Eat that GW believers!

[alexjrgreen]

The trouble with throwing mud at everybody and crying 'wolf' all the time is that people stop believing you.

[evaitl]

The new high efficiency electric furnaces are actually cheaper to run because natural gas prices are so high already, no need for CO2 emissions as a dominant reason as economics are already taking care of that one.

NG prices were spiky for a while, but it looks like the new fracturing techniques look like they are going to give us a glut in North America for some time to come (i.e. 100 year reserves at current consumption):

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 91450.html

Prices were under $3/MBTU in September. Prices are projected to stay below $7/MBTU through 2025.

[TallDave]

Someone made the point recently that AGW is a policy built on an inverted pyramid: you have trillions of dollars diverted on the say-so of about 60 lead authors at IPCC.

The peer review process for all of AGW is massively inferior to the due diligence done on the smallest securities offering.

If we were being asked to invest trillions of dollars in a new company that claimed to be selling us a solution to a vague problem it called "global warming" there would be about a trillion times more skepticism.

[IntLibber]

To me the important political question is can we afford to wait for more and better data. I can't see anything in the science that doesn't lead to an overwhelming yes as the answer.

Depends what you mean by wait. If by wait you mean avoid the immediate expenditure of 10's of trillions of pounds by completely banning all fossil fuel power plant henceforth, I would agree emphatically and also say yes we can afford to wait.

If by wait, you mean not even giving the tiniest support to alternate carbon free energy sources, I would say no we can't afford to wait. Alternative energy won't appear out of nowhere overnight, you need to build up some capacity, expertise and skills.

The ideal balance, is to fund CO2 free energy research and maintain a manufacturing capacity sufficient to provide 5-10% of our energy without burning fossil fuels and use fossil fuels to provide the remaining 90%, then if the science becomes settled we can quickly ramp up this capacity and deliver a rapid response. Without any capacity whatsoever, a rapid response will be impossible. 5-10% would be unlikely to be much of a drag on the economy as the cheapest renewables and nuclear are only a factor of 2 or so more expensive than fossil fuels as things stand.

I believe this is the current policy which most governments are following in practice at the moment in anycase.

The ideal balance is to stop pussyfooting around with solar and wind and start building nuclear plants. Getting into electric cars to get off foreign oil will only increase our consumption of coal generated electricity given our current energy infrastructure.

Companies trying to build solar plants in the desert and windpower on the plains are running into enviro groups that are both in the AGW camp but also against power in the desert (typical dumbass greens). If Obama is so sure about regulating CO2 he needs to streamline the power plant approval process so every dillweed from here to Berkley can't stop construction with a complaint.

While I am a skeptic about AGW, I am 100% for independence from foreign oil. I want the arabs states and their terror networks broke and back to living in tents and unable to afford the ability to build bomb vests and carbombs, katyushas and other ways to kill people. Bin Laden and all those other idiots can rot in their caves.

[seedload]

The ideal balance is to stop pussyfooting around with solar and wind and start building nuclear plants.

While I am a skeptic about AGW, I am 100% for independence from foreign oil. I want the arabs states and their terror networks broke and back to living in tents and unable to afford the ability to build bomb vests and carbombs, katyushas and other ways to kill people. Bin Laden and all those other idiots can rot in their caves.

That

[jnaujok]

The ideal balance is to stop pussyfooting around with solar and wind and start building nuclear plants.

What we really need is a X-Prize type competition, with a $1B prize for the first, sustainable, safe, self-safing, breeder-reactor design based on a thorium/U233 fuel cycle, with on-site fuel reprocessing. (This is also known as a molten-salt reactor, but I'm not restricting it.)

Once that design is finalized, we start manufacturing them in bulk. We take the first one off the line, and put it in the Nevada desert, (like on the Nuke Test site) and test it in every possible failure mode, and every possible attack mode, to determine the ideal containment and security configuration.

That gives us a final design for all of these reactors, and we start cranking out at least 2 a month, every month, for the next 20 years. Using a standard design, we know exactly how every plant works, parts are easily replaced, downtime is minimal (the experimental MSR ran continuously for something like 15 months, using in-line fuel reprocessing), and any problem discovered is easily fixed across all plants. Training an operator becomes a standard procedure and can be leveraged from plant to plant.

Whether you believe in AGW or not, CO2 emissions go to zero, and we have more power than we know what to do with. Using standard assembly-line development, the price to build one of these plants drops so low that it's no longer even economically feasible to build a coal plant.

The typical MSR breeds 109% of it's fuel requirement per year, which means enough to build an extra plant every 8 years, and produces waste that only needs a 300 year storage time. It can also burn our current stocks of high-level waste as part of its fuel stream.

