Keith Windschuttle has just published a hoax article full of pseudo-science in Quadrant. And it wasn't this article by Tim Curtin which contains such gems as the claim that Arrhenius borrowed his formulation of the enhanced greenhouse effect from Malthus (he didn't), that the water vapour from burning fossil fuels is a more important greenhouse gas that CO2 (ignoring the fact that the CO2 stays in the atmosphere 10,000 times as long) and attributing all of the increase in food production in the last thirty years to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere (I swear that I am not making this up).
By comparison, the hoax article seems almost reasonable, though the proposal to use genetically modified mosquitoes to deliver drugs seems a bit of a give away:
A trawl through two of CSIRO's annual reports reveals that the organisation had previously abandoned plans to commercialise two other projects which involved modifying organisms with an array of human gene sequences. ... Another was modification of malaria mosquitoes so they carry genes which produce human antibodies in their gut; thus rendering their bite less dangerous.
And the very first sentence of the hoax is good:
Quadrant readers will remember America's "science wars", spearheaded by the masterful Sokal hoax, a "hodgepodge of unsupported arguments, outright mistakes, and impenetrable jargon" designed to challenge standards of logic, truth and intellectual enquiry in scientific debate.
Windschuttle's response is priceless. He denies that the piece is a hoax:
Rather than a hoax, her article is simply a piece of fraudulent journalism submitted to Quadrant under false pretences.
There is lots of discussion of this matter: Margaret Simons, Larvatus Prodeo, Harry Clark, Andrew Norton and David Marr:
After a terrible two hours, Keith Windschuttle convinced himself he hadn't been hoaxed at all. He was greatly relieved. How embarrassing such a stumble could have been for this fierce nitpicker, scourge of sloppy academics and current editor of the conservative Quadrant magazine.
Since I've criticised Tim Curtin in this post, he's allowed to post to this thread. He remains banned from commenting on any other post.
> Rather than a hoax, her article is simply a piece of fraudulent journalism submitted to Quadrant under false pretences.
And Windschuttle is still a skeptical skeptic filled with skeptical skepticism! If he got hoodwinked by a hoax piece of fraudulent journalism[1], it's not his fault for being a gullible idiot. It's the fault of ... ... ... liberals.
[1] well, it's the same either way...
> Windschuttle's response is priceless. He denies that the piece is a hoax
The phrase 'baking mental pretzels' always springs to mind whenever I see the clueless rationalising away their idiocy.
There is some irony in Windy being tripped up by inattention to footnotes, but beyond that its a pretty unimpressive prank IMHO. Quadrant deserves what it gets for its AGW pseudoscience line but there is a greater irony there that the hoaxer's stated aim was to bravely show chinks in the empirical armor of scientists (how original ...) when the only people who do and can take down Quadrant for its nonsense are ... scientists.
Having been delighted by Sokal years ago, I was wondering from the earlier Quadrant discussions here if someone would attempt a repeat.
Yes!
More seriously, this kind of activity is similar to several important ones in computing.
1) Quality assurance organization independent of developers and strong enough to hold a release if there are real problems.
2) And even more similar, use of outside security reviews or even better, unnannounced penetration attempts by experienced teams.
Of course, on this case, it looks like the equivalent of Quadrant publishing the root password and encryption keys for everything they have.
What is the larger objective of the hoax? Is it to expose Windschuttle as a gullible ignoramus (done) or is to attack biotech, especially genetically modified organisms? Is this part of a bio-Luddite agenda of banning GMOs? I don't know.
The Sokal hoax was not just directed against Social Text, which was simply a convenient vehicle for the bogus article, but postmodernist sociology of scientific knowledge in general. Likewise, the hoax article about preference for blondes which appeared in Medical Hypotheses was not directed against the journal so much as against the field of evolutionary psychology.
Trackback. Best summary post of the lot, thanks Tim.
Does this suggest that Bob Carter is soon to be revealed as a clever hoax?
Please?
#6 - the Diary of a hoax gives a pretty clear rationale behind this hoax "This experiment wasn't designed with ill-intent, but to uncover hypocrisy in knowledge-claims, and also spark public debate about standards of truth when anything is claimed in the name of 'science'". The blog also reports that Windschuttle himself stated of the Sokal hoax that "Anyone with a familiarity with high school science should have seen the article was a spoof and the assertions so nonsensical that they were self-evidently untrue. The fact that the editors of Social Text failed to recognise it for what it was, and published it in all faith as a serious academic article, demonstrated the paucity of their understanding of the very field of which they had long been critics."
So, she constructed an article in pseudoscience speak that played to the agenda of Quadrant, but which contained no logical train of thought or coherent argument This makes his response all the more interesting - I cannot work out whether he has actually missed the point?
Very amusing indeed that you could easily rewrite the above quote to say "Anyone with a familiarity with high school science should have seen the Quadrant article was a spoof and the assertions so nonsensical that they were self-evidently untrue. The fact that the editors of Quadrant failed to recognise it for what it was, and published it in all faith as a serious article, demonstrated the paucity of their understanding."
Very amusing!
Much as I enjoy seeing Quadrant embarrassed, Sokal this aint. Hell, this isn't even in the league of Swift's "A Modest Proposal".
The piece, even on a second inspection, really doesn't come across as a hoax at all. The references are real, and while the claims made about them certainly are far fetched, I've read far more logically inconsistent.
In addition, the piece doesn't really seem to land itself in Quadrant's corner. The embrace of "expert" advice given in the article really goes against the grain in Quadrant, which publishes pieces that reject the scientific consensus on climate change for reasons of ideology.
So maybe Windshuttle should be more rigorous when it comes to checking references. But as an editor, he's probably quite time poor, and (obviously) not an expert in the myriad of fields that articles appearing in Quadrant focus on. And as Andrew Norton notes, the article did not seem to have a great prominence in Quadrant, appearing on page 70.
Colour me unimpressed.
What I found interesting was Windshuttle's comment:
This is true as far as it goes - and this is exactly why every editor of every reputable scientific journal sends submissions to appropriately qualified and/or experienced experts in the field of the submission.
That Quadrant does not (routinely?) do this indicates that it is not about peer-review. As such it cannot be considered to be a serious player in scientific matters (at the least), and it cannot be considered to have the capacity to comment upon controversial scientific issues.
Of course, everyone knows this, but the very fact of the appearance of a piece in Quadrant is considered by conservatives to lend to it credibility... obviously now shown to be certainly undeserved if the published piece is beyond the purview of the editorial staff.
It's a little ironic that Tim Curtin's adventures into climate science and plant biochemistry came out in the same issue.
The Australian has the story on the front page of today's edition. It's actually quite balanced.
Meh.
The first paragraph is indeed amusing, but the rest is neither amusing nor outrageous.
The main points seem to be that the mass media cannot accurately report nuanced scientific research, and that people indulge in magical thinking with concepts like "human genes". I tend to agree, and indeed they're the kind of position that might be published on Deltoid. At any rate they're not embarrassingly irrational.
I can understand the Herald and Crikey's hunger for schadenfreude but their wishful thinking does not reflect well on them.
> the proposal to use genetically modified mosquitoes to deliver drugs seems a bit of a give away:
I took that to mean they would have antibodies against carrying malaria, which is plausible to a layman.
> we live in a society in which there are 20 times as many astrologers as
astronomers.
I wonder if this is actually true?
I think all this is going to achieve is get Quadrant some free publicity and perhaps a few additional subscribers. Quite frankly, I don't know anyone who actually reads this publication.
There's less gibberish in the hoax article than in Tim Curtin's piece published alongside it. Quadrant will publish ill-informed opinion on a sciencey subject as long as the apparent ideological prejudice of the author suits its editor - did someone expect better?
Amazing, a hoax and an article by a nutcase in the one issue. What a magazine.
As expanded from A9 of what to do about poor science reporting here:
Suppose a publication lacks the expertise to assess letters/articles about science (or any other reality-based topic).
They can:
a) Try to get knowledgable advisors/reviewers.
b) Stop publishing stuff they simply don't understand.
c) Or suffer occasional ridicule like this, which of course will haunt them, as did Sokal haunt (and change) Social Text, which at least has an editorial board these days.
I've had too many interactions with the press to believe or expect that editors are perfect and all-knowledgable, but good ones know what they know, and can add serious value in providing good content. Bad ones can subtract value, as happened here.
Isn't Windshuttle's culpability mainly to do with the fact that he failed to discover that the author didn't exist? My understanding is that Sharon Gould is entirely fictional and that a short phone call or even a quick google might have roused his suspicions (I did it and apart from results about the hoax found nothing).
What else do you expect from Windschuttle?
He is the editor of Quadrant is he not?
He rewrites history does he not?
He publishes Carter does he not?
Jason Soon (Catallaxy) makes a pretty strong case for the hoaxer being Katherine Wilson, who used to blog around the place as 'weathergirl'.
Whether you see it as a hoax or a fraud seems to depend on where you stand (who does it embarrass, my friends or my foes?). The larger point, that you shouldn't publish what you don't understand unless you get some outside help to endure that it does more than match your prejudices, is very sound. Having footnotes is interesting, but enough familiarity with the literature to ensure that a paper says what the author claims it does, is important (and would eliminate the AGW denialist and creationist literature). Just because its obscure doesn't mean it's profound, as my friend Ern Malley used to say.
Having footnotes is interesting, but enough familiarity with the literature to ensure that a paper says what the author claims it does, is important (and would eliminate the AGW denialist and creationist literature)
IME having footnotes means, to the I-wish-to-believe-because-this-comports-with-my-worldview crowd, that the talking points in the piece are equivalent to stone tablets handed down from the clouds. That is: Lomborg's book has over 3,000 footnotes!!!!!!!!!!!! WoooOOOOWWWWW! Look at the enviros squirrrrrrrm!!!!
Best,
D
Windy likes anything that supports his own world view, but as the editor he has an obligation to check the articles he publishes. Irony is usually lost on people like Windy, as someone well known for attacking others over factual matters he doesn't mind publishing his own fiction, I mean "Non-Fiction", like the Tasmanian aboriginal population were not wiped out by genocide, yet where are they now Windy? Had the claims been holocaust denials we could have him deported to Germany but since it is about our Aboriginal population he gets away with his evil assertions.
In 1973 Robert Mayne writing in the Natonal Times in the wake of the Murphy raid on A.S.I.O., claimed that he had been approached by a group of people including: a senior A.S.I.O officer, a N.S.W. Liberal M.L.A. and a Country Party M.L.C. who offered to pay him $1000 per year to produce a magazine called "Anaysis" which would use A.S.I.O. information to "discredit left wingers".The Liberal M.L.A. said that he had used similar information in Parliament and in articles that he had written. A subsequent Royal Commission into Intelligence and Security outed the Liberal M.L.A. as Peter Coleman, one time Opposition Leader and longtime(1967-1990)editor of Quadrant.
What a scurrilous tradition your squalid little rag has Keith. No wonder its a fav of JWH.
Dear Tim Lambert: your magnanimity and one-off commitment to free speech are amazing, so I am duly grateful.
Taking your comments in turn:
1. "... this article by Tim Curtin which contains such gems as the claim that Arrhenius borrowed his formulation of the enhanced greenhouse effect from Malthus (he didn't)"
How do you know? Arrhenius was famous as a polymath and it is unlikely he knew nothing of Malthus and his most famous but false assertion that while populations always grow exponentially at about the same rate (they don't), food supply grows only arithmetically (it didn't and hasn't). Google has thousands of refs. linking the two names.
2. "The water vapour from burning fossil fuels is a more important greenhouse gas than CO2 (ignoring the fact that the CO2 stays in the atmosphere 10,000 times as long)". Your bracket contains sublime ignorance: there is no evidence that any given CO2 molecule stays 10,000 times longer up there than any given H2O molecule. CO2 molecules are constantly in and out of the atmosphere. What is lacking from the IPCC is proper inventory analysis of these relative fluxes to show which are larger in absolute and net terms over a year, CO2 or H2O. Until that has been done your claim is simply armwaving.
3. "...attributing all of the increase in food production in the last thirty years to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere (I swear that I am not making this up)". So as a computer buff, what is your rebuttal of my regression analysis of food production (FAO data) against CO2 (Mauna Loa), fertilizer utilization, global temps (GISS), and world population? Why is the Garnaut Report's commissioned study from Crimp et al of CSIRO that shows the huge impact (30%) of enhanced CO2 to 550 ppm on wheat yields by 2030 equally wrong? What is YOUR estimate of the impact on food crop yields of the Canadell et al study's data (2007, also in IPCC, WG1, ch.7, 2007 and their GCP 2008 as well as my own paper's supporting online material)showing the absorption of CO2 emissions by the terrestrial biosphere as having grown by 3.7% pa from 1959 to 2007)?
Tim Curtin:
> Arrhenius was famous as a polymath and it is unlikely he knew nothing of Malthus
In other words:
1. Arrhenius 'probably' knew about Malthus.
2. Ergo, this proves that Arrhenius borrowed his greenhouse effect formulation from Malthus.
3. Ergo, global warming is a myth.
Aristotle will be proud, my friends.
Thanks bi-IJI for your as ever erudite contribution:
"Arrhenius 'probably' knew about Malthus.
Ergo, this proves that Arrhenius borrowed his greenhouse effect formulation from Malthus." Disprove it, mate.
You added:"Ergo, global warming is a myth". Bad luck, old boy. Arrhenius claimed that 50% more atmospheric CO2 would raise global mean temps by over 3oC. We have just about managed 50% since his time, but even Gauleiter Belsen has not been able to report a global temp rise since 1896 of more than 0.73oC. Ever heard of Karl Popper?
Tim Curtin writes:
Curtin, do you even know what Arrhenius's "greenhouse formulation" was? Malthus said exactly nothing about greenhouse gases. He certainly didn't have Arrhenius's detailed model, which included the band information available at the time and a scheme to account for water vapor feedback.
Ever heard of aerosols? Or the ocean?
Yes, Arrhenisus's estimate for climate sensitivity was probably too high -- 6 K per doubling, as I recall. The actual figure is probably closer to 3 K. That's still a disaster for human agriculture and the economy.
Aristotle will be proud, my friends.
Well, he would be verry proud in a conservative way, as the his next logical step would be to find that CO2 is plant food, and this proves Malthus was wrong.
Best,
D
"what is your rebuttal of my regression analysis of..."
That correlation is not causation, that it never has been, and that it never will be; and that anyone who implies that it is is ignorant, stupid, dishonest, a crank, or some combination thereof.
Thanks for all comments above.
What is interesting and indisputable is that Arrhenius used virtually the same words as Malthus to describe his formulation of the effect of increasing atmospheric concentration of CO2 on global mean temperature. I never said that Malthus addressed that issue, only that his formulation of the relationship between population growth and global food production anticipated Arrhenius' uncanny repetition of that formulation in regard to CO2 and temps.
Barton P.L.: you said "Arrhenius' estimate for climate sensitivity was probably too high -- 6 K per doubling, as I recall. The actual figure is probably closer to 3 K. That's still a disaster for human agriculture and the economy". You overlook...
1. Arrhenius' Table in his 1896 Table clearly shows a smaller increase in temp for increasing [CO2] from 50% to 100% up on 1896 than from 0% to 50%. I realise the math whizz kids on this site cannot cope with that kind of math, so what can I do? Actual temp rise (GISS) since 1896 for c40% increase in CO2 is 0.73oC, Arrhenius' model therefore indicates smaller (<0.7) increase in temp for the next 60% rise in atmos CO2.
2. The useful (in data, if useless in math) paper by Canadell et al (PNAS 2007) and their Global Carbon Project site show that the terrestrial absorption of CO2 emissions has increased from 0.5 GtC in 1958-59 to over 3 GtC today, i.e. by a factor of 6. How does that manifest if not in increased productivity and output of global agriculture, forestry, and livestock?
3. George Smiley: let me repeat my challenge to Tim Lambert:
"What is YOUR estimate of the impact on food crop yields of the Canadell et al study's data (2007, also in IPCC, WG1, ch.7, 2007 and their GCP 2008 as well as my own paper's supporting online material)showing the absorption of CO2 emissions by the terrestrial biosphere as having grown by 3.7% pa from 1959 to 2007)?" George, you are right about correlations and causation, but how do you explain the manifest growth of world food production since 1958 vis a vis the comparable growth of atmos. CO2? You must know that agriculture, forest products, and livestock all depend on photosynthesis which is in turn dependent on the existence of atmospheric CO2. Popper said you have to have a hypothesis, in this case more [CO2] equals more photosynthesis equals more agric etc productivity. What is the evidence from Mauna Loa and FAO? My take is that these data are consistent with the hypothesis, more atmos CO2 (i.e. [CO2])correlates with more global food production. But George if you insist, your hypothesis that the latter causes the former has to be right, and pigs have wings.
Meantime I am prepared to offer $1000 to Tim Lambert if he can prove in a peer reviewed paper published in Science or Nature that increased [CO2] has zero, zilch, nil, impact on global food production.
> What is interesting and indisputable is that Arrhenius used virtually the same words as Malthus to describe his formulation of the effect of increasing atmospheric concentration of CO2 on global mean temperature.
Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population:
> Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. [...]
> allow that, by great exertion, the whole produce of the Island might be increased every twenty-five years, by a quantity of subsistence equal to what it at present produces. The most enthusiastic speculator cannot suppose a greater increase than this. In a few centuries it would make every acre of land in the Island like a garden.
> Yet this ratio of increase is evidently arithmetical.
> It may be fairly said, therefore, that the means of subsistence increase in an arithmetical ratio. [...]
> But we should be led into an error if we were thence to suppose that population and food ever really increase in the same ratio. The one is still a geometrical and the other an arithmetical ratio, that is, one increases by multiplication, and the other by addition. [...]
Arrhenius, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, Philosophical Magazine:
> Thus if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.
Tim Curtin should've testified at SCO v. IBM.
Thanks Bi. So how are Malthus and Arrhenius doing?
INDICES19612007
Cereals100 267.09
Populat.100 21.11
[CO2]100 121.00
Temps100 103.41
Clearly Malthus got it spectacularly wrong, despite recent endorsement by Ross Garnaut. Arrhenius is doing a bit better. [Sources: Cereals, FAO; Pop, Maddison; CO2 at Mauna Loa, CDIAC; Temps, GISS]. Re food and [CO2], my challenge to Tim Lambert is open to all, you just have to prove there is NO relationship between growth of CO2 emissions and global food production, in a peer reviewed journal, actually preferably not Science and Nature,as they publish any old rubbish so long as it is currently PC, but I will not insist on that point.
Apologies, there's a misprint. The world population index as of 2007 (1961=100) is 211.11. BTW, the CO2 emissions index as of 2007 stood at 245 (again 1961=100). Prima facie, there appears to be a closer match between the emissions and cereal production than between emissions and temperature, but one should never believe that, should one?
Tim Curtin, this is not your unique 'take' - most serious plant physiologists and ecologists understand that there is a relationship between atmospheric CO concentration and photosynthesis.
However, most such scientists also understand that this relationship is not monotonically increasing, and that it is dependent upon a host of cofactors, whether such factors are limiting or are feeding back, and in the latter it is necessary to include AGW.
Of course, you seem to perceive no credibility in the AGW paradigm, so perhaps you could explain how it is possible to 'accept' the science behind the photosynthetic efficacy of CO in the context of global food production whilst not similarly accepting the science of GHG warming. Alternatively, perhaps you can explain why not a one of your fellow Denialists has published a peer reviewed paper published in Science or Nature that increased [CO2] has zero, zilch, nil, impact on global climate.
Tim Curtin:
> Thanks Bi. So how are Malthus and Arrhenius doing?
You still haven't remotely proven your claim that Arrhenius borrowed his formulation from Malthus.
Or are you saying that the use of variants of the words "increase", "in", "geometric", "arithmetic" is a clear indication of plagiarism?
As I said, you should've testified at SCO v. IBM.
Bi: I did not claim Arrhenius "borrowed from" Malthus, but it remains highly plausible he was aware of Malthus' formulation, it is after all his most well known statement, and Arrhenius in any case found it convenient to use it almost word for word in the wholly different context of CO2 and temps. Nothing wrong with that. The real points at issue are, was Malthus right? was Arrhenius right?
Bernard, taking your points in turn: (1)most serious plant physiologists and ecologists understand that there is a relationship between atmospheric CO concentration and photosynthesis.YES OF COURSE, BUT DO HANSEN, GORE, STERN, GARNAUT, IPCC? THEY ALL INFER THAT REDUCING [CO2] WILL HAVE NO IMPACT ON PHOTOSYNTHESIS.
(2) However, most such scientists also understand that this relationship is not monotonically increasing, WHERE DO THEY SO SAY GIVEN ALL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY? and that it is dependent upon a host of cofactors, whether such factors are limiting or are feeding back, and in the latter it is necessary to include AGW. OF COURSE, MY FORTHCOMING PAPER DEALS WITH THIS.
(3) Of course, you seem to perceive no credibility in the AGW paradigm, [NOT TRUE, THE ISSUE IS HOW MUCH THAT JUSTIFIES DRACONIAN POLICIES PROPOSED BY OBAMA ET AL]so perhaps you could explain how it is possible to 'accept' the science behind the photosynthetic efficacy of CO in the context of global food production whilst not similarly accepting the science of GHG warming. AGAIN THE ISSUE IS RELATIVITIES. USING MY DATA ABOVE, THE RATIO BETWEEN % INCREASES IN CEREALS AND EMISSIONS INDICES(1961-2007) IS 1.09, THAT BETWEEN TEMPS AND EMISSIONS IS O.42, BOTH CET. PAR. OF COURSE AND THEREFORE SIMPLISTIC, BUT ARGUABLY SIGNIFICANT, GIVEN THAT FOOD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN TEMPERATURE FOR MOST OF HUMANITY.
Alternatively, perhaps you can explain why not a one of your fellow Denialists has published a peer reviewed paper published in Science or Nature that increased [CO2] has zero, zilch, nil, impact on global climate. MANY SCEPTICS HAVE PUBLISHED PEER REVIEWED STUFF ACCEPTING THE IR EFFECT BUT QUERYING ITS EXTENT AND RELATIVE SIGNIFICANCE. THE OBSERVED dT SINCE 1900 (0.73oC) RELATIVE TO OBSERVED d[CO2] OF 40% DOES NOT CONFIRM THE ARRHENIUS FORMULATION WHEREVER HE GOT IT FROM.
grant application for test of effect of carbon doxide concentration on food crop production:
we aim to take two identical planets equidistant from the sun and raise the carbon dioxide concentration of the atmosphere of one, while stabilizing its climate to not change in response (methods to be determined later). global food crop production of both planets will be harvested and weighed.
budget extimate:
100 gajillion dollars per year, for ten years.
Tim Curtin:
> I did not claim Arrhenius "borrowed from" Malthus,
Yes, you did:
> Malthus earned fame with his theory [...]
> Arrhenius took over this formulation in his celebrated paper of 1896 [...]
Trying to weasel out of your claim and at the same time continue to make vague insinuations of plagiarism, eh?
Bi: the variables differ, the formulation is identical. Prove that Arrhenius had never heard of Malthus or read his book. My evidence that he had is his use of the same formulation pari passu. Both were and are wrong.
Tim Curtin.
Please, can you use some other form of quote/response when you post. The shouting format renders your posts almost too difficult to read. I apologise to any who may have to struggle with my repetition of your text.
It seems to me that there are a number of issues here.
Firstly, exactly where do each of these people/bodies infer such?
Secondly, if they do infer such, are 'reductions' with respect to only CO2 emitted by humans, or are they with respect to pre-industrial concentrations?
Thirdly, are any such impacts weighted for the benefits of mitigating AGW, for the other limits to agricultural expansion dictated by environmental degradation and non-renewable resource depletion, and for the improvements in agricultural technologies that are yet to be realised?
Fourthly, and conversely to the previous point, are your estimations similarly inclusive of all such weightings? Please indicate how this was done, if such is the case.
Your insertion of a comment halfway through my sentence is mendacious, as it changes the context of my intent. I said:
The material following the first comma is integral to the initial phrase, and ironically I had actually changed my original several sentences in anticipation that you might do exactly what you did. I did not credit that you would still do so even after I'd tried to make my intent as clear as possible.
As you well know the enhanced photosynthetic response of experimentally-isolated plants to increasing CO2 is accepted as trivial fact by plant physiologists and plant ecologists. There is nothing surprising about this. However, it is also understood that there are many limitations to photosynthetic response trajectories, and in my time as an undergrad I recall seeing PR curves that plateaued anywhere from just above ambient atmospheric CO2 concentration to around 1000ppm. Such curves are determined by enzymatic kinetics and competitions (eg photorespiration), by temperature, by moisture, by nutrient availability, by photosystem type, by genetic variation within and between species, and so on.
So, even though in a CO2-constrained experimental situation phtotsynthesis is not monotonically increasing, my comment was intended to refer to the real world where such plateaux usually occur more to the left when compared with experimental curves.
If you have evidence to contradict the existence of plateaux wherever they might occur on the abscissa I'd be most interested to see it.
Indeed. What is the scope of this paper, and where will it be published?
Just as any mainstream scientist accepts the relationship between photosynthesis and CO2 concentration. However you where attempting to pin the matter to one of scientists who claim that CO2 concentration has "zero, zilch, nil, impact on global food production", so I am similarly interested only in the catalogue of published work of Denialists who claim that CO2 concentration has "zero, zilch, nil, impact" on global warming.
Examples please.
Given that this demonstrates a raw sensitivity of 1.8°C/[CO2]-doubling, without factoring for various feedbacks, it is still a remarkably good estimation on Arrhenius' part. He was after all pioneering 'greenhouse' science, with none of the benefit of technologies available a century later.
