Brudaimonia’s Recent Comments

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  Hopefully, someone introduced the person who asked that question to permaculture (though Joel Salatin and Will Allen are pretty strong examples).On Pollan shoots down organic myths at Grist event posted 1 month ago 25 Responses

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  Clifford,

  A former professor used to say, "All models are wrong, but some are useful."

  If the question is, "Are the GCMs 100% accurate?" then the answer is, "Of course not.  They're models."

  But the important question is, "Are the GCMs accurate enough to warrant GHG reductions?"  It certainly looks that way.  Let's remember that the models are based largely on physical laws and that there are a number of validations that test their fitness (see here).

  Even given the models' complexity, climate assessments such as the IPCC's give ranges, rather than one value, for their predictions.  For example, the AR4 gave a sea level rise range of 0.18 to 0.59 meters over this century.  This range encompasses smaller ranges for each of six emissions scenarios.  So if the media throws out one value, it's because the media is more interested in getting your attention than being scientifically meticulous.

  Finally, we have observations of what has already happened.  It doesn't take a model to know that 11 of the 12 years from 1995-2006 were the warmest in the instrumental record, as the AR4 reported.  It doesn't take a model to see the coral reef bleaching that has already occurred.

  And it doesn't take a model to accept basic, undeniable facts: some gases have the property of letting through solar radiation but trapping infrared radiation.  These gases, some of whose atoms had previously been buried in the Earth, have been emitted into the atmosphere nonstop since the Industrial Revolution and are now in higher concentrations.

  It's just a matter of people accepting reality and taking responsibility for their actions, even if that might not be the most politically expedient thing to do.  Even if it means that they have to admit that they were wrong.

  On No, Jeff, there's not a debate about the science of climate change posted 4 months ago 13 Responses

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  Actually, most hydrogen these days, for transportation at least, is produced through steam methane reformantion, which uses a ton of energy, not to mention any methane that happens to escape into the atmosphere.

  
  Also, I'll refer you to my earlier comment about the link between natural disasters and climate change.

  On Climate bill negotiations stall in House posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago 35 Responses

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  WWAGD,

  If you were really concerned about the importance of peer-reviewed articles, would you believe that one blog post could "put[] an ice axe into the 'science' of global warming", as you said earlier?

  It would mean that Pielke knows something that nearly every peer-reviewed article author reviewed by Naomi Oreskes in her meta-analysis, "Beyond the Ivory Tower", published in Science, doesn't.  It's important to realize the overwhelming body of scientific evidence finding a very strong likelihood of the connection between human-caused GHG emissions and the harmful climatic effects on our livelihoods.

  As far as the link between climate change and natural disasters, it's true that we don't have rock solid evidence of a strong connection, but there is physical and statistical evidence that points to a possible connection.  No one disputes that hurricanes tend to originate in warmer water; that's high school science.  What makes bodies of water, like the Gulf of Mexico, warmer?  Global warming.

  Secondly, even if a connection between tropical storm frequency has not yet been unequivocally proven, that's not the only way climate change can influence tropical storms, cyclones, and hurricanes.  There's stronger evidence that climate change is making them more intense.  See, for example:

  K. Emanuel. (2005). Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years.

  "I find that the record of net hurricane power dissipation is highly correlated with tropical sea surface temperature, reflecting well-documented climate signals, including multi-decadal oscillations in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and global warming. My results suggest that future warming may lead to an upward trend in tropical cyclone destructive potential, and—taking into account an increasing coastal population—a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses in the twenty-first century."

  and...

  J. Elsner, et. al. (2008). The increasing intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones.

  "We find significant upward trends for wind speed quantiles above the 70th percentile...Our results are qualitatively consistent with the hypothesis that as the seas warm, the ocean has more energy to convert to tropical cyclone wind."

  So, there is evidence that climate change and natural disasters -- at least cyclones and likely hurricanes -- are linked.

  On Climate bill negotiations stall in House posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago 35 Responses

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  From the Washington Post article:

  "To stretch federal dollars across more proposed [nuclear] plants, the Energy Department has been lobbying the Japanese government to extend export credits and loan guarantees to the plants using Toshiba designs and to persuade the French export credit agency, Coface, to help back the Areva design at Calvert Cliffs. Those agencies usually help promote exports to poor or developing countries, not to aid a project in the world's richest economy."

  I am not knowledgeable about the ethics of Coface's or another credit agency's projects, but this is a perfect example of the legitimate concern over nuclear power's risk, and the amount of insurance needed to mitigate that risk.

  Not every large construction project that carries a lot of risk is unwise, but in nuclear power's case, we have so many alternatives, including the simplest one: reducing wasted electricity generation.

  On Enviros cringe as Senate committee approves energy bill posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago 3 Responses