Climate Scientist: Climate Engineering Might Be the Answer To Warming

Lasrick (2629253) writes "Tom Wigley is one of the world's top climate scientists, and in this interview he explains his outspoken support for both nuclear energy and research into climate engineering. Wigley was one of the first scientists to break the taboo on public discussion of climate engineering as a possible response to global warming; in a 2006 paper in the journal Science, he proposed a combined geoengineering-mitigation strategy that would address the problem of increasing ocean acidity, as well as the problem of climate change. In this interview, he argues that renewable energy alone will not be sufficient to address the climate challenge, because it cannot be scaled up quickly and cheaply enough, and that opposition to nuclear power 'threatens humanity's ability to avoid dangerous climate change.'"

Comments

What if we overcorrect?

[ubergeek2009]

I'd be leary of either overcorrecting for climate change or having massive unpredicted effects. I'm all for trying to fix the problem. I just don't think our climate modelling is yet good enough.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[Knee Patch]

If you thought our influence on the environment was bad before... just imagine what it will be like when we are actually trying.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[brxndxn]

Some people still try to debate things that are already settled and others look for solutions before everything becomes a problem. Mankind has a huge list of fuckups to fix - but we either continue as is or we continue to try to improve things. Your viewpoint is incredibly pessimistic. Very few people would say life was better 200 years ago than it is today. Let's take that viewpoint and move forward with it.. We need more Star Trek and less Water World.

Either way, we should be investigating options like these.. You're being pessimistic during the initial stages of discussion - so it brings very little to the table.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[Penguinisto]

Nothing should be implemented that can be quickly stopped.

That's a bit of a problem with slow-changing things like climate... a high amount of effort is required for even a short-term budge, and when you found out you gave it too much gas, it's too late to stop it, even if you let your foot off the accelerator.

Think of it like trying to drive a supertanker or uber-sized cruise ship down a very narrow channel... it takes a very experienced person to steer and accelerate the things safely through tight quarters (and they don't really come with brakes per se).

Carrying the analogy back to the climate, no one is sufficiently experienced enough to know how to apply steering and acceleration (or braking) properly and/or efficiently. Hell, analogy-wise, we don't even fully know what the currents we're sailing through are doing.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[goombah99]

I recently read that at the same time light bulbs have gotten more efficient, total lighting power expenditure has gone up! Evidently, it's a combination of people using a lot more light when lighting gets cheaper to operate, and more ligthing being installed in general.

I can imagine if we start offsetting global warming we will produce more of its anthropogenic causes.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[ubergeek2009]

Exactly. The only problem is we only have access to one habitable planet to toy with. I think it makes more sense to just adapt to the changes that will happen rather than try to manipulate a system we don't understand and can't afford to completely destroy.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[symbolset]

It's OK. In the winter the gorillas will freeze to death.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[Penguinisto]

...that are already settled...

So, before we make that pronouncement stand as incontrovertible fact, two things are needed...

1) where can we find a completely accurate (or even reasonably accurate) climate model? Even pro-AGW climatologists would shy away from claiming that they have one. Point is, the science is not "settled", unless everyone is agreeing on the mere fact that climate does change over time (which, seriously, no one credibly argues against).

2) what is the rate of change, and is is accurate enough to take action against? If we overestimate, then our best efforts may well over-correct, and we touch off a new ice age. If we underestimate, then there is little-to-no remediation. As it is, there's still too much slop factor, and the degree of confidence isn't high enough across the spectrum of scientists.

Very few people would say life was better 200 years ago than it is today.

This is disingenuous due to the fact that you left out *why* life is better now than it was 200 years ago. Was it primarily due to politics, culture, technology, medical/scientific knowledge... what? Most of what I just listed has bugger-all to do with the climate. In fact, if memory serves we were going through a mini-ice-age around 200 years ago, which makes your advocacy of dragging down global temperatures from today's averages just a touch ironic, no? ;)

Either way, we should be investigating options like these..