And given that the various best estimates for sensitivity are roughly in the range 2.0-4.5°C once feedbacks and temporal inertia are factored in, good old Arrhenius is looking remarkably competent in his work.
We have yet to be convinced that you demonstrate a remotely similar capacity for science.
For those in any doubt, when I referred to "a CO2-constrained experimental situation" in post #40 above, I was referring to experimentation where CO2 is the only factor limiting photosynthesis, and thus the only factor to modify the photosynthetic response as CO2 concentration changes.
And for any who followed the comments about Arrhenius without knowledge of his 'formulation', his estimations of climate sensitivity were that halving of CO2 would decrease temperatures by 4 - 5°C and a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5 - 6°C.
I'd challenge any Denialist to do as well given the same circumstances as Arrhenius, were it actually possible to do with the confounding of hindsight.
It's simply churlishness to denigrate the man's work. Especially so when one considers the time it took to refine estimates of such simple constants as the speed of light, the distance of the earth to the sun, the value of pi, et cetera.
The Nobel committee certainly thought that Arrhenius did OK...
Thanks Bernard, but I have made no such claims. However I gather (hat tip to JB) that Arrhenius was on the committee that awarded him his Nobel. The rules have changed since then. He did have valuable insights, but his estimates were 3.5oC for 50% increase in [CO2] and 5.5 for a doubling, i.e less than in proportion with the extra [CO2]. The IPCC & co however consider that 3.0oC is on from now for the doubling to 560 ppm despite the only 0.7 for 40%, so it is they not I who rubbish Arrhenius.
Sorry about the caps, what do you suggest? I will address your other points later as I am off to celebrate the Invasion.
Tim Curtin.
I grant that my choice of "pin[ning] the matter to one of scientists who claim that..." was a poor phrasing of my point. These things happen to all of us when we type at length in blog posts, and I would be surprised if you didn't understand this at some level.
Nevertheless, my original question to you stands, and with it my intent to demonstrate that there are probably fewer mainstream scientists denying a complete lack of relationship between atmospheric CO2 concentration and photosynthetic productivity, than there are contrarians who maintain that atmospheric CO2 increases will not warm the planet.
To that end, I am still interested in your knowledge of people who have published material, in Nature or in Science or in similar journals, supporting this position.
Any of a number of HTML tags: blockquote, italic, perhaps bold it you are really venting, or you could even just use plain old quotation marks.
It'll make for a more coherent discussion of matters from both sides, because upper case words really piss people off if they have to read too many. It's really quite similar to what happens when people shout in 'real life' - everyone else stops listening.
In his article, Tim Curtin writes, "Malthus has long since been proved wrong about food production, which has grown exponentially even faster than population, so that the recurring starvation and population wipe-outs that Malthus feared have yet to materialise".
Given that there are more starving people on Earth than the number of people alive in 1930, and that the health of every important indicator of ecosystem quality across the biosphere is in decline, its folly for anyone to make such a loaded remark as this. This perfectly epitimizes Paul Ehrlich's comment, that its akin to someone jumping off of the Empire State Building, falling 75 floors, looking up an saying "Everything's fine!"
The two most important factors are these: 1. Technology has delayed the inevitable ecological crash; Earth is a closed system and humans (primarily the privileged few in the developed world) are living off of a one-time inheritanace of natural capital. To support the current population load, our species is degrading biodiversity (the working parts of our ecological life-support systems), deep rich agricultural soils, and groundwater levels. 2. Consequently, in some respects at a systemic level, we have not yet passed a critical threshold beyond which ecological systems are unable to support themselves and us. But many vital ecological services are in a worrying state of decline, and since complex adaptive systems function non-linearly, when that threshold is passed, then things will fail and fail quite quickly. Anyone who believes otherwise is living in denial or delusion. The trouble is that the vast majority of those espousing the 'Malthus was wrong' line apparently do not understand basic environmental science. If they did, they'd be much more circumspect in what they say.
Tim Curtin writes:
No, Tim. We don't have to disprove your theory. You have to prove your theory. That's how science works.
Bernard J said "my original question to you stands, and with it my intent to demonstrate that there are probably fewer mainstream scientists denying a complete lack of relationship between atmospheric CO2 concentration and photosynthetic productivity, than there are contrarians who maintain that atmospheric CO2 increases will not warm the planet".
Dear Bernard, how about the 2500++ scientists of the IPCC's AR4 who call for massive reductions in [CO2], including above all Jim Hansen, who calls for reduction to a max of 350 ppm, not one of whom brings to account the effect of reduced CO2 fertilization on global food production? The IPCC grudgingly admits in a few places that rising [CO2] does have a fertilization effect, but not that reducing [CO2] must reduce that effect - see for example AR4, p186 and p.526-7 for some weasel words on this subject, desperately downplaying the fertilization effect of enhanced [CO2] in order to infer (without saying so) that reducing [CO2] would have no impact on primary productivity. These pages are transparently biased and do not provide accurate accounts of the papers they refer to. The same applies to the Stern & Garnaut reports.
I reported my own regression of world food production 1980-2003 against [CO2], and global mean Temps in my submission to the Garnaut Review; it showed an adjusted R2 of .98 with the only significant coefficient being that on [CO2], after taking into account auto-correlation tests. Adding commercial fertilizer consumption data, the regression results derived from the data in Table 1 show very high values for the adjusted R2, at 0.99 and for F at 799.97, and a large and strongly significant coefficient (5.76) on CO2, with the t statistic at 36.06. Perhaps surprisingly, the coefficient on fertilizers is marginally negative (-0.047) but not significant (t = -0.67), while that on temperature is larger (0.365) and positive, but also not statistically significant (because t=0.767 so <2). The large negative value for the intercept (â507.9965) represents the negative food production index that would arise if there were zero values for fertilizer use, global temperature, and atmospheric CO2.
William Cline (2007) has reported much larger [CO2] fertilization than the IPCC will admit to but like them and Hansen does not grasp that reducing [CO2] must reduce that fertilization. Hansen has yet to explain why the world economy has suffered irretrievable damage from the rise in [CO2] from 280ppm to 385ppm and his GISS temp rise since 1896 of 0.73oC, and will benefit more from any cooling arising from reducing [CO2] to 350ppm or less than from the loss of the fertilization effect.
As for your bleat about "contrarians who maintain that atmospheric CO2 increases will not warm the planet", who do you mean?
Your list cannot include Bjorn Lomborg, who only today said this: "Make no mistake - global warming is real, and it is caused by manmade CO2 emissions. The problem is that even global, draconian, and hugely costly CO2 reductions will have virtually no impact on the temperature by mid-century. Instead of ineffective and costly cuts, we should focus
much more of our good climate intentions on dramatic increases in R&D for zero-carbon energy, which would fix the climate towards mid-century at low cost...." (CCNet 13/2009 - 26 January 2009 -- Audiatur et altera pars) I don't agree with Lomborg on his R&D push, but do agree with his further statements that there are more serious problems (eg Malaria, AIDS) which have been supported by real peer-reviewed Nobel prize winners in terms of cost-benefit analysis.
I cannot see how a rise of 3oC in say Dubai (to annual mean of 30oC) will make that place any more uncomfortable than it already is, while such an increase in Glasgow or Helsinki would bring unbounded joy. In no place in the world will there be any demonstrable hardship to compare with the lower global food production that will result either from reduction in [CO2]or from forgoing future increases in [CO2].
Barton Paul Levenson: I have offered a sample of my evidence here to support my theory; it is for you to produce the refutation, not me, all the data are in the public domain (e.g. FAO, CDIAC) - and that is the way science works.
OK Tim Curtin, here are some interesting findings which blow your "thesis" to dummy-land (where it belongs).
Here are some recent findings on the biochemistry of CO2 fixation (aka photosynthesis). The older studies showed that the enzymatic activity of isolated RUBISCO (the enzyme responsible for the fixing of CO2 into organic metabolites) was increased at higher temperatures and higher CO2 concentrations. They argued that this would be good for agriculture since it would allow for higher yields (forget about water and available nitrogen for now). However, there were always problems in getting reproducible levels of RUBISCO activity (preparations had to be aged and/or treated to give maximum activity).
Later research has shown that there is another layer of regulation affecting RUBISCO activity (as is common with many enzyme system). A new enzyme, RUBISCO activase, was found to be responsible for converting âinactiveâ to âactiveâ RUBISCO. And, surprise surprise, this new enzyme was found to be inhibited by higher temperatures and also inhibited by higher CO2 concentrations.
This finding is probably responsible for the contradictory results found in experiments where varying temperatures and CO2 concentrations on plant growth have been conducted.
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/nov02/plant1102.htm
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/24/13430
There are also some interesting new studies on the effects of higher (night time) temperatures on rice production. It seems that rice doesn't like higher temperatures and reduces its productivity.
http://www.pnas.org/content/101/27/9971.full
There are other studies which show similar results for other crops.
Please send the $1000 to a charity of Tim L's choice.
Thank you.
Tim Curtin,
Why oh why must you rely on Lomborg to bolster your inane views? Lomborg doesn't understand the link between then natural and material economies, so he dismisses them. You promulgate nonsense suggesting enhanced atmospheric CO 2 concentrations will ehance primary productivity, when the vast majority of environmental scientists (me included, you excluded) dismiss such a link because it ignores non-linear effects and other aspects of plant stoichiometry and effects on higher trophic levels. How many times does it have to be said: carbon is often not a limiting nutrient: nitrogen is. As one increases concentrations of atmospheric CO 2, nitrogen (as well as phosporus) is shunted out of plant tissues. The C:N ratio increases. This will affect the behavior and development of associated consumers, because for their ontogeny N is often limiting - a decrease in foliar N will often be accompanied by compensatory feeding (e.g. increased herbivory) or a reduction in fitness, with all kinds of consequences for species in interacting webs. Moreover, C is not limiting for many plants, either. I don't expect you to understand this but please refrain from this frankly absurd and unscientific notion that increasing atmospheric levels of C creates a green utopia. IT DOES NOT.
For once why don't you read the primary scientific literature, and in particular papers dealing with stoichiometry. It is an area I am working on empirically in a multitrophic framework and I find it seriously annoying when people espouse this kind of simplistic clap-trap re: CO 2 and primary production. Plants do not occur in isolation: they interact with other species in food webs that vary in their spatial and temporal complexity.
> Bi: the variables differ, the formulation is identical.
So
> arithmetical ratio
is "identical" to
> arithmetic progression?
Is that what you're saying?
Tim Curtin writes:
Very impressive, Tim. Do you know what "stationarity" means in statistics? Are your food and CO2 series integrated? If so, are they cointegrated? If not, have you differenced them appropriately and rerun the regression? Have you ever heard of the "spurious regression problem?"
This should be good.
Barton: Yes to all of those. Ever heard of Dickey Fuller? Or Durbin-Watson? Mine passes the latter. But with the Mauna Loa variable there is indeed potentially a problem according to D-F. That implies the result could well be a spurious correlation. But if that is the case, it applies a fortiori to any and all apparent statistical correlations between the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and global mean temperature, for if the former is auto-correlated in my regression it is so in all, including that with temperature. This may explain why the IPCC never displays any statistical analysis of the apparent but possibly spurious and certainly weaker correlation between increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and global mean temperature. But if there is a valid statistical relationship between those variables, then by the same token my results for the apparent very much closer correlation between the first of these and world food production than for that between atmospheric CO2 and global temperature also has to be valid. I would value your comments.
Forrester: armwaving; do your own.
Bi: you are clutching at straws, give me your definitions of those terms as Malthus would have understood them. He said clearly he was struck by the apparent doubling of US population every 25 years, Arrhenius equally clearly estimated effects of doubling [CO2].
Tim Curtin.
First up, I have commented a number of times in the past about the incorrect use of the term 'fertilisation' to describe CO2 assimilation during photosynthesis.
CO2 is a substrate for photosynthesis. As indicated above by Ian Forrester it can sometimes be the rate-limiting substrate, and hence increases in its concentration on these occasions will lead to increases in photosynthetic output.
However this does not make it a fertiliser, a formal definition of which I have provided to you in the past. To paraphrase such definitions here yet again, they are considered by mainstream plant physiologists/biochemists to refer so soil-borne nutrients, natural or synthetic, that enhance plant yield...
...by shifting upward, or removing entirely, some of the non-CO2 limitations to photosynthesis. Of course, it should be remembered that temperature, light intensity and photoperiod, and moisture are also rate-limiting factors in photosynthesis - which raises an interesting question: are you are going to claim that each of these is also a fertiliser? Oh, and oxygen too is required for plant growth, although most people do not appreciate this - is it a fertiliser? Given your concern for putting extra CO2 into the atmosphere, how many tons of oxygen might be concerningly lost from the atmosphere as CO2 increases?
Another way of thinking about it is that fertilisers are generally the chemicals required for plant growth exclusive of CO2, oxygen and water, the 'essential' substrates/products of carbohydrate synthesis/catabolism.
The CO2 'fertiliser' meme seems to have arisen from the agricultural/horticultural industries, where the use of descriptors to refer to biological processes is much more loose than in science. However this does not mean that it is OK to use the 'loose' versions of such definitions, because to do so conflates very different biological concepts and processes, and in the current debate it is very important to be clear about these concepts and processes.
Your confusion about the biochemical and ecological dynamics of photosynthesis demonstrates exactly why precise definitions are important, even if such might seem to you to be a semantic nit-pick.
Of course, for those who wish to obfuscate the profound negative consequences of increasing atmospheric CO2, similar obfuscation of definitions is a very useful FUD tool.
Ian above, and myself previously, have indicated to you that the CO2 photosynthetic response curves for plant species do not directly imply that, in the real world, it is simply a matter of upping CO2, and consequently upping productivity. Even FACE projects fail to account for many confounders. The feedbacks, the compensatory mechanisms, and the shifted rate-limiting components of photosynthesis make the picture much more complex in the 'real world', which is where you seem to be emphasising its importance - id et, 'global productivity'.
And if you are going to speak of 'global productivity', you need to include in your considerations the all of the alterations to the global ecology that accompany increases atmospheric CO2, as Jeff, I and others have mentioned above, and in many previous discussions of the subject in past threads. Between the complexities of the photosynthetic processes of plants themselves, and of these processes' biochemical and ecological sequelæ, the concept of CO2-enhanced productivity is vastly more fraught that you show any appreciation for.
And to follow on from Barton's curiosity about your analyses, I would like to know how you account for increases in human numbers, in changes in technology and in land use, when you derive your correlations with global 'productivity'.
I am especially interested in how you have determined that such correlations are not spurious.
And I am also very curious to know how much productivity increase in natural systems, over the same time spans, you have investigated by way of comparison, and as an analytical control. How have you broken down the trophic levels of global food webs to determine where productivity increases (if it does), and where it decreases? Have you teased out where natural systems' productivities are modified by other anthropogenic impacts to the biosphere? How have you analysed such natural system changes for implications to human agricultural systems?
I could ask paragraphs more of similar questions, but these are more than enough for a start. Thus far you have reflected the profound difficulty economists have in dealing with externalities, and at best you demonstrate a clumsy and disturbing naïvety of the biochemistry and ecology of photosynthetic processes, and how they might be co-opted to bolt onto your economic memes.
And that's 'at best'.
Tim Curtin, do you have any idea how sensitive evapotranspiration rates are to increases in temperature? Do you know how great the distances are for relocating suitable agricultural regions to follow changes to climate (let alone the ecological consequences of such changes)? Do you understand how much land area will be 'lost' by moving from the equatorial regions toward the poles in an attempt to maintain current agricultural practices?
That you can say what you did is bizarre, simply bizarre.
I have a 6 Ha rural property where I grow fruit and vegetables, and my partner has an acreage where we grow fruit, vegetables and maintain live stock. I garden, and have extensive collections of orchids, bromeliads and other tropical plants. I have only tank water, and one ephemeral stream and one permanent (but small) stream that are both too far down hill to use. My partner has only tank water.
I am acutely sensitive to temperature effects on evapotranspiration. My plants and animals all the more so since they rely on what I provide for them. Ironically, we have been getting more rain with warmer weather, but it is insufficient to offset the evapotranspirative loss, and we are living with dregs in our tanks. Our gardens, orchards, and paddocks are dessicated with the coming of summer, and this year's season has been very mild.
Fortunately, we have the option of calling the local water carter if we run dry, as many of our neighbours do (when historically they didn't, I should add). The ecosystems and the agricultural regions of the planet do not have such a luxury.
IPCC, Hanson, Stern, Garnaut - they all understant this. It is probably a part of the reason why they are much more bothered about the certain-to-occur negative impacts of increased atmospheric CO2 that about the putative positive side effects.
Seriously, if you are going to play economist with scaps of data from hugely complex systems of which you have significant understanding, you are going to make a fool of yourself.
Bernard: many thanks for all your comments, much appreciated. According to the OED, Fertilize = (2) to render productive, and this is the sense clearly used by the IPCC in the pages I referenced as well as by all the many papers I have copies of testifying to and demonstrating this effect of enhanced [CO2] using a wide range of controlled experiments, varying temperature, other nutrients, water etc etc. If one began a trial with no oxygen present, yield would not be great; adding it would "render productive". Really you are splitting hairs. Or were CSIRO's Crimp et al in their report for Garnaut guilty of FUD when documenting the impact of future enhanced [CO2] on wheat yields, which confirms the work an associate and I have done regressing historic wheat yields at various locations in Australia against [CO2] and rainfall since 1959.
Re your mention of population growth, I have included it in one of my runs for global food production, and its coefficient is negative but insignificant. What I need from you and Barton and Forrester is regression showing that the acknowledged sixfold growth of terrestrial absorption of CO2 emissions since 1958 has NOT "rendered productive". If it did not so do, what did it do? That is what my prize is for.
Apologies to Ian Forrester,as the main paper he provided, Crafts-Brandner and Salvucci (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/24/13430)
actually supports my case in spades.
At Fig.1 we see that net photosynthesis Pn is double at temp 45oC when pCO2 is raised from 280 to 750. All 4 parts of this Fig. show the optimal level of Pn at any given temperature is achieved with higher CO2 (i.e. Ci = internal CO2). For example, at temp 40oC, Pn is 50 at 550 Ci and c65 at 1200 Ci.
To achieve their more gloomy and PC results, these authors have to resort to Ci of 3,700 (today's is 385); only our clones will know if they are right, in about 2,500 years time (to be precise only in 2461 will atmospheric CO2 reach 3,700 at this year's rate of annual increase of 0.5%). Let's catch up then.
> > So
> > > arithmetical ratio
> > is "identical" to
> > > arithmetic progression?
> Bi: you are clutching at straws, give me your definitions of those terms as Malthus would have understood them.
In other words, you still have zero hard evidence of your initial strong claim that "Arrhenius took over this [Malthus's] formulation". Clutching at straws, indeed...
Bernard, Ian, etc., we are wasting our breath here. The concept of non-linear dynamics seems to have escaped our poor Tim.
Basically, citing a few studies conducted under controlled conditions that report incrased biomass production per unit of time in enhanced CO2 regimes tells usnothing about the effects of parameter changes on soil respiration rates, and, more importantly, on a stupendous array of interactions involving plant antagonists and mutualists. Tim's arguments are akin to saying that a new drug was tested that shows no effects or even benefits on the liver, while ignoring effects on the heart, the lungs, the kidneys and other vital organs.
For the millionth time, we need to go beyond simple controlled physiological experiments and determine the impacts of enhanced C02 (and temperature) regimes on systems, of which plants are but the bottom end of food chains that often extend over 4 (or more) trophic levels. Given the rate of current changes are probably unprecedented, its likely that there will be some winners and many losers in the short to medium term. Moreover, given that changes in abiotic processes (rainfall, temperature) associated with enhanced atmospheric C02 levels will be unevenly spread across the biosphere, we can expect local and systemic breakdowns to occur in the functioning of communities and ecosystems and in the delivery of a range of critical services that sustain humanity. We should also bear in mind that the deleterious effects of increased C02 and climate change are synergized with other anthropogenic changes (e.g. habitat destruction, the introduction of exotic species into non-native ecosystems, other forms of pollution) that are occurring across the planet. Humans are simplifying nature are a very rapid rate. There will be ecological consequences.
Tim's strategy is to say that, as long as the effects of these changes are unknown, then they don't exist. He then dismisses them. To be fair, this is a strategy of many denialists.
Thanks Jeff, but you should address your comments to the authors of the paper cited by Ian. I merely cited their results showing I am right. Howver it is true that there is a pro forma issued by PNAS, Nature, and Science which contains the following words to be included in the final sentence whatever the paper actually shows, as in the Crafts-Brandner & Salvucci paper: xyz "should be considered in predicting [abcd] in response to global climate changes"; similar wording is also mandatory in the abstract. The body of the paper as in this case need have no bearing at all on the pro forma. Actually the C-B & S paper did exactly what you propose: "we need to go beyond simple controlled physiological experiments and determine the impacts of enhanced C02 (and temperature) regimes on systems...". That is what they did, with some very sophisticated experiments and the results I reported.
Tim Curtin writes:
No. CO2 might be cointegrated with one time series and not with another.
Again, your "then" is a non sequitur. You can't go by correlation again. You've got to check for integration, and if you find it, for cointegration. Integration is what locks up your hypothesis, cointegration--if found--is the key that lets it out again.
See above.
Sorry, that should have read "you can't go by correlation alone" above. The point being that correlation can be spurious, and the "spurious regression problem" arises again and again where you have both time series growing with time. Tim Curtin's comment that his relation passes "the latter," implying that he got a good D.W. but not a DF or ADF test, further implies that his relation is spurious. When you discover integration, you have to address it by differencing until you no longer get integration. That or you have to show cointegration between the two series. As far as I can tell, T.C. hasn't done either.
There's a reason just showing good regression equations isn't enough to get you into a science journal any more. You could do that easily in the 1950s and '60s, but then people started noticing that the Keynesians and the Monetarists were each getting lovely regressions with high R^2 for relations that flatly contradicted one another. The Durbin-Watson and the later Durbin's h were the start of looking at ways to address the problem, but it wasn't until the concept of stationarity was nailed down, along with valid tests to test for it and correct for a lack of it, that scientists were able to tell good regressions from spurious ones. A lot of what we thought we knew about economic time series -- like the old Phillips Curve -- turned out to be just wrong.
Valid ways to test for it. Bleah. Got to proofread, got to proofread, got to proofread...
I said to Curtin:
> In other words, you still have zero hard evidence of your initial strong claim that "Arrhenius took over this [Malthus's] formulation". Clutching at straws, indeed...
Hear the crickets.
Bernard J mentioned the impact of higher temperatures on evapotranspiration. Another effect is on pollination. If temperatures are too high, pollination will not take place and crops will not set grain. Yield losses have already been reported in crops such as rice, corn and wheat as a result of high temperatures at pollination and this problem is likely to become more severe in the future.
So I sez:
and so far the best Tim Curtin has responded with is:
Barton cuts to the bone when he points out:
So Tim Curtin, once again, how have you determined that your correlations are not spurious? The question pertains to the complementary scenarios â directly to correlations where there appears to be a relationship between one parameter with another, and conversely to situations where, through potential confoundment, it appears that there is no direct relationship between the parameters.
It is important that you be very clear about this, because you making a claim about an entire planetary phenomenon, that global agricultural production is best increased by increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration, whilst simultaneously dismissing many other accepted productivity modes.
Oh, and because it is such a profoundly encompassing claim to make, I presume that you have applied your calculations to novel data sets to see if the trends in your correlations are similarly reflected. I know that this skirts close to delving into the concept of 'modelling', but you shouldn't have any problem with that, surely? After all, no analyst worth his salt would draw a conclusion about the dynamics of a global phenomenon on the basis of a few regressions.
Ad nauseum repetition of your interpretation of fertilisation, OED notwithstanding, does not alter the fact of your obfuscation of the existence and of the scientifically understood definitions of different types of photosynthetic input and enhancement.
If you persist in maintaining this usage, perhaps you should also consider promoting the idea that we don't actually water our gardens and crops, but rather that we fertilise them with dihydrogen monoxide.
Evidence for this accusation?
And "reducing" compared with what? If we do manage to put the brakes on further increases of atmospheric CO2, we would still have more atmospheric CO2 that at any time for the existence of human civilisation, and you have yet to demonstrate that net photosynthesis is going to increase with the combination of the current levels of atmospheric CO2 and the climate alterations that are in train but have yet to manifest due to climatic inertia.
Oh, I see. You have somehow determined the asymptotes for all global climatic sequelæ, for all possible peaks of atmospheric CO2, and have determined that all possible negative consequences are still outweighed by the benefit of your putative photosynthetic productivity increase, which of course you know will occur in all species under all circumstances.
You must be one clever dick, Tim. Especially when you are able to do so without showing your working...
And just as an incidental:
Um, where has it been said that "irretrievable damage" was predicted to occur at the moment when atmospheric CO2 reached 385ppm? Was the bit about climatic inertia printed in too small a font for you to see? Your use of "has suffered" is a mischievous strawman; "will suffer" is a much more pertinent phrasing.
Again, "cooling" is a mischievous term, because it would in fact only be "un-warming", and there is a profound (if subtle) difference.
And for heaven's sake, why do you have this bee in your bonnet that altering the world's climate is the only way to achieve a possible increase in agricultural productivity? Are you dismissing out of hand the work of countless agriculturalists and scientists in achieving increased productivity in production without global alteration of the atmosphere, the biosphere, and the planet's climate?
Tim, I have to wonder how many times you have been shown the door by frustrated scientists in various fields. Assuming of course that you have had the wherewithall to even seek their advice in the first place.
