I am concerned about increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from the burning of fossil fuels. And I am concerned by the many reports in the media about how increasing carbon dioxide levels will drive global warming and that this will harm the environment. Some reports go as far as to suggest that global warming will result in the end of civilization as we know it.
The United Nations is so concerned that it has established the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC is recognized as a group of scientists from around the world, working to better understand the potential impact of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels on climate and also to the extent possible, to predict future climate.
Obviously central to the work of this group will be predicting future levels of carbon dioxide – because it is assumed that climate will change depending on the atmospheric carbon dioxide level.
Future levels of carbon dioxide will depend on how much fossil fuel we burn, which in turn will depend on how much energy we use – particularly in developing countries with very large populations like India.
Economists, and others interested in the global economy, will also be predicting how much energy different economies are likely to use – because energy use powers economic development.
Large businesses that rely on energy, and most do, will be interested to know what sources of energy might be available in 10, 20 and 50 years time. They won’t want to be investing now in technologies that may be obsolete in a few years time because we have, for example, run out of oil or because, for example, solar energy becomes much more affordable.
So there should be lots of information available to the IPCC group from which to estimate future atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.
But in the following comment Ian Castles argues that most experts would consider the IPCC’s more alarming predictions to be exaggerated, and that the Panel has failed to consider possibilities that would result in much slower growth in carbon dioxide concentrations.
Ian also criticises climate scientists for putting out media releases that present a more alarming outlook than their own worst scenarios can generate.
It seems that the IPCC and its supporters just have to preach doom and gloom – not what you would expect from a group of scientists.
Ian Castles was responding to a comment and blog post from Phil Done when he wrote:
“Phil,
My objection is not to the paper in Nature or to the efforts of the Oxford team to estimate climate sensitivity. If they’d labelled the co-operative exercise climatesensitivity.net and reported accordingly I would have had no concerns. But their press statement of 27 January 2005 represents the 11 deg. C as a PREDICTION of the increase in actual future temperatures which could occur with a doubling of pre-industrial CO2 concentrations, which according to them is EXPECTED around the middle of this century unless deep cuts are made in greenhouse gas emissions (EMPHASIS added).
This is nonsense.
Projected increases in fossil fuel CO2 emissions between 2000 and 2050 for the six illustrative SRES scenarios for which information is presented in the TAR are: A1B, 132%; A1T, 78%; A1FI, 235%; A2, 139%; B1, 70%; and B2, 63%. Yet for the reference cases only one of these six scenarios (A1FI) projects a doubling of CO2 concentrations from the pre-industrial level of around 280 ppm by 2050: see the details in Appendix II of the IPCC Working Group Contribution to the Third
Assessment Report at http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/531.htm.If the IPCCs models show CO2 concentrations still below twice the pre-industrial levels in 2050 after growth in fossil fuel CO2 emissions of up to 140% in the first half of the 21st century, why do these scientists claim that deep cuts must be made in order to achieve such an outcome? If they knew what the IPCC findings were, they have misrepresented those findings in their press statement. If they didn’t know, they were remarkably poorly informed for people who are holding themselves out as experts on the prospective change in the world’s climate.
In an earlier posting you asked me whether the range of CO2 emissions is fully covered by the IPCC scenarios. No it’s not. So far as the short-run is concerned, I’ve drawn attention to Warwick McKibbins observation that the IPCC modellers have a methodological approach which effectively means that increases in assumed growth rates dont make any difference to emissions. Its a pity the framers of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change hadnt realised this. They agreed that developing countries ought not to be subject to emissions targets, because of their legitimate desire to increase energy use and raise the living standards of their people. But if emissions arent affected by the rate of growth of output, why would there be any conflict between the need to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change and the need of poor countries to develop?
Whether its because of the high growth rates assumed in most of the SRES scenarios or for some other reason, the growth in CO2 emissions of developing countries in these scenarios is much higher in coming decades than in most other projections. Between 2000 and 2030, this growth exceeds 170% for all but one of the six illustrative scenarios (the B2 scenario, for which the growth is almost 100%). In four of the six scenarios developed by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the World Energy Council (WEC), and published in 1998 as Global energy perspectives, the growth in CO2 emissions of developing countries was lower than in any of these scenarios. What happened between 1998 and 2000 to raise prospective emissions, other than the interest of developing countries in seeing high rates of growth written into the scenarios produced for the IPCC?
So far as the long-run is concerned, all IPCC emissions scenarios disregard entirely what the SRES Team described as ‘factors that may be relevant but are as essentially unknown to us as jet airplanes were to Thomas Malthus or 3-D seismic techniques in oil exploration were to John D Rockefeller.’
They ignore the implications for emissions of technologies that are not yet demonstrated to function on a prototype scale (SRES, Box 4-9, p. 216).
The SRES authors recognise that by 2100 we could have hydrogen-powered fuel cell cars that could generate electricity when parked, dispensing entirely the need for centralized power plants and utilities’ (SRES, p. 217) – but none of the emissions projections seem consistent with such a possibility.
Even the lowest of the SRES projections assumes that fossil fuel CO2 emissions in the second half of the century will on average be comparable with 1990 levels. Why? Chakravorty et al (1997) found that if the price of solar energy maintained its recent rate of decrease there would be a massive substitution of fossil fuels by solar energy, beginning in the 2030s and ending in the 2060s, with 98.5% of all coal reserves never being used because solar power had become cheaper (quoted in Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist, p. 286).
In that case, fossil CO2 emissions in the closing decades of the century could be nil.
This is not to say that such a development is probable. But its canvassed in a paper published in a leading peer reviewed journal (Journal of Political Economy, 105(6): 1, 201-34), so it’s part of the range that should have been (but isn’t) covered by the IPCC scenarios.
There is no reference to Chakravorty et al in the IPCC reports.
With respect to ABARE, the Chairman of the IPCC, Dr Pachauri, said in his Note on Emissions Scenarios for use by the IPCC (submitted to the IPCC plenary meeting in Delhi in November 2003) that he was in contact with relevant groups, such as the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) concerning possible [focused meetings and workshops on emissions scenarios] that are likely to be held in 2004. Hom Pant and Brian Fisher of ABARE subsequently (February 2004) presented a paper to a Stanford Energy Modeling Forum (EMF) workshop in which they said that The use of MER by IPCC remains valid and the critique by Castles and Henderson cannot be sustained. Later in 2004 Brian Fisher was selected by the IPCC as Coordinating Lead Author of the Chapter that is to review the criticisms of the SRES.
The EMF paper was published by ABARE, but so far as I know it has not been peer-reviewed. Barrie Pittock cites the assessment of Castles and Henderson in the Pant & Fisher paper in the Notes to his book (to which Rajendra Pachauri has contributed a laudatory Foreword), but he does not mention the contrary views that have been expressed by (among others) Professors William Nordhaus of Yale, Partha Dasgupta of Cambridge, Colin Robinson of Surrey, Warwick McKibbin of the ANU and Peter Dixon of Monash.
In 1995 the Australian learned Academies, led by the Academy of the Technological Sciences and Engineering, said in a joint study that Australia is fortunate in having developed a range of economic modelling approaches that enjoy high respect in the international discipline of climate change economics (Climate Change Science: Current Understanding and Uncertainties, p. 80). Three modelling approaches were identified in the joint Academies study: those associated with Warwick McKibbin at ANU, Alan Powell and Peter Dixon at Monash, and Brian Fisher at ABARE.
In the past year or two, the principals of two of those groups (Warwick McKibbin and Peter Dixon) have given support to the Castles & Henderson criticisms of the IPCC in papers (co-authored with other experts) which have been presented at conferences and subsequently published in the literature. The principal of the third group (Brian Fisher) has said that our critique cannot be sustained, in a co-authored conference paper which has been published by the agency of which he is Director.
It is not only because of my personal interest in the matter that I have the view that it is an unhealthy state of affairs that the IPCC, upon which governments rely for objective advice, has selected two Coordinating Lead Authors of the AR4 Chapter that is to review criticisms of the SRES – the Coordinating Lead Author of the SRES, and an Australian economist who had publicly criticised the C&H critique, and who was the Head of one of only two agencies whom the IPCC Chairman had identified as having been in contact with, on the subject of a meeting on emissions scenarios.
Finally, I haven’t said that economists were shut out of the IPCC. I’ve noted that, notwithstanding my advice that national accounts statisticians were keen to assist the IPCC, none was selected for the writing teams or consulted as an expert. And I’ve quoted Ross McKitrick’s statement that the IPCC ‘appears to have little or no working relationship with the mainstream academic economics community.’
If anything, that judgment appears to me to be confirmed by the IPCC’s selection of an Australian government economist rather than an Australian academic economist for the AR4 writing team.
Ian Castles.
A couple of days ago I was sent a link to a piece written a few years ago by Joseph Kellard that perhaps put this sorry saga in some context.
Kellard was commenting on Professor Paul Ehrlich being awarded the MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant based on a career of exaggerated, apocalyptic predictions that never came true.
Kellard concluded that this happened because of a reversion in our culture to various forms of supernaturalism:
“Our culture is increasingly dispensing with objective reality and reason … environmentalism is a pseudo-science that must therefore engender faith… environmentalist doomsayers are a logical outgrowth of religious apocalyptics, and their believers are just another sect of mystics.”
Does this go some way to answering the question Phil Done poses at the end of his guest post on BOINC?
He did ask, is BOINCing a new western ideology?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jen – isn’t this a bit long ? What happened to the new rules ?
Anyway my answers are on the last thread. Essentially what the press say is one thing. Don’t worry about “the end of civilisation” as the next day they’ll run an article saying it’s all nonsense. They run hot and cold. Some media outlets are against – some are pro. Blogs like RC, Stoat and James Annan get up anything that’s not right including doomsday stuff.
We’ve been over the MER/PPP ad nauseum – the climate scientists disagree and think they have the range of stabilisation scenarios covered and IPCC looked at the argument and decided it doesn’t matter in the final wash. Ian disagrees as is his right.
However – the role of exploring GCM parameter space and high end scenarios is still a reasonable scientific exercise (it ain’t all over) and the IPCC TAR isn’t the absolute last word on everything. All discussed on previous thread. Indeed some of us may be surprised how much movement we have for such little CO2.
And let’s differentiate between what the media report and what the science is saying !
Read the TAR – pretty droll cautious stuff.
Jen – think your title is outrageous (IMHO of course) – would look good in the Courier Mail page 3.
And for all the doomsday stuff – looks like the doom merchants have been howling at the moon. In reality what’s changed ? Lights are still on – we’re all still installing air-cons at pace, driving and flying here and there. Coal is still going well. Doesn’t look like anyone is too worried to me.
Phil,
1. Yes, far too long. I cut Ian Mott’s guest post ( http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001227.html )by a few paragraphs and it was perhaps only a bit long. But I simply couldn’t see how to do it to this one – I could only see how to add to it.
2. I don’t buy your argument, at least inferred that it is the media not the IPCC scientists that exaggerated. IPCC scientists have repeatedly disgraced themselves by exaggarating unashamably (e.g. http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/landsea.html ). But almost everyone turns a blind eye because its what people seem to want to hear and not many scientists seem to care that much about facts anymore.
3. Nice piece in today’s Sydney Morning Herald about ‘green pretenders’ and their disregard for facts, see http://smh.com.au/news/opinion/no-facts-in-the-bags-of-green-pretenders/2006/03/03/1141191845939.html .
Gosh Jennifer,
You do pose some posers. To the question, “is BOINCing a new western ideology?” the obvious answer is, “yes.” But that’s too easy. You have to justify “yes.”
Here’s my answer, by no means complete, but robust enough to withstand some scrutiny, and perhaps even to incite some. The answer is: part of being human means looking for a metatheory.
A theory explains things things you understand. A metatheory explains the theories, but it, itself, can’t be proven. It’s an act of faith, and it’s of a nature that it offers an explanation for things that are *not* understood as well.
Consider, for instance, universal causal determination. According to this metatheory, a theory which explains a physical event in Europe will explain the same event in South America and China. If gravity, atmosphere, etc. are not variables, the theory will explain the same event on Mars and Pluto and Aldebaran IV. We haven’t been to those far places, and even terrestrial experiments aren’t replicated on each continent just to be sure. We have faith. And we have to have faith, because a metatheory can’t be proven, merely justified.
