lolwot, “Increased CO2 will reduce OLR in the CO2 blocking regions, but in response the atmosphere will warm and emit more OLR over the wider spectrum.

It won’t simply reduce OLR.”

Let’s see, that is because Ein=Eout or because Ein=Eout+dS, where over sufficient time Ein will average Eout? Seems the OLR is pretty stable, like the Ein=Eout, but the northern extent has some dS-ing going on. Weird mixed-phase cloud stuff I’d imagine. Funny how the northern latitudes are doing most of the warming, ain’t it?

What would Arrhenius do?

http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/02/arrhenius-is-still-dead-but-his-mistake.html

Anteros,

Thanks for your comments.

I tried to be circumspect about the extent to which CO2 would raise surface temperature and whether “a raised surface temperature is categorically harmful”. If it turns out that CO2 has a trivial effect on climates, or that the effects are not significantly harmful on net, there is even less of an argument for having concerns about CO2 emissions dominate energy policy. My main point, however, is that finding that the effects are non-trivial and significantly harmful on net would not be not sufficient to justify restricting CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels. It is only the start of an argument for such a policy when too many people treat it as settling the matter.

Your other comments about dealing with “climate events” versus “climate change” miss the point that we would only be concerned about climate change in so far as “climate events” impose net costs. If there are ways of reducing the costs of such events, those actions are an alternative to trying to stop the climate change — which is a futile exercise anyway in a world where many factors affect climates and we are talking about controlling just one of them whose real impact is uncertain as your first comment states.

I think your criticism that “there is no evidence at all that the decline [in fossil fuel use?] will be rapid” suggests that you misinterpreted me. I was tailing about the rate of decline in CO2 emissions once non-fossil energy sources become competitive with fossil fuels, not the rate of fossil fuel use until that happens.

lolwot –

I can’t help but notice that every thread is the same for you. It goes:
(1) There is a thoughtful post by JC.
(2) Most of us try to gather our thoughts and come up with something to say about the post.
(3) You snipe at (2)
(4) The thread descends into custard-pie throwing like the last one.

How bout you constructively give us your thoughts on energy policy?

Daniel

A few points to consider.
1. A colder or warmer season is just weather and not a trend
2. When governments wish to provide services they have to get revenue from somewhere. Currently spending in the EU and the US greatly exceed revenue generation and can’t be sustained. Both cuts in services and additional taxes are inevitable.

“”The satellite measurements refute this unfounded claim which is why the increase in CO2 since 2002 has not stopped the Earth from cooling.”"

There should be a consideration if the increase in Co2 forces more loss mass of Atmosphere to space, allowing a lower Atmospheric pressure and force by pressure and hence cooling. As there has been minimal warming of the upper stratosphere, one could surmise only minor loss of Atmosphere and that recent climate subsequent to 1998 is a direct result of the Suns isolation. No AGW to be found, unless it’s in Trenberths’ undies.

Much of the essay could have been written by Bob Carter of James Cook University,,,

Faustino,

I certainly agree that there is “a general rule that you should not try to address multiple policy objectives with a single policy instrument” among economists at least. I am not so sure this is understood by non-economists.

With regard to Australia, you might note that the conference were I gave this paper (linked above) was an Australia Day event in Houston organized by the Australian-American Chamber of Commerce. In addition, I was asked to speak at that conference in part because I gave a previous version of this talk at the University of Western Australia last August. The paper has more comments on Australian policy that the summary version above.

Pete,

Yes, I agree that Bob Carter has said similar things, but I did come to my conclusions independently. I have been saying similar things for some time. Good ideas often have a way of being thought of by more than one person

Norm,

I am in favor our using our domestic natural gas in the transportation sector. It looks like our national labs are willing to look this as an option once again-

A ‘natural’ solution for transportation
http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/2012/news120202.html

“.Hoping to expand the pool even further, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have begun to investigate adding one more contender to the list of possible energy sources for light-duty cars and trucks: compressed natural gas (CNG). ”

…….Because the domestic production of natural gas has increased dramatically over the past ten years, making a large number of the cars and light trucks currently on the road CNG-compatible would help to improve U.S. energy security. “As a country, we don’t lack for natural gas deposits,” said Argonne mechanical engineer Thomas Wallner. “There are fewer obvious challenges with direct supply than with most other fuels.”

Last time I checked Yahoo’s green car web site the Honda CNG vehicle was rated as close to the greenist around as well.

If your energy policy is to restore the grand world of the dark ages across the land then you have by default solved the energy security problem. Security is a problem only if you have something to defend. Get rid of that like California is doing the the rest falls in place.

dp,

If one did have a policy of returning to the Dark Ages it would be the biggest mass murder in the history of mankind. Imagine how many fewer people the world could support on a Dark Ages economy.

