Climate Change, brought to you by those wonderful folks who brought you Covid Lockdowns.
The essence of any scam (walnuts, card-shuffling, lady sawed in half) is misdirection and distraction. And the scammers deepest belief: those being robbed deserve it.
“The ‘success’ of climate policies can only be captured by slowly unfolding abstract scientific indicators that no citizen can ever experience, such as net carbon emissions, carbon dioxide concentrations, global temperature”
"Make no mistake, mitigation is important and it can work."
You are not adressing the costs of mitigation. If the realistic costs of mitigation is higher than the realistic costs of climate change, then it is not rational to mitigate at all
That's right. If they really cared about reducing CO2 emissions (hint: they don't), they would evaluate every project by the metric $/tonne of CO2 avoided, and projects that are above a threshold in cost would be rejected. Which would include virtually all Wind, Solar, Battery grid storage, H2, ITER, CCS, Agrofuels, Biomass burning projects.
The one mitigation that actually works and is cost effective is Nuclear energy. Nuclear energy in fact has a negative $/tonne of CO2 avoided. In other words, with Nuclear energy you can reduce all emissions, including CO2, and reduce costs at the same time. Which is of course why the Climate Change Grifters despise Nuclear Energy much more than Fossil and go to great lengths to blockade its expansion.
Because, as power plants retire, perhaps due to emissions regulations, or high fuel costs, or just aging. The lowest cost replacement for them is going to be Nuclear. Possibly if gas prices remain low in the US, they might compete favorably with Nuclear in most regions, until gas prices rise, rise dramatically as they already have in most of the World, and then, even there, Nuclear will be the most economical. Happy coincidence, building Nuclear power to reduce electricity costs, also produces the lowest CO2 emissions AND the lowest of all other emissions, including radioisotope emissions.
They use the grift of Linear No Threshold in order to make nuclear long and expensive, then say nuclear is not viable because its long delivery and expensive.
For example, 2mm of sea level rise per year. Mitigation techniques are well known and continuing today and will continue until the next LIA or glaciation period reverses it, as will happen.
Great analysis, I read yesterday that the wild fires on this continent in the last year put out more damage to our planet then all other sources of that contribute to warming? If that’s true the billions we spend on trying to net 0 by 2035 is being spent incorrectly. Could you answer the question regarding the fires and their impact please?
"Avec des ‘si’ et des ‘mais’ on mettrait Paris en bouteille."
(With ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ Paris could be put in a bottle).
If policies would be enacted… Are they today? All over the World? Which ones?
Almost nothing is being done about adaptation (except in agriculture), and only pledges are being made about decarbonisation and energy transition, which in fact only commit future generations and no current political leaders. Zillions are being spent on stuttering production of so-called renewable energy, with ridiculous results. This makes good business for Chinese producers of solar panels, and bankruptcy of European wind turbine manufacturers despite all kinds of subsidies.
Energy consumption continues to rise, and so too does the consumption of fossil fuels, which accounts for ~2/3 of this growth (energy review : https://blog.mr-int.ch/?attachment_id=10873). Any acrimonious chasing of every CO2 emitter accomplishes nothing.
Depending on fossil fuels for 88.7% of its energy consumption, the world is decarbonising at a rate of a mere 0.27% per year. See this diagram (https://blog.mr-int.ch/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/bubbles.webp) for the positions of the most important consumers.
Simplistic linear extrapolation: 88.7 divided by 0.27 makes 328.5 years until zero!
Furthermore, the pace at which decarbonisation is taking place is certainly not driven by policy, but rather by the economic shifts that are moving societies from industry to services, particularly in the West. The energy supply foundation is not in any real state of change.
The probability of getting a climate response to these ill-fated policies is no better than flipping a coin. Why ask to spend thousands of billions every year over the next three decades for such an improbable outcome? Bjorn Lomborg is quite right to point out that there are many other priorities to be addressed, which will put these funds to much better use.
