The Climate Change Hoax

[Hans Kruse]

Here in North Carolina we provide huge amounts of wood chips to Europe. It's very impressive to see the enormous piles of logs and chips on the docks at the Morehead City port waiting to be loaded.

But, I believe the point with burning wood chips is not that it is necessarily cleaner than coal (although it is) but that it is renewable. When trees are cut for chips, new trees will eventually grow and absorb the CO2 that burning the chips released. Over the long run, in theory, burning chips is carbon-neutral.

Yes, and I know quite some of the pellets are later burned in Denmark for exactly these reasons. A friend of mine is consulting with the Danish powerplants and he has visited several locations in the US where this production takes place. There have also been hearings in Brussels on the EU level about the sustainability of the pellet burning. I haven't yet heard what the recent results have been.

[Hans Kruse]

Ray, two questions:  1) do you believe the earth is getting warmer?  if so, 2a) what is responsible for this?  if not, 2b) what is causing the melting of the Arctic ice cap, breaking of Antarctic ice shelves, and melting away in Greenland?

John Kerry and numerous other state visitors have been on trips to Greenland to see the melting of glaciers when visiting Denmark https://dk.usembassy.gov/secretary-john-kerry-visited-denmark/ and I'm wondering if Tellerson will be a guest too

[Hans Kruse]

That's the argument, but it is not a sound argument. Surely one can understand that there is a difference between several decades of slow absorption/transformation of CO2 during tree growth, and the sudden release of huge amounts of CO2 (and sulfur and heavy metals) into the atmosphere and oceans when burning. When equilibrium is disrupted, which triggers other accelerations (like melting land ice), which triggers other accelerations, ...

Cheers,
Bart

Biomass is considered and used a lot these days and questions are raised about how wise this really is https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/science/new-report-urges-western-governments-to-reconsider-reliance-on-biofuels.html?_r=1 and with a report here http://www.wri.org/publication/avoiding-bioenergy-competition-food-crops-and-land and the fast reduction in price of solar PV's is much more efficient use of land. One could in fact use huge farms with solar PV's where sun is abundant and product hydrogen and ship it to the power plants for conversion into electricity and heat. I haven't seen any plans to do that. If it was done, even this ships that could transport the hydrogen could use part of it to fuel the engines on the ship.

[Hans Kruse]

Nice analysis of employment in the coal industry:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/31/8-surprisingly-small-industries-that-employ-more-people-than-coal/?utm_term=.3b744b7d92a1  The fast food chain Arby's employs more people than coal mining in the US!!!

And a nice report on what the shift to renewables will mean for Germany. Maybe Trump should take a look?

[JNB_Rare]

"Even as the federal government did its best to pretend that climate change didn't exist, the push against it expanded out into the school system this week. The state legislature in Idaho removed mention of climate change from its science education standards, even as a "think" tank sent school teachers copies of a text that promotes a plethora of non-scientific ideas about climate change."

I remember in 1970's when Texas(?) school boards wanted publishers to bid on a special state edition of their science textbooks that either a) gave equal time to "creationism" or b) deleted all references to the theory of evolution.

I remember when cigarette companies donated textbooks to third-world countries with cover designs that mirrored their cigarette packages in colour and graphical elements.

I remember when there was a furor over Japan possibly deleting all reference to the "rape of Nanking" from history texts.

And now we have the Internet – the perfect petri dish for holocaust deniers, jihadists, nationalists, "supremacists", conspiracy theorists, and state-sponsored misinformation and social media attacks.

“World War III is a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation.” – Marshall McLuhan (1970)

[Alan Klein]

And a nice report on what the shift to renewables will mean for Germany. Maybe Trump should take a look?

Trump was elected for his promises to coal miners not promises to solar installers. Also, as I posted previously,  it's more productive and better economically to have less workers producing more energy like coal than more workers producing less energy like solar.

