News editor
A carbon research organisation claims that more than half of existing fossil fuel reserves should be left where they are to reduce the chance of global average temperatures increasing by more than 2 per cent, while fracking is under discussion in Manchester this week.
More than half of all fossil fuel reserves may need to be left unexploited and global CO2 emissions must be reduced by over five per cent per year over several decades to keep climate change below 2°C.
This stark warning has been issued by the Global Carbon Project, an organisation which aims to develop a clear global picture of the carbon cycle, which yesterday published its annual global carbon budget ahead of the New York Climate Summit that starts tomorrow.
The report predicts a 2.5 per cent projected rise in global CO2 emissions this year, which by the GCP’s data represents 40 billion tonnes of the greenhouse gas.
It states: ‘Total future CO2 emissions cannot exceed 1,200 billion tonnes – for a likely 66 per cent chance of keeping average global warming under 2°C (since pre-industrial times).
‘At the current rate of CO2 emissions, this 1,200 billion tonne CO2 ‘quota’ would be used up in around 30 years. This means that there is just one generation before the safeguards to a 2oC limit may be breached.’
The report includes a regional breakdown of emissions across the world, with the UK lowering its emissions by 2.6 per cent in 2013, which is attributed to a decline in the use of coal and gas.
Similarly, the EU has cut its CO2 emissions by 1.8 per cent but in China, India and the US emissions in 2013 rose by 4.2 per cent, 5.1 per cent and 2.9 per cent respectively.
The Global Carbon Project is led in Britain by researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia and Exeter University’s College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences.
In a statement, Prof Corinne Le Quéré, director of the Tyndall Centre at UEA, said: ‘The human influence on climate change is clear. We need substantial and sustained reductions in CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels if we are to limit global climate change. We are nowhere near the commitments necessary to stay below 2°C of climate change, a level that will be already challenging to manage for most countries around the world, even for rich nations.
‘Politicians meeting in New York need to think very carefully about their diminishing choices exposed by climate science.’
This sentiment was echoed yesterday during People’s Climate events that took place across 150 countries, including Britain where anti-fracking protesters turned out to voice their concerns.
They were much photographed in Manchester, a city that is hosting its fair share of events this week including Fracking North: Continuing the Debate on Hydraulic Fracturing for Gas.
Those of you in receipt of the September 2014 issue of The Engineer will have read the assertion from Cornell University’s Dr Anthony Ingraffea that shale gas produces ‘only 60 per cent of the CO2 produced by burning an energy-equivalent amount of coal’, although this isn’t likely to appease those protesting shale developments in the north west, including those at Barton Moss where test drilling is taking place. Note, Dr Ingraffea cautions also that all CO2 equivalent emissions over the next few decades must decrease ’to have a hope of not reaching even a 2.5oC warming by 2050’.
Regular visitors to The Engineer will also be familiar with the assertion from AMEC’s 2013 Strategic Environmental Assessment which set out ‘low activity’ and ‘high activity’ fracking scenarios, the latter assuming that a substantial amount of shale gas is produced during the 2020s, between 4.32–8.64 trillion cubic feet, which is up to three times current gas demand in the UK.
Under this scenario, there would be beneficial impacts to the economy, jobs and communities with employment in the oil and gas industry increased by seven per cent, with 16,000 – 32,000 full-time jobs created.
As the organisers of Friday’s event state in their publicity material, environmental activists denounced the report claiming that fracking will bring with it ‘“significant negative effects” such as groundwater contamination, radioactive waste, severe methane leakage, air pollution and climate change’.
Sizewell B, the last nuclear reactor to come online in 1995, wasn’t built without a number of dissenting voices attempting to halt its construction and the progress of the shale industry appears similarly mired by those convinced of dire consequences should full-scale production take place. Safe and reliable operations have done the nuclear industry no diservice over the decades and the frackers will prevail, assuming they’ll maintain similarly high and rigourous standards of safety during operations.