Nevertheless, reducing or even ending our dependence on fossil fuels is a proposition that must one day be achieved. It is TECHNOLOGY that will make this possible and affordable, not useless carbon accounting or scenarios plays with climate models.
You are right that 'good' nor 'bad' appears in the text, but why would you be spending so much time talking about how to reduce CO2 unless you thought it was bad?
And, since you declined to answer the question regarding my thought experiment, I will. The answer is that within a decade or so, all complex life (not all - because some organisms don't depend on C02 in their food chains) would die off - including all of humanity. How's THAT for a climate catastrophe?
So why are we so laser-focused on reducing a known critical component of our ecosphere? Do we even know the minimum viable level of CO2? What if we were just fortunate that the industrial revolution came along just in time to save our collective asses from extinction due to CO2 starvation?
You talk about risk mitigation in the face of unknowns, but you don't mind everyone playing with CO2 levels when nobody knows where the limits are - except for two undeniable facts: 1) increases in CO2 above current levels lead to significantly increased plant growth 2) the current CO2 levels are at a historical minimum when looked at on a geological time scale. Everyone talks about 'tipping points' regarding global temperature rise, but that is almost certainly a red herring. However, there might actually BE a tipping point wrt CO2 levels, but nobody seems to care about that - talk about playing with fire. Mind you, I'm just an old broke-down engineer and have zero skills in climatology, but I do know how to read a graph, and I have a pretty well developed BS meter, and it is pegged out at the moment
I don't know, 1000ppm will cause sluggishness in mammals. I think 500-600ppm is the optimal level, which we will get too in the BAU business-as-usual plan.
Who said anything about dying? I'm talking sluggishness, which I already have a problem with, and I don't want it aggravated. The past million years have been more than sufficient for mammalian respiratory systems to adjust to the level of 180-280ppm that has existed over that time period. It might take thousands of years to fully adapt to levels like 1000ppm.
Quick Search this is what I found. So CO2 will be much higher inside buildings than outdoors. So you may be fine outdoors but indoors you may get some adverse effects. Like poor quality of sleep:
"....Exposure to CO2 can produce a variety of health effects. These may include headaches, dizziness, restlessness, a tingling or pins or needles feeling, difficulty breathing, sweating, tiredness, increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, coma, asphyxia, and convulsions.
The levels of CO2 in the air and potential health problems are:
400 ppm: average outdoor air level.
400–1,000 ppm: typical level found in occupied spaces with good air exchange.
1,000–2,000 ppm: level associated with complaints of drowsiness and poor air.
2,000–5,000 ppm: level associated with headaches, sleepiness, and stagnant, stale, stuffy air. Poor concentration, loss of attention, increased heart rate and slight nausea may also be present.
5,000 ppm: this indicates unusual air conditions where high levels of other gases could also be present. Toxicity or oxygen deprivation could occur. This is the permissible exposure limit for daily workplace exposures.
40,000 ppm: this level is immediately harmful due to oxygen deprivation..."
"...Scientists used to believe that carbon dioxide was harmless at common indoor levels, but new findings indicate that this is not the case. From sluggish two o’clock meetings to poor sleep, elevated concentrations of indoor CO2 can directly impact our health and well-being in a number of ways.
The main way indoor carbon dioxide affects our health is through our brains. As carbon dioxide levels in a room increase, the gas starts crowding out the oxygen. Carbon dioxide is considered a simple asphyxiant because it reduces the amount of oxygen we absorb from each breath. If indoor carbon dioxide levels get too high (around 40,000 ppm), your life may be in danger.
At levels we are more likely to experience (1000-5000 ppm), the health effects are more subtle. Around 1000 ppm, a very common indoor level, you will start to experience fatigue, sleepiness, and may struggle to concentrate. You may also find it uncomfortable to sleep, and the air will feel stuffy. With prolonged exposure and increases in concentration, you may develop a headache and feel physically uncomfortable..."
So, if we are at 450 now, and we want to "de-carbonize" everything, we'll be doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of policies that will actually help us thrive on the planet - WONDERFUL!
