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EMISSIONS PEAK: Emitting CO2 faster (blue) or slower (green) than a benchmark emissions scenario (red) makes little difference to future temperatures compared to uncertainty in the climate system’s response (grey shading), provided the same amount is emitted in total (blue & green shaded areas above and below red curve are equal), but some scenarios require currently unfeasible rates of emission reduction.
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Image: Allen et al 2009
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To avoid catastrophic climate change, the world will need to emit less than one trillion metric tons of carbon between now and 2050, according to two new papers published in Nature today. In other words, there is only room in the atmosphere to burn or vent less than one quarter of known oil, natural gas and coal reserves.
Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have reached 386 parts per million—and rising, because every year, human activity spews more than 30 billion metric tons of CO2. So far, that's led to warming of roughly 0.8 degree Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit). The question is: How much more can we safely emit? The two new papers attempt an answer.
"There is a simple and predictable relationship between the total amount of carbon injected into the atmosphere and peak projected warming," says physicist Myles Allen of the University of Oxford in England and lead author of one of the studies. "Releasing a trillion [metric] tons of carbon into the atmosphere may cause a most likely peak warming of 2 degrees C [3.6 degrees F], which many identify as the danger point." An average temperature rise of 2 degrees C or lower has been adopted by the European Union and other countries—110 in all—as a goal for any treaty to control climate change, and has been identified by scientists, including the authors of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, as a point at which most climate changes become damaging.
But CO2—and the carbon at its molecular core—is not the only greenhouse gas. Others—ranging from methane to hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)—"could contribute as much as 10 to 40 percent of the warming induced by CO2 alone," says climatologist Malte Meinshausen of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany, lead author of the second study appearing in Nature. That drops the overall budget for atmospheric emissions to roughly 750 billion metric tons of carbon between the years 2000 and 2050. "To limit the risk to a one-in-four chance [of 2 degree C warming], then total CO2 in the first half of the 21st century has to be kept below [one trillion] metric tons."
Put another way: humanity can only afford to burn and vent less than one quarter of known oil, natural gas and coal reserves. Already, between 2000 and 2006, the world emitted roughly 234 billion metric tons of CO2—and roughly one third of the total trillion metric ton "budget" has already been spent to date. "We can burn less than a quarter of known economically recoverable fossil fuel reserves between now and 2050," says co-author and climatologist William Hare, also of the PIK. "Not much at all of coal reserves can be burnt and still keep warming below the 2 degree [C] limit."
Meeting that target will require global emissions to peak and begin to decline before 2020—unless countries desire drastic cuts later in the century. "If you burn a [metric] ton of carbon today then you can't burn it tomorrow, you've got a finite stock," says co-author and physicist David Frame of Oxford. "How would you apportion that finite stock of carbon?" That is a decision the world's governments will have to make in coming months and years.
Global greenhouse gas emissions will need to be at least 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050—that means cuts by industrialized countries such as the U.S. of more than 90 percent—and on a path to zero emissions. A market for carbon—charging emitters for the ability to pollute—could help. A $50 price for a metric ton of CO2 by 2020 might do the trick based on economic modeling, Frame says, allowing emissions to peak some 25 percent above 1990 levels. "After that the carbon price would need to progressively increase to push carbon emissions down globally to where you would stay within this budget," he adds. "The 80 percent reduction [by 2050 pledge] from the U.S. is a good start but it's not enough to limit warming in order to meet [the] 2 degree [C increase] with high confidence."
Of course, 2 degrees C warming—a further 1.2 degrees C from the current level of heating—will in and of itself have a host of unpleasant effects, such as ongoing sea-level rise that will swamp coastlines and island states. Since 1750 humanity has added 520 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and we're on pace to add that much again within 40 years—a scenario that is likely to result in catastrophic climate change.
"The longer we let [emissions] rise, the harder and costlier reductions become," Allen notes.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI remember the when the respected scientific periodicals would refuse to pubish anything with the word "very" in one of their articles, as it was considered non-scientific. Now "catastrophic" appears acceptable, as long as it pertains to AGW.
Science has indeed taken a turn to the surreal.
"University of Calgary climate change scientist David Keith and his team . . . . showed they could capture CO2 directly from the air with less than 100 kilowatt-hours of electricity per tonne of carbon dioxide."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/uoc-cd092908.php
Removing 520 billion tons of CO2 from the air would take 52000 billion kWh or 52,000 TWh, or since a year is about 8700 hours, ~six TW-years. A TW is about twice the installed power in the US.
