Best line by Noah: "you can't rely on modelers to tell you when to not use their models..."
Part of the reason we are surprised (not sure surprised is the right word) by the recent data showing a non linear acceleration in heat energy as well as numerous predicted conditions arriving 10-30 years earlier than estimated, is in great part due to the over-reliance on models. I love hearing a scientist say all models are wrong but some are useful and then 20 minutes later cite some modeling result as being scientifically or foundationally true. But to their defense, they are just human, and all humans are sloppy, flawed and often incorrect... but some of those humans are useful. :)
Based on this talk given by Nordhaus, I would definitely say that he agrees that global warming is a serious problem and we urgently need to being doing more to reduce emissions.
Nobel laureate William Nordhaus: The economics of climate change
Anthropogenic climate change is real and needs to be addressed. However, 4 to 5 billion people live in relative poverty in developing countries and I accept the Bjorn Lomborg thesis which states that we should be spending money helping these 4 or 5 billion people raise their standard of living so that they can adapt to climate change in the short to medium term by growing their economies without making the same mistakes made by developed countries. This thesis also implies that the world does not yet have the technologies needed to allow us to fully decarbonise, so there also needs to be significant increases in R&D and commercialisation of the new technologies needed by the entire planet.
I look at the things that have turned out economies upside down in my lifetime from oversaturated tech markets, too many houses, and a virus that if we're being honest wasn't that bad (compared to movies like contagion or the Spanish flu). As I understand it the effects of rising temperatures will be non linear and I expect the economic ripples to be non linear as well.
I would like to hear what you guys think about the Calcasieu 2 project being delayed. I have mixed feelings. I don't mind if it is delayed and a review is done quickly to consider the issues and tradeoffs of methane leaks vs. the CO2 emissions saved if it displaces coal. What I worry is that this is being driven by activists and politics that are not considering the science or not interested in the science, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/climate/a-huge-win-for-activists-puts-climate-on-the-2024-agenda.html . I mean the idea that people are considering withholding their support for Biden over this is crazy. Not when the alternative gives you Trump.
I think the deniers are the real doomists who are so overwhelmed by their alarmist fears they cannot bear to face up to reality. Fear of responsible governance that demands responsibility and accountability and regulation of corporations - that get inflated to fears of imagined globalist/socialist/environmentalis/scientist-ist conspiracies to impose tyranny. Fears of low emissions renewable energy causing loss of prosperity. But underlying it is the same old climate science denial that presumes the science is wrong as well as denying the viability of the solutions - not necessarily entirely wrong (that no longer resonates so well), but a presumption the problem is greatly exaggerated.
The power of Doubt, Deny, Delay politics to make what should be easy hard and the hard much harder should never be underestimated but nor should the positives of the successes of RE and the quiet activism of reasonable people taking the problems and challenges seriously.
Crucial tipping points on energy choices seem to already be crossed, to be seen in the staggering growth of investments in solar and wind and battery and EV's - in the commitment to FACTORIES that will flood the world with them over the next few years, even more so than simply looking at what has been installed so far.
Stocks of RE vs fossil fuels look small - because there is so much existing dependence on Fossil Fuels (fierce promotion of which has never let up) but the growth of RE is phenomenal and as the proportion grows it creates it's own de-facto carbon price by reducing their capacity factors - losing 6 hrs a day of profitability every sunny day. Many times more GW of solar are being added than all coal and gas (and nuclear) combined - at 20% capacity factor in GWh terms, around 80 1GW nuclear plants worth last year and IEA ! expectations for near 1 TW a year (200 nuclear plants worth) by the end of (?) 2025.
As an Australian it looks like once there is a significant proportion of RE there is no going back - not one new coal plant is in the pipeline (as older plants face closure) and only one gas plant of significance is in construction, that seemed to me to be more araised finger to RE by the previous pro fossil fuels, anti-renewables government than any kind of plan. Which is finding even the expected role of backup to wind and solar shrinking, not growing with batteries offering serious competition over what is left.
Thereโs no such thing as an undeniable fact. Nooฬne will be able to physically force all deniers into silence, and if anyone tries, theyโll only be playing into the deniersโ hands, by turning them into free-speech heroes and burying the science in yet another layer of distraction and shame by association.
Great theories but even just planning to cut fossil fuel subsidies let alone start a carbon tax has brought Germany to a stand still with protesting farmers!
So what's the optimum temperature? 2ยฐ warming? 3.7ยฐ? 4.5?