MSRs are inherently safe, operate in a non-pressurized environment, are self regulating and self-limiting, have a response time to increased load measured in seconds rather than minutes, and have simple reprocessing procedures with no "nasty" stuff needed. (Nasty being relative of course.) No chances for a meltdown scenario and no way to cause a pressure vessel explosion (they don't even need a pressure vessel.)

The fact that every "greenie" out there isn't screaming to build 500 of these plants (enough for the entire US base load and more) demonstrates that the "Environmental movement" has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with control.

[KitemanSA]

Yeah! What he said!

[jmc]

Looking through the emails I don't think its fair to say that these climate folk were "fraudsters" in a "conspiracy" with each other

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails. ... 5&kw=obama

1255095172.txt

X-Account-Key: account1
X-Mozilla-Keys:
Return-Path: <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Received: from mail-2.llnl.gov ([unix socket])
by mail-2.llnl.gov (Cyrus v2.2.12) with LMTPA;
Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:28:xxx xxxx xxxx
Received: from nspiron-1.llnl.gov (nspiron-1.llnl.gov [128.115.41.81])
by mail-2.llnl.gov (8.13.1/8.12.3/LLNL evision: 1.7 $) with ESMTP id n991Sh62016185;
Thu, 8 Oct 2009 18:28:xxx xxxx xxxx
X-Attachments: None
Received: from dione.llnl.gov ([128.115.57.29])
by nspiron-1.llnl.gov with ESMTP; 08 Oct 2009 18:28:xxx xxxx xxxx
Message-ID: <4ACE91CA.7000006@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:28:xxx xxxx xxxx
From: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Reply-To: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Organization: LLNL
User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 (X11/20090605)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Rick Piltz <piltz@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
CC: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>,
Jim Hansen <jeh1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>,
Bob Watson <robert.watson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>,
Mike MacCracken <mmaccrac@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>,
"'John F. B. Mitchell'" <john.f.mitchell@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: CEI formal petition to derail EPA GHG endangerment finding with
charge that destruction of CRU raw data undermines integrity of global temperature
record
References: <80955b$27nkli@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
In-Reply-To: <80955b$27nkli@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Dear Rick,

I am prepared to help in any way that I can.

As I see it, there are two key issues here.

First, the CEI and Pat Michaels are arguing that Phil Jones and
colleagues at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) willfully and
intentionally "destroyed" some of the raw surface temperature data used
in the construction of the gridded surface temperature datasets.

Second, the CEI and Pat Michaels contend that the CRU surface
temperature datasets provided the sole basis for IPCC "discernible human
influence" conclusions.

Both of these arguments are factually incorrect. First, there was no
intentional destruction of the primary source data. I am sure that, over
20 years ago, Phil could not have foreseen that the raw station data
might be the subject of legal proceedings by the CEI and Pat Michaels.
Raw data were NOT secretly destroyed to avoid efforts by other
scientists to replicate the CRU and Hadley Centre-based estimates of
global-scale changes in near-surface temperature. In fact, a key point
here is that other groups (primarily at NCDC and at GISS, but also in
Russia) WERE able to replicate the major findings of the CRU and Hadley
Centre groups. The NCDC and GISS groups performed this replication
completely independently. They made different choices in the complex
process of choosing input data, adjusting raw station data for known
inhomogeneities (such as urbanization effects, changes in
instrumentation, site location, and observation time), and gridding
procedures. NCDC and GISS-based estimates of global surface temperature changes are in good accord with the HadCRUT results.

This email was to a fellow pro AGW climate scientist so they were being frank with each other.

I've yet to find any emails confirming the willful destruction of data to avoid it being scrutinized

[jnaujok]

I've yet to find any emails confirming the willful destruction of data to avoid it being scrutinized

Really? Just search on "delete" and you get
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails. ... 652882.txt - Michael Mann deleting all his interim steps and Tim Osborn asking about how to cover for it.

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails. ... 277559.txt Phil Jones to Michael Mann, delete this email, don't share your methods, don't share this with anyone who might share data with this guy. Delete!

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails. ... 454306.txt Phil Jones to Michael Mann - "If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? - our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it - thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who'll say we must adhere to it!"

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails. ... 021312.txt Phil Jones again - "Subject: Fwd: CCNet: PRESSURE GROWING ON CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCHER TO DISCLOSE SECRET DATA
...
Mike, Ray and Malcolm,
The skeptics seem to be building up a head of steam here!
...
Leave it to you to delete as appropriate !"

