Cheaper to Deal With It Now
Kerry’s Comments
- “There are countless economic analyses now that show it’s now cheaper to deal with the crisis of climate than it is to ignore it.”
- “We spent $265 billion 2 years ago on 3 storms, Irma, Harvey, and Maria. Maria destroyed Puerto Rico. Harvey dropped more water on Houston in five days than goes over Niagara Falls in a year. And Irma had the first recorded winds of 185 miles an hour for 24 sustained hours.”
- “All of them were exacerbated by the last four years. Now we have to try to make up for that. That is a hard pull but this president is capable of doing it.”
Straw Man Fallacies
Implied in Kerry’s straw man analysis is implicit belief that addressing “climate change” would have prevented Irma, Harvey, Maria, and the wildfires in California.
Where is the CO2 coming from?
CO2 Stats
- Please note that the US reduced its carbon footprint from 6.13 billion tons in 2007 to 5.28 billion tons in 2019.
- Meanwhile, China increased its footprint from 6.86 billion tons in 2019 to 10.17 billion tons in 2019.
- In the same timeframe, global output rose from 31.29 billion tons to 36.44 billion tons.
- In 2007, the US accounted for 19.6% of the total global carbon footprint.
- In 2019, the US accounted for only 14.5% of the total global footprint.
The above stats are from Our World CO2 Emissions.
The US could eliminate its entire carbon footprint tomorrow and it would not even matter (except of course, the entire global economy would crash).
How Much Money is Needed?
Kerry did not say how much money he needed, only that we have to make up for the last four years. Lovely.
The implied assumption is we will quickly stop hurricanes by throwing money at the problem.
We better hurry too, because we lost four years. What a hoot.
AOC’s Green New Deal Pricetag
Please recall AOC’s Green New Deal Pricetag of $51 to $93 Trillion vs. Cost of Doing Nothing
Climate Change Religion
Climate change is a religion. I doubt I can change any minds about what is happening,
But politicians don’t solve problems so it is unwise to have any faith in their proposed solutions. If there is a solution, the free market will find it.
If after reading this, you think the US can spend enough to stop hurricanes that have been happening for billions of years, you need to have your head examined.
What You Can Do
At the personal level, if you are still devoted to addressing climate change, I have some practical suggestions: Don’t fly; don’t drive; don’t have kids; Don’t eat and don’t breathe.
The latter is especially important. CO2 comes out with every breath. Having kids is the single worst thing you can do.
Are you still committed to the cause?
Reader Q&A
Where I Stand
Mish
Serious question – Does anyone know the “proper” average global temperature? I recall reading about Vikings farming Greenland around 1000 A.D. during a warming period…apparently without the benefit of fossil fuel CO2 production. Given how cold Greenland is today, we were obviously much warmer during that time than now. Was the rest of the world a climate hotbox crap hole?
What is John Kerry’s carbon footprint?
I saw a photo of 10 private jets lined up at an airport, apparently having carried Global Warming alarmist elites to the Davos World Economic Forum. This year apparently was a virtual forum, so the photo was, i suppose, from a previous year.
These people do not intend to deprive themselves of what they intend to deprive the rest of us of.
Oh. The Elio, gets 80 miles to the gallon. The gvmt doesn’t want you to get good mileage. But why ? Why why why! Why buy a car from Detroit & General Motors, when the device is on some tv mechanical auto shows I’ve seen and could be disbursed out to all. I personally was inside and sat in that car. Mind you, some people don’t want a small vehicle. But, it’s the attachment, for the gas tank, the gvmt won’t let you add. Hung up in court. Why, sign the dang paper like you show us on tv, signing all those documents and let’s get on with our lives. .
The government refuses to let us have a high gas mileage car that’s over 30 ish miles to the gallon. There is a company named Elio, that is in Louisiana, with a car already to go, with purchasers ready to buy, that even has pre- paid $100 or $1000k to put their name on the list as it rolls out of production to own. It’s being hung up, buy a helmet law. Well, I think that’s an excuse. Most states have authorized the helmet law, but 2 or 3 states have not. New York,? been some many years waiting to buy it, @ a cost, brand new $6800. But, I’m sure, it has gone up. It’s been 5/6 yrs since I was introduced go this car, on a show. If the government would allow the part, which have been made to add to your car, truck, semi, boat, & needs to go on planes, we could drasticaly reduce the Co2. Tired of airlines dumping fuel over your house? I agree. Their setting up a tax. Why wait to 2035-2050, when we can start now. The people that are in the gas business, well, you then they trying to moniuver their stocks and life to the electric grid ,so they can keep their billions? Yup, by the time regular people hear about those stocks, they bln people will have already bought the stocks up. They tax us, take our money, & invest our money 💰 without us getting any stocks to show for it, in the electric car business. Who wants to go to Detroit? Buried in 6 feet of snow! General motors changed their stance. The Elio is ready, with buyers. This Biden Signing the Paris climate is signing to the choir, & some of the people are not a choir! We could do this change over very quickly, & the $ could help the economy, put in a bullet train, or trains & fix our bridges, pay back debt faster from COV 19, & help education. Countless ideas. Why, do they always want to go to the gas tax? Hurting poor people again, when, so many people have 1 foot out the door, & all the homelessness. Unbelievable! Pinnockeoes! I’m tired of the lies! Biden is protecting his politicians that fund his crap, the huge investors, that, he rubs elbows with from the past and now. He doesn’t want to upset them, but, would rather upset 99 % of the continent of the USA. This could be a world pac. A device that adds to all cars, bus, trains, & planes, world wide to have a high mileage gas mileage vehicle, not buy, any new fleets, for his cronies, in the electric car business, when it’s not necessary. Get electrocuted, no thanks, been there done that! Biden is just hurrying us in dept again like 2008. Once all are shots are given out, & the stimulus has stopped, they will go after our savings and start draining it again. I should be president. I’m just a stupid person, that the gvmt, wants you to believe. To hell with that. I’m going to sing like a canary. I don’t want my retirement years living in debt or barely existing. No thank you.
Just to be clear, the Elio has only three wheels for a reason. That makes it a motorcycle rather than a car. As such, they can eliminate a lot of safety gear, like air bags, but it also means that the driver has to wear a helmet. If they want to get away from the helmet, they can build it with four wheels, but then they have to meet all the auto safety requirements.
[CO2 Stats
Please note that the US reduced its carbon footprint from 6.13 billion tons in 2007 to 5.28 billion tons in 2019.
Meanwhile, China increased its footprint from 6.86 billion tons in 2019 to 10.17 billion tons in 2019.
In the same timeframe, global output rose from 31.29 billion tons to 36.44 billion tons.
In 2007, the US accounted for 19.6% of the total global carbon footprint.
In 2019, the US accounted for only 14.5% of the total global footprint.]
We should reach zero first before everyone else.
[How Much Money is Needed?
Kerry did not say how much money he needed, only that we have to make up for the last four years. Lovely.
