How Bad Is Global Warming?

[MacCruiskeen]

Germany Sets New Record, Generating 74 Percent Of Power Needs From Renewable Energy

By Kiley Kroh May 13, 2014

1 of 119 comments
Nancy Gotwalt · Senior Logistician at Leidos
Germany has brains. We have the Koch brothers. Need I say more?
· 22 · Yesterday at 1:44pm

Meine Damen und Herren, please do be extra careful when faced with statistics this astounding, especially when they appear to support your (my, our) case. I live in Germany and I can assure you that this headline is -- to put it mildly -- highly misleading. Yes, good progress is being made with renewable energy sources here; but no, it's simply not true that three-quarters of Germany's energy comes from renewables! In fact, it is -- at best -- currently somewhere between one quarter and one third.

Somebody in the comments box at that site did eventually get suspicious and the following short dialogue ensued:

Matthew Fennell · Top Commenter · Waltham, Massachusetts
I can't find the 74% number anywhere but the brief snippet linked. 45% by 2030 is the number I keep seeing. Anyone else see this?
Reply · · 5 · May 13 at 12:54pm

Brandon Adams · Top Commenter · Operations Engineer at DreamBox Learning, Inc.

I think they mean a peak of 74%. Solar and wind are highly variable.

That variability also means that more traditional energy sources have to used to serve peak demand when the sun's not shining and the wind's not blowing. In the Pacific Northwest we're lucky to have massive hydro capacity that can quickly ramp up and down in response to changes in renewable production elsewhere, like our wind farms.

In other parts of the world, peakers operate on fossil fuels. So, when that 74% goes to something more like 5% at night, the other 95% is natural gas, coal, etc.
Reply · · 7 · May 13 at 1:16pm

Keith Gibson · University of York, UK
Brandon Adams, yes it was supposedly 74% on one particular day and even then it was not including transport and I suspect it was not including natural gas heating too. I'm aiming to move to Germany solely for their smart thinking of renewable energy systems.
Reply · · 1 · 4 hours ago

I googled "erneuerbare Energien in Zahlen" ("renewable energy in figures") and came up with the figure of 27% for the last quarter-year, as reported in the conservative daily Die Welt six days ago:

09.05.14 Erneuerbare Energien

Ökostrom-Anteil schnellt auf 27 Prozent hoch

Von Daniel Wetzel


Sonne und Wind: Mit ihrer Hilfe ist in Deutschland ein knappes Drittel des Stroms erzeugt worden

[...]

http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article12 ... -hoch.html

So yes, what they're reporting is good news -- a substantial increase in the percentage of energy supplied by renewables. But an increase to 27%, not to 74%! Also, N.B.: That figure of 27% applies only to the first quarter of 2014, and the institution that delivered the figures (BDEW - [German] Federal Association of the Energy and Water Industry) makes a point of stressing that this figure cannot be generalised over the whole year because renewable energies are highly dependent on unpredictable variables such as the weather and the time of year.

(Don't have time to translate the whole thing, but Google Translate will give you more than the gist.)

tl;dr - The Federal Republic of Germany is not the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

[BOOGIE66]

I only believe scientists when their views match mine

[Rory]

I only believe scientists when their views match mine

Thanks for that contribution, Ben D
Err, I mean Boogie

[stillrobertpaulsen]

Climate Change Is Turning Your Produce Into Junk Food

—By Tom Philpott
| Wed May 14, 2014


Gummy bears: Tobik/Shutterstock; Pea pods: Oksana2010/Shutterstock

Climate skeptics like to point out that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stimulates plant growth—suggesting that ever-growing fossil fuel consumption will lead to an era of bin-busting crop yields. But as I noted last week, the best science suggests that other effects of an over-heated planet—heat stress, drought, and floods—will likely overwhelm any bonus from CO2-rich air. Overall, it seems, crop yields will decline.

And here's more bad news: In a paper published in Nature this month, a global team has found that heightened levels of atmospheric carbon make key staple crops wheat, rice, peas, and soybeans less nutritious.

The team, led by Samuel Myers, a research scientist at Harvard's Department of Environmental Health, grew a variety of grains and legumes in plots in the US, Japan, and Australia. They subjected one set to air enriched with CO2 at concentrations ranging from 546 and 586 parts per million—levels expected to be reached in around four decades; the other set got ambient air at today's CO2 level, which recently crossed the 400 parts per million threshold.