Investigate all you like, but do it with two caveats:

1) climate does change, and trying to keep everything just like it is in the 1980s (or whenever) may do more damage than just letting it cycle naturally.

2) before your investigations turn into actions, you'd damned well better know for certain what you are doing - making mistakes on a global level will have global consequences, and will last for a very long, long time.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[ShanghaiBill]

Very few of the people you'd ask were alive 200 years ago.

Irrelevant. The lifestyle available 200 years ago is still available today. Yet practically no one voluntarily chooses to live that way. You can go out in the woods, build a cabin, and live without electricity or indoor plumbing. You can grow potatoes or mill your own wheat, and learn to shoe a horse. The only thing you can't have is the smallpox.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[ShanghaiBill]

That's a bit of a problem with slow-changing things like climate... a high amount of effort is required for even a short-term budge, and when you found out you gave it too much gas, it's too late to stop it

This is not true for some proposals. For instance, fertilizing the oceans with trace amounts of iron can drastically increase the amount of CO2 taken up by phytoplankton. But if you stop spraying the fertilizer, the phytoplankton will absorb all the available iron within a few weeks, and then the process will stop. The iron will not only reduce CO2, but will also cause big increases in fish populations, thus relieving pressure from overfishing. Some may say we should leave the oceans alone, but that is silly considering what we are already doing to the oceans today. This could balance out some of the other harm.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[Penguinisto]

The only thing you can't have is the smallpox.

...and slavery, and lack of medical care, the lack of a civilized global society...

Sure, you can go out into the woods and live 'off the grid', as it were, but you do so while being completely protected from invasion, wars, raids, and etc - about the only thing you have to worry about is the occasional criminal or two. You can also do so knowing that if you get an infection or suchlike, modern medical help help is not really that far away. Finally, you do it with a huge advantage in knowledge that the 200-years-gone man never had, or could have even if he wanted it.

It's a far cry from the life of a typical family trying to settle, say, Western Kentucky in 1814, where dying young (if you were lucky enough to make it to adulthood in the first place) was pretty damned common. ...they did get to see more stars at night, though.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[Sique]

They were not a serious problem 200 years ago, because 200 years ago, there were many more serious problems overshadowing them. Basicly the only illness you can catch today that didn't exist 200 years ago is AIDS.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[bobbied]

... trying to keep everything just like it is in the 1980s (or whenever) may do more damage than just letting it cycle naturally.

Oh yea, we want to go back to 1980? Shesh, does ANYBODY here remember what LA looked like in the 80's? Apart from all the women in big hair and the plaid suits going out of style? No, don't want to go back to the orange brown haze myself.

It's like all the environmentalists who want us to go back to horse and buggy days..... They are NUTS! Does anybody remember how many people DIED from preventable illness and substandard sanitation? From starvation? There are a LOT more people on this earth now days and there is just no way we go back, unless the majority of folks take one for the team and just die. Just not a workable option here folks.

I'm with you, only I'll add that a good part of C02 production comes form farming if you consider fertilizer production, Cow flatulence, fossil fuels to power the equipment, pump water and transporting food stuffs/raw materials etc. We simply cannot eliminate that, or a lot of people will starve and die.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[Sique]

Fertilizing the ocean with iron will not increase the fish population, it will rather kill it off. Yes, phytoplankton will increase, but at the same time this will bind much of the oxygen in the ocean, thus animals (including fish) will just suffocate. Ask someone who lives near the ocean what happens if you have an algae bloom: fish populations die.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[mbkennel]

| If we overestimate, then our best efforts may well over-correct, and we touch off a new ice age. If we underestimate, then there is little-to-no remediation

The most important part would be to use remediation technology which has a physical timescale of persistence substantially shorter than the effective residence time of the longest-living and most significant greenhouse gas, namely CO2, which is in the hundreds-to-thousands of years.

If you're using aerosols which have a residence time of a few years, then a mistake will equilibrate out after a few years of doing less.