“It states: ‘Total future CO2 emissions cannot exceed 1,200 billion tonnes – for a likely 66 per cent chance of keeping average global warming under 2°C (since pre-industrial times).”
Another dodgy report that ignores realty.
As far as I am concerned, the link between CO2 and climate change is very tenuous.
We have seen 18 years of no temperature rise (actually a very slight decline) yet co2 has continued to rise.
I would like to see money ploughed into..
1) Developing new technologies such as TMSR Thorium Molten Salt Reactors.
2) More efficient engines / systems.
3) Lower energy appliances.
We need fossil fuels at the moment, we cannot do without them, pointless pretending otherwise, sure, lets plan for the future, but fossil fuels will be required for a long time yet.
When oh when will the press cease its mindless support for the religion of man-made global warming? Even the Engineering Institutions are toeing the line that the science is settled.
Both the empirical evidence for climate change and the verisimilitude of the mathematical model that underpins the belief are long ago shredded. It has even been found that the temperature measurements that show some rising trend have been fiddled (i.e. adjusted for local changes) by (man-made) computer algorithms, the results of which show a strong positive bias.
The essence of the mathematical model is that the radiative forcing function which drives global warming or cooling (but cannot be measured) was evaluated by a committee of scientists and is in no way rigorously based.
It is not only foolish short-term economics to talk of not using nature’s resources to improve lives, but is endangering the long-term global isues of health improvement, wealth re-distribution and environmental improvement. It is fundamental that the growth of the USA, EU and the BRICS economies is the source of world improvement not the Taleban mentality of the AGW adherents.
The Engineer is one of the few journals that will publish criticism of the “Settled Science”, and I thank you most sincerely for that.
@Keith Arnold – well said – my thoughts exactly. Lest recall that predictions for the relatively simple case of predicting oil and gas reserves has historically been poor. Why should these far more interrelated predictions allow for a result like ‘1,200 billion’ of anything?
Scientists at the Tyndall Centre should still to climate science and not policy.
I agree. No link has yet been made between CO2 and the warming of the earth. 20th century warming looks in hindsight just like the mediaeval and roman warmings.
Developing our gas potential through shale gas would mitigate CO2 emissions by reducing coal usage in any case.
From Anonymous,
“As far as I am concerned, the link between CO2 and climate change is very tenuous.
We have seen 18 years of no temperature rise (actually a very slight decline) yet co2 has continued to rise.”
Exactly.
There are non so blind as those that will not see!
Your spending priorities are spot on also.
Articles like this are always red rags to climate change denying fools, both of whom I can see are wheeling out the same old (and false) rhetoric
It is patently clear that if we have anthropogenically caused, CO2 caused global warming (all the links are not and cannot be completely proven, but seem likely), CO2 emissions control will fail for lack of alternatives, ongoing population growth, etc. Aside from the obvious developments in alternatives, we need geoengineering now, and we must stop being paralysed by indecision and these pointless, futile conferences.
There are broadly three types of fossil fuel : Coal Oil, Gas.
Coal production should be reduced as rapidly as possible so that it is used for making coke for steel making and a few other domestic and ‘museum’ uses only (e.g. Historic Steam engines). Houses heated by coal should be strongly encouraged to convert to oil, gas or renewably powered electricity.
Oil should be used for making various industrial products, and for aircraft and ships. Land and road vehicles will still need oil but with electrification and hybrid drives the efficiency can be greatly increased. If the electrical enthusiasts are right, oil use in vehicles can be almost eliminated in time.
Maximise use of gas, which has a low carbon content, for all types of heating, energy for industry, etc.
Keep researching better nuclear fission and fusion methods, so that electricity can become ever cleaner, adding what renewables can be introduced without huge cost increase.
In summary, minimise coal use, bear down on oil use, and maximise gas use until nuclear and alternatives fill the gap. If the energy currently generated by coal was converted to gas, world carbon emissions would be cut in half.
@Robin Whitlock,
Fools?
