I’m kind of new to studying the whole Cultural Marxism/Political Correctness/Critical Theory angle, but it simply explains to much. And having noticed Oreske’s bizarre stance on objectivity it suddenly seemed all too relevant to the climate debate….

ATTP: “… most accept that any form of geo-engineering carries it’s own risks. The question then becomes do we both want to risk the possibility of severe negative impacts from anthropogenically-driven climate change and the possibility that if those risks do occur, that we’d be forced into using strategies that could have their own very negative and severe impacts?”

You’ve nailed it. We need to make management judgments based on what we can do now and what we could likely do in the future. It’s like looking at the chess board and looking at all the combinations of likely futures. I am for this approach too. But all I hear from the leaders of your side is that they outcome is clear. Al Gore points to a chart and says its clear as the nose on your face. Then on investigation one finds that his temperature chart is bogus (see MM03 on MBH98) and the CO2 chart is old science, before we learned that temperature leads CO2. That is a very very important oversight for an expert like Mr. Gore. Don’t-cha think?

So I see dishonesty. And, one gets to wonder why. So I have have found a couple online enclaves where honest debate is allowed. The 99% of the rest of the world, including media and policy makers, are misinformed. Yet they are saying “follow me we’ll kill the planet.”

I am for conservation, renewable technology, mitigation engineering research and further debate. I am not for giving up liberty, sovereignty, civility and transparency in the name of emergency powers.

——————–
PA: “Your opinion that the future CO2 limitations will be ineffective would be reason for cheer – if they hadn’t partially achieved their objective of making electric power more expensive.”
——————–

PA, I take it from comments you make on other Climate Etc. threads that you support an aggressive expansion of nuclear power here in the United States.

As someone who has spent thirty-five years in nuclear construction and operations here in the US, I can only offer the opinion that as things stand today, new-build nuclear projects are not economically competitive with new-build gas-fired projects in those electricity markets which have ready access to adequate supplies of natural gas.

This situation will not change unless government intervenes in the energy marketplace to artificially raise the price of natural gas to levels which will erase its competitive advantage over nuclear.

I don’t buy the argument that the cost of nuclear power can be substantially reduced by eliminating strong regulatory oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC has already gone as far as public policy will allow it to go in reducing the burdens of its regulatory oversight functions, and eliminating the NRC altogether would be the end of nuclear power in the United States.

The only practical way a stillborn Nuclear Renaissance can be revived here in America is for the US Government to put a price on carbon, thus making the long-term cost of gas-fired generation less competitive in comparison with nuclear.

Since the Congress will never act to put a legislated price on carbon, regardless of which political party controls it, this leaves the Executive Branch and the EPA as the only remaining organs of government which have the necessary legal authority and the necessary procedural tools required to legally and constitutionally raise the price of carbon. If the President and the EPA don’t do it, it won’t be done; and the stillborn Nuclear Renaissance will not be revived.

Judith,

A generally fair reading of the tea leaves, but you are holding your punches IMO. Examples:

1. “This [Social Cost of Carbon (SCC)] argument has been challenged because the costs and benefits, estimated over 300 years, are highly uncertain and contested.” I would say that the EPA’s decision to use a Monte Carlo process to compute SCC that assumes their Roe-Baker statistical distribution for ECS has a 20% probability of ECS > 4.5 C and allows ECS values as high as 10C, is a fraudulent interpretation of the current state of AGW science. They are arbitrarily “cooking the books” to get the SCC value they need to justify the regulations they want to impose on Americans. Moreover, why use the more highly uncertain ECS metric compared to get warming forecasts limited to the next 300 years? Is anyone in climate science actually challenging the EPA in open hearings or reviews? As a federal government employee in NASA’s manned space program, frequent internal and external independent, non-advocacy reviews of our significant projects were the norm. I don’t see this happening at EPA, DoE or other regulatory agencies with the power to do great harm to this nation.

2. “The basis for these actions under the EPA is the Endangerment finding, which found that greenhouse gas pollution endangers public health.” CO2 is a pollutant? How can a colorless, odorless, gas essential for existence of all plant, animal and human life on this planet, and without a substitute, be declared a pollutant? I don’t care what the EPA and the US Supreme Court have ruled. This doesn’t make the “pollution” claim scientifically true. There are many proven beneficial effects of higher atmospheric CO2 levels and no proven harmful effects of atmospheric CO2 concentrations until they approach the 5000 ppm breathing level allowed on the International Space Station or 8000 ppm level allowed on nuclear submarines. All plant life dies if the CO2 level drops below 150 ppm. What is the level at which the CO2 concentration becomes a pollutant? Why do climate scientists allow our government to establish such irrational, official positions on atmospheric CO2 levels? The rest of us are watching and we are not impressed with the common sense and rational thought processes of mainstream climate scientists.

