GetUp’s global warming television ads (to air today) are dishonest and inaccurate, according to Dr Jennifer Marohasy, Chair of the Australian Environment Foundation.
“For all sorts of reasons a number of groups, of which Internet campaigners GetUp.org.au are one, are pretending that the Rudd Government’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme is a minor 5 to15 percent adjustment to our way of life”.
“In fact, the government’s ETS will reduce the amount of energy available to every man; woman and child currently living in the country by an extraordinary 35 percent, absent the discovery and implementation of an unknown source of carbon free energy in the next ten years”.
Dr Marohasy said that this would be the equivalent of closing down all of Australia’s manufacturing and half its rural industries.
“Or thought of another way, it is the equivalent of closing 72% of our current power generation capacity (stationary power)”.
Dr Marohasy said that population growth masked the severity of the scheme.
“Our natural birth-rate plus immigration intake adds around 360,000 to the population every year, roughly the equivalent of another Brisbane every 5 years – 20 percent growth in 11 years – making 35% look like 15%”.
Dr Marohasy said that it was understandable that groups like GetUp that stand for nothing and are opposed to everything would want to downplay the severity of the government’s proposals.
“If GetUp has nothing to complain about they are out of business, so of course they want to portray the government’s decision in the ‘worst’ light”.
She said that the government also has a vested interest in downplaying the severity of their scheme.
“Kevin Rudd wants to convince Australians that it won’t hurt one little bit, so he’s happy for groups like GetUp to criticize him for being John Howard lite.
In fact, the proposed ETS will make Australians poorer; while it is richer, not poorer nations that are better able to protect their natural environment”.
********************************************
Sources:
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/inventory/enduse/pubs/vol1-summary.pdf
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3101.0/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane
The Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) is a not-for-profit, membership-based environment organisation having no political affiliation. The AEF is a different kind of environment group, caring for both Australia & Australians. Many of our members are practical environmentalists – people who actively use and also care for the environment. We accept that environmental protection and sustainable resource use are generally compatible. For more information about the AEF, visit www.aefweb.info
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
How does an ETS “reduce” the amount of energy available to each man, woman and child?
And how will it be the equivalent of closing down industry and the rural sector and power generation? Or is “equivalent” only for comparison purposes here?
Why would it be the equivalent of closing down anything?
Just asking?
look Luke, of course switching of your TV when you are not watching is the equivalent of closing down industry.
as is the switch to more efficient applications.
see, if a reduction of 5% will close down all production, what future then lies ahead for Norway, that wants to get FULLY NEUTRAL?
http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/29456
‘How does an ETS “reduce” the amount of energy available to each man, woman and child?’
If the energy sector had to implement emissions cuts proportional to those imposed on the overall economy, and if they could only do that by turning things off or closing them down – then the argument would follow.
What I think is a more defensible statement is this: ETS caps make *emissions-intensive* energy more expensive, and therefore, past a certain point, scarcer.
One can attempt to make up for this imposed scarcity by developing extra sources of low- or zero-emissions energy.
I would really like to see some realistic costings of a big switch-over in the energy sector, to some of those known sources of ‘carbon free energy’. I was a little shocked today, studying Garnaut’s report, to realize that his mitigation scenarios basically involve (i) keeping national emissions constant to 2020, but purchasing foreign emissions permits from a global, post-Kyoto carbon market (ii) after 2020, relying on carbon capture to bring down real emissions in the energy sector. I wonder if renewable-energy proponents like Mark Diesendorf have any whole-of-economy studies on the least-cost path to a zero-emissions energy sector.
And given that geosequestration is unlikely to be a reality in the next 10 years, exactly how are we supposed to cut-back on our CO2 emissions without closing something down? You can’t replace coal-fired with wind or solar to any great extent, and even if you started today you won’t have a single nuclear plant up and running in the time period.
The only way you have any chance of making the adjustments is by becoming more energy efficient, or exporting a huge slice of your industries to somewhere without a cap. So I think Jennifer’s on to something in terms of explaining it this way.
Interesting that no-one is criticising her for pointing out how severe the proposed cuts really are.
Well I’m just trying to get the argument laid out properly here with minimum rhetoric? Not convinced so far.
So a 5% efficiency gain is not possible?
i.e. how many computers are left on 24 x 7 that don’t need to be…. (just a small example …)
Would not a price signal hasten these sort of changes?
Interesting that no-one is criticising her for pointing out how severe the proposed cuts really are.
well, it is NOT very reasonable to take the maximum amount of a range (15%) as the basis for her claims!?!
I believe Jennifer is more correct than those who think that the impact will be benign. That ole rule of unanticipated consequences will raise it;s ugly head and bite some of Y’all. Why do I say this? Because, in 9 years my electricity bill has gone up 320%. Deregulation of the electricity industry and Cap and Trade of the power industry in the NE, the area in which I DO LIVE in the US. Both have caused step increases in the prices.
From my own experience, increased prices due to poor Govt policies will not reduce usage, but poor policies that restrict needed growth of energy will, in my opinion, cause a serious back lash. A 10 year goal with no solution for growing need equals a shtoopid Govt policy.
Welcome to my world, mates.
El Luko Dipstick et al
You are being disingenuous again (in the resident Dipstick’s case, I suspect he is once again just trawling for a straw man)
Jennifer’s point is very clear:
1) the 5-15% cut is against year 2000 levels (must be true because Rudderless said so !!)
2) population growth increases basic demand so the “cuts” are asymptotic against the population growth curve
Severe indeed. A 5% “efficiency” cut from a base of AD2000 against increasing population is an ask that requires a very noticeable cut in living standards.
Don’t bother with the renewabubbles – just carefully examine Germany’s baseload energy sources ratio. The Watermelons are forever babbling about Germany’s advanced use of solar and other renewabubbles – simply examine the ratios reported on the German Ministry of Energy site.
Send all the price signals you want – a severe cut in living standards for no noticeable gain or practical reason is an interesting political manouver … and all for an unfalsifiable notion.
Well actually it’s not very clear at all – it’s merely and assertion based on ?? No assumptions on current wastage/efficiencies.
You guys are the “ADAPTATION” experts. So you’ll just adapt won’t you. I mean you reckon you can just “ADAPT” to droughts, floods and hurricanes so surely a small increase in electricity price would be a cinch for you adaptation experts?
You’ll adapt ?
Wow Jennifer! The Get Up ad must’ve got under your skin
The ad is not dishonest instead its satire which has long been a very useful component of society just look at Pepys, Swift, Roy Rene, Roy and HG, The Onion, Mavis Bramston, The Chaser, Steve Bell in the Guardian, the list goes on and on. As well as standing squarely in that noble tradition the Get Up ads very effectively use subversion of modern media techniques, as pioneered by programmes such as Not the Nine O’clock News, to get a message across.
To have got that over-reaction from you shows the success of the ad. But, sit back and think about how the special interest groups who have spent so much money lobbying against an ETS must be gnashing their teeth in impotence at how a group of Completely-Unimportant-People have laid their lobbying bare and by using so little money (nasty!). And that is one of the main things about satire, showing how supposedly powerful groups in society actually have no power over us. That the public paid for the ad to be shown demonstrates the amount of suspicion about special interest groups trying to keep what they have when it comes to the overall good of society.
Satire…. Yes. Dishonest…No. But I can understand how Get Ups ad might cut across what message you might try to get across with the ETS website you are putting together.
So try this. Make a TV ad sending up the ETS, from your point of view, and then put out a public appeal for money to have it shown, similar to what you are doing with your appeal to fund your website on the the ETS. Lets see what happens. You game for it?
But on a more serious note. I am not quite clear at how you arrive at the figure of 35% reduction in energy available for every man, women and child in Australia in your press release (and what do you mean by available energy, e.g. primary energy? etc). I went through the rather dated (1999) AGO document you gave the link to and couldn’t get to it from that and with the ABS prelim on population growth. Perhaps if certain groups weren’t so obsessed with the ethereal results from growing Australia’s population then these figures of ‘35%’ wouldn’t be bandied about.
As an engineer finishing up a masters in energy I’m not able to see how you arrived at the assertions, “this would be the equivalent of closing down all of Australia’s manufacturing and half its rural industries” and “Or thought of another way, it is the equivalent of closing 72% of our current power generation capacity (stationary power)”. I think you would have to go through and determine the energy productivity of each sector before you can come up with an idea of what coupling there is going to be between emissions reduction and productivity.
A question I’d like to ask you is what do you think the energy productivity of Australia is, overall and sector by sector, when compared with other countries, e.g. Rwanda, Czechoslovakia …. Sweden even? I don’t think we need a “discovery and implementation of an unknown source of carbon free energy in the next ten years”. Instead, as a number of experts e.g. Alan Pears have time and time pointed out this ‘source of carbon free energy’ is already available by taking up opportunities in energy efficiency (the 1999 AGO doc you linked to shows some evidence for where to look for energy savings in diag S3 on the last page), and from my point of view, rethinking how we do things. I would say support for this comes from the 2005 IEA report into energy in Australia which was critical of how Australia is supply-led in energy rather than being usage-led in energy only equaled by Czechoslovakia. This seems to be changing but my general conclusion is that Australia’s economy is being held back by our inefficient use of energy due to its ‘cheapness’. Perhaps the ETS is a great opportunity for Australia’s economy to come into the 21st century, though this won’t please some people.
Finally Jennifer. Why do you keep repeating the superstition, “it is richer, not poorer nations that are better able to protect their natural environment”? I’ve asked you to justify this before. I could be charitable and say its dodgy inductive reasoning but its really just a faith statement.
Luke, “small increase in electricity price?” Read my comment again. 320% is not small.
As far as adapting, yes, as a species we can and have been adapting to all those things you mentioned and more. Hurricane proof houses in the Southern US, earthquake resistant buildings in the US West coast, Dutch coast line reclamation, adapting to temperature extremes are power intensive [what this article is about], and for droughts/deserts we migrate and don’t over populate these are just a handful of examples of our species adaptability.
Of course I’m talking about my species. I’m not too sure about yours. Mine could be more intelligent than yours. Dunno! Gotcha!
“Finally Jennifer. Why do you keep repeating the superstition, “it is richer, not poorer nations that are better able to protect their natural environment”?
Its a fact. Richer nations can afford to set aside the resources involved and spend the money involved to have a more diverse and glorius natural environment. That ought to be obvious. Richer people have more means to accomplish any given goal. Whether that goal is righteous or not.
Graeme,
Your seem to be assuming that the environment is dependent on the economy when it is the other way around. The economy is about choices and quite often choices are divorced from the consequences and don’t forget wealth is just what you consider valuable.
You are cleaving to a superstition.
“That ole rule of unanticipated consequences will raise it;s ugly head and bite some of Y’all. ”
The rule of unintended consequences is here already, in the form of AGW caused by burning all those fossil fuels so quickly.
SJT, maybe you can answer my question? Nobody else seems able or willing to do so.
Jeremy C,
You ask for justification regarding my comment, “it is richer, not poorer nations that are better able to protect their natural environment”
There is much written about this. Try for a starter the Yale Environmental Sustainability Index at http://www.yale.edu/esi/
You, like many environmentalists, may love to hate the developed industrialized world. But this loathing tends to be based on a misguided romantic view of the natural world and subsistence economies.
While many environmental challenges arise from development and industrialization, industrialized nations are generally richer and the Yale Environmental Sustainability Index indicates that being richer generally contributes to strong environmental stewardship, although it does not guarantee it.
According to this Index, low population density, economic vitality and quality of governance are also important determinants of environmental performance.
Luke: “Why would it be the equivalent of closing down anything?
Just asking?”
Oh, you really don’t understand this?
When the amount of energy is reduced the price automatically rise, so that the industries are not as competative as they were before the increase of the energy price.
In Sweden (where I live) we have 50 % hydroelectricity and 40 % nuclear power. No CO2 emissions! But since we have a cap-and-trade system i Europe the electricity price has risen dramatically. This has caused 10th of thousands of workers in very clean and energy efficient (world leading in these respects) industries in Sweden lost their jobs. These industries using much elecricity (aluminium-, steel industries etc) has been force to close down because of loss of money.
On the market these environmental friendly industries are replaced by dirty Chinese industries.
Well, Luke. You maybe think we shall abandon the market and go socialist? Or?
Also, what I’ve seen from you so far I don’t think you can understand a single word in a answer with substantial arguments. I’m actually feel stupid to answer you, and you will probably be happy that I’m sarcastic here. Then you have something to reply rhetorically. You can handle peronal criticism, but not facts!
Oh, Jeremy C. you need to be among the first to turn off your electricity, and stop driving. With a “Masters” in engineering I’m suprised you don’t have better insight.
Luke your comment about switching of your computer shows you have no idea of scale. Australians use around 220 TW hours of electricity per annum. This is generated using coal in the main. We also export the same amount of coal. Replacement with “alternative” energy is nonsense. A 1000 wind turbines per coal power station in addition some way to store the power. Then the wind just does not blow all the time so the number is about 5000. With solar we get about a hundred watts per square metre and they generate 5 hours only a day. How many do you need to generate a GW 24/7. “Alternative” energy is pie in the sky nonsense.
I think I can define the ETS in a sentence. We will drive the cost of energy up so that less is used.
Luke.
The problems with the carbon credit system we are having right now in Europe is BTW only from a quite marginal price effect (eastern Europe has so far, after the collapse of the socialist economy, selled half their credits to western Europe) compared with the suggested system in the future (next decade), which is more like Kevin Rudds.
We loses important parts of our industries with this marginal effect, and…
Although we have already real problems for our industries. This is a bad way in which China and India compete with the Western world. From where do you think Al Gore get his 100 of millions of dollars to promote cap-and-trade (which Gore himself makes huge money from)?
In Sweden (where I live) we have 50 % hydroelectricity and 40 % nuclear power. No CO2 emissions! But since we have a cap-and-trade system i Europe the electricity price has risen dramatically. This has caused 10th of thousands of workers in very clean and energy efficient (world leading in these respects) industries in Sweden lost their jobs. These industries using much elecricity (aluminium-, steel industries etc) has been force to close down because of loss of money.
simple fact check:
http://www.indexmundi.com/minerals/?country=se&product=aluminum&graph=production
no change in swedish aluminium production between 2002 and 2006.
it is still producing as much as in the 80s:
http://www.rusal.ru/en/kubal_factory.aspx
can we consider the “CO2 reduction removes all industry”-myth BUSTED?
You ask for justification regarding my comment, “it is richer, not poorer nations that are better able to protect their natural environment”
There is much written about this. Try for a starter the Yale Environmental Sustainability Index at http://www.yale.edu/esi/
You, like many environmentalists, may love to hate the developed industrialized world. But this loathing tends to be based on a misguided romantic view of the natural world and subsistence economies.
While many environmental challenges arise from development and industrialization, industrialized nations are generally richer and the Yale Environmental Sustainability Index indicates that being richer generally contributes to strong environmental stewardship, although it does not guarantee it.
