I watched Al Gore’s Inconvenient Sequel and I was not impressed. But before I review it I’ll disclose my biases.

I’m of the opinion that there is some global warming but that we have more time to fix it than some alarmists would have you believe. There is no tipping point and the Earth isn’t going to turn into Venus. But putting pollution into the air is a bad idea and anything that reduces that is a good thing.

While I applaud those who generally increase environmental awareness I’m also a scientific purist and lying about science is worse than the benefits of stirring up environmentalists.

I also think it’s worthless to just talk about problems without talking about solutions. The “what are we going to do to fix it” is the most important part.

And, as you all know, the real hero in the environmental movement is Elon Musk who started Solarcity, the world’s biggest solar installer, the guy who made the electric car practical, and is now developing grid storage technology and building the world’s largest batter factory.

Having said that, here’s my review.

I found the new Gore movie as a self serving piece to position Al Gore as the center of the climate change movement. This movie has very little to do with science and everything to do with fanning the culture war. I think Gore is using this movie to position himself for a run for president in 2020 and is trying to use this movie to take credit for things he had nothing to do with.

The movie was full of misleading information. There was a scene about some Florida road being flooded and implied that sea levels had risen to cover the road, but didn’t actually say that. He also shows, as you can see in the trailer, that there was flooding of the World Trade Center memorial during Hurricane Sandy, and implies that this is proof of sea level rise. But considering the memorial is just a few blocks from the ocean one can easily see where during a hurricane there might be some water running into the hole. And that’s just plain dishonest.

Unlike the original movie which provided some useful scientific information that was maybe 2/3rds correct, this movie provides no new useful information about science and is mostly misleading. The subject of the movie is about spreading political hatred and has nothing to do with solving environmental problems.

The movie seems to imply that you can reverse climate change by voting against it. But the way it really works is that geniuses working in labs and experimenting for years develop the technologies for solar, wind, batteries, and electric cars necessary to actually create a method to give up burning things for energy. Governments can create tax incentives and fund research to fund the development of cleaner technologies, but government can’t actually do much more that creating a favorable environment.

The bottom line, while encouraging people to care about the environment is a good thing, doing it in a misleading manner is a bad thing. Al Gore’s movie is all about Al Gore and like Trump and other politicians he is exploiting the culture war for political purposes. And in culture war politics Democrats always lose. Democrats need to clean house and run on issues of substance and Gore is not the guy for that rile.

This movie isn’t going to make anyone smarter but is going to just create needless anger that is more likely going to hurt the environmental movement than help. So I’m giving it a thumbs down. If you watch the above trailer you’ve seen the movie.

Me and Al Gore 1996.



  1. bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Devo? says:

    NewFormatSux demonstrating the need for a basic course in reading/thinking comprehension says:
    8/11/2017 at 6:29 pm

    1. Cheaper now, cheaper soon, means no or little lag time. /// Yes…it sets a timing relationship of need vs provision. Is it cheap ENOUGH, or soon ENOUGH. Gee….nfs, you came so close. Lets call this a building block recognition and give you a few more experiences to build on.

    2. Again, DECADES of inaction is irrelevant, according to the science. /// No. Inaction allows the need to increase and the provision time to decrease. Imagine being late to a party. You can be more or less late. Being less late is better. Inaction in action.

    3. It’s the end result of how much CO2 that matters. ///Correct….and to repeat whats been said…what will matter for which a Moon Shot is required is the new technologies to reduce its continued increase of co2 in the atmosphere, or the new technologies o remove it from the atmosphere, or the new technologies to reflect incoming cosmic rays.

    Here’s a fun question: How many carbon cycles are there?

    Extra Credit: Does it matter if the German Nuclear Industry doesn’t like them?

    • Hmeyers says:

      You’ll have more to fear from nuclear fallout.

      The fat North Korean video game addict dude is going to launch a nuke.

      • bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Devo? says:

        Yeah…..we need a thread on that.

        Everyone but Trump (and Me) seems to think a diplomatic response is the only appropriate one….ie: continue to let NK have and test an ICBM eventually one that can reach USA.

        My own unique insight: NK only needs one easy to deliver ICBM to deliver an EMP. One missle set off 500 miles above USA: doesn’t need to be accurate, doesn’t need to re-enter the atmosphere===aka: the easiest kind of Nuke to deliver. Wipes out the electronics of all the USA except Alaska and Hawaii and hardened Military equipment and Canada.

        NK of course denies responsibility.