This shows up clearly from a simple box model of climate. These box models were long since abandoned by climate scientists, but they can give useful back-of-the-envelope insights without needing a vast, complex (and expensive) GCM model. All one needs is some first-year calculus.
Looking only at changes from baseline natural processes, annual CO2 emissions drive the rate at which atmospheric CO2 concentrations change, not the concentrations themselves. And CO2 concentrations drive the rate at which heat is trapped within the earth system, and therefore the rate of temperature change, not temperature itself.
And (the Iron Law), annual CO2 emissions are not going to drop abruptly: the politically feasible change is to reduce the rate at which they grow, and perhaps to turn that rate negative. That is the sort of thing that governments are promising, and that mitigation policies are aimed at achieving.
So any change in emissions, such as moving from the SSP2-4.5 track to the SSP1-2.6 track, will involve a change in the rate at which emissions grow. That is, measuring time "t" from now, the mitigated emissions track in year "t" will be less than the business-as-usual track by some amount proportional to "t". So the rate of change of CO2 concentration will be reduced by an amount proportional to "t", and the CO2 concentration itself will be reduced by some amount proportional to "t^2" (here be calculus!). This affects the rate of warming, so the temperature track will be reduced by some amount proportional to "t^3". And the track of sea-level, whose rate of change is forced by temperature, will be reduced by an amount proportional to "t^4".
These powers of "t" take time to get going. The square starts to rise slowly; the cube very slowly; the fourth-power extremely slowly. So the effects of a change in the rate of emissions growth is going to take a long time to change the track of CO2 concentration noticeably; a very long time to affect the track of temperature noticeably; and an extremely long time to affect the track of sea-level noticeably.
That is just what the IPCC charts show. One can tidy up the mathematics (the box models have a feedback term, which I have ignored because its effects only start to matter later) and attach numbers to everything, but the insight remains.
If someone claims that mitigation of CO2 emissions can have any immediate effect on climate, they evidently did not pass first-year calculus.
So in other words, you are saying carbon mitigation is irrelevant. What is relevant is sufficient energy supply for the rightful aspirations of Developing Nations to reach a Western Standard of Living. That will require a 5X increase in primary energy. No way we are going to achieve that with fossil. So that means a transition to Nuclear Energy. Fortunately we have enough uranium and thorium on the accessible Earth's land mass to supply that level of energy for 20Myrs. Unlimited supply of fusion fuel. Funny thing, nuclear emits negligible CO2 or any other emissions. Problem solved. What's next?
“And CO2 concentrations drive the rate at which heat is trapped within the earth system, and therefore the rate of temperature change, not temperature itself.”
Hi Roger, I ‘m a fairly new subscriber to your sub stack and enjoy reading your commentary.
First of all, I have to tell you, I’m not a “climate expert”, nor do I claim to be. I do consider myself to be a reasonable, logical thinking, human being. I feel capable of using my reasoning and mathematical skills to ask a couple of questions.
First, mathematical:
If we assume the earth has been in existence for 4.5 billion years, (science is now saying it’s existed much longer) and we assume that modern, industrial mankind, has been here for around 300 years that means that modern, industrial mankind has been here for 0.0000667% of that time. I find it hard, heck I’ll say nearly impossible, to assume that in that short of a period mankind has changed or as some say destroyed the climate of planet earth. I know humans can have large ego’s, but how would that be possible?
Second, reason and logic:
In all the climate studies I’ve seen, the experts never seem to factor in the variables of our solar system. The finger always seems to land on human beings and how their behavior has negatively affected climate. Our solar system and the variables that through billions of years (see previous math question) have caused climate to change never seem to factor into the climate experts doomsday predictions. Who, or more accurately what was to blame for the climate changes over billions of years past and why are they, it, not factored into climate change scenarios today?
Questions this mere mortal ponders on a regular basis.
"Make no mistake, mitigation is important and it can work."
