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Comments 20751 to 20800:

20751. Doug_C at 03:27 AM on 16 March 2017
       The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia
       

       There are so many alternatives to fossil fuels that if implemented on a SYSTEMIC level would soon crowd fossil fuels right out of the market.

       As is detailed above, the only way that the fossil fuel sector survives at all is by creating not just a virtual monopoly for its products in the marketplace, but by attempting to do the same at an academic level.

       So instead of coordinated programs to introduce much less carbon intensive means of producing and using energy we're still stuck burning billions of tons of coal, oil and gas each year.

       Here's just a few alternatives that could be actively developed and introduced on a large scale right now to totally replace fossil fuels.

       - Solar power, this can be implemented on both the small and large scale, with large solar electrical generation plants and panels that can be placed on homes.

       - Wind power, ready to be implemented on a large scale.

       - Biomass.

       - Tidal, obviously you need a coast and good tidal effect.

       - Nuclear,  50 years ago Alvin Weinberg and his team at ORNL developed a safe and highly efficient nuclear power reactor that operates on transmuted thorium, isn't under pressure and can't melt down, it's a molten salt design. This avoids much of the nuclear proliferation issue, waste problem and disaster potential.

       - Catalytic processes like thermal depolymerization that can take long chain carbon molecules and turn them into the kind of light crude that nature creates in millions of year in a matter of hours. We don't need to totally phase out hydrocarbon fuels, just stop extracting them from fossil reserves.

       We can also change how we build most of society including how cities are structured and more. Our world right now is built around the long ago disproved hypothesis of "cheap" power from fossil fuels. It's not cheap if it costs us everything.

       How is any of that going to happen if the people entrusted to provide the knowledge of how to do all this at a systemic level are effectively working for a sector that only exist by externalizing massive costs constantly.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] "All-caps" constitute shouting and are prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy. You may emphasize a word or words by bolding the font.

20752. Rob Honeycutt at 03:14 AM on 16 March 2017
       As EPA head, Scott Pruitt must act on climate change
       

       Wake... Straw man argument. No one says CO2 is "poisoning" the atmosphere.

20753. Wake at 02:48 AM on 16 March 2017
       As EPA head, Scott Pruitt must act on climate change
       

       nigel - what have you personally done due to CO2 poisoning of the atmosphere? All over this site what I have seen is that the only science that is the "right" science, is that which proclaims AGW. And that anyone else is a "denialist". While warning anyone like me who questions such a position the moderator seems to have to problem with insults such as that.

       I have stated elsewhere that I have calculated the amount of CO2 necessary to cause the increases in CO2 that have occurred since 1960. Dr. Crisp has calculated the amount of CO2 generated from man's use of fossil fuel and the use of CO2 outgasing sources such as cement. Our numbers come out very close. This would indicate that man generated every bit of CO2 that caused the rise since 1960.

       The problem with this position is that the rise in CO2 was linear and the use of fossil fuels and cement etc. has been logarithymic.

       This also denies the huge increases of CO2 from outgasing of oceans from the increases in MGT which has been measured in Alaska at the very least.

       Exactly how can the science be undeniable with huge gaps between the modeling and reality?

       Moderator Response:

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20754. Rob Honeycutt at 02:45 AM on 16 March 2017
       The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia
       

       Wake... Your post above has a staggering number of errors. Yes, geothermal and biomass are considered to be renewables. In every single report you see anywhere, this will be the consistent case. No, 99% of corn is not used for ethanol and biomass. About 45% is used as feedstock and about 15% is used as food. No damns in CA almost "fell down." The Oroville spillway had some issues this year due to heavy rains because it was (by design) no capped in concrete, which in hindsight was clearly a mistake. No, none of the data in the chart you present includes imported power.

       With regards to your PG&E utility bill (Pacific Gas and Electric), I also live in the Bay Area. I think you'll want to go take a look at your past year of bills. Unless you live in an unusually large home (not many of those in SF) your PG&E is not likely $200 every month of the year. Look at your monthly usage and see if you're going over the tiered usage levels. If you're pushing into the third tier, yup, you're going to see $200 bills. You need to look at how you're using energy in your home. Chances are you could save yourself several hundred dollars per year with some very very simple changes. You can also call PG&E and ask them how you can get your monthly bill down. They'll have many suggestions.

       No, virtually all solar companies in the US have not bit the dust. Some did, for sure. You might want to look back in history to see how many early oil companies went out of business between, say, 1850 to 1900. JD Rockefeller was quite adept at killing off his many competitors. There are lots of very strong and growing solar companies in the US. In fact, solar installations are growing fast and job growth in that sector is faster than almost any other industry in the US. 

       If you don't want to take the risk of purchasing solar panels for the reasons you stated (clouds, shorter lifetime, etc) then just call up SolarCity. They do leasing programs that guarantee you a fixed energy bill. They take on the responsibilities and risks relative to the technology. They do the installation. They replace the panels if they get old and inefficient. You just pay a fixed monthly bill that is usually less than what you're already paying for your electricity.

20755. Doug_C at 02:44 AM on 16 March 2017
       Ben Santer on Seth Meyer’s Late Show – How Climate Deniers Lie
       

       The only way that climate change denial works is to take isolated data and distort, when we look at the overall picture there is no reasonable doubt that the global climate is in transition to a warmer state.

        

       - This includes significant and continuing loss in the cryosphere.

       - Year after year of record global average temperatures.

       - Changes in the timing of the seasons.

       - Increases in extreme weather events especially extreme heat waves that have become much more frequent.

       - Rises in sea level from thermal expansion and melt water from glaciers and polar ice sheets.

       and more...

       The uncertainty in data in any limited area of climate study is smoothed out when placed in an overall context and that includes satellite data. Science doesn't just look at that or depend on models or just look at the temperature record, it looks at all the evidence and it all points with a very high degree of certainty at a steady warming of the Earth as we add progressively larger amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Which is backed up by the basic physics, carbon dioxde absorbes photons in the range emitted by the Earth's surface but not in the range of incoming solar radiation. It's like we're building an ever larger dam to trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere, just look at the Hiroshima "clock" steadily ticking here, the heat equivalnet from over 2.4 BILLION Hiroshima sized nuclear weapons has been added to the global climate since 1998.