If you are going to even attempt a serious foray into photosynthetic biochemistry and ecology you need to spend weeks, if not months or even years, speaking with experts in these fields, sitting down in tea-rooms and in offices and in laboratories and learning about the complexities and nuances of several discplines in which you currently have no experience.
You should write essays for assessment, and you should conduct your own experimentation to grasp the intricacies of the techniques and the limitations of the data you derive. You should write reports, again for assesment, and have your first attempts at a paper reviewed by practising plant physiologists before you can claim to have a greater understanding of the field than the many experts whom you contradict with your statements.
You should especially understand John Mashey's comment, from a day or so ago, that significant shifts in understanding do not come from people working outside of their fields of expertise. To this observation I would add that such shifts especially do not come from folk who are ignorant of just about the entire bodies of fact/knowledge of the fields which they are attempting to comment upon, and most esoecially so when they consistently demonstrate that they are prepared to not only ignore but to refute the best understanding of the experts in various scientific disciplines, and to do so without providing any credible evidence as a counter.
You are simply demonstrating no capacity for an even remotely structured approach to understanding this science, and until you do so your theories have no chance of withstanding scrutiny.
Tim Curtin said: âApologies to Ian Forrester,as the main paper he provided, Crafts-Brandner and Salvucci (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/24/13430) actually supports my case in spadesâ.
No Tim, that is not what CB&S are saying at all. Their paper shows that net photosynthesis is lower when CO2 concentrations are increased. Which is exactly what I stated in my post. You have completely misunderstood the experiments described in the paper.
Figure 1 shows a lot more information than that which you have extracted from it. The information you have looked at is just how the enzyme RUBISCO responds to increasing temperature. As with most other enzymes its activity increases with increasing temperature. The data which supports my conclusions (and CB&Sâs) is the lower levels of active Rubisco which occurs after incubation at higher CO2 concentrations (the low-activity RUBISCO is in equilibrium with the activated RUBISCO and the equilibrium is moved to the low activity side of the equation at increased CO2 concentrations).
This is shown by the difference between the solid and dashed lines and the lines with the data points. As the CO2 concentration was increased (A>B>C>D) the difference increased meaning that there was less net photosynthesis than there would have been if the CO2 had not been increased.
This is also shown in Table 1.
Bi: you said âIn other words, you still have zero hard evidence of your initial strong claim that "Arrhenius took over this [Malthus's] formulation"â. For fun in my spare time between playing/watching tennis I have started doing some experiments taking over Arrheniusâ famous equation for analyzing electrolytic dissociation of salts. Is this wicked, plagiarism, or what? Or is nobody allowed to use (take over) either Malthusâ or Arrheniusâ formulae?
Richard Simons: references please to your own or other papers.
Bernard J. 1. You said: âWhen you discover integration, you have to address it by differencing until you no longer get integrationâ¦. or you have to show cointegration between the two series. As far as I can tell, T.C. hasn't done either.â The 2500 at IPCC have yet to reference a paper doing that for [CO2] and global mean temperature, which is why they prefer models that always tautologically yield perfectly cointegrated regressions. I am not going to anticipate here all sections of my forthcoming peer reviewed paper (including I am told by an IPCC 2007 lead author), so you will have to restrain your intemperance.
2. You also said I am âmaking a claim about an entire planetary phenomenon, that global agricultural production is best increased by increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration, whilst simultaneously dismissing many other accepted productivity modesâ. That is not quite what I say, which is that there is huge evidence that rising [CO2] has been is and will continue to be (in the absence of ETS etc) beneficial for raising productivity at both global and local levels, including not only in Crimp & co at Garnaut Review, or Cline, but hundreds of other papers including the one linked to by Forrester on which more below. It is for you to show that enhanced [CO2] has zero effect (cet.par). on yields either in greenhouses, or in FACE field experiments.
3. I had said âHansen does not grasp that reducing [CO2] must reduce that fertilizationâ¦â You asked for âEvidence for this accusation?â Well, try his letters to Rudd and Obama, or any of his publications since say PNAS 2004, where I can discern no recognition of any such benefit from increasing [CO2] or any recognition of any loss if we go back from todayâs 385ppm to his ceiling of 350ppm. Both of these are suppressio veri worthy of Bernie Madoff, with whom Hansen has a lot in common.
4. Then you say I âhave yet to demonstrate that net photosynthesis is going to increase with the combination of the current levels of atmospheric CO2 and the climate alterations that are in train but have yet to manifest due to climatic inertiaâ. The paper by Forresterâs authors noted again below, also Norby & Yuo, do this (Norby, R.J. and Y. Luo 2004. Evaluating ecosystem responses to rising atmospheric CO2 and global warming in a multi-factor world. New Phytologist 162: 281-293). I have also done the inventory analysis which shows how either continuing absorption of [CO2] at the present rate can easily deplete [CO2] to the 1750 level of 280 within 60 years if all emissions cease forthwith or by 2012 at latest as demanded by Hansen (in his letter to Barry and Mich Obama, 29 Dec 2008), and even sooner if we take into account the diminishing partial pressure of [CO2] under the Hansen programme, which will actually reduce Pn and crop yields worldwide. Just study Table 1 in the online version of my Quadrant article either at www.lavoisier.com.au, or the fuller version at Global Carbon Project, and work from the current flows to your own projections given your own preferred emission reduction targets.
The rest of your comments set up even more strawmen that are not worth comment.
Ian Forrester: You have yet to study your authorsâ Fig.1 in depth. Whether at 210 or 10 mbar O2, Pn is higher at 45oC as CO2 increases from 280 to 550 to 750 to 1200 ppm (or mbar). It is true they keep changing the scale of the vertical axis to obscure this, I wonder why, and refuse to provide any of their data, but that is par for the course, but fortunately it is possible despite their obfuscation to verify what I have just said, which refutes what you claim when you say âAs the CO2 concentration was increased (A>B>C>D) the difference increased meaning that there was less net photosynthesis than there would have been if the CO2 had not been increased.â Simply not true. Get a magnifying glass and note their changes in scale.
Simons and Forrester have good points.
My undergrad was in Env Horticulture from an ag school, and we looked at this stuff all the time.
Shorter good points:
All crops have optimal temperature ranges (all plants, but the topic is crops), and generally we grow our crops near their max ranges.
The Philippines is madly studying how to increase the max temps for rice. My tomatoes last year didn't set for ~22 days in a heat wave where their location got over 95ºF. Many C3 crops do not perform well in heat, and a type of plant metabolism called CAM (most desert plants) overcome heat by opening their stomata at night to avoid water loss.
This gets to my next point, is metabolism is lower in high heat as plants close their stomata to avoid wilting; the PNAS paper shows, to me, that plants "know" this as well, despite higher CO2 levels - and the more important response is to avoid wilting, not open stomata to receive more "plant food" to grow more. We see this in a number of other studies that show that graminaceous crops actually have less nutrition in their endosperm under higher CO2 regimes, presumably because these crops are not adapted to higher regimes and react as in the PNAS paper.
This response by the jack*ss Curtin is yet another example of the comical Tim being unable to identify a hole in the ground, as this argument was shot down years ago. I'd encourage Curtin to submit his paper and share how the referees laughed at his manuscript.
Best,
D
Tim Curtin (#68): "The 2500 at IPCC have yet to reference a paper doing that for [CO2] and global mean temperature, which is why they prefer models that always tautologically yield perfectly cointegrated regressions."
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
That's the best joke I've heard since the one about the two nuns on bicycles, Tim.
To Ian Forrester, again: you said "This is shown by the difference between the solid and dashed lines and the lines with the data points. As the CO2 concentration was increased (A>B>C>D) the difference increased meaning that there was less net photosynthesis than there would have been if the CO2 had not been increased." I still think you are misreading Fig.1 in that paper. Let's look at graphs B and D in that Fig. In B, we have the results of the experiment at 550 mCi (or ppm CO2, and in D we have those for 1200. At 45oC, in B we have net photosynthesis (Pn) of 90 mmol per m2 and s^-1, with rubisco at 10 mbar of O2, and in D, Pn is 140. By me 140>90. In the case of 210 mbar, Pn in B at 45oC is 60, and in D it is about 120. Again 120>60.
These graphs also show "response of Pn to leaf temperature at different internal partial pressures of CO2 (ci) and O2 concentrations" with the latter at 210 or 10 mbar O2. Again at 45oC, in B the Pn is 30 at 10 mbar O2, and in D it is 40. I guess 40>30. For 210 mbar O2, we have in B Pn of 20 and in D, 30. So in each case the higher CO2 at max temperature of 45oC yields higher Pn.
In your comment either you seem to be comparing apples and oranges, i.e. two different sets of experiments, or your authors have mislabelled and misdescribed their graphs, because they do not show what is claimed, e.g. "Rubisco deactivated in leaves when temperature was increased and also in response to high CO2 or low O2". Graphs B and D show HIGHER activation at any given temperature and level of O2 when there is higher CO2 as in D than in B. The solid and dotted Rubisco lines are both higher (= higher Pn) in D than in B, giving the lie to their final claim that "activase activity per se appears to limit the photosynthetic potential of leaves at elevated temperaturee even in the presence of high CO2". BTW, you have have got the sequencing of CO2 in graphs A:D wrong, they are actually as follows: A
Tim,
You creating a red-herring. As I said in my last post, you are rehashing the classic denialist strategy: so long as some process or its outcome is not fully known or understood, it does not exist. I was an editor at Nature and I never ever pressured an author into adding a pro-forma addition to the paper suggesting that the results should be viewed in a larger context or 'with caution'. I would like to know who told you that, if indeed anyone did. The authors do that themselves because they are acutely aware that one cannot often extrapolate conclusions that are broadly linear into complex, decidedly non-linear systems. All good scientists are very cautious about the conclusions they generate from their research and few would take the results of studies in closed systems and suggest that their results can easily be viewed in a braoder framework.
Moreover, you are also selective: there are many other studies (in PNAS for example) which suggest that the phenomena you glean from the PNAS study will have other effects and consequences on ecosystems that are hard to predict but could have serious repercussions for the way they function. Moreover, one of our PhD students here defended her thesis last month in which she examined the impact of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels on microbial community dynamics in the rhizosphere. She concluded:
"As opposed to simply increasing the activity of soil-borne microbes resident at ambient C02 conditions, elevated atmospheric C02 strongly selects for opportunistic plant-associated microbial communities, with a particular shift in the dominant arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi community as well as rhizosphere bacterial anbd fungal populations".
In other words, the dynmaics of these sytems changes, with winners and losers: increased atmospheric levels of C02 translate into strong, non-linear effects on important organisms in soil communities rendering these communities much more likely to break down. Rhizobacteria and mycorrhiza play a central role in the global change process, because they are key components in the response of terrestrial ecocystems to elevated atmospheric C02 levels. Ultimately, humans are playing with the carbon cycle, as well as cycles of othert key nutrients, processes which are generated over quite stupendously large scales. There will be and already are important ecological consequences, that involve changes in the structure and fucntion of ecological communities both in above- and belowground domains. Given that these interact, the outcome of such an experiment is hard to predict, but it is an illusion to argue that plant communities and especially crops will benefit and to leave it at that. I find it incredible that anyone would draw such a conclusion.
What you are doing by cherry-picking a few studies to support your arguments is to ignore many others that have generated very different and worrying conclusions. In this context, you are effectively saying that humans should continue along our current path, conducting a single non-replicatable experiment on systems we barely understand but which generate conditions that permit us to exist and persist. As a senior scientist I actually feel embarrassed to have to respond to such one-dimensional arguments which it is my opinion have a strongly political underpinning (e.g. promoting business-as-usual in the name of profit).
Ian, Tim, Bernard and others have countered the physiological arguments underpinning your views. My aim has been to take a step back and to view the effects on large scale systems. Its no use dismissing this with the refrain, "I should speak to the authors" - this does not cut ice with me. I am a qualified population ecologist and I can assure you that the effects you attempt to extrapolate will not necessarily create the green utopia you envisage. Complex adaptive systems just do not function in that way. In my opinion its actually up to those arguing for a continuation of the current global experiment to prove that its repercussions are benign. There's enough empirical evidence to show that they are not going to be. Biodiversity loss, declining soil quality, declining numbers of pollinators, declining groundwater supplies, rapidly changing regional temperature and rainfall regimes all indicate that we are going in the wrong direction.
Lastly, you should also know that the candiate of the excellent PhD I cited earlier argued in her thesis 'stellingen' that "Climate change is already happening and represents one of the greatest environmental, social and economic threats facing the planet".
Note how Curtin can't reference any denialist studies - rather, he makes sh*t up from the paper he can't understand. This is Typical Denialist Tactic 4B.
Best,
D
I just read Jeff Harvey's post.
Shorter Dano reading of Jeff: spare me your tired hasty generalization logical fallacies.
Jeff is, of course, too polite to be so blunt. But many of us tire of the same old tactics, recycled over and over.
Timmy's tactic was refuted years ago, put to bed, the building collapsed, the wood rotted and broke down into soil (where Jeff's student's mycorrhizæ went to work), crops were replanted and ethanol created. Jeff may have even commuted to work with this ethanol.
Who said denialists don't have the power to move us.
Best,
D
Tim Curtin:
> For fun in my spare time between playing/watching tennis I have started doing some experiments taking over Arrheniusâ famous equation for analyzing electrolytic dissociation of salts. Is this wicked, plagiarism, or what? Or is nobody allowed to use (take over) either Malthusâ or Arrheniusâ formulae?
In other words, (again!) you still have zero hard evidence of your initial strong claim that "Arrhenius took over this [Malthus's] formulation".
My previous post was sent before completion, here is the rest its final point also answers Jeff.
BTW, you (Ian F) have have got the sequencing of CO2 in graphs A:D wrong, they are actually as follows: A<B<C<D, just like your authors got their paper's conclusions completely arse about. I wonder if you or they have ever been to the Gezira cotton scheme south of Khartoum as I have? Believe me it is often 45oC there and its cotton has thriven for over 80 years now. Even in spring (April-May) the mean max's are 41 and 41.5, rising to 45 and by August max can reach over 50. In the cooler winter they switch to wheat. If heat is so bad for cottonâs Rubisco as your authors claim, why does Gezira grow it only in the hottest months? (it is the largest single cotton operation the world).
Hi Bi: and you have yet to prove Arrhenius never did know of Malthus.
Again for reasons not clear to me my last posts have been truncated. Here is the missing para in full again:
In your comment either you seem to be comparing apples and oranges, i.e. two different sets of experiments, or your authors have mislabelled and misdescribed their graphs, because they do not show what is claimed, e.g. "Rubisco deactivated in leaves when temperature was increased and also in response to high CO2 or low O2". Graphs B and D show HIGHER activation at any given temperature and level of O2 when there is higher CO2 as in D than in B. The solid and dotted Rubisco lines are both higher (= higher Pn) in D than in B, giving the lie to their final claim that "activase activity per se appears to limit the photosynthetic potential of leaves at elevated temperaturee even in the presence of high CO2". BTW, you have got the sequencing of CO2 in graphs A:D wrong, they are actually as follows: CO2 of A is less than in B which is less than in C which is less than in D, you have it the other way round, just like your authors rendered their conclusions inconsistent with their Fig.1. I wonder if you or they have ever been to the Gezira cotton scheme south of Khartoum as I have? Believe me it is often 45oC there and its cotton has thriven for over 80 years now. Even in spring (April-May) the mean max is 41, and by August max can reach over 50. In the cooler winter they now switch to wheat. If heat is so bad for cottonâs Rubisco as your authors claim, why does Gezira grow it in the hottest months?
Jeff: what do you disapprove of at Gezira?
.
_"Again for reasons not clear to me my last posts have been truncated"_
HTML!
I think we all knew, but weren't going to tell you.
I fixed your comment for you, Tim C.
To get a < you have to type <
Tim Curtin:
> Hi Bi: and you have yet to prove Arrhenius never did know of Malthus.
Tim Curtin, I claim that I'm the Queen of England. Prove me wrong.
* * *
In other words, (yet again!) you still have zero hard evidence of your initial strong claim that "Arrhenius took over this [Malthus's] formulation".
Tim Curtin, if you stand by you claim it behoves you to immediately contact both PNAS and the authors and ask for an erratum,/i>, or indeed a retraction, of the paper.
I, and many others here, will be watching with intense interest for your updates on the correspondence that will ensure that your correction to science is completed.
Ball's in your court, mate.
Bernard. I already have that in hand, but I was rather hoping that if I am wrong, by now you or Ian would have put me straight. Absence of any correction since my posting 24 hours ago implies that I am right so I will proceed as you suggest. Thanks for the encouragement.
Bi: I see that Arrhenius was a very keen eugenicist and favoured liquidating the unfit, like so many other neo-Malthusians then and now (eg FoE, ACF, and Greenpeace). Circumstantial evidence I grant you, but probably enough to secure a conviction.
Tim,
I believe that Dano has more than dealt with your posts. Moreover, you have not answered a single point that I have made. Methinks this could be because you do not understand basic environmental science, and instead argue pedantically over specific aspects of plant physiology in response to higher temperatures and/or C02 regimes. But, for the millionth time, THIS TELLS US NOTHING ABOUT THE RESPONSE OF ASSOCIATED SYMBIONTS OR ANTAGONISTS. In other words, these data ignore A SUITE OF INTERACTIONS IN COMPLEX FOOD WEBS THAT ULTIMATELY DETERMINE PLANT PRODUCTIVITY AND AT LARGER SCALES ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONS AND RESLIENCE. From your posts, I get nix back addressing the impacts of global change over larger scales. Its like refusing to look at the trees, the forest, or even a single tree, but instead just focusing on one very small piece of bark. From studying this small piece of bark you generate all kinds of frankly whimsical and irrelevant conclusions about the benefits of increased atmospheric C02 levels on crop productivity and biomass. Where do the crops grow? Are they grown in isolation? Are not all crops derived from wild types that were collected in natural systems? Is not genetic variation in plant phenotype driven by a suite of biotic and biotic selection pressures? What about phenotypic variation in domesticated plants? And how do these phenotypes perform under rapidly changing environmental conditions? What are the constraints, and how will these affect plant fitness? Is it possible to meaningfully translate the results of lab-based studies to nature, where conditions are far more complicated and variable? Is it also possible to extrapolate linear trends in systems that are decidely non-linear? Will plants respond linearly to continued increases in temperature and/or C02, or will performance plateau, and then perhaps fall back? What is the thermal and biochemical optima for plants? What about their associated consumers? So many questions and so few answers. And aqainst this setting we have a few denialists telling us to 'stay the course' because everything will turn out well.
It feels like I am speaking to a brick wall - that Tim refuses to extrapolate beyond small scale ecophysiological experiments and scale up to more complex systems. The only silver lining is this: most scientists know better. We know that the kinds of conclusions Tim draws are considered ill advised at best, and that nature does not work in the very simple way that he suggests. My advice to posters here is to let it rest there.
Tim Curtin doesn t understand the basics. he believes, that the oceans will continue to take up immense amounts of CO2, even when the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is reduced again.
basically he thinks that our whole planet will collapse, as soon as we stop burning fossil fuels.
pretty bizarre.
read his slideshow "Climate Change Mitigation - and mass starvation by 2050?"
http://www.timcurtin.com/
Sod,
He also says that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, which is utterly ridiculous; any nutrient is a pollutant if it occurs in excessively high concentrations that alters or impairs the functions of organisms or disrupts interactions with other species . Nitrogen, phosphorus etc., are all potential pollutants.
Also, to suggest that mitigating climate change (by stabilizing or reducing atmospheric C02 levels) will result in mass starvation by 2050 is so absurd as to enter the comic book category.
Tim, why don't you submit some of these arguments to a scientific journal, like Global Change Biology or Ecosystems or Ecology Letters? See how far you'd get (hint, not very).
Also, to suggest that mitigating climate change will result in mass starvation by 2050 is so absurd as to enter the comic book category.
Innnn THIS corner! Weighing innnn at a pale, pudgy 112 kilos! Hailllling from the Emerallllld Isle! The braaaaaaaaave Captain Carbon, fighting greeeeeen interests to ensure poor plants have their foooooood-uh so our chilllllldren can eat!
In the Grrrreeen! corner! Weighing in at an emaciated! hemmmmmpen-clad-uh 51 kilos! Haiiiiiiiling from-uh a collectiv-uh! in the windy heaths! The crrrrrrraven Guh-reeeeeeeen lobby!
Best,
D
My last post replying to bi and Bernard seems to have disappeared again, not sure what was wrong with the sytax this time, or was it because I noted (from Wiki) that Arrhenius was instrumental in setting up the Swedish Institute for Racial Biology in 1922. âArrhenius was a member of the institute's board, as he had been in The Swedish Society for Racial Hygiene (Eugenics), founded in 1909. Swedish racial biology was world-leading at this time, and the results formed the scientific basis for the Compulsory sterilization program in Sweden, as well as inspiring the Nazi eugenics in Germany.â It is well known that Malthusian ideas on excessive population underlay, along with âsurvival of the fittestâ notions, the eugenics movement of the 2os and 30s. It is also known that organisations like WWF, FoE, ACF etc all espouse the Malthusian belief that the world was and is overpopulated. Anyway, bi, it seems there is strong circumstantial evidence that Arrhenius was well aware of the Malthusian model.
Bernard J, I appreciate your tacit recognition that I am right about the Crafts-Brander & Salvucci paper (PNAS 2000), and will take up your suggestion. I am however puzzled by your implicit faith that PNAS represents some kind of perfection, when it can easily be shown to be all too ready to publish any old rubbish on climate change and much else. For example, Hansen & Sato (PNAS 2004) stated the Airborne Fraction of CO2 emissions has been 60% on average for at least 50 years, while Canadell et al (PNAS 2007, following on from their Table 7.1 in AR4, WG1, 2007) show it was been only 43% between 1959 and 2006, but claim that it is however increasing because of âsaturationâ of oceanic and terrestrial sinks, despite those sinks having increased their absorption from an average of 4 GtC p.a. in 1970-1999 to 5 Gtc in 2000-2006 (their Table 1). Clearly PNASâ peer reviewers have no concept of ensuring consistency either within or between papers. In other fields it is known as âquality controlâ, in PNAS, Science and Nature that term is an oxymoron.
Further to my last, amazingly this week's PNAS confirms what I said ("I am however puzzled by your implicit faith that PNAS represents some kind of perfection, when it can easily be shown to be all too ready to publish any old rubbish on climate change and much else"). This issue (vol.106, no.6, 1704-1709) contains an article by the inimitable Sue Solomon, Co-Chair of WG1 and chief editor of their report for IPCC AR4, Climate Change 2007 The Physical Science Basis), along with Plattner, Knutti, and Friedlingstein, "Irreversible climate change due to CO2 emissions". This paper actually made my day, as it proves conclusively that even if all CO2 emissions cease tomorrow, there will be no global mean surface temperature falls before the year 3000. No need for Kyoto 2 or ETS etc, as they will have nil impact for a thousand years. Global droughts (especially across WA and north-eastern Australia, where the present floods are merely a harbinger of endemic drought for the next 1000 years, see their Fig.3) and sea level rise are inevitable even at the existing level of emissions, and are also irreversible for the next millennium even if emissions fall now to zero. As this is a tablet from the mountain. let's eat drink and be merry, for nothing we can do will achieve anything before 3000 because of the irreversibility "proved" by Sue - here is a direct paste from Sue's abstract: "This paper shows that the climate change that takes place due to increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop". No need for Wong to head for Copenhagen, where at most the aim will be to reduce emissions by 50% by 2050, as nothing agreed there will make a blind bit of difference for a thousand years.
Although it goes against my grain, if adequately compensated and asked to join Penny there I will explain why the computations in the papers by Sue & friends (their equation 3) and those slumdogs Ramanathan & Feng (PNAS, again,105.38, 2008), which in part underpin Sue's wonderful finding, are fatally flawed.
Umm, er ... Tim. Just maybe Solomon et al are saying that if humanity allows GHC concentrations to reach say 600ppm (and the consequent temperature rise), that there is not much we can do to reduce the consequences for a very, very long time.
Ergo, we should take steps (urgently) to reduce GHG now rather than wait till it's too late.
Btw, how's that paper of yours going?
Tim Curtin:
> Bi: I see that Arrhenius was a very keen eugenicist and favoured liquidating the unfit, like so many other neo-Malthusians then and now (eg FoE, ACF, and Greenpeace).
So you're saying that Arrhenius, with his clairvoyant vision, was able to foresee that his work on the greenhouse effect will be used by ALGORE!!!!! to impose EUGENICS!!!!!! on the White Man, the Jew of Liberal Fascism... and this led him to "take over" (with different words) Malthus's formulation of population and crop growth for the greenhouse warming formula.
DavidK: Sue et al said: "It is not generally appreciated [including by you David it seems]that the atmospheric temperature increases caused by rising carbon dioxide concentrations are not expected to decrease significantly even if carbon emissions were to completely cease". So I repeat, why bother? A mere 50% reduction by 2050 will make no difference before 3000. Sue is our delphic Oracle, She has spoken, and must be obeyed, even by Wong. Her equation (3) is the riddle in the sands, and is total tosh, but you could be right if you can show show why.
Franki Bi: Spot on. Actually his words were prcatically no different from Malthus' and the latter did inter alia lead him on to his eugenics.
