Slashdot Mirror

Credible source

Same data as time series of total emissions of all developed countries in a JSON format, make your own graph.

More about the dataset and how to get disaggregated data (by sector, source etc.)

The last two years were not the best but as GGP pointed out this is irrelevant. EU emissions are in a stable downward trend since the beginning of UN-watched observations (1990). US emissions were growing till 2007, and show a slight downward trend since.

Here ya go:

https://unfccc.int/files/essen...

Ya know, China is free to clean-up its internal pollution problems without the Paris Accord. I wonder why they haven't taken the initiative on this ...

Oh wait! Having actually read the Paris Accord, it is clear that the construct IS carefully crafted to, as you noted earlier, "make the US less competitive" in a global marketplace. Specifically, there's a USD$100 BILLION commitment from the "developed" countries ... PER YEAR ... to be wealth-redistributed to other countries for dubious climate-related projects. The vast majority of this funding, if not all of it, is expected to come from the USA.

The Paris Accord is a global wealth-redistrubution program wrapped in a wafer-thin-veneer of "OMG, save the planet."

The Paris Agreement was a self-commitment of all signing countries to limit the increase in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius until the year 2100. Not more, nothing less. . . .

At no point in the agreement there was any mentioning of wealth or the redistribution of it.

You mean this Paris Agreement? The one that says in Article 9, Paragraph 1, " Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention"?

There should be a "Not informative" moderation.

Indeed.

Article 9
1. Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist
developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in
continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention.

Commissions were to be established which would dictate the allocation of funds. Guess who pay? (US Taxpayers)

The above quote comes from the alt-right spew site known as the United Nations https://unfccc.int/files/essen...

The UNFCCC was used as a basis for the Paris Accord, but it is not the same treaty, nor is the Paris Accord actually part of the UNFCCC.

The Paris Agreement was explicitly adopted as an "annex" to the UNFCCC. See the text of the agreement (from p. 2):

I. Adoption. 1. Decides to adopt the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (hereinafter referred to as "the Agreement") as contained in the annex...

The formal "annex" begins on p. 20 of the link. Let's see what else you have.

Doesn't matter - changes to a treaty - either by modification of language or addition (annex) to requires a new ratification. The fact that every other signing country did that also shows presents a challenge to anyone arguing before SCOTUS that the USA is actually bound by it. We're not until the Senate says we are, and they haven't.

In fact, we can see this in the USA's history with the change from the Articles of Confederation established in 1777 to those of the Articles of the Constitution presented in 1787 and formally adopted in 1788, changing the government from a Confederacy to a Constitutional Government.

Actually what he said is 100% accurate. There is nothing in the Paris Agreement that is legally binding by nature of it being in that document.

You state this yourself:

Most of the legally binding aspects of the Paris accord, which include stuff like ongoing monitoring of climate change, reports to the international organization, etc. were part of that original treaty.

Yes, we know. The Paris Agreement adds no new legal constraints on the United States, because it was never ratified. It does contain some verbiage that the US is legally bound to, but only because of prior treaties.

The UNFCCC was used as a basis for the Paris Accord, but it is not the same treaty, nor is the Paris Accord actually part of the UNFCCC.

The Paris Agreement was explicitly adopted as an "annex" to the UNFCCC. See the text of the agreement (from p. 2):

I. Adoption. 1. Decides to adopt the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (hereinafter referred to as "the Agreement") as contained in the annex...

The formal "annex" begins on p. 20 of the link. Let's see what else you have.

The US has never ratified the Paris Accord, in any way, and is not currently a member of it. It cannot 'withdraw' because it was never a part in the first place.

Again, nope. Note further the stipulations from the original UNFCCC treaty for annexes (Section 16):

3. An annex that has been adopted in accordance with paragraph 2 above shall enter into force for all Parties to the Convention six months after the date of the communication by the Depositary to such Parties of the adoption of the annex, except for those Parties that have notified the Depositary, in writing, within that period of their non -acceptance of the annex.

Note further that Article 23 of the Paris Agreement states that Article 16 of the Convention specifically applies to the Paris Agreement. Since the U.S. did NOT notify the Depository of its non-acceptance of the Annex known as the "Paris Agreement" within 6 months, the UNFCCC automatically makes the Paris Agreement binding upon the U.S., according to the terms approved by the Senate when it adopted the treaty in 1992.