[Ray]

Ray, two questions:  1) do you believe the earth is getting warmer?  if so, 2a) what is responsible for this?  if not, 2b) what is causing the melting of the Arctic ice cap, breaking of Antarctic ice shelves, and melting away in Greenland?

Alan,
The first thing that anyone interested in climate matters should learn is that climate is always changing. In any year, decade, century, or any period of time you choose, the climate (which is an average of weather events), will always be different. It will either be warmer or cooler, wetter or drier, and so on. It is never static. That is something we know with certainty.

The following articles describes the pattern during the past 3,000 years. If we include the current warming phase, which is not a particularly significant warming but is probably of more benefit to mankind than a colder climate would be, there has been a consistent cycle of either cooling or warming every 500 years or so.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/d/summaries/dacpeurope.php

"They determined that over the past 3000 years there was "an alternation of three relatively cold periods with three relatively warm episodes." In order of their occurrence, these periods are described by Desprat et al. as the "first cold phase of the Subatlantic period (975-250 BC)," which was "followed by the Roman Warm Period (250 BC-450 AD)," which was followed by "a successive cold period (450-950 AD), the Dark Ages," which "was terminated by the onset of the Medieval Warm Period (950-1400 AD)," which was followed by "the Little Ice Age (1400-1850 AD), including the Maunder Minimum (at around 1700 AD)," which "was succeeded by the recent warming (1850 AD to the present)."

Another article which goes into more detail about past climate changes is below, but it's a long read.
https://stanford.edu/~moore/Boon_To_Man.html

And here's another article, followed by a relevant extract.
http://myweb.wwu.edu/dbunny/pdfs/CO2_past-climate-chg-lessons.pdf

"Proponents of CO2 as the cause of global warming have stated that never before in the Earth’s history has climate changed as rapidly as in the past century and that this proves that global warming is being caused by anthropogenic CO2.
Statements such as these are easily refutable by the geologic record. Figure 13 shows temperature changes recorded in the GISP2 ice core from the Greenland Ice Sheet. The global warming experienced during the past century pales into insignificance when compared to the magnitude of at least ten sudden, profound climate reversals over the past 15,000 years (Fig. 13). In addition, small temperature changes of up to a degree or so, similar to those observed in the 20th century record, occur persistently throughout the ancient climate record."

Now you ask what is causing the current warming phase. The issue is so complex that no scientist can be certain, but a number of causes have been identified, such as changes in solar activity, gradual changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun, and maybe cosmic rays which interact with the earth's magnetic field. I don't deny that man's activities in general will have some effect, but thinking we can change our climate by reducing the very tiny percentages of CO2 in our atmosphere seems bizarre.

Here's an article which explains the possible effects of cosmic rays on our climate.
http://www.viewzone.com/magnetic.weather.html

Are you still a 'natural climate change' denier, Alan? 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Trump was elected for his promises to coal miners not promises to solar installers.

He promised them something that will not happen. Strike 1.
He also made sure that programs to re-school them for other jobs get defunded. Strike 2.
Not investing in fast growing job potential is nothing to be proud of. Strike 3.

Also, as I posted previously,  it's more productive and better economically to have less workers producing more energy like coal than more workers producing less energy like solar.

You did post it before, so it can't be an April's fool joke. But I have to say that you have a warped sense of what Economy is supposed to be. What you are describing is efficiency (partly because the real cost of pollution in not priced in), not 'economy'.

Economy is all about people with spending power. More people with a good job makes better economic sense than fewer people with more money than they can spend.

Cheers,
Bart

[PeterAit]

Trump was elected for his promises to coal miners not promises to solar installers. Also, as I posted previously,  it's more productive and better economically to have less workers producing more energy like coal than more workers producing less energy like solar.

Trump promised more American jobs, so he wants to put all those solar installers out of work and hire relatively few coal miners? Duh. But then again, if we keep burning lots of coal, there will be plenty of work for people recovering and rebuilding after climate-change related weather disasters. Is this what Trumpy had in mind?

