Legal scholarship has come to accept as true the various pronouncements of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientists who have been active in the movement for greenhouse gas (ghg) emission reductions to combat global warming. The only criticism that legal scholars have had of the story told by this group of activist scientists – what may be called the climate establishment – is that it is too conservative in not paying enough attention to possible catastrophic harm from potentially very high temperature increases.
This paper departs from such faith in the climate establishment by comparing the picture of climate science presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other global warming scientist advocates with the peer-edited scientific literature on climate change.
I liked his conclusion:
That we don’t need to waste money on bigger and better computer models.
We need to agree on better, standardized observational datasets.
That way it is not going to be more gigo….garbage in, garbage out.
That way it will be peer reviewable/replicable.
The whole IPCC /Al Gore power trip unraveled the week that people around the globe began asking for raw data from IPCC and from East Anglia.
See, some of those requests were accepted.
That gave researchers their first real look at how cooked the books really were on AGW.
Experts from every aspect of the IPCC report tore it to shreds.
Then came the document drop falsely called a hacking.
Very good Curt. This is a great view from another perspective. If AGW were being tried for murder and the IPCC was the alibi witness, AGW would get the electric chair. This paper explained the issue very well.
Here’s a comment/critique of the “cross examination:”
(comment # 396)
While not entirely agreeing with Nan’s characterization of things, I do agree with her that the suggestions of the “cross examination” are entirely worthy of consideration:
I do think that it’s a reasonable position to say that the CO2 warming hypothesis has not been adequately proven. I think it’s entirely unreasonable to claim that it has been disproven.
What is entirely beyond controversy is that the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have risen markedly, as a result of human activity, and that levels are now higher than they have been during the existence of homo sapiens and that they are continuing to increase at a rapid rate. It is also beyond controversy that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It is also beyond controversy that the mammalian (including human) acid-base buffering system is built on inhaled CO2, working in concert with bicarbonate circulating in the blood and that changes in the percentage of inspired CO2 alters the bioenergetics of acid/base buffering, and that potential long term consequences have not been adequately studied.
All statements in the above paragraph are beyond controversy.
So the question is, what is a reasonable course of action, politically speaking?
What’s reasonable is to continue research, not only into climate science itself, but also into the economic implications of the adoption of a reducing-CO2-emissions policy.
Fortunately, one state has volunteered to do just that, in service of the nation.
California, which earlier basically ratified the Kyoto Treaty and which just reaffirmed this ratification in the last election.
So while the climate scientists sort out potential climate effects and medical scientists sort out potential medical effects, California will provide the service of sorting out the economic effects.
At some point in the future, we’ll have the necessary information to formulate the most reasonable policies.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Larry, the paper raises the issues that the AGW proponents will not! In that venue, that makes a good post. The assumptions you have made concerning CO2 are wrong. CO2 has virtually no solvent capacity in the gaseous state. http://www.hse.gov.uk/carboncapture/carbondioxide.htm The primary danger attributed to CO2 to life is when CO2 displaces O2 to levels that will not sustain life. Causes asphyxiation)
The current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is .036% , Humans do not even react to CO2 concentrations of 2% and below as long as O2 levels are not depleted. http://inspectapedia.com/hazmat/CO2gashaz.htm 2% is 55 times current levels of CO2. The human contribution to atmospheric CO2 is 3.4% of the .036% of the atmosphere. That means humans cause .0012% of the CO2 in the atmosphere (12 ppm). The rest is due to natural causes. You can see this from the IPCC assessment here http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/fig3-1.htm
The statements you provided were “All statements in the above paragraph are beyond controversy”. You are right, but you neglected to include the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere that would cause the symptoms you described. I routinely sample work places for air quality. We use CO2 as an indicator that there is insufficient fresh air intake of the concentrations of CO2 are above 1200 ppm or .12%. (.036% equals 360 ppm.) There are no adverse effects to any one in the work place due to CO2, but the lack of fresh air increases the concentration of biologicals generated by the workers. It also increases the concentrations of mold spores that cause allergic reaction.
