Mr Ward's Many Mythtakes

This was in response to a denialist letter in the local rag.

Mr Stephen Ward makes all the usual debunked arguments, in all the usual ways.

He starts off characterising the science of global warming as a series of assumptions, when in fact they are a rock-solid scientific theory supported by thousands of peer-reviewed papers and literally billions of measurements. The evidence supporting what he calls "assumptions" is a mountain of data assembled by every climatologist, biologist, glaciologist, geologist and meteorologist around the world, working at times with intense rivalry as well as frequent co-operation. The "assumptions" he quotes are exactly the conclusions reached by the IPCC, representing the most conservative views and least controversial avenues of study. Proven? Get a few PhDs, then say otherwise.

He follows with the old saw about a scientific consensus on cooling in the 1970s. There was no such thing. There was a global journalistic scare story derived from a single paper suggesting we were due for a return of the ice age because the warm period was longer than any of the previous ones. If anything, the fact that we were not sliding into an ice age is evidence for human impact on the climate stretching back even before we started burning fossil fuels. There is a suggestion that farming and forest clearance kept the world at a warmer than natural level for the last 5000 years.

The article he quotes talks about a trend of 20-30 years. The period in question (1945 to 1975) was dominated by massive industrial growth on the back of coal-burning and car fumes, which release soot and sulphates into the atmosphere. These make clouds with smaller droplets, reflecting sunlight and cooling the surface of the earth in a phenomenum called Global Dimming - a very real and accepted aspect of climate calcualtions. Since the various attempts to eliminate dirty coal fumes across the US and Europe, this form of human pollution has diminished (although it is coming back around India and China) and the underlying warming trend from CO2 has therefore returned with a vengeance.

We then get a few cherry-picked snippets of data. 1998 was, indeed, one of the warmest years on record following a ferocious El Nino event. What he ignores is that climate is about long trends of 10, 50, 100 years and more. Any single year is just noise in these trends. The global temperature rise over the 100 year period from 1906-2005 was 0.74°C. The warmest year between 1880 and 1980 was 1944, 0.2°C above the overall mean. In the past ten years every single year has been more than 0.3°C above the mean, with one, 2005, more than 0.6°C above the mean, beating 1998 into a cocked hat.

Included in all Mr Ward's misinformation is a claim that the main sources of data are satellites and remote sensing equipment, and that these are both showing cooling trends. This is simply false. The main sources of data are the thousands of weather stations around the world, and the temperature measurements logged by hundreds of ships' captains aboard sea-going vessels. There were no satellites nor remote sensing stations between 1880 and 1970, and the ones deployed since 1970 all, with no substantial exceptions, support the measurements taken on the ground.

Mr Ward winds up this abundance of ignorance and falsehood with an appeal to reason. We should balance job creation against the dangers of climate change. It makes me wonder what, amidst all his denials that climate change is happening, he thinks those dangers are? Does he think it will get a little stormier, maybe have a few more floods and heatwaves and lose some seafront properties to gently lapping waves?

No, Mr Ward. That level of ignorance must be addressed.

There has only ever been one period in Earth's history when it has experienced the runaway global warming we are now faced with. When the Canadian and Russian permafrost releases gigatonnes of methane, and seas warm to release teratonnes more from frozen methane clathrate on the seabed, then we will have a global extinction event on a par with the Permian-Triassic extinction event. Try arguing for a third runway when 96% of all marine species and 70% of all land vertebrates (including everything bigger than a mouse that can't survive on dead and decaying things) are dead and gone.

To put it in insurance terms for you. The level of risk is the termination of everything that makes human civilisation possible, from mass food production to the ready availability of fresh water. That's 99.9999% of current global GDP gone. The chance of this cost being incurred over the next 100 years or so, given the prevalence of (frequently wilful) ignorance on the subject, is currently around 10-15%. This can be reduced to maybe 1% if everyone starts doing something significant right away.

As your insurer, I know that you probably won't be able to pay your premiums after about 2050, as you will be too worried about the 2 billion refugees from Asia and Africa trying to take your Big Mac and Fries. So, I offer you a choice of two 40-year annuities. Either pay 1% of Global GDP for 40 years to reduce the risks, and another 1% per year insurance premium to meet the costs of failure, or spend nothing on risk reduction, and 5% of global GDP (starting in ten years time after it is too late) to make sure I will rebuild civilisation after your grandchildren have died of starvation.

