The Prime Minister John Howard seems to get all the breaks. There was Tampa a couple of federal elections ago, then the terrorists bomb plot uncovered the day he introduced the IR legislation into parliament and now, the week the Prime Minister gets to host the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, science journal Nature publishes a paper attacking “one of Kyoto’s conceptual cores“.
Under Kyoto, trees are good. Forests count as a sink for carbon, with carbon credits for trading being available to those who plant forests in accordance with Kyoto rules.
But carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas, there are a few others including methane. Methane is about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a warming gas.
The new study led by Frank Keppler of the Max Planck Institute in Germany has found living plants emit methane and calculates that all the world’s living vegetation (forests included!) could emit between 62 and 236 million tonne of methane per year. This is apparently equivalent to between 10 and 30 per cent of all annual global emissions.
The finding is being hailed as an explanation as to why methane emissions had been reducing – by about 20 million tones a year during the 1990s. And I had been sure methane emissions were going up and up, click here for related blog piece with graph of atmospheric methane levels.
The reason methane levels are now thought to have been reducing during the 1990s is because we apparently cut down 12 per cent of the world’s tropical forests during that decade, click here.
How have global methane emission being trending over the last 5 years?
How does planting a forest compare with defrosting a Siberian swamp – in terms of adding methane to the atmosphere?
What are the implications for Kyoto participants if forests are a source rather than a sink for greenhouse gases?
Australia, a Kyoto dissident, is nevertheless on target to meet its Kyoto targets because it has banned broad scale trees clearing. But hang-on, maybe it will now be OK to clear regrowth?
So many questions!
I had avoided the issue of carbon trading and targets in the piece I recently wrote for the Courier-Mail about the the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, click here. It looks like the rules might have to be rewritten now anyway.
Imagine trees emitting methane! Who said the science was settled?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Remember that the clause to allow carbon sinks as a part of commitments was made at at some countries request and was contentious at the time.
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/03/154&format=HTML&aged=0&language=en&guiLanguage=en
“The proposal excludes nuclear projects in line with the Kyoto Protocol’s rules and “carbon sinks.” Carbon sinks – planting forests to soak up CO2 – have been a contentious issue at UN level because they do not bring technology transfer, they are inherently temporary and reversible, and uncertainty remains about the effects of emission removal by carbon sinks.
In addition, international negotiations on what types of forestry projects might be acceptable to governments have not yet been completed. ”
Another link for info is
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=973
Yep – it’s a jaw-drop doozey !
So puts the pressure back on energy and transport direct emission reductions.
(Of course if you don’t believe in AGW pls delete).
Strange logic.
Surely it means:
STOP GLOBAL WARMING: CHOP DOWN A TREE.
After all, there’s many more trees than cars.
Cathy
That’s what we like – people who jump on early science. No mass balance or assessment of relativities. Sigh.
cathy – presumably this methane is already accounted for in the carbon balance because for 8000 or so years the climate has been relatively stable, as has the methane level. Only recently has the levels increased due to human activity.
As is always reduce global warming, as we cannot stop it now, stop emitting greenhouse gas.
yeah, strong language jennifer. i’m not sure it ‘punches a hole’ in kyoto, given that the countries that are actually serious about kyoto didn’t want tree planting included as an option. Australia lobbied hard for that, and then didn’t even ratify! Way to take international negotiations seriously!
Jennifer, just had a read of your article. it is a newspaper opinion piece, so nobody really expects it to be objective, but… aren’t you all for evidence based objectivity?
Lets fisk your article:
J says: If kyoto fully implemented, it wouldn’t reduce emissions by much.
S says: this is an argument for kyoto targets to be progressively ramped up as much as anything else.
You know this, so why presnt this argument?
J says: 70% of emissions are not covered by kyoto, therefore kyoto is limited.
S says: this is a good argument for australia and the US to ratify, its not an argument for kyoto being a poor solution. You misrepresented this by only describing the ‘developing countries’ portion of that 70%, not the lions share which is the USA. An awful distortion that you should be ashamed of. most of that 70% is the USA, who could have ratified.
