Climate change scientist reveals denier's trickery

[Jamie in Chile]

"For example, changes to high altitude cloud responses to ship tracks in the Atlantic has contributed to a warming of the Atlantic. This is still a human-induced change, but is it directly down to CO2 emissions?"
No, this is not about CO2. The sulphur was creating a cooling effect, and they removed sulphur to meet some regulation because it is a pollutant and therefore the action of this regulation caused a warming effect (by removing the cooling effect). This may partly explain high ocean temperatures in the Atlantic including Florida gulf coast but this is still under debate as it is a recent phenomenon - not all scientists agree how much this is contributing to the recent alarming uptick in certain trends.

"Overall, the IPCC finds that the long term atmospheric response should be in the range 2C to 5C for a doubling of CO2 with the central estimate around 3C. The short term response (this century) is from about 1C to 2.5C with the central estimate about 1.8C."
This doesn't look right because, if your last sentence refers to a doubling of CO2 as well, then it implies that you think that a doubling of CO2 will cause a much greater increase after this century than within this century. If that's what you think, this is neither accurate nor a correct representation The key point is once emissions go to zero then the temperature will stay approximately the same.
I also think the IPCC's ranges on climate sensitivity are conservative or show a range of very high confidence. It seems the trend is clearly towards the middle of the range.

India's emissions are tiny on a per person basis. China's coal plants is a serious problem, but on a per person basis its emissions are lower than North Americans, plus a lot of China's emissions - and its coal - are used to manufacture products consumed elsewhere including in the West. If China announced tomorrow it was dividing into 20 countries each with 1% of global emissions would that make their emissions less of a problem? I don't think so - China is no 1 on current emissions because it has a lot of people grouped together whereas the people in Europe and the Americas have a similar number of people are divided into many countries. And finally, the "but China" arguments amounts to saying "our emissions in the US will kill an estimated 10 million people, but we are not going to do anything about that because China's emissions will kill 20 million people". This is not a good or ethical argument.

"We should have a much clearer idea by 2050, I'd expect."
Not really - the science is settled. It will only change a small amount by then.
We are currently living in a 1.3C world and by 2050 it will be almost certainly be 1.5C - 1.8C. So it will most likely be just like now but with everything amped up a bit.

"I think we are seeing about 1.2C of increase for the global average temperature as at today, so it seems possible that we will not exceed 2.00C this century. I'm not convinced 2C will result in catastrophe."
2C is not end of the world times very probably, I agree, not civilizational collapse. But it is weird how some people are saying "this will not be the total end of civilization, and therefore this is fine and we shouldn't worry about it or take any radical actions." With the bolded part implied rather than said. Yes, it won't be the biblical end times but surely if millions of people are dying and suffering that's something we should prevent.

Note that cutting carbon emissions tends to correlate with positive trends on local emissions of other pollutants and the creation of local jobs.

If you - or anyone else reading this - is worried about changes to their personal life notice that these days it isn't a sacrifice to reduce your personal impact on climate change any more. For most people, there is a hybrid or electric car that won't reduce your quality of life one bit or be overall more expensive, there is a home heating system that - allowing for IRA subsidies - costs the same as a fossil one. There are places to visit in your own country (or New Zealand which is next door) that offer just as good a holiday as somewhere far away, for less flight cost, time, or jet lag. etc etc ec

I'm not quite sure how to respond to you Graham. You seem to be walking a tightrope between valid opinions and outright denialism so I can't quite decide whether to engage or not. Would you agree that it's certain or almost certain that greenhouse gas emissions will lead to net harm for humanity, and that we should cut emissions?

 

[Lou]

Also worth pointing out.
Cutting emissions is not like putting the brakes on.
its more like lifting your foot off the accelerator.
You're still going forward at the same rate of speed. you just are no longer accelerating.
Carbon in the atmosphere persists for many years. So it will take many years for Global warming to slow down.
and also until we do stop adding GHG to the atmosphere - we continue to make the situation worse.

