There are a number of arguments against reducing CO2 emissions still floating around. They are all based on some kind of misunderstanding. A focus on scientific uncertainty ignores the economic reality and the principles of risk management which are fundamental to sound economic management. A focus on China and other poor countries ignores the reality that they will never match our level of per capita CO2 emissions and that they are already investing more in renewable energy than we are. Criticisms of Kyoto ignore the fact that it is merely a first step, not a final solution and that attempting to create our own version is a step backwards.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/green-tax-shift/climate-change-for-the-sceptics.html

.

I'm afraid that the opinion presented is flawed on two main points:

1) the economic cost of substantially reducing emmissions will be large. In fact, many have estimated the costs of prevention to be much higher than the costs of global warming.

2) If China and India are not asked to reduce their emmissions, and it's only the developped nations that are asked to cut down, the reductaions madce will be minimal, if even existent. What is proposed is simply a formula for exporting jobs, not for cutting greenhouse gasses. Again this undermined your entire 'insurance argument'.

A good source of information about global warming can be fgound at www.timblair.net

"A good source of information about global warming can be fgound (sic) at www.timblair.net"

Yeah right.

There goes any credibility AJFA may have had about the subject of climate change.

Not all the answers are technological. Maybe not even most of them.
Many of the paths to stabilization run straight through our daily lives, and in every case they will demand difficult changes.

We drive alone, because it's more convenient than adjusting our schedules for public transit. We build even bigger homes even as our family sizes shrink, and we watch ever bigger TVs, and - well, enough said. We need to figure out how to change those habits.

Air travel is one of the fastest growing sources of carbon emissions around the world, for instance, but even many of us who are noble about changing lightbulbs and happy to drive hybrid cars chafe at the thought of not jetting around the country or the world.

Are we ready to change, in dramatic and prolonged ways, in order to offer a workable future to subsequent generations and diverse forms of life? If we are, new technologies and new habits offer some promise. But only if we move quickly and decisively - and with a maturity we've rarily shown as a society or a species.

Dear AJFA,

I am heavily involved in the issues you opine, please temper your well meaning but obvious (mis)understanding of them.

These sites may help you (and others).

http://www.ipcc.ch/

http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4/media/

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarmingUpdate/

http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/policy.htm

http://www.desmogblog.com/slamming-the-climate-skeptic-scam

http://www.realclimate.org/

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/sternreview_index.cfm

I would like to read your comments, along with others, following our meeting in Bali next month.

All the best for the upcoming election.

Best wishes

Enjoy the mass junket davsab. I hope the 10000+ attendees are offsetting their travel emissions with a few trees.

Lowering Australia's "per capita CO2 emissions" unfortunately will not make a scrap of difference to atmospheric CO2 levels and have even less of an effect on global climate. Good luck in the election, you're going to need it.

"the economic cost of substantially reducing emmissions will be large. In fact, many have estimated the costs of prevention to be much higher than the costs of global warming.

Such as who? The stern report clearly indicated that the cost of reducing emissions are far less than the predictable short term costs. Furthermore, with a policy like carbon taxes, we could achieve significant reductions at very little cost to the economy.

"If China and India are not asked to reduce their emmissions, and it's only the developped nations that are asked to cut down, the reductaions madce will be minimal, if even existent.

No-one is suggesting we don't ask them to keep theirr emissions in check also. As I pointed out, they are well ahead of us. However, to suggest that we be allowed to emit far more than them on a per captia basis indefintiely is clearly absurd.

"What is proposed is simply a formula for exporting jobs

No it isn't. Consider where most of our emissions come from. Will we start driving our cars overseas? Will we start producing our electricity overseas?

"Lowering Australia's "per capita CO2 emissions" unfortunately will not make a scrap of difference to atmospheric CO2

No individual or small group of people can make a big difference on their own. But that kind of misses the point doesn't it?

It all does not matter.
The IPCC studies are based on the economy growing and no restriction
in the amount of hydrocarbon fuels available.
This is unrealistic, so it does not matter what the climate models
produce they are just working on duff data.

