Is there any sanity on the issue of global warming/climate change?
August 11th, 2008
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Recently there have been a number of comments on the issue of greenhouse gases, global warming, man’s part in it (or lack there of) and skepticism that it is really as bad as it is made out to be. Obviously this is an important issue and one which is admittedly extremely complex and does involve a fair amount of legitimate disagreement. A lot of information is out there but much of it is deceptive or tied to a political or social agenda that benefits from cherry-picked data that supports one extreme or the other.
The truth is that global warming is not the kind of thing that a person can really notice from one location and within a a period of just a few years. It is also NOT the reason for hurricane Katrina or for any given flood, drought or wildfire. There have always been big storms and years with lots of them and there have always been quiet years with few storms and generally favorable weather. We’ve had both recently and the numbers don’t show any catastrophic increase in activity or severity. Similarly claims that there is impending disaster are generally inflated. While climate change is an issue worth considering, we’re NOT on the cusp of a disaster of epic proportions.
On the other hand, the claims that it is not occurring or that man’s role is negligible are also generally pretty dubious. The fact that the earth has not gotten much warmer in the past few years and may even have gotten cooler may be a sign that alarmist predictions are not coming to fruition, but it DOES NOT erase the trend of warming which has steadily been on the rise since the 1970’s and indeed for much of the past few hundred years.
Perhaps they are both wrong…
I’ve been working on a post to take a critical look at this important issue, but it’s turning out to be a VERY VERY long post with a tremendous amount of data going into it. Perhaps this isn’t too surprising, but in the meantime I’d recommend the website www.climateaudit.org. It’s one of the best resources I’ve seen out there and it is concerned with the facts of climate change and not the spin. The author Stephen McIntyre has had a few runs with controversy, but having read his site I’ve found it to be pretty thorough in the research and information provided. (Feel free to disagree on this.)
My take on it:
(Again, feel free to disagree, because this is admittedly my own opinion)
My own opinion on the matter has not changed much. While I don’t believe that global warming is as much of an impending disaster as it is often characterized as, it is still prudent to cut greenhouse gas emissions where reasonably possible. One of the main reasons for this is that the sources of greenhouse gas emissions, especially CO2 are the same sources which produce numerous other enviornmental and quality of life issues.
The use of coal, for example, is an enormous source of man made CO2, but even without this, it is still worth reducing because of the tremendous local enviornmental damage from mining, the extreme reduction in health from emissions, acid rain, increases in enviornmental mercury, smog, coal slurry dam disasters, mine fires and other mine disasters which have made coal mines veritable death traps. Oil and gas are somewhat better but petroleum also causes emissions of sulfur, particulates and other pollutants.
Worse than this, a society that is dependent primarily on fossil fuels has proven to have very poor energy security and since fuel must be provided nearly continuously, fluctuations in supply or price can be economically disastrous. In the United States we experienced what it is like to have a major fossil fuel energy source disrupted in the 1970’s when OPEC (a primarily Islamic oil cartel composed of nations which we would probably be treating like North Korea if they weren’t gushing oil) decided to shut off the tap to show how they could bring the world to its knees on a whim. After that the US spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which in a pinch might last a matter of months. On the other hand, the US also has stocks of enough thorium to power the country for several years which all fit on a few tractor trailers and ended up being buried, in part because we don’t have the reactors built to use them and thorium is so plentiful as a mineral that nobody was really interested in buying the stuff. While the two energy sources may not be entirely comparable in all respects (thorium not being useful as a primary transportation fuel, except perhaps for nuclear vessels), it’s a dramatic example of how poor fossil fuels are in terms of supply security compared to higher density energy sources.
Coal may be more secure than oil due to the fact that it is about as plentiful as dirt and even dirtier, but since such enormous volumes are constantly needed, a coal miners strike, a disruption of transportation systems or other factors also presents the danger of an energy disruption. Most coal plants only have a maximum of a few days worth of reserve fuel before the lights go out.
Other greenhouse gases also have impacts beyond global warming. Nitrous oxide, another major greenhouse gas, contributes to smoggy conditions and interacts with ozone molecules in the upper atmosphere diminishing the protective effects of the ozone layer. A large portion of nitrous emissions comes from fertilizer so practices that increase nitrate decomposition also result in less effecient use of nitrogen fertilizer in agriculture. Methane also can reduce air quality and increase atmospheric free radicals, reducing air quality in general.
