Sgt Hulka Uncut

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Archive for category Science

Climate Change For The Lazy

May 28

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Bad Ideas, Climate Change, Science | Comments off

So, I once again have found myself pretty busy at work and have not been able to post as much as I like. However, today I have come across something worth sharing. I get in trouble with the censors if I play the man instead of the ball, so I won’t. But I will point out a phenomenally good evisceration of one of the most entertaining of the climate change deniers, Christopher Monkton, Lord Somethingorother.

Professor John Abraham from the university of St. Thomas, Minnesota has done a particularly good job of examining every claim made by Chris Monkton, including getting in contact with every one of his named sources to confirm with them if the references used are both technically accurate and also whether they accurately represent the position that the source cited intended to make in context.

“The number of errors Chris Monckton makes is so enormous it would take a thesis to go through every single one of them.” So then he basically does present what would be a thesis paper on the multiple ways in which untruths and misrepresentations can be passed off as “fact” by a good showman.

The presentation is excellent, and I do mean presentation, since he has posted it in Powerpoint form with voice over. If you have 83 minutes, I would give it a listen and then do what I always encourage people to do – look into the issue yourself with the references provided. That is, unless you are so lazy you can’t even listen.

Why the yanks are unreliable partners on climate change

Mar 9

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Bad Ideas, Climate Change, International, Science | Comments off

If you want a good reason why Australia should and must think for ourselves and act for ourselves on climate change, look no further than a current court ruling from America:

“Nine judges of the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will rehear a climate change nuisance case bought by Hurricane Katrina victims”

Now don’t get me wrong, I have sympathy for the plaintiffs, a large group of Mississippi residents, many of whom are likely lower middle class. They probably lots most of what they physically owned in Katrina, and the preparation and response to that natural disaster could have been far better, I think most reasonable people could agree. But unless the court is actually taking the case in order to set a precedent so that later cases can be won on their merits, I don’t see why they would rehear the arguments on this. This is because the plaintiffs have argued that emissions from the operations of several energy and chemical companies have contributed to global warming, causing a rise in sea levels and adding to Hurricane Katrina’s ferocity.

The merits of the argument, while seemingly logical, do not take into account the chaos generated by the global warming phenomenon, and so tying the emissions of any one company directly to any specific hurricane, or its path or ferocity, is not logical. You cannot make extremely specific predictions (or tie causality) to individual weather events based on general input of CO2. Who is to say who’s CO2 emissions pushed the cycle of hurricane ferocity or frequency to a worse position, or into a positive feedback loop? No one can, at this point. General emissions of CO2 drive average temperature rises in the atmosphere and higher moisture content in the air, and higher ocean levels that in some areas can exacerbate local weather events. But problems (like hurricanes) don’t manifest themselves as averages, they come as extremes, and they come as chaos. No one can reliably predict the occurrence of, or path of a hurricane or tornado, any more than we can predict an earthquake.

Second, the issue of Katrina’s ferocity is of issue. The claim is that the higher sea levels gave support to Katrina’s ferocity leading to the damages sustained, because at the end of the story, that’s where they want to go, right? The money. They (and their litigators) want to make a whole bunch of money out of this disaster, and being able to establish that the severity of damage is worse than otherwise would have been is key to their argument. Katrina was a Category 3 when it made landfall in Louisiana, making it the 6th strongest hurricane in the Atlantic history. That’s nothing to sneeze at, but only in the top 20% of recorded storms. So, making the case that it was particularly ferocious is a bit tough. And while tying the worst of the damage to the storm surge has some validity, one could argue that the particular path had as much to do with the severity of the storm surge as sea level rise.

But all of this is just the detail. The real problem to me seems to be the fact that these people have to attempt to get through expensive tort what they should be getting through reasonable regulation. And virtually any regulation seems to be anathema to the Americans. Unless we in Australia, and the rest of the world, want to become a place where suing someone is the means by which we primarily gain social justice, then we should proceed to get ourselves in order with respect to climate change legislation, so that in addition to the savings on energy efficiency alone, we can also say that we aren’t the major source of the problem, and we won’t be a good target to sue.

Missing the Point

Feb 20

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Climate Change, Politics, Science | Comments off

I read the other day a couple of really good points by a lead climate change scientist (Joseph Romm) that strike a chord with me because of what I have been saying about energy efficiency and CO2 emissions reductions. You can check out all of what he has regularly to say here.

