, there was a recent article right here on SA that said that OVER HALF of my personal carbon footprint comes from the fact that I am a tax-paying American citizen. Should I stop paying taxes? Move to Cuba?
What's that? You say I should force my government to cut ITS carbon footprint? O.K., NOW who gets to decide who makes what sacrifices? More importantly, where can I hide during the riots by the people who feel like they've been forced to sacrifice too much? And how much CO2 will be emitted by all they effigies they burn.
I'm not a climate change skeptic, I'm a climate FIX skeptic. The science is solid, but the sociology is unworkable.
"We need to emit less CO2!" I'm sold, Brainiac, but if you think the plan to make it happen will be simple, easy, or without unintended consequenses, you're far more stupid than all the deniers subtracted from each other.
As far as $21 per ton vs. $40 per ton vs. $900 per ton...well, figures don't lie, but liars can figure...and that goes for ANYONE who comes up with a price tag per ton!
Wow, those numbers are scary indeed, even scarier is how anyone can take these groups seriously. I mean really, how accurate can the "science" be when one source(the federal government, and no the EPA is hardly in the bag for "big oil") says a ton of CO2 is $21, then another says it is 45 times as much, then still another says they could actually be $3000 per ton, or roughly 147 times as costly as the original estimate?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo in other words if we shut down every factory, high rise, power plant, house, and destroy every car and truck the US economy will grow by 5.3 trillion dollars next year? Ok ok I was joking I am sure thats not what they meant...
Again, we are talking about a "pollutant" that humans exhale naturally and plants need to survive. This attempt to put the "social cost" on such a gas is based on assumptions about the relationship between climate, weather, and its driving forces that humanity has yet to actually prove. We were told a decade ago that if we did not act on global warming we would already be at the tipping point now, yet this decade turned out to be warming at an unimpressive .15 degrees C, well within natural variability. Now some of the alarmists then have actually come out to blame, of all things, Chinese coal plants because sulfur burning apparently has a negative impact on warmth.
Isn't this just playing with statistics? How on earth do you calculate the 'social cost' of a species made extinct, a human being made landless and homeless due to flooding and rising sea levels, or tropical rain forests reduced to desert?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is undeniable is that in human terms alone, global warming may cause famine and starvation greater than any the world has ever known, and mass refugee problems which may end in nuclear conflicts between nations.
Nobody can put a 'price' on any of these things. No wonder so many people just want to stick their heads in the sand and become climate change deniers. The reality is too dreadful to contemplate.
Economics and the social sciences are, more often than not, directly effected by the conclusions of the 'harder' sciences. In fact as you well know, or should, the work of insurance actuaries is often more rigorous than that of some research workers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat some advocates of climate change should react disparagingly to the work of legitimate researchers arguing against climate change is hardly surprising given the anti-science, often insulting comments and accusations levied by the denialist/disinformer faction against honest, hardworking scientists trying to report work that happens to support climate change. Especially when the anti-climate change crowd continues to espouse unequivocally the work of scientists like Drs McKibbben and McKittrick, who rely circularly on each other's work, or Dr. Soon, who skews his base data to support his conclusions and Dr. Morner, who despite his otherwise excellent qualifications, relies on rather arcane hypotheses of his own devise to support broad and rather strident arguments against climate change.
The tone of the debate has been set by influences from outside the scientific community and with a very well funded effort on the part of vested interests like Koch Industries and their attack dogs in the right wing media actively fanning the flames, I don't see any relief in sight.
Metrics for carbon's social costs are generated and published because planners must have some guideline's for their models. That's all. It isn't about trying to put a price on a disasterous drought. Then, of course, other people run with these numbers and try to use them for their own 'global warming agendas'. And so it goes...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe see here a report of the propaganda created by political organizations.... not science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing in the "reports" cited is peer reviewed.... nor is anything but the results reported here.
As it is a plain and unassailable fact that climate science is still in its infancy... any conclusion about anything in climatology is not much more than an educated guess.. at the uttermost best.
Seeing truly ridiculous assertions made by economists whose own discipline is pretty shaky and constantly proven wrong... who then extrapolate from climatology in an infant science.... is about the very definition of comic book science.
No... we see the vapid politics of privileged couch dwellers who find a certain political view to be esthetically pleasing... and who hold wholly faith-based opinions.... squirming and worming to prove their politics are "scientific".
They are right down there with Creation Scientists... and Spiritualists when it comes to intellectual honesty.
Wow, another denier post that's ENTIRELY fact-free and full of "attack the messenger" rhetoric. Do you have any peer reviewed reports that show how climate science is not to be trusted?...Nope, didn't think so, but thanks for playing!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTell you what Skippy (or is it Skippie?), I spent 20 years sampling the environment in the field. Knee deep, stinking playa mud, salt lakes so saline that a skin of crystalline salt formed on the water's surface on nice warm July days, sampling for water chemistry through the ice in mountain streams at 8,000 feet in January or getting stewed in 105+ degrees and 100% humidity on the lower Pecos.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't you go calling working scientists a bunch of couch potatoes. You've quite obviously got no idea what you're talking about.
