Save the world, install an LPG tank.

[joe90]

29 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

All part of the narrative that co2 is a nasty poison instead of a raw material for life.

 

I never thought of it that way!, but too much of anything is dangerous I suppose.

[epsilonGreedy]

18 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

"Smart" meters aren't being introduced to reduce CO₂, anyway, the reason for rolling them out is everything to do with grid peak demand management.  The idea is that once there are enough of them installed, then variable rate tariffs can be rolled out, to increase and decrease the price on the fly.

 

 

Exactly what I was thinking, a smart app will ping and advise consumers that in two days time when a winter high settles on the North Sea the pending load of washing will cost twice as much.

[Jeremy Harris]

19 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

Exactly what I was thinking, a smart app will ping and advise consumers that in two days time when a winter high settles on the North Sea the pending load of washing will cost twice as much.

 

 

Probably not forecast based, though, I think.  The present system involves selling wholesale energy on a 30 minute spot market, with widely varying prices from one 30 minute slot to another.  The suppliers can't control this, as they just have to pay whatever the spot price is at that moment.  As a consequence, suppliers are exposed to a fair bit of risk, as they have to set their tariff rates without knowing what they'll end up paying for wholesale energy.

 

"Smart" meters reduce that risk, as they will allow suppliers to vary the retail price in line with the variations in the wholesale price, so they switch from being fixed price retailers to being cost-plus retailers, with little or no business risk.

[jack]

33 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Eventually normality will resume, quiet sensible science will continue and climatic models will improve. When the marginal effect of man made co2 is quantified properly free of political agenda, people will relax.

 

But if it's all so unpredictable and impossible to model, what's the basis for your confidence that nearly every climate scientist has it wrong? To me, the possibility that they're all acting in concert to milk the climate change gravy train just beggars belief.

 

Note: I don't doubt that there's an entire class of people who make money out of climate change who would otherwise be unemployable, but as I said above, the scientists for the most part don't fall into this group.

[epsilonGreedy]

20 hours ago, JSHarris said:

Probably not forecast based, though, I think.  The present system involves selling wholesale energy on a 30 minute spot market, with widely varying prices from one 30 minute slot to another.

 

 

I was thinking ahead to a time when the combined effect of co2 hostile policy and the aging of our nuclear capacity will lead to winter generation capacity gaps that can only be managed by aggressive dynamic pricing. 

Edited April 30, 2019 by epsilonGreedy

[epsilonGreedy]

42 minutes ago, jack said:

But if it's all so unpredictable and impossible to model, what's the basis for your confidence that nearly every climate scientist has it wrong?

 

 

I do not think it is impossible to model or unpredictable, I just think the models are immature and do not provide a basis for throwing a spanner in the works of the global economy.

 

42 minutes ago, jack said:

your confidence that nearly every climate scientist has it wrong?

 

 

That in itself is another example of scientific fraud which permeates thermogeddonist culture.

 

The origin of that claim was a single Aus research team which speed read 11,000 scientific papers by trying to determine a stance on climate change from just the abstracts. In 2/3 of cases no such leaning could be inferred. So an alternative conclusion was that 2/3 of scientists were keeping an open mind. The same team also refused to make their raw data public. 

 

Furthermore I believe in man-made climate change, I just think it is minor compared to long term historic natural climate change. Most scientists would say "ofcourse man made co2 is real and nudging the climate but how serious it is or how should we respond is another issue".

Edited April 29, 2019 by epsilonGreedy

[jack]

2 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

I do not think it is impossible to model or unpredictable, I just think the models are immature and do not provide a basis for throwing a spanner in the works of the global economy.

 

That in itself is another example of scientific fraud which permeates thermogeddonist culture.

 

The origin of that claim was a single Aus research team which speed read 11,000 scientific papers by trying to determine a stance on climate change from just the abstracts. In 2/3 of cases no such leaning could be inferred. So an alternative conclusion was that 2/3 of scientists were keeping an open mind. The same team also refused to make their raw data public. 

 

Furthermore I believe in man-made climate change, I just think it is minor compared to long term historic natural climate change. Most scientists would say "ofcourse man made co2 is eal and nudging the climate but how serious it is or how should we respond is another issue".

 

I'd put is slightly differently and say that if people had listened and acted 20 years ago when the concerns started being raised, we'd all be completely used to it now and the impact on the world economy would have been absorbed and dealt with.