Increase CO2 stimulates increase plant growth. Green houses purposely add CO2 to the air in the green house to improve growth efficiency. If humans double their CO2 contribution to the atmosphere every 50 years and the rate of uptake by the environment failed to increase, that would mean the CO2 levels would reach 720 ppm in 250 years. That would also mean that humans would need to double their carbon based energy use every 50 years. In 250 years, we still would not have a CO2 level that would be harmful to humans!!!
CO2 is an important green house gas only if there is no water vapor in the air (dry air). You seem to have a reasonable approach to many topics discussed here likely because you take the time to understand the issues before commenting. Please take the time to read the references other have provided otherwise, you will be considered just another Chicken Little crying that the sky is falling!
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
.”
@Randy:
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, independent of water vapor:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect-advanced.htm
Humans are responsible for the massive rise in atmospheric CO2:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions-intermediate.htm
Regarding the (totally overlooked) potential medical effects of rising CO2:
You state:
This is not correct. When you say “react” (and I presume that you are some sort of HVAC engineer, or whatever; please correct me if I’m wrong), you are talking about relatively gross and acute reactions, such as significantly increased respiratory rate and things such as “sick building syndrome,” e.g.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10649857
n.b. note that this massive meta-analysis cited studies where detectable effects were observed in some subjects at ppm of 800 or below. Yes, I understand that such effect are owing to many things in addition to the possible contribution of pCO2, itself.
But what I’m talking about are not gross/acute effects, I’m talking about the cumulative, long term (as in a lifetime) effects produced by stressing the body’s acid/base buffer system through a rise in ambient CO2.
The body must maintain pH in a very narrow range (around 7.4). It does this with a buffer system based on CO2 and as described by the famous Henderson-Hasselbalch equation:
pH ~ HCO3- / PaCO2 <– (the clinical approximation, for simplicity)
Additional buffers include ammonia, phosphate, and proteins, e.g. hemoglobin.
PaCO2 is the concentration of CO2 in the alveoli, which is obviously affected by the concentration in the inspired air. Raising PaCO2 (through reduced ventilation or through increasing ambient atmospheric CO2) lowers the pH, which means raising the acidity. This must be buffered. On a chronic basis, what happens is that the kidney reabsorbs more bicarbonate, excretes more hydrogen ion, generates more bicarbonate, and generates more ammonia.
Ammonia is a reactive compound. Combined with environmental pollutants, it can form carcinogens, e.g. trihalomethanes http://des.nh.gov/organization/commissioner/pip/factsheets/ard/documents/ard-ehp-13.pdf
The "dose" is certainly small, but tiny doses of mutagens present over a lifetime can and do cause potentially serious health problems.
The truth is, we have no idea whatsoever what will be the result of humans living a lifetime with levels of ambient CO2 never before existing during the presence of homo sapiens on this planet. I don't expect that there will be a mass extinction, but it certainly could cause an increase in certain forms of cancer, in people with genetic vulnerabilities or in the presence of co-carcinogens. Perhaps it could have a deleterious effect on sperm count. Perhaps certain animal species would have even greater vulnerability.
In point of fact, we don't know. We don't even have a clue. I've called it the greatest human guinea-pig experiment in the history of the world, and it is the opposite of conservative to allow it to continue.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Larry, I have been working as an environmental scientist for more than 30 years. I have a BS and a MS in the field. My Doctorate is in Management/leadership. My course work was heavy into chemistry with emphasis on chemicals that affect people.
You tell me that water in the atmosphere is not relevant when it is the major green house gas at 4% of the atmosphere. (CO2 being only .036%) You also tell me that man made CO2 remains in the atmosphere for long periods of time. What about the 96.6% of the CO2 that is produce by nature? Is manmade CO2 different than natural produced CO2? Did you read the IPCC linc I provided that showed the CO2 cycle?
