[Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] : rare common sense in mitigating global warming..please see opinion piece from wsj.

[Ted Kochanski]

Michael, et al

The issue needs to be separated into fundamental understanding of the
processes involved -- we have made huge progress in the main -- but much is
still uncertain and the supposed effects [much much more difficult to show
any credible correlation let alone a causal relationship] which are a
hoge-podge of anecdotal information without much if any scientific rigor.

For example there is no evidence despite quite exhaustive studies of
secular trends in Tropical Cyclone intensity or frequency.  There are of
course secular trends in the number of people affected and lives lost --
all show strong decreases due to enhanced prediction and warning.  This is
despite the fact that vastly larger numbers of people live in coastal
plains and on barrier islands.  The same can be said of Tornado intensity
and occurrence -- no evidence they are getting more frequent or more
intense.  Some suggestion that the damage [in $] maybe increasing mostly
due to replacement of rural communities with suburbs of place in "Tornado
Alley"

Wildfires are so dependent on forest management and settlement patterns
[no-one used to live in the brush on the hillsides in California which burn
on a regular basis] that no conclusions can be drawn related to climate
over time.

You ask -- Are some things agreed upon [up to a point]

overall, temperatures have increasing globally -- since 1970.  B

but there were several periods including just before 1970 when we talked of
"Global Cooling" -- sufficiently urgently to trigger fears of the return of
glaciation in our lifetimes and talk of spreading carbon black

glaciers have been melting, pole to pole, for decades -- off and on for
nearly a century

glacial melting is much more a product of snowfall than temperature

we keep finding paleolithic evidence for people in the regions which are
typically Glacial -- e.g. the "ice Man"

receding glaciers are uncovering settlements made during the
Medieval Optimum -- obviously it was warm then


  That CO2 and CH4 atmospheric concentrations have increased?

CO2 has been monitored in Hawaii for 60 years since the IGY

lots of uncertainty of global levels of CO2 in earlier times depending on
the manner of measurement

Methane is very complicated as a lot apparently is bacteria in the soil --
some of which we may have influenced

No mention of the dominant greenhouse gas H2O for obvious reasons

So -- yes there are things generally agreed to -- but even those come with
caveats and copious footnotes