Moving on, Hansen et al (2008, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics) repeat their inability to work out the Airborne Fraction. Given [CO2] at Mauna Loa, and CO2 emissions (as at Marland of CDIAC, even cited by Hansen), the average AF has been only 43% since 1958, not 58% as once again claimed (p.1256) by Hansen, proving he is kin to Madoff. The latter successfully conned all too many of those who should have known better, including top executives of Merrill Lynch, by claiming rates of return which exceeded the best of the rest by the same margin as Hansen's exceeds the actual AF. Ah, but the Science is settled, plus or minus 15% for a key variable. As my Quadrant piece showed, Hansen et al like the IPCC passim refuse to model the oceanic and terrestrial absorption of CO2 emissions, and instead regard it as merely the residual between emissions and their [CO2] scenarios. In practice the absorption has a life of its own, including the [CO2] fertilization effect, and it is [CO2] which is the residual dump. Until this is grasped there will be no progress, as manifest in Sue's paper.
Yes Tim, as Shakesbunny wrote, first we kill all the denialists.
look Tim, Hansen does understand the basics. you don t.
how much CO2 is taken up by plants and oceans is determined by the concentration in the air.
if Hansen was off by a few percent in his 30 years predictions, that s fine. that s why the science is always improved.
you on the other hand, understand nothing. you assume, that uptakes are independent of concentration in the atmosphere. that is plain stupid.
I think we underestimate Timmy.
See, he just may be the next Galileo. We all know he is working - right now - on multiple manuscripts to overturn the Eugenics-Based Greenie Science.
Either that, or he is from an alternate universe and they have different physics over there. Say, Tim, what do they use for energy in your universe? Computation? Is there on-line porn?
Best,
D
I said:
> So you're saying that Arrhenius, with his clairvoyant vision, was able to foresee that his work on the greenhouse effect will be used by ALGORE!!!!! to impose EUGENICS!!!!!! on the White Man, the Jew of Liberal Fascism... and this led him to "take over" (with different words) Malthus's formulation of population and crop growth for the greenhouse warming formula.
Tim Curtin replied:
> Franki Bi: Spot on.
Dano, this truly is groundbreaking. Forget those pesky scientific journals; this truly is material for a blockbuster movie!
Consider the possibility that global warming was concocted by GRIGORI RASPUTIN!!!!! and became a cornerstone of the theories of ADOLF HITLER!!!!! and not forgetting THE FREEMASONS!!!!!
It's like what happens when you cross Hellboy with Hitler: The Rise of Evil and Lord of the Rings, or maybe it's Bored of the Rings. I smell a blockbuster coming.
Frank,
Hitler knew that reducing human population was the only way to save the planet from th' globul warmin. He was the ultimate envirogreenie, which is why I have an 'SS' tatooed next to my tattoo of a druid (which are just above the tattoo of the first line of Marx's Manifesto).
Best,
D
Sod said:"look Tim, Hansen does understand the basics." Then why does he get them wrong both numerically and in terms of implications of his plan to starve us all into submission by reducing [CO2] to 350 ppm or less? Given CO2 emissions of 9.7 GtC mid2005-mid2006 and the increase in [CO2] at Mauna Loa of 3.8 GtC, evidently total Absorption was 5.9 GtC, or nearly 61%, and the actual average 1959 to 2007 was 57.8%, the very figure Hansen gives for the Airborne Fraction!!!!! So deep is his understanding and his humility in writing letters to Kevin and Barry telling them what to do that he can't get the basics right.
Sod then added: "how much CO2 is taken up by plants and oceans is determined by the concentration in the air." Yes, quite largely but not wholly, but putting how much on one side, I am so glad that Sod now agrees with me that reducing "the concentration in the air" has an impact on plants on land and in the oceans, so reducing [CO2] is very likely to reduce total plant productivity. That has NEVER been mentioned by Hansen. The man's wild irresponsibility in dicing this way with the livelihoods of all humanity is mind boggling. Sod, good on ya for agreeing with me for once!
What is amazing is the total inability of PNAS and Hansen et al to understand either basic accounting or the ex ante and ex post concepts of Keynesian economics. Ex post, after the events, the accounting identity is that (C) Increase in atmos. CO2 equals (E) emissions minus (A) oceanic and terrestrial absorption. This is too much for Hansen and the whole IPCC mob to be able to grasp. That means they have no chance of understanding that ex ante, there are E and A, the latter largely if not wholly independent of the former - the success of Sod's tomataoes this season is not wholly determined by the CO2 emissions by cars driving down his road - which JOINTLY determine C ex post. Amazing but true, 2500 Nobel prize winners are incapable of understanding this, still less Stern and Garnaut.
James Lovelock his-self said only last week that Nature might, erm, 'remove' up to 90% of the human population. Of course, we might quibble about the proportion, but...
...omigod, Nature is a closet Eugenicist!
Who'd 'a' thunk it?!
Yes, quite largely but not wholly, but putting how much on one side, I am so glad that Sod now agrees with me that reducing "the concentration in the air" has an impact on plants on land and in the oceans, so reducing [CO2] is very likely to reduce total plant productivity. That has NEVER been mentioned by Hansen. The man's wild irresponsibility in dicing this way with the livelihoods of all humanity is mind boggling.
sorry Tim, but there is basically NOONE but you, who claims that CO2 increase is a vital factor in food production.
and there is NOONE but you, who thinks that reducing CO2 will lead to mass starvation.
both your claims are based on completely false assumptions.
Sod: you disappoint me, I thought I had detected a glimmer of understanding. Sans [CO2], sans food, period. Sans increasing [CO2], sans increasing food production. What are my false assumptions? I don't make any, I deal only in the statistics and basics of the carbon cycle, e.g. (1) in what form does the average annual global absorption of 57.8%, or now 6 GtC of CO2 emissions, manifest itself? (2) What will be the absorption if emissions drop to only 5 GtC or less as proposed? (3) What will the impact of that be on the answer to (1)?
Do not bother to reply until you can answer these questions very precisely, by numbers not armwaving, and unless you do in detail, do not expect any further response from me.
look Tim, you are wrong.
start some reading here:
Yield of Maize Are Not Affected by Open-Air Elevation of CO2 Concentration
http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/content/abstract/140/2/779
a google scholar search for CO2+food production will give you plenty of results.
the CO2 effect on food is small, under normal circumstances. we wont starve, if we slightly reduce our CO2 output. simple fact.
ps: here is a nice graph of the CO2 cycle.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/Images/carbon_cyc…
so the majority of it ends in the oceans. the plants that take up most CO2 (on land) seem to be TREES. they don t contribute much to food production.
so the majority of it ends in the oceans. the plants that take up most CO2 (on land) seem to be TREES. they don t contribute much to food production.
And not if they are water or nitrogen stressed. Sadly, N is often limited in hardwood forests. The scholarship is clear on this, and has been for a long time. Stating CO2 is 'plant food' is, simply, shilling for the practice of recycling long-ago refuted arguments. Anyone who does this is an ignoramus or a shill. And since we have proof of Timmy's brillllllllliance, there is only one choice here.
Best,
D
Sod said: "the plants that take up most CO2 (on land) seem to be TREES. they don t contribute much to food production".
Yes, but they do produce nuts and fruit which is all that Tim Curtin would appear to eat since he is nuttier than a fruitcake.
" Sans [CO2], sans food, period. Sans increasing [CO2], sans increasing food production. What are my false assumptions?"
that it's in any way linear or even monotonic.
sans H2O sans food. Increase H2O until Waterworld resembles a documentary, you have not increased food. quite the contrary. (hoping this is not an excuse to miss the point of the post by erecting a strawman as though I had stated that AGW will cause all the dry land on the planet to be flooded. I don't, I'm just demonstrating ab reductio a non-monotonic driver of food production.)
Hi bi: I am just back from the fantastic Darwin exhibition at the National Museum, with its many references to the major role of Malthus in inspiring both Darwin and Wallace. But no doubt you are right Arrhenius was such an ignoramus he never did hear of Malthus or Darwin, and dreamt up his eugenics from a tabula rasa.
Ian Forrester: Thanks for the paper by Leakey et al, the al. included Long, Ainsworth and Ort who reported the same results in Science vol 312, 30 June 2006, that I already have and had read. The papers deal with maize, a C4 crop that has for long been known to have a different photysntetic structure than the much more numerous C3s. In generalizing as you do to all cereals such as wheat and rice, both C3, you go against the paper by the same Ainsworth, Long and Leakey et 30 other al.,
"Next generation of elevated [CO2] experiments with crops:
a critical investment for feeding the future world", in Plant, Cell & Environment, 31, 2008:
ABSTRACT
A rising global population and demand for protein-rich
diets are increasing pressure to maximize agricultural
productivity. Rising atmospheric [CO2] is altering global
temperature and precipitation patterns, which challenges
agricultural productivity. While rising [CO2] provides a
unique opportunity to increase the productivity of C3 crops,
average yield stimulation observed to date is well below
potential gains. Thus, there is room for improving
productivity. However, only a fraction of available germplasm of crops has been tested for CO2 responsiveness.
Yield is a complex phenotypic trait determined by the interactions of a genotype with the environment. Selection of promising genotypes and characterization of response
mechanisms will only be effective if crop improvement and
systems biology approaches are closely linked to production
environments, that is, on the farm within major growing regions. Free air CO2 enrichment (FACE) experiments can provide the platform upon which to conduct genetic screening and elucidate the inheritance and mechanisms
that underlie genotypic differences in productivity
under elevated [CO2]. We propose a new generation of
large-scale, low-cost per unit area FACE experiments to
identify the most CO2-responsive genotypes and provide
starting lines for future breeding programmes. This is
necessary if we are to realize the potential for yield gains in the future.
All a waste of time so far as Ian et al here are concerned?
I:
> Consider the possibility that global warming was concocted by GRIGORI RASPUTIN!!!!! and became a cornerstone of the theories of ADOLF HITLER!!!!! and not forgetting THE FREEMASONS!!!!!
> It's like what happens when you cross _Hellboy_ with _Hitler: The Rise of Evil_ and _Lord of the Rings_, or maybe it's _Bored of the Rings_. I smell a blockbuster coming.
Dano:
> Hitler knew that reducing human population was the only way to save the planet from th' globul warmin. He was the ultimate envirogreenie, which is why I have an 'SS' tatooed next to my tattoo of a druid (which are just above the tattoo of the first line of Marx's _Manifesto_).
Bernard J.:
> James Lovelock his-self said only last week that Nature might, erm, 'remove' up to 90% of the human population. Of course, we might quibble about the proportion, but...
> ...omigod, Nature is a closet Eugenicist!
> Who'd 'a' thunk it?!
Tim Curtin replies:
> I am just back from the fantastic Darwin exhibition at the National Museum, with its many references to the major role of Malthus in inspiring both Darwin and Wallace.
Oh noes, CHARLES DARWIN!!!!! was also part of the Vast Warmist Conspiracy!
The Secular Jihad 2019, coming to an alternate universe near you.
From bi and Bernard J.:
"James Lovelock his-self said only last week that Nature might, erm, 'remove' up to 90% of the human population". Only problem is that Lovelock, Ian Enting, and bi and Bernard J. all labour under the delusion that the Arctic has landmass where they and their partners will be the last breeding pairs on the planet. Thank god, there is no such land mass, so we will be spared any more of same.
Tim Curtin,
Read this part of the abstract: "Yield is a complex phenotypic trait determined by the interactions of a genotype with the environment". And what does the environment mean? Both biotic and abiotic factors. These are not addressed here, because, to be fair to the authors, they work in a plant breeding department and have little experience with field ecology. Its also fine and well setting up lab experiments under tightly controlled conditions but these have to be translated to complex biological systems that are under a wide array of dynamic stresses and constraints. Given that the authors of this article work nearby to where I am based, I will directly ask them what kind of conclusions they wish to derive from the global experiment that our species is conducting.
What annoys me about posts from Tim C are the selectivity: there are many published articles that paint a very different set of conclusions from the few that articles that Tim cites, yet those he cites are presumably supposed to be the 'last word' on the subject. Those with very different conclusions - more ecologically based studies - are ignored because they do not fit in with the worldview that Tim appears to be promoting. But, heck Tim, why listen to me? I am only a senior scientist in population ecology who has published more than 80 articles a year in peer-reviewed journals since 1993. Why should my cautionary arguments mean anything?
Moreover, it is important to stress that the major problems with respect to food production are often more based on the mass inequality in wealth distribution betwen the developed and underdeveloped world. In other words, there is currently more than enough food to feed the world but there are mass inequalities in the way that it is distributed. There is nothing that I see to suggest that new technologies are being driven to 'feed the poor', but rather, because these technologies are often highly expensive, they are more aimed at increasing investor's returns. Big multinational corporations want hard cash for their products, and are thus inaffordable to most of the developing countries.
OOPPS - I wish to rectify one mistake! I WISH I did publish 80 articles a year but that is only my career total since 1995. I thought I'd get this in before Tim C responded!!!!!!
But my point stands. Extrapolating from lab based studies to complex adaptive systems is fraught with uncertainty. And trying to put a positive spin on rapidly increasing atmospheric C02 levels is a very dangerous thing to do, because ecological systems will respond in unpredictable, non-linear ways. Humanity is truly driving blind towards the edge of a cliff.
Tim Curtin.
This obsession that you exhibit, with respect to your fancy that global food production is intimately and primarily tied to enhancing the concentration of atmospheric CO2, is going beyond the bizarre.
You have been given innumerable hints, references and advisings, by many people, about how and where to start in order to garner a holistic understanding of photosynthetic and trophic dynamics. And yet you steadfastly refuse to acknowledge these enormous bodies of understanding. Bodies of understanding that would very rapidly show your ideas for their deficiencies if only you were able to shed your ideology and actually learn something of them.
Tim Curtin, if you consider yourself to be a competent commentator in this arena, the time has come for you to stop making unsubstantiated blanket claims, and to actually review all of the relevant literature, to gather all of the relevant data, and to construct a coherent and supported argument using the best knowledge available to science.
You need to review the entire field of photosynthetic biochemistry, including a PhD dissertation-level summary of feedbacks, inhibitors, rate-limitations, promotors, and any other modifiers of the hundreds of recognised metabolic pathways known to occur.
You need to place this in the context of trophic interactions throughout the global biosphere, and in the context of any and all positive and negative impacts that humanity has on primary productivity.
You need to model the direct and indirect energy inputs into all photosynthetic productivity processes, whether natural or anthropogenic, and to model the outputs, under various alternative environmental scenarios.
You need to provide effective counters to the huge body of experimental evidence that contradicts your stance.
You need to provide a valid budget of productivity in repsonse to modificiation of all inputs.
For starters.
And you need to have this work reviewed by the best experts in the world, in order to determine the validity of any and all supportable conclusions, and to highlight the errors and deficencies that might be present in analyses and in interpretation.
Do it. Have it reviewed here. Have it reviewed elsewhere. Submit it for publication, and if it is rejected, submit your rejected work and your counters to any critiques here or elsewhere, so that the world can dissect the minutæ. There are many here who would gladly review the best serious analysis that you can offer, and give testably objective critiques in response.
It's time to stop with your lone-emeritus-genius-in-the-basement quackery, and to actually put up the numbers. Not a few waffly and unsubstantiated regressions that pop like ants under a magnifying glass as soon as they are scrutinised, but a serious deconstruction of the disciplines of photosynthetic and agricultural productivity.
Produce your case Tim Curtin. Substantiate your claim that the fate of humanity and its food resources rests intimately with an increase in atmospheric CO2. Refute the best understanding of the world's experts in several relevant disciplines, and in the process pick up a possible Nobel.
If you have a basis for making the claims that you do, coming up with the collated data requested above should be a cinche, because you surely already have it.
If not, then what on earth have you been relying upon when you have made the statements that you have?
Jeff, Jeff, Jeff.
Jeff.
Extrapolating from lab based studies to complex adaptive systems is fraught with uncertainty. And trying to put a positive spin on rapidly increasing atmospheric C02 levels is a very dangerous thing to do, because ecological systems will respond in unpredictable, non-linear ways.
Denialists have nothing else but positive spin from cherry-picked papers written by others.
If you take away their wish for thin reeds to become mighty pillars, they'll have nothing left except crushed spirits.
You don't want to be a dream-crushing wet blanket do you? Well, do you? For shame!
Best,
D
Tim Curtin:
> Only problem is that Lovelock, Ian Enting, and bi and Bernard J. all labour under the delusion that the Arctic has landmass where they and their partners will be the last breeding pairs on the planet. Thank god, there is no such land mass, so we will be spared any more of same.
So
1. global warming is a hoax which was already perpetrated by Thomas Malthus, Svante Arrhenius, and Charles Darwin (and possibly Grigori Rasputin and Adolf Hitler and the Freemasons) even before there was such an idea as "climate activism"...
2. ...and even if global warming is really a crisis, it'll magically affect only the "alarmists" and leave the "skeptics" safe and sound.
There's only one word to describe this: GALILEO!!!!!!!!!!
Tim Curtin said: "Ian Forrester: Thanks for the paper by Leakey et al, the al. included Long, Ainsworth and Ort who reported the same results in Science vol 312, 30 June 2006, that I already have and had read. The papers deal with maize, a C4 crop that has for long been known to have a different photysntetic structure than the much more numerous C3s. In generalizing as you do to all cereals such as wheat and rice, both C3, you go against the paper by the same Ainsworth, Long and Leakey et 30 other al."
I did nothing of the sort. Are you making things up or are you completely delusional?
Perhaps the nuts that you eat are infected with Aspergillus fumigatus?
You are the Tim Curtin that wrote that appalling misleading article in Quadrant? I have to say you should be ashamed - this isn't a high school debate where rhetoric can trump science and by winning the phony debate AGW will disappear - this is the future climate that our descendents will have to live with and nothing people like you say will change that except for the worse through encouraging denial of the problem and promoting delay in action to deal with it. BTW Arrhenius looks like getting the overall warming nearly right as long as warming in the pipeline from already added CO2 is included - that is just one serious misrepresentation of climate science by you, that the warming to date is all we'll get (rather than waiting for equilibrium to be reached) and if that's short of what a 19th century scientist calculated the entire body of knowledge we have on the subject is invalidated?
I'm appalled and amazed that you can seriously defend and hold such opinions.
Yeah, right.
Curtin, if this is the quality of your capacity for 'fact-finding', then it is no wonder that you have no idea about the biology of productivity.
This is a lame snipe, to be expected either from a 10-year old school boy, or someone mendaciously seeking to sneak a derogatory 'factoid' into the denialosphere.
Keep at it though chum; we're all getting a clearer picture of the level at which you are operating.
Apologies to Forrester, it was Sod not he who linked to the Leakey et al paper on maize not responding to [CO2], though he appeared to support Sod. My comments on the paper remain intact, including that its authors supported the call by the 33 et al Ainsrowrth in Plant Cell & Environment) for funding to research enhancement of CO2 uplift by food crops.
As for Jeff, you really do skate close to being one of those who favour insects above people. Reverting to cotton, are you one of or aware of the greens (broadly defined) who object to GM cotton, even though GM obviates the huge usage of pesticides otherwise essential to getting a cotton harvest?
Bernard J. Wow that's one huge research project, I wish you luck; what are your already extant publications on that work programme? You are too modest, tell us where we can find them.
More generally, but for bi in particular, pursuing the history of thought on AGW, I was not aware until just now (hat tips to JM and LH) of the pioneering activism of Margaret Mead, nor that the lines of descent from Malthus to Darwin to Arrhenius to Julian Huxley to Paul Ehrlich actually go unbroken down to Barry Obama's John Holdren, who with his longstanding associate George Woodwell (both attended Margaret Mead's 1975 conference which set the IPCC ball rolling) have commanding positions at AAAS (Holdren is its President) and NAS. No wonder Science and PNAS plug the same line established at the Mead Conference back in '75, which is like Jeff Harvey's, that "we as a species are trying to maintain ourselves at the expense of other species; there seems to be a conflict between preserving nature and feeding the rapidly increasing population...or do we realize we cannot feed the world at any price?". Nearly 34 years later all who have commented above are evidently of the view like Holdren back then that we cannot, so lets do some euthanasia starting at Copenhagen with India and China, it will be better for their souls. Stephen Schneider no less in his paper for Mead stated that "the food-climate crisis could be very near-term and of major significance" - but the evidence is that despite the "near-term (sic) climate crisis" food production has nearly tripled since 1975, to the chagrin of bi and his fellow Malthusians Jeff, Ian, sod, and Bernard.
Tim Curtin,
For the last time, the Earth is a closed system. How can one reconclile your arguments when it is apparent that humans are rapidly consuming a one-time inheritance of natural capital - deep rich agricultural soils, fossil age groundwater supplies, and biodiversity - to essentially maintain the way of life of a what amounts to the privileged few. Food production has increased because of technological advances - I will give you that - but, given the declining state of health of our global ecological life-support systems, how long can that be maintained? You appear to think that human ingenuity will forever intervene to postpone any crisis and that, like the late Julian Simon, our population can keep growing for 'another 7 billion years'. Isn't this the thrust of what are saying? That there are no ecological limits on material growth?
Given your crowing about food production tripling since 1975, I would say that is very little solace for the 850 million people on Earth who receive such little nutrition that their minds and bodies are literally wasting away. The FAO has already produced very pessimistic projections about rates of starvation after 2015 as well. As I said yesterday, the problem of food production currently is not the amount of food produced but its distribution. And to top that off, many of the world's most agriculturally productive lands occur in areas of marginal rainfall (i.e 'drylands', which are not far off being deserts). The effects of climate change may turn many of the world's breadbaskets into absolute deserts (combined with other anthropogenic stresses).
Finally, many of the negative processes that are likely to occur because of human simplification of ecological systems across much of the biopshere are not instantaneous. I find it embarrassing to have to repeat this ad nauseum but there are ecological 'debts' (referred to in the 1994 paper by Tilman and May) which are costs from changes that do not mainfest themselves immediately on the demographics of species or, more importantly on the way that complex adaptive systems function. Thus, the consequences of clear cutting a large tract of forest can take decades, even centuries to become apparent. Many contrarian do not seem to be able grasp this concept. They believe thyat the effects of human activity should be almost instantaneous. This is logically flawed. In their paper, Tilman and May suggested that many of the changes wrought by early settlers in North America - for instance, the vast clearly of primeval forests - are still rippling through ecological communities centuries later. The latest inforamtion available on breeding birds in North America suggests that many are in sharp decline, in part because of habitat fragmentation, climate change, and other threats such as brood parasitism from cowbirds, which shun dense forests but thrive in patchy habitats. Many of these declines are probably attributable to processes that occurred some time ago. Thus, Tim's optimism is very much like Paul Ehrlich's analogy of the person who jumps off a 100 story building, falls 80 floors and as he does so cries out, 'everything's fine!'.
Tim Curtin:
> More generally, but for bi in particular, pursuing the history of thought on AGW, I was not aware until just now (hat tips to JM and LH) of the pioneering activism of Margaret Mead, nor that the lines of descent from Malthus to Darwin to Arrhenius to Julian Huxley to Paul Ehrlich actually go unbroken down to Barry Obama's John Holdren,
I'm starting to think that Curtin's hilarious lattice of incomprehensible conspiracies deserves a diagram of its own.
GALILEO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jeff; I love you, for so perfectly embodying the Ehrlich-Mead-Holdren syndrome.
You said: (1) "For the last time, the Earth is a closed system". Nonsense, ever heard of the sun, with its vast inputs of energy into the Earth?
(2). "How can one reconcile your arguments when it is apparent that humans are rapidly consuming a one-time inheritance of natural capital - deep rich agricultural soils, fossil age groundwater supplies, and biodiversity - to essentially maintain the way of life of what amounts to the privileged few". See (1) - the Sun is constantly renewing all those resources, and the soils are constantly enriched by weathering of ancient rocks etc that embody ancient CO2 (like limestone etc). The "privileged few" have increased from say 100,000 two millennia ago to 5 billion today (see Maddison).
(3) "Food production has increased because of technological advances - I will give you that - but, given the declining state of health of our global ecological life-support systems, how long can that be maintained?" As it was in the beginning, is now and forever shall be. You have no evidence at all for the "declining" etc.
(4) "You appear to think that human ingenuity will forever intervene to postpone any crisis and that, like the late Julian Simon, our population can keep growing for 'another 7 billion years'. Isn't this the thrust of what you are saying? That there are no ecological limits on material growth?" Yep, none. Simon was right, and won $1000 off both Ehrlich and the ludicrous Holdren, Barry Obama's guru (actually he's been inserted by Barry's alter ego, Ozzie bin Laden) back in 1990. But Simon NEVER said what you claim, he wrote me c1970 in support of my paper in Review of Social Economy that pace Julian Huxley, pop. growth would level off as people urbanised and got richer, and so it is everywhere except in - guess - Africa - where Holdren-type policies will ensure they forever remain poor and fecund.
(5) "Given your crowing about food production tripling since 1975, I would say that is very little solace for the 850 million people on Earth who receive such little nutrition that their minds and bodies are literally wasting away.The FAO has already produced very pessimistic projections about rates of starvation after 2015 as well. As I said yesterday, the problem of food production currently is not the amount of food produced but its distribution". Ehrlich and Holdren confidently predicted the excess population would all be gone by now, but given that population has only doubled while food production has tripled, and there are limits to what even fatties in Holland can eat, it seems likely the distribution is better than you imagine, for if it was not, how did the population manage to double?
(7) "And to top that off, many of the world's most agriculturally productive lands occur in areas of marginal rainfall (i.e 'drylands', which are not far off being deserts). The effects of climate change may turn many of the world's breadbaskets into absolute deserts (combined with other anthropogenic stresses)". But this has not happened despite all the warming since 1975. Your FAO's data on world food production shows that the tripling by 2007 came from essentially the SAME area under cultivation now as in 1975-1980.