J says: countries are exempt for being developing.
S says: yes, true, as this was negotiated at the UNFCC an international negotiating table that the US and Aus were a part of. Kyoto does not preclude these countries being included after 2010. why not mention this? both sides of the debate for objectivity?
J says: its a discriminatory approach.
S says: yes it is. it discriminates the countries that have historically caused the problem and that are better placed to do something about it from the ones that probably have more important goals at present like providing power, food and clean water to their inhabitants. discrimination is not always a bad word.
J infers that britain is meeting its target because of nuclear power.
S says: i’m not sure that is true. it would only hold if a nuclear power station has been built in britain after 1990. are there any? The more likely reason for britain to be meeting their targets is that they have done a big switch from coal to gas over the last couple decades, and (less important) are greatly ramping up their use of wind energy.
J says that there is a nuclear rennaissance going on.
S says: there is a lot of talk about nuclear power, but i wouldn’t call it a rennaissance just yet. and i think it is also very misleading to lump nuclear fusion and nuclear fission in the same basket. many environmentalists who dislike fission might be ok with fusion.
J says: that one of the reasons why australia doesn’t have nuclear is perhaps because of the power of our environmental groups.
S says: it was, again, an awful distortion to mention this reason, without giving the main reason why we dont have nuclear: we have lots of coal, and the electricity coming out of a nuclear power station would be twice as expensive!!!
J says: there is a clear belief in science and technology with AP6
S says: there is a clear belief in science and technology with kyoto. AP6 doesn’t have a monopoly on the technology-based approach. rather, they have a monopoly on the expensive, unproven, risky approaches like geosequestration and nuclear fusion. why don’t they let all technologies compete without favouritism? WHY DONT THEY SUPPORT THE WHOLE ECONOMY INSTEAD OF JUST THE COAL INDUSTRY!!!??
J says: we can perhaps agree that there is a need for a new approach.
S says: australia and the US have created a self-fulfilling need by refusing to ratify kyoto. we are the ones that render kyoto less effective, we are the ones creating uncertainty, we are the ones hurting investment so that we can protect our coal buddies.
All in all, a biased, distorting and not particularly objective article jennifer. why didn’t you mention emissions trading, which supports new technologies without bias and is surely a particularly important facet of this discussion? Surely such an approach is in keeping with the IPA’s free market philosophy. the the IPA is also heavily funded by the australian coal industry, so it must be very difficult for you.
My reading tells me that Kyoto does little for diminishment of warming except move the curve back a few years. I’m not saying Kyoto type targets aren’t a reasonable way to go – it’s not inclusive enough among nations and doesn’t go far enough. Far enough would start to eat into quality of life. People wouldn’t buy it unless confronted with some major climate shift – even then we’d all argue if this blog is anything to go by.
I don’t see nuclear fusion as dangerous so much perhaps not technologically possible. Will it break even? Will it be economic?
Leaves solar, wind and nuclear fission.
Or develop the coal and we’ll all adapt to what may. Sequestration underground of CO2 emissions is also unproven.
you are sounding increasingly cynical phil 🙂 maybe you need a holiday from this blog.
Steve – not cynical – just that there are no easy options and a very unreceptive market I suspect. Grand challenge problems scientifically and socially. But thanks for exit strategy from blog – thresholding.
The most significant contributor to the greenhouse effect is water vapour. Extending Cathy’s brilliant logic, after we’ve chopped down all of the trees, we should put all of the water into rockets and shoot it into outer space. Although lowering the water level in dams may contribute to further methane emissions from rotting vegetation so we’d better give a little more thought… oh I know, we’ll shoot the dead trees into outer space too.
Jennifer asked: “Who said the science was settled?”
No-one, well no-one who considers the science involved. The only fixed, certain position is the denial of the climate disruption naysayers. Scientists generally acknowledge that we’re meddling with extremely complicated dynamics that the earth had in balance but that we can’t even model accurately on a computer let alone mitigate through the development of pie-in-the-sky technologies.