       Deniers are clowns who are skilled at entertainment and distraction, scientists are sober researchers and teachers. We all have a choice whether we want to continue to be entertained and face impacts that will eventually include the kind of collapses seen in the past by earlier migration of global climate much faster than most species can follow as has been detailed here.

       https://skepticalscience.com/Lee-commentary-on-Burgess-et-al-PNAS-Permian-Dating.html

       There's growing evidence that wer're recreating events like the Permian Extinction, there will be no one left to buy the lies from people like Ted Cruz if we keep letting people like him set policy.

20756. Wake at 02:13 AM on 16 March 2017
       The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia
       

       Tom Curtis - I have something of a problem with your figures. If you look at http://www.energy.ca.gov/almanac/electricity_data/total_system_power.html carefully you see that some things don't jib.

       Firstly - geothermal and biomass aren't really "renewables". Geothermal sources are extremely rare in the USA and most other places as well. And they are of questionable "reliability". And the only reason that biomass is used for energy is because this would normally be littering and fertilizing the area from where it is collected. Whether or not this is a good idea is under question. Are you aware that of the millions of acres of corn being grown, only 1% of it is for food? The rest is for production of ethane and biomass. Does that strike you are a good idea? This isn't something I would call a proven technology.

       Also they are including "small hydro" in "renewables" column. A dam is a dam. We just had a couple of these poorly designed dams come near to failing in several places in California this rainy season (My God, these record rains haven't been like this for 20 years!) and the damage that was caused by this far exceeds the energy they have produced. Even locally here we have a couple of reservoirs fed by creeks and streams and they are largely earthen works that could quite easily fail. And of course there are thousands of homes in the path of such a failure.

       Also you can see that a large amount of the wind and solar power is imported from out of state. (So is the fossil derived energy but that isn't under question.)

       The sorts of numbers just keep showing that they are designed almost entirely to meet the "renewable energy" standards and not reality. i really question geothermal generation providing more energy than the staggeringly huge, large scale hydroelectric power in California. And to my mind the only reason that they did not include the large scale hydroelectric power sources in the renewable energy column is because they are trying to force other energy souces on us.

       I don't know about where you live, but I live in the San Francisco bay area. The weather here is one of the most moderate anywhere. I do not have nor need air conditioning. I go to bed at 9 pm so my use of electricity and gas is very light. And yet because of these demands for energy, I'm paying $200/mth for power. And other utility rates are equally preposterous. Fully an eigth of my social security goes to paying for services that I must pay for. The same services that 30 years ago would have hardly been noticeable. My friend has moved from here to Pheonix and tells me that his power rates are higher still with these same sorts of demands from the US government though everything else is half the costs as California.

       While I can't find where I took the numbers of 19% max and 3% for 2015, I did not pull those out of the air. It might have come from the stock brochure from my 401 plan. If solar power were so great why have virtually all American solar companies bit the dust? I went to a show and talked directly to the engineers and the word I got from them was completely different from the ones that were in all of the present advertisements. They told me that the useable lifetimes were HALF of what was stated. That the outputs were so dependent upon no cloud cover and no dust on the covers that you could lose almost all output quite easily. Since I'm an EE they weren't BS'ing me to put their own companies out of business, but to make me aware of how to design with their products. Tipping the cells 10 degrees on a roof installation could make it almost totally ineffective over half of the 5 hour day that solar cells produce.

       In any case I think that something is extremely odd about the amount of renewable energy being claimed.

20757. Rob Honeycutt at 02:03 AM on 16 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       chriskoz @13... I agree, that's why I qualified it as "a peculiar brand" of sociopathy and avoided directly calling him "a sociopath." I don't think I have the toolbox available to make a definitive statement one way or the other. Rather, I would suggest he exhibits some behaviors that lean that direction. 

       I would add, though, I don't think sociopathy rules out a capacity to be socially adepts where required. Many CEO's are very sociopathic and they absolutely must have a capacity to navigate social situations in order to succeed. 

20758. michael sweet at 01:53 AM on 16 March 2017
       Electric Cars are the Missing Link to a Zero Carbon Energy Grid
       

       I am also not convinced by all of Jacobson's assumptions.  However, he finds that there are many other options that would work.  He only has space to talk about the scheme he thinks is best.  SInce he counts no load shifting from current use, any load shifting scheme would make it a lot easier to generate the power needed.  If electricity was cheaper during the day many users would switch to charging then.  People charge at night now because coal and nuclear cannot shut down.  In 20 years I expect charging stations at parking lots to be common.  Current load shifting schemes (like pumped hydro discussed on another thread) would obviously switch to generating whenever power is most expensive.

       I think Jacobson's conservative assumptions about load shifting will more than compensate for his options that I do not like.

20759. michael sweet at 01:38 AM on 16 March 2017
       The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia
       

       Tom,

       Lake Oroville, the largest reservoir in California, does have a pumped hydro facility attached to it.  It currently stores excess electricity generated by nuclear and coal power stations, which cannot shut down at night.  It could obviously be used to store excess WWS.  It would probably be cheap to expand the maximum power the pumped hydro could generate to support windless nights, although it would be difficult to expand the total amount of energy stored.

20760. Jim Hunt at 00:24 AM on 16 March 2017
       Electric Cars are the Missing Link to a Zero Carbon Energy Grid
       

       Michael - There are certainly "barriers to using home (and/or EV) batteries to distribute power to the grid" here in the UK. Not least of which are the regulations. Amongst other things electricity markets need to be redesigned so that a "prosumer" or EV fleet owner can earn an honest crust from allowing their batteries to be used to support the local distribution grid when needed:

       http://www.V2G.co.uk/2015/07/european-commission-proposes-the-redesign-of-european-electricity-markets/

       Personally I'm not entirely convinced by some of the assumptions Jacobson et al. make about the "final grid" in their papers.