So yes, even if the U.S. didn't sign the Paris Agreement, since we didn't "opt out," the U.S. is by default bound to it by the terms of the previous UNFCCC treaty.

Try again.

The UNFCCC was used as a basis for the Paris Accord, but it is not the same treaty, nor is the Paris Accord actually part of the UNFCCC.

The Paris Agreement was explicitly adopted as an "annex" to the UNFCCC. See the text of the agreement (from p. 2):

I. Adoption. 1. Decides to adopt the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (hereinafter referred to as "the Agreement") as contained in the annex...

The formal "annex" begins on p. 20 of the link. Let's see what else you have.

The US has never ratified the Paris Accord, in any way, and is not currently a member of it. It cannot 'withdraw' because it was never a part in the first place.

Again, nope. Note further the stipulations from the original UNFCCC treaty for annexes (Section 16):

3. An annex that has been adopted in accordance with paragraph 2 above shall enter into force for all Parties to the Convention six months after the date of the communication by the Depositary to such Parties of the adoption of the annex, except for those Parties that have notified the Depositary, in writing, within that period of their non -acceptance of the annex.

Note further that Article 23 of the Paris Agreement states that Article 16 of the Convention specifically applies to the Paris Agreement. Since the U.S. did NOT notify the Depository of its non-acceptance of the Annex known as the "Paris Agreement" within 6 months, the UNFCCC automatically makes the Paris Agreement binding upon the U.S., according to the terms approved by the Senate when it adopted the treaty in 1992.

So yes, even if the U.S. didn't sign the Paris Agreement, since we didn't "opt out," the U.S. is by default bound to it by the terms of the previous UNFCCC treaty.

Try again.

I agree with your comment about China.

Though Nuclear will be their main source of energy.

About your second comment, you are misinformed.
http://unfccc.int/cooperation_...

Here's a radical thought: why not read it for yourself? It's quite short. Until you do that, you're just echoing the opinions and preconceptions of others.

If you do, you'll note:
  - the word "tax" does not appear in the Agreement
  - the word "must" does not appear in the Agreement

The vast majority of it simply encourages parties to use their best efforts to reduce their domestic emissions. Nowhere does it lay down specifics as to what or how, and nowhere does it commit anyone to anything. It's all very vague and voluntary.

For the paranoid, Articles 9 and 11 are the ones about helping less-developed countries - let me know if you can find any onerous commitments in there. I'll wait.

The Paris agreement commits each nation "to put forward their best efforts."
That's it.

Funny thing -- I went and pulled up the text of the Paris Agreement and couldn't find the words "put forward their best efforts" anywhere.

What I found were words like "bound," "obligation," and 117 instances of the word "shall" sprinkled like croutons in the 7300+ word salad.

But hey, let's say all that really does just compress down to "put forward their best efforts." If that's really true, "withdrawing" from such an amorphous "commitment" may not change anything at all in the real world and thus all this hyperventilating is premature at best.

Article 9: Section 1
Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist
developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in
continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention.
http://unfccc.int/files/essent...

Which are the developed countries?
Which are the developing countries?
What financial resources are they obligated to provide?

Now try to find the nitty-gritty details. Now that's a bit*h to find.

I'm certainly glad you're not my attorney.

Paris agreement signed / ratified:

CHINA 22 Apr 2016 3 Sep 2016
INDIA* 22 Apr 2016 2 Oct 2016

http://unfccc.int/paris_agreem...

The draft and addendum .

The draft and addendum .

At the very heart of the response to climate change, however, lies the need to reduce emissions. In 2010, governments agreed that emissions need to be reduced so that global temperature increases are limited to below 2 degrees Celsius.

You haven't been paying attention to the news at all, have you? Global warming is mentioned all the time, as is the widespread agreement to limit it by reducing carbon dioxide emissions by burning fewer fossil fuels.

