Wonderful Presentation on Climate Science
I just watched this 90-minute video that provides a good survey of the science behind global warming. The photo here is a bit misleading; the math and science isn’t ridiculously advanced.
From the notes on the website:
Professor Kerry Emanuel has been known for his “Show me the data!” approach to climate science. In this talk, he will present a long term, evidence-driven view of Earth’s climate change, culminating in a discussion of current risks and implications. An extensive audience Q&A will follow the presentation.
Professor Emanuel is an award-winning meteorologist and climate scientist and the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT. His research focuses on tropical meteorology and climate, with a specialty in hurricane physics. Emanuel has a PhD from MIT, has been a faculty member since 1981 and has served as the Director of the Center for Meteorology and Physical Oceanography and the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate. He is co-founder of the MIT Lorenz Center, which fosters creative approaches to fundamental science devoted to understanding how climate works.
He was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Influential People who Shape Our World in 2006. In 2007, he was elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He is an author of over 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers and two books, including What We Know about Climate Change, recently hailed by the NY Times as “… the single best thing written about climate change for a general audience.”
Dr. Emanuel made a point that I often do when I speak about the subject: there is no certainty that we’re facing catastrophe here. If the total mean temperature increase is limited to 3 degrees C, our civilization will probably be able to adapt (though that adaptation will be extremely expensive). It’s the “tail” of the probability function that concerns us. What if a doubling of CO2 causes a five or six degree swing? What if the CO2 concentration far exceeds doubling?
He said, “If I let my little daughter run across a busy street to get to her school-bus on the other side and defended that action by saying that there was a 98% chance she wouldn’t be killed by the traffic, you would think I was crazy, and rightfully so.” The situation is no different here.
He also pointed out, “The fossil fuel industry is spending a fortune trying to convince you that my tens of thousands of colleagues in this space and I are ‘alarmists.’ That’s the kiss of death, btw, to be labelled an ‘alarmist’ by the people. They know this, and so they use the word aggressively.” They’re incredibly good at what they do, i.e., convincing the average citizen that no real scientific consensus exists on this subject, or as one of our readers recently pointed out: What is today’s “consensus” may not be tomorrow’s.
Yes, the consensus can be wrong. In fact, it always is, in one way or another. It would be foolish to think that, for instance, medical science 200 years from now will hold onto a single one of our current notions of health and disease, or that physics won’t experience another new paradigm-shattering event like relativity or quantum mechanics. But that doesn’t mean that reasonable people with cancer today should want to be treated with rhinoceros horn or quartz crystals, or that we should look forward to traveling through time.
The same applies to climate change deniers; it’s not rational to hold a belief about a matter of science that is opposed by the vast majority of the scientists who have made this arena the subject of their life’s work.
In any case, this is a great video; I hope you’ll check it out when you have time.
For any who aren’t utterly solid in their understanding and conclusions on the issue, here’s one very rational way to examine this human climate disruption debate:
Let’s say that there are two possible conditions, and two possible responses.
Here are our opposing conditions…
Condition 1: The overwhelming majority of all our climate scientists are quite correct about the disruption that modern human activity is now causing in global temperatures, and are conservatively understating aspects of the actual threat.
Condition 2: The weight of science is totally misplaced, and the disruptive climate effects produced by modern human fossil-fueled activity are negligible and highly overestimated.
Here are our opposing responses…
Response A: We do all that we can to reduce our output of all the contributing pollutants, and to increase our energy efficiency, and we do our best to scrub the atmosphere by considerable reforestation with carbon-retaining trees, etc.
Response B: We do nothing at all, and simply continue with accelerating our present inefficient and polluting behavior.
So, four scenarios become possible, depending on the reality and our behavior…
Scenario 1A: The science is quite sound, and we act to lessen the impact considerably, by changing our behavior so that we pollute far less – this makes us, our children, and future generations far safer and much more comfortable.
Scenario 2A: The science is all wrong, and we lose some money and effort changing our behavior to reduce pollutants and increase efficiency (things that would be good anyway).
Scenario 1B: The science is quite sound, but we fail to act and we condemn ourselves and our offspring to shattering worldwide turmoil and severe and enduring harm to the biosphere for many centuries, and conceivably for millennia.
