If one plugs in a fairly reasonable projection of global economic growth into the Nordhaus model, then we get an estimate of 2.5C to 3.0C, including global temperature rise to date. The IPCC continues to pretend RCP 8.5 is a business as usual approach, when its only really useful for plotting out bigger effects in increasingly ludicrous models.
There are lots of potential technologies in the pipeline. There are plenty of methane capture system for animal farming- especially poultry and pigs. The same thing could be done with sewage- and add some of work being done with biological fermentation of algae and suchlike and apply it to animal waste and we could have a game changer.
Bunker fuels are hugely wasteful in terms of CO2 production. The only barrier to regulations for higher qualify fuels is cost and political will (as well as the desire to not piss off China).
Some of cement production tech being produced is promising, as globally cement is major problem.
There are solar desalination projects- a small contribution, but impressive from a science and engineering perspective.
SMRs are going to be a major game changer, but are only likely to start coming online in 2030.
Refrigeration is key issue.
Many regulatory frameworks are in the process of phasing out HFCs in refrigeration.
You are right about the household energy consumption, but should highlight household construction. Sweden has pioneered pre-fab housing at scale. Their homes are great thermal insulators. Far cheaper to heat or cool. It's a fallacy we all have to live in cities. A remote working future is entirely plausible, and with smart AI managed decentralised logistical systems, we could create ecologically friendly self-sufficient communities in rural settings at scale.
It's also worth noting that most global warming thus far has been mildly positive. Yes, extreme weather events have increased in certain areas, but there has been no increase in areas like forest fires, and the percentage increases are only slight in terms of both frequency and amplitude.
Far from creating desertification, higher CO2 has been reversing it, as marginal plant life at the edge of deserts thrives.
Crop yields are up, offsetting most regional disruptions, other than because of war- and also leading the natural market-driven possibility of rewilding land (although government trying to force rewilding is beginning to show signs of being economically catastrophic).
Cover crops seem to be the answer to nitrogen run-off. Recently, I've begun looking at sweet lupins. They have the potential to displace soy in Western animal feed, lowering global transport costs, and are a great break crop, fixing nitrogen, repairing soil, and reducing the need for synthetic fertilisers somewhat. They can even be refined into biofuels.
People need to adopt a techno-optimist approach. Attempting to force behaviour change is authoritarian to the point of tyranny and completely unnecessary. Behaviour change can happen, but it has to come through persuasion. The school run for example is developmentally harmful for kids, as well as being a major source of traffic and congestion- ensuring they will be unhappy as adults. It turns out those somewhat unpleasant experiences riding with some kids you actively dislike on a school bus are an anti-fragile system which builds emotional resilience vital in later life. Chronic persistent bullying is an exception, obviously.
Plus, most side dishes are bland- one can completely transform fine beans, with a few black olives, cherry tomatoes, Romano red peppers finely sliced salad onions and a French Balsamic dressing. If you want to reduce portion sizes of meat and fish, then at least make what goes with it appetising and allow the customer the choice through a menu.
I’m sorry, but Nordhaus just drastically underestimated the impacts, and has just done shoddy work. Eg assuming work that happens indoors (eg manufacturing) won’t be affected by climate change, which mistakes climate for weather.
If a city floods from a hurricane, even the cushiest office job can’t pretend nothing happened (eg hurricane Sandy in 2012). And if that starts happening more frequently, it’s a lot less minor
I've actually read and watched Steve Keen for some time. I find his arguments on systemic dynamics, and marginal costs in particular, highly compelling- having worked in manufacturing I've seen his observations about launching new products and using price vs volume to find the break even point play out in real life.
However, although I don't dispute he is right about the error Nordhaus made in assessing climate impacts in economic terms, Steve Keen himself is also deeply wrong about the likely future impacts of climate change. Besides I only use Nordhaus for the purposes of assessing likely future temperature rises by 2100- the 3.0C part (including all man-made climate change to date).
The climate vs. weather argument is an interesting one. However, most people suffer from a Red Car Syndrome effect when looking at climate and weather- and this particular true of the smart and highly educated- Solution Aversion research shows that smart people are far worse than ordinary people in terms of adjusting against their own motivation biases. Indeed, it's why political forecasting tends to top out in the 115 to 130 IQ range, and the really smart political pundits almost always tend to get it wrong.