The difficulty with understanding AGW or climate change is that we have an inner need to simplifying issues to better understand them. That is what the climate modelers have done by averaging cloud cover and water vapor concentrations instead of actually determining how clouds and water content of the atmosphere changes with warming and cooling. All of your illnesses to humans are prefaced with a perhaps, no facts.
There are too many unanswered questions by the AGW theorists who blame CO2 for AGW. Scientific processes require a skeptical approach. You should be skeptical until they can prove their theories. Why do you think the climategate email that asked Mann to “hide the decline” in falling world temperatures? Was that an ethical request? Or, was that a request to hide the decline of the temperature so the grants continue to flow?
When you argue with me, you are looking at the wrong place. You should not be trying to show I am in error. You should be looking at the whole AGW theory with a skeptical eye. I am just raising issues that many others have already raised. There are too many questions that AGW warmist can not answer. Have you read the skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg? He lists the many predictions that have been made in the past by many of the AGW supporters that have failed to come true. Are you willing to bet trillions of tax dollars on proven frauds? I am not. I want a reasonable explanation that stands up under scrutiny.
@randy: You are putting words in my mouth that I didn’t say and you are ignoring what I am saying.
I never said that water in the atmosphere is not relevant. And I did read and understand the IPCC link you provided. But my links provided a rebuttal to your assertions. Atmospheric CO2 is rising at unprecedented, massive rates because everything else is in equilibrium, over geological time scales, but what has changed is the very recent and massive release of carbon into the atmosphere, which has previously been sequestered for hundreds of millions of years. Only 40% of the newly released carbon gets buffered (and the buffering effect is now being diminushed as the ocean warms, which reduces CO2 solubility in water). So the net effect is to raise CO2 and this rise in CO2 is — without any controversy whatsoever — of human origin.
It is controversial whether or not this rise is responsible for the observed warming of the last century, but it is not controversial that CO2 is rising and that humans are the cause of this rise.
Another of my links directly addressed the issue of the relative greenhouse effects of CO2 and water vapor and showed that CO2, again, has a substantial effect.
So my statements were entirely true and supportable.
It is beyond controversy that (1) CO2 is going up at unprecedented rates, (2) humans are the cause for this, and (3) CO2 is an important greenhouse gas. I’ll now add that it’s also relatively non-controversial that there has been significant warming during the period when CO2 has been going up and it’s becoming less controversial that this warming did NOT end in 1998!
What I entirely agree with (and so stated, in my earlier comments on this thread) is that it hasn’t been proven beyond reasonable doubt that CO2 is directly responsible for the observed warming and it’s unclear what will be the climate effect of further CO2 accumulation. But the preponderance of evidence is at least consistent with this hypothesis and the converse has certainly NOT been proven (that the rise in CO2 is definitely not an important contributor to the observed warming). Alec Rawls made a good point, which I’ll address on the other thread, but his point only makes a plausible case for his alternative theory; it doesn’t come close to proving it.
With respect to scientific misconduct, the East Anglia episode has been extensively and transparently investigated, with the conclusion being that there was nothing of substance which cast into question any of the important evidence supporting the CO2/warming hypothesis. In any event, the so-called “decline” is non-existent, based on longer follow-up. There’s nothing to hide. Global temperatures continue to rise, accounting for natural variations owing to El Nino effects, etc.
With respect to the medical concerns I raised, of course, there’s “no proof,” and it’s currently only a “perhaps.” It’s abundantly clear that smoking causes lung cancer, yet it literally took decades of work to demonstrate this very straightforward and clear relationship. Teasing out health effects from atmospheric changes which produce only nanomolar changes in the chemical composition of the body could easily take a century of focused, intense research, were anyone to actually attempt to undertake it. But the chemistry is real (although, when I discussed this at 2:30 AM last night, I had a bit of a brain fart. Going back about a dozen years, I’ve been writing about the potential hazards (including carcinogenicity) of chlorinated swimming pool water, e.g.
