I love my Accord. I love cornering so hard that the outer edges of my tires are always worn, despite good wheel alignment. I love gearing down with the stick, and feeling the surge as the VTEC spools up and hits the sweet spot. Love that sound! To be sure, it’s no Boxster, but it IS Salieri to the Boxster’s Mozart. I don’t want no stinkin’ hybrid. I’ll take my internal combustion straight, like my bourbon. I don’t want an EV. In my nightmares, Better Place has taken over, and I’m driving a podmobile with a short range and the slows. But the twin specters of global climate disruption and peak oil are a dark cloud that follows me wherever I drive. I believe that we must replace fossil fuels with efficiency measures and renewables with all due haste or civilization will crumble in this century.
According to New Scientist, the lower 48 could become uninhabitably hot and dry by 2100. And so I grasp at any hint of deux ex machina. Magic batteries with high energy density and fast charging? OK! Carbon sequestration (oh, please, oh please!). Biofuels? Bring ’em on! High energy density liquids from cellulosic crops grown on marginal lands, or from pools of algae growing in the desert sun, or from sugar cane. Some concepts would even produce petrol. Liquid gold . . .
Or pie in the sky. A major problem with most biofuels is that when wild land is converted to crops, there is a carbon debt, according to an article published in Science last year. That’s because the soil, and the plants and trees that grow thereon store an immense amount of carbon. It would take 17 years of sugarcane production on an acre of Brazilian Cerrado, a type of savannah, to mitigate as much carbon emission as that land naturally stores in the wild state. For the tropical peat lands that have been converted to palm oil plantations, the carbon debt is 420 years. Converting central US grasslands to corn for ethanol incurs a 93-year note.
Nor can you simply convert croplands previously used for food to fuel, because if you do, it will become necessary to plow new land somewhere in the world to replace that food, incurring more debt, according to a second article in Science published concurrently.
Even growing sugarcane on the Brazilian Cerrado, where the carbon debt is a short 17 years is potentially a problem not a solution. The reason is simple. Experts anticipate tipping points in global climate disruption. One possibility: the earth’s reflectivity influences its heat balance. As arctic ice melts, exposing dark ocean, the earth absorbs more heat from the sun, hastening warming.
If the warming reaches a point where the melting of the permafrost begins to release the massive quantities of methane stored within, that gas, which has more than 20 times the insulating power of carbon dioxide, could make warming irreversibly worse. There are many other potential tipping points. And experts fear that we could begin reaching them within the next two decades.
To be sure, certain cellulosic crops such as switchgrasses could sequester carbon in the soil while being harvested for biofuels, although we still haven’t figured out how to break the cellulose down in an efficient manner. Algae production in closed artificial ponds in, say, the desert southwest may eventually produce truly ample feedstock per acre, according to some experts. And waste to energy could well become a bountiful source of liquid fuels. But all this is pretty speculative at the moment, and the inevitable question arises: how much might we produce?
Perhaps the most optimistic of respectable studies on biofuels’ potential in the US, “Growing Energy,” comes from the Natural Resources Defense Council. The study suggests that it might be possible by 2050 to shrink US demand for liquid fuels to the point where the various sources could almost meet the demand while neither displacing food production nor boosting crop acreage.
The problem is that when market forces come into play, it will become extremely hard to ensure that biofuels will be grown in a way that won’t add onerously to carbon debt and global warming. An article in the 27 March 2008 issue of Time noted that deforestation “closely tracks” commodity prices on the Chicago Board of Trade—and that’s despite increased law enforcement in Brazil beginning early in the decade.
Even Nathanael Greene of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a coauthor of “Growing Energy” who professes optimism about biofuels, conceded on his blog that “. . . it is definitely possible . . . that the amount of truly low-carbon biofuels we can drive through real politics and real markets is much smaller than we would hope.”
For all the reasons mentioned above, biofuels will never be the primary source of motor fuel in the US. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have their place in the spectrum of gasoline replacements. The job of biofuels is to keep ICE alive for the enthusiasts and diehards. Those who want a traditional, gas-burning sportscar will still have that choice as long as it runs on corn juice.
In my mind the best approach would be to stage replacements of sources of CO2 emissions starting with the electricity infrastructure. We should reverse the ban on fast breeder reactors immediately and begin construction on new advanced reactors to directly replace coal burning plants. At that point we can begin to shift the use of coal into coal-to-liquids for diesel vehicles and into hydrogen production for hydrogen vehicles. Both of these uses can be made substantially cleaner than directly burning the coal for power. Coal to hydrogen is better yet as all of the outputs can be sequestered. (Unfortunately carbon sequestration requires infinite storage time unlike waste from a fast breeder reactor which must only be stored for a few hundred years. Just pumping CO2 back into the earth is not yet accepted to be an answer…)
Hydrogen fuel is completely necessary to replace gasoline in our transportation infrastructure, even once plug-in hybrids become widespread. A plug-in vehicle with hydrogen fuel cells solves the extended-range problem while maintaining better efficiency for short trips. Once our nuclear infrastructure is advanced enough we can begin replacing the use of coal for hydrogen production with nuclear driven electrolysis, though we’ll still plug in our cars to charge them up as well.
By the way, I don’t buy the disaster scenarios, but I still don’t think there’s any good reason to be pumping out CO2 into our atmosphere when we know how to generate all the energy we need from more advanced processes. Scientists and policy makers should focus on that rather than scaring people since people will always wonder who is benefiting from all of the hype (and if it isn’t just the catchy buzzword of the day to put in grant proposals…).
Powering your Accord with biofuel is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, Dave, but there is no reason to get your knickers in a twist about carbon; it’s influence on earth’s climate is negligible. Alternate fuels should be developed for appropriate economic reasons, not for fantasies about saving civilization.
Scientists recently discovered the suns’s output has increased recently. Even Jupiter is showing signs of global warming as is Mars.
In today’s battle of competing experts with theories that must be given the greatest of priorities it’s hard to know who to believe anymore.
The CO2 scare is the best of all. Car companies removed 95% of the pollutants from car exhausts, something the hippies in the 60’s thought to be impossible. So now we are down to the one byproduct of energy that can’t be eliminated. Good thing the trillions of plants on earth consume it for us.
I liked the part about disappearing arctic ice allowing the planet to warm because it exposes dark oceans. Expecting 70 degree weather at the north pole? If it happens the likely cause is increased solar output and your Accord has nothing to do with that. More to the point our limited amount of historical data on temperatures on planet earth tells us nothing about what is going on. The planet is supposedly 4 billion years old, we have records for 130 years or so. Most are not considered accurate enough to claim a .1 degree increase or so they claim.
regarding climate change
I’m sure arguments about global climate disruption on this site could fill several large volumes by now, and I don’t see any reason to get into that discussion again. Your views are not going to assuage my worries. I find too much logic behind the theory that carbon emissions causes climate change. And at the same time I don’t expect to change your mind, and so I am not going to try. To me, it’s a matter of great concern, and I wish–oh how I wish–that there was a silver bullet. Instead, I do think there is an awful lot of buckshot, and maybe a few lead bullets, and between all of that, maybe we’ll escape a catastrophe. But my main point here is that biofuels are no silver bullet. So could we skip the fruitless arguments about global warming this time?
Global warming/carbon debt hysteria is “a sober look at biofuels?” I think I need a drink.
I think you’ll find it hard to convince people to skip the discussion of the risks of fossil fuel combustion when the scenario you paint is more dire than even the controversial IPCC predictions.
Regarding biofuels, what about the issue of urban air quality? Biofuels may be carbon neutral from a global perspective but they take CO2 out of the air in Iowa and put it back into the air in Los Angeles. I think this is a deal killer in and of itself. Urban air quality is one of the best reasons to switch away from hydrocarbon combustion as the effects are undeniably caused by man.
CO2 is not a problem from the point of view of urban air quality. Hydrocarbons are, and they are still a real problem but the portion of that problem that comes from cars is far less than it used to be
CO2 is not a problem from the point of view of urban air quality. Hydrocarbons are, and they are still a real problem but the portion of that problem that comes from cars is far less than it used to be
Right, I mis-spoke.
“Far less than it used to be” is still not none. Why burn hydrocarbons when you can turn hydrogen and oxygen into water?
Speakers at a conference on climate change are making the case that the alarmism behind the global-warming bandwagon is politically motivated, has nothing to do with science, and could affect the sovereignty of the U.S.
The second annual International Conference on Climate Change hosted by The Heartland Institute was held in New York City. More than 700 registrants gathered in the Big Apple to hear more than 70 scientists — representing the views of tens of thousands of their colleagues — make the argument that media and environmental
advocacy groups have it all wrong, that global warming is not a crisis.
