The Copenhagen Climate Change Treaty

[Fisherking]

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.


http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/un-fccc-copenhagen-2009.pdf

This is unworkable or if it is fallowed you can forget the way you live today. You may as well pitch a tent and live in the woods, except you won’t be able to cook or heat...:sweatdrop:

[Furunculus]

I have not had a chance to read it yet, but i have NO doubt that it is a horrible statist mess whose cost will be largely borne in the bureaucracy 'necessary' to manage it, which will achieve little of use but to set a precedent to ratchet up the transfer of wealth to the developing world, and may in fact achieve nothing if the IPCC 'consensus' and catastrophic anthropogenic CO2 turns out to be wrong.

Right now, I am firmly of the opinion that DOHA would do more to assist the developing world in their ability to mitigate against a changing climate, just as it would do more to ensure the continueing prosperity of the developed world.

Quite frankly, i hope Copenhagen is a stunning failure so that forces us to take another five years to soberly assess the state of the science of climate change (it will take the Met Office 3 years to validate its own dataset), and the time would be equally well spent knee-capping the loony left that is using climate change as a vehicle for social engineering by bandwagoning the policy well in advance of the science.

[Fragony]

Not even going to bother I know what's in there

Quite frankly, i hope Copenhagen is a stunning failure

It could be even better, they might be unable to leave because they might end up snowed in, mother nature is going to lay a nice white carpet over Europe just about the same time the private-jets are ready to head back to the fatlands

[Subotan]

Not even going to bother I know what's in there
How inspiring. Why bother learning, when you can just presume?

Although I think it will probably come out a failure. After all, Votes > Developing Countries > Environment

[Fragony]

How inspiring. Why bother learning, when you can just presume?

Horses in fact can't count it's a trick, I am not going to learn anything from that. Nothing but what I already know: global warming = stealth socialism

[Subotan]

Horses in fact can't count it's a trick, I am not going to learn anything from that.
We know that they can't because we did not presume that what seemed to be a horse counting was in fact a horse counting. We investigated, and learned the truth.

Nothing but what I already know
Here you go: Have a quick skim through this to see why you're wrong. (http://books.google.com/books?id=KDDQJ0dB9bAC&dq=critique+of+pure+reason&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=yy-BSnte6x&sig=y2lrdPxyjq9XZhW7sgMQvbHSi6Q&hl=en&ei=8GMnS-SNMZq6jAfL1KWqDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

global warming = stealth socialism
Yeah, curse that Marxist Carbon Dioxide.

[Fragony]

Yeah, curse that Marxist Carbon Dioxide.

Every 4% of human output causing a 0.6 degrees rise in temperature in a 100 years that was measured with 100 year old equipment.

[Subotan]

Your point being?

[Fragony]

Your point being?

It isn't happening, man-made climate change is just another apocalyptic religion for people who think the flying spaghetti monster was pretty clever. I don't care what tree you bark or what moon you howl at but don't bother me with your irrational fears, especially when they cost me very rational perfectly fine cash.

[Subotan]

It isn't happening
Your original statement does not prove that in any way whatsoever.


man-made climate change is just another apocalyptic religion for people who think the flying spaghetti monster was pretty clever
I hate the FSM (For multiple reasons), yet it's obvious that climate change is a real danger.


It I don't care what tree you bark or what moon you how
:rolleyes:
It's telling when you are forced to resort to ad hominen attacks to counter actual science.


, especially when they cost me very rational perfectly fine cash.

You think the flood of immigrants over the Netherlands is bad? Wait until the actual floods come along.

[Fragony]

Oh please get away under my boot before I accidently step on you, there is no scientific data, there is no consensus, there is no man-made global warming.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Plunder for short-term private gain is the social engineering of autocracies and plutocracies. (See: 'Black of Communism - ecological disasters'). Sustainable development is the social engineering of liberty and democracy.

As such, I applaud the Copenhagen effort.

I have little doubt that the final outcome will be the product of compromise, conflicting interest, inertia and all else that stands between what's right and what's feasible.

[Fragony]

Plunder for short-term private gain is the social engineering of autocracies and plutocracies.

What the hell do you think is going on, we are feeding just that. Semi-long term it is though, providing a loan they can't repay, dictator in charge doesn't mind, and then we start stealing their resources because they can't pay back. Nice world huh.

[Furunculus]

yet it's obvious that climate change is a real danger.


yes, by definition catastrophic climate change is catastrophic.

but is this, poorly understood, climate change actually catastrophic?

and is it still catastrophic after economic development allows mitigation against the impacts?

is it chiefly anthropogenic in origin (i.e. if it were not chiefly anthropogenic would we be better off merely mitigating its impacts, or attempting to geo-engineer a solution)?

if it is chiefly anthropogenic, does our understanding of the science lets us confidently predict that the principle cause really is CO2 and other greenhouse gases and thus the policy response suitable, oh no wait; http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/15/soot_bigger_than_co2/

[Seamus Fermanagh]

In rough terms, fossil fules represent 85% of US energy consumption -- and let's not fool ourselves into thinking that Copenhagen will be reducing energy use by anyone aside from the USA and the EU -- while 8.5% is nuclear and 6.5% various renewables.

I would love to see this shift to 25% nuclear, 20% renewables, & 55% fossil. Such numbers would be achievable within a decade of hard effort. The result would be vastly less dependence on foreign powers for our energy -- me like -- and a good deal of money going towards research in renewables (which are short term losers money-wise but young enough as a tech field to beget better things in future).

As a byproduct, our CO2 production would decrease significantly. I don't by the "decisive" character ascribed to humanity in terms of global warming and I am not convinced that warming is bad anyway. Setting these issues aside, however, the changes in energy management STILL make sense even with other objectives in mind.

[Fisherking]

No one in their right mind want to destroy the environment.

This treaty however is about control of people and economies. It will help no one except those with power.

I doubt that any of us quite grasps how intrusive this thing will be if it is ratified.

Few will bother to read it, and there is the rub.

If nothing else check out page 16, subparagraph 31.

These options take GHG emissions back to levels found in the mid 1800s. Considering the population increases from that time what do you think it would be like to live within those limits?

Forget about manufacturing, forget about transportation, and forget about meat.

I am sure the elite would still have their limousines , caviar, and prime beef but the average person would be once more a mere peasant.

[InsaneApache]

Aye the elephant in the room is the population explosion since the last war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHFNHsLxKTk

[Louis VI the Fat]

This treaty however is about control of people and economies. It will help no one except those with power.


Forget about manufacturing, forget about transportation, and forget about meat.A 50% reduction by 1990 standards means that the US will move to a CO2 emmission level a little above the current level of the UK. For the UK it means moving to the level of New Zealand or France.

Scarcely the end of civilization as we know it, nor Marxist-Orwellian totalitarianism. On the contrary, it is just a matter of a few simple measures, at no great cost at all.


Co2 Emissions per capita:

1990
US 19.1
UK 10
France 7.7

2009
US 19
UK 8.6
France 5.8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita

[Fisherking]

A 50% reduction by 1990 standards means that the US will move to a CO2 emmission level a little above the current level of the UK. For the UK it means moving to the level of New Zealand or France.

Scarcely the end of civilization as we know it, nor Marxist-Orwellian totalitarianism. On the contrary, it is just a matter of a few simple measures, at no great cost at all.


Co2 Emissions per capita:

1990
US 19.1
UK 10
France 7.7

2009
US 19
UK 8.6
France 5.8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita


You didn’t read it did you...

It is not a 50% reduction! It could be as much as a 95% reduction.

Think again.

[Husar]

Aye the elephant in the room is the population explosion since the last war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHFNHsLxKTk

I certainly don't (want to) have the time to read 181 pages of political document, but this is a very good link.
A lot of the problems come from more people needing more, having less people(if just through birth control) could solve a lot of the problems in the long run I guess, the problem being that the economy is often layed out to benefit from neverending growth, take away the growth and you get big problems. Not to mention people may just (try to) ignore the rules.

[Furunculus]

it is just a matter of a few simple measures, at no great cost at all.



hmmm, $27 trillion, mere pocket change!

[Louis VI the Fat]

hmmm, $27 trillion, mere pocket change!A huge amount indeed. But then, $ 27 trillion is the socialised price we have to pay for the private profits of the polluters.

A few simple measures, a few billion less profits for privately owned industries, and the price tag would be much lower.



Again, the list, emissions per capita, note that it apparantly does not ruin one's economy in the slightest if one regulates industry, and invests in clean energy and infrastructure:

Norway, tightly regulated oil industry: 7.9.
Canada, Wild West oil industry: 17.4.

Tightly regulated Japan, accustomed to communal values, and very averse to free rides: 9.7.
Plunder capitalism, ruled by 'private profits, socialised risks': US 19.1.

Social-democratic New Zealand, whose pristine environment is a source of national pride and identity: 8.5
Australia, which has sold out to plunder capitalism of China and the US: 18.8.



Three options:
Let the polluter pay. The result is a clean environment, investment in technology, no free rides. This is the cheapest option. The system of choice for high-tech, long-term thinking, liberal democracies.

Let society pay for the cleaning up after the fact. This brings huge costs with it. Socialised costs. The communist way.

Let your grandchildren pay. Prohibitive costs to clean up, if at all possible. Plunder, slash-and-burn. The system of choice for wandering tribes (Easter Island) and neo-liberalists.

[Furunculus]

A huge amount indeed. But then, $ 27 trillion is the socialised price we have to pay for the private profits of the polluters.


