Jim2 — Its more complicated than just octane. Issues like oxygenates, VOCs, and MSAT are involved which the EPA would have to address if the RFS was “just eliminated”.
Comment on Overreach at the EPA by Stephen Segrest
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Comment on Overreach at the EPA by Stephen Segrest
Jim2 — Personally, I believe that as long as Obama is holding to ~10% blending levels for ethanol (which he appears to be doing), then all this “fussin and fighting” is over nothing — in basketball we say “no harm, no foul”.
http://greenenergy.blogspot.com/2015/02/is-ethanol-being-forced-down-our-throats.html
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Comment on Overreach at the EPA by Stephen Segrest
<b>AK</b> -- Well I <b>guess</b> I could have said "Good Faith Skeptic" versus "Bad Faith Skeptic". But this doesn't reflect what I believe and was trying to say in the blog. I believe there is some group of folks who are just always gonna disagree, no matter what (I call them Contrarians).
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Comment on Overreach at the EPA by Ron Graf
One wonders about the ethical high ground of spending future generations money too. I can imagine a very plausible scenario where a young person in 2100 is not thankful for well-intentioned but mis-informed investments made of their wealth made on their behalf.
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Ragnaar
“The 13C shows a 0.9% decrease from about 1850 to the present which is consistent with the perturbation of the atmospheric 13C reservoir from by fossil fuel burning. However, there are prominent periods of stasis (1950-1985) and abrupt change (1988-1989) that parallel some of the shifts in 18O record, suggesting that the link between atmospheric 13C , coral 13C, and ocean dynamics is complex.”
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.marine.usf.edu%2FPPBlaboratory%2Fpaleolab_pdfs%2FQuinn_etal_PO_98PA00401.pdf&ei=aqxaVa_UOYPRtQWl8oGIBg&usg=AFQjCNG_s0zmIgdyFrpDnGFMr0DUxcDk-w&sig2=2pdQpKrzBIWSOXlRrdQigQ&bvm=bv.93564037,d.b2w&cad=rja
Some of the other conclusions are interesting. There’s mention of decadal changes. A couple of the dates in the conclusion are close but earlier than the regime shift changes of 1942 and 1978. I’ve been wondering that if there are temperature regime changes, why not ocean CO2 regime changes?
I think this is their plot inverted:
The author mentions 1850 but why not start with 1740? The ratio has been dropping since 1740 and seems to track CO2 levels. The other thing I found, is the lack of these types of studies. There’s SkS and Real Climate arguing why the ratio makes sense, but where are the studies? The paleontology data?
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Ragnaar
I noticed something about the del13C plot. When has it been positive? Hardly ever.
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Comment on Overreach at the EPA by PA
http://greenenergy.blogspot.com/2015/03/are-you-global-warming-skeptic-denier.html
Ummm… Gee…. That is a loaded article. It sounds like the crazed liberal position on global warming
Lets look at one of the criterion:
“Environmental Issue”:only answers are support/oppose. “Oppose” means you are an evil contrarian. That isn’t a realistic test. Lets look at real answers:
1. Lead & MTBE (gasoline): – Would like as much out as could be removed/avoided cheaply.
2 .Mercury: norm is 50 PPB so reduce output to reasonable levels, waste of time/money to set zero standard.
3 .Smog: – Support the air standard up to 1990 (that was good enough)
4. Air Particulates – Air shouldn’t be chewy or gritty.
5. Acid Rain:- efforts up to 1990 were ok. Not a big fan of sulfur dioxide.
6. Ozone Depletion:- don’t have a position on past legislation – but oppose future Ozone measures since the past ones appear to have failed.
7. Fluoridation (drinking water): – ought to be limited to where teeth don’t yellow.
8. Methane:It is 1/3 cows and termites – pointless to do anything about a gas with a 9 year lifetime that is over 1/2 due to landfills and natural processes..
9. Coal Ash: reasonable restrictions
10. Global Warming (AGW): – some kind of joke, can’t prove CO2 is bad, can’t prove warming is bad, can’t prove forcing is anything other than trivial, can’t prove CO2 level will even rise 20%.