One of the headlining speakers to open the event Sunday evening was European Union and Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus, who was welcomed with a standing ovation. Klaus, one of the most outspoken critics of man made global warming in Europe, says those who propagate global-warming hysteria are like the communists of old Europe.
Like global-warming alarmists, he stated, the communists did not listen to opposing views.
Klaus believes that politicians who propagate global warming hysteria only have one goal in mind: control of the public.
“It is evident that the environmentalists don’t want to change the climate,” he said. “They want to change our behavior…to control and manipulate us.”
And he warns that those same politicians wish to engage in energy rationing — all because of a problem that he believes does not exist. Klaus concluded his speech with this remark.
“The environmentalists speak about saving the planet. We have to ask — From what? And from whom?” said the EU leader. “I think I know [those answers] for sure. We have to save the planet, and us, from them.”
David, for someone who seeks to avoid a discussion about climate change, you sure lay out a lot of bait. Carbon debts? Environmental tipping points? That’s a lot of Koolaid to swallow.
Having said that, I agree that biofuels are much more problematic than people realize. Only through clever marketing could we be made to think that burning crops is more environmentally friendly than burning dead dinosaurs.
The hysteria from the enviromental Cassandras is tiring in the extreme. Sadly, policies will be put in place to appease them that will actively hurt both the driver and the environment by restricting technologies that will ameliorate most of the damage. That is, if we let them.
don1967 :
David, for someone who seeks to avoid a discussion about climate change, you sure lay out a lot of bait. Carbon debts? Environmental tipping points? That’s a lot of Koolaid to swallow.
Yes, as the prosecutor said, “the defense has opened the door”.
David, you didn’t explore one big part of the math problem.
Too many people to feed. Too many people drawing down fuel supplies or causing them to be drawn down on their behalf. Too many people spewing things into the air or causing them to be spewed into the air on their behalf. And not enough people seeking fuel or looking for new ways to find fuel or increase efficiency. Or participating in currently available efficiency habits.
We have a very small portion of the population not engaged in finding fuel , improving efficiency, or participating in efficiency practices, and a very large portion of the population engaged in “spending” energy. This is the math problem. Solve for “X”.
We need to stop driving so damn much. Most people need to drive to get anywhere, like me when i lived in the jersey burbs of philadelphia. Now, i live in the city, at the edge near a large park. i have access to really good public trans. Sometimes my car does not move for a week at a time. I am within walking distance to most of the stores i need. No car used, no pollution. Walking done instead, healther for me too.
Hybrid cars and buses go a long way to reducing exhaust fumes in crouded cities. For this reason alone, i support them.
I always support biofuel development,but not at the risk, noted above, that they are now causing more harm then good. This needs to change, adn it can.
I like windmills alot. If we could eliminate the use of conventional fuels to power electric production for our homes and businesses, that would be cool.
If not, it will be hot.
Pun intended.
“So could we skip the fruitless arguments about global warming this time?”
Translation: the science is settled, so shut up!
No, we won’t ever be skipping these arguments. People are prepared to enact endless regulations based on little more than faith. Why was 1998 the warmest year? What happened?
Global warming, brought to you by the same people who can’t tell you if it will rain or not tomorrow.
Anybody else old enough to remember global cooling? By now we should have been buried under a sheet of ice, freezing in the dark.
The earth has been cooler than it is now and has been warmer than now. That’s just the way it is.
Always amusing to read the for&against whenever AWG or GW is on the table here.
We’ll all find out. One thing we’ll find out is whether there is a downside to burning solar energy stored over hundreds of millions of years, in the form of hydrocarbon, over a short period of 175 years.
We’ll find out.
Montgomery Burns……Good post, commmon sense, short and to the point. Yes I believe it was “Time” magazine in the 70s did a big study(story) on how we were facing “Global Cooling”. I am sure that there were many learned scientists(hippie professors) who signed onto that nonsense.
>” According to ‘New Scientist’ the lower 48 could become uninhabitable by 2100″<…… That’s great, it’s actually a solution. If that’s true, then all the beachfront property up and down the east and west coasts will be uninhabitable and people won’t live there so we can “Drill Baby Drill”, and noboby will bitch. We can all move north to Canada where we will get “Free” healthcare and the climate will be like North Carolina. Gotta love it.
It’s only 9 on a Sunday morning here, and after reading this, I too need a drink. With such little data, some feel the need to worry so much. Perhaps it’s easier for me, what with being around in the ’70’s, when the world’s greatest scientists were busy preaching doom and gloom because all indications had the earth plunging into another great ice age.
Something about “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Just a thought, but do these scientific think tanks feel pressured to come up with something, just to justify their public trough funding? Perhaps that would be too simple. By the way, I have the Time article from the ’70’s, in a PDF if anyone would like it.
Crops for fuel is plain stupid. We are currently supporting them because it gives government money to the existing agribusiness.
Algae is a primary producer with the potential for much higher yields per acre. The oil can be used for diesel fuel, heating oil, and cooking oil. Algae technology is perfect for decentralized production, especially in third world countries. Most of the resources used for food go for meat production. We could free up hundreds of millions acres of production by cutting back on meat consumption. Algal oil that could replace all of our existing needs would take a small fraction of the land used for meat.
The second annual International Conference on Climate Change hosted by The Heartland Institute was held in New York City. More than 700 registrants gathered in the Big Apple to hear more than 70 scientists — representing the views of tens of thousands of their colleagues — make the argument that media and environmental
advocacy groups have it all wrong, that global warming is not a crisis.…
Trouble is, the Heartland Institute is a group that feels industry is more than capable of policing itself and thinks that any intervention at all is inherently wrong. If this group had influence when emission standards were drafted, we would not be over 95% cleaner the way we are today. One only needs to look at the behavior of today’s financial industry to see yet another example of what zero oversight creates.
For those who will counter that you will get the same slant from a group like Environmental Defense, fair enough. But the people who benefit from Heartland’s lobbying make way more money than a scientist who chooses to dedicate their career to working for a non profit like EDF.
It should be noted that over the past 10 years, places that were warmer than normal outnumbered those that were cooler than normal by 2:1. We shall see, folks. most of us posters will be here to see it.
I would, however, like to see the focus shift to other sources besides cars. Coal burning is a disaster from a C02 point of view.
Oldguy:
It’s only 9 on a Sunday morning here, and after reading this, I too need a drink. With such little data, some feel the need to worry so much. Perhaps it’s easier for me, what with being around in the ’70’s, when the world’s greatest scientists were busy preaching doom and gloom because all indications had the earth plunging into another great ice age.
I was also around in the ’70s. In the winter quarter, 1975, at the height of this “new ice age” brouhaha, I was taking John Holdren’s class at the University of California, “Quantitative Aspects of Global Environmental Problems,” and learning about global warming. Holdren didn’t think we were facing any danger of a new ice age. Holdren, who was recently the head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science is now head of the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Look, I live in Canada, and our Inuit (Eskimos for the untutored) are seeing the ice disappear very fast indeed in the North. We are concerned as a country that the North West passage will soon become a shipping lane. We are also concerned that Denmark, Russia and the USA now suddenly think that Canada’s North somehow belongs to them, so they can drill for more oil — a concept that only humans can dream up. We’re too hot, so let’s drill for more of what ails us.
2015 and the Arctic looks to be ice-free in summer. Water levels are rising, and Nova Scotia is in danger of becoming an island rather than an isthmus, due to the Bay of Fundy’s high tides, which are getting higher. The resonance effect that gives the high tides here multiplies the normal Atlantic tides by 3 to 4 times at the head, which is where Nova Scotia is tenuously connected to the rest of North America.
The permafrost in Northern Canada and Alaska is melting, allowing decay of vegetation previously frozen. There is no argument about this. Like the melting of the Arctic ice, it’s happening now. The output of this decay is carbon dioxide and methane. And maybe in a a few thousand years, soil suitable for growing cabbage.
If we’re lucky.
That’s global warming, and I couldn’t give two shits about some Czech politician denying it at some conference where all the head-in-the-sanders have met to agree with each other. Who the hell is he? An expert?
As I’ve said here before, let’s take the case of Germany, where the head of state, Angela Merkel, is a card carrying PhD astrophysicist. She has some technical training behind her rather than being an argumentative lawyer, and responds with some logic to the situation and the experts in her country who advise her. Turns out that Germany takes climate change very seriously indeed. Windfarms in Germany are BIG. Both sides of the political spectrum are agreed. There’s a problem – got to try to do something about it. And they are.
Meanwhile, here in NA, whether or not there is climate change seems to depend on whether one is conservative or liberal. The conservatives stick a finger in each ear and pretend it’ll all go away. The liberals leap up and down and tend to exaggerate. End result? SFA.