 

But now, the amount that needs to be done is much greater. With the world economy already in a parlous state (despite record share indices and employment rates), doing what actually needs to be done risks shocking us into another great depression. If that's what you're saying, then I have some sympathy. But I also think the world economy is headed for the toilet at some point in the next 1-10 years anyway, and if this isn't the trigger, something else will be.

 

I also don't share your pessimism about the models. You also seem to believe that the concept of consensus among scientists rests on a single study (I assume Cook et al.), but that was only one study from 2013. The claim for consensus is at least a decade older than that and is based on many more studies of varying types. 

 

I don't generally rely on Wikipedia for anything other than factual information, but these pages:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveys_of_scientists'_views_on_climate_change

 

seem to list loads of studies, all of which show at least some degree of scientific consensus.

 

Where the real questions lie is in what impact AGW will have in the coming decades. Even though there's consensus that AGW is real and some sort of threat, there's a range of estimates about how that threat will manifest itself.

 

And of course, we could have some sort of mega-eruption that releases huge amounts of CO₂ that swamps anything we've done. We could also have some sort of asteroid strike or eruption that releases tons of particles into the air, causing global cooling. But neither of these possibilities is predictable or can even be assumed will happen in the coming decades or even centuries.

[Jeremy Harris]

25 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

I do not think it is impossible to model or unpredictable, I just think the models are immature and do not provide a basis for throwing a spanner in the works of the global economy.

 

 

That in itself is another example of scientific fraud which permeates thermogeddonist culture.

 

The origin of that claim was a single Aus research team which speed read 11,000 scientific papers by trying to determine a stance on climate change from just the abstracts. In 2/3 of cases no such leaning could be inferred. So an alternative conclusion was that 2/3 of scientists were keeping an open mind. The same team also refused to make their raw data public. 

 

Furthermore I believe in man-made climate change, I just think it is minor compared to long term historic natural climate change. Most scientists would say "ofcourse man made co2 is eal and nudging the climate but how serious it is or how should we respond is another issue".

 

Having shared an office with a climate scientist, who had no axe to grind at all ^[1], I'd say that there seems to be an overwhelming body of evidence to show that anthropogenic climate change is both real, and is having a very rapid effect (in climate terms).  The evidence, from multiple sources, of a rapid increase in global temperature, the very tight correlation between that and atmospheric CO₂ concentration and the tight correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentration and the activities of man, is very hard to ignore.  The large scale removal of terrestrial CO₂ sinks and the large quantity of CO₂ released from burning fossil fuel (that had locked up that CO₂ for millions of years) over the past couple of centuries, matches the increase in atmospheric CO₂. 

 

Although I'd be the first to say that predictive climate modelling isn't that accurate, the one thing that all the various climate models show is that the CO₂ concentration and mean temperature will continue to increase; what's uncertain is the rate of change of that increase.  The lowest rate of change looks pretty dire, and the highest rate of change prediction looks close to catastrophic.  The rate of change may well be more significant than the actual values, as nature takes time to evolve and adapt, and it seems we are forcing change at a rate, even at the lowest estimates, that may be too fast for natural evolution to deal with.

 

 

^[1] No axe to grind in the sense that his work, and that of his colleagues, was intended to inform government decision making, so there was no bias one way or the other from those paying his salary, and a strong pressure to produce advice that was as accurate as possible.

[epsilonGreedy]

16 hours ago, JSHarris said:

Having shared an office with a climate scientist, who had no axe to grind at all ^[1], I'd say that there seems to be an overwhelming body of evidence to show that anthropogenic climate change is both real, and is having a very rapid effect (in climate terms).  The evidence, from multiple sources, of a rapid increase in global temperature, the very tight correlation between that and atmospheric CO₂ concentration and the tight correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentration and the activities of man, is very hard to ignore.  The large scale removal of terrestrial CO₂ sinks and the large quantity of CO₂ released from burning fossil fuel (that had locked up that CO₂ for millions of years) over the past couple of centuries, matches the increase in atmospheric CO₂. 

 

 

I can agree with that but think the cause and effect only applies when natural climate change is slight which applies now as post glaciation rates of change are coasting to a halt.

 

16 hours ago, JSHarris said:

... the one thing that all the various climate models show is that the CO₂ concentration and mean temperature will continue to increase; what's uncertain is the rate of change of that increase.  The lowest rate of change looks pretty dire, and the highest rate of change prediction looks close to catastrophic.  The rate of change may well be more significant than the actual values, as nature takes time to evolve and adapt, and it seems we are forcing change at a rate, even at the lowest estimates, that may be too fast for natural evolution to deal with.

