Is Global Warming becoming unstoppable?

Smurf1976 · 13 November 2011

basilio said:
I started the discussion with the IEA energy report. The IEA is considered an independent world authority on energy resources. It is certainly no Government think tank. If anything it is aligned to the fossil fuel industry

As someone who has read rather a lot of IEA publications over the years and noted the overall "tone" of the organisation's views as well as its' original purpose, I'd take IEA alarm about climate change as a code word for "peak oil is here but we can't say that so we're making comments about CO2 in order to sort of explain away what's about to happen as being necessary to protect the environment when in reality it's unavoidable no matter what the climate does".

There's half a century of data to back the peak oil case and it looks pretty convincing both "on paper" and in terms of recent events. My own suspicion is that the level of talk surrounding CO2 has more to do with lack of fuel to burn than genuine concern about the effects of burning it.

Take China. They already use literally half the world's coal and have become a net importer. How can they possibly sustain such a growth rate? Who is going to mine it? Where are the thousands of ships to carry it going to come from? How are they going to actually get into and out of the ports? How on earth could the coal exporting countries cope with such a rapid infrastructure build? Some growth maybe, but the days of booming consumption would seem to be limited indeed.

And then there's oil. China, with 4 times the US population, wants a US lifestyle. The US today uses 25% of the world's oil, meaning that China is going to need literally the whole lot. Now where's that going to come from? Not even the most optimistic proponents of shale, drilling in the arctic and so on are saying we're going to see that sort of production increase ever. So that's not going to happen either.

Hence I'd take any IEA panic about CO2 as more an indication of the state of the oil, and to a lesser extent coal, markets than anything else.

Boggo · 13 November 2011

And meanwhile back on the world stage...

bellenuit · 13 November 2011

sails said:
Australia emits 1.3% of global co2 emissions. Our target (at great expense) is 5% of our tiny 1.3% slice of the pie - that's 0.65%.

Make that 0.065% reduction.

basilio · 13 November 2011

Interesting observation Smurf on why the IEA is now focusing on Global Warming risks associated with continued use of coal fired power stations.

My reading is that they have only come to acknowledge Peak Oil issues in the last few years. But as I read the current report they took a fair bit of trouble to analyse the amount of future CO2 emissions that are committed when counting the exploding number of coal fired power stations planned by India and China. If anything their figures are conservative.

___________________________________________________________

Sails the two issues you raise about global temperatures stalling for 10 years and the influence Australia has on global CO2 have been answered a number of times.

The first query is just wrong and has been proven so. The analysis is outlined on the Skeptical science website. Australia's impact of world CO2 levels is relatively high with regard to our population. The issue is one of all countries playing their part and Australia can't be exempted.

____________________________________________________________

If there is a human analogy to this issue it would like going to a doctor and getting a terrible diagnosis of cancer and then refusing to accept it. The reasons can be anything you can conjure up but basically its because is too awful to take onboard.

Talking about scungy reductions in CO2 levels is meaningless. The IEA analysis is plainly saying there has to enormous changes made in the next few years if we are to have any chance of limiting global warming. And if we can't or won't take these actions the consequences are inevitable and disastrous.

sails · 13 November 2011

basilio said:
...Sails the two issues you raise about global temperatures stalling for 10 years and the influence Australia has on global CO2 have been answered a number of times.

The first query is just wrong and has been proven so. The analysis is outlined on the Skeptical science website. Australia's impact of world CO2 levels is relatively high with regard to our population. The issue is one of all countries playing their part and Australia can't be exempted.

That's your opinion, Basilio. Nothing more, nothing less. Skeptical Science is a blog to the best of my knowledge. Why don't you read Jo Nova's blog?

Quote per capita all you like, but it is total emissions that are being targeted. Per capita is a partial truth to make it look like Australia are the worst offenders. Rubbish. Our total global emissions are tiny and a fraction of the US and China.

Exempting Australia - how pathetic. It sounds like the rest of the world is pricing carbon and Australia is the only one not participating. I can't believe how pathetic your responses have become. Most of the world is NOT pricing carbon. Get real.

If there is a human analogy to this issue it would like going to a doctor and getting a terrible diagnosis of cancer and then refusing to accept it. The reasons can be anything you can conjure up but basically its because is too awful to take onboard.

A closer analogy would be getting the diagnosis and being told that it will cost you several million dollars to trade cancer credits and you might have a chance of reducing your cancer cells by 0.65% IF the money exchange actually reduces those 0.65% of cancer cells in your body.

How stupid is that?