I’m old and tend to be conservative in outlook, but how many times has anyone got to be hit on the head before they take notice? There’s climate change under way, like it or not. Who really cares why?
The point is, what are we going to do in an attempt to ameliorate the situation? Sitting back in a chair and taking potshots at the other side is a waste of everyone’s energy.
Meanwhile, the CO2 component of the atmosphere is at 0.4%, up from 0.3% and lower over the eons as ice-drilling cores from Greenland’s melting glaciers have shown. The ice is melting, and mere common prudence dictates that as a race, we do our best to reduce that number (and methane as well). If we wish to survive for the forseeable future, that is.
David’s article is a good start for suggestions as to what we might try. I’m an old gearhead with a not particularly efficient car that I drive sparingly to mitigate its effects. It’s not much, but something. You younger people are going to have to do much more than that in the not too distant future, or perish. Simple as that. Inconvenient, like paying back trillions of bucks of debt, but it has to be faced.
It’s not the sea level we should worry about.
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/3647
Times, they are a’changing.
One more article about global warming, biofuels or carbon debt and I’m canceling my subscription. You’ve been warned.
David’s article is a good start for suggestions as to what we might try.
David Holtzman’s article says, in sum, that biofuels are not the silver bullet. He gives no suggestions on what is.
I’m not a climatologist, nor do I play one on TV. So, I’m not going to pontificate on something I have no training to understand. (Oh, if only conservatives would do likewise).
If bio-fuels aren’t the answer, what is?
One answer is a high tax on petrol. People will use less if it costs more.
I don’t want to get into a “freedom” debate, but it has to be said that most vehicles are ridiculously overpowered for their intended use. Sure it fun to go hooning on the back roads, but not really necessary.
Most cars/trucks are also way bigger than necessary to carry their normal load – one person commuting back and forth to work. Tax the big heavy vehicles and be amazed at the decline in fossil fuel useage and all the problems that go along with it.
There are other things that are probably legally impossible, but I’ll mention them just the same. How many of you are old enough to remember when things were not open on Sunday? Planning ahead, and finding some form of recreation aside from shopping would really limit the number of automobile trips.
tesla,
that’s Hol(no “t”, just coffee please)zman.
As for what might be a solution to run cars, and everything else, that’s not clear, but as I said in the comments, there is a lot of buckshot out there, and some lead bullets, but no silver ones, at least not so far. I suspect that cars will become far more efficient than they are now (see for example, http://tinyurl.com/tkrby/). If cars become this fuel efficient, and the US population doesn’t rise (the NRDC report assumes it grows by 50 percent over the next 40 years, something we could prevent by ending mass immigration, which will be responsible for 80% of that growth, or an additional 120 million people) then biofuels might be able to account for much of the necessary fuel, although it is still questionable whether we would grow them in a way that doesn’t contribute to greenhouse gases. Who knows, maybe pure EVs will become halfway reasonable, too. And maybe even hydrogen, although I’m definitely not holding my breath for that.
I suspect that renewables will gradually become increasingly important for generating electricity, that buildings will be designed to require far less energy than most do now (there is a house near me in Lexington Mass, built in the early ’80s, that is architecturally passive solar, and supplements that with about a cord of wood, annually, and there are numerous more like this all over the country), and district heating schemes will probably provide a lot of extra energy from electric generating facilities using fossil fuel, geothermal heat, or nuclear power.
But my purpose in writing the article was to point out the pitfalls of biofuels.
I’m somewhat regretting bringing up global heating at all, because I wanted the debate to center on biofuels, not climate change. However, if I didn’t think global climate disruption was happening, and was a threat to civilization, I wouldn’t be nearly as worried about the future of driving. Yes, we would still face peak oil, which would cause the cost of fuel to rise, which would encourage innovations in efficiency and new fuels, and the time it would take for this to happen wouldn’t put the world at risk in the same frightening way. Also, biofuels wouldn’t be a threat to civilization via climate change, although they would still threaten to cause mass starvation by raising the price of food.
Like WMBA said….it’s time we took our heads out of the sand! and embrace change, we can have our cake and eat it to, it’s called hydrogen/eclectric powered cars not Hybrids…really I remembered the 1989/1993 dodge colt’s/mirage’s getting 35/41 mpg, I owned 1 it also cost less than 6k and drove 140k without a single problem and laughed at the other fools with their gas hog cars around me as I’m driving 70mph with no problem and my car probably wieghed 2300lbs, with the techology then, why can’t we build cars that better that MPG back then?
My first car had 135 section tyres. Go look outside to work out how narrow that is – today prams have more rubber. They deformed all the time, usually just before the door handles hit the pavement. Michelins lasted, Dunlops had zero grip, Pirellis worked wonders until it rained.
Now my TD hatchaback has tyres so low profile I think they are painted on, and they rattle my fillings out.
And it has a big sticker on the inside of the fuel cap.
“Nicht Fur Biodiesel”
I think that means I must continue with the sooty dino-juice, unless I become brave enough to experiment with old chip-fat.
A friend of mine runs an old Mercedes 300D and has done just that. His Merc (125K when he bought it) has lasted 5 years so far. The rest of the car has fallen apart (no heater, wipers when persuaded, electric windows all stuck “closed”) but the engine (275K) has lasted fine – just normal maintenance including a fluids service which was more than the car was worth.
35p a litre. Hmmm.
For the millionth time…”BIOFUELS” as pictured above are NOT created equally.
BioDIESEL from virtually any source(ripping virgin rain forest excepted) is GOOD, will always command a competitive price because it IS a high-cetane, drop-in replacement in any diesel engine. And diesel fuel, especially high-cetane fuel will always be in worldwide demand. Its just a shame that diesels got Fd in this country, cuz we sure could use more now.
Ethanol OTOH, from every source, has SO many losing hoops to jump through…low BTUs, production, transport, corrosion, driveability, pricing(there is always a relative GLUT of gasoline on the worldwide market) that its high-octane benefit is moot. It ends up being a feel-good for corn states, ADM and Dbags that think theyre saving the planet. Wake TF up!
BioDIESEL is not good from any source. One source that is absolutely terrible is palm plantations that replace peat lands in the tropics. 420 year carbon debt. The sources within the US are fine, as far as I know, but I dont’ think there’s nearly enough of it to make a dent in US demand.
As for hydrogen fuel cells, my sources have informed me that tremendous progress was made by Honda in the last ten years, but that now all the low hanging fruit (his words) has been picked, and systems still cost six figures and last only about three and a half years, and it’s questionable as to whether the cost will ever get down to competitive (it might in 10-20 years, it might not–more here on TTAC: http://tinyurl.com/crfuturecar/).
Technical question for the best and the brightest. David’s Honda Accord is a typical high volume American car. Please estimate the itemized cost to make a retail customer car like the Honda Accord into a flex-fuel vehicle capable of running on mostly ethanol and possibly mostly methanol fuel? How much extra does a corrosion resistant fuel tank, alcohol compatible elastomers, etc. cost? How much extra development cost is required for engine control software? Always wondered how much flex-fuel cost is new hardware vs. engineering man hours.
@ZoomZoom
You raise a very important point. I wish it were easy to do something about it, both within the US and for the world. In the US, we have Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who are determined to force policies upon us that will result in the current 305 million rising to 440 million by 2050, according to the Pew Research Center, through amnesty and anything else they can do to encourage mass immigration. Obama is now pushing for this as well. According to Pew, mass immigration will be responsible for 80% of the growth. If you want to do something about it, you can start by joining numbersusa.com. They send you emails when important issues come up, and make it very easy–like 30 seconds easy–to fax your legislators. NumbersUSA, which is nonpartisan, is largely responsible for the fact that we haven’t had amnesty yet, although both the executive and the legislature have been pushing for it for 4-5 years (although Bush turned around on that in his last year or year and a half).
Turns out that Germany takes climate change very seriously indeed. Windfarms in Germany are BIG. Both sides of the political spectrum are agreed. There’s a problem – got to try to do something about it. And they are.…
The dark side about Germany’s solution is the relocation of much of what German industry used to create. The massive German steel plant that used to foul the air in the Ruhr Valley now spews in China, since the Chinese bought it. Since we are dealing with a global problem, a net improvement of zero.
golden2husky :
The dark side about Germany’s solution is the relocation of much of what German industry used to create. The massive German steel plant that used to foul the air in the Ruhr Valley now spews in China, since the Chinese bought it. Since we are dealing with a global problem, a net improvement of zero.
You are leaving out the important point that people need steel. Yes, there’s no doubt in my mind that any steel plant in China will not be likely to be efficient, but people need steel, and therefore need steel furnaces.
The problem (if there is one) is not “a factory.” It’s much larger than that. I’m not so concerned with the pollution of one plant. The fact is, we need a LOT of factories to support the number of people on the planet.