Jennifer, i was pretty shocked when i read this and took a short look at the report. sustainability is something different than “protecting the natural environment”. a short look at their indicators (table p. 11 and list p. 20+) shows, that they are using indicators like “child death rate” “death from floods” or “government effectiveness”.
basically they are using the indicators that are strongly correlated with “wealth”.
(if you want a basic introduction into dependent and independent variables, try
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/3110082748/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link)
and still, a correlation with GDP (classic indicator of “rich”) gives an R² of only 0.23 (pretty horrible, eh?) (p. 32)
http://www.yale.edu/esi/ESI2005_Main_Report.pdf
you surely have some more convincing evidence to offer?
So it seems we’re still at the apocalyptic situation of life as we know it in Australia ending … and still few facts except for Jeremy C’s potent analysis.
Jennifer,
You said I….
“You, like many environmentalists, may love to hate the developed industrialized world”
What moi!!!!!!!!!
As I mentioned in my post I’m an engineer, yes that’s right a B.Eng soon to be an M.Eng with over 20 years in high technology e.g worked on manned space projects, handled high definition broadcasting etc l(ong before it showed up on your plasma screen – such second rate technology…) and published extensively on technical innovation. So how do you arrive at the idea that I “love to hate the developed industrialized world”?
Very silly on your part. As an engineer I have noticed how the ‘greenies’ seem to come out with such high technology (no don’t gag). if you find that really hard to countenance go have a look at e.g Amory Lovins stuff and his work ith teh Pentagon or the outputs of the engineers at CAT in the UK. I can draw you up a huge list of hig tech greenies if you wnt to take risk and listen. Wanna try….?
Sorry…
“huge list of hig tech greenies if you wnt to take risk and listen. Wanna try….?”
Should read
huge list of high tech greenies if you want to take a risk and listen. Wanna try….?
“Your seem to be assuming that the environment is dependent on the economy when it is the other way around. The economy is about choices and quite often choices are divorced from the consequences and don’t forget wealth is just what you consider valuable.”
No thats idiotic. Its a two-way thing. China has had a booming economy but a crap environment. It could have a booming economy AND a marvellous and improving environment. Or it could have a crap economy and a crap environment. Like the former Soviet Union. You see you are wrong all the time SJT. We have to face facts that idiots like you are always wrong and when you are right its time to stop the press.
Ghastly land use aside, it is in the nature of things for capitalist man to improve his environment. And it is within our power to produce more goods per capita and yet have an environment constantly improving and growing more robust. In fact adding CO2 to the environment is part of this as more CO2 makes the biosphere more robust.
So you are an idiot SJT. You know nothing about economics or nature. Anyone who has any understanding of nature is obviously going to want higher CO2 levels. There is no escaping that fact and only an idiot would try.
“So it seems we’re still at the apocalyptic situation of life as we know it in Australia ending … and still few facts except for Jeremy C’s potent analysis…”
What are you talking about Luke you ludicrous moron!!!!
I cannot impress upon third parties that we MUST FIRE TRAITORS AND LIARS like Luke, SJT and all the others. What are these filth doing on the public payroll?
They abuse their position of parasitism. They lie all the time. They are not going to change. And they are manifestly incompetent at the jobs they have been hired for. Not only are they ineffectual and harmful in what they do daily and in their spare time. But they must form an iron curtain against the prospect of institutional improvement or the upward-mobility of better quality people in the same institutions. There simply has to be mass-sackings.
This is not new you know. People like Luke were joining up with weirdo groups like the Anabaptists and other communists for the last thousand years. And prior to the democratic era they had to be ruthlessly slaughtered before they could do too much harm. Hence if we don’t want it to come to that we have to get in there early with the mass-sackings and the trashing of entire bureaucracies, a bakers dozen a time.
Ok Luke. What are you talking about you filthy unsightly idiot? Go!!!!
Household electrical efficency rates have taken a nosedive since widescreen TV’s have become the thing to have. My plasma is rated at 300W’s opposed to the old CRT TV which was 60W.
Even the LCD widescreen’s I have checked are rated at 150W’s.
How many houses have just one video screen nowdays?
In a household of two people we have three, a plasma and two LCD computer screen’s.
Multiply that across Australia.
Add in air-con as well and the old beer frig.
Changing to fluro globes wont reverse that increase in electricty usage.
At least we dont drive to the movies as much nowday’s!
Graeme,
You are completely disagreeing with me yet what you posted is about choices – just as i said . BTW I’m not SJT. Apologies to SJT for being considered as a hairy engineer who loves both greenies and high technology.
Graeme, just think about what you wrote. Superstition is alive and well and swirls around the IPA….
Jennifer,
Very clever of you to distract me, shows you how dumb I can be. So how about it, why don’t you produce a TV ad sending up Australia’s ETS from your point of view. and about those figures you set out in your release……..
Sod and Jeremy C,
Clearly you haven’t read the link I provided.
Have you read Lomborg’s ‘The Skeptical Environmentalists’? There is much evidence in that book to suggest that once a society reaches a particular level of wealth and sophisiticaion it starts looking after its environment.
I am not at home right now (and so without access to my copy of the book) but in one chapter Bjorn Lomborg makes references to major rivers of the world and uses the Thames as an example.
My own experiences – comparing how waterways are managed in countries that I have lived in Madagascar, Kenya, Indonesia with Australia – provides anecdotal support for the data I see in Bjorn Lomborg’s book and in the Yale Environmental Sustainability Index.
I guess the alternative proposition is that poorer countries are better able to protect their natural environment? This has not been my experience and I have seen no data to support such a proposition.
Nice post Allan. Good thinking
Jennifer,
Thanks for that. My point so-called rich economies looking after the environment is that, as I said, it is at best inductive reasoning i.e ‘all sheep in that field are black therefore all sheep are black’. I will go and read the Yale piece as you said but tell me now why it wont turn out to just be more of the same.
Sod and Jeremy C,
Clearly you haven’t read the link I provided.
i scanned your link. again:
1. your link is using indicators, that show a strong correlation with “rich nations”. (like child death rate)
2. but still, it only gets an extremely bad correlation between their “sustainability index” and the classic indicator of wealth (being GDP per capita)
please explain!
ps: i read the Lomborg book. basically everything in that book is false. anyway, i wouldn t consider him a serious source on this subject…
I guess the alternative proposition is that poorer countries are better able to protect their natural environment? This has not been my experience and I have seen no data to support such a proposition.
not “THE alternative proposition”. what you mentioned is just “A alternative proposition”.
mine is: (ignoring that this depends a lot on your definitions of “rich” and “protecting the natural environment”)
there is little correlation between wealth and protection of the environment.
while rich countries have more money to protect what is left, quite often their population has destroyed quite a lot already. on the other hand, many poor countries are on the way to getting richer, while (by?) destroying their environment.
it is obvious from your post above, that in a rich country, every penny spent on environment protection has to be fought from the likes of you, who will try to prevent it being used that way. sad fact.
Sod,
You can find only exceptions to the rule in the Yale Sustainability Index because its general conclusions don’t agree with your world view.
The index is quite specific in terms of when the proposition falls down: low population density, economic vitality and quality of governance are also important determinants of environmental performance … along with wealth.
But back to my specific comment in the press release … do you think that Australia would be in a better position to look after its natural environment post the ETS?
Do you think that Indonesia (Australia’s near neighbour) does a better job of looking after its coral reefs than we do?
El Luko Dipstick
”
Well actually it’s not very clear at all – it’s merely and assertion based on ?? No assumptions on current wastage/efficiencies”
Now address the population growth issue – the one you’ve avoided in every post so far. Go on – don’t be a coward.
The index is quite specific in terms of when the proposition falls down: low population density, economic vitality and quality of governance are also important determinants of environmental performance … along with wealth.
again, the authors of your study themselves did a correlation analysis between their index (ESI) and GDP per capita. the correlation is WEAK (R²=0.23).
so the study that you decided to cite does NOT really support your claim!
that there is some correlation is easily explained by the indicators used for the ESI. many of them are pretty direct “wealth” indicators.
But back to my specific comment in the press release … do you think that Australia would be in a better position to look after its natural environment post the ETS?
it actually DOES look after its environment by the ETS.
Do you think that Indonesia (Australia’s near neighbour) does a better job of looking after its coral reefs than we do?
pretty strange question, from a person, who is fighting for LESS government.
the natural environment is at best protected, if it is simply left alone!
looking after the damage done, is already one step too late…
Sod,
You continue to ignore the main conclusions from the study.
But your following points are telling,
1. According to you, an environment doesn’t need looking after. I would be interested in your definition of wilderness. I’ve done a series on the same here – put wilderness in as a search term at this blog. The problem with your assumption is that people exist on this planet and they do impact on the environment – it is not realistic to just assume them away.
2. An ETS, by definition, will be good for the environment. How is that?
Ianl – don’t try to verbal me matey – I’m simply asking how one gets to Jen’s conclusions…. obviously you don’t know either or you’d lay out the maths and assumptions clearly.
So the a priori assumption seems to be that there is no slack in the system that couldn’t be mopped up with improved efficiency at minimal cost.
Without such the anti-ETS position surely is overly “alarmist”?
How many floors of city skyscrapers have lights burning well into the late night hours?
All PCs and photocopiers off?
Just asking?
Of course if yo’all don’t want it – simply get Turnbull to run against it ! But the Libs won’t as they’re having two bob each way.
Jennifer
As I understand it the the 15% only happens if China and India decide this is for them also. I don’t see that as likely. The Kyoto is failing because even though it is not realized to be totally futile the voter is not prepared to allocate significant amounts of money anyway. Polies are on the bandwagon because the voter wants it but only while does not cost much. For survival AGW needs continual anecdotal evidence, I see that currently is very much on the wane. If what you say is correct about 35% I think I could start a new party called “Stuff the Planet” and win against any party who wants emmision controls. In other words I don’t think this ETS will actually be implemented in any significant sense. Of course then we will move on to the next gloom and doom scare. I wonder if CO2 attracts asteroids?
Sod said : “it is obvious from your post above, that in a rich country, every penny spent on environment protection has to be fought from the likes of you, who will try to prevent it being used that way. sad fact.”
———————-
We live in a ressource scarce world. Choices are to be made and every penny must be well spent even if it’s in the name of environment protection. Assuming that the money spent in “climate protection” equates money WELL spent for environment protection and that people questionning how it is spent are against environment protection is at best naive, at worse delusional.
We Europeans have spent billions in “climate protection” over the past years, all for nothing (or if there has been any success, you should tell me what and where). I’m amazed some people are scrambling to repeat the same error.
If you want to protect species, the reefs, biodiversity… (who wouldn’t ?), then protect species, the reefs, biodiversity… but don’t defer accountability by claiming you’ve done so through “climate protection”.
“Climate protection” by GHG reduction (or in IPCC speak “mitigation”) is a failed paradigm. That’s a proven fact.
Luke said : “How many floors of city skyscrapers have lights burning well into the late night hours?
All PCs and photocopiers off?
Just asking?”
————————————————————
What do you expect to reduce in total energy by such efficiency (which is of course desirable)? Without numbers and proportions, anything can be said.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but Jeremy C claiming to be an engineer frightens me.
Amory Lovins is a fruit loop. The Pentagon finds all sorts of things , some as PR. I suspect if the Pentagon is funding Lovins it is for that purpose
Sod,
I am not fighting for less government, just a more evidence-based approach to environmental issues.
And the distruction of coral reefs in Indonesia over the last decade has little to do with regulation and everything to do with poverty and/or natural disasters.
“So the a priori assumption seems to be that there is no slack in the system that couldn’t be mopped up with improved efficiency at minimal cost.”
The apriori assumption, you economic illiterate, is that such a situation represents a profit-making investment, which will indeed be made if the resources to make it aren’t being funnelled off to parasites like you. So its you. Its your parasitism that is getting in the way here. If there is no deficit, no inflation, and no company tax that means any such lack of efficiency will attract the resources needed to get rid of it.
Dope.
That ought to have been obvious. We have to save the environment from thick buggers like you in the same way that the poor needed to be saved from communism.
“Graeme, just think about what you wrote. Superstition is alive and well and swirls around the IPA….”
Don’t bullshit me about superstition man. You don’t have a case. The things we do wrong with the ecology go like this:
1. We issued property titles for property that wasn’t properly homesteaded. So that therefore rivers were cut off from general use even though the owner had done nothing to improve them. Property was claimed and bought and sold prior to it being intensively used. So properties were surveyed and one property would be right next to another with no buffer in between. This complicated the building of roads, rail, and other infrastructure later on, made the problems with infrastructure so difficult it came to be thought of as a government function. And furthermore without buffers between private properties the critters, the hunter-gatherers and the rest of us were cut off. All large properties ought to have been buffered and with throughways. This is the one key way we have hurt the environment.
2. Paradoxically when it comes to the ocean the opposite problem is the case. It would be wrong to sell off the ocean horizon to horizon. Yet we have failed to let people homestead small plots that could be used for fish-farming. If a person intensively develops a small area he ought to be able to claim it. Particularly if it is subsurface and doesn’t obstruct boats and things. Or at least doesn’t obstruct them much. Hence we have relied on ferral fishing. Being high-tech hunter-gatherers with regards to fish we have of course overfished. More capitalism would help solve this problem.
3. We have height restrictions on buildings. Which is never acceptable and is always an anti-social and an anti-environmental act. And we have had non-user-pays infrastructure. The richest Indian man lives in a single high-rise building of immense luxury. This is the sort of thing which ought to be encouraged. Everyone can one day have their own floor in a skyscraper. There are enough resources in room for every human to aspire to such an outcome. Not everyone can seriously have a 15 acre block. On the other hand the more people we can get up there in sky-houses the more of us who really want to have that 15 acre block can have it. And if these are rich people that have these blocks they are likely to turn them into a wonderland environmentally and a joy for high-rise livers to look down on.
Pretty much in all other ways man tends to enhance his environment. But not greenies. Greenies are hateful and against all sustainability. They are toxic and relentless liars. They test anyones opposition to euthanasia.
Jennifer, your support for an evidence-based approach is indeed commendable. I was interested in your statements that “The Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) is a different kind of environment group, caring for both Australia & Australians. Many of our members are practical environmentalists – people who actively use and also care for the environment. ” How many is many and is the proportion higher for your membership than for non-members. ??
Also any evidence for your statement that “many environmentalists hate the developed industrialised world”?
Now Bazza – let’s not get all quantitative. Hand waving is more fun.
Bazza,
I am not sure that I completely understand your first question. But the AEF membership would probably include a greater proportion of people with first hand experience of the natural environment than in the general Australian population in so much as members tend to be from professions that study and/or use the natural environment e.g. geologists (though we have at least one lawyer) and fishers.
As regards your second comment, when I go to gatherings (including conferences) with lots of well-heeled urban atheists there seems to be a lot of lamenting of things like GM food, development generally, modern farming including irrigation specifically. How much support amongst Sydney’s elite was their for Geoffry Cousins and his bid to keep Tasmania without a pulp mill – on the advice of environmentalists?
