Man Based Global Warming....

The major thrust is about the potential seriousness of geo-political conflicts but it touches on much more than that. like:

- how defense experts were reluctant to make much noise on this issue until the past administration was nearing the end of it's term
- how/why AGW became an ideological battle in the US.
- how the IPCC reports are too conservative in predictions.
- what the options for alternative energy are.

and more...

 

It’s irrelevant whether the world needs the gas, oil, and minerals in the arctic region. The fact is, with the Northwest Passage remaining ice free for longer periods, there will be extensive naval activity in regions that Canadians consider sovereign.

It briefly raised a stink with news a Russian research team planted a CIS flag on the seafloor of that arctic area. The rest of the world, including the United States, views the Northwest Passage as international waters, not Canadian waters as Canada asserts it to be

With that increased naval activity, accidents are bound to happen. As it stands right now, Canada has one vessel, a Coast Guard vessel, assigned to patrol the ENTIRE arctic north. Since all those Cold War radar sites were closed over two decades ago, we really have no clue what exactly is happening in the North. Eg: how many ships, submarines, etc

This has nothing to do with Harper being for or against carbon fuels. Again, this has to do with sovereign claims to a vast area of the Canadian arctic. If Canadians are so apathetic and unwilling to protect their sovereign claim to the Northwest Passage area, then they richly deserve to lose it to the highest bidder

 

Geez, that post really pegs the scale for downright bullshit. :rant:

The idea was to prevent the hole from growing MUCH worse as it was doing. And you know what? IT WORKED! These are persistent ozone destroying chemicals that were banned. Chicken Littles? They were right! :brick:

If we hadn't taken action we would really be hosed about now, with no end in sight. The forecasts were for recovery to prior levels to take until the second half of the century. There was expectation that the hole would continue to grow for quite some time before finally declining. (Weather, and yes, global warming are also related to predicting what will happen.)

Congrats, you win the Stupid Post of the Day award. :first:

 

You know, from those pictures it looks to be getting a little smaller.

 

Thanks Shawn. I'll pass the "stupid post of the day award" back to you, the rightful owner: :welcome:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nature
As the world marks 20 years since the introduction of the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer, Nature has learned of experimental data that threaten to shatter established theories of ozone chemistry. If the data are right, scientists will have to rethink their understanding of how ozone holes are formed and how that relates to climate change.



Markus Rex, an atmosphere scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute of Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, did a double-take when he saw new data for the break-down rate of a crucial molecule, dichlorine peroxide (Cl2O2). The rate of photolysis (light-activated splitting) of this molecule reported by chemists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California1, was extremely low in the wavelengths available in the stratosphere - almost an order of magnitude lower than the currently accepted rate.
“This must have far-reaching consequences,” Rex says. “If the measurements are correct we can basically no longer say we understand how ozone holes come into being.” What effect the results have on projections of the speed or extent of ozone depletion remains unclear.



Other groups have yet to confirm the new photolysis rate, but the conundrum is already causing much debate and uncertainty in the ozone research community. “Our understanding of chloride chemistry has really been blown apart,” says John Crowley, an ozone researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz, Germany.



“Until recently everything looked like it fitted nicely,” agrees Neil Harris, an atmosphere scientist who heads the European Ozone Research Coordinating Unit at the University of Cambridge, UK. “Now suddenly it’s like a plank has been pulled out of a bridge.”

Nothing currently suggests that the role of CFCs must be called into question, Rex stresses. "Overwhelming evidence still suggests that anthropogenic emissions of CFCs and halons are the reason for the ozone loss. But we would be on much firmer ground if we could write down the correct chemical reactions."

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Of course, the jury may still be out as he clearly notes. But it shows how fragile and incomplete our understanding of complex systems can be, which was my point.

 

No, you definitely get to keep the trophy. That "Chicken Little" comment was beyond imbecilic. And in what you quoted above there is a statement pointing out just how incredibly stupid your comment was.

Forgive me, folks have said I don't suffer fools well.

 

Shit, I better watch myself around you then.

 

Well, Tim's certainly managed to reveal himself as the idiot and/or pathological liar he is with that pair of ozone hole posts. :doh:

Most of the time he manages to sound almost plausible, but dear oh dear...

 

Why are we attacking the debater? It isn't becoming you know.
I thought the pictures showed an ozone hole that had stabilised and was starting to get smaller. I suspect that's why the pictures were so old, if the problem is fixed why monitor it any more?

 

Tim's post is an example of two denialist tactics.

1. Quote mine: Just quote whatever gives validity to your point and ignore the rest. Tim conveniently did not bold this sentence.

2. If there is a crack there is no wall: Not everything is known and science progresses. This doesn't mean we should not act on our current understanding.

What Tim doesn't understand is that to maximize safety or profit you have to act with certainty on possibility. If you don't act on possibilities and they turn out to be true, you lose the profit or are caught unprepared for the negative effects.