If. You Have. Confidence. In. The. IPCC. 'Consensus'. Of. Catastrophic. Anthropogenic. CO2. Derived. Climate. Change.

[Fisherking]

Look, I do not oppose reasonable pollution controls but this has the potential to be draconian.

A 95% reduction in CO2 and what ever else they are monitoring seems extreme.

That means that the US would have the per capita CO2 profile of Samoa and France that of Zambia.

We do not even have reliable data to show that CO2 has a great effect. The ice core samples have an 800 year lag time between the rise in CO2 and warming.

We don’t even know that we are not just in a 20,000 year blip in the middle of an Ice Age.

At the moment every planet in the solar system is warming. We need more data before we can even comprehend what is happening, let alone know what to do about it.

This is a knee-jerk reaction on the part of political leaders who know little or nothing of the science.

It does give them a convenient way to frighten people, which is about all that this is really going to accomplish.

[Louis VI the Fat]

There is not going to be a 95% reduction, nobody is seriously demanding or expecting that.

[Furunculus]

An Incredibly Expensive Folly
Why Failure in Copenhagen Would Be a Success

An Essay By Bjørn Lomborg

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,665703,00.html

Page 1 -

Politicians have wasted nearly 20 years without making significant progress in our well-meaning but fanciful quest of cutting carbon emissions. We have no more time to waste on a critically flawed response to global warming.

The worst fears of many delegates to the Copenhagen climate negotiations have already come true: It has become clear that the official attempt to replace the Kyoto Protocol will fail to produce a concrete plan to reduce carbon emissions.

Frustrated environmental campaigners are already preparing to unfurl their protest banners, and politicians are scrambling for a face-saving way to declare the summit a success. Neither demonstrations nor a meaningless political agreement, however, will amount to a victory over global warming.

A successful outcome could still be salvaged from this meeting's failure, but only if decisionmakers acknowledge the reasons why agreement on drastic, short-term carbon cuts has proven elusive, and start to consider smarter options.

Over the past decade, a fierce argument has been waged between those who deny global warming's existence, and those who are deeply alarmed about its onset. The rhetoric from both sides has, at times, been overblown. Global warming is real and it is caused by humanity. That much has long been clear. But it is just as obvious that we have failed to embrace the policies that would best deal with this challenge.

It is often claimed that we could easily stop warming through carbon emission reductions, if only politicians had the willpower. In fact, political willpower is the least of our worries. This policy approach -- which we have followed for nearly 20 years -- is critically flawed. It is flawed economically, because short-term carbon taxes will cost a fortune and do little. It is flawed politically, because negotiations to reduce CO2 emissions will become ever more fraught and divisive for the actors in Europe, America and Asia. And it is flawed technologically, because it will not ensure that alternative energy is ready to end our reliance on carbon.

The first of these challenges is clear when we examine the plan by major industrialized nations -- the G-8 -- to use carbon emission cuts to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This would be the most costly public policy ever enacted. In a paper for the Copenhagen Consensus Center, prominent climate economist Professor Richard Tol -- who has been a contributing, lead, principal and convening author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's working groups -- showed that achieving the target would require a high, global CO2 tax starting at around €45 per ton.

CO2 Emissions Cuts Will Cost More than Climate Change Itself

Based on conventional estimates, this ambitious program would avert much of the damage of global warming, expected to be worth somewhere around €2 trillion a year by 2100. However, Tol concludes that a tax at this level could reduce world GDP by a staggering 12.9% in 2100 -- the equivalent of €27 trillion a year.

Tol's figures are based on projections from all of the major economic models of the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum. Around half of the models actually found it impossible to achieve the target of keeping temperature rises lower than 2 degrees Celsius with carbon cuts; the €27 trillion price-tag comes from those models that could do so.

It is, in fact, an optimistic cost estimate. It assumes that politicians everywhere in the world would, at all times, make the most effective, efficient choices possible to reduce carbon emissions, wasting no money whatsoever. Dump that far-fetched assumption, and the cost could easily be 10 or 100 times higher.

To put this in the starkest of terms: Drastic carbon cuts would hurt much more than climate change itself. Cutting carbon is extremely expensive, especially in the short-term, because the alternatives to fossil fuels are few and costly. Without feasible alternatives to carbon use, we will just hurt growth.

Secondly, we can also see that the approach is politically flawed, because of the simple fact that different countries have very different goals and all nations will find it hard to cut emissions at great cost domestically, to help the rest of the world a little in a hundred years.

This is particularly obvious for countries like China and India which have been dependent on carbon to drive growth that is lifting millions of people out of poverty.

The gulf between developed nations and developing countries over this issue forms the political roadblock to negotiating a successful replacement to the Kyoto Protocol. China and India will be the main greenhouse gas emitters of the 21st century, but were exempt from the Kyoto Protocol because they emitted so little during the West's industrialization period.

There are few arguments for China and India to commit to carbon caps -- and compelling reasons for them to resist pressure to do so.

Climate models show that for at least the rest of this century, China will actually experience a net benefit from global warming. While there will also be problems from climate change, warmer temperatures will boost agricultural production and improve health. The number of lives lost in heat waves will increase, but the number of deaths prevented in winter will grow much more rapidly: Warming will have a more dramatic effect on minimum temperatures in winter than on maximum temperatures in summer.

Some in Europe have suggested that rich countries pay off developing nations to ensure their participation in a carbon reduction agreement. Putting aside the point that this money could be much better spent, it is not clear that taxpayers in most developed countries are willing to transfer tens or even hundreds of billions of euros to the developing world, to projects of limited good.

Thirdly, the current approach is technologically flawed. We lack adequate replacements for the carbon that we burn today. Use of fossil fuels -- although much maligned -- remains absolutely vital for our development, prosperity and survival. Trying to tax carbon emissions without developing alternative energy replacements will simply leave the planet worse-off.
Page 2 -

Global energy demand will double by 2050. Alternative sources of energy are far from ready for widespread use. In a paper for the Copenhagen Consensus Center in July 2009, Isabel Galiana and Professor Chris Green of McGill University demonstrated the extent of the technological challenge. They pointed out that reducing carbon emissions by three-quarters by 2100 while maintaining reasonable growth -- a slightly less ambitious goal than the G-8's -- requires non-fossil fuel-based sources of energy to be an astonishing two and a half times greater in 2100 than the level of total, global energy consumption was in 2000. If we continue on our current path, technological development will not be anywhere near significant enough to make non-carbon-based energy sources competitive with fossil fuels in terms of price or effectiveness.

Green and Galiana examined the state of non-carbon based energy today --including nuclear, wind, solar, and geothermal energy -- and found that, taken together, alternative energy sources would get us less than halfway toward a path of stable carbon emissions by 2050, and only a tiny fraction of the way towards stabilization by 2100. The technology will simply not be ready in terms of scalability or stability. In many cases, there is still a need for the most basic research and development. We are not even close to getting the needed technological revolution started. And we should not forget that future generations will not judge us on the scale of our ambitions, but rather on what we actually delivered.

Right now, politicians are increasingly engaging in fanciful promises that have little or no chance of being fulfilled. Consider Japan. In June, it committed to cutting greenhouse gas levels by 8 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. As Professor Roger Pielke Jr. of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research noted in a peer-reviewed paper, fulfilling this promise would require building nine new nuclear power plants and increasing their use by one-third, constructing more than 1 million new wind-turbines, installing solar panels on nearly 3 million homes, doubling the percentage of new homes that meet rigorous insulation standards, and increasing sales of "green" vehicles from 4 to 50 percent of auto purchases.

This would be a Herculean effort, especially for a nation that has already led the world in energy efficiency. Yet it was roundly criticized when first presented. When Japan's new prime minister recently promised a much stronger reduction, 25 percent, without any obvious way to deliver, it was roundly applauded. Beautiful words are valued over realistic goals.

€53 Billion in Solar Power Will Prevent only an Hour of Climate Change

Our current approach to solving global warming -- focusing primarily on how much carbon to try to cut through taxes, rather than on how to achieve this technologically -- puts the cart before the horse.

The most effective policy response would be to dramatically increase public funds on research and development into non-CO2 based energy. Rather than making fossil fuels more expensive, we need to make alternative energy cheaper.

Research and development investments of around €66 billion a year will be needed. That is fifty-fold more than is spent by governments now, but a fraction of the cost of proposed carbon cuts. Green and Galiana, the academics from McGill University, found that in economic terms, every dollar spent could avoid €11 worth of climate damage.

We cannot rely on private enterprise. As with medical research, many of the required early, innovative breakthroughs will not reap significant financial rewards, so there is no strong incentive for private investment today.

Dramatically increasing public funding would resolve many of the political challenges with the Kyoto approach. Developing nations like India and China would be much more likely to embrace a cheaper, smarter and more beneficial path of innovation.

Carbon taxes could play an important secondary role in supporting research and development. Green and Galiana propose carbon pricing be limited initially to a low tax (say $5 a ton) to finance energy research and development. Over time, they propose, the tax should be allowed to rise to send a price signal to promote the deployment of effective, affordable technology alternatives.

It is important that research and development spending is devoted to developing new, alternative technologies instead of simply propping up today's inefficient technology. We can find a case of the latter in Germany, which pays a huge amount to cut tiny amounts of carbon through supporting solar power. This support costs €0.43 per kWh, which is equivalent to spending €716 to cut every ton of CO2. Yet the expected climate damage of each ton is about €4.