20761. sauerj at 00:13 AM on 16 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       Yes, nearly all of Scott Adams points are misinformed or flat-out wrong. And, as for his general state of mind, his past explanations of why Trump is "persuasive" (see YT) does not, in the least, resonant w/ me. I don't get his logic whatsoever (so I think his reasoning skills are 'in question').

       But, there is a very small piece of what Adams is saying that has a thin veneer of truth to it, and I think we should step back and consider this point. I might get slammed on this point. Here it is: I think, in many cases (though not always), that scientists explain the science in a way that is a bit obtuse, in a way that simply doesn't register to the average person, it doesn't speak in a language that "means" anything to them.

       Here are a couple examples: 1) a recent article (HERE) put the heat imbalance in terms of zeta-joules (yes, it explained that's 10^21 joules, even saying that's 10 with 21 zeros after it), but that still doesn't really mean anything to people. Yes, it's a big number; but it still doesn't speak in ways that people can relate to. The author probably thought this was an effective way to get the point across, sorry, not so! It's still just a big black box of numbers to the average person.

       Another example: 2) When James Hansen & many others talk about the heat imbalance, they will say things like, it's 1watt/m^2 (Storms book). And, then they will step back like that means something to people. Sorry, not so. It's like they just said something in greek.

       This is partly why ridiculous gimmicks like James Inhofe's snowball is so effective. It speaks on the level where the average person is at. And, when you compare that to complicated charts that explain the heat imbalance or else charts that dissect the details of the satellite surface temperature data or an array of model predictions, people just tune out. The silly but direct Inhofe presentation wins the day for the average person. ... Unfortunately, we have to cross this chasm (& I think we can) if we want to build political will that truly gets us where we need to be, transition to a sustainable economy. 

       It is hard to dumb-down the science so that it talks in the same language as the average person but I do believe it is possible. You just have to re-think your presentation into a way that talks in a language that they can relate to. And you have to do it in a way that is very respectful (genuinely so), and not in overly "alarmist" terms either (let the alarm bells go off in their own minds).

       I have done something like this, and have personally voiced this to the engineers that I work with. Prior to my explanations to these technically savvy people, they had not spent any quality time delving into the science mainly because it hadn't grabbed their attention (well, enough for them to fret out the right from the wrong). And, they were like Adams, full of lots of right & wrong misinformation, but none of the truth potent enough to lure them into digging deeper. We have to grab their attention in a way that is both truthful but instantly talks their language & instantly gets past the murkiness of the darts of confusion that compete with the truth.

       True, these engineers, that I have spoken to, speak in a "technical language" so my 'new language' speaks in their 'engineer' language, but I have given this same explanation to a few non-engineers, and it seemed to be moderately persusaive too (jury still out though). After hearing my spiel, many of these people have expressed a new & clearer understanding of the science with this sort of explanation; and I think it genuinely broke thru the web of misinformation that blocks truth from coming in, and peaked their possible acceptance of the truth (of the body of science) so to get them to genuinely to think twice on the matter.

       Yes, this message/style is dumbed down, but it is still truthful. It works because it puts what's going on into terms that the average people can relate to. And, that maybe is the worthy take-away here from Adams' implicit (if only unconscious) points buried behind his words. I think, in one small way, if the presentation was put in this way, that then even folks like Adams might (that's a big might) not get so confused & tripped-up on other misinformation that clouds their understanding.

       HERE is link to my recent written down point-by-point summary on how I try to "get the point across" in the most persuasive means possible. I am in the process of massing publishing this out to local & state community and policital leaders with the hope of building political will (pending local CCL chapter approval).

20762. pattimer at 23:37 PM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       A great post describing Adams' superficial glimpse at climate science

20763. SirCharles at 22:43 PM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       This video from the National Academies shoudn't overstretch Scott's grasp:

20764. Tom Curtis at 22:07 PM on 15 March 2017
       The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia
       

       michael sweet @9, in principle I agree.  Wake's argument, however, was about non-dispachable power sources, specifically solar and wind.  As big hydro counts as dispachable power, in this context it was appropriate to exclude it.  Having said that, big hydro, if set up for pumped storage, is the most economical way to make maximum use of excess production from "non-dispachable" sources, so California's abundance of hydro is also relevant there.

20765. michael sweet at 21:50 PM on 15 March 2017
       The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia
       

       Tom,

       I think you should include big hydro in the renewable mix.  It is renewable energy.  Say  30% small renewable and 11% hydro for a total of 41%.  

       Duing the time period you provided data for they were having a severe drought (the worst in over 1,000 years) in California which would reduce hydro power.  This year (2017) they have flooded so they will get a lot more from hydro.  Total this year is looking like at least 50% (my estimate) from renewable energy.  Hardly insignificant as Wake claims.

       They have been seriously building out renewable energy for less than 10 years.  Wake imagines that they should build out 100% capacity in a single year.

       As an aside, scientists predict climate change will result in more drought and more flooding.  It may be a coincidence but it is exactly what was predicted.

20766. chriskoz at 19:54 PM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       nigelj@14,

       With that explanation you opinion makes sense now, thanks. Especially putting "the entire planet in a laboratory" is what is unique about CS as the domain. At the ultimate level, it is about models like GCMs and you need lot of computer power to run GCMs and people just can't understand all details and, if they are conspiracy theorists, they start inventing their own theories based on their preconceptions rather on evidence and denialosphere is born. But even if you're a dummy, you can still e.g. listgen to e.g. the ecxellent TED talk by Gavin, where he very casually explains the inner workings of GCMs in very digestable terms.