 

 

Earth's biosphere has coped with higher temperatures in the past and has indeed thrived during a period of much higher co2 so the fiery demise of life on earth due to man made global warming, as promoted by the media, feels like propaganda promoted due to an agenda. Skeptics mention that climate change science has consistently failed to account for the most powerful variable in the atmosphere namely water vapour.

 

Climate Skeptics now refer to the "evident greening of the world" which is a natural consequence of higher co2 levels. It is so evident to them they do not bother to substantiate that claim which leaves me confused but they are correct in saying plants have a growth spurt with higher atmospheric co2 which is one example of the biosphere applying a climate change brake.

 

Twelve years ago the alarmists were predicting a collapse of the polar bear population once loss of summer sea ice reduced to current levels. The opposite happened because their food source (seals) benefited from the arctic warming. This is another example of nature surprising us with its resilience.

Edited April 30, 2019 by epsilonGreedy

[epsilonGreedy]

7 hours ago, jack said:

I'd put is slightly differently and say that if people had listened and acted 20 years ago when the concerns started being raised, we'd all be completely used to it now and the impact on the world economy would have been absorbed and dealt with.

 

 

I am not so sure the technology was sitting on the touchline waiting to be called into play. Could the automotive world have delivered 60 mpg in ordinary cars with the technology available 20 years ago?

 

7 hours ago, jack said:

But now, the amount that needs to be done is much greater. With the world economy already in a parlous state (despite record share indices and employment rates), doing what actually needs to be done risks shocking us into another great depression. If that's what you're saying, then I have some sympathy. But I also think the world economy is headed for the toilet at some point in the next 1-10 years anyway, and if this isn't the trigger, something else will be.

 

 

A ticking financial time bomb is sitting out there for sure. I think the danger is fragmentation of nation state authority when the central banks run dry. Since WWII the West has become reliant on the expanding nanny state rushing in to solve all problems. The right to the pursuit of happiness as envisioned by the US founding fathers 260 years ago has become the right to state funded happiness.

 

7 hours ago, jack said:

And of course, we could have some sort of mega-eruption that releases huge amounts of CO₂ that swamps anything we've done.

 

 

The mega eruption that bothers me is the hot air arising from the collapse of social cohesion and shared values that bound countries together for centuries. The level of tribal polarization in the USA is deeply worrying, it is a slow motion coup. I don't know if the Internet is the pathogen, transmission mechanism or cure, this thread suggests it is the pathogen.

[jack]

24 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

I am not so sure the technology was sitting on the touchline waiting to be called into play. Could the automotive world have delivered 60 mpg in ordinary cars with the technology available 20 years ago?

 

Of course it could have. In the automotive would, smaller, less powerful cars would have helped, but there were easy wins across all industries and scenarios that just weren't taken up.

[dpmiller]

Certainly with diesels,  the sweet-spot of efficiency vs emissions was reached about fifteen years ago. Since then, each added emissions tier has required inefficiency, followed by *more* added tech to scrub it back clean again. Only the latest stuff with Ad-Blue hits that spot again IMHO.

There's a fine balance in combustion-  the most efficient combustion creates the least CO2 and particulate per mile and the best mpg, but at the expense of NOx emissions

NOx emissions were historically controlled by making the combustion cooler and dirtier.

[SteamyTea]

Having been away for a while, it is interesting to see that this topic is still discussed.

What does intrigue me is that some people think that shifting from fossil fuels to renewables can only harm the economy.  What is this based on?  "The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones."

@epsilonGreedy Do you know why CO₂, or any other molecule, can trap heat?  I suspect you don't.

As for cars, back in 1996, I had a company Citroen that easily did 60 MPG, it was an AX 1.4 Diesel.  Was dreadful.  My own car was a 1991 Peugeot 309 Turbo Diesel that consistently did 50 MPG, and in those days it only had two speeds, zero and maximum.

Edited April 30, 2019 by SteamyTea

[epsilonGreedy]

16 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

 

@epsilonGreedy Do you know why CO₂, or any other molecule, can trap heat?  I suspect you don't.

 

 

A telling remark that illustrates the authoritarian tendencies of many on the vociferous wing of climate change. Underpinning that remark is a presumption of intellectual superiority.

[epsilonGreedy]

26 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

As for cars, back in 1996, I had a company Citroen that easily did 60 MPG, it was an AX 1.4 Diesel.  Was dreadful.  My own car was a 1991 Peugeot 309 Turbo Diesel that consistently did 50 MPG, and in those days it only had two speeds, zero and maximum.