The first big metatheory (in the Western world) was monotheism. It was the notion that the entire universe was designed by a single entity with a purpose in mind. Thus, the notion continues, creation “fits together” in rational way. Various commentators have suggested, properly according to my perspective, that monotheism is what set the stage for the emergence of science and its pet metatheory of universal causal determinism.
Religious attempts to explain phenomena with reference to the divine fell into disuse as they were supplanted by the offerings of science.
One current metatheory is “the environment.” It has all the earmarks of a religion/metatheory/theology. It’s bigger than all of us; we don’t understand it all; we understand parts of it; we get thumped on the head when we mess with it wrong; treat it right and you will come out OK.
The trouble is, it smacks of the “old time religion,” with its dogmas and heretics, where worship and politics get so mixed up you can’t tell between the two.
And in this era, like any other era, we are going through change. Change alienates people who can’t, or won’t, understand or embrace the newness. So they look for a belief that will explain what they don’t understand in terms of what little they *do* understand. Or, what is worse, what they claim to understand that simply isn’t so. And when things go bad, the explanation of the unknown also defines who your enemies are.
Then it gets really scary.
Your enemies defy Allah, or the environment, or [insert metatheory here] and deserve just punishment.
Those of us who understand what’s going on see these people as idiotic or uneducated. What they are, is scared of what they can’t explain. So they grab a hold of a metatheory that explains their place in the universe and feel contentment, or if they are angry, they find a metatheory that embraces their anger as well.
If they’re angry enough, you’ll see blood shed in the streets over what’s billed as a “noble cause.” And the cause will be a metatheory. And it wouldn’t be the first time.
Which is a somewhat longer of saying, “Yes.”
Schiller.
Nice one Schiller. I assume you know the classic book ‘The True Believer’? Some of our less literary politicians think it is a term of praise. Since reading it, some thirty years ago, I have been very wary of what you call ‘metatheories’, especially political ones.
Jen – just kidding ya – if the introduction needs to be long it does. Editors choice and depends on topic. Brief is usually better but not always.
On point 3 – irrelevant to the science argument – social stuff.
As for repeatedly disgraced themselves- bumkum – and nowhere near the sheer scale of stupidity and rampant lies and drivel of most of the contrarians. Shall we do a comparison list?
As I have said previously on Landsea – boo hoo – his opinion – he should have stayed in the process and defended the point instead of doing the nana. But maybe he’s off the pace in the science vis a vis Emmanuel and others so just sour grapes.
The IPCC is a LOT of people. They’re all crooks? And they’re all utterly perfect ? It’s a group of doing their very best public duty for zero recompense and a truckload of abuse.
The well-considered non-emotional text is in the TAR – and the next lot in the 4AR – people’s performance in one off meetings, interviews, media reports comes and goes. All just flotsam and jetsam – tomorrow’s fish and chips wrapping.
You have to look through the noise to the core message or alternatively cherry-pluck your critique points with glee if you want to rag it.
So personalising all this is utterly irrelevant. Mixing all the greenie politics in this reduces it to mush.
You have a good body of evidence now on this blog about climate change issues (or whatever you’d like to call it!) – climatey/CO2-ey stuff – on balance you have to ask do you think there’s a fairly consistent trend. Does it line up with well researched theory. Are there any other alternative explanations.
And if you wish to reject all the scenarios and modelled futures – well good luck ! Your choice.
Meanwhile the atmosphere is still thinking.. .. ..
“is BOINCing a new western ideology” – it’s just for sciency motivated people who’d like to give big science questions a hand with heavy lift computing and to feel part of the action. Maybe it’s a fad – maybe it’s the future? Seems to growing in terms of appication numbers to date.
No great philosophical cause though. Won’t change your life, help you find God or god, or achieve a Zen-like state of existence.
Maybe the gravity wave BOINC might be more your style? Made the Earth move for me.
As if on cue our very-much-ex prime Minister has had another spray, ensuring that the “Zegna suited Woollahra focused elitism” remains fixed in the political landscape.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18342736%255E2702,00.html
If point 3 is irrelevant to the science argument Phil, you certainly have spent a lot of time on irrelevant stuff.
Have you got any evidence on relevance Rog?
Phil,
This is not about whether ‘the contrarians’ are more or less ‘honest’ than the IPCC scientists or whether global warming is real or not.
At issue is the integrity of the IPCC process and the IPCC scientists.
Yes, Phil, I’ve read the IPCC Third Assessment Report and much of it is indeed pretty droll cautious stuff. That’s why I’m so concerned that some SCIENTISTS (not the media – that’s your red herring) want to preach doom and gloom.
Read the press release of these scientists of 27 January 2003. The statement that a doubling of pre-industrial CO2 concentrations is ‘EXPECTED around the middle of the century unless deep cuts are made in greenhouse gas emissions’ (EMPHASIS added) comes from scientists, not from media commentators.
The statement is of course ridiculous. The IPCC reported in 2001 that, if global carbon dioxide emissions INCREASED BY A MULTIPLE OF 3.35 between 2000 and 2050 (the growth projected in the A1FI scenario), the atmospheric concentration of CO2 would reach about double the pre-industrial level by the latter year.
To put these figures into perspective, global CO2 emissions per head reached 1.2 tons C in 1980 and had declined to 1.1 ton C in 2000. If it now plays out according to the A1FI storyline (which the SRES authors themselves agree is ‘highly unlikely’) CO2 emissions will double to MORE THAN DOUBLE to 2.35 tons C per head by 2050. So a doubling in pre-industrial CO2 concentrations will only occur by 2050 if there’s a reversal in trend and emissions rise faster than the IPCC modellers expect.
Yet these scientists have used a statement under the logo of one of the world
Phil you say “Mixing all the greenie politics in this reduces it to mush”
Are you saying that greenie politics are anti-science?
I see Peter Garrett has been putting in some time at the Boeing plant with the (few) striking workers, another hopeless cause, what happened to global warming? whales? nukes? drugs sex n rock-n-roll?
Those ACF guys, they do get around.
Ian Castles – “To put these figures into perspective, global CO2 emissions per head reached 1.2 tons C in 1980 and had declined to 1.1 ton C in 2000. If it now plays out according to the A1FI storyline (which the SRES authors themselves agree is ‘highly unlikely’) CO2 emissions will double to MORE THAN DOUBLE to 2.35 tons C per head by 2050”
Hang on a second here. Nothing here says that total global emissions are falling just the ratio between population and CO2 emissions suggesting that population is rising faster than emissions. The actual figures are here
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/emis/glo.htm
“Since 1751 roughly 290 billion tons of carbon have been released to the atmosphere from the consumption of fossil fuels and cement production. Half of these emissions have occurred since the mid 1970s. The 2002 global, fossil-fuel CO2 emission estimate, 6975 million metric tons of carbon, represents an all-time high and a 2% increase from 2001.”
Putting it in the format of per capita emissions gives the false impression that CO2 emmissions are decreasing. This is not the case as they are increasing and showing no sign of flattening out yet.
“You missed the point about hydrogen cars. OK these cars ‘leak like crazy’, and maybe this particular possibility isn’t a goer (like the petrol engine – it didn’t look as if it was a goer in 1890 either).”
I think you have missed the point – where does the hydrogen come from?
Small clarification:
If hydrogen is not produced by nuclear power it will be produced from coal.
The leakiness aspect means that it can escape in some quantity and get into stratosphere where it may effect ozone. (perhaps another CFC issue). More research needed. And the rare element platinum is needed for fuel cells. These problems of course may be solved. Maybe.
And the technical aspect of recent Asia Partnership is looking very hard at coal and liquefying coal to oil IMHO. The future seems still very much a fossil fuel one.
So Ender, do you think that a doubling in CO2 concentrations can be expected by mid-century unless there are deep cuts in emissions? If not, do you agree that the press release by climateprediction.net was misleading? If so, where is your evidence?
Was that a climateprediction.net press release or media report on climateprediction.net – just asking? do we have a URL ?
Ian – what is the basis for your CO2 equivalents per capita for Australia and US – what inventories & populations.
“Greenhouse gases could cause global temperatures to rise by more than double the maximum warming so far considered likely by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), according to results from the world’s largest climate prediction experiment, published in the journal Nature this week.
The first results from climateprediction.net, a global experiment using computing time donated by the general public, show that average temperatures could eventually rise by up to 11°C – even if carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are limited to twice those found before the industrial revolution. Such levels are expected to be reached around the middle of this century unless deep cuts are made in greenhouse gas emissions.”
And was that news article was written by:
Michael Hopkin, Reporter, London
Michael has been a member of the Nature online news team since January 2004, before which he spent two and a half years as a subeditor for Nature’s print edition. Besides contributing to newspapers and magazines, he has appeared as a science expert on BBC radio. He has a degree in biology from the University of Nottingham, where he served as a features editor for the student magazine, Impact.
Unless there is another report or quote?
Do we have a url ? There may well be one. But I am not aware of it.
..(yawn) ..yes..phil..
http://climateprediction.net/science/pubs/climateprediction_press_release.pdf
Well I did ask. Overhyped tosh and not really what their paper is saying. They’re reporting what they found but they haven’t yet applied any analysis if those outliers are likely. However the results are still not in and I think the experiment worthwhile for reasons mentioned before. RC said the same.
So this thread is an interesting mish mash of various jig saw pieces.
Jen – you have not listed what IPCC’s scientists plural have consistently lied about in terms of global warming impacts. What’s the charge sheet.
And that’s not Oxford Uni and not Paul Erlich – that’s the IPCC. And I hope we’e going to be seeing multiple accounts of dangerous driving not parking infringements.
Do we have an accepted level of climate sensitivity – and why do we believe it.
Let Ian pick his best guess most likely scenario – tell us why – and what climate effects does he think might be likely from that by 2050 and at a “final” stabilisation scenario.
What effects do we think those effects might have on human populations and natural systems.
We do have the serious issue of biospheric feedbacks from the melting of the boreal regions. How much is in that.
If we are arguing about adequate economic scenarios and adequate scenarios in general I think we have to get a lot more holistic than we are now.
And Jen – one supplementary – in your first line you say – “I am concerned about increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from the burning of fossil fuels”
Why?
You have consistently and carefully steered away from endorsing an anthropogenic link. Even to complain about hijacking of the term climate change.
You’ll run an anomaly story like Marble Bar but not balance it with what we have happening in outback Queensland.
And you are obviously doubting that there are any “big bad” effects and that the IPCC are exaggerating.
Are you not saying that you are far from convinced of any link between burning fossil fuels and climate change and that change is natural. That the changes we may endure are from “natural” cycles. That the world has suffered changes before and we’re still here (correction something is still here).
So exactly why are you concerned.
Phil may be surprised, but for once I am going to agree with him.
Jen, WHY are you “concerned about increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from the burning of fossil fuels”?
1. The evidence from the ancient record quite unambiguously shows that rises in temperature precede (natural) rises in CO2. There is therefore no prima facie case there to worry about rising CO2 causing rising temperatures.
2. Sound physics shows that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, in the sense that an increasing amount in the atmosphere will (ignoring feedback loops) cause mild warming.
3. Reasonable estimates of the likely warming to be produced by a doubling of atmospheric CO2 (without feedback effects) range up to a degree or so.
4. If you try to take account of feedback effects (as IPCC does in arriving at its estimate of about 1.5 to about 6 degree rise for a doubling), then you can produce a net effect of either cooling or warming, more or less of any magnitude, at will. This unsettling uncertainty is exacerbated by our very incomplete knowledge of all the cycles and feedbacks that may be involved.
Witness the recent discovery that plants emit methane.
5. The relationship between increased CO2 and increased temperature is logarithmic, i.e. every additional increment of CO2 has less warming effect because of the saturation of the atmospheric CO2 absorbtion wavelength. Therefore, one of the few certainties about the much-talked about (but completely arbitrary, as to significance), doubling of CO2 is that any resulting warming effect will taper off as CO2 levels increase.