       Further, I think other domains of research are both newer than CS and deal with equally complex systems. Take the science behind autonomous driving: the machine learning, and especially convolutional neural networks. Enormous amout of computer power is involved here and hardly anyone understands e.g. the processes of deep learning by CNNs. Yet no one questions the AI the way the deniers of AGW question CS. Maybe it's political as you're saying because there are no political reasons to deny that authonomous car is possible.

20767. Tom Curtis at 17:19 PM on 15 March 2017
       The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia
       

       And just in case Wake claims he was talking about the company only, in 2013 PG&E generated 6% of its power from wind, and 5% from solar, with a total of 22% from renewables overall (excluding large hydro):

       

       In 2014, those figures rose to 7, 9 and 27% respectively.  In 2015, the total renewable (excluding large hydro) and risen to 30%, though I cannot find a breakdown of the individual components.

20768. nigelj at 17:12 PM on 15 March 2017
       The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia
       

       Wake @4, you appear to believe the executives in charge of oil companies need permission of the owners to determine their position on climate change science. So its all the elderly owners fault if oil companies spread climate denialism.

       This is just nonsense. The people spreading climate denialism, are oil company executives, ( as discussed in various books like Merchants of Doubt,) and they don't need permission of the owners. The executives would consider it "day to day operations".

       I doubt investment funds even know what the climate policy process is, and the individual elderly retired people investing in some retirement fund probably don't even know what companies those funds invest in. It's absurd to try to blame elderly retired people.

20769. Tom Curtis at 17:05 PM on 15 March 2017
       The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia
       

       Wake @3:

       "They presently have enough solar and wind power that if they were all operating at maximum output they would have be able to supply 19% of the maximum load. 2015 was an almost perfect year for these "alternate energy sources". It was during a drought in California with little cloud cover in mid-day and wind at or near perfect speed for the wind generators. What was their yearly percentage attributable to "alternative power"? 3% and a normal year will give them 2%."

       In 2015, 25.8% of power in California was from renewable sources, of which the major components were wind (9.4%), solar (5.9%) and geothermal (5.1%):

       

       In 2016, the total renewable contribution rose to 27%.

       Once again Wake's stated "facts" have no bearing on reality.

20770. nigelj at 16:41 PM on 15 March 2017
       The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia
       

       Wake @3, 

       "They presently have enough solar and wind power that if they were all operating at maximum output they would have be able to supply 19% of the maximum load. 2015 was an almost perfect year for these "alternate energy sources". It was during a drought in California with little cloud cover in mid-day and wind at or near perfect speed for the wind generators. What was their yearly percentage attributable to "alternative power"? 3% and a normal year will give them 2%."

       You provide no sources for this information. Anything controversial, and I want to see sources in the form of an internet link.

       And are you seriously trying to tell me California had good levels of wind and solar everyday, for the entire year? It looks utterly implausible, and you provide no sources for your claims anyway. It's a strawman argument to compare output in idealised, perfect conditions, to likely conditions. 

20771. nigelj at 16:17 PM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       Chriskoz @8, I mean climate science is complicated for the average person in the sense that there are several potential causes, and anyone will be interested in these, but they take a lot of working through. Few people will simply take what the IPCC says at face value. It's just an observation i'm making.

       It took me a while to read up on these possible causes  to determine that CO2 was the cause, and this website helped.  Climate change science is just not as clear cut as some other science theories, where you can nail things with just one or two experiments or very clear observations etc. The trouble is we can't put the entire planet in a laboratory, so it becomes a case of multiple strands of evidence.

       I don't think scientists can do much more than explain it all the way they generally have. I thought it was pretty obvious I meant that.

       I agree it's all more of a social problem. You have a whole lot of denialist agendas and personal egos and issues in the way Although it's tough to be sure if Scott Adams is just not well informed, lazy, well intended, or a closet denislist trying to confuse things.

       I would add climate change is also a political problem. It's metamorphosised into a bitter battle of conservatives and liberals, which is just unhealthy. Right now an awful lot of the nonsense is coming from Trump & associates.

       However things can change quite quickly. Not only climate reaches a tipping point, so do human responses to situations, and it can be sudden and unpredictable. Humanity might suddenly wake up and demand much more action on climate change. All sorts of social phenomena incubate then reach tipping points. There is a book on this "The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell".

20772. chriskoz at 16:10 PM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       Rob Honeycutt@6,

       Thanks for your explanation. I've watched few interviews with Adams, both recent (in last Sept), when he explains why T-man (a true sociopath) will win with Hillary, and from 20 years ago  when describing his inspiration behind his Dilbert character. In both times I see the man who does not appreciate the people's knowledge or the beauty of people's art forms. As an artist he should definitely be familiar withthe later. But nothing of substance: the only thing he can say is that he identifies himself with Dilbert in one third but does not really explain why. I see a cynical person, for whom the only important aspect of life is "the power of persuasion". It is understandable thten why he endorsed T-man, who is far better than Hillary in that aspect. Of caurse, unlike T-man, Adams is very eloquent and even a nice person. But overarching it is his overwhelming cynicism. We've seen examples of it in climate science & psychology here, I've seen it in politics, I guess we can generalise it to pretty much everything.

       In summary very uninteresting personality. I'm not sure how high he would score in PCL-R test. I would say that his empathy is not impaired in the interview I've seen and he must understand social life in order to create a successful cartoon. My observations might be less complete than yours but I rest on describing him as dumb cynic rather than sociopath. His chronic cynicism explain very well his denial of climate science and his demagogery we are discussing here.

20773. Doug_C at 15:21 PM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       First post here so I'm not sure if this is considered a political comment or not.

       I don't think it's a case of scientists not doing a good job in communicating the scale and likely negative impacts of climate change. Some have taken the extraordinary step of going before Congress going back decades make it clear just how serious an issue this is.

       This is a question of the other "side" doing a very professional job of cancelling out the science.

       With the current situation I think it's highly likely that a majority of people could be fully convinced of the reality and risks of climate change and still nothing would be done.