Foxy, I agree that most answers are not technological. For the most part, the answers are economic. Economic solutions are necessary to achieve significant change without unnecessary harm to the economy. Economic solutions alone are sufficient in terms of government policy.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/green-tax-shift/green-tax-shift.html

Bazz, so far the IPCC has underestimated emissions and they have to keep adjusting their projections upward because they made the mistake of assuming countries like the US and Australia would respond rationally to the threat. We have enough coal for at least a centurry or two and the technology is available to produce oil from coal, shale, tar sands etc as is necessary. It is nothing short of naive to expect us to run out of fossil fuels in time to prevent serious climate change.

BTW, can you give a reference on the assumptions regarding hydrocarbon availability?

Hello Freediver,
The depletion to which I referred was world depletion rates.
World coal will peak somewhere between 2025 and 2035.
Australia may have the 100 to 200 years worth but I am not certain
that is so. I must have a look at German Energy watch coal report.
They found that there was a lot less coal reserve that everyone thought.

It does not matter what rules are brought in, who measures what, it is
all irrelevant, if the fuel is not there in the quantities expected it
won't be emit the CO2 expected.
The globe might warm up, but it won't have the human input of CO2 that
the IPCC did its work on.

It is hard to believe that it took all this time for someone to wake
up to this. We have gone so far down the panic slope that it will be
virtually impossible to turn the Titanic around.
After all the politicians have got hold of it and they are not going to
admit they got it wrong.

So basically your argument is that everyone is wrong - they have for some reason failed to noticed the elephant in the living room - that fossil fuels are about to run out anyway?

That's a big if. I think I was discussing that German report with you in another thread. I finally got you to link to it and the link went to a site that didn't even work. You still haven't fessed up to what assumptions they made, possibly because you can't read the report either.

Still, if anyone has any real data on world coal supplies, I would be interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak_theory

Pennsylvania's coal production also matches Hubbert's curve closely, but this does not mean that coal in Pennsylvania is exhausted--far from it. If production in Pennsylvania returned at its all time high, there are reserves for 190 years. Hubbert had recoverable coal reserves worldwide at 2500 × 109 metric tons and peaking around 2150 (depending on usage).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal#World_coal_reserves

In 2003 it was estimated that there was around one exagram (1 × 1015 kg or 998 billion tons) of total coal reserves accessible using current mining technology, approximately half of it being hard coal. The energy value of all the world's recoverable coal is 27 zettajoules,[29] which is expected to last 200 years. At the current global total energy consumption of 15 terawatt,[30] there is enough coal to provide the entire planet with all of its energy for 57 years

British Petroleum, in its annual report 2007, estimated at 2006 end, there were 909,064 million tons of proven coal reserves worldwide (9.236 × 1014 kg or 0.9236 exagrams), or 147 years reserve to production ratio.

The United States Department of Energy uses estimates of coal reserves in the region of 1,081,279 million short tons (9.81 × 1014 kg)

Freediver,

“… so far the IPCC has underestimated emissions and they have to keep adjusting their projections upward because they made the mistake of assuming countries like the US and Australia would respond rationally to the threat.”

NO!!

The IPCC does not assume anything of the sort and it is very vacuous to say they do. I would suggest you refer to the IPCC website I gave previously and read about their procedures and processes.

Bazz/Freediver,

As to hydrocarbon availability, the video link at this site is well worth watching.

http://rutledge.caltech.edu/

Bazz,

I have tried to explain to you previously about SRES and your assertions about the IPCC and hydrocarbon mis/use – you have obviously not understood or I have failed to communicate with you. You (anyone) can have an opinion, BUT it must be based on sound premise or argument – otherwise you are likely to confuse the issues at best or intentionally misrepresenting the issues at worst.

Everybody,

It is up to stakeholders and decision makers on how (and when) they are to deal with the problems we (humanity) are facing in terms of *climate change*.

We are told that there are solutions, some easy and some not so easy. It would be prudent to start implementing them sooner, rather than later.

You may also like to visit the UNFCCC website here.

http://unfccc.int/2860.php

Their meeting in Bali next month will enter a crucial stage for post-2012

Davsav;
Could you please give me a pointer to where abouts in the IPCC documents
they take into account the hydrocarbon depletion.