The price-tag is phenomenal -- estimated at €53 billion for the solar panels installed between 2000-2010 -- yet the maximum effect will be to postpone global warming by just one hour, at the end of this century. This incredibly expensive folly is an example of a policy that feels good but does nothing.

Policymakers should abandon fraught carbon reduction negotiations, and instead make agreements to invest in research and development to get alternative technology to the level it needs to be.

Since politicians first promised to cut carbon in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, we have wasted nearly 20 years without making any meaningful progress in our well-meaning but ultimately fanciful quest of cutting carbon emissions. We have no more time to waste on a critically flawed response to global warming.

[Husar]

Reducing the world GDP by 12.9% wouldn't be a problem if we could manage to reduce the world population by 30% in the same time.

[ajaxfetish]

Norway, tightly regulated oil industry: 7.9.
Canada, Wild West oil industry: 17.4.

Tightly regulated Japan, accustomed to communal values, and very averse to free rides: 9.7.
Plunder capitalism, ruled by 'private profits, socialised risks': US 19.1.

Social-democratic New Zealand, whose pristine environment is a source of national pride and identity: 8.5
Australia, which has sold out to plunder capitalism of China and the US: 18.8.

*Norway: 148,746 square miles (31 people per square mile)
*Canada: 3,854,085 square miles (8.3 people per square mile)

*Japan: 145,883 square miles (874.4 people per square mile)
*USA: 3,794,101 square miles (80 people per square mile)

*New Zealand: 103,738 square miles (41.6 people per square mile)
*Australia: 2,941,299 square miles (7.3 people per square mile)

There are more factors to consider than just environmental attitudes. Are there any examples of nations with huge areas like Canada, the US, and Australia that manage emission levels like little Norway, Japan, or New Zealand? Perhaps Russia, China, or Brazil have pulled it off? If not, it'd be hard to argue that massive size couldn't be a big contributor to higher per capita emissions.

Of course, population density is probably even more important, and there the US stands out, with about twice the density of New Zealand or Norway and still higher per capita emissions. Canada and Australia, though, have under 10 people per square mile. Chances are, the more spread out the population is, the less efficient communal energy uses will prove. To get beyond just population density on a national scale, it'd also be nice to see how much of that population is concentrated in cities, coastal areas, otherwise small bits of the geography. Are there large parts of any of these countries with little or no energy consumption? Or is it spread out evenly across them.

The point is, just saying that one country has high emissions because of a bad attitude and another has low emissions because of a good attitude, is not the whole story.

Ajax

[Fisherking]

There is not going to be a 95% reduction, nobody is seriously demanding or expecting that.

The reason I posted the link was so that you could know what is proposed, and that sir is proposed.

I also see that you would rater not discuss the other points.

This is just a big rush to do something even though we know there is an agenda behind it that has little to do with saving the planet.

It always was about inciting fear and spurring those who would take their word that something is wrong without going to the trouble of finding out what is behind it all.
:yes:

[Prince Cobra]

Some people here shock me. Why do you underestimate the climate change? Why shall we wait to see what will happen instead of doing something? I am not that sceptic as some scientists are but something must be done.

On another aspect: one should not expect to base his economy on fossil fuels only. These are limited and people must change their attitude to this. There is a precious little left from these and unless you want to go back to the Stone Age with mountains of useless iron something must be done (especially with the green technologies)

I really hope it won't be a glorious failure, though I don't expect a revolutionary outcome, too.

Btw, whilst I never saw Obama as a Messiah, one of the good things of the Obama administration is that somebody in USA finally paid attention on the problem.

[Fisherking]

Perhaps you missed out on the revelation that mankind has very little impact on the global climate.

The changes are natural and likely solar driven, as all the planets are heating at the moment.

It does not mean that we should not do something but we should not expect it to have a global impact.

Rushing the process is not beneficial to anyone. And more importantly why? What is the political benefit to making a world treaty that will have not have a real effect on world climate?

If we actually want to manage the climate we are going to have to get some hard data and not stilted to show a desired result.

[Prince Cobra]

Perhaps you missed out on the revelation that mankind has very little impact on the global climate.

Perhaps ( ambiguously used).




It does not mean that we should not do something but we should not expect it to have a global impact.

I agree, we should do something. And who knows?

P.S. Isn't it strange how certain discoveries fit with the Copenhagen Conference?




Rushing the process is not beneficial to anyone. And more importantly why? What is the political benefit to making a world treaty that will have not have a real effect on world climate?


Even if we make the brave assumption that climate is not affected by human activity, we should not take the fossil fuels for granted and poison our planet.

P.S. Isn't it strange how scientific discoveries were made right before the Copenhagen Conference?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Believe what you will about climate change, but Copenhagen itself, as it is currently forming, is nothing more than a massive wealth redistribution scheme. It won't do anything to actually help climate change if climate change actually exists in a man-made form.

[CountArach]

I am not convinced that warming is bad anyway.
Could you clarify why you think it would be a good thing please? I can't see up sides.

[InsaneApache]

The question being asked here by Ben Goldacre and lots of his commenters is: why do AGW sceptics believe what they do? Well, I'm an AGW sceptic, so I can at least tell them why in my own case.

First, the non-reasons. Am I in the pocket of Big Oil? I wish. I hear they pay well.

Is it because I'm against the massive societal changes "necessary" to fight AGW? Well, no, because I don't think they're necessary. It is well established by lots of evidence (most notably the brilliant experiment done on Europe from 1945 to 1990, where they tried one political system on half the continent and its antithesis on the other) that Socialism screws the environment and that wealthy people in wealthy societies tend to spend their spare cash on the luxury good of natural-environment-preservation, while poor people are too busy trying to survive to be bothered with saving the trees. My position is that, if AGW were a threat, then the solution would be more wealth-generation, probably via Capitalism. Since I'm all for wealth-generation, I'm not sceptical of AGW in order to avoid its political solution.

Is it because I want to burn lots of oil for some reason? Again, no. I hate driving and I think we should cut down on fossil-fuel consumption because it puts all sorts of nasty crap in the atmosphere which is bad for our lungs and bad for trees. I also support the development of alternative fuel sources on the simple grounds of being pro-progress. I want my solar hydrogen fusion jetpack, like they promised us when we were kids.

However, as a computer programmer, I agree with Feynman's philosophical position that you shouldn't use computer models as a source of new information and I also take the practical position that even the world's best software is buggy. I've not seen any evidence that climatologists' software is orders of magnitude less buggy than, say, Excel. Two weeks ago, I saw evidence that it's buggy as hell.

I object to the fact that the models used do not contain known climate-influencing factors — specifically, existing models cannot contain information about new discoveries. For instance, no model used before 2006 could have contained anything about this discovery — and that includes being developed by a climatologist who has seen the science and refuted it. Of course, it is entirely possible to make accurate predictions based on purely numerical models, but I don't believe that this is one of those cases, for reasons that I won't go into here & now because it'd take hours.

I object to the constant use of the word "denialist", designed as it is to imply a parallel with AIDS denialists and Holocaust denialists. We never refer to Einstein as a "quantum mechanics denialist", even though he didn't accept the theory and the theory has been proven right to as great an extent as science ever is. You're not going to persuade me of your case by insulting me, but you are going to make me wonder why you're conducting a propaganda campaign against anyone who expresses any doubts whatsoever about your views.

The leaked emails were a shock to me — not because of the sniping and back-stabbing, but because I had never realised previously that FOI requests were even necessary to get at the data. This is scientific method 101 here: release your data. Goldacre does good business going through the problems with pharmaceutical studies by analysing their raw data. But at least he can get at it to analyse it in the first place. Regardless of the shenanigans to avoid acceding to the FOI requests, the very fact that they were needed in the first place is disturbing. And the insane quote from Phil Jones, "Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it" — what the hell? Again, that's the scientific method. As Goldacre has pointed out repeatedly, scientists like it when their results get pulled to pieces, because that's what leads to stronger and stronger science. But not climatologists, apparently.

I object to the way that the science has been inseparably attached to authoritarian politics. Herman Van Rompuy said the other day that "2009 is also the first year of global governance," giving Copenhagen as an example of this. That's an unelected president of an unelected body asserting that he is going to exercise more power over me via policies that I will never be allowed to vote on. And I'm told that the only reason to object to this is because I hate the planet and want all our grandchildren to die. As far as I can see, the climatologists who say that AGW is happening and is a threat are backing the same political solutions and are keenly joining in the political fight. Well, if they want to conflate the science with the politics, they lose the right to complain when people criticise them from one point of view and not the other. They brought that on themselves. And, when they make it clear that they have political as well as scientific motives, I am entitled to question which one would be ascendant if they were to pull in different directions. It's not as if it's unusual for scientists to corrupt their science in the cause of politics.

The concensus thing. My objection to the constant use of the word "concensus" is not that the concensus itself is meaningless; obviously, it's relevant. My objection is the way that the concensus's existence is routinely presented as a scientific argument in its own right. It amounts to "You shouldn't be sceptical because none of us are, and that proves it." Yeah, go science.

I object to the apparent unfalsifiability of the argument. Every perceivedly unusual weather event is presented as evidence of AGW. As someone mentioned in the Bad Science comments, this may be more due to activists than scientists, but where are the climatologists attacking and disowning such claims just as they attack us sceptics? Conspicuously silent.

