cyberman, I had in mind Engels. We work against nature whenever we seek to, and actually, control it. I think the following presents a Marxist understanding, and is the opposite to the view of the dalek who reckons "the limits to thermodynamics must be respected" as though the "limits" are fixed for all time and humans can no longer think up and create new ways of continuing to progress. Ditto for the fear of Nature implicit in: "you just have no idea at all of the energy content involved in natural processes such as tides, winds, insolation etc". As Engels put it: "How young the whole of human history still is, and how ridiculous it would be to attempt to ascribe any absolute validity to our present views..."

Freedom & Necessity:

Hegel was the first to state correctly the relation between freedom and necessity. To him, freedom is the insight into necessity. “Necessity is blind only in so far as it is not understood.” Freedom does not consist in any dreamt-of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends. This holds good in relation both to the laws of external nature and to those which govern the bodily and mental existence of men themselves – two classes of laws which we can separate from each other at most only in thought but not in reality. Freedom of the will therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with knowledge of the subject.

Therefore the freer a man’s judgment is in relation to a definite question, the greater is the necessity with which the content of this judgment will be determined; while the uncertainty, founded on ignorance, which seems to make an arbitrary choice among many different and conflicting possible decisions, shows precisely by this that it is not free, that it is controlled by the very object it should itself control. Freedom therefore consists in the control over ourselves and over external nature, a control founded on knowledge of natural necessity; it is therefore necessarily a product of historical development.

The first men who separated themselves from the animal kingdom were in all essentials as unfree as the animals themselves, but each step forward in the field of culture was a step towards freedom. On the threshold of human history stands the discovery that mechanical motion can be transformed into heat: the production of fire by friction; at the close of the development so far gone through stands the discovery that heat can be transformed into mechanical motion: the steam-engine.

And, in spite of the gigantic liberating revolution in the social world which the steam-engine is carrying through, and which is not yet half completed, it is beyond all doubt that the generation of fire by friction has had an even greater effect on the liberation of mankind. For the generation of fire by friction gave man for the first time control over one of the forces of nature, and thereby separated him for ever from the animal kingdom. The steam-engine will never bring about such a mighty leap forward in human development, however important it may seem in our eyes as representing all those immense productive forces dependent on it -- forces which alone make possible a state of society in which there are no longer class distinctions or anxiety over the means of subsistence for the individual, and in which for the first time there can be talk of real human freedom, of an existence in harmony with the laws of nature that have become known. But how young the whole of human history still is, and how ridiculous it would be to attempt to ascribe any absolute validity to our present views, is evident from the simple fact that all past history can be characterised as the history of the epoch from the practical discovery of the transformation of mechanical motion into heat up to that of the transformation of heat into mechanical motion.

Frederick Engels Anti-Dühring, part 1, Hegel, Possibility and Contingency.

 

Barry,

You might be interested in this then:

http://www.rense.com/general18/scatteringEdTellerwithnotes.pdf

In a nutshell, this article discusses ways that we might be able to shield the earth from the sun. Orbiting solar scatterers, injecting SO2 and other particulates into the stratosphere etc

It may well come to this if climate change becomes uncontrollable in any other way.

But, saying that we may be forced to contemplate something like this is quite different from saying that global warming isn't real, it's all just a scare hyped by a bunch of greenies,  average global temperatures have always fluctuated and what is happening now isn't anything out of the ordinary etc etc  

On your previous point of "skepticism being the opposite of religious faith" :
Not really. For instance, its quite possible  to be sceptical of Darwin's theory of evolution on religious grounds.

Daleks post, which contained personal attacks which have disrupted this thread, has been moved to the junk forum.

You can read it here, if you choose.

All the replies that dalek's personal attacks have provoked have also been moved to the junk forum, so that this thread remains devoted to talking about global warming.

This is a reply to cyberman's of 10 April at 5.26am. cyberman said: "On your previous point of "skepticism being the opposite of religious faith" : Not really. For instance, its quite possible  to be sceptical of Darwin's theory of evolution on religious grounds".  

 

1. A studied attitude of questioning and doubt
2. The doctrine that absolute knowledge is not possible
3. A methodology that starts from doubt and aims to acquire certainty
4. Doubt or disbelief of religious doctrines

 

Also, please note that my original point, as you properly quoted it, was that skepticism is the opposite of religious faith.

 

Faith (as in religious faith) means:

1. Mental acceptance of and confidence in a claim as truth without proof supporting the claim.

I have faith in a just and loving God.

2. (Christian theology) Belief and trust in the Christian God's promises revealed through Christ in the New Testament.

"Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld." (Hebrews 11:1)

 

Scepticism doesn't have to mean rejection of the reality of global warming. It does imply a critical-mindedness and therefore an open-mindedness. It doesn't shatter my world outlook to accept the IPCC assessment (those statistics again!) that the planet's temperature has increased by less than one degree over the past 140 years. (Here is the IPCC chart: http://www.ipcc.ch/present/graphics/2001syr/large/05.16.jpg 

 

Barry

PS:

And I certainly don't dismiss the statisticians, dalek, though Bob Carter is actually a palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist, who has been working professionally for 30 years. The collective motion of particles that is the core of the physics of thermodynamics is itself measured statistically. Bjorn Lomborg wasn't the victim of a "hear-no-evil" witch-hunt for nothing. (I'll respond further to dalek later).

 

If this is the result of "hysterical panic" over global warming then let's have more of it.

PEOPLE could be using "green nuclear" energy in their homes within three years as entrepreneurs rush to produce zero-emissions electricity.

Geodynamics Ltd told the Australian Stock Exchange yesterday it had sped up plans to harness the heat generated by natural nuclear activity deep beneath the central Australian desert.