"We" is the human race. Where did I say anything about taxes or shutting up? Go scream your lungs out if it'll make you feel better. There's widespread agreement that we want to cut carbon dioxide emissions to limit the warming. But it's not up to you, nor to me for that matter. Don't act like we need to convince you first.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/17/ridleys-riposte-to-john-abraham/

Guest essay by Dr. Matt Ridley

On a blog called Desmog Blog, John Abraham has criticized my recent article in the Wall Street Journal on climate sensitivity. Here’s my piece http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324549004579067532485712464.html
And here’s his piece: http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/09/16/john-abraham-slams-matt-ridley-climate-denial-op-ed-wall-street-journal.

It’s a poor response, characterized by inaccurate representation of what I said, even down to actual misquoting. In the whole article, he puts just four words in quotation marks as written by me, yet in doing so he misses out a whole word: 20% of the quotation. Remarkable. If I did that, I would be very embarrassed.

He directly contradicts the IPCC’s report on extreme weather, which found no link between current storms and man-made climate change; he is apparently unaware that the rising costs of extreme weather are entirely caused by rising investment and insurance values, not rising quantities of extreme weather, as even a small amount of research would have told him ( http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/follow-up-q-from-senate-epw.html ); he falsely claims that I say rising sea levels will be beneficial, when I wrote no such thing; and he wholly ignores the benefits of mild climate change, even though I was careful to say that the key thing is to compare costs and benefits. It is possible that he does not know the meaning of the word “net”: he certainly shows no understanding of the concept.

“General statements about extremes are almost nowhere to be found in the literature but seem to abound in the popular media,” said climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies recently. “It’s this popular perception that global warming means all extremes have to increase all the time, even though if anyone thinks about that for 10seconds they realize that’s nonsense.”

Mr Abraham’s main point is that up to 2 degrees C of warming is likely to do net harm. For this surprising claim, he produces noevidence. None. The evidence suggest the opposite – that less than two degrees of warming will cut excess winter deaths, increase average rainfall, extendgrowing seasons and increase rates of photosynthesis in wild and agricultural ecosystems. “A global warming of less than 2.5C could have no significant effect on overall food production,” says the UNFCC website.

http://unfccc.int/essential_background/background_publications_htmlpdf/climate_change_information_kit/items/288.php

See links here http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165188913000092%00 and here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/06/winter-kills-excess-deaths-in-the-winter-months/.

And yet it is he who accuses me of “non-science nonsense”. It’s truly disgraceful that a tenured academic, as I assume Mr Abraham to be, should make so many mistakes and yet feel free to hurl unsubstantiated abuse at another human being, however desperate he may be. In writing about climate change I am careful not to make unprovoked ad-hominem attacks – until attacked in this way.

I always play the ball, not the man. Mr Abra

The goal of Kyoto was not 5%, it was 7% below 1990 for the USA.
http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/3145.php

And the US is nowhere near that goal.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/USCO2EmissionsTimeSeries.png

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the United States increased by about 10% between 1990 and 2011.

Well, call your local politician and demand real progress in Durban this month: http://unfccc.int/2860.php

So, this is how I roughly understand the whole carbon credits thing is supposed to work. Am I right here? And does the real-world application work like this model, or is it rife with corruption, bureaucracy, and an inability to accomplish its stated goals like every other government project? Have their been any studies on the effectiveness of such a system?

The certification of carbon credits is taken very seriously and there are, according to the UNFCCC Parties & Observers, "Over 1,297 NGOs and 83 IGOs are admitted as observers." Further, carbon emissions especially from manufactures is fairly standard science. Fuel input + burn rate = carbon emission rate. The statistics are held not only on the scrubbers but the input valves as well. Also, it is reported by the fuel companies how much fuel they are selling and where it is being passed off. All this put together, along with thousands of NGO interests, allows the market to have enough watchdogs to prevent serious abuse. The key to carbon credits in the US is that you need a verification and certification process behind the carbon creditors. Again, NGO and even government regulation can go a long way towards certifying and making the market more transparent.

And grow sugarcane and other crops from which to make ethanol and food products (some of which are indeed fed to cattle). And, apparently (news to me), most significantly for the poorest among us, in the poorest places, to feed our families (subsistence farming) [Wikipedia, UN report]. And for harvesting wood to go in all the engineered wood products we buy.