The key points I found are:

3) Those who favor taking action are saying: “Because the warming that humans are doing is irreversible and potentially catastrophic, let’s buy some insurance — by investing in renewable energy, energy efficiency and mass transit — because this insurance will also actually make us richer and more secure.” We will import less oil, invent and export more clean-tech products, send fewer dollars overseas to buy oil and, most importantly, diminish the dollars that are sustaining the worst petro-dictators in the world who indirectly fund terrorists and the schools that nurture them.

4) Even if climate change proves less catastrophic than some fear, in a world that is forecast to grow from 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion people between now and 2050, more and more of whom will live like Americans, demand for renewable energy and clean water is going to soar. It is obviously going to be the next great global industry.

China, of course, understands that, which is why it is investing heavily in clean-tech, efficiency and high-speed rail. It sees the future trends and is betting on them. Indeed, I suspect China is quietly laughing at us right now. And Iran, Russia, Venezuela and the whole OPEC gang are high-fiving each other. Nothing better serves their interests than to see Americans becoming confused about climate change, and, therefore, less inclined to move toward clean-tech and, therefore, more certain to remain addicted to oil.

What strikes me about these completely true points is that they are unlikely to be challenged by even those most ardent of climate change deniers, not because they are true, but because they have nothing to do with climate change. And that is what is important, because I believe that it is nonsense to be arguing science at this point with the remaining .05% of climate change deniers. What we should be arguing is not whether anthropogenic climate change is real, but rather how bad it will be, and what we can do to ameliorate the worst of the effects and in the meantime do things that are good for many other reasons as well.

If they had a brain in their heads, all the red meat-eating, libertarian, nationalistic xenophobes would be falling over themselves to join the lentil-eating, sandal wearing hippies to change the energy game as soon as possible. Energy independence and emissions reduction go hand in hand, and those who recognise that already are working to own the future. That’s why all the major oil companies are investing in some form of renewable energy, and the world’s users of energy with the greatest rate of increase (China) are doing the same.

Once they own the game, and we all have nowhere else to go for our next major source of power, you can bet they will put all the pressure they can bring to bear on swinging us all away from burning the magic dirt.

Definitions for Stupidity

Feb 20

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Bad Ideas, Climate Change, Science | Comments off

Weather – the current state of the atmosphere with respect to heat or cold, wetness or dryness, calm or storm, clearness or cloudiness.

Climate – the average course or condition of the weather at a place over a period of years as exhibited by temperature, wind velocity, and precipitation.

I hate to insult your intelligence if you already had a grasp of the two concepts above, but unfortunately too widely in the news at present, I see a lack of basic understanding of these simple words that needs to be addressed.

See, a couple of interesting things are happening in North America this week. First, two snowstorms have hit the east coast of the USA, dumping an all time record amount of snow on places like Washington DC. At the same time, the Winter Olympics in Vancouver is at risk due to a lack of snow there.

The first item above has been picked up pretty quickly by those who deny climate change to try to show that climate change is all a hoax due to the fact that a single weather event has occurred. The problem the deniers have is apparently a lack of understanding of the terms weather and climate, accompanied by a failure to understand the science of thermodynamics. I can possibly excuse the latter, provided they don’t attempt to attack it simply due to a failure to understand it, but I cannot excuse not level of stupidity that is required to treat the terms weather and climate as interchangeable.

The current weather outside is an example of nothing unless it is joined over a long period of time by similar weather events that form a trend which may then demonstrate something in relation to the climate at a location. To suggest otherwise is analogous to seeing a single bird flying through the air and declaring it as proof that gravity no longer exists.

Furthermore, the increased incidence of big freak snowstorms are exactly the kind of evidence that supports climate change theory. A discussion of climate change and how it will almost certainly manifest itself (thank you again, J Willard) is covered in some detail here (starting in paragraph 7). If you don’t want to read it all, I will summarise for you: heating of the atmosphere due to anthropogenic climate change will manifest itself as greater weather chaos, not as similar changes in weather all over the world.

The example we see at present in North America is an example of greater chaos in weather. Note, however, that nether I or any of the other climate change believers that I know about have made the claim that the lack of snow for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver proves our case for anthropogenic climate change. We haven’t done this because it would not be supported by a reasoned scientific evaluation of the facts. Vancouver is actually a pretty warm and wet area as far as places that receive regular winter snow are concerned. This year’s lack of snow at this time, while regrettable, is not particularly uncommon. Until climate change really kicks in, organisers should probably stick to the continental divide if they want guaranteed dry fluffy snow for their tv events.