The results: a "significant decrease in the concentrations of zinc, iron, and protein" for wheat and rice, a Harvard press release on the study reports. For legumes like soybeans and peas, protein didn’t change much, but zinc and iron levels dropped. For wheat, the treated crops saw zinc, iron, and protein fall by 9.3 percent, 5.1 percent, and 6.3 percent, respectively.

These are potentially grave findings, because a large swath of humanity relies on rice, wheat, and legumes for these very nutrients, the authors note. They report that two billion people already suffer from zinc and iron deficiencies, "causing a loss of 63 million life-years annually." According to the Harvard press release, the "reduction in these nutrients represents the most significant health threat ever shown to be associated with climate change." Symptoms of zinc deficiency include stunted growth, appetite loss, impaired immune function, hair loss, diarrhea, delayed sexual maturation, impotence, hypogonadism (for males), and eye and skin lesions; while iron deficiency brings on fatigue, shortness of breath, dizziness, and headache.

Wheat, rice, soybeans, and peas are all what scientists call C3 crops, characterized by the way they use photosynthesis to trap carbon from the atmosphere. C4 crops, which use a different pathway, include staples like corn and sorghum. Fortunately, C4 crops showed much less sensitivity to higher CO2 levels, the study found.

Meanwhile, in my post last week about the big National Climate Assessment and its finding on agriculture, I left out a key point on weeds. The report's agriculture section notes that "several weed species benefit more than crops from higher temperatures and CO2 levels," meaning that climate change will likely intensify weed pressure on farmers. And then it adds a bombshell: glyphosate, the widely used herbicide marketed by Monsanto as Roundup, "loses its efficacy on weeds grown at CO2 levels projected to occur in the coming decades." And that means "higher concentrations of the chemical and more frequent sprayings thus will be needed, increasing economic and environmental costs associated with chemical use."

In short, the era of climate change will hardly be the paradise of carbon-enriched bounty envisioned by fossil fuel enthusiasts. For a look at how farmers probably should adapt to these unhappy developments, see my 2013 profile of Ohio farmer David Brandt.

[conniption]

Germany Sets New Record, Generating 74 Percent Of Power Needs From Renewable Energy

By Kiley Kroh May 13, 2014

1 of 119 comments
Nancy Gotwalt · Senior Logistician at Leidos
Germany has brains. We have the Koch brothers. Need I say more?
· 22 · Yesterday at 1:44pm

Meine Damen und Herren, please do be extra careful when faced with statistics this astounding, especially when they appear to support your (my, our) case. I live in Germany and I can assure you that this headline is -- to put it mildly -- highly misleading. Yes, good progress is being made with renewable energy sources here; but no, it's simply not true that three-quarters of Germany's energy comes from renewables! In fact, it is -- at best -- currently somewhere between one quarter and one third.

Somebody in the comments box at that site did eventually get suspicious and the following short dialogue ensued:

Matthew Fennell · Top Commenter · Waltham, Massachusetts
I can't find the 74% number anywhere but the brief snippet linked. 45% by 2030 is the number I keep seeing. Anyone else see this?
Reply · · 5 · May 13 at 12:54pm

Brandon Adams · Top Commenter · Operations Engineer at DreamBox Learning, Inc.

I think they mean a peak of 74%. Solar and wind are highly variable.

That variability also means that more traditional energy sources have to used to serve peak demand when the sun's not shining and the wind's not blowing. In the Pacific Northwest we're lucky to have massive hydro capacity that can quickly ramp up and down in response to changes in renewable production elsewhere, like our wind farms.

In other parts of the world, peakers operate on fossil fuels. So, when that 74% goes to something more like 5% at night, the other 95% is natural gas, coal, etc.
Reply · · 7 · May 13 at 1:16pm

Keith Gibson · University of York, UK
Brandon Adams, yes it was supposedly 74% on one particular day and even then it was not including transport and I suspect it was not including natural gas heating too. I'm aiming to move to Germany solely for their smart thinking of renewable energy systems.
Reply · · 1 · 4 hours ago

I googled "erneuerbare Energien in Zahlen" ("renewable energy in figures") and came up with the figure of 27% for the last quarter-year, as reported in the conservative daily Die Welt six days ago:

09.05.14 Erneuerbare Energien

Ökostrom-Anteil schnellt auf 27 Prozent hoch

Von Daniel Wetzel


Sonne und Wind: Mit ihrer Hilfe ist in Deutschland ein knappes Drittel des Stroms erzeugt worden

[...]

http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article12 ... -hoch.html

So yes, what they're reporting is good news -- a substantial increase in the percentage of energy supplied by renewables. But an increase to 27%, not to 74%! Also, N.B.: That figure of 27% applies only to the first quarter of 2014, and the institution that delivered the figures (BDEW - [German] Federal Association of the Energy and Water Industry) makes a point of stressing that this figure cannot be generalised over the whole year because renewable energies are highly dependent on unpredictable variables such as the weather and the time of year.

(Don't have time to translate the whole thing, but Google Translate will give you more than the gist.)

tl;dr - The Federal Republic of Germany is not the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

~

Damn. (I thought it sounded too good to be true... )

[Ben D]

The consensus of scientists who agree human contributions to warming our atmosphere must be curtailed immediately to prevent disastrous irreversible consequences amount to 97% of all.

Hi Iam....thank you for posting that but I would like to mention that there is considerable controversy about the claim of 97% wrt the methodologies used and the validity of result, and btw the actual claim is..."Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming". The paper by John Cook, et al of SkS is called Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature

The technical reason for this controversy is that while all AGW skeptical scientists would agree that there has been global warming, and that the CO2 is a warming factor, and that there is a small human derived contribution to the total amount of atmospheric CO2.....as AGW skeptics, they don't actually believe that humans are the primary cause of the warming to date. And they particularly hate it that the survey shows them endorsing AGW and thus create the illusion of 97% consensus.

Now it is claimed by some scientific experts who have examined the methodology of the Cook paper, that it is seriously flawed because this distinction is not clear. Here are some of the scientists whose papers were used in the study and who claim their endorsement of AGW is wrong.....http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/05/97-study-falsely-classifies-scientists.html

Here is a re-analysis of the Cook/SkS paper by Dr Richard Tol here....https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bz17rNCpfuDNRllTUWlzb0ZJSm8/edit

MSM....http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/30/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-97-percent-consensus-claims/

[Rory]

Ben, you are a clown.

Btw.. http://www.populartechnology.net/2014/0 ... s.html?m=1

I love this 'populartechnology.net' website!! I am currently laughing my tits off reading their previous golden gems of comedic genius.

Where do you find this shite, Ben? Is there one big dogshite denier blog with comedy linkage to spastic shill 'science' blogs that you get all your fuckwittery from?

Btw. Thank you - any doubts I have, you just blow them away and confirm every prejudice I have ever held against anti climate science ballbags. Nicely done

[Ben D]

Ben, you are a clown.
Btw.. http://www.populartechnology.net/2014/0 ... s.html?m=1
I love this 'populartechnology.net' website!! I am currently laughing my tits off reading their previous golden gems of comedic genius.
Where do you find this shite, Ben? Is there one big dogshite denier blog with comedy linkage to spastic shill 'science' blogs that you get all your fuckwittery from?
Btw. Thank you - any doubts I have, you just blow them away and confirm every prejudice I have ever held against anti climate science ballbags. Nicely done

My dear Rory, imagine how gobsmacked I was to find out you've got tits...I always thought you were male....sorry about that. And btw...calling males ballbags isn't becoming of the finer sex, are you a man hater?

Anyway madam, actual science is not to be confused with the media reporting thereof....so you can forget about populartechnology.net...the study was done by Dr. Richard Tol...so any criticism you have should be aimed at his work rather than the messenger, if you find Dr Tol and/or his work unworthy that is....his bio is here...http://sussex.academia.edu/RichardSJTol/CurriculumVitae

[Rory]

Ah, Ben, my misogynist, climate science troll.

Your true colors are shining thru. *smooches*

What is it about impotent, middle aged whiteboys and their penchant for anger at women, eh?

Anyhow - it's funny how there is a direct correlation between climate science trolls, and patriarchal, middle aged white men. How interesting it is to see how conforming to stereotype you are, once you stop the fake, 'new age, Yogi guru' act.

Namaste, my women hating, troll, bogan chum.