There’s nothing sober about climate hysteria. There’s poison in that kool-aid.
A parable applicable to the Alternative Fuel industry.
I have a friend who is an avid surfer and a hobbyist surfboard shaper.
For most of the past 20-25 years, the surfboard industry was dominated by a company called Clark Foam. An estimated 90% of all US-made surfboards and 60% worldwide were made from Clark Foam blanks.
When Gordon Clark suddenly shut the doors of Clark Foam in 2005, the surfing world panicked. All sorts of dire scenarios were predicted (e.g. China would flood the market with cheap mass-produced boards).
What actually happened is that dozens of creative entrepreneurs found a ripe market no longer dominated by the established giant. All sorts of innovative materials and designs have come out of the industry upset.
For the world energy market, substitute the petroleum industry for Clark Foam.
So long as we let it be the 800-lb gorilla in the market, the innovative replacements have almost no chance of survival.
David, thanks. But I’m not going to be an easy mark on global warming. We just had a massive freeze here in the South this February. Lots of damage to landscapes and fruit trees.
That’s “massive freeze”, not heat wave.
I’m sorry, but I’m not sold on the so-called “science,” especially since they’re telling us that the science is settled and we should all just go along.
No sir. I’ve said this before, and it’s STILL true. There is NO REASON to believe the hype and scare tactics.
They still can’t tell me if coffee is good for me or bad for me. They can’t forecast the weather very well. We’re gonna have more hurricanes with more frequency, whoops, forget about 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. Instead, look at this contrived (ie FAKE) picture of a polar bear on an ice floe.
We can talk about conservation. I believe we should conserve our resources, only because that’s the mark of good stewardship. Waste not want not, and all that.
But when the scare tactics start, that’s when they lose me. That’s when they piss me off to no end. As if I’m not doing enough already. Puh-lease! I’d rather just go watch old reruns of “My Mother The Car”. Or go for a drive and burn some fossil fuels just to spite the bogeyman scaremongers.
Thanks wmba, great submission.
Let me say, welcome to the south of your border, where people are so blinded by political ideologies and a general level of scientific illiteracy, that common sense and reasoning are close to non-existant.
On this issue, I am conservative by the dictionary definition of the word. I resist change. That would be changing of the atmosphere’s chemistry.
If the current rate of climate change continures unabated, it certainly will precipitate human and biological disaster. Furthermore, we are ever increasing the rate of additional atmospheric pollution.
It is a scientific no brainer that CO2 retains heat in the atmosphere. Even if it were provable that this warming is truely a natural occurance, why continue to pour more of a gas known to exacerbate the problem into the atmoshpere? We are pouring gasoline on the fire.
If we fuck up this planet, where else do we go? In my mind then, it is the better thing to do to make “sacrifices” to err on the side of preserving environmental conditions that are friendly to human civilization, or even human life. As I recall even Mr. Bush acknowledged a year or so ago that the climate is warming.
I am pessimistic, and the overall balance of the commentary on this thread nurtures that pessimism. Human being’s powers of denial are limitless.
For those of the CO2 doomsday mentality: The Feb 25th loss of a CO2 monitoring satellite was a disaster. Disaster because it would have provided data rather than Al Gore fairy tales. Data not BS is REQUIRED! All over a protective shield!
On planet earth where auto technology is stuck 20th century, where are the direct injection gasoline engines in family cars?
Hi. I’m running my cars on ethanol all the time now. Due to tax reasons it’s marginally cheaper (in my area) to do so. Don’t like it since in Brazil cars tend to have ridiculously small tanks and I have to drop by the gas station more often.
However, on the positive side, there’s one great advantage, since it burns “cleaner” (don’t know if that’s the appropriate word) you never have engine sludge and/or dirty deposits from unburned fuel along the cylinder heads problems. So your engine lasts longer.
And the thing about it being too corrosive, well, it’s not a real BIG problem as all you need is a little extra protection in the parts with which the fuel has contact. And then they last as long as in a gas engine. And also, I’m pretty sure we have pipelines adequate to transport ethanol.
You are leaving out the important point that people need steel. Yes, there’s no doubt in my mind that any steel plant in China will not be likely to be efficient, but people need steel, and therefore need steel furnaces…
I have no problem with the need for steel, and therefore, furnaces. I do have a problem when a person, company, or country “greenwashes” a story when it is, in fact, just greenwashing. Germany touts themselves as being very proactive in terms of GHG’s. Moving the problem elsewhere is not being proactive. Proactive would have been replacing the old plant with one that produces the same amount of product with half the emissions.
But I’m not going to be an easy mark on global warming. We just had a massive freeze here in the South this February. Lots of damage to landscapes and fruit trees.
That’s “massive freeze”, not heat wave.
I’m sorry, but I’m not sold on the so-called “science,” especially since they’re telling us that the science is settled and we should all just go along.
They still can’t tell me if coffee is good for me or bad for me. They can’t forecast the weather very well. We’re gonna have more hurricanes with more frequency, whoops, forget about 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008.
ZoomZoom,
The massive freeze in the south doesn’t call global climate disruption into question. You have to look at the whole earth, over time, not one small region of the world in a snapshot of time. The projections include that weather will be generally more extreme, which includes BOTH high and low temperatures in individual locations being higher and lower respectively. Moreover, carbon dioxide insulates, in the same way that a down sleeping bag insulates, and it’s possible to calculate the amount of insulation, so there is scientific logic behind the theory. I could go on and on here.
As for coffee, it is clearly good for most people. (It probably isn’t good for people who claim to geta bad case of the jitters from drinking it.) There were at least 2-3 articles in health newsletters put out by the Harvard Medical School in the last year to that effect. I have one of them that I could email you if you want to send me an email at motorlegends@aol.com.
At the weekend Adelaide, Australia hosted the first race in the V8 touring car championship in 2009. For the first time all vehicles had to use E85 fuel.
Looking at the footage, the number of refueling stops was identical to previous years where pure unleaded fuel was used (probably had larger fuel tanks however). The fastest ever lap time was also posted. Overall it was very good publicity for ethanol fuels in Australia (sourced from sugar cane, not corn). Many fuel stations in Eastern Australia stock E10, but E85 is still extremely rare. Very few cars here have been modified for it. Hopefully success in racing will lift the fuel’s profile.
No sir. I’ve said this before, and it’s STILL true. There is NO REASON to believe the hype and scare tactics.
No, and there’s no reason to believe cherry-picked anecdotes, either, but that seems to be the modus operandi for climate-change deniers.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 16% of Americans believe the effects of global warming will never occur–a record high. But reading TTAC comments, you would think the number would be more like 60-70%.
When even oil companies like BP admit that fossil fuels are contributing to global warming, you have to consider that what the overwhelming majority of climate scientists say is true: human-caused global warming is a fact of life. One day in the not-too-distant future, global warming deniers will be looked at the same way as holocaust deniers are now: a fringe sect blinded by ideology.
Psar, et al.
First, what invalidates these theories, both the lack of a creator and global warming, is that they are hypothoses, not theories. Consensus is bullshit. You have to have proof to become a theory, not the other way around.
Yes, you can call evolution a theory, until you try to claim that it proves there was no higher power involved. The theory never invalidated religion. Get over it. And there are PLENTY of religious scientists, and there IS a controversy. How could there not be?
Yes, you can prove global warming until you try to prove man made it happen, well, really you can’t do that either. GW is pretty much dead. Now the “consensus” is on “climate change”. Great, the climate changes, we didn’t know that? Well, it COULDN’T have anything to do with the big solar heater we are orbitting around. No.
It seems every other week another scientist in an applicable field comes out of the closet, betrays the consensus, and points out the consensus is a pox on science and the Academy that causes scientific method to be thrown out the window by bringing pressure to conform to overtake the ethical mandates which are supposed to help science avoid fad beliefs. Perhaps that is a run on sentence, but let’s not ask a history professor hoping to find consensus, let’s ask an english professor, please.
Anyone here remember eugenics?
BTW, I always love how anything even close to a Malthusian concern get’s shouted down, but in reality, the concept isn’t anymore inherently wrong than peak oil. There may be peak oil, and there may be a limit to how many people the world can support.
I can tell you one thing for sure. The only way to settle a lot of it will be with blood, not by having the wealthy people pay for a solution while everyone else is getting a free lunch.
So do all your theorizing you want, but don’t forget to talk to the social scientists about how to actually get anything done about it. Oh, and you might want to ask them if anything will get done if no one with a memory and common sense accepts the veracity of the scientists since they have been throwing out so much BS of late.
In Houston, we just found out that a Rice University Professor isn’t much more expensive to buy than a city council member. How many of them do I need to buy to have a “consensus”? Hell, give me a number and I will see about raising the money to end this controversy ASAP.