Takes one to know one.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/climate-change-science/2014/09/21/id/595969/?ns_mail_uid=44649155&ns_mail_job=1586995_09222014&s=al&dkt_nbr=avrzpzmz
Articles like this are always red rags to climate change denying fools, both of whom I can see are wheeling out the same old (and false) rhetoric.
…………………………………………
Can I ask what is false about what has been said, all looks pretty reasonable to me, shame you have to insult people by calling them fools.
The basic question posed was ‘should we leave it in the ground’.
It was US policy -formulated in the 30s- that the answer to that question was ‘Yes!’ ie use everyone else’s first -and leave ours in the ground (in Texas, Louisiana, the Gulf…)
Unfortunately, that worked only when ‘they’ did not know what theirs was really worth -which lasted until 1974 and the various ‘oil’ related wars, shocks, shortages, gluts, alternative(s) started to interplay with each other and the politics.
I am not up-to-date with the figures:but I gather there was a point (also about 1974) when ‘we’ -that’s us and our side…had enough war-heads (each with a sizeable chunk of fissionable material who’s contained energy was enough to power our normal power ‘stations’ for several months…) to blow-up ‘them’ many times over. They had the same. Two sets of Engineers and technicians (and a few officers and gentlemen with their fingers poised) provided deterrence? Did I miss something?
The ultimate potential for ‘ a few very big swords’ to be turned into thousands of human-supporting plough-shares.
What have we done? Those who studied the periods -Greeks and Romans?-when warfare was at arms-length still believe that preparing for the same is the only scenario. So we fiddle about with alternatives -water, wind, …and ignore that vast elephant in every room.
Are these similes or methaphors or analogies or even stupid thoughts? I am but a simple Engineer.
The quality of informed debate on the engineer is traditionally far better than your average news site but when it comes to anthropogenic climate change I think I’ll listen to the multiple disciplines of research scientist while I stick to debating how to effectively deploy technology to solve it.
Armchair environmentalists calls to leave all fossil fuels in the ground throw practicality to the wind but pretending there isn’t a problem sounds dangerously like a politicians response.
Should we leave fossil fuels in the ground to limit climate change? …….NO we should not suffer energy deprivation and fuel poverty to satisfy an unproven hypothesis that became a religious calling.
With the UK emitting less than 2% of world CO2 emissions, we could not be of any consequece even if it mattered. If we all died tomorrow China’s INCREASE in emissions in one year would exceed what we emit each year. Context is so important as Prof Bob Carter rxplains below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI
I used to have to teach in state schools that the hypothesis that humans are altering the climate was “proved”. However, a few years ago the UK High Court ruled this to be unlawful. I can now teach it as a historical footnote, or a dead theory like phlogiston. It still lingers on as a religion with some fanatics, or as a useful Mencken imaginary hobgoblin with some politicians.
Here’s an idea – follow the money? The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, who presumably understand just a little about the subject, are dis-investing from fossil fuels. Not sure if they are doing so to ‘save the planet’, or to safeguard future investment returns, but they can presumably see which way the wind is blowing.
reported at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29310475
To the sceptics and deniers posting here – if as you claim, there is massive conspiracy to distort climate science , just how is it being funded, and why has no-one yet come forward as a whistle blower to show us the truth?
To avoid the worst effects of climate change we need to put ourselves on a war-footing to push through the necessary changes. And it needs far more than switching to nuclear power and EVs.
As Naomi Klein wrote last week: “I think the answer is far more simple than many have led us to believe: we have not done the things needed to cut emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism, the reigning ideology for the entire period we have struggled to find a way out of this crisis. We are stuck, because the actions that would give us the best chance of averting catastrophe – and benefit the vast majority – are threatening to an elite minority with a stranglehold over our economy, political process and media.”
I don’t read this site much, but amazed at the comments. Saying that the link between CO2 emissions and warming is unproven is like saying there is no conclusive proof the earth is round.
Leaving resources in the ground means they can be used at a later date so seems a good idea to me. But, we do need to have supplies here and now. Fracking seems to be the short term answer: lower CO2, less political instability and since it is a tried tested technology it is safe. Then we urgently need to get on with building nuclear power stations for a long term proven source of electricity. Meantime I use a hybrid car and have done for 10 years. Do you ? If not why not ?