Jennifer is not quite right when she writes “..the destruction of coral reefs in Indonesia over the last decade …” as reports last week recorded the remarkable recovery of reefs there from the damage (not “destruction”) caused by the tsunami. In general the coral reefs across the whole region to PNG and the GBR are in great shape. It is the great global cooling planned by Hansen et al that will destroy the reefs.
“Also any evidence for your statement that “many environmentalists hate the developed industrialised world?”
Bazza. A man barely conscious. And just in from Mars. On the back of decrepid space-ship carrying only turnips.
Bazza.
Surely you must be the most oblivious man in the world.
I thought Gandhi was pretty oblivious. Fixated as he was with bowell movements and things. You beat him hands down. Or is this some sort of “play dumb and win” attempt at wrongfooting? Make some sort of accounting for yourself dummy. You are just making a nuisance of yourself if you are either that stupid or indeed pretending to be that stupid. And consider this: If you really are that unobservant how does this speak for your opinions on all matters large and small?
Thanks Jennifer for explaining a practical environmentalist in terms of some AEF members – a geologist is a poignant example given they work in and work the natural environment. I would rather be one of the practical ones than the other ones you meet that “hate the developed industrialised world” – all I hate is hypocrisy. There are many other environmentalists apart from the “urban atheists” you mingle with at conferences. Anyway how do you know they are atheists and does it matter?
Now this is pretty good stuff – Timmy says “It is the great global cooling planned by Hansen et al that will destroy the reefs.” – OK – how does that work Timmy?
This should be very interesting …..
Tim
I was also referring to the blasting (fertiliser in a coke bottle) of reefs for ‘fishing’ and the ‘collecting’ of coral for landfill in Indonesia.
Are you suggesting this does not still happen in Indonesian waters?
Bazza, I’m an atheist.
Luke: ah yes I forgot, there are all those coral reefs around Greenland.
Jennifer: you are right, no doubt that still continues, as in PNG, but on what scale per mile of reef?
I think what this all demonstrates is how ineffectual the AEF is.
Despite Jennifer’s claims of how environmentalists hate development, much development actually happens in Australia. It also shows how out of touch the AEF is.
“well-heeled urban atheists there seems to be a lot of lamenting of things like GM food, development generally, modern farming including irrigation specifically”
These comments are not going to win many friends. What they show is that the AEF considers themselves ‘above’ the average person in the street. It also shows a big misunderstanding of what people are concerned about. I doubt many people are simply opposed to these things, most people simply have reservations or consider that they are bad in particular cases. For example I doubt many people would consider irrigation “bad”, but would see unrestricted irrigation as bad.
I think the AEF needs to better argue their case rather than attempting to characterise their opponents as idiots or elitists. And as a lobby group, you’d think you’d actually attempt to some sort of skill at this.
Tim:
I think Luke was more referring to your claim that Hansen had a global cooling plan
“It is the great global cooling planned by Hansen et al that will destroy the reefs.”
So, what is this plan?
Jeremy C “The ad is not dishonest instead its satire…”
As one observing from afar, I’m not getting either side of this argument. Of course, the ad is satire, albeit bad satire, but the ad seems to be berating Rudd for not cutting more deeply. They claim Rudd’s cuts would be acceptable to the previous Howard government, inferring Rudd has not gone far enough.
From that perspective, these people seem to be AGW looneys. I can understand Jennifer’s concern but I don’t see them as being intentionally dishonest. Stupid, maybe, but not dishonest. Of course, if they made up that 5% to 15% figure for the ad, that would be dishonest, but that would be plain stupid if Rudd’s cuts were in fact deeper, as Jennifer seems to imply. If they did make up the 5% to 15% figure, and superimposed it over Rudd’s voice, I think that would be good cause for a lawsuit.
Can someone enlighten me?
“I think what this all demonstrates is how ineffectual the AEF is.
Despite Jennifer’s claims of how environmentalists hate development, much development actually happens in Australia. It also shows how out of touch the AEF is.”
My God what a shitrain of anti-logic. Go right now NT. Right now go and give yourself a mighty upercut for the shame of it all. You are just an embarrassment mate.
NT: if Hansen is right that rising atmospheric CO2 dangerously raises global mean temperature, then reducing it to 330 ppm or even less will presumably reduce temp more than proportionately, because of the, in this case, larger logarithmic effect. Coral reefs are only found in warm waters, and their area is likely to reduce more than pro rata as temps decline. Fortunately as it happens Hansen is wrong on all counts: regression analysis shows the temperature anomaly at 200 hPa and sealevel pressure anomaly are much more closely related to the SOI anomaly than to the atmos. CO2 anomaly at Mauna Loa, so until Hansen can find a way to regulate the SOI the coral reefs are safe.
Birdy does such a great job for the sceptic side. Keep it up.
Fascinating Timmy – but how is Hansen causing this ? I thought your opinion was (a) he’s wrong about CO2 and (b) nothing is happening anyway – so what’s the go here mate. You wouldn’t be just libeling the guy with false accusations would you?
And gee logs and regression too – maaatte – have you been studying up on the quiet.
You really got confidence in sceptics when you read Timmy’s comment that coral reefs are only found in warm waters!!!
Actually there ARE cold water coral reefs in Greenland. The majority though are off Norway.
http://www.grida.no/news/press/1585.aspx
Tim,
“if Hansen is right that rising atmospheric CO2 dangerously raises global mean temperature, then reducing it to 330 ppm or even less will presumably reduce temp more than proportionately, because of the, in this case, larger logarithmic effect. ”
Nonsense. You made all of that up.
The GBR existed when CO2 was at 280ppm, and at 330ppm.
” regression analysis shows the temperature anomaly at 200 hPa and sealevel pressure anomaly are much more closely related to the SOI anomaly than to the atmos. CO2 anomaly at Mauna Loa”
Ha ha ha! So the temp way up in the atmopshere (is 200 hPa about 10km?) is related to the SOI… Wow. Fascinating. Ok, so the SOI, which is simply a measure in the difference in atmospheric pressure between Tahiti and Darwin is somehow governing temp? That is incredible.
Tim, I think you have missed out a few very important steps in your logic. Pray tell, what is the mechanism that dictates the SOI? How does that mechanism affect global temp?
As I understand it, Australia’s carbon emissions target is to be a reduction of 5% from the 2000 base figure. This is a total target, not a per capita. The 15% target comes into effect if China and India join up. Not likely.
So to calculate the per capita impact by 2020 some base figures for Australia are needed:
1 Human attributed carbon emissions for 2000 ?
2 Est Carbon emissions for 2008 ?
3 Population for year 2000 ?
4 Est population June 2008: 21.374 million
5 Natural increase (currently) 4.1% per year (natural increase + immigration).
If someone can supply the first three figures, then it is possible to calculate the % reduction per capita from the 2000 figure that will be required by 2020.
Then, going by the last bar chart in Jennifer’s first link, “Energy end use analysis”, residential energy use accounts for about 22% of total energy use CO2e in Australia. Households switching off a few lights is going to make little difference.
If the required reductions do not/cannot come out of residential, then they have to come out of reductions in industry and agriculture. Either shut down or relocate.
The per capita reduction is going to be a significantly greater than 5%.
Right Luke. Hansen is not only wrong. But illogical even in his own terms. Is that too hard for you to understand Luke you useless moron. This is a feature of this fraud. Idiotic in every constituent part of the argument. Get used to it you thick thick thick blockhead.
Nonetheless Hansen is in my good books right now. Having finally come out full steam ahead for nuclear and against cap-and-kill. So perhaps he’s trying to slime out of his bad science by trying to prove that he at least meant well.
Sod,
You can find only exceptions to the rule in the Yale Sustainability Index because its general conclusions don’t agree with your world view.
no. i think the study is ok. i agree with most of it, disagree with some parts.
but the study you cited at least doesn t support (some would say it contradicts your claim! (“it is richer, not poorer nations that are better able to protect their natural environment”.”)
when testing your thesis (page 32 of the pdf) the paper finds little correlation between “being rich” and “protecting the environment.
why didn t you comment on that graph so far?
i am pretty dissapointed (though not really surprised) by your silence on this contradiction within your own source!
The index is quite specific in terms of when the proposition falls down: low population density, economic vitality and quality of governance are also important determinants of environmental performance … along with wealth.
well, “economic vitality” is the term they use for wealth.
your claim was “it is richer, not poorer nations that are better able to protect their natural environment”. it is a pretty absolute one. you forgot to mention other factors.
and (again) the correlation with wealth is actually a pretty WEAK one.
The problem with your assumption is that people exist on this planet and they do impact on the environment – it is not realistic to just assume them away.
but it is realistic to evaluate the damage done by them i the past.
according to your approach, New York city does a good job in protecting the “natural environment”, when they hire 5 additional gardeners top look after the parks.
sorry, but my view of “natural environment” is a different one.
2. An ETS, by definition, will be good for the environment. How is that?
just because you brought up coral reefs above:
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE49R0YE20081028
ps: i have noticed the silence on the Sweden example as well. here is a funny paper about the Swedish foundry industry (the one that according to Jennifer should NOT exist) and how it is still increasing efficency…
http://209.85.129.132/search?q=cache:LJ4gke1kBHYJ:www.hnutiduha.cz/pics/Solding_EE%2520in%2520Swedish%2520foundry%2520industry.pdf+sweden+aluminium+foundries+reduction&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=de&lr=lang_de|lang_en
The per capita reduction is going to be a significantly greater than 5%.
YES! and it should be!
world population is still increasing. if the developted countries aim for a zero increase (per capita), the CO2 output worldwide will increase MASSIVELY.
Luke: “life as we know it in Australia ending”
🙂
Why didn’t it ending when we had warmer periods before? Life actually did exeptionally well and flourished when it was a couple of degrees C warmer world 6000 and 120000 years ago.
We arn’t there yet, and now we don’t seem to reach that point either. We are apparently from science and real data heading towards cooler climate.
https://di.se/Nyheter/?page=/Avdelningar/Artikel.aspx%3Fsectionid%3Dettan%26articleid%3D2008%255C09%255C03%255C298944
And I’ve proved (the link above in Google translate ~ “Rising prices have triggered a wave of jobloss in the elecricity consuming industry”) that Swedish internationally extremely clean and energy efficient industries close down due to slightly regulated higher electricity price (this isn’t only about to switch of a computer, which doesn’t save even a percentage of what Rudd wants us to save).
But you doesn’t anwer. Why?
Lets take a slightly lower population increase for the 20 years from 2000 to 2020 – say 3%, pa – due to, say, lower birth rate and reduced immigration intake.
Some simple calcualtions based on population 100. Compound this @ 3% for 20 years, and the population is 180.
Divide that 180 into the original 100 population, and each person has to make do with only 55.5% of the resources (i e CO2 emissions). But wait, this resource has been reduced to 95%. So the share for each is 52.7% of the per capita emissions enjoyed by the original population 20 years previously.
I think Jennifer was being very conservative in her estimations, and also that GetUp, in denigrating the 5% reduction, was being seriously misleading about the social and economic impacts by 2020.
As to evironmental impact, as Australia is responsible for only about 1% of human created CO2 emissions, a 5% reduction in 1% will have no measurable impact on world temperatures.
Helen,
Yet another good post. Thankyou. I don’t agree with you on your last few sentences…
“Households switching off a few lights is going to make little difference”
Households and houses can find energy savings in how they heat and cool, either actively or passively, and what sort of appliances they have such as fridges. Its not just changing lights
“If the required reductions do not/cannot come out of residential, then they have to come out of reductions in industry and agriculture. Either shut down or relocate.
The per capita reduction is going to be a significantly greater than 5%”
Are you assuming that there are no efficiencies to be had in industry and agriculture? The other sector with potential is the commercial building sector. It is perhaps the largest single sector in Australia in terms of GDP and various reports put its GHG contributions as over 20% of Australia’s total. E.g. just one, a fully referenced report from the Centre for International Economics puts it at 23% and estimates that 30 to 35% of GHG could be eliminated under present growth scenarios using existing technology (Page 3, Executive Summary, Capitalising on the building sector’s potential to lessen the costs of a broad based GHG emissions cut, 2007) with a positive cost i.e. money will be made from it. No mythical power source needed………
Thats just one report. If the commercial building sector really gets going on energy efficiency and resource savings then perhaps we can start throwing coal fired power stations away willy nilly. This will also build resilience and capability into the Australian economy.
Its also a bit hard for this sector to go off-shore as per the dire predictions so often made on this blog and elsewhere about other sectors. I have yet to see evidence that reworking how we use energy Australia and reaping the resulting savings and money is going to send people off-shore
Helen,
Good figures re population. It begs the question…. what is the profit in growing Australia’s population? What exactly is Australia’s rate of population increase – averaged over a ten year period say?
I’ve just had another look at Get Up’s ad and I don’t see how you can say Get Up was being misleading on the outcomes of GHG reduction. Their beef is with the level of reduction set by an ETS.
Helen illustrates the point well
a lack of real data here – our growth rate is more like 1.7% mainly from immigration
Not 3%
Of course a growing population will also put more and more demands on water & food supply, (how is that MDB going??), and fuel… limitless?
Endless sprawling suburbia?
No calculations on efficiency gains to be made.
Indeed perhaps the B:C even discarding climate is probably positive long term??
Anyone got any serious numbers to back up the AEF’s wild assertions?
But a solution for those who are concerned – just get Turnbull to run against an ETS at the next election? Or perhaps a no-climate tax Senate Party ! Should be easy if your arguments are sound.
Jeremy C,
On the simple figures I gave above, a 15% ETS reduction would result in an available per head quota of 47% CO2. In addition, 15% of 1% would still not make a measurable difference to the amount of carbon put into Earth’s atmosphere by human action. GetUp was being misleading in the outcome of Australian GHG reduction. We cannot make the slightest bit of difference. They are playing populist, short term politics. Long term, the pollies who listen to them will pay – by way of angry voters.
On further consideration, I think that Jennifer, in her estimations, may have factored in some anticipated energy efficiencies, and also forseeable use of alternative energies.
Incidentally Jeremy, I have seen several decades of increased farm efficiencies. Mostly by way of losing valued neighbours.
I don’t see how most of you think you are qualified to debate global warming if you can’t do the simple maths to work out whether Jennifer’s figures are correct. Or do you prefer not to try to do the calculations so you can call them “assertions”, like Luke?
Luke is correct that population growth is around 1.7% per annum – it’s in the ABS link that Jennifer gives. If you compound that for 20 years, you get a 40% increase in the population. Now, in one Greenhouse Office document that Jennifer links to it gives you Table S3 “Allocation of emissions to end use sectors (1999)” which dissects emissions by sector and type, and gives total emissions of 523,993 Gg of Co2. 85% or 445,394 Gg is the government target.
Now, if you assume business as usual and increase emissions by 40% to reflect the increase in the population, you get emissions by 2020 of 733, 590. (This is a little conservative, because it assumes no per-capita GDP growth. The IPCC assumes that CO2 emissions increase with growth, so perhaps I should revies). If you then subtract the government’s target from it you find that you need to reduce emissions by 288,196 Gg over what current standards of living require.