The company plans to pipe high-pressure hot water from the granite bedrock four kilometres beneath the Queensland-South Australia border, where the slow decay of potassium, thorium and uranium generates temperatures as high as 300 degrees.

"The granite is hot because of the natural nuclear activity in there - it's green nuclear," said the company's chief executive, Adrian Williams.

Dr Williams expects the company to send electricity to the national power grid by 2010 and later directly to western Sydney. By 2015, it could produce as much electricity as the Snowy Mountains hydro scheme.

Some scientists say hot-rocks technology could soon deliver huge volumes of economically viable power, thanks to the continent having the hottest and most geologically favourable granite deposits on earth.

"There's enough energy to run the country for thousands of years," said Prame Chopra, a scientist who sits on the Geodynamics board.

According to a conservative estimate by the Centre for International Economics, Australia has enough geothermal energy to meet electricity consumption for 450 years.

The industry has strong backing in Canberra. "I've been a fan for a long time," the Minister for Industry, Ian Macfarlane, told the Herald. "The theory is very sound. What they've got to do now is prove that it works."

The granite in South Australia's Cooper basin contains "fractures" that hold super-hot, high-pressure water. It could power a steam turbine then recyle water back into the bedrock for reheating.

The hotter the water, the more efficiently it can be converted into electricity.

Australia is home to all of the world's six listed hot fractured rock geothermal energy companies. One, Petratherm, recently signed a memorandum of understanding to supply geothermal electricity to South Australia's Beverley uranium mine by late 2009.

Torrens Energy, which listed on the stock exchange three weeks ago, is exploring hot sites near Adelaide.

The greatest impediment to the renewable energy industry is that the nation's electricity is among the cheapest in the world, thanks to huge deposits of high-grade coal.

But geothermal energy is expected to be economically viable after a moderate cost is imposed on greenhouse gas emissions.

Geodynamic, assisted by $11.8 million in federal grants, said it would produce one megawatt of electricity for about $45 an hour - compared with coal power of about $35.

The Prime Minister's taskforce on nuclear energy estimated the cost of nuclear energy at $40-$65, "clean coal" at $50-$100 and photovoltaic solar energy as high as $120.

This is the text of an after dinner adress I gave to a conference 7 years ago, In the days when I did such things. I think it very germane to the current Global warming debate.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

This little talk that I have called “rocket science and greenhouse warming” brings together a number of themes with a Gallic flavour.  I intend to touch lightly on the perfidy of French intellectuals, utterly destroy the credibility of an outfit called the Lavoisier Group and in the process expose the French Revolution as an elaborate plot to force a young man called Dupont to emigrate to America. I intend to mention - en passant, a famously failed finance minister. Discourse on the curious phenomena of the mad boffin and the University Professor and explore the use of the Guillotine as a possible career path for tax collectors.

 

Before we move into this however I would like to report to you on a most interesting event that occurred at the Queensland University of Technology recently. I was invited; along with others from industry and academia to attend a seminar on Intellectual Property. We received good sound advice from these sound legal men - as one would expect. For instance, we were solemnly advised  that all scientific papers, even student papers should be vetted for Intellectual Property disclosure by teams of  lawyers. It all seems perfectly reasonable to me, after all we don’t want the things like the free interchange of ideas or the frisson of intellectual discovery to infect our youth.  This could lead to intellectual dissent, to riots, to police dogs and batons and free love.

 

It became apparent to me, and I think to many of the other participants in the seminar that the legally trained mind has real problems with science. Oh and by the way, learned counsel, if you want to keep on side with the women in your audience don’t make your only reference to women as being an adjunct to an Inventors family day. Just a tip, no charge for that.     

 

Why do I speak of rocket science?

Rocket science has come to represent the peak of our attempts to understand and to change the world as we find it. Rocket science has become the metaphor for the inscrutable mysteries of high technology. More importantly it has become a metaphor for human progress.

In a possibly regressive, philosophical sense it represents the return of humankind to the heavens or in the pragmatic secular sense the exploration and exploitation of good ideas that only mad boffins can understand.

 

The gap in understanding between mad boffins and sane lawyers is evidently vast. Rocket science is the thing that most lawyers openly declare - in moments of uncharacteristic honesty - that they do not understand.  They cannot understand it because in essence the law is about the interpretation of natural language even though it be couched in the mythology of the search for truth and justice. Science is at best poorly described by natural language. Science does not reside in the meaning of words.  It is thing in itself that can be loosely described by words and mathematics and a host of arcane tools that have evolved in the specialities. It is not a narrative, privileged among others as some French intellectuals would assert. It is about a real physical world that really exists and that does not give a damn about us, or our explanation of it.  Scientific understanding may be immature, wrong or sublime or spot on but in the present epoch it is all we have. In the context of global warming it may be the only tool we have that stands between us and a series of nasty consequences.

 

If the lawyers have a problem understanding science and its place in the world, the mad boffins have an even bigger one. There are two kinds of mad boffins those who are not Professors but who would like to be and those who are Professors. Something happens to mad boffins who are made into professors; Something also happens to people who should be made into professors and who are not. For example, if they had made Karl Marx into a professor we might have been saved from some very interesting history. In most cases the mad boffin will do his or her best work before being made into a professor, it’s all down hill from that point onwards.

 

I speculate that the making of a professor involves certain surgical procedures in the professorial brain. These procedures are performed on the professor in a secret government funded underground hospital in most cases under general anaesthesia.  Of course general anaesthesia is not required in the case of professors of modern economic theory.