Scenario 2B: The science is all wrong and we change nothing, stay inefficient, and keep on polluting our world.
This strikes me as very much like buying insurance – if you dodge a bullet and nothing happens, then you lose some money in exchange for peace of mind – but then if something does happen, and you’re not insured, then may God help you.
Question: Do you have insurance, or do you prefer to dodge bullets?
Excellent Observation/discussion!
Thanks! Tell your friends… 🙂
Your sources do not impress. Your posting said; “Dr. Emanuel made a point about the subject: there is no certainty that we’re facing catastrophe here.” He is out of his element. There is already catastrophe here. Did you not see the news about the flooding in North and South Carolina? Ask those people if they have seen catastrophe. And while you are at it ask the people of California or the people of Luzon about what they have just witnessed.
Here is a suggested edit for your article…
If the total mean temperature increase is limited to 3 degrees C, our civilization will probably be able to adapt (though that adaptation will be extremely expensive and cost the earth half of its human population and half of its remaining species)
Sorry I failed to impress you, Les. That seems to be a recurring theme here. 🙂
I suppose we need to define “catastrophe.” Having said that, losing half the world’s population would certainly qualify.
I’ve been following this topic for years and it seems mostly all optics. Everything is blamed on global warming and none of the smaller issues seem to get talked about. I do a bit of kayaking on the Potomac and have heard from many that global warming is to be blamed for the river not freezing over as much in the winter. When the power plant upstream of me is shut down and it’s cooling water is no longer going into the Potomac there is the possibility that the Potomac may be freezing over a bit more. I guess I’ll find out soon wether I get online more due to the river freezing over and not being able to kayak in the winter. We should also be finding out soon the impact of solar weather on global temperatures. If CO2 doesn’t play as much a role in global warming as thought then for a very long period of time the environmental movement will have lost a great deal of credibility and I’ll be online a lot more due to the river freezing up. Any other winter kayakers out there have opinions on this topic? If you do I’ll see you in the Harpers Ferry area (or not) this winter.
Within our historically normal climate patterns there was always a range of chaotic weather, producing occasional catastrophe, but now our own disruption of that natural pattern causes more severe and more frequent extremes.
As long as we take prehistoric carbon from deep in the earth, burn it, and pour 32 billion metric tons of CO2 yearly into our modern sky, we’ll see more energy in the air and oceans, more weather extremes of all kinds, and more acidity in the sea. The fact that we cause these effects must be firmly emphasized.
For those concerned about how messaging is communicated, I’d suggest that people need to replace the ambiguous and lukewarm phrases “climate change” and “global warming” with the far more accurate, evocative and impactful words “anthropogenic climate disruption.”
The word “change” leaves open the fraudulent interpretation that the disruption is natural, and the word “warming” ignores the severe consequences at both ends of the temperature scale, as well as with regard to volatile shifts in rainfall patterns (drought/flooding), and widespread lethal effects across the biosphere generally (crop failures, mass die-offs and extinctions of vital species, oceanic acidification and rapidly expanding dead-zones, etc.).
Just a thought.
Graig,
Thank you for your quite moderate article.
It’s a great pity the debate about pollution caused by human society has become so fanatical and politicized.
I suppose it was always inevitable science would become hi-jacked by those with agenda’s of self-interest. It’s the nature of the media to sensationalize and distort any issue that affects society, politicians to exploit fears, and those threatened to ardently defend their self-interest from those with alternate agendas.
There are those, like Cameron, who delight in blaming all climate change on “anthropogenic climate disruption.” . By this method such advocates, can advance a particular political ideology or philosophy.( Cameron, climate change is a naturally occurring phenomenon, long before the appearance of the human species, certainly before the development of industry, the human activity aspect is only an addition).
It’s easy to understand why the planet’s industrialists are cautious about the science of climate, especially the effects of industrial pollution. It’s equally understandable why so many otherwise rational, well meaning people, get caught up in the a sort of “new religion’, of global warming-climate change. This new religion combines the best of the old leftist ideologies, and vague religious morality.