But I have little confidence that one can ameliorate the effects even modestly precisely as opposed to adding in another perturbation of approximately equal magnitude but perhaps on significantly different axis.

The most important thing is just to stop doing what we're doing, and the most important thing in that is to stop fucking digging up and burning coal.

As it turns out, Germany and Japan which are generally perceived to be responsible, forward thinking nations with renewables are amping up their coal. Not just refusing to turn off coal, but actively increasing their use when they have nuclear infrastructure already paid for to prevent this. Japan does live in a seismically unstable neighborhood, but Germany has no excuse at all. Despite all their wind and solar, when it actually comes to real generation, they are, today INCREASING coal mining and burning, just as all the quantitative scientists said they would when they decided to turn off nukes instead of increasing them.

It's truly irresponsible, much worse than China's attitude, who at least recognizes the problem.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[MrBigInThePants]

If you don't mind I will leave it to the experts who spend years studying it and then devote their lives to it.

As opposed...say...to people who live near the ocean....

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[OneAhead]

where can we find a completely accurate (or even reasonably accurate) climate model?

Oh hello, where can we find completely accurate anything (outside the field of mathematics)?

Even pro-AGW climatologists would shy away from claiming that they have one.

Are they completely accurate? Of course not, only an idiot or someone intent of spreading FUD would ask for complete accuracy. Reasonably accurate? Hell yes, what do you think all these IPPC reports are based on?

This is disingenuous due to the fact that you left out *why* life is better now than it was 200 years ago. Was it primarily due to politics, culture, technology, medical/scientific knowledge... what? Most of what I just listed has bugger-all to do with the climate.

You completely missed GP's point. -1 reading comprehension.

to keep everything just like it is in the 1980s (or whenever) may do more damage than just letting it cycle naturally.

Good evening, debunked climate myth #56.

before your investigations turn into actions, you'd damned well better know for certain what you are doing - making mistakes on a global level will have global consequences, and will last for a very long, long time.

There's something I can agree with. While the climatological effect of reducing CO2 emissions has been reasonably well studied and falls within the parameter space on which we have real-life data, climate engineering is totally out there and gives me the creeps. The easy answers are usually not the right ones.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[sg_oneill]

1) where can we find a completely accurate (or even reasonably accurate) climate model? Even pro-AGW climatologists would shy away from claiming that they have one. Point is, the science is not "settled", unless everyone is agreeing on the mere fact that climate does change over time (which, seriously, no one credibly argues against).

Lets be clear here. "Pro-AGW climatologists" is a redundant phrase. In the *scientific* community (Ie not in the blogger peanut gallery), theres no more "ANTI-AGW" climatologists then there are "Creationist biologists". A very very tiny minority of mostly unqualified right-wing think tank employees at best. But actually nobody is "Pro AGW". Nobody wants this. My sister has been working on the hydrological parts of the modelling for the past decade and she utterly hates the science because the implications are so dismal. But its what needs to be done. Its like saying Oncologists are "pro cancer".

That humans are causing climate change isn't a debate anymore. Hasn't been for a long time, the science is fundamental and would require major revisions to fundamental science that we'd have to throw away 50+ years of scientific progress across the board. A whole new system of chemistry, a whole new physics going back to the 1800s (When scientists first started warning about the 'greenhouse effect' after discovering CO2's infra-red properties in the lab) , a whole new system of optics to account for why CO2 appears to be creating banding in the infra-red spectrum, it just goes on and on.

There are two things required for AGW to be false.
1) A mechanism that is stopping the CO2 humans are putting in from following the laws of physics by trapping IR light and introducing energy into the atmosphere.
2) A mechanism that is making measuring devices pretend that physics is still working as expected.

Perhaps when man makes CO2 its different to natural CO2 and instead of creating heat it creates some sort of strange particle that causes physicsts to lie, like orgone energy.

Does this sound strange? Well it exactly how strange science needs to get for AGW to be false. At this stage, scientists are happy to use the standard scientific model that says if you have a theory that predicts an effect and then the effect turns up in the observation, its a good bet the effect is true.