 

Certain centres in the brain of the professor are removed or reprogrammed. For example, the hunter gatherer centre is massively reinforced at the expense of the dress sense centre and that part of the brain that allows one to find ones way home at night is removed to find room for an extensive module devoted to the writing of grant applications. All this is it should be, but there is an unintended consequence which I will call wild Professorial enthusiasm. Wild Professorial Enthusiasm is engendered when it is clear that there is no known theoretical reason why a particular project should not succeed and that the project is: a, linked to national interest or security or b, very difficult and c, requires a very large research effort and concomitant funding.

 

Hot fusion research is probably the best example of this. Fifty years of research at about 1 billion real US dollars per year, into the production of electrical energy by means of nuclear fusion has yielded precisely zero, zip, nothing. Not only this but it has yielded a whole funding of professors and massive dependency of mad boffins who are also absolute experts in zip. Of course an announcement could be made tomorrow that will make fifty years of work worthwhile but read the fine print.

 

If you were to look around today you would have to say that quantum computing could well fill the hole that has been left by fusion. It has all the elements; It has about as many different possible approaches as there are proponents. Its populist explanations seem to invoke as much metaphysics as physics.  Also, it appears to be fiendishly difficult, thus it can absorb massive research programs with exponential funding requirements.

 

As we have now entered the regime of fringe science I would like to introduce the Lavoisier Group. Who are these people? Well just the usual suspects, representatives of mining and energy companies with a leavening of politicians from the right of the spectrum etcetera.  The fundamental tenet of this organisation is that global warming isn’t happening or if it is it doesn’t matter a damn. And why should the energy and mining companies pay taxes on carbon emissions? Plenty of  fundamentalist and largely impotent fringe groups including the US congress share this view so there is nothing new here.

 

What is truly amazing is the choice of Antoine Lavoisier as a figurehead and hero figure for the organisation. 

A liar, a cheat and a thorough going scoundrel, Antoine Lavoisier would have to be the all time champion of the art of sucking from the government tit.  He was a legally trained  pimping parasitic fop who used his wife’s translation skills to plagiarise the works of Priestly and Cavendish and so to make a name for himself in chemistry. Born a rich commoner his daddy bought him a title and a place in a corrupt privatised tax collection agency. He was appointed to government sinecures, had his laboratory paid for by the government and was massively enriched by the old corrupt regime. His major contribution to the art of tax collection was an attempt to build a tax collection wall around Paris. He was rewarded for this half baked idea by a one way ride in the tumbrels to the Guillotine. He was a big time loser. Interestingly one of his assistants was a guy called Du Pont who had sense enough to migrate to America to escape the terror. Du Pont founded a rather successful chemical company in the US.

 

Most prominent among the spokesmen for the Lavoisier Group would be Senator Peter Walsh famously failed finance minister in a long forgotten government. Now I would like to quote to you the words of the good senator written apropos those who contend that there are things other than economics in the environmental debate. Walsh “There is a small but very noisy group which says that many things are more important than economic growth. Almost inevitably, these people they display the following attributes: they have jobs - usually well paid; they are either on the public tit or have secure jobs in the semi-public sector. They are vociferous demanders of more government services and handouts to their own pet causes and they are opponents of higher taxes, or at least higher taxes on themselves and their cronies”. Sucking on the public tit? Senator Walsh? Sucking on the public tit? Antoine Lavoisier as a hero figure? What is that that about opposition to higher taxes on themselves and their cronies Peter? Ask not for whom the tumbrels rumble Peter they rumble for you.

 

As I am a fair man I would like to divert briefly to the so-called green movement:

Now it was once the thing for various representatives of various green groups to give a kind of standard presentation on greenhouse warming at electricity supply conferences and the like. Many of you will have heard it.   Usually the presentation was along the lines of.  “Like maan, humankind is like this frog and you put this frog in a pot and like you gradually warm the water and the frog doesn't like realise that the water is getting warmer and so he does not jump out of the pot and is boiled alive”.

 

Now where is the science in this? How do they know?  Does a portion of our donations, subscriptions and government funding to the green groups go to support a frog in pot experimental station? Is there somewhere in the hills of Nimbin a secret experimental station (Herpetology Heaven?) where thousands of Peppered Frogs, Stuttering frogs and New England Tree Frogs are boiled in cut down kerosene tins to conclusively demonstrate the truth of this assertion. Surely they would not tell us of it unless they have the proof. Show me the studies, where are the statistics?  You guys are going to have to do a lot better than this OK?.

 

By now you are thinking, well ok we have had all the smart arsed comments how about a positive contribution to the debate about global warming. Do I have any specific suggestions in the context of this conference? Well I hardly think that an anointment from me would change the history of the world.  But for what it is worth I think, first and above all we must resist the siren call of nuclear fission. The nuclear fission power generation alternative to fossil-fuelled power generation seems to me be simply a choice of poisoned wastelands. 

 

I am convinced that fuel and energy from biomass, waste to energy and the recovery of energy from various geothermal sources are all part of the solution. The biomass aspects are well covered by this conference. Research on the resource known as hot dry rocks and other geothermal sources is seriously under-funded and it is seriously underestimated as a carbon dioxide free energy source.  It appears to be ubiquitous and vast. Ironically many of the resources are the fossil heat deposits of long expired radioactive processes. We do not need rocket science in order to access it. None of the technologies I have mentioned here is in need of rocket science.

 

 

Finally, it appears to me that the use of temperature is a poor measure of global warming, what does it mean? Not much unless you link it with the energy that the temperature measurement represents.  So if the average temperature of the atmosphere and say the top 50 metres of seawater does rise by the low estimate 1C how much energy does it signify? A relatively simple calculation  yields an answer 7.9x1022 Joules or near enough to 1X1023 Joules.  Well what does that amount of energy represent? Well the impact of a meteor the size of the one that caused the Cretaceous extinction event would do it. A million 100 megaton H bombs exploded in the atmosphere would do it.  Are we getting the picture here? A single degree of global warming represents a vast locked in energy addition to an atmosphere that is part of a hugely complex cyclic system. This retained energy of 1 million 100 Megaton bombs has to concern us.