I've posted this little clip before. But it's been a while so maybe not everybody has seem it. Plus it's just so pertinent. In a way its both horrifying and funny

and btw, this episode is almost 10 years old now.

 

[Graeme M]

@Lou "The rate of climate change... is unprecedented". Maybe, I'm not sure that is quite true. Still, the article is not saying anything different from what I have said above. We know that the average global temperature is increasing. It may have increased by about 1.2C since around 1850 (though there are reasons to doubt this). And that rate of increase may be very unusual. However, the article is mostly pointing out just that fact. It is not telling us that overall, the climate is somehow in very much worse shape than it has been in human history. What DO we know? The air is getting warmer, the sea is rising though not at any particularly fast rate as yet, extreme heat events are becoming more common. Beyond that, the rates and impacts of most other weather-related disasters either show no significant trend or are declining. Some may be increasing (eg tropical cyclones may be more intense, but equally they are becoming less frequent).

I'm not saying climate change due to anthropogenic factors is not happening, nor that it isn't a considerable threat. BUT, a lot of what people think is happening simply is not.

 

[Graeme M]

I'm not quite sure how to respond to you Graham. You seem to be walking a tightrope between valid opinions and outright denialism so I can't quite decide whether to engage or not. Would you agree that it's certain or almost certain that greenhouse gas emissions will lead to net harm for humanity, and that we should cut emissions?

It is not "denialism" to observe that claims about climate change are often over-blown by the media and climate change alarmists like Extinction Rebellion. As to your question, will climate change from increasing GHG emissions lead to net harm and should we cut emissions. Yes, but I do not think that human-induced climate change is going to lead to ultimate disaster and the end of the world. Of course, I might be wrong. This is just my opinion - I am not making policy. As to my voting preferences (I know no-one asked, but I thought I'd state this since it goes to the actions of government), I have voted for the Green Party and the Animal Justice Party here in Australia at the last two elections). Our governments must act according to the formal scientific advice.

No, this is not about CO2...therefore the action of this regulation caused a warming effect (by removing the cooling effect).

I never said it was about CO2, merely pointing out that many things we do affect the temperature and things like precipitation trends etc. Sometimes, we don't know before we start just what the effects will be, such as clearing land for timber getting, crop farming and animal grazing. Others we know about but seem hard pressed to change, such as too many motor vehicles, too many dense cities and too much waste heat from industrial processes (waste heat alone would, at current rates, lead to boiling oceans in a few hundred years). It isn't all CO2.

This doesn't look right because, if your last sentence refers to a doubling of CO2 as well, then it implies that you think that a doubling of CO2 will cause a much greater increase after this century than within this century.

This is in reference to climate sensitivity, which is a key metric for working out what will happen. Scientists use a doubling of CO2 levels as a benchmark - that is, when CO2 concentration reaches 560ppm, what will the global average temperature be? This gives us a guide to how sensitive the atmosphere is to rising GHG concentrations (which response is not linear due to the many other factors in the climate system). The current range is about 2C to about 4/5C, however this is for the ECS (ie the long term response over centuries) The TCR (short term response) is what we will actually experience in the next century, and that is in the range of about 1-2.5C. Note that when these levels of CO2 are reached depend on what we do. The IPCC uses a range of scenarios that roughly equate to doing worse, doing the same, or doing better, than we are now. The most likely pathway is the doing better than we are now pathway, which is why the point at which we reach a doubling of CO2 is likely to be after 2100. My best guess based on what I can see from various metrics is that we will see a total rise of about 1.8-2.00 C by 2100. Depending on what we have done with emissions, further increases might be possible but it seems very unlikely we will exceed 3.00C after 2100. But I can't see the real future, so who knows. I don't think the IPCC's range is es[pecially conservative. It seems to mesh well with most of the science. See Sherwood et al 2020, a detailed analysis of evidence to hand that concluded long term sensitivity (ie ECS) is about 3C for a doubling of CO2. Remember too that the forcing from increasing CO2 concentrations is not linear but reduces as concentrations increase due to saturation in some absorption bands.