6. The post-industrial CO2 change from around 180 to 280 ppm represents about a 50% increase already, and therefore the great majority of the feared warming must already have occurred. But (i) no unequivocal, measurable, anthropogenic warming signal can be identified in global temperature statistics, and (ii) the about 0.8 degree overall temperature increase since the late 19th century (a) is not monotonic, as required by greenhouse theory, and (b) in both magnitude and rate falls within pre-industrial natural bounds.
7. Finally, a CO2-forced increase in temperature of about 1 degree, were it to occur, would on balance be likely to be of net benefit.
As judged both by calculating the sum of likely beneficial and adverse effects; and by considering that the current warm interglacial period has already lasted the 10,000 years that is the average for such intermitttent warm events.
For more than 90% of the last few hundred thousand years, the typical temperature condition of the earth has been colder than today, including long periods of glaciation; no knowledgeable scientist doubts that earth’s natural climate cycle will, probably sooner rather than later, return to that colder state.
8. In summary, increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will produce at most mild warming, is certain to produce continued greening of the planet (and aid the growing of food), and is overall a benefice.
Cathy
Cathy,
Accept your argument that elevated c02 levels could be beneficial.
Phil & Ender,
Accept your argument that elevated c02 levels could be harmful.
Phil,
Don’t accept that my position has ever change – I remain concerned about increasing levels of co2, see transcript of 7.30 report at this blog http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000762.html and how many times do i have to clarify my position, see http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000768.html .
Cathy and Phil,
I don’t have confidence in the IPCC scientists or process – as a group they appear to have committed themselves to a particular theory, set of models and outcome. Ian Castles provides more evidence above for this.
‘Ian – what is the basis for your CO2 equivalents per capita for Australia and US – what inventories & populations?’ I quoted Carbon equivalent numbers for CO2 emissions (not CO2 equivalents which would be greater by a factor of 3.664). Data for about 100 countries and the world as a whole are given in the International Energy Agencys ‘CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion’ (2005 edition). The publication also provides population data, and CO2 emissions per head of population for all of these countries and the world as a whole.
Similar information (but not quite as up-to-date) is available on the CDIAC site to which Ender provided a link. The CDIAC database gives CO2 emissions per head of population for about 200 countries and for the world as a whole for each year from 1950 to 2002.
It wasn’t me who calculated the per capita figures for the US & Australia, and the global figures for 1980 and 2000: I took these directly from the CDIAC and IEA publications. If Ender thinks these per capita figures give a false picture he should take this up with CDIAC and the IEA.
Phil, I’m glad you agree that the press release issued by the Oxford scientists was ‘Overhyped tosh and not really what their paper is saying’. That’s progress. Do you also agree that the statement that a doubling in CO2 levels by mid-century can only be averted by deep cuts in emissions is bad science? Ive pointed out that the SRES Tables in Appendix II of the IPCC TAR show that all six of the IPCC illustrative scenarios project large INCREASES in CO2 emissions between 2000 and 2050, but only one of the six leads to a doubling in pre-industrial concentrations. The other five are all well below this level. Are you aware of any post-TAR work that has shown the IPCCs conclusions in 2001 to be wrong on this point?
Here’s some more overhyped tosh:
‘It is undisputed that the two last decades has been the warmest this century, indeed the warmest for the last 1000 years, sea level is rising, precipitation patterns are changing, Arctic sea ice is thinning and the frequency and intensity of El-Nino events appear to be increasing. In addition, many parts of the world have recently suffered major heat-waves, floods, droughts and extreme weather events leading to significant loss of life and economic costs.’
The speaker is Robert T Watson, Chairman of the IPCC, reporting on 20 November 2000, in his capacity as Chair, to the Sixth Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC. Some of the statements are plain wrong, others are misleading truisms.
Dr. Watsons speech is available on the IPCC website, as is the press release issued by the Panel three years later accusing David Henderson and me of spreading ‘disinformation’ about the IPCC emissions scenarios. The all-party Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords has since concluded unanimously that ‘At the moment, it seems to us that the emissions scenarios are influenced by political considerations’ (para. 118). One of the principals of Phil’s favourite blogsite (realclimate) has subsequently accused the House of Lords Committee of ‘bald-faced lying’. I rest my case.
Cathy, I’m not a climate scientist, but most of what you say accords with my understanding of the current state of climate change science. However, the post-industrial change in CO2 concentrations so far is not from 180 to 280 ppm, but from 280 to 380 ppm. Whether CO2 concentrations will ever reach 560 ppm (double the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm) is a matter of opinion, whereas the claim by some climate change scientists that they’ll reach this level by 2050 unless deep cuts are made purports to be a statement of fact.
I wont accuse these scientists of ‘bald-faced lying’, but what do my critics on this thread expect me to conclude?
Jen – I do not know why you are concerned.
(Seriously and not being stupid aout it – just on logical facts you have presented above).
Especially if you have no faith in the IPCC.
Ian – Watson’s comments are OK by me. Why is this all overhyped tosh. Do a checklist! I know we could spend all day on 1000 years one – still not conceded.
I notice you’re staying on safe ground and ignoring pretty well all of my questions.
How many SRES scenarios do not get close to 560ppm in the long run.
Thanks for the correction, Ian.
Off the top of my head, I made the slip. As always, one should have checked, but I failed to. Well, it is a Sunday (day off?).
The 280 to 380 ppm makes no substantive difference to the argument I was developing.
Cathy
Jen,
You say:
Cathy,
Accept your argument that elevated c02 levels could be beneficial.
Phil & Ender,
Accept your argument that elevated c02 levels could be harmful.
Two comments:
1. (And this should have been on my original list) Atmospheric CO2 has been as high as several ppm during past geological times, without any known “adverse” effects beyond greening of the planet.
2. The context of your use of the words “beneficial” and “harmful” suggests that the argument has become entirely one of value judgement.
If that is the case, then the difference between the Cathy and Phil+Ender views is a sociological one, i.e. it is simply not capable of being resolved by the use of scientific (i.e. evidence-based, quantitative) reasoning.
Cathy
Sorry, rushing again.
Last message should have read:
“Atmospheric CO2 has been as high as several THOUSAND ppm during past geological times”
Cathy
Even if the sres projections are uncertain, there are lots of biospheric responses yet to be fully factored in these models. While still uncertain there is a possibility of large emissions from the biosphere. Possibly of a similar magnitude to proposed anthropogenic emissions.
Go the the Greenhouse 2005 web site and download the powerpoint presentation by Pep Candell.
Cathy, while the impact of additional CO2 will decrease per unit, you still have to factor in all the warming lags (ocean temperature is not yet in equlibrium with radiatitve forcings) and additional forcings (changing albedo due to reduced ice and snow) so this could cause accelerated warming in the future even with reduced inpact per mollecule of CO2.
Phil, I’m not surprised to learn that you still don’t concede on the 1000 year one, but you give the game away by saying we could spend all day arguing about it. Wouldn’t that be a dispute? Even your mates at realclimate seem to be under the impression that there’s a dispute. So I suppose they’d have to agree that Watson misled 180 governments by reporting as ‘undisputed’ fact that the last two decades were the warmest of the millennium?
Steve McIntyre has just reported on climateaudit that one of the members of the National Research Council panel asked every presenter at the open hearing on Thursday and Friday
Cathy
This is very important- even with past geological CO2 levels in the order of 1000’s ppmv greater than today’s levels and far in excess of what human addition is capable of from existing assumptions of burning hydrocarbons, it has certainly not resulted in a catastrophic runaway greenhouse effect during the geological past. Not then and not in the future.
Unless one wishes to correlate those high CO2 levels with mass extinctions and then we wander into another controversial area of science.
Oh I see the cavalry from Surrealclimate on the hroizon still chasing me – I am on the run from the BOM trap I set on another thread. Must rush, life is too precious at the moment to dunnified from tardiness on my part.
Richard Darksun, Thanks for your comment citing Pep Canadells Greenhouse 2005 paper. I know of this and I know of the many other uncertainties in climate models. This doesnt seem to me to be a good reason for not trying to reduce uncertainty in the models wherever possible. Yet CSIRO, in its poorly researched paper on ‘The IPCC Climate Change Scenarios’ for the Australian Greenhouse Office ‘hot topics in climate change science’ series, dismisses the Castles & Henderson claim that the emissions scenarios are unrealistic and follows up immediately with ‘Moreover, there are many other factors that contribute to uncertainty. For example the global warming sensitivity may be [higher than the IPCC estimated range].’
Thanks to Google, Ive been able to glance over some of the contributions you made to Jennifers site late last year. I was pleased to see your comment that ‘While it appears that there could be reasonable errors associated [with] the analyses [of run-off] I would say its better to have a systems analysis point of view.’ Agreed. But then you said that the alternative was ‘pulling a figure from one’s bum as the skeptics are inclined to do.’ At least Ithat helps me to know where youre coming from.
I also noted that you were ‘quite skeptical of the last generation of [CSIRO] models’ and thought that ‘perhaps the results [had been] given a bit of spin for the politicians.’ Having been responsible for another independent Commonwealth statutory authority (the Australian Bureau of Statistics) for nine years, I can honestly say that such a possibility had never crossed my mind.
So far as I know, Pep Canadell had complete freedom to report his findings to Greenhouse 2005. Would this be Josep Canadell of CSIRO, whose letter co-authored with four other leading scientists including Bert Bolin, former Chair of the IPCC, was published in ‘Science’, 17 September 1999? In that letter, Dr. Canadell and his co-signatories said that ‘In the current, post-Kyoto international political climate, scientific statements about the behavior of the terrestrial carbon cycle must be made with care.’ This prompted the Swedish scientist Mihkel Mathiesen to write to ‘Science’ in the following terms:
‘Your letter on the need to temper scientific findings with political considerations, published in Science today, is a chilling testimonial to the current trend to limit objective reason in deference to political ambitions. The open rebuke of a scientific, peer-reviewed paper on political grounds is unacceptable to the scientific community and serves only to tarnish the scientific reputation [of the signatories].’
Perhaps that was an unduly severe criticism. If my memory serves me correctly, Pep Canadell was one of the participants in the meeting hosted by the Australian Academy of Science in July 2002 to enable Canberra-based scientists to meet Dr. Pachauri, the newly-elected Chair of the IPCC. And it is my recollection that he, along with others present, agreed with my suggestion that national statistical offices be involved in the next IPCC Assessment. I apologise to Dr. Canadell if this was not the case, but there is no question in my mind that most of those present DID agree that my proposal was a good one. So I wonder why the IPCC did not take it up?
So I see Ian that you have decided to not answer any questions and stick on message. You’re just a died in the wool contrarian and there really is little point in any discussion is there. You’re simply an anti-IPCC crusader whose economic suggestions have been rejected by the system; and now a conspiracy under every rock and log. The big end of town can sleep well and the IPA will be most happy with a job well done.
Phil,
Without waiting for an adjuration from Jennifer, I suggest that you retract the ungracious ad hominem comments that you have just made about Ian Castles.
If they were meant in jest, then they have been extremely clumsily expressed.
Ian’s contributions to the AGW debate are admired and followed closely worldwide. They are characterised by careful research, careful choice of words, unbelievable doggedness and persistence in the face of reactions that range from being ignored to being abused, and most of all by courtesy towards all with whom he communicates.
Furthermore, these characteristics have been on abundant display in Ian’s measured contributions to this blog thread.
Your remarks are a disgrace.
Cathy
Ian Castles – “So Ender, do you think that a doubling in CO2 concentrations can be expected by mid-century unless there are deep cuts in emissions? If not, do you agree that the press release by climateprediction.net was misleading? If so, where is your evidence?”
No I think it is more incumbent on you to explain why CO2 levels will not keep rising. We had this discussion before and you bugged out because you said you really do not understand the science and you are just a statistician.
Given that “The 2002 global, fossil-fuel CO2 emission estimate, 6975 million metric tons of carbon, represents an all-time high and a 2% increase from 2001.” then a straight line growth at 2% per year will give a doubling in CO2 levels. Nothing substantial is being done to reduce CO2 emissions. As you are really quick to point out Kyoto will not deliver the necessary cuts and there is nothing else really in town.