 

 

Which sounds like a confession that 20 years ago the technology could not produce a mainstream 60 mpg car for all. Perhaps engineers did not have super computers that could model combustion chamber flow in fine detail or engine micro chips sensing and tweaking fuel injection every millisecond. 

[SteamyTea]

12 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

A telling remark that illustrates the authoritarian tendencies of many on the vociferous wing of climate change

Or just an old university lecturer trying hard to educate 

[epsilonGreedy]

31 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Having been away for a while, it is interesting to see that this topic is still discussed.

What does intrigue me is that some people think that shifting from fossil fuels to renewables can only harm the economy.  What is this based on?  "The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones."

 

 

Fledgling parliamentary democracy in Russia did not end in 1917 because they ran out of votes, it ended because a group of political thinkers persuaded the people they had a better idea called communism.

 

The stone aged faded away over centuries as people incrementally discovered a better technology through proven trial and error. The rush towards the creed of climate change feels far more like a politically driven social convulsion than global human progress. 

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

Fledgling parliamentary democracy in Russia did not end in 1917 because they ran out of votes, it ended because a group of political thinkers persuaded the people they had a better idea called communism.

 

The stone aged faded away over centuries as people incrementally discovered a better technology through proven trial and error. The rush towards the creed of climate change feels far more like a politically driven social convulsion than global human progress. 

That is because we have a vast knowledge base now, along with better communication.

I do struggle to understand where you are going with all this.  Did the scientists that created your PC (or Mac, or whatever) have an agenda to corrupt information, or the scientists that developed air travel to its current level want to kill people with a software problem? 

[epsilonGreedy]

5 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Did the scientists that created your PC (or Mac, or whatever) have an agenda to corrupt information, or the scientists that developed air travel to its current level want to kill people with a software problem?

 

 

This is an excellent point for comparison.

 

The personal computer was based on scientific innovation, followed by product development and then free market adoption. There was no need for PC usage feed in tariffs, penalty taxes on pen & paper or formation of the United Nations Congress on Bio Cerebral Overload.

[SteamyTea]

6 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

There was no need for PC usage feed in tariffs

So all the computing power in public education, national health, local government etc was paid directly by the user.

Is it that you perceive a high personal cost to mitigating climate change, rather than anything that the scientist come up with. You use that data just to further your argument that it will cost you personally.  This phenomena has been studied.

There is no need to answer that last bit as I am off out to enjoy the unseasonally low temperatures I have down my neck of the woods.

[jamiehamy]

I see out Great Leader of Scotland has declared a 'climate emergency'. Given the very specific meaning of Emergency, I've still not seen any action from then in this. I'm sure we'll have it by the end of the week....... ? And will likely include limits of flights a person can take per year, banning of extraction of North Sea oil and gas for use as fuel, banning all new ICE cars sales with immediate effect, commissioning of new nuclear power stations and banning of gas heating within 5 years. 

 

I don't buy into this climate emergency clap trap, and in not doing so it makes you realise the vaccuousness of the whole thing. People who claim to be concerned for the environment are not prepared to make any real sacrifice to combat it. Plastic bags... Pah. I've done plenty beach cleans and plastic bags were no where to be seen. Everything that was in them was. 

 

I would say in not believing the media hype, it doesn't mean I don't think as humans we are exceptionally wasteful, absolutely polluting, our world but I'm rather cynical that many people truly care and prepared to put their money where their mouths are. 

[Jeremy Harris]

4 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

A telling remark that illustrates the authoritarian tendencies of many on the vociferous wing of climate change. Underpinning that remark is a presumption of intellectual superiority.

 

Equally vociferous are the AGW climate change deniers, though.  I have spent an hour or two looking through the background of some of the groups that claim to be independent reviewers of evidence, and who claim that the evidence from mainstream climate research does not support the conclusion that the activities of man are having a significant impact on climate change.

 

For supposedly "open" organisations, it is surprisingly hard to gain access to verifiable data, or even the credentials of their key members.  That latter point, alone, rings an alarm, as few credible and well-qualified people in the field of climate science choose to be coy about their qualifications, publications and experience.  Some groups are also coy about where they get their funding from, or what has motivated them to re-examine evidence that has already been reviewed many times.  Dig down, and it becomes apparent that often the key members contributing and funding these groups are connected with the energy industry in some way. 