The implied assumption is we will quickly stop hurricanes by throwing money at the problem.
We better hurry too, because we lost four years. What a hoot.]
The cost of the damge to our climate is way worse than the cost of correction to clean energy.
[Climate Change Religion
Climate change is a religion. I doubt I can change any minds about what is happening,
But politicians don’t solve problems so it is unwise to have any faith in their proposed solutions. If there is a solution, the free market will find it.
If after reading this, you think the US can spend enough to stop hurricanes that have been happening for billions of years, you need to have your head examined.]
CO2 is the culprit in our warming earth. CO2 explains the past, present and future of our climate. Quitting co2 shuts down the thermostat of warming the earth. The warming earth melts ice, giving us sea level rise along with other symptoms. Things get worse with time as long as we pollute with co2.
[At the personal level, if you are still devoted to addressing climate change, I have some practical suggestions: Don’t fly; don’t drive; don’t have kids; Don’t eat and don’t breathe.
The latter is especially important. CO2 comes out with every breath. Having kids is the single worst thing you can do.]
This comment does not take into account the natural carbon cycle. Cars can be electric, this works very well. Heating homes can be heated with heat pumps. Electric flying is in its infancy, yet comercial flying has already started on short trips. Battery electric flying is way cheaper than running on fossil fuels. This weekend I will be driving 185 miles in my electric car to see my family for the week. A charging port is set up so that I can charge off my family’s house. One step at a time and I can get off of fossil fuels.
Mish,
What will be the impact on my electric bill? I am thinking about buying lithium batteries before the price hikes begin…
Arggh I posted a comment with some text only and it’s showing up with links to the middle of the presentations. I don’t know how to fix, sorry.
Regenerative Agriculture and Global Warming
Since a lot of people are interested in this topic I thought I should post some links that show how to stop global warming while sequestering the excess CO2 in the air. The first link below is to one of Gabe Browns talks, he is a speaker at many soil health conferences. He has developed the/a regenerative approach to farming his 5000 acres in Bismark North Dakota. He uses no fertilizer, pesticides or fungicides and gets above average yields.
The second video is by Dr. David C Johnson of the New Mexico State University. He presents the scientific basis for much of what Gabe Brown has done.
This is a real solution to global warming that would increase from income, increase crop yields and provide much more nutritional food. However, as it would eliminate the chemical fertilizer and pesticide agro-industrial complex, don’t expect it to happen any time soon.
Gabe Brown: Keys To Building a Healthy Soil
Static Pile Fungal Compost Presentation
Maybe you could look into this Mish and do a post on it. Would eliminate the need for Kerry to spend all those billions!
I have to disagree with you on this one Mish. There is no doubt that average temperatures throughout the world are on an upward trajectory. Polar ice is melting and Antarctica glaciers are spawning sizable icebergs. All this has dire implications for rising sea levels, storm intensities and disruption of world agriculture. Doing nothing will only exacerbate and accelerate the problem. Spending money responsibly can be somewhat of a stimulus to the US economy although I do have misgivings about the government spending any of our tax dollars. Burying our heads in the sand and hoping things don’t get worse is not a solution. As the old saying going – every little helps. It is not as though we have a Plan(et) B.
Government spending to solve this is exactly the wrong answer. Government is an incredibly poor method of allocating resources, as that process is invariably controlled by contributions and political factors. Instead, the answer is clear: tax what you wan less of. Put a tax on things that emit CO2, and then let the market sort out the best alternatives. Rather than taking government money and giving it to the people with the best lobbyists, the government can simply change tax policy.
Government taxation may also prove to be part of the solution. I see a carbon tax some time in our future but not before we get out of our covid exaggerated slowdown.
Maybe get better at putting out fires if’n one things CO2 is the problem. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps/MOD14A1_M_FIRE
Mish,
Free market solves a whole lot of problems but not common meadow problems. The atmosphere is a common meadow. If only one could give chop the atmosphere into pieces, starting 100 pieces per human, then the free market would do the rest.
It really is a shame that the subject of anthropogenic influence on global climate is just a political football. Way too many people tend to process ‘new’ information by determining how it aligns with their preexisting viewpoint and then praise or condemn/ignore said information accordingly.
Here’s an open question – when was the last time you came across an article or data set that caused you to thoughtfully adjust your personal viewpoint on the subject of human-related climate change and what was the subject matter?
The point being that this (and other) currents are players in the climate system that have precipitated significant climate change in the recent past, without the anthropogenic forcings observed in the past 2 centuries. The focus of present-day conversation largely being on [CO2] as the root cause of change wrongly oversimplifies things. (This was meaningful to me as a person with a background in atmospheric chemistry and helped broaden my perspective)
There is a problem. I can’t parse out how much climate variation is anthropogenic in cause, just that 0%
There is NO doubt that humans are contributing to global warming. The science is 100% experimentally proven.
This was never a controversial fact until it became clear that the amount of CO2 being released was enough to heat the earth sufficiently to cause problems. It has been known for over a century.
Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) was a Swedish scientist that was the first to claim in 1896 that fossil fuel combustion may eventually result in enhanced global warming. Since he was Swedish he thought it might be a good thing. Google the title below to get a PDF of his paper published in 1896.
Arrhenius, Svante (1896). “On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground” (PDF). The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science. 41 (251): 237–276.
No, it hasn’t been “known” for over a century. Nothing on this planet exists in a vacuum, nor is CO2 concentration the sole or primary driver of global temperature change. Oversimplification of a complex issue may be appealing to the lowest common denominator, but it sure won’t foster greater understanding of the issue. The ACS isn’t an authority on cloud microphysics and the authors may be ignorant of the differences in radiative properties of warm clouds vs. glaciated ones, but that’s okay because climate science and the anthropogenic factor are complicated subjects-
The climate is always changing my friend, always has and always will. it has nothing to do with anything we do as humans. The planet is infinitely capable of absorbing massive infusions of pollutants such as when a volcano erupts. I suggest you find a different hobby, or perhaps take a time-out to learn how real science works.
Another well thought out and researched perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g4NbhgpgRU
Q is a PsyOp, just saying there seems to be more to weather and climate than the consensus is factoring in.
Great piece Mish! The heretics are called “deniers” and the UN Climate Czars are the high priests of this new religion, promoted to enrich the global elite at the cost of enslaving and impoverishing the masses.
The emphasis on CO2 levels is a result of certain interests trying to monetize this aspect of the environmental movement. Cap-and-trade and other proposals are first about extracting $ from a new source. The planetary climate is a complex system of complex systems so it’s foolish to think that one variable is the key to all this.
The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is important, the increased load of aerosols (black, gray, brown, etc) is important, land use change is important (and underappreciated), and so are many more things that are known and unknown to us at this time.
If Kerry cared about the issue, he’d walk the walk and not just talk the talk as this generation’s Gore. He’s just another politician spokesman.
