Climate change: do the math

Do the math:

The cost of continuing to use fossil carbon is more than five times the cost to abandon it.

[video=vimeo;53979295]http://vimeo.com/53979295#[/video]

 

$790B a year, for how many years? $790B a year to do what?

What is the alternative to fossil fuels for electricity? A patchwork mix of solar, wind, nuclear, tidal, geothermal, etc? What is the alternative to oil for transportation? This is by far the stickiest problem.

How is the $790B collected? Who controls how it is spent? How do we avoid more Solyndra's (bad politics combined with bad technology)?

How much does $790B reduce CO2 emissions per year? Or, as has happend in Europe, does that just slow the increase?

What is the peak CO2 level, if we spend $790B a year?

How long does it take to reduce CO2 levels to 1900 levels? How do we do that?

 

And YOUR solution might be? May we assume you already don't drive a car, fly in a plane, use electricity generated from any means fossil fuelish, don't consume pharmaceuticals, make your own clothing from animal skins (which you hunted with a bow and arrow you made yourself, skinned with a flint knife and cured using...something), and in general aren't just another whiner about how everything should change without having any buy in to an alternative, no help with the HOW or WHAT?

 

When someone tells me we can fix the problem for the specific value of $790B, I would expect a detailed list of goals, the required activities, and a timeline.

 

The Garnaut report has not been out as long as the Stern Review but came to more or less the same conclusions

Suggest you read that one as well
http://www.garnautreview.org.au

 

The Stern Review has been out for six years now. IPCC AR4, WG3 has been out for five years. Read the basics first and then we can start the real policy discussion we should have started years ago, when your ilk was still denying that there was even a problem.

 

And may we assume you are just another whiner who assumes on the basis of no evidence whatsoever that all solutions are useless, all efforts are in vain, all investment is wasted, taxes have no effect on economic choices, and all research accomplishes nothing?

Because that's sure what you're sounding like. If you had been President in 1941, we'd all be speaking Japanese.

 

I think "the ilk" know better than to buy into someones call to arms when the people doing the calling themselves have no solution.

 

Whiner? I just want to see the lawyer lobbyists roll up to a meeting during which they will advocate regulations and policies to stop people from doing something...and they do this in SUVs they rented at the airport after flying across the country for a 2 hour meeting. Why does it always appear that all the things they advocate should always apply to someone else, because they sure can't be bothered taking a train, bicycling to create electricity to run the lights in their office, etc etc.

The hypocrisy involved in getting people to comply with someones version of lifestyle is just so far out there on the fringe it makes me sick. They want less CO2 in the atmosphere? Fine, let them hold their breath, at least that way the rest of us won't have to listen to their bleating when people don't buy into their Pied Piper routine.

 

And I'd like to see a conservative who can have a substantial policy debate without deploying ad hominems as the first (and only) shot. So you're saying that only Amory Lovins is qualified to have this debate? Fine. Then you're out of the party too, and only a few on the left get to decide what our policy should be. Feel all better now?

 

We have to understand that, switching from fossil fuels, to renewable energy will be tough. Taxes on those are really high. What needs to happen is, policy makers need to lower taxes, so that this transition will be smooth.

 

I'd like to see a conservative or a liberal or warmer or denier do the same. But true believers really can't have a substantial anything, they believe what they believe and spend the rest of their time memorizing only the positions of their side. Horribly partisan, but most people just don't have the ability to be objective.

Amory Lovins has his opinion, and I doubt he can even live a lifestyle as I have described. No one can. Which was the entire point of my post. People pretend there are things which can be done, except of course they aren't doing them even as they advocate them, and if they really meant what they said and were forced to do them along with everyone else, it must be someone else's fault, because THEY deserve an exception to the rules. All of it is ridiculous, because at the end of the day, the problem is people. Not conservatives or liberals, or roadtrippers or tomato growers, but ALL of them. And most of them don't even understand why they are the problem, instead focusing on how it is everyone elses fault. Like you wanting to blame conservatives. Us versus them comes naturally, even when the true answer is...both!