Huh? You make this claim based ONLY on the possibility of detecting changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration - and NOBODY has shown ANY correlation of CO2 concentrations and global health. In fact, the only real evidence is the opposite - the earth is currently at a global minimum of CO2 in the atmosphere, and if it continues to decline it will almost certainly negatively affect global plant health (and therefore, the health of every living animal on earth).
So, I fail to see how your statement that "mitigation is important" tracks with reality, unless you meant this sarcastically. If we get to that point, we may actually be detecting a global biota collapse of biblical proportions - not quite what the "Climate Emergency" folks had in mind (or maybe it was!)
Just finished re-reading Chapter 1 to make sure I hadn't missed something significant. I hadn't. Even in your book there is the ingrained assumption C02 = BAD; ergo more CO2 = MORE BAD, less CO2 = GOOD! This is complete and utter hogwash. The only reason I can discern that CO2 has become the poster-boy for climate change is because it is relatively easy to MEASURE. IOW it has nothing to do with actual climate change and everything to do with the ease with which it can be called out as significant - even though no one knows if it is or isn't. It reminds me of a programming lecture I had as a grad student, where the professor described most attempts at code troubleshooting as "looking under a streetlamp for one's lost keys, because that's the only place where there is enough light to look". In other words, there is NO relationship between where the search is taking place to the actual probability of success.
So, please consider the following thought experiment, somewhat in line with your thought experiment regarding the outcome of the 2024 election. Along with all the other successful programs, atmospheric CO2 is reduced to zero. What do you think the result would be? No cheating by saying "but that can't/won't happen, so no need to answer" - just answer the question.
David Friedman argues, convincingly imho, that we really don’t know whether CO2 is good or bad and to what degree. The negative effects are constantly harped on while the positive effects are virtually ignored. Curious if Roger thinks there an optimum CO2 concentration and if so, what is it? Surely, 270 ppm was not the optimum. Is 400 ppm optimum? 1000 ppm? I don’t believe anybody has the faintest idea. We’re just scared of change.
For not being a climate scientist, Friedman makes a lot of well thought out points. I recommend his Substack, particularly his posts on climate.
Neither “bad” nor “good” appears there, but “risk” does
I think the chapter ends with a conclusion that uncertain risk raises the question of whether accelerated decarbonization may make sense or not. It does not answer that question.
Climate Change, brought to you by those wonderful folks who brought you Covid Lockdowns.
The essence of any scam (walnuts, card-shuffling, lady sawed in half) is misdirection and distraction. And the scammers deepest belief: those being robbed deserve it.
“Lies, damned lies, and statistics”
Or
“A mathematician, and economist and a statistician were asked, what is 2+2?”
Mathematician. 4
Economist. Somewhere between 3 and 5
Statistician. What do you want it to be?
Most of what we see today is lies, or “facts” that have no provable underlying basis (same as a lie).
And the media wonders why they can only survive with govt assistance.
Good one. We live in the Post-Truth World. Orwell wrote the Instruction Manual for Davos.
I drove thru Davos in June, hoping to see a Schwab shaped speed bump but no such luck.
From Mike Hulme:
“The ‘success’ of climate policies can only be captured by slowly unfolding abstract scientific indicators that no citizen can ever experience, such as net carbon emissions, carbon dioxide concentrations, global temperature”
https://mikehulme.org/climate-medicines-do-not-alleviate-the-symptoms-of-climate-change/
Thanks for a stringent analysis. However:
"Make no mistake, mitigation is important and it can work."
You are not adressing the costs of mitigation. If the realistic costs of mitigation is higher than the realistic costs of climate change, then it is not rational to mitigate at all
That's right. If they really cared about reducing CO2 emissions (hint: they don't), they would evaluate every project by the metric $/tonne of CO2 avoided, and projects that are above a threshold in cost would be rejected. Which would include virtually all Wind, Solar, Battery grid storage, H2, ITER, CCS, Agrofuels, Biomass burning projects.