 

That renewable resources of many and varied types each with its role to play can supply 100% of our energy needs at increased average per capita consumption rates is not in doubt. We must not be seduced by the cost argument. Have you any idea how much in constant dollars the first coal fired power stations cost? Have you any idea how little the energy from many existing and proposed sources could cost?

 

Have you any idea how much progress we could make towards a carbon free economy if we were to properly fund and focus the energy and talents of our scientists and engineers?

I believe that we are rapidly approaching a crisis point for human life on this planet. We may have already passed it. We cannot know for sure but with hindsight. A time will certainly come when we have to tell our boffins to stop messing about with nuclear fusion, quantum computers and other hobbies and to get down to some real work. To fix this problem we may need a program that will make the Manhattan project look like a Saturday afternoon science fair. A time may even come when many of those who presently see the abandonment of fossil fuels as a disaster, will come to see this as a golden opportunity to make even more money. Some have already changed sides or so they would have us believe. Certainly, bets are being placed and exposures covered by the smart players.

  

 

Are we willing to bet the farm on the fact that there will be no adverse consequences from global warming?  Are we willing to bet the farm on a world view that cannot see beyond bottom line of self interest, that cannot see beyond the superficial and the obvious. Cannot even to begin to comprehend the science that they so ignorantly criticise. Who, with the invincible arrogance of the ignorant dismiss climate modeling as “garbage in garbage out”? Who couch everything in the terms of recycled 19th century social and economic mantras. Who would risk turning the continents into sere wastelands punctuated only by dead oily seas and bird free skies. Who cannot see that the risk of error is to lose the lot. Cannot see that there is no other place out there to go to if we stuff up?

 

 

 

I thank you for your time.

 

Dalek 4-12-2000

 

dalek, You seem to have mellowed or moderated your position since you gave that speech seven years ago. In February this year, you responded to skeptical links posted by David Mc by saying: "... there is a group of scientists who have a tendency to an apocalyptic view, another that has aview that it is all a fuss about nothing. I am basically undecided..."  (I think I have quoted you fairly but reprint the two postings below in full).

 

Seven years ago, in the speech you posted, you said:

"Have you any idea how much progress we could make towards a carbon free economy if we were to properly fund and focus the energy and talents of our scientists and engineers? I believe that we are rapidly approaching a crisis point for human life on this planet. We may have already passed it."

 

Do you still aim for the 'carbon free economy' and still believe we may have passed the crisis point for human life on this planet?  If you do, then I can't see much difference between you and the catastrophists from whom you have tried to distance yourself.

 

I cannot see how you can adhere to both positions simultaneously.

 

Barry

 

• Re: Global Warming Posted by DavidMc at 2007-01-31 10:09 PM Here are some recent signs of discomfort by climate scientists at the increasing level of alarmism: Chaotic world of climate truth Mike Hulme          VIEWPOINT By Mike Hulme Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research As activists organised by the group Stop Climate Chaos gather in London to demand action, one of Britain's top climate scientists says the language of chaos and catastrophe has got out of hand. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6115644.stm A load of hot air? By Simon Cox and Richard Vadon BBC News Hardly a day goes by without a new dire warning about climate change. But some claims are more extreme than others, giving rise to fears that the problem is being oversold and damaging the issue. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4923504.stm Tyndall Centre    Tyndall Briefing Note No. 16 for Climate Change Research    November 2005 `Dangerous claims': Is the way we perceive climate change leading to a precautionary approach or an irrational response? Toni Lowe, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research', Norwich. UK http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/briefing_notes/bn16.pdf

DavidMc Member Homepage dmcm@vicnet.net.au Posts: 75

It was a rhetorical point, just as I don't really believe that a bunch of hippies in Nimbin really boil frogs in kerosene tins. Lighten up a bit.

I probably have mellowed a tad since then. 7 years ago the debate was largely confined to the scientific community, the people on the other side of the CP Snow divide were all asleep, waiting for the Al Gore experience I guess.

I stand by my comments about feedback systems, in something as complex as the global climate system even a small change in some variables can have very large effects.  The effects of feedback in something like a three body system are childs play to analyse compared to the climate system. 

I am undecided; I believe that there will be much  indecision until the effects are even more extreme or they go away altogether. They certainly have not gone away since I delivered that speech.  

My argument these days is why not go for "carbon free" economy (whatever that really means). I know that there are more efficient, lower cost and more elegant ways to generate electricity than by burning coal in a system that has not changed in its fundamental design for over 100 years. I thought you were into modernity? Apparently not. 

Dalek.

dalek said: 
 

 I know that there are more efficient, lower cost and more elegant ways to generate electricity than by burning coal in a system that has not changed in its fundamental design for over 100 years. 

 Dalek, would you please run through some of what you think are the best hopes, and talk about how you could hedge your bets about carbon, while still being excited by change?

Being dismayed by change is probably one of the most unifying characteristics of 80% or more people who would identify as 'green', and I don't think it's good for the Left politics if that minset is widespread.

dalek, the bit about the Nimbin frogs can pass as a rhetorical point but I don't see how this statement can: I believe that we are rapidly approaching a crisis point for human life on this planet. We may have already passed it.

 

Is this why, when you say - It was a rhetorical point, just as I don't really believe that a bunch of hippies in Nimbin really boil frogs in kerosene tins. - you don't finish the sentence? Should it read: It was a rhetorical point, just as I don't really believe that a bunch of hippies in Nimbin really boil frogs in kerosene tins so too do I not really believe that we are rapidly approaching a crisis point for human life and nor do I really believe that we may have already passed that point.