[Alan Klein]

Ray, I've been curious about the warming that has taken effect since the last major ice age around 12000 years ago. Then, ice and glaciers covered most of the US above the NYC latitude.  Living in Queens NYC for many years, I'm familiar with nearby kettle ponds and erratics (large stones) and other geologic remnants in nearby parks in Queens and Brooklyn.  These were created from the glaciers back then which also caused the Hudson River valley and the palisades on the west side of the Hudson River opposite Manhattan, The Bronx and Westchester.  In Upper NYS you have the Finger Lakes and of course the Great Lakes further north, also leftovers from the melting ice and glaciers.

My questions is, could the warming we see now be part of a trend left over from that last major ice age or rather a more recent  fluctuation like the ones you just described?  Or maybe a combination of longer and shorter periods of change?

[LesPalenik]

Now you ask what is causing the current warming phase. The issue is so complex that no scientist can be certain, but a number of causes have been identified, such as changes in solar activity, gradual changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun, and maybe cosmic rays which interact with the earth's magnetic field. I don't deny that man's activities in general will have some effect, but thinking we can change our climate by reducing the very tiny percentages of CO2 in our atmosphere seems bizarre.

Cow farts play a part in our planet’s climate growing hotter. Livestock is the largest source of methane gas emissions worldwide, contributing over 28 percent of total emissions. Methane gas, like all other greenhouse gases (which includes water vapor), acts like a blanket around our planet, trapping heat.

In recent years, several different solutions have been proposed. Scientists and experts have experimented with cows’ diets to see if that could help cut down on the amount of methane gas. For instance, Welsh scientists studied the effects of putting garlic into cows’ feed. According to BBC News, “Garlic directly attacks the organisms in the gut that produce methane.”  Some farms have even experimented with having their livestock live in a plastic bubble, which takes the expelled gas and converts it into electricity. "So far, results have been positive".

[Alan Klein]

Trump promised more American jobs, so he wants to put all those solar installers out of work and hire relatively few coal miners? Duh. But then again, if we keep burning lots of coal, there will be plenty of work for people recovering and rebuilding after climate-change related weather disasters. Is this what Trumpy had in mind?

You can't create any jobs if you don't get elected.  In any case, Presidents don't really create jobs.  They can create  a better economic climate where more jobs created by the private businesses.  Trump said he was going to do that by lowering personal and business taxes, reducing regulation and making trade fairer. 

I don't recall him saying he wants to fire solar installers.  However, if solar installers are getting their jobs from rebates, that's wasting money from an economic sense because rebate money could be used for producing something else that adds wealth to the country.  It's like paying an electrician an extra $20 an hour for the same work you could have gotten from him by just paying him a base rate.

[Alan Klein]

Cow farts play a part in our planet’s climate growing hotter. Livestock is the largest source of methane gas emissions worldwide, contributing over 28 percent of total emissions. Methane gas, like all other greenhouse gases (which includes water vapor), acts like a blanket around our planet, trapping heat.

In recent years, several different solutions have been proposed. Scientists and experts have experimented with cows’ diets to see if that could help cut down on the amount of methane gas. For instance, Welsh scientists studied the effects of putting garlic into cows’ feed. According to BBC News, “Garlic directly attacks the organisms in the gut that produce methane.”  Some farms have even experimented with having their livestock live in a plastic bubble, which takes the expelled gas and converts it into electricity. "So far, results have been positive".

We should put a carbon tax on steaks.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Are you still a 'natural climate change' denier, Alan? 

Ray, when you dig more deeply into the sources that you are fond of quoting and find out that they have direct links to organizations funded by the Koch brothers who are strongly against any scientific efforts to understand global warming, I might take your posts a little more seriously.  All I ever see are quotes from way outside the mainstream climatology community from you.  the only true statement I've seen from you is that global warming is complex.  Of this we are in agreement and nothing else.

[Peter McLennan]

We should put a carbon tax on steaks.

