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Climate May Be Less Sensitive To CO2 Than Previously Thought
a_hanso writes "A new study suggests that the effects of rising levels of carbon dioxide on temperature may be less significant than previously thought. 'The new models predict that given a doubling in CO2 levels from pre-industrial levels, the Earth's surface temperatures will rise by 1.7 to 2.6 degrees C. That is a much tighter range than suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report, which suggested a rise of between 2 to 4.5 degrees C."
...let the rational, even-handed and emotionally detached debate begin!
We should be switching to nuclear anyway, it's not about global warming, it's about the eventuality of the end of the age of oil. It will happen so it's better to be thinking about it now.
You can't handle the truth.
Confirming that anthropogenic CO2 does affect climate and proposing that the multiplier is slightly less than what others have suggested. Yawn.
Denier: Ah hah! Told you all! Told you all!
Warmist: World is still getting warmer, which means we will all die
Skeptic: These are all extrapolations which are barely worth the paper they are written on
Denier: We need to stop with the environmental programs, they are killing the economy
Warmist: We need to stop polluting, the world is in jeopardy
Denier: It will cost trillion to "save" the world, and it might not even be saved. Anyone who wants to spend that kind of money on a crapshoot is an idiot
Warmist: Can we afford to take a chance? Our choice is trillions now, or quadrillions later. If you don't agree with me, then you are an idiot.
Skeptic: Anybody who wants to take drastic action on the currently available data is an idiot.
Did you hear how Mother Earth is creating a new island in the canaries?
She's got it in for us, I swear. Nothing like putting a blowtorch in the hidden depths of your oceans to screw with those gnats on the surface: "They think they're so important, I'll show them."
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
If true, this is good news. However, it could end up being bad news if this report gets twisted in support of the 'drill baby drill' crowd....
Like I keep repeating - there's only 40 years of oil left. That's a generous estimate that does not take into account growth. So drill baby drill can drill all they want, the total CO2 released from fossil fuels is just going to reach equilibrium faster. When the oil/coal is gone, it's gone forever.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It's also a 66% confidence projection using a new climate model that has undergone peer review but probably not much other discussion in the community. It's interesting, but hardly definitive.
Nobody rational denies climate change. Many rational people deny human caused climate change. If there were empirical evidence for blaming humans, we'd have a debate. Lacking such evidence is the reason why there is merely a shouting match between irrationalists of all sorts.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
I say we continue to pump CO2 into the air, use up all our oil, and see what happens at the end...
Because I am tired of "I told you so" people, when it is all based on theory and only good can come out of reducing CO2 by a few percentages.
There are hundreds of things changing the temperature contantly and it's very hard to isolate the changes CO2 caused.
Like I keep repeating - there's only 40 years of oil left.
While I find your argument of proof by repetitive assertion convincing, I think that 20 years ago there was only 30 years oil left. In another 40 years it may have reach 80 years left. Maybe there's more people repeating the opposite to you and it's actually driving the oil supplies upwards?
This is the kind of thing that tends to get the skeptics -- and those the GW proponents call "deniers" -- going.
Clearly, the process has problems; the data isn't as nailed down as many claim; the temperature rises not as predicted; the models flawed; the entire thing politicized to a notable degree. It certainly all seems worthy of paying attention to, when taken together.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Actually 1.7 to 2.6 due to a doubling of CO2 is fantastic. It means with the current trajectory we're only going to get the "expected" unavoidable warming (2 degrees C) even if we do nothing till 2050 or later.
Basically, we let Peak Oil kill off the internal-combustion engine automobile and ride out solar/battery improvements for stationary energy. It changes a lot.
Well at least we have more time than expected to deal with the consequences of climate change
(like building desalination plants for the droughts to come!)
It's an interesting piece of work. There are two issues to bear in mind:
- They are calculating climate sensitivity at the last glacial maximum. Climate sensitivity varies with temperature, so the sensitivity now may not be the same as the sensitivity at the LGM. It is entirely possible that both this study, and all the studies which put a higher value on current sensitivity, are both correct.
- Even their most likely value of 2.3C only gives us about 15 years extra breathing space to sort out our emissions.
- The UVic model they use is rather simplistic, and I'm not sure it reproduces 20thC climate that well. It would be interesting to see this work repeated with a model ensemble.
Now this one really does require a citation. And oil doesn't just have to be pumped in the traditional manner. There are the tar sands in Canada that hold an immense amount of oil. There is fracking, and oil and natural gas reserves in the Arctic that are just being discovered. And if the antarctic ice shelf melts to any degree, who wants to bet that oil companies won't be buying off politicians in Russia, the U.K., and America to get rules changed to drill there. A whole new continent that hasn't been exploited. But first before I believe there is only 40 years of oil left I need convincing with published facts, and even then it would have to be pretty damned convincing.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
I think that 20 years ago there was only 30 years oil left.
We're digging 20,000 feet under ocean beds for oil now. Exactly how much oil do you expect there to be in the mantle?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Also, so does every gasoline and diesel fueled generator in the world, and that's probably a pretty hefty number.
See the thing is, if the gasoline and diesel burned in individual vehicles was instead burned in power plants, and fed to the vehicles as electricity, there would be a lot less consumption of gasoline and diesel overall, because those larger generation systems are a lot more efficient at getting power to the wheels, even given transmission line losses, charging losses, etc.
And, if the vehicles are electric, they become power-agnostic: you can "burn" anything.... oil, coal, nuclear, sunshine, hydro, congresscritters, and the cars don't have to change at all.
Ok, clearly, burning congresscritters would really be polluting, but the other stuff...
EVs make great sense. manufacturing them such that they serve us well in the roles we like to use them... we're not quite there. Soon, though, clearly.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
...Warmists actually publicly acknowledge the existence of hard ice core and geological data which shows a steady level of atmospheric CO2 over the last 15 million years which kinda trumps their six-month data spans - the data also shows midtide sea levels back then over a hundred feet higher than they are now.
Can I throw in a bit of an incitement to mutiny here and suggest that we do two things:
1. Carry on as is as far as fossil fuels are concerned, maybe without the bombing of indigenes to the stone age (I heard Afghans excitedly twittering "Ooh, upgrade!!" just then, I swear)?
2. Use the time we have with our love affair with the black gold (it is limited, the Earth's crust is only 15 miles thick hence can only hold so much oil) to create a renewable energy infrastructure - so when it does run out we have a reliable fallback rather than having to resort to the utter waste of biomass inherent with resource wars?
Just a suggestion. I'll be round later for my Peace Prize.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Only good can come?
Are you sure of that?
Because I can see many things wrong with your statement.
Many bad and not so good things can come from Reducing CO2.
Cars cost more, jobs pay less, food and gas cost more.
Some businesses are getting seriously hurt. (Try making cement in California)
I can understand 5 year olds thinking that all is good and nice. You though are presumably an adult.
try some critical thinking.
Are the benefits realized by these reductions worth the cost?
I do not know. I think that further reductions may in fact not be worth the cost.
But of this I am sure.
Not only good comes from the reduction of CO2.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Like I keep repeating - there's only 40 years of oil left. That's a generous estimate that does not take into account growth. So drill baby drill can drill all they want, the total CO2 released from fossil fuels is just going to reach equilibrium faster. When the oil/coal is gone, it's gone forever.
Well, unless the proponents of abiotic oil theories are correct...
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Now this one really does require a citation
I know it's hard to live in the information age and even harder to use a calculator and even harder when big numbers are involved, but there you go. Also remember China is growing 9% a year. That adds the demand of a country the size of Australia, every year. And that's just China.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
2-4 degrees (f) does not seem like a big deal, but think of how you feels when your internal body temperature goes from (f) 98.6, to 101 degrees.
Or a little more time to collect evidence. With all the effort going into climate research, 50 years from now we will have a pretty good guess of what's really happening.
Like I keep repeating - there's only 40 years of oil left.
While I find your argument of proof by repetitive assertion convincing, I think that 20 years ago there was only 30 years oil left. In another 40 years it may have reach 80 years left. Maybe there's more people repeating the opposite to you and it's actually driving the oil supplies upwards?
We have certainly reached "Peak Oil" - we are not increasing oil production in the face of increasing oil demand. We are going after harder to extract oil (oil sands, deep water oil), we ARE improving fractional production from existing wells through horizontal drilling and fracking and other methods but this serves more to make a long tail type of decline.