        What next……….and why as USA/world economy …. actual structure……goes down the tubes?

      • bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Devo? says:

        NK NUKES USA===>what should the response be?

        Kinda a nice question for a clean and sober Sunday Morning?

        So …….what if Nk launches 4 or more Missiles that land “near” Guam? Or a month later one Nuke Missile wipes out Guam???…….. Or one year from Now….a NK Nuke ICBM takes out Hawaii or Alaska or other USA real estate?

        Or…..my worst case easier to do: a NK EMP takes out all of continental USA.

        ………………………………….. what SHOULD the USA do in Response????????? …………………………………

        The damage is……….done?

        ALL the talking heads say any Nuke by NK will result in its annihilation……………. why? I mean, indeed, that is likely…. but why? On a first use…..MAD has failed……. so what to do when faced with “reality.” Retaliate for what national goals?

        I suppose so that NK or others won’t Nuke us “again” is a good sound reason. Hmmmm…. hate it when I answer my own questions.

  2. NewFormatSux says:

    > the new technologies to reduce its continued increase of co2 in the atmosphere, or the new technologies o remove it from the atmosphere, or the new technologies to reflect incoming cosmic rays.

    If the renewables are going to be cheaper or are cheaper now(something I don’t believe), then these technologies are not needed. Other countries will flock to renewable energy since it is cheaper. These other countries are where 70 percent of the emissions are, which is currently rising. If they are adopting what you claim is the cheaper tech, then you have just solved the problem. Granted even a 70 percent cut does not solve global warming, you would still need a 50 percent cut on top of that and maybe 2/3, but presumably Europe and US would join in.

    • bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Just Sit Down Comics? says:

      Read up on lag time.

      Report back showing you can read.

      • NewFormatSux says:

        Lag time would be relevant for something like Marc’s tumor(3 weeks til update?). The world does not have a CO2 budget, that if it reaches a certain level we are in an emergency situation. It will take at least 50 years to reach a doubling to 560PPM. Even this doubling would produce 1.5-4.5C of warming according to IPCC, with no best estimate produced in the latest report. Various studies show the best estimate should be on the low end of that range(probably why the alarmists left out the best estimate).
        Even this warming would not happen immediately(2065). It would take time for the planet to adjust to the CO2 level and reach a new equilibrium. Now according to you, in the meantime, renewables are already cheaper or will by by 2030 let’s say(you make it sound like it is much sooner than this). So countries everywhere are ditching coal and even natural gas and going fossil free. So now you have also extended the timeline to reach 560PPM CO2, the new equilibrium will take even longer to appear. With more renewables coming in, the CO2 level will take even longer to reach 560, and it could possible not happen, and the CO2 level will even drop.

        • bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Just Sit Down Comics? says:

          Congrats……..you are improving. You just have the science and the effects “minimized” at the different concentration levels. You also don’t appreciate that as the co2/temp goes up, the known and unknown feedback systems that can increase the warming trends become more prevalent and tenacious.

          Many experts say the long term effects of co2 at only 350ppm and 1 Degree temp rise are “bad enough” and if we went to ZERO carbon loading right now…….it would take 50 years for the “carbon cycle” (remember that question?) to clean whats already built up in the atmosphere.

          No….you don’t “get” the impact of 4 Degree temp rise: at a minimum 10K’s of people dying from heat exhaustion every year…10K’s dying from tropical diseases….100K’s dying of starvation from dislocation…. etc.

          500K dead in Syria the past 5 years….many experts putting this at the effect of long term drought forcing people off farms into the city and revolution.

          It somewhat depends…… on what you think.

          • NewFormatSux says:

            Lots of people die from heat exhaustion in Europe where they raised the price of electricity so much they can’t afford AC(or get it shut off at peak usage). Most of that is just scaremongering. Plus, 4K temp rise is unlikely.What you say is baked in at 350 PPM, would be just a 25% increase in CO2 from 280, which is just 1/3 of a doubling.
            400 PPM, the current level is half of a doubling. To get 4K you would need at least 8/9 of a doubling which is 520 PPM, and that is if you use the IPCC upper range estimate. If you use the last IPCC best estimate, you need 4/3 of a doubling which is 700 PPM. If you use the 1.64C from a Nic Lewis paper that used IPCC methods on IPCC numbers in the last report, you need 1500 PPM. Using IPCC low range estimate, you need 1800 PPM.

            And again you would have ‘lag time’ after you reach that PPM level to get the 4C of warming.

          • bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Just Sit Down Comics? says:

            Link.

        • bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Just Sit Down Comics? says:

          NFS demonstrating entrenched stupidity and wilful ignorance says:

          “With more renewables coming in, the CO2 level will take even longer to reach 560, and it could possible not happen, and the CO2 level will even drop.”

          Simply: deplorable.

          • NewFormatSux says:

            Simply: true.

            All dependent on the assumption that you are correct about renewables being cheaper(at scale).

            You have to pick one or the other. Moon shot needed or renewables are cheaper. Both cannot be true. Or you can take an offramp and say global warming is not a big deal.

  3. bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Just Sit Down Comics? says:

    Headline Says: “Anger over ‘untrue’ climate change claims” and I was anxious to read another Algore exaggeration shot down.

    Sadly…..its the same old Denier BS debunked once again. ie: Its not getting cooler.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40899188

    although, such a claim is very close to saying: “its not getting as warm as fast as they say.”

    …………………Its a matter of degree???? ((Love it when I crack myself up.))

  4. bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Just Sit Down Comics? says:

    Stuck on Stupid NewFormatSux says:
    8/14/2017 at 9:08 am

    1. Simply: true. /// A number of different topics covered, so this is a bit vague, however, since you have shown improvement and you do read (some or defectively) some of the resources out there, and you have linked to some of the authorities….I’ll give a fully explanation. Not for “you” per se but for the too many who think too much like you but may still be salvageable.

    2. All dependent on the assumption that you are correct about renewables being cheaper (at scale). //// The cost of renewables, or even of fossil fuels, only goes to the “ease” of the required transition, or the cost of it, which together may act as a measure of the lag time that will exist under different funding alternatives. IE: just allow the market to control, or what kind of governmental incentives should be included? Not just on installing Green, but also in how New Tech Experimentation is funded/researched and so forth. The issues driving the need to do so don’t change at all.

    3. You have to pick one or the other. Moon shot needed or renewables are cheaper. Both cannot be true. //// You know, NFS…this really doesn’t make any sense at all. Whatever the cost of different solutions is….a Moon Shot is only meant to speed that reality up. Make whatever change is coming on its own come a bit faster because the government is funding/encouraging different aspects of it. The Moon Shot meme also has an element of Public Education and multi-disciplinary support for the Shot. Not just funding, but education and public awareness tuned to supporting activities. Charities on point encouraged to contribute and so forth. In essence, a Moon Shot or a “War” is declared so that all available resources are brought to bear. A simple concept really…. why don’t you get it?

    4. Or you can take an offramp and say global warming is not a big deal. /// Absent some New Tcch or HUGE FUNDING (say for carbon removal or carbon negative technologies…my favorite is turning co2 into some part of cement or plastics) our society is already going to face huge perhaps unsurmountable challenges brought on not so much by the warming directly, but by warmings direct and indirect consequences……like rising sea level, higher sea level temps perhaps changing the ocean flow and the weather/climate therefrom, ocean acidity, droughts and floods, migration of species north and upslope bringing new and resurgent diseases and so forth. This is already unavoidable because of the lag time. Lag Time: if we stopped putting co2 in the atmosphere totally…….temps would continue to increase because the carbon in the air right now has changed the albedo level of the Earth. Now, its childish the way you say that cheaper solar might cause 550ppm or 4 C levels not to be reached as if that was any kind of salvation at all. Well……..it is…….a salvation from 600ppm or 6 C….but what kind of salvation is it when you still get killed off? All depends on what you mean to say???

    Like government accounting…..there is no tread established right now that will stop co2 from increasing in the atmosphere. The Paris Accords set targets that only reduce the INCREASING amounts of co2 into the atmosphere. It doesn’t set levels to reduce the absolute amount. Ie: we are still on fast track to….. doom.

    DOOM: another nonsense trope that the same temps and sea levels have been experienced before. Thats true….but that before did not include 7 Billion people most of them living near the sea shore and requiring complex systems of support. Its that “support” that is going to be impacted/destroyed leading directly to a population/civilization crash…….and indeed the Earth will return to what it was before: no cities.

    No problem in your book?

  5. bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Just Sit Down Comics? says:

    NewFormatSux says:
    8/14/2017 at 9:19 am

    1 . Lots of people die from heat exhaustion in Europe /// Nice you can so cavalierly dismiss 40K deaths last year attributed to AGW. (sic! as to causation). How many millions will it take to become a concern for you? 500K from civil war in Syria is likewise dismissed if anything else can be blamed???

