Global Warming and the Surge

On Global Warming, the political right constantly reminds us that correlation isn't causation. When you present evidence of rising temperatures and more greenhouse gases as proof of anthropogenic climate change, the right raises the possible influence of other factors such as solar variation and climate cycles. The left insists that rising temperatures occur in conjunction with greenhouse gases because both are related.

On the Surge, the political right ignores other possible factors and attributes the recent drop in violence to a greater troop presence solely because both happened at the same time. Here, the distinction between correlation and causation is practically nonexistent on the right. The left, on the other hand, notes the Sunni Awakening, the Sadr cease-fire, and other internal forces in Iraq.

I'm not using this comparison to prove that either side is right or wrong on either issue. I just think it's sort of interesting.

Uh Oh!

Maybe we shouldn't build all those nuclear power plants I want.

Drill and Research

I've just finished this book, and in it Bjorn Lomborg claims that with a 25 billion dollar a year investment worldwide, we could fund enough research and development to replace our need of fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy.

His solution for raising the funds is to tax carbon emissions at 2 dollars a ton. Now, I'm all for funding R&D for renewable energy but I think that we can do that without any new taxes. And we can get the 25 billion from the US alone.

I suggest we take all the money we get from land leases for drilling (on and off-shore), which came to about 9.4 billion last year. That total will be even higher if we open more areas for drilling. And while we're at it get rid of the the new farm subsidies bill at about 30 billion a year. This would give us almost twice the recommended amount needed to fund the research necessary to get us off of oil. Even without the farm subsidy money we would fund almost half of the 25 billion from land leases alone.

Also, new oil drilling sites would allow us to stabilize the price of oil, giving us time to transition to these new forms of energy.

I should probably mention that Lomborg agrees with the findings of the IPCC. Even with this being the case he still thinks it the 14th most important problem to tackle.

Also, with all that uranium coming out of Iraq, we could have the fuel for all those new nuclear power plants McCain wants.

I'll be doing a detailed write up on the entire book in future posts.

Economics of Environmentalism

Until now, environmentalism has set itself up in opposition to pollution, and therefore to the people, businesses, and free market principles that drive economic growth and development. The Breakthrough Institute thinks we can make environmentalism consistent with - and even a source of - economic prosperity.

Climate Change Response: Adaptation or Prevention?

Bjorn Lomborg, author of Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming



"There's definitely a global warming problem, and it's one that we need to fix throughout the 21st century, but the problem is what we can do right now is actually fairly little at very high costs."

Mr. Lomborg is certainly not without his critics, but he presents a unique way of thinking about climate change policy.

To me, the most interesting part of the debate with regard to climate change policy is not whether the Earth is warming, or even the causes of warming, but the cost-benefit analysis of the policy choices.

A thought-provoking example provided by Mr. Lomborg is windmills (sometimes he'll use solar panels). A great deal of resources have been invested in constructing very expensive and inefficient windmills. These windmills will have negligible impact on global warming in the long-run. Rather than spend an enormous amount of money building and installing these few expensive and inefficient windmills, wouldn't it be better to spend that money improving the technology so that we can have a far greater number of more efficient windmills?

Further, if we are limited in what can reasonably be done to prevent global warming, should we be preparing to adapt to it instead? I worry greatly about unforeseen consequences, so this decision cannot be taken lightly. But the question of adaptation or prevention should be explored.

NASA Climate Change Findings Distorted

No, there are no powerful interests involved in shaping scientific reports on climate change to minimize the problem:

An investigation by the NASA inspector general found that political appointees in the space agency's public affairs office worked to control and distort public accounts of its researchers' findings about climate change for at least two years, the inspector general's office said yesterday.

...

From the fall of 2004 through 2006, the report said, NASA's public affairs office "managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public." It noted elsewhere that "news releases in the areas of climate change suffered from inaccuracy, factual insufficiency, and scientific dilution."

Don't Blame the Sun

The image above is Figure 2.4 from a report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The top 8 bars show the magnitude of anthropogenic (man-made) warming (red) and cooling (blue) factors. The second bar from the bottom shows the magnitude of the warming effects of the sun (identified as "Solar irradiance"). The most important bar is the bottom one, which shows the net warming effect of anthropogenic causes.

This article points out problems with some of the data used to support the theory that recent global warming is caused by solar activity.

Analysis of a number of published graphs that have played a major role in these debates and that have been claimed to support solar hypotheses [Laut, 2003; Damon and Peristykh,1999, 2004] shows that the apparent strong correlations displayed on these graphs havebeen obtained by incorrect handling of the physical data. The graphs are still widely referred to in the literature, and their misleading character has not yet been generally recognized. Readers are cautioned against drawing any conclusions, based upon these graphs, concerning the possible wisdom or futility of reducing the emissions of man-made greenhouse gases.

When 18 MPG Is Better Than 100 MPG

It is counter-intuitive, but it may be better to increase fuel efficiency from 15 MPG to 18 MPG than from 50 MPG to 100 MPG. This assumes that we would drive the same distances regardless of fuel efficiency, but I think that is a fairly safe assumption. The explanation:

I'll use some rough numbers to illustrate. You trade in your Civic, which averages about 32 miles per gallon, and buy a Prius, which gets a whopping 47 mpg. You've bumped up by 15 miles per gallon -- a big deal, right?Sort of.