 

Digging into the background and funding like this reminds me very much of the efforts that the US motor industry went to in order to try and discredit Toyota, back in 2007.  CNW published a supposedly scientific paper that concluded that the Hummer H3 had a lower life cycle energy cost than a Toyota Prius.  CNW were extremely effective in promulgating their "Dust to Dust" report, and it was widely accepted as being credible, perhaps in part because a lot of Americans wanted to believe that a Hummer was an "eco vehicle".  It took some time to uncover what was going on, but apart from the really poor science underpinning the conclusions in the report (such as assuming a Hummer H3 had a life of 35 years/397,000 miles, whereas a Prius had a life of less than 12 years/109,000 miles), it turned out that it had been funded by US automotive companies, albeit indirectly, via marketing payments made to CNW (who are an automotive marketing company working almost exclusively for US motor manufacturers).

 

The major groups that claim that AGW is false show much the same trend.  For example, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), founded by Nigel Lawson, focusses on politics, rather than science.  GWPF adopts the same selective reporting tactic that CNW did in it's infamous Dust to Dust report, by studiously ignoring any data that doesn't fit the preconceptions of its founders, and focussing on misrepresenting any data that they feel supports their view.  It's no great surprise that these groups that are intent on denying the clear evidence of mainstream climate science reinforce their own views by only encouraging presentations from those in other similar political or industrial lobby groups.  They even get away with openly lying on mainstream media, with statements like "conventional energy is reliable and cheaper" (it isn't cheaper, even ignoring any subsidies), or "according to the official [IPCC] figures, during this past 10 years, if anything, mean global temperature, average world temperature, has slightly declined" (it hasn't, according to the IPCC data).  Taking a look at funding reveals that there are dozens of inter-connected policy influencing bodies that all use the same address, and all of whom seem to be inextricably linked with UK business interests, many of whom would suffer if further legislation reducing emissions etc was introduced.

 

What seems clear is that most of the mainstream climate science is being conducted by people with no axe to grind, whereas many of the groups denying that AGW is real are associated with business or political lobby groups that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

 

[gravelld]

4 hours ago, jamiehamy said:

I would say in not believing the media hype, it doesn't mean I don't think as humans we are exceptionally wasteful, absolutely polluting, our world but I'm rather cynical that many people truly care and prepared to put their money where their mouths are. 

 

In the late 1930s, the Government did not say "Ok everyone, Germany are getting a bit fighty so we're going to need everyone to buy some guns, tanks and planes". The effort was centrally managed. If this is to be fixed, individuals will not have to face personal financial investment decisions.

 

(One of) the key differences  to 1939 is that the threat of invasion is far more apparent, immediate and obviously existential. Climate change is none of these things. It will be a slow decline, those with more power will be less affected and we may find ways to balance the effects which become ingrained into our daily lives so we don't even notice them. They cause economic loss because they are non-constructive, but we don't notice them. There will always be people rich enough to insulate themselves (literally) from the effects.

 

Somehow we're going to have to shift our mindset to the long term, something the Anglo-West is particularly poor at. We're going to have to tackle this in a more centralised route, through taxation, through regulation, through incentives and more.

 

What's curious is the way the media select the mouthpieces for either side of the debate. They seem to select the craziest voices from both sides; the fingers-in-your-ears types like Nigel Lawson (who was last correct about something sometime in the mid 70s) and the de-growthers who provide such an easy target for the sceptics to point at and say "look, he's trying to stop you eating steak!". Oh, for the days of late 90's centralism.

[epsilonGreedy]

17 minutes ago, gravelld said:

We're going to have to tackle this in a more centralised route, through taxation, through regulation, through incentives and more.

 

 

This is what the ideological confrontation distills down to at the end of the day once the science and data is striped away.

 

As Andrew Marr opens a TV episode in The History of Modern Britain he is standing outside the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. He states that 4000 civil servants in that building once ran the British Empire covering 1/4 of the world, yet today a minor government agency would employ as many. He goes on to explain that the WWII experience of a collective centralize managed economy gave a generation of ideologues a taste for fixing problems though a highly centralized state apparatus.

 

The desire lives on today 75 years later in a much larger public sector and climate change is an excuse to expand the State and its power.

 

There is a divide of opinion here that can be associated with those who were employed by the State or not. Under pinning this is a belief that the people need to be saved from their own stupidity and we the noble chosen ones of the public sector will save them.

[epsilonGreedy]

1 hour ago, JSHarris said:

What seems clear is that most of the mainstream climate science is being conducted by people with no axe to grind

 

 

We are going around in philosophical circles.

 

They have an axe to grind, it is called banking the next pay cheque and striving for the next promotion. It is impossible today for any climate change doubting scientist to hold down a job that is funded by the tax payer. You should be thankful there are a handful of counter thinkers maintaining a debate in the mainstream scientific mono culture.