Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Slow Power Transition

34 comments:

jerrye92002 said...

Odd, the "emergency brake" seems to have been hit already. How does anybody explain that, if our puny (wasteful and expensive) renewable power hasn't caused it?

John said...

Please explain further.

John said...

From the piece...

"First, we’re still moving in the wrong direction. Global carbon emissions aren’t falling fast enough. In fact, they aren’t falling at all; they were up 1.7 percent in 2018.

Second, we’re still pushing in the wrong direction. Globally, subsidies to fossil fuels were up 11 percent between 2016 and 2017, reaching $300 billion a year.

And third, the effort to clean up is flagging. Total investment in renewable energy (not including hydropower) was $288.9 billion in 2018 — less than fossil fuel subsidies and an 11 percent decrease from 2017.

This is all bad news. The public seems to have the impression that while things are bad, they are finally accelerating toward something better. It’s not true. Collectively, we haven’t even succeeded in reversing direction yet. Despite all the progress described below, we’re still struggling to get ahold of the emergency brake.

That grim context established, let’s jump in."

jerrye92002 said...

I will explain. In simple terms, what humans do with carbon emissions has little to nothing to do with global temperatures. You're trying to control the amount of rum-running by limiting the number of ordained ministers.

Lucky for you, New York state just passed a law to be something like 80% renewable by 2040 or something. That's good. Their population needs to be impoverished and reduced.

John said...


I think we have agreed to disagree regarding the human impact on climate.

You must have missed the chart showing how many jobs this new industry is creating.
All those solar fields and wind turbines are setting themselves up. :-)

John said...

And it is great money maker for rural MN. They have wind, sun and land to spare.

MN Update

jerrye92002 said...

So, what is the value to creating jobs doing something that doesn't need doing at all?

And you can disagree with me about the human impact on climate, but the actual data, the math, most scientists, the scientific method and the obvious failings of predictions from "CAGW theory" are all against you.

John said...

Jerry,
We have whole industries built up around "doing something that doesn't need doing at all"... In fact most of the US economy runs on this...

All the pro sports, expensive restaurants, trendy clothes, etc.

My family thanks you for the contribution to our wealth... Dad signed an agreement to have ~3 wind turbines installed on our land... And our county (Lincoln) gets multiple millions from taxes, labor, supporting industries, etc... :-)

You can keep claiming that humans are not a causal factor... But it does not make it real. :-)

John said...

Not to start that who is correct again, but I found this interesting.

"Yes, the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change. Most of the leading science organizations around the world have issued public statements expressing this, including international and U.S. science academies, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a whole host of reputable scientific bodies around the world. A list of these organizations is provided here."

Now many may disagree with what we should do or not do about it... But I think most scientists are pretty on board with the causation.

Even you could not come up with a different cause for why the observed is so much higher than historical.

jerrye92002 said...

Well, A) I'm not sure that these groups of politicians calling themselves scientists deserve to be called "reputable." They did, after all, participate in those email scandals and had to be sued to release their data, after they were paid with public money. They continue, in some cases, to "fudge" the results and time after time have issued misleading statements without scientific foundation, and failed to acknowledge the vast uncertainties at play.

Be that as it may, let's look at "causation" just a bit more deeply. The climate models are based on an ASSUMPTION that TOTAL CO2 will double. Following that is an ASSUMPTION of the "sensitivity" to the climate that is at least 50%, and sometimes double, what any of the available research says. AND these alarmists completely overlook that human contribution to annual CO2 release is about 4% of the total. So IF humans are indeed causing climate change, which is a correct qualitative statement, it is a totally misleading and near-deceitful QUANTITATIVE statement, and we shouldn't be making policy based on that deceit.
from NOAA

John said...

I have no desire to rehash your opinions again.

Now talking about questionable sources... This must be one of your worst...

"I have an Bachlors in Economics from the U.C. system. I also have a pot load of credits from some various Community Colleges in everything from “Transistor and Semiconductor Theory” to “American Sign Language”. "

John said...

Here is the link that was broken.

NASA Do Scientists Agree?

John said...

It is amazing how many organizations are supposedly in on this conspiracy

Even these guys... And these guys

John said...

Temp Graphs from experts

jerrye92002 said...

Yes, the "experts" all agree-- temperature rise is roughly 1 degree per century! But if you want to cherry-pick the data, you can say the trend is 1.4 degrees per century. What convinces you that this is catastrophic?

And it doesn't have to be a conspiracy. There is a narrative that puts money in a LOT of pockets, so everybody just goes along with it. Even acknowledging the vast uncertainty (at least 3:1), which would be reasonable, never happens because that would create doubt and endanger the gravy train.

And by the way, that 97% has been repeatedly debunked. The actual figure is about 3%. Apparently yours is the minority view, but the loudest one.

John said...

Jerry,
Let's discuss various potential causes for bias:

- Professors, colleges and bureaucracies want funding

- Fossil fuel companies want to keep selling fossil fuels

- Clean energy companies want to sell more systems

- Religious people want to believe that God is all powerful and Humans can not damage his intelligent design

- Conspiracy folks want to see villains in the back ground

Now the reality is that the fossil fuel industries have by far the most money and resources. And the Religious extremists have their faith to protect...

I am sticking with the scientists...

John said...

Here are a lot of surveys and studies. None near 3%.

And the number keeps increasing year after year as the data backs up the forecasts.


This one explains some complicated, yet interesting reasons driving climate change resistance


And here is how WUWT tried to misuse their data...

John said...

This is an interesting one about how scientists are learning about belief systems

jerrye92002 said...

You keep trying to convince yourself of something for which you have no direct and credible scientific evidence. If 97% of "scientists" told you the sun revolved around the earth, would you fervently believe it? Besides, that's not what any of those studies prove. All scientists agree that humans are "contributing" greenhouse gasses, and that greenhouse gasses cause warming (NOT, BTW, "climate change"). The question is how much, and the last chart I posted proves conclusively it is essentially insignificant. Who you gonna believe, politicians and scientists on the payroll of gov't, or your own eyes, looking at real data? from NOAA

John said...

I am going to believe the official temp records.

Not something posted by a blogger with no backup data...

jerrye92002 said...

GOOD! Now actually READ the "official records" and note (from above):
"... temperature rise is roughly 1 degree per century! But if you want to cherry-pick the data, you can say the trend is 1.4 degrees per century. What convinces you that this is catastrophic?"

Or consult THIS official record (from above):
NOAA records

John said...

The Experts of the USA say it is going to get pretty rough.

Why do you believe that they are incorrect?

Now as we have often discussed. Unfortunately the temperature increase is not linear... So 1.4 deg C (2.5 deg F) is likely going to become 2.0 deg C (3.6 deg F) and then ????

Now this is not a big issue in MN... But there are many parts of the world where this is a BIG Life or Death Deal. Will we become more welcoming of people from Central America and Mexico when they become uninhabitable?

The image you keep pointing to is someone's attempt to use graph scale to mislead, nothing more nothing less. Besides the fact that he is only one measure of temperature from what I can tell.

jerrye92002 said...

"Experts"? It is to laugh. Politicians and paid toadies.

I believe they are incorrect because their own data says otherwise. They lie.

Non-linear, yes, but there is no justification for hyperbolic, either. It's all supposition. I still say the best fit is a Fourier series, but barring that, I look at 50-year and 30-year trends and say that the REAL DATA shows 1-2 degrees per century, and even that has no bearing on the question of whether it is natural or manmade, or what the allocation of cause may be.

I thought perhaps the image DID use "graph scale to mislead, and it is certainly possible. What it does show, however, that TOTAL CO2 has gone up rather markedly and that temperatures have gone up only about 1 degree over all that time. So let us assume, as the models do, that we are going to double CO2 from "pre-industrial" times, to 560 ppm. We're aleady halfway to that in CO2, in time and in temperature. SO... the reasonable combination of those facts says that, 100 years from now, temperatures will rise another 1 degree. YAWN.

John said...

It is kind of sad how little you understand about thermodynamics :-(

John said...

Maybe a simple example.

Strawberries on ice in cooler that is left in the sun.

For awhile the ice melting ice keeps the air and berries cool. But in time the extra heat wins,the ice melts and the berries cook.

jerrye92002 said...

That's funny, because strawberries were never mentioned in my advanced Thermodynamics class at University. You are proposing a "tipping point" and, despite many predictions of such that have already come and gone, we're still just chugging merrily along.

At some point, the scientific method has to assert itself and say that, when the data does not match predictions from the theory, then the theory must be abandoned. Yet the quip from skeptics has been "97% of climate scientists agree, the DATA is wrong"!

John said...

Please share. I have 2 engineering degrees and an MBA. The way you debate, I find real hard to believe you have an engineering background.

No tipping point required... Ice melts as it is exposed to more heat energy. It just takes more time if you have more ice.

And melting ice absorbs a lot of energy. Once the amount decreases things warm faster. No ice means big problems if the more of the solar load continues to be trapped by the atmosphere.

jerrye92002 said...

Notice how many assumptions you just made there? I'll believe your two engineering degrees when you show you can read a simple chart.

John said...

I read it the same as most experts.

You and your peers are in the minority.

Good side step as usual.

jerrye92002 said...

So, science is now done by consensus? Did you learn that in engineering school? The chart I'm referencing shows that total CO2 (not just manmade) has increased about 42% over 140 years, while temperatures have increased about 2.5 degrees F. That means a 42% increase in CO2 has caused a 0.005% increase in absolute temperature (Fahrenheit) over 140 years.

So, expand that equation to a doubling of CO2 and assume less than 100 years, accelerating the effect, as you say I must, and I calculate about 4.3 degrees F or 2.3 degrees K in 100 years. That's remarkably close to what you get extrapolating any of the other "official" temperature charts you have shown me, probably even higher, but these are rough numbers.

In short, NOTHING you have shown me demonstrates that manmade CO2 is a significant factor in global warming. You have shown CO2 increasing, you have shown temperatures (maybe, slowly) increasing. I have now shown you the apparent lack of correlation between temperature and TOTAL CO2. I've shown you the math showing that manmade CO2 is an insignificant part of the atmosphere. I've shown you how the predictions of the climate models (the "business as usual scenario," at least) have totally failed to match the observations from satellites, and I have explained numerous times, from my knowledge of computer modelling, why that must be so.

And yet you insist that all of this scientific evidence means nothing, because some "expert" claims, WITHOUT such evidence, that manmade CO2 will lead to catastrophic temperature rise. And when the experts DO produce their actual data, it doesn't support what they are saying. Sure, it is possible to look at the data and see what your bias wants to be true. That's not science, that's religion.

jerrye92002 said...

And you "read it the same as most experts"??? What expert with any degree of scientific/mathematical knowledge sees one curve going up rapidly and the other one staying essentially flat and imagines an absolute correlation, even causation, between the two? Surely you are now to the stage of simply making "stuff" up, to confirm your strong bias?

John said...

You have forgotten the melting ice that is still protecting us berries.

jerrye92002 said...

I've forgotten nothing. I'm simply looking at the real data and trying to figure out what all the hysteria is about. If temps have gone up 1.4 degrees in the last 140 years, and they go up at TWICE the rate over the next 100, it will be 2 degrees warmer than today, and Paris says we'll be OK if we can achieve that. HOW we achieve that, whether it occurs naturally (highly likely), or we crash all our economies trying to force it to happen, doesn't really matter, but doing nothing is better--certainly cheaper-- IMHO.

BTW, have you noticed we are in a new "sunspot minimum" solar phase, like the one that accompanied the Little Ice Age?

John said...

What do you base your opinion that a 5 deg F increase is not going to cause major problems for 100s of millions of people who live at lower elevations or near the equator?

And if we keep heating right through this event, then will you be convinced that humans are doing some bad things to their home?