Not one of the “scientists” who support CO2 levels link with global warming actually either (1) explain what prevents the absorbed radiation from being emitted back to outer space, or (2) offer realistic model of global seawater CO2 uptake, CO2 emission from geological activity, volcanoes, or the emission of other “greenhouse” gases such as methane, so the model apparently lacks some insight.
I think the ones who are all for removal of coal as fuel need to rethink. There is new more efficient technology from scrubbing CO2 from coal-fired furnaces, and its ready to go online. It takes about 10% the energy of currently deployed technology to operate this new molecular sieve technology. There are plenty of uses for CO2 (agricultural uses, industrial, and possiblilities exist to actually convert this back into fuel with some energy investment).
Here we go again. Reality ignored. First it was according Jones at UEA, It would need 13 years of no temperature rise to falsify the AGW theory. After 16 years, no rise in temperature and 25% more CO2. Again according to Gavin Schmidt15 years ago, the Greenhouse effect swamps the natural variations. Now its those pesky natural variations that are stopping the rise in temperature. Of course the rise in temperature during the end of the last century could not be due to natural variations. Same thing at the poles. The North pole will be free of ice by 2012 according to that noted scientist Al Gore. Reality has it higher than average and heading out to a 2 sigma difference. Out of politeness I won’t mention the South Pole. Fossil fuel have only bad effects. So this good news from Technische Universität München: Study highlights forest growth trends from 1870 to the present- Global change: Trees continue to grow at a faster rate
“…scientists are putting the growth acceleration down to rising temperatures and the extended growing season. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen are other factors contributing to the faster growth.”
is to be ignored.
Well said Editor!! It’s at times like this that I’m ashamed to part of the so-called engineering fraternity. Of course the link between global warming and burning fossil fuels is proven. Sticking our heads in the ground on the assumption it isn’t is like ignoring Hitler’s moves towards European domination in the 30’s! Irrespective of this debate is the fact that it is absolutely wrong to keep pumping billions of tons of waste of all sorts into our atmosphere, seas etc. We need ALTERNATIVE fuel sources to those fossil-based. And there are loads of them. The problem isn’t the lack of alternatives, it’s the lack of commitment by Governments, the power of the fossil fuel based industries … and – dare I say it – the number of blind fools, presumably too ignorant, old or biased to care about the future of this planet!
robin ,i can only see one denying fool commenting here 🙂 .
the facts remain , atmospheric CO2 content has continued to rise,whilst air temperatures have not. the divergence of model projections from observed temperatures has highlighted the total inadequacy of current understanding of our chaotic climate system.
various extreme weather phenomena such as tornadoes are at historical lows ,antarctic sea ice is at an all time high in modern records and the arctic has stubbornly refused to melt out, with a large rebound in minimum extent the last two years.
sea level rise remains at the same rate over the last century,and try as they might,there is no tropospheric hot spot to be found(please no references to the wind shear paper,modeled garbage like most of climate science). not one single species extinction attributed to man made climate change,and we have yet to see the 50 million climate refugees.
not one single prediction/projection has come even close to the observed reality. in mainstream established science this would bring about a rethink and a trip back to the drawing board. in the post normal world of climate science it results in a doubling down on rhetoric and increasingly shrill appeals to authority.
Global warming is a rich mans scam, made up so that governments can justify paying sky high prices for electricity produced by overpriced wind turbines.
People complained about the price guaranteed to companies building the next generation of Nuclear power plans, but not a wisper about the even higher amount guaranteed to builder of off shore wind farms.
The question also have to be asked how much will windfarm contribute to changing the weather, due the the energy they remove from the wind. Or have people forgot the basics of Science they learnt at school.
Yes.
