We're melting, we're meltingFollow

Perhaps magnets are pulling us closer to the sun, bet you the scientists didn't factor that into their study!

Stupid ignorant scientists!

Links please.

No, I mean it. Provide links.

Lern 2 reed n den giv linkz

Actually, I wasn't even interested in that.

He should try to read and see what I was after. It's all up there in the text and stuff. But, until he can provide and show some basic understanding of the concepts, there's no sense in continuing further. To that end, I shall need to see proof in the form of links!

But not right now. Right now I must play EQ!

Edited, Feb 5th 2007 5:50pm by Jophiel

There be your guys problem.

Um? So what was the point of mentioning Kyoto? Is this yet another crappy "I'm going to say something, and every single person who reads it will know what I'm saying, but I'm not going to actually spell it out so that I can deny that that's what I was really saying when called on it"? How many times do I have to point out this bizarre method of debate before folks will realize that a) people really do this and b) odds are the people most insisting that they didn't actually say what they did say are the ones who do it the most.



Nah. I'll stick to assuming that if you bring up Kyoto and say something like: "here's a map of all the nations that have ratified Kyoto and we're not on it", that you're really saying that the US should sign Kyoto. I'll also assume that when you say that in a thread about global warming, that you're *also* arguing that global warming is the reason we should sign it.

I don't think those are wild assumptions. I really don't.



It's not about Kyoto ruining their economies (or ours). That's the strawman. The argument is that Kyoto does not work and will not work. It has so many flaws in its methodology that it cannot suceed at its stated goal (reducing total global emissions of greenhouse gasses). I've written at length about why this is so, but what the heck? I'll give you the Reader's Digest version:

Kyoto places nations into catagories depending on their current size and industrial advancement. The smaller and less developed you are the more "preferential" the catagory you are placed in and the fewer restrictions you have applied. So a huge fully industrialized nation like the US falls in the highest catagory and must reduce its total emissions by 7% over 10 years (note that it's total emissions counted, not emissions per unit of production). A small developing nation will fall in the lowest catagory and suffer no restrictions. This is because of Kyoto's flawed approach of simply applying deltas to existing "total" pollution rather then creating pollution standards on a per-unit basis like we have here in the US. They don't want to stiffle those developing countries, nor create a "if you aren't here yet, you're screwed" situation.

The problem is that the US already produces vastly less pollution per unit of production. I'm sure you've heard some Liberal pundit say that the US generates 25% of the worlds pollution (they're actually talking about greenhouse gas emissions specifically I believe, but whatever). What they don't tell you is that the US also generates 50% of the worlds industrial output. Thus, we actually generate 1/4th of the pollution "per-unit" as the average of the rest of the world.

That's "average", not "worst". So we can assume that the worst pollution controls would actually result in a much higher per-unit generation of pollution. Even if we take a conservative doubling of the average, we arrive at an 8-1 ratio of pollution generated per-unit in the worst countries as compared to the US (worst in this case meaning little or no pollution controls). Of course, those nations will *also* happen to be the same small developing nations that Kyoto places no restrictions on (at least not until they breach a particular level of industrialization). Since they have little or no industrializion yet, they likely have little or no law or regulations regarding pollution controls from industrialization. Presumably also, there's some leeway between the amount of industrialization they have and the amount they'd need to have to hit the first bracket of Kyoto where they may be required to reduce their total pollution a bit (and a very small bit at that!).


Here's where simple math comes in. If the US has to reduce it's total pollution by 7%, how do you think that will happen? We already run the best and most expensive pollution controls in the world. It's prohibitively expensive to decrease pollution by that much just by applying more controls (and possibly impossible with existing technology). Thus, the most cost effective means to meet that goal would be for US companies to offshore 7% of the applicable industry (and that assumes no growth either, which is false). Thus, at a minimum 7% of our greenhouse pollution generating industry will move elsewhere. Likely to those very nations that are in the bottom bracket of Kyoto (cause it's cheap, right?).

Question: If the US produces 25% of the worlds greenhouse pollution, and you remove 7% of that and shift the accompanying industry to a nation (or group of nations) that will produce 8 times as much pollution per unit of production, what have you done to global pollution?

Answer: 7% of 25% is 1.75%. So we "reduce" global pollution by 1.75%. That's a decrease. However, that same production will generate 8 times that pollution somewhere else, resulting in an increase in global pollution of 14%. So we reduce global pollution by 1.75% and increase it 14%, resulting in a total increase to global pollution of a whopping 12.25%


That's why the US can't sign Kyoto. We're already so far ahead of the curve that it's actually harmful to global greenhouse gas generation for us to do so. The industry in the US is best kept in the US where it's restricted by the US EPA regulations (which are much stricter then anywhere else in the world). Kyoto would force us to move that industry elsewhere. Since there is no place on the globe with higher pollution standards then the US no matter where we move that industry to, it'll result in more pollution generated there then we reduced in the US. Even if you believe my 8-1 ratio is to high (and I actually belive it's a low estimate) it's still a pretty inescapable fact that no matter *where* the industry moves, it'll result in greater pollution.


Kyoto only works in nations that have significant industry but do not have tight pollution controls on that industry. It fails horribly in all other locations.


If you're really serious about global greenhouse emissions, then what you should write is an international accord that essentially copys the US EPA regulations and applies them globally. Since the average is *really* easy to calculate here, we can say that mathmatically this would reduce total global pollution by 50% (with no "gotchas" at all). Far better then the most ambitious (and bogus) claims about Kyoto. But that would require that the nations of the world actually want to reduce global greenhouse gasses instead of simply using the issue (as happens so often) in order to pull of a thinly veiled industrial relocation scheme.



Litigation for what? Having the lowest pollution generation rate in the world? Having EPA standards, which, if implemented globally would reduce global greenhouse emissions by 10 times what Kyoto claims?

The US is not the bad guy here. It really isn't.

I'm starting to think that Monx is incapable of giving me my links and proving he has even a monkey's grasp on the topic

He does indeed like to ignore any actual figures or links anyone else manages to provide.

Well I'm bored, so here: http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Specifically the Radiative Forcing Components image on page 16, which indicates the net anthropogenic (human) component as being 1.6 Wm2, [0.6 ~ 2.4] and the solar irradiance (sun) component as being 0.12 Wm2 [0.06 ~ 0.30]

So that puts the sun's responsibility for warming change at 7.5%. [2.5% ~ 50%]. That is, the human component is 92.5% [50% ~ 97.5%]

Of course there are caveats, for example that the scientists didn't include volcanos "due to their episodic nature." And that, according to this 2001 IPCC assessment, scientific understanding of some of the radiative forcing components is "very low."

But even if the scientists are way off on some of these, and even if you take the minimum range of all their estimates, you still see a significant contribution by humans. Enough that it warrants serious action in limiting this component.

The evidence is present enough for me that at least a simplistic Pascal's Wager type view dictates action.

True, but that's only because some people are still refusing to accept man-made global warming. Well, when I say "some people", I think there are only 4 left in the world, gbaji, MonxDOT, Bush and that crazy farmer in China that talks to red pandas.

Once they are convinced, we will hopefully move towards a more productive discussion relating to how best combat it, as opposed to trying to convince people that if the Earth is warming it's not only because the sun is hot.



Anyone with a quarter of the reasoning process of a lemur would agree with this.

It just goes to show...

What I don't get, is why/when did people start taking his posts seriously?

95% of his posts are incomprehensible drivel, and the other 5% are the accidental double posts.

True.

It's a bit like playing soccer with your dog. You know he'll never do anything good, but it's still fun to watch him try.