India's emissions are tiny on a per person basis. China's coal plants is a serious problem, but on a per person basis its emissions are lower than North Americans, plus a lot of China's emissions - and its coal - are used to manufacture products consumed elsewhere including in the West. If China announced tomorrow it was dividing into 20 countries each with 1% of global emissions would that make their emissions less of a problem? I don't think so - China is no 1 on current emissions because it has a lot of people grouped together whereas the people in Europe and the Americas have a similar number of people are divided into many countries. And finally, the "but China" arguments amounts to saying "our emissions in the US will kill an estimated 10 million people, but we are not going to do anything about that because China's emissions will kill 20 million people". This is not a good or ethical argument.

I think this is a mischievous characterisation. What matters is total emissions, NOT per capita. When we add A to B to get C, C is what matters. Not how many smaller parts we can break A and B into. The West has successfully reduced emissions, China has not. If we really face disaster, we can't simply put our heads in the sand about China's ongoing efforts to grow its industrial capacity and standard of living. Unfortunately, you ARE right about the West offshoring its emissions to China.

"We should have a much clearer idea by 2050, I'd expect."
Not really - the science is settled. It will only change a small amount by then.
We are currently living in a 1.3C world and by 2050 it will be almost certainly be 1.5C - 1.8C. So it will most likely be just like now but with everything amped up a bit.

I was referring to rates of CO2 increase. By 2050, we should have a clearer idea of whether we have (or will) successfully reduced our overall emissions. I agree that we will have reached about 1.5-1.8C increase by then, with further rises to maybe 1.8-2.2C by 2100. Personally I don't think we will exceed 2.00C until after 2100.

2C is not end of the world times very probably, I agree, not civilizational collapse. But it is weird how some people are saying "this will not be the total end of civilization, and therefore this is fine and we shouldn't worry about it or take any radical actions."

I think we are taking action. But what "radical" action can we realistically take when massive deindustrialisation will cause both immense hardship, suffering and even anger as lifestyles collapse away from what we enjoy today? I think the larger problem we face is the depletion of resources. Now, sadly, I think the current race to renewables is actually a mistake while we fail to deindustrialise/degrow. It is sheer lunacy to think we can keep growing economies and raising living standards to utterly unsustainable levels, and allowing ongoing population growth, in a world in which energy is key. And we are starting to run out of that. Renewables cannot replace oil and coal in the way we currently use those. The future is bleak as I see it, but not from climate change.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

I think that video Lou is a bit doomist. Firstly, the person, who I think is a fictional character in a TV series, exaggerates the negative effects of climate change for a given amount of emissions. Secondly, it says it´s too late to act which is not true.

Well Graeme in your latest comments you seem to be leaning more sensible than denial so hopefully I was being a bit unfair.

The thing with those that point out that (some) environmentalists are alarmists is that these people are more concerned about alarmism than thousands or millions of people being killed by fossil fuel companies in order to make more money. Why do some people seem unconcerned about the fact that we are creating a world in which a future heat wave will kill thousands or millions, unconcerned by news reports from experienced firefighters saying they´ve never seen anything like this in their long career, unconcerned by scientific reports predicting disaster, no comment about news of mega droughts, and the latest report once again increasing the estimate of the number of millions of people killed EVERY YEAR by air pollution, but then suddenly get annoyed because some protestors exaggerated the level of doom.

The UN/DARA reports I saw on the number of climate deaths – which put the figure at hundreds of thousands per year already in the 2010s decade – said that many of the deaths were due to famine and disease. I don´t think disasters add as many (human) deaths. They get attention due to their nature as being more newsworthy than a large number of people slowly dying because say climate change has given some insect a larger range to operate in in Africa. So I think it is probably the case that even if there were no increase of hurricanes, storms, fires etc that it wouldn´t have a big impact on the need to urgently cut emissions. Ending fossil fuels also has a large air pollution benefit – the number of lives saved would probably be far higher than the people dying in disasters.