The one mitigation that actually works and is cost effective is Nuclear energy. Nuclear energy in fact has a negative $/tonne of CO2 avoided. In other words, with Nuclear energy you can reduce all emissions, including CO2, and reduce costs at the same time. Which is of course why the Climate Change Grifters despise Nuclear Energy much more than Fossil and go to great lengths to blockade its expansion.
Could you please explain, why Nuclear should have negative USD/tonne of CO2? Thanks
Because, as power plants retire, perhaps due to emissions regulations, or high fuel costs, or just aging. The lowest cost replacement for them is going to be Nuclear. Possibly if gas prices remain low in the US, they might compete favorably with Nuclear in most regions, until gas prices rise, rise dramatically as they already have in most of the World, and then, even there, Nuclear will be the most economical. Happy coincidence, building Nuclear power to reduce electricity costs, also produces the lowest CO2 emissions AND the lowest of all other emissions, including radioisotope emissions.
1000%.
They use the grift of Linear No Threshold in order to make nuclear long and expensive, then say nuclear is not viable because its long delivery and expensive.
same process they are doing with LNG, etc
We have been mitigating for 10,000 years.
We will continue to do so.
For example, 2mm of sea level rise per year. Mitigation techniques are well known and continuing today and will continue until the next LIA or glaciation period reverses it, as will happen.
Great analysis, I read yesterday that the wild fires on this continent in the last year put out more damage to our planet then all other sources of that contribute to warming? If that’s true the billions we spend on trying to net 0 by 2035 is being spent incorrectly. Could you answer the question regarding the fires and their impact please?
Dear Roger, as always very interesting. As you mention 'heavy precipitation' (one of the weather phenomena for whicht the IPCC claims detection, I wonder if you have seen this study showing/claiming that precipitation measured globally is actually declining: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022169423003281; as reported by https://notrickszone.com/2023/06/19/new-study-21st-century-precipitation-trends-have-become-less-intense-globally. I'm very intersted in your assessment of this study.
"Avec des ‘si’ et des ‘mais’ on mettrait Paris en bouteille."
(With ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ Paris could be put in a bottle).
If policies would be enacted… Are they today? All over the World? Which ones?
Almost nothing is being done about adaptation (except in agriculture), and only pledges are being made about decarbonisation and energy transition, which in fact only commit future generations and no current political leaders. Zillions are being spent on stuttering production of so-called renewable energy, with ridiculous results. This makes good business for Chinese producers of solar panels, and bankruptcy of European wind turbine manufacturers despite all kinds of subsidies.
Energy consumption continues to rise, and so too does the consumption of fossil fuels, which accounts for ~2/3 of this growth (energy review : https://blog.mr-int.ch/?attachment_id=10873). Any acrimonious chasing of every CO2 emitter accomplishes nothing.
Depending on fossil fuels for 88.7% of its energy consumption, the world is decarbonising at a rate of a mere 0.27% per year. See this diagram (https://blog.mr-int.ch/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/bubbles.webp) for the positions of the most important consumers.
Simplistic linear extrapolation: 88.7 divided by 0.27 makes 328.5 years until zero!
Furthermore, the pace at which decarbonisation is taking place is certainly not driven by policy, but rather by the economic shifts that are moving societies from industry to services, particularly in the West. The energy supply foundation is not in any real state of change.
The probability of getting a climate response to these ill-fated policies is no better than flipping a coin. Why ask to spend thousands of billions every year over the next three decades for such an improbable outcome? Bjorn Lomborg is quite right to point out that there are many other priorities to be addressed, which will put these funds to much better use.
Nevertheless, reducing or even ending our dependence on fossil fuels is a proposition that must one day be achieved. It is TECHNOLOGY that will make this possible and affordable, not useless carbon accounting or scenarios plays with climate models.
You are right that 'good' nor 'bad' appears in the text, but why would you be spending so much time talking about how to reduce CO2 unless you thought it was bad?