How about ZERO? In a tragic example of the groupthink you were discussing, the IPCC doesn't even consider an RCP-zero--a scenario in which we restore pre-industrial levels of CO2 and hence, obviously, zero degrees of warming above pre-industrial.
Fortunately, some people are doing so! I urge you and your readers to check out Climate RestorationโThe Only Future That Will Sustain the Human Race. Yes, it's possible to remove the trillion tons of legacy CO2. No, it's not possible through direct air capture and new tech being sponsored by the IRA. Rather, by following Nature's lead. (After all, she removed about trillion tons of CO2 10 times in the last million years.) Interested? Get in touch!
There is no reason the DOE review of LNG permitting needs to take more than 1 or 2 months. There is enough science and science literature out there already that have looked at the tradeoffs between LNG and coal to make a rapid recommendation on how to proceed, e.g.
Andrew, great article. The CB has been my main source for science-based climate updates for over a year now.
Do you think itโs likely we still have a shot to salvage a livable future? Iโm young and active online and itโs so easy to fall down the doom rabbit holeโฆ
I would be interested to hear from energy system modeling experts that helped craft the IRA, Dr. Jesse Jenkins and are now evaluating the impact of the IRA, Dr. John Bistline, about some of the critiques leveled at the IRA in the paper by Stiglitz, Barrett an Kaufmann.
For example,
"Surely there are portfolios of climate policies that could achieve similar outcomes as the IRA for
much lower costs."
I consider the IRA a major achievement in climate change policy for the U.S. I would be willing to bet that people like Jenkins did the best they could to achieve what they could even though it may not have been optimum. I'm sure both of them would be willing to consider input into making their tools and models and better.
Not only "not all." The consensus of economists as I read it is that emissions of CO2 int0 the atmosphere are harmful (if not civilization threatening) and it is good economics to take low-cost measures, like a tax on net emissions, to reduce that future harm. There might be, indeed should be discussion about whether any specific measure aiming to reduce net CO2 is cost effective or not.
Best line by Noah: "you can't rely on modelers to tell you when to not use their models..."
Part of the reason we are surprised (not sure surprised is the right word) by the recent data showing a non linear acceleration in heat energy as well as numerous predicted conditions arriving 10-30 years earlier than estimated, is in great part due to the over-reliance on models. I love hearing a scientist say all models are wrong but some are useful and then 20 minutes later cite some modeling result as being scientifically or foundationally true. But to their defense, they are just human, and all humans are sloppy, flawed and often incorrect... but some of those humans are useful. :)
Based on this talk given by Nordhaus, I would definitely say that he agrees that global warming is a serious problem and we urgently need to being doing more to reduce emissions.
Nobel laureate William Nordhaus: The economics of climate change
https://youtu.be/5DG5i8BGaXo
Anthropogenic climate change is real and needs to be addressed. However, 4 to 5 billion people live in relative poverty in developing countries and I accept the Bjorn Lomborg thesis which states that we should be spending money helping these 4 or 5 billion people raise their standard of living so that they can adapt to climate change in the short to medium term by growing their economies without making the same mistakes made by developed countries. This thesis also implies that the world does not yet have the technologies needed to allow us to fully decarbonise, so there also needs to be significant increases in R&D and commercialisation of the new technologies needed by the entire planet.
I look at the things that have turned out economies upside down in my lifetime from oversaturated tech markets, too many houses, and a virus that if we're being honest wasn't that bad (compared to movies like contagion or the Spanish flu). As I understand it the effects of rising temperatures will be non linear and I expect the economic ripples to be non linear as well.
I would like to hear what you guys think about the Calcasieu 2 project being delayed. I have mixed feelings. I don't mind if it is delayed and a review is done quickly to consider the issues and tradeoffs of methane leaks vs. the CO2 emissions saved if it displaces coal. What I worry is that this is being driven by activists and politics that are not considering the science or not interested in the science, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/climate/a-huge-win-for-activists-puts-climate-on-the-2024-agenda.html . I mean the idea that people are considering withholding their support for Biden over this is crazy. Not when the alternative gives you Trump.
I know Zeke has weighed in before, e.g. https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/howarth-natural-gas . It may be time to take a fresh look and let people on both sides of the issue know what you think.
I think the deniers are the real doomists who are so overwhelmed by their alarmist fears they cannot bear to face up to reality. Fear of responsible governance that demands responsibility and accountability and regulation of corporations - that get inflated to fears of imagined globalist/socialist/environmentalis/scientist-ist conspiracies to impose tyranny. Fears of low emissions renewable energy causing loss of prosperity. But underlying it is the same old climate science denial that presumes the science is wrong as well as denying the viability of the solutions - not necessarily entirely wrong (that no longer resonates so well), but a presumption the problem is greatly exaggerated.