Given my reference that CO2 emissions are showing no sign of decreasing what will stop the CO2 concentration doubling?
No Cathy – the way it’s being played is a game. And it is not a discussion. And Cathy I find your usual style most objectionable also. Have a nice day.
Phil, In the last 24 hours you’ve asked me (a) Was that a climateprediction.net press release or media report on climateprediction.net ? (b) What is the basis for your CO2 equivalents per capita for Australia and US – what inventories & populations. (c) Why is Dr. Watson’s statement at UNFCCC ‘overhyped tosh’? and (d) How many SRES scenarios didn’t get to 560 ppm in the long run? I’ve wasted more time than I can spare making an honest effort to answer all of these questions, and I simply don’t know what you’re talking about when say that I’ve ‘decided to not answer any questions and stick on message.’
Meanwhile I’ve asked you (a) Do you agree that the statement that a doubling in CO2 levels by mid-century can only be averted by deep cuts in emissions is bad science? (b) Are you aware of any post-TAR work that has shown the IPCCs conclusions in 2001 to be wrong on this point [the implications for CO2 concentrations of rising CO2 emissions in the current half-century]? and (c) Did Watson mislead 180 governments by reporting as ‘undisputed’ fact that the last two decades were the warmest of the millennium? You haven’t made any effort to answer any of these questions so far and I take it from your last posting that you don’t intend to.
I agree that my economic suggestions have been rejected by ‘the system’. That to my mind is a rather serious reflection on the system. I’ll begin to worry when my economic suggestions are rejected by my peers in economics and statistics. Meanwhile I intend to continue to work with my colleagues towards bringing about a return to professionalism in relevant areas of the economic and statistical work of the World Bank, the UN Environmental Programme, the IPCC and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. I’m also hoping that some of us will be able to make a submission on the Stern Review discussion paper, the deadline for which is 17 March. Finally, I’ve had 2 letters on climate change-related matters published in the Canberra Times in the past fortnight, and I’ve been greatly cheered by the number of (and range of interests of) the people who’ve told me how much they’ve valued my views. There’s not much of a ‘big end’ in Canberra town, and I don’t know any of those who belong to it anyway,
Cathy,
Yes, I deliberately used the words ‘beneficial’ and ‘harmful’ because it is complex and about valued judgement to some extent at least.
“My concern” about rising C02 levels is also a valued judgement. I respect your view that there is no/little reason for concern – you may be right.
The IPCC has a responsibility to science, rather than sociology, and a responsibility to objectively understand and communicate the extent to which carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels is/is not impacting on climate.
However, the evidence would suggest they are anything but objective, and as a group completely committed to what others have perhaps aptly described as “overhyped tosh”.
Jen,
I find your link to a Michael Duffy article, and the moral outrage he expresses therein, amusing in a sad sort of way.
Duffy has cheerfully played host to a cabal of members of the “Rachel Carson is a worse mass murder than Pol Pot” brigade, icluding Dick Taverne.
Such crackpots assert that, due to Carson inpired environmental activists, DDT was banned throughout the third world and accordingly millions of folk have died from malaria. The trouble is DDT was never banned anywhere for human protection. The bans have only applied to agriculture and this has slowed the development of DDT resistant mosquitos and hence saved countless lives.
To use Duffy’s own words- “I’m not sure how we got here, but it seems associated with a declining interest in facts.”
The IPCC Chairman Robert T Watson said it was ‘undisputed’ fact that the last two decades were the warmest for the last 1000 years?
I only completed Y12 Physics but I just don’t see how a scientist could make such a statement and expect to be taken seriously?
There is no way such an assertion could fall into the realms of “undisputed fact”.
I’m happy to be shown where I’m wrong – but this doesn’t pass the smell test.
Phil,
Watson’s comment doesn’t of itself mean that AGW theory is a load of bunkum.
It does seriously damage the IPCC’s credibility though doesn’t it?
Ian – I am exasperated as you may be. I will try again. Deep breath !
Your last post – point (a) – I was simply asking as I did not know the source, and having been reading the Nature paper I noticed a news” item written by a journalist not the team. Rog has subsequently supplied another quote and my reaction is tabled. I suspect we may have been at cross purposes with one talking about CO2 equivalents and carbon, fuel emissions, total inventory – still looking. I will make a detailed reponse on Watson below.
I am unhappy that Jen split the last thread on a good discussion to editorialise in the way she has. (We were in the middle of discussing climate sensitivity). No charge sheet and plenty of rhetoric. Implied conspiracies everywhere. She has responded to me but in no detail.
So instead of getting to what the climate issue might be – we’re debating how “corrupt” the IPCC process is and picking on individuals for this and that. This is a diversion for what a likely climate outcome might be at 2050 and at stabilisation.
On Watson – if he’s supporting the TAR as the peer reviewed consensus state of knowledge he’s not far off IMHO. Let’s nitpick though
On warmest this decade – Ok with that.
On warmest this millenium – well we could go on for days and much has been said. Probably comes down to the exact temperatures and how wide spread the Medieval Warming and Little Ice Age were. And we could debate that too. Osborn & Briffa have taken a different approach and concluded the same. IMHO – we may never really know. And I have just downloaded about 30 relevant paleo papers on the subject and it’s far from clear.
Sea level rising – OK – but nothing alarming yet. Something for the future.
Precipitation patterns are changing – yes and certainly in Australia where it counts for us
Artic Ice – yep – are some comments on local oscillations but I think the modellers win
El Nino – agree but the TAR would advise against attribution to GW. But ongoing concern and worry. Needs more information.
Extreme events etc – yes cumulatively and I think the 4AR may have something more to say. Although any one event doesn’t prove much.
And we have had loss of life and economic losses of size in recent years. Humanity is already poorly adapted to climate variability – we don’t need more of it. The losses and suffering humanity currently experiences due to climatic extremes seems to slip by in these debates.
I give Watson 8/10 – he could have made some caveats. But you want to tar and feather him?
Anyway – on my outstanding issues and essentially what is more productive than pot-shotting the IPCC.
I’m asking you for your best guesstimate of what CO2 is going to do. You’re immersed in the subject. And I asked you why you believed in your chosen scenario – simply to see where you were coming from and logically understand. And let’s then discuss that scenario for a while as it removes one degree of freedom of debate.
At that level in 2050 and at stabilisation what do we think the climate effects will be. How will humanity be affected?
We could later return to others scenarios and the issue of climate sensitivity.
The biospheric feedback unknown issue is a worry. Why did you have to do a put-down on the scientist involved? I found it disturbing.
Frankly I’m more interested in getting the climate and emission story right rather than pot-shotting members of the IPCC.
But this is what we keep returning to. Hence my frustration and association with ideology not a blog discussion on climate change.
Ender asks me to explain why CO2 levels will not keep rising. Since I’ve never said or implied that they won’t I find that difficult – and I don’t understand why Ender rejects the findings of the IPCC’s climate modellers that emissions could rise rapidly over the next half century without atmospheric CO2 concentrations reaching double the pre-industrial level. This does not mean that emissions SHOULD not be constrained, just that it
And it’s goodnight from him,
and it’s goodnight from me.
(attributed from the Two Ronnies)
I should have made clear that my statement that I’ve never said or implied that CO2 levels won’t keep rising relates to the period up to 2050 that has been the focus of discussion on this thread. Obviously my comment that some of the IPCC scenarios don’t get to 560 ppm in the long-run necessarily means that, at least in those scenarios, CO2 concentrations don’t keep on rising indefinitely.
Steve Munn
Too say that DDT was never banned is misleading: the fact is its use and availablity was discouraged and is discouraged for instance by Scandinavian aid agencies. Discontuation did occur and human cases a deaths were caused . The question is how many thousands.
See eg
DDT for malaria control should not be banned
Amir Attaran, Rajendra Maharaj
MJ VOLUME 321 2 DECEMBER 2000
South Africa illustrates these limitations in practice.Facing pressure from environmentalists, the national malaria control programme abandoned DDT in favour of more expensive pyrethroid insecticides in 1996.
Within three years, pyrethroid resistant A funestus mosquitoes invaded KwaZuluNatal province, where they had not been seen since DDT spraying began in the 1940s. Malaria cases then promptly soared, from just 4117 cases in 1995 to 27 238 cases in 1999 (or possibly 120 000 cases, judging by pharmacy records). Other provinces experienced similar catastrophes, and South Africa was forced to return to DDT spraying this year. It had little alternative: no other insecticide, at any price, was known to be equally effective.
DDT, Global Strategies, and a Malaria
Control Crisis in South America
Donald R. Roberts, Larry L. Laughlin, Paul Hsheih, and Llewellyn J. Legters
Malaria is reemerging in endemic-disease countries of South America. We examined the rate of real growth in annual parasite indexes (API) by adjusting APIs for all years to the annual blood examination rate of 1965 for each country. The standardized APIs calculated for Brazil, Peru, Guyana, and for 18 other malariaendemic
countries of the Americas presented a consistent pattern of low rates up through the late 1970s, followed by geometric growth in malaria incidence in subsequent
years. True growth in malaria incidence corresponds temporally with changes in global strategies for malaria control. Underlying the concordance of these events is a causal
link between decreased spraying of homes with DDT and increased malaria; two regression models defining this link showed statistically significant negative
relationships between APIs and house-spray rates. Separate analyses of data from 1993 to 1995 showed that countries that have recently discontinued their spray programs are reporting large increases in malaria incidence. Ecuador, which has increased use of DDT since 1993, is the only country reporting a large reduction (61%) in malaria rates since 1993. DDT use for malaria control and application of the Global Malaria Control Strategy to the Americas should be subjects of urgent national and international debate. We discuss the recent actions to ban DDT, the health costs of such a ban, perspectives on DDT use in agriculture versus malaria control, and costs versus benefits of DDT and alternative insecticides.
p295 Vol. 3, No. 3, July–September 1997 Emerging Infectious Diseases
I can assure you not all those who opposed bans on DDT are “crackpots” and that bureaucratic “armtwisting” (example below) if it causes deaths, is still morally repulsive even if it was used with the best of intentions.
Additionally, mosquito resistance does not preclude DDT being effective in indoor spraying due to repellancy effects.
Balancing risks on the backs of the poor
AMIR ATTARAN,DONALD R. ROBERTS, CHRIS F. CURTIS & WENCESLAUS L. KILAMA
NATURE MEDICINE • VOLUME 6 • NUMBER 7 • JULY 2000
But despite ‘resistance’ in itself, DDT still works to alleviate mortality and morbidity. Resistance tests work by measuring whether mosquitoes survive a normally toxic dose of DDT. The tests wholly overlook two non-toxic actions of DDT: contactmediated irritancy9, which drives mosquitoes off sprayed walls and out of doors before they bite, and volatile repellency10,11, which deters their entry in the first place. Both actions disrupt human–mosquito contact and disease transmission.
Data from the Pan-American Health Organization show a strong inverse correlation between malaria cases and rates of spraying houses (1959–1992) in South America, even after DDT resistance became widespread in the 1960s (Fig. 1). Here, ‘cumulative cases’ represent the population-adjusted, ‘running’ total of cases that exceed or fall short of the average annual number of cases from 1959 to 1979 (years in which World Health Organization strategy emphasized house spraying12).
Cumulative cases increase considerably in later years, coincident with a sharp decrease in rates of spraying houses.
This inverse correlation is readily understandable because it is so biologically plausible. For mosquitoes, DDT is a toxin, irritant and repellant all rolled into one chemical. All three properties decrease the odds of being bitten by mosquitoes, and toxicity particularly reduces the odds that parasite-bearing mosquitoes will survive to infect others. Lowering these odds slows disease propagation by second- or higher-order relationships and therefore is very important13,14. Indeed, renewing the spraying of houses with DDT, as Ecuador did in the early 1990s, rapidly decreases case rates5.
Indeed, if precaution is relevant, it favors spraying houses with DDT, because it is affordable or effective where other interventions may not be. Cost data from India show that, even using DDT alone, the entire national malaria-control budget is sufficient to protect only 65% of high-risk persons.