Freediver that link works for me. You should get a page where you
select English or German.
You might try the ASPO.net web page, there is probably a link on there.
I have to go out soon so I'll look this afternoon and send you other links.
It is a well know report. Try Google Energy Watch Report Coal I am
sure that will find it.

Dear DavSav,

please read this post for a sober view of climate change: http://leonbertrand.blogspot.com/2007/11/scientists-release-more-hot-air.html

That guy seems a bit too confused to be criticising real climate scientists. From your link:

"The Courier Mail reports that some left wing Australian scientists have warned that the world is warming faster than predicted by the United Nations.

"This is absolutely absurd. The truth is that 1998 was the warmest year on record. Therefore, the earth has actually been slightly cooling since then.

So according to this guy we have a year of global warming, followed by a year of global cooling, then maybe another year of cooling, then warming and so on, with no long term trend? What a crock.

The sunspot count for November stands at zero. We are entering a new solar cycle. If it is as intense as predicted then prepare to break out your fur coats (and perhaps a little humble pie). Although I expect that the eco-chondriacs won't miss a beat in a cooling world, but instead move on with nary a breathe to the next 'sky-is-falling' scare.

If it cools off a bit tonight or next winter, does that also mean global warming isn't real?

Freediver;
Here is the URL for the German Energy Watch.

http://www.energywatchgroup.org/Reports.24+M5d637b1e38d.0.html

IT works I did a google serach and there it all is.
Actually the warmest years have been reported as being in the 1930s.
There seems to me to be so much argument over temperatures that it is
hard to get a grip on it.
The last quote I heard is that there is as much sense in talking about
average global temperatures as there is in global average phone numbers.

Actually that was not just a clever remark, he was making the point
that you just can't add them all up and divide by the number of them.

Re sunspots this last year or two has been the worse ionospheric
conditions I can remember in many many years of observing in a
practical way the sunspot count.
So if sun activity is thought to cause global warming then it does not
support that theory in this part of the eleven year cycle.
Unless of course that it might support those who say there is no
increase in temperature since 1976.

"So according to this guy we have a year of global warming, followed by a year of global cooling, then maybe another year of cooling, then warming and so on, with no long term trend? What a crock."

Actually, there have been no warmer years than 1998 since 1998. I would say that's a fairly long term trend.

Want a longer trend? During the West's heavy industrialisation, global temperatures actually FELL, right up to 1977.

Been preparing for the release tomorrow, I am tired.

Bazz

The Working Group III’s 4th Assessment Report (Chapter 4: Energy Supply) specifically covers your question about hydrocarbons (coal, oil, gas) and talks about trends (global and regional).

Have you actually read the IPCC reports? Your questions indicate you have not. Leave the SPM's to the policy makers if you want to understand the science.

Did you watch David Rutledge’s video? You make no comment – strange seeing it explicitly talks about your questions.

I recall pointing you to precise page numbers in the IPCC reports in another thread about other questions you had – I think your response had something to do with bandwidth or speed? Is this still the case?

AJFA,

I looked some; I read some – another blogger (and which one is you?). So, you think you know something about climate science – give me a break! I suggest you research the technical reports (if not the published papers themselves) before you make such foolish statements.

Freediver,

The “guy” does not have a clue about trend analysis or even simple linear regression.

_________________________________________

It amazes me why people with concerns or questions about a particular topic, or those that are prepared to make disparaging remarks about processes and procedures they have little understanding about; do not go to primary (or secondary) sources before they make erroneous comments.

One has to question their agenda or motivation.

BTW, sunspots and cosmic rays are examined in the links I have given, as is radiative forcing and attribution studies.

Bazz, as I expected, and as I explained in the previous thread about that coal report, the conclusion of peak coal is based on unreasonable assumtions. The authors only include proven reserves. If you made the same mistake with any mineral at any time through history, you would conclude that peak production is imminent. The reason is that proven reserves are not in any way a reflection of actual reserves. Rather, they are a reflection of the economic viability of spending millions of dollars on mapping a body of ore or coal. If you aren't going to mine the stuff for 100 years, there's no point wasting a huge sum of money on it. Reports such as these are a perpetual joke in the mining industry.

"Actually, there have been no warmer years than 1998 since 1998. I would say that's a fairly long term trend.