If they want the US to look into alternative energy try getting the government to sign and ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

The USA signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1998. Ratification is a different matter.

Careful - there is disagreement on the numbers. Methane contributes to the production of ozone in the tropsphere. Methane (with a half-life of 8.4 years) is 1/4096th of its original concentration after 100 years. The relatively high GWP after 100 years includes the secondary effects and we don't yet know how those will grow (or shrink). Check out http://unfccc.int/ghg_data/items/3825.php

I used to belive in AGW, until I discovered that its proponents are such pricks. People are jerks when they're defending the indefensible, because that's how bullies gain their turf.

When faced with the quandry of conflicting sources with agendas, it's best to sweep the agendas away and examine the underlying facts. So... Who's got facts to share? Which debater is documenting their sources, publishing their underlying data and disclosing their analysis methods without fear or shame? Crunch the available numbers yourself if you want to.

I did. I don't have any peer-review quality data to share, but when I look at the raw data the corrections, the updates, the sample selection for the studies I find a number of things. The sensors march determinedly toward the sea over time. They decrease in elevation and move toward city centers (or city centers are built up around them). Remote and colder data is neglected as being unreliable. The newer the revision, the more older data decreases in temperature. An ice age is forming in 1910 as we watch the data evolve. The numbers are publicly available and you're welcome to check my figures.

I find the dendro-proxy data unconvincing for a number of reasons. It includes strip-bark tree data like Bristlecone Pines. I used to have a section of a Bristlecone pine (I grew up where they live - it was pre-endangered species period. The Paiute call it "Iron Wood". One log of it will burn for two days, but if you cut a tree down to try that you're going to prison.) Bristlecone pines have bark that wanders across their exterior. The type of sampling they did - cores - might show a particularly thin gap between rings that represents a dry summer, or that thin stripe might represent a thousand years that the bark covered a different part of the tree trunk. They were warned not to use strip bark trees in their dendro-proxies, but ignored the guidance because Bristlecone pines are the oldest living tree.

The dendro-proxy data includes highly selected (<20% sample) of a Russian Yew study that shows no warming except for one tree, the most influential tree in the world. The Russians have since refuted the warmist interpretation of the data. It includes samples from a Chinese study which has since denied their interpretation. Of course the Himalayan glacier melt quote and the disaster prediction paper are such embarassingly poor science as to be unworthy of mention here among adults - that's ISO/IEC 29500:2008 grade science, not something grownups should consider even if they nearly caused a disaster that was averted.

And then there's the Midieval Warm Period, which warmists deny as local on faith without any evidence whatsoever because it conflicts with their impending climatic apocalypse view. I don't know what to say about that. Obviously written history records that the Midieval Warm Period happened. It was perhaps partly responsible for the Black Death and the Renaissance, against which our modern concerns seem trivial.

Warmers like to cite satellite data. The satellites are calibrated on terrestrial data (theirs). They claim the satellites back their data, when in fact the satellites are deltas from it, and poor ones at that. 3000 miles is a long distance to measure a point in time temperature from, especially to fractions of a degree C. And then there's the fact that the satellites measure the temperature of the solid object their gaze falls upon - the ground or the surface of the sea in full daylight, rather than the air temperature two meters above ground in the shade, which is what most weather stations measure. To expect a high corrolation between these two method

So the only question worth asking is, "How much is the climate changing, and what can we do about it?" It could be that the climate isn't changing at all, and we can just do nothing. I suspect that there's sufficient evidence that that's not the case. It could be that the changes are all naturally induced, and there is something we can do about it to mitigate the effects. In that case, we're really stupid to say, "Not my fault!" and do nothing, because whatever the cause, when low-lying areas get inundated and crop failures start, it doesn't matter whose fault it is, it's going to be a mess.

There's also the question, "Are all climate changes bad and can there be more positive change than negative change?"

Think about it, warmer temperatures could mean that areas that were previously too cold for crops could now be farmable. The warmer areas would also mean that people would have less need to spend energy and resources in keeping warm. Increased carbon dioxide boosts growth in many plants, allowing crops and wild plants to thrive. A wetter climate might lead to more water available for irrigation and consumption. Changes in weather patterns might change deserts to livable land. Yes, there are also possible negative effects but right now can we really say which effects would be greater?