And yes, I object to the models' failure to predict the recent total lack of warming. AGW's proponents point out the difference between predicting a system's behaviour in micro and in macro, and the point is well taken. But the trouble is that there's no long history of correct predictions here. What the AGW crowd are telling us is not "Ignore our failure to predict the recent climate because we've predicted it successfully so often in the past" but rather "Ignore our failure to predict the recent climate because we will predict it successfully in the future." Hmm.

And I object to what looks suspiciously like Catastrophism, which used to be regarded as inherently unscientific by its very nature.

I am well aware that there are sceptics who are ignorant and motivated by such ridiculous things as a love of cars. But I'm not one of them, and, in my experience, most of us regard those nutters somewhat askance when they turn up.

Now, please, stop slandering me.


Update:

By the way, if anyone from Big Oil is reading this, whilst I did write it for free, I would like you to inform your overlords that I am more than happy to write much the same thing repeatedly in return for untraceable cash, barrels of oil, hot compliant women, etc. If I'm going to get accused of working for you anyway, may as well get the up side to go with it.

http://www.squandertwo.net/blog/2009/12/denialism-and-scepticism.htm

Just about sums up my thoughts. :yes:

[Brenus]

“Perhaps you missed out on the revelation that mankind has very little impact on the global climate.”
I like this. Human kind has no influence on floods and we built dams. Human kind has no influence on rains but we have umbrellas.:laugh4:
I find strange for the Climate Change former deniers then “climate change not human made” is the attitude it is natural so nothing has to be done to fight it.
Human History IS a fight against nature. :book:
We try to control nature from the moment of the “agricultural” revolution in the Neolithic… I think it is Neolithic…:sweatdrop:

[Subotan]

Since when did climate change become a left vs. right issue? It's not socialism vs. capitalism, or freedom vs. communism, or even intelligence vs. idiocy, but just science.

[Furunculus]

Some people here shock me.

Why do you underestimate the climate change?

Why shall we wait to see what will happen instead of doing something?

I am not that sceptic as some scientists are but something must be done.


Why?

I don't, i'm a geologist by training and fully aware the catastrophic impact of previous climate changes.

But do what? Will you feel A-ok as long as we have done something, even if that something achieves nothing to alleviate the problem that something must be done about?

Let me put it this way; if we spend £27 trillion controlling green house gases, reducing global GDP growth by 12% by 2040, and it turns out that soot particulates have a greater climate impact than gases, then we will have unnecessarily kept two billion people in poverty, done nothing to retard catastrophic climate change, and reduced the ability of the developed world to cope with the real problem. Will your conscience still be salved because we have done something?

[Furunculus]

Could you clarify why you think it would be a good thing please? I can't see up sides.

well global warming will actually benefit china for at least the next century, as improved crop yields will help feed its billion plus population.

they have even calculated that the number of people who will die from droughts will be less than the number saved from cold weather.

sounds like a pretty good upside to me.................

“Perhaps you missed out on the revelation that mankind has very little impact on the global climate.”
I like this. Human kind has no influence on floods and we built dams. Human kind has no influence on rains but we have umbrellas.:laugh4:
I find strange for the Climate Change former deniers then “climate change not human made” is the attitude it is natural so nothing has to be done to fight it.

that is exactly as foolish a comparison as those who do not know the difference between weather and climate.

Since when did climate change become a left vs. right issue? It's not socialism vs. capitalism, or freedom vs. communism, or even intelligence vs. idiocy, but just science.
since the lefty activists started pushing policy in advance of the science.

[al Roumi]

well global warming will actually benefit china for at least the next century, as improved crop yields will help feed its billion plus population.

they have even calculated that the number of people who will die from droughts will be less than the number saved from cold weather.

sounds like a pretty good upside to me.................


I'm sorry but how can you so avidly distrust the evidence in favour of addressing climate change and then justify your stance with evidence if not more flimsy and questionable than the former!?

Predictions of the scale of the impacts are very very sketchy. To extrapolate out some sort of macabre balance of human life is simply absurd, particularily if you dissmiss the very evidence on which the impact of CC is based!

What is perhaps a more pertinent issue is where people are likely to be worst affected. The developped world, even if it faces serious issues, will be far better placed to react to a change than the developping. Providing some sort of support to those who really will bear the brunt of anything to come is surely the most laudable goal of Copenhagen.

[Furunculus]

I'm sorry but how can you so avidly distrust the evidence in favour of addressing climate change and then justify your stance with evidence if not more flimsy and questionable than the former!?

Predictions of the scale of the impacts are very very sketchy. To extrapolate out some sort of macabre balance of human life is simply absurd, particularily if you dissmiss the very evidence on which the impact of CC is based!

What is perhaps a more pertinent issue is where people are likely to be worst affected. The developped world, even if it faces serious issues, will be far better placed to react to a change than the developping. Providing some sort of support to those who really will bear the brunt of anything to come is surely the most laudable goal of Copenhagen.

the evidence is from IPCC climate models. they showed that china's mean temp raised a little (enough to improve crop yields), but its minimum temp raised a lot (which would alleviate the effects of winter storms). i'm not saying i trust the above, it was merely an example of the upsides that another person said he failed to see, it doesn't matter whether i trust it or not, it matters whether the chinese trust it, for them it is an upside.

i am not providing a balance of life, i was replying to someone who said they failed to see any upsides..................... i provided one, from the chinese perspective.

until i have more confidence in the IPCC consensus then my absolute position is that worldwide diplomatic capital would be far better spent on achieving Doha than Copenhagen, as it would do far more to secure the developing world against the perils of their climate, and it would not act as a wealth redistribution scheme from my country to the third world.

[Subotan]

the evidence is from IPCC climate models. they showed that china's mean temp raised a little (enough to improve crop yields), but its minimum temp raised a lot (which would alleviate the effects of winter storms). .

China has about 20% of the world's population, yet only 6% of it's fresh water supply, most of it in remote, vulnerable Himalayan Glaciers. If those melt, you can kiss agriculture in the Yellow, Pearl and Yangtze Basins goodbye.

[Furunculus]

China has about 20% of the world's population, yet only 6% of it's fresh water supply, most of it in remote, vulnerable Himalayan Glaciers. If those melt, you can kiss agriculture in the Yellow, Pearl and Yangtze Basins goodbye.

and yet climate change is still a net benefit to china for the rest of this century.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

there is apparently something useful happening in copenhagen after all:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/janetdaley/100020059/greg-clark-injects-some-sanity-into-climate-change-furore/

talk of adaptation and mitigation, something the human species has proved very adept at in the last million years.

[Prince Cobra]

Let me put it this way; if we spend £27 trillion controlling green house gases, reducing global GDP growth by 12% by 2040, and it turns out that soot particulates have a greater climate impact than gases, then we will have unnecessarily kept two billion people in poverty, done nothing to retard catastrophic climate change, and reduced the ability of the developed world to cope with the real problem. Will your conscience still be salved because we have done something?

I am not very sure how much the reduction of global GDP will be. The implementation of certain measures is only problem in the short-term, and it repays as the years progress, But if we don't take any measures (green technologies have two purposes: clearer envoronment and...), then what are we going to do when the fossil fuels are over? Do you know what unsustainable rapid development can cause?

So yes, it is better to do something than sit and wait. I do not say we should go to the extremes (at this stage it is clear that full implementation of the program is impossible) but something must be done.

[al Roumi]

the evidence is from IPCC climate models. they showed that china's mean temp raised a little (enough to improve crop yields), but its minimum temp raised a lot (which would alleviate the effects of winter storms). i'm not saying i trust the above, it was merely an example of the upsides that another person said he failed to see, it doesn't matter whether i trust it or not, it matters whether the chinese trust it, for them it is an upside.

i am not providing a balance of life, i was replying to someone who said they failed to see any upsides..................... i provided one, from the chinese perspective.

until i have more confidence in the IPCC consensus then my absolute position is that worldwide diplomatic capital would be far better spent on achieving Doha than Copenhagen, as it would do far more to secure the developing world against the perils of their climate, and it would not act as a wealth redistribution scheme from my country to the third world.

I don't know enough about Copenhagen and exactly what they are tabling, but I completely agree that DOHA should be approved.

[Brenus]

“that is exactly as foolish a comparison as those who do not know the difference between weather and climate.” That is exactly the foolish sentence of those who don’t know that both are linked.:beam:
The former deniers are just saying: it is nature we can’t do about it. Man, we don’t stop to do something about catastrophes…
It doesn’t matter if the climate Change is homme made (yeah, I know), humans have to face it and do something about it…

[Ice]

It isn't happening, man-made climate change is just another apocalyptic religion for people who think the flying spaghetti monster was pretty clever. I don't care what tree you bark or what moon you howl at but don't bother me with your irrational fears, especially when they cost me very rational perfectly fine cash.

Right.

I was speaking to the chair of the biology department at Texas Tech (who is my second cousin). He specializes in climate change research, etc, and was visiting Penn State since we were hosting the annual climate change conference. The conference basically is a large group of academics coming together to discuss the issue and solutions to help deal with it. I had dinner with him and his Dutch research assassitant (who was really good looking I might add), and asked him straight up "Politics aside, what does your DATA suggests is really going on?" He basically tolding me that global warming IS REAL and that HUMANS WERE THE MAIN CAUSE without a doubt. He then went into this technical jargon as to why, but I honestly don't remember. The man is not a tree hugger.

So, I'll take his educated and well thought out opinion over your's, Frag.

[drone]

Maybe his research assistant is a tree hugger, and he's just trying to get into her pants. :eyebrows:

[Meneldil]

Right.