Conclusion:
When combined with these factors it seems that the best course of action is the same even if global warming is not considered. We would do best to reduce the use of fossil fuels as a primary energy source whereever possible and replace it with a cleaner, more secure, reliable and safe source of energy like nuclear fission. However, it would be both irresponsible and shortsighted to cave to panic and begin drastic and rash “carbon cap and trade” regulations that will have negative impacts on the economy, health and quality of life.
It is likely that carbon-based fuels will continue to be needed for the foreseeable future in certain applications such as aviation, auxiliary power generation, long-distance transportation, heavy machinery such as tractors or construction (especially where grid power is not avaliable), marine propulsion and other applications. Complete elimination of hydrocarbon fuels is both unrealistic and entirely unnecessary. The goal should be reduction where reasonably possible and always with the focus on return on investment. There’s no point blowing resources on replacing all the gas grills in the world when we’re not doing squat about coal fires!
This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 8:06 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Enviornment, Good Science, Obfuscation, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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August 11th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Your points are entirely sane and reasonable and your conclusion sounds quite reasonable. This is going to be a big problem in getting any support for it. Alarmist and fanatical extremes draw people better than levelheadedness. Maybe if you throw in some really offensive pictures of dead babies that might help.
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August 11th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Half the problem with this issue is the name ‘global warming;’ ‘climate change,’ had the phrase been used from the beginning, would have left people less confused, and given nay-sayers less wiggle-room.
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August 11th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Global warming doesn’t even enter into it. A clean environment is a very good goal to have and be working towards. The problem is that there are people who want it now rather than transitioning so that we don’t hurt ourselves and our on industrial base. But there is every reason to want a cleaner environment we just have to be sane and sensible about our approach to it. Do what is feasable up front then work towards further improvements.
As far as the disaster scenarios painted as happening from global warming those pretty much seem to be fantasies. The reality appears to be less dramatic and more complex. Ah well.
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August 11th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
DV82XL said:
I might rephrase that even further as “Undesirable artificial influences on climate” because the climate is in constant change. The question of what the normal temperature of the earth is has no answer because it is in constant flux. I’m reasonably convinced that human influence is currently exerting undesirable influences on the climate. In general the CO2 and other gases in the atmosphere that are being produced are changing it more than it would otherwise and rapid change of climate is normally not desirable.
I’m just as concerned about the Asian brown cloud as the general increase in CO2. It is all interrelated in that spewing uncontrolled waste gases presents the risk of altering the climate faster than is desirable and in ways not desirable. It’s not only that but the fact that most go along with just dirty emissions in general.
The question is not about averting the end of the world. It’s a question of what is the most optimal situation.
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August 11th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Hmm.. maybe I should not have posted this right now because it got a very bad digg response for only having the climateaudit site cited and not talking about the predictions.
The predictions, by the way, vary so widely and are so dependent on the varying and unpredictable future of expansion that they’re an enormous post onto themselves. On the other hand, most of the soundbyte predictions are of impending DOOM. (Al Gore and everything).
I found climateaudit to be the best site for extensive data I’ve found yet. Really I posted this because I’ve been working on a better fleshed-out posting on the data and the background and confidence.
What they don’t say very often is that the degree of confidence on most of the predictions is quite poor. In some cases the proxy reconstructions of historic climate have also been of varying confidence.
This is one reason for the lack of posts in the past few days.
I think the best I’ve come up thus far is based on the UN international panel on Climate Change they have concluded that human activity was not a dominant factor in world climate until around 1959 and since then has had a significant effect amounting to approximately .5 degrees C maximum in average temperature increase +/- about .2 C, which is a very poor error region.
I figured I ought to throw something out because it might take another week to get all the data together for a full summary of the avaliable information.
The amount of contradictory information is daunting.
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August 11th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
It doesn’t require disaster scenarios for climate change to have a very serious impact on the human condition. Desertification of the North American Breadbasket via a semipermanent return of the Dust Bowl drought of the Thirties, would be enough to case widespread economic impacts and shifts in geopolitical power is a good example. It is these changes and the instability in markets, and international trade along with the commiserate shifts in population concentrations and the attendant problems that will bring are more of a danger than coastal flooding.
These changes do not require wholesale changes in global average temperatures, and indeed may or may not occur due to human activities, and may well be part of deeper poorly understood cycles. However most models seem to show that human activities might to be forcing the climate into a higher state of instability, and that given the potential consequences should be reason enough to mitigate the amount of greenhouse gases we are producing.