    2. where they raised the price of electricity so much they can’t afford AC(or get it shut off at peak usage). /// Yes…lots of lag time to put in place the technology needed to avoid the direct consequences of increased temps. ….Heh, heh….. and lag time doesn’t even start when you deny the issue.

    2. Most of that is just scaremongering. //// Yeah…increased deaths/discomfort/illness: just scaremongering. And to be fair…….the opposite is????

    3. Plus, 4K temp rise is unlikely. /// IIRC: “right now” its “most likely or highly likely===terms defined by the IPCC as to their probability based on extensive review of the cause and effect elements understood.

    4. What you say is baked in at 350 PPM, would be just a 25% increase in CO2 from 280, which is just 1/3 of a doubling.
    400 PPM, the current level is half of a doubling. To get 4K you would need at least 8/9 of a doubling which is 520 PPM, and that is if you use the IPCC upper range estimate. If you use the last IPCC best estimate, you need 4/3 of a doubling which is 700 PPM. If you use the 1.64C from a Nic Lewis paper that used IPCC methods on IPCC numbers in the last report, you need 1500 PPM. Using IPCC low range estimate, you need 1800 PPM. /// I could find the most recent IPCC reports or the charts and graphs published to show the probable temp changes based on different assumed carbon loading…but we would be talking at cross purposes. What resource are you using for this analysis?

    LINKS………are so important to any informed discussion. Please provide. Of note….the Paris Accords pretty much admits that even with their standards “met” which no one thinks would happen…2 Degrees Celsius or 4 Degrees Fahrenheit is to be expects (forget “when” which is the lag time?). You do fully appreciate that 2 or 4 degrees is just the “average” and that Max Temp Records are being broken almost every month? Lots of plants/animals can’t take 1-2-3-4-5-6 days of extreme temps. But you don’t care/notice/believe that 40K deaths from a high temp spike is anything but scaremongering? Ha, ha……obviously untrue: you aren’t scared. Just the opposite in fact: comatose.

    5. And again you would have ‘lag time’ after you reach that PPM level to get the 4C of warming. /// Correct….which is only a timing issue that doesn’t affect the “concern” that should be present.

  6. NewFormatSux says:

    > multi-disciplinary support for the Shot.

    Yes that’s how I interpreted moonshot, but surprisingly found no dictionary support for this. This is contradictory to the idea that renewables are cheaper now or cheaper soon. If this is true, the problem takes care of itself and there is nothing to worry about.
    You speak of no more emissions would guarantee higher CO2 levels. That is false, I think you meant higher temperatures. Still the amount higher would be low and not 4C. I was referring you to IPCC numbers. They produced an estimate of ECS of 1.5-4.5C. The rest of the numbers are based on a simple formula.
    The ECS is per doubling of CO2 levels. I used start point of 280 PPM, a frequently used number that is CO2 level at some point in history that preceded the current global warming caused by man.
    So everytime you double CO2 level, 560 would be the first doubling, you get one ECS worth of temperature gain. For intermediate numbers you have to use logarithms to calculate.
    400 /280 is about the square root of two, so we are at half a doubling now(ln(400/280)/ln(2)=.5). All the numbers follow from that.
    The 1.64C comes from a paper by Nic Lewis. He later updated the numbers to account for some aerosol study that came out, but the updated numbers would not be consistent with what is in the IPCC report.

    • bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Just Sit Down Comics? says:

      Yeah, the dictionary typically defines single words rather than muti-word “concepts.”

      “…..”moonshots,” ideas that live in the “gray area between audacious projects and pure science fiction….” //// that has a nice nuance to it…fully intended.

      http://openculture.com/2012/02/solve_for_x_google_presents_moonshot_thinking_in_short_ted-style_talks.html

      re the math: I agree, zero additional fossil fuel burning means zero increase in co2 (except for the additional co2 released due to the continued warming…but that really is a different process and concern)….from fossil fuel sources. I’ll let you do the math where indicated to correct my misstatement.

  7. NewFormatSux says:

    >there is no tread established right now that will stop co2 from increasing in the atmosphere.

    Misunderstood this as emissions halt would continue to increase CO2. However, this is contradicted by your claim that renewables are cheaper. That is the trend right there that would stop CO2 from increasing. You make all these doom and gloom statements that are contradicted by what follows from cheaper renewables. Sounds like you don’t believe your own claims.

    • bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Just Sit Down Comics? says:

      No “trend” which you got. Many countries making Paris promises agreed to a goal in 20 years of achieving the co2 that they contrubuted in a base year…I think 2009 or when Kyoto was agree to. See that? NOT a goal of achieving zero co2 contribution or more important to remove co2 from the atmosphere. A few countries did pledge zero emission by some year……….USA pledged to withdraw and to make coal burning great again.

      So………no trend established, even if goals reached, which they won’t, to do anything except reduce the increase of co2.

      5th time: co2 pollution has no direct relationship to cost of renewables. I think I explained why quite well above. Read it until the shit drains from between your ears.

      • NewFormatSux says:

        Of course they are related. Renewables don’t contribute CO2. People will buy cheaper energy. So if renewables are cheaper, people will emit no CO2. If renewables are not cheaper, they will buy other energy that emits CO2.
        The Paris Accord trends are not set in stone. If renewables are cheaper, then those numbers are irrelevant. China pledged to peak emissions in 2030. They will increase as much as they want until then, even building coal plants to sell energy to Europe when they reduce their own emissions.

        But if renewables are cheaper, the inventors of the abacus will not be spending more money for energy. So China’s commitment to peak in 2030 will end up being a reduction.

        • bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Just Sit Down Comics? says:

          Among 50 other errors:

          ” So if renewables are cheaper, people will emit no CO2.” ===yes….. WHEN they make the conversion. Once you decide to do it, then the time it takes before you actually do it is lag time. Then, the time it takes for the temp increase to stop is another lag time. then, the time for the co2 and temps to decrease are two more lag times.

          its all about the lag times. Kinda like when you stick your head into the oven and turn on the gas………you don’t die immediately. There is lag time.

          Or………..like when you went to school and learned how to read? Lag time before you will properly understand anything you actually read. This may not be a case of actual lag time…..might be an anal blockage.

          • NewFormatSux says:

            If you have switched to fully renewable, CO2 will start dropping immediately. The ongoing temperature increase is not going to produce enough CO2 from Henry’s Law to balance the CO2 that gets taken out every year by Nature.
            The ‘baked in’ temperature increase is not that much per the formula above. half a doubling of CO2, means 1/2 ECS. IF renewables are cheaper, the ‘lag time’ will not be that high. Getting to even 500 PPM would be in doubt. This is because it’s not a binary, at some point you have 100% renewables and before that you are constantly emitting large amounts of CO2. The CO2 annual emissions will decrease as will the rate of increase in CO2 levels. We are currently gaining 3 PPM per year. If this continues, you are talking about 30+ years to get to 500 PPM. If these renewables are coming online then the annual CO2 increase will start dropping, stretching out the 30+years to even more, during which time the annual CO2 increase keeps dropping.
            Let’s say 10 years, 30 PPM
            2030 440 PPM.
            2040 465 PPM
            2050 480 PPM
            2060 485 PPM
            then starts to drop.
            .8 doublings. Even at 4.5C, we are looking at 3.6C, of which only 2.2 C is realized(transient climate response is 60% of ECS).
            And that is really a worst case scenario- I used 4.5C, and a very high level of CO2 increase which is not consistent with countries flocking to renewables. Just look how a small price difference has lowered US CO2 emissions over the last five years as it switched to natural gas.

          • bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Just Sit Down Comics? says:

            FSN demonstrating the FOG in which Science Deniers establish their faulty conclusions says:
            8/15/2017 at 9:18 am

            1. If you have switched to fully renewable, CO2 will start dropping immediately. /// VERY IMPORTANT to note the “construct” of your argument here: all conclusion, no detail on which to “falsify” the conclusion desired. SCIENCE = advancing knowledge by making falsifiable claims. “Immediately” actually is “wrong.” Better would be to say “soon” or some other vague and satisfying characteristic. How immediate? Days…. Years… Decades? Heh, heh…..unless Immediate…which I would allow several weeks maybe even months to be accurate enough…what we are dealing with here is LAG TIME…aka one or more of the Various Carbon Cycles. //// Hmmm….yes… immediately plants will continue turning co2 into cellulose and removing it from the atmosphere….but the feed back loop here of decay and decomposition returns co2 to the atmosphere. Which one is in ascendance if fossil burning is totally stopped? I don’t know. My own attitude would be that Plant Sequestration/Release cycle is just about balanced?……or at least no observable effect for Decades?