I was speaking to the chair of the biology department at Texas Tech (who is my second cousin). He specializes in climate change research, etc, and was visiting Penn State since we were hosting the annual climate change conference. The conference basically is a large group of academics coming together to discuss the issue and solutions to help deal with it. I had dinner with him and his Dutch research assassitant (who was really good looking I might add), and asked him straight up "Politics aside, what does your DATA suggests is really going on?" He basically tolding me that global warming IS REAL and that HUMANS WERE THE MAIN CAUSE without a doubt. He then went into this technical jargon as to why, but I honestly don't remember. The man is not a tree hugger.

So, I'll take his educated and well thought out opinion over your's, Frag.

Here we have the main issue here.

For the former deniers (who now changed their mind and think "It's not man-made"), climate change is a left vs. issue. Yet another leftist plot to plunder the economy they say. Socialist/Greeno scumbags are trying to take away our freedom, and to destroy our beloved nations.

Just look at this thread: socialism, social enginering and control came up already, and we're only at the second page.
It's always the same thing with the far right: if you think climate change is an issue, you're a tree hugger. If you think treating immigrants like dogs isn't fine, you're a multiculturalist freedom-hating muslim-lover. If you think regulation is a good thing, you're a commie.

Get over it already. Climate change isn't some leftist agenda. Various people from the moderate right acknowledged the problem. You all can stay in your corner and blame the socialist plot while normal people try to solve the issue.

[Ice]

Here we have the main issue here.

For the former deniers (who now changed their mind and think "It's not man-made"), climate change is a left vs. issue. Yet another leftist plot to plunder the economy they say. Socialist/Greeno scumbags are trying to take away our freedom, and to destroy our beloved nations.

Just look at this thread: socialism, social enginering and control came up already, and we're only at the second page.
It's always the same thing with the far right: if you think climate change is an issue, you're a tree hugger. If you think treating immigrants like dogs isn't fine, you're a multiculturalist freedom-hating muslim-lover. If you think regulation is a good thing, you're a commie.

Get over it already. Climate change isn't some leftist agenda. Various people from the moderate right acknowledged the problem. You all can stay in your corner and blame the socialist plot while normal people try to solve the issue.

You'd think a concept that simple would be understood by all.

[KukriKhan]

You'd think a concept that simple would be understood by all.

Yeah. Except the videos of Dane politi beating protestors. That plays huge.

Folks who approach the problem scientifically get diss'd. Those who come at it politically get disregarded. And folks who used to not care at all, the vast majority (and hope their greatest minds and selected/elected officials are paying attention to the details) get radicalized because their kids, or kids who look like their kids, are being clubbed, baton'd, and otherwise abused.

Bad PR. At a time when do-able measures are available and desireable by that same majority.

D- I award to both the Police and the Demonstrators there.

[Husar]

Pff, those oil-hugging protesters asked for it! :smash:

I just heard they arrested some, not that they clubbed everyone down. Maybe Denmark isn't used to such aggression and tried to calm things down quickly? After all it's the happiest country in the world, those protesters have to really stand out.

[Fragony]

Typical, the apocalypse cravers are becoming violent when confronted with inquisitive journalism regarding serious science.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=014_1261009778

[Furunculus]

Here we have the main issue here.

For the former deniers (who now changed their mind and think "It's not man-made"), climate change is a left vs. issue. Yet another leftist plot to plunder the economy they say. Socialist/Greeno scumbags are trying to take away our freedom, and to destroy our beloved nations.

Just look at this thread: socialism, social enginering and control came up already, and we're only at the second page.
It's always the same thing with the far right: if you think climate change is an issue, you're a tree hugger. If you think treating immigrants like dogs isn't fine, you're a multiculturalist freedom-hating muslim-lover. If you think regulation is a good thing, you're a commie.

Get over it already. Climate change isn't some leftist agenda. Various people from the moderate right acknowledged the problem. You all can stay in your corner and blame the socialist plot while normal people try to solve the issue.
*screams silently inside the lonely confines of his own head*

Never does my own objection to the IPCC consensus seem more relevant:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=2384113&postcount=144


I am as yet skeptical of the IPCC consensus that catastrophic climate change is primarily driven by anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

This is a fairly nuanced opinion, and yet even people who are not eco-activists by any means, somehow sum this up with the statement; "but you don't believe in climate change, do you!"

I am by training a geologist, of course i believe in climate change, i spent three years studying it on and off.

I also know, from study, that it has frequently in the past been catastrophic in impact to the flora and fauna of the time.

I know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and accept that it is within the realms of possibility that it is the driving factor of recent recorded climate change.

I am also fully aware that there are a multitude of other anthropogenic sources of green house gas, and that their action in combination can bring about feedback mechanisms that amplify the individual effects.

And yet this nuance is written off by; "but you don't believe in climate change, do you!" This to me is the real poison of the consensus as advocated through politics and eco-preaching, it is removing the responsibility of critical analysis from people, and replacing it with xenophobic faith.

My skepticism is not immovable, as that would not be a scientific position to hold, but it will require a great weight more evidence alongside a great deal more confidence in simulated climate models before I am convinced that spending trillions worrying about anthropogenic CO2 is a sane policy.

Because if this bout isn't anthropogenic, or; is anthropogenic but not catastrophic, or; is catastrophic but not CO2 induced, then our current direction in spending trillions in future wealth growth may be as futile and pointless as Canute with his tides.
Seems like it is you making it a left vs issue right now.................

And i am not a denier, nor too are many of those branded deniers, we are skeptics*, and i have never said there isn't a problem.
What i do object to is the idea of retarding GDP growth by ~12% by 2050, at a cost of 27 trillion Euros, when i am not convinced as yet that catastrophic climate change is principally driven by anthropogenic CO2, because that GDP growth in the developing world is precisely what will allow them to cope with the perils of their climate!










* skep·ti·cal also scep·ti·cal Pronunciation (skpt-kl)
adj.
1. Marked by or given to doubt; questioning: a skeptical attitude; skeptical of political promises.
2. Relating to or characteristic of skeptics or skepticism.

[Fisherking]

I am neither with the left or the right on this issue.

I just want the truth, and that is an ever rarer commodity.

Most of the research has been politicized and really is not reliable.

Temperatures were manipulated to show warming and even those scientists supporting that it was human caused could not come up with any real proof.

The left took the “Global Warming” issue in the 1990 and ran with it. They have a huge stake in it being so. So much so that they felt that false data was just fine if they had to use it.

The business interests just want to keep down costs and keep up business as usual without new regulation and controls.

I am highly skeptical of both viewpoints.

The climate is changing. It always has. CO2 does not seem to be behind it.

That does not mean that measures should not be taken. But it is not an end of the world thing that we need to rush into.

I am suspicious of the motives behind it. After all they have been caught in a lie.

[Furunculus]

apparently the russians aren't too happy with what UEA/Hadley have done with their data:
http://climateaudit.org/2009/12/16/iearussia-hadley-center-probably-tampered-with-russian-climate-data/

[Subotan]

and yet climate change is still a net benefit to china for the rest of this century

Rubbish. If those glaciers melted and disappeared, China would descend into total chaos. Likewise, India's agriculture would go kablooey, since the Ganges would run dry, as would the Mekong and the Irrawaddy.

[Fragony]

Rubbish. If those glaciers melted and disappeared, China would descend into total chaos. Likewise, India's agriculture would go kablooey, since the Ganges would run dry, as would the Mekong and the Irrawaddy.

Make a basic calculation, earth is round, how much water would it take to rise the sea-levels with more than a few centimeters. Probably much more then the ice that is available for melting.

[Furunculus]

Read. And. Understand.

according to IPCC models; climate change is still a net benefit to china for the rest of this century.

[Fragony]

Read. And. Understand.

according to IPCC models; climate change is still a net benefit to china for the rest of this century.

I am pretty sure they are following all this with great amusement. Only one thing will come from this and that is useless taxes, on top of useless taxes.

nothing to read by the way, read what

[Furunculus]

I am pretty sure they are following all this with great amusement. Only one thing will come from this and that is useless taxes, on top of useless taxes.

nothing to read by the way, read what

that climate change will benefit china for the rest of this century, according to the IPCC models after which climate change will NOT be off benefit to china, presumably because fresh water run-off from the himalayas will be too far reduced for reasons associated with the shrinking glaciers.

[Subotan]

Make a basic calculation, earth is round, how much water would it take to rise the sea-levels with more than a few centimeters. Probably much more then the ice that is available for melting.
Huh?


Read. And. Understand.

according to IPCC models; climate change is still a net benefit to china for the rest of this century.

Phew! I guess now we can put off that problem for another century, and leave someone else to deal with it when the problem is much worse.

[Fragony]

Huh?

Aint't that hard a question, I am sure you are familiar with basic math. so even when the poles and glaciers melt, how is it going to give me any wet feet.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Make a basic calculation, earth is round, how much water would it take to rise the sea-levels with more than a few centimeters. Probably much more then the ice that is available for melting.Total area Greenland: 2 million km2
Total sea surface: 350 million km2

So every 175 meter of Greenland ice will make the sea level rise one meter.

The icecap on Greenland is well over 2 kilometers high.

:book:

[Ice]

I am neither with the left or the right on this issue.

I just want the truth, and that is an ever rarer commodity.

Most of the research has been politicized and really is not reliable.

Temperatures were manipulated to show warming and even those scientists supporting that it was human caused could not come up with any real proof.

