Non-partisan?! - laughable bunk. You folks have no credibility in the climate debate. You are nothing more than partisan warriers using the climate issue to try to advance your larger political agenda.

Now, nonpartisan doesn’t mean I’m not pro-progressive and anti-conservative — although I must confess that I don’t see how the refusal to conserve our resources and the refusal to conserve our livable climate and the complete disregard for the health and well-being of our children and indeed all future generations really deserves the label “conservative.” That strikes me as an agenda of radical change for the worse being imposed on billions of people not yet even born.

I actually think my views are quite conservative. I would actually call them pro-life if the term had not been co-opted for other purposes.

The Republican bimbo who was running against her compared bad weather to rape, and said, “as long as it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it”.

Adaptation = doing nothing (for specious financial reasons, usually) and waiting for Darwinian processes to take their toll - why worry, we’ll just evolve into a leaner, meaner species…

Well, that’s the impression I’ve always got after reading RP Jr’s posts.

Joe, you’re one of the most insightful climate commentators on the net, keep up the good work.

LOL

If the world is supposed to turn into a desert how come deserts are filling in?

Sea levels are not rising the models might predict that they WILL but if you measure they have not.

It was warmer 1000 yrs ago.

Joe - I even think you don’t understand the real nature of the solution. It will never be enough to run our lives more efficiently. Cars that do 100 MPG will solve nothing - it will just allow more people to drive more cars longer distances. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

The CO2 problem comes primarily from burning fossil fuels. We therefore need to (a) extract less and less coal, oil and gas each year, and (b) leave most of it in the ground. What people use it for is secondary and something the markets can discover for themselves.

Finally, people need to realise the problem is POLITICAL and GLOBAL. Technology will not solve it. Voluntary action will not solve it. The markets will not solve it. The only thing that will solve it is heavy handed political action, laws and regulation. When are people going to get real about it?

Your question:
“If you were running national and global climate policy, what level of global CO2 concentrations would be your goal and how would you achieve it?”

Have you read “Heat - How to stop the planet from burning” by George Monbiot? He describes a plan for 90% reductions. I’d be very interested in hearing your take on it. Because it’s my sense of things that we need 90% reductions and fast….

I think we need to shoot for 350ppm “asap” - maybe 425 by 2050 and then 350 by 2075 in round numbers. I don’t have the slightest idea (beyond my little checklist) of how structurally to get there. (I’ve got your book though and will start it very soon.)

It’s a shame, really, as there are certain problems that aren’t going to be solved so easily. Today there are many economists, politicians and religious leaders who say that limiting population, or consumption, or energy use is, as Dick Cheney put it, austerity measures versus a necessity. As if putting a brake on our desire to consume was a personal lifestyle choice rather than absolutely critical for humankind’s continued survival. I believe if more Americans went hungry or without electricity and, unlike the poor who do this often; had the nation’s ear, then we could perhaps move on.

So, there’s an interesting story in today’s NYT (on-line) about a world wide shortage of rice. It blows me away that economists treat food demand as elastic. Yes, when the price of food gets too high we can always choose a more cheaper substitute; starvation. The story notes that drought in Australia (predicted by global climate models to occur more often as the earth heats up) and other locales is contributing to the shortage.

Look folks, this is the beginning wave of overpopulation hitting up against the wall of global warming induced crop failures. We’re in deep doo doo and we’d better get serious about treating the earth as if we’re going to be around a while.

I read somewhere recently that the market makes a good slave but a poor master and an even worse religion. We go where it takes us and only the politicians can alter its course.

Before that there is the small matter of we, the voters, providing a mandate to our politicians. Given the lack of interest, knowledge and foresight exhibited by the average voter that might take a while.

We’re doomed, but at least the likes of Joe, Monbiot and Kunstler are making a good living out of it.

http://www.scitizen.com/ stories/ Future-Energies/ 2008/ 03/ Why-Energy-Efficiency-Won-t-Matter-Without-Energy-Caps/

Efficiency is a major solution. The article you site is not actually true, but I haven’t gotten around to debunking it.