“It isn't all CO2.”
It is quite a high % CO2 though – from memory maybe around 70% of global warming is caused by CO2

“we will see a total rise of about 1.8-2.00 C by 2100. Depending on what we have done with emissions, further increases might be possible but it seems very unlikely we will exceed 3.00C after 2100”
This is similar to what I think. I think 1.9-2.5C in 2100. I think the temperature won´t increase much if at all after 2100 as I think emissions will be lower or perhaps zero or net zero. It´s also possible that with the technology of the latter part of this century we´d be regulating the temperature to whatever we want by solar deflection or CO2 removal – although I think this does not solve the sea level rise issue even if we reduce it to 0C.

“what "radical" action can we realistically take when massive deindustrialisation will cause both immense hardship, suffering and even anger as lifestyles collapse away from what we enjoy today”
We don´t have to deindustrialize. We just need to replace fossil fuels with nuclear, renewables and green hydrogen etc and do so rapidly. Examples of radical policies would be bans of fossil powered SUVs, large carbon taxes, or requiring companies to cut their emissions by law. People are not likely to reduce lifestyle quality since there are much less controversial ways of reducing emissions with little to no sacrifice. We can have just as many cars and factories as before and still get to under 2C. EVs, solar and wind are already about the same cost as fossil fuels. They are actually cheaper in the long run, especially when you factor in the economic costs of dealing with climate change.

“Renewables cannot replace oil and coal in the way we currently use those.”
I mostly disagree. The largest use of oil is in vehicles, so we can get rid of a large chunk of the oil by using electric vehicles. The largest use of coal is in electricity grids and we can easily replace those since we already have that tech. Over time, we can also improve technologies to allow more difficult things like industrial production and aviation to be clean.

 

[Graeme M]

“Renewables cannot replace oil and coal in the way we currently use those.”
I mostly disagree. The largest use of oil is in vehicles, so we can get rid of a large chunk of the oil by using electric vehicles. The largest use of coal is in electricity grids and we can easily replace those since we already have that tech. Over time, we can also improve technologies to allow more difficult things like industrial production and aviation to be clean.

I think believing that we can replace oil and coal with renewables and green hydrogen is a big error of judgement. Green hydrogen because it is incredibly inefficient and wind and solar because they are not renewable but rather require massive resource extraction and constant replacement. Nuclear perhaps, but the cost of build is high and uranium is still not a renewable source. Fusion is always being paraded around as the future saviour, but realistically we are not yet anywhere near close to that.

We should be able to reduce the need for coal and gas in energy generation, but it's hard to see how we can seriously maintain reliable and cheap grids without FFs. I will be very surprised if that happens. What I expect is increasing grid volatility and ever growing energy costs. The impact will be deeply negative on most Western economies. As for oil, I think we will see peak economically viable oil production within just a few years as the US oil shales play out. Demand will continue but I expect the price of oil to rise inexorably. This could be exacerbated by a wholesale rush to EVs because petrol and diesel consumption underpins the price of a barrel of oil - about 70% of a barrel of crude is used to produce these products. Yet oil is used for a LOT of other products (eg asphalt, tyres, plastics, solvents and many more besides). Once there is no demand for most of a barrel of oil, I suspect the price of many goods will climb. I suppose it is possible that the massive reduction in oil demand from eliminating petroleum/diesel demand might mean a barrel of oil can go a lot further, but there is still the problem that producing those other products is more energy intensive and costly. This is why I see a bleak future. Steadily declining energy reserves (which is what really drives society), falling per capita prosperity, and massive investment in energy production technology that costs vast resources and energy to extract and produce. Wind and solar should really be called Non-Renewable-Renewable-Energy-Harvesters.

 

[Brian W]

@Graeme M When you post about this and about your belief that being vegan does not cause the least animal deaths, could you please give links to scientific (not agricultural) sources that support your views because I often wonder if you get your information from biased and ignorant Youtube creators. I seem to recall that you have a friend in animal agriculture so I know you have allowed their biases to affect your beliefs.