How did my reply end up on top of the post I was replying too? Did I know what you were going to say?
According to a recent Gallup poll, 16% of Americans believe the effects of global warming will never occur–a record high. But reading TTAC comments, you would think the number would be more like 60-70%.
About the same percentage (10-20%) believe in Intelligent Design, and generally for the same reasons. To quote:
A key strategy of the intelligent design movement is convincing the general public that there is a debate among scientists about whether life evolved. The intelligent design movement creates this controversy in order to convince the public, politicians and cultural leaders that schools should “Teach the Controversy”. But in fact, there is no such controversy in the scientific community; the scientific consensus is that life evolved.
Please note the term ‘Scientific Consensus’, as it’s something that climate-change skeptics fail to understand. Science is not Law, and it’s certainly not politics or journalism. The kind of courtroom histrionics used to give the impression of doubt do not apply here, but they’re still applied by skeptics with an agenda and journalists looking to stir the pot.
There is scientific consensus that humans contribute significantly to global climate change. Trying to create wedge issues because scientists have not totally agreed upon the details of the theory does not invalidate the core theory. I put this challenge out every time this comes up, and haven’t gotten a real answer: can anyone cite a real, peer-reviewed journal disputing the core theory? Keep in mind that even cold-friggin’-fusion was submitted for peer-review, so if human-caused climate change is so obviously a crock, there should be something.
You sure bring out the climate denialists. it’s like flypaper. That’s not a good thing; it’s like a badge that a lot of the folks who comment on your blog wear, saying “Crank! Argue with me!!”
And if somebody’s feelings are hurt by the insinuation that maybe their fulminations are less valuable in my estimation than considered opinions about the future made by people who have invested long and productive years making a living by publishing research on the field in question; research which has stood the test of reality as all scientific research has to do; then I’m sorry, but it’s their problem. Particularly since by and large they’re the exact same people who react to sensitivity to the feelings of minorities as “political correctness”.
Climate change has become a bit of a circus, with “alarmists” on one hand and “deniers” on the other. But it’s not like evolution versus intelligent design. There, science and religion battle over how to explain the past.
With climate change, scientists try to predict the future. That’s the problem. With a simple system like planetary motion, you can use science to predict the future. With a complex system, you can’t.
Economics is the same way. Economists never shy away from making predictions. But none has shown any ability to predict important changes in the economy. Even with the tremendous riches that would go to anyone who could.
Climate scientists too have no crystal ball that allows them to predict the future. They work on their climate models. But models of complex systems have no predictive power.
The past decade has shown that. None of the climate models predicted, in advance, that temperatures would peak in 1998 and plateau for 10 years. How then can those models be expected to predict temperatures 100 years from now?
So we have to deal with the unknown. Uncertainty and risk. That’s always hard for us humans to do. But we do it a lot. And there are things we can do to help.
Unfortunately, the science establishment in general, and the peer-reviewed publication process in particular, is of little help. Public debate, in my opinion, helps more.
I’ve been impressed by a lot of the debate. In my opinion, Al Gore goes well beyond what science supports, but even his books and movie help. I’m more impressed by Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer, two climate scientists, who do not dispute that humans add to warming but question whether the warming alarm is too shrill.
Because, while I do not disagree with the critics of those who point to cold spells as evidence against manmade global warming, I also think the alarmists are stifling helpful debate. To me, the personal attacks in Scientific American by John Holdren and Stephen Schneider against Bjorn Lomborg were shameful. Shouting down dissent, and yammering about consensus, helps nothing.
In the end, climate change is not a political question. The debate is not about a yes or no answer. It is, quite literally, a question of degree. And one that, I’m afraid, we will never know the answer to until the future reveals it to us.
First, what invalidates these theories, both the lack of a creator and global warming, is that they are hypothoses, not theories. Consensus is bullshit. You have to have proof to become a theory, not the other way around.
True, but the point I’m trying to make is that the fact that they’re theories, or that there’s not an absolute consensus, does not invalidate the theory as a whole. Scientific consensus is exactly that: the community agrees on the general theory. It doesn’t preclude the theory being invalidated at a later date. I would think that’s obvious, given what the word “theory” means.
I argue this far too often, so perhaps I’m bitter, but what does bother me is the inductive, bad or outright disingenuous logic that gets bantered around:
a) Because agreement is not absolute, the whole theory is invalid. This works in certain courts of law, and scores points in debating, but it’s not a valid criticism of a theory.
b) Because [anecdotal or local evidence], the global theory is invalid. This gets brought up by people who don’t (or won’t) understand the “global” part of global climate change. Scope is important, and simplifying the problem disingenuously is bad logic.
c) Because scientists (or economists, or whomever) have been wrong about [concept], they could be wrong about this, and thusly we ought not to listen to them about anything. Again, this is a cheap debating trick, which works in court, school debates or fights with one’s spouse, but not here. Just because a theory is not mathematically proven true (and outside of math that’s not exactly easy or possible) doesn’t mean that said doubt makes it automatically untrue.
d) Because [cherry-picked representative with dubious credentials] says it’s not valid, usually when quoted out of context, the whole theory is in doubt. Journalists do this, far too often, when seeking “both sides of the story”, and the publishing of such lends unwarranted credence to the opposing view.
And yes, it’s possible to bribe scientists. It’s done all the time, but it’s hard to bribe the majority of them, and I’d think that the legitimate reward available to the first published, peer-reviewed study that can comprehensively debunk human-derived climate change is huge, there would be something by now. I read a number of journals, and I see no small amount of contentious topics debated and debunked, but there’s nothing of the sort here.
What I do hear are a lot of excuses, justifications and rationalization to keep doing what we’re doing because it’s too inconvenient or ideologically unpalatable to change. I’m not going admit to being pure in this respect—I have made certain choices with regards to how environmentally friendly I want to be, scumbag that I am, and posting on an auto enthusiasts blog should be evidence of that—but I’m not going justify it through junk logic.
How did my reply end up on top of the post I was replying too? Did I know what you were going to say?
Global warming is responsible. Didn’t you know? Enough carbon dioxide warps space-time.
Boring with these pro/against AGW discussions. Not adding anything new to the debate, really. Cherry picked anecdotes versus scientific query.
It’s probably best if industry is allowed to keep on emitting just as it has – for industry. Quite a few climate change deniers should probably consider whether they are holding the tool, or being the tool …
Zoom Zoom should wonder whether there have been other major changes in weather patterns – such as extreme warming in previously guaranteed cold zones, just as there are now lower temperatures in previously guaranteed warm zones.
A simple matter of displacement, as large weather fronts move latitudinally due to temperature shifts. Eskimos unable to reach their hunting grounds, after having been able to reach these with ease for centuries, should provide some pause for thought, maybe.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070410140922.htm
At any rate – boring discussions. Peoples’ minds are made up. This has become religion, not inquiry.
More cherry-picking.
Update: More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=10fe77b0-802a-23ad-4df1-fc38ed4f85e3
“The over 700 dissenting scientists are now more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. The 59 additional scientists hail from all over the world, including Japan, Italy, UK, Czech Republic, Canada, Netherlands, the U.S. and many are affiliated with prestigious institutions including, NASA, U.S. Navy, U.S. Defense Department, Energy Department, U.S. Air Force, the Philosophical Society of Washington (the oldest scientific society in Washington), Princeton University, Tulane University, American University, Oregon State University, U.S. Naval Academy and EPA.”
Now…can I get an Amen for ‘Scientific Consensus’?
Man-Made Climate-Change denier or one of Al Gore’s brainwashed sheeple? You can be what you want to be.
Isn’t the internet great?
In today’s battle of competing experts with theories that must be given the greatest of priorities it’s hard to know who to believe anymore.
Believe the people who research the topic, not the ones who pretend to. It’s really that easy, which makes you wonder about the folks who can’t figure that out. For example:
Update: More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims
If by “scientist” you mean anyone who has enough letters after the name to impress rubes but doesn’t actually research climatology.
—
But it’s not like evolution versus intelligent design. There, science and religion battle over how to explain the past.
No, it’s always been science vs. ignorant people. Guess which side tends to be correct (and by tend, I mean always). A cookie for anyone explaining why.
The only thing intelligent design and AGW denial proves is the whole sorry state of [science] education in this country.
Update: More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims
What that title doesn’t tell you is this: there are more than fifty scientists in the IPCC (the number of authors is about six hundred, the number of reviewers even greater), so the “more than the number who authored it” is disingenuous. The “fifty” is just the number of people on the board.
Second is that this posting is a Senate Minority-sponsored report, meaning it’s written and directed by the minority party in the Senate. Guess who that is, and guess what their agenda is.