Won’t a reliance on biocoal foster the same sort of problems as biofuel does in general? Time magazine has a frightening article on the accelerating destruction of the Amazon due to biofuel production. I blogged about it here: http://checklisttowardzerocarbon.wordpress.com/ 2008/ 03/ 28/ amazon-left-for-dead-by-biofuels/

Robert/Joe,
To me “efficiency” is just the wrong frame - it’s about Conservation (conserving the amount of stored carbon). Efficiency is in service of conservation. (And so knocking efficiency, Robert, seem to me a straw man argument.) Does the conservation targets need to be mandated? Given our propensity to spend everything we might otherwise save - I should think so. Isn’t that what “cap’n trade” is all about?

Finally, Robert, I think people are realizing that the problem is political and global now - unfortunately we must wait for the next administration to see the publics shift demonstrated in public policy. There are many reasons Bush’s approval is below 30% and I’d say his environmental/energy policy has been a growing factor.

What is the DoD yearly budget again?

There is lots of land which is netheir ariable nor in forests which can be used. The linked report goes into the details:

http://jcwinnie.biz/wordpress/?p=2815

but can be summarized by simply saying first, Africa, and second, South America.

On the first part, the Time article clarifies that the acceleration of the Amzaon’s destruction isn’t a domestic ethanol issue but a global commodity pricing issue. I fail to see how biocoal doesn’t exacerbate this problem.

I have read quite a bit of information about oil, natural gas, and coal depletion, and I think it is very clear that 30-50 years from now we will face vast shortages of these fuels. Its very clear that we have already tapped, drilled and dug for the highest quality fossil fuels and we are now relying on Oil Sands, Expensive Deepwater, Liquified Natural Gas, and thinner and thinner seams of coal. We cannot much longer fuel our level of consumption with second rate fossil fuels… the production and political issues will break under the strain.

A simple arguement for conservation and renewable energy can easily be made to those that understand the very real risks of climate change. But the fact remains that even some smart climatologists like Roger Peilke Jr. are hesitant for wholesale and radical change in energy policy.

I feel if we all widen the debate that the risks to America are national security, economical, environmental, and political we stand a better chance of changing minds. My experience is that people of all walks of life are increasing aware that our fossil fuel use is disfunctional and unsustainable on many levels. We must always convince those that equivocate on change of the broad variety of issues that are touched upon by our insane energy trajectory.

A quick thought on the whole delayer/denier label.
I don’t think the terms convey they horrendous damage they are doing: 1. confusing lazy media coverage 2. delaying substantive debate and policy formation 3. marginalizing concrete action to fight global warming’s worst effects.

Looking back in history for a similar dynamic/movement - the one that jumps out at me are the Nazi sympathizers.

I think it’s imperative for the debate to move beyond this absurd cost/benefit analysis - it doesn’t matter the cost, we MUST fight global warming with everything we’ve got. Anything less and we are sympathizing with our self-destructive world.

So the delayers are, in effect, global warming sympathizers. I’ll try to flesh this out more in my own blog - but I’d be interested in any thoughts you might have about such a provocative notion.

“Efficiency is a major solution. The article you site is not actually true, but I haven’t gotten around to debunking it.”

You simply can’t dismiss Jevon’s paradox so easily. Making devices more efficient also makes them more attractive and cheaper to run. That makes more people want them (maybe not in the US where there are more cars than people!) but globally, definitely.

Efficiency will certainly be a factor in making energy descent more politically palatable, but the process has to be founded on a global political decision to ramp down fossil fuel use year on year and to eventually leave as much as possible in the ground. Its the carbon in the fuel that is elevating atmospheric CO2, not inefficient cars.

Joe - please take the time to “debunk” the site. Then I’ll “debunk” your debunking!

Having re-read your article carefully, you fail to answer the question you yourself pose:

**************************************************************
“If you were running national and global climate policy, what level of global CO2 concentrations would be your goal and how would you achieve it?”