As Robert mentioned, the Rockefellers just said yes. People around the world said yes, again, at the wonderful People’s Climate March:
http://peoplesclimate.org/
I have no problem posting the same data in response to the false statements on anthropogenic climate change, that are 100% predictable in content and timing, so here it is:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths
Jason, I will comply with your request to be nice, so I will just say to Robin: great metaphor. It would be great if The Engineer would not accept Anonymous postings and if you would respond to non-fact based statements on climate change.
Why does it matter? Because in order for engineers to come up with the right technologies, as soon as possible, e.g. yesterday, it is important that we understand why, when and how we need to get the Earth cycles back in balance. The debate is not about the reality of anthropogenic climate change, but about our solutions to reverse it. How much time do we have? According to PwC: 20 years.
http://press.pwc.com/GLOBAL/global-economies-must-lower-carbon-emissions-at-five-times-the-levels-currently-achieved/s/f748001d-e73b-47c0-af8f-18ad9d1023b8
That should feel like an exceptional opportunity for engineers to show their brilliance and their global citizenship. And leave fossil fuels to the history of energy and industry. They were good for a while, but now it’s imperative that we move on.
People forget that we humans breathe out CO2 constantly; cut the population of the planet by restricting births and this will help to cut CO2 and also help with a whole load of other things like food, where to live power usage would drop; in essence we can live within the means of what this planet can sustain. On top of this put all of the trees back where mass deforestation has taken place; this will absorb the CO2 and put fresh water back where it needs to be so that we get our previous weather patterns back to what they used to be.
So we in the UK beat ourselves up and save 13m tons of CO2 emissions p.a. The rest of the EU saves a further 51m tons p.a. All this saving comes at a high cost driven by carbon taxes etc.
Meanwhile India increases by 60m tons, the
USA by 250m tons and China by a whopping 420m tons p.a. This is nearly 12 times the total EU reduction.
Regardless of the merits or otherwise of the science, we are behaving in a way that disadvantages our competitiveness against the rest of the world. Or is it just me who thinks that?
I have to presume that the multitude of factors which influence the temperature of our planet were always present at least for say the past 100,000 years,-the difference now is that with the advent of ‘science’ and its application (as distinct from the mumbo-jumbo of politics, religion and the military) we are able to identify and measure cause and effect. Dealing with those whose horizons can be measured in days, at best months and allowing them absolute control of trying to correct what are life-time long and changing is likely to be fraught. As they regularly demonstrate. War-footing?
“Onward ********* soldiers, marching as to war?” a hymn I recall. How about ‘Onward social scientists, a planet here to save”
hey Ho
Mike B
Hang on a minute, does the editor speak with a forked tongue ????
In reply to the mention of “climate change denying fools”,
Editor’s comments | 22 Sep 2014 2:20 pm –
“We do try not to publish Ad Hominen attacks in our comment sections. Would subsequent commenters please try to stick to the issues rather than attacking those whose views they disagree with”.
A good comment,….BUT 99 mins later ….The editor is now on the Ad Hominine attack !!!
Suggesting that climate-change deniers are fanatics –
Editor’s comments | 22 Sep 2014 3:59 pm
“This is highly misleading. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that the climate is warming and humans are responsible. The climate-change deniers arguably have far more in common with a fanatical fringe.”
Or is this an attempt at being even handed ??? ≈(:>))
Remember:
Consensus is a political term with no connection whatsoever to Theories of Science.
In Theories of Science it’s never ever possible to prove a thesis right. Only to falsify a thesis.
When a thesis has been proved wrong, that thesis has fallen; A new thesis needs to be formulated.
“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
Albert Einstein
Seems to me that the real deniers are those who prefer to believe flawed computer models, rather than empirical data.
See graph of Dr. Roy Spencer’s analysis of all 73 major climate model predictions -vs-reality:
– http://tinyurl.com/og2jg69
If the models can’t replicate empirical data then the theory or model, or both are wrong.