 

[Graeme M]

When you post about this and about your belief that being vegan does not cause the least animal deaths, could you please give links to scientific (not agricultural) sources that support your views because I often wonder if you get your information from biased and ignorant Youtube creators. I seem to recall that you have a friend in animal agriculture so I know you have allowed their biases to affect your beliefs.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. Are you asking about climate change or crop deaths? I can offer you references all day but I've learned that most people don't ever bother to read them, so why bother chasing them down? My opinion on both issues stems from about a decade of reading widely of the science, philosophy and general commentary. This doesn't make me an expert (or right), but it does mean my opinion is not uninformed. I find it easier to respond to specific questions. Do you have such a question? If it's about crop deaths, please ask on that thread cos I think it would be confusing on this one about climate change. Thanks.

 

[Lou]

I think that video Lou is a bit doomist. Firstly, the person, who I think is a fictional character in a TV series, exaggerates the negative effects of climate change for a given amount of emissions. Secondly, it says it´s too late to act which is not true.

Well, I was a big fan of the show. the show is ten years old now and still relevant.
In the clip, the characters, and the News Room, are all fictional. the show itself is Historical Fiction. Almost all the news had happened a year or two before - it's just how the news room deals with it. There is an episode on the Boston Bombing and Occupy Wall Street. There are several good articles about how the News Room intersects with reality. Below I've included a link to a Wikipedia article which is comprehensive. And another link to one that is a bit more focused. Oh, and "the fake one" is still based on a real story - just re-told with the News Room filling in for CNN. So not really fake.

The show should at least get high marks for including Climate Change as a good story. At the time there was not that much discussion in the real news and especially in dramas about climate change.

I got to thinking about that episode again and I was wondering if anyone had fact-checked it. After rewatching the video I got to thinking that everything he said was true. It was just that the EPA official wasn't going to sugar coat it. And they had to let the episode go long for some kind of timing issue.

So a little bit of googling - and I found that someone had fact checked it. Their only issue - a bit to heavy handed in the doom and gloom. The statements themselves are all true.

All of these things are predicted by the IPCC—I mean, not the permanent darkness thing, I don’t think that’s meant to be scientific. But yes, as we reported in May this year, Europe faces freshwater shortages; Asia can expect more severe flooding from extreme storms; North America will see increased heat waves and wildfires, which can cause death and damage to ecosystems and property. Especially in poor countries, diminished crop yields will likely lead to increased malnutrition, which already affects nearly 900 million people worldwide.​

In which we fact checked climate science on "The Newsroom"...

How does Sorkin's subplot stack up?

www.motherjones.com

For Context

The Newsroom (American TV series) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

'The Newsroom': 5 Real Stories (and One Fake One) HBO's Made-Up Reporters Will Cover Next (Update)

From a man on death row to the election, here's what Will McAvoy and the ACN news team will emphatically report on in Season 2

www.thewrap.com

 

[bEt]

Should we do something? Probably,

We are doing something --- more of the same that got us into this mess.

 

[Graeme M]

The statements themselves are all true.

I read that first one from Mother Jones. I think it's more or less right - CO2 levels are increasing, the air will warm, there may be significant risks associated with that. But some of it is a bit heavy handed and over-egging the pudding.

We are doing something --- more of the same that got us into this mess.

The question I'd ask is, what do you think can be done differently? I mean, really? The real problem is China. The West IS reducing emissions. China is not. But more importantly, the whole world wants to continue to live high, and as we get more and more people, it gets harder to do that. The problem might really be our expectations.

I think about it like this. Energy is what drives the world. Human population did not grow rapidly until we discovered cheap fossil fuels (coal), which allowed us to unlock millions of years' worth of energy to put to work. But what really set things in motion was oil. While the use of fossil fuels to produce cheap energy has a downside - pollution and emissions - the massive industrial expansion and remarkable rise in food production led to rapidly rising standards of living and world population growth. The world went from about half a billion people in the past to one billion by about 1800. The use of coal and oil led us to grow that to over 8 billion in a little over 200 years. Now, wind and solar CANNOT replace that cheap energy. And for now at least, coal and oil enable the ongoing growth of economies and maintain lavish lifestyles. Is there an alternative? I can't see it. We are over-living. No political party can go to election on a platform of degrowth, of much more modest lifestyles, of going without and accepting poorer health and life-expectancy. But that's what is needed, I think.