Switching to malathion, the next-cheapest alternative, reduces that coverage to 21%, which leaves 71 million more persons unprotected29. House spraying also has the advantage that it protects whole families, which is sometimes overlooked in comparing it with insecticide-treated bed-nets, which protect only one or two people at a time30. Simply put, there are too few economic studies to determine with certainty whether bed-nets are more or less cost-effective than DDT house spraying31. However, the fact that spraying houses with DDT can lower the prevalence of malaria parasitemia in highly endemic African communities to levels below that achieved by bed-nets (less than 5%) indicates that it is careless to treat them interchangeably8.
Above all, rich countries must allow, and even facilitate, poor tropical countries to make choices about DDT freely, and with informed consent. African countries in particular
lack the resources to dispatch health experts to the treaty negotiations, and although it provides financial assistance, the United Nations Environment Programme has declined to assist with this, or even to provide a translator when French- and English-speaking diplomats meet to discuss DDT. The resulting lack of knowledge suffocates debate. At worst, threats are used, as Belize learned when the US Agency for International Development demanded that it stop using DDT.
Such arm-twisting is as lamentable as it is effective. Highly indebted poor countries must of necessity rank poverty reduction over environmental orthodoxy, and stimulating growth and foreign investment will require nearly eliminating malaria from economically productive zones.
Ian Castles – “and I don’t understand why Ender rejects the findings of the IPCC’s climate modellers that emissions could rise rapidly over the next half century without atmospheric CO2 concentrations reaching double the pre-industrial level. This does not mean that emissions SHOULD not be constrained, just that it�s wrong for scientists to try and frighten governments into constraining them by saying things that aren�t true.”
And for the last time – T H E Y A R E S C E N E R I O S – Is that clear enough?????
They were set up to try to demonstrate to what MIGHT happen. It is not a reflection on the IPCC if they do not turn out exactly as modelled. Why not start on Costello and his modellers that consistantly underestimate the size of our surplus. Do a bit on nit picking here.
Detribe – read Tim Lambert on this DDT issue. Mosquito nets are more effective that DDT and DDT was never banned – it just became almost useless.
Steve Munn changes topic to DDT to distract from greenhouse shelacking.
I thought the best reason for disputing the IPCC scenarios was the “peak oil” issue. If, indeed, oil supply has peaked then any scenario that assumes that the CO2 emissions from oil will continue to grow by 2% for the next 50 years is on very thin ice.
We simply cannot have two entirely contradictory crises. If the IPCC were following the standard risk assessment tools that are drummed into every MBA student, they would recognise three most probable outcomes that, with assorted bells and whistles, form the basis for a set of scenarios. They are;
1 We run out of oil and CO2 emissions drop by at least 2% per annum for half a century, or
2 we don’t run out of oil and CO2 emissions remain the same as technology improvements deliver a carbon efficiency dividend, or
3 we don’t run out of oil and CO2 emissions expand at 2% per annum in line with past experience.
If they had the time and budget, which they clearly do, then they could break each basic scenario into an optimistic and pessimistic projection, in the form of 2a and 2b etc.
And having done so, they would then attempt to assign a probability of occurrence to each one. And it is the weighting of these probabilities that should be forming the body of scientific discussion and the resulting inputs to executive decision making processes.
They have done no such thing and one must only conclude that the IPCC would fail ‘Business Decision Theory 101’.
So we have an international risk assessment and decision making process that has failed to even implement a two level decision tree. In contrast, my own on-farm decision tree has four levels.
The more layers that are included in a decision tree the more likely it is that guesses will be replaced by realistic estimates. And the further down the tree the estimates are made the less significant the consequences of a false estimate becomes.
The IPCC is an order of magnitude removed from current best practice risk assessment and decision making. And that is frightening.
DDT never banned, Ender? Here in Australia both DDT and it’s derivative Dieldrin have been banned. End of story.
To say that DDT was never banned is more than misleading ; it’s wrong.
http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/ddt/01.htm
Clearly in the US at least it WAS banned.
I think it’s a bit dismissive to refer to the obvious factual error in Watson’s statement as ” nit-picking”.
Isn’t he Chairman of the IPCC?
This wasn’t a small error – he said that it was an undisputed fact that the last decades were the warmest for 1000 years. That is a statement that just cannot be proven or disproven so as a scientist he should never have made it.
I don’t believe that “proves” anything about AGW science – I’m still in the camp of the majority of experts , however we had a debate here some time back concerning admissions of doubt/uncertainty/inconsistency as evidence of good faith by both AGW adherents and heretics.
This is surely an example of ” scary scenario” hype from an organisation which should know better.
DDT was banned for agricultural use but not all other uses (and not in all countries). From Jim’s own reference: “Public health, quarantine, and a few minor crop uses were excepted, as well as export of the material”. Not a complete ban at all.
Ian Castles said “Since I’ve never said or implied that I believe in any scenario..” Explanation: (1) that’s Ian’s strategy, to pull apart models, scenarios and assumptions without proposing a concrete alternative, and definitely not in his own words; or (2) Ian is observing the boundaries of his own non-scientific expertise as a statistician.
BTW: I still don’t understand why Jennifer is concerned about increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels **from the burning of fossil fuels**. Either I’ve ingested too much mercury or it’s inconsistent with previous messages.
>(And this should have been on my original list) Atmospheric CO2 has been as high as several ppm during past geological times, without any known “adverse” effects beyond greening of the planet.
Sadly the geological data does not agree with you
>http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18625044.700.html
Suggest you also google “End Permian extinction”. I might have hoped that the good geologists might have seen to correct you on this so obviously wrong suggestion.
Regardless, how many people were alive during these events? How many roads blocked the migration paths of ecosystems, forests.
If we want to be serious about the +ve and -ve’s of climate change, why don’t we inject some rigorous analysis. The papers below are just a sample of what has been done.
Nordhaus, W.D., 2006. Geography and macroeconomics: New data and new findings. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10.1073/pnas.0509842103, 8pp.
Barker, T., Foxon, T. Köhler, J., Anderson, D., Gross, R., Leach, M. and Pearson, P., 2005. University of Cambridge and Imperial College London Submission to the Stern Review (UK). 20pp (available from http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/F72/C6/climatechange_imp_1.pdf)
Barker, T., Köhler, J. and Villena, M., 2002, The Costs of Greenhouse Gas Abatement: A Meta-
Analysis of Post-SRES Mitigation Scenarios. Environmental Economics and Policy Studies
5, 135-166.
Goodstein E., 1997. Polluted Data. The American Prospect online. Available from http://www.prospect.org/web/index.ww .
Hansen, J. 2004. Defusing the global warming time bomb. Scientific American, 290, 68-77.
Keller, K., Hall, M., Kim, S-R., Bradford, D.F., and Oppenheimer M. 2005. Avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Climate Change, 73, 227-238.
Roughgarden, T. and Schneider S.H., 1999. Climate change policy: quantifying uncertainties for damages and optimal carbon taxes, Energy Policy, 27, 415-429.
Schiermeier, Q., 2006. The costs of global warming. Nature, 439, 374-375.
Certainly there was an attempt to ban at Joburg. That was the reason for attaran’s articles which were partially acceptable. But before Joburg and after the anrt-DDT zealots continued their efforts in numerous ways.
I could note that Sri Lanka nearly became malaria free in the 1960s, but as an indirect result of Rachel Carson, interest in using DDT faltered, and thousands of deaths have occurred since them.
I note also Steve seems quite happy to throw in the “cabal” “crackpot” quips (hardly neutral language) but what needs to be discussed is why the use of DDT was discontinued in S Africa and S America.
The fact that DDT is now being sucessfully redeployed in Africa and India shows Attaran was a saviour, not a crackpot.
correction “partially SUCCESSFUL”
Thinksy – never said it was a complete ban. I was disputing the assertion that DDT was NEVER banned.
I think it’s also quite interesting that the EPA Press Release gives amongst it’s reasons ” the continued massive use of DDT pose(s) unacceptable risks to the environment and potential harm to human health.”
and ” growing public and user concern over adverse environmental side effects.”
Were these “potential” risks to health and “adverse environmental side effects” ever objectively investigated and if so were the costs balanced against the benefits for humanity?
Just in case I’m misinterpreted. I strongly support thediscontination of DDT in farming and crop-dusting, and I’m against massive use of DDT unless a very good case humanitarian is made..
Spraying interiors of houses is completely different, it uses gram quantities of DDT not tonne quantities.
If you read Attaran in Nature medicine you will see that he describes the curent medical evidence that DDT is a cause of cancer as “unpersuasive”.
Strangely, the lobby groups that tried to ban DDT have made no effort to inform the public about the fact that many of their scare stories are untrue.
I often wonder why this is so, since they know the evidence exists, having been told so by Attaran at the time of the Joburg meeting at which they tried to ban DDT?
Thinksy says that my ‘strategy’ is either ‘to pull apart models, scenarios and assumptions without proposing a concrete alternative, and definitely not in his own words’ or that I am ‘observing the boundaries of [my own] non-scientific expertise as a statistician.’
I did propose a concrete alternative, and I did so in my own words. In my presentation to the IPCC Expert Meeting on Emissions Scenarios at Amsterdam on 10 January 2003 I argued for ‘the early development of some variants to the SRES models, which combine the long-term characteristics of these models with a more realistic appraisal of short- or medium-term prospects for the developing countries.’
It’s not surprising that Thinksy doesn’t know about this, because the IPCC never produced a report of the Expert Meeting – rather an extraordinary omission for a taxpayer-funded body that had invited scores of scientists from all over the world to contribute their expertise to the international effort. Unfortunately the IPCC isn’t subject to Freedom of Information legislation, so the Panel finds it relatively easy to suppress inconvenient information in this way. So far as I know, the only contributors to the meeting who subsequently arranged for the publication of their presentations were David Henderson and me. The IPCC didn’t like that.
I plead guilty to observing the boundaries of my own scientific expertise as a statistician. So when scenarios showing large increases in emissions between now and 2050 are fed into the IPCC’s climatet models, I’m happy to accept the IPCC scientists’ conclusion that this does not result in a doubling of the pre-industrial concentrations of CO2 by 2050.
I originally assumed that the statement by Oxford University scientists on 27 January 2005 that deep cuts in emissions would be needed to avert a doubling in CO2 concentrations by mid-century was ‘overhyped tosh’ – i.e. I thought that they knew of the IPCC findings but misrepresented them in order to present a more alarmist picture.
I now realise, however, that the Oxford scientists may really believe that atmospheric CO2 concentrations will be doubled by 2050 unless deep cuts are made – i.e., they dispute the results of the IPCC models.
Ender, do you believe, as the Oxford scientists apparently do, that DEEP CUTS in emissions are necessary in order to avert a doubling in pre-industrial concentration by 2050? Or do you believe, as the IPCC modellers do, that LARGE INCREASES in emissions between now and 2050 would not lead to a doubling in pre-industrial concentrations?
The Oxford scientists and the IPCC’s modellers can’t both be right. Please try and answer this simple question without misrepresenting my position yet again.
Just to clarify. I’m not raising the question of whether the Oxford scientists think that emissions will rise more or less than the IPCC’s modellers. That is an emissions scenarios question, and their best guess would probably be somewhere between the IPCC’s low and high emissions scenarios.
The issue I am raising is a scientific one: with any given emissions scenario between now and 2050, what would be the atmospheric concentration of CO2 at the end of that period, assuming no changes in the CO2 content of the atmosphere from non-anthropogenic sources? Of course, different models give different answers, but the uncertainty in the relationship between emissions profiles and concentration levels is small by comparison with the uncertainties about (a) what future emissions will be and (b) what the increase in temperature will be for any given increase in concentrations.
The tosh comment was about the 11 degrees on incomplete results. I think we should await the Oxford group’s final report before further judgement (and that not an implied wait for an 11 degree outcome).
I think we should be asking what we think the lowest, highest and mid-range CO2 growth scenarios are likely to do to environmental shifts, climate extremes, heatwaves, droughts, floods and hurricanes. And the likely effects on human and natural systems. And we need to read that scientific report – not what someone says in a speech, interview or media report.