            2. The ongoing temperature increase is not going to produce enough CO2 from Henry’s Law to balance the CO2 that gets taken out every year by Nature. /// Again…rather than just make a conclusionary statement==>what are the exact numbers? The ancient release of co2 from temp increase was enough for you and others to claim that was the actual cause and effect relationship…. but now you flip because in the FOG you produce thats what you want to think. I won’t use the same argument and say: “Yes it does.” I require “the numbers.” So should you.

            3. The ‘baked in’ temperature increase is not that much per the formula above. /// What formula? LINK. Application?????

            4. half a doubling of CO2, means 1/2 ECS. IF renewables are cheaper, the ‘lag time’ will not be that high. /// Again, conclusionary vague unfalsifiable FOG.

            5. Getting to even 500 PPM would be in doubt. This is because it’s not a binary, at some point you have 100% renewables and before that you are constantly emitting large amounts of CO2. The CO2 annual emissions will decrease as will the rate of increase in CO2 levels. We are currently gaining 3 PPM per year. If this continues, you are talking about 30+ years to get to 500 PPM. If these renewables are coming online then the annual CO2 increase will start dropping, stretching out the 30+years to even more, during which time the annual CO2 increase keeps dropping.
            Let’s say 10 years, 30 PPM
            2030 440 PPM.
            2040 465 PPM
            2050 480 PPM
            2060 485 PPM
            then starts to drop.
            .8 doublings. Even at 4.5C, we are looking at 3.6C, of which only 2.2 C is realized(transient climate response is 60% of ECS). //// These are all: SYLLOGISMS…. or hypotheticals … or assumption driven logical propositions. “If……… then …….” They are all fine to set parameters on which to evaluate a proposition… but they don’t provide DEFINITE answers. Heres another syllogims: “What if the ppm/year doubles itself?”

            CONTRA: I do like you are into the Science of the issue by noticing and remarking that the average ppm gain is 3 meaning 30 years to get to doubling at 550. This gives us a “structure” to evaluate/falsify. I’ll finish this response and then go find the IPCC report of the ppm gain trend lines. The chart I’m thinking of pretty much lays this all out in one pretty picture.

            6. And that is really a worst case scenario- I used 4.5C, and a very high level of CO2 increase which is not consistent with countries flocking to renewables. //// IIRC 4.5 is not the worst reasonable case at all. The chart will tell us.

            7. Just look how a small price difference has lowered US CO2 emissions over the last five years as it switched to natural gas. /// Yes…while co2 levels continue to mount: no Moon Shot using the fossil fuel of Nat Gas. This is an entirely market driven cost driven development……… assuming the LIES REGARDING METHANE RELEASE are ignored. And… thats a whole different but related subject: can we really ignore Methane because of its “short” life cycle in the atmosphere? I tend to think “yes” because it has been noted by ignored by the IPCC and others….. unless a massive release from the perma frost/coastal underwater frozen reserves is activated. We’ve been looking/focused/fixated on carbon…. I hope that is the right decision.

            Show me the numbers….. not your conclusions.

  8. bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Just Sit Down Comics? says:

    I did find the chart I was thinking about….but got diverted by another chart from Yale that gives more information, so I’m switching to it as the IPCC is uniformly more difficult (for me) to understand the plain English of.

    “In the IPCC’s most pessimistic scenario, where the population booms, technology stagnates, and emissions keep rising, the atmosphere gets to a startling 2,000 ppm by about 2250. (All the IPCC scenarios presume that mankind’s impact on the atmosphere levels out by 2300.) That gives us an atmosphere last seen during the Jurassic when dinosaurs roamed, and causes an apocalyptic temperature rise of perhaps 9 degrees C (16°F).”

    On StarTalk, Neil DeGrasse Tyson obliquely made this point: if all the fossil fuels possible to get to were burned then the atmostphere would return to the Jurassic Period because all that carbon was in the atmosphere at that time. His point was that Earth would not become a Venus like planet. For you curious Science Deniers: no…putting that much carbon into the atmosphere would NOT bring back the dinosaurs.