Peter: See my comment/link above made Feb 5th at 8:20 pm. The link is the dead on satire of The Onion, but sad to say there are some, perhaps many, that would like to see the earth somewhat depopulated, since (they think) the planet cant support all of us. Which is why I asked what does “Sustainability really mean, and what are the logical consequences of implementing ‘Sustainable” policy. It’s a pretty phrase until you start to scratch the surface….

Welcome to Dr. Hartley. I am sorry I was unable to attend the lecture in person. Dividing- or at least recognizing that CO2 obsessions and energy policy are not necessarily the same thing is an important step back towards rational energy policies and climate policies.
An important aspect of this is the ruggedness of energy infrastructure. Wind power and crop-based biofuels are vulnerable to normal weather extremes like windstorms and droughts. Neither if fully implemented would prevent windstorms or droughts.
As to ideas like seeding iron into the southern oceans to increase phytoplankton, I think one way to look at it would be from the point of view of the value of increasing ocean fishery yields. More phytoplankton would yield larger fishing catches. If it also ties up some CO2, that is not a bad thing. How to pay for the seeding that would benefit fishing interests is a significant issue, but if the AGW community truly believes that CO2 should be reduced, then perhaps the true believers could foot the bill for a few years’ of a pilot project to determine if the promise holds up in the reality.

I get that feeling everytime I watch. Great clip.

Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two

Lines that made me think climate change.

Science: “Econometricians, they’re ever too pious. Are they doing real science or confirming their bias? Their Keynesian models are tidy and neat. But that top down approach is a fatal conceit.”

Green Jobs: “Creating employment is a straight forward craft when the nation’s at war and there’s a draft. If every worker were staffed in the army and fleet we’d have full employment and nothing to eat.”

Swap in ‘climate’ for ‘economy’ and see: “The lesson I’ve learned is how little we know. The world is complex, not some circular flow. The economy is not a class you master in college, to think otherwise is the pretense of knowledge”

Talented and smart production. Clever and clear.

This discussion is hampered by the decade-long focus on what has happened to date–whether or not the climate has been influenced by emissions and if so, by how much.

I’ve been diving in recently to look at how energy consumption is set to change over the course of the century. I believe that most agencies charged with projecting future energy use have underestimated this by a considerable margin.

If my calculations are even close to correct, by 2075 we will be consuming every blessed year close to as much energy as we did in the past decade.

I think if that actually happens we will need all five approaches, all of Socolow’s wedges and a way to transmute Pielke’s iron law of energy policy into some baser metal that will prove more pliable.

If the past is merely prelude, we will see interesting times.

If the world’s development continues at its current acceleration rate, so will its energy use, which will be its carbon use unless policies are implemented by the major nations. Simple extrapolation of the current CO2 doubling rate gives 1000 ppm in the atmosphere by 2100. Some say we can’t exploit that much in known fossil fuel reserves, but we see new large reserves all the time, and are already finding ways to exploit the less efficient reserves. This could amount to 5 C above pre-industrial levels, and it looks like the most likely scenario to me for the reasons mentioned in the main post that replacing carbon use globally is almost impossible. Given this, the planning has to take into account the inevitable environmental effects.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, indeed an excellent paper.

“In summary, meaningful global controls on CO2 emissions will not be instituted before alternatives to fossil energy become competitive. At that time, policies to force reduced fossil use will be unnecessary. In the interim, policies encouraging basic research to lower the cost of new energy technologies, limiting the harmful consequences from climate change, or contending better with damaging events of all sorts would yield greater expected benefits for comparable expected costs. For the United States and Canada, in particular, constraining fossil fuel use over the next few decades will come at a high cost in terms of reduced energy security.”

Wiki: In 2008, total worldwide energy consumption was 474 exajoules (474×10^18 J=132,000 TWh). This is equivalent to an average energy consumption rate of 15 terawatts (1.504×10^13 W].

What world needs is a new source of energy which equal of more than 15 terawatts.

Solar energy in space per square km is: 1300 watts per sq meter times one million. At with solar panel at 20% efficiency it’s 260 watts generated power per square meter,. so 260 MW per square km. In space one has millions to billion of square km one could harvest solar energy. There more square meter of area available in space than entire earth surface- and using this area in space has zero negative impact upon people on earth. So space can a source of thousands times more than 15 terawatts. And such a source of energy last for millions of years.
A solar panel in space has 4 times the energy density as solar panel has on earth has- and it’s constant supply of energy- it has 24 hour a day, of constant energy. So solar panel in space gets more twice amount sunlight as panel on does during daylight, plus get same amount during night on earth. Or earth gets about 6 hours of 1000 watts of solar flux- and space gets +1300 watts for 24 hours.
The reason this is not already being done, is getting off of earth is expensive. We are in a deep gravity hole. The moon is in relatively small gravity hole. It would fairly bad idea to make solar panels on earth and ship them into space. It could be done, it’s just not a very good idea.
You don’t have make solar panel on the Moon- there could other to get material- one could mine asteroids.
Now fusion is also a possible source of endless energy- but we can’t do that because we don’t know how. We know how, to mine and make solar panels on the moon, in same degree as we know how to make some huge bridge, building, or ship. It’s technically and managerially challenging- but with fusion we can’t do it yet- maybe never can do it.