"Running out" of oil (or petrochemicals in general) is a more complex issue than can be stuffed in a sound bite. We will never run completely out of oil - there are thousands of 'stripper wells' pulling out a couple of barrels of crude oil per day and will do so for hundreds of years. But you can't run a major industrial economy on stripper wells. It will depend on a number of inter related issues - economic growth, conservation, solar / wind / hydro / nuc power, wars, etc.
But we;re already beyond 'cheap oil' - if that's any consolation to the planet.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
But there are thousands of years of coal left.
If we ran out of fossil fuels when we ran out of oil, global warming wouldn't be much of a problem. The problem is coal.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Just send them over to The Oil Drum - a nice peak oil site with equations, graphs, charts and a reasonable amount of common sense.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
No, there's 250 years of coal left - at today's consumption rates. Now what is going to happen when we run out of oil and rely on coal for absolutely everything we used to rely on oil for? You think that might affect consumption and demand a little? Then factor in growth, because we're proving that we are going to grow as a global population until we exhaust our environment.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Hey, AGW people? Here's the bottom line. Read this carefully. Let it nourish your thought processes. You want to know why the general public hasn't panicked and fallen behind you in your crusade? Here it is.
Lets say we have many, many skilled scientists working on not one, but DOZENS of models that are constantly being refined and tinkered with. This has been going on for DECADES. They feed these models with thousands and thousands of hard, verifiable data points -- measurements from buoys, satellites, even ships at sea with calibrated instruments. Temperatures, pressures, atmospheric readings, all get poured into these models with loving care and infinite attention to detail. When using the models, another team of specialists carefully takes the average of these models, based on experience, to make cautious predictions.
They're called Hurricane Models. And even after DECADES of refinement, they still can't reliably predict the path of a storm past 3-5 days. They still can't reliably predict hurricane intensity AT ALL.
And you want us to believe that you can predict, WITH GREAT CONFIDENCE, that the Earth will be 10 degrees warming in so many years because of what mankind is doing?
"Oh, well, that's different," screams the AGW crowd. Maybe. But it does show the limitations of science, does it not? I appreciate everything that the hurricane forecasters have accomplished. They've saved a lot of lives. But there's a good, hard example of the limitations of ANY model that seeks to predict the behavior of a huge, complex, chaotic system.
What I'm desperately tired of is binary thinking: EITHER one believes the prevailing, dire theories about AGW and wants to take emergency action, OR one is an uniformed, reactionary dunderhead. (Or even worse, a Republican -- which I am NOT, by the way).
The question isn't whether the Earth is warming. I honestly don't know, but let's say it has. It's a long leap from that assertion to insisting that my barbeque grill is what's causing it. (More binary thinking: either you agree with us in all particulars, or you're no different from a Young Earth Creationist.) I need to be SURE before I repent and take the grill to the landfill. You haven't convinced me.
And here's the point: I AGREE that we need to reduce carbon emissions. Whether they're causing global warming or not, I'm tired of breathing stinky air in Birmingham, AL, if nothing else. (There's the "personal interest" angle.) Let's crush the stranglehold of Big Oil and find some real, green alternatives.
But I AM NOT going to allow anyone to wreck the global economy to achieve this. We can do it slowly and steadily, with planning and forethought. I'm not going to allow my government to enact some byzantine, "carbon credit" scheme that is, at the end of the day, just another boondoggle that lines the pockets of important contributors.
So: there you go, AGW proponents. Read it and learn, or begin with the condescending, sneering replies about how uninformed I am. It's really this simple: when your "scientists" finally achieve the ability to tell me, with at least 90% accuracy, that it will rain in my neighborhood next week, I *might* believe your claims about what's going to happen in the next century.
I think I'm being quite reasonable. :)
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
Meh there's no point. Anyway the market is proving better than anyone else what is happening with the world's oil supply. Every second there's a hint of economic growth, the price of oil goes shooting up. There's still a little slack left in the system which is why we're not seeing an exponential rise in oil prices - but soon. Another fair bit of evidence is the lack of desire to build new refineries by energy companies. Why? Because they know they will not use them.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Thanks for the link disproving the parent statement. 3rd hit: http://www.radford.edu/wkovarik/oil/ from which I quote:
“We are looking at more than four and a half trillion barrels of potentially recoverable oil. That number translates into 140 years of oil at current rates of consumption, or to put it anther way, the world has only consumed about 18 percent of its conventional oil potential.
I'm not that optimist. About 80% of fossil fuels is still in Earth. Granted, most of it is impossible to harvest today, but the industry is developing rapidly. We didn't have oil rigs 100 years ago, and I'm sure the industry will come up something to reach what's now impossible. Of course, these sources will be more and more expensive to extract, thus "peak oil" will be more like a gentle slope, as market forces will drive the economy away from the too expensive fossil fuels. The real question is, how much CO2 will be produced by that time.
Then in that case we had better get very good very fast at fixing CO2 from the atmosphere.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
2-4 degrees (f) does not seem like a big deal, but think of how you feels when your internal body temperature goes from (f) 98.6, to 101 degrees.
Are you saying that global warming will not impact reptiles?
'When only one hypothesis is allowed as the explanation for climate change (e.g. 'the science is settled'), the bias becomes so thick and acrid that everyone can smell the stench'
“Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary,” -- Peter Thorne of the UK Met Office.
“I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run,” Thorne adds.
“Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC,” Wigley acknowledges.
“Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden,” Jones writes in another newly released email. “I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.” “Mike, can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4 [UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th Assessment]?” Jones wrote to Penn State University scientist Michael Mann in an email released in Climategate 1.0. “Keith will do likewise. We will be getting Caspar [Ammann] to do likewise. I see that CA [the Climate Audit Web site] claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!! ”
"How should we deal with flaws inside the climate community? I think, that “our” reaction on the errors found in Mike Mann’s work were not especially honest.
"What is at issue is the uncritical zeal with which the industry siezed on the theory before its scientific value had been properly tested. In one go,they tossed aside dozens of studies which confirmed the existence of the MWE and LIA as global events,and all on the basis of tree rings –a proxy which has all the deficiencies I have stated above"
"It seems to me that you have the difficult problem of wearing two hats: one as the advocate of particular policies and viewpoints, and the other as an editor of a journal which aspires to be a neutral forum for policy discussion."
So much more... Your beloved Climate Scientists are nothing more than a collection of thugs pushing a failed theory with propaganda.
What if a reduction in CO2 means a reduction in consumption of fossil fuels, and therefore a significant cost reduction, especially if oil-prices go up? What exactly will prevent another (possibly lasting) oil crisis? The oil is slowly but surely running dry, and certain (oil-dependent) countries are ready to fight over oil or use it as a weapon (just look at Iran; they are currently threatening to cut off the Strait of Hormuz, thus blocking not just their own but many other Middle-east countries oil export). It may be cheaper to rely on oil and gas at this very moment, but other energy sources, may well become cheaper in the (very near) future.
Weasel words: "At current rates of consumption". Even if it were true that there is about 3 times more oil, you cannot ignore exponential growth. 2% is exponential growth. 70/2 = doubling every 35 years. But the average world economic growth is around 3%, which means the world economy (and thus oil demand) doubles every 70/3 = 23 years. Therefore "At current rates of consumption" is a load of horse-shit that is only good for THIS year. You will find that in 10 years there will be significantly less than "140 years" of oil left. There are formulas to work out exponentials, and they are left as an exercise for the reader.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Both cited results are consistent. Let it to journalists to create news where nothing changed.
Rethinking email
Try and prove that statement incorrect. I would be very interested in actual proof that the world has no more oil available. Don't forget to look 20 miles into the Earth's crust, we can't ignore any potential new source, now can we?
That's not what's needed for Peak Oil. Peak Oil means even with higher demand, as we have now, there won't be more Oil on the market. And that's exactly what happens since around 2005/2006: the absolute amount of oil extracted and sold sinks slowly every year, while before that it increased always except in times of severe crisis, economic or price hikes (1970s).
That 20.000 leagues under the Sea oil is more and more expensive to extract and therefore less and less is sold. In 2005 to 2008 we had a very much expanding economy and still there was less oil extracted.
The problem isn't just how much oil there is remaining, but more how much it's going to cost. Yes, in 40 years, there WILL be oil remaining. But it's gona be too damned expensive to burn into a car engine, considering the costs of extractions. And this has already started. There's no oil as cheap as it used to be already.