(8) "Finally, many of the negative processes that are likely to occur because of human simplification of ecological systems across much of the biosphere are not instantaneous. I find it embarrassing to have to repeat this ad nauseum but there are ecological 'debts' (referred to in the 1994 paper by Tilman and May) which are costs from changes that do not manifest themselves immediately on the demographics of species or, more importantly on the way that complex adaptive systems function. Thus, the consequences of clear cutting a large tract of forest can take decades, even centuries to become apparent. Many contrarian do not seem to be able grasp this concept. They believe that the effects of human activity should be almost instantaneous. This is logically flawed. In their paper, Tilman and May suggested that many of the changes wrought by early settlers in North America - for instance, the vast clearing of primeval forests - are still rippling through ecological communities centuries later". So that's why all 300+ million Americans alive today are worse off than the million or so who were around in 1620? There has NEVER been a case where clear-felling did not give way to higher value production, be it plantation forestry, oilpalm, soy, sugar, or whatever. Jeff, you think the whole world is stupid with one exception. Indonesians Malaysians and Papua New Guineans may not be white like you but they are opportunistic and seek their own welfare just as you do, and they well know what is best for them as much if not better than you.
(9) "The latest information available on breeding birds in North America suggests that many are in sharp decline, in part because of habitat fragmentation, climate change, and other threats such as brood parasitism from cowbirds, which shun dense forests but thrive in patchy habitats. Many of these declines are probably attributable to processes that occurred some time ago". So it was a dearth of Canadian geese that brought down that Airbus? Do check out Jennifer Marohasy's blog, she has forgotten more about birdlife stats than you have ever known.
(10) "Thus, Tim's optimism is very much like Paul Ehrlich's analogy of the person who jumps off a 100 story building, falls 80 floors and as he does so cries out, 'everything's fine!'". Jeff, I am delighted that you have placed yourself so firmly in Ehrlich's camp, he being the author of such gems as his bet (with Holdren) against Simon about mineral prices in 1990 - "Ehrlich and Co. would have lost no matter whether they had staked their money on petroleum, foodstuffs, sugar, coffee, cotton, wool, minerals or
phosphates. They had all become cheaper.â (Lomborg, SE:137). Holdren with Ehrlich stated we would run out of oil by 1982, 1992, 2002, ad lib. Now Holdren says he never said that, only that we would run out of cheap oil. In inflation-adjusted terms oil is today cheaper than it has ever been since about 1970.
Finally, Holdren in his attack on Lomborg in Scientific (sic) American stated that his chapter on energy in SE "is devoted almost entirely to attacking the belief that the world is running out of energy, a belief that Lomborg appears to regard as part of the 'environmental litany' but that few if any environmentalists actually hold. What environmentalists mainly say on this topic is not that we are running out of energy but that we are running out of environmentâthat is, running out of the capacity of
air, water, soil and biota to absorb, without intolerable consequences for human well-being, the effects of energy extraction, transport, transformation and use". Holdren here exhibits the serial dishonesty that convinces me that he is indeed an implant in the White House by Ozzie bin Laden. Holdren is on record from 1970 to c2000 as claiming that we were indeed running out of oil. Now he glibly claims we are "running out of environment": I have shown many times both above and elsewhere that "the environment" is soaking up CO2 emissions at least as fast as those emissions are increasing. Jeff, Holdren, Hansen, Stern, Garnaut and their sponsors will NEVER admit this, but old Ozzie bin Laden is laughing up his gelabeah that these implants of his are hellbent on destroying the US and the rest of us far better with their ETS and Kyotos etc than he could ever have hoped for from blowing up the WTC.
> Holdren here exhibits the serial dishonesty that convinces me that he is indeed an implant in the White House by Ozzie bin Laden.
This is supposed to be a parody, right?
Tim,
How much more of myour gobbeldegook do I have to demolish? You clearly do not read the up-to-date empirical literature, and you do not appear to understand that many of the resources I discuss are non-renewable.
For instance, you had me on the floor with this cracker: ""For the last time, the Earth is a closed system". Nonsense, ever heard of the sun, with its vast inputs of energy into the Earth?
So, Tim, molecules will just reassemble themselves no matter what humans do to biologically complex natural systems? Is this what you are saying? This is kindergarten level science. This means nothing, because the sun does not create matter. Sure, the genetic material that constitutes living organisms cannot be eliminated but it can be destroyed until it serves no function. If humans were to extirpate the vast majority of extant species on Earth, the consequences would be calamitous. The services that they held to generate in combination over much larger scales would be rendered non-existent.
Then you write utter jibberish such as this, "Sun is constantly renewing all those resources, and the soils are constantly enriched by weathering of ancient rocks etc that embody ancient CO2". This goes below grade school level understanding. The sun can only renew these resourcesz if the biological conditions permit that to be the case, and also over time scales that are far from instantaneous. Soils are being degraded at rates far exceeding replenishment right now; ever heard of desertification, Tim? Dust bowls? What happens when the products of innumerable biological processes in the soil are washed away into the sea? What happens when the nutrient cycle is interrupted or destroyed because the biological base upon which it rests (e.g. the combined biological activities of countless soil microbes and other organisms) is itself destroyed? How is the sun going to repair that damage in the short term? I find such a torrent illogic stunning. Mr. Spock would have a field day with you, Tim.
Simon did not have a clue what he was talking about. His 7 billion year growth quote has been shredded time aqnd time again. Some colleagues estimated that, if the human population gre at a modest 1% per year, that in 700 years there would be people occupting every square cm on Earth in only 700 years. In fact, at that rate of growth, human biomass would be expanding faster thyan the universe. Utter tripe, of course. Moreover, Steve Schneider and Paul reissued a bet challenge to Simon in 1994. Thios bet wwas a ten year wager on the basis that humans depend on natural systems and the services that emerge from them. Steve and Paul argued that key indicators of the health of the global ecological commons: biodiversity, climate change, forest cover etc. would be worse off in 2004 than in 1994. On each of 15 points, they bet Simon $1,000. These are important because, unlike the price of metals, human welfare ultimate depends on a helathy viable biosphere. Perhaps not surprisngly, on each issue, Simon declined to bet. Why? Because he knew that he would lose. His failure to bet on these indicators recieved little publicity, which is hardly surprising.
The 'bet' you allude to was a farce. How can one estimate the health of ecological systems on the basis of the price of 5 metals? What Paul and John did was dumb, because they should have known that pricing did not (and still does not) internalize the costs of economic activity oin the biosphere. These costs are externalized, and, for a short time, humans can live off of a sysatem that is in serious decline (as is the current state of our ecological life support systems) while economic conditions temporarily improve. A good analogy is the utter collapse of fiseries around the world. Until recently, we were catching more and more fish as a result of technological advances (in nets, sonar etc) in the industry. At the same time as the fish catch increased, marine stocks were plummeting. Virtually all of the world's major fisheries are now on the brink of collapse, because the deficit has finally begun to be manifest. The consequence is that marine food webs have been seriously disrupted, even destroyed, and will likely never recover, or only do so in hundreds or thousands of years. Trophic relationships have been particularly hit hard, meaning that marine food webs are becoming disfunctional. Marine systems will collapse as a result of this mass simplification. No amopunt of technology that we possess can rectify this damage. Moreover, once species are lost, they are gone forever, and they take with them any important functions they performed in the way systems assemble and function. Sure, some may be replaced by functionally redundant species, but once a guild is decimated its functions are gone. When previous extinction events occurred, the recovery took as long as 5-10 million years. During this time the planet was biologically impoverished and not such a nice place to live.
But Tim, you bl;eieve that humans are exempt from nature's laws. You don't seem to mind our destroying a vast swathe of biodiversity because, after all, whatever we do, it will 're-evolve' in 5 million years. But what makes you think that humans can exist on a planet where many of the vital services that permit us to exist and persist have been destroyed? How can we make up for the destruction of organisms intimately involved in recycling the atmosphere, nutrient cycling, water purification, pollination, detoxification of wastes, pest control and others? The sun ain't gonna bring back a huge proportion of the Earth's lost biota in a week, you know. The bare fact is this: no species utilizes more of nature than Homo sapiens, and no species relies on nature more than Homo sapiens. Once we have pushed systems beyond a point where they can sustain themselves (and us), we will be staring our own mortality - and extinction - squarely inthe face. It happened to other civilizations - in Easter Island, in ancient Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome. All lived beyond the carrying capacity of their own land masses and all declined at least partly as a result of lacking the technology to offset the damage thay incurred on their ecological life support systems. The only difference is that our species now has the technological means both to dominate every living system on the planet and to stall the effects of vanquishing nature. But we are heading for a tipping point, of that there is no doubt.
Of course, Tim, you must also appear to possess the expertise (!!!) to disagree with the "World Scientist's Warning to Humanity", issued in 1992 to coincide with the Rio summit on biodiversity. Signed by 1700 of the world's leading scientists, including 70% of the living Nobel Laureates at the time, the document stated that
'Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about'.
Since then, the state of the biosphere has actually decreased and quite dramtically. I won't even bother to address your point re: food production because I did that in my last post. As I also said above, a system can be in obvious decline (such as fisheries) and we wouldn't even know it until it is too late.
I said at #120 that "Holdren here exhibits the serial dishonesty that convinces me that he is indeed an implant in the White House by Ozzie bin Laden".
Franki bi said "This is supposed to be a parody, right?"
I say, in the light of bi's dishonest hoax posting at the Heartland site, his comment is a bit rich. Pot calling kettle black or what? truth is that bi is a humourless ideologue.
As for dear old Jeff, there is an unbridgeable divide between those who think that the interests of flies, mossies, and all other insects override those of us. In other words, Jeff is a born-again eugenicist, while I remain confident in the ability of us humans to adapt to whatever the future may hold for us.
To be specific, you said: "But what makes you think that humans can exist on a planet where many of the vital services that permit us to exist and persist have been destroyed?" Hooray (from your point of view) if we can't, problem solved from your eugenicist point of view. However, please name a single "service" that would enable us to survive as a species that no longer exists? You mention fisheries, but for many years now most marketed fish have been harvested from commercial hatcheries. But then, I would never expect you to have heard of them. It is true that natural fisheries are a commons, and have been over-exploited by the Netherlands as part of EU of whom you are a proud supporter. When I worked for the EU I did try to check their takeover of Africa's fisheries, which partly explains my shortened career there!
BTW I knew quite a few of the signatories of that Rio declaration, charlatans all!
Curtin.
Your sorcerer's apprenticing of spurious invalidities in response to Jeff Harvey is breath-taking. You may think that you've rebutted his (and my, and several other people's) points, but all you have done is Dunningly Krugered real science.
I'm still wondering if I should bother with a point-by-point response - a thorough reply to you manifold absurdities would take hours.
I do wonder though, as I originally asked a number of months ago, how many real plant physiologists and ecologists you have consulted, and worked with, in person. The nature of such collaborations, where they might exist, would be interesting indeed.
Barton J said (feb 5th): "as I originally asked a number of months ago [when and where?], how many real plant physiologists and ecologists you have consulted, and worked with, in person?". Some of my best friends have been such going back as far as 1957 at what is now the University of Zimbabwe and in the 60s at York Univeristy (UK), and down amongst others to 2 lead authors of TAR/AR4 (who are also among the most frequently cited in AR4). The latter are named in my upcoming paper.
But I would welcome your comments, based on your own experience, on the following extract from the paper:
"A major reason for the evidently powerful role of rising [CO2] in explaining growth of world food production is that it tends to reduce the rate of photorespiration which accounts for a loss of as much as 30 percent of the carbohydrate formed in C3 photosynthesis (Long et al. 2006b): 321), especially in the hotter and drier climates where in the past C3 plants such as wheat and rice have been less successful, cet. par., than C4 crops like maize and sorghum. Elevated CO2 increases photosynthetic efficiency and thus yield by reducing the oxygenation reaction of Rubisco (op.cit., 322).
The conclusion that also has to be drawn, that [CO2] is a more potent fertilizer than commercial nitrogenous and phosphate fertilizers, might be considered inconvenient, especially for producers of the latter. The data on total fertilizer consumption (Table 1) show it grew by only 27.5 per cent between 1981 and 2004, possibly implying the worldâs farmers were using less fertilizer than might be expected when food production grew by 62.7 per cent over that period. Conversely, [CO2] grew by only 11 per cent, so its much larger coefficient than that for fertilizer use is suggestive of just how powerful a growth agent it appears to be.
The food regression (equation 2) also suggests that rising global mean temperature does have a positive effect on agricultural production, even if its coefficient is small and statistically insignificant. Nevertheless it casts some doubt on claims by Parry et al. (2004), the Stern Review (2007: Box 3.4), and Cline (2007) that rising temperatures will always have a negative global impact on agricultural yields. But it is of course true that primary food production is not dependent just on [CO2], temperature, and fertilizer usage. Rainfall is also important, especially in explaining annual variability in yields, but âglobal average rainfallâ is an archetypal nonsense statistic. That is why we now present regression analysis of wheat yields at various locations in Australia and the USA against both [CO2], which is basically invariant with location, and, inter alia, specific rainfall data for each location".
I'd be most appreciative if you would care to join us as co-author having provided comprehensive time series data on your own yields relative to your main inputs including fertilizer and your local rainfall data?
Here's one for Jeff and his claims of imminent extinction of most fish, the co-author is even a Dutchman!
Climate induced increases in species richness of marine fishes, in Global Change Biology 2008, 14.
J. G. HIDDINK * and R. ter HOFSTEDEâ
* School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University, Menai Bridge, Anglesey LL59 5AB, UK, â Wageningen IMARES, Institute for Marine Resources & Ecosystem Studies, PO Box 68 1970 AB IJmuiden, The Netherlands
Correspondence: J. G. Hiddink, tel. +44 0 1248 382864, e-mail: J.Hiddink@bangor.ac.uk
Copyright Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
KEYWORDS
biodiversity ⢠biogeography ⢠climate change ⢠extinction ⢠fisheries ⢠global warming ⢠North Sea ⢠species richness
ABSTRACT
Climate change has been predicted to lead to changes in local and regional species richness through species extinctions and latitudinal ranges shifts. Here, we show that species richness of fish in the North Sea, a group of ecological and socio-economical importance, has increased over a 22-year period and that this rise is related to higher water temperatures. Over eight times more fish species displayed increased distribution ranges in the North Sea (mainly small-sized species of southerly origin) compared with those whose range decreased (primarily large and northerly species). This increase in species richness can be explained from the fact that fish species richness in general decreases with latitude. This observation confirms that the interaction between large-scale biogeographical patterns and climate change may lead to increasing species richness at temperate latitudes.
Bernard J, I am glad to see today over at the new Open Thread, you now accept my claim that reducing [CO2] may well have a negative impact on primary productivity, and that as with North Seas fisheries, rising temperature is also generally good for crop yields. But where's your own data that I asked for?
Bernard J: Here's another for you to mull over. Taub et al.(2008, Global Change Biology, 14, 565-575) claim that the "effects of elevated CO2 on the protein concentration of food crops" are likely to be negative. So here we have a duly peer-reviewed paper full of bias and b/s. At no point do the authors say what the correct or normalised concentration of protein should be. They merely assert that the concentration of protein declines with increasing elevated [CO2]. What an astounding discovery! Adding CO2 increases, inevitably, cet. par., the proportion of carbohydrate relative to protein, measured by these authors as Nitrogen. What twits. Of course if they added N in proportion to CO2 there would be no change in the relative proportions of carbohydrate and protein. Such is the "science" of GCB. The problem with these authors like those of ALL papers in Science etc is that they know nothing outside their chosen fields. Even economists have for hundreds of years have known (before Stern and Garnaut, that is), if you add more of one input holding all others constant, you encounter diminishing marginal returns. This is a concept no longer taught at any Australian university's economics department, any more than the concept that if you add inputs in proportion with each other you generally get constant returns to scale. Be that as it may, the claims of Taub et al. crucially depend on withholding information on what is the normal proportion of increases in yield of total output of a crop that should be protein (or nitrogen). For example, if enhanced [CO2] raises yields by say 15% from 10 to 11.5 t/ha t/ha, but the protein content thereof falls from 30% by 12% as claimed by Taub et al., then we actually get INCREASED protein:
Yield, t/ha1011.5
Protein factor0.30.264
Protein 33.036
I wonder why Taub et al failed to mention actual protein contents anywhere in their paper? Am I wrong to conclude that like nearly all in this field, anything so long as it Madoffs with OUR money (as taxpayers) is kosher?
'while such an increase [in temperature] in Glasgow or Helsinki would bring unbounded joy'
WTF? In Helsinki, this time of the year, snow is a big, big improvement. Rain falling on last years' dog turds and dead leaves versus snow and ice. I'd take the latter, every time.
Ummm...Seahorse and chips anyone?
Hey Tim, what happens when you try to make an animal eat more food in order to maintain the same amount of protein it used to eat before the reduced protein concentration food came along?
Guthrie, you don't have to as intelligent farmers keep other inputs (eg N) in balance. BTW, it's known that the Japanese insist on a minimum protein content in soy of 35%, and that has been managed in the US since for ever despite rising [CO2]. More generally, here is my letter today to Chris Field at Stanford. Are you available to co-sign?
"Dear Dr Field
You were widely reported yesterday and today by Reuters and AFP as claiming that âThe climate is heating up far faster than scientists had predicted, spurred by sharp increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries like China and Indiaâ¦The consequence of that is we are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously, the actual trajectory of climate change is more serious [than any of the IPCCâs climate predictions] We now have data showing that from 2000 to 2007, greenhouse gas emissions increased far more rapidly than we expected, primarily because developing countries, like China and India, saw a huge surge in electric power generation, almost all of it based on coal," you apparently said (the full text is appended below).
If correctly reported you are guilty of severe economy with the truth. Whilst right that emissions grew rapidly from 2000 until 2007, you have been seriously misleading by failing to mention first, that anthropogenic global warming is dependent first and foremost on the atmospheric concentration of CO2 [CO2], and not on the level of emissions per se, as despite 3 percent growth of emissions from January 2008 to January 2009, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide grew by less than 0.4 percent, that being the average rate of growth of [CO2] since 1958, which means that despite the inferences you wished the world to draw, there has been NO sustained increase in the rate of growth of [CO2] since 1958 despite ongoing growth in emissions of as much as 3% p.a.*.
Secondly, you wilfully failed to mention that absorption of those emissions by the oceanic and terrestrial biospheres grew about as fast as the emissions. Ironically, your own co-authors in some of your most recent papers (Canadell, Raupach) have assembled data that show how absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide doubled from an annual average of 2.45 billion tonnes of carbon a year from 1958 to 1963, to over 5 GtC from 2003 to 2007.**
As a result, from 1958 to 2007 over 56 percent of total emissions over that period of 331 billion tonnes was absorbed by our biospheres, in the form of the carbohydrates that are the basic feedstock for humanity, as embodied in fish, cereals, livestock, fruit, coffee, grapes, and other tree crops (eg palm oil). Without CO2 there would be no food, and reducing its present atmospheric level has been frequently proven to result in lower yields of all that feedstock (that being the corollary of the well-attested, in thousands of papers, fertilization effect of enhanced [CO2]). Your exaggeration (by over 700 percent) of the rate of increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide relative to the growth of emissions, combined with your wilful disregard of the positive side of the annual global carbon budget through your focus only on emissions, amounts to gross academic and scientific misconduct since your own work in the IPCC AR4 WG1 gives the lie to your present claims. I and some of my colleagues intend to make appropriate representations to the authorities of the University of Stanford, Reuters, AFP, and the IPCC unless we see an immediate retraction of your misleading claims reported by Reuters/AFP.
· www.esrl.noaa.gov.gmd/ccgg/trends/
· www.globalcarbonproject.org/
Kind regards"
Tim C, I don't know why we bother wasting our breath on you. I'd gladly debate you on such issues as the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, and on such relevant issues as the the ability of species in complex adaptive systems to respond to the numerous human assaults across the biosphere. These areas are vital if we are to elucidate with any accuracy the future consequences of our actions, because nature generates a range of conditions and services that permit humans to exist and persist. First, however, I would like to know what in the way of course you have studied on population and systems ecology. I get nowhere with you because the way I see it you argue that processes emerging from these systems are linear, whereas they are not. Certainly I believe that there are very few statured scientists who would argue that carbon is a limiting nutrient in nature and that the planet and its systems will benefit into perpetuity from an unlimited transfer of carbon to the atmosphere from plant biomass and belowground where it is stored. If that was the case, please explain to me why the planet probably attained its apex in terms of species richness over the past 10-20,000 years. Why was nature at the global level not so species-rich during periods when atmospheric carbon levels were far higher than they are today? Moreover, planetary biodiversity is augmented by both change and stability. However, as a qualified scientist, I would never make such rash pronouncements as you have done in this thread on the basis of some (primarily lab-based) ecophysiology studies.
As I have said innumerable times before, nature functions in a decidedly non-linear way, and there are thresholds beyond which systems will alter their functions in quite significant and unpredictable ways. Climate change - as well as changes in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases that are believed by most scientists to underpin this change - are challenging species and genetically distinct populations to respond. Many will be able to, whereas many will not, because they will lack the evolutionary time necessary to adaptively respond. The problem is that the planet is human-dominated in pretty well every respect and as a result many populations of species have declined dramatically because much of their habitat has disappeared. Check the status of many North American birds, or of the 1100 species of birds in the Cites list - most are declining, many very rapidly. The same can be extrapolated across a menagerie of phylogenetically different groups - fish, amphibians, insects, plants, you name it. The IUCN has produced a pretty comprehensive list of the status of most well-studied groups and it makes very worrying reading. On top of that, many species not yet on the IUCN list are also in decline, and within a few years many of these will also make the list. The fact that one-quarter of the world's mammals are threatened or endangered shoudl be of grave concern. The fact that humans are consuming natural capital faster than it is being replaced is also of profound concern. Climate change is challelging species and populations already stressed by humans in amyriad of other ways.
As I said before, in my opinion the main obstacles to food security, as well as to finding solutions to the environmental quagmire our species is currently in, are political, and not scientific. The science is locked up in economic and political expediency. The fact that 16% of the world's population in the 'rich world' consumes more than 80% of the world's resources is evidence of a massive discrepanacy that has been maintained by the neoliberal economic agenda (which is neither new nor liberal) that dominates societies across the planet. I believe that your arguments are transparent.
Jeff: thanks for your comments. I will do my best to respond.
You said (1): "I'd gladly debate you on such issues as the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, and on such relevant issues as the ability of species in complex adaptive systems to respond to the numerous human assaults across the biosphere." So will I. (2) "These areas are vital if we are to elucidate with any accuracy the future consequences of our actions, because nature generates a range of conditions and services that permit humans to exist and persist". We have also adapted inw ays that improve our living conditions, heating for the Dutch, air.con out here to name just 2.
(3) "...I would like to know what in the way of course you have studied on population and systems ecology." Well I am an economist whose earliest papers included one on economics of population growth (Review of Social Economy, Sept. 1969, endorsed in the next issue by none other than the great Colin Clark who alas died before he could be awarded the Economics Nobel which undoubtedly he would have received had it existed in the 60s). But I have probably read as much ecology as you have economics.
(4) "I get nowhere with you because the way I see it you argue that processes emerging from these systems are linear..." I don't - there is plenty of non-linear economics and econometrics by the way.
(5) "Certainly I believe that there are very few statured scientists who would argue that carbon is a limiting nutrient in nature and that the planet and its systems will benefit into perpetuity from an unlimited transfer of carbon to the atmosphere from plant biomass and belowground where it is stored." Try Dyson, Long et al passim. There are hundreds if not thousands of scientists who have documented the positive effects of enhanced [CO2] on yields of C3 cereals especially, and not only in labs or greenhouses, there are hundreds of FACE studies. The corollary has to be that reduced [CO2] by up to 80% as will be proposed - but hopefully not enacted - at Copenhagen will reduce yields not only below what they would be under BAU but below the present level. Read my letter to Field above: the c170 billion tonnes of atmospheric carbon absorbed by the biospheres since 1958 supported the expansion of crop outputs etc since then to well above the equilibrium level that obtained before 1750, not to mention the feeding of the actual increasing numbers all your non-human species including fish (when you allow for commercial hatcheries etc). At present c 6GtC out of current emissions of c10 GtC are absorbed by our biospheres, Copenhagen will seek to reduce emissions to 2 GtC or less. What then for the 6 GtC, which is the NET increase in absorption every year at present?
(6) Then you said: "The fact that humans are consuming natural capital faster than it is being replaced is also of profound concern." There is no such thing, and even if there is, it will not run out any time soon.
(7) "Climate change is challenging species and populations already stressed by humans in a myriad of other ways" What climate change? The GISS 0.7oC since 1900 is nothing, in fact nil, when you allow for the facts first that the cool 1880-1900 baseline perforce excludes the whole of the hot African tropics, while the hot 90s and 2000s exclude equally perforce most of the most northerly cold weather stations, especially in Siberia.
(8) Finally, you said "the fact that 16% of the world's population in the 'rich world' consumes more than 80% of the world's resources (sic) is evidence of a massive discrepanacy that has been maintained by the neoliberal economic agenda (which is neither new nor liberal) that dominates societies across the planet". That is a bogus statistic as most of the rich world's large but rapidly falling share of world income consumes hardly any resources (eg banks and other finance, universities etc etc). Much if not most manufacturing is now in China India etc.
I don't comment on your species data, as that is not my field, but do remember Darwin, extinctions have been endemic since the beginning of time, as he documents so vividly, and those that have survived and will in the future will be those that evolve and adapt, except for our species that will opt for suicide via mass starvation if Copenhagen does what you hope for.
Tim,
I am happy to read your response, and I will try to reply in more detail later (I am snowed under with work right now). I will only comment on your last point with any detail.