Referring to the table again you can see that this is equivalent to the total emissions from manufacturing and agriculture in 1999, or around 54% of what was emitted. It is also virtually the same amount as the total for all stationary energy – which is the term they use to cover basically all electricity power stations.
Jennifer has used more conservative figures, and there is probably a range in between, but the sums are easy to do and are not “assertions”.
They also demonstrate the futility of the “turn off the lights as you leave the room” type approach that Luke advocates. You don’t have to factor in any sort of efficiency gains to know that you need an entirely new source of power to what we are using if you are going to go even close to making those targets. As none is on the horizon for the next 10 years, the ETS targets are extreme.
BTW, JeremyC claims that commercial building makes up 20% of emissions. The table says 2.3% with total emissions of 11,812 Gg. You could stop building tomorrow and it would have little effect.
But, to get back to the point of Jennifer’s media release. Rather than the government’s proposals being minor they are very radical, and GetUp is twisting the truth in suggesting that they are trivial.
I’d be happy to tidy up my model and give it to Jen so she can make it available on the site. You could all have a little fun playing with the parameters and seeing just how severe the ETS proposals are.
bazza asks for evidence that “many environmentalists hate the developed industralised world”; that’s too easy bazza;
Glenn Albrecht, Clive Hamilton, Charles Birch, Paul Ehrlich, James Lovelock, Maurice Strong, James Gustave Speth, John Holdren.
In my recent post about man-made disasters the conflict between nature, pristine, wilderness, however defined, and how humanity ‘progresses’ and indeed what is meant by ‘progress’ was uppermost in my mind; IMO a lot of impetus behind AGW is not just thrift, energy efficiency and application of the principle of not pooing in your, or anyone’s backyard; what seems to be driving, at least some of the AGW, is a hostility towards any human encroachment into natural process and deviation from a naturalistic lifestyle. Albrecht for instance regards the ancient aboriginal culture as being the closest to a desirable sustainable lifestyle. Implicit in this is a denial of the defining characteristic of humanity; which is the ability to overcome natural process. I’ll be frank; I don’t understand this; it doesn’t appear to be simple misanthropy, although it has nihilistic aspects. It amazes me that Lomborg is still being pilloried by such as sod for his temerity in suggesting humanity was better off for overcoming natural process. And this is the point; if the definition of ‘progress’ is overcoming natural process and limitations then whatever method is used, fossil fuels, nuclear, will be criticised by those who think ‘progress’ is the maintainence and non-interference with nature and natural process. Looked at this way, the posited alternative energy sources [which do not exist in any meaningful sense] are not offered to substitute and maintain lifestyle but to reduce it, ultimately back to Albrecht’s paradigm.
“when testing your thesis (page 32 of the pdf) the paper finds little correlation between “being rich” and “protecting the environment.”
You knobhead. So you think an obvious matter like this is to be resolved via statistics? Yes statistics will prove the theory of course. But the point is that the wealthier nation is better placed to make good on any undertaking you could name. Whether and to what extent they choose to follow a given goal is another matter. I just got through watching a TV program with poor Chinese trying to deal with the encroaching sands of the Gobi desert. If it were us we’d have bulldozers working every day, irrigation and pre-grown trees trucked in and planted. But these Chinese haven’t had much to work with.
Come on Graeme – this is pretty weak. NO ANALYSIS of efficiencies in sources or alternatively new sinks.
Nothing on agricultural bio-sinks
Why assume immigration at the current levels?
And exactly what you guys criticised on MER/PPP debate. Nothing on technological development.
It’s more than turn the lights out Graham. It’s turn lots of plant off that is not in use….
No winners? All losers?
The AEF analysis had not been produced. It will have a truck driven through it if it’s trivial.
Look it’s pretty basic isn’t it – it’s a game. And everyone knows that the denialists will load the arguments with as much bias and negativity as possible. So why not produce a fair dinkum analysis to start with and save some argument time.
But again the answer is easier – get a new government. I like to keep teasing you guys on this – if you’re so sure of the argument put it to a political test.
Where’s the no carbon tax party?
At least Birdy has had a go and he knows what the electorate thinks of his views i.e. you can shove it !
“If it were us we’d have bulldozers working every day, irrigation and pre-grown trees trucked in and planted” hahahahahaha – yes with the MDB – hahaahahahahahaha
Luke and Graham are correct. I read the population increase wrong. It is 1.7%. My apologies. Going by my former simple calculations compounding 1.7% for 20 years gets a 42% increase in population.
Divide that into 100, then multiply by 0.95, and the figure becomes 67% of 2000 emissions available per head in 2020. This is reasonably close to Jennifer’s more sophisticated calculations.
NT said: “The GBR existed when CO2 was at 280ppm, and at 330ppm”. What were its dimensions then (1750 and 1973)? what are they now?
Then you wittily said “Ha ha ha! So the temp way up in the atmosphere (is 200 hPa about 10km?) is related to the SOI… Wow. Fascinating. Ok, so the SOI, which is simply a measure in the difference in atmospheric pressure between Tahiti and Darwin is somehow governing temp? That is incredible.”
So what is your explanation, dear NT, for the exceptional high temps. in 1998 that were presented by the IPCC (TAR) as definitive proof of AGW due to rising [CO2], but turned out to be due to the very strong El Nino of 1998? The IPCC’s FARt, renamed AR4, backed off and relied on the European heatwave of 2003 (with its lower global value relative to 1998) as the new definitive proof of AGW due to rising [CO2]). The truth is that SOI and [CO2] are not closely correlated, while SOI and Temps are, however much you deny it. But do present here your own regressions of the available data, all of which are in the public domain.
NT: you added finally – “Tim, I think you have missed out a few very important steps in your logic. Pray tell, what is the mechanism that dictates the SOI? How does that mechanism affect global temp?”
I was hoping you NT would help out here, as the IPCC’s FARt admitted its models could not accommodate the SOI (it said “they [the models] achieve no consensus” on the SOI (as to whether it goes up or down or stays the same while [CO2] goes up).
You knobhead. So you think an obvious matter like this is to be resolved via statistics? Yes statistics will prove the theory of course. But the point is that the wealthier nation is better placed to make good on any undertaking you could name. Whether and to what extent they choose to follow a given goal is another matter.
Bird, for once i agree with you 100%.
rich nations COULD protect their environment better than poor ones. they COULD restore as much of it to its NATURAL STATE again. they COULD limit their effect, even if it means some slight restrictions on people. yet quite often they don t.
perhaps that is the reason, why Uruguay, Brasil and Gabon getter better results than australia, on the list that Jennifer cited? (p. 10)
http://www.yale.edu/esi/ESI2005_Main_Report.pdf
I just got through watching a TV program with poor Chinese trying to deal with the encroaching sands of the Gobi desert. If it were us we’d have bulldozers working every day, irrigation and pre-grown trees trucked in and planted. But these Chinese haven’t had much to work with.
well, and back again to stupid…
sod; define “some slight restrictions on people”.
Tim,
“What were its dimensions then (1750 and 1973)? what are they now?”
Is this Socratic Irony? Are you claiming that the area occupied by the Great Barrier Reef has changed substantially since Captain Cook sailed by it? No, you are claiming nothing, because you have no idea and are just attempting to look intelligent. So I’ll say that the the area occupied by the GBR is largely unchanged since the 1750s, do you dispute this?
You were the one declaring there was a relationship between Global Temps and SOI, correlation means nothing without a mechanism, you can correlate Global Temps with pirates too (as others have done) – it means nothing. You seem to be claiming that it is significant that the IPCC can’t accommodate the SOI. Until you demonstrate there is something significant behind the correlation again it is a meaningless point.
“The truth is that SOI and [CO2] are not closely correlated, while SOI and Temps are, however much you deny it.”
Remember by your own statement we are talking about temps at the 200hPa level, very high in the atmosphere… No where near the surface… You can’t compare the surface temp record (your refs to 1998 and the 2003 heatwave) with it.
I’m not denying there is a correlation between SOI and temps at 200hPa. I am saying “Big Deal” . SOI is an index, it a dimensionless number, it has no ability to affect temps. You need to go back and find out what makes the SOI – what is the cause of the difference in atmospheric pressure between Darwin and Tahiti.
I could simply say that SOI is a reflection of AGW, that the recent states of SOI have been affected by AGW, prove me wrong.
Cohenite
“IMO a lot of impetus behind AGW is not just thrift, energy efficiency and application of the principle of not pooing in your, or anyone’s backyard; what seems to be driving, at least some of the AGW, is a hostility towards any human encroachment into natural process and deviation from a naturalistic lifestyle.”
This is the problem.
You pay to much heed to your own opinion.
It also makes little actual sense.
You start the sentence “IMO a lot of impetus behind AGW is not just thrift, energy efficiency and application of the principle of not pooing in your, or anyone’s backyard”
Ok so a lot of the impetus for AGW is coming from somewhere else and I assume by AGW you actually mean “proponents of AGW”.
Then say
“what seems to be driving, at least some of the AGW,is a hostility towards any human encroachment into natural process and deviation from a naturalistic lifestyle.”
So a lot of the impetus is coming from some other source (other than thrift etc.) and at least some of this other source is the hostility etc.
How much is that exactly Cohenite? How much is “at least some” of “A lot”
The whole comment also demonstrates yet again that this is a political/legal argument for you. It’s not about science, it’s about showing that the ‘other side’ are wrong. It’s the law game. Science isn’t about dichotomies.
NT said: ““It is the great global cooling planned by Hansen et al that will destroy the reefs.”
So, what is this plan?”
I respond with: Exactly, I have been trying all weekend to find the solution set to global warming.
Well, NT has had his sabbatical at Deltoid’s school for arrogant snots and is back to provide stern instruction; the best I can hope for is you mean well NT; please don’t keep me in after school. Your discussion with Tim, condescension aside, is well travelled territory; Bob Tisdale has explained at great length how ENSO accumulates, sorry, maintains temperature; the mechanism behind the SOI, which is the barometer of ENSO, has also been well explained to you; that is upwelling variations; the minimal time lag between upwelling and SOI variation has been noted; you have conceded that the temperature at 200mb is intrinsically connected with surface temperature as you should; all of this is natural, or are you really saying CO2 increase, which is predominately natural anyway, is the cause of upwelling variation; bearing in mind what goes up must go down; which is to say if CO2 increase caused a partial cessation of the upwelling, as occurred in 1976, did also an increase in CO2 cause the partial cessation of upwelling to cease and upwelling resume? And what about this;
http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&ll=33.137551,-49.921875&spn=164.593939,360&z=1&msid=110686680343951250375.00045cd66a477c08c6d08
Helen and Graham
Graham,
“BTW, JeremyC claims that commercial building makes up 20% of emissions. The table says 2.3% with total emissions of 11,812 Gg. You could stop building tomorrow and it would have little effect.”
Table S3 lists it as 9.6% not 2.3%.
But, I have gone back to find data and have spent some time on AGEIS – Australian Government Emissions Information System (http://www.ageis.greenhouse.gov.au) and using 2006 data for a 2008 estimation I calculated 19.4 % for commercial. This is indirect emissions or Scope 2 where the energy is bought in. The difference between this figure and the one I used before could be due to Scope1, 2 and 3 classifications only coming into play in the last year or so.
And regarding Jennifer linking to a 1999 document, I think emissions reporting has moved on and improved since then.
Helen,
I’m not sure how you arrive at Jennifer factoring in efficiencies (and what sort of efficiencies) in her figures, can you enlarge on that.
If you dig down further starting from http://www.climatechange.gov.au/inventory/2006/economic-sector.html you can start to see all sorts of opportunities to investigate energy efficiencies e.g. one table has hot water as one of the largest users of energy in households and seeing only a small fraction of housing stock has solar hot water for either pre heating and or complete heating while there are a large number electric hot water systems still in use. That is just one example of where energy reductions and efficiencies can be directly made.
Once this energy efficiency starts happening in the australian economy on a larger scale now then it will be very exciting but, please, don’t weep for a coal fired friends once it starts happening. They’ve had their run milking this great country with their out of date technology.
“If you dig down further starting from http://www.climatechange.gov.au/inventory/2006/economic-sector.html you can start to see all sorts of opportunities to investigate energy efficiencies e.g. one table has hot water as one of the largest users of energy in households and seeing only a small fraction of housing stock has solar hot water for either pre heating and or complete heating while there are a large number electric hot water systems still in use. That is just one example of where energy reductions and efficiencies can be directly made.”
Its not a matter for government parasites to tell us how to save our own money for the love of dumb blondes. All they have to do is not tax profits so that deductions have no effect. That and hard, fully-backed money, will ensure long-term investments to reduce short-term recurring costs. All good policy begins with mass-sackings of taxeaters and the dissolving of government departments by the bakers dozen. Thats where the real unsustainability lies. The real waste and unsustainability comes from people who live off others. From people who are on the top of the food chain. Being as they live off the efforts of their fellow man.
“out of date technology’;a reasonant comment Jeremy; greenies are easily bored; I’ve often thought one of the main motivations behind AGW is ennui; in any event anyone promoting windmills and solar heating can hardly point the finger at other energy sources for being antiquated; you need a dose of the “Thinking Man”;
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/11/wind-power-exposed-the-renewable-energy-source-is-expensive-and-unreliable/?cp=all
Jeremy,
My original simple calculations using 3% population increase rate and 5% reduction in total CO2 emissions by 2020, showed a much larger reduction in avaialable CO2 per capita (44.4% leaving 55.5% ration per capita) than Jennifer’s estimate of 35% reduction, leaving 65% ration per capita. How to account for the difference between Jennifer’s and my calculations? Either Jennifer had information I was not aware of, or my calculations were wrong. It was the latter.
Updating my calculations by using the corrected 1.7% rate of population increase;
Using a population base of 100, compound 1.7% for 20 years gets 142. Divide 142 into 100 (now the proxy y2000 startin point for CO2 emissions, and the CO2 figure per capita becomes 71%. Factor in a 5% reduction in CO2 by 2020, and the available CO2 figure per capita beomce 67%.
My simple calculations come out at a 33% reduction in available power per capita, leaving a 67% CO2 ration per capita. A close enough spot-check for someone who is neither a mathematician nor a statistician. My guess about Jennifer appearing to factor in possible efficiencies is now not relevant.
” Dr Marohasy said that population growth masked the severity of the scheme.”
I fully agree.
While I had some reservations about using 1999 figures, my method for the most part sidesteps these. But the final graph (p12) in Jennifer’s first link would be close enough to present day ratios to be handy.
Checking that, it appears that domestic power use is about 18%, not the 22% I first estimated (that is transport). So, domestic users can shave their margins a bit, but voters will not long tolerate a permanent reduction in living standards. The big reductions will have to come from manufacturing (approx 30% current power use) agriculture, or transport. All with knock on job losses and reductions in living standards.