We need to tread lightly until we can get a better grasp on what climate change means, the mechanisms for how it occurs, and just what the TOTAL effects might be. Nothing is worse than knee-jerk reactions to incomplete data and unverified theories. Also remember that scientists are people too, they are susceptible to bias and short-sightedness. Sometimes you need an independent review of all the theories and data in order to separate wishful thinking from true science.

Some reading:
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
EPA: Climate Change - Agriculture and Food Supply

No, it's not. You can find the term used in reference to anthropogenic global warming, global cooling, and neither. Just do the damn Google search. You're an unstoppable fountain of uneducated misinformation.

The term climate change as in changes in the climate was used but it was never the name of a cause or principle push by scientists until people were rejecting global warming. I'm sorry but using it inside a paper doesn't make it the subject or title of the situation like it is today. Most of the papers use the word the repeated times but we don't see global warming being call "the" now do we. Go ahead and stretch everything you can to justify your belief system, I said what I wanted to, I don't expect to force you to be rational.

eniers didn't create the IPCC. The IPCC was created to summarize the state of scientific research in the field. Which is still does, despite your insinuations about its politicization.

Lol.. Yes they did. Th IPCC was created by the UN to see if what was being claimed was even possible. During it's creation and organization, it was hijacked.

Even basic order-of-magnitude estimates show the need for mitigation policies.

And that has nothing to do with the costs that I mentioned. Mitigation isn't removal, it's dealing with it.

No, not in all of the proposals.

I'm sorry, I thought you were familiar with the Kyoto accords and the adoption rates and all. Of course I probably should have been more specific in the "resulting so called fixes" as meaning things actually in play and no just proposals someone blurted out somewhere. Here is a set of numbers that you will probably find interesting, under the 185 some odd countries that signed on to Kyoto, only 30 or 31 or so have caps in their emissions, of those 30, one doesn't even have to reduce them. It aims to reduce the carbon emissions of those 31 countries by 63.7 percent over all but it allows for unhindered growth in 155 remaining countries. In fact, the increases in emissions from China and India (where Europe outsources a lot of their carbon emissions intensive industries) alone out perform any reductions seen through out the 30 member countries with caps. In fact, from 2001 to 2004, Western Europe actually saw an increase of 100,000 million metric tons of Co2 emissions.

That's totally irrelevant.

Actually, no it is not. It shows how much of an attribute is being given to such a small amount and it also shows that current efforts still aren't even able to reduce that little amount. The only way is would be irrelevant is if you wanted to hide the futility of the current solutions and thus hid the political motivations behind the global warming scams.

We would be producing less CO2 than we otherwise would be, and CO2 is the primary problem as far as climate change over the next century or two is concerned.

Lol.. Over the next century or two and people are attempting to force half baked solutions right now onto countries. These half baked solutions don't even attempt to reduce the Over all Co2 production, just the contributions from wealthy countries while poorer countries benefit from no restrictions at all. It isn't even slowing the growth of Co2 emissions by that much, it's just spreading it around which is more proof to the political motivations behind it.

It's due to their industrialization, which is certainly linked to their economic exports, but it also due to, e.g., the Chinese government's choice to industrialize in the fastest (and dirtiest) manner possible.

Yes, China has to expand their industry rapidly in order to meet Europe'

"China and India will do nothing to cut there emissions"

I used to read this propoganda all the time in Australian papers, less so since the change of government. In reality the US is now the only nation on Earth not willing to sign up to an international treaty. For the past several years China and India's simple negotiating strategy has been..."we want what the same deal as the US plus the compenstation for past emmisions the rest of the world has already ageed to".