It's not a trend. It's drawing a line through a single point. It's the statistical equivalent of seeing one red car and proclaiming that all cars are red.

"Want a longer trend? During the West's heavy industrialisation, global temperatures actually FELL, right up to 1977.

So what? Did you know that it was only recently (about 1977) that our cumulative CO2 output started skyrocketing? Prior to that there was a very slow cooling trend, but this hardly proves that there isn't a warming trend now. This is the equivalent of arguing that the temperature didn't really start going up at dawn because it was still dropping after midnight.

Davsav;
I have been searching through Assessment Report 4 and I cannot
find any reference to hydrocarbon depletion being taken into account.
Have I missed it ?
Am I looking in the wrong place ?
Can you tell me what working group talks about it ?
Is it in fact there at all ?

Bazz, see above.

Good morning/night

Davsab;
Here is the section you mention;
Energy Supply Improved supply and distribution efficiency;
fuel switching from coal to gas; nuclear power;
renewable heat and power (hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal and bioenergy);
combined heat and power;
early applications of CCS (e.g. storage of removed CO2 from natural gas)

Text there about efficiency, using gas etc etc but nothing that talks
about a reduction in the available fuels.

I wonder if we are talking about the same document.
Yes I do have a 400Mbyte limit. It makes videos a bit expensive.

Bazz,

“Here is the section you mention;
Energy Supply Improved supply and distribution efficiency …”

No, that is not the section I mention.

I repeat, The Working Group III’s 4th Assessment Report (Chapter 4: Energy Supply), pp 252 – 322, 15MB download). This is getting ridiculous; we are not in primary school.

Really, you should refer to the whole AR4, ALL working groups.

I am sorry about your limit – maybe you can see a friend, visit a library, university or vote for the political party that will do the most for fast broadband internet access, Australia wide. JOKE.

Must go,

Bye

Bazz,

I apologise if I sounded a bit brisk the other day, I was on a tight schedule and a bit frayed.

Anyway, I believe David Rutledge answers your question/s … in a novel sort of way. Quite enlightening really, when you consider he is coming from ‘left field’ and uses data quite readily available, if one knows where to look.

My point, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

Have a look at his power-point presentation if you can’t watch the actual lecture – you can download it (2 MB) and follow the slides he uses in his talk. Not bad actually, you can view his slide-notes, complete with references. I am assuming you have something like MS PowerPoint.

Here is the link again.

http://rutledge.caltech.edu/

Here is his lecture on ‘Youtube’, if this is of any help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTUcxYdMmj4

________________________________

Just a word of caution to those who have websites or blog-sites and want to comment on something they are obviously not expert in (like climate change); it is very easy to misinterpret something quite complex or inadvertently (or otherwise) misrepresent the facts. Others of course may have a more devious agenda.

This is why the media in general and journalists in particular have a very important and responsible role in bringing us the truth … unfortunately, some abuse this power and knowingly or otherwise end up propagandising.

So, we (humanity) have a very “sobering” document on climate change; the AR4 Synthesis Report, the summary for policy makers is now out there for all to see, again at,

http://www.ipcc.ch/

Sobering because it really is a conservative document agreed by all governments that are party to the IPCC and who were represented in Spain this last week.

Of course, what we do from here is going to challenge all stakeholders … the outcome of the UNFCCC meeting/s in Bali next month will be critical in determining where we go after *Kyoto*.

Bye

Davsab pointed me in the direction of the energy supply portion of the
IPCC report on climate change.
The following is part of page 267 ch 4.3.1.3 of the report.
Quote
Thus, the total available
potential proven reserves plus resources of around 10,000 EJ
should be sufficient for about 70 years’ supply at present rates of consumption.
Since consumption rates will continue to rise, however, 30 to 40 years’
supply is a more reasonable estimate (Hallock et al., 2004).
Burning this amount of petroleum resources would release
approximately 700 GtCO2 (200 GtC) into the atmosphere, about two thirds the amount

released to date from all fossil-fuel consumption. Opportunities
for energy-efficiency improvements in oil refineries and
associated chemical plants are covered in Chapter 7.
Unquote

I now understand why commentators said that the IPCC report does not
take account of peak oil, gas, coal.