Third, did you see who the sponsors the forum in question? Starting with the Heritage Foundation and working our way down, it’s basically a who’s-who of industry and conservative think-tanks. It’s telling that not even Exxon will put their name to this event.
Look, all I’m asking for is a credible, relatively objective rebuttal. Not “a bunch of people paid by people who have a vested interest in the status quo but don’t have a shred of peer-reviewed data to back themselves up”.
AGW denial I find amusing.
Mostly it boils down to the stance “if this is true, enormous changes to my way of life are necessary! – therefore, it cannot be true”.
I am also amused when people think that almost all the world’s climatologists are involved in some type of vast left-wing conspiracy – or a vicious communist plot, as they used to say.
Even when confronted with the argument that yes, the scientists may be wrong but if they ARE right and we do nothing, the consequences will be grave – the deniers grumble about how we must completely certain before doing anything because it will lead to more expensive gas and people driving smaller cars. Oh, the horror, the horror! And anyway, this winter was colder than the last one so the Earth can’t be warming overall. I mean that’s just unpossible.
Look, all I’m asking for is a credible, relatively objective rebuttal.
I know you’re asking this rhetorically, but I just wanted to point out that science deniers don’t operate at an relatively objective level.
Their strategy is to create confusion and controversy where there isn’t too much of either, and reacting in a positive matter only plays into that.
The ID debacle should’ve been a very clear lesson on those dynamics. While intellectual correctness does have some naturally evolutionary advantages in society, as the theory goes, progress can’t be guaranteed. Personally, I think side of progress lost that debate, and the evidence for this are the similar displays of collective retard strength we are seeing.
Two words: BACTERIAL BIOFUELS
We know that oil is an eventual dead end. It is a finite resource. For that reason alone, we must eventually pursue another method to power our world.
Of the many competing technologies being studied to replace fossil fuels, it would appear E. coli offers the most promise. It does not compete with food, uses water as a medium but does not consume it, and may be very scalable with simple tank farms.
This has the potential to offer us a carbon neutral, renewable source of energy that readily fits the world we already inhabit.
Psar,
“Look, all I’m asking for is a credible, relatively objective rebuttal. Not “a bunch of people paid by people who have a vested interest in the status quo but don’t have a shred of peer-reviewed data to back themselves up”.
Here is the point I keep trying to get across. The Academy has become “a bunch of people paid by people who have a vested interest in the status quo.” The people being paid and paying are all now professors from various universities. They control access to tenure and funding and being published in peer reviewed journals.
It’s a shame that public relations matters so much, but when you can’t get your point across because no one believes you, you can whine all you want, OR you can fix the lack of credibility. The GW scientist community BADLY needs to fix their lack of credibility.
Using conservative political beliefs, or religious beliefs as proof that someone is untrustworthy and not credible isn’t ever going to win any hearts and minds. It amazes me how academics can’t seem to figure this out. If they would stop violating all their own principles, a lot of progress could be made. It isn’t just the conservatives that realize the hypocrisy.
Hydrogen fuel cells in electric/fuel cell hybrids and nuclear power plants. Wait – we’ve already got reputably excellent cars from Honda & GM, and we can build more nuke plants. Burner plants too to use up nuclear waste from older plants.
So why fiddle while the planet burns? What would be the cost…half a trillion to convert to a hydrogen fleet? Chump change these days.
“Look, all I’m asking for is a credible, relatively objective rebuttal.”
New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=84e9e44a-802a-23ad-493a-b35d0842fed8
From the link:
“Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming bites the dust,” declared astronomer Dr. Ian Wilson after reviewing the new study which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Another scientist said the peer-reviewed study overturned “in one fell swoop” the climate fears promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore. The study entitled “Heat Capacity, Time Constant, and Sensitivity of Earth’s Climate System,” was authored by Brookhaven National Lab scientist Stephen Schwartz.(LINK)
Have at it.
It’s a shame that public relations matters so much, but when you can’t get your point across because no one believes you, you can whine all you want, OR you can fix the lack of credibility.
Here’s the thing, though: it’s not a lack of credibility as much as it’s a lack of understanding and sympathy on the other side.
I don’t know how much more credible the academic world needs to get when there’s a) a vested interest in not listening on the part of skeptics and b) a (willful or not) ignorance of how the scientific method actually works. I don’t think it’s possible for me to explain what scientific consensus is, or how the peer-review process works to someone who automatically discounts it, or is going to pick it apart using speculous logic.
This isn’t like political philosophy, where there’s wiggle room to argue and everything is, more or less, based on how well you sculpt a bullshit statue. It’s more like accounting: yes, you can cook books, but its not easy because there are checks and balances in the system to prevent it and it gets even less easy when those books (papers) are reviewed not just by a single auditing firm, but a jury of peers.
And labelling this as a liberal-versus-conservative thing is disingenuous (I know, I use the word too much). Scientists may or may not be social or economic liberals, but science is not a liberal field by it’s very nature. Change is slow, gradual and built upon preexisting assumptions and theories. It’s about as conservative a field as it gets. My problem with the Skeptic side being conservative isn’t that they’re conservative, it’s that they’re coming in with ideological baggage.
Which you acknowledge:
Here is the point I keep trying to get across. The Academy has become “a bunch of people paid by people who have a vested interest in the status quo.” The people being paid and paying are all now professors from various universities. They control access to tenure and funding and being published in peer reviewed journals.
I don’t know if you’ve had the experience of being in academia for a long period of time. They’re not all Saab-driving, latte-sipping, Birk-wearing Al Gore worshippers, at least not outside of, say, Women’s Studies or Fine Arts. The hard sciences people are not a leftist bloc by any stretch of the imagination, and it’s a testament to Skeptic propaganda that they’re able to convince people that they are.
There might be inertia, but there’s no conspiracy here. What there is is a lack of evidence to the contrary, and it’s not exactly accurate to perpetuate the scientific community’s having a lack of credibility when it’s the skeptic community that’s unable to produce anything other than what, if it’s not lying, is just close enough to be nearly the same thing. Besides, I really have a hard time believing that if the scientific community somehow magically solved it’s credibility problem that the skeptics would change their tune. The problem the skeptics have is that they don’t like Al Gore (or his equivalent), and have thusly decided to write the whole concept off because their ideological framework can’t reconcile it.**
If you want to see what a healthy, two-sided debate looks like, have a look at the papers accepted and published regarding vaccine efficacy. You’ll note that Eli Lily doesn’t need the Heritage Foundation’s backing to get studies published.
** sometimes, I think the environmental movement would have been better served by someone who wasn’t a registered Democrat and a known politician so that certain conservatives would stop being so damn knee-jerk about it.
The problem the skeptics have is that they don’t like Al Gore (or his equivalent), and have thusly decided to write the whole concept off because their ideological framework can’t reconcile it.**
** yeah, like this guy. **
James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Skeptic
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/7959
Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.
Psar,
You don’t have to convince those who will never agree, you have to convince and motivate a large enough majority of all folks.
Almost everyone who is personally close to me has a graduate degree or even works in academia. Seriously. I know ALL about it.
Your experience in this doesn’t agree with mine at all. Even the liberal friends of mine see the same problem with the system as it is. Of course, there aren’t any of the rabid robot liberal types in my social circle.
We see it as a problem that makes academia no more trustworthy than the banks, only with even less checks and balances.
I don’t believe many of the GW crowd really believe their own press either. They certainly don’t act like it.
I don’t know how you could live in academia, and not see the squelching of dissent, the banishment of those who aren’t like the others, or the homogeneity of worldview.
James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Skeptic
This is what we call cherry-picking: choosing one data point, and using it to discredit the whole opposing side of the debate. I should point out the while this one fellow might have an axe to grind against Hansen, NASA’s climatologists as a whole agree with the theory.
Please read the following, especially the first link, because it’s addresses Hansen specifically.
* http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
* http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
And yes, Hansen is personally a bit of a dick, but the data he presents is solid and backed up by actual research.
We can link-fight all day if you want, but I suggest you at least take the time to read the IPCC reports posted and reviewed by real scientists, not talking points designed to discredit the whole idea.
All the discussion of what the ideal energy crop would be, is premature: we have a free feedstock that we are not even using: waste. Correction: in many cases it is cheaper than free, i.e. people will pay you to take it off their hands.
In 2007, Americans sent 254 million tons of waste to disposal. Of that 83 million tons was classified as “paper or paperboard”.
Recycling? Sure, a hefty 55% of that “paper or paperboard” was recycled, leaving almost 38 million tons to rot in hell… I mean landfill. Anybody know a better fuel than “paper or paperboard”?