Correct. A “scientific” mindset is humble and honest when facing the complexity of the world, and the fact that our understanding is only scratching the surface of things.
Just one example: No man can really cannot comprehend just how large the oceans are … the numbers are so large that you can’t compare it to anything you can experience perceptually … but we think we can measure the mean temperature of all that water with any kind of accuracy? Ridiculous!
I have one word for you:
sverdrup
Spot on! And then there’s the electromagnetic element in weather which is not in the discussion. It’s huge! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g4NbhgpgRU
Great. Lets get the big wind turbines installed tip-to-tip just off the coasts around the whole county, including Martha’s Vineyard, The Hamptons, Puget Sound, etc. We already have them in Lafayette Indiana.
Wait, hold up, Mish, do you now actually believe human-caused climate change is real? I saved this quote of yours..
>> “There is no “proof” of man-made global warming. There is data to support a THEORY, much of it fake, but some of it not. The time-frame analysis is clearly insufficient and there are thousands of factors. It is likely, we do not yet know the biggest cause of what’s happening. Moreover, as LaCalle pointed out, the free market will take care of this problem anyway, assuming there is a problem”
– Mish
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Robert Frost
We can kill global warming by switching to hydrogen power for everything. Electric batteries isn’t the answer. Hydrogen is.
Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get
Robert Heinlein
if the earth really is getting warmer then doesn’t that mean alot more land in northern latitudes gets more viable for farming? Like Canadian tundra and a large swath of northern Russia?
While more land may be snow/ice free it wouldn’t necessarily support intensive agriculture for an extended period (nutrient availability/depletion).
Also, there is still a lot of cold out there-
well, there was supposed to be a link to an article discussing the extreme cold that has gripped parts of Russia. Not sure why that would get dropped, so here is a snip:
“The temperature in portions of the Yakutia region of eastern Russia, where Yakutsk is located, dropped below 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (40 degrees below zero Celsius) during the middle of December and hasn’t climbed above that level since — making this one of the longest stretches of subzero cold in at least 14 years, according to The Associated Press. “
The flip side to that is that currently usable land will likely turn into something much more arid.
Hyperbole? It’s not about stopping hurricanes which only black sharpies can do but reducing the frequency.
If after reading this, you think the US can spend enough to stop hurricanes that have been happening for billions of years, you need to have your head examined.
What You Can Do
Or we can design vehicles that consume less fuel or use renewables which also benefits airline costs. Same for trains and automobiles More strawman and hyperbole or rant
At the personal level, if you are still devoted to addressing climate change, I have some practical suggestions: Don’t fly; don’t drive; don’t have kids; Don’t eat and don’t breathe.
Top 5 richest people:
-Elon Musk
-Jeff Bezos
-Bill Gates
-Bernard Arnault
-Retard6969
Hilarious!
It’s the new ranking just in.
I’m guessing that last one is code for Zuckerberg?
No, GameStop day trader.
Thanks for the laugh!
About that zero emissions math?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/27/bright-green-impossibilities/
About that zero emission math?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/27/bright-green-impossibilities/
A great portion of the world population lives in poverty or is hungry. These people don’t give a rip about climate change. They and their leaders want what you and I have, food, shelter, clean water, heat, opportunity. They will use fossil fuels to get there without reservation, just like we and our forefathers did to get us here. Perhaps the best thing we can do is raise as many people out of poverty, hunger and thirst to increase the numbers that care bout the issue.
Malthus predicted that if you raised everyone out of poverty, the population would increase until you had poverty again. That’s why economics is known as the dismal science.
While He was possibly right, I tend to avoid references from 17th/18th century economists, philosophers or critics of Democracy.
Ricardo, Bastiat, Tocqueville, they were brilliant in their time, but how could any of them know so much about a topic that was virtually nonexistent in their time?
As far as global population is concerned, we’re nearing unsustainability anyway, I don’t see a pleasant solution unless we collaborate globally, and those prospects are dim. for now.
Do you know what happened to the Amazon during the Ice Age? It collapsed down to a few refuges but expanded back when conditions got warmer. That what climate does. It is never static.
I’ll believe it when I see it. Talk is cheap and that is all we have had from China.
I like to read qualified critics…of “accepted” broad scientific consensus opinions.
I didn’t say deniers…..I didn’t say skeptics….but anytime widely held beliefs are strong enough to actually influence science to the point of silencing legitimate voices….and I do that is true in climate science these days…I like to look for reasonable voices of dissent.
When it comes to climate, I think there is one who stands out….and who is really a good scientist…..and that one is Judith Curry. When I was studying climate change, I read her blog all the time. Here lately I haven’t been…..looks like she has a lot to say about COVID too.
Whatever she says, her conclusions are always driven by data….and she is very capable of critiquing the design of research studies. She is retired now, and posts a lot of things on her blog by people who are critical of mainstream climate science…with her notes and critiques…I have found her well worth reading.
sometimes a skeptic and denier are a difference without a distinction.
Climate skeptic? Climate denier? Sounds the same to me
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
She is a reasonable critic of what I would call “the herd mentality” that I think is a real thing in climate science.
She is a climatologist…former dept. chairman at Georgia Institute of Technology….and in this day and time of pseudoscience and corporate shills….she is that rare bird…..a contrarian with no real axe to grind.
She often gets called a denier…..but quite frankly, anybody who isn’t extremely militantly oriented toward the groupthink in this field…is going to be called that. I would not call Judtth Curry any kind of denier.
I’m capable of reading papers and drawing my own conclusions….and although I’m not a scientist….I was once trained for the work….so my bullshit detector is better than most.
“Climate Denier’ (or for that matter any use of the formula “ denier”) is meant as nothing more than to evoke an equivalent emotional reaction to that of “holocaust denier” – in other words it’s purpose is to crush any kind of dissenting view with prejudice by implying it is similar to genocide. It is intended not just to shut down conversation but to demonize anyone who dares to question the status quo.
So you equate holocaust deniers and climate skeptics. That’s an interesting comparison. Si you question whether or not the holocaust occurred and believe this is open to debate?
I think you misread his post; he said the exact opposite. He said that a “holocaust denier” is such a clearly wrong position, that to label someone a “climate denier” is intended to evoke a similar emotion, that the position is clearly wrong. He disagrees, and is saying that the two positions are not in any way equal.
Following up on an earlier exchange…..
Mish how about posting the per capita/country CO₂ emissions just to be fair.
Asia is 56% of the total.
That is an argument for having fewer kids.
Instead they want to have everything the US has.
“Asia is 56% of the total. And China wants to be more like the US: More cars, more consumers, more meat, more houses, more electricity, more stuff!”
China had a 1 child policy. What needs to happen is for Chine NOT to be like Americans or set a very aggressive shift into non CO2 producing economy that they are willing to copy and us to share…
I am with Mish on this one. Third world countries will continue to use oil and coal a while longer so CO2 will go up no matter what we do. Nevertheless we should limit our CO2 as a matter of course. The rub is that it would price our products above those of countries who do not limit themselves so a rather sever monitoring of imports from them has to be put in place.