Of course Doc’s point in the lead article is very valid as well: there are other domains that will benefit from a shift away from carbon based energy, so there really isn’t any good reason to continue to use them if other options are available.
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August 11th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
I agree that CO2 and other emissions are not helping the the earth. But have looked at any of the info about the recent sunspot activity? Back in Jan 08 we officially began Solar Cycle 24 (NASA). In April 2007 NASA put out their official prediction for SC24, that we would hit the solar minimum in March 2008(+/- 6 months) and the next solar maximum in October 2011 for the large cycle(They reconfirmed this prediction in May 2008). There is quite a bit of controversy about SC24 because of its apparent slow start and some concern that it might indicate another Dalton or even Maunder Minimum.
I’m not sure what to think about the SC24 predictions, especially the alarmist ones, but also the NASA ones. The NASA prediction panel even states that they could not come to a consensus on the prediction, beyond predicting the peaks. About the only thing they can agree on is that a major, prolonged drop in solar output would be bad.
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August 11th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Yeah, some of those things are just beyond any kind of prediction with very much confidence. The activity of the sun may be too chaotic and with too many subtle factors at work to create any definitive predictions.
The records of solar variation are extremely limited.
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August 11th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Keep in mind that desertification isn’t the only responsee you can have to warming. You can also have rain forests develop. That is one of the things that makes predicting what will happen so complex.
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August 11th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
I replied to the kneejerk poster on Digg saying:
“You know before running off at the mouth, you might want to consider the fact that there is a large and influential part of the population that doesn’t buy into “the sky is falling, the sky is falling’ global warming hysterical approach and are digging in their heels. The point of the post, is not to deny global warming, but to point out that EVEN IF THIS ASPECT IS REMOVED FROM THE ARGUMENT THERE IS GOOD REASON TO REDUCE THE OUTPUT OF GREENHOUSE GASES. It would help a good deal if those of us that are concerned about this issue would stop would stop jumping up to vette every thing said on this matter for its doctrinal purity, and look at what is being said and why. It only exacerbates the problem of getting everyone on the same page, and it fuels the criticism that all environmentalism is driven by the lunatic fringe.”
I call him a ‘kneejerk poster’ because this sort of response, with multiple links and stock phrases so soon after the site’s been dugg is typical of the Red Guard type of mentality that hardly ever reads for comprehension, but scans for keywords to launch his pre-prepared attack on the supposed heretics.
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August 11th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I’m all for reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and reducing pollution, but shouldn’t we be looking to advance rather than retreat? For example to use advances to create cleaner and more sustainable living conditions rather than step backwards into a new dark age.
My contention is that our impact on the planet is minimal, and if we disappeared as a species tomorrow, it would not change the earth one bit. The climate would change as it always has done without us. We are no more culpable climate wise than the herds of wildebeast on the Serengeti.
The hysteria surrounding the subject and warping the science is diverting us from what we really should be doing, which is using our brains and adapting to take advantage of circumstances beyond our control.
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August 12th, 2008 at 12:08 am
Mister Jones said:
Absolutely it should be considered an advancement and not a retreat. We should not see climate change as a reason why we should take steps backward in the technology we have depended on since the industrial revolution or the energy intensity of modern life. It is simply one more reason (to add to the already long list) to push technology further.
I see both the emissions issues along with the others are simply results as symptoms of humanity having reached a point where hydrocarbon energy is no longer suiting us as the foundation of our energy needs. We are pushing the energy source to the point where it is no longer able to easily provide for our basic energy needs.
This is not the first time that this has happened. First it was human muscle as the energy source then animals and so on. This is not a perfect analogy since some of these are not primary energy sources, but there have been quantum leaps when we have outgrown our existing energy means and needed something to push it further. Fire, mechanics, electricity are all quantum leaps which freed us from the limitations of what was avaliable before.
I’d somewhat disagree on the potential for mankind to have a large influence on earth though. I’d give some examples of large areas which have been altered: The Aral Sea (or lack there of), The Salton Sea, the increases in atmospheric mercury, the extinction of species.
I’m not saying that humans are always “damaging” because for one thing the planet doesn’t care and “damage” is a relative term, but there are undesirable concequences to some human pursuits.