More important than climate sensitivity although related intrinsically. We need holistic answers.
Not endless personality bashing.
Humanity is already maladapted to existing climate variability.
I have neither the time or inclination to deal with all of Detribe’s falsehoods in respect of DDT, hence I’ll restrict myself to this myth:
“I could note that Sri Lanka nearly became malaria free in the 1960s, but as an indirect result of Rachel Carson, interest in using DDT faltered, and thousands of deaths have occurred since them.”
A seminal and possibly definitive work on malaria is Gordon Harrison’s “Mosquitoes, Malaria and Man”. In it he notes that Sri Lankan malaria cases had gone down to just 17 in 1963 and this was the reason the Government cut the intensive spraying program. They essentially thought they had the problem beaten. It had nothing to do with a wicked Rachel Carson.
When the problem re-emerged, Harrison writes:
“Sri Lanka went back to the spray guns, reducing malaria once more to 150,000 cases in 1972; but there the attack stalled. Anopheles culicifacies, completely susceptible to DDT when the spray stopped in 1964, was now found resistant presumably because of the use of DDT for crop protection in the interim. Within a couple of years, so many culicifacies survived that despite the spraying malaria spread in 1975 to more than 400,000 people.”
So the story of Sri Lanka actually confirms my point. Agricultural overuse of DDT, and the Big Agriculture companies that pushed it, are the real villians in this story. I can only wonder as to where you gained your misinformation and why you were so eager to swallow it?
p.s. In 1977 Sri Lanka abandoned DDT in favour of Malathion. In 2004 there were 3,000 malaria cases.
Steve,are these the falsehoods you are referring to?
http://www.malaria.org/saddtdec2000.html
Malaria outbreak forces S. Africa to return to DDT
The insecticide, banned in most countries, is back after mosquitoes shrug off alternatives.
December 18, 2000
By ANDREW MAYKUTH
Knight Ridder Newspapers
JOZINI, South Africa – Malaria was pretty much under control in KwaZulu-Natal province five years ago. So health officials thought it was safe to stop using DDT, the notorious insecticide banned in most of the developed world.
Almost immediately, this semitropical region along the Indian Ocean saw a dramatic increase in the number of cases of malaria, which is transmitted by mosquitoes.
There are now nearly 10 times as many cases as in 1995. There were no malaria deaths five years ago. This year, the disease has killed more than 300 people in the province.
Health officials said they had no choice but to go back to DDT, even though the pesticide is widely blamed for environmental damage and is suspected of posing a health hazard.
“We have to use it. People are dying,” said Bheki Qwabe, an environmental health officer who supervises 17 DDT- spraying teams that resumed work in May in northern KwaZulu-Natal. South Africa’s experience with DDT was a main reason the pesticide received a reprieve under an international treaty negotiated this month to ban 12 toxic chemicals.
http://www.malaria.org/news225.html
‘Consider the Use of DDT against a Child’s Death of Malaria’
BYLINE: Neels Jackson
Original Article
KwaZulu-Natal – While DDT has become a profanity amongst environmentalists because of the toxin’s tendency to remain in the environment for a considerable timespan, KwaZulu-Natal’s health department has taken the unusual step of once again utilising DDT in combating malaria.
The decision to reintroduce DDT must be seen against the background of KwaZulu-Natal being in the grip of a devastating malaria epidemic.
Provincial health department spokesman Dave McGlew said prior to 1995 less than 7,000 malaria cases were reported in the province. In 1992 the figures had dropped to 599. Since then the incidence of the disease has continued to increase:
1995: 4,000 cases without any reported deaths.
1996: 10,535 cases and 32 deaths reported.
1997: 11,400 cases and 38 reported deaths.
1998: 14,575 cases and 112 reported deaths.
1999: 27,206 cases and 220 reported deaths.
With the advent of malaria eradication programmes utilising DDT had completely eradicated the species in South Africa. However, in areas such as Mozambique the mosquito survived.
Hunt emphasised that DDT spraying was only used inside homes in the eradication programmes. Buildings’ inside walls, roofs and eaves were treated with the poison.
Mosquito breeding grounds were never sprayed, which made it a safe practice as far as the environment was concerned.
In 1996 however, a policy decision was taken and DDT was taken out of use in eradicating malaria. The programme switched to a group of poisons called pyrethroids, generally accepted as being more environmentally-friendly.
But with the huge upswing in cases of malaria the situation was reviewed.
Further studies showed the homes had been sprayed thoroughly and the poison was active. The insects had developed resistance to pyrethroids.
Dr Gerhard Verdoorn of the Trust for Endangered Nature’s poison task group said the mosquitoes seem to “eat pyrethroids for dessert”. The poison was however, still effective against An. arabiensis.
The sober facts, however, are that DDT is the only poison on the market that will effectively eradicate An. funestus – and the present malaria epidemic. Which was why the poison task group agreed to the use of DDT.
“One has to consider the use of DDT against the death of a three-year-old child of malaria,” he said.
http://www.malaria.org/news227.html
Malaria is threatening the lives of thousands of South Africans in Kwazulu-Natal and the Lowveld regions of the Northern Province and Mpumalanga. More than 50,000 people have been infected during 1999 and estimated numbers may reach over 200,000 in February 2001 if the malaria mosquito is not brought under control. Scientist discovered Anopheles funestus mosquitoes during a recent survey in northern Kwazulu-Natal. This particular species was absent from South Africa for the past four decades while Anopheles arabiensis (or gambiensis)(An. arabiensis – sic) was present in summer months after normal rain. An. funestus is much more dangerous than its summer counterpart as it breeds all over in swamps, wetlands and water resources even during cooler winter months. It is also a better vector or transmitter of malaria than A. gambiensis. DDT that was used all over the malaria areas until 1996 exterminated An. funestus but the termination of DDT use in KZN appeared to have opened the doors for A. funestus again. This mosquito is completely resistant to the new, softer pyrethroid insecticides that were introduced by the National Department of Health (NDH). Pyrethroids are effective against A. gambiensis (An. arabiensis – sic)and will be continued as the primary malaria vector control products in South Africa.reintroduced?
You
I don’t mean that there’s nothing to worry about – rather, that Jane and John Public can no longer be scared by cries of ‘wolf’.
>I originally assumed that the statement by Oxford University scientists on 27 January 2005 that deep cuts in emissions would be needed to avert a doubling in CO2 concentrations by mid-century was ‘overhyped tosh’ – i.e. I thought that they knew of the IPCC findings but misrepresented them in order to present a more alarmist picture.
On current trends CO2 will reach double pre-industrial levels by 2075. This assumes that the natural sinks continue to asborb like they have in the past (current predictions suggest that they will saturate and by around mid century nature will become a net emitter) and that there is no acceleration in CO2 emissions (highly improbable). If you read the Oxford release carefully it states “around the middle of the century”. This could reasonably mean 2050 give or take a couple of decades.
More generally how could a shift of the point of doubling of CO2 by one or two decades be construed as alarming.. we are only talking 10 to 20% variations in total CO2 concentrations which amounts to about 0.2 to 0.4C.
>I now realise, however, that the Oxford scientists may really believe that atmospheric CO2 concentrations will be doubled by 2050 unless deep cuts are made – i.e., they dispute the results of the IPCC models.
The IPCC scenarios are nearly a decade old and span a huge range of possible futures. They are not predictions and they are not models. They are what if’s identifying future energy and emission path ways which span a massive range of futures.
David
Ian – it’s yourself and Jen that editorialise and open attack threads on IPCC scientists and pro-AGW research. In this instance a special thread was setup that broke up a reasonable exchange.
I occasionally respond in frustration and annoyance in how that focus is used to drag all the science down. And that’s what it is used for. And keep the thread on track for that aim.(and hi to detribe who I am most comfortable with). IMHO of course.
We do indeed seem to enjoy discussing personalities – Hansen said, Schneider said etc It will often be a single interview some time ago. And then who said what or not in return.
I would think it wouldn’t be as exciting for the cheer squad – but discussing whether the science is or is not correct – and what climatic effects may have on natural and human systems is much more profitable.
How CO2 may effect plant growth and so on.
AND working out likely emissions scenarios and climate sensitivity.
I find it interesting that in a nation and a world often affected by droughts that this blog rarely goes to that issue. Given the human and agricultural impacts.
Ian Castles – “Ender, do you believe, as the Oxford scientists apparently do, that DEEP CUTS in emissions are necessary in order to avert a doubling in pre-industrial concentration by 2050? Or do you believe, as the IPCC modellers do, that LARGE INCREASES in emissions between now and 2050 would not lead to a doubling in pre-industrial concentrations?”
I personally believe that arguing over semantics is a bit like postioning deck chairs on the Titanic. Our present society is not sustainable either from an emissions or consumption of energy standpoint. Moving to a sustainable model based on renewable energy will assure our long term future. If you want to only look short term ie: for the future that you will be alive, then everything is quite rosy as you say. The long term view, if you want to think of future generations and not share our selfish viewpoint of gobbling everything up and damn the rest, then we need to move to renewable energy and transport model not based on oil for a long term future.
Possible climate change is only one of the issues. Deep cuts in greenhouse emissions will probably make no difference now to the eventual end state of our biosphere as we have left it too late. However that is no reason not to do it. Deep cuts in emissions means however that we have transitioned to an energy model that the Earth can sustain. I have no confidence that this will happen as there are plenty of people like you in the decision making process that want to believe that the lower end of climate sensitivity is more likely. It may well be true however you and others like you are ‘betting the farm’ on this with no Plan B. You may be right and then in 20 years you can have a good laugh at the Chicken Littles. If you are wrong then there will not be too many people laughing.
David, Let me first say that I feel patronised by the continuing flow of explanations to me that the IPCC scenarios are not predictions. That’s one of the messagea I’ve tried unsuccessfully to get across for the past four years.
In a statement published in ‘Science’, 18 May 2001, sixteen national science academies including the Australian Academy of Sciences (sic) said that ‘The average global surface temperature is PREDICTED to increase by between 1.4
>On your substantive point, the Oxford scientists didn’t define ‘deep cuts’ but the British Government’s long-term target was (and is) for a reduction of 60% in emissions by 2050, i.e, an emissions level of around 40% of the 2000 level by mid-century. I think that that’s the impression that most readers would have taken away from the news reports of the Oxford University statement.
You are criticising the team on the basis of a quantitative interpretation which is not explicit or implicit in the press release.
Even with no growth in emissions and no degradation in sinks we will see a doubling of CO2 around middle century. Of course, energy use/emission prediction from IEA and ABARE (for example) suggest that emissions will grow very rapidly between now and mid century so the Oxford non-prediction may well turn out to be correct.
David
David, ‘Cut’, according to my dictionary, is ‘a REDUCTION in price, salary, etc.’ It’s explicit in the Oxford University press release that there must not only be cuts, but ‘deep’ cuts in emissions if a doubling in concentrations by around the middle of the century is to be avoided. Even if one assumes that ‘deep cuts’ meant a reduction of only 20% rather than 60%, which seems to be a rather extreme interpretation, the Oxford University statement would still have exaggerated the ‘around mid-century’ position by a factor of 4 if the relationship between the emissions scenarios and the concentration scenarios remains similar to that assumed in the TAR.
Can you please give me a peer-reviewed source for your claim that ‘Even with no growth in emissions and no degradation in sinks we will see a doubling of CO2 around middle century’? This seems to me to be in direct contradiction to the findings of the IPCC Third Assessment Report. In every one of the 35 emissions scenarios which were used in deriving the range of temperature increase projected in that Report (as shown for example in Figure 5 of the Summary for Policymakers at http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/008.htm ) it was assumed that fossil fuel CO2 emissions would be higher in 2050 than in 2000. Yet a number of the emissions scenarios achieve a stabilisation of atmospheric CO2 concentrations at well below double the pre-industrial level.
In his presentation to the session
>Can you please give me a peer-reviewed source for your claim that ‘Even with no growth in emissions and no degradation in sinks we will see a doubling of CO2 around middle century’?
Try simple extrapolation. Current growth rate in CO2 is about 0.5% PA. This has been quite stable over recent years. I do not have the time to chase references (which you are well aware of).