I do not adhere to the apocalypse scenarios one often sees. We could put everyone on Earth in an area the size of Texas and each having a yard and a house so pure space is not a problem when you think about it. Population growth rates are falling just about everywhere. Same thing for food. There are start-ups in the US and elsewhere producing indoor fruit and vegetables giving a yield 18 times that of regular farming without using pesticides and 90% less water so I don’t think food will be a problem. If the seas rise then we move back as humanity has always done. Temperatures will rise somewhat but people seem to like hot places like Phoenix or Florida because they like the weather. There will just be more places like that. Energy is everywhere in different forms. It’s just a matter of price and that itself is a matter of technology. We can adapt and will do it if we have some leaders that are competent. Kerry unfortunately isn’t one of them but I think he is there to just do a song and dance to keep the reporters happy while the real work gets done out of sight.
Texas has 268597 sq miles. 664 acres to a mile gives 178,348,408 million acres. At 7 billion people or so, that’s 40 people per acre. Not sure we’d all have room for a backyard, more like we’d all have to live in apartment buildings.
I should have put more info in. Assume a family of four per dwelling and you get a dense suburban environment as you see in Western Europe for example. It’s just an exercise to show that 7 billion people do not take up all that much land. Supporting them does however but as I pointed out it takes less and less space to suport them but it also tzkes more and more energy.
…..in the meantime, The Amazon(the real one) and other pristine woods are being wiped out at a vertiginous pace…..Yet everything s gonna be fine one day, some pundits phatom ….Personally I am not that optimistic, the mess we caused is irreversible by now, mankind will simply get what it deserves….
The whole world in Texas, on UBI of course….and then a ‘nice’ pandemic…all problems solved…ALL of them ! Not such a bad idea when one comes to think of it …
“I am with Mish on this one. Third world countries will continue to use oil and coal a while longer so CO2 will go up no matter what we do.”
Not if we incentivize them, or even offer subsidies to convert.
This is why Paris is so important, together, the world’s governments can modify tariff’s, or even offer interest free loans to 3rd world countries.
We could even benefit by offering to contract our own services to them and add small short term tariff’s to repay…..things to this effect.
China and India have an “out” since in the agreement they are considered to be “developing countries” and are therefore excluded from reaching targets.
“China and India have an “out” since in the agreement they are considered to be “developing countries” and are therefore excluded from reaching targets.”
If the OECD nations offer incentives, trust me, they’re in.
Let’s say Biden offers to reverse Trump’s tariff’s under the condition they meet criteria, perhaps we even offer incentives if they beat said criteria…I bet China sees the light.
Renewable energy is ridiculously cheaper long term, it’s the startup cost that hurts, let’s get China to put up solar panels and wind turbines, instead of building ghost towns to create jobs.
I will believe it when I see it.
Yes. if everyone in the world lived in Texas, it would be an even worse hell-hole to live in.
Not enough water, not enough crop-land, and an even greater concentration of a-holes.
Yes but on the bright side everyone would be Texan!
U.S. continued to make progress despite Trump rom 2016-2020. States still made efforts and corporation did as well because of shareholder activim. Beore 2016 we were still coming out of a financial crisis. I’m not sure what you think your data proves. Trump actually tried to sue GM for trying to reduce emissions. It was absurd.
Looking at Mish’s graph, the US and Europe tracked about evenly the last four years.
There’s plenty of low hanging fruit such as ending flaring , embracing co-gen and tri-gen etc. Cogen and Trigen can actually save huge amounts of money in the right circumstances.
I guess you either believe the data or you don’t in terms of global warming. You don’t.
As far as China’s concerned. They need to do more as well. I don’t buy the argument that the U.S. shouldn’t act responsibly because China isn’t. That’s like saying you want to jump off the roo because your friend is. Kerry has it right, set the right example and engage China. I think China does want to do more. China and the U.S. can certainly compartmentalize our discussions and being military adverarsaries doesn’t mean we can’t cooperate on the environment.
I’m going to correct my post. u.s. is reponsible for 15% of carbon emissions while China 30%. We both can do better. Really stink that thi site still won’t permit edits. Its like we’re in the stone age
You don’t need to correct anything… The US is the worst when you do it by per-capita. The problem is clear. The more affluent the population gets the more CO2 per capita they produce. The race is to create technologies that can be cost effective so that as China and India become more affluent they don’t follow the path of the US.
my link shows per capita. Saudi Arabia is top. How much of that is flaring , and an industry that supports the u.s.
“I’m going to correct my post. u.s. is reponsible for 15% of carbon emissions while China 30%”
Actually, the U.S. accounts for 1/4 China’s population, you were right, proportionally.
Also, maybe it’s the source, but I was under the impression the U.S. accounts for 25% of global CO, but I’ll take you at your word…I’m too damned lazy for googling and aggregating sources right now.
Hey, when you buy something from China, Saudi Arabia, anywhere, you are causing the CO2 emission by your purchase.
Complaining about any other country generally means you should look at the nature of your purchases.
Bacteria love to eat methane so they take it up and spit out CO2 fairly quickly.
What do you suggest?
Bacterial balloons?
You don’t know about microbiology. As soon as it reaches the air the methane is attacked by certain bacteria as a food source. These bacteria are everywhere because methane escape as well as methane production has been going on since the beginning of life and methane is a high-energy food source. Methane is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas so the little buggers eat the methane and give out CO2 as a waste product. Since methane is loved by these bacteria as a food source it is removed from the atmosphere much quicker than CO2 so next time you see a methanotroph bacteria kiss it because they are doing great work.
“Bacteria love to eat methane so they take it up and spit out CO2 fairly quickly.”
Not much that’ll do for atmospheric methane contributing to the greenhouse effect.
Methane is 84 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2 so stop farting if you want to save the planet.
I know that there are bacteria that eat methane–in soil.
The question is about methane in the atmosphere, away from the bacteria.
…Methane is the main component of natural gas. Methane enters the atmosphere and eventually combines with oxygen (oxidizes) to form more CO2. Methane converts to CO2 by this simple chemical reaction….
Methane-eating bacteria permeate the atmosphere even up to near space and are thought to be the main converters of methane into CO2 because they rely on enzymes to drive the process which is much more rapid and efficient than that of only basic chemical reactions.
You seem knowledgeable, however, would you mind posting a link to the info on aerial bacteria?
Atmospheric methane eventually oxidizes, yes, but I’m skeptical of aerial bacteria, or at least a quantity of said bacteria that’s enough to make an impact….just give us a link.
For the sake of it, I googled “Methanotrophs” & “methanophiles”
It appears I’m correct, these bacterium are soil bound, any presence in air is incidentally minimal to non-existent, but still open to any info you can link us Doug.