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Comment on Week in review – politics and policy edition by PA
Well, the global warmers predict increasing fossil fuel use – which means 50 year supply or less.
I hope they’re wrong.
50 years gives us just enough time to develop liquid salt nuclear reactors and deploy them in quantity.
If we don’t have a replacement for coal/gas baseband energy starting construction in under 20 years – things could get cold and dark.
I would shift 18 Billion of the 20 billion flushed on global warming this year into LFTR and other energy systems development.
Windmills and Dark glass are the lunatic solution to power production.
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Comment on Overreach at the EPA by Stephen Segrest
PA — The problem in your very constant opinions is that you want to fight all the time. You want to play high stakes poker — winner take all, where there can be only one winner and one loser.
What’s so bad in scrapping things like carbon taxes, cap & trade, federally mandated Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards, International Treaties — and offer up some conservative principled options in a clear comprehensive strategy (bottom/up, no regrets) like international trade and reducing air pollution (Dr. Ramanathan’s Fast Mitigation)?
For example, the U.S. imports ~98% of its clothing. The U.S. could have some big leverage say with Vietnam for (1) them to implement a lower carbon economy by purchasing U.S. energy efficiency equipment (say high efficiency coal power technology); where (2) by doing so, we give Vietnam special perks into our markets? It’s a win/win/win for the U.S., Vietnam, and Global Warming.
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Comment on Overreach at the EPA by Stephen Segrest
PA — In 2012, Jon Huntsman (who knows a thing or two about international trade and Asia) tried to direct a Republican conversation on approaching AGW from a trade standpoint. He was booed off stage by a Tea Party mentality. Huntsman, by the way, had an overall “conservative rating” much more conservative than either McCain or Romney in 2008 and 2012.
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Comment on Overreach at the EPA by genghiscunn
Ron, the nature of the Universe is constant change, nothing is sustainable, we can never maintain our world in a steady state. Attempts to do so are a denial of reality.
Faustino
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Ferdinand Engelbeen
Ragnaar,
There are only two main sources of low 13C: recent organics and fossil organics.
Large excursions like in the Swedish lake show local sediments, were influenced by local CO2 uptake/release from vegetation.
Ice cores show global changes, which show that even over huge temperature changes like the last glacial-interglacial transition towards the Holocene, the change in δ13C was not more than a few tenths of a per mil, which points to the (deep) oceans as cause of the extra CO2 in the atmosphere, not vegetation, as that is increasing with warmer temperatures, thus a net, increasing sink.
During the whole Holocene the same variability: a few tenths of a per mil, in ice cores with a resolution of ~40 years over the past 10,000 years and ~20 years over the past 1,000 years.
As both the ice cores in the atmosphere and the coralline sponges in the ocean surface (resolution 2-4 years!) show a small variability of +/- 0.1 per mil in δ13C pre-1850 and start to decline in direct ratio to human emissions, it is quite clear that humans are the sole cause of the decline: a drop of 1.6 per mil since 1850 is equivalent to burning 1/3rd of all land vegetation without regrowth.
Thus we have two completely independent observations which show the same δ13C decline in the same periods caused by the same source.
Of course there are natural variations which reduce or enhance the effect of human emissions on the δ13C decline over years to decades: El Niño has a profound influence and the PDO and other oscillations may influence the rate of change too, but if you look at the pre-1850 period: similar variability in temperatures show only a small variation in δ13C…
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by verytallguy
I rather doubt that anyone is ever 100% right in these things…
Thing is Peter, that’s exactly how science does work. The sun does *not* partially orbit the earth; science is 100% right in asserting the opposite.
Likewise, the post 1750 CO2 rise is absolutely attributable to humans, essentially 100% give or take insignificant quibbling.
There is a huge amount of extremely reliable evidence supporting this, over a time period approaching a million years, evidence all supporting the same conclusion using several orthogonal approaches.
No-one here has pointed to anything in the reputable literature which suggests anything other is remotely plausible.
Unless you can now?