Total agreement.

[Alan Klein]

Ray, when you dig more deeply into the sources that you are fond of quoting and find out that they have direct links to organizations funded by the Koch brothers who are strongly against any scientific efforts to understand global warming, I might take your posts a little more seriously.  All I ever see are quotes from way outside the mainstream climatology community from you.  the only true statement I've seen from you is that global warming is complex.  Of this we are in agreement and nothing else.

There are people funding both sides of the argument.  The biggest in favor is probably the politically inspired government whose politicians for it have a huge interest in proving it exists because it coincides with their election campaigns.  Also researchers who get funding for their studies and new cars that funding pays for, clean energy producers, videographers and photographers who make nature programs, companies that sell carbon credits, etc. 

That's a big part of the problem.  There's too much money involved on both sides.  So who do you believe? 

[Alan Goldhammer]

That's a big part of the problem.  There's too much money involved on both sides.  So who do you believe?

Peer-reviewed science, that who I believe.

[Alan Klein]

Peer-reviewed science, that who I believe.

That's tainted as well.  Additionally, the believers are willing to sacrifice people on the altar of the 'science".  There's no concern of those who are hurt whether they lose jobs or lose the use of their property.  Why would deniers trust believers who call them Nazis, and worse?  You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. 

The problem is today we have divided ourselves up into non-compromising groups.  Not only with the climate but with everything.  There's no compromise any longer.  No one listens and tries to understand the other side.  We're up to page 11 and I doubt anyone changed their minds about anything. 

[Robert Roaldi]

Interesting podcast and (partial?) transcript about health effects of mountain top coal mining in the USA: researcher vs Big Coal.

I've been watching a BBC series on how the railroads changed and modernized Britain in the 19th century. There was a segment on coal mining, since it was integral to steam power and the first industrial railroads were put in place to move ore. The narration described some historical documents about how the coal industry at the time paid several doctors to declare how safe coal dust was; some even went so far as to say it was beneficial. (Sounds a little like the tobacco industry.) Meanwhile, of course, many of the great unwashed died. But hey, I guess that's the price you (or they, anyway) have to pay.

You would think (meaning, I would think) that if the people who believe there are no (or few) environmental hazards to be worried about, or at least that their effects are exaggerated, then they should welcome MORE research, rather than try to prevent it. If they truly believed in their convictions, shouldn't they jump at the chance to prove their case?

We went through all this with Galileo and the Catholic church a long time ago, didn't we?

[Robert Roaldi]

That's tainted as well.  Additionally, the believers are willing to sacrifice people on the altar of the 'science".  There's no concern of those who are hurt whether they lose jobs or lose the use of their property.  Why would deniers trust believers who call them Nazis, and worse?  You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. 

The problem is today we have divided ourselves up into non-compromising groups.  Not only with the climate but with everything.  There's no compromise any longer.  No one listens and tries to understand the other side.  We're up to page 11 and I doubt anyone changed their minds about anything.

It is a mistake to analyse or even describe scientific inquiry based on what the press reports about it. You have to go to the source. You'll find that it rarely coincides with what the popular media says about it. Your assertions about its conspiratorial nature are not sensible.

There are NOT 2 non-compromising groups. There are researchers trying to understand things, and there's everyone else who like to argue about things, based usually on emotions more than anything else. You assert that primary research is tainted. Based on what? To me, the notion that climate researchers are part of some kind of grand conspiracy just seems outlandish. For a short time, I was involved in academia (physics), and in my experience you can't get 3 scientists in a room together at the same time to agree on the colour of the wallpaper.

And while I'm on a soap box, I am getting pretty sick and tired of people complaining about the problems of climate models because they get some things wrong. As if, somehow, those models are not improving over time as more info is accumulated. Climate research did not stop in 1974, it is a work in progress. Dismissing climate science because of some old known problems with models of 20 years ago is like not buying a current Hyundai because the 1980s Pony were terrible cars.