Amen on the concept of standardization.

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/ abstracts/ 2007/ Hansen_etal_2.html

An e-mail from Dr. James Hansen states that “All” we have to do is reduce current warming by 0.5–1.0 W/m^2. If done by carbon alone, this requires stopping adding 8 billion tonnes of carbon to the active carbon cycle each year and in addition removing from the active carbon cycle between 200 billion tonnes of carbon and 350 billion tonnes of carbon.

By this analysis, nobody, not even UCS, seems to recognize the magnitude of the task ahead. Dropping to 1990 levels won’t stop sea stand riase, but might postpone it…

Good Post. To me, it seems pretty simple — scientists agree that we’re flirting with disaster if atmospheric concentrations of GHG reach 500 PPM.
So, we should backcast from that to establish goals which meet it. The devil is in the details, of course, but at the end of the day, any goal should be informed by physical limits not, political whims.

Most of the scientific community feels for (i) that an increase of more than 2 deg C would initiate some of the disastrous consequences of climate change, like melting of the ice sheets, and would cause widespread damage to ecosystems like coral reefs. For (ii), the number may be between 450-550 ppm, so the 500 ppm John mentions is reasonable. The answer to (iii) isn’t a simple backcast, as the rate at which emissions turn into atmospheric concentrations depend on the ability of the planet to take up CO2 (something that changes as the planet warms). So, if you change the assumptions a little bit, or choose the high end rather than the low end in any of the three steps, you’ll get a different answer.

The middle ground, adopted by the UK, is a 60% reduction below 1990 levels by 2050 for the world. You can also argue that Western nations, responsible for more of the historical emissions, should claim an 80%-90% reduction to equalize emissions per capita around the world.

“Most of the scientific community feels …”

That’s post-modern scientists… they don’t calculate, don’t experiment, don’t measure, they feel… The poets should protest that their domain has been hijacked…

Goals, goals, goals… blah… blah… blah…. empty feel good talk. You can set goals all you wish, especially for the year 2050… nobody takes it seriously, especially politicians, and it just as well, there is no way to make these things happen… but setting goals makes you FEEL good… again… feeling…

Well, sure, if the goal is to confuse people.

But if we understand that climate change needs to be not just a voting issue but a *meaningful* voting issue, we have to have uniform and unambiguous language.

If bill sponsors and candidates were to push for this, it would suggest that they are actually trying to take action, rather than instead trying either to thwart action or merely use the climate change issue for their own purposes.

“Without standard language and goals, citizens are too mind-boggled for political engagement ”

Yes. And, instead of the message being reinforced, it’s diluted.

Thanks Bill, Joe, and Cliff.

Thank you Ron, too, for pointing out that the scorer is “the referee”. How apt. While the others fail to work together as a team, guess who scores? The Decider.
(Other ideas re the identity of the referee also come to mind.)

Instead of goals of carbon dioxide reductions being discussed, we need goals of more people who want carbon dioxide reductions. How to convince the population that we need reductions. Otherwise, discussions of 50 percent reductions of any years are meaningless. We have to get people to get people to want to reduce first.

So people do want reductions, in this general sense. But in order for us to achieve the reductions people claim to want, reductions have to become, not just a voting issue but, a *meaningful* voting issue. This requires simple, clear, and standardized language.