It gets better: out of 169 million tons of “unrecovered” waste, fully 55% was “organic” i.e. adding the “paper or paperboard”, wood, food and yard trimmings together. If you go one step further, and add the plastics, “rubber and leather” (the latter also organic actually) and textiles (some which would be organic) you get to almost 82%!
No, waste isn’t going to displace crude oil. But it would make a nice dent. And involve far less risk than raiding our food supplies.
Now if only I can find a prostitutian from a “waste” (wasted?) state…
I don’t know how you could live in academia, and not see the squelching of dissent, the banishment of those who aren’t like the others, or the homogeneity of worldview.
I did see it. In the more politicized Arts. Some of the nastier internecine academic politics took place in Arts. And oddly, in Medicine. I suspect it had to do with isolation (in the former) and money (in the latter).
I didn’t see it to the same degree in Science or Engineering, and the people I did interact with in those departments were generally far more conservative and much less political than, well, me. I’m sure it’s not perfect, but I don’t think it’s the hotbed of collusion that you’re making it out to be.
I don’t believe many of the GW crowd really believe their own press either. They certainly don’t act like it.
I don’t think they give it quite the same level of, well, importance as the skeptics give their side. Most pro-AGCC people I know don’t find the skeptics to be, well, grasping at straws. It’s like how you might think of people who think tobacco doesn’t harm you, or that the evolution is bunk.
Except people like me, who frequent sites like this, and are gluttons for punishment.
Roy Spencer is another high-profile former NASA meteorologist who disagrees with Hansen’s conclusions. Hansen goes well beyond the IPCC reports in his predictions. Few others dare go far as he does in interpreting the data.
The trouble is that there is no experiment you can do or research you can conduct that will give you an answer. You have to interpret a complex system and try to get a feel for the future.
Climate models can help you do that. But they themselves have no predictive power. The problem comes when, as Hansen does, you present your model’s projections as fact.
I’ve read the IPCC reports, in their entirety. There is some good research there. Richard Lindzen, the MIT professor, also has some interesting papers for the non-technical audience. Roy Spencer’s book Climate Confusion is quite helpful to general readers like me (although he would do better without the sarcasm that he calls “wit”).
What to do about climate change is an important issue. We should be debating it. But shouting by alarmists on the one hand and deniers on the other is ruining the debate. It’s like Al Franken and Ann Coulter, each writing books calling the other side liars. How does that help?
“This is what we call cherry-picking: choosing one data point, and using it to discredit the whole opposing side of the debate.”
Let’s try again:
“Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists.
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Also, I didn’t see a reply to this:
Look, all I’m asking for is a credible, relatively objective rebuttal.”
New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=84e9e44a-802a-23ad-493a-b35d0842fed8
From the link:
“Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming bites the dust,” declared astronomer Dr. Ian Wilson after reviewing the new study which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Another scientist said the peer-reviewed study overturned “in one fell swoop” the climate fears promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore. The study entitled “Heat Capacity, Time Constant, and Sensitivity of Earth’s Climate System,” was authored by Brookhaven National Lab scientist Stephen Schwartz.(LINK)
Have at it.
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Actually, you don’t have to reply. I’m not coming back to this one. I’ve asked an unbiased colleague to review our exchange. He says I won… hands down.
Until we meet again…peace out.
Algae production in closed artificial ponds in, say, the desert southwest may eventually produce truly ample feedstock per acre, according to some experts.
Unfortunately some experts don’t know what they are talking about. According to one expert, Michael Briggs, we need 10 million acres of the Sonora desert just to replace all transportation fuels in the US, or less than half of the 20 million barrels of crude we consume every day.
To cover a 10 million acre pond with anything is too expensive: the project dies due to material cost, way before you even get to construction. So, an open pond it is.
Only… evaporations rates in Arizona averages about 100 inches a year. So, to keep that 10 million acre pond wet, you’ll need 74 billion gallons of water a day. For perspective: that’s more than twice the flow treates by >all publicly owned wastewater treatment plants in America.
And then we haven’t even started to discuss the environmental impact of a 10 million acre pond in the middle of the desert. Wanna talk about climate change?
If we ever use algae to produce our fuels, it would be in the open ocean, kinda like harvesting the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. It will obviously have numerous environmental impacts. But it is the only potentially feasible energy crop.
Actually, you don’t have to reply. I’m not coming back to this one. I’ve asked an unbiased colleague to review our exchange. He says I won… hands down.
Until we meet again…peace out.
Hilarious. Illustrates exactly what psarhjinian has been saying.
Psar,
I will give you the engineering dept. is more mainstream politically, but they aren’t usually scientists. The worst offenders of whackiness I ever met were literally experts on birds and bees.
“I don’t think they give it quite the same level of, well, importance as the skeptics give their side.”
Are you kidding me? That’s the whole point to my argument. They won’t let people into, or allow them to progress in their departments if they aren’t falling in line with the dogma. It’s not science, it’s religion and politics all rolled into one.
Everything I learned about science in college is violated by most of the stuff I read that supports GW. Peer review ceases to be of value when they just take your word for stuff, and it seems I hear about another debunking at least once a quarter. The debunking story is soon followed with an ad hominem attack on the now ousted scientist. Hooray, rinse and repeat. I guess those are all just cherry picked anecdotes, and I can’t see the truth because of my ignorant, conservative, and christian mindset.
OTOH, if I propose an easy solution – switching to a consumption based tax system which would incentivize labor over the use of resources, well, then I am a fascist nazi or something.
99% of the world is poor. They will suffer the most under any change that could do any good. It does us no good to whine about the end of the world if we won’t accept any solution which will actually work. Thus the skepticism. It is earned.
From my own very unscientific and statistical insufficient experience, warming is real and substantial.
Major cities that I have been to are all 5~10 degrees hotter than surrounding fields and forests, year round. That’s an indisputable fact.
That may be due to many factors, but the result is the same: warming. And I have no doubt it’s created by human. It’s my theory and I know it’s also the truth.
But shouting by alarmists on the one hand and deniers on the other is ruining the debate. It’s like Al Franken and Ann Coulter, each writing books calling the other side liars. How does that help?
If you draw the line where it generally exists in society, the fact is one side mostly deal in intellectual dishonesty. Sure there are the alarmists, but they are post-hoc reactionaries. The points is that the two sides are NOWHERE near equitable despite the wishes of the side that is defined by its lack of knowledge.
Really, that’s rather the goal for the anti-science crowd, to draw this into stupid-land where they have a distinct advantage.
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Climate models can help you do that. But they themselves have no predictive power.
What?
We can link-fight all day if you want, but I suggest you at least take the time to read the IPCC reports posted and reviewed by real scientists, not talking points designed to discredit the whole idea.
This is not going to happen because if they were inclined or even capable of such in the first place, this argument wouldn’t exist. Now they are so psychologically invested in their ignorance that nothing short of divine intervention will make a difference. That’s how humans work, and also why the science community should regret its failure to frame the debate properly.
This isn’t any different than any such debate before and henceforth. Unfortunately the deniers are just as bad at history as they are at science.
They won’t let people into, or allow them to progress in their departments if they aren’t falling in line with the dogma. It’s not science, it’s religion and politics all rolled into one.
Everything I learned about science in college is violated by most of the stuff I read that supports GW. Peer review ceases to be of value when they just take your word for stuff, and it seems I hear about another debunking at least once a quarter. The debunking story is soon followed with an ad hominem attack on the now ousted scientist. Hooray, rinse and repeat. I guess those are all just cherry picked anecdotes, and I can’t see the truth because of my ignorant, conservative, and christian mindset.
This is worth replying to because it’s a very teachable moment on how science works.
It’s true that some politics exist in academic science, because after all scientists are human. This only provides contrast to the scientific process, which is designed to be very methodical and negate undue influence.
“Debunking” existing bodies of evidence is a misnomer because it almost never happens. Further thinking and study usually tries to improve prior models with varying success. Entirely new theories are especially unlikely in complex systems like climate where individual measures are a compound of effects.
The only “debunking” that goes on here is against material that is specious and unscientific in the first place.
This isn’t any different than any such debate before and henceforth. Unfortunately the deniers are just as bad at history as they are at science.
I believe that history sides with free-thinkers who questioned the status quo, and who did not use phrases like “stupid-land” in their primary line of reasoning.
I believe that history sides with free-thinkers who questioned the status quo
Sure, there’ve been cases of exceptional talent in the past. Is anyone claiming that’s the case here?
BTW, “Free thinkers” in the non-intellectual sense is synonymous with “bum with tin foil hat on”. And in addition, that’s a well-known mistake to scientists because foil hats aren’t faraday cages and therefore insufficient to address their electronic spying concerns.
agenthex: What?