In the case of energy and greenhouse gases this is doubly true because switching from carbon to renewables is safer AND more profitable. Just not to oil companies...

 

I've downloaded all 3 hours of Climate Wars and will listen to it while working on the kitchen floor today.

You peaked my interest with discussion of defense experts. It reminded me of "Winning the Oil Endgame" published by the Rocky Mountain Institute. Specifically that 70% of the gross tonnage moved when the army deploys is fuel and that the US in no longer able to deploy our military around the world without depending on imported oil. I found the sections on the extensive investment by the military to conserve fuel very interesting.

 

Well obviously Shawn, the chicken little comment was meant get a response. Of course, you are always the first with a knee jerk insult and little in the way of facts to back up you position (remember the "US isn't innovative argument" which I cleanly shot down with sources and to which you lamely just answered that you were apparently a more trustworthy expert on the matter than Businessweek and other innovation indicators; or the climate sensitivity argument that you never addressed head on).

So now, are you claiming that though we apparently may not have a good handle on simple chemical equations and models for ozone that we can adequately model the climate, which is orders of magnitude more difficult? If so, I suggest you go back and re-read Wxman's comments on this, since he has some subject matter expertise.

So my conclusion from this latest ozone research (despite my purposefully provocative intro) is that just as with helio bacter and ulcers or plate tectonics, which went against well-accepted theories of the time, there is still much we don't know about climate change.

 

KMO - let's be more specific. Is there something about the Nature article to which you object? My overall point is there is much we don't know, as evidenced by this new ozone research. Would you disagree?

 

I'm not sure why Shawn is attacking but he seems to be getting very hostile.

As to the Antarctic Ozone Hole we continue to monitor it because it is not expected to close until ~ 2050. We also are continue to research and monitor the ozone hole to better our understanding of what causes the hole to begin with and to see if what was predicted 20 years ago is actually happening. If the Nature article is correct we are finding out that we didn't know nearly what we thought we did 20 years ago about the causes of the ozone hole. (I looked up the article at Nature but I'm not willing to spend $199 on a subscription to read it.)

The Montreal Accord is also a precursor to the AGW debate.

• The Montreal Accord was an international agreement designed to fix a global atmospheric problem based on the best knowledge of scientists at the time. The scientists assigned 80% of the chlorine that causes the ozone hole to chemicals released by humans, specifically CFC's. Politicians worldwide banned the use of CFC's so we expect that the ozone hole will disappear.
  
• The AGW argument assigns the increase in temperature for the past 150 years on CO2 and other greenhouse gases released by humans. Now the politicians are deciding whether to follow through an the IPCC recommendations to cut CO2 emission to 80% of the 2000 levels by 2050.

So a CO2 ban is a much much larger version of the CFC ban. However if the CFC ban proves to be ineffective at closing the ozone hole that calls into question the ability of scientists to model complex atmospheric conditions. This could have very damaging political effects for the supporters of AGW.

I suspect this is why Shawn is so hostile to anything that might show that the ozone hole is not primarily driven by CFC's.

 

Lovins and the RMI are doing good things. I hope their efforts to get cheap carbon-fibre auto manufacturing off the ground succeeds.

 

Well stated JSH.

And I'm not sure what is driving Shawn's hostility. I think as Pat points out, this can remain a civil discussion -- and we can joke with each other, sure. But the outright hostility is starting to go over the top with him. Perhaps we should bring in the moderators to cool him down.

 

Agreed. Of course even Lovins only attributes about half of AGW to CO2, views global warming as irrelevant, and sees carbon limits as "misguided".

 

That is some warped brain you have. Lovins advocates getting off fossil fuels because the economic benefits ALONE make it worth while. While he has stressed the economic argument, he does not discount the dangers of AGW. Nice try though.

 

I don't think it's necessarily warped at all. Different to your POV, but horses for courses. Lovins' point is that there are two very tangible reasons to pursue energy efficiency... Nat'l security and economics. It's a very effective argument because it takes the uncertainty of climate change (here I mean the degree of change, not that change is happening) out of the dialogue.

Take TI (who RMI consulted with) and a new chip plant they build in Dallas. By putting a lot of fore thought into the design of the building they built the facility for $180M LESS than a plant that they had built in 1998... and it's LEED silver. It saves them $4M each year in electricity costs. It uses 20% less energy and 30% less water, while being considerably cheaper than a BAU building. They're more competitive because they're greener... which is why all of the whinging about jobs going to china if we get green is bollocks. Getting green makes you more efficient and thus more competitive in a globalized economy. So.... send a price signal on carbon not for environmental reasons but for nat'l security/economic reasons... and Bob's your uncle.

 

Lovin's points aren't warped and aren't different from my POV. What's warped is trying to frame Lovins as a AGW denier - what I perceived Tim as doing with out-of-context phrases.