The big reductions will have to come from manufacturing (approx 30% current power use) agriculture, or transport. All with knock on job losses and reductions in living standards.
this is a myth. Sweden seems to still be producing aluminium. a 30% power reduction is NOT a big problem. stop ignoring my links and READ them. you might learn a thing or two…
Cohenite
Bob’s ‘thesis’ is rubbish. You believe it because it’s convenient. ENSO is all about convection, it changes the amount of water vapour in the air. It is not a different energy source that can heat the world. It’s a part of the greenhouse effect.
You never answered how much “at least some” of “a lot” is… Come one Cohenite, quantify your argument.
All they have to do is not tax profits so that deductions have no effect. That and hard, fully-backed money, will ensure long-term investments to reduce short-term recurring costs.
it wont. energy is too cheap. no surprise, we basically pump it out of the earth like water and pay ZERO for the pollution caused or for the damage done by those in the middle east who take our oil money.
i could have the light burning in some rooms all year long, and i doubt i would notice it on the energy bill. there is something seriously wrong!
http://2008.weblogawards.org/site-news/2008-weblog-awards-finalists/
Best Online Community
XXXXXX
Jennifer Marohasy
XXXXXX
etc.
Don’t know if someone else has posted this. Abit behind on my reading from the holidays. Hopefully both sides of the aisle will want to vote for this site.
NT; what is this, the scattergun approach? You’re all over the place; “ENSO is all about convection”?? “It changes the amount of water vapour in the air”?? I thought ENSO was a product of SST variation which was caused by upwelling variation, which you keep ignoring; you also willfully misinterpret Bob; atmospheric temperature increases not because energy is created but because SST remain warm and a sequence of el Ninos occurs without the cooling effect of a la Nina; you also haven’t addressed the step-up effect of large el Nino’s which Bob has described at length. Now, are you saying the upwelling is caused by CO2 levels? How about you putting your money where your mouth is.
Whatever you think of Jennifer’s numbers, it is true that most people campaigning for deep emissions cuts don’t have an economic model for the consequences of what they advocate, just an environmental model for what they’re trying to avoid. I’ve just brought up the economic topic in a climate-activist group at Facebook, and along with a few suggestions made a purely illustrative calculation of the costs. Skeptical scrutiny is welcome. 🙂
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=7621&uid=57097822480
LOL.
Helen,
Thanks for your figures.
However,
I disagree with you on this bit:
“So, domestic users can shave their margins a bit, but voters will not long tolerate a permanent reduction in living standards. The big reductions will have to come from manufacturing (approx 30% current power use) agriculture, or transport.”
I believe that we can find lots of savings without sacrificing living standards and that in doing so individuals and community can gain more say over how they get and use resources and hence run their lives than that available now under our centralised, supply led, energy system.
I agree with you on this bit:
“All with knock on job losses and reductions in living standards.”
But such job losses may not come where you think it might. As an electrical engineer I don’t believe productivity is tied to the way we in Australia use energy now. Other countries use energy in a far more efficient manner than us, such as Sweden which is a major manufacturing nation. There is no change in physical laws through Australia being physically separated from other countries so there is no reason to ignore how we can change things for the better. If what I’m saying is correct, that we have huge scope to build energy efficiency into the infrastructure of our economy then that would be a source of jobs in itself plus the economy will grow once the drags of inefficiency in energy use have been removed.
However, the special interest groups who rely on the present state of affairs will lose both jobs and status if it changes. I will not shed a tear for them if things change.
Sod your Swedish paper is a vision without basis. An example is the 10% energy saved on new lids. Is this 10% total or 10% of an assumed energy cost? It is not stated. The livelihood is not stated for past or future. Ther wording indicates “present” tense. The article simply tells how many. One cannot determine if the industry is losing or not. In terms of what is being requested, was more energy efficient means of production. Some about 4 or 5 with unspecified requiremetns, costs, capital costs, operating costs, second and third level CO2 production not mentioned. In fact, from what was given, it does not contradict Jennifer, nor can quantiative numbers be obtained from it. It is a think tank’s vision.
All in all, it does little to further a conversation about Swedish smelters.
Oh no Cohenite’s back to ENSO and PDO building heat long term. LOLZ. Still awaiting the 400 year analysis Cohers – not the 1-2 cycle cherry-pick. Arm is getting sore now – been holding the hand out for the analysis for weeks….
You guys are still doing the doom and gloom denialist dance. The old ruse that absolutely no improvements can be found so we’re gonna shut ya down. What utter bunk.
From the people who can ADAPT to no rain, floods and hurricanes – “no worries mate”. “It’s just a little down turn – we can handle it” as “we’re innovative and tough”. But if the energy economics changed a pompteenth it will be the END OF THE WORLD.
Your whole position is contradictory and hypocritical from end to end.
Here’s one example of one firm looking at it’s emissions
http://crreport08.woolworthslimited.com.au/climate_change.php
Think there’s no ability for the rest of industry to do anything? Come on – your position is incredulous !
Cohenite, Bob was explained why he was wrong over at Deltoid. Don’t you recall? I recall you ran away. Here’s a summary.
Upwelling water is cold.
ENSO is driven by changes in wind direction. When the winds blow back towards South America they move water towards South America and prevent cold water from upwelling.
Because cold water is not upwelling the sea surface warms even more and the humidity goes up.
“I thought ENSO was a product of SST variation which was caused by upwelling variation”
This sounds much like what I just said.
So in FACT, ENSO isn’t to blame… It’s the variation in upwelling. So there is no stored energy, rather the prevention of cold water upwelling. Now what is one of the big predictions of Global warming… I’ll give you a hint… Reduced ocean circulation due to stratification. A reduction in upwelling is exactly what is expected.
“because SST remain warm and a sequence of el Ninos occurs without the cooling effect of a la Nina”
This is just nonsense. SST ANOMALIES have returned to zero without the ‘cooling effect of a La Nina’. What you are suggesting is that a return to a zero anomaly isn’t ‘cooling’ – a ludicrous statement. Here’s a thought experiment. I heat a rod and let it cool, sequentially. And I use 25c as my ‘base temp’ and measure the anomaly for the heating and cooling. Ok so here’s my data:
Temp of rod 25, 50, 30, 45, 50, 25, 10, 30, 10, 35
anomaly 0, 25, 5, 20, 0, -15, 5, 5, -15, 10
Are you suggesting that the end anomaly of +10 is affected by the early anomaly of +25? Because that is just dumb.
Bob would have us believe that the big El Nino of 1998 is still affecting the global temp today.
Bob even admitted he had no idea how his theory worked. He couldn’t explain the machanism.
And come on Cohenite, defend your earlier argument. The only reason you have to defend Tim Curtin is because he had no idea what he was talking about. So forget Timmy’s problem and give us your quantified version of “at least some” of “a lot”
Oops, missed a +25 anomaly in the middle. I’m sure you get my drift. 🙂
Jeremy C, the item you refer to is Commercial/Institutional and according to the document refers to ANZSIC Divisions F-H and J-Q. These divisions are not concerned with construction, apart from one division which deals with “Property and Business Services”. The emissions from construction as per the document were 2.3% in 1999. This is just a matter of simple comprehension. And unless there has been an increase in construction activity of 8 to 9 times then your 2008 “estimation” that construction is no 19.4% is as likely to be garbage as your comprehension skills.
Luke, Jen’s resident Troll. You can quibble with my calculations all you like, but surely you won’t argue with Penny Wong who says it is a 41% per capita reduction on 2000 levels by 2020. That’s a higher figure than the one Jennifer picks, so sounds like she is being conservative.
I’ve just cast my eye over the Woolworths document, and they are projecting 25% efficiency savings per square metre of store. Only another 16% to go. But then when you look at it in more detail it assumes for example they will run their trucks on biodiesel using celluolosic biofuels, for which the technology and infrastructure do not yet exist. So, the document is clearly “aspirational” rather than realistic. So, they pull-up short on what is required, even being as imaginative as they can be!
Which is the point of Jennifer’s release. Meeting the government’s targets will be next to impossible, making this quite a radical proposal. But it seems that some of you think they should have gone further. So, why don’t you tell us what the figure should have been, and we’ll calculate exactly what that means in current terms for you.
Calculations Graham ? Well that’s the problem isn’t it? There ARE NOT ANY – all you have is the entirely predictable overloaded denialist bullshit position.
Woolies have demonstrated heaps of savings they can make – and it will be good business too in the long term. Did you read their ideas for innovation in refrigeration systems.
You’d really have to conclude that you guys are not interested in business efficiency. YOU HAVE NO CALCULATIONS ON POSSIBLE RESPONSE MEASURES. Nothing on SINKS either!
That’s why industry are not talking to you guys. They’ve bypassed you and are getting on with it.
How bloody basic does it have to be – doing a quick back o’ the envelope is hardly a considered position.
The net result that Australia ends up with a vastly more efficient energy system with lots of smarts is also a viable proposition? Where’s your downside analysis on this – or do you think we’re just a quarry and a farm?
“Oh no Cohenite’s back to ENSO and PDO building heat long term. LOLZ”
Where’s the thinking in THAT comment Luke? Look you are not up to it mate! You are not capable of sound thinking. “A man’s got to know his limitations” and all that. Look you might retrain as a hairdresser or something. You lack the capacity to work in science or to participate in debate. You thought of getting a job with the post office or something?
Getup.org sounds much like Moveon.org – not a Soros funded propoganda site, is it?
And I see the pro AGW hysteria has been turned up a few more notches as well. Usually happens to the devout when their latest prediction failed.
Luke, Woollies haven’t demonstrated anything. As a long-time reader of prospectuses I’ll believe their projections when they’re achieved, not otherwise. So, what target are you suggesting that we ought to meet, seeing the 41% reduction is so easy? And give us some ideas how you’re going to do this in the next 11 years, and in which sectors.
Why don’t you start with electricity generation? Seeing it is the largest single contributor it will give you the largest scope for efficiencies, substitution and abatement. This is probably a literature review question, because surely Garnaut, or the government, have some scenarios as to how this can be achieved. All you need to do is find the tables and regurgitate them.
Jennifer, I would just like to wish you well in the new year and congratulate on your excellent blog experience promoting practical science in the environment for “environmentalists – people who actively use and also care for the environment. ”
One of the problems for science during the 20th century was that it was largely about belief in specific causality, not unlike the belief in a specific religion which can only be maintained by restricting experience. The internet as a global meeting place has intensified the contradictions carried by the old traditional mainstream media causing millions to question traditional beliefs. Fortunately, the result of all this outside influence will be the development of a new international philosophy free from the contradictions with a move to demystify science because it is not worship anymore but the love to find out for oneself i.e. general causality. i.e the bigger picture
Helen Mahar “As I understand it, Australia’s carbon emissions target is to be a reduction of 5% from the 2000 base figure. This is a total target, not a per capita. The 15% target comes into effect if China and India join up. Not likely”.
Aha!! The fine print I missed. So, it’s 5% unless China and India come on board?
We’ve been through this exercise in Canada. The previous Liberal government signed onto Kyoto and did absolutely nothing in the way of cuts. The Clinton administration with Gore as V.P. did the same. I’m quite confident that Rudd will go the same route. If he’s politically aware, he must know that any disruption of the way of life for Australians will cost him his government at the next election.
luke as a hairdresser; yes, I can see it; “LUKE’S LOCKS”: SAM your waves, AMO your colour and for that finishing touch MDB that dry skin away; reasonable prices; guaranteed to stay at 1990 prices unless numbers increase in which case a compounding inflation figure will apply. But you’re worth it; let luke louche your locks!
NT; even by your subtle standards your line of “anomalies” is hairbrained. Noone has said that one year’s anomaly causes another, but if you have uninterrupted warm SST due to an upwelling mitigation you will have a sequence of warm, anomalous years; these years will follow an initial ‘step-up’ as happened in 1976;
http://i38.tinypic.com/16aa03o.jpg
Looking at this graph you can see the abrupt upward movement in SST [which was mirrored in GMST]; the reason temp trends were maintained post 1976 is that there was no major and compensating downward movement in the following years as for instance happened in 1965 or 1972; the 1976 upward step was sustained because the upwelling remained interrupted until 1998; from 1978 to 1998 temp trend was flat but from 1976 to 1998 it was up because that 1976 step-up created a new plateau; the big 1998 el Nino also created another step-up but it was not sustained because the upwelling resumed and there were subsequent la Ninas which made the trend from 1998-2008 flat or downward depending on whether GISS is included. So, a more appropriate sequence of numbers is this;
25[base year], 50[1976 equivalent], 30, 25, 25, 30, 20, 50[1998 equivalent], 25, 20, 15, 10, 10
Here the post 1976 trend is elevated because of the initial step-up and subsequent even or slightly +ve anomalous, non-la Nina temperatures; post 1998 the initial step-up is not translated into an upward trend because the subsequent, la Nina temps are -ve anomalous.
In addition, a crucial point you miss is, if the upwellings are CO2 sensitive why did they mitigate in 1976 and resume in 1998 when there was more CO2?
NT (on 30th): I asked the question first, it is for you to show that the GBR is not larger now than it was in 1750, thanks to CO2 and rising temps. The GBRMPA should be able to help if they are doing their stewardship properly, starting with the Cook-Bligh charts, then using the modern.
You then said: “I could simply say that SOI is a reflection of AGW, that the recent states of SOI have been affected by AGW, prove me wrong”. Well, doing a regression for runs from 1977 to 2008, the R2 for SOI=f(AGW) is 0.1, so you could fit any line you like to the scatter, but they signify nothing, there’s a much better fit between your age and CO2 at Mauna Loa, not surprising given your current CO2 output, oops sorry at this festive time, all best for 2009.
Cohenite
“Noone has said that one year’s anomaly causes another, but if you have uninterrupted warm SST due to an upwelling mitigation you will have a sequence of warm, anomalous years;”
What a load of rubbish.
The sequence has of course been interrupted many times by cold periods, this is the point you are missing. The return to 0 or -ve conditions in Nino3.4 would indicate that previous +ve years no longer have an effect. The only way they can have an effect is if you magically store the heat somewhere.
If this is your sequence
“25[base year], 50[1976 equivalent], 30, 25, 25, 30, 20, 50[1998 equivalent], 25, 20, 15, 10, 10”
The +10 at the end doesn’t still have heat from 1998 does it? And remember Bob’s theory revolves around Nino3.4, which has returned to negative several times since 1998.
“In addition, a crucial point you miss is, if the upwellings are CO2 sensitive why did they mitigate in 1976 and resume in 1998 when there was more CO2?”
This is not a crucial point. It is nothing to do with the argument. Just more sciency stuff you post.
I’ll show you again, here’s what Bob said about his own theory.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/12/another_correction_to_duffy.php#commentsArea
“NT: Thanks for the civility, but as you are aware, I don’t have the capacity or the time to calculate those variables: quantities of heat, recharge rates, etc. And yes, I’ll agree that all I’ve got is an odd correlation and that it doesn’t mean causation.”
Take another read at what was said. Bob’s theory explains nothing.
Tim.
You claimed that SOI matched the temp at 200hPa. You cannot compare it to surface temps.
Graham,
Sorry to not have come back to you earlier I’m typing this in another time zone.