In terms of climate impacts most people are deeply misinformed- subject to the types of statistical manipulation which people use to make particular points. Forest fires, for example simply haven't increased in frequency or intensity thus far. The NYT may publish an article using a 1980 to 2020 date range to 'prove' they are increasing, but across a broader range showing 1900 to 2020 there is no evidence of forest fires becoming more frequent or serious- and the Australia fires, for example, actually happened in a year when forest fires in Australia for that year were statistically low- the fires just happened to be closer to people and property.
Similarly, people should be wary of bad data analysis on hurricanes. If we're looking for historical changes, then one has to be careful to adjust for the difference between past and present, because many hurricanes (those that never made landfall) wouldn't have been counted in the past. Once one adjusts for this type of possible error, then what one will see is that thus far, hurricanes have only increased in frequency and magnitude by a tiny percentile degree.
Personally, my biggest gripe is on agriculture. 2022 was the best year for agricultural production in human history. At the same time, I watched in real-time as the World Food Programme rewrote what was initially a rather sensible summary of food insecurity by cause at least twice. Unsurprisingly, 80% of all global food insecurity is still caused by war. 10% is economic shocks. Another 10% is all-cause climate-related disruptions. This figure has risen somewhat in recent years which MAY be cause for alarm on the man-made climate front, but as of yet it's too early to tell whether this something to be seriously worried about.
It's also worth noting that climate policy is inducing serious real-world harms. The Sri Lanka decision to stop using synthetic fertilisers may not have been purely driven by the need to impress ESG finance, but it was a significant factor. Similarly, there was substantial corruption in South Africa's energy giant Eskom, but the decision to prioritise renewables over proven transition technologies like natural gas, proved disastrous for the country. And let's not forget- America's own most massive reduction in CO2 emissions came from fracking and shifting from incredibly dirty and harmful coal, with its cancer causing coal ash, to natural gas.
The most rational actor on energy is China. They've been expanding big hydro and nuclear- and have plans to continue the trend for the latter. They've also been developing natural gas. They have ambitious plans to expand their renewables to 30% by 2030, but no major or substantial plans set in stone for a significant rise beyond this threshold. This is because they know that after one hits 30% from renewables, the price of energy per added percentage point becomes prohibitively high, because of the external costs of energy infrastructure and energy storage.
Our leaders may be telling us that renewables are the low cost energy of the future, but if one looks at energy costs by European country or American State then this simply isn't the case. The UK, Germany and California are all quickly becoming economic dumpster fires- 30% of German manufacturers are considering offshoring because of energy costs alone. Sweden and France are both more successful- both in terms of keeping energy costs down and in terms of lowering their national carbon footprints.
This doesn't mean that an energy transition which is actually feasible will be easy- Asia may still be able to build nuclear power plants cheaply, quickly and safely- but the West has a horrible track record of huge soft cost inflation on infrastructure more generally, and nuclear specifically.
I'm genuinely curious: if sulfur dioxide spraying would be so cheap and effective, why hasn't it been done yet, especially given the much more expensive anti-global warming measures that have already been embarked on?
1) Reluctance to allow a single government to do something which affects the whole planet.
2) A lot of the Green movement is a scam. There's a lot of money to be made in the more expensive measures, not so much money to be made by actually solving the problem. Related: a lot of people don't want to actually solve the problem, they just want to protest and present themselves as prophets of doom.
The alternative is, that either it isn’t that cheap, it isn’t that effective, or the downside risks from an intervention that size may be stopping any government or actor (even Elon Musk) from trying
This does seem a bit backwards - it’s all a function of cumulative GHG in the environment. Getting to zero emissions in eg 2050 by keeping everything the same until 2049 by ridiculous far cuts would be more emissions (and worse outcome) than eg linearly cutting emissions from 2025-2050.
The author’s proposal is essentially using sulphur dioxide, accelerating emissions growth (not merely increasing total GHG, but the derivative - the RATE of increase), until at some point, we can then plough the surplus from fossil fuel growth* into carbon capture. Whether at any point in this, we stop burning fossil fuels, I’m not sure (is it meant to be long after 2050? 2100? Never?)