As for models, well yes, they are not without peril, however certain things can be predicted with certainty.Namely If you introduce x amount of CO2, it will trap in y percent of Infra red (and certain other spectra) light that is passing throught the atmosphere at the time. Since we have a good understanding of how much CO2 is in the air (We've more or less doubled it), we can do a back of the napkin calculation to work out how much energy is being added to the climate system. Remember, this is 1870s science here, nothing is controversial about this, and it can be verified in a high school laboratory.

The question then is how this energy manifests. The options are by heat (Warming) , by kinetic manifestations such as increased winds, cyclones, hurricanes, etc, by increased pressure gradients, such as the one that caused the huge chill over winter in the US, and so on.

Thats what the models are trying to work out. Whatever the case is, we know that the very minimal baseline is still pretty bad.

More to the point, the state of the art in modelling is that our models can attach error bands to the predictions. So "We think this is 80% likely to happen, give or take 5-10%" Currently we're pushing close to 100% certainty give or take a few percent. Not quite the sigma-5 type certainty of 'we've proven it" (Although we *HAVE* proven AGW), but pretty damn close.

At this stage its highly unlikely that the least-bad models will turn out over-done, and we can safely say with certainty that SOMETHING is going to happen.

Thus the precautionary principle states that even taking into account the small likelyhood we are wrong about it, we've g

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[Truth_Quark]

Water vapor is vastly more significant than CO2

CO2 is more significant to the current climate change because it is a long-lived greenhouse gas, so its increase in concentration increases the radiative forcing for many decades or centuries. Increasing the water vapour only increases rainfall over the following week.

and they both have far less effect than the nitrogen and oxygen.

Nitrogen and Oxygen aren't significantly greenhouse or anti-greenhouse.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[Anonymous Coward]

That humans are causing climate change isn't a debate anymore. Hasn't been for a long time, the science is fundamental and would require major revisions to fundamental science that we'd have to throw away 50+ years of scientific progress across the board. A whole new system of chemistry, a whole new physics going back to the 1800s (When scientists first started warning about the 'greenhouse effect' after discovering CO2's infra-red properties in the lab) , a whole new system of optics to account for why CO2 appears to be creating banding in the infra-red spectrum, it just goes on and on.

You are very good at chaining together statements and making them sound plausible.

Consider the following statements:

* Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.

* Global warming has been observed over the last decades of the 20th Century.

* Increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will have a warming effect on the world.

So far, any climatologist worthy of the title agrees.

* Carbon dioxide is the only important variable; it is more significant than variations in solar output.

* Feedbacks will make even small increases in temperature "run away" with dire consequences.

* The computer models are sufficiently trustworthy that we need to spend trillions of dollars based on their outputs.

* Geoengineering must never be considered as a solution; only controlling carbon may be considered.

Now I'll give you 20:1 odds that there is far from a "consensus" on these points.

And I'll give you a few "denier" (damn I hate that word) points.

* Warming due to carbon dioxide is not linear. Doubling the CO2 in the atmosphere does not double the warming, and in fact there is enough CO2 in the atmosphere already that almost all the possible warming is already occurring. In other words, adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will not significantly add to the warming.

* The computer models have completely failed to predict the past 15 years of non-warming. We are now outside the "95% confidence" interval of the predictions. There is more CO2 in the atmosphere than ever, yet warming did not increase over the past 15 years. (See above point)

Well it exactly how strange science needs to get for AGW to be false.

The CAGW position, as I understand it:

* Global warming will be catastrophic
* The computer models predict it correctly
* CO2 is the main driver
* "feedbacks" will cause the warming to "run away"

It doesn't take your sarcastic suggestions about the laws of physics no longer working to invalidate any or all of the above. If the "feedbacks" are not correctly modeled, instead of huge temperature increases we would get moderate ones. If the computer models contain errors, they aren't correct. If solar output turns out to be an important factor in warming, and CO2 is already doing almost as much of the warming as it can, then maybe CO2 isn't the most important factor.