The actual hard core science has got lost in the vast empires (usually funded with public money) created to perpetrate a ‘crusade” against the perceived threat of climate change.
The propaganda has eclipsed the actual science. Students are now entering universities to study to become “Climate Scientists”, much in the same manner a theological student once entered seminaries ! Thus a self-sustaining ideology is created.
The “crusaders” do very little to actually combat pollution, but instead devote their energy to demanding social change, and persecuting heretic’s who challenge their motives.
Sad, but very human.
The much touted “consensus” of scientists (97%) who support the more radical theories on climate change is a excellent example of the distortion of information in the popular media. It’s time the “climate change-global warming ” lobby was recognized for what it is, a self-interest lobby whose motives and propaganda have no more, or less, value that the industry lobby groups and should be regarded with equally careful analysis.
Recently, I raised the scandal involving the very vocal Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES). This was a group of several hundred “Climate Scientists” , funded by the US tax payer for more than seven years at a cost of several hundred million dollars !
The stated purpose of this “institute” was to research the science of climate change. In reality, the ‘Institute’ functioned as a sort of propaganda-lobby group, employing some very sophisticated methods of disinformation and distortion, as well as some old fashioned personal enrichment at the expence of the taxpayer.
IGES spent a lot of time and money creating an “enemies list”, of people and organizations to be attacked. In addition the spent even more money on creating “scientific papers” , “peer reviewed” by fellow members, who would in turn have article and papers “peer reviewed” by members of the same group. The number of articles and papers produced by this method, or at least peer reviewed by this method is unknown, but could be as high as 40%. ( IGES is not alone, several European “institutes ” and other “advocacy” groups are being investigated)
It was cleverly done, and very effective. Thus the claims that 93% of all “peer reviewed’ scientific papers quickly became distorted by the media to ” 97% of scientists”, and quoted and re-quoted.
The Guardian newspaper justified it’s support of IGES, by claiming that wrongdoing is ok if it’s done for the right cause ! ( I guess that’s the attitude of many “true believers”)
In the meantime, while all this sort of thing is going on, very little is being done about the less glamorous, less political forms of human pollution.
Craig, you are correct when you say ” it’s not rational to hold a belief about a matter of science that is opposed by the vast majority of the scientists who have made this arena the subject of their life’s work “.
However, I would argue that it’s very rational to maintain a healthy level of skeptical analysis of any scientific theory, especially when advocated by someone who has made the subject their life’s work. It’s the scientist who has made something his life’s work who is naturally less likely to be receptive to the idea he got it wrong !
As far as I can tell Professor Kerry Emanuel is an honest, earnest, sincere scientist doing his best to understand an explain the scientific consequences of climate change. I don’t doubt his integrity, and I don’t have the qualifications to challenge his conclusions.
The analogy he employs of a child crossing the street isn’t really valid unless you have already built an underpass, or a school of your side of the street.
All human society and technology is a compromise between practicality and risk.
It’s the question of alternatives. Restructuring society and economies, is very difficult without massive disruption and massive human misery. That’s the problem with most advocates and even governments. Large scale spectacular ” Grand Plans ” , great futuristic projects, invariably end in failure and great public waste.
That’s why moderate conservatives, like myself, are suspicious of advocates, not because they don’t mean well, but because ideologically driven solutions usually end up more expensive and less effective than the problem they were supposed to solve.
Real, meaningful reduction of pollution and emissions, can only come from well researched, well planned, prioritized long term programs, driven not by ideology but scientific, economic and logistical reality, and carefully monitored results.
Small, realistic projects can accomplish more than vast schemes with unintended negative consequences.
We don’t know whether an amount of CO2 which would in theory result in only a two degree C increase in average global temperature would actually result in an increase of only two degrees. There are positive and negative feedback effects the magnitude of which is not entirely known. There could be a positive feedback effect which, at a certain temperature, would cause so much additional CO2 and CH4 to be released that would constitute a “tipping point” and actually cause a temperature rise of far more than two degrees C.
One study seems to show that the area that is now the Sahara Desert was once lush and green and became a desert in only 200 years. Although the implications are not entirely known, it is cause for alarm.