Smurf1976 · 13 November 2011

basilio said:
If there is a human analogy to this issue it would like going to a doctor and getting a terrible diagnosis of cancer and then refusing to accept it. The reasons can be anything you can conjure up but basically its because is too awful to take onboard.

If I have cancer and have 100 days to live then that's certainly not good. But if the doctor proposes giving me some treatment with drastic side effects and which is expected to extend my life by 16 hours if successful, but which most likely will not succeed, then I'll say "no thanks" since it's a whole lot of pain for practically no gain. If it actually cured the disease or at least lead to a major increase in my life expectancy then I'd go along with it, but there's no point in a lot of pain for virtually no gain.

The same could be said of much of the proposed action on climate change. A lot of misery and suffering only to see the same fuel get burnt somewhere else instead thus making it pointless in terms of actually reducing CO2.

sptrawler · 13 November 2011

Smurf1976 said:
As someone who has read rather a lot of IEA publications over the years and noted the overall "tone" of the organisation's views as well as its' original purpose, I'd take IEA alarm about climate change as a code word for "peak oil is here but we can't say that so we're making comments about CO2 in order to sort of explain away what's about to happen as being necessary to protect the environment when in reality it's unavoidable no matter what the climate does".

There's half a century of data to back the peak oil case and it looks pretty convincing both "on paper" and in terms of recent events. My own suspicion is that the level of talk surrounding CO2 has more to do with lack of fuel to burn than genuine concern about the effects of burning it.

Take China. They already use literally half the world's coal and have become a net importer. How can they possibly sustain such a growth rate? Who is going to mine it? Where are the thousands of ships to carry it going to come from? How are they going to actually get into and out of the ports? How on earth could the coal exporting countries cope with such a rapid infrastructure build? Some growth maybe, but the days of booming consumption would seem to be limited indeed.

And then there's oil. China, with 4 times the US population, wants a US lifestyle. The US today uses 25% of the world's oil, meaning that China is going to need literally the whole lot. Now where's that going to come from? Not even the most optimistic proponents of shale, drilling in the arctic and so on are saying we're going to see that sort of production increase ever. So that's not going to happen either.

Hence I'd take any IEA panic about CO2 as more an indication of the state of the oil, and to a lesser extent coal, markets than anything else.

Maybe thats where Bob's talk of the world government comes in. LOL
I think he has sold Julia on the idea, she is just hoping to get a seat.

Julia · 13 November 2011

sails said:
I don't know why we need yet another thread on this subject - maybe it should be merged with the other one. I suppose Basilio doesn't like the other thread header. I often think lefties like their propaganda to be on thread headers even though they are in the minority according to opinion polls.

My thoughts exactly when I saw the thread started earlier today. I'm astonished that it has attracted so many responses. Given the repetitiveness of basilio's very polite posts, I'm a bit surprised that anyone actually read the initial post.

I suppose the largely antagonistic responses are yet another indication of how disgusted most Australians are about this ridiculous and illogical tax.

Boggo said:
Let me get my head around this, Australia gives $ foreign aid to China, Chinese carbon pollution is expected to increase by 70% by 2020 and we pay a tax on carbon.

Is it just me or is something not right with this whole scenario ?

Relax, Boggo. It's not you who is nuts.

Julia · 13 November 2011

So_Cynical said:
Then im afraid its official...you just don't get it.

In your world price increases have absolutely no affect on consumption....its not the price tag that stops people living in Double bay and driving ferraris.

That's pretty insulting toward sails. Why should you assume she lives in a world where cost is unimportant? How presumptuous of you.

I don't think anyone is worried about the effect of cost increases on the supa rich, except on the same principle as they affect everyone else, i.e. it's a non-productive nonsense, brought into existence simply to appease the extremist Greens on whom the government is dependent. Don't kid yourself it's for any environmental reason.

I'm genuinely concerned for the people who are already unable to pay their power bills, whose cost of living is already causing them real distress.
You have some hide to be suggesting these people should be seeing a further increase in that cost of living for no discernible result, other than the political joy to Julia Gillard of remaining in power.

Until the Greens issue their next demand. It won't be long.

sptrawler · 13 November 2011

Julia said:
I'm genuinely concerned for the people who are already unable to pay their power bills, whose cost of living is already causing them real distress.

Most poor people have electrical hot water systems, they are the cheapest to buy. Also when it fails it cost $500 to replace, like for like. as opposed to $2500 to replace it with solar.The cost is more if it is a gas H.W.S.
Where is the sense in compensating the poor to keep their inefficient H.W.S and taxing the generators to supply electricity to run it. That is just dumb.