 

One reason for not going for the option of the carbon free economy is the magnitude of the economic and social consequences, especially for the working-class people, when weighed up against the non-catastrophic scenarios of the more reasonable climate scientists, including the IPCC (which gives very wide margins of speculation). If I thought, as you did seven years ago, that the issue represents a crisis point for human life on this planet, then I'd be more interested in alternatives to fossil fuels. As I said in a previous post, the IPCC figure of an increase in temperature of less than a degree over 140 years just doesn't motivate me to want to fundamentally alter the current reliance on fossil fuels, let alone support policies (such as the carbon tax) that will work in very direct ways against the working people. (I'm not sure what you think of the carbon tax idea).

 

The nuclear option is certainly a legitimate way to go, too. (I'm old enough to remember the days when it was the communists who advocated the 'peaceful atom').

 

Your reasoned posts about geo-thermal sources have helped me in understanding that option.

 

I hope you have learned that most people at this site really do want to debate.

 

Barry

This is Bob Carter, agreeing that climate change happens but stating that we can do nothing about it. So much for human control of our environment. His stuff about CO² not being a forcing agent is absolute garbage and has been recognised as such by most of his fellow deniers.

According to the Carters of this world we are just to be reduced to some reactive measures.  Well at least he does not claim to be a  Marxist.

 

Why the Science of Climate Change Isn't Settled

 

 

Bob Carter

 

James Cook University, Townsville

email: bob.carter@jcu.edu.au

 

 

“There is every reason to believe that the variability of global temperature and other climate characteristics experienced over the past century are part of the natural variability of the climate system and are not a consequence of recent anthropogenic activities.”

William Kininmonth, "Climate Change: A Natural Hazard", 2004, p. 134

 

 

Contemporary discussion of climate change is bedevilled by dishonesty. The views of the public are fashioned largely by propaganda promulgated by self-interested NGO, media, industry and political pressure groups. At the same time, scientific opinions are strongly conditioned by the fashionable political requirement that research has to be "useful" to merit funding: no climate change problem, then little climate change funding.

 

Most western governments base their climate change policy on the advice of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Though in receipt of copious amounts of scientific advice, the IPCC (at the level of its "Advice to Policymakers" document) is an unabashedly political, not scientific, organisation. Its assertion that a dangerous human influence is being exerted on climate change rests on three main pillars, each of which has been demonstrated to be unsound. These are (i) the thermometer-based ground-temperature record; (ii) the claim, after the Mann et al. (199 "hockey stick" model of climate change, that late 20th century temperatures rose to an unnatural level and at an unnatural rate; and (iii) the claim that deterministic computer models can predict climate 50 or 100 years ahead.

 

The focus of IPCC activity has been on comparing contemporary climate change with that of the last 1,000-2,000 years. This is a ridiculously short and atypical period over which to seek to understand climate change.

 

From studying climate records over the last several million years, palaeoclimatologists and palaeoceanographers have established a sound understanding of the natural patterns and some of the mechanisms of climate change. The most important evidence comes from sediment cores from beneath the deep seafloor and ice cores through the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps. Generally agreed inferences from these data are:

 

1. That 5 million years ago (Ma) planetary temperatures were several degrees warmer than today.

2. A gradual decline in temperature has occurred since. Superimposed on this decline since 2.5 Ma have been substantial glacial and interglacial climate fluctuations. These resulted from the waxing and waning of ice-sheets over high latitudes in both northern and southern hemispheres, the timing of which (20, 41 and ~100 thousand years (ky) spacing - termed Milankovitch frequencies) was controlled by changes in the earth's orbital geometry.

3. For about the last 0.6 million years, the glacial-interglacial oscillations have occurred on the 100 ky-scale. For more than 90% of that time earth's mean temperature has been cooler, and often much cooler (~5-10 degrees), than today. Warm interglacial periods comprise less than 10% of the time, and on average lasted only ~10 ky. Civilisation and our modern society developed during the most recent warm interglacial period (the Holocene), which has already lasted 10 ky.

4. Superimposed on these longer term climatic cycles are (i) shorter-term cyclic oscillations on all scales between the 11-yr sunspot cycle and ~1, 2 and 5 ky cycles of unknown origin; and (ii) episodes of abrupt climate change, when climate changed across almost the full glacial-interglacial range in a period as short as a few years to a few decades; the causes of abrupt climate change also remain largely unknown.

5. Changes in temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide, which can be measured in ice cores, occur in close parallelism. In detail, however, over both annual and long-term glacial-interglacial periods, changes in temperature PRECEDE changes in carbon dioxide. Thus carbon dioxide cannot be a primary forcing agent for temperature change.

6. Compared with the ancient climate record, and especially that of the last 20 ky glacial to interglacial change, modern temperatures are neither particularly high nor particularly fast-changing. Indeed, temperatures in Antarctica for the three interglacials which precede the Holocene were respectively about 5, 4 and 6 degrees warmer than today. 

 

Because of our lack of understanding of many parts of the climate system, and because of the non-linearity of climate processes, deterministic computer models, on which the IPCC relies so heavily, are unable to provide meaningful predictions of future climate states.  As Richard Lindzen, lead-author of Chapter 7 in the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC (2001) has observed: “The General Climate Models (GCMs) are just experimental tools, and now these tools are (being) forced to make predictions that they are not able to ….. There is nothing wrong with the GCM modellers, they do the best job they are able to. The problem is that too many people believe in the unreliable predictions. The problem is thus not scientific, it is political".

 

Four alternative predictions of near-future climate, based on empirical models drawn largely from the palaeoclimatological record, are described. Three agree that the likely trend during the 21st century is one of cooling, and the fourth (based on Milankovitch predictions) predicts cooling over the longer term. In keeping with the generality of these predictions, the averaged global surface temperature has been falling for the last 6 years.