Two basic ideas of the draft treaty...
1. Cap and trade (based on tonnage not GDP as the US wants) is the way to go, currently we emmit 10Gt/yr of GHG and the best scientific advise says it would be prudent to reduce that to 3-4Gt/yr by 2050-60. The best economic advise says the sooner we take our medicine the better. The obvious way to do this is start with 10Gt of permits in year 1 and reduce that to 3-4 by mid-century, the hard part is not the technology it's the allocation and accountability of permits. Permits are allocated to national governments once a year who then auction/sell/hoard them ( a decent government would use it to offset other taxes ). For those caught cheating sanctions/tarrifs are applied to their inputs/outputs. Estimated cost per ton of the permits varies between $20-200 depending on what global development senario you belive in.
2. The treaty is designed to account for the fact that early FF users (US/Russia/EU/Japan/Au) have already benifited from past emmisions. The per-capita emmission curves for different nations are drawn to account for these past emmisions and merge into a single curve by ~2030. Between now and 2030 China and India will have steep curves, OTOH if they can flatten out their curves by undertaking huge renewable efforts earlier rather than later then they will be compensated by auctioning their permits to other nations.

The basic problem with the draft treaty...
Creative accounting.

"How about giving up our panic attacks."
Agreed, but for a while there it looked like "the economy would be ruined".

If wealthy, polluting industries "pay to pollute", does that actually reduce emissions?

Where does the money go?

You can get the benefits of both by having the government sell a fixed number of certificates (who gets to buy them is another issue) and letting the secondary market take care of the process of marginal cost/benefit equalisation. The issue price would have to be below the market equilibrium price, but with a bit of practice the government can figure it out.

Current practice in the EU, AFAIK, is Model 1: issue the the certificates, let the market trade. In the last few years there were far too many permits on the market, so that the costs for a ton of CO2 were somewhere around 0.26â, but this year it's around 20â, I think (haven't checked the market recently).

I don't know what the GP meant with his "two largest emerging world economy haven't signed the Kyoto protocol" statement: Brazil, China, and India have all ratified it.

Answers to the OP's further questions can be found in the Kyoto protocol itself:
Full Text
Layman's guide

http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/2536.php 2. "Climate change" means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods. The are studying climate change yes, but only human causes are being studied per above. Tim S

Maybe because their politics at CCC in Indonesia[1] is dooming us all.

[1]not the other one

It's hard to say... international programs like this are generally rife with corrupt (can we say "oil-for-food"?).

It's funny that you mention "oil-for-food" scandal, which involved top to bottom corruption at the UN. Now who, again, will administer a international carbon credits program?

Here's a particularly disgusting one: "carbon financing will be used to fight poverty," the wealth transfer policy is the environmental policy -- like all carbon trading schemes are, just this one is more upfront about it.

It is interesting that I did a search on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and was taken to a nice PDF document from the Rio conference that does not, so far as I could see, in Article 3 or anywhere else in the document, specify that 1990 is to be used as the base of measuremnt. It does mention that there are targets to reduce emissions to 1990 levels or lower, but I did not see a specific identification of 1990 as the jointly agreed upon base year of reference.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

So, who knows from that. With so many axes to grind out there, I'm surprised we have any trees left in the world.

• There is an administration in power that is heavily invested in oil.
• Said administration has a history of suppressing scientific data - in fact they have taken it to a new level. Ask the Union of Concerned Scientists what they think.
• Said administration has defined this man's science as policy. It never used to be policy to state such things.

It seems to me that the Bush administration is upset with this scientist because he is interfering with their policy of keeping the truth about climate change from the American public.

Correct. Who said it? "All scientific discoveries did not start with 'Eureka!' , but with 'That's funny...'"

However, this is only true in retrospect. When we look back to the double-slit expirement, we realize that this was the moment that the wave-particle duality was proven. However, at that time, it was merely one more link in a long chain composed of multiple experiments, discussions, refutations and refinements. Science does not exist as a single experiment. Why do you think that cold fusion is regarded as a joke? Because the single experiment that did show a net energy gain could never be properly reproduced.

In short, the single anomalous experiment can be start, but also a dead end. Only hind sight can show which it is. In the meantime, consensus is all you can go on. Unless you're willing to do the research yourself. And at that point, you'll realize that what matters is neither 100% consensus nor a single paper or data set. What does matter is whether the current data has been thoroughly analyzed, and that the conclusions have been independently verified.

More importantly your link doesn't address the fundamental questions: to what extent is the climate changing, what kinds of effects will this have, to what extent can or should we prevent it?

Absolutely. It also wasn't intended to. It was simply intended to provide a counterpoint. The fact that it was easy to find underscored the fact that simply throwing quotations is not only easy, but also completely pointless. It doesn't advance the discussion. However, there are plenty of articles on the points you mention. Specifically, the two biggest studies done on the subject so far are the IPCC (http://www.ipcc.ch/) and UN (http://unfccc.int/). It has plenty of info on all your questions.

The positive feedback loop associated with the difference in albedo between sea ice and open water is generally recognized. Another, potentially more powerful feedback loop that is not as widely known is the potential huge release of methane from the arctic permafrost. First, note that atmospheric methane is a very strong greenhouse gas, about 8 times stronger than carbon dioxide. According to http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/oilgas/hydrates/,

"Methane hydrate form in generally two types of geologic settings: (1) on land in permafrost regions where cold temperatures persist in shallow sediments, and (2) beneath the ocean floor at water depths greater than about 500 meters (about 1,640 feet) where high pressures dominate. The hydrate deposits themselves may be several hundred meters thick." "In 1995, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) completed its most detailed assessment of U.S. gas hydrate resources. The USGS study estimated the in-place gas resource within the gas hydrate of the United States ranges from 112,000 trillion cubic feet to 676,000 trillion cubic feet, with a mean value of 320,000 trillion cubic feet of gas. Subsequent refinements of the data in 1997 using information from the Ocean Drilling Program have suggested that the mean should be adjusted slightly downward, to around 200,000 trillion cubic feet -- still larger by several orders of magnitude than previously thought and dwarfing the estimated 1,400 trillion cubic feet of conventional recoverable gas resources and reserves in the United States. Worldwide, estimates of the natural gas potential of methane hydrate approach 400 million trillion cubic feet -- a staggering figure compared to the 5,500 trillion cubic feet that make up the world's currently proven gas reserves."

I was interested in what proportion of the methane hydrate reserves were located in the permafrost region, and how much methane release might result from melting of the permafrost. Here is some revealing information:http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/geoma rs2001/pdf/7035.pdf

From the above link we learn that oceanic hydrate contains up to 95% of all naturally occurring hydrate worldwide. The methane deposits under the permafrost are at least 200m deep, some much deeper, and those deposits constitute an estimated 5% of total methane hydrate deposits on Earth. So the actual estimate of methane trapped beneath the permafrost is estimated at 5% of 400 million trillion cubic feet of methane is:

2,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic foot = 56,633,693,423,376,624,568 liters, trapped below the permafrost.

Now, further: "What matters for climate change is methane mass (kg or tonne). Normally, volume (m3) or flow rate (m3/h) is measured using some measurement device or instrument, and these volume values are converted to mass (kg or kg/h). An intermediate step usually involves adjusting the measured volume by measured pressures and temperatures to volumes at standard conditions (0 C and 1 atm, equal to 1.013 bar)." http://cdm.unfccc.int/methodologies/inputsconsmeth /MGM_methane.pdf

So for methane, "1 gm mole occupies 22.4 litres at 273 K and 1 atm.

C 12.01115

H 1.00797

16.043 g CH4 = 22.414 litres

Density (16.043 / 22.414) = 0.7157 g/litre or kg/m3.

So 56,633,693,423,376,624,568 liter * 0.7157 g/liter= 40,532,734,383,110,650,203 grams = 40,532,734,383,110 metric tons [metric] (40.5 trillion metric tons).

somebody please check my calculations...

For comparison, the mass of the Earth's atmosphere is estimated at 5.3×10^18 Kg =5,300,000,000,000,000 ton [metric]

Scientists are beginning to see evidence that methane and CO2 release from thawing permafrost is a positive feedback result of the warming

Whats going on this week? The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

http://unfccc.int/2860.php

This is news coming out this week to go along with UNFCCC, the Guardian story even helpfully has a link to UNFCCC. Its FUD.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,165 4803,00.html?gusrc=rss

The units are wrong, the numbers are sufficiently correct for computing the "tiny fraction" ratio. Of all the greenhouse gasses that Kyoto regulates, China is now the #2 producer in the world - and still exempt!

Second, Kyoto regulates FAR MORE pollutants than just CO2.

HAHAHAHA... you guys are such a fucking joke. FIVE. Kyoto regulates FIVE more pollutants than just CO2.

Hey, here's the actual text of the Kyoto protocol. Why don't you read that and tell me what the world's #2 polluter's reduction commitment is.

The nature of threats are changing over time. Global climate change is one of them, and in part believed to be responsible for more and more hurricanes.

As a countermeasure, many countries, but not the US (yet?), have signed the Kyoto Protocol.

Get your local rep to do something about it!

All scientific information should be heralded and released the community without due diligence. And we should immediately begin basing public policy on it. There's no harm.

I'm not even sure if this deserves a response, but...

1) source? you really shouldn't quote numbers without a link.

2) data manipulation? what about the rest of the US.? you know, the part closer to the north pole?

3) do your fucking research! It is NOT very possible that we are coming out of a mini ice age. In fact, almost all scientists (especially those not employed by polluting industries) agree that this is not the case. You may have been misinformed by media that often quote radical scientists when trying to present a "balanced" report:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1978

4) You believe that science should provide proof that greenhouse gases cause global warming?
How about all the information here: http://unfccc.int/essential_background/items/2877. php

Oh that's right, you're going to say that we shouldn't trust the UN, even if these reports are published by the top scientists in the world? Well, didn't you take high school chemistry? Anyone with knowledge of simple chemistry will tell you of the potential dangers of green house gases. (yes, i say potential here to be diplomatic -- see #7)

5) you like to separate yourself from "environmentalists", because you obviously don't care about the long-term environment, and would rather have cheap prices today than do your part in keeping the world safe for future generations? that's selfish and narrow minded.

6) ahh..environmentally-friendly liberal media. do you just like throwing around these sayings, because you've heard them so many times they must be true? are you really that stupid to fall into partisan name-calling tactics? anyway, in terms of environmentalism, the media is actually biased against environmentalism (see above link).

7) even IF we are at the end of a mini ice age (which is highly unlikely), you still must recognize the possible devastating effects of our continued release of so many green house gases into the atmosphere, and should especially be in favor of economically-friendly initiatives.

8) I'm not sure why you chose this forum to voice your support of Bush, and ignorance towards the Kyoto agreement. This story was about taxi drivers who drive environmentally-friendly cars because it is ultimately cheaper for them, hence invalidating your claim that environmentally-friendly products cost the consumer more.

9) There ARE environmentally-friendly solutions that are also economically beneficial. In fact, this is really the best way to get industries to act in the environment's (and hence, in OUR) best interest. Simple examples include environmentally-aware heating and air-conditioning, like placement of the windows, or having heat ducts near the floor instead of near the ceiling. More complex examples generally involve symbiotic relationships with our environment to utilize a renewable or recyclable resource.

10) Please leave your politics at the door, and before responding to an article with your bias, research the topic. Forget everything you think you know, and take a fresh look at the information available. It will only make you a smarter person.

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html

It appears I was working off an old draft of the kyoto protocol. Instead article 3 of the current protocol only stipulates that forests play an important role as a carbon sink... and it can only be a carbon sink if it is not burning.

see earlier posts about how combustable australian bush is.

For the UN illeterate:

The Kyoto Protocol - An International Agreement to solve the problem of "human factors global warming" by transfering industrial technology and capability from developed nations to UNderdeveloped nations.

No worry though, you can now buy carbon credits from the IMF (International Monetary Force) to keep, what factories you have left, open. Otherwise, they will have to move to India or China which again, are exempted from the Kyoto Protocol. http://unfccc.int/kyoto_mechanisms/emissions_tradi ng/items/2731.php/

• India: Accession
• Brazil: Ratification
• China: Approval

I see lots of strong opinions posted here, but how many of the posters have actually read the Kyoto Protocol? Of those that have read it, how many have studied it to a point of understanding it? Does anybody on this thread actually know what they are talking about? KYOTO PROTOCOL TO THE UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE

The US signed the treaty but never ratified

They even commit to 7% reduction.

Check it out here

From this official document (pdf) on the status of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, India, China and Brazil has all ratified/approved Kyoto, am I missing something here?

From this official document (pdf) on the status of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, India, China and Brazil has all ratified/approved Kyoto, am I missing something here?