Ted


On Mon, Jul 25, 2022 at 6:22 PM Michael Alexander <mna.ma at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Shelly Lowenthal -
>
> 6x more people in Spain die from heat than cold?  How about Siberia, then?
>
>
> You say Lancet reports that more people die from cold than heat
> (citation?), but you don’t ask why.  Is it because of inadequate heating,
> for example?  Does “cold” (a qualitative descriptor) alone really explain
> what’s going on?
>
> You are trying to make huge generalizations from single pieces of data –
> moreover, you repeatedly assume a single variable explains multivariate
> phenomena.
>
> You claim nothing is “settled” in climate science.  That’s too categorical
> statement to be useful.  Are some things agreed upon, starting with the
> statement that, overall, temperatures are increasing globally (glaciers
> have been melting, pole to pole, for decades, e.g.)?  That CO2 and CH4
> atmospheric concentrations have increased?  And so on.
>
> More relevant than talking about “settled” or “not settled”, ask
> whether climate scientists have accounted for climatic changes within
> reasonable numerical bounds.
>
>     – Mike Alexander
>
>
> On Monday, July 25, 2022, 4:21 PM, Shelly Lowenthal <
> shelly.lowenthal at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Nothing is settled in Climate science. If so, then there would be an exact
> number for temperature rise with a doubling of CO2. Estimates are .5 to
> over 5C. Sounds like the scientists are guessing, just like their failed
> temperature projections.
>
> As the world warmed (yes we all agree on this) - Malaria death decreased.
> Cheap power used to drain swamps, power delivery of insecticides, and clean
> the environment contributed to this.
>
> https://ourworldindata.org/malaria-introduction
>
> Lancet has reports that cold kills more than warmth. Do you want to see
> the world get cold again? It certainly will, eventually, and not to our
> benefit. There are medical reasons for this.
>
> [image: image]
>
> Not illogical to claim that the ‘Green Elites’ forced Germany to shut down
> nuclear and coal plants leaving just gas plants - that’s the truth.  Result
> was Germany outsourcing energy to Russia which has proven to be a big
> mistake - check their prices for gas and electricity compared to ours.
> Disaster for Germans this winter. Solar and wind has been a major failure
> when the wind doesn’t blow and Germany has been importing electricity from
> nuclear France as England has. Now they are restarting coal plants.
>
> Shelly Lowenthal
>
> On Jul 25, 2022, at 4:02 PM, Ted Kochanski <tedpkphd at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 
> Jerry,
>
> Lonborg is a true believer in environmentalism as opposed to Catastrophism
>
> Even the IPCC says that going "cold=turkey" on CO2 would have at best
> marginal effects on the predictions for 2100
>
> The whole issue of why the climate varies is still a most open question --
> there are known naturally occuring aspects:
>
> long-term orbital changes [mostly periodic]
> long-term plate tectonic changes of the layout of the continents and oceans
> long-term, large scale volcanism [e.g. Deccan Traps in India, similar
> flows in Siberia ]
> meteoric impacts
> small-scale short-lived volcanic events [e.gh. Mt. Pinatubo]
>
>
> Oceanic Circulation changes:
>
> Pacific Decadal Oscillation [PDO]
> El Niño–Southern Oscillation [ENSO]
>
> Oceanic Atmospheric Circulation changes:
>
> North Atlantic Oscillation [NAO]
> Arctic oscillation [AO] aka Northern Annular Mode/Northern Hemisphere
> Annular Mode [NAM]
>  Antarctic oscillation aka Southern Annular Mode [SAM]
>
>
> Solar Activity changes
>
> Solar brightness
>
> Solar Magnetic Field extent -- influencing penetration of galactic cosmic
> rays into the earth's atmosphere
>
> Solar spectral changes
>
> Humans have more or less local/regional impacts mostly due to "urban heat
> islands" and land-use pattern changes
>
> Finally we have the highly contentious matter of impacts directly caused
> by human emissions of CO2, CH4, and other lesser "greenhouse gases"
> The effects of these themselves are then "multiplied" by changes in
> atmospheric water vapor [by far the most prevalent and impactful
> "greenhouse gas"] -- but this is poorly understood as it is a very complex
> 3D circulation between ocean water, vertical conveyance by tropical
> thunderstorms and conveyance poleward by the prevailing westerlies in
> temperate latitudes with some less well understood interaction with polar
> ice and snow
>
> Even the most capable computers can not handle the complete system of
> processes which we think we understand and apply it to a non-spherical
> earth [we only include a generic friction parameter to account for things
> such as small as the Appalachian Mountains] -- and then there are the
> unknown processes which we have no way of accounting for in the models
>
> That's predominantly why the modelers compare themselves to each other
> rather than the "ground truth" -- just look at the "spaghetti plots"
> produced for tropical storms/hurricanes [some of them have predicted
> trajectories perpendicular to some of the others]
>
> Ted
>
> PS: As someone pointed out all of the carbon buried under Pennsylvania,
> etc., in the form of Coal, Oil, Natural Gas was once in the atmosphere --
> plants don't get the carbon for photosynthesis from the limestone rocks