Another facet that would indicate Doug’s angle isn’t valid is that enzyme-driven processes tend to need particular environmental conditions in order to proceed optimally, one of them being temperature. I don’t see how ambient temperatures up there would be conducive for such a method to be the dominant mechanism for CH4 breakdown/removal.
Also, the density of gases decreases with altitude, so even in a methane-rich atmosphere “meals” would be relatively few and far between. If a link is provided I would check it out, but on first consideration there is a lot that doesn’t make sense.
Hey folks if you want to know if Climate Change is real just ask your fellow citizens who live in Alaska. The so-called ‘permafrost’ i.e. the frozen ground that hasn’t melted in about 100,000 years is now melting and wreaking havoc with real people and the environment. Not too mention releasing lots of methane which is actually worse than CO2.
If you think all climate scientists are politically motivated you are living in the same kind of bubble as the QANON folks.
The other largely undiscussed MAJOR co2 and methane sources that are controlled in the US are unconventional oil gas and oil production practices (fracking).
Billions of cubic feet of natural gas are flared off from operating drill sites. Much more leaks out at abandoned drill sites. Now this is not only polluting and increasing the carbon load in the atmosphere, it is economically wasteful.
That’s energy and chemical resources that are being allowed to dissipate into the atmosphere or burned off.
Capturing and eliminating that waste of resources is where resources should be placed, and yes, money is required to do so.
….In 2018, the oil and gas industry operating in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale burned off record amounts of natural gas, largely obtained via hydraulic fracturing (fracking). This process, known as flaring, costs the industry money — it literally burns one of the products being pumped out of the ground — but more importantly, the resulting release of globe-warming emissions of carbon dioxide and methane spells disaster for the climate.
And a new analysis of satellite evidence indicates the industry is likely underreporting how much gas it is actually flaring in the Permian Shale, with implications for other oil fields.
According to the Bismarck Tribune, the amount of gas flared in North Dakota in October was enough to heat 4.25 million homes in America. And while the fracking industry in North Dakota is flaring the most gas in the nation, it’s not the only place this is a growing issue. Flaring reportedly also doubled in 2018 in the booming Permian Shale in Texas and New Mexico, with an estimated $1 million a day of gas burned off.
In addition, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) recently analyzed satellite data and concluded that the industry is likely underreporting the actual volumes of gas flared in the Permian. EDF says that the real numbers are closer to double what the industry reports……
“According to the Bismarck Tribune, the amount of gas flared in North Dakota in October was enough to heat 4.25 million homes in America. “
In light of the probable argument on cost of logistics, delivery/infrastructure, I don’t understand why those flares aren’t just used for local electricity generation at least.
Getting a suitable power station built take a long time, and resource extraction firms tend to be single-minded about getting something out of the ground and to market. The gas was not what they wanted and not something they could get to market, so ‘flame on’!!! Out there the towers really lit up the night sky during the peak of the boom.
“Getting a suitable power station built take a long time”
When I say “local” I’m being literal, a home backup gas generator for power outages take days to install.
I can’t see why a fracking co can’t at least gain some level of return on the methane they’re flaring, even if to charge EV’s for local transport or power their equipment, maybe even returning some to the local power grid for credit.
Homeowners do it all the time, why can’t they?
Because they operate a business that has negative ROI, so you’ll have a hard time convincing those in the boardroom to do it. Any amount used at the camp would be dwarfed by the remaining volume flared anyway and then there is the expense of maintaining the new equipment for charging EVs or whatever else is installed.
I think a forward-thinking plan would have been to set up a mini company town complete with heating for buildings and water (micro housing for the workers, since that was always an issue too), then throw a little piping to connect it to other well sites as old ones play out.
Instead, what isn’t sold is thermally treated and then ‘dumped’ into the open public landfill known as the atmosphere.
So you’re saying we should encourage greater use of Natural gas, and use it in lieu of other energy sources, and then increase the rate of capturing it? I would agree that flaring it is an incredible waste.
You do realize the US has outsourced it’s CO2 production to places like China?
Things you buy from China have a carbon footprint that does trace back to the US.
Excellent point lets put tariffs on items from China….Wait a minute…lol
Tariffs not needed.
Just stop buying uneccesary crap from China, or from anywhere.
“Just stop buying uneccesary crap from China, or from anywhere.”
I usually 100% agree with your posts, but this is over simplistic.
If anything, we should help China, and everyone, with the switch away from fossil fuel.
I hate to say it, but nukes may be the fastest bridge, Fukushima was a lesson, they didn’t have proper back up cooling pumps.
There’s also solar/wind, China has vast open land, while alts/renewables may not completely displace oil demand, it would be a huge dent, same with the U.S.
Another possibility, but I think far less effective, nat gas replacement of RBOB, attempt to capture the shallow methane already leaking.
Oil drillers just burn the excess stuff like it’s trash to convert it to CO without at least attempting to capture the energy in the process.
My point was to stop buying uneccesary crap. Do you really need a new phone every year? Do you need to buy a truck-load of presents for people who you struggle to think what they would want to get for Christmas? Do you need to buy a new yard decoration for every possible holiday?
A lot of people are bored and boring. Shopping keeps them occupied with simple thoughts.
So much of advertising is concentrated on getting people to buy more and I don’t see that stopping.
Woman are especially suckers for shopping. Remember the “fashionista” ads where woman are so proud of the simple bargains they found? Must be their hormones.
I was about to agree with your point, but this –
“Woman are especially suckers for shopping. Remember the “fashionista” ads where woman are so proud of the simple bargains they found? Must be their hormones.”
Didn’t I see you in the home depot, wearing the stained “wife beater” while looking at cordless weed whackers?
re: ” Do you really need a new phone every year?”
People really do that? My current phone is 3.5 years old now, and I consider it new, and have no plans to replace it for at least 3-4 more years. I have never kept a phone for less than 4 years, and some I have kept much longer. I had my Hitachi P300 for ten years, from 2003 until 2013.
“Do you really need a new phone every year?”
Wrong topic for me, I’m extremely active, my business requires me to be reachable all times.
As a result, my cell’s take a beating, I buy cheaper phones as frequently as twice a year, once the screen’s so cracked I can’t read it, I replace it
That said, you have a valid point, but unless you can see a way to have government enforce controlled consumption in a democratic / capitalist society, I see no solution aside what I presented – to encourage or incentivize switching from fossil fuels.
Seems you’re very hard on your phones…
In any case, the moves being made by some of the designers/manufacturers to try to make the phones out of entirely reusable/recyclable parts would be something to be interested in.
In fact, the world has outsourced it’s CO2 production to maker-countries like China.
California went further and exported its remaining carbon footprint to the rest of the USA.
I’d like to be wrong here, but this bears mention.
We cannot get existing atmospheric carbon out, global warming isn’t going to slow enough to stop a chain reaction currently in place.
There’s a layer of C12 in the Earth from the Permian-Triassic extinction, C12 can only come from methane.
