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The world's fossil fuel companies risk wasting billions of dollars of investment by not taking global action to fight climate change seriously, according to the chief economist of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Fatih Birol, who will take the top job at the IEA in September and is one of the world's most influential voices on energy, warned that companies making this mistake would also miss out on investment opportunities in clean energy.
...
The World Bank and Bank of England have already warned of the serious risk climate action poses to trillions of dollars of fossil fuel investments and the G20 is investigating the risks. The think-tank Carbon Tracker has estimated that over $1tn (£0.6tn) of oil investments and $280bn of gas investments would be left uneconomic if the world's governments succeed in their pledge to limitglobal warming to 2C.
The warnings are based on policy proposals that are entirely creatures of human decisions rather than hard economic realities. Then again, all demand is ultimately the product of human decisions.
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday July 15 2015, @06:13PM
Let's talk. Because I've been making the assumption that you think your position is a moderate one, and that's a personal belief that I'd like to challenge.
So, here's some concerns:
1. It's pretty clear that the underlying theory here isn't pseudoscience.
1.1 The absorption spectra of the various components of atmospheric makeup aren't pulled from nowhere. Easy to verify with compressed gas cylinders, a prism, a magnifying glass, and a white light source.
1.2 The makeup of sunlight is similarly easy to measure with a prism and photometer(or more modern tools).
1.3 The broader idea of a greenhouse effect are also easy to lab-verify.
1.4 The notion that the concentration of CO2 and other components is changing is a third easy to verify thing*
2. The observational data has been largely in alignment with the underlying theory
2.1 Exact models vary, but broad based meta-analyses by professionals have endorsed the overall trend here
2.2 Objections to the data need to assert a null hypothesis that accounts for the substantial warming seen in an extremely short time span, almost unprecedented in the natural record.
3. Engineers aren't scientists. We're not. We solve problems, come up with solutions that fit parameters using methodologies specific to our field. It's not a source of magical insight into every natural phenomenon.
4. Negative feedbacks do exist. As do positive ones. The problems we're facing here are due to an unprecedented rate of change. There's 7 billion of us humans, and just like cyanobacteria in the oxygen crisis, and land based plants in the Carboniferous before us, we're a type of organism with tremendous impact on our environment.
5. People may indeed exaggerate claims for money. It happens in medical research all the time. But
5.1 To allege a conspiracy of nearly every single climate scientist to the same end is crazy**. You don't want to do that.
5.2 We've got some very objective sources being examined here, NASA satellite data, internationally placed climate monitoring stations, records predating any notion of the theory.
5.3 There have been numerous attempts within the academic community for broad based meta-analysis, and the conclusions of those analyses are what you're arguing against. Not a rogue researcher.
6. Finally, the big thing. The scientific consensus isn't that the world is doomed, a case made by only a few people within the field, but that the economic and human costs of climate change from unchecked greenhouse growth are very likely to be an order of magnitude more than those of migrating away from a fossil fuel based economy to one based on sustainable energy sources.
*Caveat 1: emissions weren't the biggest cause until quite recently, land use has been the biggest driver of this change
**Caveat 2: I am not calling you crazy, just one thing you seem to be suggesting
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday July 15 2015, @08:26PM
1. It's pretty clear that the underlying theory here isn't pseudoscience.
The theory, no, not at all. However, I think that the theory needs some improvement.
1.1 The absorption spectra of the various components of atmospheric makeup aren't pulled from nowhere. Easy to verify with compressed gas cylinders, a prism, a magnifying glass, and a white light source.
Right, no dispute.
1.2 The makeup of sunlight is similarly easy to measure with a prism and photometer(or more modern tools).
Ditto.
1.3 The broader idea of a greenhouse effect are also easy to lab-verify.\
Absolutely.
1.4 The notion that the concentration of CO2 and other components is changing is a third easy to verify thing*
Of course.
2. The observational data has been largely in alignment with the underlying theory
Well, now it get's less clear. Yes, there has been warming, but there are various components to this. One part is certainly natural - coming out of the "little ice age". Some is certainly CO2. However, there have been a *lot* of data adjustments, often poorly explained, and at least some of the original data has been (deliberately?) lost. When the original data is available for comparison, it is distinctly odd that the adjustments almost always serve to increase the warming trend.