 

Climate change has always occurred and always will. Citizens are right to be concerned about the possibly deleterious effects of both the warmings and coolings which lie ahead. As with most potential natural disasters, however, the appropriate action is to have in place reactive response plans to manage the change when it occurs.

 

Australian federal and state greenhouse offices should be disbanded, and the funds saved reallocated to Climate Response Planning organisations. These should give high priority to preparing policy advice on how to better manage Australia's water and agricultural resources, and urban growth, as climate change inevitably occurs. Attempting to stop climate change is an expensive act of utter futility.

 

Dalek published a good article by John Garnaut about the positive potential of geothermal energy in Australia, which concluded with:

But geothermal energy is expected to be economically viable after a moderate cost is imposed on greenhouse gas emissions.

Geodynamic, assisted by $11.8 million in federal grants, said it would produce one megawatt of electricity for about $45 an hour - compared with coal power of about $35.

The Prime Minister's taskforce on nuclear energy estimated the cost of nuclear energy at $40-$65, "clean coal" at $50-$100 and photovoltaic solar energy as high as $120.

The economic bottom line is surely an important part of this discussion. Moves towards a carbon tax are designed to make fossil fuels more expensive and when their cost rises above that of geothermal and nuclear energy then the widespread transition to those energy forms will occur.

To illustrate the point here is a map which shows that all our current energy needs could be met by solar energy - it is just economics as illustrated in the quote from the John Garnaut article that presumedly makes this scenario most unlikely

Here are some possible future scenarios:

1) accelerated use of fossil fuels (eg. in China, India) which might or  might not lead to global warming. Most not all discussion in this thread has focused around the might or might not of this scenario.

2) if serious global warming does occur then we might do a good job of adapting to those changes or those changes might be so severe / abrupt that they overwhelm some regions - I think the general point has been made here that if we have a pro development policy then our ability to adapt successfully will be enhanced

3) the capitalist class will successfully manage a transition to alternative forms of energy (geothermal, nuclear) - I think this is what really might be happening behind all the alarmist cries - ie. it is mainly about getting the attention of everybody on the planet that we are getting close to transition time to a different energy profile

I think scenario (3) is where we are headed so there is no real reason to become alarmed at what is developing. Most of the discussion here is about (1), there has been some discussion about (2) and not much about (3)

The main issue for me is that there is no knock down anti development argument - historically technological development has always opened up new possibilities, many of them have not been predicted in advance. eg. no one predicted the internet.  Development opens up new possibilites and solves more problems than it creates.

Youngmarxist, I dont't think opposition or support for change is confined to "greenies" but they do tend to bang on about the adverse effects of change., (the way the greenhouse deniers do)

Asked to list the most desirable changes in energy matters I respond with the following partial list - in no particular order. Many of these changes are already in the works.

• Use CFL's and flouro's instead of Incandescent lamps, 6 times more efficient at least (large diameter flouro is the best)
• Use heatpumps instead of heating elements 2.5-  3 times more heat per unit of electricity
• Passive design is more cost effective than air conditioned hot boxes, in any event should be used to reduce air-con load.
• Use inverters to drive all household motors, preferebaly with switched reluctance motors as the prime mover.
• Alter the way supermarkets work so that the average food item does not travel 1000km before reaching the shelves
• Develp a small low cost electric all weather vehicle with a range of say 50 km much more cost effective for commuting than those armour plated SUV's that the average LS person would like drive to the supermarket in.
• Deliver broadband to every home and business

The list goes on and on but this is where you start.

Coal Fired Power generation.

The thermal efficiency of power generation is in the first place defined by the Carnot law. Basically it says that the larger the delta t in the system the more efficient it is. Early coal fired power stations had an efficiency of < 12%. Typically today they hover around 40 -45%. There is an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle  system that works on coal and gets about 70% efficiency.

Emerging Power GenerationTechnologies

Natural gas (being high in H² content) is the best fuel of all, from a CO² emission perspective. I did a paper on this once and will try to dig it up, you can burn this in a gas turbine with or without a steam tailing cycle and achieve lowr CO² emissions than nuclear.

The best of all is the geo thermal system that works on the hot aquifers found in Australia. There has been one of these working in Birdsville for years and some larger units are proposed in SA. The most common technology is an ORC turbine (Organic Rankine Cycle) also use for space power. This is a classic heat engine that is well understood. it is a closed system and generates no pollutants at all.

Less developed are proton exchange fuel cells  (PEM)  that use the transfer of hydogen ions across a membrane to generate dc electricity that is then converted to ac to supply energy into the grid. Unlike the other generation technologies it is not a voltage source and requires serious conditioning to be useful. The difficulty with these is also that carbon monoxide or CO² seriously poison the membrane. Basically they need pure Hydrogen. (As a person who has done a lot of work with pure hydrogen I would say that only the insane would contemplate an economy based upon hydrogen)

The Solid Oxide Fuel Cell works by transporting oxygen ions across a membrane, it is not very sensitive to poisoning but must work at very high temperatures that present lifetime difficulties. 

 

All these energy generation schemes are in the works right now and the Geo-thermal resource could provide all of Australia's Energy needs for hundreds of years.

THE LAST PART OF THIS POST HAS BEEN MOVED TO THE JUNK FORUM. YOU CAN READ IT HERE.

Among other things, posts that

a) Imply that LS are 'stalwarts' of mainstream politicians.
b) Dishonestly misrepresent the LS stance on Islamofascism.
c) Make snide comments about the One Laptop Per Child project, after proclaiming oneself a 'convert'.
d) Accuse LS of 'dishonestly' supporting 'raving fascists'
e) Troll and disrupt the forum

will be subject to removal to the junk forum. No correspondence etc...