The trigger for the Permian-Triassic event was a super-volcano, this then heated the planet enough to melt global Methane-Hydrate deposits, this accounts for that layer of C!2.
Channel surfing a year ago, I bumped into the Science Channel’s “What on Earth”, a show that uses satellite footage of strange anomalies.
This episode featured a strange, recent effect in Siberia, lakes “boiling”.
They had researchers visit one, turns out the boiling effect is methane seeping up from melted deposits.
Methane is conservatively estimated as 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2, there are literally gigatons of it frozen in oceans and permafrost layers globally.
My point, yes it’s a great idea to reduce emissions, but more so we need to start prepping for a global temperature increase specifically for agriculture.
South America is already experiencing mass droughts, this is a large factor in the “caravans” of immigrants from Guatemala & Honduras.
.We need to start looking at farming alternatives for climates they are about to dramatically change, rain patterns, temperature increases will all change agriculture.
We need scientists in D.C., not oil lobbyists.
Scientists say they have found evidence that frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean have started to be released over a large area of the continental slope off the East Siberian coast, the Guardian can reveal.
High levels of the potent greenhouse gas have been detected down to a depth of 350 metres in the Laptev Sea near Russia, prompting concern among researchers that the discovery could have “serious climate consequences”.
The slope sediments in the Arctic contain a huge quantity of frozen methane and other gases – known as hydrates. Methane has a warming effect 80 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years. The United States Geological Survey has previously listed Arctic hydrate destabilisation as one of four most serious scenarios for abrupt climate change.
The international team onboard the Russian research ship R/V Akademik Keldysh said most of the bubbles were currently dissolving in the water but methane levels at the surface were four to eight times what would normally be expected and this was venting into the atmosphere.
“At this moment, there is unlikely to be any major impact on global warming, but the point is that this process has now been triggered. This East Siberian slope methane hydrate system has been perturbed and the process will be ongoing,” said the Swedish scientist Örjan Gustafsson, of Stockholm University, in a satellite call from the vessel.
The so-called “methane gun” effect is not as clearly observable as a contributing to climate change….as CO2…it is reasonable to worry about it…it might be the huge problem some people think it is…..but as of so far…it hasn’t been as bad as expected. That’s the real facts unless something very new has come out. I will try to find some decent links…I’m at work. I’ve read a lot about methane. I like to argue with my Extinction Rebellion friends.
Methane is complicated. The effect of methane being released from permafrost is real, but it isn’t showing up in terms of effect as much as some people have expected….at least so far.
Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. and it is contributory (about 10% of emissions at present) but it only persists in the atmosphere for 10 years….but it then breaks down to C02.
“…..but as of so far…it hasn’t been as bad as expected. ”
As I recall, it’ll require a global temp increase of 2 degrees for a serious release.
My mention of Siberian lakes “boiling” is what scares me, the 2 degree estimate is just that, an estimate, we’re already seeing shallow methane hydrate melt in lakes and permafrost, which could trigger a domino effect.
I honestly think it’s too late, we need to focus on agriculture, like vertical farming, salt water desalination & irrigation for the Midwest …etc.
I agree with all your conclusions today.
Indoor growing is the future for food in many places. Look at what the Netherlands is doing. They are way ahead of everyone on that tech.
I am very interested in growing food. I come from a long line of subsistence farmers.
You mention Holland….they’ ve even protected themselves against rising sea levels….Amazingly efficient people, the Dutch, they should ve colonized the whole world, starting with Flanders, they did , but we chucked them out in 1830….Pity!
I’m a real fan of the Dutch. Some of the best things about the US came down to us through the Dutch, who owned New York back when it was known for good oysters in the bay…….which has been quite a while……but they left their mark.
If the 2deg that you quoted is anything close to a real trip point, we are already too late to prevent the consequences of that happening. Sure, we could point to a scenario in which the world gets its act together and reverses emissions enough to put the brakes on the changes happening now, but I don’t hold much hope in this outcome.
The more likely outcome is some benefits in some areas from a warmer climate or growing season and some negatives in other areas from weather and sea level rise events. The only thing I think I can do is make choices that support the changes I want to see and plan for the changes that are likely to come.
“If the 2deg that you quoted is anything close to a real trip point, we are already too late to prevent the consequences of that happening…”
This is my belief, while it’s important to reverse CO output, we should be planning, at least on paper.
“The more likely outcome is some benefits in some areas from a warmer climate or growing season and some negatives in other areas”
It’s not that simple, primarily for agriculture, imagine America’s bread basket becoming the Sahara, non-stop tornado’s, or constant rain.
Small temperature changes have dramatic outcomes on weather, agriculture is very sensitive.
“We cannot get existing atmospheric carbon out, global warming isn’t going to slow enough to stop a chain reaction currently in place.”
CO2 is consumed by plants. CO2 levels are lower in summer than in winter because during summer, the plants absorb much of the CO2.
“The trigger for the Permian-Triassic event was a super-volcano, this then heated the planet enough to melt global Methane-Hydrate deposits, this accounts for that layer of C!2.”
The volcano was the size of the US and erupted for a million years. The biggest volcano ever. It’s basically what made Siberia. Current human activity is not releasing greenhouse gasses at any level close to that.
Methane has been bubbling up from permafrost and ocean floors for all of recorded history. It probably is being enhanced by higher CO2 levels, but it’s mere existence is nothing to be alarmed about.
The earth is gradually warming and greenhouse gasses are likely contributing to it, but if you understood the science better, you would not be alarmed about it.
“CO2 is consumed by plants”
It’s a given that this is known, we’ve released hundreds of millions of years of sequestered CO, the rate of plant CO consumption would be the same inversely.
“The volcano was the size of the US and erupted for a million years. “
Some estimate 2 million years.
The volcano heated the Earth enough to melt methane hydrate, that’s now happening again, Siberian lakes are boiling with methane, permafrost is releasing it, estimates are a 2 degree increase is enough to release all of it, total methane hydrate at the Ocean’s floor is in the gigatons, estimated at between 250 to 700 trillion cubic feet.
And yes, small amounts do regularly release (some Bermuda Triangle mysteries may attributed to that), just not all of it at once.
I’ll just copy/paste my modified response to you –
“The earth is gradually warming and greenhouse gasses are likely contributing to it, but if you understood the science better, you would be alarmed about it.”
I’m alarmed, ironically I’ll probably be gone before the worst of it, I’m still alarmed.
Excellent article Mish. It seems some people don’t get the tongue in cheek 4 point comments at the end in the manner in which you intended.
A lot of that carbon increase since 1950 mirrors world population increase (2 billion – 7.8) with a lot of the rest being China/India industrializing (joining the modern world to live the American lifestyle). If forecasts are right and population is going to 9+ billion by 2100 imagine how much higher carbon is going even if we don’t increase by anything (and Africa is definitely going to increase a lot in coming decades).