You write, "Darwin [said that] extinctions have been endemic since the beginning of time, as he documents so vividly, and those that have survived and will in the future will be those that evolve and adapt, except for our species that will opt for suicide via mass starvation if Copenhagen does what you hope for".
The point I am making is that extinction rates are higher now than at any time in at least 65 million years (e.g. this is the 6th great extinction event in the planet's history, and the first to be caused by one of the planet's evolved inhabitants (us). Not a very enviable precedent). The bottom line is that human activities are inflicting dramatic changes across the biosphere. The result is an extinction rate 100-1000 times higher than the normal 'background' rate and it is increasing. This cannot continue indefinitely. A paper by Hughes et al. (1997) in Science estimated that the planet is losing perhaps 30,000 genetically distinct populations per day out of a global estimate of 1 to 6 distinct populations. Genetic diversity reinforces tha ability of species to adapt to change, because some genotypes are better adapted to one set of conditions and other genotypes are better adapted to another set of conditions. Reducing genetic diversity thus reduces a species ability to respond to dynamic changes in the enviornment (by 'dynamic changes' I actually refer to simplification). How long can this continue? Certainly the concern is that, as species and populations disapper, their ability to contribute to the functioning of ecosystems also declines. Species and genetically distinct populations are the working parts, so to speak, of our ecological life support systems. As biodiversity declines, so do the services that they help to genetate, thus making systems much more likely to break down. There is a vital link between the welfare of humanity and biodiversity - humans cannot survive in a planet where a large proportion of the biodiversity has been extirpated because we simply do not possess the knowledge to replicate most vital ecosystem services that emerge from healthy systems. Your worst case sceario - mass starvation - is much more likely to occur as humans dominate more and more of the planet's surface because (as is happening) biodversity will decline. Making such flippant remarks as 'extinction is natural' in no way explains that the current human induced mass extinction is NOT natural.
The bottom line is this: if we stay on our current path, we ARE opting for mass starvation and possible extinction in the medium term. Our species cannot survive in a world where a large proportion of the pollinators, seed dispersers, nutrient cyclers, water purifers etc. have been wiped out. You don't seem to be able to make the connection. We are not exempt from the laws of nature, Tim. Besides, there already is mass starvation in the world today. The solutions, as I said yesterday, are political. There just not seem to be the will on the part of the 'have's' in the rich world to see to it that more of the planet's wealth is equitably shared. To be honest, given the declassified planning documents I have read through the books of historians like Mark Curtis and economists like Tom Athanasiou, and from the mouths of planners such as George Kennan, I really don't think there is much interest in the developed world to eliminate poverty in the south. Our elites are more interested in looting their resources than in eliminating starvation and poverty, at least that is what I believe. Samir Amin, one of Africa's leading economists, made this point at the World Social Foprum at Peurto Alegre in brazil in 2003. I think that he is right.
Tim Curtin.
You carry on ad nauseum about the crude increase in photosynthetic production with increased CO2 when all other parameters are non-limiting. One isolated and non-contextualised phenomenon. However, beyond this, you have not reflected upon, employed, referred to, nor otherwise referenced or shown understanding of, any other physiological or ecological process, unless one includes your spurious mention of Darwin's reference to extinction.
With this fact in mind, just how are you qualified to counter and to rebuff the understanding of experts in biology? How do you propose to establish the informed and nuanced arguments that would be necessary to contradict the many biological facts that Jeff, I and others have repeated rubbed your nose in?
And please, in a paragraph or less, explain at what rate atmospheric CO2 concentration would decrease if all human emissions were to cease immediately. You can include mention of your putative sinks if you desire, but I am most interested in your projected trajectory of decrease.
I hope that this will include reference to the best literature...
Jeff: you have NO evidence for the mass extinctions you mention, unlike Darwin. Your precious sub-species just like us depend directly or indirectly on CO2-derived food - e.g. bees need flowers that have been busy photosynthesising. Name one that doesn't. Never again at the current level after Copenhagen. I met the great Marxist Samir Amin in 1972, he was wrong on all issues then and has been ever since.
Bernard: First, you could begin by checking out my submissions to the Garnaut Review at either his or my websites, and I look forward to your refutations.
Secondly, you said "And please, in a paragraph or less, explain at what rate atmospheric CO2 concentration would decrease if all human emissions were to cease immediately".BTW, if all human emissions cease, that means none of us would be here, including even your transcedental self; I trust you will reduce your CO2 exhalations by 80% after Copenhagen (joke)!
But seriously, check out my spoof Enstein letter to President Bush (Royal Economic Society, also on my website and theirs) where I display projections of emission reductions like those proposed for the world at Bali plotted against ongoing biospheric absorption at the 2007 rate (according to Canadell et al PNAS 2007, Global Carbon Project 2008). As early as 2070 or so we would be back to the 1750 level of 280 ppm which manifestly did not support a world population of c0.5 billion at any degree of comfort. That projection assumed absorption could continue in the absence of rising [CO2]. But as measured in ppm rising [CO2]itself promotes biospheric uptakes through its partial pressure (in equivalent micro moles), so that falling partial pressure of [CO2] would itself reduce absorption with devastating impacts on global crop and marine yields. You need to realise that there is a constant flux of CO2 back and forth between the globe and the atmosphere, of c 100 GtC p.a. according to Houghton, IPCC, Trenberth et al., but increasing as [CO2] increases. Reducing CO2 emissions by 80% will in effect eliminate the current NET increase of 6 GtC and soon also, inexorably, the flux between the atmosphere and the globe. It is an inventory - stocks and flows - problem, but one that is not widely understood except at WalMart, and least of all by Stern and Garnaut.
Tim, You are doing what other contrarians do, and I have to deal with this all of the time. Your tactic is simple: without 100% unequivocal evidence, the problem does not exist. Therefore we shouldn't do anything about it.
I am afraid that this strategy is old, tired and useless. Every indicator shows that the health and vitality of the natural world is in decline. The Millenium Ecosystem Assessment spelled it out clearly enough 2 years ago. Natural systems continue to shrink. Soil fertility is declining. Water quality is declining. The UN-World Bank Living Planet Index shows that the three most important ecosystems on Earth that help to sustain humanity - coastal 'green seas', forest and freshwater - have declined in quality and extent by about 35% since the index was started in 1970. As the human enterprise grows, we are consuming more and more of nature. What is worse is that most of this growth has been amongst developed countries which finance huge ecological deficits to maintain the status quo. There isn't a single country in the developed world with the possible exception of Canada that could sustain itself on the resources contained within its own political boundries, at least based on the curret per capita ecological footprint in each. This explains why Amin was correct, and why western foreign policy is based more on resource lotting and expansionism and less on alleviating hunger and poverty. Tom Athanasiou nails it in his book, "Divided Planet: The Ecology of Rich and Poor" as does Patrick Bond in his book, "Looting Africa".
Furthermore, as I said above, 10-40% of well-known species (vertebrates, vascular plants) are threatened with extinction. Declines amongst bird populations worldwide are pandemic. Tne number of mammals that become listed by CITES every year increases. We don't have much information on invertebrates because most groups are unstudied, but there is no reason to believe that as their habitat shrinks, they won't lose out too.
As for your comment re: flowers and bees, your arguments on this appear to me to be utterly elementary and simplistic. Vascular plants need a lot more than just C0 2 to thrive. They need both biotic and abiotic conditions to be optimal, and, just as important is the fact that they need habitat. This is being constantly eroded as the human enterprise expands.
I hate to say it, but your arguments are utterly simplisitc and elemenatry. to me I cannot debate at this level of discourse, I am afraid. Who cares what Samir Amin's political affiliations are? He is a leading economist and I would expect you to argue facts and not have to resort to refrains like he is a "great Marxist". This is appalling. I might just as well think that you are a :"great right wing libertartian". Does this make you correct and Amin wrong?
As early as 2070 or so we would be back to the 1750 level of 280 ppm which manifestly did not support a world population of c0.5 billion at any degree of comfort. That projection assumed absorption could continue in the absence of rising [CO2]. But as measured in ppm rising [CO2]itself promotes biospheric uptakes through its partial pressure (in equivalent micro moles), so that falling partial pressure of [CO2] would itself reduce absorption with devastating impacts on global crop and marine yields.
Tim, i ve explained this to you now multiple times. you don t understand anything of it.
this [graphic](http://jasonleggett.greenoptions.com/files/images/Carbon_cycle_diagram_…) explains it basically all.
in short:
1. CO2 concentration determines uptake. the oceans take up a LOT of it.
2. food plants are completely irrelevant as an uptake factor. food plant increase from high CO2 levels is nearly irrelevant for feeding mankind.
3. there will be no catastrophe due to little CO2 in the air.
Sod: Thanks, but your graphic is full of errors. First, fossil fuel emissions are currently well over 8 GtC, not 5.5, and so on. Do check AR4, WG1, table 7.1, produced by Canadell, Field, Raupach etc etc, and their refinements in Canadell et al PNAS 2007 and Raupach et al Global carbon project. I agree with your (1) that the level of CO2 concentration has an impact on "uptake" by oceans - and land, but do we want less, leading to less plankton crops and trees? What are your sources for your (2). I have about 2,000 for the contrary. Re your (3), "little CO2 in the air" will have no impact on food production? Sources please.
I gave a few of mine above.
To Sod again. A better graphic is that in Bulletin Am. Met. Society, Kiehl & Trenberth 2007, which by an amazing coincidence found its way into AR4 WG1, nothing to do with Trenberth himself of course. It also only balances if one uses Bernie Madoff's auditors, but no matter, its numbers are in the right ball park, unlike in yours (but you will have to adjust to W m^-2).
Jeff: Oh dear, here we go again. I never said all species depend only on CO2-based food intake, but that clearly this is a necessary minimum condition for survival. Amin was a joke in 1972 when I met him, and remains so when he says, according to you: 'Our elites are more interested in looting their [the South's] resources than in eliminating starvation and poverty'. No further debate is possible if that is what you believe, certainly Amin has made a less than zero contribution to eliminating poverty in the South when his heroes include Robert Mugabe and the rest of my old mates(students and colleagues of whom many still in his cabinet).
Tim Curtin.
Your hysterical (in any interpretation) notion of catastrophic CO2 loss from the atmosphere is quite spectacularly contradicted by [Solomon et al](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/28/0812721106.abstract), who have rather more expertise in these analyses than do you. Have a look at the first figure, and then explain to us why they are wrong.
Of course, if they are incorrect, you have yet another letter of complaint to sent to PNAS. Which reminds me - have you heard back from PNAS regarding your [previous discovery of errors](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/01/windschuttle_hoaxed.php#comment…)?
If you seriously believe your ideas about photosynthetic productivity in relation to CO2 increase, and the critical dependence of productivity upon sustained human emissions, write a paper and submit it to a reputable journal. And if you are serious about the grave risk of CO2 loss from the atmosphere should humans curb their emissions, once again the world should hear of it through your submission to a reputable journal.
If you are correct, these ideas need to be tested, confirmed, and rushed out for all to hear. Oh, and please be sure to include us in any and all correspondence that you share with the journals to which you submit.
I note that you have provided not one iota of ecological understanding to contradict Jeff Harvey, myself, or others. given Jeff's detailed, lengthy, and comprehensive list of ecological risks posed by CO2 increase and by anthropogenic global warming, you are overdue to present a proper and an effective counter to these manifold points that have been left wanting for a response by you.
Prove yourself in all of these fields, or (more sensibly) face the fact that you are actually speaking from your rectum.
I would not be surprised to find that it was someone just like you who was the holotypic individual upon whom Messrs Dunning and Kruger formed the description of their eponymous effect.
Bernard, thanks "please be sure to include us in any and all correspondence that you share with the journals to which you submit", I will as soon as I have your address. meantime thanks for that preposterous article by Solomon et al, they are as stoopid and ignorant as Field. But if they are right,there is nothing any of us can do that will make a blind bit of difference for 1000 years. Anyone for tennis?
Bernard,
Many thanks for the outstanding article in PNAS - one of the most rigid journals - that is devastating to TimC's thesis. The debate is closed as far as I am concerned. I will vouch any day for a peer-reviewed scientific arctile in one of the world's top journals by a leading climate scientist over the protestations of an economist. Note that all Tim had to say was that the article was 'preposterous' and that the lead author was 'stoopid'.
As I said, debate over. Game, set and match. Bernard, well done!
Just so that we are clear, "that preposterous article", [Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/28/0812721106.full.pdf+html), was written by:
1. Susan Solomona
2. Gian-Kasper Plattnerbb
3. Reto Knuttic andc
4. Pierre Friedlingsteindd
These authors' affiliations:
a) Chemical Sciences Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder, CO 80305;
b) Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics and
c) Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH CH-8092, Zurich, Switzerland; and
d) Institut Pierre Simon Laplace/Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, Unité Mixte de Recherche 1572 Commissariat à l'Energie AtomiqueâCentre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueâUniversité Versailles Saint-Quentin, Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique-Saclay, l'Orme des Merisiers, 91191 Gif sur Yvette, France.
Tim Curtin.
Can you explain exactly why these scientists are "stoopid and ignorant", and can you conmpare your bona fides with theirs?
Oh, and for those who have not yet followed the link to the Solomon paper, do spare a moment to compare their trajectories in figure 1 with those Tim Curtin describes above, and graphs in his 'papers' on his web page (exempli gratia slide 28 of the '[emeritus](http://www.timcurtin.com/images/Emeritus_Presentation.ppt)' effort).
Keep in mind too that Curtin seems to ignore the fact that the biosphere ticked over productively for hundreds of millions of year without the input of human emissions. And consider also that if there was any signifcant reduction in productivity in pre-industrial photosynthetic milieux, some clever scientist would have detected this inhibited productivity in the records of dendrochronological cores or in cross-sections of petrified wood.
When I look at the heartwood of the slabs of petrified wood that I polished during my lapidary days, I see rather robust rates of diameter increase. Whatever can that mean?
Here are my comments on direct quotes from the PNAS paper (2009) by those infallible experts Solomon, Plattner, Knutti, and Friedlingstein, "Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions".
(1) âIt is not generally appreciated that the atmospheric
temperature increases caused by rising carbon dioxide concentrations are not expected to decrease significantly even if carbon emissions were to completely ceaseâ. As nobody has called for or expects international agreement if any at Copenhagen to cease ALL carbon emissions, including presumably any respiration and exhalation by animals and plants, why bother to do any reductions like Ruddâs 5% by 2020 or Baliâs 50% by 2050, when not even 100% will achieve anything?
(2) âOn the time scale of a millennium addressed here, the CO2 equilibrates largely between the atmosphere and the ocean and, depending on associated increases in
acidity and in ocean warming (i.e., an increase in the Revelle or ââbufferââ factor, see below), typically c20% of the added tonnes of CO2 remain in the atmosphere while c80% are mixed into the oceanâ. This is an interesting statement especially in a paper co-authored by Susan Solomon and Pierre Freidlingstein. Susan was Co-Chair of WG1 of AR4 and lead editor of the whole Report of WG1; Friedlingstein was a Contributing Author of Chapter 7 in the Report of WG1 (Climate Change 2007. The Physical Science Basis). If The Science was settled in 2007, how come it changed by January 2009, since in WG1 it is clearly shown that there are net terrestrial sinks but these are now tipexed out to nil by Sol et pals. Canadell & Raupach of CSIRO were also Contributing Authors of WG1 ch.7, and in the same year 2007 published a paper in PNAS showing in their table 1 that the oceanic and terrestrial âsinksâ removed 57% of emissions in 1958-2006 leaving 43% to remain airborne. The same people say in one place that there is no net terrestrial sink and in another that it accounts for 29% of emissions, while in one the oceans account for 28% and in another it is the oceans that account for 80%. Science is about measurement or nothing. I fail to see any here.
(3) âFig. 1. Carbon dioxide and global mean climate system changes (relative to preindustrial conditions in 1765) from 1 illustrative model, the Bern 2.5CC EMIC, whose results are comparable to the suite of assessed EMICs (5, 7).
Climate system responses are shown for a ramp of CO2 emissions at a rate of 2%/year to peak CO2 values of 450, 550, 650, 750, 850, and 1200 ppmv, followed by zero emissions. The rate of global fossil fuel CO2 emission grew at c1%/year from 1980 to 2000 and c3%/year in the period from 2000 to 2005 (13).â Here all oceanic and terrestrial sinks have been expunged, and 100% of emissions remain airborne forever. This no doubt the source for the false claims by Chris Field that I outlined above.
(4) âDiscussion: Some Policy Implications It is sometimes imagined that slow processes such as climate changes pose small risks, on the basis of the assumption that a choice can always be made to quickly reduce emissions and thereby reverse any harm within a few years or decades. We have shown that this assumption is incorrect for carbon dioxide emissions, because of the longevity of the atmospheric CO2
perturbation [ie assuming zero sinks] and ocean warming. Irreversible climate changes due to carbon dioxide emissions have already taken place, and future carbon dioxide emissions would imply further irreversible effects on the planet, with attendant long legacies for choices made by contemporary society.â So again, why bother to go to Copenhagen?
(5) âSimilarly, understanding of irreversibility reveals limitations in trading of greenhouse gases on the basis of 100-year estimated climate changes (global warming
potentials, GWPs), because this metric neglects carbon dioxideâs unique long-term effects.â Good, so no need for an ETS here, about which Rudd is getting cold feet. The truth is that annual net additions to the atmosphereâs carbon dioxide have grown since at only 0.4% p.a. since 1958, not at the 1-3% insinuated by Susie Sollie in her wholly fraudulent Fig.1, which links temperatures only to emissions. For actual [CO2] see my link to Mauna Loa above.
Sadly, Bernard and Jeff with their enthusiastic endorsement of the abolition by Sollie et al of the terrestrial CO2 sink only demonstrate their own inability to read critically anything produced by their high priests. Both their last responses to me are appeals to Sollieâs authority. I donât know or care what the credentials of Susie and her chums may be, I merely look at their text on its merits in the light also of their previous efforts. Anyway, B & J must surely agree that given their credulous acceptance of Sollie and pals, they need not worry about cycling to work and installing solar panels etc etc. as we are now already in âirreversible dangerous climate changeâ. But my own money is on Jeffâs non-human species to outlive us and our descendants â they are by far more intelligent - because of the success of IPCCâs Sollie and their fellow travelers like Jeff and BJ in conning the world into the follies to be unleashed on us at Copenhagen.
TimC,
First of all, let's get to Susuan Solomon's qualifications: she has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and her work has been cited in the peer-reviewed literature more than 11,000 times. This is an astonshing figure of citations - her 'h' rating is 58 - which means her 58th most cited article has 58 citations. Her qualifications are immense - she is one of the world's leading scientists. Period.
Given your childish rants above, how do you expect intellectual discourse to proceed? Susan is correct: hugely deterministic systems exhibit profoundly long lag times. There is little doubt that if we were to cease emitting C0 2 today that atmospheric levels would continue to rise fro perhasp another 20 to 30 years before stabilizing. But this is not the point. What you are saying is, given this knowledge, why stop now? Let's keep pumping more and more of it into the atmosphere, under this deluded notion that it will soimehow create a green utopia that will feed the world. This is nonsense, totally and utterly. Nature will not repsond linearly to increased atmospheric C02. There will be non-linear responses, leading to mthe potential unraveling of food webs and other potentially serious consequences. Humans are conducting an experiment in the dark.
Moreover, of course non-human species will outlive Homo sapiens, no serious scientist would ever dispute that. Life will continue to evolve long after we have dsiappeared. Every species has a shelf life so to speak - many insects exist as species for a few million years, perhaps less for mammals. But there is no reason to believe that our time for extinction will not come. The problem is that at present our species appears intent on bringing that time closer and closer to the present. We are destroying many of the planet's life-supporting ecosystems, undermining the ability of these systems to sustain themselves and eventually us. As I have said and I will reiterate, we exist because natural systems generate conditions which permit it. They do not exist by virtue of supporting Homo sapiens; instead, Homo sapiens exists because natural systems generate both abiotic and biotic conditions which enable us to exist and persist. But now we are simplifying these systems with increasing efficiency, and this cannot continue indefinintely. We are entering a 'period of consequences'. Climate change is one of many anthropogenic stresses on systems of immense complexity whose functioning we barely understand but which sustain us. Tim, you appear to be saying its just fine and dandy to keep experimenting on systems, using what I can only interpret as linear extrapolations to support your case (and, frankly a suite of other flimsy arguments). If you were to attend scientific workshops where the biodiversity/ecosystem functioning science was being discussed, debated and argued you would have a very different perspective, I honestly believe that.
No doubt then your correspondence to PNAS and Solomon is well in train. We would be interested to read it, and also copies of any replies that you might receive.
Stand up and be noticed Tim Curtin, Destroyer of Perfidious Scientists.
Or not.
TC makes an excellent point:
Not bad from a fallible inexpert ... getting something largely correct!
Like the vast majority of commenters here, including me, TC is an inexpert in most things he opines about here (outside his own field). Thing is, he's more adept than most commenters here at this inexpertness lark.
Guys, stop feeding him ... please (great though your contributions are). TC is nought but trolling. He's banned from all other threads here (IIRC) and his recent comments here have nothing at all to do with the title of the thread (long since gone off topic).
And for semi-interested bystanders still following this, TC is prone to selective quotation (which is why I started this reply with an illustrative selective quotation), as well as gross misrepresentation and/or misunderstanding. His comments about "Fig. 1" are illustrative of this propensity for selective quotation, as the accompanying text at the Fig. 1 citation makes clear.
TC --> [killfile]
Actually, I may have done TC a slight disservice, since I've just followed the link again to his "paper" in the blog post and certain aspects are not OT (except to the actual Windschuttle aspect).
Either way, it's TC --> [killfile] time!
I notice that none of Lewis, Bernard and Jeff responds to the specific crits I made of Susie Sollie et al. Lewis, your additional quote from the caption to their fig.1 confirms the gross exaggeration of their very strident title. It states their paper shows "irreversible" climate change for the next 1000 years even if we do eliminate all CO2 emissions, including I suppose those when you exhale, which would probably have other positive benefits if we could get rid of them even at the cost of losing lovable you. The scientific and MORAL issue here is, can it be valid to exclude all known global sinks in order to exaggerate the impact of emissions on climate?. Sol et pals assume zero terrestrial net sinks throughout. Is that good science? I would welcome textual point by point refutations of my comments, not armwaving and hysteria.
the paper is available online: [paper](http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/knuttir/papers/solomon09pnas.pdf)
Tim Curtin, as always, basically everything that you write is false. and your problem is obvious: you don t understand anything. not even the most basic basics. but instead of getting some rudimentary education first, you constantly talk about the most complicated stuff.
you need some basic understanding of modelling first. the bathtub one would do fine. move SLOWLY from there.
why bother to do any reductions like Ruddâs 5% by 2020 or Baliâs 50% by 2050, when not even 100% will achieve anything?
because while we can t stop it immediately, we can stop making it WORSE.
since in WG1 it is clearly shown that there are net terrestrial sinks but these are now tipexed out to nil by Sol et pals.
table 7.1 of chapter 7 gives Net land-to-atmosphere fluxe for 2005 at -0.9+-0.6 (GtC per year) summing this up to zero is NOT such a wild thing to do. (ask David Kane about this..)
The same people say in one place that there is no net terrestrial sink and in another that it accounts for 29% of emissions, while in one the oceans account for 28% and in another it is the oceans that account for 80%. Science is about measurement or nothing. I fail to see any here.
you are missing the details. in a cycle system, things can be combined differently, leading to completely different results. i am 100% sure, that you missed some fine print in your "analysis".
Here all oceanic and terrestrial sinks have been expunged, and 100% of emissions remain airborne forever.
"ramp of" seems to indicate, that they focus on the accumulation in the atmosphere. the sinks are already taken away from this!!!
Tim Curtin, please do all of us a favor and do some basic reading, before making wild claims!
C'mon Tim, you ought to know better than that. As far as I can see, Solomon et al. don't necessarily exclude terrestrial sinks at all here. However, they are correctly assuming that such a massive determinisitic system as global climate control takes a lot to shift it out of moderate equilibrium; climate forcings normally play themselves out over a much greater time frame than we are currently seeing. And, as we humans continue to slash and burn our way across the biosphere, the capacity of sinks to absorb CO2 will decrease. Again, humans have been procrastinating on the environment for a long time. But that does not mean that we should continue to procrastrinate.
The fact is that you don't appear to have any facts. You are arguing much like I would expect a contrarian to argue - as I said yesterday your refrain appears to be that "Without 100% unequivocal proof there isn't a problem, and that we should therefore continue with a business-as-usual policy". You've even gone farther - on the basis of a few extrapolative studies and lab studies you've somehow concluded that increasing atmospheric levels of C02 has incredible benefits in terms of alleviating hunger. I've dismissed this nonsense before. I dont' intend to again.
As for the Solomon paper, it is excellent science, and deserves to be in a journal like PNAS. If you are so knowledgeable in fields in which I presume you have no academic training (climate science and ecophysiology - am I correct?), then why should we believe you? Why aren't you writing and publishing articles in the pages of Nature, Science, PNAS or other good journals like Global Change Biology if you have some unforseen wisdom that eludes most of the rest of us?
Tim Curtin, i assume your fixation on land uptakes is linked to your ideas about food production?
you believe that growing food for mankind is binding significant amounts of CO2?
TC is merely converting CO2 --> beans --> CH4 + SOx
ROTFL!
But not quite correct ... you've forgotten something. Methinks it should be:
CO2 --> beans --> CH4 + SOx + solids
Tim "solids" Curtin?
