Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Peter Davies

May 19, 2015, 3:17 am

≫ Next: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by verytallguy

≪ Previous: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by verytallguy

$

0

0

vtg will not engage on whether he thinks 265 years is a sufficient sample to draw conclusions on CO2 (an important parameter of climate) trends.

vtg needs to look at whether the slope of the last 265 years is to be taken as evidence that the last million years trend line (no reliable evidence of domain PDF) is being moved one iota.

vtg needs to forget about his school days and engage with the subject matter at hand. The post is about CO2 certainly but I rather think that Keeling’s sample is insufficient to draw any conclusions about CO2 levels, natural variability or accumulation or any other possible wriggle room that vtg may need.

---

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by verytallguy

May 19, 2015, 3:24 am

≫ Next: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Peter Davies

≪ Previous: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Peter Davies

$

0

0

Peter,

honestly, you’ve completely lost me.

vtg will not engage on whether he thinks 265 years is a sufficient sample to draw conclusions on CO2 (an important parameter of climate) trends.

Yes is the answer and I gave you a reference to back it up. “Unequivocal” is the summary of the scientific literature. How that constitutes “not engaging” I don’t understand.

Now, can you please provide a reference to a reputable source showing that the CO2 rise since 1750 is not anthropogenic (or acknowledge that no such sourcce exists)

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Peter Davies

May 19, 2015, 3:35 am

≫ Next: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by verytallguy

≪ Previous: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by verytallguy

$

0

0

vtg lets say I were to agree with your view that anthro is the main source of the increase in CO2 then will you answer my position as to whether the million year trend line is being moved or not? IMO it simply doesn’t matter where the source of the CO2 comes from because CO2 doesn’t matter. I will come back tomorrow as I have other things to attend to right now and no disrespect is intended.

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by verytallguy

May 19, 2015, 3:54 am

≫ Next: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Mike Flynn

≪ Previous: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Peter Davies

$

0

0

Peter,

lets say I were to agree with your view that anthro is the main source of the increase in CO2 then will you answer my position as to whether the million year trend line is being moved or not?

I don’t understand why revealing one view is contingent on revealing the other.

I don’t know what trend you’re referring to; the topic of the post is anthropogenic (or not) CO2. If you mean a best fit linear trend over a million years, trivially that won’t be moved significantly by 250 years data. Why it matters either way vs attribution of the current rise I don’t understand.

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Mike Flynn

May 19, 2015, 3:54 am

≫ Next: Comment on True costs of wind electricity by PA

≪ Previous: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by verytallguy

$

0

0

verytallguy,

Why restrict yourself to a cherry-picked 800,000 years or so?

Show us your reputable literature that claims with 100% certainty that rises of 500 ppm have never taken place since the seas became liquid.

Can’t do it? So is it possible that rises in CO2 can take place without human involvement, or not?

You are correct inasmuch the whole question has no relevance to anything in particular. A meaningless intellectual exercise which achieves nothing, or do you believe that a rise in CO2 levels to 1000 ppm is somehow detrimental? I presume you can provide details of reputable literature which show with 100% certainty the ill effects to humanity of CO2 levels twice those which currently exist.

Over to you.

Comment on True costs of wind electricity by PA

May 19, 2015, 3:59 am

≫ Next: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by David Wojick

≪ Previous: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Mike Flynn

$

0

0

http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/10566/state-of-green-embraces-pellet-power

The problem with Denmark is electricity is only about 8% of their total energy consumption and a lot of information is about total energy consumption Denmark apparently uses electricity for lighting and little else. In the US 40% of energy consumed is electrical.

Danish hydro doesn’t actually show up on a lot of charts.

Comment on Overreach at the EPA by David Wojick

May 19, 2015, 4:02 am

≫ Next: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by Barnes

≪ Previous: Comment on True costs of wind electricity by PA

$

0

0

Alan Caruba has a good blog article with links to the pending legislation blocking EPA’s regulation of CO2:
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-epa-myth-of-clean-power.html
We now have a Senate bill well as the House bill.