If you want to probe mysteries, let’s also wonder where all the CO2 goes. We don’t know!!
More CO2 is produced than can be accounted for in the global balance sheets of climate and mineral cycles. Some suspect that it’s being absorbed by the oceans. At least they’ve just realised that the oceans are absorbing more CO2 and becoming more acidic as a result = bad news for all the marine creatures with exoskeletons (many of which support the marine foodchains, fish stocks and the whales whom you consider not be vulnerable to extinction).
The tree-planting exercises have become a substitute for GHG reductions (and as such, have been criticised from day 1). If you’re recommending that instead, governments and businesses co-operate to develop sustainable, renewable fossil fuel substitutes and end peverse subsidies ($2 billion annually of Austn taxes to subsidise fossil fuels) then you’re on to something! Ending these subsidies would create a freer market and foster the development of renewables.
A lot of people have said the debate is over, including our environment minister and Bill Clinton.
I’m disturbed to hear that the fossil fuel industry is subsidised. Do you have any more information? Personally, I’m against subsidising fuel. I’ve heard farmers used to get a diesel rebate, is that what you are talking about?
Paul – currently approx 2 billion dollars in paid out in the diesel fuel rebate scheme.
http://www.ccsa.asn.au/nic/SustDev/diesel.htm
But isn’t a rebate just another way of not taxing fuel as much? It’s not really a subsidy taken from general taxation. In fact petrol and diesel are heavily taxed for most of us.
I would question the statement that fossil fuel users are subsidised, in the sense they are paid by the government so that they don’t pay the full price of their fuel. I may well be wrong, of course.
Are renewable energy sources taxed. or do they receive actual subsidies?
further to this (FYI Paul W), the govt requested enquiry into the of reducing greenhouse gas emissions looked only at the costs involved and ignored the potential savings that would come from efforts to reduce energy consumpation. The cost savings of improved efficiency are expected to exceed the costs, however the govt study ignored (and subsequently admitted to ignoring) the potential, signficant savings and market lead that could result. (I can look up the references on this for you if you want me too).
The downer about this, aside from GHG emissions, is that by encouraging investments in genuinely renewable technologies, the govt could help aust emerge as an energy leader and exporter rather than a follower and importer. Whether or not you/we believe in climate disruption, fossil fuels have a finite lifespan and will become more expensive, so we should prepare for the change.
Irrespective of US govt policy, there are lots of innovative investors in the US sinking $$ into development of all kinds of renewable technologies. Aust is making some reasonable efforts, but it’s behind and it doesnt need to be. Austn engineers and scientists are incredibly resourceful and the govt should be capitalising on that rather than subsidising energy from dinosaurs.
I’m interested in your statement that fossil fuels receive $2 billion subsidy a year. I am not sure it is correct.
rebate or tax – they’re just alternative financial instruments (altho the distinction can be important). If it’s a subsidy (ie reducing the price below cost) as it is, then the money to fund the rebate has to come from somewhere (taxes). And Austn taxes on fuel are among the lowest in the world.
the govt has set aside (from memory) a couople of million bucks over several years to fund the development of renewable technologies, but much of this is directed toward technologies like ‘cleaner coal’ processes which is a bit of a dead end ultimately & not going to help us emerge as a leader
the CSIRO is doing some important stuff tho
The biggest coal miners in Oz are the state governments
Not to be pedantic, but I understand a subsidy to be money paid to offset the cost of buying or developing something, whereas a rebate is a return of money you’ve already paid, in this case tax.
I’m sorry, but I couldn’t understand what you were saying in your reply above.
2 Definition of Subsidies
2.1 Summary of Recent Definitions
Subsidies comprise all measures that keep prices for consumers below market level or keep prices for producers above market level or that reduce costs for consumers and producers by giving direct or indirect support.
