More on climate change deniers and delayers from Joe Romm. I've included some comments at the end of the post. Along with some replies to deniers from Joe. I've bolded the crux of the matter. Although JR doesn't go into the scientific background here. For that go to Spencer Weart's web pages:
aip.org
or read his book, The Discovery of Global Warming, amazon.com
It's cheap, not too long, and he is an engaging writer who can make the science clear to a reasonably well educated person.
Links are in the original of the article posted below. I've included some comments from skeptics with Joe's responses at the end.
The Jewel of Denial, 1: The Delayer’s Paradox
climateprogress.org
The primary goal of the global warming deniers and their disciples is to waste time and delay action, which is why I prefer to call them delayers (see here).
[This post is inspired by the surprising finding that only 27% of conservatives say the earth is warming because of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels, and the surprising response I got on my post (here), especially those defending the deniers and delayers.]
THE DELAYER’S PARADOX
The deniers and delayers are those who argue that failing to embrace strict reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will not lead to serious or catastrophic impacts. The Delayer’s Paradox is — If the world actually were persuaded by the deniers and delayers, it would lead to levels of atmospheric GHG concentrations that ensure the most catastrophic impacts imaginable, proving them (fatally) wrong.
The science makes clear that if we stay on our current emissions path, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 would rise beyond 1000 parts per million. That would inevitably lead to global temperature rise of 6°C or more (>15°F over most of the inland in the states United States), along with widespread desertification, global water and food shortages, 80 to 250 feet of sea level rise (at a rate of up to 6 inches a decade by 2100), and mass extinction [See “Is 450 ppm (or less) politically possible? Part 0: The alternative is humanity’s self-destruction“].
Avoiding this catastrophe requires accepting the scientific understanding of climate change, which is embodied, however imperfectly, in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I can’t see anyway around that simple fact.
Either you believe the analysis that says warming the planet significantly more than 1°C above current levels (added to the .8°C we’ve already warmed from preindustrial levels) is self-destructive for the human race — which depends on model-based projections of what will happen decades from now — or you don’t.
By “imperfectly,” readers of this blog know I mean that the IPCC reports almost by design underestimate the scale and speed of climate impacts (see “The cold truth about climate change“). The IPCC text gets watered down in the search for unanimity, the models systematically underestimate the carbon cycle feedbacks, and, perhaps most important, the IPCC models a broad range of future scenarios for carbon dioxide stabilization. That broad range of input scenarios creates a broad range of climate impact outcomes, which in turn creates the appearance that the IPCC science is filled with uncertainty and doubt about the outcome.
“Uncertainty” and “Doubt” is the Jewel of Denial in all areas of the conservative war on science (see, for instance, the new book, Doubt is Their Product). But therein lies to paradox. The deniers and delayers preach continuing the world’s decades-long climate policy of doing nothing significant to stop the growth of GHG emissions. And that delay eliminates all of the seeming uncertainty in the IPCC.
THE PRIMROSE PATH TO 1000 PPM
We are currently emitting more than 8 billion tons of carbon a year (8 GtC/yr) and rising 3% per year — faster than the most pessimistic IPCC model. There is a little-reported bomb-shell buried in the footnote of the first IPCC report released last year:
Based on current understanding of climate carbon cycle feedback, model studies suggest that … to stabilise at 1000 ppm this feedback could require that cumulative emissions be reduced from a model average of approximately 1415 [1340 to 1490] GtC to approximately 1100 [980 to 1250] GtC.
On our current emissions pace, we will be at 11 GtC/yr around 2020 and still rising! That means, if the deniers and delayers win — or even if they just partially win [by limiting government actions to ones that lead to average emissions of 11 GtC/yr for the century] — then the planet’s carbon dioxide concentrations are headed to 1000 ppm! [Note: That conclusion does incorporate some carbon cycle feedbacks, but not the one that is probably the most important, the melting tundra (see here).]
That is NOT the worst-case, that isn’t even business as usual if the disinformers win — stabilizing at 1000 ppm still requires a lot of government-led effort that conservatives almost universally disdain.
If we delay acting even a decade and then act aggressively starting in 2020, we would still need 11 classic stabilization wedges (see Is 450 ppm politically possible? Part 1) just to have a shot at keeping concentrations a bit below 1000 ppm. Here is the most delayer-friendly list I can imagine [please do not quote me as saying that I agree with these — I personally doubt nukes and CCS combined will make more than about one wedge]:
2 wedges of nuclear power — 1400 to 1700 GW (almost a nuke a week) plus 20 Yucca mountains for storage (total probable cost some $10 trillion).
2 wedges of coal with carbon capture and storage — 1600 GW of coal with CCS — a flow of CO2 into the ground equal to twice the current flow of oil out of the ground, requiring the world to re-create the equivalent of the planet’s entire oil delivery infrastructure and the natural gas delivery infrastructure too (total probable cost some $10 trillion).
1 wedge of vehicle efficiency — all cars 60 mpg, with no increase in miles traveled per vehicle.