The biggest problem is there is zero plan. I know a bunch of people will say there is a plan but all I read right now are plans to tax (or credits) with the idea that the tax will go to climate change. I want to see an actual plan (just as my boss would want to see a plan if I said I wanted to spend 100K on something I said was amiss) that says we are going to do X and it will reduce by Y.
Also note that renewables (wind/solar) are really just replaceables because they have to be replaced in 10-20 years. That means endless mining of materials which uses lots of fossil fuels. The carbon costs on these are just hidden instead of coming directly out of your tailpipe.
Ultimately the problem will solve itself if left alone. We’ll overpopulate until disease/war/famine wipe out billions or fossil fuels will deplete. Either one will reduce carbon emissions.
I meant to mention that I really like Mallen Baker on climate change. I’ve never heard him say anything that I strongly disagreed with on this subject.
He says there are sides. There are no sides. His disputing the idea of peer reviewed research is a red flag. BS.
Oh, Land, Lance…do you not think I’ve read RealClimate? I like RealClimate, but they (a) call lots of people deniers who don’t deserve it….and (b) are totally slaves to the groupthink that pervades that particular area of science.
So….I’m not sure you know this….but peer review has been somewhat degraded….by the way the university system rewards the rock star Nobel winners in our system…
The deal is that the peer review system CAN (not saying it always does)…..but it can act as a filter that pushes good work to the back of the line…or right off the page.
I haven’t listened to that particular video….but I have never heard Mallen deny real science at all. He is neither a science denier nor a climate change denier..But he is a great bullshit denier.
And he is right about there being sides….just like on this forum today. Deniers, true believers, and a few critical thinkers. I consider myself among the latter.
I understand the peer review process. I took honors in chemistry at university and spent a year doing my own experiments. I’m not an uneducated man.
I strongly suggest you give a listen to Eric Weinstein, who understands the current problems with peer review……and has some very interesting point to make about how our flagship universities have changed over the last generation.
Here you go http://www.realclimate.org/
The climate change argument can be broken down into two basic camps.
Camp 1 argues that the planet is for those who are alive today, and it’s okay to leave a wrecked planet behind and live it up today because we won’t survive to see the worst.
Camp 2 argues that we have an obligation to preserve a livrable planet for future generations, and should do more to improve our prospects by making modest investments to shift to a zero-carbon world.
I’m in camp 2.
Camp 3 are those who have looked at geological history and realized that the Holocene Climactic Optimum has several thousand years ago, and was warmer than today. The previous interglacial, either the Sangamon or the Eemian, depending on where you live, was warmer than the Holocene, and that the Pliocene Climactic Optimum was even warmer than that.
The down side was that the previous interglacial had sea levels 6 meters higher than now, and the Pliocene had sea levels 25 meters higher than now. So a rational person under 50 will buy a house away from a coastline.
I believe banks now offer mortgages with amortization periods extending until the next interglacial, backed by Fannie Mae of course.
“Camp 3” is a subset of Camp 1, who use pseudoscience to argue that the actual scientific consensus on the issue is wrong and can be ignored.
Such thinking was also used to deny the coronavirus pandemic, and we see where that led in a mere year’s time; climate change takes longer to manifest and has a gradual buildup, but also results in a much longer catastrophe period.
There is no scientific consensus about ‘the planet is doomed’, of course if you read some actual scientific papers and not MSM bs (most journos know about climate next to nothing). The only real consensus we have is that Earth is getting warmer, and the warming most likely has anthropogenic causes. Alarmist forecasts have never been ‘consensus’. And yes, holocene optimum has better climate conditions overall, at least Sahara was green back then.
…Holocene Climactic Optimum…
And how was the weather then? Were there more hurricanes, floods, fires?
Were there days when it was too hot for going outside so everyone stayed inside with the AC on full blast?
Did it really hurt the crop yields of industrial-scale farming? Did animals and humans die from heat exhasution?
Oh wait, you can’t answer that, can you?
It’s a very different world now than it was then.
Well, gosh, I’m surely with you and not with the straw man.
I’m in camp 3. I live off grid with solar and wind power and 145 acres of co2 absorbing forest. Anyone living in the city doesn’t give a shit about the planet.
“Don’t fly; don’t drive; don’t have kids; Don’t eat and don’t breathe.”
Mish,
I like what you said about markets better than the hyperbole above. But will the market find a solution without changing the incentives not to subsidize companies that add to the problem? What about nuclear?
I spent months last year figuring out what is real and what isn’t with regards to climate change. There are almost no analysts who get it right. Everybody is partisan, on one side or the other….with a few notable exceptions.
I read the summaries of ALL the IPCC reports..back to the beginning, and looked at all the scenarios, and then looked at the 30 years of data that have come out since the beginning.
MY take….climate change is real and ongoing…..although the worst case models are not playing out….but it’s bad enough.
My best takeaway…..it’s the tipping points that matter. At some point climate change that leads to human extinction becomes literally baked into the cake. And even though we know a lot….nobody in climate science…nobody at all in fact….knows exactly where the tipping points are that lead to irreversible warming.
The fear being sold…..that famines are imminent due to climate change…..that sea level rise is going to destroy all the coastal cities……blah, blah….it’s all rubbish. All the really bad things won’t happen for some time….but if we don’t do something…and something meaningful…..such a time will come. A few hundred years is not that long a time…..
With that said, it seems to make sense to reduce carbon emissions insomuch as it’s possible without crashing civilization.
How we do it? Therein lies the rub. The Green New Deal is pork. Whatever we do is likely to include a lot of pork…..because it’s really pork that drives the political class.
“Don’t fly”
There do seem to be ways to reduce carbon emission for air travel that will make a difference.
“Don’t drive.”
This is the single worst one….and really the easiiet to change, when it comes down to it…..but it won’t happen on our watch, unless we live to great old age. Humans are addicted to the convenience of cars. EV’s are not a complete solution, but they do help.
“Don’t have kids.”
Too late. I had lots of kids. I wanted for there to be some people in the next generation like us….meaning intelligent and thoughtful and capable of making a difference. The stupid people reproduce like rabbits……it’s the only thing they’re good at….sorry if this sounds elitist…..but it is absolutely true…..and that’s what survival of the fittest means, actually…..the lines survive that reproduce.
So to me it’s quite ironic that people choose to not have children….and feel good about saving the planet. It begs the question of….who exactly are they saving it for?..
“Don’t eat”
You can make that argument for being vegan. It makes some sense from a climate change perspective., other than that our bodies never evolved for that, and it does create certain health problems.
Me? I live for prime rib. Every Friday night…..it’s one of my most important rituals. Talk about religion. Once again, if you have to give up everything that makes life sweet, what’s the point?
“Don’t breathe.”
I think we can discount that one as a primary driver of climate change….so breathe deep. Breathing is underrated……air is the best drug there is….and almost nobody realizes it…..it’s like the joke about the two fish…
The problem I have with all those reports and predictions for scenario A/B/C is that they are all based on proxy data. Proxy data is not real data and has inherent errors and biases.