Hi sod:
You quoted me âwhy bother to do any reductions like Ruddâs 5% by 2020 or Baliâs 50% by 2050, when not even 100% will achieve anythingâ and added
âbecause while we cant stop it immediately, we can stop making it WORSEâ But to read Jeff and silly Sue, things are already as bad as they could be, Arctic ice gone, Greenland and Antarctica already in irreversible meltdown, GBR gorn already (according to well named Deâath et al in Science last month), Victoria burnt to a frazzle, etc. What could be WORSE?
I had stated â in WG1 it is clearly shown that there are net terrestrial sinks but these are now tipexed out to nil by Sol et palsâ. Sod responds: âTable 7.1 of chapter 7 gives Net land-to-atmosphere fluxe for 2005 at -0.9+-0.6 (GtC per year) summing this up to zero is NOT such a wild thing to do. Sod, you need to distinguish between changes in the flux and in the âresidual terrestrial sinkâ. Table 7.1 states data for the latter as ân.a.â, not available, although by Oct 2007 in PNAS many of the same authors of Table 7.1 (Canadell, le Quere, Raupach, Caias, plus my mate Field) were able to state that in 2000-06 the land sink accounted for 30% of emissions, and 29% over the whole period from 1959.
Then I had said âThe same people say in one place that there is no net terrestrial sink and in another that it accounts for 29% of emissions, while in one the oceans account for 28% and in another it is the oceans that account for 80%. Science is about measurement or nothing. I fail to see any hereâ.
You replied: âyou are missing the details. in a cycle system, things can be combined differently, leading to completely different results. i am 100% sure, that you missed some fine print in your "analysis".â I think it is you who needs to check the fine print, and that your excuse for them is pretty feeble.
I added: âHere all oceanic and terrestrial sinks have been expunged, and 100% of emissions remain airborne foreverâ.
Your reply: ââramp ofâ seems [sic!]to indicate, that they focus on the accumulation in the atmosphere. The sinks are already taken away from this!!!â B/S. Silly Sue et pals said in Fig.1 âThe rate of global fossil fuel CO2 emission grew at c1%/year from 1980 to 2000 and c3%/year in the period from 2000 to 2005 Results have been smoothed using an 11-year running meanâ. No mention of land sink, and it is clear from the Fig. that they do equate increase in emissions with increase in [CO2].
Then you asked: âyou believe that growing food for mankind is binding significant amounts of CO2?â What do you mean by binding? What we have is a non-linear recursive system in which growing populations of virtually all plant and animal species subsist on growing food supply fed by growing [CO2]; all those species respire and eventually expire, but are replaced by ever-growing numbers of descendants, in aggregate. Reducing [CO2] will inexorably reduce food supply and with a lag the dependent populations of all species. A new equilibrium may emerge at 280 ppm with 1750 levels of populations of all species. All this is straight Malthusian Darwinism.
I regret that your response does not exonerate Solomon et al PNAS 2009 of lack of due diligence, on which you and Tim Lambert could read McCulloch and McKitrick 2009 with profit (Check the Numbers: The Case for Due Diligence
in Policy Formations, Fraser Institute). Solomon et all acknowledge their use of various models all of which I have found reduce sinks to mere residuals with no life of their own, other than built-in decline to ratify their usersâ preconceptions.
Tim Curtin.
May we see a draft of your letter to PNAS and Solomon et al, please?
Bernard: Sure, asap. Meantime can you get me a fair hearing? PNAS' main editors for Environmental Science and Ecology include none other than Chris Field, pal of saucy Sue, whose article he relied on for his own doom and gloom this week. I wrote him directly this week, no reply. Will PNAS respond after referring me to him? Or perhaps you think Schellenhuber, a main editor for PNAS' Sustainability Science, already well known for suppressing dissent at home, and guess what, #3 ref in Solomon et al in PNAS, will give a fair hearing, when he succumbs to that "you scratch my back..." having himself called for zero emissions. The truth is that PNAS' POLICY in this area under the leadership of Field Schellnhuber et al is to deny both (1) the existence of carbon sinks (or to claim that they are saturated)and that (2) there could be any adverse consequences from reducing ending emisisons and reducing [CO2]. No fewer than 6 NAS members have joined the Obama administration, I suspect NAS would not want to upset them with any departure from their party line. Ever heard of the gravy train?
Tim, so why haven't I seen your 'due diligence' in the pages of Nature, Science or PNAS? Why do you rely on the blogosphere? If your analyses are so rigid, why don't you submit them to rigorous peer-review?
Your strategy is hit-and-run. But that doesn't cut ice in academia. As I have said a zillion times, your extrapolations are basically linear. You ignore non-linear effects on natural systems and on the services that emerge from them. In fact, your entire arguments, as I see them, appear to expunge the effects of any kind of global change on nature. Instead you dismiss this, or generate optimistic projections. The reason your work would not withstand peer-review is because you, like those at the corporate-funded think tanks like the Fraser Institute, don't have any expertise in environmental science. I am afraid that most of the think tanks don't give a s*&@ about the science, in my view. Their aim, as I see it, is to distort and mangle science to promote a corporate agenda. I would find a debate on population ecology and environmental science with a right wing economist like McKitrick quite a humorous experience, much like it was when I 'debated' Bjorn Lomborg back in 2002. Many of them can't tell a mole cricket from a giraffe. And yet we are supposed to believe that they have 'done the math' and have a complete working knowledge of the best ways to manage the biosphere.
Gimme a break, man.
Bernard J & Jeff; just as I was posting my previous, with its refs to the nexus between NAS (aka Stanford) & the White House, John Mashey was posting here at Deltoid about by far the most likely method of CCS being viable, and ended by saying "Just before I left, I heard Stephen Schneider (Stanford/NAS) saying 'If Stephen Chu (Stanford/NAS/White House)doesn't already know about this, we must get to him right away'." Talk about life imitating...! That, dear Jeff, is why even the most perfect Submission to PNAS or Science would never see the light of day if it challenged the determination of Chu and Holdren, both begat of Ehrlichs via Margaret Mead via Arrhenius via Spencer thru Stanford, in their determination to exterminate most of our own species, and many others along the way, with their ETS, so as to preserve a pristine planet for just their own heirs and successors safely tucked away in a Dr Strangelove bunker.
Jeff, you have yet to show me your own non-linear algorithms. When you do, I will reciprocate.
Tim, I am an empiricist. By non-linear I am explicilty referring to the countless numbers of examples where the change in one parameter of a system (e.g. the elimination of a keystone species) cascades through the system and has all kinds of effects that were almost impossible to predict beforehand. One of the best examples that is close to your neck of the woods concerns the invasive prickly pear cactus. It was introduced into Australia and within a few decades wreaked havoc on agricultural systems, which it began to dominate Land that was important for grazing cattle). The economic cost of this plant on rangelands probably ran into hundreds of millions of dollars per year or more. The introduction of an insect that specializes on the cactus in its native range - Cactoblastis cactorium - brought the prickly pear under control in only a few years. Today, both species are rare in Australia, and one might assume that Cactoblastis is an innocuous and unimportant insect species on this basis. But were it to disappear, the cactus would be released from its most important natural enemy and it would likely expand explosively again to pest proportions within only a few years.
This is an example of non-linear dynamics, whereby the change of one small parameter (in this case, the introduction of an exotic plant without its most important herbivore) can have all kinds of profoundly unpredictable non-linear effects on recipient ecosystems. There are thousands of similar examples in the empirical literature. Classical biological control hinges on it, but there are also many examples from natural systems where a seemingly unconnected number of specioes interact through a common demoninator. DEonald Strong and Garly Polis described ecology quite rightly as the most complex of the sciences because of the profoundly non-linear relationship between cause and effect. The effects of enhanced C02 regimes and climate change are having similar non-linear effects on phenological relationships amongst species across different trophic levels of interacting food webs. Species do not exist in isolation - they interact with other species - and as humans continue to simpify complex adaptive systems at the rate that we are there are going to be all kinds of hidden and nasty surprises in store.
The problem is that most of those preaching the status quo are not Earth scientists and do not read the relevant journals and thus dismiss what they do not understand. Nature is immensely complex, that is for sure, but it is clear that systems do respond to change in quite dramatic and unpredictable ways. Considering the scope of the global non-replicatable experiment that humanity is conducting on these systems, we can breathe a collective sigh of relief that these systems are inherently quite vigorous and have withstood the assault thus far (at least, many key ecosystem services have not been lost to the point that the costs to our economies have been catastrophic). But there is no guarantee that the experiment can continue indefinitely without much more serious consequences. Just because one does not understand the precise mechanims that regulate the functions of natural systems does not mean that it is prudent to continue along the current path, given what we do know.
Bernard J said:
May we see a draft of your letter to PNAS and Solomon et al, please?
Here it is: (any suggestions for improvement most welcome)
I refer to the paper by Susan Solomon et al. (PNAS, January 2009) titled âIrreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissionsâ, 1704â1709, PNAS, February 10, 2009, vol. 106, no. 6.
This paper is a monstrous perversion of the truth. It is based on the wholly false assumption that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (hereafter [CO2]) increases at the same rate as anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide. In reality while the latter have indeed grown at rates of from one to three percent p.a. since the late 1950s, the [CO2] has grown by only 0.4 percent p.a. since 1958, according to the data recorded at Mauna Loa since 1958.
The sad truth is that NAS editors like Field and Schellenhuber are completely innocent of any knowledge of the concept of rates of growth. While a three percent per annum growth of emissions may seem large, when the base for that rate is currently only about 9 GtC (billion tonnes of carbon equivalent of CO2), of which on average since 1958 only 43 percent has remained airborne, that increment is quite small relative to the existing atmospheric concentration of CO2, about 780 GtC, at present, so it is in fact only about 0.4%, i.e. less than half of one percent a year, that adds to the atmospheric concentration. Such simple arithmetic is beyond the mental compass of your editors like Field and Schellenhuber, and I fully accept that NAS has no editors any better equipped to grasp such simple arithmetic. When you pay peanuts you get monkeys like Field.
Be that as it may, your lead staffer, Chris Field, was widely reported this week (Reuters, AFP, Financial Times, The Australian, BBC, ABC, etc) as saying: âThe climate is heating up far faster than scientists had predicted, spurred by sharp increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries like China and Indiaâ¦The consequence of that is we are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously, the actual trajectory of climate change is more serious [than any of the IPCCâs climate predictions] We now have data showing that from 2000 to 2007, greenhouse gas emissions increased far more rapidly than we expected, primarily because developing countries, like China and India, saw a huge surge in electric power generation, almost all of it based on coal."
If correctly reported, Dr Field is guilty of severe economy with the truth. Whilst he is right that emissions grew rapidly from 2000 until 2007, he was seriously misleading in failing to mention first, that anthropogenic global warming is dependent first and foremost on the atmospheric concentration of CO2 [hereafter denoted as CO2], and not on the level of emissions per se, as despite 3 percent growth of emissions from January 2008 to January 2009, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide grew in that year by less than 0.4 percent, actaully below the average rate of growth of [CO2] since 1958, which means that despite the inferences Field wished the world to draw, there has been NO sustained increase in the rate of growth of [CO2] since 1958 despite ongoing growth in emissions of as much as 3% p.a.*.
Secondly, Dr Field wilfully failed to mention that absorption of those emissions by the oceanic and rrestrial biospheres grew about as fast as the emissions. Ironically, his own co-authors in some of his most recent papers (e.g. Canadell et al PNAS, October 2007) assembled data that show how absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide doubled from an annual average of 2.45 billion tonnes of carbon a year from 1958 to 1963, to over 5 GtC from 2003 to 2007.**
*www.esrl.noaa.gov.gmd/ccgg/trends/
** www.globalcarbonproject.org/
As a result, from 1958 to 2007 over 56 percent of total emissions over that period of 331 billion tonnes was absorbed by our global biospheres, in the form of the carbohydrates that are the basic feedstock for humanity, as embodied in fish, cereals, soy, and all other food crops, livestock, fruit, grapes, and other tree crops (eg palm oil). Without CO2 there would be no food, and reducing its present atmospheric level has been frequently proven to result in lower yields of all that feedstock (that being the corollary of the well-attested, in thousands of papers, fertilization effect of enhanced [CO2]). Fieldâs exaggeration (by over 700 percent) of the rate of increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide relative to the growth of emissions, combined with his wilful disregard of the positive side of the annual global carbon budget through his focus only on emissions, amounts to gross academic and scientific misconduct.
I turn now to the paper in PNAS (2009) by Solomon, Plattner, Knutti, and Friedlingstein, titled alarmingly "Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions". They assert:
(1)âIt is not generally appreciated that the atmospheric temperature increases caused by rising carbon dioxide concentrations are not expected to decrease significantly even if carbon emissions were to completely ceaseâ. As nobody has called for or expects international agreement if any at Copenhagen to cease ALL carbon emissions, including presumably any respiration and exhalation by animals and plants, why would say Australia sign up to reductions like Prime Minister Ruddâs 5% by 2020 or the EUâs and President Obamaâs 50% by 2050, when not even 100% will achieve anything?
(2)âOn the time scale of a millennium addressed here, the CO2 equilibrates largely between the atmosphere and the ocean and, depending on associated increases in acidity and in ocean warming (i.e., an increase in the Revelle or ââbufferââ factor, see below), typically c20% of the added tonnes of CO2 remain in the atmosphere while c80% are mixed into the oceanâ. This is an interesting statement especially in a paper co-authored by Susan Solomon and Pierre Freidlingstein. Susan was Co-Chair of WG1 of AR4 and lead editor of the whole Report of WG1; Pierre was a Contributing Author of Chapter 7 in the Report of WG1 (Climate Change 2007. The Physical Science Basis). If The Science was settled in 2007, how come it changed by January 2009 in Solomon et al (PNAS), since in WG1 it is clearly shown that there are net terrestrial sinks (1959-2000) but these are now tipexed out to nil by Solomon et al. Canadell & Raupach of Australiaâs CSIRO were also Contributing Authors of WG1 ch.7, and in the same year 2007 published a paper in PNAS showing in their Table 1 that the oceanic and terrestrial âsinksâ removed 57% of total emissions in 1958-2006 leaving 43% to remain airborne. The same people say in one place that there is no net terrestrial sink and in another that it accounts for 29% of emissions, while in one place they say the oceans account for 28% and in another it is the oceans that account for 80%. Solomon et al. (PNAS 2009) state the Airborne Fraction (AF) is only 20 percent, while Hansen and Sato (PNAS, 2004) state it is 60%, while Canadell et al (PNAS 2007) state it is only 43%. What kind of scientific organisation is the NAS that its lead publication posts such wildly different statements of a crucial variable over just 5 years? The only valid inference is that NAS employs as peer reviewers just those who are co-authors of other papers by the same authors that they review for NAS. The truth is that the NAS is nothing more than a branch of the Democratic Party with no scientific credentials whatsoever in this field, or in any other, if the latter have any political connotations. How else can NAS explain that its peer reviewers (sic) over a period of just 5 years allow such incredibly disparate estimates of the AF (20%-60%) to be published in PNAS? The truths are either (1) that PNAS employs NO peer reviewers, or that (2) the NAS is nothing but a front for fellow travelling Marxist environmentalists for whom the truth counts for zero. Science is about measurement or nothing. I fail to see any valid measurement in anything published by the PNAS on climate change in the last decade or so, but that is not surprising when they pay people like Field and Schellenhurber to be lead editors.
(3) Solomon et al. (PNAS 209) state in their Fig. 1. âCarbon dioxide and global mean climate system changes (relative to preindustrial conditions in 1765) from 1 illustrative model, the Bern 2.5CC EMIC, whose results are comparable to the suite of assessed EMICs (5, 7). Climate system responses are shown for a ramp of CO2 emissions at a rate of 2%/year to peak CO2 values of 450, 550, 650, 750, 850, and 1200 ppmv, followed by zero emissions. The rate of global fossil fuel CO2 emission grew at c1%/year from 1980 to 2000 and c3%/year in the period from 2000 to 2005 (13).â That means they have expunged all oceanic and terrestrial sinks, so 100% of emissions remain airborne forever. This is no doubt the source for the false claims by Chris Field outlined above.
(4)Solomon et al 2009: âDiscussion: Some Policy Implications. It is sometimes imagined that slow processes such as climate changes pose small risks, on the basis of the assumption that a choice can always be made to quickly reduce emissions and thereby reverse any harm within a few years or decades. We have shown that this assumption is incorrect for carbon dioxide emissions, because of the longevity of the atmospheric CO2 perturbation [ie assuming zero sinks] and ocean warming. Irreversible climate changes due to carbon dioxide emissions have already taken place, and future carbon dioxide emissions would imply further irreversible effects on the planet, with attendant long legacies for choices made by contemporary society.â This is pure persiflage. There are no known âIrreversible climate changes due to carbon ioxide emissions [that] have already taken placeâ. If there have been, Solomon et al. do not specify where or when.
(5)âSimilarly, understanding of irreversibility reveals limitations in trading of greenhouse gases on the basis of 100-year estimated climate changes (global warming potentials, GWPs), because this metric neglects carbon dioxideâs unique long-term effects.â This reveals the cretinous stupidity that will destroy the Obama government if it follows the advice of the NAS/Stanford mafia it has recruited to be its climate policy mentors. Again, the truth is that annual net additions to the atmosphereâs carbon dioxide have grown at only 0.4% p.a. since 1958, not at the 1-3% insinuated by Solomon et al. PNAS 2009) in their wholly fraudulent Fig.1, which links temperatures only to emissions. For actual [CO2] see my link to Mauna Loa above.
The conclusion to be drawn from the above is that the NAS is merely a branch of the Democratic Party, and employs as peer reviewers only those who are past or future co-authors of those whose paper under review.
Tim, They are going to eat you alive. be prepared. You mail is full of inaccuracies:
1. "Secondly, Dr Field wilfully failed to mention that absorption of those emissions by the oceanic and terrestrial biospheres grew about as fast as the emissions".
There are all kinds of models (e.g. work by Nepatad and colleagues) that show a limit to how much of the extra C02 the biosphere can absorb. It cannot go indefintely - especially since humans are simplifying anture at an astounding rate. Again, you make linear extrapolations and refuse to acknowledge thresholds. The planet is not an indefinite sponge.
2. "As a result, from 1958 to 2007 over 56 percent of total emissions over that period of 331 billion tonnes was absorbed by our global biospheres, in the form of the carbohydrates that are the basic feedstock for humanity, as embodied in fish, cereals, soy, and all other food crops, livestock, fruit, grapes, and other tree crops (eg palm oil). Without CO2 there would be no food, and reducing its present atmospheric level has been frequently proven to result in lower yields of all that feedstock (that being the corollary of the well-attested, in thousands of papers, fertilization effect of enhanced [CO2]). Fieldâs exaggeration (by over 700 percent) of the rate of increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide relative to the growth of emissions, combined with his wilful disregard of the positive side of the annual global carbon budget through his focus only on emissions, amounts to gross academic and scientific misconduct".
This statment is an abomination. If I showed this to my colleagues here I am sure that they would either cringe or break out in laughter. Thousands of papers? Who are you kidding? Where are the data linking fish yields with enhanced C02? Given that most of the world's major natural fisheries are on the brink of collapse, and their food webs seriously undermined, I can only wonder where the hell you dredged this nonsense up. And of course, the reader should note that you haven't made a single mention here linking climate change and C02 with their effects on natural systems. You just don't get it. If I were an editor at PNAS I would send this where it belongs.
Basically, as Eli said yesterday you are drawing conclusions on the basis of linear extrapolations. Thus, increased C02 means more primary production = a wonderful happy world. This is pure tripe. How many bloody times do you have to be told: nature does not work this way. In my opinion, your comments are elementary and go well beyond conclusions that any competent scientist would make on the basis of primarily laboratory based or extrapolative studies.
Your remarks, "The conclusion to be drawn from the above is that the NAS is merely a branch of the Democratic Party, and employs as peer reviewers only those who are past or future co-authors of those whose paper under review" or "the NAS is nothing but a front for fellow travelling Marxist environmentalists for whom the truth counts for zero" are beyond the pale.
Reality check:
http://www.whrc.org/resources/published_literature/pdf/NepstadetalPhilT…
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6827/full/410429a0.html
http://users.wfu.edu/feeleykj/feeley%20papers/press/harvard%20magazine…
Commenting on the ability of African forests to soak us atmospheric carbon: 'We cannot rely on this sink forever. Even if we preserve all remaining tropical forests, these trees will not continue getting bigger indefinitely.'
Dr Simon Lewis.
More: "Forests' capacity to absorb carbon is under threat, not just from rampant deforestation but also ultimately from a hotter, drier globe. In these conditions more trees are expected to die, and devastating forest fires to become more common. The drought that gripped the Amazon basin in 2005 could be a taste of things to come".
Jeff: I am amazed by your instant but fatuous response. What is your take on the NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCE OF THE USA which over a period of just 5 years published the following statementts of the Airborne Fraction of CO2 emissions?
1. Hansen & Sato, PNAS, 2004: 60%
2. Solomon et al, IPCC 2007: 58%
3. Canadell et al., PNAS, 2007: 43%
$. Solomon et al., PNAS, 2009: 20%.
The PNAS's idiot peer reviewers show they know nothing and care less. What if Einstein had revised his e=MC^2 to e=MC^3 a year later, to e=MC^4 a year after that? But you and your half-witted mates here think that going from 60
to 20% over 5 years is evidence of settled science for such a hugely critical variable policy-wise? Back to school mate.
Reality check 2:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/298/5600/1987
http://www.pnas.org/content/100/13/7650.full.pdf+html
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/LOG7.php
The third article is interesting because it stresses that the effects of enhanced atmospheric C02 on plant mutualists, such as mycorrhizal fungi, will not necessarily be positive. What is important to recognize is what I stressed in an earlier posting: plants depend on a range of biotic and abiotic processes, including interactions with mutualists and antagonists. Studies which exclude these interactions may dangerously underestimate the effects of losing mutualists or enhancing the performance of antagonsts. For plants, survival and adaptation to adverse soil conditions are strictly dependent on the capability of roots to interact with biotic and abiotic components in the soil. In the rhizopshere, exchanges of energy, nutrients, and molecular communication signals occur. The flow of C substrates through the microbial communities that live in the rhizosphere is a key factor influencing C storage and N vailability. We therefore need to understand the turnover of microbila biomass and the potential shifts in soil-borne community structure in order to predict changes in soil C and N under elevated C02 regimes. Although soil microorganisms are commonly C limited, studies examining the effects of elevated C02 on microbial activity and growth have generated mixed results. Research here recently showed that elevated C02 regimes influenced different parts of the soil community. Instead of simply increqasing the activity of soil-borne microbes resident at ambient C02 conditions, elevated atmospheric C02 selected for opportunistic plant-associated microbial communities, leading to a shift in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi species, as well as rhizosphere bacterial and fungal populations (Drigo, 2008). Thus, systems do not respond in predictabale ways. There are winners and losers, and even soil communities can be simplified by increasing atmospheric C02 levels. If we expand the spatial network of the soil-mediated interactions to the above-ground community, we can similarly expect non-linear responses. We need to better understand complex interactions before making flippant remarks about the benefits of enhanced atmsopheric C02 on primary productivity. Nature is made up of an array of immensely complex interactions that determine the fitness of individual organisms at small scales and mediate ecosystem processes at larger scales. The challenge is to bridge these differing levels of organization to help us to be better able to realiably predict the consequences of increasing levels of CO2 on the biosphere. But we are still very much in the dark, and I get seriously annoyed when people make rash statements that have little basis in reality, given all of the things that we do not yet know.
Yes, more of the Curtin reaction, as it shall evermore be known CO2 --> beans --> CH4 + SOx
The jerk, after ranting about rates, has the gall to compare estimates of how much CO2 remains in the atmosphere over different time periods and claim that they disagree.
Tim, given your often rude ripostes, its a wonder anyone replies to you. I'd debate you on complex ecological processes any time and any place. In spite of all that I, Bernard, and others have written, you rehash the same refrain over and over. Let alone the scientific simplifications, there's hardly a shred of political reality in what you write. You are like a broken record. Its clear to me that you do not understand basic ecology so, like other contrarians, you stare at what I write blankly then dismiss it from your mind.
I have tried (vainly) to explain that nature is goverened by literally trillions of interactions, and that cause-and-effect relationships are virtually impossible to elucidate from them, given that we have barely scratched the surface in our understanding of the rules that govern their assembly and function. The only thing we can say for certain - and it is certain - is that human activities are altering the way these systems work, and that we are simplifying nature at an astounding rate. I've read your comments and responded in a futile attempt to bring you back into the world of reality and not make-believe, as I think that your posts assume far too much in terms of predictable consequences of continuing along the current path. Your belief that a continuation of the current trend will be of great benefit to eradicating hunger is woefully misguided in my opinion. And I am certainly not alone. Many signs - not all, but many - paint a very worrying future, because we are pushing systems beyond a threshold beyond which many will not be able to sustain themselves. For all of this I get asked by you to provide logarithms.
The PNAS's idiot peer reviewers show they know nothing and care less. What if Einstein had revised his e=MC^2 to e=MC^3 a year later, to e=MC^4 a year after that? But you and your half-witted mates here think that going from 60 to 20% over 5 years is evidence of settled science for such a hugely critical variable policy-wise? Back to school mate.
the Solomon09pnas paper actually says:
together with well-established ocean chemistry
and physics that require 20% of the emitted carbon to remainin the atmosphere on thousand-year timescales [quasiequilibrium airborne fraction (AFequi), determined largely by the Revelle factor governing the long-term partitioning of carbon between the ocean and atmosphere/biosphere system]
Curtin forgot to mention the 1000 years aspect...
