The Acid Rain Program is not international.
Comment on Refocusing the debate about advocacy by David Springer
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Comment on The weatherman is not a moron by Vaughan Pratt
@RIE: Well it would be equally true to say that there is one tonne of carbon is 3.67 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Not really sure what your point is Vaughan.
What you said is exactly right. What she said is “Every tonne of carbon lost from soil adds 3.67 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas to the atmosphere,” which is clearly false given that nature removes at least 55% of our emissions.
A more accurate statement would be that every tonne of carbon added to the atmosphere (whether from soil or any other source) adds .45*44/12 = 1.65 tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere. The other 2.02 tonnes is taken back up by the ground and oceans.
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Comment on Refocusing the debate about advocacy by trccurtin
Correction – and apology! The correct comparable figure for cumulative emissions since 1750 in terms of ppm is 163,334, still over 400 times more than today’s c.392 ppm (I had applied the Canadell-Raupach ratio for converting GtC to ppm of 2.123 to the whole number for tonnes carbon).
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Comment on The weatherman is not a moron by Vaughan Pratt
@DS: <i>Did you subtract from the recent temperature record the warming trend going on since Little Ice Age?</i>
No, why should I subtract it if it's there?
<i>How did you isolate CO2 as a variable since natural variation even within the most recent couple thousand years of the Holocene spans Roman and Medieval Warm periods to Little Ice Age?</i>
By using the CDIAC data for fossil fuel emissions. Are you familiar with it? It only goes back to 1750, so in order for CO2 in earlier times to make any difference there would have had to have been an extraordinary drop between then and 1750. If you have any relevant data on anthropogenic CO2 emissions before 1750 a lot of people would be extremely interested!
<i>What margin of error did you assign to the temperature record from 1850 onward?</i>
I used the difference between HADCRUT3 and HADCRUT4 as an indication of the margin of error. If you have a better indication I would be extremely grateful!
<i>How many tea leaves did you use?</i>
I worked so late each night on it that I had to fall back on coffee. How do you cope?
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Comment on The weatherman is not a moron by Vaughan Pratt
@tt: There is some disparity but I would say that it is largely caused by many members of the public being unaware, and misinformed, on what the true state of scientific opinion actually is.
Interesting. I don’t have any opinion there, other than that whenever I’ve given public lectures on global warming (which I’ve done so far only in the US, India, and Australia), for some reason there never seems to be any climate skeptics in the audience. I almost feel like I’m preaching to the choir. Is it possible that the world’s climate skeptics are all at their terminals frantically typing away on skeptic blogs?
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Comment on Refocusing the debate about advocacy by Beth Cooper
David Springer, September 12, 3.38, 
Mixing dispassionate science investigation and passionate selling jest ain’ a good mix. Fox in charge of henhouse plays havoc with critical methodology.
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Comment on The weatherman is not a moron by Vaughan Pratt
@DS (an example where scientists were wrong and the public right): <i>Global cooling circa 1970.</i>
My understanding was that global cooling articles were in a distinct minority during the 1970s, and that as such the public took more notice of them than the more boring mainstream view at the time that warming was ahead. So this would be an example where the public was wrong on the basis of a misguided minority of science articles.
@DS: <i>Ability of earth to sustain 7 billion people circa 1970.</i>
The public was contradicting science on this? Can you point to evidence for this?
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Comment on The weatherman is not a moron by Vaughan Pratt
@RIE: Try looking at the foundations Vaughan – must be there somewhere.
Good point, Chief. There’s some concrete two stories lower down that I neglected. But if that hadn’t been there I doubt it would have prevented the installation on the roof. I don’t remember anyone asking us about concrete in the pillars under the bottom floor.
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Comment on The weatherman is not a moron by Vaughan Pratt
@Peter Lang: Material requirements for wind solar and nuclear:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/10/18/tcase4/
Amount of concrete needed for solar PV in that link: zero. Even less than the 5 grams in my installation. Confirms my point.
(Oops, divide by zero error. That was for 0 watts of PV. Sorry.)
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Comment on Refocusing the debate about advocacy by climatereason
Peter
I am not sure you are comparing like for like. The SO2 agrement targets primarily coal fired power stations which are relatively small in number and easy to identify.
Co2 comes from millions of different sources from cars, to farming, shipping to power and many other categories in nbetween. Identifying and controlling all of those, especially when you are dealing with countries determined to grow-such as China and India- is a herculanean task and surelynot comparable to the example you gave
tonyb
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Comment on The weatherman is not a moron by Vaughan Pratt
@manacker: But that was not the original topic of discussion.
Thanks for that line, Max, I’ve made a note of it. Beats “that’s what you say” hands down.
The original topic of discussion was whether to take the apple offered by the serpent.
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Comment on The weatherman is not a moron by manacker
Thanks back to you, Vaughan.
Yep. That was pretty “original”, I agree.
Max
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Comment on The weatherman is not a moron by Latimer Alder
@vaughan pratt
There was a ginormous triumphal arch at Richborough
which marked the first serious port that they used. And ‘the site of formal entry to Roman Britain’. From here they began their British road network. and from there you could embark for a ship to Gaul and hence to Rome. So, in the vernacular, all roads eventually led to Rome.