To me, it seems more straightforward to cut emissions now (I’m not saying zero, but it’s gotta be fast), so you don’t have to do as much removal. Helps cut that 1% risk to eg 0.01%, rather than making it 2%, or even 5% from dragging it out
Or for an even shorter summary - do the work earlier, don’t try to pull an all nighter
*(Under that logic, if fossil fuels were so cheap, maybe it would be better to disconnect from the grid and use lots of petrol or diesel to power a generator, which no sane person does)
I agree with basically all of this, and it is also worth mentioning nuclear power.
One of the bad things about burning coal, in particular, is that it releases PM 2.5 and PM 10.0 which is bad for human health. This is less of an issue with natural gas, but still not a nonissue. Even gas stoves in homes lead to increased rates of asthma for children and increased rates of cognitive decline (like dementia).
If you want a blackpill, look into how ordinary air pollution is bad for us, and it is not just countries like India and China, even “small” amounts of air pollution that are present in US cities are harmful.
You’re starting in the middle; you already take anthropogenic climate change at face value and are entrenched in its epistemology.
But many of us saw the farce being constructed and standardized with our own eyes. This movement literally began as a progressive doomsday cult, and then it was made our reality by fiat over several decades as its believers proliferated through government and education. I was alive and cogent when the west went from calling it “global warming” to “climate change” because the earth didn’t get the memo.
Climate science is insular and circular. You have to be born into it to believe it.
I doubt you espouse any luxury beliefs but I will share the following with your readers.
Luxury belief: "Advocating to ban automotive combustion engines and coal-powered power plants while driving an expensive electric vehicle charged by fancy, home solar panels."
To rid yourself of this luxury belief see footnote number 3 in my post: "Ten Luxury Beliefs to Consider."
If you listen to those six Econtalk podcasts, read those six books and three blog posts, I doubt you'll espouse any overconfidence about climate change again.
Here's a thought experiment. Let's say you have a system called the Earth-Sun system. To simplify assume that it has 10 independent variables and 1 dependent variable. The dependent variable is sort of an awkward one. It's called average temperature of the Earth. Have you ever considered how you would go about measuring the average temperature of the earth?
Assume that you could measure the average temperature of the Earth with many, many thermometers. You would want to place them in the ocean equally distributed laterally and vertically since the oceans hold a great deal of heat and cold, and the water moves and changes temperature from season to season and decade to decade. Have you heard of multi-decadal oscillations?
For the air above the earth you're doing the same thing but using carefully calibrated satellites. This is a difficult calibration that must be carried about periodically using a calibration reference surface (which is a white lambertian surface on-board the satellite) with known scattering properties that happen to change slowly over time. Assume you've got this under control, but maybe you don't.
Then notice that this satellite is in orbit far above the air and looks down on earth taking in the scattered light from "Earth and is various parts, clouds, air molecules, oceans, snow, water vapor) to indirectly measure temperature. This needs to be done at different wavelengths since the electromagnetic energy representing temperature is a spectrum. Account for polarization variations of scattering. Not easy. That infrared light must be converted to an average temperature after sampling the earth sufficiently. There are formulas to convert from scattered radiance to temperature. All should go well if your measurements and calibration are good, but there might be some problems. Talk to the engineers who build these things and you'll hear about some problems. Every 10 years or maybe 20 years you put up a new satellite and have to calibrate between the two. Not easy, but you have many PhDs working for you with billions in funding.
Then combine the average temperature of the air with the average temperature of the water to get an average temperature of the earth. Just basic physics here assuming you measured well-enough.
So if you've done all of that correctly you now know your dependent variable. Average Temperature of Earth as a function of time.
Now, you make a list of your independent variables. These are things that cause the dependent variable to change. These would be properties of the air: carbon dioxide concentration, methane gas concentration, water vapor concentration, solar output of the sun, dust concentration, scattering from clouds, distance from earth to sun, volcanic activity, reflectance off snow, reflectance off water, reflective off vegetation, reflectance off land, and much more, but just pick 10 for now to keep it simple. You're going to take all of these factors and put them into a model in order to predict the average temperature of the Earth in the future.