This is essentially the same as the definition used by the IEA (UNEP and IEA, 2002). More specifically, energy subsidies are defined by the IEA as:
any government action that concerns primarily the energy sector that lowers the cost of energy production, raises the price received by energy producers or lowers the price paid by energy consumers (UNEP and IEA, 2002, p.9).
Fossil fuel subsidies can then be defined as any government action, concerning primarily the energy sector, that lowers the cost of fossil fuel production, raises the price received by fossil fuel producers or lowers the price paid by fossil fuel consumers.
(rest to follow)
Are you saying that if fuel is taxed less heavily, then it’s subsidised?
quote above and below comes from Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS, January, 2003 working paper “Subsidies that Encourage Fossil Fuel Use in Australia” CR2003/01. (This is more up to date than the original source of the $2bn figure).
1.2 Previous Work on Subsidies in Australia (this is where the $2bn figure has come from)
In November 2000, the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee released the final report of its inquiry into Australia’s response to global warming (ECITA References Committee, 2000). The report estimated direct fossil fuel subsidies at $2 billion per year, referring to NIEIR’s earlier work, but found an additional $4 billion in indirect subsidies such as tax incentives, startup grants, preferential purchasing agreements for oil, and biased market structures (ECITA References Committee, 2000, p.xxxvi).
10 Summary of Subsidies
the total magnitude of identified subsidies is about $8.9 billion. Figure 2 shows the proportion of the identified subsidies that support each fossil fuel. By far the majority of the identified subsidies (93%) support production or consumption of oil or petroleum products. Support for coal is only 4% of the total and support for natural gas is 3% of the total. Figure 3 shows that there is a similar dominance of fossil fuel consumption subsidies over fossil fuel production subsidies. Consumption subsidies make up 94% of the total.
It is clear from these figures that subsidies for consumption of petroleum products, mainly for road transport, are dominant in Australia. As with most developed countries, direct subsidies to coal have largely been removed. Subsidies to natural gas are relatively small, but may grow as the share of natural gas in the fuel mix continues to grow.
The proportion of the total fossil fuel subsidies in each of the categories defined in Section 4 is shown in Figure 4. Of the total identified fossil fuel subsidies, just under 9% are greenhouse friendly as they actually reduce net GHG emissions from production and consumption of fossil fuel. The remaining 91% are greenhouse negative. About 34% of the total subsidies are greenhouse negative, but not perverse. About 58% of the total subsidies are perverse – both greenhouse negative and economically inefficient.
caution: pdf may be slow to load http://www.isf.uts.edu.au/publications/CR_2003_paper.pdf
(note that the diesel fuel rebate scheme was not classified as a financial subsidy or incentive for fossil fuel use in either the earlier NIEIR or this later report but said it needed addressing via other programmes)
Gidday Ender, Re your post 12 Jan where you say, “for 8000 or so years the climate has been relatively stable”.
You seem to be conveniently forgetting the Little Ice Age, Medieval Warm Period, the Dark Ages were cooler, then before that the Roman Empire thrived in the warmer part of the cycle. The is evidence of earlier cyclic climate changes going back in your 8000 years.
Readers should not forget that prior to your 8000 years earth went through at least four ice ages over a million years or so. Just some little issues of ice sheets a few km thick over where large populations now live.
Do you think the fifth ice age has been cancelled ?
Ender, it is misinformation to suggest that pre-industrialisation there was some stable climate.
Paul,
The Australian Diesel fuel rebate scheme works as follows:
We submit details of diesel purchased (litres and cost per litre) to a section of the Australian Taxation Office. Invoice numbers and supplier must be quoted. The tax paid is reimbursed directly to our bank account.
This reimburesement of tax paid – on diesel only – is available for primary production, fishing, and mining. It is not available for the transport industries or for general manufacturing or businesses.
It is a reimbursement on tax paid, but only on diesel, and only for specific industries.
Steve
1. Many sincere thanks for the constructive criticism of my piece in the courier. I was particulary interested in your comments re. why Britain is meeting its targets.