The left took the “Global Warming” issue in the 1990 and ran with it. They have a huge stake in it being so. So much so that they felt that false data was just fine if they had to use it.

The business interests just want to keep down costs and keep up business as usual without new regulation and controls.

I am highly skeptical of both viewpoints.

The climate is changing. It always has. CO2 does not seem to be behind it.

That does not mean that measures should not be taken. But it is not an end of the world thing that we need to rush into.

I am suspicious of the motives behind it. After all they have been caught in a lie.

Read academic papers, or ask actually academics/scientists. I'd agree that politicians are mostly lying, cheating, and manipulating tools who cannot be trusted without proper backing.

[Fragony]

Total area Greenland: 2 million km2
Total sea surface: 350 million km2

So every 175 meter of Greenland ice will make the sea level rise one meter.

The icecap on Greenland is well over 2 kilometers high.

:book:

Try it again.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Oceans are on average 3km deep. It only needs to expand 0,1% because of heating to make sea levels rise three meters.

Against these rises go that ice takes up more volume than water. And also more water will be vapour instead of liquid - increasing temperature means more water as vapour. But, water vapour is a greenhouse gas too, so any heating of water creates more heating.


But that is all basic high school physics / 'scientifically controversial'.

More convincing is simply the geological record. Have a look at the maps from the previous Ice Ages. The earth was cooler, so sea levels were far lower. Indonesia was not a band of Islands, but merely the mountain tops of a huge Asian peninsula. The North Sea was but a grassy plain, that's why you only need to throw out a fishing net to dredge up mammoth and human remains from the bottom of the North Sea.

[al Roumi]

Make a basic calculation, earth is round, how much water would it take to rise the sea-levels with more than a few centimeters. Probably much more then the ice that is available for melting.


Aint't that hard a question, I am sure you are familiar with basic math. so even when the poles and glaciers melt, how is it going to give me any wet feet.

Ahem. Our dear friend Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise) has the following to say:

"In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report predicted that by 2100, global warming will lead to a sea level rise of 19 to 58 cm[24], depending on which of six possible world scenarios comes to pass.
These sea level rises could lead to difficulties for shore-based communities in the next centuries: for example, many major cities such as London and New Orleans already need storm-surge defenses, and would need more if sea level rose, though they also face issues such as sinking land.[25] Sea level rise could also displace many shore-based populations: for example it is estimated that a sea level rise of just 20 cm could create 740,000 homeless people in Nigeria.[26] Maldives, Tuvalu, and other low-lying countries are among the areas that are at the highest level of risk. The UN's environmental panel has warned that, at current rates, sea level would be high enough to make the Maldives uninhabitable by 2100.[27] [28]"

So 1 cm more than the most conservative internationaly approved estimate, 20cm in 100 years, is of 740,000 people made homeless in a single country (Nigeria).

"A study in the April, 2007 issue of Environment and Urbanization reports that 634 million people live in coastal areas within 30 feet (9.1 m) of sea level. The study also reported that about two thirds of the world's cities with over five million people are located in these low-lying coastal areas. The IPCC report of 2007 estimated that accelerated melting of the Himalayan ice caps and the resulting rise in sea levels would likely increase the severity of flooding in the short-term during the rainy season and greatly magnify the impact of tidal storm surges during the cyclone season. A sea-level rise of just 40 cm in the Bay of Bengal would put 11 percent of the Bangladesh's coastal land underwater, creating 7 to 10 million climate refugees."

But of course these are just modeled outcomes, devised by making key assumptions and they of course are to be questioned on the grounds of methodology -as any other scientific study is.

As an internationaly agreed range (which is admitedly huge), it is at least a guide.

[Louis VI the Fat]

nvm

[al Roumi]

Fragony, if that was a bit too much text to digest, this even has coloured pictures:

Major sea level rise likely as Antarctic ice melts (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8387137.stm)

[al Roumi]

Oh and (sorry for double post), just found this! A flood map of the world, by region and by metre (perhaps a little too large a segmentation given the above links I posted, suggesting <1m rise)

http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=54.6484,-2.3950&m=0 (http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=54.6484,-2.3950&m=0)

[Fragony]

no way, polar shrinkage will lower sea levels first because ice has more body than water has. Just another message from the fear-factory of the ministry of truth. It is simply not possible.

find me a bone instead

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Since when did climate change become a left vs. right issue? It's not socialism vs. capitalism, or freedom vs. communism, or even intelligence vs. idiocy, but just science.

As Michael Corleone remarks in the Godfather:

"Now who's being naive..."

[Prince Cobra]

no way, polar shrinkage will lower sea levels first because ice has more body than water has. Just another message from the fear-factory of the ministry of truth. It is simply not possible.


Well, not all the ice is in the water. Antarctica and Greenlands certainly have some snow on them.

The other reason for the scepticism of Fragony is that he is already under the sea level: you can't scare him with that! ~;)

[Fragony]

The other reason for the scepticism of Fragony is that he is already under the sea level: you can't scare him with that! ~;)

:laugh4:

[al Roumi]

Well, not all the ice is in the water. Antarctica and Greenlands certainly have some snow on them.

The other reason for the scepticism of Fragony is that he is already under the sea level: you can't scare him with that! ~;)

It's a shame that the sea-wall around his country is reminiscent of the mental-wall around his consciousness.

[Fragony]

It's a shame that the sea-wall around his country is reminiscent of the mental-wall around his consciousness.

Checking out the temperature of the water huh

[PBI]

Make a basic calculation, earth is round, how much water would it take to rise the sea-levels with more than a few centimeters. Probably much more then the ice that is available for melting.

Using numbers from wiki I get a (very rough) estimate of about 76m, for complete melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets (not of course that it's relevant to the debate, but still the question you asked). I'd be happy to show my working and assumptions if you care.

[Fragony]

Oceans are on average 3km deep. It only needs to expand 0,1% because of heating to make sea levels rise three meters.

How is air going to do that, so very very fast

[Fragony]

Using numbers from wiki I get a (very rough) estimate of about 76m, for complete melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets (not of course that it's relevant to the debate, but still the question you asked). I'd be happy to show my working and assumptions if you care.

Ok, let's say the ocean is 3 kilometers deep, and we add a little but of 76 meter on top of that 2/3 of the entire planet, these two poles, on a scale of 1 to 10 how much you call that bull.

[A Very Super Market]

Because all our cities are 76 meters above sea level...

[Louis VI the Fat]

Ok, let's say the ocean is 3 kilometers deep, and we add a little but of 76 meter on top of that 2/3 of the entire planet, these two poles, on a scale of 1 to 10 how much you call that bull.It doesn't matter for this calculation how deep the ocean is.

The ocean covers 2/3 of the world. The earth's surface is 500 million km2, so for ease of calculations, let's make that 350 million km2. To make the sea level rise by one meter, you need:

An amount of water of 350 million km2 large, one meter high.
Or, an amount of water of one million km2 large, and 350 meter high.
Or, an amount of water of two million km2, and 175 meter high.

Now, Greenland is 2 million km2, that means that for every 175 meter of ice melted into water, sea levels will rise a meter.

This is really basic math. :wall:


Whether the above will happen, is another matter. Nor are all all further complications added in (Greenlands plate will rise when the weight pressing it down is removed, ice has a slightly larger volume, etc). But the math is simple.

[drone]

Don't forget to account for the loss of water vapor into the atmosphere. Hotter temperatures means more atmospheric water, which means more rain/snow and dumpage into freshwater lakes and rivers. You can't assume one-to-one on ocean levels.

Also, if we are trying to do this right, please use volume and remember that solid ice loses about 8-9% of it's volume when it melts. Snow loses way more.


http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=54.6484,-2.3950&m=0Sweet, looks like ~20 meters will put DC under water. :2thumbsup:

[Tellos Athenaios]

It doesn't matter for this calculation how deep the ocean is.

The ocean covers 2/3 of the world. The earth's surface is 500 million km2, so for ease of calculations, let's make that 350 million km2. To make the sea level rise by one meter, you need:

An amount of water of 350 million km2 large, one meter high.
Or, an amount of water of one million km2 large, and 350 meter high.
Or, an amount of water of two million km2, and 175 meter high.

Now, Greenland is 2 million km2, that means that for every 175 meter of ice melted into water, sea levels will rise a meter.

This is really basic math. :wall:

No it is not at all basic Math: it does not take gravity into account -- otherwise there could be no flooding at all (we'd get vertical ‘ocean-shaped-column’ of water on top of the current oceans). Consequentially we must take into account at each ‘sub-step’ of ocean-rising how much additional area (or rather volume) will be required for the next bit. Such discrete models are fraught with complications not the least of which is that there is plenty of land below sea-level and that this creates additional buffer zones.

That is the main reason why those nice maps of the entire Netherlands under water are quite unrealistic -- if taken as direct consequence of ‘sea-level rise’ anyways.

The real problem with tonnes of ice melting into an ocean would be that their buffer effect ceases to operate (until the oceans start to boil, anyways); and also that the salt concentration in the water (locally) will drop sharply. This could have the more far-reaching consequence of disrupting normal water-flows; which in turn would upset weather patterns.

[Louis VI the Fat]

No it is not at all basic MathNo, you are quite incorrect. It is all basic math.