I'm not the one making wild claims. You want to make horseshit claims, them back it up or expect push back. And your posted citation that you finally made here is a list that has no bearing on what you are claiming (it only shows consumption and has no mention of development of newly developed reserves whether traditional or otherwise). So stopcryingyouwhineyfuck.com and back up your claims or be called a bullshitter who thinks by 'repeating' things it makes them true. You must have been reading Carl Rove's book.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
... which apparently is a completely new thing in the history of the earth since it's never been a problem before even though the average temperature of the earth has been a lot higher than now.
In fact, anything that I remember from the 90's put peak oil around now, and oil lasting until somewhen around 2050.
But let's not forget coal, all that fuel that isn't mature enough to be called coal (several names here), current vegetation, and all that methane traped deep in the ocean.
Rethinking email
We have certainly reached "Peak Oil" - we are not increasing oil production in the face of increasing oil demand.
Let's put it simple: NO! The day where not everybody gets what they order for hasn't come YET. Demand is still increasing, yet everyone gets what it is ready to pay for (but yes, it's getting more and more expensive). I believe it all depends on your definition of "peak oil", but for me, that's the peak of the "production" curve, and that curve is continuing to go up.
Actually 1.7 to 2.6 due to a doubling of CO2 is fantastic. It means with the current trajectory we're only going to get the "expected" unavoidable warming (2 degrees C) even if we do nothing till 2050 or later.
Basically, we let Peak Oil kill off the internal-combustion engine automobile and ride out solar/battery improvements for stationary energy. It changes a lot.
Depends. We're just talking about air temp, not ocean CO2 exchanges. That could flip climate real fast, real dramatically.
We're still in the 'we don't exactly know what's going to happen' stage of our understanding but the light at the end of the tunnel may well be another train.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"Peak Oil is a largely politically driven fear. There is no proof..."
Replace "Peak Oil" with any large systemic prediction ("Global Climate Change" for this matter) and you can say the same
One cannot provide "proof" of prediction without actually comparing prediction with actual data (in this case, future has to happen to provide "proof" of prediction).
The total amount of oil is limited at least by the mass of everything above plates minus water. Saying that there is no limits is pointless without providing an alternative estimate.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I'm not an extremist, but I always look at this sudden change of minds with skepticism.
The only 'sudden change of mind' is your little marble rattling around in your skull. This is just another attempt to refine the models. Even a cursory reading of the the majority of the literature gives you the understanding that there are bunch of variables that we understand and can quantify only minimally. This is just another attempt to improve the model.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It's a list of proven oil reserves, and a list of world oil demand. What more do you want? Do your own homework instead of thinking what others tell you to think.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You mean, pointing that oil is finite? That's all you need to prove your argument is false. Of course, you can dismiss the knowledge that oil is finite for how long you want. It is just a theory after all.
Also, that isn't proof that peak oil is now. The way things are going, nobody will ever be able to prove "peak oil is now", whenever "now" is.
Rethinking email
There are the tar sands in Canada that hold an immense amount of oil.
Extracting that oil is glacially slow (we're getting maybe 1.5 million barrels per day. that's less than 1/10th of the US' current usage alone. Every oil company in Alberta is running balls out to expand that, but capacity is only expanding at about 200,000 barrels/day/year), expensive (The cheapest most accessible stuff costs $40/barrel to extract and upgrade), and messy as hell.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
And why don't we have more oil on the market? Please ask yourself this question honestly. You seem to jump to the conclusion that the *ONLY* reason we don't have more on the market is because there just isn't any more to produce. That is not true.
1) China's and India's economies have been expanding at an insane pace in the last 10 years. More people in those countries drive cars now than every before. The demand has continually been increasing.
2) Developed nations (most notably the U.S. and Canada) have politically decided that oil is "dirty" and entire industries have been prevented from expanded production of oil in these 2 nations (which have vast tracks of land, full of oil), this is to say nothing of the rest of the world, which seemed quite content to just let the monopoly OPEC exist and just deal with them.
World oil isn't running out, our demand is not out-stripping our potential supply, it's just monopolized.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
Please, specify what kind of consuption you think we'll suffer when we can't supply it. Agregating all kinds of consuption into that abstract thing called "demand" is just hand waving (and wrong).
Rethinking email
And only if their theories successfully predict new classes of oil traps where commercial quantities of crude can be extracted at reasonable rates and costs -- and it is my understanding that they haven't done that yet. There is no practical difference between "Diffuse oil from organic sources has been concentrated over millions of years in sedimentary rock structures with specific characteristics" and "Diffuse oil formed deep in the mantle has been concentrated over millions of years in sedimentary rock structures with specific characteristics." We're not finding new volumes with the proper characteristics at anything near historic rates, or even at rates that match our current extractions.
China's growth is going to halt abruptly. It will not grow forever. They have too many overwhelming problems and it is evident that humans have an extremely hard time managing large entities (we have fallen into a pattern of management for large businesses because it is so difficult and no one wants to run the risk of new methods). China switched to hybrid capitalism because they were out of options and had no idea how to manage a large entity successfully so they turned to the proven workhorse of society management, capitalism. It works, but it too is flawed and they will show us its potential.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
So, a factor of 2 equals to "slightly less"? That's a big "slightly less" to me...
Weasel words from you too. "At current prices" and "at current rate of growth" and "assuming whatever assumptions are convenient for your argument" and so on. The point maybe we can agree on is that its an ass-load more complicated than "we're out of oil in 40 years" and its probably safe to say the answer is somewhere between "we're fucking doomed" and "nothing to worry about". You seem like a smart guy, dont you think posting links to "googleityoulazyfuck" is a little counterproductive to rational discussion?
And what about the energy you replace it with? Is it coming from the energy fairy? Even "renewable" energy uses up a lot of non-renewable stuff to provide it. The plastic in the pretty plastic windmills comes from somewhere... If you can not see any problems with mandated CO2 reductions, you either do not pay your own electric bill, or have never heard of unintended consequences. Look up MTBE. It was supposed to save the air quality, but ended up poisoning the groundwater. Ooops!
I second what you're (sarcastically) saying. Why even bother studying this? It has reached religion status on both sides and the facts don't seem to matter much any more.
Now this one really does require a citation. And oil doesn't just have to be pumped in the traditional manner.
Unfortunately the assertion that there is x numbers of oil left is based on a number of observations. So where to start.. We can start with the observation that for any given well or field supply/production follows a bell curve. Production increases until it hits a peak and then declines. Advancing technologies gives the bell curve a long tail but peak production is only hit once. If you add the curves for each well it will create a curve for each field. Add each field together and you get a curve for each region. Keep going and you will get a curve for each continent. At some point there will be a curve for the earth as a whole.
.5 trillion to as much as 2 trillion. Personally I think 2 trillion is wishful thinking as we have been looking for oil for a century now.
Now that's not all of it of course. There are undiscovered reserves. For any given region there is a bell curve for discovery. We discover more and more and then less and less. The discovery curve will tend to peak about 10 (give or take 5 year) before the supply curve. As an example we can look at the continental U.S. In 1956 Hubbert predicted peak oil for the continental in the United States to occur around 1970. He was correct. In the 30 years since continental oil production peaked, oil production has been on a gradual decline. Matching predictions made over 50 years ago. Note, the continental U.S. is just that it does not include Alaska and off shore oil but is an example of how peak production occurs in a given area and follows peak discovery.
Of course we need to know more to make an estimate for peak oil for the world. We need to know how much oil we've already used and how much we know about that is left and how much we don't know about that is left. For the first part we know we've used about 1 trillion barrels of oil so far. For the second part we know a range that geologist use. P10, P50 and P90 number provide 10%, 50%, and 90% probabilities of reserves. We use P90 numbers to denote proven reserves meaning there is a 90% chance that it is how much we have left. According to the oil industry proven reserves are between 1.1 and 1.3 trillion barrels in 2007. Adjusting for the last 4 years and that proven reserves are 90% sure not 100% lets just call it an even 1 trillion.