Now look back at Earth's history and note that the ocean level has varied radically (up to 400 feet) up to 20 times in the past 2 million years. See my other comment. You develop a model to explain these enormous swings in ocean level. You could do the same with other temperature proxies. Sediments on lake bottoms. Ice core samples. But I like the ocean level one because it's so easy to see in the rocks. You look for periodic behavior in these proxies. You try to determine causation, but you cannot quite determine the causes. By the way this problem is so difficult that you can't know all parts of it. You might only be an expert on the model, but you aren't an expert on the measurements that went into it.
Your model can't really explain the ocean level changes because you don't know the values of your independent variables for the dates you need. 1.5 million years ago. 2 million years ago. Etc. You don't know the solar output of the sun on the dates you need them. The sun's radiance has changes gradually over time and possibly had drastic fluctuations that you're not aware of. You know the sun has an 11 year cycle over which output changes. You assume no volcanoes. You assume no giant meteorites. But you literally cannot explain why the ice ages occurred when they did or why they stopped. Or maybe I'm missing something? Have you seen such an explanation? Did you understand it?
Now you include humans into your model. You now split some of your independent variables into human and natural. For example, you determine the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by measuring it. You come up with an approximation for how much of that carbon dioxide increase is caused by humans. You feel confident about this.
Now you see the average temperature of earth increasing year after year and you say what's causing the temperature increase?
What's the problem here?
The problem is you never could explain how the system behaves before the last ice age. In fact you can't explain the pattern of the warming periods and ice ages at all. And therefore you don't actually have a controlled system. You don't have a model that is predictable. Correct?
Why did the ocean change level by 400 feet, 20 times over the past 2 million years as seen in the rocks in the Hawaiian Islands?
You have to add fudge factors to get your model to agree after the fact. Every time you try to predict the future temperature, your model is off by a significant amount. This is actually what has been happening with many of these models. But you don't give a shit. Well you do because it's embarrassing. But then again, you're getting paid, it's sort of cool, and the taxpayers are too busy and too ignorant to figure out what's going on.
Okay. What do you think? Is my narrative inaccurate?
Explain the changes in ocean level of 400 feet plus as noted by scientists in the Hawaiian Islands.
"To fully appreciate the impacts of sea level, it is first necessary to know that in the last two million years, during the Pleistocene ice ages, sea level has fluctuated up and down about twenty times and by as much as four hundred feet. Presently we are in a warm period, or interglacial period, and sea level is at a peak elevation, but during the glacial maximum of a typical ice age, a four-hundred-foot lowering of sea level would not be unusual. During such times, the shorelines of the islands would have existed at locations that are four hundred feet deeper than sea level today."
"I believe that human activities substantially contribute to global warming." You sound a bit religious on this issue. Is this a scientific statement or is it sort of faith-based?
Can you say how much of the warming going on now is caused by humans and how much is caused by other? Like approximately 55%:45%? What would your guess be, if you had to guess?
Also, can you list the causes of cooling and warming trends over earth's history? For example what were the causes of the many, many ice ages and warm ages that our ancestors survived? Why did they occur when they did?
If you say "I don't know" or "I'm not sure" to any of these I will have more respect for you..
No, I can't describe the details of ice ages or warm periods. I'm deferring to knowledgeable people who have looked at the evidence. This is how everyone reaches their conclusions about almost every scientific fact.
Here and elsewhere you exhibit a quite unusual friendly debate style that wins big points.
This is why it pains me to say that you tend to misuse that asset to defend common irrationalities typically associated with the right, center right, and or Republicans.
Although I suspect most reputable climate scientists might also take issue with one or more points in Laird's blog post.
If one plugs in a fairly reasonable projection of global economic growth into the Nordhaus model, then we get an estimate of 2.5C to 3.0C, including global temperature rise to date. The IPCC continues to pretend RCP 8.5 is a business as usual approach, when its only really useful for plotting out bigger effects in increasingly ludicrous models.
There are lots of potential technologies in the pipeline. There are plenty of methane capture system for animal farming- especially poultry and pigs. The same thing could be done with sewage- and add some of work being done with biological fermentation of algae and suchlike and apply it to animal waste and we could have a game changer.