20774. stephen baines14492 at 12:48 PM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       I do a lecture on the history of AGW for my global ecosystems class. I've been thinking about having as an organizing principle a list of a priori predictions concerning the effect of increasing CO2, and contrasting that to predictions if other natural source terms were the cause of warming.  I would slowly populate the list as I talk through the history, and then check off the predictions based on recent observations.  That may be more in line with what Adams is talking about.

20775. Rob Honeycutt at 12:43 PM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       I was always more of a Bloom County/Calvin & Hobbs sort, myself. :-)

20776. stephen baines14492 at 12:39 PM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       I'd say the list of communicators needs to be longer.  We're barely keeping up with "skeptics" on that front.  Otherwise his points are laughably naive and easy to swat down.

       As for models, I just point out that there is NO physically realistic model that can describe recent warming without CO2.  Period. So it doesn't matter whether the models are perfectly accurate - that is a red herring. They are far better than any model based solely on "natural" causes.  The only models of the latter type that claim to be successful are correlative retrodictions projected forward, which is exactly what he poo-poos in financial models. 

       He seems inordinately stuck on models, as many "skeptics" who seem to have a fear of being hoodwinked, or have irrelevant and misleading experience from other fields.  So maybe he dismisses all "models" out of hand.  Then I go to the empirically derived input terms - global heat budget and solar, albedo and ocaen heat exchange terms.   Qualitatively they say the same thing, and you can't get around the first law of thermodynamics, nor do you have to watch a TED talk to understand it.

       As for whether it matters to humans, well, the question is whether he wants civilization or zombie apocalypse.  Of course humans as a species survived at least one ice age.  Not many individuals made it though, so I'd by life insurance.  Hell, our society can barely absorb the effects of a sinngle drought in Syria!  And isn't survival a rather low bar?  I'd like to run for office on that slogan - "Some of you will survive!"

       Finally.  The scientist scam hypothesis.  His whole premise is that scientists are not good at talking about this stuff to the public.  Why is that?  Because we generally only talk to ourselves!  We're too busy doing that to scam the public.  And how would we scam other scientists who do know better and have an incentive to prove you wrong?  

       So Adams is at once saying scientists are dimwitted at communication, and also that they are capable of pulling the biggest scam of all time.  A scam that, even more amazingly, would go unnoticed among peers who know better, or peers in medicine, geology, physics, economics — virtually every major scientific body that has no stake in the issue but has issued a statement in support of the proposition that AGW is true.

       Funding has been flat for a long long time by the way.  You think they would see the writing on the wall and stop trying the scam. But they are dumb!  And yet so smart!  

       Oh, by Pascal's wager, he's probably making an analogy to the precautionary principle as applied to climate sensitivity uncertainty.  They are both forms of bet hedging.  It's interesting because his beginning premise is a bet hedge.  So apparently he can do that but we can't.

       It's too bad.  I used to like Adams.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] "All-caps" constitute shouting and are prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy. You may emphasize a word or words by bolding the font.

20777. chriskoz at 12:37 PM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       nigelj@7,

       I do not share your opinion that climate science represents "complex weight of evidence where ordinary people have to connect quite a few dots". Yes, it maybe complex, but it the pends on the recipient's choice at which level s/he wants it to understand. That applies to every discipline and every type of knowledge. While learning any stuff you have to rely on the work of others who are proven experts. Examples abound. To start with, you can understand GHE of CO2 as "like putting on a sweater that feels you warm without help of any heater", which is gros simplification but is still fine. Or you can dive into the level of quantum mechanics of energy levels in CO2 molecules plus thermodynamic interaction with other gases explaining how that energy is radiated back to the surface. And scientists do not need to communicate their work at all those and intermediate levels: it would be insane waste of their time. The website like this one should be in charge of communicating science to "ordinary people" and SkS is doing a very good job with basic, intermediate & advanced myth debunking levels. At policy levels, IPCC is also doing a tremendous job with their assesments. Do you think it could be done any better? Do you have an idea how? More impotantly, do you think scientists &science communicators in any other discipline are doing it better than climate scientists and ourselves are doing here? If you don't have answers to questions as I'm posing them, your point is at least moot, or I even dare say baseless.

       AGW is not an environmental problem but social problem as I've been underscoring many times here. So sociopaths (as Rob is trying to show is the case of Scott Adams) and special interest groups as in the case of previous SkS article, are going to deny it, or even trying to manipulate science to bend them to their subjective opinions. Note, that the motives of Scott Adams scolding scintists can be very similar FF infiltrating relevant academia: the later is a clever tactic of a smart person, while the former is a primitive & dumb demagoguery. Such people will always deny the reality, subtle or gross way, and scientists who are not trained as phychologists can do nothing about it.

20778. nigelj at 11:09 AM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       Ok clearly Scott Adams has got things all wrong. But one thing jumps out at me. Climate science is proven as far as I'm personally concerned, but it is by nature a complex weight of evidence argument, where ordinary people have to connect quite a few dots. But having said this, we have to work at this. It is what it is.

       Denialists are lazy. Crack open a book, and stop expecting science to be easy, or black and white. Stop manipulating the complexity of the situation to score points, spread confusion, or promote unrelated ideological agendas.

20779. nigelj at 10:43 AM on 15 March 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #10
       

       Wake, emissions growth over the last couple of centuries correlates rather well with population growth as below. There are some deviations, but many obvious explanations. Just because we have exponential population growth, remember the upper leg of an exponential curve is not always very curvy.

       www.easterbrook.ca/steve/wp-content/Pop-vs-emissions.pdf

20780. Rob Honeycutt at 09:00 AM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       Fair comment, chriskoz. I've inferred sociopathy from previous interactions and didn't really fully explain here in this piece.

       In my experiences with him, and with those who defend him, there seems to be very much a cult leader quality to it all (which I do reference, somewhat obliquely). That is what I would interpret to involve sociopathic behavior. I'm certainly not a psychologist so I don't want to over-interpret. What I see is someone who really doesn't care much about anyone else's opinions, expert or otherwise, unless it fits into his own framework of thinking. He doesn't seem to care whether he's lying or telling the truth because that's all dismissed as being somehow irrational since reality is only what's in your mind. 