Comment on Overreach at the EPA by Barnes

May 19, 2015, 4:10 am

≫ Next: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by verytallguy

≪ Previous: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by David Wojick

$

0

0

You assume, wrongly, that co2 causes climate change.

---

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by verytallguy

May 19, 2015, 4:19 am

≫ Next: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by Barnes

≪ Previous: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by Barnes

$

0

0

verytallguy,

Why restrict yourself to a cherry-picked 800,000 years or so?

err.. because that’s the length of time it’s possible to get directly measured data from bubbles in ice cores. “Cherry picking” means limiting the data to suit your objective. Here I‘ve deliberately taken a time period which covers *all* the high quality data available. Data from further back depends on much less reliable proxies.

Show us your reputable literature that claims with 100% certainty that rises of 500 ppm have never taken place since the seas became liquid.

It’s not a relevant question to the subject of the post, which is the anthropogenic attribution of the recent rise. We don’t need to demonstrate that there have never been previous rises to do that.

Can’t do it? So is it possible that rises in CO2 can take place without human involvement, or not?

It’s entirely possible. The PETM is exactly an example of such a rise. If you’re not familiar, Wiki gives a reasonable starting point, and there’s a very brief description in AR4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-3-3.html

You are correct inasmuch the whole question has no relevance to anything in particular. A meaningless intellectual exercise which achieves nothing, or do you believe that a rise in CO2 levels to 1000 ppm is somehow detrimental? I presume you can provide details of reputable literature which show with 100% certainty the ill effects to humanity of CO2 levels twice those which currently exist.

Staying on topic would be good.

Comment on Overreach at the EPA by Barnes

May 19, 2015, 4:26 am

≫ Next: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by stevenreincarnated

≪ Previous: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by verytallguy

$

0

0

“But committees and bureaucracies don’t like to declare victory and disband”. That is why federal agencies like the EPA should have an expiration date – say 15 years – at which time it would take a super majority of congress to prolong it’s life by a much shorter time period, say 3 to 5 years. As you noted, the EPA served a useful purpose initially, but has long since outlived its usefulness and is now causing more harm than good. Liberal progressives seem to think that risk can be legislated or mandated away so that we can all live in some mythical utopian risk free society where the climate is set to some unspecified “perfect” setting that will never change if we just stop burning fossil fuels.

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by stevenreincarnated

May 19, 2015, 4:31 am

≫ Next: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Ferdinand Engelbeen

≪ Previous: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by Barnes

$

0

0

VTG, 100% is a fairly large claim. You sure it couldn’t be 90% or 80% or even 70%? Where is your published attribution that explicitly rules out any contribution from natural sources?

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Ferdinand Engelbeen

May 19, 2015, 4:32 am

≫ Next: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by jungletrunks (@jungletrunks)

≪ Previous: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by stevenreincarnated

$

0

0

Mike, you are moving the goalposts…

It is pretty sure that the current increase, at least since 1850 (1750-1850 change is quite small to be sure) in CO2 is higher than ever in the past 800,000 years, as a similar increase and level would be measurable in all ice cores of even the worst resolution (560-600 years). Probably 2 million years, as can be found in sediments of specific plankton types.

What is also clear from the past 800,000 years is that CO2 levels followed temperature changes with a (huge) lag with around 8 ppmv/°C.
The current rise is over 100 ppmv/°C, if temperature was responsible, which violates Henry’s law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater.

You can’t compare current climate and CO2 levels with the climate and CO2 levels of 100 or 200 million years ago: the oceans were much higher in CO2, much of which is meanwhile settled in sediments: huge layers of carbonate rock where once was the (shallow) sea bottom.
Different oceans carbon species content, different ocean currents (drifting continents), different temperatures, different CO2 levels in the atmosphere…

Comment on Overreach at the EPA by jungletrunks (@jungletrunks)

May 19, 2015, 5:07 am

≫ Next: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by AK

≪ Previous: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Ferdinand Engelbeen

$

0

0

Stephen Segres
“jungletrunks — Then put all energy subsidies on the table for review by Congress and then have a up/down vote.”