In short, there are non-insane reasons why intelligent and informed people can doubt CAGW, and your straw men cannot change that.

Thus the precautionary principle states that even taking into account the small likelyhood we are wrong about it, we've got to do something, as long as the something isn't worse. Climate engineering might be worse, much worse even. Economic intervention however definately won't be (In fact most academic economists think climate intervention would have beneficial effects on the economy)

Oh like hell. The planned "interventions" would cost trillions of dollars. No serious economist thinks this will have beneficial effects on the economy... and if you really think it will, please explain the economic example of Germany, which has spent big large huge money on Green Energy and whose people are frustrated by how expensive it has become.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/01/economist-explains-0

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[buybuydandavis]

It's a far cry from the life of a typical family trying to settle, say, Western Kentucky in 1814, where dying young (if you were lucky enough to make it to adulthood in the first place) was pretty damned common. ...they did get to see more stars at night, though.

Try going to some old cemetery in the plains states and look at how many gravestones mark children under 5. I was tracking my family history and found the family site. Early 1900s, there were a number of children with headstones.

Civilization is a fine thing.

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[sg_oneill]

* Carbon dioxide is the only important variable; it is more significant than variations in solar output.

No climate model of note considers CO2 to be the only variable of note. However variations in solar output are very well understood and no, they are not particularly significant at all. Yes, there is broad consensus on this.

* Feedbacks will make even small increases in temperature "run away" with dire consequences.

Well we know it certainly is possible because we have previous examples of it, including the 4c rise that triggered a further 6c rise in the permian extinction event when the siberian traps melted last time. That was 4c over about a good thousand years that triggered that. The current rate of rise is much more dramatic and we're in uncharted waters here.

Whilst it doesn't have the same full consensus that it WILL happen, its generally held that it COULD happen, and if it does we're turning the predicted 4c rise (Dramatic enough on its own) into something drastically worse.

* The computer models are sufficiently trustworthy that we need to spend trillions of dollars based on their outputs.

As I said, the current models include proper statistical modelling that lets us have a probability of being correct. They are getting quite accurate and the error bars are steadily going down. As I said, its not sigma-5 type stuff yet, but its certainly accurate enough to start making precautionary policy on.

* Geoengineering must never be considered as a solution; only controlling carbon may be considered.

Geoengineering is a MUCH more poorly understood solution, and the current ones we know of with a possible exception of water tower seeding all have pretty unpleasant side effects ranging from widespread acid rain to completely crashing the ocean ecosystem. We might have to go there eventually but its a bit like refusing to quit smoking because its unpleasant to quit and anyway we've got chemotherapy, something that will probably be a bloody horrible experience and might not even work.

Now I'll give you 20:1 odds that there is far from a "consensus" on these points.

I wouldn't risk your finances on those odds. Regardless you can actually look up the weightings of consenus in the IPCC reports which look at all these things (except perhaps the geoengineering stuff) and assigns specifically controlled descriptors based on the results of research and how widely accepted various things are amongst researchers.

* Warming due to carbon dioxide is not linear. Doubling the CO2 in the atmosphere does not double the warming, and in fact there is enough CO2 in the atmosphere already that almost all the possible warming is already occurring. In other words, adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will not significantly add to the warming.

This is obsfucation based on the fact that the effects of CO2 are measured in kelvins, not celcius. Within the ranges of temperatures required to maintain human life however, the effect is extremely dramatic.

* The computer models have completely failed to predict the past 15 years of non-warming.

We havent had 15 years of non-warming. That is a trope that is constantly repeated by denialists that has no basis in reality. In fact we've had significant warming. Please actually read scientific research on this matter instead of garbage from denialists.

We are now outside the "95% confidence" interval of the predictions. There is more CO2 in the atmosphere than ever, yet warming did not increase over the past 15 years. (See above point)

Incorrect.