So, despite its high profile as an event where we could whip up lots of frenzy and possibly recruit people to our side of the argument, we on the side of science haven’t done so. But you decide for yourself who the fanatics are.

J Willard Gibbs

Feb 20

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Climate Change, Good Ideas, Science | Comments off

{Originally posted Feb 11}

I’d like to take an opportunity on the day of his birth in 1839 to take some time to celebrate the achievements of a fellow that you likely haven’t heard of, J. Willard Gibbs. Simply put, he is known as the father of modern thermodynamics. J. Williard Gibbs provided the basis upon which virtually all of the science that I use on a daily basis to provide, or attack, arguments on climate change. Pretty much everything to do with climate change comes down to issues of entropy, enthalpy and free energy transfer, along with the second law of thermodynamics, which is called a “law” because it has done its time as a theory for so long and been so well supported by all the empirical evidence collected to date, and by the by work of Gibb’s that it is no longer called a theory. That’s the way science works. If you haven’t noticed by now, I love how science works.

It would be nice to say that J. Willard Gibbs received the recognition that he deserved in his lifetime, and he did receive significant recognition of his peers. In 1901, Gibbs was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London, the peak scientific award of his time, for being “the first to apply the second law of thermodynamics to the exhaustive discussion of the relation between chemical, electrical, and thermal energy and capacity for external work.” This work allowed engineers like me to apply elegant theoretical science to everyday application in things like internal combustion engines, boilers and turbines.

As importantly, Gibbs work is directly connected (by the authors themselves) to the following Nobel Prizes that followed after him:

Johann van der Waals – Physics in 1910 for his equations of state for gases and liquids
Max Planck of Germany – Physics in 1918 his work in quantum mechanics.
William Giauque – Chemistry in 1949 for his studies in the properties of matter at temperatures close to absolute zero.
Paul Samuelson – Economics in 1970 for his work on the foundations of economic analysis, in which he explicitly acknowledged the influence of the classical thermodynamic methods of Gibbs.

The general public will likely never know or acknowledge the contribution of J. Willard Gibbs to the things that make their everyday life after the industrial revolution what it is, but I would like to do so today, as I have quietly done every year since I was an undergraduate in chemical engineering and discovered the work of the man. Just one simple beer in his honour, as he probably would have liked, given the simple he led in New Haven, Connecticut for virtually all of his 64 years of life.

No better tribute to Gibbs can be paid than that of another important scientist, so I will leave the last word to him:

“Willard Gibbs is, in my opinion, one of the most original and important creative minds in the field of science America has produced.” – Albert Einstein, physicist

Equal Time For This?

Feb 2

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Bad Ideas, Climate Change, Politics, Science | Comments off

It annoys me greatly when I see things like I have witnessed today. When unsupportable fairly tales get equal time with established science. Today, we got the double blow of Lord Throckmorton (or whatever) with his climate change road show. And if that bit of snake oil salesman wasn’t enough, we then also get the corporate shill Paul Sheehan providing a supporting argument on the SMH today. Well, I don’t have time today to sort these two out separately, so I shall address them jointly.

Gentlemen, you are either phenomenally ignorant of the scientific method, or purposely promoting disinformation voluntarily or under corporate compulsion. Your motives are your own, and I will not comment on them, but I will take specific issue to Sheehan’s written words, since they adopt several of the Lord Christopher Monckton’s arguments.

If you want to read the short version, just stop with Paul’s beginning:

“[all of these facts] . . . are either true or backed by scientific opinion. All can also be hotly contested.”

No Paul, they can’t. That’s what makes them facts, you moron. As the saying goes, we are all allowed our own arguments, but there are only one set of facts.

However, I will continue and move onto the detailed specifics for those who have some time, and give a shit. I know there are very few of you, and probably fewer every day as we are inflicted with more and more drivel on this subject that should have been (and was) decided at least ten years ago to the bright, and to the rest of the world’s scientists in the intervening period. What we are left with is significantly less than 1% of the scientists who could withstand any peer review whatsoever who deny the anthropogenic climate change we have begun. And they use poor journalists and mainstream opinion spewers to provide winners like these 10 “facts conveniently brushed over by the global warming fanatics”:

1. The pin-up species of global warming, the polar bear, is increasing in number, not decreasing.

Hmmmn, now while I so wish this was true, I think I am going to have to see at least some shred of evidence to back this one up. None? No? Well sorry, then I think I will go with what the people at Polar Bears International, since they pretty much spend their whole time studying them and have answered this exact question, and unfortunately they don’t think so.