It is basic math because 'it' here refers to the rough calculation Frags asked for, quoted below. Which is answerable with basic math. I know there are more things to take into account for calculating any sea level rise in reality, hence my disclaimer that I left out all further considerations to be taken into account - just to be sure that nobody would mistake the basic explanation of how there really is enough water locked in ice to make sea levels rise considerably, for a workable model for calculating actual sea level rise.


Make a basic calculation, earth is round, how much water would it take to rise the sea-levels with more than a few centimeters. Probably much more then the ice that is available for melting.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Ah yes; I should've read more attentively.

[Beskar]

You know that the ice-caps melting could mean less water right?

Basic math - Ice takes up more room than water due to its crystal structure.
Ice melts into water, which takes up less space = more space now available.

I let you spin that one in your head for a while.

[Brenus]

“Basic math - Ice takes up more room than water due to its crystal structure.”
Yeap but basic physic tells you that in term of volume it doesn’t affect the actual level, as any body going in a bath knows it.
That is why icebergs float… Remember “eureka”… A volume of water will fill the volume of ice. The water will be heavier, that is it…

And yeah, ice from K4 and Mount Everest in the sea will clear more space… Or South Pole… Very fertile…:beam:

[Fragony]

It doesn't matter for this calculation how deep the ocean is.



Yes it does, more water means more energy to warm it

ah, money well spend, 750.000 euro to fly 15 Somali's to Copenhagen. wtf. I wonder what the actual costs were, probably 3 a 4 times as much on just sitting in a room cooking this up.

[PBI]

Yes it does, more water means more energy to warm it

True, but irrelevant. You simply asserted that there is not enough ice in the world that melting it would cause more than a few centimetres of sea level rise. It's a simple geometry problem, not thermodynamics.


Also, if we are trying to do this right, please use volume and remember that solid ice loses about 8-9% of it's volume when it melts. Snow loses way more.

I took the difference in density into account. I modelled the ice sheets at a density of 0.92 kg per litre.

I neglected to take into account that the surface area of the oceans is less than the total area of the earth. I'd like to be able to say I did so on purpose as this is simply an order of magnitude calculation, but in fact I was just in a hurry and forgot. Whoops. :embarassed:

Including this factor I get a figure of 107m. There are of course many, many other assumptions I made, such as that the area of land inundated would be small relative to the total area of the oceans, that the total rise in sea level is small relative to the radius of the earth, neglecting the effects of compressibility, thermal expansion, evaporation and so on. Still, I don't see which of those is sufficient to scrunch 107m of water down to a few centimetres.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Yes it does, more water means more energy to warm it

Actually... that is not as relevant either.

First of all, in order for the ice to melt it must have been warmed up sufficiently (*past* melting point if it's pure); and in fact, the presence of salt-water bodies tend to enhance the melting process / inhibit freezing as well (hence why salt is sprayed on roads during winters).

Secondly the earth as a whole is radiated with sun-energy -- and there is (much more) heat flow in open water.

Thirdly ice reflects sun light more efficiently than does molten water; consequentially more energy *will* be absorbed.

[Louis VI the Fat]

:sunny: how is it going to give me any wet feet. :sunny: Why do you hate cute 'n cuddly polar bears? ~:mecry:



https://img130.imageshack.us/img130/1232/17582bigthumbnail.jpg (https://img130.imageshack.us/i/17582bigthumbnail.jpg/)


https://img51.imageshack.us/img51/2034/2332098585442189da27.jpg (https://img51.imageshack.us/i/2332098585442189da27.jpg/)


https://img130.imageshack.us/img130/17582bigthumbnail.jpg/1/w450.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img130/17582bigthumbnail.jpg/1/)

[Beskar]

Key states have just done a deal, apparently, though it wasn't "enough".

Also in the news -
France versus Google and France won.
Auschwitz sign was stolen (most likely by a British tourist, it usually is.) and Israel calls it an act of war.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Auschwitz sign was stolen (most likely by a British tourist, it usually is.) and Israel calls it an act of war.

No, a museum in Israel called it an act of war. The Israeli government just said that the thieves were criminals, which they obviously are.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Please let's not let the inflammatory subject of Israel, Ausschwitz, etc heat up the temperature of this thread.

We should remain focused on the insidious War against Polar Bear Cubs!

https://img10.imageshack.us/img10/7807/bearwip431v.jpg (https://img10.imageshack.us/i/bearwip431v.jpg/) https://img10.imageshack.us/img10/bearwip431v.jpg/1/w431.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img10/bearwip431v.jpg/1/)

[Furunculus]

just got back to read loads of headlines along the lines of; "Copenhagen a failure!"

AWESOME.

[Furunculus]

Huh?

according to IPCC models; climate change is still a net benefit to china for the rest of this century.


Phew! I guess now we can put off that problem for another century, and leave someone else to deal with it when the problem is much worse.

And lo, does Ed Milliband accuse China of repeatedly vetoeing any attempt to give carbon controls a legally enforceable mandate:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6853755/Copenhagen-climate-summit-Ed-Miliband-accuses-China-of-hijacking-conference.html

Copenhagen climate summit: Ed Miliband accuses China of 'hijacking' conference
Ed Miliband, the Climate Change Secretary, has accused China of "hijacking" the Copenhagen summit and preventing a legally binding treaty desired by most of the world.

Published: 7:30AM GMT 21 Dec 2009

Mr Miliband said China had "vetoed" moves to give legal force to the accord reached at the summit on Saturday, adding that it was China who prevented agreemen on 50 per cent global reductions in greenhouse emissions - 80 per cent in the most developed countries - by 2050.

The two-week summit ended on Saturday with an accord which agreed on the aim of keeping average increases in global temperatures below 2C, but did not set out the emissions cuts which each country will undertake to deliver it.

There was agreement on a fund, to reach $100 billion by 2020, to help poorer countries deal with global warming, but no precise detail on where the money will come from.

Writing in The Guardian, Mr Miliband said that ''the vast majority of countries, developed and developing'' believed that a legally-binding treaty was needed to construct a lasting accord to protect the planet.

But he said: ''Some leading developing countries currently refuse to countenance this. That is why we did not secure an agreement that the political accord struck in Copenhagen should lead to a legally binding outcome.

''We did not get an agreement on 50 per cent reductions in global emissions by 2050 or on 80 per cent reductions by developed countries. Both were vetoed by China, despite the support of a coalition of developed and the vast majority of developing countries.''

Mr Miliband said that the Copenhagen talks were characterised by ''a chaotic process dogged by procedural games'' which were ''a cover for points of serious, substantive disagreement''.

And he suggested that the format of future talks may have to be changed to prevent a minority of countries blocking progress.

''Together we will make clear to those countries holding out against a binding legal treaty that we will not allow them to block global progress,'' said Mr Miliband.

''The last two weeks at times have presented a farcical picture to the public.

''We cannot again allow negotiations on real points of substance to be hijacked in this way.

''We will need to have major reform of the UN body overseeing the negotiations and of the way the negotiations are conducted.''

Mr Miliband nonetheless insisted that Britain was right to sign the limited Copenhagen accord, which he said delivered "real outcomes" on temperature rises and finance.

"We should take heart from the achievements and step up our efforts," he said.

"The road from Copenhagen will have as many obstacles as the road to it. But this year has proved what can be done, as well as the scale of the challenge we face."

Mr Miliband's comments came as the BBC reported that Prime Minister Gordon Brown will use a podcast tomorrow to say that a small group of countries held the Copenhagen talks to ransom.

coincidence, no? :inquisitive:

[Fragony]

Concensus, assaulted by the Danish police because he has doubts about installing world government to combat global warming (ghua)

[Andres]

So, what good came of this summit in Copenhagen, apart from big profits for those in the limousine, private-jets and caviar business?

Looking through my window, I have a feeling those scientists from the seventies who predicted a new ice age were better than the current generation of scientists.

I'm not an expert in climatology, but allow me to raise an eyebrow and to be a bit sceptic about the intentions of these scientists and the herd of politicians following them. Or was the objective of this summit a boost in the previously named econimic branches, in which case it was of course a huge succes.

I would tell and explain to the world whatever the guy who lets me fly around in a private jet, who makes sure I'm being driven around in a limo and guarantees my daily supply of champagne, wants me to explain and tell to the world.

[Louis VI the Fat]

So, what good came of this summit in Copenhagen, apart from big profits for those in the limousine, private-jets and caviar business?

Looking through my window, I have a feeling those scientists from the seventies who predicted a new ice age were better than the current generation of scientists.Yes, there is snow outside indeed.

Geneva, 8 December 2009 (WMO) – The year 2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850, according to data sources compiled by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The global combined sea surface and land surface air temperature for 2009 (January–October) is currently estimated at 0.44°C ± 0.11°C (0.79°F ± 0.20°F) above the 1961–1990 annual average of 14.00°C/57.2°F. The current nominal ranking of 2009, which does not account for uncertainties in the annual averages, places it as the fifth-warmest year. The decade of the 2000s (2000–2009) was warmer than the decade spanning the 1990s (1990–1999), which in turn was warmer than the 1980s (1980–1989). More complete data for the remainder of the year 2009 will be analysed at the beginning of 2010 to update the current assessment.
http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_869_en.html


Little good came out of this summit. Little good was expected. (And the '95% reduction in CO2' 'surprisingly' didn't get adopted either)

China got its way though. In its own words, it 'managed to preserve its sovereignity and national interests'. (What is it with the hysteria about 'sovereignity' nowadays?)
Which is the good news for some. A new alliance between capitalism in the West and the 21st century communist superpower, having found common cause in their disdain for human values and responsible governance.

