Brad Arnold’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  SuperFreakonomics this (whereas I always thought Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner were too cute by half): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1iqa0dSJO0 Check out above link to a youtube video of a CNN report. What are the odds that the independent testimony below is fraudulent? Here is a silver bullet technology: clean cheap and abundant energy. “In a joint statement, Dr. K.V. Ramanujachary, Rowan University Meritorious Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dr. Amos Mugweru, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Peter Jansson P.E., Associate Professor of Engineering said, “In independent tests conducted over the past three months involving 10 solid fuels made by us from commercially-available chemicals, our team of engineering and chemistry professors, staff, and students at Rowan University has independently and consistently generated energy in excesses ranging from 1.2 times to 6.5 times the maximum theoretical heat available through known chemical reactions.”On 'SuperFreakonomics' is 'patent nonsense' posted 1 month, 1 week ago 6 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  One problem at a time dude:

  "The alternative (to geoengineering) is the acceptance of a massive natural cull of humanity and a return to an Earth that freely regulates itself but in the hot state." --Dr James Lovelock, August 2008
  

  The Greens' resistance to geo-engineering sits very uncomfortably with its message that the planet is screwed and we're all going to die. It suggests that Environmentalism has less to do with saving the planet than it does with reining in human aspirations. It suggests that they don't actually believe their own press releases, and that they know the situation is not as dire as they would like the rest of us to think it is. And that Environmentalists are cutting off their noses to spite their faces - "we'll save the planet our way or not at all." It suggests that Environmentalists regard science and engineering as the cause of problems, and not the solution. --Climate Resistance, 24 March 2008

  Recently some have begun to advocate engineered climate selection as a fallback or insurance policy, in case their preferred regulatory decarbonization approach does not solve the problem or an unforeseen event occurs that requires a rapid response. A more prudent and efficient strategy would appear to be to implement engieneered climate selection first and then see what further needs to be done. --Alan Carlin, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, June 2007

  On The fallacy of climate activism posted 3 months ago 100 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Depending upon climate change modeling is laughable: current climate models have (grossly) underestimated sea level rise, polar sea ice melt, and average temperature rise that is occurring now.  In my (and Dr Lovelock's) opinion, this is because current climate models only use physics and chemistry, when instead they ought to be including biology.  In other words, "biogeology" or the effect of biological systems on the Earth, is sadly lacking in current climate models.

  
  By the way, I've also noticed a tragic inability of mathematical models to predict non-linear or exponencial change.  For instance, sea level rise exponencially increases the odds of inland flooding due to storm surge.  Another example is that because future natural methane emissions (from melting methane hydrate) can't currently be accurately estimated, it is simply not included in climate modelling.

  
  Frankly, I feel sorry for any poor fool who depends upon current climate models to plan for the future.  Instead, an insurance model of risk should be adopted, where money is spent to plan for and adapt to the worst case senario.  On thing ought to be perfectly clear: non-linear events (black swan events) are low probability/high consequence, and will inevitably eventually occur.  Tomorrow is almost always like today, until it isn't.  Do you really need a model to tell you that?

  On Climate change modeling key to disaster preparations posted 5 months, 1 week ago 2 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  You may think that changing the wording is smart public relations, but the goal you wish to achieve is illusionary, because successfully achieving a severe carbon diet is unfeasible:

  
  
  "The vast majority of new power stations in China and India will be coal-fired; not "may be coal-fired"; will be. So developing carbon capture and storage technology is not optional, it is literally of the essence." --"Breaking the Climate Deadlock," Tony Blair, June 26, 2008
  
  But, Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon dioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide -- a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars. "Beware of the scale," he stressed."
  
  The world's emissions of the main planet-warming gas carbon dioxide will rise over 50 percent to more than 42 billion tonnes per year from 2005 to 2030 as China leads a rise in burning coal, the U.S. government forecast on Wednesday. China's coal demand will rise 3.2 percent annually from 2005 to 2030, the Energy Information Administration said in its International Energy Outlook 2008. --Reuters, 26 June 2008
  
  In other words, maybe the spin gurus can somehow get unrealistic legislation passed, but Chinese and Indian emission growth will completely overwhelm any cuts we make:

  In 2006, China added 90 gigawatts of coal fired power capacity—enough to emit over 500 million tons of CO2 per year for 40 years; by comparison, the European Union’s entire Kyoto reduction commitment is 300 million tons of CO2.

  It will take more than a century to make the final massive shift to zero carbon energy, but the world doesn't have a century of time and will need geo-engineering technologies to cool the climate within the next 25 years, says one of the country's leading thinkers Thomas Homer-Dixon."  --"Canada has to tackle peak oil and climate change as one big carbon problem," The Hill Times, 1 Jun '09

  "The alternative (to geoengineering) is the acceptance of a massive natural cull of humanity and a return to an Earth that freely regulates itself but in the hot state." --Dr James Lovelock, August 2008

  On Ditch ‘warming’ and start talking ‘deteriorating atmosphere,’ PR firm says posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago 14 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Mr Sachs:

  While I agree with you that any carbon diet strategy would be dependent upon clean coal: "The vast majority of new power stations in China and India will be coal-fired; not "may be coal-fired"; will be. So developing carbon capture and storage technology is not optional, it is literally of the essence." --"Breaking the Climate Deadlock," Tony Blair, June 26, 2008

  You are catastrophically wrong about the feasibility to CCS: Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon d ioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide -- a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars. "Beware of the scale," he stressed."

  In other words: "It will take more than a century to make the final massive shift to zero carbon energy, but the world doesn't have a century of time and will need geo-engineering technologies to cool the climate within the next 25 years, says one of the country's leading thinkers Thomas Homer-Dixon."  --"Canada has to tackle peak oil and climate change as one big carbon problem," The Hill Times, 1 Jun '09

  "I'm going to tell you something I probably shouldn't: we may not be able to stop global warming. We need to begin curbing global greenhouse emissions right now, but more than a decade after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, the world has utterly failed to do so. Unless the geopolitics of global warming change soon, the Hail Mary pass of geoengineering might become our best shot." --Bryan Walsh, Time Magazine, 17 March 2008
  
  "The alternative (to geoengineering) is the acceptance of a massive natural cull of humanity and a return to an Earth that freely regulates itself but in the hot state." --Dr James Lovelock, August 2008

  On We've got no choice but nukes and carbon-capture tech, says Jeffrey Sachs posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago 35 Responses