Here are links to articles by James Hansen, a well-respected climate scientist, who asserts that our current efforts to limit global warming are very insufficient:
http://seekerblog.com/2013/11/25/to-those-influencing-environmental-policy-but-opposed-to-nuclear-power/
http://seekerblog.com/2015/03/09/james-hansen-calls-out-big-green-its-the-money-that-drives-their-anti-nuclear-dogma/
The best consensus of the desertification process that created the Sahara desert, was a shift in the earths axis, some 3500 years ago.
Dr James Hansen is a brilliant man, but his scientific credibility is damaged by his passionate advocacy as he strays into areas where he is less than brilliant, in fact downright bizarre. . Like all extremists he is a true believer, and it’s not possible for him to be truly objective. This is a real flaw in a scientist.
Dr James Hansen is no better qualified as a scientist than than skeptics like Dr. Roy Spencer. Both make valid argument, and both have problems where the data doesn’t match predictions and modelling.
Scientific computer modelling, is not the authoritative reliable scientific method of analysis that most people imagine. It’s no more reliable than the data which is fed in by a scientist, and has a major flaw. It can’t predict the future with any degree of accuracy since many unknown factors have been left out.
Prof. Richard Lindzen and other eminent skeptics, have all made mistakes, just as have those supporting a more alarmist viewpoint. The problem is that the “science ” has become so politicized that the average citizen just listens to the bast propaganda, which is becoming increasingly disingenuous.
This is sad, because it means there’s a lessening in objective research, with some once objective scientists, like Dr Hansen demanding censorship and criminal penalties for those who dare to question their crusade.
Sadly, the most ardent supporters of Climate Change action, and shrill critics of oil companies, etc, fall silent when their fellow advocates are shown to lack integrity or behave dishonestly. Is it corrupt when one section of society acts illegally and dishonestly (even for tawdry personal gain) but the same behavior is acceptable in others as long as they support the things you believe in ?
I just want to know “To what extent does the logarithmic nature of CO2 caused radiative forcing” since the sky is already opaque to space bound infrared? Like “how far does an infrared photon actually travel on average before it gets intercepted by a CO2 molecule (and other GHGs)? Perhaps, the skeptics (not deniers) could be correct?
marcopolo’s strange and confused form of logic helps make James Hansen’s position all the more valid. It’s no wonder he won’t use his real name.
“Insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over and
expecting different results” ~Albert Einstein
To put it another way; it’s insanity to believe we can solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. ~Les Blevins
“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don’t do anything about it” ~Albert Einstein
To put it another way; “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the evil fossil fuel and utility companies and the people who run them but because of the people who don’t do anything about it”~Les Blevins
If you’re like me, you are feeling a strong sense of responsibility to empower a big fix for the global warming issue before it is too late, a fix on the scale of the Marshal Plan that enabled the rebuilding of Europe after World War Two. Scientists now report that we only have a few years left to transform our society to a renewable energy (zero-carbon) economy if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change. So what should our role be in creating this all-important transformation? And who among us can deny this need? – Les Blevins
I probably should add that marcopolo made one true statement in his posting when he said “Scientific computer modeling, is not the authoritative reliable scientific method of analysis that most people imagine.” This is surely true since the rate of global warming we are seeing today is far more than what the models predicted just 3 or 4 years ago. 1,000 year rainfall events every few weeks as we just saw in the Carolinas a week or so ago and in the Philippines just last weekend and this along with the drought and wildfires in California and many other western states.
I’ll ask the question once again. So what should our role be in creating this all-important transformation? And who among us can deny this need? I guess we will never know who among us can deny this need as long as they refuse to use their real names.
Craig – earlier you wrote: I suppose we need to define “catastrophe.” Having said that, losing half the world’s population would certainly qualify.
Global Warming & Climate Change –No Problem, No Need to Worry, Only Around 6.5 Billion Dead or Displaced is all!
January 7th, 2014
David Suzuki has a clip on youtube where he discusses compound growth.
He postulates a colony of bacteria which doubles in numbers every minute in a test tube will fill the test tube in just about 60 minutes of doubling.. At 55 minutes the test tube is about 3% full, and he makes the point that even if the bacteria were convinced there was a problem at 55 minutes, and they would continue producing bacteria fast enough that it would be full at about 62 minutes.