 

Ours and the world's energy infrastructure is firmly ensconced in petroleum. So far, there is no alternate energy source to match it. No one really knows how much recoverable fossil fuel there is and, until we actually start running out, the energy market will use petroleum/fossil fuels as its main energy source.

 

My computer is very slow at downloading videos so I did not see it. But a person with common sense should know that the majority of climate change is caused by man and the cost is expensive. heck, I had to pay 8.50 a bushel (56 pounds) for corn. That is supplying my own container. It is 9.50 a fifty pound bag. Everyone should know it is going to cost a lot of money, but i have no idea on how to figure it. lean hogs are also going up. The price was about .87 a pound the last time I looked.

When you figure food prices, land erosion, floods, storms, and loss of land productivity the cost adds up and we can not move the farms. Most farms have been in families for generations and new farms cost money. New land can't be bought if the old land is useless. There is also the problem of early, unforseen frosts and unpredictible weather.

Then lets consider the fishing industry (something I know little about) . Without strong ocean currents the oceans will become water deserts. This little I know.

I don't know the cost of doing nothing....but has already been very expensive.

I still think the cost of doing something will be offset by the benefits...if we do it right.

 

Then clearly you're just not paying attention. There are no ad hominems in this vid:
[video=vimeo;53979295]http://vimeo.com/53979295#[/video]

No ad hominems in this vid:
[video=youtube_share;OmW_EQzU_qI]http://youtu.be/OmW_EQzU_qI[/video]

No ad hominems in this vid:
[video=vimeo;28441246]http://vimeo.com/28441246[/video]

No ad hominems in this paper.

No ad hominems here.

Or here either.

Now here's a HUGE ad hominem ... but then, it's from the denier camp:

An apt description of yourself. I guess that's why you have not yet offered a single shred of actual evidence on this thread. Not that you could, since you don't have any. But hey, you don't need no stinkin' evidence! You're a true believer. Only faith is required.

Exactly right. The point of your post is that nobody is qualified, in your view, to solve the problem, ergo the problem cannot be solved. You've decided that your rules are the only rules that count, and you've set up your rules so that nobody can win. Then you give yourself a huge pat on the back because you think you've "won" something. Big whoop. If you ever decide to be serious, wake me up.

Not doing them? Is this "not doing"?


Is this "not doing"?


Is this "not doing"?

Strawman! Who said anything about "forcing" anyone to do anything?

No, the problem is conservatives. Because changes in law and policy could solve the problem, but conservatives block those changes.

 

Which is why we need to tax fossil carbon at a rate commensurate with its external cost. If we did that, fossil carbon would be priced out of the energy market and the problem would be solved. Wind and nuclear are already about the same cost as coal (LCOE) if not lower. If fossil carbon were priced correctly, we would solve the problem without raising energy costs.

 

To Not Amused: All good questions.

Kasper Gutman does the math at the beginning of this clip:

[video=youtube;wrMIANNOk7c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrMIANNOk7c&feature=player_detailpage[/video]


Here’s the only math climate change hustlers use in spite of their anti-fossil fuels spin:

Doubts on $30 billion aid for climate change overshadow UN talks
By Alex Morales, Updated: Monday, November 26, 10:13 AM

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Doubts mounted about whether developed nations honored a pledge to deliver $30 billion in aid for fighting and defend against climate change after two analysts estimated different amounts had been paid out.

The question over how much finance was provided under the “fast-start” program has the potential to undermine trust between donor and recipient nations during two weeks of United Nations talks on a treaty to curb global warming. Aid is the linchpin of the talks starting today in Doha after industrial nations pledged in 2009 to channel $100 billion a year for climate projects by 2020.

“We can’t say if it was delivered or not because we can’t be sure,” Seyni Nafo, a Malian envoy who speaks for a bloc of African nations, said in an interview yesterday, referring to the $30 billion pledge. “The process of fast-start finance was supposed to build trust, but it created more tension and frustration that what was proposed was not delivered.”

