Yeah so global warming huh...

[bryanbutler]

koonin is no quack. he had an endowed chair as faculty in physics at caltech (where he was a professor for 30 years and provost for 10). he was there when i was there as a grad student (and interestingly gave several public lectures on the refutation of cold fusion).

i skimmed the first half - it reads like he's not refuting climate change, but only calling into question the rate, and whether that is significant in terms of the global and historical reservoirs and changes. i'll try to have a more careful read tonight.

[Judge Jude]

i skimmed the first half - it reads like he's not refuting climate change, but only calling into question the rate, and whether that is significant in terms of the global and historical reservoirs and changes. i'll try to have a more careful read tonight.

yes, it's worth your while. It's written in a scientific fashion (I can't speak to the exact details, of course), and does not urge a specific action but rather careful thought as to how to approach.

the longterm solutions to almost completely man-made changes should be different than if it's more split, or even a bit less than currently anticipated.

"Society's choices in the years ahead will necessarily be based on uncertain knowledge of future climates. That uncertainty need not be an excuse for inaction. There is well-justified prudence in accelerating the development of low-emissions technologies and in cost-effective energy-efficiency measures."

[Judge Jude]

"the RATE of warming is unprecedented in the 20,000 year period which scientists are able to go back and analyze."

was that disputed? or are you assuming that correlation is the same as cause and effect?

[Judge Jude]

Supported: “Society's choices in the years ahead will necessarily be based on uncertain knowledge of future climates. That uncertainty need not be an excuse for inaction.”

Unsupported garbage: Natural influences are "comparable" in impact to human influences when it comes to climate change. Well, just nope. http://www.theguardian.com/environme...humans-causing

........

it probably would help if the unsupported garbage also was quoted in full.
I have no idea how to make the "RATE of warming" question even clearer than it already is.

[Judge Jude]

I would be very interested in a scientific retort to the entire essay, without the angry, emotional insults.
For instance, it would be helpful if an expert pointed out the specific objections while acknowledging legitimate points raised.
Better still would be a rebuttal from Koonin to follow that.

[Judge Jude]

I see, didn't realize you were linking to a response to the article. That was pretty good.

Not sure why you wouldn't mention that this also was an Obama appointee, or that the article notes that Koonin is "a respected computational physicist."

Not every single person who doesn't toe the exact party line is automatically "in on the conspiracy." to assume otherwise is, well, tin-foil hat time.

Also, your link doesn't explain why a correlation of increased warming with human development over 20,000 years means it can ONLY be explained by there being a cause and effect. In general, that sort of thinking is a logical fallacy. Maybe there are more specifics as to how the link is proved, but I don't see them there.

[bryanbutler]

20,000 years is pretty short, in climate terms. it's barely as long as the shortest forcing term in the milankovitch cycle...

i think what JJ is looking for is a straight factual rebuttal of the material in the article. what you are providing is a mix of that, plus plenty of innuendo about koonin's motives (along with murdoch and WSJ in general). if you could dispense with that, it might make folks more receptive to the other.

[bryanbutler]

Who am I, B-Fly?

Fuck that shit. Koonin is clearly a right-wing shill for big oil, taking time away from his climate change denial activities only when he has to give Rupert Murdoch a personal reach around.

lol .

does koonin still have big oil ties? my googling just now says no. and it further indicates that while he was at BP he was mostly driving their policy for alternative and renewable sources.

he's clearly a smart guy - you don't get elected to the NAS otherwise (or have an endowed chair at caltech). it's not clear that he's left-leaning or right-leaning in his approach (though with an adjunct position at the Institute for Defense Analyses it indicates right), either in general or this particular area. he might just be advocating that folks think more fully about the issue rather than just jumping on the bandwagon.

as a humorous aside, while i was at caltech there was that big "separated at birth" kick. one time right before one of his big public lectures, somebody printed up a bunch of 8x11 pages with him and rick moranis as separated at birth and put them all over campus. hilarious at the time. if you google his picture you'll see why.

[Fresno Bob]

I'm glad we didn't decide that 1% indecision could stall getting rid of CFCs......

[baldgriff]

I will believe it when I see it.

[johnnya24]

China lead the world in taking renewable (non-nuclear) energy seriously. China are top in wind, solar and hydro, and the gap is growing. They have had a concrete long term policy in place for transitioning to renewables for years, and have generally exceeded whatever short term goals they have set. We talk, they act. We play party politics and media games, fill column inches with utter bullshit like climate change denial, whereas China simply set and implement long term policy. China are not really agreeing to anything that wasn't already part of their long term domestic policy, certainly with regards energy policy.

One of the reasons China hasn't taken international deals on climate control seriously is because their internal economic conditions are so radically different to the countries they would be signing with. Plus China have a long term history of being isolationist. They just don't give a crap what people outside think of them. Europe, the US etc do not have anywhere close to the same level of growth as China (10% year on year), and therefore their energy demands over the next 50 years are going to massively outstrip any other signatories. That is reflected in the uneven goals of this agreement (26% USA, 20% China). But China hitting 20% by 2030 would be far far more impressive that the USA hitting 26% because of the relative stagnancy of Western economies. China have to massively grow and transition at the same time. The West just has to transition.

China has been growing so fast that, unless they want to lights to go out, they will have to still expand fossil fuel usage, and will have to for a long time to come. 20% renewable by 2030 doesn't seem that far off from what China's already existing goals were. In fact it seems that China have simply signed an international agreement that reflects what their domestic policies have already been for years.

I don't really see that China are agreeing to anything that they didn't already have planned. But you read the western media and it's "Obama forces China to do this or that" ... "West forces China to relent" ... all bullshit.

Air pollution is the much bigger problem in China. They can't control industrial and urban pollution in the same way they can control their long term energy policy.

[Pogues]

It appears the US has dropped their carbon emissions by 10-12% since 2005, so they have a nice head start.

China, just from 2005 to 2006 jumped 11%...and a ballpark difference from then until now is about 80% higher? So they have a ton of work to do to get to 20% lower levels than 2005. That's a level of commitment that seems unfathomable.

[Fresno Bob]

China has to flat out stop burning coal. I was in Beijing with 100 yd visibility in an "Industrial Age London" smog situation 2 weeks ago.

[Moonlight J]

China has to flat out stop burning coal. I was in Beijing with 100 yd visibility in an "Industrial Age London" smog situation 2 weeks ago.

I had about the same visibility on the back porch of the Phoenix hotel at First Pitch at night

We missed you, bud

[Fresno Bob]

I had about the same visibility on the back porch of the Phoenix hotel at First Pitch at night

We missed you, bud

Missed you guys as well, looked for you all at the Rising Stars game telecast, but didn't see anyone