Ok so 1 trillion used and 1 trillion in proven reserves but of course there's the undiscovered oil too. Now we have to rely on speculation but we can take some things into consideration. For instance we have seen peak discovery in some areas so we can extrapolate what is left to be discovered by looking at the curves. We can further argue that larger fields are easier to find than smaller ones in much the same way we could say there are still undiscovered islands in the ocean but it is unlikely there are undiscovered continents. There is a lot of speculation when it comes to estimating what we haven't discovered. Some based on optimistic numbers and some based on pessimistic ones. It ranges from
But Ok, I'll give 2 trillion barrels of undiscovered oil. So now we can say total oil is around 4 trillion. We've used 1 trillion and have 3 trillion left in proven and undiscovered oil. The world uses ~80 million barrels/day or about 30 billion a year. If demand stays constant (there is no reason to believe it will, everything indicates it will rise) We can safely say we will use 1 trillion barrels in 33 years. So in 33 years we will have used 2 trillion bbls total and have 2 trillion left. This is the optimistic number for peak oil. Now for peak liquid oil (excluding tar sands and such) many estimates for peak liquid oil are put at sometime in the last 3 years. Probably around 2008. That year when gas in the U.S. went over $4/gallon and then dropped under $2 as the economy crashed and demand went down.
When supply peaks demand will be constr
Unlimited supply once you take pricing effects into consideration. That and we can make more. We could set this on up in Washington, or any eco zone... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4732398/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/researchers-turn-manure-crude-oil/
Interview here. It gives some perspective on the claims people are making and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the study.
The manuscript is freely available here.
Many rational people deny human caused climate change.
Not even. It's all about HOW MUCH we are doing. And if it's just about influencing a 2 degrees change in a century, that's not enough to get mad and tax everyone for breathing air.
Yes. And seeing how much pollution it does, coal is a problem by itself anyway, global warming or not...
Oil is always going to be available. Whether or not it will be available at prices that allow for stable economies around the globe is the question. If oil hits, for example, $500 / gallon and thus gasoline prices are $15 / gallon "business as usual" (aka the economy) has big issues. Big issues.
1) China's and India's economies have been expanding at an insane pace in the last 10 years. More people in those countries drive cars now than every before. The demand has continually been increasing.
And the oil exporters in the Middle East, understanding they have a limited supply of oil in the ground are NOT increasing output much, if at all. The US / Canada in a mad attempt to keep up has been utilizing every drilling rig available for the past 5 years and we are just barely keeping pace with output reductions from the older fields.
So, if Chindia keeps munching on the fossil fuels and we keep doing the same AND production INCREASES don't keep up, you have, wait for it, Peak Oil.
2) Developed nations (most notably the U.S. and Canada) have politically decided that oil is "dirty" and entire industries have been prevented from expanded production of oil in these 2 nations (which have vast tracks of land, full of oil), this is to say nothing of the rest of the world, which seemed quite content to just let the monopoly OPEC exist and just deal with them.
Well, aside from the implication that the Sierra Club and Greenpeace are running things (you might want to tell them), we are, as I mentioned, punching holes through our 'vast tracts of land' and not keeping up with the big increases. Hint - go look up the geology of future North American 'conventional' oil reserves. The USGS keeps dropping that number every year. And a lot of geologists think that the official USGS figures are still overstated.
You have an funny definition of 'monopoly' - Oil is probably the most decentralized power supply on the planet. OPEC / Brazil / China / US / USSR / whateverstan / Non OPEC Middle East - it's everywhere. We've just sucked out the easy stuff.
Now it gets as Johnny Depp would say, complicated.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Please mod parent "-1 troll" ...
"...there's only 40 years of oil left" is a ridiculous statement, because it presupposes numerous things:
- that the price of oil will not increase as it becomes more scarce (if oil prices were increased to $1000/barrel today, would you still say there are 40 years left?), which in turn would impact consumption, increase the economic viability of alternatives and spur investment in innovation to develop so far unknown alternatives; and
- that the quantity of all the oil in existence in known (hint: it's not - exploration and finds continue)
among other things...
Yes, the definition of 'peak oil' can be complicated. Absolute production is one metric, and of course, we will never know when that happens. The production curve has been pretty flat for a while (warning: complex, lots of graphs, don't just grab a number an run).
But just looking at production only shows part of the problem. If various economies are price sensitive to energy (which they appear to be) and economic growth is considered a 'good thing', then if demand increases significantly past production (which is our current situation), then you have a problem, Houston.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Not quite sure what the vailidity of that 40 year claim is. Everything I read is at least 100 years of oil left, factoring in growth.
With new refining methods, the Alberta Oil sands is now known to be able to provde vastly more oil than previously thought. I've heard (from multiple sources) that the Oil Sands alone could provide the world with enough Oil for 10-20 years.
Like I keep repeating - there's only 40 years of oil left. That's a generous estimate that does not take into account growth. So drill baby drill can drill all they want, the total CO2 released from fossil fuels is just going to reach equilibrium faster. When the oil/coal is gone, it's gone forever.
You can keep repeating it all you like. It doesn't mean it's true. Most geologists agree that there's still a lot of oil left to be found. Of course, it'll run out sometime. But 40 years? You have no evidence that's the case.
And coal? Are you kidding me? The US has by far the largest coal deposits in the world. We have over a quarter of the Earth's known reserves. And with over 150 years of coal use, and we've barely scratched those reserves. Even if we shifted to heavier coal use, we wouldn't run out in several lifetimes.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Maybe I'm missing something, but why are the people who don't agree with anthropogenic global warming theory throwing a party over this story? It's about a new climate model that, if it's accurate, says CO2 emissions may raise temperatures slightly less than previously thought. 2/3 of the predicted temperature range lies within the range predicted by the IPCC in 2007. The very best interpretation of this data from a "skeptic" point of view is that AGW is even better supported with evidence, with only the exact impact being refined. This definitely doesn't look to me like evidence that AGW theory is alarmist, un-scientific FUD.
Be careful about posting a single citation that is contrary to the thinking of pretty much everybody else (except the abiogenesis folks). Your article's nice handwaving is trying to create the argument that 'estimated reserves' all over the world are much higher than everybody else believes.
But nobody in the business believes the reserves are high because those numbers are basically fairy tales. They are for political, not scientific consumption. It is incredibly difficult to figure out what an economically viable geologic reserve of anything is. It's not like you just do a seismic survey and punch in a number.
However, I would be willing to agree with you that reality is that we are somewhere in the middle of 'fucking doomed' and happy shiny thoughts forever. Personally, I think it's going to be along the lines of a whole lot of people are going to be less well off then they are today over the coming decades and some of that less well off-ness may happen pretty fast which will be be rather unpleasant.
After all, Murphy was an optimist, right?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
So we're back to the argument, "Nobody can reliably predict the outcome of a single spin of a roulette wheel, so it is crazy to think that anybody can predict the average of thousands of spins!"
And meanwhile, the casinos continue to make money.
Strong candidate for the single dumbest argument against global warming.
Nobody rational denies climate change. Many rational people deny human caused climate change. If there were empirical evidence for blaming humans, we'd have a debate.
LMAO! Good thing I wasn't drinking when I read that!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Once ocean acidification becomes a problem, the climate will be the least of our worries...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Somebody doesn't understand how ridiculous the terms "unlimited" and "exponential growth" are when taken together.
No comment.
140 years still isn't exactly forever. My future grandchildren might still be alive then. If not, their children probably will. If with reduced consumption we could take that to 300 years, I'd feel a lot more comfortable that I can ignore it...
Here is an interview with the author of the paper: http://newscience.planet3.org/2011/11/24/interview-with-nathan-urban-on-his-new-paper-climate-sensitivity-estimated-from-temperature-reconstructions-of-the-last-glacial-maximum/
Q. It’s a little funny, to me, that your paper was receiving such positive comments from skeptics while many of those same skeptics also support claims by Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer purporting to find an essentially insensitive (~1C or less) or self-stabilizing climate. Does your paper support such incredibly low values for ECS?
Our analysis found a lower bound of 1.35 C for climate sensitivity (less than 5% probability of being below this bound). We tried a range of statistical and physical assumptions, and found sensitivities as low as 1.15 C, and as high as 4.65 C (if we analyze the land data). I don’t think sensitivities lower than our bound are consistent with either our study or paleoclimatic evidence in general.
Q: Any other thoughts on the skeptics’ reception of your paper?
One blog did surprise me. World Climate Report doctored our paper’s main figure when reporting on our study. This manipulated version of our figure was copied widely on other blogs. They deleted the data and legends for the land and ocean estimates of climate sensitivity, and presented only our combined land+ocean curve:
Cars cost more, jobs pay less, food and gas cost more.