2. US President Barack Obama supports building nuclear power plants.

Whoopdeedoo! And so do I, Paul. What is your point? Are you saying it is a wholly and totally bad thing to consider every alternative in a risk-based approach when addressing climate change? I don’t even know why this inconvenient fact is in your list, because there are a number of climate change scientists that would be happy to pay it any amount of attention you want anytime. Maybe you just threw this in because you needed to make up the numbers.

3. The Copenhagen climate conference descended into farce. The low point of the gridlock and posturing at Copenhagen came with the appearance by the socialist dictator of Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez . . .

No, I would say the low point came when everyone realised on the first day that the organisers didn’t even plan the amount of tickets they issued based on the space they were using, and risked everything from a minor safety to a major security incident. After that, I wasn’t really expecting much, and I can say the same for the greenies I know. But here again, I don’t think I could call this in any way overlooked, as I remember seeing it on the news multiple times.

4. The reputation of the chief United Nations scientist on global warming is in disrepair.

Once again, no facts supplied. Just unsupported assertions with no references provided. My five minute research on this online through typically reliable sources provides me with no evidence to support the slander put forth by Sheehan. Talk about playing the man and not the ball.

5. The supposed scientific consensus of the IPCC has been challenged by numerous distinguished scientists.

The body of scientific work has been around for something like 30 years when people I know of decided that this might be an issue, following not long after the theory that was around when I was a boy suggested that the world might be going into a new ice age. The science moved on and even I published my first paper on the issue in ’99. The body of evidence upon which the science is based has been around forever. It is based on planetary physics, thermodynamics, chemistry and the application of industry through economics. It is not simple, and it is subject to some criticism (as that is the nature of science), but it remains solid and supported by the vast overwhelming number of credible scientists.

6. The politicisation of science leads to a heavy price being paid in poor countries. After Western environmentalists succeeded in banning or suppressing the use of the pesticide DDT, the rate of death by malaria rose into the millions. Some scholars estimate the death toll at 20 million or more, most of them children.

This one is so bad, I had to repeat it in full. “Some scholars”? Honestly, that’s what passes for a credible citation these days? For the record, those pesky kids who determined that the banning of DDT was causing a number of the bird species to go extinct, and demonstrating the basis of disruption of the reproductive cycle of animals through concentration of poisons through the food chain was a seminal piece of work (Silent Spring), that has withstood scientific scrutiny since its publication in 1962, despite a highly paid and aggressive disinformation campaign by the chemical industry for 10 years before DDT was banned. Humans have since, if you haven’t noticed, not gone extinct to malaria in any of the locations where it exists, and the birds were demonstrably going that way. Malaria also becomes resistant to drugs and poisons, so it would surely be as bad with or without DDT use.

7. The biofuels industry has exacerbated world hunger.

Aha, we finally have the start of something that is a bad idea and has not had nearly enough light shined on it, mainly because people still waste so much time debating if there is a climate change issue. But the idea of plant-based biofuels was attempted for the right reasons, even though it does end up driving food prices up and is not going to be a major long-term solution. But you can’t blame people for trying. Unless, of course, you have better examples of what you have tried. The thought that we might grow our own fuel is not dead either, but should be more focused on things like bacteria, and not food crops turned into ethanol.

8. The Kyoto Protocol has proved meaningless.

It may seem meaningless to those who don’t agree with the motives, good science, or common sense. But that does not make it overlooked, particularly since Paul and the sceptics still want to discuss it, and its being meaningless is not an established fact by a long shot. That global emissions have gone up since its 1990 is not in dispute, but the argument that emissions would of gone up more, and at a greater rate could easily be made, if one wanted to speculate. But why bother? Their argument is meaningless and doesn’t require any other response.

9. The United Nations global carbon emissions reduction target is a massively costly mirage.

I don’t even know what this one means, to be honest, but man it sure sounds good as an emotive statement without anything to support it at all. It is just hanging there in the article, as if dropping it so casually by itself lends itself to its credibility.