So_Cynical · 13 November 2011

sails said:
Quote per capita all you like, but it is total emissions that are being targeted. Per capita is a partial truth to make it look like Australia are the worst offenders. Rubbish. Our total global emissions are tiny and a fraction of the US and China.

A closer analogy would be getting the diagnosis and being told that it will cost you several million dollars to trade cancer credits and you might have a chance of reducing your cancer cells by 0.65% IF the money exchange actually reduces those 0.65% of cancer cells in your body.

How stupid is that?

Hows this for an analogy...the tax i pay is "tiny and a fraction" of Australia's total tax take so therefore it doesn't matter if i pay tax, in fact i shouldn't pay tax because it doesn't make any difference.

:cuckoo:

Its a totally stupid argument to make, idiotic nonsense....stupid idiotic nonsense when it comes to GHG's, Tax, forestry, illegal immigration, murder, rape whatever...stupid idiotic nonsense with a capital S any way you look at it.

Even the cancer credits argument is nuts...Australia would represent in GHG terms maybe 2 toes yet you don't want to pay for the treatment because its not worth the money to save 2 toes.

sails · 13 November 2011

So_Cynical said:
Hows this for an analogy...the tax i pay is "tiny and a fraction" of Australia's total tax take so therefore it doesn't matter if i pay tax, in fact i shouldn't pay tax because it doesn't make any difference. :cuckoo:

Its a totally stupid argument to make....stupid when it comes to GHG's, Tax, forestry, illegal immigration, murder, rape whatever...stupid with a capital S any way you can look at it.

Spin in how ever you like. Australia is peanuts in the world scene and we produce peanut size co2 emissions.

And no amount of money changing hands is necessarily going to reduce atmospheric co2 and certainly not from Australia's little orange slither of the pie below ...

What is so difficult to understand?

Wysiwyg · 13 November 2011

So_Cynical said:
Hows this for an analogy...the tax i pay is "tiny and a fraction" of Australia's total tax take so therefore it doesn't matter if i pay tax, in fact i shouldn't pay tax because it doesn't make any difference.

:cuckoo:

Hope you have a tree or two growing in the backyard for sequestration. I sense a great deal of carbon dioxide being emitted from the house of cynics. :

sptrawler · 13 November 2011

So_Cynical said:
Hows this for an analogy...the tax i pay is "tiny and a fraction" of Australia's total tax take so therefore it doesn't matter if i pay tax, in fact i shouldn't pay tax because it doesn't make any difference

Well you got that right, as Kerry Packer said at a tax hearing. " I'll pay tax when you idiots start spending it in a responsible manner"
If you like, I can post you a picture of insulation batts rotting in a compound at Canning Vale in Perth, they are still there two years later.
Why you think these idiots are doing the right thing, when no one else is following suit stuns me.
With their track record how you can pin your ideological beliefs to their incompetence beggers belief.
I guess I am just getting too old for blind faith.

basilio · 13 November 2011

Obviously the sticking point about this discussion is many members unwillingness to accept any chance that the worlds climate science community could be right about the current global warming situation, it's largely human causes and the inevitable consequences.

It doesn't matter which organizations come up with the same answers or which records show the same result. The response is always the same. Serious global warming can't be happening. Therefore it isn't. Full stop. End of story.

Serious skepticism is one thing. But what is happening in this forum and I think its a reflection of the larger community, is a "will not to know ".

There is an excellent presentation from a former climate change skeptic which offers some comments on "not wanting to know".

How to Avoid the Truth About Climate Change

I gave a talk called “How to Avoid the Truth About Climate Change” for the College of Science and Health at Utah Valley University. For those of you who aren’t familiar with me, I am a Republican and a geochemist who, until a few years ago, was quite skeptical about the idea that humans are causing significant climate change.

In the presentation, I briefly talked about how I had made the transition from being a climate change “skeptic” to being an outspoken advocate of mainstream climate science. I then discussed how it is that people like me can so effectively avoid the truth about climate change.

http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/how-to-avoid-the-truth-about-climate-change/

_______________________________________________________________________

Sails please get it right about the Skeptical Science site. As any person would understand from visiting the site it pulls together information from the whole scientific community on climate science. It makes the science accessible and always refers back to original papers. The writers have extensive science backgrounds

It is particularly effective at examining every argument put up against the global warming evidence and explaining either the mistakes or total deceptions involved.

Why not stick to simply saying that in your opinion global warming isn't happening and leave it at that ?