Some businesses are getting seriously hurt. (Try making cement in California)
Yes, because pushing the cost of doing business onto the people living around your factory, farm or the users of your products is a god-given right in the Free Market. You're subsidizing businesses if you allow them to destroy the health and environment that people live and work in.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
There is, however, a shitload of coal left. Which can be liquified economically close to current oil prices,
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Not as much as you'd think. I ran the numbers.
3.3tn barrels of oil, at 2:1 EROEI works out to 1.65tn net barrels of oil. This is more than has ever been extracted in all of human history. And yet, at our current rate of use (30bn/yr) and growth (1.8%), we'll be out in 37 years. If it were ten times as much oil, it would still only last us just over 100 years.
No comment.
Do you seriously believe that easily available oil is there to be drilled when people are hailing -20000 feet deepwater fields and arctic fields that are a bitch to exploit as the next big thing? Where are those "vast tracks of land, full of oil"? Please, cite one major play that is not exploited yet.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Let's put it simple: NO! The day where not everybody gets what they order for hasn't come YET. Demand is still increasing, yet everyone gets what it is ready to pay for (but yes, it's getting more and more expensive).
The only way that you can argue that is by using the absolutely ludicrous definition of unlimited as meaning "as long as someone can buy any amount of oil for any amount of money, we haven't run out of oil". in the meantime, everyone understands that oil is limited, and that we will be in serious hurt long before we have actually run out oil. Imagine for a second that oil extraction has reached a level where a barrel costs $200. That's just a doubling of the level where people are already panicking and talking about Doom and Gloom for the world economy.
I believe it all depends on your definition of "peak oil", but for me, that's the peak of the "production" curve, and that curve is continuing to go up.
And you'd already be wrong.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
We'll always have uranium.
Bow before me, for I am root.
4.5tn barrels of oil at a 1.8% growth rate works out to 73 years of oil left. If we harvest every last drop.
No comment.
While I agree that TOD has all the information one needs, I'd rather not have the retards sent there. There is actually civilized discussion possible at TOD these days. I'd rather keep it that way.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
And what's the EROEI of those 140 years worth of oil? What is the possible extraction rate? Ahh, yes... here we go..
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Ah, one of those are you. Yes, there are scientists on both sides, as well as politicians, and pro capital propaganda machines masquerading as *green* organizations.
As to scientific method, the very foundation of scientific method is skepticism. Scientists come up with a theory and then other scientists immediately try to poke holes in it. Yet, the climate change group immediately demonize anyone that points to the flaws rather than finding ways to get better data.
So...where is the warming that your scientists have been saying that we were supposed to have for the past 25 years when even their own data (the stuff they don't hide) shows at best the temperature holding steady and at worst (for them) growing a bit cooler? Yes. Yes. I know. The record blizzards and cooler temerpatures are the result of warming. Up is down. Red is blue, yada yada yada.
FYI MTBE didn't particularly poison the ground water.
The problem with MTBE is it is detectable it the P.P.B. level by the human nose.
So MTBE let you know your well had been contaminated by gasoline for an unknown time.
Removing the MTBE returned the situation to the status quo. Now you don't know if you water is contaminated.
A thoughtful environmentalist (I know, oxymoron, they FEEL) would want MTBE to be required.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
(if oil prices were increased to $1000/barrel today, would you still say there are 40 years left?)
No, I would say that from an industrial perspective, it has ceased to exist already.
- that the quantity of all the oil in existence in known (hint: it's not - exploration and finds continue)
I take it you have never looked at an asymptotic function, have you? Or have looked at what kinds of oil finds are being made?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
And someone else doesn't understand 'once you take pricing effects in consideration'. Not that is stopped him from demonstrating his ignorance.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
We already know how to make all the chemical feed stocks from other sources. We use oil because it is still the cheapest.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Here are further comments from the author: http://newscience.planet3.org/2011/11/24/interview-with-nathan-urban-on-his-new-paper-climate-sensitivity-estimated-from-temperature-reconstructions-of-the-last-glacial-maximum/
Q: Given all these caveats, how robust are the results of your study?
I think our lower climate sensitivity estimate will hold up, provided the reconstructed LGM temperature data on which it is based hold up. Our finding of a warmer LGM will prove controversial among the scientific community and the data will be subject to much scrutiny. It remains to be seen whether this temperature data is consistent with everything else we know about that period of time (its climate, its vegetation, the size of its ice sheets, etc.).
I am less confident that our narrow uncertainty range really does exclude climate sensitivities above 3 C. This is something that could be overturned by future work. It certainly would stimulate a lot of rethinking among scientists if the result isn’t overturned. I can’t say I’m rooting strongly for either outcome, though. I’d be pleased to see our findings confirmed, but if they’re disproven, I’ll learn something from the way in which they are disproven, and this will improve my own research. Who knows, maybe I will disprove them myself.
Q: Can you briefly summarize which aspects of the study you and you coauthors contributed to?
I developed and conducted the statistical data-model comparison, in collaboration with lead author Andreas Schmittner. This corresponds to Figure 3 of the paper and most of sections 5, 6, and 7 of the supporting online material. Andreas designed and carried out the model simulations. Other coauthors worked on the temperature reconstructions, the assumptions about dust forcings, etc. I can’t tell you the exact partitioning of responsibility because I entered this project relatively late, after all the proxy reconstructions and model simulations had been completed.
Q: Your paper got a lot of positive attention from climate skeptic blogs like “Watts Up With That?”. What’s your reaction to all that?
I haven’t followed these blogs too closely, but I skimmed the comments on a few that were pointed out to me. The responses I saw were fairly predictable, veering from uncritical acceptance of our findings, to uncritical dismissal of any study that involves computer models or proxy data. But some comments did seem to find an appropriate middle ground of, well, skepticism.
Exploration and finds have peaked AGES ago. And yes, the price will rise, making the use of oil economically unfeasible. What was your point again?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
People see this as a problem, but I see it as an opportunity for innovation. We can throw up our hands and bemoan how terrible it is or we can work on making the entire process faster, cleaner, and less expensive.
Love sees no species.
Do you think that once the oil wells dry up we'll just stop churning out smog from our vehicles?
When oil does run out, if we don't have reliable green technologies we'll just grow sugar cane or corn and make fuel out of that. There's loads of cars on the roads that can already run off of biofuels. Brazil, famously, has essentially all of its fuel made from cane sugar (and thus it's really cheap). It's not as if biofuels don't put out smog as well.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
The data is pretty sound, and only those who don't know the difference continue to act like it is the data, not their ignorance, that doesn't make sense.
When all of the surgeons say to use aseptic technique, the nurse who doesn't understand the microbial infections are expected to follow anyway and spend some personal effor at learning why if they don't understand. I defer to the best minds, as you do. The difference being that you only do it when they agree with you and you hold to miniscule, yet exaggerated doubt, when they don't.
I understand science, and as a stem cell scientist, I have learned through my experience that the best scientists are the most likely to be right, and also that major consensus has serious validity. Also, as an infrmed and aware citizen, it is clear that capital interests have major power over information and perception. Some humility and realism would serve you well.
you can mod this up or down, it wont matter. what does matter is how reliable our predictions are. in a perfect world we would know exactly what the weather would be everyday but even with our gobs and gobs of data we still cant tell what the weather will be. sure, we have "70% chance of showers" but what about the weather in a month? no idea at all. i think it's incredibly arrogant to think we can tell what the earth is doing when we have so little data. even thousands of years of data is a blip and cant be used to reliably predict how the earth will be in the next 10 years.
in all honesty, i think this panicking over global climate is going to be looked on the same was as we view the Red Scare.
i do reserve the right to be completely wrong.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Yes, even. Pay attention to what parent is saying. If there were any kind of convincing empirical evidence, that would not be so. But there, isn't... so it is.
It's actually not of greatest importance to know whether climate change is anthropogenic in nature or not. Even if rainbow-colored fairies were the root cause of it, we'd still need to come up with a way to stop it. What really matters is whether or not we should trust what the scientists are predicting, and what the risks would be to let it continue unabated.