Unfortunately Paul, its also completely bullshit. To suggest emissions reductions are a mirage that cannot be reached shows no faith in the engineers of the world (forget the pure scientists), and the costs have been debated by me amongst others as not being as bad as you think. But of course we publish our math, data and assumptions, and that doesn’t really play as sexy as a one liner by a know-nothing on the subject like Sheehan.

10. Kevin Rudd’s political bluff on emissions trading has been exposed.

Here again, we have this presented as an undisputable fact hot off the pen of Paul Sheehan. But where is your evidence Paul? If Kevin Rudd wanted to pull off a bluff of doing something on emissions trading, imagine the conspiracy he would have had to create. Virtually all of Labor and a large portion of the Liberals, as well as the Greens and the non-bonkers independents are on the side of believing the science and doing something. The bulk of the emissions trading process as it exists comes from the Howard government. So let’s not characterise those of us on the reasonable side of the argument as fanatics. That’s called projecting.

Exuberance and Scientific Credibility

Jan 23

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Climate Change, International, Science | 1 Comment

I have been asked by one of the lurkers that is to shy to post to comment on the effects that a one-half page section of an 838 page report issued in 2007 by the IPCC will have on the credibility of all the predictions of the IPCC with regard to climate change. In reality, virtually none. In the world of spin being generated by climate change skeptics about the issue, probably also none. But they are once again attempting to use this one-half page as an attempt to discredit all of the work done by the IPCC. As in the case of the email scandal that was the subject of my November 30 posting, the skeptics are claiming that this is the smoking gun that discredits all the work of the IPCC. But does it?

First let’s list out the errors that were found by an expert on glaciers in the half-page section about glaciers in the Himalayas:
• The rate of glacier receding was stated as being faster than the rest of the world – when in fact it is the same as the rest of the world;
• The date by which the glaciers will disappear from the Himalayas was transposed from 2350 to 2035;
• The amount of shrinkage stated exceeds the total amount of glacier coverage by a factor of ten – whopper of an error that should be seen by even a casual observer;
• The section is attributed to popular science press (via the WWF) rather than a peer reviewed science journal – as the IPCC always tries to stress its scientific basis; and,
• A math error is obvious in the shrinkage rate of a particular glacier (the Pindari Glacier) – once again a simple error that could be picked up by anyone that can read and has a calculator handy.

So all up, I’d have to agree with the scientist (and IPCC glaciologist) that identified the problem for all the skeptics to crow about – the half page is doo doo, it doesn’t belong in the report, and most of the above errors could be easily found through some simple copy-editor doing their job properly before publication. But does it invalidate all of the climate change science, or even the portion on the loss of glaciers – uh no. More likely it was someone rushing to meet a publishing deadline that got sloppy in their exuberance do do some good in the world.

But it sure makes for some good controversy, and we all know that the media loves that, so it gets a lot of coverage over several days. A lot of coverage in comparison to something that came out the same day, for instance, with the GM executive Bob Lutz telling reporters at an auto show: “It [climate change] has got nothing to do with CO2, it’s got everything to do with solar activity, and when the solar flares stopped and the sun has been unusually quiet almost to the point of worrying people, then global temperatures go down.”

That’s great Bob, but see, here’s the thing. Actual scientist write shit down. Not just summary reports for public consumption, like the problematic half-page above, but things like their assumptions, data sources, methodologies , calculations and a lot of other boring crap that we can comb through, analyse endlessly and critique. On the other hand, dickheads like Bob Lutz never have to prove anything. Now, I don’t doubt that solar flares do have some effect on the earth, but where’s the proof that they are the only driver of climate change as opposed to all of the otherwise scientifically proven effects that industrialization have had since 1900? And where is the date showing that solar flare activity correlates with the land, water and air temperature variations, rather than ajust a few years of air temperatures in isolation? It isn’t anywhere is the fact. But Bob gets away with whatever he wants to say and then the journalist move on the next controversy that might actually have some legs since there is some actual factual record to debate. But Bob gets to make his point and skeptics get to point and say, “see, that proves it”, rather than be held to account as the actual scientist are. So we talk about the science for a few days or a few weeks and the public is left with the impression that maybe the science is dubious.

This report further supports my conclusion of 30 November that scientists need to remain diligent and punish bad science harshly. But in doing so, scientists should feel good about science, because in treating bad science harshly, they are further supporting the scientific method.