If you can’t or won’t answer that, then in my book blog you’re a “Delayer-1000″ meaning it is time to start recounting the likely impacts of 1000 ppm and move on because such a person is not a serious contributor to the climate debate.
**************************************************************

My answer is this:

Have the UN license every coal mine, oil and gas well in the world to produce no more than a set quantity of coal/oil/gas. Reduce the limit by an agreed percentage each year.

If countries won’t sign up to that then at least it will be obvious they don’t give a stuff about climate change. Under this regime there would be no need to enforce complex mandates such as CAFE standards. In the face of scarcity fuel prices would rise and the market would work everything else out for itself.

Obviously U.S. (and other countries) would never go for UN licensing. But it is a proposal. What is you target?

GO: http:www.John-Daly.com, scroll down, click on “Station Temperature Data” and check out the many remote weather stations whose temperature records show no global warming.
In particular, check out Death Valley and Alice Springs.

Then go read “What the Stations Say…” and the late John Daly’s criteria for selecting these particular remote weather stations.

GO: http:www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/klaus_wolter/MEI/
Note the dominance of El Nino events over that of La Nina. The ENSO is the main contribituter to the so-called global warming since the mid 1970’s. This prolonged and intense El Nino condition came to an end in mid 2006, and the current La Nino event may turn into a cool climate condition the could last upto 30 years. The graph starts at 1950, but the La Nina condition actually started in 1941-42.

Carbon dioxide has little or no influence on the greenhouse effect which dominated by water vapor aka steam.
GO: http://www.clearlight./ com/ ~mhieb/ WVFossils/ greenhouse_data.html

Monte Hieb is a mine safety engineer and works the WV Dept of Mines

Gimme a break. It is called GLOBAL warming. CO2 is the principle human-caused GHG. It helps drive up water vapor in the atmosphere.

If you have kids (or nieces or nephews), please tell them you think this global warming stuff is bunk. They’re gonna want to know who to blame in a couple of decades for humanity’s self-destruction.

Danny

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/ 2008/ 03/ 30/ polar-cities-a-haven-in-warming-world/ #more-90

Biocoal production would not contribute to the problems in the Amazon so long as no biomass there is used. There are plenty of other locations.

Who cares whether a solution comes from sustainable fuels or reduced fuel usage. It all depends on the magnitude of the impact.

Many of the possibilities for producing sustainable fuel become reasonable in scale, when the scale of fuel usage is drastically reduced. It simply is not going to be possible for the world population to ride in SUV luxury, accelerate from 0 to 60 in 4 seconds, and cruise at 90 mph. And of course, we must always have an empty right front seat next to us, in case we might someday have someone to ride in it. I almost forgot, the car must also be a fashion statement. I value the need to travel fast, but the rest of it is nonsense.

There is so much progress possible by getting over our notions about what is important in transportation. There are some real ideas (click my name) that should be implemented before we further disturb the food supply.

The only thing I have done differently is to gradually convert to fluorescent light bulbs. I did not need help from government to get this done.

I think appliance standards helped.

But then again, the regulations blocked the use of absorption refrigerators, that run on heat from burning natural gas. I think they used the flawed concept that electric energy is comparable to heat energy in natural gas, without reckoning on the fact that electricity is really only a carrier of energy, and it requires a heat engine of some kind to produce it. I suspect that the government (I think this was the US govt.) did not get much help from the electrical appliance industry or the electrical power industry on this. The same is probably true for air conditioners.

I am interested in this because the absorption type cooling devices could be an important part of the distributed cogeneration system that I talk about (click my name).

You may have gone CFL early, but here in California our utilities pay us to do so. My local store has PG&E paying a large % rebate (at the cash register) on purchases of CFLs. Why would the utility pay to have you use less of their product and generate less revenue? Because their profits are not tied to revenue. This is called “decoupling”, and it should be the policy in all of the U.S. The utilities actually earn greater profits from negawatts than megawatts.

Sorry, but I think there is a lot of muddled thinking over “the solution”. The review of your book http://www.amazon.com/ Hell-High-Water-Warming-Politics/ dp/ 006117212X suggests steps that need to be taken to cut emissions. A simple understanding of market economics tells you that these measures will fix nothing in isolation.