If climate change continues to move in the same direction, then based on the risks involved I've been convinced that we do need to come up with a way of stopping it. The thing is, it takes political willpower of a majority to call for the right application of funds to develop a solution, so the most solid argument I've seen to convince others of this perspective is contained in the following set of videos by Greg Craven, and it lies in the proper application of risk management to develop the most informed perspective on the chances of bad things actually occurring. If you can, at least watch the first one: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=92EE5DBE2987982F
Let's put it simple: NO! The day where not everybody gets what they order for hasn't come YET
...
(but yes, it's getting more and more expensive
Only one of these statements can be true.
I'd imagine you will QUICKLY find nuclear taking over to fill the gap. It's easy to complain about the dangers of nuclear, but when your other option is death, humans will take the nuclear every time.
Methane may have been a factor in the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
It doesn't really contradict anything - the current estimate for 66% was ~2-4.5 per doubling, this study claims 1.3-2.6 per doubling - which means that it is completely possible for the "correct" value to be valid in both estimates (even beside the fact that scientists usually use at least 2 sigma as uncertainty, which makes the ranges even more compatible...
The only thing it contradicts is the idiots who keep saying that global warming isn't happening.
Do your own homework instead of not thinking.
FTFY
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
Forget global warming. Read this article on the acidification of the ocean by CO2 absorption:
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jul/16-ocean-acidification-a-global-case-of-osteoporosis
CO2 is a far greater hazard to the ocean than the atmosphere.
tax everyone for breathing air.
Oh look, a strawman! And what a nice one! Protip: If you want to be taken seriously as "Skeptic" - instead of being viewed as retarded lying fuck - stick to the facts.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
The facts and corroborating and overlapping data that supports the AGW consensus is far wider, deeper, validated, and significant than the postulations about the shape of the earth.
And since you are comparing one 'consensus' that was found false, to how many scientific consensus' that are still right; your argument even now still look like a person who exaggerates miniscule doubt as a means to attempt to say your argument has any significance. It doesn't.
As you should know, each and every one of those scientists who AGREE in the consensus, has thousands upon thousands of hours of real experience in the field that you have little knowledge of. And when they come to an agreement, it isn't just their numbers in consensus that have serious implication, but the validity and qualifications of each individual and how much more likely each and every one of them is more likely to be right than you, or I, or any news pundit.... Or the one or two climate scientists who were nobodies that became famous by challenging what in their field is obvious. It turned out recently that one of those three was paid by big oil to disagree.
You attacked the fact I mentioned consensus, and pretended that none of the science/facts that led to it existed when you challenged my point. Your argument is bullshit, as is your attempt to make insignificance look significant.
Mod parent up. Grandparent is just a bunch of handwaving if it doesn't provide citations. World oil supplies are not decided by fiat.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
There is no proof of any future "end" of oil being available, or even any future net loss of oil production due to oil not being available.
^^^ Try and prove that statement incorrect
Ok. The Earth's mass is approximately 5.9722 × 1024 kg. The mass of petroleum on Earth is strictly below that. QED.
You really need to do a better job of placing your goalposts.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
er, should read 10^24kg.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Consensus is not scientific fact. Period.
If I say that based on all available data that all geese are white and everyone agrees with me, but one black goose if found, my theory is bullshit. All your attempts to justify consensus is significant. Yes, there are supporting data points that support your point(s). Soyou've found a bunch of white geese. There are other scientists (including the ones that actually support your seeming perspective) that have data that conflicts with those points (black geese). The climate has too many variables and it is too wound up with politics for me believe either your perspective or the opposing one. Yes, either side since I've not concluded one way or the other based on the facts that I've been able to discern.
Just because someone is an "expert" and says something I do not check my brain at the door - that is a great way to be scammed. No thank you. So I also use my own evidence to weigh what I've heard. For example, with all the talk about melting ice caps and glaciers and the resulting rising sea levels, I should be able to see evidence in my own home, on the Gulf of Mexico. Yet, I see nothing. Unless there is a geologic rise on my beach that is exactly the same as the ocean level rise over the past forty years of my residence, there is no sea level rise. If all that ice is melting but the seas are not rising, then where is the water? Evian bottles? No. I conclude that either the ice melting is bullshit or it is being refrozen somewhere else. Either way, that seems to indicate that global warming is bullshit - consensus notwithstanding.
It also depends very much on what your definition of "oil" is, which went from crude to crude+condensate to crude+condensate+biofuels to "all liquid fuels" today.
Clearly, by moving the goalposts peak oil has been pushed out.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
And yet the official reviews of the leaked emails have concluded that while there are some weaknesses in the system (when aren't there?) overall the conduct of these people has been ethical and their stated interpretations in line with the data and models in use.
Geology.
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
Nah, I stopped being rational on the internet a long time ago. It only leads to being trolled more.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Yes, but the peak means that next year, you are pumping up LESS oil than this year. It's not a flat curve all the way to the end of the oil. It's a downward slope. That is going to hurt like a bitch. I'm sure there will always be oil because oil can be made from other things. But I am also sure that oil will be the stuff that powers government and military machinery. We'll all be on bikes. Well not me, I'll be dead.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The problem is that there is huge amounts of money on both sides. "Green" technology is inefficient and requires large government subsidies. The subsidies have been shown to be heavily correlated to political influence (eg, 10% of all green tech subsidy applications were approved while 67% of those approved had board members who were top Obama fund raisers).
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The effects of CO2 can be studied in lab conditions. The effects of any one factors are nowhere near as important to the whole picture as the question whether the entire conglomeration of effects creates an irreversible warming trend. Time-local trends are mostly irrelevant in a study of long-term effects. The world has been both warmer and colder. Which means there are natural factors which create warming and cooling cycles (on the scale of hundredth of thousands of years). What kicks in the natural cooling cycle? Are there effects which cause buffering of warming and cooling trends? Any study of a few variables presented as creating long-term world-wide trends is very dubious.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I know it's hard [googleityoulazyfuck.com] to live in the information age [cia.gov] and even harder to use a calculator and even harder when big numbers are involved, but there you go.
I know, right?! I always require that my audience prove my arguments for me. It's very frustrating to find some dimwits who think that just because I feel like recalling some facts from the soup of my memory, it's on me to document my claims. *I* said it. So *they* must Google it before they even qualify to speak to me again. </sarcasm>
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The medicines you take and products you buy are largely less safe, by comparison of safety and fact based significance, and yet I'm positive you've made little or no effort find out.
Your 'science' only applies when it is convenient, and your points are based on exaggerated doubt. Please quit masquerading as a person of facts.
The U.S. pretends that oil is "dirty" in order to stymie domestic production and thus retain their own reserves.
It is completely "made of win" for oil interests in the U.S. for the following reason:
When the price of foreign oil gets so high as to be untenable, our domestic oil from those same reserves will sell at a higher price than the same oil would command today.
On another thought, let me be clear and real with you. You will be ignored until you can demonstrate a realistic understanding of what "significance" means. All you've done so far is argue the contrary like some pedantic and immature buffoon. People get sick of repeating clear facts and arguments to irrational 'tards that make no effort at learning or understanding the topic they discuss, or even the words they use.
Are they credible, objective? Or paid political loons?
Also, don't forget IT IS GETTING WARMER - this is not a theory, the planet is heating up - this has been proved without a shadow of a doubt. Its only the cause which has been debated, and if CO2 is less of a problem than assumed then our problem is bigger not smaller, because then we are further from finding a way out of the problem.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
We are just doomed a little later.
If this research is more accurate than previous studies then the climate change is progressing slower as expected. That is great news, as we wasted so much time. If the previous estimates are correct we are in big trouble. According to the new study we will be in big trouble a little later or if we act fast we still could make it and only face medium trouble.
I honestly do not understand why anti climate change honchos gloat over that news. It is like visiting the doctor and he tell you that his last diagnosis was a little too drastic and he has good news: You will not die next week, but in two weeks. So celebrate!
If you make the process faster and less expensive, you only accelerate the oil's depletion. It's sort of a catch-22.
Your brain is not a computer.
We're digging 20,000 feet under ocean beds for oil now.
It begs pointing out that we are drilling that deep not because we *have* to, but because oil/gas much nearer the surface (potentially very large reserves inshore/onshore, *much* nearer the surface, and arguably much easier gotten/transported/contained in an accident) is not being accessed for other reasons than a simple lack of the resource.
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
Not quite sure what the vailidity of that 40 year claim is. Everything I read is at least 100 years of oil left, factoring in growth.
With new refining methods, the Alberta Oil sands is now known to be able to provde vastly more oil than previously thought. I've heard (from multiple sources) that the Oil Sands alone could provide the world with enough Oil for 10-20 years.
There is a video series on Youtube where Albert Bartlett works through the numbers. He repeatedly shows articles and quotes from politicians saying "We have enough X for Y years!" followed by actually running through the numbers presented in the article to show a different, inevitably shorter estimate. After doing a number of these exercises, he says that the lesson to be learned is not to trust what you read or what you hear, but to do the numbers yourself.
So disregard the 40 years number, but also disregard the 100 years and the 10-20 years numbers. You want valid numbers? Run 'em. The math is rather easy, and no matter where you get your raw data the picture isn't nearly as rosy as 100 years factoring in growth. But again, don't take my word for it.
Your brain is not a computer.
I didn't say that I personally subscribe to the theory... it was intended as a quip, really.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
A fact's significance depends on a whole host of other facts and what its significance is.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
This sounds like one of the crackpot theories that the Nazis believed in.
Glaciation is FAR from global in scope during all the ice ages since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Extensive areas of land remain unaffected. The were no "mystery civilizations" whose existence was erased by glaciation.
And your whole theory of racial distinctions arising and then disappearing is totally unsupported by DNA analysis.
All developed countries have below maintenance birth rates.
Um... Nope. Not at all. Did you even read the Slashdot summary? Also, it's one study. But it's funny how you seem to accept the science only now. Weird. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.
Clever signature text goes here.
Did you even read the summary? Of course, you didn't bother to read the paper, but you didn't even seem to read the Slashdot summary! You just started the robot and spewed automatic phrases.
Clever signature text goes here.
http://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/weo2010sum.pdf
The relevant section is on page 8 partial quoted here:
Page 8 here: http://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/weo2010sum.pdf
So ya, there will still be some oil somewhere, but can we pump out enough to keep our current economies going? No probably not. It needs to be replaced with something.
If you read Jeremy Rifkin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Rifkin) he figures that the financial collapse of 2008 was actual triggered by oil reaching its all time high a few months previous. It's when everyone realized that the game was over and they couldn't keep discounting the future so much. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Rifkin
Quoting Nathan Urban, author of the paper:
"... World Climate Report doctored our paperâ(TM)s main figure when reporting on our study. This manipulated version of our figure was copied widely on other blogs. They deleted the data and legends for the land and ocean estimates of climate sensitivity, and presented only our combined land+ocean curve â¦. Pat Michaels duplicated this doctored version of our figure again in an article at Forbes, and didnâ(TM)t mention at all that it had been altered. (A side note with respect to the Forbes article: Science didnâ(TM)t âoethrow a tantrumâ about posting our manuscript on the web. They never contacted us about that. I took it down myself as a precaution, due to the journalâ(TM)s embargo policy.)
I find this data manipulation problematic. When I created the real version of that figure, it occurred to me that it would be reproduced in articles, presentations, or blog posts. Because I find the difference between our land and ocean estimates to be such an important caveat to our work, I made sure to include all three curves in the figure, so that anyone reproducing it would have to acknowledge these caveats. I didnâ(TM)t anticipate that anyone would simple edit the figure to remove our caveatsâ¦."
--------
Full interview at:
http://newscience.planet3.org/2011/11/24/interview-with-nathan-urban-on-his-new-paper-climate-sensitivity-estimated-from-temperature-reconstructions-of-the-last-glacial-maximum/
Now you're stretching the boundaries of believability. You're on slashdot - and you want us to believe you've actually met with a woman - and she was willing to pro-create with you?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Actually, your example is quite poor: A casino can predict the long term trends of a roulette wheel with better than 2% accuracy. Climatologists wish they could say the same about the climate - but even this report has a variance of 1.35 to 4.65 C - a range of 340%.
The single biggest problem (aside from the politics of creating winners and losers in the climate game) with getting people onboard is that an honest skeptic would have very serious misgivings about basing public policy on a discipline with such poor predictive power. Climate science delivers only marginally better predictability than economics, or the stock market. Arm chair intellectuals often make the assumption that because other sciences can very accurately predict the outcome (e.g. physics, chemistry, etc...) of an experiment, that climate science can as well, and that's simply not the case. Climatology is still a nascent science, and still has a long way to go before they can deliver the certainty required of public policy decisions. It's not that it won't get there, just that it's not there yet.
And when you add in the politicization of the science - that the Democrats wanted to enact a scheme of carbon credits which would enrich the rich at the expense of the poor - even ardent believers would have had a difficult time enacting effective policy change. The entire global warming movement was denied by the Republicans, and turned into a get-rich-scheme by the Democrats, making effective change impossible. It was not the Republicans and their denials that kept change from coming about, but the Democrats who sought to use it as a means of increasing their power and the profits of their corporate donors.
BTW, I remember hearing that global temperatures would rise by decade's end by 2 C back around the turn of the century. Well, that's come and gone, and all we've got is about 0.5 C warmer over the last century. Not only did their predictions fail on their immediate premise, they failed to take into account the 100 year cycle - and should have predicted not a rise in temperature, but rather, a lessening of cooling - which did in fact happen.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
First off: read the whole page linked from the comment you're responding to. "proven reserves" are just the stuff we know is around and know how to get out. Until we start running low on the existing "proven reserves", there's very little incentive to go looking for more. Hence, "proven reserves" will always seem like it'll run out in a century or two at most. Which in no way implies we'll actually "run out of oil" then - it just means we'll just have to "prove" some more reserves between now and then. Which we will! Secondly, average world economic growth does not map directly into an equivalent amount of oil demand. A lot of economic growth comes from using resources more efficiently, not just using them faster or more intensively. But the main thing is that counting up the "proven reserves" is about as useless as counring the cans of beans on your supermarket shelf and predicting when they'll run out of beans, ignoring that this shelf gets regularly restocked from a warehouse somewhere else.
I play Nerd-Folk!
Unlimited supply once you take pricing effects into consideration. That and we can make more. We could set this on up in Washington, or any eco zone... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4732398/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/researchers-turn-manure-crude-oil/
The carbon from the oil under ocean beds is in the ground.
While the carbon from the oil in that link is made from pig manure, which a few hours previously was in a plant, and a few days/months previously to that in the air.
And if it wasn't turned into oil a good portion of that manure would biodegrade and end up back in the air anyhow.
So putting the carbon in that pig manure oil back into the atmosphere isn't really adding much.
I stole this Sig
Assuming that this new data is dead accurate, as we have already doubled pre-industrial levels of CO2 (from under 200 ppm to nearly 400 ppm today), and temperature has already risen 1-degree Celsius over the past 100 years, we can expect to see 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.9 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average temperature across the biosphere in our lifetimes, presuming we immediately stop adding extra carbon to the atmosphere. Last time that kind of change happened we had an ice age. Of course that happened over a few million years, not a few hundred. I guess melting the polar caps, raising the sea levels, and killing off 1/10th of the species on the planet isn't too bad a price to pay for the fun we have with monster trucks. Hey, I'll be dead by the time the glaciers hit California again anyway, guess your kids will deal with it. Then again I could be wrong. I hear they have been scientifically measuring evaporation around the planet for hundreds of years, and that since 1950 we have seen a large decrease in sea level radiation due to particulate matter in the upper atmosphere reflecting and absorbing then radiating energy into space. Kind of a global sun-screen from industrial carbon pollution and agricultural land use. Imagine how much more temperature rise we would have in the seas if that solar radiation hadn't been blocked? ... I wonder if this study accounted for that?
Hmmm... but that says nothing about the Ocean Acidification that is taking place, upsetting the balance of life in our oceans globally. There is just so much we don't know. Better just keep on doing what we have been doing until we can see an unquestionable result, kind of like a global chemistry experiment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming
Hardly good news if the best case scenario is 1.7 instead of 2.0
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
So now instead of disastrous climate change that we have ideas on how to fix, we now have disastrous climate change that we have no clue how to fix. Could you run by me again why this is "good news"?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
80 percent of the earth's crust is underwater, and animal/vegetable live exists everywhere in the ocean at all depths. There may be more hydrocarbons under the ocean floor than all the oil ever drilled to date, it's just out of reach with current tech. As the tech improves, so does the oil supply, and that's why we won't run out of oil, period. Besides, the US is rapidly converting to natural gas, which used to be burned as waste from oil production. In 10 years, solar wind and storage will have matured to be cost competitive. We will be ok.
"but other energy sources, may well become cheaper in the (very near) future." They said this in the 1970's too. How long will we wait? What does the Physics tell us, not AlGore?
The casino is betting on each spin of the wheel just like the customer. Predicting where a wheel won't stop still doesn't help a casino predict whether it will win the next spin, any more than it helps the gambler. Bot both the casino and the customer can predict the long-term average trend. The difference between the casino and the gambler is like the difference between the climate scientist and the AGW skeptic; the casino is betting on a long term trend calculated based upon the best scientific and mathematical understanding of physics and statistics; the gambler is betting against it.
making oil is not the same as mining it. We double oil consumption every 10 years, the current estimates for total oil (with unconfirmed reserves) are for about 40 years of such growth. Even if we did suddenly discover 3 times more oil than we currently estimate there ever was it would still allow only for 20 years of growth extra to a total of 60. The early estimates were based on on much lower estimates for total reserves. If you're under 30, you have a quite high chance to live to those times, you're children certainly will.
It's more complicated than that, but If you want to see what limiting does to economy just turn on news today, there should be some reports from Greece, Italy or Spain... We have economy that is dependant on constant growth. Also, the doubling rate of 23 years is very much optimistic, oil demand increased by 7% every year since the 60's in USA so the consumption doubles every year.
It means, that in 60's alone we used more oil than in all of history, then we repeated this in 70's, 80's, 90's, every decade used more oil than was ever used before! Even if we did suddenly discover 3 times more oil than we currently estimate ever was, it would last only for 20 years of such growth above the 40 years of oil left!
It takes around 10 years to build a nuclear power plant now (from start of planning to first energy generation). We don't have the task force (trained engineers) to start building 400 nuclear reactors around the globe right now and we need at least 10 times more just to cover our current energy needs, let alone ones that we will have 20 years down the line. It all takes time, literally decades. Considering that we have 40 years of oil left, USA should be building at least a dozen nuclear reactors right now with another few dozen planned in next 10-20 years. EU is in no better situation (at least Russians can see that the gas they're pumping is running out).
Oh, "you remember hearing" that predictions would rise 2C by the end of the century? Where, pray tell? Some guy in a bar, maybe? Slashdot does permit posting of links to citations. All of the IPCC reports are freely available online. So why not spend a couple of minutes to support your claim with actual evidence--if it exists. And while you are at it, why don't you link to the scientific evidence for a "100 year cycle?"
I always love how people compare industries with millions of dollars on the line with industries with tens or hundeds of billions as if the political influence were identical.
It's like comparing the gravitational influence of Earth and Jupiter and saying they're equally huge planets.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
You can download the climate data from the NOAA. If there isn't a 100 year cycle, we are (or were, around the turn of the century) in a global cooling phase, and global warming is completely false. Just as global temperatures dropped worldwide around the year 1900, they also dropped around 2000. I actually did a limited amount of statistics with the datasets available a few years ago when the climategate emails broke.
And the 2 year figure is from a global warming pundit I happen to run into. But it demonstrates the broader point: that even the pundits got it wrong, and the politicization of the issue by Al Gore, etc... did not help the cause. And reports like this are hardly convincing - its long on accusations and very short on specifics. It seems as if they expect the reader to conclude that guilt by association is a convincing argument, or that an organization lobbying in its own interests is a cause for suspicion. What the report manages to convey, rather convincingly, is that the union of concerned scientists feels it is on the losing end of a propaganda war with big oil. Which may be true, but is hardly relevant when someone is trying to determine if global warming is happening in the first place. The fact that the UCS downplays the significance of the climategate emails doesn't help, either, but rather illustrates they have a double standard - one for Big Oil, and another for scientists.
From the mouths of babes comes this little gem:
The growing empirical evidence of climate change that is consistent with model projections, and other recent advances in the understanding of climate science have led to increased confidence in the use of global circulation models to project future climate change, but predicting the future remains inherently risky.
Such a disclaimer does not inspire confidence. Yes, I understand you have a computer model which predicts temperature, but with such a disclaimer, it's practically useless. An engineer who issued such a disclaimer for bridges he designed or appliances ("Well, we can't guarantee it won't burst into flames...") would be lucky to be employed at all.
And it only goes downhill from there. Every single climate change prediction following the disclaimer is qualified with words like "possible" or "could". They can't even say what will happen, only what "could". Real science starts with a falsifiable hypothesis, and they're doing their best to avoid any predictions which could later be shown false.
I don't like fossil fuels for a whole host of reasons having nothing to do with global warming (polllution, economic security, etc...), but it seems as if scientists don't fully grasp the gravity of their statements - or perhaps want to distance themselves from any liability that reliance on such statements might bring about. They seem oblivious to the challenges faced by those genuinely wanting to bring about change, or the cost of doing so. You can't simply flush 339 billion dollars of revenue (Exxon Mobil) down the toilet without causing massive disruptions in the ability of people today to feed themselves. It seems as if they live in some fairy land where one can produce their own electricity and fuel their cars from carbon-neutral sources. Even though I have the technical know-how to do something of this nature, I have neither the time, nor the money, to do so. Worse, it's illegal in the US for individuals to make their own fuel, and neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are interested in the sort of regulatory change that could bring this about - that is, if we had the money in the first place.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
There is no statistically significant evidence that the modern warming is part of any kind of cycle, nor is there any natural mechanism that could produce a 100 year cycle. There is also no statistically significant evidence that warming stopped in 2000. Moreover, statistical analysis of climate models tells us that the expected warming trend is too small to be reliably detected on anything less than a multidecade climate scale, so such a claim makes no sense.
So now it's some unnamed pundit who predicted a 2C warming by now, which amounts to much the same thing as some guy in a bar--these days, a pundit is a guy who is not an expert but plays one on TV. It certainly was not Al Gore who made such a prediction, despite your ritual invocation of his name. He's more accurate than most so-called pundits in reporting the science, but he's no scientist. If you want to criticize the science, don't you owe it to yourself to look into what the actual scienctists are saying? I refer you again to the IPCC reports.
And yes, scientists qualify their knowledge in terms of probability rather than engaging in the false certainty common in other fields. An engineer will not tell you that a bridge will "probably" stand up. The engineers were quite confident in the soundness of the Tacoma Narrows bridge and the unsinkability of the Titanic. Scientists recognize that any prediction of the future caries some degree of uncertainty. You will find quantification of the degree of certainty in the IPCC reports
If the world's economic growth is constant around 3%, then it's quadratical growth, not exponential. The difference is a few extra decades, how many are left as an exercise for the reader.
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
Must. Resist....
Actually, I can't. Abiotic oil is still up for consideration (although it's never got much traction outside the former Soviet Union). I'm not a geologist and I don't work in the oil industry so I can't say how realistic or not this is.
Rational thought is the only true freedom
Abiotic or biological, oil is finite. Abiotic oil only changes the date of peak oil (by a long, long time), not the eventual outcome.
Anyway, it is not up for consideration, it was dismissed long ago. Abiotic oil is just present on political debates because politicians like to lie.
Rethinking email
Someone should really go tell those people this science is settled and that there is consensus. There's no room for doubt or skepticism in this kind of scientific debate.
Particularly when it comes to science, a pundit is generally a guy who isn't a scientist, but plays one on TV. If you want to criticize the media, then by all means talk about the pundits. But if you are concerned about what science really says about what's going on, read the original science.
Temperatures fluctuate up and down. But that doesn't make a cycle, which requires a reproducible periodicity. People's eyes tend to fool them, and they see imaginary cycles, which is why science long ago developed unbiased statistical tests for cycles, which are not vulnerable to the human eye's proclivity to see patterns even when they don't exist. So statistically, there is no 100 year cycle. Which isn't surprising, because there is no plausible mechanism to create one. Even a "natural" cycle requires some sort of physical mechanism. Moreover, to reliably detect a cycle, you need enough data to cover multiple complete cycles. So anybody who tells you that they can detect a 100 year cycle in 150 years of data is either fooling themselves or trying to fool you.
A huge amount of climate science data and models is publicly available, more than in almost any other field of science. Even when the actual code is not available, the algorithms are published, so any decent programmer can reproduce the models. As any scientist will tell you, if you want to check somebody's work, it's better to write your own code from the original algorithms than to borrow their code, because if you use their code, you are liable to inherit their bugs.
http://www.anwr.org/
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?