The IPCC (as I have repeated numerous times) does not provide predictions. It provides scenarios which are statments of what if. They have no attached PDF and should not be interpreted as forecasts.
>Have the ABARE projections of emissions to 2050 been published? I looked at an ABARE paper released at the time of the 6-country meeting in January but couldn’t make sense of the emissions numbers.
The included base-line figure (Figure 4) has CO2 emissions more than doubling by 2050, approximately following the A1F1 scenario. Double CO2 occurs around the middle of the century.
>The IEA emission projections were virtually unchanged in WEO 2004, the most recent edition I�ve seen.
Prehaps you might care to provide us with the project growth in conentional energy use?
David
I could go on but do not have the time.
David
Sorry to but in with ddt but I didnt bring it up first,
Steve may feel I only read news papers so here are some falsehoods from real medical papers
Trop Med Int Health. 2004 Aug;9(8):846-56.
Historical review of malarial control in southern African with emphasis on the use of indoor esidual house-spraying.
Mabaso ML, Sharp B, Lengeler C.
Malaria Research Programme, Medical Research Council, Durban, South Africa. mabasom@mrc.ac.za
Indoor residual house-spraying (IRS) mainly with dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) was the principal method by which malaria was eradicated or greatly reduced in many countries in the world between the 1940s and 1960s. In sub-Saharan Africa early malarial eradication pilot projects also showed that malaria is highly responsive to vector control by IRS but transmission could not be interrupted in the endemic tropical and lowland areas. As a result IRS was not taken to scale in most endemic areas of the continent with the exception of southern Africa and some island countries such as Reunion, Mayotte, Zanzibar, Cape Verde and Sao Tome. In southern Africa large-scale malarial control operations based on IRS with DDT and benzene hexachloride (BHC) were initiated in a number of countries to varying degrees. The objective of this review was to investigate the malarial situation before and after the introduction of indoor residual insecticide spraying in South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique using historical malarial data and related information collected from National Malaria Control Programmes, national archives and libraries, as well as academic institutions in the respective countries. Immediately after the inception of IRS with insecticides, dramatic reductions in malaria and its vectors were recorded. Countries that developed National Malaria Control Programmes during this phase and had built up human and organizational resources made significant advances towards malarial control. Malaria was reduced from hyper- to meso-endemicity and from meso- to hypo-endemicity and in certain instances to complete eradication. Data are presented on the effectiveness of IRS as a malarial control tool in six southern African countries. Recent trends in and challenges to malarial control in the region are also discussed.
Table 2 summarizes the start of IRS programmes in the region and changes in residual insecticides applied over time. The first trial testing of the residual application of insecticides for malarial control in southern Africa was carried out in 1931 in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and by 1932 a widespread residual house-spraying programme using pyrethrum was undertaken. In 1946, DDT replaced pyrethrum as the insecticide of choice (Sharp et al. 1988; le Sueur et al. 1993). In 1956, malaria became a notifiable disease, total coverage of all malarial areas was achieved for the first time in 1958, and by 1970 South Africa had a well-structured malarial control programme (Sharp & le Sueur 1996). In 1996, the pyrethroid deltamethrin was introduced for IRS in line with international trends to replace DDT. Subsequently, A. funestus, which had disappeared since the 1950s re-emerged in 2000 and was shown to be pyrethroid-resistant (Hargreaves et al. 2000). As a result, national policy reverted to the use of DDT, and surveillance has since indicated that A. funestus has again disappeared (Ministry of Health 2003).
In Swaziland, the malarial control programme was launched in 1945. Residual indoor spraying with DDT was initiated on a limited scale in 1947 (Mastbaum 1955). By 1950, coverage of all malarial areas was achieved. During the 1951-52 transmission season, BHC was introduced due to a shortage of DDT. From 1955-56, the efficacy of dieldrin vs. BHC was evaluated and no significant difference was found in the vector population density and number of malarial cases in areas sprayed with the two insecticides. However, dieldrin was discontinued due to higher cost (Mastbaum 1956, 1957a). Focal spraying, partly with BHC and partly with DDT, was carried out in the 1960s (Delfini 1969). From the 1980s, all inhabited structures in malarial areas were sprayed with DDT and later with synthetic pryrethroids (cyfluthrin) in houses with painted walls.
In Botswana, the National Malaria Control Programme was initiated in 1974. However, malarial interventions including spraying of human habitations have been reported as far back as the mid-1940s (Mastbaum 1944). In the 1950s, indoor house-spraying with DDT became the main vector control method (Freedman 1953). DDT remained the insecticide choice until 1971 when Fenitrothion was tried but abandoned again in 1972 because of low efficacy (Chayajabera et al. 1975). In 1973, residual spraying with DDT in the malarial districts of Ngamiland, Chobe and Francistown resumed, and in the 1980s a comprehensive vector control programme was organized which led to improved spraying coverage. In 1998, Botswana stopped the use of DDT and introduced pyrethroids (deltamethrin and lambda-cyhalothrin) as alternative insecticides as a consequence of a lack of availability of good quality DDT (Ministry of Health 1999).
Lets see how Detribe goes on DDT ban myth bingo:
http://timlambert.org/2005/12/ddt-ban-myth-bingo/
I got 2 but not in a line – perhaps I should try the other posts
Thanks David. I thought that when you asserted that CO2 concentrations would double by around mid-century without any growth in emissions you might have had a source readily to hand. I don’t know of any study that has reached that conclusion and until I learn of one I’ll stick with the findings of the IPCC Third Assessment Report.
I tried simple extrapolation as you suggested. A 0.5 per cent per annum growth rate beginning with a CO2 concentration of 370 ppm in 2000 gets up to 475 ppm in 2050, which would be about 70% above the pre-industrial level of about 280 ppm. That’s a good way short of a doubling. And in any case, if the growth rate of 0.5% in CO2 concentrations has been ‘quite stable over recent years’ when CO2 emissions have been growing, Id be inclined to guess that the growth rate in concentrations would be slower if there were no increases in emissions from now on, as you’ve assumed.
Yes it was Figure 4 of the ABARE publication which seemed to me to be inconsistent with the text. But whether the growth in CO2 emissions which leads to a doubling in CO2 concentrations is a ‘more than doubling’ (as Figure 4 shows) or a near-trebling (as stated in the text), it’s clearly a large increase. So this approach too suggests that the claim in the Oxford University statement that deep cuts in emissions are necessary to achieve the same outcome for concentrations is wrong.
I don’t know why you’re telling me yet again that the IPCC does not provide predictions. I know that. The scenarios are statements of what if. So, for example, the B1 marker scenario states that IF global CO2 emissions increase between 2000 and 2050 as assumed in that scenario (a growth of 70%, from 6.9 GtC to 11.7 GtC), then CO2 concentrations, according to the average of the IPCC simple climate model results, would rise to between 475 and 500 ppm. Again the conclusion is the same: even if there is a large increase in emissions between now and 2050, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 would not reach double the pre-industrial level.
In response to your question, the projected increase in total primary energy supply between 2000 and 2030 in the Reference Scenario in the IEAs World Energy Outlook 2002 was 66%, representing an average annual rate of increase of 1.7% over the 30-year period. The contribution of non-conventional energy (wind, geothermal, solar and tide/wave) to total primary energy supply in 2030 is projected to be about 1%.
>I tried simple extrapolation as you suggested. A 0.5 per cent per annum growth rate beginning with a CO2 concentration of 370 ppm in 2000 gets up to 475 ppm in 2050, which would be about 70% above the pre-industrial level of about 280 ppm. That’s a good way short of a doubling. And in any case, if the growth rate of 0.5% in CO2 concentrations has been ‘quite stable over recent years’ when CO2 emissions have been growing, Id be inclined to guess that the growth rate in concentrations would be slower if there were no increases in emissions from now on, as you’ve assumed.
We are largely splitting hairs which is my point (nothing in this is alarming or miss-leading). We are arguing about a few 10% which is simply shifting time-lines back or forth by a few decades.
If you use ice core records which suggest actual pre-industrial CO2 levels were closer to 270ppm you reach a doubling of CO2 (without compounding) at around 2075. The middle of the century could reasonably mean anytime from 2025 to 2075 (before is early, after is late). Hence this very conservative calculation supports the qualitative statments in the Oxford press release.
In reality, CO2 emissions will increase based on every emission projection I have seen through the coming decades, while there is considerable evidence appearing from the biological and paleo data that we cannot rely on natural sinks, and that these natural sinks are in danger of saturating, and will become net sources around 2C of warming (give or take). These latter risks are poorly represented (IMHO) in the current CO2 projections as the science was simply not around in the mid 1990s.
We can be quite certain that there is massive uncertainity in the future concentrations of CO2 (under dire biochemical feedbacks CO2 could tripple or worse by 2100), and to some extent the concentrations will be determined by policy and technological developments which we can only guess at. This uncertainity is taken into account by the story-line approach adopted by the IPCC. We may not like the story-lines (and argue about MER versus PPP, assumptions about convergence etc) but their range is so great that they probably encompass most reasonably likely pathways for the next 50 to 100 years.
David
Thanks Detribe.
I’m not sure how the data you provide contradicts anything I have said. Indeed, it supports it.
DDT is still used for human protection and is still efficacious in some places whereas in other localities, like Sri Lanka, malaria carrying mosquitos are mostly DDT resistant.
The bans that exist, such as the EU ban, apply ONLY to agriculture.
Did you watch the documentary “PRESCRIPTION FOR SURVIVAL – Deadly Messengers” on SBS last Sunday? It mostly dealt with mosquito transmitted diseases and made the point that a 90% reduction in malaria transmission has been achieved in parts of Africa through the distribution of mosquito nets treated with insecticide.
I again restate my main point. Rachel Carson has saved lives by curtailing DDT use in agriculture and thus slowing down the development of DDT resistant mosquitos.
‘In reality, CO2 emissions will increase based on every emission projection I have seen through the coming decades.’ Thanks, David, that’s exactly the point. This is certainly true of every one of the 35 emissions projections used by the IPCC to derive its range of temperature increases of 1.4 to 5.8 deg. C between 1990 and 2100.
Yet under a number of these scenarios CO2 concentrations NEVER reach your estimate of twice the pre-industrial level of 270 ppm: i.e., 540 ppm. Never means never. I don’t understand how you can argue that it is a matter of ‘shifting timelines back or forth by a few decades’.
You seem to want to say, on the one hand, that the IPCC storylines ‘probably encompass most reasonably likely pathways for the next 50 – 100 years’; and, on the other, that the scenarios that assume large increases in emissions in the coming decades but don’t exceed the 2 x 270 ppm concentration level are impossible.
Despite some claims that have been made on this site, I’m not generally given to conspiracy theories. But I do suspect that the IPCC’s failure to publish decadal projections of CO2 concentration levels for all of the scenarios included in its temperature projections is motivated by political rather than scientific considerations. I can’t think of any other reason for suppressing this information.
Oh David, do you mean the ice cores where every CO2 value over 290 ppm was excluded, I think the actual wording was ‘smoothed’, on the assumption that pre-industrial CO2 was 290ppm therefore anything more must be a biological anomaly?
Sure, some of the highest values, in the order of 1000ppm were obviously anomalous, but eliminating any record that didn’t conform to the preconceived value seems just a touch sloppy, don’t you think?
Steve,
I thank you for returning to civility. I restate my points that the campaigning against DDT went too far. A total ban was in fact attempted at Joburg 2000 and Amil Attaran stopped this, and his full arguments are really worth reading. Clearly massive overuse of DDT in agriculture was a bad thing, but the arguments to stop it were not related to preserving mosquito DDT sensitivity, and Rachel Carson’s presentation of evidence about DDT and cancer was flawed and not substantiated by current studies.
The problem is still the constant anti-DDT pressure from lobby groups (for instance withdrawal of other aid if DDT is used) who do not realise Carson was wrong and who still have detrimental policies about its use and with misguided zeal do things like pressurising African governments with tragic consequences illustrated by the epidemic in KZN. Yes bed nets have value, but there is a need to also have additional cheap effective house sprays available and DDT meets that need still.