Your choice - don't let me pressure you. We need to be rational about this. Only, could you pay me in rocket fuel so I can build my luxury retreat in space.

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The Standard seems to remove articles after a week, so the original link is now dud. Alistair Waugh (the originator of the discussion) got right of reply last week, and now another denialist has chimed in with more garbage.

The permanent locations are PDF files
Mr Waugh's opener
Mr Ward's myths
Mr Waugh's reply
Mr Hemmingway's excuse

My reply in a new post, shortly

CRAG Tax and Fund Scheme

The CRAG group I'm a member of is largely dead at the moment. To be fair, it never really took off, and I had misgivings about the system from the start.

I think it's because the method of reduction in our footprints lacks carrot and has too much stick. It basicly asks people to declare their carbon use and then trade down to a per-member cap. In other words, it's a straight cap and trade system. It doesn't work because the only incentive for people with high footprints is to leave before they have to pay up.

I have a different proposal based loosely around Oliver Tickell's Kyoto 2 proposals.

First of all, with a fluid membership, cap and trade in any form does not work - it's either all-in or none, with that kind of system. So what I'd suggest is a (voluntary) carbon tax and green investment/loans fund.

Each member that wishes may donate an amount (to be determined) for their fossil fuel usage and general conspicuous consumption activities. Basic living costs (rent/mortgage, a clothes allowance, food, water and sewage) would be fee-free and guilt-free, but any other expenditure would be included in a personal tally and regular donations into the collective kitty (I suggest a club account or similar) by monthly direct debit. The amount to be paid would be assessed by the accepted GRAG accounting rules.

Any member in good standing (say a year of monthly donations) may submit a funding request for an eco-project they wish to put into place to reduce their footprint. This might be some roof lagging, or cavity wall insulation, or a set of remote-controlled sockets, or even a new high-efficiency fridge or an electric car. The request can be for either a zero-interest loan for up to 100% of the project's cost, or a grant of up to 50% of the project's cost.

With their funding request they must supply evidence of past carbon use and financial costs related to the area the project is intended to address (e.g. house heating) and an estimate of future carbon use and spending based on the results of the project. Requests will be assessed on a bang-per-buck system, where the cheapest, biggest wins will be considered first. It is likely that the most profligate users will have the greatest opportunities for making savings, so this incentivises them to remain within the system.

The length of time a member stays within the system will only be a factor for when they may submit a request, and will not influence the spending decisions, which will be made in public with all factors published. There may be a case for limiting each member to one project per year.

Every project funded through the scheme via a grant will be subject to a profit-sharing system. Depending on the share of the cost funded, a proportion of all resulting savings for the first 5 years will be returned to the scheme.

That is, if a £1000 project received a 50% grant of £500, and resulted in savings to the owner of £10 per month in bills and a reduction in their carbon tax payments by a further £2 per month, then half these savings would accrue to the fund - i.e. his monthly contribution would go up by £4 per month - a net saving of £6 per month. The fund would recoup (in this case) £360 of the outlay.

All projects will need to supply evidence of their savings to monitor this, but this will be gathered as part of the normal CRAG accounting process. Other changes in circumstances or behaviour made by members, without the benefit of CRAG funding, should also be declared to avoid counting savings from other sources.

For loans, there is only the loan repayment (over a term of 5 years) to be added. If the £500 above had been a loan, monthly repayments would be £8.33, but the £12 savings would be entirely his - a net saving of £3.67 per month. The fund would eventually recoup all of the outlay.

Note that defaulters can be taken to small claims courts, and projects would be funded under signed contracts. Any member can opt out of their voluntary tax payments at any time, so long as they keep up any project repayments.

The whole would need to be managed by a small committee. I suggest 3 people, with one seat up for election each year. All members with an existing direct debit instruction are eligible to vote, and all members in good standing (12 months or more of payments) eligible to stand (except in the first year, obviously). The treasury would require 2 signatures from these three to draw any money, and all accounts (including a summary of each member's cash and carbon standings) would be published monthly.

Advantages:
• Everyone has an investment in the success of the community.
• A fluid membership can be managed.
• High-polluters often have the easiest savings to make, and this system assists them to do so.
• Sharing project experiences can generate ideas and accumulate knowledge.
• Favourable deals can be negotiated with traders to delivery multiple projects.
• As the fund accumulates wealth, and drives down emissions within the group, more ambitous projects become achievable.
• Individual members can obtain capital for improvements in their carbon lifestyle without paying interest to disinterested institutions.