It would take 1000 one GW nuclear reactors or 200 5 GW solar power satellites 6 years to bring the CO2 level back to the level of 1960 if no new CO2 was being added.
There are only two options for low cost energy at the scale needed to replace fossil fuels; space based solar and nuclear fission. Unless another option opens up, such as fusion, then it is one or the other. The do-nothing alternative is population collapse in famines and wars.
For optical reasons, power sats just don't come in small sizes.
If you assume 5kg/kW for power satellites (a safe number) then for 5 GW (5 million kW) the mass is 25,000,000 kg or 25,000 tons--5ooo launches at 5 tons per launch.
The rocket engineers claim that for this much cargo they could get the cost down from $20,000/kg to ~$2000/kg. ultimately to ~$500/kg to GEO. (Less to LEO, but you still have to get power sats to GEO.)
This is too much by a factor of 5 to displace nuclear and fossil fuels.
After working through this backwards, to really compete, i.e., to take a large share of coal and oil market, the launch cost to GEO has to come down to ~$100/kg. That's next to impossible to do with rockets. The basic problem is the rotten mass ratio, which is a consequence of the low exhaust velocity from chemical fuels.
Laser ablation propulsion is not limited to chemical exhaust velocities. Lasers have been considered for close to 30 years, but they require really huge lasers to lift even small payloads, one to three GW/ton.
Combining the high thrust of a chemical rocket first stage with a high ISP laser second stage allows a relatively small laser to push a large payload for a long time, (close to 15 minutes).
There may be other approaches for getting the lift cost down to ~$100/kg, but here is at least one. More at www.htyp.org/dtc.
To convert 100 ppm of CO2 back to synthetic oil and put it back in empty oil fields would take 300 GW years or 15 TW for two decades. We have to build 30 TW anyway to displace fossil fuels so building another 15 TW after 2050 is reasonable.
Keith Henson
Scrubbing the CO2 might make it possible to use the solar power capacity in the American southwest without long-range transmaission lines.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is all nonsense. There is only one way to accomplish these totally unnecessary reductons: move back into caves and give up fire. These people are all nuts, and their "science" is as ridiculous as Al Gore.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor all the silly predictions, the polar ice caps are NOT shrinking, they are getting thicker, and all the coastal areas that were suppose to have disappeared already are, remarkably, still above water along the same coastlines.
These folks ought to have their computers confiscated,their grants terminated, and their mouths duct-taped shut.
Socialism failed because it could not recognize the economic truth. Capitalism is failing because is cannot recognize the ecologic truth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Oh look, another American Conservative who took their stupid pills this morning.
After 40 years of Conservative treason against their own nation that has restlted in its fiscal, intellectual, and moral collapse, American conservatives are not contented."
Invective and insult do not constitute arguments. Go back to school and take a course in how to write before criticising those with whom you disagree, but cannot find the words to intelligently express yourself. Apparently you don't need "stupid pills." You might also try reading a book now and again.
"I remember the when the respected scientific periodicals would refuse to pubish anything with the word "very" in one of their articles, as it was considered non-scientific."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, go ahead tell us about this one. Why?
"Science has indeed taken a turn to the surreal."
Translation: I do not want to believe!
"This is all nonsense. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnly to the uniformed. Perhaps you would take the time to inform yourself where the community of geophysicists stands on this issue some time.
"There is only one way to accomplish these totally unnecessary reductons: move back into caves and give up fire."
Once again you may want to invest some of your time into the mitigation side of the issue too. I am not aware of anyone making such wild proposals except for inactivist seeking to do nothing,
"These people are all nuts, and their "science" is as ridiculous as Al Gore."
Since when did physicists become "nuts"? Oh, I see when you did not like what was being said, carry on. BTW, the geophysics of Earth's climate is not about Al Gore and never was.
"For all the silly predictions, the polar ice caps are NOT shrinking, they are getting thicker,.."
When I go to the professional science organization that monitors the Arctic here is what I find from the National Sea Ice Data Center:
"Sea ice extent averaged over the month of March 2009 was 15.16 million square kilometers (5.85 million square miles). This was 730,000 square kilometers (282,000 square miles) above the record low of 2006, but 590,000 square kilometers (228,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average."
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
So much for that lie.
"...and all the coastal areas that were suppose to have disappeared already are, remarkably, still above water along the same coastlines."
Here is your chance to provide evidence of the above statement. Please go to the relevant scientific organizations that you assert made this prediction and give a link to the primary documents that say this. Now note I am not asking it to come second hand but directly from that source. I will wait.
"These folks ought to have their computers confiscated,their grants terminated, and their mouths duct-taped shut."
I see that you and Exxon-Mobile think a like.
Some people that pretend having had contact with aliens say that they warned that a catastrophe is about to happen, the planet Earth will be changed into a desert. Is this realistic?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is realistic to think some people pretend to have contact with aliens, yes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNature and SciAm waste time and money publishing studies about global warming and cancer when they should address humanities greatest threat: conservative cultish stupidity. Eight years of self-inflicted damage and people like aleslie@optonline.net are still as vehement, insane and delusional as ever. Is there are part of the brain that has genetically mutated or what other possible cause can there be?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe polar, at least North Pole, ice has melted more or less completely & refrozen several times in the recent recorded, and photographed, past. Nobody noticed coastal areas getting inundated during the melts or getting noticable added beach front during the freezes. See the following link for some 1950s-1990s US Navy photos taken with submarine expeditions to the N. Pole: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/26/ice-at-the-north-pole-in-1958-not-so-thick/#more-7368
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe question is not whether or not the consensus regarding the science is not already very clear. Obviously it is. The question is whether anyone believes that China, for one, will not burn much of its coal. Of course it will burn its coal. Given its population burden and its economic trajectory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo suppose that China will not burn its coal is to misunderstand history and basic human nature, and expect that people are going to share resources and costs in an equitable way. This has never happened before. And it is hard to suppose that things are going to change much so very late in the game.
Again more propoganda from environmentalists who have no credibility in world climate. They are putting up all these outrageous numbers using their own flawed computer models, but the real world hasn't been following their computer models. Our climate is cooling, yet instead of admitting their error, these environmentalists changed their model to atttack another questionable value, carbon dioxide. Now their "catch of the day" is C02 emissions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople we are loosing our jobs, our factories, and our modern lifestyle based on a false premise.
All of these claims are all bogus junk science coercing an over reaction by federal, and regional governments to enact unnecessary laws and regulations to make our North American industrial base virtually unworkable. Setting caps on carbon dioxide means production line elimination, which varably means plant closure. Don't you people understand an 80% reduction in plant carbon dioxide emissions means an 80% reduction in plant product output. If you cut out 80% of your production line you put a death notice on the plant gate. That's all of the jobs gone.
And by the way, I'm still waiting on a GM plant, or Ford plant building a "Green" factory in my neighborhood.
Less1leg's post seems to express basic disgruntlement with the best atmosphere chemistry science, to date. But don't get mad at the science or researchers just for reporting data. Its up to democracies around the world, as well as a few authoritarian governments around the world, to decide how they wish to proceed, based on this scientific knowledge. Deny the science and proceed? Fine. Or, use the science to make best choices? Fine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProbably there are very few scientists around that will force people to act in their own best interests......if a democratic form of government decides to reject logical scientific thought.
Anyone is free to smoke tobacco these days. Just as people have been free, every night, and sometimes in the daytime, to overpopulate the world without restriction.
It might be fun. But its probably not the best course of action. Just try to be more accepting of the poor scientists who cast out real facts. The ones that make you think about reality.
Okay, Less1leg. Show us the real data.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn a related note, I'm starting to wonder just how bad things will have to get before global warming opponents wake up and see what's going on around them.
Possibly the real point is: Is there any way that not using the existing coal in China can be avoided? Looking at the economics of coal in China, which includes the fact that this is one of the cheapest forms of energy, and then knowing that there is such a strong imperative for the government in China to ride their bucking tiger, which is almost 1.5 billion souls that seek very little other than either to be fed and not starve, or be able to buy ever more luxury goods, so far, there is only one choice available. And this is burning most of their cheap coal. The Chinese government will accept almost any future risk to just stay on top of the tiger, and not get trounced and eaten alive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe situation for these Chinese rulers is to either burn coal and keep its economy humming at 8 to 10 percent, OR DIE.
This is why some believe that it may be far beyond far fetched logic to expect that either Chinese coal will not be used, or that it will be sequestered in any major way, during the next 20 or 30 years.
As everyone now is aware, China is building at least 1 coal fired power plant per week. And these power plants are not the most efficient. But they are expected to last for approx 40 years.
So, the writing is very clearly on the wall. And some climate scientists, even though they are very aware of this problem, still probably do not appreciate how very difficult it may prove to change this trend
Fact: Global temperatures have been steadily falling for most of the past decade:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://icecap.us/images/uploads/ALL_SINCE_2002.jpg
Fact: Global sea ice is above its long term average:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
Fact: As CO2 rises, global temps keep falling:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CRU_AND_MSU_vs_CO2.jpg
The planet is ridiculing the runaway global warming crowd.
Finally, I used to subscribe to Scientific American many years ago. After reading this tabloid-style article, I am truly appalled by its arm-waving, spittle flecked screeching about the repeatedly falsified runaway global warming hypothesis.
I suspect I know where the laid off writers from the Weekly World News now work.
macuser states something about arm-waving, spittle flecked screeching. And that he used to subscribe to sciam many years ago. Sciam is still a great publication for young people who enjoy science. There are very few better publications for young aspiring scientists. Sciam is not intended to be a true scientific journal. But it proves its worth by giving kids some really good science articles to read, before they have the knowledge to begin reading much more technical science journals.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny reader who feels that sciam's articles are not quite state of the art, are free to read other publications There are plenty of them. Both much more technical, and ones where commentary and posts, such as macuser;s, must be top notch, in order to be published.
Lovely;
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome aspects of SCIAM are still very good, but when it comes to AGW they just go off the rails. If SCIAM was a balanced article you would see pro and anti-AGW articles presented for discussion. The last time I saw an anti-AGW article was the 5th of Never. The closest they got was "Is Global Warming A Myth?" and look at the reactions that that thread got.
SCIAM is a lot of things, but unbiased ain't one of them.
Here is a very interesting question:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy is this issue of global warming so EXTREMELY polarizing? Why are people so very fascinated by it? And why are people not willing to read through the basic science, which is so easily available to the general public if only they would read the actual data?
It seems that this issue, which is basically just a scientific issue, similar to many other scientific questions, is provoking extremely heated debate, almost as if this were a political debate between two candidates in a hotly run presidential election. People are taking sides without even listening to the real issues involved, or even what their candidate's true stance might be.
The whole thing has become a farcical bunch of nonsense. And the end result will be that we are the ones who will suffer in the end for our own stupidity.
And yet, people seem so very enraged just by the very consensus of scientific logic and publicly available data.
Does anyone have a handle on just why so extremely very many people can not handle the truth? This phenomenon does seem quite strange.
And yet, most people know that pigs can't fly. Very strange, indeed.
Shoshin, with all respect, there is no such thing as a "balanced" article in a science journal. I do not mean to be antagonistic in any way. But such a thing as a balanced science journal is just not valid. One needs to go where the data takes us. And there is no such thing as giving equal credence to arguing for a sun that rotates around the earth. The evidence is just not there, even though there are still people who are willing to argue that this is what happens.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe idea of "fair and balanced" reporting only exists at Fox news. But has no place in science journalism. One needs to follow the data without regard to any ideology. Or, politics.
But, where ideology impinges, is what do our political systems do with scientific knowledge that is now available. Will we use it? Or, will we deny it? These choices have nothing to do with the science, or the data.
It is always better to first pursue the science, according with the proven scientific method. Then, one can make ideological decisions regarding what to do with the scientific knowledge available. Throw it out? Or keep it? This is up to you. But don't castigate the scientific method. Nor the valid data.
The truly amusing thing is that everyone who has actively opposed the global warming hypothesis has been unable to provide data which holds up under scrutiny. Most of the time their arguments are little more than political hyperbole.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe opposition to global warming (flat earth society) are not in control of their own faculties. They are complete mental pawns to the neocon military-industrial complex and the oil cartels. They are the same automatons who vapidly chant, "DRILL BABY DRILL!" Mind you, these are not people who benefit financially from deaths by US weapons or from oil dollars. They live vicariously through Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. Pity the poverty of their weak and easily manipulated minds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLovely;
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet me re-phrase what I said. As you correctly point out, articles need not be fair or balanced, but the must point where the data takes. And that means all of the data, pro and con.
Any serious periodical should present both sides of an argument, otherwise it becomes merely a political shill, spreading talking points of an ideology.
SCIAM in my opinion crossed that line several years ago when it published an utterly indefensible piece of hogwash wherein the author claimed to be able to detect the "CO2 signature" of agriculture beginning in the Mekong Delta 8000 years ago, then further stated that any corroborating archeological evidence was destroyed by subsequent agricultural activities. The gist of the article was that these "AGW" activities kept us from entering another ice age. Sounds like a plot for an X-Files movie rather than anything that belongs in SCIAM.
Again, SCIAM has not published any article questioning AGW. The question that I ask is why are they afraid to ask the question? My guess is that they know what the answer will be and they are Denialists themselves.
The sheer arrogance of man - the hubris - in thinking we can control nature in this way is simply breathtaking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShoshi: Again, with all due respect. Probably there is no evidence that might persuade you to accept main stream science views.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course, I respect your views which you hold, which may be alternative to main stream science views.
And the good thing is that your views are just part of a democratic way of life, which will shape the ways in which we live.
As I think I stated before, even though I believe in science, still, if the majority of people, such as you, choose to deny the facts, deny tested data, then I will still be happy to live in a democratic society.
However, I will still hold my own opinions, which, it seems, might be just a bit contrary to yours.
Still, no hard feelings. And when the world tilts in a very terrible way, there will still be no hard feelings on my part. Because, in the end, I will have the last laugh, in being able to say, "I told you so".
Lovely:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI appreciate your opinions as well, but "main stream" science views are not automatically correct. As Albert Einstein said "A single fact is more important than a consensus."
My opinion is that AGW is long on hype and politics. I find it interesting that a recent poll shows that the more scientifically literate a member of the general public is, the lower is his or her belief in AGW tends to be.
Unfortunately, I don't share your eco-romantic belief in the coming of disaster, nor do I understand your wish to be able to say "I told you so". I find that illogical, as data which indicate that all is well should be greeted with relief.
I also believe that the Earth's climate is far more stable and contains numerous buffering systems that we have yet to discover. A case in point is the Great Barrier Reef. Two years ago it was white and dying. Everyone pointed at Global Warming. Today it has posted a spectacular recovery and is healthy and thriving. Why? Dunno.
"The polar, at least North Pole, ice has melted more or less completely & refrozen several times in the recent recorded, and photographed, past. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, it has not. You are once again repeating false hoods. How do we know this? Well this web site has the complete debunking:
http://www.members.iinet.net.au/~johnroberthunter/www-swg/
FTA:
There are two easily-accessible references, which describe the surfacing of the USS Skate at the North Pole on the 17th March 1959 (the first submarine to do so):
* Calvert, J.F., 1959. Up through the ice of the North Pole, The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. CXVI, No. 1, July 1959, pp. 1-41.
* Calvert, J., 1996. Surface at The Pole, Bluejacket Books (originally printed by McGraw-Hill, 1960).
and which say:
" * That the sun was still below the horizon and it was quite dark (it did not appear until 19 March):
o The sun was still just below the horizon and a very heavy overcast made for late twilight darkness
* That the weather was terrible:
o the wind ..... was roaring around us at about 30 knots, blowing the snow until one could see no more than a quarter of a mile
o The swirling snow loomed around the red torches
o in the 26-below-zero cold..... The wind blew snow into our noses and mouths, and it was difficult to talk or even breathe
o The wind and bitter cold made it physically difficult to hold and read the prayer book
o the gale was increasing and the temperature dropping
o Both sides of the lead were piled with the heaviest and ruggedest hummocks I had yet seen in the Arctic. It was a wild and forbidding scene
Do these descriptions match the picture above? Of course not."
How can you think that you can lie with such abandon in the Age of Google?
"Fact: Global temperatures have been steadily falling for most of the past decade:"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually the past decade is the warmest in the instrument record. From NASA: "The ten warmest years all occur within the 12-year period 1997-2008."
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/
"Fact: Global sea ice is above its long term average:"
Why deceive about something that is easily disproved?
"Fact: As CO2 rises, global temps keep falling:
Again another lie.
"The National Sea Ice Data Center says: Sea ice extent averaged over the month of March 2009 was 15.16 million square kilometers (5.85 million square miles). This was 730,000 square kilometers (282,000 square miles) above the record low of 2006, but 590,000 square kilometers (228,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average."
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
"Fact: As CO2 rises, global temps keep falling:"
False from the very same organization you site as disproof we find this:
"Average global temperatures are now some 0.75 °C warmer than they were 100 years ago. Since the mid-1970s, the increase in temperature has averaged more than 0.15 °C per decade. This rate of change is very unusual in the context of past changes and much more rapid than the warming at the end of the last ice age. Sea-surface temperatures have warmed slightly less than the global average whilst temperatures over land have warmed at a faster rate of almost 0.3 °C per decade."
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20080923c.html
Why deceive about something that is so easily disproved?
"The planet is ridiculing the runaway global warming crowd."
Only in the mind of a ideologue who swallows unreservedly from Exxon-Mobile sponsored propaganda sites.
"Again more propoganda from environmentalists who have no credibility in world climate. "e
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou think that if you scream and deny that reality will change. Fact: The world's geophysicist are in consensus that anthropogenic climate is real. The empirical data confirms the predictions and your side lies like a rug.
"They are putting up all these outrageous numbers using their own flawed computer models, but the real world hasn't been following their computer models."
Facts that have been observed and published by professional scientists:
1.Sea level is rising.
2.Glaciers are melting.
3.The North Pole as predicted is warming far faster than the rest of the planet.
4. Global temperature are still TRENDING to warmer.
5. While the Troposphere warms the Stratosphere is COOLING as PREDICTED.
6. Plant are blooming earlier and in the Northern Hemisphere the more southerly plants and animals are migrating more North. E.g the tree bark beetle.
All of that I have said in the above is supportable by peer reviewed science articles, some of those articles have been cited in this very thread.
"The sheer arrogance of man - the hubris - in thinking we can control nature in this way is simply breathtaking."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, an ideologue for whom reality takes a back seat to his ideas.
How NOT very special.
'I appreciate your opinions as well, but "main stream" science views are not automatically correct. As Albert Einstein said "A single fact is more important than a consensus."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy opinion is that AGW is long on hype and politics. '
Do you even notice how inconsistent you are with the so-called "support" you have chosen to display? You don't have any facts. You said so yourself just now, all you have is an opinion and, I might add, an unwillingness to face reality. You are continuously accusing us of being believers, yet you give us nothing but beliefs and circuitous diatribes. You have brought nothing of value to this debate.
If you want even a chance to salvage your credibility, you might start with practicing what you preach. Stop giving us hyperbole and start giving us real information, from real experts. Maybe then somebody will be able to take your message seriously.
@ Galaxyman,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"You are continuously accusing us of being believers, yet you give us nothing but beliefs and circuitous diatribes. You have brought nothing of value to this debate."
Welcome to Shoshin World, where reality is determined by ideology.
Vendicar:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd now you know the motivations of a dead man? We have a medium among us...
I see Trent1492 is still cutting and pasting. News is now fad not news. Data is skewed and the sorces are not held responsible for their data trash. In the old days they would become discredited- then they couldn't get a job teaching adult ed classes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I see Trent1492 is still cutting and pasting."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo that is an admission that you got no rational response to the date.
" News is now fad not news."
Your not making sense.
"Data is skewed and the sorces are not held responsible for their data trash."
Making baseless assertions is just so easy.
"In the old days they would become discredited- then they couldn't get a job teaching adult ed classes."
I am sorry but the Inquisition that you pine for will not be back.
It is not yet possible to say how much is too much as we do not know for sure what potential tipping-point values are. Anotherwords, we may be much nearer to catastrophe than we think. Hence the need for continuing research on the subject.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSolar, Wind, Geothermal, Wave and Tide power all cost less per installed megawatt of capacity than fossil fuel or nuclear power.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll those alternate-energy sources provide completely clean energy, and after the infrastructure is installed, the fuel is FREE. Therein lies the reason we seem to be waiting for those alternate-energy technologies to be perfected.
If we had waited for ANY of the technologies on which civilization now depends to deploy them on a massive scale, WE WOULD STILL BE WAITING!!
The conventional, dirty energy companies own the financial, and therefore the poltical power over governments worldwide to blackmail politicians not to fund public projects like the Interstate Highway System, the Rural Electrification Project, the Manned Moon Missions for alternative energy infrastructure.
It seems unbelievably greedy to favor short term profits over the long term survival of our natural life support system. It is the ONLY known natural life-support system in the Universe!
A cooling hydrosphere will scrub a lot more CO2 out of the atmosphere and result in lowering of the CO2 detected during this period.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlant life on this planet is an almost steady state carbon cycle and can not cause the changes observed.