The CAGW position, as I understand it:

* Global warming will be catastrophic

It might be. It might not be. Try and not strawman science,

Re:What if we overcorrect?

[Tokolosh]

You'd be lucky to see a star. Wood burning was the main energy source. Together with pine tar cooking you could barely see your hand in front of your face. People really don't understand how much their environment has improved.

Climate engineering?

[Stumbles]

Right. There isn't an engineer or a group of engineers smart enough to do that without dire consequences.

Re:Climate engineering?

[geekoid]

the upper atmosphere is not getting warmer. Only the lower atmosphere is warming. In fact, the upper atmosphere is cooling.

Clouds generally appear below 18 kilometers.
.

the 70's called

[dlt074]

good thing we didn't cover the poles with dark soot, like they were calling for in the 70's to stop the impending ice age.

Re:the 70's called

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Well, I've been warning against any mitigation of gw -- moving inland slowly over 100-300 years is a minor hassle (buildings get old anyway).

But accidentally overshooting and inducing an ice age (which can start in as little as 1-2 years) will actually and rapidly kill billions.

Re:the 70's called

[interkin3tic]

"They" being about ten scientists (far less than the thousands suggesting climate change today), and "calling for" being "suggested it but said it was too soon to do anything about it."

Your comparison is rather meaningless.

Maybe if Clinton...

[Bodhammer]

had not be so busy getting a knobber, we might not have this problem:

Then again AlGore would not have a job being a global alarmist alarmist either...

"BAS: Are you surprised that so many environmental groups remain vehemently opposed to nuclear power?

Wigley: “Saddened” would be a better word. Often the main concern of those groups is proliferation—the use or theft of nuclear material to make weapons. I think that that is a misrepresented issue as well. One of the saddest things was when the Clinton administration shut down the program on fast reactors.1 Clinton, [Al] Gore, and John Kerry are to blame there. If that program had not been shut down, and fast reactors had continued to develop, within maybe three years we could have started building Integral Fast Reactor systems with the whole nuclear cycle on one site—reprocessing waste materials onsite and having very little residual waste to deal with. If that had happened, I don’t think we would have a global warming problem now at all. We could have started on a pathway of rapid introduction of fourth-generation nuclear technology, and we would have gained 20 years in solving the climate problem

Re:Maybe if Clinton...

[OneAhead]

Jolly, it's most used climate myth #11 again. Second time in this discussion!

I told you so

[Applehu Akbar]

If anthropogenic global warming is not only real but as apocalyptic as its proponents claim, we will not only have to go nuclear but we will have to geoengineer our way out of it. None of the processes outlined in this article, like spraying high-albedo compounds into the upper atmosphere, can run away. We can implement a method to the point where we start to get observable effects, and then back off if problems develop. In other words, we need to be as adventurous and willing to assume large-scale risk now as we were when we ran the Manhattan Project.

To put it another way: the greenhouse effect, if it is actually happening, is already a form of geoengineering. It is making cold countries warm. If it's going too far, the geoengineering steps in this article are what it might take to arrive at the stable, human-based optimum we want for our long-term survival.

Re:Brilliant!

[geekoid]

yes.
One was random ignorant circumstance, the other a planned way to go forward and start correcting it.

Re:nuclear power means unintended geoengineering

[by (1706743)]

Accidents happen, yes, but nuclear is still arguably the safest (deaths/TWh) form of energy on the planet: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...

Even wind, hydro and solar are more dangerous.

Taboo??

[mspohr]

I don't think there is much of a taboo on discussing climate engineering. It's just that all of the proposals I have heard about are just stupid / won't work / would screw up things more, etc. Then there is the "what could possibly go wrong" factor.
It's fine to discuss climate engineering but they'll have to come up with something much better than anything now out there.

Re:Are we so in thrall to our fossil fuel overlord

[Bodhammer]

Give a time frame for "just end" that would not put the whole world back into the stone age? The #1 cause of pollution (or carbon de-sequestration for you pointy types) is poverty. http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/...
Just think about how it will be if you are drinking your starbucks that was heated by burning cow dung...