> [another amazingly large repository of carbon once in the atmosphere]
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 25, 2022 at 2:11 PM Jerry Harris <jerryharri at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Marvin,
> I think you've proven my point with Lomborg. It's not just the media that
> has called out his shifting and inaccurate claims, but real climate
> scientists have as well. He has long discounted the cost and severity of
> climate change, striving to spin a silver lining whenever possible:
> - his claims that rising CO2 levels will increase crop yields
> - his statement that since more people die in winter months, a warming
> planet will be good - ignoring that the data includes indirect influenza
> deaths and that a warming planet will increase malaria deaths
> - illogically claiming that the elites' "obsession" with climate change
> lead Germany to become solely reliant on Russian gas pipeline
>
> I think Lomborg is the human version of the young woman/old woman optical
> illusion. Some of what he says is sensible and reasonable, and some of what
> he says is selective and contradictory. With his constant shifts he can
> always cherry-pick those claims that turn out "right".
>
> Jerry
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 8:40 PM Marvin Menzin <mmenzin at icloud.com> wrote:
>
> Fyi.. more on the remedies for warming..
> Lomberg does not deny warming.. but he advocates a serious cost benefit
> analysis on remedies before going whole hog
>
> He favors nuclear power, and also believes it is a mistake to   push green
> power  so fast that it disrupts poorer nations  from  getting richer.
>
> he is one of the few  who challenges rapid disruptive  approaches that
> harm the prospects for a better life for the worlds poor nations in the
> name of  rapidly saving the planet..no matter what the bad side effects .
>
> Lomberg has written lots of articles on this theme and is considered
> controversial in most media.
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> *From:* Marvin Menzin <mmenzin at icloud.com>
> *Date:* July 23, 2022 at 9:52:33 AM EDT
> *To:* Isaac Menzin <isaacmenzin at gmail.com>, sammy hepner <
> sammyhepner at gmail.com>, Joseph Menzin <joemenzin at gmail.com>, Abe Menzin <
> abemenzin at hotmail.com>, jon menzin <jon.menzin at gmail.com>, sally tyszka <
> smtyszka at comcast.net>, abby hepner <abbyhepner at gmail.com>, Orly Shitrit <
> shitrit.orly at gmail.com>, daniel menzin <dmenzin at gmail.com>, Larry Menzin <
> lmenzin at american-tech.com>, ari menzin <arimenzin at gmail.com>, Marit
> Menzin <mmenzin at verizon.net>, hannah hepner <hehepner at gmail.com>, adam
> menzin <menzin24 at yahoo.com>, Marion Menzin <marionmenzin at gmail.com>,
> Eleanor Menzin <eleanormenzin at hotmail.com>, Roberta Menzin <
> rmenzin57 at gmail.com>, tara rosenthal <trosenthal429 at yahoo.com>, kobi
> shitrit <shitrit.kobi at gmail.com>, lev menzin <levmenzin at gmail.com>, David
> Hepner <dlhepner67 at gmail.com>, jordan menzin <jamenzin at gmail.com>, talia
> menzin <tjmenzin at gmail.com>, Julie Menzin <julie.a.menzin at gmail.com>,
> MARGARET MENZIN <menzin at comcast.net>
> *Subject:* *rare common sense in mitigating global warming..*
>
> 
> A sidewalk in London, July 20.
> By
>
> Bjorn Lomborg
> July 21, 2022 6:36 pm ET
> Photo: andy rain/Shutterstock
>
> Such arguments are misleading. It’s true that as temperatures rise the
> world will experience more heat waves, but humans also adapt to such
> things. In Spain, for example
> <https://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12302-021-00542-7>,
> rising temperatures have actually led to fewer heat deaths, because people
> have adapted faster than temperatures have gone up. It simply took air
> conditioning, public cooling centers and better treatment of maladies that
> are caused or aggravated by heat, such as heatstroke and heart disease.
>
> The exclusive focus on heat deaths is also misleading. Across the world,
> low temperatures are much more dangerous
> <https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext> than
> high ones: Half a million people die each year from heat, but more than 4.5
> million die from cold. While rising temperatures will increase heat deaths,
> they will also decrease cold deaths. A recent Lancet study found
> <https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1548650946544209920> that rising
> temperatures since 2000 have on net reduced the number of
> temperature-related deaths. Researchers concluded that by the end of the
> 2010s, rising temperatures globally were causing 116,000 more heat deaths
> annually, but also leading to 283,000 fewer cold deaths a year.
>
> Moreover, politicians’ singular focus on climate change ignores that
> people are much more worried about rampant inflation, especially rising
> food and energy prices. And climate policies are making those problems
> worse.
> OpinionMorning Editorial Report
>
> All the day's Opinion headlines.
> ------------------------------
>
> Much of the extreme energy-price increase that normal people are dealing
> with is caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine. But things wouldn’t be nearly as
> bad if the West hadn’t thrown up green roadblocks to its own energy
> security, such as President Biden’s moratorium on gas leases or Europe’s