Bunker fuels are hugely wasteful in terms of CO2 production. The only barrier to regulations for higher qualify fuels is cost and political will (as well as the desire to not piss off China).
Some of cement production tech being produced is promising, as globally cement is major problem.
There are solar desalination projects- a small contribution, but impressive from a science and engineering perspective.
SMRs are going to be a major game changer, but are only likely to start coming online in 2030.
Refrigeration is key issue.
Many regulatory frameworks are in the process of phasing out HFCs in refrigeration.
You are right about the household energy consumption, but should highlight household construction. Sweden has pioneered pre-fab housing at scale. Their homes are great thermal insulators. Far cheaper to heat or cool. It's a fallacy we all have to live in cities. A remote working future is entirely plausible, and with smart AI managed decentralised logistical systems, we could create ecologically friendly self-sufficient communities in rural settings at scale.
It's also worth noting that most global warming thus far has been mildly positive. Yes, extreme weather events have increased in certain areas, but there has been no increase in areas like forest fires, and the percentage increases are only slight in terms of both frequency and amplitude.
Far from creating desertification, higher CO2 has been reversing it, as marginal plant life at the edge of deserts thrives.
Crop yields are up, offsetting most regional disruptions, other than because of war- and also leading the natural market-driven possibility of rewilding land (although government trying to force rewilding is beginning to show signs of being economically catastrophic).
Cover crops seem to be the answer to nitrogen run-off. Recently, I've begun looking at sweet lupins. They have the potential to displace soy in Western animal feed, lowering global transport costs, and are a great break crop, fixing nitrogen, repairing soil, and reducing the need for synthetic fertilisers somewhat. They can even be refined into biofuels.
People need to adopt a techno-optimist approach. Attempting to force behaviour change is authoritarian to the point of tyranny and completely unnecessary. Behaviour change can happen, but it has to come through persuasion. The school run for example is developmentally harmful for kids, as well as being a major source of traffic and congestion- ensuring they will be unhappy as adults. It turns out those somewhat unpleasant experiences riding with some kids you actively dislike on a school bus are an anti-fragile system which builds emotional resilience vital in later life. Chronic persistent bullying is an exception, obviously.
Plus, most side dishes are bland- one can completely transform fine beans, with a few black olives, cherry tomatoes, Romano red peppers finely sliced salad onions and a French Balsamic dressing. If you want to reduce portion sizes of meat and fish, then at least make what goes with it appetising and allow the customer the choice through a menu.
I’m sorry, but Nordhaus just drastically underestimated the impacts, and has just done shoddy work. Eg assuming work that happens indoors (eg manufacturing) won’t be affected by climate change, which mistakes climate for weather.
If a city floods from a hurricane, even the cushiest office job can’t pretend nothing happened (eg hurricane Sandy in 2012). And if that starts happening more frequently, it’s a lot less minor
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/sep/nobel-prize-winning-economics-climate-change-misleading-and-dangerous-heres-why#:~:text=In%20a%202018%20paper%20published,reduce%20GDP%20by%20just%208.5%25.
I've actually read and watched Steve Keen for some time. I find his arguments on systemic dynamics, and marginal costs in particular, highly compelling- having worked in manufacturing I've seen his observations about launching new products and using price vs volume to find the break even point play out in real life.
However, although I don't dispute he is right about the error Nordhaus made in assessing climate impacts in economic terms, Steve Keen himself is also deeply wrong about the likely future impacts of climate change. Besides I only use Nordhaus for the purposes of assessing likely future temperature rises by 2100- the 3.0C part (including all man-made climate change to date).
The climate vs. weather argument is an interesting one. However, most people suffer from a Red Car Syndrome effect when looking at climate and weather- and this particular true of the smart and highly educated- Solution Aversion research shows that smart people are far worse than ordinary people in terms of adjusting against their own motivation biases. Indeed, it's why political forecasting tends to top out in the 115 to 130 IQ range, and the really smart political pundits almost always tend to get it wrong.