_____________________________________________________________________

With regard to what needs to be done to slow down global warming ? The IEA spells it when it says we are almost beyond hope. The carbon trading schemes could have been effective 20 years ago. Today it is too little and too late. If we accept the IEA analysis we somehow have to stop all new coal fired power stations (or capture all the CO2), start replacing the old ones in a similar way and embark on immense carbon capture schemes. Engineers like Smurf would appreciate how this would be practically impossible.

So_Cynical · 13 November 2011

sails said:
Spin in how ever you like. Australia is peanuts in the world scene and we produce peanut size co2 emissions.

Spin...oh please ill leave that to the deniers

Please tell me why i should pay income tax if my contribution is so small it wont make a difference....then explain to me why i will go to jail if i don't pay tax using your "wont make any difference" argument.

sptrawler said:
If you like, I can post you a picture of insulation batts rotting in a compound at Canning Vale in Perth, they are still there two years later.

And i can Post a photo from Lidcombe of a small mountain of batts rotting in a yard...your point is?

Oh Govt's waste money...yeah i heard the Howard Govt spent something like 100 million on advertising work no choices and the terrorism ads...and here is some irony, they also spent around 300 million on something called the Aust greenhouse office.

sptrawler · 14 November 2011

basilio said:
Obviously the sticking point about this discussion is many members unwillingness to accept any chance that the worlds climate science community could be right about the current global warming situation, it's largely human causes and the inevitable consequences.

Well basillio, I think everyone agrees this could be happening. What most seem to be saying is why not work towards a global solution.
Why whip ourselves for no net benefit and if you say "because Julia and Bob say so" you should be taken down the back and slapped, probably by Bob or Tim.

sptrawler · 14 November 2011

So_Cynical said:
Oh Govt's waste money...yeah i heard the Howard Govt spent something like 100 million on advertising work no choices and the terrorism ads...and here is some irony, they also spent around 300 million on something called the Aust greenhouse office.

I'll give you the tip mate, work choices is play school, to what I think is coming under your so called union friendly Labor party.

wayneL · 14 November 2011

basilio said:
Obviously the sticking point about this discussion is many members unwillingness to accept any chance that the worlds climate science community could be right about the current global warming situation, it's largely human causes and the inevitable consequences.

It doesn't matter which organizations come up with the same answers or which records show the same result. The response is always the same. Serious global warming can't be happening. Therefore it isn't. Full stop. End of story.

.

Oh not this disingenuous straw man argument again.

Basilio, it is this sort of intellectually offensive crap that causes the attitude polarization on ASF and the wider community.

In fact, it's the alarmists that refuse to accept scientific and political balance in the debate, forcing people to the opposite argument.

Must I point out again, that you yourself have admitted on this forum to personally doing virtually nothing about what perceive is a problem, yet come on here preaching the end of days.

What's that about?

1/ Get off the alarmist blogs and read some balanced science FFS.

2/ Get a small modicum of credibility and start your new ascetic carbon free lifestyle and stop this gross hypocrisy.

basilio · 14 November 2011

.
Oh not this disingenuous straw man argument again.

Basilio, it is this sort of intellectually offensive crap that causes the attitude polarization on ASF and the wider community.

In fact, it's the alarmists that refuse to accept scientific and political balance in the debate, forcing people to the opposite argument.

Must I point out again, that you yourself have admitted on this forum to personally doing virtually nothing about what perceive is a problem, yet come on here preaching the end of days.

What's that about?

1/ Get off the alarmist blogs and read some balanced science FFS.

2/ Get a small modicum of credibility and start your new ascetic carbon free lifestyle and stop this gross hypocrisy.

Couldn't stop yourself could you Wayne ? Back to totally and compete BS. Back to personal attacks on me and anyone else who you want to bully as if that somehow changes what is happening in the rest of the world. (And exactly why do I have to justify my life to you ? And why the xxxx would I bother when I see how you twist every nonsensical statement under the sun into a grotesque parody ? )

Then trying to keep up the climate denier fantasies. The suggestion that somewhere there is some real science that somehow refutes all the research that extensively documents what is happening to our environment as a direct result of human actions.

There is no credible refutation of the work of climate scientists. Period. If there was it would be spelt out in science journals and carefully examined. The BEST report shattered the story that temperature rises were being misrepresented. Whats left is lies and misrepresentations from Monckton and co that are as phony as a $3 note.

For pities sake open your eyes and see if you can learn something instead of being a leader and mouthpiece for lying dribble and nasty personal attack's .

And finally lets get it clear for the 1000th time. I don't make up my comments. I quote from people with far more knowledge and skills than you or I have in this field. Your attacking and dismissing virtually the whole scientific community in this field. And the consequences of being wrong are catastrophic.

Is Global Warming becoming unstoppable?

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