Dubner Embraces ClimateGate: 'Everybody's Scared To Be A Skeptic'

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/11/24/superfreak-climategate/ 11/23/09: Appearing on the Fox Business Network, SuperFreakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner embraces the idea that a handful of hacked emails are evidence that the scientific consensus on global warming is really just a conspiracy.

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• Fox News
• global warming
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[rugbyguy59]

@jimbo1490 Yes coal fires are a problem although at 10 to 200 MILLION tons per year they are a small percent of China's 3.2 BILLION Metric Tonnes of consumption. I like how you use the upper estimate only when the range is very large.

Politically expedient??? Oh right......I forgot. It's all part of a world wide communist plot. Yawn.

It wasn't a shock that China overtook the USA it was expected. It did happen a few years faster than expected. Big deal.

[rugbyguy59]

@jimbo1490 You'll need to show a source for that claim. I've given you the CDIAC quote on why they use carbon. I've been all over the DOE and UN and not a single reference to C just CO2.

Trimming the temperature by 1/10th degree by 2100? That would be brilliant. If we can accomplish that we will have won the fight and averted disaster.

There are numerous studies that show there will be either a positive or negligible economic outcome. The consequences of doing nothing will destroy the economy

[jimbo1490]

US DOE, CDIAC and the UN have all (purposely?) woefully underestimated China's emissions and future emissions, going back more than 10 years. That explains why it was such a shock when China overtook the US as #1 Co2 emitter in 2005 instead of 2012-2014 as DOE and UN had predicted. I say they continue this trend of underestimation as it is politically expedient.

Their coal mine firea are not part of their emissions accounting, for instance, and burn ~200 million metric tons of coal per year

[jimbo1490]

@rugbyguy59 No the DOE as well a CDIAC use the same reporting for consistency, which is units carbon. Yes,by 2050 China BY ITSELF will be making several times more CO2 or carbon or however you'd like to account it than the entire industrrial world does right now.

All of the carbon cuting foolishness your goober heroes are proposing will only trim about 1/10 of a degree C by 2100. Your so-called cliff is looking more like a small pebble in the road! The REAL cliif will be the economic impact

[rugbyguy59]

@jimbo1490 You really don't read very well do you. I've finally taught you how to convert C into CO2 or CO2 into C, but you still can't read units. The DOE reports in CO2. Therefore you need to divide 26 by 3.67 not multiply.

Happily driving off a cliff when you know the cliff is coming and there is a perfectly viable way around...that's a fools errand.

[jimbo1490]

@rugbyguy59 3.67 tons of carbon dioxide contains one ton of carbon.Therefore, the DOE's projection of 26Gt for China's yr 2050 CARBON emissions could be expressed as 26Gt x 3.67 or ~95Gt of CARBON DIOXIDE emissions.

There will be NO reduction in CO2 emissions. It is a classic fool's errand!

[rugbyguy59]

Phosphorus in just one person’s urine would be close to the amount needed to fertilize the food supply for one person. So why not recycle urine? NoMix toilets have been invented to allow for the collection of urine separate from solid wastes, allowing P and N to be recovered and used as fertilizer. Crop biotechnologists are exploring ways to produce plants that dramatically increase the efficiency with which they use phosphorus, reducing the amount of phosphorus needed.

[rugbyguy59]

@jimbo1490 The faster the energy use increases the faster we run out. Either way, now or later, alternatives are the only option. Trouble is later is too late.

[rugbyguy59]

@jimbo1490 The privately held Chorus Motors has invented and developed an improved AC induction motor that completely eliminates the permanent neodymium magnets to supply the energy needed to accelerate hybrid or electric vehicles. If this technology is widely adopted, it would free up neodymium supplies for other uses and also tend to lower the metal’s price

[rugbyguy59]

@jimbo1490 So now CDIAC's numbers are wrong? That's where the numbers came from. A little consistency please.

China still emits far less per capita than western nations. Kyoto was a we started and so we'll make the first move program. Now getting China to cut is part of the agenda.