I’d be happy with the vote you suggest Stephen, but you’re still not totally grasping the nature of the subsidies it appears. Some components of the subsidy have indeed been put on the table but Democrats vetoed the idea; i.e. the Home Energy Assistance Program that makes up near 25% of the subsidy. Yet almost half oil subsidy comes from the “manufacturer’s tax deduction”, this is given to all large companies as incentive to keep jobs in America, so this would mean all this subsidy needs to go away for all companies? I don’t know. Do you want to end the U.S. strategic reserve? Or do you think the U.S. government should just take what it wants for this?

It’s not possible to have an energy subsidy up or down vote because almost half of the subsidy is generic corporate subsidy in nature.

These questions are not as easy to answer when you get in the weeds and understand what the subsidies really are. You hear the left bashing the oil industry just about daily over this issue, I bet very few know what the subsidies are. Most would probably be in a conundrum as to what to do if they were actually educated about it.

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by AK

May 19, 2015, 5:12 am

≫ Next: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by AK

≪ Previous: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by jungletrunks (@jungletrunks)

$

0

0

<blockquote>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.</blockquote>Oh? Was Newton (Newtonian celestial mechanics) 100% right? About the orbit of Mercury? About the behavior of masses at close to the speed of light? The claim that “<i>science is 100% right</i>” isn't actually about <b>Science</b>, it's about a religion the claimer is <b>calling</b> science. With real Science, there's no way to know whether it's “<i>100% right</i>” till long after the fact.<blockquote>Likewise, the post 1750 CO2 rise is absolutely attributable to humans, essentially 100% give or take insignificant quibbling.</blockquote>Actually, nobody's demonstrated that here. Just engaged in dishonest rhetoric and straw-man arguments using egregious bad-faith misrepresentations of opposing opinions. Granted, the real issue is more semantic: what do you mean by “<i>attributable to humans</i>”? Defenders of the <b>politically motivated</b> consensus engage in a variety of arm-waving and misrepresentation of opposing views to hide this fact. (With help from a variety of people who don't understand the science.)

Comment on Overreach at the EPA by AK

May 19, 2015, 5:27 am

≫ Next: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Mike Flynn

≪ Previous: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by AK

$

0

0

<blockquote>I believe there is some group of folks who are just always gonna disagree, no matter what (I call them Contrarians).</blockquote>Yup. And then you've made all sorts of blanket accusations of “<i>bad faith</i>”. A blanket tendency, “<i>just always gonna disagree, no matter what</i>” can be engaged in in good faith. Your linked post assumes a bad-faith pretense of that. “<i>Skepticism</i>” is different from “<i>contrarianism</i>”, in my view and based on the dictionary definitions. (Although, to be fair, there's quite a bit of vague cross-over in actual use.) The correct opposition ought to be between “<i>good-faith</i>” and “<i>bad-faith</i>”, in skepticism, in contrarianism, and in defense of the paradigm. We certainly see plenty of bad faith in paradigm defense around here. (Not pointing the finger at you so much wrt here, I was surprised at the difference between your arguments here and in the blog post you linked.)

---

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Mike Flynn

May 19, 2015, 5:35 am

≫ Next: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by rogercaiazza

≪ Previous: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by AK

$

0

0

Ferdinand,

I have no team in the CO2 attribution game. I don’t believe I have moved the goalposts when I am not involved in the game as such.

I merely share other commenter’s views that it is not an absolute certainty that one team is 100% right, and that the other team is 100% wrong. There seems to be a fair bit of assumption, coupled with possibly unrealistic modelling, a lack of relevant data, possibly chaotic system of interrelationships that we can’t even begin to understand, amongst other things that would give me food for thought.

You may be absolutely right, or not. Although you tell me I can’t compare present conditions to those several million years ago, you would probably object if I said that you cannot even compare conditions now with those of 50 years ago, if you were to claim with complete certainty that no relevant changes have occurred in that period.

Correlation may suggest causation, but is no guarantee.