So far CAGW Catastrophic Anthropological Global Warmists got:
Polar ice projections wrong,
Global temp projections wrong,
Ocean “acidification” wrong,
Water vapor projections wrong,
Severe weather projections wrong,
Sea level rise projections wrong,
World crop projections wrong,
Ocean temp projections wrong,
Global precipitation projections wrong,
Climate refugee projections wrong,
They now openly admit they can’t predict cloud cover and their beloved Hockey Stick is fraudulent.
And yet political hacks and CAGW grant swindlers still expect us to take this joke seriously….
If you are serious about controlling climate you simply have to regulate –
Output of Sun,
Volcanoes,
Cosmic dust,
Planetary oscillations,
Gravitational forces,
Plate tectonics…
Simples.
That will return us to the perfect climate,….now remind me, when was that ??? & perfect for who ???
The earth has been changing its climate for 4,5 billion yrs, modern man has been here for just 250,000yrs a mere 0.004% of the Earth’s history.
This arrogant belief that man can control the climate is like thinking you can walk on water, when in reality you are standing in a puddle.
To answer the original question – “Should we leave fossil fuels in the ground to limit climate change?”
No, but we should use it more wisely.
Like some others here, I’m ashamed that some people in this community still carry on denying the obvious – that we are responsible for global warming.
Getting back to the original subject, we must conserve the oil for all the other uses that it has besides energy. Coal is just too dirty from the CO2 point of view, even with the largely untested CCS. As for gas, obviously it is useful for a stopgap measure whilst we develop longer term alternatives but there is a limited supply from politically unstable sources.
I believe that the “Dash for Gas” and fracking dangerously diverts attention form this need to develop renewables and grid storage technologies. Nuclear will be much more expensive in the long term than renewables, the cost of which is reducing fast. (unless of course someone finds out how to avoid radioactive waste!)
Here is a fact:
It doesn’t matter if global warming was caused by man or not
It will matter when the last ml or kg of fossil fuels are used up by man
We should be investing, researching, developing and producing green products as a baseline – not something special! We will be forever known as the generations that had such short sightedness we obviously don’t care about the future…
Just a hypothesis but I wonder if the distaste some engineers hold for talk of climate change has something to do with the “hippies” & “government meddling” it’s often associated with. Certainly the traditional image of an engineer hasn’t gotten along comfortably with either.
In truth population dense nations without vast supplies of fossil fuels should consider building some options into their infrastructure even if you disagree with the vast majority of research scientists
Before I would think about commenting on this, I would like to know how many trees have been cut down in each country for the last 50 years and also how many had been planted as replacements. We need to keep a balance at least and probably have a positive surplus to keep CO2 down. And the same for cattle – I understand that the quantity of methane produced by cattle is responsible for much of the world’s greenhouse gases. Leaving the dirty brown coal in the ground would also be a good idea.
Keep your fossil fuels in the ground and help Middle East despots fund Islamic terrorists.
Focusing on CO2 is short sighted. 3% of all fertilizer used to grow biofuel feedstock goes into the air as N2O, a GW gas 296X worse than CO2.
Take the blinders off and have a holistic approach. Many fiofuels are part of the problem.
Now I’m not an engineer, nor am I even degree qualified but all I see relative to climate change are two camps both screaming ‘fraud’ and ‘denier’ at each other without doing much about it.
It seems to me that climate change is an opportunity for an awful lot of people to make an awful lot of money, and politicians to get their grubby fingers into another pie.
Personally, I don’t think AGW can be denied, but seriously, at best the human race is a pimple on the backside of the earth. Sure we contribute Co2 and a variety of other noxious substances into the atmosphere. But it cannot be denied that predictions made decades ago have simply not come true. So is it the science that’s wrong? I doubt it, I don’t imagine there are deliberate attempts made by scientists to distort data that other scientists can easily expose as fraud (with one or two exceptions I might add).
It seems the IPCC relies on data from 50 sources, all competing with each other. The data is fed into really clever computer software and various averages are taken, which all contain a degree of ‘conservatism’ which is added to the programmers ‘conservatism’. The results are then allowed a degree of ‘conservatism’ and the results are extrapolated over 10, 20 or 100 years.