    Looking at the chart of note…. the actual to date measurements right now follow the curve of the lower levels of RCP8.5==the worst case scenario. ==>Its the last chart on the link. It could hook downward to the less impactful curves…but why would it? “Most people” on Earth cannot afford the initial capital investments to use solar. Most people are not Americans, or bloggers. Can you believe 10% of people around the world heat their homes and cook their food with cow dung? ………I know. 25% use wood. The ability to go solar…… its a very white/privileged notion……… if “we” don’t lead the way.

    https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-the-world-passed-a-carbon-threshold-400ppm-and-why-it-matters

  9. bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Just Sit Down Comics? says:

    My newsfeed provided a timely article:

    “Why sea levels around Finland and Sweden are dropping while the rest of the world is drowning”

    http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/climate/sea-level-drop-scandinavia-43423/

    Several years ago, think I read something similar (post-glacier uplift) happening around the Great Lakes. More complex is how ocean currents can bunch up or reduce water levels at different areas around the world.

    Everything is more complex…. if you actually study the subject. If you haven’t actually studied the subject (ie, more than a business journal article about the evils of shutting down Nuke or Coal Plants)…. what you “know” is probably mostly wrong.

    As we see every day on this forum.

  10. bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Just Sit Down Comics? says:

    Eds: could you post that chart I reference on any of my posts? It does have pretty colors.

    …………………Fun. Haven’t googled AGW for quite some time. NewFogSucker has renewed my interest:

    Anyone can google (ipcc reasonable expected co2 level) and pick a subject of interest. I found:

    http://realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/how-much-co2-emission-is-too-much/ that touched upon several of our topics:

    “The next piece of the equation is to define “dangerous climate change”. This is a bit of a guessing game, but 2°C has been proposed as a reasonable danger limit. This would be decidedly warmer than the Earth has been in millions of years, and warm enough to eventually raise sea level by tens of meters. A warming of 2° C could be accomplished by raising CO2 to 450 ppm and waiting a century or so, assuming a climate sensitivity of 3 °C for doubling CO2, a typical value from models and diagnosed from paleo-data. Of the 450 ppm, 170 ppm would be from fossil fuels (given an original natural pCO2 of 280 ppm). 170 ppm equals 340 Gton C, which divided by the peak airborne fraction of 60% yields a total emission slug of about 570 Gton C.

    How much is 570 Gton C? We have already released about 300 Gton C, and the business-as-usual scenario projects 1600 Gton C total release by the year 2100. Avoiding dangerous climate change requires very deep cuts in CO2 emissions in the long term, something like 85% of business-as-usual averaged over the coming century. Put it this way and it sounds impossible. Another way to look at it, which doesn’t seem quite as intractable, is to say that the 200 Gton C that can still be “safely” emitted is roughly equivalent to the remaining traditional reserves of oil and natural gas. We could burn those until they’re gone, but declare an immediate moratorium on coal, and that would be OK, according to our defined danger limit of 2°C. ”

    ………and so forth. I’m left with one Moon Shot recognition: no reason at all for Big Fossil to continue Oil Exploration: it will have to be left in the ground. A Moon Shot effort the USA “should” undertake would be to stop issuing Deep Sea Exploration permits. How many more Blow Outs do we need for a product we shouldn’t be using to begin with?

    Know what I mean?

  11. NewFormatSux says:

    ? The ancient release of co2 from temp increase was enough for you and others to claim that was the actual cause and effect relationship….

    For the purposes of this discussion, I am using IPCC results. Topics like the above are the off-ramp I mentioned.

    You keep going back to all these scenarios. RPC 8.5 is an unrealistic scenario that involves Nigeria having a population close to one billion.

    However, all of these are contradicted by the base assumption that renewables are/shortly will be cheaper. You can’t then turn around and use a scenario of high CO2 growth to say the numbers are wrong, because you won’t have high CO2 growth!
    PPM CO2/ YEAR will not double under the scenario of cheap renewables, it will inevitably drop. You seem to be so wedded to the idea of doom and gloom and ‘moonshot’ that you don’t want to see it. The RPC 2.6 Scenario is what you should be looking at.

    To add to your errors- 4.5C is the worst case. It is not the temperature change, but the temperature change from a doubling of CO2. Your higher numbers in your link come from higher CO2 levels. 1000 PPM in RPC 8.5 is nearly two doublings. It also means that the current gain of 3 PPM/year will have to be 7 PPM/year for the rest of the century. I am highly skeptical of this.

    By immediate reduction of CO2, I did mean it literally. However, you are right that there are other factors, particularly a seasonal cycle in the CO2 curve. I meant if there were a switch to stop manmade CO2, CO2 level in the atmosphere would start decreasing instantly, but let’s say within a year. The natural behavior is to mop up some of the excess CO2, greening in the Sahara, ocean uptake, etc.
    A paper linked from one of your links discusses it, though it is focused more on how to get back to 280 PPM and declares a timeline of 10,000 years.