1 of wind for power — one million large (2 MW peak) wind turbines
1 of wind for vehicles –another 2000 GW wind. Most cars must be plug-in hybrids or pure electric vehicles.
1 of concentrated solar thermal – ~1600 GW peak.
1 of efficiency and cogeneration.
1 of cellulosic biofuels — using one-sixth of the world’s cropland [or less land if yields significantly increase or algae-to-biofuels proves commercial at large scale].
1 of forestry — End all tropical deforestation.
Needless to say, even this can’t happen unless, by 2020, most deniers and delayers and their representatives in Congress come to embrace the painful reality of climate change and the dire necessity for government-led solutions.
So calling deniers by the term “deniers” or calling delayers by the term “delayer-1000s” is quite mild. A far more accurate term is “climate destroyers.” Or maybe “extinctionists.”
Related Posts:
Is 450 ppm possible? Part 5: Old coal’s out, can’t wait for new nukes, so what do we do NOW?
Are Scientists Overestimating — or Underestimating — Climate Change, Part I
Are Scientists Overestimating — or Underestimating — Climate Change, Part II
Are Scientists Overestimating — or Underestimating — Climate Change, Part III
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 9:01 amand is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
10 Responses to “The Jewel of Denial, 1: The Delayer’s Paradox”
Reader Says:
May 13th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Garbage in - Gospel out.
Joe Says:
May 13th, 2008 at 9:43 am
A devastating critique, reader. How could I have missed that?
Jonathan Says:
May 13th, 2008 at 10:00 am
The Sky is falling! The Sky is falling!
Nylo Says:
May 13th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Currently adding 1.3 ppm/year.
[JR: Nylo I am getting close to banning you because simply keep putting disinformation on this website and wasting everybody’s time. One more time and I will. We added 2.4 ppm last year, part of an accelerating trend. See
climateprogress.org 2008/ 04/ 24/ noaa-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-methane-rise-sharply-in-2007/
and
climateprogress.org 2007/ 10/ 26/ soaring-carbon-dioxide-concentrations-sinks-saturating/ ]
Tommaso Boggia Says:
May 13th, 2008 at 11:35 am
There is also the Climate Warrior paradox. The more we do to avoid the most disastrous effects of ACC, the less proof we will have that all that action was necessary.
The big difference between the Delayer and the Warrior paradox is that, regardless of which one is right or wrong about climate change, one will keep us on a path of soaring cancer and respiratory disease rates, of decreasing water and food supplies and collapsing natural resources. The alternative one will create a safer and more secure future for our children in harmony with the natural systems that we are so dependent on.
In other words, Delayers, stop droning over easily manipulable statistics and start recognizing the other benefits of a truly sustainable economy. If we happen to stop ACC on the way, cheers to that, but hopefully we won’t ever even know for sure.
Nylo Says:
May 13th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Sorry Joe, obviously the 1.3 ppm / year was wrong, a keyboard misstype, 3 and 6 are close in the numeric pad. I would like to be able to edit my own posts, but I can’t. However the 1.6 ppm/year is a real trend that can be observed to remain flat for the last 20 years as I have shown in my post above. I did not know about a 2.4 ppm increase last year, but it clearly was not man-made (we didn’t emit 19 billion tons, did we), so it should be a spurious increase that will be averaged out next year by natural processes.
Nylo Says:
May 13th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Sorry for posting again, I would like to add this to the previous post, but as I explained, I can’t.
The 2.4 increase for this year has an easy explanation. CO2 in the southern hemisphere’s summer is limited because of the photosintesis of the plants in the southern hemisphere. January 2007 was very hot, exceptionally hot, which means lots of photosintesis and carbon trapping in the southern hemisphere. January 2008 has been very cold, which means the opposite. As a result, the difference between the maximums of CO2 in 2007 and 2008 is very big. But I would rather look at averages for the whole year rather than compare the maximums.
Anyway, this leads to interesting conclussions, like a very strong dependence of the earth’s capability to sequester CO2 and the temperature. Quite a relief. It also means that during the next years of cooling, we are going to see CO2 rise very quickly… and temperatures do the opposite. One more paradox of the GH effect.
tidal Says:
May 13th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Gee, Nylo, 10 minutes earlier you hadn’t even heard of the well-known fact that CO2 concentrations had continued to accelerate their rise to an additional 2.4ppm in 2007, and now you have already analyzed the anomaly, conclusively determined that the source was “photosintesis” and moved on to make temperature and CO2 concentration forecasts for the next several years… and even introduced a revolutionary new concept called “temperature sequestration”… It’s just so hard to keep up! Thanks so much.
Joe Says:
May 13th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
“The 2.4 increase for this year has an easy explanation” — yes, see my second link above.
Your posts are balderdash. The 2007 PNAS study in that link notes:
1970 – 1979: 1.3 ppm/yr
1980 – 1989: 1.6 ppm/yr
1990 – 1999: 1.5 ppm/yr
2000 - 2007: 2.0 ppm/yr (updated to include 2007)
My patience for your disinformation is fast disappearing.
Ain’t gonna be cooling, but I’d be glad to take a bet…. |