And, since you declined to answer the question regarding my thought experiment, I will. The answer is that within a decade or so, all complex life (not all - because some organisms don't depend on C02 in their food chains) would die off - including all of humanity. How's THAT for a climate catastrophe?
So why are we so laser-focused on reducing a known critical component of our ecosphere? Do we even know the minimum viable level of CO2? What if we were just fortunate that the industrial revolution came along just in time to save our collective asses from extinction due to CO2 starvation?
You talk about risk mitigation in the face of unknowns, but you don't mind everyone playing with CO2 levels when nobody knows where the limits are - except for two undeniable facts: 1) increases in CO2 above current levels lead to significantly increased plant growth 2) the current CO2 levels are at a historical minimum when looked at on a geological time scale. Everyone talks about 'tipping points' regarding global temperature rise, but that is almost certainly a red herring. However, there might actually BE a tipping point wrt CO2 levels, but nobody seems to care about that - talk about playing with fire. Mind you, I'm just an old broke-down engineer and have zero skills in climatology, but I do know how to read a graph, and I have a pretty well developed BS meter, and it is pegged out at the moment
150ppm is where photosynthesis stops and “ we all die”.
We got down to 180 during the last glaciation.
We will likely be using nuclear power to burn massive quantities of limestone during the next glaciation period to keep co2 levels at livable levels.
As for today, we can’t get there but I’d like to see us get to 1000 ppm but there isn’t enough coal to burn to do so
I don't know, 1000ppm will cause sluggishness in mammals. I think 500-600ppm is the optimal level, which we will get too in the BAU business-as-usual plan.
everything evolved above 2000-3000. I think subs allow up to 5000?
Greenhouses pump it in up to 1000-1500, no workers dying in there?
Who said anything about dying? I'm talking sluggishness, which I already have a problem with, and I don't want it aggravated. The past million years have been more than sufficient for mammalian respiratory systems to adjust to the level of 180-280ppm that has existed over that time period. It might take thousands of years to fully adapt to levels like 1000ppm.
Can you provide some references for co2 at 1000ppm being an issue? We will not get there even under RCP8.5 so its academic, but i'm still interested.
Quick Search this is what I found. So CO2 will be much higher inside buildings than outdoors. So you may be fine outdoors but indoors you may get some adverse effects. Like poor quality of sleep:
"....Exposure to CO2 can produce a variety of health effects. These may include headaches, dizziness, restlessness, a tingling or pins or needles feeling, difficulty breathing, sweating, tiredness, increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, coma, asphyxia, and convulsions.
The levels of CO2 in the air and potential health problems are:
400 ppm: average outdoor air level.
400–1,000 ppm: typical level found in occupied spaces with good air exchange.
1,000–2,000 ppm: level associated with complaints of drowsiness and poor air.
2,000–5,000 ppm: level associated with headaches, sleepiness, and stagnant, stale, stuffy air. Poor concentration, loss of attention, increased heart rate and slight nausea may also be present.
5,000 ppm: this indicates unusual air conditions where high levels of other gases could also be present. Toxicity or oxygen deprivation could occur. This is the permissible exposure limit for daily workplace exposures.
40,000 ppm: this level is immediately harmful due to oxygen deprivation..."
"...Scientists used to believe that carbon dioxide was harmless at common indoor levels, but new findings indicate that this is not the case. From sluggish two o’clock meetings to poor sleep, elevated concentrations of indoor CO2 can directly impact our health and well-being in a number of ways.
The main way indoor carbon dioxide affects our health is through our brains. As carbon dioxide levels in a room increase, the gas starts crowding out the oxygen. Carbon dioxide is considered a simple asphyxiant because it reduces the amount of oxygen we absorb from each breath. If indoor carbon dioxide levels get too high (around 40,000 ppm), your life may be in danger.
At levels we are more likely to experience (1000-5000 ppm), the health effects are more subtle. Around 1000 ppm, a very common indoor level, you will start to experience fatigue, sleepiness, and may struggle to concentrate. You may also find it uncomfortable to sleep, and the air will feel stuffy. With prolonged exposure and increases in concentration, you may develop a headache and feel physically uncomfortable..."