2. I was wondering if you might do a ‘guest post’ for this blog on who is, and isn’t, meeting Kyoto targets and why? Also how successful or otherwise has trading been in the UK?
Thanks again,
Paul:
an update on a minor detail.
The Diesel Fuel Rebate Scheme is no longer called that. It is called the Energy Grants Credits Scheme. Exactly the same thing, with a different name. Talk about give a dog a bad name and it will have to learn to answer! Putting Grants and Credits in the name does mislead, doesnt it? And makes it so much easier to attack.
Atmosphere methane Levels can go up while rate of growth goes down…
is my response to Jen’s earlier comment, which was:
—–“The finding is being hailed as an explanation as to ##why methane emissions had been reducing## – by about 20 million tones a year during the 1990s. And I had been sure methane emissions were going up and up, click here for related blog piece with graph of atmospheric methane levels.”————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Your comment Jen seems a bit confusing – or points to a confusion but after reading through David Lowes commentary it is clarified for me by keeping separate three related but distinct concepts,
A “global rate of growth on atmospheric methane”
B. ” global level of methane”.
and C. “Global methane emmissions”.
A is going down, B is going up and C may be going up or down.——————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
see:
NATURE|Vol 439|12 January 2006, p148
A green source of surprise
David C. Lowe Living terrestrial vegetation emits large amounts of methane into the
atmosphere. This unexpected finding, if confirmed, will have an impact
on both greenhouse-gas accounting and research into sources of methane.
QUOTE
Meanwhile, Keppler and colleagues’ finding1 helps to account for observations from space of inexplicably large plumes of methane
above tropical forests3. They may also explain the current puzzling ###decrease in the global growth rate of atmospheric methane4,5. Deforestation has led to a dramatic
reduction in the Earth’s tropical forested area (more than 12% between 1990 and 2000)1. Keppler et al. calculate a corresponding ###decrease in methane emissions from tropical plants of between 6 million and 20 million tonnes over the same period. During that decade, the rate of methane accumulation in the atmosphere slowed by about 20 million tonnes per year, suggesting that tropical deforestation may have contributed to the decrease.
Regarding the UK total energy source, the primary source is fossil fuels.
“– Coal. Ample coal supplies exist so coal will probably remain relatively cheap. A price increase of only $10/tonne could effectively double the world’s economic coal reserves. Maintaining the UK’s coal-based generating capacity would therefore augment both diversity and security of electricity supply. Long term, coal can be used as a chemical source for methane, hydrogen, and liquid fuels when conversion becomes economic.”
“Large-scale renewables, specifically wind, bioenergy, and some marine energies, potentially could meet 15% of current UK demand by 2020, rising to 35-40% by 2050, if the newer technologies could be successfully developed and deployed, the report revealed.
Incentives for development and demand remain necessary, however, and the government would have to improve current measures.”
http://ogj.pennnet.com/articles/article_display.cfm?Section=ONART&C=GenIn&ARTICLE_ID=245386&p=7
Warwick – In the current interglacial period of 8000 years or so the civilisation that we are a part of has flourished. Humans had a hard time in the previous million years at one time perhaps falling to 20 000 individuals. In the normal course of events of orbital cycles the next ice age is about 4000 or so years away on a quite gentle downslope allowing adaption.
What we are doing now is pumping the climate with extra energy that could distrupt this.
If it is misinformation to suggest that the past climate has been RELATIVELY stable then to suggest that the MWP and now this new Roman WP were warmer that today with no physical evidence to back it up is worse.
rog – the mantra seems to be that there are ample coal supplies however our voracious demand and small growth can overwhelm and reserve.
If large scale coal to liquids, to make up for depleting oil reserves, is implemented along with increases in coal power generation the 1000 billion tons URR could peak in about 40 years.
I did a basic analysis of this:
http://stevegloor.typepad.com/sgloor/2005/12/coal_reserves.html
Ender
How did you arrive at 20,000 or so human beings during the previous 1 million years ago?