So, we are probably doing about all we can do in the circumstances. The problem is China, but we are all responsible for that.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

wind and solar because they are not renewable but rather require massive resource extraction and constant replacement.

We should be able to reduce the need for coal and gas in energy generation, but it's hard to see how we can seriously maintain reliable and cheap grids without FFs.

You make various points here, with which some I agree, some I disagree, and some I´m not sure.

But here above I quote 2 points where I am pretty sure you are not right.

It is coal, oil and gas that require resource extraction and constant replacement. If you build a coal plant that lasts 30 years, you then (in addition to all the many impacts of building the coal plant) have to constantly mine the earth for 30 years. However, once a solar panel is build it produces energy for almost no further resource extraction. So solar and wind actually help with resource extract and constant replacement.

The footprint of solar and wind is negligible compared to fossil fuels.

Also, it´s now very clearly understood that grid can be maintained without fossil fuels. Experts clearly understand this and now all agree on this. I have seen 2 or 3 interviews with experts working in the UK national grid for example who said that. And why wouldn´t that be the case. With hydro and geothermal you can easily ramp up on down on demand, and with solar and wind you combine with energy storage. Since solar and wind are much cheaper per unit generated, the energy storage and grid upgrades just bring the cost up to the same cost of fossil fuels.

Also, with smart tech, you are going to be able to move energy use up and down. Say clouds have just passed over a major solar plant - what you need is that people´s electric heating and electric hot water and car charging is automatically turned off by a smart system. Then the clouds pass on and it turns back on. In the mean time the temperature in your house fell from 20C to 19.5C - you didn´t even notice and when you go to drive your car it was still charged to 100% anyway. If you are willing to agree with your utility to let them do this, then energy should be less expensive in the future in my opinion. If you don´t, it should be about the same.

Why do you think grids have to have fossil fuels? I don´t see a reason for it.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

The real problem is China. The West IS reducing emissions. China is not.

North America and Australia have reduced emissions but are still higher than China per person. The fact that they were even higher in the past does that make that better. This focus on who is currently reducing, and who is currently increasing, while ignoring the total historical emissions makes no sense. The US is no 1 in historical Co2 emissions, and the atmosphere responds to total emissions since CO2 stays in the atmosphere for centuries. That means all of the current climate disasters are caused more by the US than anyone else, and therefore the US has the greatest responsibility to do something about it. The focus on who is currently reducing shows a clear bias.

Of course, from certain people you will always hear a focus on China´s coal with no mention whatesover that China is easily world no 1 on electric vehicles, solar and batteries, as well as some decent amount of wind and nuclear. No, all that will be ignored since it doesn´t fit with your biases. Only the coal gets mentioned.

Refusing to do anything unless China does is also immoral. It´s basically "China is pointlessly killing people, so we can too".

Now, wind and solar CANNOT replace that cheap energy.

Why can´t wind and solar replace that energy? Of course, they can. They are already cheaper and the prices are falling like crazy.
By the way, this is a classic trope of both the political and ideological right and deniers to frame it as "intermittent wind and solar" vs "fossil fuels" as if they are the only options, as if nuclear, hydro and geothermal and other renewables don´t exist.

Can you name even one country that´s currently trying to build an electricity grid based entirely on wind and solar? Almost all of them have nuclear, hydro and geothermal that can balance out the intermittency of wind and solar.

The problem is China

Why do you say it like that like China is the only problem. China has a certain portion of emission, it isn´t THE problem.

 

[Lou]

Why do you think grids have to have fossil fuels? I don´t see a reason for it.

The petroleum industry likes their bottom line.

 

[Graeme M]

Why do you think grids have to have fossil fuels? I don´t see a reason for it.