[elfismiles]

Another one from HSDL:

Climate Change through a National Security Lens: Recommendations of CNA's Military Advisory Board
Posted By: emledger | May 15, 2014 | Views: 111

Global Climate ChangeAddressing climate change issues has quickly become a top priority for both governmental and non-governmental entities worldwide. Internationally, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has been reporting on international climate change issues since September 2013, and domestically, U.S. agencies have been responding to and implementing the Obama Administration's June 2013 Climate Action Plan. The newest addition to domestic climate change literature comes from CNA Corporation's Military Advisory Board (a group of 16 retired Generals and Admirals from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps), which takes a look at climate change through the lens of its "military experience as warfighters, planners, and leaders." Their report, "National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change," finds that "actions by the United States and the international community have been insufficient to adapt to the challenges associated with projected climate change."

The Board first reviewed the national security implications of climate change in a 2007 report, but felt "compelled to conduct this update now because of nearly seven years of developments in scientific climate change projections." In short, this updated report addresses two specific questions:
1."Have new threats or opportunities associated with projected climate change or its effects emerged since our last report? What will be the impacts on our military?
2.The 2014 National Climate Assessment indicates that climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present. What additional responses should the national secu­rity community take to reduce the risks posed to our nation and to the elements of our National Power (Political, Military, Social, Infrastructure, and Infor­mation systems (PMESII))?"

The report makes a total of six recommendations to better prepare the DoD to respond to climate change issues. These recommendations include urging the U.S. to take a "global leadership role" in preparing for the impacts of climate change, factoring in the impacts of climate change to the "full spectrum" of military planning and operations, preparing for "increased access and military operations in the Arctic," considering the "water-food-energy nexus," integrating climate change impacts into the National Infrastructure Protection Plan and the Strategic National Risk Assessment, and implementing programs to adapt to climate change impacts, especially those on "DoD facilities and associated community infrastructures."

https://www.hsdl.org/blog/newpost/view/ ... sory-board

National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change
http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/MAB_2014.pdf

[Ben D]

Wow elismiles, it seems the US DoD is lobbying to use Climate Change as a pretext for involvement on the grounds of national security...

http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/MAB_2014.pdf

Military. The projected impacts of climate change
could be detrimental to military readiness, strain
base resilience both at home and abroad, and may
limit our ability to respond to future demands.

Michael Chertoff Former Secretary of Homeland Security
Leon Panetta Former Secretary of Defense

With the Pentagon joining the CAGW alliance, Anthony Watts and fellow skeptics may soon become fair game...

[seemslikeadream]

Climate change caused empire's fall, tree rings reveal

ByLinda B. Glaser
Egyptian coffin
Provided

A view of Ipi-ha-ishutef’s coffin when originally sampled in 1938.
coffin walls
S. Cristanetti, A. Whyte/University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute

The coffin of Ipi-ha-ishutef showing details of the decorations on the walls. This is the coffin tree ring samples were taken from.
A handful of tree ring samples stored in an old cigar box have shed unexpected light on the ancient world, thanks to research by archaeologist Sturt Manning and collaborators at Cornell, Arizona, Chicago, Oxford and Vienna, forthcoming in the June issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The samples were taken from an Egyptian coffin; Manning also examined wood from funeral boats buried near the pyramid of Sesostris III. He used a technique called “dendro radiocarbon wiggle matching,” which calibrates radiocarbon isotopes found in the sample tree rings with patterns known from other places in the world that have already identified chronologies, such as the long European oak chronology or the bristle cone pine trees of North America.

Because the dating was so precise – plus or minus about 10 years – it helps confirm that the “higher” Egyptian chronology for the time period is correct, a question scholars have hotly debated.

But the samples also showed a small, unusual anomaly following the year 2200 B.C. Paleoclimate research has suggested a major short-term arid event about this time.

“This radiocarbon anomaly would be explained by a change in growing season, i.e., climate, dating to exactly this arid period of time,” says Manning. “We’re showing that radiocarbon and these archaeological objects can confirm and in some ways better date a key climate episode.”

That climate episode, says Manning, had major political implications. There was just enough change in the climate to upset food resources and other infrastructure, which is likely what led to the collapse of the Akkadian Empire and affected the Old Kingdom of Egypt and a number of other civilizations, he says.

“The tree rings show the kind of rapid climate change that we and policymakers fear,” says Manning. “This record shows that climate change doesn’t have to be as catastrophic as an Ice Age to wreak havoc. We’re in exactly the same situation as the Akkadians: If something suddenly undid the standard food production model in large areas of the U.S. it would be a disaster.”