Climate models have no predictive power. They can help us understand how things work together. But they cannot be used to predict the future because they cannot be verified. Naomi Oreskes, now firmly in the alarmist camp, pointed this out very well in a paper 15 years ago. courses.washington.edu/ess408/OreskesetalModels.pdf
Complexity and chaos theory expert David Orrell says the same thing, in a more interesting and broader way, in his book The Future of Everything (in Canada the title was Apollo’s Arrow).
Of course, the fact that we cannot predict the future with accuracy should not stop us from preparing for it. William Sherden’s 1998 book The Fortune Sellers says it well:
“However, just because we cannot predict it does not mean we can ignore the future. We must continue to plan for the future by considering scenarios of what might happen and adapting our plans accordingly. To do otherwise would be foolhardy. We cannot blind ourselves to all predictions, because some contain vital information about our environment–not necessarily what will happen but what could happen.
“Our success in our work and personal lives depends to a large degree on which futuristic information we choose to believe and act on. We need to learn how to pluck the gold nuggets of advice, whether it comes as a warning sign or a clue to an opportunity, from the flood of erroneous and often sensational predictions. For example, it is important for us as citizens with some voice in our country’s priorities to understand predictions of global warming, a subject that generates a continual flood of doomsday predictions.
“The nugget to pluck here is that scientists are concerned that the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could seriously affect our future climate, but they currently do not know how, when, or even whether these effects will occur. There is a big difference between this forthright scientific perspective and, for example, Dr. Ehrlich’s prediction that by the year 2000, global warming will melt Antarctica and put us under twenty feet of water.”
Climate models have no predictive power…But they cannot be used to predict the future because they cannot be verified
There’s a LOT of cruft in that paper but basically he seems to be saying that “calibrated” models don’t fit his standard of “verifiable” or whatever, which is fine, he can use them however he likes. I think he mention something about models alone not being sufficient but frankly it reads like geezer bitching so I didn’t exactly do it studiously.
This is fine for 20 years ago, except others have been able to make reasonable predictions using the models from a decade or more before, which in and of itself shows him to be at least overly conservative or just wrong. People ARE concerned about causality which is why they’ve adding been more of it in, apparently without breaking any consistency.
—
William Sherden
You realize this book isn’t really about science, right?
The problems with models that Naomi Oreskes discusses in her paper have not changed in the 15 years since she wrote it. And she is an academic whose name still comes up a lot in the climate change debate.
In essence, her argument is based on logic. If someone says something is going to happen in the future, how can you prove or disprove that? Short answer is, you can’t. The climate models do have value. But not as crystal balls to see the future.
Yes, I know William Sherden’s book is not about science. It’s about forecasting. Something that climate scientists should think carefully about. To their credit, many do. But many, James Hansen as a conspicuous example, do not.
The problems with models that Naomi Oreskes discusses in her paper has not changed in the 15 years since she wrote it.
Sure, the way she talks about it in that existential sense doesn’t change, but many sciences use not altogether dissimilar “models” with good predictive results. There isn’t a hard line in the sand with climatology outside it.
The proof has to be in the pudding, and with more resources on the topic to harden up the details it seems like the empirical evidence matches expectations.
I think everyone realizes the math-reality boundary is a tough one, but the more comprehensive models do point in similar directions, and there are so many good eyeballs on it now that any potential deal breakers should’ve been spotted by now.
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Yes, I know William Sherden’s book is not about science. It’s about forecasting. Something that climate scientists should think carefully about.
Well, I’m pretty sure there’s not much need for them to take lessons in math from a business consultant.
I mean it’s a good book for lay people who aren’t wise to how complex the world is, but I think the angle he approaches it is wrong (because he just looks at failed attempts, without a causal ie scientific explanation), and using it as an indictment on science is quite misplaced.
To finish on a kinda random example because I’m buzzed and people like examples, behavior of individual gas molecules are not predictable yet many gas laws are, but you expand again to weather systems and it’s chaotic again. There a lot of detail and causes and no easy answer.
You make good points, and I won’t belabor the issue any further. Just a few final comments.
First, if you don’t think much of Sherden’s book, you may think more of David Orrell’s. He’s a mathematician, and an expert on complexity and chaos theory. He looks at several different examples of where models are used — economics, public health, and weather — and discusses why models don’t help much in any of them.
Second, I like Sherden’s book because he shows how so many people in so many fields make so much money from predictions of the future even when they have proven wrong in the past.
You see it every day. Remember last year in July when Morgan Stanley forecasters predicted oil would be over $250 a barrel by the end of 2008? They were way off. But did they stop making their predictions? No. They are still at it, making forecasts as if they mean something.
We saw the same thing on TTAC today with CS FirstBoston making revised predictions of car sales based on their “demand model.” I love the following comment on that thread.
sitting@home :
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:39 pm
“We are also issuing a revised longer term U.S. sales forecast calling for 12.5 million units in 2010 (down from prior 13.3 million) and 13.8 million units in 2011 (down from prior view of 14.1 million).”
Someone got paid (and probably got a big bonus) for picking those numbers out of their ass, then picking more when it become obvious the first set were no more accurate than a reading from a cranky old psychic woman. And yet we go on about UAW workers being overpaid for producing a shoddy and unreliable product!
To me, the same thing can be said about those who confidently predict the future of anything. Climate change included.
To me, the same thing can be said about those who confidently predict the future of anything. Climate change included.
I will note that the basic models predicted this starting in the 80’s. Not all predictions are created equal.
@Engineer
You’re absolutely right about the water use–if the ponds were open. those ponds would absolutely have to be closed. There are prototypes. But none of them are 10 million acres. Or anywhere near that. Not necessary.
Bfg9k
Hydrogen fuel cells in electric/fuel cell hybrids and nuclear power plants. Wait – we’ve already got reputably excellent cars from Honda & GM, and we can build more nuke plants. Burner plants too to use up nuclear waste from older plants.
I’ve driven both the hydrogen vehicles of Honda and GM, and they both work fine, and Honda’s is exceptionally nice. the problem is cost–north of 100k, I think, for the fuel cell–and they wear out in 3.5 years. IOW, not ready for prime time. If they get there, though, but that’s a big if.
David,
The cost for a closed system, the so-called Photobioreactor (PBR) is humongous. The study looked at photobioreactors (as seen in the graphic above), open raceways (something like a pond), and fermentors (as corn ethanol is produced). They estimated that the net cost of production per liter for PBRs was $24.60 ($93.23 US dollars/gallon), for open raceways it was $14.44 per liter, and for fermentors was $2.58 per liter.
$100/gal!!!
Let it go, it’s dead in the water…
BTW, it was a good write-up (despite my difference of opinion on some of the details) on a very important topic, one that does not usually get subjected to intelligent analysis, due to the stupid, emotional reactions…
It’s a pity this discussion degraded into a shouting match about AGW.
Perhaps you could move your concern about AGW and Peak Oil to the background, and simply point out that our continued use of oil transfers huge sums of wealth to people who hardly deserves it, not to mention giving tremendous financial support to people who mean us harm.
Engineer,
Thanks for the complements. And yeah, I was immediately sorry about having not found some way to keep AGW way in the background or out of this entirely after the discussion degenerated to the usual wars over AGW. BTW, in case you’re interested, this is adapted from a piece I did for Env’tal Health Perspectives,
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2008/1166/focus.html
Let me second Engineer’s complements. Your article gives interesting information and perceptive thoughts. Thanks for the link to the other article as well.
I don’t think there is any way to control where comments will go. On this piece, you’ll get views on global warming, whether you mention it or not. No harm in that, in my opinion. The more comments, the better. We can always skip the ones we don’t want to read.
Sorry about misspelling Holzman. Look forward to reading more of your work.
David,
Thanks for the link. I think you left out a “-“. Anyway, it’s gonna take some reading.
In the mean time, I believe we should start with waste, see what can be done, how much it costs, let a few technologies go at it. Personally I suspect Range Fuels have a promising technology, if it would be possibble to produce higher alcohols, rather than just ethanol. The other company that seems like they’re onto something is CHOREN. I see they’ve taken to calling their product biodiesel, even though it is chemically speaking diesel (i.e. some performance benefits over biodiesel) made from biomass (which means it’s free of sulfur and aromatics, i.e. cleaner than diesel from crude).
The waste-based approach is win-win-win: you have no additional production costs, the feedstock is free, you’re cleaning up the environment and increasing the life of landfills. What’s not to like?
In my mind the debate about an energy crop needs to wait until we’ve found a technology (-ies?) that can produce liquid fuels (preferably miscible with existing fuel supplies) at a reasonable cost.
Of course, one problem is that the definition of a reasonable cost has been bouncing around quite a bit of late.
Comparing climate prediction to economic prediction? You really believe that predicting that next July in the US will be warmer than last December was, is of the same order of reliability as predicting that the DOW next July will be higher than it was last December?