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August 12th, 2008 at 12:18 am
Good points and I agree that future climate is impossible to be sure of because it has changed a lot in the past fre hundred years even but we should think of Co2 is another undesirable byproduct of fossil fuels and that it doesn’t seem to help because if nothing else it does cause the potential for change more rapid than we would want. We are best to keep it low as we can but without being crazy and hurting ourselves in it.
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August 12th, 2008 at 1:34 am
It seems clear to me that human activity and CO2 play a part and I think that is the consensus although I am quite skeptical about the confidence of the predictions since numerous large studies and research groups have been very very different. But I think it’s a valid concern and that it could become more of an issue. The concern I have is that although the climate fluctuates any change to the atmosphere like increased CO2 has a likelyhood of causing a shift that may be faster than natural cycles or it may create an undesired trend where natural vairations seem to be less in one given direction over a period of decades (although they do tend toward increases since the last ice age but still more gradual).
From a scientific point of view I think it is legitimate to say that there is uncertainty and that the consensus of humans having a role is generally accepted but the magnitude and the future is not.
From a policy issue I think it is crystal clear what the best course of action is and I agree that even without global warming that less fossil fuels are desirable. Fossil fuels are okay for some applications but for others the price in emissions, economics, health is higher than we want.
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August 12th, 2008 at 8:14 am
If a warmer climate inevitably means catastrophic desertification, why did Islamic civilization (based in a rather arid part of the world) enjoy its Golden Age during the Medieval Warm Period?
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August 12th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
George Carty said:
A warmer average climate does not inevitably mean catastrophic desertification, that is just one posible local outcome in some regions, other regions could be effected differently by receiving more precipitation than current averages, different prevailing winds, or paradoxically lower average temperatures. Impacts of pumping more energy into the world’s climate engine are not that straightforward.
IMHO the issue with greenhouse gases is not that they will promote climate change per se, because it is true that climate does change over time by its own accord, but that they will accelerate the process to the point where we will not be able to make the economy and population distributions compensate fast enough. This I believe is the real threat.
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August 12th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
DV82XL said:
OK, but is there evidence to show whether this will happen? And since the prescribed remedy is massively disruptive itself, shouldn’t we balance the potential disruption of the problem against the certain disruption of the solution? I mean, there’s a reason why countries like Canada and the UK have loudly signed up to Kyoto and then failed to meet the targets by huge margins: it’s enormously expensive economically to reduce carbon, and Kyoto is anyway dismissed as too little by climate groups. How bad must the disruption from climate change be to justify a massive reduction in the wealth of everybody?
There are also the following questions to consider:
1. Previous predictions of disaster (such as widespread famine) failed to take account of new tech and new developments like the Green Revolution which hugely increased farming yields. Should we risk drastic action now when the problem could be solved easily by future improvements in technology, some of which will be funded by our current economic growth?
(New Yorkers of a century ago might have gotten it into their heads that continued growth in the then-current mode of transport (horses) would leave their city covered in horse ****: so they might have decided to cut back on horse usage, at great economic cost. This would have been a mistake, however, because the problem was solved by cars, something they could not have foreseen.)
2. Climate campaigners often say that action needs to be taken now, and that we shouldn’t put the burden of fixing this on future generations. But if the past is any guide, future generations will be far wealthier than us, and thus far better able to afford it, as a result of continued economic growth. On the other hand, if we handicap our economic growth now, they won’t be. They might not thank us for that!
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August 12th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I recently read an essay written in 1919 about how we were going to run out of coal in the next 20 years, the polution was killing everything, and that the sky was falling down. I have been hearing that the sky was falling down every few years since I was a child. Each time, there was scientific consensus that this was real. Each time there were a few cranks who said it wasn’t true. The cranks are always right.
Just a very few years ago, all the experts agreed that in the year 2000 all the computers were going to stop working and there would be chaos. I could give 10 more examples off the top of my head, many of them better, but this one is within recent memory.
A lot of people made a lot of money off that one. A lot of people are trying to make a lot of money off this one.
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August 12th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Stephen said:
My point is exactly that in the absence of complete agreement or assurance of what the future holds, the best policy is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions especially from sources that are also the source of other damaging emissions or which have other underlying costs or issues which make them undesirable with or without the global warming issue. For example: Even if you remove the entire global warming problem there are still numerous reasons why coal fired electric generation is not desirable.
Also it’s entirely the point that there should not be massive reductions in wealth or quality of life.