3. “Funding goes into climate modeling to better understand human caused climate change; there is very little funding for understanding natural climate variability.” Look, let’s tell it like it is. In 35 years of research since the 1979 Charney Report and approaching $100 billion spent on climate research, the official position on ECS uncertainty has not changed one bit from the 1979 estimate that 1.5 < ECS < 4.5C. As one who experienced and succeeded in meeting President Kennedy's challenge to land astronauts on the moon and return them safely within the decade of the 1960's, this is unacceptable research performance to me and needs to be changed, big time!! Our R&D for the Apollo Program was focused on the big issues we needed resolved to ensure success and safety of the missions. Climate R&D has no such technical leadership nor management. Who can you name as the responsible person for leading our nation in resolving this most important threat facing our nation that President Obama talks about? Funding for climate research needs to be managed by some responsible person who will focus R&D priorities on two things:
a) an official GHG climate sensitivity metric for public policy decisions that doesn't have so much uncertainty.
b) a better researched and justified Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) than RCP8.5 for projecting GHG levels of the future based on unrestricted use of fossil fuels. Our own The Right Climate Stuff research team developed an RCP6.0 scenario based on a market driven transition from rising prices of depleting world-wide fossil fuel reserves to alternative fuels, necessary to meet the rising demand for world wide energy usage. The 2015 Exxon-Mobil 25 year forecast for energy usage and their estimate of the fraction that would be supplied by fossil fuels, confirmed our RCP6.0 trajectory through 2040. Who can defend RCP8.5 to our nation's policy makers? Our nation can do better, using all of its expert knowledge. These two issues need to be the focus of AGW research to ensure we make good public policy decisions going forward.

I could go on, but I think you get my drift. You have the scientific credibility and ethical reputation to lead our nation on this issue. But we do need leadership and we need to be critical where criticism is due! Otherwise, we are in danger of allowing climate scientists with no experience in dealing with issues of public safety, lead our politicians into wrecking our economy with irrational academic arguments that don't address all consequences of their proposals.

ATTP,

I believe I understood you correctly.

My quick estimate of the Earth”s surface temperature (no Sun) is between 30 and 35K. Measurements are relatively accurate, but vary depending on location, of course.

Now if you applied 255 calories of energy (specifying that conditions were such that 1 cal would raise the temperature of 1 g of water by 1 K), to 1 g of water, and you measured the final temperature of the water as 288 K, you might be surprised. “It’s 33 K warmer than it should be!”, you cry!

You recheck your calculations. Yes, starting at 0 K, your final temperature should be 255 K. It must be due to the greenhouse effect!

Some billions of dollars later, your lab assistant tells you that the water sample you used was actually 33 K before you applied the energy that resulted in a final temperature of 288 K.

Imagine how silly you might feel. Ah well, its only a fable, I suppose.

What do you think?

In item 1. above, I intended to write ” highly uncertain ECS metric compared to the less uncertain TCR metric to get warming forecasts”

Jim D,

Opinions are more numerous than bums. People usually have only one bum.

Opinions are worth precisely what you can sell them for.

Did anyone find a u tube or link to Dr. Curry on John Stossel last weekend?
The one up site was a different discussion.
Scott

ATTP, I forgot to address your claim that CO2 at 600ppm would take 250 years to reach 400ppm. I see others are already doing so but I would like to add that your U of Chicago calculator will give one any answer one wants depending on assumptions. Using common sense math though, with an equilibrium zero point of 300ppm, one can see that 250 years to go from (600-300) to (400-300), or 300 to 100 would assume an absorption rate of less than 1% per year (compounding). I think we know that 1% absorption rate is a very poor assumption. I’ve heard numbers thrown out for the rate at 20-30%/yr.

Joseph: “Are they making that up??”

In a word – YES!

More interesting that kenny’s evolving back of envelope methods is you first name, doc. I have been thinking that more than half of the letters could be silent, depending on the pronunciation. I don’t think you pronounce it Va-ug-han. Seems like it could easily be Von, Van, or the Viet, Voan. Worst case, Vaughn. Save you some letters.

AK, It states in several places in the link I provided that the various risks increase as the temperature increases. Are they making that up??

Probably, if it’s in the “Summary for Policymakers”. Such a statement could only be believed if you can find it in the body, and then only if it properly uses its references.