So, if we are at 450 now, and we want to "de-carbonize" everything, we'll be doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of policies that will actually help us thrive on the planet - WONDERFUL!
I get it now. The policies they promote are designed to eliminate humans, explicitly.
Destroy the village to save it and all that
The "progressives" view the world human population as a scourge upon 'Mother Earth' (except for themselves, of course)
This shows up clearly from a simple box model of climate. These box models were long since abandoned by climate scientists, but they can give useful back-of-the-envelope insights without needing a vast, complex (and expensive) GCM model. All one needs is some first-year calculus.
Looking only at changes from baseline natural processes, annual CO2 emissions drive the rate at which atmospheric CO2 concentrations change, not the concentrations themselves. And CO2 concentrations drive the rate at which heat is trapped within the earth system, and therefore the rate of temperature change, not temperature itself.
And (the Iron Law), annual CO2 emissions are not going to drop abruptly: the politically feasible change is to reduce the rate at which they grow, and perhaps to turn that rate negative. That is the sort of thing that governments are promising, and that mitigation policies are aimed at achieving.
So any change in emissions, such as moving from the SSP2-4.5 track to the SSP1-2.6 track, will involve a change in the rate at which emissions grow. That is, measuring time "t" from now, the mitigated emissions track in year "t" will be less than the business-as-usual track by some amount proportional to "t". So the rate of change of CO2 concentration will be reduced by an amount proportional to "t", and the CO2 concentration itself will be reduced by some amount proportional to "t^2" (here be calculus!). This affects the rate of warming, so the temperature track will be reduced by some amount proportional to "t^3". And the track of sea-level, whose rate of change is forced by temperature, will be reduced by an amount proportional to "t^4".
These powers of "t" take time to get going. The square starts to rise slowly; the cube very slowly; the fourth-power extremely slowly. So the effects of a change in the rate of emissions growth is going to take a long time to change the track of CO2 concentration noticeably; a very long time to affect the track of temperature noticeably; and an extremely long time to affect the track of sea-level noticeably.
That is just what the IPCC charts show. One can tidy up the mathematics (the box models have a feedback term, which I have ignored because its effects only start to matter later) and attach numbers to everything, but the insight remains.
If someone claims that mitigation of CO2 emissions can have any immediate effect on climate, they evidently did not pass first-year calculus.
So in other words, you are saying carbon mitigation is irrelevant. What is relevant is sufficient energy supply for the rightful aspirations of Developing Nations to reach a Western Standard of Living. That will require a 5X increase in primary energy. No way we are going to achieve that with fossil. So that means a transition to Nuclear Energy. Fortunately we have enough uranium and thorium on the accessible Earth's land mass to supply that level of energy for 20Myrs. Unlimited supply of fusion fuel. Funny thing, nuclear emits negligible CO2 or any other emissions. Problem solved. What's next?
“And CO2 concentrations drive the rate at which heat is trapped within the earth system, and therefore the rate of temperature change, not temperature itself.”
Nonsense
Hi Roger, I ‘m a fairly new subscriber to your sub stack and enjoy reading your commentary.
First of all, I have to tell you, I’m not a “climate expert”, nor do I claim to be. I do consider myself to be a reasonable, logical thinking, human being. I feel capable of using my reasoning and mathematical skills to ask a couple of questions.
First, mathematical:
If we assume the earth has been in existence for 4.5 billion years, (science is now saying it’s existed much longer) and we assume that modern, industrial mankind, has been here for around 300 years that means that modern, industrial mankind has been here for 0.0000667% of that time. I find it hard, heck I’ll say nearly impossible, to assume that in that short of a period mankind has changed or as some say destroyed the climate of planet earth. I know humans can have large ego’s, but how would that be possible?