One thing essential to know, is that the high cost of getting into space, is not mostly a matter of physics. But instead it *largely* a matter of market. Getting into space is similar to early day flying airplanes. The advantage aircraft had over what spacecraft has, is aircraft had a potential of a large fairly easy to see market. But this market had to be developed- costs had to lower, people had to be convinced that flying was first, “fun” and somewhat safe, finally it was practical way to get from point A to point B.
Space travel, more precisely suborbital travel, may in next few decades be a practical way to travel to different places on earth- anywhere on earth in about an hour. If that is accomplished, that will a huge market for “space travel”. If that happens getting to the Moon or Mars will a lot cheaper and easier [it's quite different- not it has important similarities]. There are about 4-5 players [one being Virgin Galactic] trying to go in this direction- first step being joyrides and science payloads.

So my point is not that we go to moon and start building solar panels- that would like trying build a 747 in the 1920′s. My point is this is option in the future. You talking about 40 to 50 years in future. This could done in 40 to 50 years into the future, but we need to do some stuff first.
And it’s not so much that technology has to evolve first, but more importantly markets need to evolve first. We could have started this 40 to 50 years ago- we didn’t gained any needed technology that’s enabling it today. And it possible that 40 to 50 years from now, that no significant progress is made. We could will still be 40 to 50 year from being able to do it. What is required is for NASA to explore the Moon- and explore the moon with a specific purpose. That purpose is to determine whether there is *minable* lunar water and where it is more precisely that we guessing where it is today. And this lunar would then need to be mined- but not mined by NASA. NASA has limited budget, and it’s job is exploring space, not mining or farming in space [or mining or farming on earth]. Once NASA is finished with Moon [something achievable within about 10 years] it then must explore other places- such as Mars.
But almost as important, NASA needs to support a market for rocket fuel in space. And needs to do this right now, and continue doing this after it goes to Moon and afterwards goes to Mars. The importance of lunar water, is you make rocket fuel. And having a market for rocket in space, is of course creating a new market, but is also allowing NASA to do it’s job at a lower cost. It makes going to the Moon and elsewhere cheaper.
And rocket fuel will start expensive, and become cheaper as a market develops [develop meaning more players are buying rocket fuel than NASA- other govts, and other non-profit and for profit entities.
This may all happen “despite” what NASA does, but NASA should making it happen, sooner, rather than later.
Now what happens, when make rocket fuel from water is you need electrical power- so this starts a market from electrical power in space- right now the cost of electrical power is more than $10 per Kilowatt hour,
and getting below $1 per kilowatt hour would something one could expect within a few or several years, and within a decade or so it be near around the cost we paying for solar power on earth. At that point, large investment might be possible to drive down cost considerable lower than solar power on earth, and in order to sell it to Earthlings. But before this there would research developing means of achieving production a lowest costs.
Point is isn’t a sure path- you can’t have governments throwing money at it- there is a learning curve.

Joshua.

Judith does not appeal to dyson’s authority.
She asked a question.. should we consider SOMEONE LIKE dyson..
basically, she is asking whether or not ‘metacognition” is just as important as expert opinion. You translate this into an apeall to authority by misreading the text.

You could have said

1. yes Judith, metacoginition is important, but I think Dyson is a poor exemplar or unproven exemplar
2. No judith, metacognition is not that important, regardless of who you want to point to as an exemplar of that trait

personally, I think ‘metacognition’ is pretty limited in its usefullness when compiling a report on the science. It would be useful in a report on the report.

Peter Hartley

In summary, meaningful global controls on CO2 emissions will not be instituted before alternatives to fossil energy become competitive. At that time, policies to force reduced fossil use will be unnecessary. In the interim, policies encouraging basic research to lower the cost of new energy technologies, limiting the harmful consequences from climate change, or contending better with damaging events of all sorts would yield greater expected benefits for comparable expected costs. For the United States and Canada, in particular, constraining fossil fuel use over the next few decades will come at a high cost in terms of reduced energy security.

Completely agree. Thank you.

In addition, there is no evidence of man-made global warming => http://bit.ly/Aei4Nd