However,
What you posted –
“The emissions from construction as per the document were 2.3% in 1999. This is just a matter of simple comprehension. And unless there has been an increase in construction activity of 8 to 9 times then your 2008 “estimation” that construction is no 19.4% is as likely to be garbage as your comprehension skills.”
I never said ‘construction’, I have always been referring to ‘commercial’. I thought I had made myself clear or you didn’t read my posts properly. Referring to ‘commercial’ excludes construction which is why I was using F-H J-Q and I’m glad you found them on the website for yourself. My posts have never been bothered with the construction sector as the commercial sector is said to be the fastest growing sector user of energy and resources and is the largest single sector of GDP in the Australian economy which is why it is an interesting place for designing and realising efficiencies in energy productivity e.g. one efficiency could be just changing control settings on a building’s HVAC and another could be replacing traditional chillers with solar absorption systems.
Yes NT – this is Cohers famous magic heat building theory that never stops (and even includes a centennial signal). He has 400 years of PDO information – still looking for his temperature correlation with these data LOLZ
As for Timmy – try http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL030854.shtml and slide 21 here http://www.newcastle.edu.au/Resources/Divisions/Vice-Chancellor/Corporate%20Development%20and%20Community%20Partnerships/documents/Power_Newcastle_Oct.ppt – see SOI trend
“I’ll show you again, here’s what Bob said about his own theory.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/12/another_correction_to_duffy.php#commentsArea”
Bob screwed up bigtime NT. Lying under (un)plausible deniability is still lying. And if this clown wants to say that there has been rapid warming rather than a plateau thats lying bigtime. Now if we retrospectively find that he worded matters to claim he was talking about a graph that cuts out at 2000 then that doesn’t take away the presumed motive to deceive. Maybe I have the wrong take on it. Set me straight. For what reason are you hassling Duffy? Lets see an audit trail here so I can quickly find out what you are lying about this time…. (or otherwise).
Of course the Resident Dipstick (El Luko Dipstick) refuses to address the two prime and linked issues:
1) 5% cut on AD2000 emissions
2) a decade of population growth since AD2000
He evades these direct points by complaining about “verballing”. Now it wants empirical evidence, having spent at least the last 12 months evading such evidence.
Dishonest, hypocritical, cowardly, intellectually dishonest, evasive … par for El Luko
So:
Emissions growth pa as a result of increased population demand in Aus currently ranges between 2-3% (TAG, December 2008, AusIMM Bulletin, October 2008). Note, Dipstick, that growth is compounded. The range occurs because growth in economic activity is not linear.
Population growth over the last 8 years has a range between 1.2-1.6%
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/3105.0.65.0012008?OpenDocument. This gives a reasonable mean of 1.4% compounded over the decade from 2000 to 2010.
So by 2010 (Rudderless time), population growth has compounded by almost 15% with emissions growth trending higher than that to cope with exponential population demand (growth in demand is not linear because living standards also rise in line with population expectations).
So Rudderless’ modest 5% cut is actually over 20% to reach (AD2000-5%) limits. Not even the Resident Dipstick has yet postulated a method of reducing population, so demand is not abated by even a linear 20%. The effect of removing over 20% of the energy supply (the renewabubbles have less than 2 years to establish themselves as reliable and economic) on a population increase of 15% is obviously interesting.
The SMH turning its lights off (not the computers of course, since all their Reuters leads are then scooped by someone else) one night a year has a pretty dramatic effect on this, doesn’t it ? Assume the SMH building uses 200 light bulbs at 80 watts each. Over one hour that amounts to 0.016MWh, or 0.000000016GWh. Melbourne alone uses 12GWh … ho hum.
BTW, Dipstick, this is not “maths”, it just simple arithmetic.
And all for an unfalsifiable notion, sold to the populace on guilt, fear and ignorance. I’m actually quite privileged to have watched it – I’ve always wondered how religious notions of the barking mad variety become so widespread … now I’ve seen it happen. Aided and abetted by Dipsticks.
“Bob’s ‘thesis’ is rubbish. You believe it because it’s convenient. ENSO is all about convection, it changes the amount of water vapour in the air. It is not a different energy source that can heat the world. It’s a part of the greenhouse effect.
You never answered how much “at least some” of “a lot” is… Come one Cohenite, quantify your argument.”
Look this is just total rubbish NT. Its lies. El Nino CANNOT be about CO2 since CO2 has lately been growing in a very straight-line way. Its got nothing to do with greenhouse. Rather its part of the dance between the sun and the ocean. And it appears to be one where the dancers get out of rythm. It looks like its a situation where a Forbush event punches a lot of energy into the ocean that is running against the normal yearly swing of things. First thing I’ll do is suss out Bobs theory of it so I can get a better understanding of the situation myself. But this talk of it being CO2 related is obvious foolishness.
A tell-tale sign that this energy is against rythm lies in the fact that after the massive step-warming of the air there is a dip below trend. Which is clearly not what you would expect from extra greenhouse warming, but is what you’d expect if you lost rythm pushing a your neice on the swings. That is to say the dip in temperature is what you’d expect if the extra energy went against the ocean rythm. Can someone direct me to Bobs theory on the matter?
Piss off Ianl – simply give us a realistic view of both efficiency gains, necessary immigration levels and sinks. Don’t give me half an argument in the true denialist tradition. You’d have your finger on the scales in the old butcher shop eh? Come back when you have an honest balance sheet you clown.
Bird – like quasi moronic arts graduate that you are – you’d have no concept of multiple interactions would you. “First thing I’ll do is suss out Bobs theory of it so I can get a better understanding of the situation myself. ” – “dancers, rhythms and punching” OMIGOD – THE HORROR THE HORROR – your drivel says it all doesn’t it. Clueless. Get off the blog you idiot.
Come back when you have (a) read and (b) understood Scott and Power (above). See you in 2020??
BTW ENSO is about a phase locking of ocean and atmosphere….
“Cohenite, Bob was explained why he was wrong over at Deltoid. Don’t you recall? I recall you ran away. Here’s a summary.
Upwelling water is cold.
ENSO is driven by changes in wind direction. When the winds blow back towards South America they move water towards South America and prevent cold water from upwelling.
Because cold water is not upwelling the sea surface warms even more and the humidity goes up.
So in FACT, ENSO isn’t to blame… It’s the variation in upwelling. So there is no stored energy, rather the prevention of cold water upwelling. Now what is one of the big predictions of Global warming… I’ll give you a hint… Reduced ocean circulation due to stratification. A reduction in upwelling is exactly what is expected.”
Look fella. You are confused. And your triumphant inference truly makes no sense.
Let me explain matters so as to fill in some of the blanks. Yes its true that a large lake stratifies in the heat of summer. This prevents it from building as much heat as it otherwise would. And also its true that upwelling, down-welling and overturning is the key to building heat budgets. Since these are examples that contradict the colloquial saying that “heat rises.”
So we expect heat budgets to build as the result of strata, but in this case the stratification actually would prevent the heat budget from building. We expect heat budgets to build from overturning in magma, in the oceans, and in the troposphere. And in your kettle by the way.
Now back to El Nino. And lets have a look at but one symptom. You get a consistent wind blowing across the eastern Pacific and in places it winds up like bath with a fan blowing across it and there is a pile-up of warm water AND NO UPWELLING RIGHT THERE ITS TRUE. That produces warm water which only gets water and lets off massively warm air and humidity and produces big monsoon clouds. Instead of upwelling there you get Kelvin waves going back the other way. And where these Kelvin waves surface there will be drought since the cold water will not afford itself to evaporation. So you get some areas really hot and heavy rains and other areas drought.
But there is no generalised stratification that you speak of. That could only come from a buildup in the ocean heat budget overtime. And its not clear that this would reduce overturning in total since the viscosity of the oceans would be such that the great ocean conveyer would move more easily. In the area where the warm-water buildup is yes that would mean no cold-water overturning for a some period of time.
What I’m saying is that there is no cause for this foolish CO2-triumphalism. I cannot see it in this story at all. You have to stop seeing what you want to see or when loved ones die you will be stuck with having one-sided conversations with invisible people for the rest of your life.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Now consider this. Though the big lake stratifies in the height of summer in the autumn the whole lake will overturn. Like overturn 360 degrees. The whole thing.
If this analogy is taken to the ocean entire we could get to a certain point where the coming cooling leads to a sudden awesome amount of overturning. David Archibald showed up and I think he said something to the effect that his current research had shown that there was a strata of ocean where the CO2 exchange was pretty much in equilibrium. I think he said it was about the first 100 metres. If this is a serious strata to my mind it would block off the ability of deeper water to reach an equilibrium (as far as CO2 is concerned) with the atmosphere. Which means that if there is some sort of major overturning, in sympathy with the way the big lake works in the autumn, then this could absorb a great amount of CO2 from the air in a very short period of time. Which would break our 50 year steady upward movement. And lead to the sort of thing that Becks research showed us.
Well luke and NT, at least Bob has a correlation; AGW has you 2, an outbreak; and why link to Deltoid NT? I thought I had made the concept plain but you guys are taking this pretend dumb to another level; let me try again; the sequence of numbers are not cumulative from the viewpoint of the temperature trend; the trend has been set by the step-up and the subsequent sequence of la Nina’s; if there are more la Nina the trend will be down, as from 1998; from 1976 there were less la Nina so the trend was up; but this is not an accumulation of energy; the energy is already there and is not moved because the upwelling is not moving it; this is quite easily proved by comparing the 1978[just after the step-up] – 1994[just before the 1998 el Nino] trend with the 1974[just before the step-up] – 1999[just after the 1998 episode]; the 1978-1994 trend is -0.05C; the 1974-1999 trend is +0.28C; a difference of 0.33C; this 0.33C is not accumulated or heat building; the heat simply has been put there in 2 stages and not shifted; a new temporary heat plateau exists until the next la Nina sequence. The resumption of the upwelling in 1998 clearly proves that CO2 levels are not correlated with the process; my bet is the sun, which Bob looks at here;
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html
Yes Cohers – there are lots of correlations out there – ho hum – but a step-up that always steps up in temperature? Show me how it works with the last 400 years of PDO and report back. Being a linearist you’re not interested in circulation changes possible caused by AGW and so unless you have a GCM in your mind like Cai does you’re never going to work it out.
“the heat simply has been put there in 2 stages and not shifted;” – think what you’re saying here – it refuses to equilibrate – what maintains it?
myself I think there are a bunch of interactions going on here. Interannual and decadal on top of a long term signal.
Anyway a brief truce given New Years….
Incidentally what fascinates me is the dodgy way you guys are going about this scepticism business. Does this shotgun style of discontent look professional? Even thing from cosmic rays to the kitchen sink.
I would have thought the Australian AGW sceptic movement would be a lot more organised by now. Some key messages. A political party. And a major climate policy on weather and seasonal forecating ENSO/MJO/SAM/STR etc …
This whingey style will only ever get you so far. Any social research to see how you’re perceived?
Upwelling water is cold? Which law of physics has been violated with that statement?
It suggests that the current crop of “scientific” explanations are not that scientific.
Upwelling water is cold? Which law of physics has been violated with that statement?
It suggests that the current crop of “scientific” explanations are not that scientific.
you continue to talk about stuff, that you don t understand. is it too much to ask, that you might get some basic education on a subject, before you declare all science to be false?
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/gif/ElNino.gif
Thanks Luke for your Comment and Link, December 31st, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Sadly like so much of the output from CSIRO these days, Scott Power’s effort exhibits iliiteracy and even more innumeracy, typical of that Organisation’s total lack of quality control since its glory days under White. For example, his slide “chance of exceeding 1-4oC warming” totally ignores (1) the biospheric absorption that accounts for around 57% of emissions, and (2) that the absorption rate depends on the emission rate. If you can name anybody at CSIRO who can do regressions, do tell, as I will gladly buy him/her lunch, for clearly Power is innocent of the concept. But then, it seems clear you cannot either.
Alas poor Timmy – you cannot even read the most basic information. Scott Power does not work for CSIRO – sigh !
I’ll take his publication record over yours any day matey…
BTW nicely ducked – Walker circulation has changed … see also Vecchi on same subject.
But ho hum …. back to the denialist ignoramus-sphere with you …
Ianl
Re this
“The SMH turning its lights off (not the computers of course, since all their Reuters leads are then scooped by someone else) one night a year has a pretty dramatic effect on this, doesn’t it ? Assume the SMH building uses 200 light bulbs at 80 watts each. Over one hour that amounts to 0.016MWh, or 0.000000016GWh. Melbourne alone uses 12GWh … ho hum”
Firstly you only need one computer or server to take in each wire service so that might just mean two, one for Reuters and one for AP. So then you can turn off all the other computers when not using them and you could even have a scheme for turning off the routers etc off as well till needed.
Regarding your calc of 0.016 MWh why did you stop at just one hour? Why not extend your calculation to cover one year. E.g. assume you can turn the lights off for the time the office isn’t in use and for simplicity’s sake we will assume 12 hours (but likely to be longer) then your figure of 16 kWh becomes 192 kWh. Now lets multiply that by the number of days in one year and add in 52 weekends and we end up with over 90 MWh.
Now the SMH building is a special case as some parts of the building such as editorial and production will run for 24 hours day.
But I have to quibble with your assumption of 200 lights for the SMH building. Earlier this morning I went around the ground floor counting the number of light fittings in this small to medium office building I’m sitting in here in central London. I counted over 300 fittings on the ground floor alone and they are on 24 hours. The SMH building covers a far larger area than this building so my figure of 80 MWh per year could be multiplied a number of times. Then we can multiply that figure by the similarly sized office buildings in various CBDs around Australia and hey presto! before you know it we can start throwing away coal fired power stations, just from of lighting efficiencies alone and thats before we get into savings from standby power, HVAC, process heating etc.
I know what we can do with those redundant coal fired power stations. Across the river from me is the old Bankside Power Station which is now the Tate Modern with its generating halls forming one of most exciting art spaces in the world (two fingers to those who will read this and try and label me as part of the liberal elite don’t forget I’m a hairy engineer, inverted snobs). So imagine making a couple of the La Trobe valley stations redundant and turning them into combined high rise residential, liesure, business and industrial complexes, in one building. Imagine the views and imagine the undercover parking. Then we can take the open cast coal pits, line them and fill them with the water that would’ve been used for generation for recreation and of course once thats done the water flows can be used for agriculture.
I am only half jesting. There is huge potential to reduce our energy usage but I know this reality doesn’t sit well with those whose interest it is to promulgate the myth that society needs more and more energy so as to suit their worship of ever increasing more and more … and more… and more… and more….
Jeremy c, why do you persist in your silliness? Efficiency costs money. Reducing the energy use by turning off things will get us very little gain. Replacing windows, hot water heaters, furnaces, air conditioning, adding insulation, fridges and all other appliances, etc. will gain some little more. Will the gains exceed demand? Not likely.
BUT,THEY ALL COST BIG BUCKS TO IMPLEMENT. Think there will be any push back to spend this personal wealth on an unproven theory??? Think the cooling will stop in time for the decisions to be implemented? Think the taxes needed to incentivize it will be readily accepted?
Think the ensuing brown/black outs due to these ill advised policies will win converts?
Think it through lad. It would be different if we had not been through this same exercise, in the US under Carter.
Sheesh!!!!
CoRev
Your post concerning energy efficiency measures
“BUT,THEY ALL COST BIG BUCKS TO IMPLEMENT”.
Evidence is what I need for that assertion CoRev! Evidence!
Have a look at this information produced by McKinseys working with the power company Vattenfall: http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/Carbon_Productivity/slideshow/slideshow_4.asp.
If you dare to that is……
Look carefully at the left hand side of the graph because that where the lowest cost of examples of savings are and you will find that they are i. energy saving techniques and ii. they have negative cost i.e. you make money from them!!!!
Thats just one. So try this paper by Australia’s Alana Pears, http://www.naturaledgeproject.net/Documents/IEAENEFFICbackgroundpaperPearsFinal.pdf.
Then if you are not happy with that have a look at what the International Energy Agency has to say on energy efficiency at: http://iea.org/Textbase/subjectqueries/keyresult.asp?KEYWORD_ID=4122.
So CoRev give me evidence. Are you game?
Jeremy, you completely missed my point. yes, i did read your references. Believe it or not, the issue is not electricity usage efficiency, but the costs to the individual family to achieve said efficiency. Earlier I listed several items, common here in the US in the 70s & 80s, all of which came out of the individual’s pockets. Few were so efficient to recover their costs in less than 15-20 years for existing structures, and when combined they never recovered their costs.
Investment and payback to the family is the fundamental SOCIAL problem that needs to be overcome. You keep fixating on the savings of CO2. Increased energy use efficiency is not gonna happen unless it is near zero cost or completely cost recoverable to the individual family say in 5 years.
What did happen is a shift, OVER TIME, to more efficient appliances and heating/cooling systems. New houses also became more energy efficient. Few older houses were retrofitted, as it was too costly, too engineering intensive, or too disruptive to the family.
Given that historical perspective, make your 35-41% efficiency gain in the next 11 years. In my view there isn’t a chance in hell of it happening. IIRC we have achieved ~ 5% cut in overall energy efficiency, while we have gone up in demand ~ 3% per annum.
I suspect you do not own a house. If you do you have not lived through this efficiency demand cycle.
CoRev,
Go back to the McKinseys/Vattenfall graph and read it – negative costs for energy efficiency.
The issue then becomes getting the negative costs back to the people who are undertaking the efficiency measures. In Australia where I come from the Brotherhood of St Laurence has produced some very good costed proposals for that to happen under an ETS for families (go and look at their website) and here in the UK where I’m currently sitting the UK government has put forward plans for retrofitting the housing stock. To fund that in the short term in Australia before revenue from ETS permits kick in I would favour reducing my tax dollars going to fossil fuel interests as subsidies…..
BTW I retrofitted my house in October with passive energy savings measures. It cost me $500 and means I won’t have to pay the cost of running an airconditioner.
Jeremy, I just don’t see how you get from a “Cost Curve Graphic for CO2 Abatement” to negative costs. I understand engineering might be a far cry from economics, but when you say: “The issue then becomes getting the negative costs back to the people who are undertaking the efficiency measures.” seems to completely misunderstand the economics of the issue. There must be a Return On Investment (ROI) coupled with the investment available to the common family making said investment. It is not, nor can never be a negative cost to the individual making that investment. Later you provided you own personal example that confirms what I have been saying.
I suspect you are conflating too many variables into your argument that do not necessarily relate to each other. The chart in question, as far as I can see, is talking about some CO2 abatement factor for a sunk cost in; insulation, improved efficiency in vehicles, etc. All have some costs and some may even have some ROI for the individual investor. Some of the ROI period may be shortened due to a Govt incentive program via lower taxes or some rebate structure, but all must have some ROI to get Joe six pack homeowner to make that investment and undergo the disruption in their lives. Don’t forget to convince Ms J Sixpack, as she may have altogether different goals.
I’m trying to tell you it is a social and economic problem and not an engineering problem. I do hope your “passive energy savings measure(s)” whatever they might be, works out for you. Here, where I live in the Mid Atlantic good ole US, I can think of nothing that $500 would buy that would shut down the heat/AC. Might be the difference in the environments in which we live, dunno.
G’day all; happy New Year!
After a spell from Jen’s blog, I see these old arguments still come back to a personal perspective in the end.
CoRev: “I do hope your “passive energy savings measure(s)” whatever they might be, works out for you. Here, where I live in the Mid Atlantic good ole US, I can think of nothing that $500 would buy that would shut down the heat/AC.”
Where I live in the Australian Capital Territory up, way over the Great Dividing Range but nearer the Pacific Coast opposite NZ, we get a daily temp change of 15-20 C any time of the year. A/C can be as simple as opening and closing both front and back doors. Anything else is over the top in energy terms.
Looking back 2008 was about the mildest year I can recall (been living in the ACT since 1986). So far I haven’t unpacked our pedestal fans this summer but the latest quarterly electricity bill was $400 AUD, the highest on record for us living in a natural gas fired home. Sure; charges have gone up all round in response to something other than AGW and it’s most likely those plasma TV’s etc but nobody I know expects our climate to remain this mild as a consequence of continued “Global Cooling”.
Yesterday we observed a huge turnout for a used vehicle auction with well over a hundred 2 y old former fleet vehicles going under the hammer. That’s despite the heavily advertised annual clearance sales in the new car yards. The recent economic downturn has everybody hunting for bargains now. Petrol is suddenly as cheap as chips too. That all means to me, things are changing and people will adjust accordingly despite the rhetoric from deniers.
jeremy
“label me as part of the liberal elite don’t forget I’m a hairy engineer, inverted snobs”
I begin to have doubts.
You repeating this too often, as if to convince yourself, you may succeed in that, but we are a bit harder to convince.
By his words and deeds we judge!
Ah; I miss the stimulation.
Luke: After my Google on ‘phase locked oceans’ to further consider the appropriateness or otherwise of engineering terms in climate dynamics; I found some current research topics here
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/CNDA/about/research/outline.html
Control of Chaos
“Since chaotic systems exhibit extreme sensitivity to initial conditions it has for many years been generally thought that chaotic systems are neither predictable nor controllable. Thus chaos is often regarded as an annoying property to be avoided in the design of engineering systems –
also
Climate Modelling
“Circulation within the ocean dramatically affects, and often determines the climate of many regions of the globe. For example, the Gulf Stream, which manifests itself as a warm surface current between the Gulf of Mexico and the North Atlantic, has a significant influence upon the climate of Northern Europe. Surface currents of this type are the result of circulation deep in the ocean and originate from differences in temperature between equatorial and polar regions, effectively creating a single large convective cell. However, the situation is complicated by the effect of evaporation at the equator and precipitation in polar regions, which lead to a gradient in ocean salinity (salt content). Ignoring the thermal circulation, this alone would produce a pressure gradient and hence a circulation, which would in fact be in the opposite direction to that produced by thermal forcing. When combined, the opposing thermal and saline driving forces are referred to as thermohaline circulation, which may produce more complex behaviour than that produced by either effect alone. Thermohaline circulation has been investigated using simple box models, in which a cross-section of the ocean is divided into a finite number of boxes which possess the average properties of those regions of the ocean. This system of boxes may be described by a set of simple nonlinear differential equations (based upon differences in temperature and salinity), which govern the transport of fluid between the regions. Such models demonstrate certain instabilities depending upon the choice of parameters used to describe the diffusion of fluid between the boxes. A collaborative project with the UK Meteorological Office has investigated the dynamics of such systems, and the instabilities which occur, by applying techniques developed in the study of other nonlinear dynamical systems”.
Phase Locked Loops
and
Chaotic Time Series
“Perhaps the single most important lesson to be drawn from the study of non-linear dynamical systems over the last few decades is that even simple deterministic dynamical systems can give rise to complex behaviour which is statistically indistinguishable from that produced by a completely random process. One obvious consequence of this is that it may be possible to describe apparently complex signals using simple non-linear models. This has led to the development of a variety of novel techniques for the manipulation of such “chaotic” time series. In appropriate circumstances, such algorithms are capable of achieving levels of performance which are far superior to those obtained using classical linear signal processing techniques. The Centre has wide interests in this area, with projects focusing on both applications, and the development of new theory and algorithms”.
etc.
I slumber in ignorance off the blog
Gavin:
“This has led to the development of a variety of novel techniques for the manipulation of such “chaotic” time series. In appropriate circumstances, such algorithms are capable of achieving levels of performance which are far superior to those obtained using classical linear signal processing techniques. The Centre has wide interests in this area, with projects focusing on both applications, and the development of new theory and algorithms”.
etc. ”
to which we might add
“none of which are presently incorporated into any of the GCM’s and econometric models”
And what just are appropriate circumstances? Examples, proof that chaotic systems can actually be predictive, or are we dealing circular argumentation.
And I do like is the statement ” that it may be possible to describe apparently complex signals using simple non-linear models”.
In other words it is pure hope, not fact.
More Gavinesque obfuscation with AlGorerithms.
CoRev
Just what on earth is a negative cost? Another one of Jeremy C’s AGW silliness?
I’ve studied economics and this specific term is, er, hmm, for it implies the existence a positive cost as well, including the inanity of a zero cost. I sometimes get the impression Greenies invent terms to confuse us with ostensible facts when in fact they are nonsense dressed in facetious factualities.
In addtion “Chaotic time series” don’t exist. In order to recognise any time series one needs a non chaotic phenomenon in order to recognise a pattern. As a chaotic system has no pattern, it cannot be recognised as a time series.
It’s an oxymoron.
Hey Louis: As I said before “I slumber in ignorance off the blog”
Cheers
gavin discovers stochastics; next stop long term persistence (sort of like luke) and Hurst scaling; you want a Gaussian pattern out of chaos gavin? Just designate 2 points then shovel in a non-infinite number of interpolations until the pattern emerges; seems to work in a predictive sense.
Now luke, you referred again to the Vecchi paper; Veni, vidi, vici eh? Vecchi postulates that the decline in the Walker Circulation that normally occurs with el Nino is consistent with AGW; apparently the WC has been weaker since the mid-1800s; how that dovetails with AGW I’m not sure; anyway some other pro-AGW scientists have a different take from Vecchi about how the WC will be affected by AGW;
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/222800
In addition, with the resumption of la Nina conditions I thought the WC had resumed normal levels.
As to the 400 year history of PDO, here it is once again;
http://www.john-daly.com/theodor/DecadalEnso.htm
Now refrain from going the ad hom luke; ha!
Gaw-blimy Cohenite hangs about too! How’z Mrs C??
Although this place is considered the home real of ”flat Earthers” by all those on the outside, I had to peek again for old time’s sake. Perhaps it’s worth repeating a brief conversation I had at a local garage sale last Saturday with a couple fresh out of the UK.
After clearing up on accents both natural and acquired I discovered he was the true northerner (about 50 km up from Glasgow). When I asked “Do you think we are suffering from man made Global warming” and “how do you know? “either way; she gazed around her old abode here, all green for a change and said “I don’t know”.
However he immediately followed with “climate change is very noticeable back home now” and “it’s the failed ski seasons recently, also sea levels are rising”. He quickly informed me; as a coastal dweller he noticed in particular the extra high tides and sea surges around Scotland.
Now that’s been my theme for a while but I come from Tasmania. I reckon debate here over graphs and stats is increasingly irrelevant to the general public.
Gavin,
“climate change is very noticeable back home now” – reads more like an unsuspecting victim pandering to the overbearing questioning of devout proselytising SIFat a local garage sale.
Jeremy, I’ve never seen anything on a thread quite so brazen as your statement:
“I never said ‘construction’, I have always been referring to ‘commercial’. I thought I had made myself clear or you didn’t read my posts properly. Referring to ‘commercial’ excludes construction which is why I was using F-H J-Q and I’m glad you found them on the website for yourself.” December 31 at 8:34 pm.
In fact, on this thread is your original comment where you say:
“The other sector with potential is the commercial building sector. It is perhaps the largest single sector in Australia in terms of GDP and various reports put its GHG contributions as over 20% of Australia’s total.” December 30 at 7:25 pm.
The only explanation for your comment apart from it being a deliberate falsehood – that is a lie – is that you are recklessly indifferent to what you say, which is virtually the same thing.
You generally expect people on threads like this to put their best case forward and ignoring information that contradicts it is par for the course, but what you don’t expect them to do is to deliberately falsify.
If you will do that in a situation where it can so easily be checked and exposed what else are you making up? It certainly has to cast doubts on your claim to be an engineer, and anything else which can’t be checked via documentation.
On the basis of this, for example, I’d be surprised if you’ve spent anything on passive energy savings, and it did strike me that $500 would be unlikely to buy you much more than curtains anyway!
Graham,
Accusing me of falsehood – that is wrong and pathetic.
Repeating myself is a zero sum game but the accusation is to nasty to ignore.
OK. to repeat, ‘commercial’ doesn’t mean ‘construction’ whether the word building is appended to the words.
Don’t believe me, the evidence is in Jennifer’s 1999 link/document we have been arguing over. Tables S1 toS3 use ‘commercial’ and ‘construction’ as separate sectors and zooming forward to 2009 the AGEIS website uses the terms the same way.
My use of the numbers from both sources demonstrates this.
This shows ignorance on your part as also demonstrated by both you and Louis not knowing the term ‘negative cost’.
As to the $500 bucks. What do want, a copy of the invoice?
Thats all.
Jeremy C
Define “negative cost” please.
Luke: do look at the time of my post (11.55 pm on 21/12/08), I was in a rush to get to the fireworks, hence the slip, typing CSIRO for BoM, but the thrust remains the same, both are e: Thus Scott Powers’ slide on “chance of exceeding 1-4oC warming” totally ignores (1) the biospheric absorption that accounts for around 57% of emissions, and (2) that the absorption rate depends on the emission rate. Why did you evade comment on those points?
Re Luke, cont.
I was cut off as I was about to say CSIRO and BoM are both mostly equally incompetent. But at least BoM admits it only has temp data for this blessed land since 1900, while unforgiveably endorsing the GISS etc series showing ‘global’ temps from 1850 to now. I can well believe Australia was not on this earth before 1900, but even so…In fact it’s worse than that as GISS and HADcrap etc with their global data sets from 1850 or 1880 would have us believe that the natives in places like the pathetic “democratic” Republic of the Congo (not to mention Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Papua New Guinea etc etc ) already had Met stations zealously recording and despatching temps to GISS and HADcrap from 1880 if not before. All those claiming they did, by using alleged “global” temp ‘data’ sets from 1850 or 1880, are opening themselves to class actions along the lines of that just launched against ANZ by American investors beguiled by its lies that it had no exposure to Opes until the day that crashed and exposed ANZ to $800 million losses. Why? because the credulous twerps who run this country believe any old rubbish put before them by the likes of Garnaut citing those very temp series, and then impose ETS that will involve pecuniary loss based on such thoroughly misleading global temp data. Correcting GISS and HADcrap data for 1850-1900 for the absence of data from the hot tropical countries mentioned above until 1900 will reveal that there has been NIL, ZILCH, ZERO, ‘global warming’ since 1900.
Yes Timmy – off you go now. You’re an unpublished whiney little ranter. Report back when you’ve achieved something. This diversion as a response to Smith and Power on SOI trends is a disgrace. Piss off.
Typical one man band above; Luke.
I think Tim Curtin is a very funny when he can continually put himself above BoM, CSIRO, GISS, Hadley etc then crap on about class action to save his rearguard position. I guess too if the truth be known; those heads at ANZ came from the same school as Tim.
Always in denial, hey.
BTW, I notice experts like Tim have no idea of the value in readings made by a lamp swinging with the swell in port and at sea that might relate to those from outposts based in distant lands.
Also they won’t go near SL for a back up.
Jeremy, I think there is a pathology at work here. When confronted with one example of your actual use of the words you just deny them. It wasn’t the only time that you used them, and the discussion was quite clearly about construction. All you had to do was say, “Sorry, I was wrong”. And speaking of wrong, I haven’t made a comment on the issue of “negative costs”. So perhaps you could try using those words “Sorry, I was wrong” for trying to fit me up with one of Louis’s raves.
Still, you turned-up some useful reports, not that they tend to support your case. The IEA identifies 8.2 Gigatonnes which could be abated by 2030, which tends to be supported by McKinsey’s slides which identify a bit over 5 Gigatonnes available through efficiencies, about 20%. Not enough I am afraid to make the difference.
Interestingly, the paper by Pears throws up a couple of facts. One appears to be that efficiencies of 25% or so appear to be achievable in the situations he references. Still leaves 16% to be found by 2020, even if you assume you can overhaul all of our capital stock in the next 10 years, a vain hope given that there are barely enough tradesmen to do the home renovations that people want for reasons of leisure and lifestyle reasons.
But he also highlights something which I was aware of, but had forgotten, and this really does go to the heart of what is possible. And that is that energy efficiency in specific instances doesn’t tend to lead to a less energy intensive economy. The reason for this is that as efficiencies lead to savings (negative costs) that allows money to be allocated elsewhere, and inasmuch as economic activity and energy consumption go together the reallocated money produces its own demand for energy. So efficiencies don’t lead to an overall decrease in emissions. They tend to lead to increases in emissions in other areas. Which is an answer to Luke’s argument that my figuring couldn’t be correct because it didn’t allow for efficiencies.
The bottom line of Pears’ paper is that the only way you can actually significantly cut national emissions is to substitute non-carbon based fuel sources, or reduce standards of living by an amount commensurate with the reductions desired. Makes Jennifer’s release stronger, not weaker.
Possibly Graeme – but your argument against efficiencies helping is without an ETS !
And still waiting on sinks….
Luke, I assume by “Graeme” you mean me. How is an ETS supposed to make a difference? If you had an argument I guess you would have run it. Could be interesting to do an analysis of trolling rhetorical techniques. This is a pretty standard one – raise an unrelated issue as an objection and run away without attempting to argue your point. The tactic appears to be designed both to distract debate from the real issues and to attempt to confuse casual readers who haven’t been following the thread too closely.
And on the issue of sinks, if you do an analysis of Australia and its emissions you will find that as a country we have more than enough sinks to absorb all of our emissions. So there is no need, judged nationally, for us to worry about CO2 emissions at all, even if you accept the AGW hypothesis.
So, let’s get back to the basic issue. Jennifer’s release stands. You’ve made no dint in it, and in fact the discussion suggests that she has been more conservative than even the government! Pretty good going.
Oh I’m sorry “Graham”. I know pretentious prima donnas are sensitive but I nevertheless apologise for spelling your name incorrectly.
As far as I’m concerned you’re the one that’s totally disingenuous. So don’t try and bully me matey.
The AEF has produced NO ANALYSIS AT ALL of the full implications of an ETS – INCLUDING EFFICIENCY. Despite your pathetic pseudo-economic defense of “well we’d spend the money on something else that would generate emissions”.
I assume you’d like comment here to be that of a bunch of back-slapping pseudo-sceptics and non-greenhouse theorists – essentially that of an echo- chamber.
As so new sinks are not important in this issue?
In reality anyone serious would giggle at the trivial analysis so far as there has been no serious attempt whatsoever to make a calculation of what savings might be made given an ETS incentive.
Anyone who’s followed this argument is well used to pseudo-sceptics loading the scales.
If you’re going to have a shot at the ETS – at least pass the giggle test in the attempt.
Luke, you’re just waving your arms again. If you have no return argument don’t respond. It’s actually getting embarrassing watching your flailing.
And, yes, the reports presented by Jeremy are replete with logic holes, which means the ETS is also.
BTW, I just did a quick calculation of the ROI on doing three of the major efficiency proposals, replacement HE furnace/AC, efficient window replacements, and increased insulation. Assuming a moderate efficiency gain of 11.5% total for all three [assuming the original house was not a barn] then the ROI would take a measly 53 years to break even.
Want to talk about the giggle test? Sheesh!!
Graham,
In your post where you talked about Alan Pear’s paper you wrote:
“he also highlights something which I was aware of, but had forgotten, and this really does go to the heart of what is possible. And that is that energy efficiency in specific instances doesn’t tend to lead to a less energy intensive economy”
and you went on to write “So efficiencies don’t lead to an overall decrease in emissions. They tend to lead to increases in emissions in other areas”.
Graham, thats what Alan Pears refers to across his paper as the Rebound Effect and in the literature it goes by that name as well as a number of others e.g. Jevons Paradox. Its a well known and complex topic but in reading Alan Pear’s paper and making comments about it you neglected to refer to what he said about it. This is some of what he said:
“when considering this form of rebound effect, it is more appropriate to look at the issue as an outcome of cultural values” (page 4) under the topic he called, Technological/cultural rebound.
Going on further with what he wrote under the heading he called Economic Rebound Pears wrote,
“The point of discussing these various possible outcomes of improving energy efficiency is to
highlight the fact that they can vary from large rebound effects to large amplification effects.” (page 5).
What “specific instances” are you referring to when you wrote that post above (let alone contradicting yourself), if they are the one Alan Pears refers to shouldn’t you acknowledge him or were you thinking of other ones?. Pears disagrees with you what you wrote in your post yet your post makes no mention at all of this.
Then your post finished with you writing something very confusing about Pear’s paper…..
You wrote:
“The bottom line of Pears’ paper is that the only way you can actually significantly cut national emissions is to substitute non-carbon based fuel sources, or reduce standards of living by an amount commensurate with the reductions desired”
Now that is completely at odds with what what Alan Pears actuallywrote in his conclusion which included this:
“aggressive pursuit of energy efficiency offers an exciting opportunity to reduce total energy costs
and greenhouse gas emissions while improving quality of life and business productivity.” (page 17).
How did you arrive at that?
Are you a journalist? I’m only asking because you seem to be making the mistakes a generalist reporter makes when they are given a specialist topic for the first time and are up against a deadline (and of course while the subs can correct your writing they don’t have time to go over the accuracy of your content). You know the sort of mistakes…scanning a document hoping to pick the eyes out of it rather than reading it and ending up missing what the author actually says. Anyway, just curious.
I understand an apology is in order. So. Louis Hissink it was a mistake on my part to lump you in with Graham Young. I will be more careful in the future.
BTW Jennifer I am making my way slowly through the Yale ESI stuff. Its interesting.
Anyway its good night from London
Luke: if I had your address I would mail you the January issue of Quadrant for free. Otherwise check your newsagent. I await your point by point rebuttals with interest, hoping that you will refrain this year from the ad homs you normally rely on.
Gavin: of course I overlooked that Cap’n Cook sailed up the Congo in c1776 – not to mention the Limpopo, Zambezi, and Upper Nile taking temps all along the way and then mailing them, post-dated – to GISS, with its remarkable data base of global temps from the beginning of time.
Somehow Timmy I don’t think climate bilge spread by pseudo-sceptics in a right-wingers comic book will be an unbalanced account. Anyway they’ve got the right editor these days LOLZ.
From which we have to conclude that Luke is an unbalanced leftwinger spruiking climate bilge published by pseudoscientists in biassed and censorious science journals.
Tim, you will never get Luke’s email address – they guy has serious personality disorders and I doubt that his appelation “Luke Walker” is real as well.
Now let’s waity for the next torrent of Lukian Bilge.
Haven’t read the whole thread so I might be repeating someone.
Looks to be another La Nina starting up. Of course, this would fit into the ~30 year interval for PDO. Sorry about that you CO2 enthusiasts. Back to back La Ninas should start stretching your hallucinations nicely!!
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
The debate between Jeremy C and Graham is interesting; just checked on Jeremy’s Pear’s link and the McKinsey graph on energy substitution and abatement. Quite frankly I find these links both unbeliveable and insidious. The McKinsey graph is ridiculous; fuel efficient vehicles provide a -ve cost? Hello, anyone heard of the debacle called the Prius? And sugarcane biofuel creating a negative cost obviously doesn’t factor in the people starving from the loss of agricultural land [ie it’s not all good-news stories about Australian farmers using former sugar-cane waste for the product; former agricultural food producing land will be involved]; good to see Nuclear is at a mere +ve abatement position; pity every green worth his dreadlocks would froth at the mouth if it was even suggested that nuclear be introduced; for a more reasonable perspective on fuels Thinking Man at 8:03 pm can’t be beat;
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/11/wind-power-exposed-the-renewable-energy-source-is-expensive-and-unreliable/?cp=all
The pear’s effort is astounding; this
“In developing scenarios for the future, it is appropriate to assume that people will seek higher levels of comfort and amenity, but these trends have upper limits. For example… the length of a shower is constrained by the need to go to work or the tendency for skin to shrivel up.”
Not to worry, this urge for uber cleanliness can be countered by “aggressive mandatory energy efficiency standards” and “education and information programs”; how very Orwellian. All this talk about efficiency has the imprimatur of ascetism and puritanical stoicism. It begs the question; why do we have to be more efficient? Peak oil? Environmental degradation? Greed and selfishness are bad? Because its moral to be thrifty not profligate? Saving the planet? Self-discipline is good for the soul? Whatever, just don’t pretend its AGW.
Cohhers – you bulldust knows no bounds – sugar cane production of biofuel is going to lead to starvation in Australia – hohohohohohohoho – food producing land – what a line !!!!!! I kacked !
And we’ve just come off 127 litres of water per person per day in SEQ up to 155. Nobody died. Showers were had. The washing got done…. sheeshhhh !!! And a long way from the profligate waste of 300 per day.
Pull the other ones Cohers. And take your pinky off the scales.
Some quotes from Jeremy C from the first link.
There is agreement approaching consensus that a successful program of action on climate change must support two objectives—stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) and maintaining economic growth. Achieving both these aims will require a tenfold increase in “carbon productivity,” the amount of GDP produced per unit of carbon equivalents (CO2e) emitted. The economic costs of this “carbon revolution” are likely to be manageable at some 0.6–1.4 percent of global GDP by 2030.
The “carbon revolution” that is necessary is comparable in magnitude to the labor productivity increases of the Industrial Revolution but will have to be achieved in one-third of the time if the world is to maintain current growth levels while meeting commonly discussed abatement targets.
There are five areas on which we should focus. First, boosting energy efficiency could cut global energy demand by 20-24 percent of projected 2020 demand. Second, to reduce emissions by one-fifth of current levels by 2020, the carbon productivity of energy sources must increase by two-thirds. Third, additional investment in R&D and incentives to boost innovation will be necessary. Fourth, companies and governments can do more to educate consumers on “green” behavior. Fifth, forestation and avoided forestation offer the largest abatement lever at 25 percent of the global total under €40 per ton.
I would quote from the other links. However, the problem is the sam as the link for Swedish smelting. The links are for thinktank general scenario compilations. Which makes JC’s comment of “”Are you a journalist? I’m only asking because you seem to be making the mistakes a generalist reporter makes when they are given a specialist topic for the first time and are up against a deadline (and of course while the subs can correct your writing they don’t have time to go over the accuracy of your content). You know the sort of mistakes…scanning a document hoping to pick the eyes out of it rather than reading it and ending up missing what the author actually says. Anyway, just curious.”” humorous. These linked do not give the type of information needed nor in a real sense can they.
Consider the discussion of the Jevons Paradox. It is proposed to avert this. How? Your guess is as good as any. These are position papers, not papers with ROI, expected lifetime/depreciation, MTBF (mean time between failure), present cost/future worth calculations, etc. No lifetime cycle studies, etc. Though please note such difficult goals such it requires a 10 fold increase in carbon productivity in an area where 10% increase in effecicensy in say a natural gas boiler would mean a ROI as little as a year depending on cost per decatherm. But the claim is made that there are all these opportunities. Not really, they assume technologicl advances. A good asssumption but hard to quantify. Not a problem here because the basis of the quantification are not given. No mention of incremental cost or incremental changeover costs, even though economy of scale is mentioned. How about the lifetime of enegy sources is presenty 20+ years. Where is the detail showing the loss of revenue or the adjusted costs for energy source changeovers that occur for current energy sources built recently or schedued to be built?
ETS/ CPRS:
Where we are now.
We are currently living in a system of oil and coal. This is unsustainable as eventually we’ll run out.
It does tremendous damage to our environment via damaging our gases in the air, the litter, oil spills, ‘climate change’, smoke making it harder to breath, smog which is killing our children and elderly, sewerage dumped into the ocean.
We are also heavily vulnerable to foreigner stock market speculators who manipulate the price of oil in order to make more money.
Where we want to be.
In a system where Australia and the whole world is run on clean renewable energy.
It will do wonders for our environment – it will create a world in which humans and nature can live in a peaceful coexistence, which is a world no one can disagree with.
And it will protect us from speculators by making us energy independent from others.
The biggest problem is that those renewable energy technologies haven’t been properly developed and created yet.
So how do we get from A to B?
a) Government intervention. Nationalise the entire energy sector, push tonnes of capital into renewable energy investments. When those technologies come available, disband the oil and coal industries and make the whole country run on renewables. Outlaw other types of energy sources.
b) Neo-liberalism. Don’t do anything. Allow the invisible hand of the ‘free market’ to eventually bring us to renewable energy.
c) Tax and spend. Put a tax on carbon, which will eventually make oil and coal so expensive to use that it will force capitalists to invest into renewable energies. (The extra revenue collected from the tax can assist further government programs.) But by giving millions of dollars in credits, you are reducing the impact of the very program you’re pushing in place for that reason.
Of course, this is a tax on the poor and working class, while the rich don’t get affected at all.
d) Make investment cheap as chips. Put a tax onto the rich, while will gain a certain level of extra government revenue.
Use this money to give credit and tax cuts to all capitalists who invest money into renewable energy.
Capitalists will go anywhere if it means they can make money – so make renewable energy such a delicious option that they can’t resist it.
e) Don’t do anything. Claim that the environment isn’t being damaged at all by coal and oil, and that everything is just fine the way it is now.