And they are NOT Fossil Fuels! Unless you greenies have worked out how to violate the 2nd Law of thermodynamics.
Louis – I will have to check my reference as I so not have the book with me.
I think you know about as much of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as you do about greenhouse warming.
Louis – I found a reference
http://www.earthportals.com/extinct.html
“At the end of a severe ice age, about 65,000 years ago, it has been argued that there were only about 10,000 individuals who managed to make it through the tough times. By 50,000 years ago, as a result of good climates and fortuitous migrations, the survivors had precipitated population mini-explosions all around the planet (2).”
Thinking Objectively – Thanks for the reference, I haven’t had time to read all of it yet. I’ve got about half way so far’
I’m not an economist, so my opinion carries little weight, but it seems the paper is partly defining a subsidy as a reduction in tax. Which may be fine for people in that field, but for lay people such as me, well, it’s not what I think of as a subsidy.
Also, in 5.3, I would hardly classify deduction of operating costs from taxable income as a subsidy, more like normal business practice. I may have misunderstood what they meant.
I wonder if Ian Castles would be kind enough to comment on this?
Thanks, Helen. Yes, what’s in a name? A grant or a subsidy sounds more like extra income, whereas a rebate is getting a bit of your own money back. Still, it all goes into general revenue these days, so the pollies probably don’t understand the difference.
I didnt know there were humans 1 million years ago, humans are not related to the neanderthals.
rog – no there weren’t however we appeared closer this end of the million years about 100 000 years ago.
What this paper does show is that methane would have been in much higher quantities prio to deforrestation yet there is no corresponding climatic warming which begs the question, if the presence of the GHG methane made no difference to the climate what difference do other GHG make? (I can hear p.done scurrying of to real climate for direction and affirmation)
Arrkkk .. Rog is a ninny Rog is a ninny .. .. Arrkkkk! Polly want a piece of 4×2 .. .. Arrkkk ! Oh boy. Oh boy . Arrkk. Free kick, Free kick Arrkkk,
Just when I thought you were improving too (sigh)
Coz numb chumps they add up the global mwarming potential of the greenhousse gas species to CO2 equivalents. (CO2, CH4, NOx etc). You have to work out the total forcing from GHGs, which is done for modelling purposes. Anyway the GCM jockeys seem to have been able to reproduce the temperature trend for the century given the respective solar, volcanic and GHG forcings. Actauls temperatures are up globally – my usual list terrestrial, ocean, satellites, glaciers, Artic, species etc (snore).
http://www.realclimate.org (RC) actually broke the news on methane immediately – I suggest you subscribe Rog on their handy email list thingy, so you can keep up. I don’t know why you guys don’t check there for the obvious answer to most of your agrumnets first before posting. Anyway on methane, a frank discussion by RC but also cautioned that it’s still early days and this is “breaking’ news subject to further work and confirmation. Very interesting nonetheless.
And thanks for this opportunity to discuss pension day too. We’re just responding to Louis after many many utterly disgraceful posts on his own CLOSED blog where he will say almost anything from mild winging it and delusiuon, to utter utter twaddle.
Ender and I have engaged him on
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=25 and
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=26. A good discussion on the nature of what greenhouse actually is as he has no clue at all. Warwick to his credit has also attacted some intelligent (besides myself and Ender of course) discussion participants and is apparently open for other views (impressive).
Given Louis’ feeble response and lack of retraction he almost goes into the charlatan class for his loopyworld outbursts of C-grade science fiction and fantasy. We’ve let him off though as someone has told me it’s actually a comedy site and not meant to be taken seriously.
Phil, you say that your posts are substantive then demand they be countered. A fallacious argument if I ever heard one.
Real Climate says “Scientists baffled!” Breaking news?
Obviously you are not a scientist!
He’s been corrected but has not desisted. Obviously not a professional nor a scholar.