A 1% allowance in each ‘conservatism’ is then rolled up with every other % and when the button is pressed and the 20 year projection produced, the small %’s turn into global Armageddon, which strangely never seems to happen.
So is anyone wrong? I don’t think so, the raw data is pretty straightforward, although things like temperature records from different sources seem to provide different results, so perhaps it’s the analysis methods we adopt that are wrong.
Whatever it is, the future of billions of humans is consigned to the squabbling between scientists, politicians and opportunists.
Nero fiddling whilst Rome burns, or doesn’t burn in this case, perhaps.
Never should have started.
We are about to start paying large electricity users not to use electricity as well as paying suppliers for not generating horrendously expensive electricity in wind-blown white elephants. Our electricity industry, once the envy of the world, has gone terribly wrong and will damage the UK’s industrial competitiveness (apart from those that can make more money by not working / using power) ? Now comes the suggestion that fossil fuels should be left for future generations.
The cause of the misery is the dogma that a global warming Armageddon is close, despite the large body of evidence that the badly flawed computer models are wrong and warming is not happening.
We are all suffering because the press and politicians have successfully strangled almost all debate related to AGW – the science is apparently “Settled” and even the editor of The Engineer now says so. The lack of a proper opposition group to the discredited IPCC is as bad as the heresy trials of Galileo for showing that the sun was the centre of the solar system rather than Earth.
Fossil fuels should be used until they eventually do run-out (centuries allowing for the history of replacement discoveries). Renewables should certainly be developed: but only on an economic basis. Subsidies should be reserved for R&D and not used for market control.
“Fossil fuels should be used until they eventually do run-out”
This is why engineering projects fail – leaving it to the last minute and leaving nothing in reserve should risks occur.
Amongst the campaign organisations, governments and assorted academic institutes engaging in the subject of a reducing and ultimately eliminating fossil fuel consumption, India and China are notable by their absence. On a comparative scale, the source of the problem still isn’t being addressed. The industrial progress of India and China is dependent on exploiting all the resources they can obtain. Campaigners need to refocus their activities and this includes the need to avoid returning the UK to a medieval state.
Herein lies the problem this debate faces:
1. Personally, I don’t think AGW can be denied.
2. It cannot be denied that predictions made decades ago have simply not come true.
3. So is it the science that’s wrong? I doubt it.
Three completely self-contradictory positions and opinions held within a single paragraph, which nicely illustrate and the position we’re in.
What is interesting is that despite points 2 & 3, the poster still affirms point 1.
In my opinion, there is a lot more going on here than just the science. Climate change aside this is an interesting athropological phenomenon.
To “anonymous” who likens climate change denial or questioning to saying there’s no proof the earth is round. How ignorant are you, really ? The earth can easily be proved to be round by a number of activities and experiments. Anthropogenic absolutely proven, jut as natural selection cannot be. They are both the best fitting current explanations for the data. There is an more difficult argument that could work against absolute certainty of the earth being round or at least an oblate spheroid, but I urge you not to strain your mind over that: it would presumably break..
Thanks for that Chris, a fair comment on my note.
My view is that, (well expressed by Sheikh Yamani in the 1970s), the market will arrange changes as supply / demand and government interference force them. Fracking is a good example of this, and shows the way forward.
We have a lot of centuries worth of fossil fuels known so no problem really until the sun goes out.
To expand on some rather selective quoting (I am not the OP):
1.Personally, I don’t think AGW can be denied.
Climate change cannot be denied. The climate has changed, is changing and will continue to change. We are currently experiencing the rising temperatures as we come to the end of our current interglacial period. The temperature on average has been rising for the last 20,000 years.
I believe that man’s actions must be having an influence on the climate, the question is how much. There is a strong tendency to automatically link climate change and AGW, however the magnitude of AGW can definitely be questioned.
There are a group of what I can only describe as “believers” who attribute all climate change to man’s actions, this cannot be true, man’s influence has not been around for long enough. There are also a group, the “deniers” who believe that man is not having any effect at all. This is also unlikely to be true. If you try to take a balanced view both sides will brand you a heretic. This isn’t science it’s religion!