Only a planet with huge, dirty (with salts) oceans can have a oxygen enriched atmosphere. CO2 is very easy to scrub with sea water as the CO2 goes into solution with water easily and then combines with light metal ions to make carbonates that percipitate out. Solar radiation in the upper atmosphere breaks down H2O into hydrogen that leaks into space and oxygen that sinks toward the surface.
Global cooling causes lowering of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Global warming causes raising of CO2 in the atmosphere.
CO2 has almost nothing to do with the temperature in the atmosphere, it is an effect not the cause. CO2 is a very poor green house gas and comprises only 1/30 of 1 percent of the atmosphere, and carbon is the most important element for life on this planet. The amount of carbon in circulation is the limiting nutritant in all life on this planet
IT IS THE SUN.
The total output of the sun causes the goldylocks zone to move in or out and the planet to cool or warm depending on the amount of energy it encounters, and the amount of CO2 to lower or raise with the temperature changes.
Hang in there shoshin; a calm voice in a sea of screamers
"Concepts which have proved useful for ordering things easily assume so great an authority over us, that we forget their terrestrial origin and accept them as unalterable facts. They then become labeled as 'conceptual necessities,' etc. The road of scientific progress is frequently blocked for long periods by such errors." - Einstein
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe sun is in a period of minimum output right now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNext?
Perhaps, if climate change were the ONLY negative result of allowing profit seekers to use the air, water and soil we, and the wildlife a lot of us think should be granted the right to live on this planet (and on which we depend for survival) need to survive, as a no-cost sewer system for the toxic waste their profit-making machinations produce, then stopping the process we have been engaging in for 200 years, of throwng the only known natural life support systen in the Universe out of balance, then maybe going back to the climate that allowed the dinosaurs to flourish for 100 million years would be OK.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe reality is quite different, however. Besides greenhouse gasses and the heat our machinery emits, the emissions of fossil fuel-powered industry and vehicles also contain mercury and other toxic heavy metals in gaseous form, which is why more than 20 U.S. states have issued warnings against consuming fish from their waters.
Those emmisions also contain sulphur and oxides of nitrogen which produce rain that is increasing the acidity of our lakes and oceans, and smog and ozone which cause deadly and societally hugely costly epidemic incidence of respiratory and other conditions and diseases.
We are poisoning the only natural life support system we know of because it would be difficult for human industry to convert to energy sources that neither pollute nor cause climate-change, and the fuel for which is FREE (Wind, sun moving water, geothermal heat, and water to convert, through electrolyisis into hyrogen and oxygen, which power the Space Shuttle, and whose only product of combustion is water vapor).
The ONLY reason we have not already, many yars ago, converted to those clean, abundant and inexhaustible energy sources is that they do not lend themselves to windfall profits.
The conventional dirty energy indutries control huge financial, (and therefore political) power and continue to blackmail (or bribe) politicians not to fund alternate energy infrastructure projects similar in scope to the Interstate Highway System, the Rural Electrification Administration or the Manned Moon-Landing program (which John F. Kennedy committed the nation to at a time when the science to complete it did not yet exist, nor did anyone know for sure that it was possible to create it that quickly).
If we had waited for ANY of the technologies on which human civilization now depends to be perfected before deploying them on a massive scale, as we now seem to be waiting for alternate-energy technologies to be perfected, WE WOULD STILL BE WAITING!!
Climate is chaotic meaning it is impossible to make exact forecasts. As nobody has a crystal ball, it is wise to apply the principle of precaution, and take all possible measures as soon as possible, even if this incurs extra costs. If we trip a tipping-point, it will be humanity which becomes chaotic, as well as the climate...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEco-steve:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe use of the precautionary principle is a misapplication under the AGW banner. Not only do we not know what Decarbonisation would cost, we don't know if any of the measures would succeed. Simply stating "We need to unring this bell!" is unrealistic, especially when it has not been demonstrated that a bell has indeed rung.
A more realistic application of the precautionary principle would be to begin to mitigate against the potential effects of AGW, such as building dikes etc. At least there you have a rational basis for proceeding.
It's cheaper, easier and more realistic to hand out earplugs in case a bell actually has rung or may ring. Not remotely as profitable for the climate-industrial complex, but bearable for us those of us who don't stand to profit.
where can we read the old news?Sometime we expect too
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