The power of Doubt, Deny, Delay politics to make what should be easy hard and the hard much harder should never be underestimated but nor should the positives of the successes of RE and the quiet activism of reasonable people taking the problems and challenges seriously.
Crucial tipping points on energy choices seem to already be crossed, to be seen in the staggering growth of investments in solar and wind and battery and EV's - in the commitment to FACTORIES that will flood the world with them over the next few years, even more so than simply looking at what has been installed so far.
Stocks of RE vs fossil fuels look small - because there is so much existing dependence on Fossil Fuels (fierce promotion of which has never let up) but the growth of RE is phenomenal and as the proportion grows it creates it's own de-facto carbon price by reducing their capacity factors - losing 6 hrs a day of profitability every sunny day. Many times more GW of solar are being added than all coal and gas (and nuclear) combined - at 20% capacity factor in GWh terms, around 80 1GW nuclear plants worth last year and IEA ! expectations for near 1 TW a year (200 nuclear plants worth) by the end of (?) 2025.
As an Australian it looks like once there is a significant proportion of RE there is no going back - not one new coal plant is in the pipeline (as older plants face closure) and only one gas plant of significance is in construction, that seemed to me to be more araised finger to RE by the previous pro fossil fuels, anti-renewables government than any kind of plan. Which is finding even the expected role of backup to wind and solar shrinking, not growing with batteries offering serious competition over what is left.
Thereโs no such thing as an undeniable fact. Nooฬne will be able to physically force all deniers into silence, and if anyone tries, theyโll only be playing into the deniersโ hands, by turning them into free-speech heroes and burying the science in yet another layer of distraction and shame by association.
Great theories but even just planning to cut fossil fuel subsidies let alone start a carbon tax has brought Germany to a stand still with protesting farmers!
So what's the optimum temperature? 2ยฐ warming? 3.7ยฐ? 4.5?
How about ZERO? In a tragic example of the groupthink you were discussing, the IPCC doesn't even consider an RCP-zero--a scenario in which we restore pre-industrial levels of CO2 and hence, obviously, zero degrees of warming above pre-industrial.
Fortunately, some people are doing so! I urge you and your readers to check out Climate RestorationโThe Only Future That Will Sustain the Human Race. Yes, it's possible to remove the trillion tons of legacy CO2. No, it's not possible through direct air capture and new tech being sponsored by the IRA. Rather, by following Nature's lead. (After all, she removed about trillion tons of CO2 10 times in the last million years.) Interested? Get in touch!
Zeke,
I see you're posting stuff on X about LNG vs coal. I refuse to get an X account just to hear what you have to say.
Could you please post some of those here or put them together in short blog on the subject?
Thanks,
Sorry for being a broken record....
RE: LNG permitting
There is no reason the DOE review of LNG permitting needs to take more than 1 or 2 months. There is enough science and science literature out there already that have looked at the tradeoffs between LNG and coal to make a rapid recommendation on how to proceed, e.g.
https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/howarth-natural-gas
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-90839-7
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac71ba/meta
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ace3db
Congress should be pushing DOE to expedite the review. We absolutely do not want this to be delayed beyond the election.
Andrew, great article. The CB has been my main source for science-based climate updates for over a year now.
Do you think itโs likely we still have a shot to salvage a livable future? Iโm young and active online and itโs so easy to fall down the doom rabbit holeโฆ
I would be interested to hear from energy system modeling experts that helped craft the IRA, Dr. Jesse Jenkins and are now evaluating the impact of the IRA, Dr. John Bistline, about some of the critiques leveled at the IRA in the paper by Stiglitz, Barrett an Kaufmann.
For example,
"Surely there are portfolios of climate policies that could achieve similar outcomes as the IRA for
much lower costs."
I consider the IRA a major achievement in climate change policy for the U.S. I would be willing to bet that people like Jenkins did the best they could to achieve what they could even though it may not have been optimum. I'm sure both of them would be willing to consider input into making their tools and models and better.
I can see the whole world adhering to a carbon price apart from the States, like you scorn International Law.
Not only "not all." The consensus of economists as I read it is that emissions of CO2 int0 the atmosphere are harmful (if not civilization threatening) and it is good economics to take low-cost measures, like a tax on net emissions, to reduce that future harm. There might be, indeed should be discussion about whether any specific measure aiming to reduce net CO2 is cost effective or not.