2.1 Exact models vary, but broad based meta-analyses by professionals have endorsed the overall trend here
The models vary pretty widely, but they all do point towards warming. Which we have. The questions are (a) how much warming we really have, and (b) how it will continue. Specific, verifiable predictions are rare, and the predictions that have been made have mostly been wrong.
2.2 Objections to the data need to assert a null hypothesis that accounts for the substantial warming seen in an extremely short time span, almost unprecedented in the natural record.
Yes and no. Historical records with a high time-resolution only go back maybe 150 years. However, before that we do have indirect records of substantial and rapid temperature changes. That said, few people dispute that CO2 has had an effect. The questions are those in (2.1) above.
3. Engineers aren't scientists. We're not. We solve problems, come up with solutions that fit parameters using methodologies specific to our field. It's not a source of magical insight into every natural phenomenon.
No, but engineers do have a feel for systems, for what works and doesn't, for what is realistic. Intuition in the form of accumulated experience. I would hardly claim infallibility, but when something "looks" wrong, it very often is. The "warmist" models look wrong, the data adjustments are hidden, there's lots of money in play - the whole thing stinks.
4. Negative feedbacks do exist. As do positive ones. The problems we're facing here are due to an unprecedented rate of change. There's 7 billion of us humans, and just like cyanobacteria in the oxygen crisis, and land based plants in the Carboniferous before us, we're a type of organism with tremendous impact on our environment.
Sure, but the rate of change isn't necessarily unprecedented, or even important. Important is the amount of CO2. If you If you go all the way back to the cyanobacteria, then you know that CO2 levels were *immensely* higher in the past - far higher than we could ever reach if we burned every speck of coal and oil on the planet. If there were any sort of positive feedback with water vapor, the planet would have cooked in its own juices. It didn't.
5. People may indeed exaggerate claims for money. It happens in medical research all the time. But
5.1 To allege a conspiracy of nearly every single climate scientist to the same end is crazy**. You don't want to do that.
There are actually quite a few "lukewarmist" scientists. They just don't get much press. I do propose an inadvertant cooperation of attention-seeking scientists, politicians jumping on a bandwagon and a headline-seeking press.
5.2 We've got some very objective sources being examined here, NASA satellite data, internationally placed climate monitoring stations, records predating any notion of the theory.
Yes, indeed, would that would be the satellite data that says there has been no warming for 20 years, despite continuing increases in CO2 levels? The climate monitoring stations whose historical data has been manually adjusted?
5.3 There have been numerous attempts within the academic community for broad based meta-analysis, and the conclusions of those analyses are what you're arguing against. Not a rogue researcher.
Again, there are more scientists at the lukewarm position than one hears about - they just don't make for good headlines.
6. Finally, the big thing. The scientific consensus isn't that the world is doomed, a case made by only a few people within the field, but that the economic and human costs of climate change from unchecked greenhouse growth are very likely to be an order of magnitude more than those of migrating away from a fossil fuel based economy to one based on sustainable energy sources.
Well, this is where we may be in agreement again. Not the economic costs - because history shows that a warmer planet is (overall) a friendlier planet. However, burning fossil fuels is pretty short-sighted, because they are irreplaceable. Nuclear and solar (if we can solve the storage problems) are the way to go. No disagreement there.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday July 15 2015, @08:43PM
Let's home in on #4 since you're thinking there's a parallel there.
The Great Oxygenation Event [wikipedia.org] happened over the course of billions of years and the difference of before and after was a planet that couldn't support multicellular life and one that could. That's a really big deal.
See that "fast" big spike at the end of the graph in that link? That's about 100 million years, and it's the 100 million years in which land-based life cropped up. The whole time there's been amphibians, mammals, trees, reptiles, almost everything you think of when you think of life has been after that spike.
The changes in those times are extremely gradual compared to the 1.5 degrees C in 1.5 centuries we've seen lately. Global warming's effects really are unprecedented shifts, and in this conversation we're comparing them to quite possibly the biggest change in earth's atmospheric history. It's no small thing to be neglected or discounted.