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Comment on Too much advocacy? by Vaughan Pratt
@AK: <i> However, the emission from the atmosphere at the top (TOA) comes on average from a higher point the more CO2 is present. At normal lapse rates, this tends to be cooler, or at least that’s the argument made for the effect of GHG’s. (AFAIK it’s correct but I’m not an expert.)</i>
Quite right, this is one of the two reasons why the saturation argument (originally due to Angstrom over a century ago) doesn't work. The other reason is that CO2 (by which I mean the dominant species, there are minority species too small to matter with very different lines) has many thousands of lines whose relevant strengths cover more than 20 octaves. Several hundred lines are now completely blocked <i>from the viewpoint of a photon leaving the surface for space</i>, but many thousands more are waiting to close off as CO2 increases. Even if CO2 were to become 100% of the atmosphere, most of its absorption lines would <i>still</i> be open.
I mentioned both these reasons in a comment about photospheres a week or so ago.
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Comment on The weatherman is not a moron by David Springer
The difference between Romney and Obama poll numbers must be larger than the margin of error for one or the other to be leading. If the
difference is inside the margin of error they are in a statistical tie.
There may have been a few days recently when Obama was leading in the polls but it’s close because those polls typically have a margin of error of 3-4 points and the difference is currently Obama +3.5. I’d have to find the exact margin of error for each poll and weight it to determine if the average margin of error is less than or greater than 3.5 points.
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Comment on The costs of tackling or not tackling anthropogenic global warming by Faustino
Peter Lilley has e-mailed me with a correction to his paper. Where I’ve quoted:
“the total cost estimate comes from a simple equation embedded in the PAGE2002 Impact Assessment Model. The model is given a range of assumptions of impacts on the GDP of each geographic area for a 2.5C rise in temperature, [which is] deemed to reduce GDP by between 1.5% and 4% – with a median 2% loss. The loss is then set to increase as a power of temperature ranging between linear and cube – averaging 1.3. [35, 65]
it should read:
“the total cost estimate comes from a fairly simple equation
embedded in the PAGE2002 Impact Assessment Model. The model is given
a range of assumptions of impacts on the GDP of each geographic area for
a 2.5°C rise in temperature. Thus, the first 2.5°C temperature rise is deemed to
reduce GDP in India by between 1.5 and 4 times the loss in the EU (where the
median loss is put at 0.5% of GDP). The loss is then set to increase as a power
of temperature ranging between linear and cubic – averaging 1.3.”
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Comment on The costs of tackling or not tackling anthropogenic global warming by VeryTallGuy
Thanks for the link, I’ll read the source when I have time.
The substantive point I was trying to make though, is that the analysis *method* chosen for future impacts (discounting) ensures that those impacts, however catastrophic, will be *always* be deemed irrelevant.
So, if a rational economic analysis is desirable, rather than a values based judgement, we need either to choose a much lower discount rate to properly value the very long term (Stern) or some other method. I’m not an expert or even amateur on what the alternatives might be and would like to learn more.
The alternative is a values based judgement. Here, I’d offer the analogy of national park creation. Any economic analysis based on discounting of the creation of, for example, the Lake District National Park in the UK and associated planning laws would conclude it was undesirable and we should, in fact, allow unfettered economic development.
However, the creation of the park together with other UK planning laws has ensured the continued existence of a landscape of great beauty and inspiration over a timescale of many decades, and hopefully many more to come. It was the right thing to do, and I’m very grateful earlier generations did this for us today.
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Comment on The costs of tackling or not tackling anthropogenic global warming by Faustino
Latimer, data on Chinese coal consumption at http://www.thegwpf.org/reality-check-chinas-coal-boom/
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Comment on The costs of tackling or not tackling anthropogenic global warming by Faustino
Fair comment, I love the Lakes, but the tourism it attracts might well be its best economic use anyway. Of course, the scale of modern tourism would have been inconceivable at the time a National Park was declared. As a boy in the 1950s, I thought that the only way I’d ever get to fly would be via a five-pound seaside light plane joy ride (I didn’t hav efive pounds then) … now what did I say about unforeseen futures …
In most cost-benefit analyses, you would discount the measurables to get an NPV, but also try to assess unmeasurables. If a CBA had been done of the Lake District, it’s value as an area of outstanding natural beauty could have been determined to outweigh its value in other uses – a CBA provides guidance, it doesn’t determine values or outcomes.
I agree with Judith’s assessment quoted in response to your earlier post.
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Comment on The costs of tackling or not tackling anthropogenic global warming by Peter Lang
VeryTallGuy,
So, if a rational economic analysis is desirable, rather than a values based judgement, we need either to choose a much lower discount rate to properly value the very long term
Don’t you think choosing a discount rate to get the answer you want, rather deriving the discount rate from objective analysis, is the value judgement?
The alternative is a values based judgement.
I disagree. I’d suggest choosing a discount rate to give you the answer you want (as Stern did) is the value judgement.
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