Manning is the Goldwin Smith Professor of Classical Archaeology and director of the Malcolm and Carolyn Wiener Laboratory for Aegean and Near Eastern Dendrochronology.

Is it really May? Snow falls in west, northwest suburbs....Chicago

[Ben D]

Thanks slad...
Just some rhetorical questions...

Climate change caused empire's fall, tree rings reveal

“The tree rings show the kind of rapid climate change that we and policymakers fear,” says Manning. “This record shows that climate change doesn’t have to be as catastrophic as an Ice Age to wreak havoc. We’re in exactly the same situation as the Akkadians: If something suddenly undid the standard food production model in large areas of the U.S. it would be a disaster.”

..yeh..and considering the absence of human derived CO2 emissions at that time....the cause was?

Is it really May? Snow falls in west, northwest suburbs....Chicago

..yeh..and the cause of snow falling in May is?

[Ben D]

...and some synchro...the 97% AGW consensus claim paper by Cook et al SkS team is making news as we speak...

http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/16/where-did-97-percent-global-warming-consensus-figure-come-from/#ixzz31vsm3CoR

Where Did ’97 Percent’ Global Warming Consensus Figure Come From?

5:03 PM 05/16/2014

The University of Queensland in Australia is taking legal action to block the release of data used by one of its scientists to come up with the oft-quoted statistic that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that mankind is causing global warming.

Since coming out with this figure last year, climate scientist John Cook of the University of Queensland’s Global Change Institute has been under fire for the methodology he used.

“Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on [anthropogenic global warming] is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research,’’ Cook and his fellow authors wrote in their study which was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters last year.

The university has told climate skeptic blogger Brandon Schollenberger that the data on the study he possesses was illegally obtained and they would take legal action against him if he published it.

“UQ has therefore published all data relating to the paper that is of any scientific value to the wider community,” said Queensland’s acting pro-vice-­chancellor Alastair McEwan.

“UQ withheld only data that could identify research participants who took part in the ­research on condition of anonymity,” McEwan added. “Such conditions are not uncommon in academic ­research, and any breach of confidentiality could deter people from participating in valuable research in the future.”

McEwan said that all the data Cook used to come up with his “97 percent” consensus was published on his blog SkepticalScience.com. The school says it wants to protect the privacy of those surveyed in Cook’s research.

“That’s right. The University of Queensland sent me a threatening letter which threatens me further if I show anyone that letter,” Schollenberger wrote on his blog Thursday. “Confusing, no? It gets stranger. Along with its threats, the University of Queensland included demands.”

“According to it, I’m not just prevented from disclosing any of the ‘intellectual property’ (IP) I’ve gained access to,” Schollenberger added. “I’m prevented from even doing anything which involves using the data. That means I can’t discuss the data. I can’t perform analyses on it. I can’t share anything about it with you.”

“Apparently I badgered Cook too much. I tried too hard to get him to do his duty and try to protect his subjects’ privacy. The University of Queensland needs me to stop. If I don’t, they’ll sue me,” he said.

Cook’s paper has been touted by environmentalists and the Obama administration as evidence that virtually all scientists agree that global warming is a man-made threat.

“Ninety-seven percent of scientists, including, by the way, some who originally disputed the data, have now put that to rest,” President Obama said last year announcing his climate plan. “They’ve acknowledged the planet is warming and human activity is contributing to it.”

But Cook’s 97 percent consensus claim was rebutted in subsequent analyses of his study. A paper by five leading climatologists published in the journal Science and Education last year found that Cook’s study misrepresented the views of most consensus scientists.

The definition Cook used to get his consensus was weak, the climatologists said. Only 41 out of the 11,944 published climate studies examined by Cook explicitly stated that mankind caused most of the warming since 1950 — meaning the actual consensus is 0.3 percent.

“It is astonishing that any journal could have published a paper claiming a 97% climate consensus when on the authors’ own analysis the true consensus was well below 1%,” said Dr. David Legates, a geology professor at the University of Delaware and the study’s lead author.

[Rory]

Wait, wait - did you just invoke The Daily Misogynist White Impotent Caller?

BWAHAHAHAHAH you're so fucking CUTE!

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Caller

Trucker Carlson gives you your news? BWAHAHAHAHA you really are a conservative old white boy, aintcha?

You fucking BEAUT!