How are hybrid cars and “a California-style energy-efficiency effort nationwide” going to change anything? If America uses a little less fuel all that happens is the global price reduces a bit, making it that bit more affordable to someone else in some other country. The bottom line is that if you dig the stuff up out of the ground someone, somewhere will find an economically viable reason to burn it.

Your whole approach is very US-centric and comes over as little more than anti-Bush / pro-Democratic party propaganda. I’m not a US citizen and I get really tired of Americans thinking they have some special place in the world order. You don’t. You don’t even command moral leadership ouside your own borders these days. With the rise of India and China the US is rapidly becoming just another player on the field.

When I first started thinking about how a mechanism for reducing emissions might work I thought a UN administered global carbon tax might work. The problem with this though is that there is no control over how the revenues might be spent and puts no pressure on the public sector to cut their own emissions, so little prospect of actual reductions in CO2.

Like it or not, the only solution that truly has a chance of working is to, literally, control how much fossil fuel is extracted. This would be relatively simple and transparent to administer and more or less guaranteed to work. All sorts of efficiency improvements, downsizing and conservation would FOLLOW such a regime, but such things would never be able to DRIVE it. The level of extraction and the annual reductions would be adjusted to achieve agreed targets in atmospheric CO2 levels.

You state:

*********************************************************
Obviously U.S. (and other countries) would never go for UN licensing.
*********************************************************

If you really believe that we may as well give up now. And you can join your delayers-1000 club!

The “special place” that the US occupies in the world is its position as the number 1 contributor to climate disruption (based upon cumulative greenhouse gas emissions). The world cannot solve global warming without the US. Therefore it is very appropriate for Joe to discuss US solutions.

Also, the US appetite for imports may be a lever that is some day used to help bring other nations into the solution. If the U.S. ever manages to leads on GHG reduction, the next step will to be to tax imports based upon GHG emissions of the source country. If China and India haven’t imposed their own caps at this point, they may be forced to by such an import tax.

I think it slightly more likely that the U.S. will go on a GHG diet than it will cede any authority to the U.N. The hostility of the U.S. to things like the International Criminal Court seems to be deeply ingrained; neither Republicans or Democrats seem much interested in giving up the right to “do as we please” in the world. That is regrettable, but it is also a good reason to make sure solutions don’t depend upon ICC-like structures. Even getting a reasonable treaty passed these days in the U.S. is next to impossible, because it is unlike to get a 2/3 majority in the Senate. It is much easier to pass things that require a “mere” 3/5 vote.

But I focus on the U.S. since we are by far the biggest cumulative source of CO2. Right now, the fate of the world is in the hands of a few countries, and the U.S. and China hold the key.

I conclude from this that the countries of the world, either individually or collectively, will not actually address climate change and will in fact continue to mine fossil fuels to exhaustion.

The point I have been pushing in my last few posts is that measures have to be REAL. A few half-hearted “green” taxes and product standards is just window dressing / greenwash, makes a few people feel good but achieves absolutely nothing. You can even level this charge at Kyoto itself. As such these activities just delay the process.

The acid test of any measure is whether it actually results in year-on-year reductions in CO2 emissions. Since these are hard to measure and to attribute accurately, it is better to focus on the proxy of fossil fuel extraction, a much easier thing to track.

Due to the logic of “the tragedy of the commons” it is pointless for any one country to go it alone, whatever their position in the world pecking order. If we cannot self-organise through the UN then the problem will not be solved.

Per capita levels are something of a distortion because they take no account of population growth. These 2 graphs show (a) global emissions and (b) per capita emissions:

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/glo.htm

Per-capita graph has been flat for 30 years, but overall emissions just keep rising. This tells us that our per-capita emissions must fall at the same rate as global population growth (currently about 1.8%) just to stand still.

For the US to achieve an 80% per-capita reduction AND compensate for its population growth AND contract and converge with the rest of the world frankly defies belief.