No, anti-DDT activists have not killed millions, but they have been a definite causative factor in tens-hundreds of thousands of cases and many deaths. Perhaps if they acknowledged that, they would gain from the realisation that the world is a more complicated place than a melodrama of evil capitalists being stopped by the crusading all-knowing moral white knights they see themselves as, because in the real world version this absurd melodrama, many poor people are being harmed by blundering zealots who don’t pay attention to scientific accuracy and rigour.
A good example of such collateral damage is the estimated 67500 deaths caused so far by excessive precaution over vitamin enhanced rice.
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/03/accolades-for-golden-rice-inventors.html
>Oh David, do you mean the ice cores where every CO2 value over 290 ppm was excluded, I think the actual wording was ‘smoothed’, on the assumption that pre-industrial CO2 was 290ppm therefore anything more must be a biological anomaly?
Ian we have gone over this over and over. Prehaps you might care to provide us with pre-industrial ice core analyses which support your points which have been through peer review and confirmed? Even if you are right (which you are not), does 10 or 20ppm really matter? Does this change the big picture? We are arguing 3-5% of atmospheric CO2 concentration, which amounts to around 5-10 years current CO2 growth rates.
>Yet under a number of these scenarios CO2 concentrations NEVER reach your estimate of twice the pre-industrial level of 270 ppm: i.e., 540 ppm. Never means never. I don’t understand how you can argue that it is a matter of ‘shifting timelines back or forth by a few decades’.
Ian, the very low emission scenarios assume aggressive cuts in emission intensity from BAU approaches. How can you criticise the Oxford team for stating that we will need to undertake aggresive mitigation action to avoid 2*CO2 when this is exactly what the IPCC story-lines which avoid a doubling imply?
I have also avoided mentioning the fact that effective CO2 is running about 25% above actual CO2 concentrations due to the large greenhouse signal due to CH4, CFC etc. In reality (as far as climate is concerned) we will cross an effective 2*CO2 level sooner rather than later and be committed to a rise in temperatures of between 2 and (about) 4C based on current climate sensitivity estimates.
David
David, My objection to the Oxford team’s statement seems to me to be a matter of elementary arithmetic and logic, and I am frustrated that you keep introducing what seem to me to be red herrings.
In your latest message you talked of ‘aggressive cuts in emission intensity from BAU approaches’ and claimed that the Oxford team had stated that ‘we will need to undertake aggressive mitigation action to avoid 2*CO2.’ And in your previous message you introduced ‘policy and technological developments’, ‘MER versus PPP’ and ‘assumptions about convergence’.
All of these things are irrelevant to the point at issue, and the Oxford team didn’t make the statement you attributed to them. They said that 2*CO2 would be reached by around the middle of this century ‘unless DEEP CUTS ARE MADE in greenhouse gas emissions’ (EMPHASIS added). This can be restated in other words, e.g., that in order to avert the 2 x CO2 outcome emissions must be REDUCED, or the trend in the time series of emissions must be NEGATIVE or DOWN. But the developments that led to this result are simply irrelevant.
The atmosphere won’t know whether emissions have decreased because countries have taken aggressive action to reduce them, or because their economies have collapsed, or because cheap solar power has made fossil fuels uncompetitive, or because most of the world’s population has perished in a pandemic.
You have attempted to justify the Oxford scientists’ claim by asserting that ‘Even with NO GROWTH IN EMISSIONS and no degradation in sinks we will see a doubling of CO2 around middle century’ (EMPHASIS added).
I’m sorry that you don’t have the time to identify a reference for this assertion. However, it’s quite simple to calculate the approximate level of fossil CO2 that will be emitted under your scenario. Annual emissions are currently about 7 GtC, so cumulative emissions for the first half of the century under your ‘no growth in emissions scenario’ come to 50 x 7 GtC, or 350 GtC.
This is MUCH lower than any of the 35 scenarios that were used to project the IPCC’s temperature range (which you characterise as ‘very low emission scenarios’). The scenario that Tom Wigley identified as being ‘the extreme [low] scenario in terms of the 2100 forcing pattern’ was the B1T MESSAGE scenario. According to Dr. Wigley the CO2 concentration in 2100 under this scenario would be 480 ppm. The CO2 concentration in the middle of the century would of course be much lower than this.
In the light of yesterday’s announcement that ‘A Beazley Labor Government will work towards a long-term national target of 60 per cent cuts to Australia’s year 2000 levels of greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050’, I see it as important that the apparent conflict between your ‘what-if’ global emissions scenarios and the IPCC’s scenarios be resolved.
According to your ‘what if’ scenario, CO2 concentrations get to double the pre-industrial level by about the middle of the century with only 350 GtC emitted. According to the IPCC’s B1T MESSAGE scenario and Wigley’s calculations, the CO2 concentration doesn’t approach twice the pre-industrial level at mid-century, even with a much higher projected level of cumulative CO2 emissions (445 GtC). And under the B1 marker scenario (B1 IMAGE), the projected cumulative emissions would be still higher (512 GtC), yet the 2 x CO2 concentration level will still not have been reached.
Cutting cumulative global emissions for the first half of the century from the B1 marker scenario level of 512 GtC to the constant emissions level of 350 GtC (a reduction of over 30%) would be an extremely painful process. I hope therefore that you can identify a source for your claim that CO2 concentrations under the latter scenario would be higher than the IPCC
>You have attempted to justify the Oxford scientists’ claim by asserting that ‘Even with NO GROWTH IN EMISSIONS and no degradation in sinks we will see a doubling of CO2 around middle century’ (EMPHASIS added).
>I’m sorry that you don’t have the time to identify a reference for this assertion.
I have no reason to disagree with the baseline provide by ABARE, though prefer a simple extrapolation of recent trends as I have little confidence in the ability of economists to predict short term trends let alone long term ones. Similar goes for projections of technology transfer/uptake. Ones inability to do this is reflected in the huge range covered by the IPCC scenarios.
The ABARE projection (assuming natural sinks remain unchanged) will see us pass 2*CO2 during the middle of the century. A recent attempt to model CO2 with a realistic carbon cycle model (Jones et al. 2003, Geophysical Research Letters. 31-1) based on the IS92a scenario has CO2 more than doubling by 2050 (and approaching a trippling by 2075).
Of course, neither ABARE or Jones et al. would claim that these are prediction… they are not. They are scenarios which map out possible future CO2 pathways. True emission/CO2 predictions must be probabilistic, as the underlying systems are chaotic.
Ascertions about modest changes in secondary greenhouse gases does not change the observation that the effective CO2 is substantially greater than actual CO2 and will remain so for decades to come. Some of Hanssen’s optimism is probably misplaced as CH4 (for example) has increased in concentration each of the last 3-4 years (David H. Levinson, ED.. 2005: STATE OF THE CLIMATE IN 2004. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society: Vol. 86, No. 6, pp. S1–S86.).
Ultimately, take a step back and ask yourself. Does it matter if CO2 doubles at 2050 or 2075 or 2085, and do we have the evidence at hand to prefer one date over another?
The difference in climate variables such as temperature is slight (e.g., http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/350.htm#9313).
Prehaps, you might consider contacting the Oxford team as a last resort and ask them for further information on the base emission scenarios that they have used? and also an apporiate quantitative interpretation of their qualitative press release.
David
David, I meant to say that you characterise the LOW IPCC scenarios as ‘very low emissions scenarios’ – or at least I assume that it is those scenarios to which you are referring in your comment about ‘aggressive cuts in emission intensity’.
As I said in my long posting, I don’t believe that trends in emissions intensity are relevant to the issue we are discussing. But in any case it is by no means clear that these scenarios DO assume aggressive cuts in emission intensity. For example, Holtsmark and Alfsen claim that real economic growth in the IPCC ‘appears only from the MESSAGE scenarios’, and that this growth ‘is considerably smaller than the MER-based GDP growth’ (‘The use of PPP or MER in the construction of emission scenarios is more than a question of ‘metrics’, ‘Climate Policy’, 2005, vol. 4, no. 2).
If the assumed growth in output in the IPCC scenarios was lower than that reported, as the H&A comments imply, the emission intensity reductions would also be correspondingly lower. As Dr. Alfsen was a reviewer of the SRES and is a lead author of the chapter in AR4 that is reviewing criticisms of the SRES, his comments cannot be dismissed. It seems that the SRES authors themselves don’t know what rate of economic growth was assumed in the Report: the rates presented by Professor Nakicenovic to the House of Lords Committee are much lower than those reported in the SRES (see Evidence, 8 March 2005, Answer to Question 327).
David, I
Ian, the numbers speak for themselve on CH4. Compared to the ~1950 to ~2000 period, CH4 is “stable” but look hard at the data and the couple of years of slight -ve growth rates have subsequently become +ve.
>I don?t see any need to approach the Oxford team to ask them for further information on the base emission scenarios that they have used. To me it?s obvious that ?deep cuts? means reductions from present levels, not from some unrevealed future baseline.
How can you cast criticism without verifying what baseline they are using?
The various IEA scenarios speak for themselves. A 40 to 60% increase in emissions by 2030 will require “impossibly” large emission reduction in subsequent decades to avoid a doubling of CO2 around the middle part of the century.
I do not have time to spend on your other comments as we are only rehashing old ground.
If you have any evidence that future CO2 emissions will lie significantly outside of the IPCC scenarios I would certainly love to see it as my expertise is not in emission modelling. I am only a “user” of such emission information and have no attachment to any future emission pathway.
David
>My understanding is that most experts believe that a 1.2 deg C increase for the century (1.8 deg C compared with pre-industrial) is manageable, whereas an increase of 3.0 deg C for the century (3.6 compared with pre-industrial) would pose serious dangers.
The 1.7 deg. C climate sensitivity you quote is at the low end. Substitute a mid-point estimate ~3C or an upper end estimate ~4-5C and you get a very different answer.
I am also suprised you use 2100 to make your point. This discussion is about 2050 (give or take 25 years). At 2050 the actual emission path makes very little difference to the amount of warming.
David
I didn’t use 2100 to make my point, David, and I take exception to the implication in your comment that I ‘used’ a particular date to make the point. The choice of 2100 to show the differences in temperature increases for each of the seven individual models was the IPCC’s, not mine.
As you’ll see if you look at the chart to which I referred you, the temperature differences between the emissions scenarios are even greater at the higher sensitivities, so your claim that the emissions profiles don
David, I forgot to reply to your comments on CH4. You initially said that ‘Some of Hansen’s optimism is probably misplaced as CH4 (for example) has increased in concentration EACH OF THE LAST 3 – 4 YEARS’ (EMPHASIS added). In support of that statement you cited the ‘State of the Climate in 2004’ report in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
I quoted the only relevant extract that I could find from this source, which was clearly inconsistent with your claim. You now tell me that the CH4 numbers
David, Your claim that ‘A 40 to 60% increase in emissions by 2030 will require “impossibly” large emission reduction in subsequent decades to avoid a doubling of CO2 around the middle part of the century’ doesn’t square with Tom Wigley’s advice to the IPCC Expert Meeting in Amsterdam in January 2003.
I heard Tom say that under the SRES B1T MESSAGE scenario (which projects an increase of over 40% in fossil CO2 emissions between 2000 and 2030) the CO2 burden would be 480 ppm in 2100 (i.e., 50 years later). Are you arguing that the CO2 concentration under this scenario would be higher around the middle part of the century than at its end? Or is that you don’t accept the validity of the connection between emissions and concentrations in Dr. Wigley’s MAGICC model?
I quoted Wigley’s results in my own presentation to the Expert Meeting, which has been widely publicised on the websites of The Economist and the Lavoisier Group, and published in the journal ‘Energy and Environment.’ If I misunderstood what Dr. Wigley said, I would have thought that someone would have pointed this out by now.
The IPCC defines ‘scenario’ as ‘a PLAUSIBLE description of how the future may develop’ (EMPHASIS added), which would seem to imply a view on the Panel’s part that the post-2030 emissions reductions projected in the B1T MESSAGE scenario are NOT ‘impossibly’ large. I don’t see the point of these ‘what if’ exercises if the imagined future cannot possibly be realised.