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Peter Davies
265 years as a fraction of 1 million years is 0.000265. So you are saying that events over this time span are statistically significant in the context of of any discernable climate trend over 1 million years?
Given that climate trends are difficult to measure due to major shifts occurring on an irregular basis from forcings such as volcanic activity (on land and under the sea) any simplistic hockey stick type trend analysis is too far fetched for my liking.
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Mike Flynn
verytallguy,
Gavin Schmidt said that it was more likely than not (64%) that 2014 was not hotter than 2013.
Good thing he’s only a mathematician. I suppose a real climate scientist would have said it was 100% certain, one way or the other.
You might like to tell myself and Peter whether 2014 was globally warmer than 2013 with 100% accuracy – or is this not an example of real science?
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by verytallguy
Peter Davies
any simplistic hockey stick type trend analysis is too far fetched for my liking
Yes, I get that you don’t *like* it.
Science, though, isn’t about what you like, it’s about what the evidence shows.
The evidence is absolutely overwhelming that the increase in CO2 is anthropogenic. I note you’ve been entirely unable to quote any reputable source refuting this – and neither has anyone else.
And yet, you allow your “liking” to overrule all the evidence. That’s what is so fascinating about your response, Judith’s response, and denizens’ response in general.
Mike Flynn, I believe the topic of the post is a supposed refutation of the anthropogenic nature of the CO2 rise.
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Ferdinand Engelbeen
The bulk of all the carbon on earth is inorganic and around zero per mil δ13C. That is all CO2 in the oceans (except organic), carbonate rock, volcanic vents,…
Organic carbon is a lot lower in δ13C: coal, oil , natural gas, wood, animals,…
The biosphere was more or less in equilibrium with the atmosphere over the Holocene: a little more uptake in some periods, a little more decay in other periods, but in average quite neutral vs. the atmosphere.
What caused the low δ13C in the atmosphere? That is mainly the exchanges with the (deep) oceans: when CO2 transfers from water to the atmosphere, 12CO2 goes faster than 13CO2, as its transfer speed is higher than for the heavier 13CO2 for the same temperature and pressure difference. That makes that the δ13C in the deep oceans of 0 to +1 per mil and the +1 to +5 per mil at the ocean surface (due to bio-life) translates to -10 to -9 per mil in the atmosphere for deep ocean water and -9 to -5 per mil for surface waters.
At the sink places the reverse happens: again 12CO2 transfers faster than 13CO2 into the waters and what remains behind is +2 per mil richer in δ13C in the atmosphere.
The net effect of all in/out movements between oceans and atmosphere gives that the atmosphere was -6.4 +/- 0.2 per mil over the whole Holocene. Even huge temperature changes like over a glacial-interglacial transitions don’t give more than a few tenths of a per mil change…
See: http://dge.stanford.edu/SCOPE/SCOPE_16/SCOPE_16_1.5.05_Siegenthaler_249-257.pdf
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Comment on True costs of wind electricity by Chris Schoneveld
“In East Denmark, hydroelectric power backs up electricity generation by wind. Hydroelectric power can be turned on almost instantly and doesn’t emit any CO2.”
Not so. According to Wikipedia: “Denmark has only three hydropower plants, powering 3000 homes, accounting for less than 0.1% of its total electricity production”
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Peter Davies
If vtg wants to engage lets see his response to my position as to whether he thinks 265 years is a sufficient sample to draw any sensible conclusions.\ about future climate trends.
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by verytallguy
For those interested in schoolboy debate, if Peter is serious, perhaps he could provide a link to a reputable study shedding doubt on the anthropogenic nature of the CO2 rise?
For engagement on 265 years, I’ve honestly no idea what your point is Peter. You talk about climate, the subject of the post is atmospheric CO2.
So I’ll address the subject of the post. The data shows that the past 250 odd years have seen a rise in CO2 unprecedented in nearly a million years.
I’ll quote AR5 for you:
It is unequivocal that the current concentrations of atmospheric CO2, CH4 and N2O exceed any level measured for at least the past 800,000 years
Executive summary chapter 6.
I think “unequivocal” certainly meets “statistically significant”.
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