What’s your point about RC? Are you worried about “real” scientists being baffled. There’s lots of baffling things – like the mass of the Higg’s boson for example. Google that !
rog – “A fallacious argument if I ever heard one”
Which one – try to find it here http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/
Nowhere there is backing up arguments with accurate scientific data.
Paul Williams,
further to Helen’s explation of the workings of the energy grants credits scheme, I would briefly like to point out the rationale behind it.
Excise on fuel was introduced as a tax on road users to fund new projects and maintenance of existing roads.
The energy grants credits scheme (fomerly the more honestly titled Off Road Diesel Fuel Rebate scheme)was introduced to rebate that excise to those industries that use diesel off road.This, as Helen pointed out, includes earthmoving, mining, fisheries, forestry, nursing homes and hospitals(for heating) etc as well as agriculture.
I realize this is off topic, but it’s a real bugbear of mine to be constantly told by the “city folk” that farmers receive subsidised fuel.
Ender, Phil Dones arguments are fallacious in that his argument is that his case must be argued against and anybody who fails to do so has lost.
For instance P Done says ” Your failure to address my substantive points above and your ongoing utterly preposterous comments about climate on your closed blog puts you in the class of charlatans and sophists.”
He also likes to use the “appeals to authority” trick eg “Please read the RC url I have provided – it is well written and non-emotive”
Unlike P Done who is always emotive.
Rog
This is the standard debating technique of the Greens etc – they make a sensational allegation insisting it is true but require their critics to disprove them, rather than they substantiate their allegation with facts.
This methane business has really stirred the apple cart – since now assumptions of previous climate states also now are incomplete.
Aw Rog – what utter tripe. I have made an extremely good arguments against Louis’s arrant nonsense. And it is arrant nonsense. Ask your local uni physics lecturer. Ask your horse.
So forget Philosophy 101. No authority at all – it’s a well written and logically argued URL. I could have cause para-phrased it by why bother.
I am not saying something like “look bloody hell “Plimer wrote this” and he’s a famous person so it must be true”. That’s an appeal to authority. I’m saying the RC posts I draw your attention to are informative and are referenced. Feel free to comment – many do.
Failure to address my reasonable concerns IMHO consign you guys to the class of charlatans, rapscallions, bounders, cads, and sophists. Unless of course it’s a comedy site and the joke is on us for falling for it.
And you’re also a bit naughty and need a smack.
AND – furthermore I AM NOT EMOTIVE. NOT. NOT. NOT. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The following comment, received via email made me smile:
“Reading this Fin Times Comment in Bernie Pieser’s newsletter on the plant methane discovery:
Sceptics of the Kyoto protocol will seize on the findings as evidence of the need for caution before instituting counter-measures. Environmentalists, sensing a backlash from the research, are already insisting that the findings are preliminary and should not detract from scientists’ consensus view that global warming is a genuine threat.
I suddendly realised that, if one were to apply the “Precautionary Principle” here,
uncertainty about the science cannot be used as a reason for discounting the plant methane “threat”!
end of quote
Cut down the trees, save the environment
For all those who don’t know what the Kyoto Protocol is, why not stupids? Just kidding, I had to look it up.
“The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement under which industrialized countries will reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gas…
JENNIFER, which scientists are trying to discount the plant methane “effect”? Pointing out that the findings are preliminary is not the same as discounting them.
As Phil pointed out above, “www.realclimate.org (RC) actually broke the news on methane immediately”. If anything, this shows that the professional scientists who are focused on anthropogenically forced climate chnage are openly engaging in objective and cautious science.
What specific action (or non-action) do you recommend instead?
Do not forget the albedo effects, clearing trees increases short wave albedo (surface is more refelctive), is 100 years of increased shortwave albedo > long wave absorbtion by the CO2 emitted by clearing in terms of energy absorbed by the earth system using a 100+ year integration period (say 200t of CO2 /ha emitted from a clearing event). Emitted CO2 into the atmosphere should be largely sunk (into the deep oceans/ carbonates) by 100 years as I understand it.