Then he states that scientists are convinced the human race has passed the 59th minute saying there is no conceivable plan which could cut greenhouse gases and not kill 90% of the earth’s population. We are on an economic train moving at considerable speed, there are no stops, we cannot get off, and the train has significant momentum. Delivery of food and fuel is a considerable part of the moving economic train, which if stopped would cause both mass starvation and have people freezing to death. How many people in North America this past winter would have died if heating fuel was unavailable? 100 million – or more?
You need to understand that this (Suzuki’s) is fringe thinking, and that most scientists studying the situation and publishing peer-reviewed papers on it are more in line with the position taken my Dr. Emmanuel (in the presentation).
I like Cameron Atwood’s post where he offers two basic choices humanity faces and four possible outcomes.
As for me I ascribe to the first mindset wherein Response A: We do all that we can to reduce our output of all the contributing pollutants, and to increase our energy efficiency, and we do our best to scrub the atmosphere by considerable reforestation with carbon-retaining trees, etc.
Growing fast growing fuel trees that regenerate from the stumps after each harvest and using that harvested material as a substitute for power and fuels from fossil fuel sources would be a means of powering humanity’s needs on extraction of Co2 from the atmosphere and this is a major part of the rational behind my innovation that so many cannot seem to get their heads around.
Biomass Could Reach 60% of Total Global Renewable Energy Use by 2030
Biomass has an auspicious future in the world’s supply of renewable energy. REmap 2030, the global roadmap developed by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), foresees a major role for modern, sustainable biomass technologies in efforts to double the share of renewables in the global energy mix. A new report, “Global Bioenergy Supply and Demand Projections for the Year 2030,” examines the biomass potential in world regions and with different technologies for rapid and sustainable scale-up of this vital renewable energy resource.
If all the technology options envisaged in the REmap analysis are deployed, total biomass demand could reach 108 exajoules worldwide by 2030, representing 60% of total global renewable energy use. That would be equal to 20% of the total primary energy supply. “Sustainable bioenergy has the potential to be a game-changer in the global energy mix,” said IRENA Director of Innovation and Technology Dolf Gielen. “Sustainably sourced biomass, such as residues, and the use of more efficient technology and processes can shift biomass energy production from traditional to modern and sustainable forms, simultaneously reducing air pollution and saving lives.”
Biomass is simply not a dense enough fuel for modern society because it is on the order of ten times weaker than solar.from a unit per land area.
Take global energy consumption, multiply by 4 (for 10 billion people at high standards and for energy required for such infrastructure development and maintenance. Divide by 2 (for drastically improved efficiency at all levels of all sectors). Now, ask, how much land required for each of the energy options. Granted, no one option will be singled out, however, the weakest ones will have to be used the most sparingly.
Perhaps biofuels will fill in 5% – unless nuclear or some other denser form of energy is used to turn an entire desert (or equal amount of global desert lands) into crops and biofuels by means of vast desalination and fertilizer production – necessary (perhaps) for natural CO2 sequestration (into the new soils).
Craig if you will agree to collaborate I think the two of us could make a considerable dent in the total amount of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere in less than a decade and I think this is exactly what the world needs.
Deniers deny that there is a problem (with excess CO2 in this case).
Skeptics evaluate whether or not there actually is a problem.
First, I said “Na, our actions can’t change the world”, then
Oh wait, I found out that CO2 is an infrared absorber (the biosphere is doomed)”, and now,
“The air is already opaque to infrared – just what is the logarithmic nature of it all?”.
Whatever the truth, we’ll still need to advance to “not burning fossil fuels”, however, no matter what, we can not reduce our energy capacity.
Therefore, the best plan of action is to reduce our CO2 emissions by half by resorting to natural gas (since it is cheap and has only half the carbon) and develop the cheapest way to generate electricity safely. Certainly, solar parking structures and a bunch of batteries is probably the most expensive whereas, solar roofs (and deserts) and natural gas will be the cheapest.
Bty, naval nuclear is load following.