The defence of this is that they then point to study X/Y/Z and say they all back each other up and make the studies more reliable.
This is not how error analysis and data reliability works. Errors are always additive, and sometimes even multiplicative. So if three reports have an (already questionable) error of 5%; summing all the reports together gives you +/- 15% error in your prediction.
What is needed is real data. And to make a prediction of 100 years in the future you need a minimum 200 years of data to make the most basic and uncertain predictions. As we have only 100 years of real data, we are only half way to any real clue of what will happen in 2100.
until then, everyone is just fooling themselves with guesses. And there are no amounts of ice core samples, rock analysis, or tree ring studies that will change that.
Enjoy spending trillions on throwing darts.
Sorry Sy…..there is enough data to begin understand the problem. For a lot of reasons we could talk about, the best place to measure actual warming is Mauna Loa…….and they’ve been measuring it for 60 years.
The data….real data….looks like this right here.
No proxy data there, my friend.
The very best real data observations……lead to a fairly reasonable conclusion….that every time CO2 doubles, the global temp rises 3 degrees C.
Now some people these days argue it might be more like 4 or even 5 degrees. But ALL the observed data so far….does support 3 degrees. No bullshit, No joke.
Should have said Mauna Loa is the best place to measure CO2…but the relationship between rising CO2 and rising global temp is accepted as fact by everyone with a brain…….it’s just debatable exactly how much…..and CO2 is very clearly rising and has been documented since I was 3 years old.
I personally have looked at the temperature data too….and 3 degrees is pretty damn close, if you look at the data for the last 30 years.
“…and they’ve been measuring it for 60 years”
Yup, understood. That gives them a reasonable guess at 2050. No more.
Well, Sy….I think you can at least see that the trend….is not our friend. I draw trend lines all the time……economics, COVID, the USD, gold…… you name it….I’ve never seen a more obvious trend in my life.
“That gives them a reasonable guess at 2050. No more.”
So we should just wait for that year and see what happens? Sheer stupidity. It’s quite easy to discern the trend and, as noted by Eddie_T above, the basic relationship between temperature and CO2 is known. You can wait for all the better data you want – I’m going to avail myself of the technologies and advances available today and in the future. And I hope there are many like me that will drive those advances through economic demand.
Just to be clear, I’m not moving to the wilderness or giving up my current ICE powered vehicle. But when the choices appear in the future to replace that vehicle, I’ll be making them using the backdrop of the current accepted data. Which, BTW, is not all that hard to interpret.
Indeed it is proxy data: you’re using CO2 as a proxy for warming. That’s something that works in a lab but in the complex and chaotic earth system with its multitude of variables it remains an unconfirmed conclusion.
Yesterday, where I live, the temperature varied 20 degrees. Over the year it varies 80 degrees or so. But 2-5 degrees is supposed to kill us all? Get a life.
And by the way, one thing geologists learn to do is look long term. I can tell you with certainty it has been warmer in the past, including while humans were present, and life on earth has thrived.
This is for Dave the petroleum geologist and Felix.
Here is the relationship between CO2 concentration and global temperature for the last oh….800, 000 years.
Pretty GOOD fucking correlation boys. There is a reason to think rising CO2 is not a good thing.
Felix, the reason they measure C02 at Mona Loa is because it’s rather remote from industrial areas that might screw up the data. The temperature AT Mona Loa over the short term means bupkas.
That’s from NOAA, btw.
“Yesterday, where I live, the temperature varied 20 degrees. Over the year it varies 80 degrees or so. But 2-5 degrees is supposed to kill us all? Get a life.”
Talking about the weather is not particularly informative in a long term climate conversation. It is rather stupid, but you knew that already…
It took some doing to find, but:
is at:
Of note: The pressure graph has the opposite trend line as the temperature graph. There goes the theory that Mauna Loa is sinking in to the ocean. 🙂
BTW, the CO2 graph has of one of the simplest, lie-with-graphs mistakes available: Pin the start to the bottom. Pin the end to the top. Or flip that, if you want to see a big downward slope.
This is not a mistake anyone who works with graphs makes unintentionally.
Are you daft? That graph is, quite simply, just observed and recorded CO2 levels at the best place on earth to measure CO2….since 1958.
Lie? WTF are you even talking about?
Our eyes see the graph’s line. They don’t see labels. In 10,000 words, that graph showed the following information to our eyes: “CO2 levels at Mauna Loa have gone up by some amount greater than zero.”
The graph would look exactly the same if the numbers had gone from 234630124 to 234630200.
If this sort of thing came from a journalist in the media, ho hum. Par for the course. But from numerate professionals generating the data? Nope. At best, sloppy.
That’s what I’m talking about. I love graphs. So, I launch when I see crap from sources who should know better. Sorry. Wasn’t fussing at you. I missed it, myself, until my mind wandered while looking at the temperature graph.
While true that the graph from 234620124 to 234630200 could be presented to “look” the same, my eyes looked at the chart, and then at the numbers on the Y axis, and I thought “oh, they went up by 1/3. That’s a very substantial change.” I didn’t think the presentation misled me in any way.
Our impression of commenters here are probably often off base, but that you picked up on the 1/3rd is not a surprise.
Yeah, Mauna Loa (remote, etc) is a great resource. Pretty hard to beat without satellites. Others have noted how ML data seems to measure world economic well-being at fine time periods.
800,000 year graph: Correlation/causality. You know the drill. But, to be fair, where there’s smoke, there is fire.
Last I checked (some years ago), on a 800,000 year scale CO2 follows temperature by some hundreds of years. Scientific discussion around this sounds to this outsider like how Keynesians sounded discussing stagflation in 1979. “Hey. We need a new epicycle, stat!” 🙂 Or academic Marxists discussing the Soviet Union, post 1990! … OK. Cheap shot.
Won’t bore anyone with the long story, but if you ever want to burn a couple days of your life, look in to the data behind that 800,000 year graph. Remember, this data cost millions $ and guides trillions $.
“Don’t fly; don’t drive; don’t have kids; Don’t eat and don’t breathe.”
Maybe I’m mistaken but I thought some Co2 was good? They’re not trying to eradicate it completely.
Yes, the plants love it, the CO2 and the warmer climate.
The earth is greener now than at any time they’ve been able to observe from satellites.
“The earth is greener now than at any time they’ve been able to observe from satellites.”
Regardless of where you stand on the ‘keen, green’ movement; this has to be one of the dumber arguments ever made.
Great numbers Mish excellent work.
While we were not in the Paris Climate Accord our numbers seem to have stabilized if not even dropped a bit. Do we have any dollars it is costing us to be part of this accord? What is everyone else contributing. Note we are below Europe! Hopefully contributions are based on the carbon footprints of the participants the bigger the foot print the bigger the contribution!
The are setting up for a TAX that will be with us well beyond anything that can be attributed to climate change.