 

 

Nuclear Power.

Any-one inside the power generation industry will tell you (in a candid moment) that the only reason Nuclear reactors were adopted is because they can be used to make nukes. Not a single reactor installed any-where in the world prior to 1975 has been able to make electricity at any-thing like the cost per kWh of other forms of generation. This from a technology that was  described as "too cheap to meter". Even in Japan, big subsidies are required.

No reactor has yet been de-comissioned, except for Chenoble!

The reactor is the heat source, the units are limited to the thermal efficiency of standard thermal plant (less actually). No "topping" cycle is possible.

The new "safe"  high efficiency reactors that cannot be used to make bombs are 30 years away.

The "waste" problem really is difficult, much of the "waste" exists in the US, france, the UK, Russia, Israel as bombs.

No safe waste repository has yets been found any-where. (Howard and co want Australia to become the global waste repository - what do you think of this?.

Conclusion: People who embrace nuclear power are either naive or in on the plot.

Dal(censor this)ek. 

 

 

 

dalek said:

 Dal (censor this) ek.

 Dalek, if you don't like the way this site is moderated, go away and start your own. This site is here for proper debate, where ideas are engaged, not for the usual abuse and sneering point-scoring common on the Internet, and very common in your comments.

 As I've said before, it is ridiculous and disempowering to whinge about 'censorship' when the end of your original comment, which was clearly not made in good faith but to snidely attack us, is a single mouse click away from where it originally was.

I don't remember the censorship board of any government ever saying "We will censor this dangerous thought: people will have to move their index finger up and down to see it"

Most other blogs would simply delete your bad-faith comments, which would take a single mouse-click for me to do instead of taking 5 minutes to move them to the junk forum.

We actually archive them and put them in a place where they can be easily read by anyone who might actually care.

If you don't like your comments being moved to the junk forum, stop trolling and stop with your bad-faith attempts to denigrate and attack us, especially the ones where you bring irrelevant topics into discussions.

I just noticed that a couple of recent posts of mine and Barry  have disappeared! I was wondering what I'd said that could have offended anyone! Anyway I've just had an email from Kerry saying that it was a system glitch.

I haven't kept a record of exactly what I wrote but we were discussing the levels of atmospheric CO2. I made the following points:

• We should be more worried about the rise in CO2 levels over the last 100 years, which  has more than doubled,  than the rise in temperature which is about 1 degree. 
•  The following graph shows the  links between the temperature and atmosheric CO2 over several hundred thousand years

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Co2-temperature-plot.svg

• If the climate sceptics have decided that 381ppm of atmospheric CO2 is safe then they should answer the question of what they think is an unsafe level and back it up with some scientific argument. Are they saying that a level of, say,  1000 ppm is a safe level?
• Atmospheric CO2 is continuously being removed by the oceans. CO2 is acidic when disolved in water, the ocean is alkaline. This is likely to make the ocean less alkaline over time. This pH change could adverse affect marine ecosystems.
• I commented that many climate sceptics were also sceptics on the adverse affects of cigarette smoke. It seems like they've given up on that one and need to find something else to be sceptical about! 

A couple of  new points:

• Looking at the graph in the link above it looks like we may be getting away quite lightly with only a one degree rise in temperature. It could be that there is still some temperature rise in the pipeline even if CO2 levels are stabilised. Another possibility is that particular polutants , smoke SO2 etc  , are reflecting some of the sun's heat.
• Under capitalism, the  means of production is essentially unplanned. In times of crisis, such as wartime, there has always been near universal agreement that it should to be changed to a  planned system. If the climate scientists are correct, then we'll need to plan and regulate, not just the economy,  but the environment too, to avoid a natural disaster.

 

 

A response to Dalek's excoriation of nuclear power

"Any-one inside the power generation industry will tell you (in a candid moment) that the only reason Nuclear reactors were adopted is because they can be used to make nukes."

It is true that nuclear power rode on the back of nuclear weapons and submarine technology. However, nuclear power reactors are not used to produce nukes. You know that Dalek. So why did you say it?

"Not a single reactor installed any-where in the world prior to 1975 has been able to make electricity at any-thing like the cost per kWh of other forms of generation. This from a technology that was  described as "too cheap to meter". Even in Japan, big subsidies are required."

Whatever the cost difference, it certainly has not been enough to cripple the French economy which relies on nuclear energy for 80 per cent of its electricty.

"No reactor has yet been de-comissioned, except for Chenoble!"

Going by this 2004 document from the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, four US reactors have completed the decommissioning process and another US 19 plants have been permanently shut down and are undergoing decommissioning

The reactor is the heat source, the units are limited to the thermal efficiency of standard thermal plant (less actually). No "topping" cycle is possible.

So what? Anyway the thermal efficiency of electricity from your beloved geothermal will tend to be even less because of the lower heat.

The new "safe"  high efficiency reactors that cannot be used to make bombs are 30 years away.

If that is an issue it is only so in some places. It is certainly irrelevent to any plans to expand capacity in the US, UK, France, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel or China which already have the means to make bombs

The "waste" problem really is difficult, much of the "waste" exists in the US, france, the UK, Russia, Israel as bombs.

Commercial nuclear power plants do not produce bombs.

No safe waste repository has yets been found any-where. (Howard and co want Australia to become the global waste repository - what do you think of this?.

I'm inclined to think that nuclear waste can be placed in virtually indestructable canisters and dumped virtually anywhere. But for the more squeamish, Australia is one of the better locations given the extremely stable geology.

cyberman, a while back you wrote:

My background is physics and engineering, but even so I honestly don't feel qualified to debate or offer meaningful critiques on the science of global warming in detail.  I'd probably have to give up my job and go back to uni for a year or two. I'm not saying that only scientists can make a meaningful contribution to the debate, but, in the end, it does come down to which group of scientists you choose to believe. I can understand the need to be sceptical,  but why ignore the overwhelming body of scientific opinion?

Almost all the people claiming to contribute to the "debate" would have to spend several years studying before their contributions could be meaningful.

For that reason I do not agree with attempts to score "scientific" points on either side of the utterly absurd public "debate".

But it does not then "come down to which group of scientists you choose to believe".

It comes down to whether people who claim "the debate is over" and proclaim that "official science" has spoken and attempt to mobilize "public opinion" in support of their views should be regarded as scientists engaging in science or as enemies of science.

Despite your own knowledge that you are not "qualified to debate or offer meaningful critiques on the science of global warming in detail" and despite you being under no illusion that anyone else here might be competent to do so, you make a series of points which invite debate about such matters as:

1. The implications of a rise in levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past century.
2. Conclusions to be drawn from analysis of ice cores in Antartica showing correlations between delta-deuterium and carbon dioxide over the past 650,000 years.
3. What is a "safe" or "unsafe" level of atmospheric carbon dioxide and whether figures such as 381ppm or 1000ppm might be "safe".
4. Whether changes in oceanic absorption of carbon dioxide are a cause or effect of changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and a cause or effect of changes in climate and what the effect of such changes might be on marine ecosystems.

Then you add that from your own examination of a graph (which btw visually appears to illustrate temperature changes leading rather than lagging carbon dioxide changes), you speculate that a one degree rise in temperature might be an underestimate as though there is some sort of simple "pipeline" model of temperature changes which one could extrapolate mentally from visual inspection of such graphs.

You follow that with speculations as to whether pollutants such as smoke, sulphur dioxide etc might have an impact on climate by reflecting some of the sun's heat.

Think carefully about what you wrote earlier:

Interesting though it may be to try, its really not possible to decide how much of a problem we may have just  by debating the issue.

Despite knowing that its really not possible, you, like many others have somehow become engaged in doing precisely that, "debating the issue", and insisting that the rest of us should either join in such a debate too (a temptation to which some here have partially succumbed, but which I absolutely reject), or accept the conclusions of those promoting it as "scientific".

The organized campaign, (with official sponsorship), to mobilize "public opinion" for this kind of ignorant "debate" is an insult to the very concept of science.

In any class society the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas. A moribund bourgeoisie has every reason to be pessimistic and fearful and every reason to encourage the sort of anti-scientific outlook expressed so eloquently by your insistence on ignorant debate.

PS The "scientific" arguments for "restraint" of mass expectations for rising standards of living remind me of the (apocryphal) "mathematical" argument for the existence of God:

"(a + bⁿ)/n = x, donc Dieu existe, repondez."

Suppose it had been a deep and meaningful formula like:

e^i.pi + 1 = 0


The conclusion "therefore God exists" simply does not follow from the premises. Claiming that the argument comes from so authoritative a mathematician as Euler can only provoke the response that Euler did not engage in pointless and asinine behaviour.

The people demanding a "reply" are engaged in pointless and asinine behaviour, not science.

Nuclear reactors and the bomb

"It is true that nuclear power rode on the back of nuclear weapons and submarine technology. However, nuclear power reactors are not used to produce nukes. You know that Dalek. So why did you say it?"

er.. The reactor at Dimona (for example) has been used to make nukes by altering its operating conditions under the very noses of the US inspectors. The neutron flux in any reactor can be used to produce Pu, or whatever, just a question of yield. (Apparently under the rules of asymetric moderation it is OK to characterise me as a liar)

"Whatever the cost difference, it certainly has not been enough to cripple the French economy which relies on nuclear energy for 80 per cent of its electricty." Cripple maybe not. Might be something to do with the fact that France is the economic basket case of "old" Europe?

"Going by this 2004 document from the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, four US reactors have completed the decommissioning process and another US 19 plants have been permanently shut down and are undergoing decommissioning"

Love this; check out the type and purpose of these reactors and then come back to me. I am talking big power producing ones like Three Mile Island for example, they are still trying to work out how to do it.

Yes the thermal efficiency of geothermal from hot water resources is low, but it is not an issue as the "fuel" is free - in the nuclear case the fuel is not free.

"Commercial nuclear power plants do not produce bombs." Is it Ok to characterise this as sophistry ? Commercial nuclear powerplants can be diverted to produce bombs as in Dimona.

What exactly does "virtually indestructable canisters" mean?

Dalek

 

 

 

Arthur writes

"In any class society the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas" 

Did Marx ever concede on this? The ruling classes, by definition,  may be in control  of society but they can't control science and nature. King Canute famously had occasion to learn this. Many scientists: Copernicus, Gallileo, Darwin developed scientific theories which were  revolutionary in their time and brought them in to conflict with the ruling class.  But, their ideas, and not the ideas of the ruling class at the time have been the ones that have prevailed. Even with Marx himself, whilst you can't say that his ideas have been similarly accepted, the measure of acceptance generally is very high.

I'm not sure where you, Arthur , are coming from. It is interesting to read, in the "straw man" mathematical agument for God's existence, and which is certainly not my argument,  but which you were very keen to demolish anyway, that you use the phrase  " scientific "  arguments for "restraint" of mass expectations. The quotation marks are yours not mine and I'm not sure who you are quoting. Is this a clue to what you have in mind? Do you think that the global warming argument is part of a big conspiracy theory to justify lowering the living standards of the working classes? Parts of the ruling class thinks it's all a big conspiracy too. The scientists and environmentalists are just a front for us wicked Reds! We couldn't bring down their capitalist system by orthodox methods so now we are using  scientific arguments to cause them as much trouble as we possibly can!