If such a statement were found in WGI, it might have more credibility, but even then I wouldn’t believe it without checking ref’s. But if it was there, I might actually consider wasting the time to do it. In WGII, or any “Summary for Policymakers”, I discount it as politics, not science. Track down the references themselves (if any) if you want, and cite them. IPCC has no credibility.

ATTP,

If you ignore radioactive decay, you would be committing the same error Lord Kelvin did. It obviously makes an enormous difference, both to the age of the Earth, and its present rate of cooling. I’ve noticed that many Warmists seem convinced that the Earth must have stopped cooling billions of years ago, and totally ignore the fact that if the core is white hot, and the environment is around 3 K, then the crust is somewhere between the two, and there will be a temperature gradient between the centre of the Earth and 3 K.

Therefore, cooling.

I would not take a punt on the time to eventual isothermality. I rather suspect that it’s a long way away. If the Sun is about half way through its life, other events may intervene before 10 billion years have elapsed.

At least we agree the Earth is cooling. The Sun hasn’t been able to stop it for four and a half billion years. Nor is it likely to, any time soon.

Very interesting response. Thank you. Much to discuss. I’ll pick up on just a few points that I find particularly interesting.

(For every 10000 women saved from breast cancer, one will die from the radiation induced cancer). So in radiology it is NOT about cancelling the risk altogether but making it worthwhile. (Why is this rarely discussed regarding CO2?).

From my perspective, consequence of increasing the cost of fossil fuels – e.g. with carbon pricing or regulation to what William Nordhaus estimates is the optimal carbon price is about $0.3 trillion economic loss per year to the global economy from 2010 to 2100. This would translate into avoidable lives lost per year (but I don’t know the figure).

Another figure: Regulations that are preventing nuclear from being cheaper then coal fired electricity are preventing nuclear replacing coal for electricity generation which would avoid about 1.3 million fatalities per year world wide. Therefore, the excessive regulation of nuclear power are, in effect, causing about 1.3 million avoidable fatalities per year.

Joseph,

Who do we believe?

The IPCC, or Svante Arrhenius (chemist, physicist, Nobel Laureate), who wrote –

“By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind.”

I prefer Arrhenius’ prediction. The IPCC seems to comprise a mixed bunch – maybe there’s a first class mind or two there, but science by committee doesn’t seem all that clever to me.

Are two people with IQs of 75 collectively more intelligent than one person with an IQ of 120? Is the collective intelligence of the IPCC meaningful?

Over to you.

It’s really good to hear Martin Rees was there. Someone this presentation should have caused to think.

Jan Lindström

So for many practical reasons, most institutes around the world use the linear theory (as opposed to the threshold theory) knowing that the margins are a bit wide (and costly) sometimes.

I believe excessive regulation of nuclear power is extremely costly. I expect around 75% of the damage cost of the Fukushima accident could be attributed to unjustifiably low allowable radiation limits.

Bernard Cohen presents a persuasive case that regulatory ratcheting of nuclear power increased the cost by a factor of four up to 1990. I expect it has doubled that since.

… one is the situation for nuclear energy. It could be a part of a global warming strategy … .

Yes. But progress is effectively blocked. To make progress the cost has to become cheaper than fossil fuels. To achieve that we need to remove the impediments. I explain how I suggest that can be achieved. The trigger and catalyst to get started is to begin raising the allowable radiation limits for the population. If we started doing that, a snowball effect could follow. The cost of small nuclear power plants could reduce at the rate of 10% per doubling of global capacity (of small modular nuclear power plants). I explain this in a comment here: http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/23/week-in-review-policy-and-politics-edition-6/#comment-705879

Vaughan Pratt,

Alfred Newman: “worry won’t get you anywhere.” Does this pertain to mitigation or adaptation? I am not clear from your comments. I am also not sure whether you accede that the future is unknowable or that you have some pathway to discern the future. If you say to prepare to adapt to changes in the climate, you have me on board. If you are saying, that it is mitigation NOW! or certain Thermogeddon, then I think you need to take a break, collect your thoughts before proceeding on. IF your higher physics leads you to more certainty about the future than I can muster, please jot down those numbers, show me those graphs, calculate those formulas and make a prediction. Tell me, will there be more rain in the world, the same, or less? Inquiring minds want to know.

VP I have checked Kahneman’s book but find no qualitative assessment regarding investment advisers and assume that you are referring to another source. “Good” advisers that end up making serious money for their clients tend to be just lucky, according to Kahneman in the book that I was referring to.

The point I was really making is that bias is a major problem for all decision-makers, especially when it comes to expertise, because Kahneman follows Meehl’s conclusion that experts also generally suffer from overconfidence as well.

In this context, I believe that mainstream climate science have similar issues of bias and overconfidence.