       It's certainly my own interpretation of what I've witnessed but I don't think I'm in too shaky a position to call his behavior sociopathic.

       It the past, when I've dealt with people I would consider to be sociopathic, they tend to have no sense of boundaries or propriety. I think many sociopathic people will rightly choose to surround themselves with people who have the capacity to help them interpret those boundaries. As far as I can tell, Adams chooses the opposite. He seems to shun any pretense that his cognitive framework can be challenged.

20781. michael sweet at 08:45 AM on 15 March 2017
       Electric Cars are the Missing Link to a Zero Carbon Energy Grid
       

       Jim,

       There are a lot of ways to store power and shift demand.  These demand shifts can substantially strengthen the grid.  Using car batteries or home batteries like the Tesla powerwall are one method.  

       Methods for predicting several days in advance when renewable energy will be plentiful and when it will be harder to come by are well developed already.  I personally think  that shifting charging periods from low periods, like windless nights, to high periods like windy days will be easy to implement and substantially reduce demand during the low periods.  

       I think the barriors to using home batteries to distribute power to the grid are substantial.  This is just my opinion. Home batteries (or cars) could well result in those homes not needing any power from the grid during low supply periods which would effectively support the grid.   

       Wind and solar are already the cheapest power available during sunny days and windy periods.  In order for the grid to go entirely renewable, storage and/or load shifting will  have to be developed.  There are currently a lot of methods of shifting demand or storing energy for use during low supply periods.  A few of those methods will turn out to be the most economic.  

       All of us have our own favorites.  I have no doubt that some of my favorite methods will fail while others will succeed, but I do not yet know which methods are the ones that will succeed.  Your favorites are probably somewhat different from mine.  Perhaps your guesses will end up better than mine.  I think it is too early to decide which methods will work in several decades.  Only 5 years ago I did not think that solar could be cheaper than wind but solar has made amazing cost cuts recently.  Which technology will develop the most in the next ten years?

       Scientific projections of future grids that generate all power used (all power, not all electricity) in the USA like Jacobson 2015 do not use demand shifting or home storage at all.  This means that the final grid will be cheaper than Jacobson estimates since any demand shifting will reduce demand for more expensive storage.

20782. chriskoz at 08:20 AM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       ... further compounded by his peculiar brand of sociopathy

       In this final sentence, Rob, you're claiming Adams is some kind of sociopath , i.e. a person "characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, egotistical traits" as explained by Wiki. You provide no direct evidence of this. Certainly, the evidence in OP points that Adams does not understand psychology & conginitve science in particular and makes bogus statements about it contrary to his claims that psychological aspects of climate science denial are his interest.

       However that does not look to me as implying sociopathic type of personality. If you think it does or that I missed that point in your OP, please explain it again to me.

       Regardeless of the above (can be possibly my misunderstanding) I find the OP very god and enlightening.

20783. Tom Curtis at 08:18 AM on 15 March 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #10
       

       Wake @6:

       "[T]hese temperature records set were highly unreliable. They were strictly from satellite data and if memory serves the increases were 10% of the possible error bars. Using ground measurements showed none of these records."

       In fact, you have exactly reversed the facts.  The Satellite record shows records in 87, 88, 91, 98 and 2016.  The surface record, which is considerably more accurate, shows the records I mentioned:

       

       "This would indicate that ALL the growth in atmospheric CO2 is from man. But in fact while the growth in CO2 since 1960 has been linear, the growth in fossil fuel by man and the growth of the use of cement and other CO2 outgasing sources has been logarythmic."

       I assume that you meant exponential growth.  Logarithmic growth decelerates over time, as with the red line below.  Exponential growth accelerates, as with the blue line:

       

       In any event, again your claim reverses the actual facts.  CO2 emission growth has been uneven, but approximates to linear growth:

       

       In contrast, CO2 concentration has been increasing at a faster than linear rate:

       

       These two facts are perfectly compatible, given that CO2 concentration is a function of cumulative CO2 emissions, and the cumulative function of a positive linear function grows at a faster than linear rate (but not as fast as a quadratic or exponential function):

       

20784. Wake at 07:31 AM on 15 March 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #10
       

       Tom Curtis - these temperature records set were highly unreliable. They were strictly from satellite data and if memory serves the increases were 10% of the possible error bars. Using ground measurements showed none of these records.

       I read a paper by Dr. Crisp who calculated the yearly amount of CO2 dumped into the atmosphere by the use of fossil fuel and the outgassing of the cement that is used in such massive quantities in today's society.

       This led me to calculating the amounts of CO2 that would be necessary to raise the atmospheic levels of CO2 since 1960 since this appears to be a linear growth. My numbers and Dr. Crisp's were very close.

       This would indicate that ALL the growth in atmospheric CO2 is from man. But in fact while the growth in CO2 since 1960 has been linear, the growth in fossil fuel by man and the growth of the use of cement and other CO2 outgasing sources has been logarythmic.

       What this means is that these studies are entirely in their infancies and making ANY predictions with the facts so occluded as they are is betting heavily on a pair of duces while someone else is showing aces.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] All-caps snipped. In additon, please provide a link to the Crisp paper that you read.

20785. Wake at 07:16 AM on 15 March 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #10
       

       These sorts of papers are simply bunk. We just had a 10 year study that predicted methane boiling out of the melting permafrost in the arctic. After 10 years - no methane. Their determination - not that they were wrong but "it hasn't happened yet."