[Furunculus]

an awesome article, that should be essential reading:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/22/copenhagen_economics/

Doing the maths on Copenhagen

It's my party and I'll fly in the face of common sense

Posted in Environment, 22nd December 2009 07:02 GMT

Copenhagen is dead. Hurrah! And I say that as someone convinced that climate change is happening, we're causing it, and we need to do something about it. However, what we don't need to do is the ghastly mess that was being cooked up in Denmark.

They've essentially agreed to, um, well, try - and they'll think a little bit more about what they're going to try sometime later. And that's the best result we could have hoped for. We already know what needs to be done, as the economists have worked it out. It is true that economists are not exactly the flavour of the month right now, but they are still the experts here.

We are trying to change people's behaviour, and long experience tells us that the way to do that is to change the incentives people face. We might make it illegal to burn coal, for example - as we largely have done in British cities - and the motivation people would have for doing so would be an incentive not to.

Yet observation of humans over the past couple of centuries has shown that the carrot tends to provide a better incentive than the stick. Being shot for failing the Five Year Plan should concentrate minds more than the alternatives of bankruptcy or hot and cold running lingerie models which our own system provides for failure or success, but which has been better at producing economic growth? Quite.

So economists have thought long and hard about how we might alter incentives to change behaviour and avoid boiling Flipper. There are essentially two options. The first reaches back to Arthur Cecil Pigou and his publication in 1912 on welfare economics. He note that markets are very good things indeed, but they are not perfect. They have periods when they do not act as advertised. The most obvious of these is when there are externalities: things which affect others but which are not included in prices and thus are not in the calculations that market participants make when deciding how to act.

Externalities can be positive or negative: if they're positive then this means that markets unadorned will not provide enough of these nice things. The fact that knowledge is a public good and has positive externalities is the reason that the taxman asks us to pay for basic research in universities and the like. The correct thing to do with positive externalities is to subsidise them.

Pollution is a classic example of a negative externality. My factory polluting the river has costs for those downstream. If I'm not forced to pay those costs then they're not included in my prices, so I'll be making a profit while harming others. We should tax negative externalities, and with climate change, this leads us simply to taxing emissions. Alternatively, we could tax fossil fuels when they're dug up: a suggestion recently made by James Hansen which might be his most intelligent contribution to the debate so far.

So, solution 1) from the economists: slap on a carbon tax and we're done. The tax should be at whatever the damage done costs and we should reduce other taxes to make it revenue neutral. We might want to study what the actual cost of that damage is: current estimates range from around $5 a tonne CO2 from William Nordhaus to $80 a tonne from Lord Stern - the differences stem from technical points such as the length of the technological cycle and discount rates, which is not stuff we have room to explain here.

However, the economists agree that we should slap on the tax and then let everyone get on with it. But when this simple idea meets the world of politics and Copenhagen, one subtlety gets missed which makes a mess of the entire theory.

The economists insist that the tax should be what the cost of the pollution is. Not a high enough tax to stop people polluting at all, but rather just the cost of the pollution. This is an offshoot of welfare economics and what we're trying to do is maximise the welfare of everyone, current and future. We only want to stop people doing things where the cost is greater than the benefit. We don't want to stop people doing something where the benefit is greater than the cost.

A ban on petrol?

Think, for a moment, of petrol. Every use of it brings that moment when Bangladesh sinks below the waves that tiniest amount closer. So, should we immediately ban all use of petrol? What, even for the ambulance taking the woman in labour to hospital? Maybe I should walk rather than drive to the shops though? And this is exactly what that carbon tax is supposed to do. We should only be producing emissions if our emissions are worth more than the damage. So if the damage is as Lord Stern says, then $80 a tonne it is.

But this is where the subtlety gets missed: a Stern tax on petrol would be 11p a litre. We've already used the fuel duty escalator to raise duty by 23p since we agreed to “meet our Rio commitments” in Ken Clarke's words. So we don't want to raise the carbon tax further. We're already done. We're already balancing the benefits of our using petrol with the costs we impose upon others.

Air Passenger Duty likewise already covers the costs of aviation pollution. Indeed, total green taxes are around and about the level of total costs imposed by UK emissions, but you never hear a politician saying this, do you? APD must rise further to stop people from flying, fuel duty to stop them from driving. Which is to entirely miss the point that Pigou was making about such taxation as above.

Of course it is not the first time that politics and campaigners have made a mockery of well crafted economics, and it won't be the last, as the alternative, economists' second solution - cap and trade - will show.

Cap and trade starts from the other end: what are the maximum emissions that can be allowed before disaster strikes? Fine, make that the cap and give (better to sell to but that's something that will be phased in over time) everyone permits. If an organisation wants to emit more than they have permits for, then they've got to go and buy them.

Some people will reduce emissions to sell permits and so we've got a market. As markets tend to do, we'll get a price set on carbon and only those activities which are worth more than that price will happen. We've again done what we all want, which is for people to internalise the costs they impose upon others. Once again, we can go away, having solved the problem.

But again there's a subtlety here. We want just one cap and trade system for everything. We want it to be global and we want it to be across all sectors. Imagine, just as an example, that we have to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050. So, which 20% of our current emissions do we still want to be doing? I dunno, nor do you and nor does anyone else. OK, so how do we find out? Well, markets are not just distribution systems. They're also information systems. Those emissions that people value most will be the ones they're willing to pay most for.

It might be that we're all happiest using cement (currently, cement production is about 6% of global emissions) plus a bit of driving. It might be that we don't care about cement and that fuel cells really work so we want to spend that 20% allowance on the methane inevitable in steak production. Could be we'll care not a whit for Charolais and Cheddar and we'd really rather spend that allowance on flying to Malaga.

So what we want from our cap and trade system is one cap and then trade so that we can a) find out which emissions people value the most and b) allow them to make the emissions they value most. We want trade across sectors that is, we absolutely do not want to try and have different caps and different targets for each sector on its own: that obviates the very point of what we're trying to do.

So what are the politicians and the campaigners trying to set up? Yes, separate caps and targets for different sectors and no trading of permits across sectors. There are a number of people running around (yes, Plane Stupid, I'm looking at you) telling us that if we don't restrain aviation emissions then it'll be 50 per cent, 70 per cent, umptybignumber per cent of all allowable emissions by Thursday week. This entirely fails to understand that this is the whole damn point of what we're trying to do: discover which emissions we value most so that we get the greatest value from the amount allowed under our cap.

This is why I'm cheering that Copenhagen has failed: what economists have been shouting we should be doing for this past decade will work, but what the politicians and activists have been hearing is very different from what has been said.

What has been said is that we can use either method: carbon tax or cap and trade. Make people pay the cost of their pollution and they'll pollute less. The tax should be the cost the pollution imposes, or the cap should allow trade amongst all nations and all activities. What we absolutely should not be doing is taxing more than the cost of the pollution nor should we be trying to to exempt, favour, punish, or ban any particular activities by selective use of caps and permits.

In short, set the system up and then leave well alone: no politics please, no special interest groups and no “civil society organisations” trying to ram their prejudices down other peoples' throats. And what was Copenhagen other than that politics, those special interest groups (it was especially pleasing to see the Third World Dictator's Pension Fund come up short) and prejudices being forced down peoples' throats?

We're well shot of it. There's even the vague possibility that the adults will take over at some point and we'll end up with something that actually works: a simple carbon tax or a simple cap and trade scheme. ®

[Furunculus]

wikipedia perverted:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020515/climategate-the-corruption-of-wikipedia/

[Tristuskhan]

In the name of all forest managers: thank you.

Thank you heads-of-states, kings and prime ministers, thank you big lobbyists for giving us the means to prevent any possibility of rational management of what remains of natural and sub-natural forests on this planet. They will be gone before we have time to learn how to make them a sustainaible source of wealth, :wall:, and everything will have to be rebuilt from nothing, something we human do much worse than a clever management of natural forests does.

Thank you for telling us forests are dedicated to pillage and slaughter of potential wealth, once and for all. But be sure that when we see the trees we manage we dream of seeing you all hanging from their branches:skull:, and hope your bad fat could feed the ecosystem one day. You are the evidence that humanity is lead by a bunch of short-viewed imbecilles.

Shame.


and now I leave for ten days without internet... the future of forestry would deserve a topic one day. Merry Christmas all

[Hosakawa Tito]

The Copenhagen that matters. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/opinion/23friedman.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig)

We should follow up on Denmark's lead despite the reluctance of other countries to enact meaningful reforms. Especially the jobs that new energy technologies could provide.

[Andres]

The people at Copenhagen were very concerned with the environment and our well being.

Copenhagen participants saving the world - action pictures:


http://images3.webpark.ru/uploads54/091221/Sammit_03.jpg
http://images3.webpark.ru/uploads54/091221/Sammit_04.jpg
http://images3.webpark.ru/uploads54/091221/Sammit_05.jpg
http://images3.webpark.ru/uploads54/091221/Sammit_06.jpg
http://images3.webpark.ru/uploads54/091221/Sammit_07.jpg
http://images3.webpark.ru/uploads54/091221/Sammit_01.jpg









Too much champagne, perhaps?

[Hosakawa Tito]

Deep in thought & prayer perhaps? I did the same thing all through highschool and look how well I turned out....er....never mind.

[Furunculus]

IPCC chairmans dealings are looking pretty shady right noe:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7007891/The-curious-case-of-the-expanding-environmental-group-with-falling-income.html