I have never heard anyone else assume that consumption will remain
constant let alone rise. I believe that the IPCC has its head in the
sand with Exxon and others.
If that is what they are running their models on then it truley is
garbage in and garbage out !

Thanks Davsab, I was able to download just the energy part and I can
get more next month.

Bazz (Sherlock), I am glad you found some info on one page out of in excess of 3000 pages covering all the reports of the AR4 … without even looking at the primary sources! Well done.

Seriously, did you get to look at Rutledge’s power-point slides? Even more enlightening!! !!

I am still troubled though (and we have been through it before, the SRES scenarios that is).

You say, “I have never heard anyone else assume that consumption will remain constant let alone rise.”

The IPCC don’t, repeat DON’T, “assume consumption will remain constant” or “let alone rise.”

Four different narrative storylines were developed to describe the relationships between emission driving forces (and their evolution) and add context for the scenario quantification. Each storyline represents different demographic, social, economic, technological, and environmental developments, which may be viewed positively by some people and negatively by others.

Each scenario represents a specific quantitative interpretation of one of four storylines. All the scenarios based on the same storyline constitute a scenario "family".

No judgment is offered as to the preference for any of the scenarios and they are not assigned probabilities of occurrence.

Six models were used which are representative of assessment frameworks in the published literature. One advantage of a multi-model approach is that the resultant 40 SRES scenarios together encompass the current range of uncertainties of future GHG emissions arising from different characteristics of these models.

Thirteen of these 40 scenarios explore variations in energy technology assumptions.

For a better understanding (more bandwidth) I suggest you look at;

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/emission/index.htm

It doesn’t help anyone if you misinterpret or misrepresent the facts.

Davsab,
Yes, I do only have one chapter but it is the one you pointed
me to for the energy information.
Are you saying that some of the scenarios do reduce the oil, gas, and
coal inputs to simulate peak everything ?
I will be interested to come accross them. I will be going to the
local library to see if I can get the rest of the report.

Can you give me your opinion on the hockey stick controversey and the
model of Michael Mann and the critisim by Steven McIntyre that the
figures were faked ?

Is the hockey stick that was highlighted by Al Gore, which I believe
was the output of Mann's model, was in the earlier IPCC report ?
Has it been removed in subsequent reports ?

These things are widely reported and for the likes of me it is hard
to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Yes the IPCC modelled multiple scenarios. Without such a sensitivity analysis it is hard to judge the value of intervention.

Ground-hog day Bazz? Go to the palaeoclimate chapter (pp 466 – 469) in the link below and check out the "hockey sticks" … 12 of the buggers and enough to make a whole team, they are all consistent and point to the same conclusion.

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

There have been a dozen proxy studies since 1998, analysing a variety of different sources including corals, stalagmites, tree rings, boreholes, ice cores, etc. The results all show similar patterns of temperature change over the last several centuries covering the MWP and ‘little ice age’. Most striking is the fact that EACH study reveals that the 20th century is the warmest of the entire record, and that warming was most dramatic after 1920.

The ‘hockey stick’ reconstruction of Mann et al (1999) has been the subject of several critical studies. Soon and Baliunas (2003) challenged Mann’s conclusions … but their qualitative approach precluded any quantitative summary of the evidence at precise times – limiting the value of their review as a basis for comparison of the relative magnitude of mean hemispheric 20th-century warmth (Mann and Jones, 2003; Osborn and Briffa, 2006).

McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) reported that they were unable to replicate the results of Mann et al (1998). However, Wahl and Ammann (2007) showed that this was a consequence of differences in the way McIntyre and McKitrick had implemented the method of Mann et al and that the original reconstruction could be closely duplicated using the original proxy data.

McIntyre and McKitrick (2005) raised further concerns about the details of the Mann et al (1998) method … but Wahl and Amman (2006) showed that the impact on the amplitude of the final reconstruction is very small (~0.05°C).

Bazz asks: “Are you saying that some of the scenarios do reduce the oil, gas, and coal inputs to simulate peak everything?” Yes.

HOWEVER, I believe the IPCC have “over-estimated” the hydrocarbon (oil, gas, coal) reserves available – they truly are a conservative lot! But please, look at the "reserves" Rutledge suggests.

Bazz, any lay criticism is not justified.