2.It cannot be denied that predictions made decades ago have simply not come true.
The current temperature plateau exists. Lots of scientists are try fine plausible explanations.
3. So is it the science that’s wrong? I doubt it
.
Science is rarely actually wrong, unless fraud has taken place. It is very often incomplete (Newton was not proved wrong by Einstein but another level was added to our knowledge).
Some climate scientists produced a mathematical model based around the ‘greenhouse’ effect that they believed explained current temperature changes and used it to predict future temperature changes. This model, in spite of lots of tweaking, is still not very successful, suggesting that some significant influences have not been incorporated.
Papers frequently appear finding new influences and new causes for observed effects. My personal opinion is that a lot more work needs to be done on understanding the glacial cycles so that their influence can be controlled for in the models.
AGW real, not or somewhere in between? Doesn’t matter, it’s a useful tool to reduce the flow of cash to Muslim states. Isn’t that the no.1 political priority at the moment?
Roger B; a good summary of the situation. I’m not sure about the “Science is rarely wrong” argument, but it depends on your tolerance for risk and demand for precision. One can argue that science is always wrong as each element is at best a model of what’s been measured and observed. Here is where Scientists do themselves the real damage. They tell us absolutely that such and such is the case, hiding any caveats well down the paper, and then when a better or wildly different model comes along, they say “well, of course, the thing we say most often is ‘we don’t know'” then proceed to say they DO know and oppress the rest of the world with the new model.
The real issue with CC, GW and above all AGW is that this is not an experiment; we can’t go back and repeat (at least so far) we must do our best to do the right thing, and the religious zeal and frequent lies of the AGW industry do not help the situation, especially when they continue to protect and cover up dishonesty such as the famous University of East Anglia e-mails (look them up; either corrupt or completely incompetent. Or both). Worse, scientifically ignorant governments see anti-AGW actions as a great source of futher power over the people and of new taxes.
This is not to deny AGW, I think the evidence on balance supports it. But it is just that, evidence based, not a formal proof, just the same as evolutionary theory; it is the best fit to the data. On that part we definitely agree.
Great to see the range and scope of comments about this topic, and to recognise that our profession and its exponents are at the forefront of realistic and rational thought about this topic.
I recall a statistic that the amount/percentage of the energy from our friendly ‘sun’ which falls upon us (let alone is converted into plant/animal material and thence to the fossil fuels we value so highly (or should that be lowly) is one two-billionth of the energy that the sun offers per second. By definition 50% heads in the opposite direction and of the 50% that at the least is on our ‘side’ 99.99999% passes us by en route to elsewhere. That beautiful picture taken and sent back by one of the Voyager craft -taken of the spot in the ether where we thought we were- as it was deliberately ‘turned’ just before it left ‘our’ solar system -showed a smudge /pin-prick -our home on planet earth.
Fellow bloggers may recall my career in textiles. in the average sized bale of cotton that may be about 1,000,000,000 fibres. So extracting one fibre from a pair of such bales and comparing such with what we don’t get -ie the rest of the fibres might give a measure/analogy of the amount of the sun’s energy that we receive. Not a lot -to misquote Paul Daniels.
Its a silly comparison, but to put it into a context, I estimate that the average persons carries say 1.5Kg of fibre equivalent on their person: and the average bale of fibre weighs 300kg so the clothing of 200 persons is equivalent to one bale -so we are talking about two such…..so its one fibre (or fiber if you are from the USA) from the clothing of 400 persons that represents the amount of energy from the sun that lands upon us….and this surely demonstrated that there are lies, damn lies and statistics: and that we misuse such at our peril. We can do so with at least a hint of the scientific method: how those gracious beings who studied PPE and who are our notional leaders do so (particularly when they often go around in fancy dress, with false hair to show how erudite, educated and dignified they are…is beyond me.
But more so when they make decisions on my behalf based upon this type of statistical rubbish.
Best
Mike B