No different here in the UK BTW!

Happy to leave Sudan out of the process though!

http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/emis/sud.htm

Technically this is quite achievable. There is no technical reason that California cannot get all the energy it needs from wind, solar, and geothermal. Passenger transportation using EVs is only a matter of deploying the vehicles; no new technology is required. Electric rail will help with long-distance freight, and algae biodiesel could power other freight, and perhaps air travel. Space heating could transition to solar and heat pumps. I don’t know how what we’re going to do about steel making, concrete, and asphalt, but perhaps that is what we’ll spend our 10% allowance on in 2050.

Politically I am unsure. The recent decision by California to severely cut-back its already devastated ZEV program was not a good sign.

Yes. Unfortunately it is all BS, as this article makes clear:

http://www.flexibleenergy.com/ index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=62

“…the electric power industry’s carbon dioxide emissions have risen 5.9 percent since 2002 and 11.7 percent since 1997.

The new EIP report shows that the 10 states with the biggest one-year increases in CO2 pollution are: Texas, Georgia, Arizona, CALIFORNIA, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Virginia and North Carolina.”

We are making no real progress over here in the UK, but at least things aren’t getting any worse. Mind you, CC is drifting off the agenda and with North Sea gas running out our coal consumption and emissions are likely to rise sharply in the next few years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ environment/ 2008/ mar/ 28/ fossilfuels.carbonemissions

Joe - maybe it isn’t obvous from a US perspective, but deals between major emitters are viewed with great suspicion. They are generally seen as a cosying up of trading partners and nothing more than a delaying tactic designed to undermine the UN/IPCC process.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4602296.stm

“maybe it isn’t obvious from a US perspective, but deals between major emitters are viewed with great suspicion.”

How can they be viewed with great suspicion when their haven’t been any such deals yet?

Of course, Bush’s big emitters effort was viewed suspiciously. Everything he does is to accelerate global warming.

But both Clinton or Obama have said they’ll launch a big emitter effort. It’s a good idea.

When you say “Technological breakthroughs hardly ever happen”, I could not agree more. I have been arguing this for some time. But I am curious as to what led you to this conclusion. Have you written a piece on this matter? Any references?

Thanks!

John

“But both Clinton or Obama have said they’ll launch a big emitter effort. It’s a good idea.”

Everyone SAYS they are going to do something, even John McCain. http://www.salon.com/ news/ feature/ 2007/ 10/ 15/ mccain/ I think the UK and the EU have some sort of similar stated intention to cut emissions by 60% (or was it 80%).

The trouble is that it is all just words and no-one notices if it doesn’t happen in their short term of office.

I am getting very irritated that none of you will talk about this issue of how we set goals that mean something and the perverse effects of efficiency improvements! There has to be some basis in mathematics and logic for a climate policy and I just don’t see any in what you are saying. Pinning down one variable but leaving all the rest to roam loose is not going to cut it, and the only variable that means anything is a strict measure of how much coal, oil and gas we burn.

First, I don’t know what “it” refers to in your sentence, but let me comment on the data you cite.

That data is for 2006. Those 10 states account for 58% of the U.S. population increase in 2006. California grew by 0.72% in 2006. It also signed its emissions cap (AB32) into law in September 2006. Are you suggesting that passing a law should have retroactively undid emissions of that year? That would be quite a trick. In fact the law set 2010 as the date for state agencies to adopt regulations to start reductions to 1990 levels by 2020 (about a 30% reduction). The 80% target is by 2050. Similarly, the Renewable Portfolio Standard is supposed to see 20% renewable power generation by 12/31/2010. Yes, I would say California’s cap is late (it should have acted in the 1990s when it became clear the Federal government was AWOL), but it has now done something. Whether it will follow-through is the question you raise. I think we need to wait and see. I did comment that its action on ZEVs was not a good sign, but I don’t think we can judge the future entirely on that.