I am a little surprised at the emotion and passion demonstrated by both teams. The competition winners, in any case, receive a big bag of precisely nothing. It matters not whether the rise in CO2 is caused by man, Nature, or tinfoil hat wearing aliens.

I’d be more impressed if somebody could forecast the weather with 100% accuracy even one hour ahead, but currently trying to forecast wind speed and direction accurately even 30 seconds in advance is impossible.

May the best team win. Whether the game is worth the prize, I leave to the teams.

Comment on Overreach at the EPA by rogercaiazza

May 19, 2015, 5:44 am

≫ Next: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by aplanningengineer

≪ Previous: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Mike Flynn

$

0

0

One of the biggest interstate issues at this time is ozone pollution particularly along the I-95 corridor from Washington to Boston. Downwind states such as CT and NY claim that they can turn off all their emissions and still not attain the ozone standard. All the states in the corridor claim there are problems with precursor pollution transport from the Midwest that creates ozone over the corridor. It is a real issue that does need a national view point to solve.

Of course as soon as we attain one standard EPA-funded scientists on the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee recommend a more stringent standard because everybody knows that ozone causes asthma and childhood asthma rates are going up. Funny they never address the fact that ozone levels and all the other pollutants have been going down at the same time the childhood asthma rates have been going up.

Comment on Overreach at the EPA by aplanningengineer

May 19, 2015, 5:57 am

≫ Next: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by beththeserf

≪ Previous: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by rogercaiazza

$

0

0

You might be right.

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by beththeserf

May 19, 2015, 6:15 am

≫ Next: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by PA

≪ Previous: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by aplanningengineer

$

0

0

Are we there yet, Daddy?

Comment on Overreach at the EPA by PA

May 19, 2015, 6:17 am

≫ Next: Comment on Overreach at the EPA by Stephen Segrest

≪ Previous: Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by beththeserf

$

0

0

Stephen Segrest | May 19, 2015 at 12:51 am |
PA — The problem in your very constant opinions is that you want to fight all the time.

“My Problem” is that the global warming arguments are dishonest, disingenuous, and meritless.

Any time I try to analyze any of the global warming arguments and apply some figure of merit, the argument falls apart.

I get very angry when one group of people in the climate debate constantly lie to me and insult my intelligence.

I am not a fan of the denier branch either. Screaming “no it doesn’t warm things” and having odd theories of how the atmosphere works is a niche argument. CO2 is going to have a effect. But there aren’t any indications it will be significant enough to be worrisome or come close to equaling the benefits of more CO2. The original planetary pre-1900s CO2 level was so low that almost any conceivable CO2 increase would be an improvement.

Coal and nuclear facilities aren’t going to be a lot cheaper or more efficient 10 years from now. There is no incentive to delay.

http://www.frontierrareearths.com/demand-for-neodymium-from-wind-turbines/
http://www.gov.pe.ca/photos/sites/envengfor/file/950010R1_V90-GeneralSpecification.pdf
http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/Vestas_V90-3MW
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/A_Turiel/publication/230785425_A_global_renewable_mix_with_proven_technologies_and_common_materials/links/0fcfd5045b77cafa6a000000.pdf
Renewable resources use vast amounts of resources and land. They will get cheaper and more efficient (at least consuming less resources and land). Creating thousands of square miles of glass or metal/plastic farms today using megatons of scarce resources is sort of stupid. 2000 MW (a standard nuclear plant) of modern Wind power (2000 MW delivered) consumes about about 800,000 metric tons of mostly stainless steel with the rest other high tech material, including 500 metric tons of rare earths. There is no reason to deploy now.

There are a number of “killer app” renewable technologies like organic solar that would make current deployment of PV like poor planning. Sensible people would wait for these technologies.

The US consumes much of its energy as electricity, much of the rest of the world generates power at the point of use. Research to develop power sources for the third world that are cheap and not resource intensive should be more of a priority. This is a win-win that reduces their emissions and improves their lives.

And an fun fact found researching this post: US consumes relatively little energy by GDP.