Comments on: Why did Nature run Pielke’s pointless, misleading, embarrassing nonsense?

By: Tenney Naumer

Tenney Naumer — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 05:27:53 +0000

Dear Joe,

Thank you so much for taking the time to deconstruct Pielke’s essay. Reading this has given me the motivation to continue with my own deconstruction of Bush’s “speech.”

Tenney Naumer

By: Alex Smith

Alex Smith — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:50:24 +0000

“Given that history, it is amazing that Pielke can turn around now and with a straight face argue that the recommendations of the IPCC and activists weren’t radical enough…”

John, you and Joe hit it right on. I’ve seen plenty of these conversions, where climate deniers suddenly switch to climate alarmists, without any admission of being wrong.

All of you would enjoy Thomas Homer-Dixon’s latest speech, which basically says the IPCC report is out-dated, by more recent science. He describes a cabal of scientists so worried, that geo-engineering is back on the table – again, we go straight to re-polluting the sky, like the Chinese, but this time to save the Arctic Ice. Pielke is right in on that, too, I think.

Homer-Dixon’s speech, plus an interview with ocean climate modeler Andreas Schmittner, is in the Radio Ecoshock Show for April 4th.

http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080404_Show.mp3

That program is one hour long, 56 megabytes to download.

We live in exciting times – I personally expect changes this century beyond the comprehension of all past human history.

Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock
http://www.ecoshock.org

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:37:29 +0000

Nathan — It doesn’t have to. But it seems to be for them.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:31:32 +0000

Joe:

Why does a long term R&D investment have to be at odds with an aggressive deployment of existing technologies? I don’t see how Pielke is advocating for a delay of action. He is simply stating the full scale of the problem.

By: Michael Hoexter

Michael Hoexter — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:44:09 +0000

The most critical argument is not between a passive “let the market roll out the technologies with carbon price” and “long-term R&D spending”: the most relevant argument is between “how much money do we need to spend to roll out existing and emerging technologies” and “how much money do we need to spend on long-term R&D spending”.

In and of itself the politically acceptable carbon prices will not do the trick fast enough, so we need feed-in tariffs that temporarily raise the premium paid for clean electricity ABOVE the carbon price. This will yield manufacturing economies of scale for these technologies.

Tariff should also be raised for clean storage technologies that will help renewables replace fossil generation sooner. Temporarily raising these tariffs will help these emerging technologies through “the Valley of Death”.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:17:18 +0000

I’m tired of calls for more R&D. I can’t count the number of technologies I come across daily that are off-the-shelf, have decent payback, and make a serious dent in emissions by either improving energy efficiency or reducing energy requirements. Based on what I’ve seen in Canada, our universities and startups up humming with R&D, but we’re seriously lacking demonstration and deployment, and programs that assist large-scale deployment in industries that stand to benefit in the long run. It’s a sad situation, and I don’t think government gets this. Articles like the one in Nature put too much emphasis on human ingenuity, like some silver bullet is going to come along and save the day if we simply throw more dollars into R&D. It’s simply foolish.

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:14:03 +0000

John:

Precisely. What also bugs me is that they’re saying the problem is tougher than the IPCC says, but then recommending long-term R&D.

By: John

John — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:10:13 +0000

Joe’s vehemence over this Pielke paper, I think, comes from the fact that unlike some of the commenters here, he is looking at it in the context of Pielke’s past work. In many of his previous writings, Pielke (like other delayers/deniers/skeptics) has worked to convey the messages that global warming might not be the crisis that the IPCC report suggested. His criticisms of global warming activism have tended to be that their recommendations might be too extreme, and so more scrutiny was required. Given that history, it is amazing that Pielke can turn around now and with a straight face argue that the recommendations of the IPCC and activists weren’t radical enough.

It’s the height of irony for skeptics to argue that the IPCC wasn’t alarmist enough on global warming. And it’s the depth of perversity for them to even imply that because global warming is so bad, we shouldn’t bother with the efficiency and decarbonization measures we can actually take now.

By: pmagn

pmagn — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:39:03 +0000

Will there be a 2C rise in the future ? very very likely! Even with a war like effort.
What needs to be done…
1) we have to strive for zero/negative CO2 emissions.
2) we have to start ramping up planning and instigating of the adaption to the changes, both physically and politically.

Also looks like we are also lining up for a recession/depression in the next couple of years.

Life as we know it is going to be brutal in the next 10-30yrs. I can see democracy stepping aside – it wont survive GW much longer. Hopefully we will be able to come full circle.

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:16:42 +0000

Jesse:
Hoffert isn’t Pielke. I mostly like Hoffert’s stuff, though he doesn’t get energy efficiency and he favor pie-in-the-sky stuff (space solar) that ain’t the solution.

Pielke is a “new technology” and “adapt” guy. I’m a “desperately deploy as much existing technology as is humanly possible because ‘adaptation’ is mostly a cruel hoax” guy.

Bud — thanks. Fixed.