In terms of climate impacts most people are deeply misinformed- subject to the types of statistical manipulation which people use to make particular points. Forest fires, for example simply haven't increased in frequency or intensity thus far. The NYT may publish an article using a 1980 to 2020 date range to 'prove' they are increasing, but across a broader range showing 1900 to 2020 there is no evidence of forest fires becoming more frequent or serious- and the Australia fires, for example, actually happened in a year when forest fires in Australia for that year were statistically low- the fires just happened to be closer to people and property.
Similarly, people should be wary of bad data analysis on hurricanes. If we're looking for historical changes, then one has to be careful to adjust for the difference between past and present, because many hurricanes (those that never made landfall) wouldn't have been counted in the past. Once one adjusts for this type of possible error, then what one will see is that thus far, hurricanes have only increased in frequency and magnitude by a tiny percentile degree.
Personally, my biggest gripe is on agriculture. 2022 was the best year for agricultural production in human history. At the same time, I watched in real-time as the World Food Programme rewrote what was initially a rather sensible summary of food insecurity by cause at least twice. Unsurprisingly, 80% of all global food insecurity is still caused by war. 10% is economic shocks. Another 10% is all-cause climate-related disruptions. This figure has risen somewhat in recent years which MAY be cause for alarm on the man-made climate front, but as of yet it's too early to tell whether this something to be seriously worried about.
It's also worth noting that climate policy is inducing serious real-world harms. The Sri Lanka decision to stop using synthetic fertilisers may not have been purely driven by the need to impress ESG finance, but it was a significant factor. Similarly, there was substantial corruption in South Africa's energy giant Eskom, but the decision to prioritise renewables over proven transition technologies like natural gas, proved disastrous for the country. And let's not forget- America's own most massive reduction in CO2 emissions came from fracking and shifting from incredibly dirty and harmful coal, with its cancer causing coal ash, to natural gas.
The most rational actor on energy is China. They've been expanding big hydro and nuclear- and have plans to continue the trend for the latter. They've also been developing natural gas. They have ambitious plans to expand their renewables to 30% by 2030, but no major or substantial plans set in stone for a significant rise beyond this threshold. This is because they know that after one hits 30% from renewables, the price of energy per added percentage point becomes prohibitively high, because of the external costs of energy infrastructure and energy storage.
Our leaders may be telling us that renewables are the low cost energy of the future, but if one looks at energy costs by European country or American State then this simply isn't the case. The UK, Germany and California are all quickly becoming economic dumpster fires- 30% of German manufacturers are considering offshoring because of energy costs alone. Sweden and France are both more successful- both in terms of keeping energy costs down and in terms of lowering their national carbon footprints.
This doesn't mean that an energy transition which is actually feasible will be easy- Asia may still be able to build nuclear power plants cheaply, quickly and safely- but the West has a horrible track record of huge soft cost inflation on infrastructure more generally, and nuclear specifically.
I'm genuinely curious: if sulfur dioxide spraying would be so cheap and effective, why hasn't it been done yet, especially given the much more expensive anti-global warming measures that have already been embarked on?
I think there are two reasons.
1) Reluctance to allow a single government to do something which affects the whole planet.
2) A lot of the Green movement is a scam. There's a lot of money to be made in the more expensive measures, not so much money to be made by actually solving the problem. Related: a lot of people don't want to actually solve the problem, they just want to protest and present themselves as prophets of doom.
The alternative is, that either it isn’t that cheap, it isn’t that effective, or the downside risks from an intervention that size may be stopping any government or actor (even Elon Musk) from trying
This does seem a bit backwards - it’s all a function of cumulative GHG in the environment. Getting to zero emissions in eg 2050 by keeping everything the same until 2049 by ridiculous far cuts would be more emissions (and worse outcome) than eg linearly cutting emissions from 2025-2050.
The author’s proposal is essentially using sulphur dioxide, accelerating emissions growth (not merely increasing total GHG, but the derivative - the RATE of increase), until at some point, we can then plough the surplus from fossil fuel growth* into carbon capture. Whether at any point in this, we stop burning fossil fuels, I’m not sure (is it meant to be long after 2050? 2100? Never?)