I don't think grids have to have fossil fuels. However, I think that to maintain a reliable grid with the kinds of consumption we see today, we cannot do it without fossil fuels. I don't agree with your suggestion that we can. You have said that storage is the answer, but the amount of storage is truly staggering. Perhaps some kind of breakthrough in storage awaits but as yet, not so much. The thing with storage is that it doesn't generate electricity - you have to do that from your primary source. Currently in Australia, all storage combined (ignoring hydro for the moment) offers negligible grid capacity. Mostly, it is used for arbitrage which is attractive to the operators because they make very good money. That would be less likely when storage reaches some kind of genuine usefulness.

It is coal, oil and gas that require resource extraction and constant replacement. If you build a coal plant that lasts 30 years, you then (in addition to all the many impacts of building the coal plant) have to constantly mine the earth for 30 years. However, once a solar panel is build it produces energy for almost no further resource extraction. So solar and wind actually help with resource extract and constant replacement.

I think this is wrong. Coal plants usually last 50 years, often longer. All turbines and solar panels last considerably less. So, on current values, all of that plant has to be replaced about every 30 years. And coal is a densely located resource - we mine thick deposits of coal laid down over long periods. The materials we need for solar panels and wind turbines are far less dense and we have already taken much of the easier deposits. Look at lithium that requires massive brine lakes to extract. Also grain size in extractable copper ore deposits have greatly reduced (more exactly, available deposits are less viable). Much the same is the case for other materials needed. Then we have the problem of scale - the scale of wind and solar farms is massive and requires extensive supply chains. That is why the wind industry in Europe is collapsing because the price of electriciy in most countries is now too low for producers who face supply line cost escalations and scarcity issues. Increase supply costs to cver generation and production costs and you risk economic meltdown and extensive social hardship.

North America and Australia have reduced emissions but are still higher than China per person. The fact that they were even higher in the past does that make that better. This focus on who is currently reducing, and who is currently increasing, while ignoring the total historical emissions makes no sense. The US is no 1 in historical Co2 emissions, and the atmosphere responds to total emissions since CO2 stays in the atmosphere for centuries. That means all of the current climate disasters are caused more by the US than anyone else, and therefore the US has the greatest responsibility to do something about it. The focus on who is currently reducing shows a clear bias.

Again, I think this is wrong. Per capita emissions are irrelevant. As you say, cumulative emissions are what counts. So if country A produces 1 unit per year but country B produces 10 units, whose emisssions do we need to reduce? It doesn't matter that in A, only 5 emitters caused that one unit and in B, 10,000 emitters. And yes, we can safely ignore historical emissions. In what world can we do something about that?

Refusing to do anything unless China does is also immoral. It´s basically "China is pointlessly killing people, so we can too".

That isn't what I said. I said the West IS reducing emissions, China is not. What kind of logic argues that if A is reducing emissions and B is not, A is the problem?

Why can´t wind and solar replace that energy? Of course, they can. They are already cheaper and the prices are falling like crazy.
By the way, this is a classic trope of both the political and ideological right and deniers to frame it as "intermittent wind and solar" vs "fossil fuels" as if they are the only options, as if nuclear, hydro and geothermal and other renewables don´t exist.

Can you name even one country that´s currently trying to build an electricity grid based entirely on wind and solar? Almost all of them have nuclear, hydro and geothermal that can balance out the intermittency of wind and solar.

Again, this is disingenuous. Wind and solar CANNOT replace fossil fuels. It really IS that simple. Wind and solar with sufficient storage might be able to, but the question is, can that be made sustainable? On the evidence to hand, no. Yes, many countries have hydro and geothermal, but how many can scale that up extensively. China can to some extent by expending vast energy and generating massive emissions. But other countries? Here in Australia, we have very limited capacity to extend hydro and what geothermal has been attempted has failed. We ARE trying to do it all with wind and solar. And it will fail.

Yesterday here in Australia, 63% of electricity was produced by wind and solar during the day. During the night, it was just 10%. All of our battery storage delived effectively zero. What kept us afloat was the 70% gas and coal. We have a massive task to replace all of that coal and gas and come up with enough storage. It cannot be done. Not as a sustainable long term proposition, because IF we do it, EVERY bit of that plant needs to be replaced every 30-40 years.