The European Union, U.S., Japan and other developed nations paid out $23.6 billion of assistance to poorer countries during the three years through 2012, falling short of the $30 billion promised in 2009, the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development said today. An estimate today from the World Resources Institute in Washington put the total paid at almost $34 billion.

A third estimate for the sum from Nick Robins, head of the Climate Change Center at HSBC Holdings Plc in London, valued it at $32 billion as of Oct. 25. Of that, $25 billion so far has been allocated to projects, HSBC said. Allocation doesn’t necessarily mean the funds have been paid.

Doubts

“While countries are on track to fulfil their initial pledges, there continues to be a lack of clarity around the exact definition of what can count toward fast start finance,” Cliff Polycarp a senior associate at the WRI said in a statement. “This leaves room for doubt as to whether these targets are indeed being met.”

The UN talks involving more than 190 nations are working toward adopting a treaty in 2015 that would limit greenhouse gases starting in 2020. Richer countries pledged aid for poorer nations struggling to cope with the impact of global warming as a first step toward worldwide limits on fossil fuel emissions.

With the three-year fast-start aid period ending this year, envoys in Doha must also ensure aid doesn’t end next year, by doubling pledges to $60 billion for the three years through 2015 and plowing $10 billion to $15 billion into a new Green Climate Fund that was set up at last year’s round of talks, said the environmental group Conservation International in Washington.

‘Empty Promise’

“The $100 billion figure must not be an empty promise nor the Green Climate Fund an empty bank account,” Fred Boltz, vice-president for international policy at the group said today in an e-mailed statement.

As well as falling short of their pledges, developed countries didn’t make good on plans to detail the destination and nature of their payments and make them more transparent, the International Institute for Environment and Development said.

“Without transparency about how and when rich countries will meet their climate finance pledges, developing countries are left unable to plan to adequately address and respond to climate change,” Timmons Roberts, a co-author of the IIED report from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said in a statement.

The IIED is a London-based policy research organization founded in 1971 to advise individuals and organizations about sustainable development. It made an assessment of what each nation’s fair share of the aid would be, since there was no breakdown in 2009 of who would pay what. The IIED’s estimates are based on the historical emissions of the nations and the size of their economies.

Transparency Test

Only two out of 10 donors assessed by the IIED -- Norway and Japan -- paid out their “fair share,” according to the research, which collated data taken from reports submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change through May 2012. It didn’t include promises from the EU, Canada and New Zealand for an additional $3.9 billion or a U.S. commitment to pay an unspecified amount of aid during the period.

Only Switzerland was deemed to have passed a test of transparency in its payments. Metrics for transparency include spelling out what projects were funded, where they are, whether the aid is in loans or grant form and whether the money is destined to fighting climate change, known as mitigation, or defending against its effects, which the envoys call adaptation.

According to the IIED report, Japan led commitments with $9.6 billion, followed by the 27-nation European Union with $6.4 billion, the U.S. at $5.1 billion and Canada with $1 billion. Norway paid out $710 million, which the study estimated was almost five times its share.

Artur Runge Metzger, lead climate negotiator for the European Commission, said the EU has now come up with its final tranche of aid, bringing the bloc’s total to 7.2 billion euros ($9.3 billion).

“We certainly have fully delivered on fast start finance and honored our commitments,” Runge Metzger told reporters yesterday in Doha. “That’s not a small achievement, particularly if you take a look around in Europe at the public finance situation we’ve been facing for a number of years,” he said, a reference to budget cuts across the region.

‘Unmet Promises’

Even so, one of the eight “unmet promises” described by the IIED report is that the aid should be “new and additional,” over and above existing aid budgets when the promise was made at the UN talks in Copenhagen in 2009.

If the money were new, it would be reflected in higher aid budgets, according to the study. It cited a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, which found aid budgets by OECD nations rose by $11.7 billion between 2008 and 2011. That covered all aid, for all purposes, including health and education.

