The RHS = 0 is the Mathieu function. It is really quite eccentric. The LHS is a curve fitted to the SOI using estimated parameters. Bait and switch in other words. Does he believe himself? Seems to. As I say – quite bonkers.
Comment on Open thread by Rob Ellison
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Comment on Politicizing the IPCC report by mosomoso
It does have a few slight benefits, Michael. But I’m awfully glad I took the advice of all the parents, relatives, friends, doctors, teachers, clerics etc of my era – many of whom smoked – and that I did not take up what was always called a “filthy habit” or a “vice”. Mind you, I was never a bore or a lecturer on the subject – and I did do all the other stupid things you could do in the sixties and seventies.
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Comment on Politicizing the IPCC report by Rob Ellison
‘In contrast, our strategy is more modest and specific. Under it, the political priority of governments would switch from the preoccupation with emissions targets under the previous “Kyoto” regime to credible long-term global commitments and methods to invest in energy innovation. A slowly rising but initially low carbon tax has the advantages of avoiding negative growth effects. We are aware that as a general rule politicians in general and Ministries of Finance in particular hate the principle of hypothecation, because it ties their hands. We see that fact as one of the virtues of hypothecation, because it removes the issue
from the political arena in just that way, and by doing so, may help to restore public trust at a time when the stock of politicians is not high in many of the democracies. None of this is hypothetical. In the February 2010 Union Budget, the Indian Minister of Finance, Pranab Mukherjee, established a National Clean Energy Fund to support RD&D and to be funded by a tax of Rs.50/ton on both
domestic and imported coal.’
50 Rupees/ton of coal? Less than 50c/ton o CO2 – all devoted to R&D. Jackbooted greenshirt delusional fantasies notwithstanding.
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Comment on Politicizing the IPCC report by Steven Mosher
Joshua.
question. who are you quoting?
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Comment on Politicizing the IPCC report by beththeserf
When high statistical confidence put out by a working group
of highly confident climate scientists is not getting public traction,
time for the Smoke and Mirrors Magic Show.
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Comment on Politicizing the IPCC report by Rob Ellison
That’s the problem with mentioning a carbon tax. They start humping legs and peeing on the floor.
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Comment on Politicizing the IPCC report by Energy and Climate Change Committee report on IPCC AR5 | The IPCC Report
[…] Curry has a post Politicizing the IPCC Report, quoting a chunk of this […]
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Comment on Open thread by Rob Ellison
‘I didn’t expect to like this book so much but this has everything I want in a sci-fi book. This is a collection of stories following Ijon Tichy’s adventures across the galaxy. I loved the one about the mutant potatoes: “Thus far observations show that man has mashed potatoes millions of times, but it is not inconceivable that one time in a billion the situation could reverse itself, that a potato could mash a man.” People in Poland must really like this one, too. ‘
It’s record of travels through time and space. The journeys are out of order and some earlier ones haven’t happened yet in his personnel timeline. He’s laugh out loud hilarious.
I have been watching a few old movies on Youtube. John Carpenter’s Vampires is a classic of the genre. But the name of the writer on this one got my attention.
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Comment on Politicizing the IPCC report by mosomoso
The Severn in catastrophic flood now would no doubt attract one of those dodgy comments like “while we cannot say that this single event was caused by human activity, nonetheless we will be seeing more and more of such events and of they will be of much greater intensity etc etc”. I won’t go on. You know the drill by now, guys.
Just as well they didn’t have “climate change” back in 1607. Amazing how the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary made all that trouble without a boost from “climate change”. But if St. Mary Magdalene’s flood could swamp Europe the way it did in 1342, you’d have to think this “climate change” whatsy is a real pussycat compared to…well, whatever actually makes stuff happen.
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Comment on Politicizing the IPCC report by angech
Money speaks the loudest.
While people put up green schemes and governments walk the talk they will go ahead.
Once reality bites and there is no promised income and the waste becomes apparent the governments will shut them down.
Swings and roundabouts and IPCC recommendations will go. The momentum is building.
Not to mention the science.
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Comment on Open thread by Rob Ellison
Yes I read the paper – which you don’t seem to understand so I won’t hold out much hope for a rational discussion from you.
I discussed this paper briefly above. There are dipoles everywhere in the system and the idea of using automated data analysis instead of the manual methods that are spatially limited and time intensive has real interest.
Not that you are really noted for rational discussion at the best of times.
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Comment on Lomborg’s Senate testimony by David Springer
No worries, Michael. Coal liquifaction can be carried out at $80/bbl equivalent. Up until now crude oil price has not remained above that mark for long enough to risk capital in large scale liquifaction. The problem, you see, is that OPEC can drive oil price well below $80/bbl any time they want making liquifaction non-competitive.
I don’t understand why you don’t rejoice over the prospect of increasing fossil fuel cost as that will eventually make “green” energy look like a bargain in comparison. Logic and reasoning aren’t your strong suits, eh?
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Comment on Open thread by Rob Ellison
They are not pure dipoles – as I said. They don’t change polarity with precision such that a perfect anti-correlation occurs. That is the real world – not webby’s fantasy Earth systems where everything that is not rounded out perfectly is noise.