And the final truth is this: anyone who believes this half-page of errors invalidates climate change research in full is never going to be convinced of anything on the subject anyway. That’s why they will keep buying crappy cars from Bob Lutz as long as the government wants to keep it from going bankrupt as it would in a just world. Let’s also hope they own property near the water line.

More on the future (or why humans make me sick)

Dec 29

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Climate Change, Economics, Science | Comments off

I was doing some more research into the last comment by the Chairman to my post on how we could eliminate virtually all use of coal for electricity production. I was concerned that I had made a wild assumption that we could switch over to such a large proportion of gas use (up to 44% from 14%) in the short term. It turns out that we actually could (with a current known reserve of 849.5 billion cubic metres, and 43.6 billion cubic metres of production capacity, and currently predicted growth in that production capacity) provided we were willing to cut off about all of our exports.

However, the really interesting thing that came out of my analysis is what a completely achievable task reducing our carbon dioxide emissions to less than 50% of what they are now would be, and how apathetic and narcissistic we are as a species. See, what I did was make up a little spreadsheet to calculate the emissions of CO2 based on fuel mix to achieve our required amount of electricity production that I could then compare to the current and predicted availability of production rates for those fuels and still meet our Kyoto target value. I also used the following assumptions:

• No energy efficiency improvements
• Rise in electricity production required is 2.2% per year in line with GDP growth forecasting
• Data on emissions rates from various fuels from the US Department of Energy from July 2000.

Now just a comment on how amazingly conservative these assumptions lead me to be. First, there are credible estimates (Flannery, etc.) that about 80% of the reductions we would require to achieve the worldwide CO2 emissions reduction target could be done with bog-standard energy efficiency improvements alone using technology that has been around for decades. Second, I predicted a rise in electricity production required each year based on GDP, using the widely documented correlation between GDP growth and electricity usage (UN).

If anyone wants the spreadsheet to critique it, please let me know, but my findings are as follows.

The base case I modelled is the current emissions with a breakdown of fuel from my 10 December post. The first really pathetic finding is that even currently burning coal to make up 77% of our electricity, Australia is still on track to meet its Kyoto commitments. The second thing I found is that with my 2020 case modelled, going to 25% nuclear and 44% gas to eliminate virtually all coal burning while achieving the 20% renewables target set by the government results in us passing our Kyoto target by a whopping 68%! Emissions using the above fuel mix would actually be only 45% of what they are today.

So, I then went back to see how far we could get by keeping some coal and dropping all the nuclear out of the mix to placate those that would rather burn coal than go nuclear. By doubling our gas usage (to 29%) and dropping coal back to 40%, we reduce emissions overall to half of the 1990 figure without any expansion of nuclear use.

The bottom line – this ain’t that tough, and the failure to actually commit to some solid changes that would be significantly less challenging than putting a man on the moon shows how much we have changed in 40 years, and not for the better.

NASA scientist embraces the Rapture?

Dec 4

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Climate Change, Economics, International, Politics, Science | Comments off

James Hansen, a top NASA scientist who helped bring attention to the dangers of global warming more than 20 years ago, wants Copenhagen to fail.

That’s right, and from the dude who is like the godfather of climate change science.

His major complaint seems to be that the Danish plan reduces emissions over 40 years, which he says is too long, and we will be in a disaster by then. I tend to agree. However, we will also need to recover from that disaster, and having a long term cut in CO2 emissions will also be part of that solution, in real or in spirit. Let me explain.

James is saying that any cap and trade type ETS, won’t work fast enough and that a straight energy tax is what is required immediately. If I ran the show worldwide, I would agree with him, do that immediately, and stifle all debate as strong as required to maintain my control on power. And believe me, you’d have a shit fight on your hands, taking on all business that use energy worldwide, and the energy intense ones most of all. But I would do it, because I believe fundamentally that James is right, and we are either at or just past the point where we must act to stop anthropogenic climate change. However, I am not ready to go join the rapturists, and unless we find a way to reduce emissions soon, and possibly reverse feedforward loops in climate change, we might not be ok long term, like as a species.