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails. ... 330629.txt -- This one, from Phil Jones, is a study in how they stonewalled and fought any and all data releases, including colluding to write an apparent "third-party" commentary to justify the refusal to turn over data. One of them even says they'd seek other employment rather than turn over data and code (Santer).

That's just a few of the emails that include the word "delete". Look up "AR4 delete" and see the entire group collude to delete every and all comments about the IPCC AR4 report that they wrote, in violation of the very rules they wrote AR4 for the IPCC under. (IPCC has strict rules about retaining all notes, correspondence, and reviewer notes for the development of the IPCC report.) Strangely, those notes have all disappeared. See Climate Audit for Steve McIntyre's request for the notes and reviews, under the IPCC's own rules, only to be told that, apparently the entire IPCC report (nearly 500 pages) was written without a single note, email, or reviewer comment being retained.

Seriously, if you can look through the emails without finding any evidence of malfeasance, hiding declines, truncating data that doesn't show what they wanted it to show, cherry picking series, using series upside down, so that series that showed cooling instead shows warming (Tiljander).... then you're just not trying very hard.

The main ones have all been pointed out on dozens of sites on the web. If you don't want to read all 1500+ emails, then at least look at what the people who have read them all found.

Heck, the latest story is that a Russian science group is now saying that the CRU specifically eliminated the 75% of Russian stations that didn't show warming (or even showed cooling) in favor of the stations that showed warming. That's cherry picking the data to fit the result you want. That's not science. Fighting not to release the data by hiding behind faux rules about proprietary data (doesn't apply when it comes from a government source like the Russian Science Foundation) just compounds how bad it looks.

That's assuming any warming at those stations isn't a result of the well-known and proven "Soviet Siberian Vodka Effect" where the amount of vodka rations a station received was based on how cold it was. The colder they reported, the more vodka they got. That ended with Glasnost in the late 80's, and since then, the apparent Siberian temperatures have jumped up.

Not exactly the cause of global warming you're looking for.

[taniwha]

Might it be that AGW is not about "saving the planet", nor terribly much about giving the UN an excuse to tax the world (not that I doubt this is a factor), but rather an attempt at preventing a post-scarcity economy? If the world's industry is crippled, or at least hobbled by ridiculous taxes, then post-scarcity will be much less likely.

Those in power will lose that power in a post-scarcity environment: most of their power comes from controlling people's access to necessities. Maslow's pyramid of needs is just applicable in describing ways of controlling people as it is in describing the changing requirements for satisfying people.

[jmc]

That would be a gigantic conspiracy of wacko proportions.

Also consider game theory, if there are a load of seperate nations the nation that enters into post scarcity first will have the power advantage over the others.

I could believe that global warming is about creating a crisis that enables politicians, rich people and climate scientist to play the messiah in a story of historic proportions (most politicians want to be the messiah), but that's as far as I'm willing to go. Climate scientists genuinely believe that they are right. If they hide data it's only because they are afraid of skeptics analysing it in a way that casts doubt in the minds of the general public and turns them from THE TRUTH (still bad science but not evil)

I don't think there are any politicians that are willingfully trying to tand in the way of Utopia.

[jmc]

Also I think a significant proportion of the AGW crowd wish to use climate change as a way of reducing scarcity for the world's poor

[Betruger]

If they hide data it's only because they are afraid of skeptics analysing it in a way that casts doubt in the minds of the general public and turns them from THE TRUTH (still bad science but not evil)

They do this willfully, it's evil. This whole affair should go down in history as a (maybe the) textbook example of bad science. Of why politics absolutely need to stay out of science. Of how little "good intentions" it takes to completely derail science, esp as important as science with global implications.

And check out some of the stuff from Copenhagen:

50 African countries are considering demanding five percent of rich nations' GDPs for developing countries, plus deep emission cuts, reports Danish daily Politiken.

No comment... Also IIRC China and India (or some such countries) perpetuating Kyoto type agendas, demanding that only leading nations handicap themselves in the name of green environment.

I don't think there are any politicians that are willingfully trying to tand in the way of Utopia.

No politicians that'd stand in the way of a thorough rewriting of the status quo, of government's footprint on people? Really?

[alexjrgreen]

50 African countries are considering demanding five percent of rich nations' GDPs for developing countries, plus deep emission cuts, reports Danish daily Politiken.

No comment...

Bearing in mind that Portugal, Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, Belgium, Germany and Italy all exploited Africa's natural resources at the point of a gun, perhaps they have a point.

[Betruger]

Change a couple of words and you have the same argument that's got the USA mired in a useless racist trench war. Over slavery that happened generations ago. Present extortion over resources is happening all over the place in all directions. That needs to stop and people need to move on, not try to change the past by making people who had nothing to do with it or who weren't even alive then pay for it.