"...we are talking about a "pollutant" that humans exhale naturally and plants need to survive."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am seeing this 'argument' more and more recently. I'd love to know which propaganda mill is spewing this choice bit of tripe - you care to divulge your source?
Look, we EXhale carbon dioxide because it is poisonous to us. Just ask the villagers around Lake Nyos. http://www.geo.arizona.edu/geo5xx/geos577/projects/kayzar/html/lake_nyos_disaster.html Oh yeah, you can't - they're all dead... There are other things we expel from our bodies that plants can use. That's why we have bathrooms and spend billions every year to safely dispose of our wastes. If we didn't, we'd literally be in deep siht pretty quick.
If you find yourself in a room with a 20% oxygen concentration (ambient air) and a 10% CO2 concentration, you WILL die. That's why CO2 control is such a big deal on submarines and space craft. Please use your brain for something more than a sponge for sopping up poisonous industry propaganda.
"We were told a decade ago that if we did not act on global warming we would already be at the tipping point now, yet this decade turned out to be warming at an unimpressive .15 degrees C..."
That 0.15 degree C is a GLOBAL AVERAGE and don't forget it's cumulative. The Arctic's warming faster than anywhere else. Five to seven degrees faster...
Again, I find myself wondering about your source. Care to share?
As for tipping points, who's to say we haven't passed one - or more? This planet is a pretty big place and changes don't happen over night on that scale ("Day After Tomorrow" notwithstanding...). Things are happening all around us as we speak that COULD (I'm not saying are) be indicative of tipping points passed. Just by way of example, browse through Neven Acropolis' 'Arctic Sea Ice' blog. Click on Daily Graphs at the top. Go ahead. It's fascinating. I won't bother to get into the huge statistical increase in extreme weather events over the last decade or so. I'll let some of the best actuaries in the world do that - http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43727793/ns/world_news-world_environment/ .
Do read the whole thing. It's not all that long and there's lots of interesting stuff there.
Meanwhile, take a look at - http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=finding-good-information-on-the-int-2011-07-16 right here at SA. It might help in your search for truth on the internet. That is if your actually searching for truth...
We can see that this poster "Sault" really has no idea how science works... nor do they have any idea how insanely ridiculous is their demand a negative be proven.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeems to have not taken even the most basic courses in logic and reasoning. Another liberal arts major with an 8th grade education trying to sound authoritative with middle school "arguments".
The simply fact of the matter is that climate science is in its infancy... and this is undeniable.
We see a lot of juvenile commentary in this thread.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFolks like 'Sault" and "Spaz" come across like 8th graders in maturity and content.
It is sad, indeed, to see noisy, politically motivated ignorance posted here. But... it is to be expected since the article itself is not science but politics devoid of any scientific content.
You know - I used to try to post reasonable comments filled with lots of actual science, but was met with little but smart-ass jibes and ad hominem attacks. So I figured 'when in Rome...'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs it is, trying to convey real science on this and certain other sites is something of a fool's errand. I continue to post not because the individuals who trigger my comments will actually listen and learn (they don't), but in the hope that other folks who are actually looking for information might gain some benefit.
As for this article, risk assessment is a valid use of science. Without some realistic basis for decision making, planners would be groping in the dark at the whim of vested interests.
If plans are made erroneously it is the responsibility of scientists in the appropriate discipline(s) to try to correct the planners' decisions.
Le Spaz d'Argent,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: comment 45
None of the mentioned scientists is familiar to me. Please consider the following:
"Reid Bryson, founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at the Univeristy of Wisconsin, believes the temperature of the Earth is increasing, but has nothing to do with what man is doing. He said, "You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling CO2."
[John Vennari. 2009 CD. The Global Warming Fraud: Under the Green Thumb of False Science. Buffalo: Oltyn Library Services, track 6]
I happened to know a couple of Dr. Bryson's grad students back in the '70s All the buzz then was about his hypothesis of an immanent ice age. There was something of a stir in certain circles on campus (I was not enrolled at the time)when the ice age idea was shot down.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA quick search on Reid Bryson was surprisingly empty - mostly interviews and newspaper articles. Dr. Bryson could hardly be said to be a proponent of global warming theories.
A quick search on Oltyn Library Services some kind of Catholic search engine) led (dead-ended) at Cortera, some kind of low end (apparently) financial services company.
Watts up with that?