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Sloganeeing snipped. Per the SkS Comments Policy:

       • No sloganeering.  Comments consisting of simple assertion of a myth already debunked by one of the main articles, and which contain no relevant counter argument or evidence from the peer reviewed literature constitutes trolling rather than genuine discussion. As such they will be deleted. If you think our debunking of one of those myths is in error, you are welcome to discuss that on the relevant thread, provided you give substantial reasons for believing the debunking is in error.  It is asked that you do not clutter up threads by responding to comments that consist just of slogans.
20786. One Planet Only Forever at 07:07 AM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       Based on observations of what has been going on globally, and not just related to climate science, I offer the following "Best Explanation of what can be seen to be going on":

       Competition to "Win" can only be expected to produce an "Improvement for future humanity" if "improving the future for all of humanity" is the over-riding rule regarding what is allowed to compete for popularity and profitability.

       Popularity and profitability games can easily be won by the people with the largest competitive advantage. The less decently a person is willing to behave, the more harmful (less helpful) they choose to try to get away with being, the more competitive advantage they can have. And misleading marketing is a powerful weapon.

       Many people are easily tempted to be greedier or more xenophobic (tribal desires to Win by comparison/competition with Others, especially by getting away with actions that are detrimental to "Others")

       As a result, efforts to improve the future for all of humanity are at a serious competitive disadvantage when people can become influential and potentially be leaders without first proving they have developed into thoughtful considerate adults aware of and dedicated to their responsibility to help others. And all leaders should be expected/required to help lead the improvement of the future for all of humanity (suffering legal consequences if they act Otherwise - because Good Leaders they cannot claim they did not Know Better). Winning by people with other interests (particularly Ones wanting to Win to the detriment of Others) will not develop an improved future for humanity.

       A solution: Leaders who fail to properly present matters like climate science should be legally removed from their roles because they have proven that they are "Not competent to properly perform their leadership duties". And that should apply to business leaders as well as to political leaders and to any wealthy person who acts to influence leaders as a financial/marketing supporter.

       Of course misguided people like Scott Adams would still be free to present nonsense, but they would have a very different and diminished following/influence.

20787. Wake at 07:07 AM on 15 March 2017
       The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia
       

       Let us comment also about the idea that there is a "fossil fuel" entity. Almost ALL of the oil, gas and coal companies is publically owned. It is public information who owns and who controls these companies and they are NOT some single entity. Most of these stocks and the control of those stocks is in the hands of investment bonds. And these are in turn mostly controlled by retirement funds. YOU grandparents are making a living off of the VERY small profits that are made by these companies. And your parents either are presently living off of the returns of these funds or about to be.

       It is silly and childish to present "Big Oil" as owning or controlling ANYTHING and especially the government who makes approximately 10 times more off of the taxes on oil than the oil companies make in profits.

       Should we be skeptical about BATTERIES? After all a fanily just had several members killed when a hoverboard caught on fire and their home burned down.

       Why do you suppose this is? After all - battery technology is 150 years old. But infact it isn't. Battery technology is dependent upon chemistry which is a FAR older science and all of the easy means of making batteries have been investigated. So the remaining ways use rare materials and dangerous chemistry. While there are claims that there are several promising battery technologies on the horizon, presently the lithum ion batteries are far and away the best workable solution and the others have very short lifespans and can be even more dangerous.

       While this reference is a bit over the top it nevertheless points to what people are thinking is going to defeat "Big Oil": www.democraticunderground.com/10027822859

       If we are going to be skeptical we first have to start from a position of knowledge and not that of a spoiled child trying to put one over on his elders.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] The use of all-caps constitutes shouting and is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.

       In addition you are skating on the thin ice of sloganeering when you make assertions (in this case about the fossil fuel industry) without providing substantiating documentation.

       All things considered, the last sentence of your comment rings hollow.

20788. Wake at 06:52 AM on 15 March 2017
       The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia
       

       PluviAL - I have to wonder what is going through your mind. Efficacy of alternate energy sources? What are these? Pacific Gas and Electricity has been working on "alternate sources" for 30 years. They presently have enough solar and wind power that if they were all operating at maximum output they would have be able to supply 19% of the maximum load. 2015 was an almost perfect year for these "alternate energy sources". It was during a drought in California with little cloud cover in mid-day and wind at or near perfect speed for the wind generators. What was their yearly percentage attributable to "alternative power"? 3% and a normal year will give them 2%.

       There are few places in the US with conditions as good. And forms of alternate energy such as daming off the Golden Gate or the Bay of Fundy is massively damaging to the eco-systems.

       This call for alternate energy sources has me aghast since it shows and almost complete lack of just what it would require.

       Would you stop driving a car? Heating your home in the winter and air conditioning it in the summer? These three things alone would drop average age perhaps as much as 10 years. Do you really think that being able to drive to a supermarket or cool an older person in the mid-western summer isn't extremely important to health?

       Do you believe for one second that people would stop flying commercial aircraft around the world or importing products and goods via ships and moving them via railroads and trucks?

       A reduction in the use of energy would hit the high population countries such as China and India the hardest and they will simply refuse to do so.

       I suggest before you speak of solutions you actually know of one.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Ad hominem snipped. Per the SkS Comments Policy:

       • No ad hominem attacks. Personally attacking other users gets us no closer to understanding the science. For example, comments containing the words 'religion' and 'conspiracy' tend to get moderated. Comments using labels like 'alarmist' and 'denier' as derogatory terms are usually skating on thin ice.

        

20789. John Mason at 06:47 AM on 15 March 2017
       Dear Mr President: another message from across the Pond
       

       OK - SINK now RESERVOIR!

20790. John Hartz at 06:03 AM on 15 March 2017
       To tweet or not to tweet at Donald Trump? That was the question!
       

       @Doug Mackie: Re the "all-caps" brouhaha  — At the time I struck your all-caps words, I did not realize that your comments were meant to be mock tweets. I apologize. 

20791. scaddenp at 06:03 AM on 15 March 2017
       Models are unreliable
       

       "Rather that only in the satellite era do we have a spacially dense data set adequate for capturing most of the relevant phenomena that must be captured and calibrated in the models."