Assuming we have not passed the point of no return with regard to overall average warming, then the major advanced economies (in terms of lower energy intensity, or $/GDP, but high overall emissions) are going to have to cap our emissions and reduce them over time. No question about it. And as they do that, industries in those countries will have to either directly reduce their emissions themselves, or get someone else to do for them, through the only flexible compliance method specifically identified in the Kyoto Agreement, an ETS. They are proven to work, use economic drivers and markets for efficiency, and can be on the whole fair and egalitarian (just as Wall Street can be).

So I hope Copenhagen succeeds, although I don’t like the track record of the politicians anymore than James does. Copenhagen would be a real coup if we could also get some countries to sign up to firm commitments on the real issue, so we can quit worrying about how much CO2 we put out in total.

See, while the spirit of the long-term solution will retain emissions reduction, the functional design of it should be an energy intensity tax (or a mix of energy intensity limits for equipment, facilities, industries, etc.), much like vehicle efficiency standards, which improved the fleet so much in the USA beginning in 1978. Pity they didn’t keep that up. So, what we really need long term is for everyone in the advanced and the developing world to sign up to energy intensity targets. Otherwise they will continue to install more high-CO2 emitting, low energy efficiency crap, like they are doing now. It may surprise you to know that coal fired electricity production not only has the largest installed base (50% of production) but that it is also the fastest growing rate of new plants that are being installed (primarily in China, Russia, India). So, as James is saying, we better get cracking on that, or we will also be in need of a zombie plan even if the big emitters now all achieve fantastic reductions in CO2 emissions.

The smoking gun of climate fraud?

Nov 30

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Bad Ideas, Climate Change, International, Science | Comments off

I am all for a good conspiracy theory to pass the time, but mostly due to the fact that they are a good read, rather than that they lead to a fundamentally modified understanding of reality. The latest from the climate sceptics is that they believe to have uncovered a vast conspiracy on the left to falsify science in order to win the argument on climate change. They site mass volume of hacked emails from the University of East Anglia in England, one of the centres where climate change research is being carried out, and a participant in the IPCC. Now, like all good conspiracy theories, it starts out with some kernels of fact and possibly even the smoking-gun of fraud.

According to the best news report of the substance with regard to the issue in the American Academy for Advancement of Science (publishers of the peer-reviewed journal Science) the facts are that the Director of the Climate Research Unit there asked other scientists to delete data that might be the subject of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. But why would they do such a thing? Well further examination of the emails shows that the motivation was, that ,“. . . colleagues feared that releasing information would draw them deeper into disputes with amateur scientists, who would use it to create new controversies and cut into their research time.”

Now, while I could understand the motive, if say, I had to argue science with a demonstrable moron such as Steven Fielding on a repetitive basis. However, deleting information subject to a FOIA request is against the law, so regardless of the motive, one or more people at the University of East Anglia could face some heat and possibly prosecution. And good thing when they do. Just as I would want someone like Dick Cheney to face the music if we could prove he lied, I don’t want liars and obfuscators on my team. The rules are the rules and they apply to all.

That being said, there is no proof in all these hacked emails that any of the people who were asked by others from England to delete files or data aver did so, and coordinating such a mass deletion across countries, institutions and by other scientists would leave a trail, even if it were attempted. In fact, the hack that resulted in the release of the information was very possibly caused by one of the scientists asked to do something improper instead leaked a bunch of the information. That is, unless Occam’s Razor wins out, because in fact one of the scientists left their email and data wide open to the outside world by including their password in their email address. And let’s face it, you aren’t going to run a very good conspiracy with people like that involved.

So basically, despite an inappropriate (or possibly illegal) request by one person, there no evidence in the information released that there was a multi-organisational, worldwide conspiracy to modify data, carry out false modelling, or alter the peer-reviewed system of the IPCC for arriving at their conclusions on climate change.

The rules of science are that one sound data set can prove all the science before it wrong. Unfortunately for the climate change sceptics, this is not that data set, and for the time being, I will stick with the peer-reviewed science on the side that demonstrates anthropogenic climate change as being real and a problem. Anyone still with me?

For an amusing side of this story, watch as the chaos over the Coalition leadership plays itself out this week. I venture to guess that Fielding, Minchin, Abbott or other climate change sceptics will attempt to use the smoking gun they think they now have to win the argument. They will continue to attempt to tear the other side down, but they will find no bullets in their gun, and they are not be able to offer a substantive alternative explanation of the scientific data we all can agree on. And eventually, their logic on the CPRS will also collapse, either this week, or during the double dissolution election to follow.