Other unmet pledges include a failure to direct sufficient funding to the most vulnerable nations, an unequal division of payments that favored mitigation projects over adaptation, and a failure for all of the support to come in the form of debt-free finance.

“It is past time to meet the long-agreed principles: new and additional, predictable, and adequate climate finance,” the authors wrote. “Beneficiary nations are gravely concerned that fast-start finance must not be money reallocated from previous promises on basic needs, such as health and education.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...8dbbf2-37c4-11e2-9258-ac7c78d5c680_story.html

 

"...the cost to abandon it."

Taxcutter says:
The cost to abandon use of fossil fuel is to have our civilization return to the technological level of the Renaissance. To make that work you have to allow about 80% of current human population to starve or freeze to death.

We have been there. Want a good look at a world without fossil fuel. Watch the old movie "Last of the Mohicans." It was set in pre-Revolutionary North America. The first commercial fossil fuel operations on the continent was forty years in the future relative to that time. It was a grubby poverty-stricken time - one which fostered real human slavery.

That, sports fans, is the cost of abandoning fossil fuel.

If enviros were really serious about Global Warming, they'd enthusiastically embrace nuclear power. Nuclear is the only dispatchable form of energy that is zero emissions. The technology is there. No new breakthroughs are needed (although a modernization of the generating fleet is necessary to address the weaknesses of the technology.)

But the stuff on the table all involves:
1) More regulation
2) More taxation
3) Wealth transfer through the UN

As long as those three obstacles are in play, all your "science" means nothing. Go to blazes. Do not pass "Go" Do not collect $200.

 

It seems that farming is the new catch all of the warmmongers. News flash, between GHG emissions from direct farming and deforestation for farm land agriculture is the single largest contributor of CO2 emissions.

The green revolution which supplies us with such plentiful food is built on the use of hydrocarbons. You cant cut CO2 emissions substantially without major curtailing of global food production. Its a catch 22.

 

Utter tripe and total nonsense. There a dozen ways to generate energy that do not use fossil fuel. The fact that you don't know that speaks very poorly for the elementary schools in Indiana.

Right, because 80% of the people in the Renaissance froze to death? You're not even making sense by your own low standards.

Utter tripe and nonsense again. Brazil uses half the fossil energy than the USA per dollar of GDP. Brazil manufactures and exports commercial aircraft (among other things). To the USA (among other places). Do you want to know how they do it? Biofuel. France also uses half the fossil energy we do per dollar of GDP, because of nuclear power. Germany has had nearly the same real GDP growth has we have over the last 30 years, while their total energy use has gone down during that time. There are a lot of ways to get energy without using fossil fuel.

I do, and most of the climate hawks I know do too. Seriously, you ought to read what the other side writes once in a while. You can start with this little game. You'll notice: nuclear is part of the mix.

Not necessarily.

Different taxation, yes. More, not necessarily.

Cripes, where do you dig up this stuff? Have conservatives simply lost touch with reality? Do you think the moon landings were faked too? How about the flat earth?

Let's be honest, can we? You don't care about science regardless of the presence or absence any regulation, taxation, or black helicopter scenarios you play out in your head. The modern conservative movement is anti-science, period.

 

I can come up with hundreds of ways to turn a conductor inside of a magnetic field. That doesn't mean that they are effective methods at generating electricity. That is the problem with most of my fellow engineers. They can think up lots of ways to do something but have trouble discerning what is and is not a good idea.

 

Biofuel has been a worldwide goat rope. Biofuels require the same resources (arable land, fresh water, good growing seaon as food crops. Every acre plant in biofuel feedstock drives up the price of food.

 

Not all the time. many Dairies are using the manure generated from their dairy cattle to generate electricity and using the "brown water" to reduce fertilizer cost.

They make money on the milk, sell some of the electricity back to local utilities, and save money on fertilizer.

Its a win win.

If water treatment plants captured the methane from the digesters they can produce the electricity to run the wastewater plant, power the transportation of wastewater to the plant, and sell the excess electricity.

Another win, win.

Instead of thinking'"we can't do it" some people are figuring out ways we can.