    • bobbo, we think with words and flower with Ideas says:

      Well done.

      ………………I started with a kneejerk against your 1 Billion for Nigeria……but a quick google showed that to be the case.

      More than One Billion in China and India right now…….what will deny Nigeria its One Billion?? Simply saying “that would be terrible” doesn’t really stop it from happening?

      But it led me to a good overall negative review of RPC 8.5 which while informative, actually misses the point as you do: ITS A SYLLOGISM. Every bit as valid as any other syllogism. EG: as the West goes Green and dips below replacement rate in population growth….why shouldn’t Africa go its dark ways? So……….. “if” ……….. “then.”

      Without looking, I’d also note that I stated the very low end of RPC 8.5 …and I assume 1 Billion for Nigeria is very high end………so you are switching apples for oranges there.

      ………Let’s check…………….. Nope………… still making an idiot connection between cost of renewables and the time to fully incorporate that technology. Why is that? xxxx but forget that……..what difference do you say it makes? =======>hmmmm, its worse than I thought: complete gibberish.

      So……(likelihood of RCP8.5).===its the high population low tech adoption scenario, AKA The Trump/Republican Plan. You say it can’t happen?

      We can only hope.

      • NewFormatSux says:

        No, I say it can’t happen if renewables are cheaper, which is your claim. To say it can happen is to say this high population is going to spend more money for energy, and in this case with an infrastructure that hasn’t been built yet. They’re going to survey the landscape and say we can go with the cheap stuff or the more expensive stuff that will make things hotter and maybe drown us, and they will pick option B.

        Your assumption is not consistent with the various scenarios as described.

        Moonshot or renewables are cheaper, you can’t claim both.

        • bobbo, we think with words and flower with Ideas says:

          NoF*ckingSense: 35% of people in the World Today HAVE NO MONEY. They have animal shit and scrub wood to heat their homes and cook their food. How do they pay for the cheapest alternative energy there is…. when they fight for dung?

          YOU sound like a stupid ass Republican: “Want healthcare? Go out and buy it. We’ll even give you a tax credit if you itemize.”

          Idiot.

          • NewFormatSux says:

            The RCP 8.5 scenario and all of the high warming scenarios assume they are going to be burning coal.

          • NewFormatSux says:

            It’s actually a hidden contradiction between the working groups of IPCC reports. Big problems for global warming impact these poor countries. However, to have big impact from global warming, you need lots of warming, and to get lots of warming you need lots of CO2, which comes from lots of energy production and economic development in these poor countries. It’s built into the scenario.
            Well with all this economic development, these countries aren’t as hard hit as before, they are now wealthy enough to adjust.

          • NewFormatSux says:

            If they are burning dung, then they are not a source of CO2 if you look at the full cycle. Again no problem there.

          • bobbo, we think with words and flower with Ideas says:

            Burning dung is carbon neutral. Yeah…I thought about that….I was over focused on the affordability non-sense you are stuck on.

            So……demonstrating its possible to correct a misstatement, even among the rabidly obsessed. On that point I was wrong. Same with scrub firewood.

            ……….but “affordability”…. still stands.

            Moonshot: making whatever you want to have happen: happen sooner. In most applications: by making what you want “even” cheaper and then allowing marketplace forces to take over.

            Has nothing to do with “cheaper” anything.

          • NewFormatSux says:

            >……….but “affordability”…. still stands.

            It’s irrelevant if the unaffordable thing emits more carbon than you are currently doing. Renewables aren’t truly CO2 emissions free so compared to life cycle neutral things like burning wood, they are worse as far as GHG is concerned.
            So the only need is to focus on people who are using fossil fuel energy, or will do so in the future.

            > “even” cheaper …
            Has nothing to do with “cheaper” anything.

            Hehe.
            You’re the one who says moonshot is necessary, and now you say it is merely making things a little cheaper and a little sooner. Those things are not necessary for avoiding dangerous global warming, assuming your claim of renewables are cheaper soon is true.

            Moonshot need or renewables are cheaper, you can’t have both.

          • bobbo, we think with words and flower with Ideas says:

            I mean this as purely analytical:

            You are an idiot.

          • NewFormatSux says:

            I think your analysis has made things crystal clear.

  12. Run 2 says:

    >there is no tread established right now that will stop co2 from increasing in the atmosphere. Eds: could you post that chart I reference on any of my posts? It does have pretty colors.


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