To me, it seems more straightforward to cut emissions now (I’m not saying zero, but it’s gotta be fast), so you don’t have to do as much removal. Helps cut that 1% risk to eg 0.01%, rather than making it 2%, or even 5% from dragging it out
Or for an even shorter summary - do the work earlier, don’t try to pull an all nighter
*(Under that logic, if fossil fuels were so cheap, maybe it would be better to disconnect from the grid and use lots of petrol or diesel to power a generator, which no sane person does)
I agree with basically all of this, and it is also worth mentioning nuclear power.
One of the bad things about burning coal, in particular, is that it releases PM 2.5 and PM 10.0 which is bad for human health. This is less of an issue with natural gas, but still not a nonissue. Even gas stoves in homes lead to increased rates of asthma for children and increased rates of cognitive decline (like dementia).
If you want a blackpill, look into how ordinary air pollution is bad for us, and it is not just countries like India and China, even “small” amounts of air pollution that are present in US cities are harmful.
Is increased solar energy as much of a factor as the skeptics claim?
You’re starting in the middle; you already take anthropogenic climate change at face value and are entrenched in its epistemology.
But many of us saw the farce being constructed and standardized with our own eyes. This movement literally began as a progressive doomsday cult, and then it was made our reality by fiat over several decades as its believers proliferated through government and education. I was alive and cogent when the west went from calling it “global warming” to “climate change” because the earth didn’t get the memo.
Climate science is insular and circular. You have to be born into it to believe it.
Dear Simon Laird and Other Readers,
I doubt you espouse any luxury beliefs but I will share the following with your readers.
Luxury belief: "Advocating to ban automotive combustion engines and coal-powered power plants while driving an expensive electric vehicle charged by fancy, home solar panels."
To rid yourself of this luxury belief see footnote number 3 in my post: "Ten Luxury Beliefs to Consider."
https://scottgibb.substack.com/p/ten-luxury-beliefs-to-consider?utm_source=publication-search
If you listen to those six Econtalk podcasts, read those six books and three blog posts, I doubt you'll espouse any overconfidence about climate change again.
Here's a thought experiment. Let's say you have a system called the Earth-Sun system. To simplify assume that it has 10 independent variables and 1 dependent variable. The dependent variable is sort of an awkward one. It's called average temperature of the Earth. Have you ever considered how you would go about measuring the average temperature of the earth?
Assume that you could measure the average temperature of the Earth with many, many thermometers. You would want to place them in the ocean equally distributed laterally and vertically since the oceans hold a great deal of heat and cold, and the water moves and changes temperature from season to season and decade to decade. Have you heard of multi-decadal oscillations?
For the air above the earth you're doing the same thing but using carefully calibrated satellites. This is a difficult calibration that must be carried about periodically using a calibration reference surface (which is a white lambertian surface on-board the satellite) with known scattering properties that happen to change slowly over time. Assume you've got this under control, but maybe you don't.
Then notice that this satellite is in orbit far above the air and looks down on earth taking in the scattered light from "Earth and is various parts, clouds, air molecules, oceans, snow, water vapor) to indirectly measure temperature. This needs to be done at different wavelengths since the electromagnetic energy representing temperature is a spectrum. Account for polarization variations of scattering. Not easy. That infrared light must be converted to an average temperature after sampling the earth sufficiently. There are formulas to convert from scattered radiance to temperature. All should go well if your measurements and calibration are good, but there might be some problems. Talk to the engineers who build these things and you'll hear about some problems. Every 10 years or maybe 20 years you put up a new satellite and have to calibrate between the two. Not easy, but you have many PhDs working for you with billions in funding.
Then combine the average temperature of the air with the average temperature of the water to get an average temperature of the earth. Just basic physics here assuming you measured well-enough.
So if you've done all of that correctly you now know your dependent variable. Average Temperature of Earth as a function of time.
Now, you make a list of your independent variables. These are things that cause the dependent variable to change. These would be properties of the air: carbon dioxide concentration, methane gas concentration, water vapor concentration, solar output of the sun, dust concentration, scattering from clouds, distance from earth to sun, volcanic activity, reflectance off snow, reflectance off water, reflective off vegetation, reflectance off land, and much more, but just pick 10 for now to keep it simple. You're going to take all of these factors and put them into a model in order to predict the average temperature of the Earth in the future.