"...Drs McKibbben[edit 07/18/2011 McInness] and McKittrick, who rely circularly on each other's work, or Dr. Soon, who skews his base data to support his conclusions and Dr. Morner, who despite his otherwise excellent qualifications, relies on rather arcane hypotheses of his own devise to support broad and rather strident arguments against climate change."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't find my reference for Drs McInness and McKittrick so I'll withdraw that and substitute:
http://theconversation.edu.au/rogues-or-respectable-how-climate-change-sceptics-spread-doubt-and-denial-1557
Dr. Soon pops up all over and continues to spew intentionally biased papers in his wake.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/07/how-soon-is-now/
As for Nils Axel Morner, I'll leave you with, for what it's worth, the Wikipedia entry (it's full of references...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils-Axel_M%C3%B6rner
Some folks really don't like him:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/KaAp/arctic-melting-sea-levels-climate-change_n_856924_86785714.html
Science works EXACTLY by going through the peer-reviewed literature, building upon previous research and coming to new conclusions. If some groundbreaking research undermines the established, consensus opinion, then those claims will also go through peer review and MIGHT overturn established theory if they remain valid. After all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Please take into consideration that EVERY major scientific body across the world has endorsed the theory that humans are altering the climate with CO2 emissions (AGW).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo overturn the weight of evidence that has been accumulated over 100 years in support of AGW, some spectacular evidence needs to be presented that does the following things:
1. Finds a VALID and consistent source of error in the data and subsequent analysis in AGW theory that causes it to be discarded.
2. Provides a more comprehensive explanation for the observed data than AGW theory.
The climate deniers have presented ZERO data / papers to accomplish EITHER of these criteria. First, "It's the sun!" and then, "It's cosmic rays!" to, "it's not warming!" and finally "climate change won't be THAT bad..." None of this is consistent, and none of it even fits the OBSERVED data that is not in dispute. I can't help but say, "Make up your minds already!"
Anyway, I still don't understand what concept you have trouble grasping, that CO2 traps heat or that we're causing it to build up in the atmosphere? Oh, and it's not like I don't understand because I'm a "liberal arts major with an 8th grade education", it's because I have an M.S. in Engineering and I can't fathom why someone could be so totally far from being right on this issue, unless you're not even looking at the data.
An engineer coming out in support of global warming?!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKudos! You're a rare bird - at least out here in the knee deep world of the 'blog-o-sphere'...
Le Spaz d'Argent,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: comment 56
Bryson's promotion of an impending ice age was unknown to me until you made me aware. However, that's not the case with Prof. Carl Sagan who was also promoting it.
Oltyn Library Services is merely the ordering outlet for the cd's produced by John Vennari who is editor of Catholic Family News: http://www.cfnews.org/cfn.htm
Re: comment 57
My attempt at digesting what is arguably one of the seminal papers on global warming [1] had to be put on hold (patience is not much of a factor in my daily existence). The problem for me was a lack of definition for the term, “proxy climate indicators.”
However, Prof. Mann did provide a description: ‘”Multiproxy” methods exploit the complementary strengths of each of these proxies to reconstruct large-scale climate changes in past centuries.’ [2] Yet, he admitted the proxies used—tree-ring data, coral data, ice core data and historical documentary climate records—each has limitations. That does not seem to me to provide a significant level of confidence.
[1] Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. Hughes. 1998. Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries. NATURE, Vol. 392, 23 April, pp. 770-787.
[2] Michael E. Mann. 2002. The Value of Multiple Proxies. SCIENCE, vol 297, 30 August, pp. 1481-1482.
6 million tons of Co2 is the amount produced by the USA from 8am to 2pm every day. The annual emission is more than 6.000 million tons (6 billion).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFacts are facts. You're just afraid that you have to quit wasting energy and poisoning the planet's atmosphere with your "way of life" from the 1960s. We are producing 50 times more Co2 than all volcanos on the planet, increasing this emissions by 4% each year. Extreme drought, floodings and heavy weathers are already taking place around the globe. The price of corn, rice and beef will skyrocket. Big macs will go up and sallary will go down. You are in state of denial but reality happens.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWollu:"....and sallary will go down. You are in state of denial but reality happens."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow ridiculous. You need to take off the blinkers and get out in the world. Income has gone up in 90% of thge world. People in China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. have cell phones, TVs, computers, etc.
How many babies have been saved because of the fossil fuels burnt to warm their incubators? What is the societal benefit of that?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm sick and tired of the eco-jihadists rolling out some "economic study" that only shows costs without benefits.
As any first year business student knows, one person's debit is another's credit.
So how about that? Maybe an article on the societal benefits of fossil fuels?
Nahhhh..... after all SCIAM is just a tool of the eco-jihadists anyway, can't have any balance inquiry here.
I've done similar research, finding similar large scale errors.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere's a typical fivefold error in estimating the embodied energy of economic choices. It's simple math, that the average btu/$ for individual estimates needs to distributed around the total btu/$ average for the whole economy. Current standard methods are FAR from it. http://www.synapse9.com/SEA