Re:nuclear power means unintended geoengineering

[geekoid]

http://www.caithnesswindfarms....

Re:No shit Sherlock

[symbolset]

Back before white rot fungus evolved to break down lignin. So the plants fell and their woody parts did not ever decompose. Now they are broken down into CO2 and Methane through biological action.

Re:Denial of the root cause

[Qwertie]

Uh, have you noticed that the countries with the most wealth seem to have the least children? So my (naive) view would be that increasing the "material expectations" of the population, by increasing the wealth of the masses, has a better chance of avoiding dangerous overcrowding than keeping the majority of the world poor. One-child policies like China's, while on the extreme side, are also effective.

I suppose when you talk of "material expectations" you are thinking of North Americans and their rampant consumerism. I submit that this is not a problem with "human beings" so much as a problem with Americans and other affluent cultures. "Human beings" are certainly capable of living with less; most often this occurs due to lack of wealth, but there are a lot of things that we could voluntarily give up without harming our quality of life.

For example, when you go to McDonald's, do you really need the 3 napkins they give you automatically? Does your Big Mac really have to come in a box that you immediately throw away? Could re-usable plastic cups be used instead? Likewise in our home life, I know most people could find, if they wanted, ways to reduce waste and use less energy. Did you know you can turn the stove off before you remove the pot, and it can keep cooking for up to several minutes? Did you know apples with blemishes are safe to eat? Personally, I have a good quality of life as I try my best to reduce waste, but I know many of my peers waste a lot of food and goods and their lives are no better for it. I submit that this is an issue of human culture rather than human beings.

Re:nuclear power means unintended geoengineering

[Tharkkun]

You say 90 people per year die from Wind energy, I call BS.

How does wind energy kill people ?

I rescue people caught in a Windmill on a weekly basis. You'd be amazed at how many drunks want to ride it to the top.

Climate lobby won't accept this as an answer

[Karmashock]

What they want is control over global industry, insane amounts of unaudited "international aid money" and absolute moral authority.

Solve the problem and you take away their power, their money, and their claims to moral superiority.

This is something they will never let die.

If we fixed the climate tomorrow they'd still be harping about it.

Re:The Chinese could pull this off

[blue trane]

So does the US. The Constitution gives the government the power to coin money. The Fed gives the government zero cost borrowing. The Modigliani-Miller theorem of finance shows that how you finance a good idea doesn't matter. If climate engineering is a good idea, we can finance it.

Finance should never be used as an excuse not to carry out a good idea.

Re:What if we overcorrect? LA comparison

[WillAffleckUW]

... trying to keep everything just like it is in the 1980s (or whenever) may do more damage than just letting it cycle naturally.

Oh yea, we want to go back to 1980? Shesh, does ANYBODY here remember what LA looked like in the 80's? Apart from all the women in big hair and the plaid suits going out of style? No, don't want to go back to the orange brown haze myself.

I remember, as a kid, flying into LA and seeing that thick brown layer over the entire valley.

Look, we had the Clean Air Act and it worked. The same goes for switching from tax-subsidized and tax-exempted Coal, Oil, and Gas to cleaner fuels. Get rid of the tax exemptions and remove the "grandfather" permits for inefficient old power plants. The market will self-correct to cheaper Solar fairly quickly, if you can provide low-cost capital in low-interest loans from part of the money we save by removing those inefficient tax subsidies for coal, oil, and gas.

Re:No shit Sherlock

[blue trane]

I think you're wrong:

"To grow a pound of wood, a tree uses 1.47 pounds of carbon dioxide and gives off 1.07 pounds of oxygen. An acre of trees might grow 4,000 pounds of wood in a year, using 5,880 pounds of carbon dioxide and giving off 4,280 pounds of oxygen in the process."

http://www.forestecologynetwor...

Re:The Chinese could pull this off

[blue trane]

The value is unaffected by finance. If it's a good idea, how you finance it does not matter. Fear of debt should not be used as a reason not to finance a good idea.