Why do you say it like that like China is the only problem. China has a certain portion of emission, it isn´t THE problem.

China isn't the only problem of all the problems we cause, but in terms of emissions, it IS the problem. It is responsible for well over a quarter of global emissions and growing. The US is 15% and falling. The EU 10% and falling. Australia is about 1% and falling.

 

[beancounter]

As long as people pay attention to him with clicks and views, he keep on doing what he does. And it wouldn't surprise me to find out that he receives some sort of financial support from the fossil fuel industry.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Hi Graeme,

It's weird how you mix good, accurate knowledge (like the fact that energy storage on the grids is very small and mostly used for arbitrage) with totally wrong comments about fossil fuels in the grid that all experts have disagreed with for years.

It's true that geothermal isn't easy to scale, but with enhanced geothermal that may steadily change. Hydro also isn't going to rapidly scale,but is already has a decent scale in some countries. We could add more hydro and tidal if we really needed to.

It's a misconception to say that grids are planning to be wind + solar + storage.

It's wind + solar + hydro + geothermal + nuclear + others + storage + smart tech + future technology we can't imagine yet.

The smart tech that will enable us to reduce loads when the wind dies down is greatly underestimated. A significant chunk of future electricity demand will be hot water, heating and vehicles. With smart tech, you can easily reduce electricity demand 10% on certain days and hardly anyone will even notice.

For when there is a whole week of low energy generation, people will be offered money to use less energy. Again, an underrated solution. You get offered $100 to not charge your car all week and you take the bus or cycle to work all week instead. Or you refuse and say no I'd rather drive than have $100. It doesn't matter because they can offer whatever incentive will get just enough people to accept changes.

It's also achievable a grid without fossil fuels with today's technology. Even if all the many people working on a huge variety of things for R and D ultimately ALL fail. Which is not likely.

There is also the possibility that wind and solar get so cheap you just build out a huge over capacity and that deals with low wind and solar days. Like if you have double the needed capacity on an average day you'll always have the needed capacity on every day.

There are therefore 4 or 5 ways to prove you wrong. We only need 1 or 2 of them to work, and it looks like 4 or 5 of them work.

20 or 30 years ago people were saying it's inconceivable that wind and solar could ever be more than 10% of the grid.

 

[Graeme M]

There are therefore 4 or 5 ways to prove you wrong. We only need 1 or 2 of them to work, and it looks like 4 or 5 of them work.

You might turn out to be correct. Like I said, the above is my informed opinion, but it doesn't mean I am right. My core feeling about it all is that we really cannot do it and continue to grow economies, so I think the right solution is a mix of renewables and degrowth. We have to find a way to reduce demand/consumption. And that will become more pressing as the cost of fossil fuel extraction rises, which I think is going to happen. I am just not as confident as you that there are that many other scalable and affordable alternatives. I don't believe that in countries where there is not easy access to hydro and geothermal these are viable options. Here in Australia we decided to build a new hydro facility called Snowy 2.0 to complement our biggest hydro facility in the Snowy Mountains. It is turning into a hugely expensive debacle. Maybe it will be completed before 2030, but it will be so costly and I don't know how that cost is recovered. It's the same with wind in Europe where the cost of production is so high now that generators cannot afford the investment unless the price of electricity is much increased. Perhaps the fact that a renwables grid is an expensive solution will achieve the forced reduction in consumption that governments cannot directly enforce.

My prediction remains the same. A mostly renewables grid is not possible, if by grid we mean meeting increasing demand over time with reliable, cheap generation. And the reduction in energy available to civilisation through the loss of fossil fuels will lead to steadily declining living standards worldwide, especially in the West. The added cost and complexity of a renweables grid (clear in your suggestion of grids using a wide variety of tech and plant_) will be a deal-breaker. To say nothing of the unsustainability of the whole thing.

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And going to my comment about the West reducing emissions, but developing nations, especially China and Asia, increasing them. Though to be fair, I guess there may be emerging technologies for offsetting emissions, or even sequestering them.

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