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Comment on Lomborg’s Senate testimony by Rob Ellison
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Comment on Lomborg’s Senate testimony by John Carter
“If it were to turn out that looming fossil fuel scarcity made windmills cheaper, then there wouldn’t need to be any policy to get any user to make the switch.
It’s not scarcity that’s the reason to move away. It’s the ongoing contribution to already excessively high long lived atmospheric GH concentrations – particularly in relation to geologic levels and the relatively stable climate under which we evolved and built our world in response to.
Re building windmills, a lot of comments argue that it takes a lot of “power” to build these things. It takes a lot of power to “build” many things. (All of which contributes to the economy.) The argument here is not to refrain from building things. It is to move to better energy processes for doing so. For building all things. Including energy producing units, which are themselves, just another unit of commerce, like everything else.
Re windmills, who knows if these are the answer or part of it. A big part of it may well be far more innovative and efficient processes, which right now there is almost no real motivation to discover and develop.
Why not either make it cost effective for builders to do this on their own, or prescribe a rare rule that says all new homes have to be close to power neutral, so that they are built with slight overhands and southern exposure that allows in winter sunshine, blocks summer, has solar panels for part of its roof, etc. Just an idea.There’s probably a million such ideas. There’s just no real motivation for any of it. And our market words on motivation. There is also almost no motivation for small scale independent energy generation and saving measures.
Someone below mentioned planting trees as part of a sensible solution. Agree. What’s wrong with more parks, wider streets, trees everywhere, and in particular green roofs, which may be cool to some people, but are a hassle, and right now also have almost no market incentive behind them, making it particularly cumbersome for businesses. Businesses need market incentive.
Also, suddenly when it comes to Climate Change, the Far RIght, which have never been strong advocates for the poor, are now their champions. I know poor people who crank their heat in the winter and a/c in the summer, because it is what they are used to doing, and it’s cheap. The blood stays thin in the winter and thick in the summer, which is unhealthy, and makes it uncomfortable to be outside and a much bigger adjustment. And sweaters aren’t even a consideration. (Others do cut way back.) So make it not cheap, and provide assistance toward adjusting over, commensurate with the general level of real concern, and not just concern expressed as a way to try and take issue with the idea of CC redress.
The whole idea of “waiting” until it’s efficient belies the entire point of using the market itself to drive processes, and more critically, it ignores essentially the main point; the increasingly amplifying affect of continuing the same patterns of net emissions, and continuing the geologic sky rocket upward of net long lived atmospheric greenhouse gas levels, when the first step to problem remediation is to figure out a way to at least or offset that. Taking carbon for instance (methane breaks down into CO2) out of the air in he future, and other more rash mitigation affects (and likely draconian and probably ill thought out reactive rules when things start getting a little hairy climate wise) is going to be far less effective, since the process of climate change is increasingly cumulative, like a train almost stuck in its tracks slowly starting to roll (stable ocean temperatures, huge permafrost, ice caps and ice sheets, as well as their affect on net albedo, all slowly starting to change) , and also far more costly and inefficient at the same time
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Comment on Lomborg’s Senate testimony by David Springer
<blockquote>
“Each decade we delay acting results in an added cost of dealing with the problem of an extra 40 percent,” said Jason Furman, chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.
</blockquote>
140% of zero is still zero.
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Comment on Lomborg’s Senate testimony by David Springer
Yup.
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Comment on Lomborg’s Senate testimony by David Springer
Crank alert!
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Comment on Lomborg’s Senate testimony by thomaswfuller2
As a Lukewarmer who is a big fan of Lomborg, let me try to agree with Mr. Droege on some points.
We pay more for safer cars. We complain about the price until we get into an accident, whereupon we change opinions quickly. If climate science broadly and accurately points to the need for corrective action, the same principle applies.
I think demonizing green energy wholesale is as foolish as idolizing it. Some green energy in some places makes perfect sense and we should continue using it and in some cases subsidizing it. Residential panels in Arizona make sense. In Washington, not so much. Same for windpower. Biofuels are not currently useful, except ethanol from Brazil. But who knows what tomorrow brings?
Energy poverty is real and kills thousands (if not more) every winter. This is well-documented in the UK, less so in other countries do to failings in data collection. The UK is not a developing country.
Developing new and using existing green technology is a separate issue from providing dependable and low-cost energy to the needy, wherever they are.
The key question is, is climate change an order of magnitude greater than other problems societies face. I submit we do not know the answer and will not until the question of sensitivity is fully answered. And I speak as someone who rants about the dangers of coal and sleepwalking into an era where we’re using 3000 quads a year globally and that even with a low sensitivity climate change develops into a real problem by about 2075.
I think rich countries should spend some of their hard-earned tax dollars supporting new and existing green tech. It’s that simple. Like Mr. Droege, I don’t think anything should impede access to cheap and dependable energy for the poor. We’ll just have to work harder on the issue as a result.
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Comment on Lomborg’s Senate testimony by nottawa rafter
“…are tippy-toeing away from their previous positions…”
A fascinating question as to how many are, even if they are in very small, incremental steps. Perhaps a survey a survey could be done by self rating 1-10 as to either agreeing to statement of CS, or level of threat from CAGW, or proportionality of AGW to natural variability. My instincts tell me many have private doubts that increase with each passing year
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