Anyway, the compound I meant to offer as an example of what could accumulate as a result of breathing increased CO2 over a lifetime was trihaloamine (e.g. trichloroamine), rather than trihalomethane (or trichloromethane).
I do stand by my statement that this is the greatest human guinea pig experiment in the history of the world, affecting virtually every inhabitant of the planet.
Now, given the above, what’s reasonable to do?
1. Continue research, both atmospheric and medical.
2. I agree with the suggestion of the lawyer in the “cross examination” that it’s better to spend money on data collection than on computer modeling.
3. Thank your local Californian for supporting the crucial economic research, which is required to make informed decisions regarding government actions to reduce CO2 emissions. Will ratifying the Kyoto Treaty really lead to economic Armageddon (as so many “deniers” have asserted)? We’ll actually have the chance to find out, thanks to California.
The rest of you, just kick back, chill, and enjoy the safety of your SUVs.
We’ll let you all know how it works out, with us.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Tell you what Larry. You act like a true scientist instead of a religous convert for the nexr month. You look up the effects that the Kyoto protocal would have had on the world if it limited CO2 in developed countries but not undeveloped countries. It restricted industrial activity in developed countries where there are restrictive environmental regulations, but it put no restrictions on undeveloped countries.
Scour the internet for quotes for attendees at the Cancun AGW meeting recently. Find the quotes where the attendees stated that the real reason for the AGW initiative was to spread the wealth around. Does that sounf like anyone we know?
Then take a skeptical look at the data that AGW theorists provide. Make sure their data proves their assumptions. Yes, we should thank California for driving their state into bankruptcy. On the way, you may look at the lessons that Spain learned too late as they subsidized green energy.
I have done all of this. You take my posts as opinion with no basis. Let’s talk after you do some real scientific literature research.
@Randy:
Where have I acted like “a religious convert?”
What I asserted is that (1) CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing at unprecedented rates, (2) this increase is anthropogenic, (3) CO2 is an important greenhouse gas, (4) global temperatures are increasing, and (5) the first 3 assertions are without controversy and (6) assertion #4 is, by now, almost without controversy. What remains controversial is whether (1), (2), and (3) are the chief cause of (4). In order to answer the controversy, more research is needed and this research should emphasize data collection over computer modeling.
I have, additionally, correctly noted that the (uncontroversial) rise in CO2, to levels previously unknown in the history of the evolution of homo sapiens, produces clear (if small) changes in body chemistry and that the long term consequences of these changes are completely unknown. I have offered my opinion that this the largest human guinea pig experiment in history and that research into this aspect of the problem is needed, as well.
I have noted that the voters in the state of California have voluntarily voted — twice — to effectively ratify the Kyoto Treaty within the borders of the state, by virtue of establishing tough CO2 emissions limits. It’s our right to do so, and our experience will be of value to the nation.
How does this make me a “religious convert?”
There are many valid reasons for limiting carbon consumption, which have nothing to do with possible climate change. In the 1980 Presidential election, Republican-turned-Independent John Anderson made a 50 cent per gallon increase to the federal gas tax the cornerstone of his economic platform. This was at a time when gasoline sold for only $1.25 per gallon.
So if it bothers you that California ratified Kyoto, maybe you could just think of it as California ratifying John Anderson.
By the way, rumors of California’s bankruptcy have been greatly exaggerated. Our state debt (as a function of GDP) ranks 23rd. Alaska’s is #2. Montana’s is #10. http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/268.html
We pay 10.5% of our income in state and local taxes. In the nation as a whole, it’s 9.7%. in “no tax” Texas, it’s actually 8.4%. But our per capita income is much higher than it is in Texas; so we take home more.
And then there’s this:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-truth-about-california-2010-11-22?pagenumber=2
And now we have volunteered to be the guinea pigs for seeing what happens when you actually introduce meaningful carbon curbs.
By the way, 50% of all venture capital in the USA goes to a single state with only 11% of the nation’s population. California. VCs vote with their own money. They have a very good track record with respect to predicting the economic future.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA