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How Scientists Got Climate Change So Wrong

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  • Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
    Who are #2-#5?

    You wanted climate activists to focus on the biggest polluters - who else should they focus on?
    With all due respect, my friend, you are the one who changed it to singular...

    That would be China.
    Only if you ignore relative population sizes. China does not have a high per capita emissions rate.

    But once again, you have ignored the question. You wanted climate activists to focus on the biggest polluters - who else should they focus on besides China?
    Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

    MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
    MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

    seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Roy View Post
      Only if you ignore relative population sizes. China does not have a high per capita emissions rate.

      But once again, you have ignored the question. You wanted climate activists to focus on the biggest polluters - who else should they focus on besides China?
      I'm against pollution, Roy, regardless of who it is. You know far more about this than I do, so I'll leave the ball in your court.
      The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Roy View Post
        But more relevantly, stating that the US produces more CO2 than Andorra doesn't really tell us anything. We'd expect that to be the case, because the US is so much bigger than Andorra. Just like we'd expect there to be more dentists in Canada than in Lichtenstein, and more hamburgers sold in Texas than in Rhode Island. If you want to make sensible comparisons between the performance of nations (or states/provinces/counties/etc) you need to compensate for size and population, and compare per capita values, or maybe per km2 values, or some combination of these. That way you might find that on average Texans eat 160 hamburgers per year while Rhode Islanders only eat 75, or that there is one dentist in Lichtenstein for every 1200 people, but Chinese dentists each serve 26200 people.*
        The other important thing about per capita is that it tells us what's possible. I don't think anybody would argue that, say, Sweden's standard of living would be unacceptable to Americans. And its per capita emissions have been cut nearly in half compared to 1980. The US' is down by only 1/4 during that period, and remains nearly 4x higher than Sweden's. Obviously, if Americans were as efficient as Swedes, our national emissions would plunge.

        Now, looking at Sweden, it turns out that two of the keys are extensive hydropower and nuclear. The US is probably close to tapped out on hydro, and we can't seem to build a nuclear plant with a budget that's even in the same time zone as it was promised to be, so Sweden's example for the US is limited. But there are other aspects that might work. Even hotel rooms in Sweden have multiple trash receptacles, and everyone is expected to separate out things for recycling, incineration for heat and power, etc. Their housing's efficiency could provide good information for northern states like New Hampshire and Minnesota, etc.

        Extend this sort of analysis to enough other countries with good standards of living, and you can almost certainly identify a LOT that could be done in the US without changing our standard of living. There's also valuable between-state comparisons to be had. California, for example, has energy efficiency that's closer to Europe's than most other states, yet it's 12th on the GDP per capita list of the US.
        "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
          Okay, I gotta know - how does CO2 or the atmosphere or the global climate know or care about per capita emissions? Shouldn't overall volume matter more than the per capita?
          Originally posted by Roy View Post
          No. While the overall volume is important, the volume for each country isn't.
          Overall emissions are directly proportional to per capita emissions, Laura.
          Emissions = pop * emissions/pop

          Of course, that's the overall equation, with Emissions, pop, and emissions/pop all given as overall figures. Emissions per capita isn't fixed across any two individuals, let alone any two countries.

          Recognizing this, we could instead sum across subgroups, like countries.
          Emissions = Sum(all countries): country_pop * country_emissions/pop

          But the partial sum for any one country is still going to follow the same equation.
          country_emissions = country_pop * country_emissions/pop

          If we're asking any one country to cut down on its emissions, the answer is the same as it is for the whole world. Cut down on pop, or cut down on emissions/pop. Both of those are worth pursuing, but the time-frame on humanely addressing overall pop is generational. We're not animals. We can't be culled. By the math, it would work, but oh no, we're not doing that.

          Which leaves us looking at emissions/pop. The time-frame on reducing emissions/pop isn't entirely adjustable, but it's a whole lot more adjustable than the time-frame on reducing pop. We can drive down per capita emissions technologically, via improved efficiencies for fossil-fueled power plants, by replacing high-carbon fuels with lower carbon fuels, and via regulations.

          This was in my Bloomberg Open news summary this morning:
          Chart of the Day

          Regulations to curb emissions will drive demand for electric vehicles over the next decade. In the U.S., where Trump has eased fuel economy rules, EV growth will be slower than countries such as China, but still strong. Sales of battery-powered vehicles will quadruple by 2025 to 809,537 models, accounting for 4.8% of the U.S. auto market, up from 1.3% now, according to LMC Automotive.

          2019-11-18_09-32-47.jpg

          China's emissions aren't proportionally larger than ours because most of the country is still dragging produce to markets by hand, or by ox, and eschewing other, higher-emission technologies we've adopted in the U.S. But also because they've gone all in on pursuing solar cell and battery technology to address the pollution crisis that's come with their rapid industrialization.

          There are things we can blame China for, and I've already got a thread devoted to one of the most outrageous examples, with new information added this morning. But there are also things they're doing better than we are, which we could profitably emulate.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Roy View Post
            Actually, it isn't. It's 9th biggest. 10th biggest if Gibraltar is considered a separate state. Many middle-eastern oil-rich states (Qatar, Saudi Arabia, etc) are heavier polluters.
            This is an especially difficult issue. The gulf states' high emission rates are principally due to refineries creating fuels for other countries, meaning that other countries are effectively reducing their own rates by pushing their externalities into the gulf.

            There are a number of dirty power plants sitting across the Mexican border from California, purposely built to take advantage of this, I dunno, maybe a decade ago. I went looking for updates in response to rogue's recollection from 15 years ago, that electrical generation in the US was principally derived from coal plants, meaning, if that were still the case, that EVs are principally powered by coal.

            The official figures for California show no power at all from coal or oil plants, and relatively less from natural gas than from hydro and other renewables. The data suggested it included all power plants supplying California, but to convince me, I'd need to know what's happened with the plants I remember being built. Have they been shut down, or are they only distributing to Mexico, now?

            Comment


            • Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
              Berkeley Earth is interesting because it is completely different, and treats each discontinuity as an independent record.
              That's a bare beginning on why the BEST figures are so interesting, arguably a damnation by faint praise. Muller set out, all alone, to dig into the questions that appeared most troubling with the other data sets, and hence their conclusions. In the end, his independent analysis convinced him, and left the rest of us with yet another independent data set.

              He posts regularly on Quora, too. Great guy to interact with.
              Last edited by Juvenal; 11-18-2019, 09:31 AM.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                I'm against pollution, Roy, regardless of who it is. You know far more about this than I do, so I'll leave the ball in your court.
                The ball is still in your court.
                Last edited by Roy; 11-18-2019, 09:22 AM.
                Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Roy View Post
                  The ball is still in your court.
                  No, I mean that, Roy -- you know FAR more about this than I do - I'm conceding.
                  The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                  Comment


                  • Oh. Ok.

                    Isn't that against TWeb rules?
                    Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                    MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                    MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                    seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Roy View Post
                      Isn't that against TWeb rules?
                      Remember me when they paint your name in red.

                      And when they do, a small favor, perhaps? Ban Trout.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                        This is an especially difficult issue. The gulf states' high emission rates are principally due to refineries creating fuels for other countries, meaning that other countries are effectively reducing their own rates by pushing their externalities into the gulf.

                        There are a number of dirty power plants sitting across the Mexican border from California, purposely built to take advantage of this, I dunno, maybe a decade ago. I went looking for updates in response to rogue's recollection from 15 years ago, that electrical generation in the US was principally derived from coal plants, meaning, if that were still the case, that EVs are principally powered by coal.

                        The official figures for California show no power at all from coal or oil plants, and relatively less from natural gas than from hydro and other renewables. The data suggested it included all power plants supplying California, but to convince me, I'd need to know what's happened with the plants I remember being built. Have they been shut down, or are they only distributing to Mexico, now?
                        That I don't know.

                        I do know that some of China's output comes from manufacturing of goods supplied to Europe and North America, so to some extent their pollution is also offloaded from elsewhere.
                        Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                        MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                        MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                        seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                          There are a number of dirty power plants sitting across the Mexican border from California, purposely built to take advantage of this, I dunno, maybe a decade ago. I went looking for updates in response to rogue's recollection from 15 years ago, that electrical generation in the US was principally derived from coal plants, meaning, if that were still the case, that EVs are principally powered by coal.
                          Don't know how reliable PV Magazine is as a source, but assuming they can copy/paste a table correctly, these figures seem relevant:
                          https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/07/...an-reputation/

                          It indicates that CA gets about 3X the imported power from renewables as it does from coal, and that coal's share of the imports has been cut in half over the last five years. I'm reasonably certain that the state's renewable mandates include out-of-state power, so this is almost certainly policy driven. I know it was a major factor in the closing of a coal plant in Arizona.
                          "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Roy View Post
                            Oh. Ok.

                            Isn't that against TWeb rules?
                            Laughing - it would seem so, eh?
                            The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
                              Don't know how reliable PV Magazine is as a source, but assuming they can copy/paste a table correctly, these figures seem relevant:
                              https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/07/...an-reputation/

                              It indicates that CA gets about 3X the imported power from renewables as it does from coal, and that coal's share of the imports has been cut in half over the last five years. I'm reasonably certain that the state's renewable mandates include out-of-state power, so this is almost certainly policy driven. I know it was a major factor in the closing of a coal plant in Arizona.
                              Bookmarked!

                              Even from a quick glance, it's clear the figures I'd seen showing no electricity from coal were wrong. I'm going to have to revisit this. Probably not in this thread.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                                I think I might take the Climate Alarmists more seriously if they were focusing their attention on the biggest polluters.
                                Observe how it's been derailed to 'who is currently the biggest polluter, and how do we define it'. Instead of facing facts, that in the next several decades the emissions of China + India alone, let alone the rest of the developing world, will skyrocket. Absolutely skyrocket, past how many more "points of no return".

                                They're not serious about addressing the huge problem they claim exists, and it's not worth taking them too seriously.
                                Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

                                Comment

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