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August 12th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Stephen said:
The point is that even if the impacts of greenhouse gases to the climate have been overstated, there are other valid reasons to move away from technologies that produce them. There are health and local environmental damage cause by these technologies that are not under debate; there are issues of energy/economic security to consider. This was all covered in the lead article. If you ADD to these the potential of climate destabilization, (and clearly if nothing at all reduces the growth in these emissions, that is enviable) commonsense dictates that steps to mitigate the impacts be taken.
While horse-dung didn’t bury New York because of the advent of the automobile, that doesn’t prove that the concern was unfounded, and it’s plainly foolish to ignore potential problems by trusting in a fix coming out of nowhere.
Chuck said:
That’s a rather bold statement, and patently untrue; in the majority of instances the experts have been correct, the cranks wrong. In many cases expert warnings have been acted upon, and major problems avoided, and there are examples when scientific evidence has been ignored only to be proven horribly right down the line. Sweeping statements like the one you made serve no useful purpose in this debate.
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August 12th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Chem Geek Gregor said:
Hey! Didn’t you ask me to marry you a while back? Sorry, man. I didn’t catch it until two months later.
I think most level-minded well-informed not-politically-influenced engineering/sciencey people would say the same thing, and it sounds like most of us agree that changes should be made. We can all do the math: increase CO2 production + decrease in oxygen producers = …trouble
Even my dad, who is one of those conservatives that didn’t believe in ‘global warming’ and still doesn’t (he even paid money to see an inconvenient truth and was still so very unconvinced), knows we need to be a little kinder to the environment. That to me says that some of the ‘non-believers’ are just skeptics–perhaps it *is* the fault of the name (it’s getting colder in Oklahoma!)–and are refusing to buy into any hype. It doesn’t mean they will refuse to help or that they think recycling is the work of Satan . . .
I’m excited to read the ‘climate change’ post when it comes out. Cheers!
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August 12th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
DV8:
You make a good point about sweeping statements. I apologise.
However, which “the sky is falling down” claim has proven to be horribly right? It may exist, but I can’t think of what it might be.
At least we can say that in my lifetime, the sky has never crashed into the ground. I am pretty sure I would have been picking up birds…
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August 12th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Chuck said:
Google: warnings of disasters that were ignored
On the issue of pollution great strides have been made, and the experts were listened to in many affected areas. And of course it’s always a matter of perspective – if the volcano is erupting in your neighborhood, the sky is indeed falling for you.
However, we must keep in mind that often what is being said by the scientific community and how it is reported in the popular media are not the same thing. The press like to frame incipient problems with highly exaggerated spins, while those familiar with the facts cringe, and we can’t forget that science is driven as much these days by the search for funding as it is by curiosity, which is why ‘experts’ can usually be found on both sides of the extremes on these issues.
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August 13th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Governments make billions a week on fossil fuels, and the companies that provide them make a dollar or two too, so the phrase “tobacco science” that is used to refer to and ineducable pretense of skepticism on AGW seems fair to me. The same financial incentive exists for it as for ineducability on nuclear energy matters. Tobacco revenue may once have been as dominant in the civil service economies of one or two states that farmed it as oil and gas revenue are in every western civil service today.
Someone like J.E. Hansen, maker of reasoned and correct warming predictions before the fact, is, like most other climate scientists, biting the hand that feeds, because it is the tax man’s hand. I think it was Sir David King who developed a technique of finding photos of politicians’ grandchildren on their desks and picking up said photos and saying, “Well, I hope you’re right about this”, reminding them that they care about things that will be around long after their career earnings have been spent.
Hansen says, “I have always been agnostic on nuclear power”, where “agnostic” means “ignorant”, except with a non-pejorative connotation because the stuff the speaker doesn’t know, supposedly no-one really knows; and in the state-funded, i.e. oil-and-gas-funded circles he moves in in his working hours, perhaps no-one does. But he’s a smart guy and willing to learn, as shown in the PDF above linked.
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August 14th, 2008 at 1:12 am
G.R.L. Cowan, hydrogen-to-boron convert said:
Someone who is really agnostic on nuclear power might say “I honestly don’t know whether there is a nuclear power or not and I don’t believe that it is possible to be conclusively certain if there is a nuclear power. I’m prone to think there is some kind of nuclear power but I don’t engage in any kind of activities to worship the nuclear power. Still, I sometimes feel hope that I can ask for guidance from the nuclear power. Perhaps when I die I will learn that there is indeed a nuclear power”
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