Second, reason and logic:
In all the climate studies I’ve seen, the experts never seem to factor in the variables of our solar system. The finger always seems to land on human beings and how their behavior has negatively affected climate. Our solar system and the variables that through billions of years (see previous math question) have caused climate to change never seem to factor into the climate experts doomsday predictions. Who, or more accurately what was to blame for the climate changes over billions of years past and why are they, it, not factored into climate change scenarios today?
Questions this mere mortal ponders on a regular basis.
What would a broader foundation for "mitigation" policy look like? I assume that by mitigation you mean reducing atmospheric CO2 emissions.
I think that you (as well as the Maui wildfires) have provided a persuasive argument for focusing on adaptation.
In TCF I focus mitigation on accelerating the rate of decarbonization (decrease in CO2/GDP), for which there are many good reasons.
The market will take care of that if we let it.
Hi, not quite off-topic but I've published an extensive piece on the Alimonti paper on climate extremes and the "retraction" controversy.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2023/08/how-science-is-done-these-days/
Most of my material is from Roger himself but I hope to have value-added various aspects.
Thanks for the link. A very comprehensive review. It's sad to see that Australian and Italian science is as broken as ours is in the U.S.
Thanks for the link to your article, and for its' link to the updated Aimonti paper (abstract).
"Peer review" has become the academic weapon of choice for the climate science police. Much, much easier to just censor than refute. Sad!
Thanks, I'll have a look!
"Make no mistake, mitigation is important and it can work."
Huh? You make this claim based ONLY on the possibility of detecting changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration - and NOBODY has shown ANY correlation of CO2 concentrations and global health. In fact, the only real evidence is the opposite - the earth is currently at a global minimum of CO2 in the atmosphere, and if it continues to decline it will almost certainly negatively affect global plant health (and therefore, the health of every living animal on earth).
So, I fail to see how your statement that "mitigation is important" tracks with reality, unless you meant this sarcastically. If we get to that point, we may actually be detecting a global biota collapse of biblical proportions - not quite what the "Climate Emergency" folks had in mind (or maybe it was!)
See Chapter 1 of the Climate Fix for the full argument. That reminds me I've been so busy that I am tardy on the next installment!
Roger,
Just finished re-reading Chapter 1 to make sure I hadn't missed something significant. I hadn't. Even in your book there is the ingrained assumption C02 = BAD; ergo more CO2 = MORE BAD, less CO2 = GOOD! This is complete and utter hogwash. The only reason I can discern that CO2 has become the poster-boy for climate change is because it is relatively easy to MEASURE. IOW it has nothing to do with actual climate change and everything to do with the ease with which it can be called out as significant - even though no one knows if it is or isn't. It reminds me of a programming lecture I had as a grad student, where the professor described most attempts at code troubleshooting as "looking under a streetlamp for one's lost keys, because that's the only place where there is enough light to look". In other words, there is NO relationship between where the search is taking place to the actual probability of success.
So, please consider the following thought experiment, somewhat in line with your thought experiment regarding the outcome of the 2024 election. Along with all the other successful programs, atmospheric CO2 is reduced to zero. What do you think the result would be? No cheating by saying "but that can't/won't happen, so no need to answer" - just answer the question.
Frank
David Friedman argues, convincingly imho, that we really don’t know whether CO2 is good or bad and to what degree. The negative effects are constantly harped on while the positive effects are virtually ignored. Curious if Roger thinks there an optimum CO2 concentration and if so, what is it? Surely, 270 ppm was not the optimum. Is 400 ppm optimum? 1000 ppm? I don’t believe anybody has the faintest idea. We’re just scared of change.
For not being a climate scientist, Friedman makes a lot of well thought out points. I recommend his Substack, particularly his posts on climate.
Thanks for rereading
Neither “bad” nor “good” appears there, but “risk” does
I think the chapter ends with a conclusion that uncertain risk raises the question of whether accelerated decarbonization may make sense or not. It does not answer that question.
We really need an environmental impact study on decarbonization.
Simple answer to question in your title:
Can a bear sh#t on a toilet?
Nice piece. Keep swinging the axe, Roger.