> refusal to dig into its substantial shale gas reserves. Climate policies
> also increase energy prices by subsidizing renewables like solar and wind.
> That makes it even harder to adapt to the extreme temperatures climate
> activists bemoan. You need cheap and reliable energy to afford air
> conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter.
>
> Rising fuel prices are also making food more expensive. Low-cost synthetic
> fertilizer is one of the greatest technologies humanity has invented for
> feeding the world, but it’s mostly made with natural gas. Even with almost
> a billion people at risk of starvation, climate-obsessed bureaucrats still
> object
> <https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-split-over-fertiliser-plants-poorer-nations-food-crisis-bites-2022-06-20/>to
> producing more fertilizer because of the fossil fuels required.
>
> The cost of green policies will become even harder to bear if politicians
> make good on their promises to hit net-zero emissions. Achieving this
> globally by 2050 would cost more than $5 trillion a year for the next three
> decades, according
> <https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/the-economic-transformation-what-would-change-in-the-net-zero-transition> to
> McKinsey. That would be one-third of total global tax revenue. If every
> American were to shell out more than $5,000 a year
> <https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1431599612616445958>, it would
> only get the U.S. 80% of the way there by midcentury. Hitting 100% would
> likely cost more than twice that. The European Union already pays €69
> billion
> <https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/76c57f2f-174c-11eb-b57e-01aa75ed71a1/language-en> a
> year in subsidies to support its renewables. But if the EU persists with
> its even stauncher promises of net-zero, that annual climate policy cost is
> likely to exceed $1 trillion.
>
> No wonder there’s political pushback to environmental grandstanding. The
> Netherlands has been roiled by protests since the government mandated in
> June that nitrogen-oxide and ammonia emissions, which are produced by
> livestock, must be slashed by 70% to 80% in some parts of the country. As
> many as 40,000 farmers demonstrated against the measure last month. Holland
> is among the world’s 10 largest food exporters, and these policies would
> decimate the country’s agriculture industry while global hunger is rising.
>
> Sri Lanka is the epitome of elite environmentalism gone wrong. Pushed to
> go organic by activists and the World Economic Forum, the government banned
> synthetic fertilizers in April 2021. Food production collapsed and the
> currency defaulted. Hungry and outraged citizens launched protests, overran
> the presidential palace, and forced the government to resign en masse and
> the president to flee the country.
>
> It’s entirely possible to help the climate and working families at the
> same time. The policies to do so are innovation-focused. Policy makers need
> to recognize that they simply can’t eliminate fossil fuels with current
> technologies. The world gets almost 80% of its energy from fossil fuels,
> and even if all current climate policies were fully implemented, by
> midcentury fossil fuels would still provide more than half of all energy
> used world-wide, according
> <https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/4ed140c1-c3f3-4fd9-acae-789a4e14a23c/WorldEnergyOutlook2021.pdf> to
> the International Energy Agency. Instead of sending energy prices sky-high
> by trying to force a transition to renewables prematurely, policy makers
> should focus on funding research to develop clean energy sources that are
> actually affordable and reliable. And instead of badgering farmers to go
> organic, governments should invest in research to develop varieties of
> crops and agricultural practices that deliver higher yields with a smaller
> environmental footprint.
>
> Some of these technologies are already in development. Greater funding
> could bring them to fruition more quickly and do a lot more to help limit
> emissions than the policies activists now hawk. These sorts of sensible
> measures would cost much less than policies like net-zero, leaving more
> money to meet the world’s many other challenges.
>
> It’s starting to dawn on some elites that their policies are creating
> political dangers. Frans Timmermans, the European Commission’s vice
> president, has said that many millions of Europeans may not be able to heat
> their homes this winter. This, he concludes, could lead to “very, very
> strong conflict and strife.”
>
> He’s right. When people are cold, hungry and broke, they rebel. If the
> elites continue pushing incredibly expensive policies that are disconnected
> from the urgent challenges facing most people, we need to brace for chaos.
>
> *Mr. Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus and visiting fellow
> at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. His latest book is “False
> Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and
> Fails to Fix the Planet.”*
>
> WSJ Opinion: Executive Beast Mode and the Democrats’ Apocalyptic Politics
> [image: WSJ Opinion: Executive Beast Mode and the Democrats’ Apocalyptic
> Politics]
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
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