The fossil fuel "subsidies" are a lie.

[stoploss]

First, what tax subsidies are you talking about? There is no way Coal is subsidized, nor is oil and gas..

The fossil fuel "subsidies" they speak of are nothing but specious reasoning. Seriously: all but an irrelevant fraction of the "subsidies" amount to "we don't believe fossil fuels are being taxed punitively enough, therefore the absence of those punitive taxes means they are receiving a subsidy".

It's a basic begging the question fallacy.

Look at this link: Global fossil fuel subsidies amount to $1.9 trillion – IMF

Today, in advanced economies, fossil fuels do not get much the way of direct subsidies – although they do still exist, for example Germany spends 0.07% of its GDP supporting coal and the US spends 0.05% of its GDP on petroleum. But fossil fuels do continue to benefit from subsidies in those economies in the form of mispriced taxation levels.

In advanced economies, “subsidies often take the form of taxes that are too low to capture the true costs to society of energy use, including pollution and road congestion,” the IMF said. “Taxes imposed on energy are not high enough to account for all the adverse effects of excessive energy consumption, including on the environment,” says the David Lipton, First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF."

Even the Iraq war is literally a fossil fuel tax subsidy in their mind. Don't debate these people: either their logic is broken so there's no point in trying to use reason, or they are being deliberately disingenuous so there is no way to engage in an honest debate.

Either way, it's a good idea to know where their talking points are coming from.

Re:The fossil fuel "subsidies" are a lie.

[stoploss]

The IMF opinion is indeed nonsensical, but fossil fuels are subsidized.

Fair enough; I will revise my statements in the future. I noticed that your initial examples seem to have an "energy independence" or "green" (carbon capture?) flavor, but whatever. Notwithstanding that, these do appear to represent substantial direct subsidies for fossil fuels.

The problem is that trying to find the real stats on direct subsidies for fossil fuels is difficult because opponents are willfully misrepresenting the situation. I gave up trying to find real stats (as yours seem to be) after finding site after site talking about "fossil fuel subsidies" using the nonsensical definitions of "subsidy" as in the IMF report.

Furthermore, it makes no sense for the hugely profitable fossil fuel companies to be receiving direct subsidies. I guess I wasn't cynical enough about governmental politics to realize that simply because something is making tons of money doesn't necessarily mean that the pork trough gets closed.

I am against direct subsidies in all their forms; however, I will not countenance any argument that "failure to tax punitively" is a subsidy. So, based on what you posted I would be against those "real"/direct subsidies. I am, however, in *favor* of allowing fossil fuel companies to deduct depletion (as that is their industry's equivalent accounting mechanism for what any other business would deduct as "depreciation"). So, that's my nuanced stance: no special treatment for any industry (insofar as realistically achievable).

So either stop claiming Solyndra received a subsidy or stop claiming fossil fuel industries don't receive any. You can't have it both ways.

Uh, okay? I haven't discussed Solyndra before, but since you brought it up... yes, I'm against that.

In fact, the hardest part of my consistent anti-subsidy stance is that it necessarily implies that I am also against subsidies for nuclear reactor construction. That one is the hardest for me, because I *really* want to see new, advanced design nuclear reactor construction in this country. Oh well.

Re:What if we overcorrect? LA comparison

[bobbied]

Shesh, nope. First, what tax subsidies are you talking about? There is no way Coal is subsidized, nor is oil and gas.

Do a little research. Here's a starting point.

So the IMF calculated the "subsidies" they found to be $500 Million in the US http://www.imf.org/external/np... and the site *you* send me to is claiming BILLIONS? Something is amiss here. I smell a rat, so lets ask some questions.

WHAT is a subsidy to you? A "special" tax break? A check that gets issued from the government directly to a producer? Neither of these exist. What we have is a bunch of people (like the authors of pricefoil.org) who are not above misleading people to trick them into believing their cause is just. They are LYING to you.... Wake up!