Now look back at Earth's history and note that the ocean level has varied radically (up to 400 feet) up to 20 times in the past 2 million years. See my other comment. You develop a model to explain these enormous swings in ocean level. You could do the same with other temperature proxies. Sediments on lake bottoms. Ice core samples. But I like the ocean level one because it's so easy to see in the rocks. You look for periodic behavior in these proxies. You try to determine causation, but you cannot quite determine the causes. By the way this problem is so difficult that you can't know all parts of it. You might only be an expert on the model, but you aren't an expert on the measurements that went into it.
Your model can't really explain the ocean level changes because you don't know the values of your independent variables for the dates you need. 1.5 million years ago. 2 million years ago. Etc. You don't know the solar output of the sun on the dates you need them. The sun's radiance has changes gradually over time and possibly had drastic fluctuations that you're not aware of. You know the sun has an 11 year cycle over which output changes. You assume no volcanoes. You assume no giant meteorites. But you literally cannot explain why the ice ages occurred when they did or why they stopped. Or maybe I'm missing something? Have you seen such an explanation? Did you understand it?
Now you include humans into your model. You now split some of your independent variables into human and natural. For example, you determine the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by measuring it. You come up with an approximation for how much of that carbon dioxide increase is caused by humans. You feel confident about this.
Now you see the average temperature of earth increasing year after year and you say what's causing the temperature increase?
What's the problem here?
The problem is you never could explain how the system behaves before the last ice age. In fact you can't explain the pattern of the warming periods and ice ages at all. And therefore you don't actually have a controlled system. You don't have a model that is predictable. Correct?
Why did the ocean change level by 400 feet, 20 times over the past 2 million years as seen in the rocks in the Hawaiian Islands?
https://scottgibb.substack.com/p/what-are-the-causes-of-earths-natural?utm_source=publication-search
You have to add fudge factors to get your model to agree after the fact. Every time you try to predict the future temperature, your model is off by a significant amount. This is actually what has been happening with many of these models. But you don't give a shit. Well you do because it's embarrassing. But then again, you're getting paid, it's sort of cool, and the taxpayers are too busy and too ignorant to figure out what's going on.
Okay. What do you think? Is my narrative inaccurate?
Dear Simon Laird,
Explain the changes in ocean level of 400 feet plus as noted by scientists in the Hawaiian Islands.
"To fully appreciate the impacts of sea level, it is first necessary to know that in the last two million years, during the Pleistocene ice ages, sea level has fluctuated up and down about twenty times and by as much as four hundred feet. Presently we are in a warm period, or interglacial period, and sea level is at a peak elevation, but during the glacial maximum of a typical ice age, a four-hundred-foot lowering of sea level would not be unusual. During such times, the shorelines of the islands would have existed at locations that are four hundred feet deeper than sea level today."
https://scottgibb.substack.com/p/what-are-the-causes-of-earths-natural?utm_source=publication-search.
"I believe that human activities substantially contribute to global warming." You sound a bit religious on this issue. Is this a scientific statement or is it sort of faith-based?
Can you say how much of the warming going on now is caused by humans and how much is caused by other? Like approximately 55%:45%? What would your guess be, if you had to guess?
Also, can you list the causes of cooling and warming trends over earth's history? For example what were the causes of the many, many ice ages and warm ages that our ancestors survived? Why did they occur when they did?
If you say "I don't know" or "I'm not sure" to any of these I will have more respect for you..
No, I can't describe the details of ice ages or warm periods. I'm deferring to knowledgeable people who have looked at the evidence. This is how everyone reaches their conclusions about almost every scientific fact.
Okay, but this isn’t that hard to figure out yourself. How about we talk over the phone sometime so we can have a Socratic dialogue on this topic?
Here and elsewhere you exhibit a quite unusual friendly debate style that wins big points.
This is why it pains me to say that you tend to misuse that asset to defend common irrationalities typically associated with the right, center right, and or Republicans.
Although I suspect most reputable climate scientists might also take issue with one or more points in Laird's blog post.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why-scientists-think-100-of-global-warming-is-due-to-humans/