       I would not doubt for a moment that satellite data is a monumental advantage for understanding climate. However, examining the error bars on pre-satellite trends, I do not agree with your assertion that these are not useful for validation/calibration of models. If you mask your model output with same coverage that was observable then, and the model output does not match observation within those error bars, then the model is wrong. This is very much approach that must be taken for paleoclimate or even post-industrial period.

       With temperature in particular, the strong spatial correlation of temperature anomolies does compensate for poor coverage to some degree.

20792. JWRebel at 06:02 AM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       Points such as # 6, 9, and 13 prove that his is not a quest in good faith but that he has imbibed too many perennial denier memes. People like this want a detailed weather forecast for the next 150 years, and then pretend that not knowing exactly how global warming will play out might mean it will not be wrenching. After, all didn't the temperature rise during the Permian extinction as well, oh, did we say extinction at a time when there was no fixed infrastructure mammals needed to flourish and survive?

       The notion that it is brutal to call skeptics anti-science when all they want is to be spoon fed a convincing narrative/film that doesn't "remind them of a financial scam". Is that too much to ask? You cannot be more disingenuous. The truth is that most scientists have been convinced by the evidence and the facts, despite fighting desparately to hold out more hope for continuing civilization and progress, despite looking for a way to get out from under the devastating implications, despite the reluctant acceptance turning into a virtually unanimous consensus...

20793. Doug Cannon at 05:29 AM on 15 March 2017
       Of Satellites and Air – A Primer on Tropospheric temperature measurement by Satellite
       

       Can someone point me to link explaining the cause of the leveling off of TLS cooling in past decade?

       Thanks

20794. ubrew12 at 03:48 AM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       Adams' list of skeptic complaints- condensed: "You didn't say it right, so I don't believe you."  Ask yourself: why would anyone who confers that much power to himself ever give that power up? 

20795. David Kirtley at 02:27 AM on 15 March 2017
       A Perfect (Twitter) Storm
       

       Bravo, Rob and well done. I couldn't make it past Adams' first sentence. Thanks for doing this!

20796. John Mason at 01:40 AM on 15 March 2017
       To tweet or not to tweet at Donald Trump? That was the question!
       

       ** Climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can
       be identified (e.g. using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/
       or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended
       period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due
       to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent
       anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in
       land use.
       Note that UNFCCC, in its Article 1, defines “climate change” as “a
       change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human
       activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and
       which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over
       comparable time periods”. The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction
       between “climate change” attributable to human activities altering
       the atmospheric composition, and “climate variability” attributable
       to natural causes.
       
       From the IPCC glossary. However, the top definition is the one used widely in the literature e.g. put "climate change Cenozoic" into Scholar and see what comes up!

20797. John Mason at 01:27 AM on 15 March 2017
       To tweet or not to tweet at Donald Trump? That was the question!
       

       Doug, I agree that with specific reference to limestone, carbon reservoir would have been better. Amazingly, it just fits! I've changed it now :)
       
       My research background is in mineralisation (specifically metallogenesis and supergene alteration). Especially in the latter, we see various geochemical pathways from one mineral to another (e.g. from galena to cerussite) with intermediate and relatively metastable reservoir species along the way.
       
       In the case of the weathering of Ca-bearing silicates, I can plead that I was trying to simplify things as far as I could – that was the whole idea of the exercise. Sure, not every ion of basalt-derived HCO3- ends up in limestone – any one ion might or might not see that outcome, but the whole process can be viewed as a pathway in simplistic terms.
       
       A longer-winded version would have been to say that the weathering of Ca-silicate bearing rocks draws down 2 moles of CO2 for each mole of Ca-silicate consumed and adds it to the oceanic HCO3- reservoir. Limestone formation takes two moles of carbon from that reservoir, combining one into calcium carbonate, and releasing one as carbon dioxide. Difficult in 140 characters.

       Yes I absolutely agree these are parts of the slow carbon cycle. However, the slow carbon cycle is not, as you say, “utterly irrelevant to CC “, unless you only mean ongoing CC, where we've thrown a massive spanner into the works of another part of the SCC. The post does not touch upon OA – if it did it would have had to be a great deal longer.
       
       The part of the slow carbon cycle that involves weathering is important in climate change. Not necessarily right at the moment (although some geo-engineering types are enthusiastic about it), but very much so with respect to climate change episodes in the deep past, the understanding of which is helpful to our knowledge of the climate of today.
       
       There is a considerable slab of the literature devoted to the weathering process through geological time and especially to instances of enhanced silicate weathering which may be of sufficient extent and rate as to draw down enough atmospheric CO2 to bring about episodic cooling e.g. see the Young et al paper cited above. There is likewise a lot of debate as to the role of weathering in the Cryogenian (plenty via Google Scholar).

20798. Rob Honeycutt at 01:20 AM on 15 March 2017
       It's the sun
       

       JohnFornaro... This would be a more appropriate topic for this thread. Please repost your question there.

20799. Sanjeev Ghotge at 01:09 AM on 15 March 2017
       The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia
       

       Dear Drs Franta and Supran: As an older well wisher, former academic and technologist,  please be advised that you have put your future careers on the line. But don't get intimidated, the stakes are the future of humanity and possibly , life on Earth. So here's some encouragement from a far corner of the universe viz India.

       Sanjeev Ghotge

20800. Jim Hunt at 01:08 AM on 15 March 2017
       Electric Cars are the Missing Link to a Zero Carbon Energy Grid
       Michael - I have somewhat belatedly stumbled upon this article on my specialist subject! I tend to look at the subject through a UK lens, where we have particular problems due to our high latitude "maritime" climate.Why do you "doubt that cars can contribute more than a few percent of needed power at night"? Is that via an Antipodean lens?Here we don't have many air conditioners compared to the US and Australia, and although many folks don't like having it "in their backyard" there's lots more onshore wind around than solar PV.A "halfway house" to full bi-directional V2G technology is so called "smart charging":http://www.V2G.co.uk/2016/10/will-the-united-kingdom-become-an-electric-nation/Wouldn't that help in your neck of the woods too?

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