Over the next 15,000 miles of driving, you'll have reduced your fuel consumption by 150 gallons. That's fine. But consider what happens when you upgrade your SUV. That's where the real action is.

You swap out your Dodge Durango (16 mpg on average) for a Toyota Tacoma (23 mpg). It's an upgrade of just 7 miles per gallon. It seems tiny. But consider that over the next 15,000 miles, you will have saved 285 gallons of fuel -- nearly double what your fuel-sipping neighbor saved.

Now change the numbers so that the car swap goes from 50 MPG to 100 MPG and the SUV swap goes from 15 MPG to 18 MPG. Let's also change the miles driven to 18,000 so we don't get any fractions. Over the course of 18,000 miles, the 100 MPG car uses 180 gallons of fuel while the 50 MPG car uses 360 gallons of fuel. That's a reduction of 180 gallons. Now for the SUVs. The 18 MPG SUV uses approximately 1000 gallons, while the 15 MPG SUV uses 1200 gallons. The SUV driver cuts his fuel usage by 200 gallons, or 20 more gallons than the car driver.

Therefore, the 100 MPG breakthrough is less important than getting a few more MPGs out of our trucks and SUVs.

Cap and Trade

Good news, DJ. The Senate is considering the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. WaPo reports:

The foundation of the legislation is a cap-and-trade system that would put a price on carbon by having a declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions permitted for each year between 2012 and 2050. Emission permits could be bought and sold; this would promote increasing energy efficiency with a minimum of government prescription. The bill calls for reductions in emissions of 19 percent by 2020 and 71 percent by 2050. Starting in 2012, the electric power, petroleum, natural gas and manufacturing sectors, as well as transportation fuels, would need allowances to pollute.

The bill isn't perfect. A majority of allowances would be auctioned, but initially about 40 percent would be given away, ostensibly to help industries in those sectors and others make the transition to a greener, more expensive reality. Those freebies would decline over time. Money gained from the auctions, estimated to be $3.3 trillion over the life of the bill, would be used to finance tax cuts for the poor to mitigate increases in utility bills; training and assistance for workers; deficit reduction; and advanced research on carbon capture and sequestration and other clean-energy technologies.

Bush is expected to veto. The conservative Heritage Foundation criticizes the bill:

Lieberman–Warner puts the cart before the horse by requiring significant emissions reductions before the technologies capable of achieving them in an affordable manner are available. At the same time, the science points away from a dire need to act precipitously and impose such a dramatic slowing of the American economy in such a tight timeframe. The compliance costs of Lieberman–Warner are likely to be far out of proportion to its benefits.

While I don't doubt the existence of some level of global warming, the Heritage Foundation may be correct that the costs outweigh the benefits.

Isakson and McCain want an amendment to support nuclear power.

One Way Arguments

These are irrefutable truths to global warming skeptics:

If a climate scientist who supports the theory of anthropogenic climate change receives funding from an environmentalist group, the conclusions should be questioned because he has a financial interest in those conclusions. If a climate scientist who questions the theory of anthropogenic climate change receives funding from polluting industries, the financial contributions are merely an expression of confidence in the depth of his knowledge and quality of his analysis.

If temperature goes down, it is evidence that global warming is not occurring. If temperature goes up, it is due to natural "cycles" or some other such nonthreatening cause. It is not possible that nonanthropogenic causes put short-term downward and upward pressure on temperature, while anthropogenic causes contribute to the long-term overall warming trend.

Leading Global Warming Skeptics

Here is a reasonably short video on the CO2 and temperature data from ice cores discussed in An Inconvenient Truth.



The scientists in this video are:

Syun-ichi Akasofu
He is at the University of Alaska. There is certainly no interest in continued use of fossil fuels in Alaska!

Tim Ball
His qualifications have been questioned. He receives energy industry funding at NRSP.

Ian Clark
Same group as Tim Ball.

Piers Corbyn
Not a lot of confidence in this guy.

Patrick J. Michaels
Up to his eyeballs in energy industry money.

Nir Shaviv
He appears to be a legitimate dissenter. It doesn't mean he's correct.

Frederick Singer
I already pointed out his part in discrediting science related to secondhand smoke. Then I found this: "In April 1998 a dozen people from the denial machine—including the Marshall Institute, Fred Singer's group and Exxon—met at the American Petroleum Institute's Washington headquarters. They proposed a $5 million campaign, according to a leaked eight-page memo, to convince the public that the science of global warming is riddled with controversy and uncertainty."

Science on Climate Change

I think everyone should remember that there were also studies questioning the evidence that cigarettes are unhealthy.

One of those studies was done by S. Fred Singer, now a leading voice questioning man-made global warming.

For now, I'll go with the opinions of the vast majority of climate scientists.

I'm Super Serial

I'm not saying that global warming (or is it climate change?) isn't caused by carbon dioxide emissions, but there are many scientists saying that the evidence simply isn't there.

Personally, I think that global warming and cooling is mainly caused by the Sun's activity. Carbon Dioxide plays a minimal part in the climate change of the Earth. (I guess I do say carbon dioxide doesn't cause global warming).

Here is a good documentary produced by the BBC called The Great Global Warming Swindle:


Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6


Part 7


Part 8

I apologize for the video being in so many parts. I couldn't find it in one piece on you-tube.

Oh. And the debate being over? Not so fast Al.