AB32 is aided by other laws, such as SB1078 (the Renewable Portfolio Standard), SB1368 (the law that prohibits power dirtier than natural gas baseload), and AB1493, which limits greenhouse gas emissions of vehicle sales. I could go on. Do you have these sort of laws in the UK? (real question, not rhetorical)

“Nearly every one of California’s 35,000 home-owner associations have ruled against clothes lines, according to an anti-nuclear, nonprofit organisation called Project Laundry List. ”

For a view of the global picture the annual BP energy review is a good place to start: http://www.bp.com/ multipleimagesection.do?categoryId=9017892&contentId=7033503 If you flick through the “compressed slide pack” the long term global trends are very obvious and all heading smoothly in the wrong direction - upwards. It would take WW3 to turn it around (in my humble opinion of course…)

A couple of years ago I began what turned out to be an interesting social experiment on a domestic scale. By making various changes to our household arrangments I have managed to cut our electricity consumption to 60% and our gas to 35% of where it was 2 years ago. My wife and children have absolutely no interest in climate change or energy, so this all had to be achieved without noticably impacting anyone’s lifestyle. Conclusion - a lot can be done, but I’m starting to feel like a mug and about to give up because the rest of the world refuse to take the issue on board and make the same level of effort. I see far less signs of this happening in the UK now than a couple of years ago.

(1) CO2 is a global warming (so-called greenhouse) gas. Established physical fact for at least 150 years now.

(2) More CO2, more warming. Established physical fact for at least 100 years now.

(3) CO2 increasing in the air. Established physcial fact for 50 years now.

http://www.realclimate.org/ index.php/ archives/ 2007/ 05/ start-here/

if you need to, and then read

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html

The whole thing. If you still have doubts, be sure yoou understand how science provides the best information about how the universe actually works, not how we might want it to. You might wish to begin with

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

After all that, I am sure that you and I can find another blog to mind-wrestle if you actually still think you know more about it than the hundreds of thousands of scientists who, as there career, study climate and related matters such as oceanography, etc.

I am not a Bushite global warming denier. I care greatly about CO2 emissions and despair of all the non-solutions that are toted round the internet. Sorry if Joe sees this as a threat to his book sales.

WordPress automatically holds any post for moderation with multiple links because such posts are more likely to be spam.

I was eating dinner and didn’t get to post it yet. Jeez.
And yes, I’ll accept an apology.

Patrick — you keep running the same long-debunked disinformation, and, as noted earlier, I’m not gonna waste my readers’ time with it.

My interest started with peak oil in2003, this spread to the wider (un)sustainability issue of our entire civilisation, which has been built on the basis of gobbling up global resources at an exponentially increasing rate with no thought wahtsoever for what happens when they run out. I have read books by Heinberg, Kunstler, Monbiot, Jared Diamind and others and follow sites such as http://www.energybulletin.net/ and http://www.theoildrum.com/

I have a particular interest in AGW and think the IPCC if anything are guilty of understating the case. My views are more in line with James Hansen http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/ The IPCC tend to understate the case because the positive feedbacks are not well understood and they cannot gain consensus without being conservative, whereas Hansen expects these feedbacks to accelerate the process and to cross irreversible tipping points as we do so.

Peak Oil has the greatest following in the US and I think this is because they realise they will be hardest hit and soonest. This is because they consume so much, import 2/3 of it and have a built an infrastructure that depends so heavily on it. My sympathy for the Peak Oil camp has diminished greatly because it is centred around the selfish needs of a particular segment of the current generation. Conversely AGW will chiefly affect future generations and the rich can buy their way out of the problem, at least for a while. This makes it a much easier problem for the US to ignore and deny.

At a personal level I have installed a wood burner so that we no longer require gas C/H, full wall and roof insulation, CFL’s throughout, clothes drying by line in summer and in front of the wood burner in winter, putting PCs in standby or off whenever possible. It is quite hard work but shows how much can be achieved fairly easily. My wife and I work from home so use cars very little and I work on my client’s systems (software development) remotely.

Joe - sorry. This was maybe an overreaction spawned from my experience on the BBC message boards where anyone who refuses to tow the party line has their posts instantly removed and their accounts cancelled!