Then you asked: âyou believe that growing food for mankind is binding significant amounts of CO2?â What do you mean by binding? What we have is a non-linear recursive system in which growing populations of virtually all plant and animal species subsist on growing food supply fed by growing [CO2]; all those species respire and eventually expire, but are replaced by ever-growing numbers of descendants, in aggregate. Reducing [CO2] will inexorably reduce food supply and with a lag the dependent populations of all species. A new equilibrium may emerge at 280 ppm with 1750 levels of populations of all species. All this is straight Malthusian Darwinism.
well and false of course. as i said above, please start with the basics. for them, even [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)) is a very good source:
Humans comprise about 100 million tonnes of the Earth's biomass, domesticated animals about 700 million tonnes (1.0%), and crops about 2 billion tonnes. The total biomass of bacteria is estimated to equal that of plants
humans and their food are a tiny part of the biomass.
# swamps and marshes: 2500 g/m²/yr of biomass
# tropical rain forests: 2000 g/m²/yr of biomass
# algal beds and reefs: 2000 g/m²/yr of biomass
# river estuaries: 1800 g/m²/yr of biomass
# temperate forests: 1200 g/m²/yr of biomass
# cultivated lands: 600 g/m²/yr of biomass
# deserts and tundras: less than 200 g/m²/yr of biomass.
on the other hand, most changes to "cultivated land" will REDUCE the CO2 uptake!
Tim Curtin.
You still haven't grasped either Darwinism or 'Malthusianism' yet, have you? Can you not see where your claim falls down?
Interesting. Please detail the nature of the trophic differentials implied by your statement. I am curious, too, to know just how the pre/post industrial productivities (according to your model) impact upon the populations/biomass of 'all species'. Seriously, do you have any real appreciation of the actual validities of your throw-away 'theories'?
Your reference to John Mashey's post is completely irrelevant to the points that we have been trying to impress upon you on this thread. (Although for what it's worth, I have a niggling feeling that the chemistry/energy budgets of these carbonation reactions isn't as miraculous as John's source makes out - especially once deacidification is accounted for somewhere along the way - but that's coming from my own experience with the energy budget involved in decarbonation in the lime cycle).
So.
You have demonstrated no understanding of the incredible complexities of ecological processes. You have shown no understanding of the complexities of photosynthesis, nor why an extrapolation, to the biospheric level, of one aspect of productivity is fraught with complication. You have provided no substantive rebuttal of the two papers above that you have criticised based on your prejudice, and you certainly have provided no evidence to back up your libellous accusations of incompetence and of scientific malfeasance that you have directed at respected scientists, organisations and journals.
Tim Curtin, where exactly is your scientific case? Your juggling of a few numbers using the rubberiness of some dubious economic notions just doesn't cut the mustard.
Dang.
I see that sod beat me to it and actually provided you with a hint as to where you are making some of your egregious errors. See, Tim, the homework's not that hard if one put one's mind to it.
Still, if you have the numbers to support your claims, I am itching to see them.
I note also that Jeff has pointed you to some references about productivity in an ecosystem context. I recall that I performed a similar exercise at Marohasy's a few months back, and threw down the first ten papers returned from a search of JStore (so the most recent papers were not even included). No clue was absorbed there, either, although with Graeme Bird's fevered profanities swamping the thread there was never any possibility of a serious education of the clueless there...
Anyway, it seems that you have two options now. Take the hint and revise your world-view in light of the many taps on the shoulder that you have been given, or make the best fist of it that you are able and send your letter to PNAS. Of course any half-competent professional should not be surprised if there was no response to a letter with the tone that you displayed, so you might want to tweek it if you are serious in expecting a reply.
I guess a third option would be to get someone like Marohasy on side, and to have lend her scientific background to the endeavour, in the hope that it might raise your profile above 'crank' on the PNAS spam filter. After all, if you are correct, there must surely be a scientist or two willing to second your position.
And why stop at Marohasy - don't you have a line to Freeman Dyson? Oops, wrong sort of scientist - maybe Lomborg?
Prove your claims scientifically, or just submerge into the quagmire as the Denialist troll that P. Lewis identifies you as.
It's way past time to demonstrate exactly how your theories on biology and atmospheric chemistry have any validity. And appeals to the conspiracy theory of scientific suppression will not fly.
If you are correct, you should be able to prove it. So prove it.
You have a mountain of real science to shovel aside first, though.
Jeff @ #167: Thanks for those links, we seem to be progressing! But your comments do not cover the case of declining atmospheric CO2. What then?
Your second link Nepstad et al is more problematic. They assume that a deforested Amazon becomes scorched earth. What are the actual annual and recurrent absorptions of CO2 by whatever replaces the forest vis a vis the annual absorptions by the forest? They imply biofuels materialise from, well, what? Again, one needs to distinguish between stocks and flows, as they never do. Their Fig.1 is so stylized as to be worthless unless and until they quantify the flows, the casual empiricism in their text is not good enough. They and you appear not be aware of the paper Effects of rising temperatures and [CO2] on the physiology of tropical forest trees even though it is in the very same issue of the same journal as Nepstad et al, I wonder why? (Jon Lloyd, and Graham D. Farquhar Phil.Trans. R. Soc. B doi:10.1098/rstb.2007.0032). Nothing to do with their Abstract?
âUsing a mixture of observations and climate model outputs and a simple parametrization of leaf-level
photosynthesis incorporating known temperature sensitivities, we find no evidence for tropical forests
currently existing âdangerously closeâ to their optimum temperature range. Our model suggests that
although reductions in photosynthetic rate at leaf temperatures (TL) above 308C may occur, these are
almost entirely accountable for in terms of reductions in stomatal conductance in response to higher leaf to-air vapour pressure deficitsD.This is as opposed to direct effects ofTL on photosynthetic metabolism. We also find that increases in photosynthetic rates associated with increases in ambient [CO2] over forthcoming decades should more than offset any decline in photosynthetic productivity due to higher D or TL or increased autotrophic respiration rates as a consequence of higher tissue temperatures.We also find little direct evidence that tropical forests should not be able to respond to increases in [CO2] and argue that the magnitude and pattern of increases in forest dynamics across Amazonia observed over the last few decades are consistent with a [CO2]-induced stimulation of tree growth.â. This paper confirms the position I have taken here. Do you contest it?
Harvard referencing anyone? It's just politeness for goodness sake.
Oh d'errr, I see now...it's a URN. And there was me thinking I knew everything!!
Eli, ever the perfect gentleman, said: âThe jerk, after ranting about rates, has the gall to compare estimates of how much CO2 remains in the atmosphere over different time periods and claim that they disagree.â
Actually, Hansen, IPCC, and Canadell et al all refer to essentially the same time period (1958/9-2005/6/7).
Jeff. This is very telling, that you do not even know the difference between algorithms and logarithms. I asked you for your former. Naturally as you do not even know the term, you cannot supply!
More to the point I have now downloaded the refs in Saucy Sueâs SI, including none other than her co-authors (and fellow worshippers), Plattner, Knutti, et al (Journal of Climate, 18 June 2008, vol.21, 2721-2751). They have conclusively demonstrated that the Turin Shroud is the complete predictor of all climate change from Here to Eternity. Not a single fact or observation sullies their pristine pages. Instead models reign supreme. If 18 of 20 models concur, that is proof to 90%, if 19 out 20, we are home and dry, and Mother Theresa was right about future climate change. Who needs data when models rule? For example, why use the actual 0.4% p.a. increase in [CO2] since 1958 when 1% p.a. gives more energizing results? (p.2724). They state they were âinspiredâ by Friedlingstein (2006), the true legatee of Beatrice Potter and Enid Blyton as a purveyor of pure fiction. Once again, all photosynthesis is absent (p.2725) or disappears, without any supporting data. Their claims about terrestrial absorption of CO2 down to the year 3000 are also based only on Potterâs Benjamin Bunny (p.2732-34): âallowable emissions are equal to the (prescribed) change in the atmospheric carbon inventory plus the carbon uptake by land and oceanâ, but the latter are found to be nil ( 2735) or negative (2739)!
Finally, proof positive that Silly Sue, Plattner, Knutti, and Friedlingstein are idiots emerges in this quote from P & K: âin the year 3000 a substantial fraction (15%-28%) is still airborne even after carbon emissions have stopped 900 yr earlierâ. This betrays such total ignorance of the concept of stock and flow analysis that no more need be said. Needless to add that P&K added gratuitous references to Field & Solomon to ensure acceptance of their farcical paper. BTW, one responder above cited Saucy Sueâs stellar ratings, but without saying how many of her citations were attributable to her and her pals.
Tim, please do not put words in my mouth. I know exactly what an algorithm and a logarithm are, but what has this got to do with unravelling ecological complexity descripively?
As I said before, I am an empiricist. What is clear to me is that you have not attempted to answer a single point I have raised regarding the non-linear dynamics of ecological communities and ecosystems, and how they relate to your discredited hypothesis of linear and positive plant responses. I can see your face as I post some of the scientific findings re: soil microbial ecology and above-ground trophic interactions. Blank. Vacant. Nothing to say because you don't understand it. So, like other contrarians who do not understand basic ecology, you send it down your memory hole. How else can I interpret you resounding silence on these points? To be honest, given that I was trained in this discipline, I didn't exactly expect much better from you, but in the end your silence (aside from barbs and witty remark) speaks volumes. You cannot debate ecology because it seems to me that you do not read much about it - with the exception of a few ecophysiological studies that purport to show positive plant responses to elevated atmopsheric C02 levels but which have generally excludued most or all interactions with other biota. This means that the results are conjectural, perhaps even artifacts, unless they can be applied in a broader ecological framework.
I do not have time to debate with someone who it seems to me does not understand basic ecology. Be honest - have you ever read an elemenatary ecology textbook Tim? And if not, why should I waste my breath? I have research to do. I am busy involved in research exploring the potential of co-evolved antagonistic plant-insect mutualisms. I am also exploring context-and trait-dependent parameters in multitrophic interactions, and how patch size and structural heterogeneity affects top-down versus bottom-up regulatory processes. I dont' expect you to understand this, either. But please do not waste my time on pedantic arguments if you do not understand more complex ecological processes.
Moreover, methinks you throw around terms like "Marxists" and "idiots" too freely in describing scientists and others who tend to disagree with your pithy arguments. Some advice: look in the mirror.
Jeff: The issue is not your or my competence or otherwise in any field, but whether results from cited papers are valid. You have yet to explain why you ignored the Lloyd-Farquhar paper on tropical forests and CO2. Your preferred Nepstad et al. in the same issue of the Royal Society's Phil. Trans. is essentially fraudulent because it assumes that only tropical forests absorb and store [CO2].I suggest you read Farquahar's other papers going back to 1980, they are amongst the most often cited by IPCC, and did much to form my own views outlined, however imperfectly, on this thread.
Jeff: for starters, try the following -
Science 21 November 1997:
Vol. 278. no. 5342, p. 1411
DOI: 10.1126/science.278.5342.1411
Prev | Table of Contents | Next
Perspectives
CLIMATE CHANGE:
Carbon Dioxide and Vegetation
Graham D. Farquhar
What happens to vegetation when greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide) increase in concentration and the temperature goes up? The Framework Convention on Climate Change commits the signatories to avoiding dangerous interference with the climate system, interference that might harm the world's agriculture and natural ecosystems. But just what are the likely responses of vegetation? Much attention is paid to the effects of temperature and other climatic changes. As Street-Perrott et al. report on page 1422 of this issue, there is now evidence that, at an ecosystem level, the direct effects of an increase in carbon dioxide are themselves important (1).
Street-Perrott and her colleagues have studied the paleoenvironmental history of high-altitude lakes and the surrounding vegetation in East Africa. They examined the lake sediments, the pollen and leaf waxes in them, and the carbon isotope composition of bulk organic matter and of specific biomarkers. They conclude that the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since the last glacial period has allowed trees to grow where the vegetation was (before 13,000 years ago) restricted to an almost treeless, grassy heathland.
Street-Perrott et al. found that the increase in CO2 concentration was correlated with a decrease in the amount, measured as d13C, of the heavier stable isotope. This result is consistent with a shift from the photosynthetic pathway common in tropical grasses (denoted C4) to the pathway found in trees (denoted C3). However, a number of factors can influence the composition of sediments, and hence, the importance of the authors' careful work in measuring composition of particular biomarkers to separate terrestrial, aquatic, and bacterial sources. C4 plants utilize a CO2-concentrating mechanism that is advantageous at low concentrations but is more "costly" to the plant than C3 metabolism as CO2 levels increase. The very evolution of C4 was probably in response to low CO2 concentrations, with rapid expansion about 7 million years ago (2).
The findings offer an explanation for a paleoecological puzzle. Previous estimates of the cooling of tropical land areas at the last glacial maximum (LGM) (about 20,000 years ago) were large, so large as to be incompatible with the decrease in sea-surface temperatures (<2oC) deduced from deep-sea cores. The terrestrial estimates had been made by examining changes in the elevation of tree lines and ascribing those changes to temperature alone. Acknowledging that CO2 concentration itself affects the growth of trees enables us to see that the cooling of tropical land was not so great. During the glacial times, the trees were being starved of the substrate for photosynthesis. Along these same lines, Sage has argued (3) that agriculture became viable at several places around the world between 11,000 and 6000 years ago, only when the CO2 concentration became sufficiently large to sustain decent yields for our first farmers.
For the individual plant, water-use efficiency is almost directly proportional to the level of CO2 for a given regime of temperature and humidity (4). So concentrations of 180 parts per million (ppm) (such as occurred during the LGM), being half the current levels, would mean that plants had to transpire twice as much water then as now to achieve the same level of photosynthesis (see figure). Put another way, doubling the CO2 concentration is almost like doubling the rainfall as far as plant water availability is concerned. Further, increased greenhouse forcing also speeds up the global hydrological cycle, and so, on average, the actual rainfall increases with increasing CO2 concentration. Many of the paleorecords indicate arid conditions during the LGM. Much of this was probably caused by drier conditions, whereas some records that rely on the amounts of pollen, for example, could rather be reflecting the physiological aridity caused by low atmospheric CO2 levels. The results help explain the findings (5) that the terrestrial biosphere in the preindustrial era (about 270 ppm) stored about 30% more carbon than it did at the LGM.
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The increase of CO2 concentration and temperature from the LGM to the early interglacial led to an increase in the hydrological cycle, the greater growth of trees, which use the C3 pathway of photosynthesis, less reliance on CO2-concentrating mechanisms on land and in the water, and the consequent depletion of 13C (more negative d13C) in the total organic matter (TOC, total organic carbon) found in the lake sediments (1).
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Both photosynthesis and the enhanced greenhouse effect are more sensitive to CO2 levels when the concentrations are low. The translation of increased photosynthesis to increased growth rate is not straightforward, depending on developmental processes (6). The effects of the 180-ppm increase from the LGM to the present 360 ppm should be much greater than the effects of going from 360 to 540 ppm, the latter being twice the preindustrial level (about 270 ppm). The plants of today are much less water- and CO2-limited than they were at the LGM. Nevertheless, one suspects that the direction of change in the near future will be the same as that following the LGM, one of increased "effective rainfall," with the agricultural and ecological consequences that follow. Given that the availability of water for agriculture is already becoming such a problem, this aspect, at least, of atmospheric change is a welcome one.
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References
F. A. Street-Perrott et al., Science 278, 1422 (1997).
T. E. Cerling et al., Nature 389, 153 (1997).
R. F. Sage, Global Change Biol. 1, 93 (1995).
S. C. Wong, I. R. Cowan, G. D. Farquhar, Nature 282, 424 (1979).
M. J. Bird, J. J. Lloyd, G. D. Farquhar, ibid. 371, 566 (1994).
J. Masle, G. S. Hudson, M. R. Badger, Plant Physiol. 103, 1075 (1993).
Again, Tim, one would think you'd won the Nobel Prize for distinguishing good science from bad science. By coincidence, 'good science' in your view is a few studies which show a positive correlation between plant growth rate and the accruement of biomass and bad science are studies, many by some of the world's top scientists, which suggest that the current global experiment may have serious consequences for the way that ecosystems across the biosphere function. I reiterate what I said yesterday: you do not, in my humble opinion, understand basic ecology. You expunge a stupendous array of biotic processes in generating your world view. The fact is that you are essentially saying that humans can manage immensely complex systems whose functioning we barely understand by 'staying the course'. The problem is that complex adaptive systems are dynamic - there are profound changes that occur every second over small scales that ultimately affect a suite of interactions involving plants and consumers both in above- and below-ground domains. Part of my research is focused on elucidating the effects of these changes on fitness-related traits in consumers up to the terminal end of the food chain. But these are linear chains and ignore horizontal process and intraguild effects. If I try and extrpolate even farther, through loops of interactions that become more and more diffuse, the picture becomes increasingly hazy. Recently, it has been proposed the biodiversity begets stability, because more species in interacting webs offer more alternatives for the passage of energy, nutrients etc. through the system, as well as containing functionally redundant species that perform similar functions as the dominants. But the scientific community is still struggling to come to terms with connections across variable scales, such as the link between the behavior and physiology of individual organisms and emergent processes, such as nutrient cycling, system productivity and the maintenance of other processes that are generated over larger scales.
Against this background, there are the contrarians, many of whom are promoting a clear, political agenda, saying that we ought to continue on our current path, and that, given that carbon is a nutrient, we should actually pump more and more of the stuff into the atmosphere to create something of a green utopia and to feed the starving. Pretty well all of these contrarians dismiss ecological models and studies at variable scales which suggest that differing species in interacting webs will respond differently to various anthropogenic changes. In effect, given our ignorance of the way in which the the biosphere functions, they are telling us that the experiment we care conduicting is just fine. I take many paleoecological studies with a pinch of salt because they base their results on times when the planet was not dominated by a bipedal primate who had transformed, through simplification, most of the world's land surface. Against the background of increasing atmospheric C02 concentrations, huge amounts of habitat have been cleared, we have introduced a vast array of species into non-native ecosystems where they are wreaking havoc, we have polluted much of the air and water, and we are destroying biodiversity at rates unforseen in 65 million years. Yet you are telling me, as an economist and not an environmental scientist, that we humans can manage systems we are nickel and diming to death and which we still barely understand? And I am supposed to take this seriously?
Your views are akin to someone who, in the act of seeing their house literally burning to the ground, tell the firefighters not to put it out because the fire will enable you to keep warm and to cook your food. How else can I interpret your musings?
I am leaving this thread. It is clear that you will not recant on your mission to convince readers of the wonderful benefits of burning fossil fuels, while basically misuderstanding its effects, in combination with other human-caused processes, on complex adaptive systems and, at smaller scales, an array of interactions in the soil and above-ground. I feel like I am hitting my head against a wall, because, thanks to my education in population biology and in numerous discussions with colleagues in various fields, I would never be able to make such presposterous assertions as you do, given what we know and what we do not know.
Hi Jeff: you say that I "do not understand basic ecology". If so, please blame my main sources, including Graham Farquhar and James Ehleringer et al et al. If I am wrong so are they. I see you still have not explained why you ignore Graham's paper in Phil Trans of the Royal Society on CO2 and the Amazon. But then I am rapidly forming the view that the world of "Science" (sic) is inhabited by at least as many if not more charlatans and fraudsters (led by Susie and Chris) as the financial world of the Madoffs, BoA, Merrills, RBS, etc etc. At least your mates at ABN Amro made a killing when they sold themselves to RBS, I hope you got a cut!
Hang on a minute TIm, whate xactly are you trying to prove here? Copying and pasting large chunks of text gets in the way of people actually seeing what your point is.
Shorter Tim C: Arrhenius was an eugenicist in his spare time, so his discoveries on the greenhouse effect are discredited.
So if your heart or kidneys ever fail - or more likely liver? - you will of course refuse any offers of transplants. For the crucial science on histocompatibility was done by Aléxis Carrel, another passionate eugenicist; and unlike Arrhenius, an adviser to a government (Vichy France) which was prepared to carry out recommendations for mass murder of the mentally unfit.
Tim Curtin.
Jeff Harvey is absolutely correct: you have no understandingd of ecological processes whatsoever. You also have no understanding of the holistic complexities of biochemical processes, or you would not extrapolate to a global level the results of isolated productivity experiments investigating photosynthesis and carbon dioxide. Based on your lack of any demonstrable grasp of these disciplines I can only note that you are incompetent to comment in these fields, and in any other field where you refer to biological or chemical matters.
And guthrie's observation is telling: you do not synthesise at any point a summary that details the underlying biological mechanisms of your models. Nor do you offer succinct summaries that disprove the many thousands of papers that exist, that contradict the existence of such unconfounded mechanisms as would need to exist to maintain the viability of your childish interpretations of biology.
If you had any inkling of physiological ecology, and of the adaptive significances of C3 and C4 photosynthetic modes - and their relative sensitivities to temperature, water and CO2 - you would understand why altering the values of these factors has profound effects on the dynamic ecological equilibria of plant communities and the ecosystems which rely upon them. Not to mention the fact that many of our most important agricultural and horticultural crops are C3 metabolising, and will be not nearly as productive with the hotter, drier conditions that will occur as sequelæ of AGW. Thus, your reference to Farquhar in order to impute a CO2-driven Eutopia is an ill-informed (or a mendacious) non sequitur.
As is you reference way back to Taub et al. In any non-artificially supplemented system CO2 rapidly drops from being the rate-limiting factor when it is increased. As we are speaking about global ecosystem health this is a profoundly important fact.
And even in an agricultural/horticultural context this truth is extremely significant, because the nitrogen (or any other required and rate-limiting nutrient/substrate) must be continuously supplied in order to maintain enhanced growth and sustained food-value. That is, fertilisers dependent upon fossil fuels for both synthesis and for transport need to be applied. See any problem here?
No, you wouldn't, because as many here have noted you are blind to scientific truth if it contradicts your ideology. You are cut from the same cloth as hollow-earthers, over-unity energy nutters, and a multitude of other snake-oil peddlars who haunt the likes of Nexus magazine because the Global Scientific Conspiracy precludes them from being heard in mainstream fora.
Which brings up a telling point: in this thread alone, you have disparaged the work and slandered the characters of Crafts-Brandner and Salvucci, and of Field (e.g. posts 60 and 163), Taub et al (126), and Solomon et al (163). Further, you have slandered the professionalism of some of the most esteemed journals in the world: Nature (60, Science (60) and PNAS (60, 163). To say nothing of the aspersions you have cast at the IPCC, Arrhenius, and sundry other notables of science.
That's quite a set of prominent individuals and organisations of the world's best minds. If you are correct, how is it that you are languishing as an anonymous fruitcake beating his pots and kettles on non-reviewed blogs? Oh, the Conspiracy? If that's the case, how come this global fraud has so successfully eluded the notice of the vast majority of the world's intelligent people?
If you are correct, why are you not submitting letters and/or papers to the sources of you ire, and to credible independent fora that might actually provide you with a platform with which to reveal this world-wide scam?
And to get back to the initial observations in this post: if you are correct, where is the summary of your modelling, including the significant rebuttal of whole bodies of understanding in disciplines in which you have no education nor experience? Where is the evidence that you have spoken to experts in these fields, and absorbed their knowledge and used it to dismantle the 'old' paradigms? If your engagement with Jeff Harvey is any indication, you are juvenile in your sophistication, and your arguments are peurile and tenuous pseudoscience.
How about you address some basic facts pertinent to you claims?
Justify your outrageousness, or doom yourself to ever more ignominious recognition as the pseudoscientific troll that so many already presume you to be.
Jeff: you said, "we have introduced a vast array of species into non-native ecosystems where they are wreaking havoc". Just yesterday it was reported (The Australian) that the township worst affected by the Victoria fires, Marysville, (over 100 dead), has just 3 houses still standing, all of which had English (deciduous) trees, and on its oak lined main street just 3 succumbed. Here in Canberra my house is in the direct line of fire, and we have got rid of our native eucalypts, replacing them with oaks and maples etc. You added: "Pretty well all of these contrarians dismiss ecological models and studies at variable scales which suggest that differing species in interacting webs will respond differently to various anthropogenic changes" Jeff, just write a paper refuting the ecological models of Farquhar et al., then get back to me, you have yet to say what is wrong with his paper on CO2 and the Amazonian rainforest. I need to know as I cite it.
Then you add that I "expunge a stupendous array of biotic processes in generating your world view." No, I don't. But remember Occam's razor. You go on "The fact is that you are essentially saying that humans can manage immensely complex systems whose functioning we barely understand by 'staying the course'." We have done quite well so far, mainly by "laissez faire", that is by adaptation rather than management, our governments have shown again and again that they could not manage a shoeshine stall efficiently.
Hi Guthrie, you asked âHang on a minute TIm, what exactly are you trying to prove here? Copying and pasting large chunks of text gets in the way of people actually seeing what your point isâ.
I apologise. My main point here â but it is also present in my article in Quadrant that led to me being castigated by Tim Lambert at the outset of this thread - is that there is a carbon cycle (aka budget) whereby since 1958 57% of CO2 emissions has been absorbed by the oceans (directly by dissolution) and also by the oceanic (eg plankton) and terrestrial biospheres (all living plant and animal life including ourselves depends on carbohydrates resulting from the photosynthesis for which atmospheric CO2 is a necessary pre-condition). Regrettably, this is an inconvenient truth for virtually all IPCC scientists and their fellow travellers here and elsewhere. Canadell et al (PNAS October 2007) claimed that these âCO2 sinksâ are already saturated, and this is a basic assumption of almost all âscientistsâ working in this area, without a shred of evidence, as even Canadell et al (2008, Global Carbon Project, almost admit). The corollary of my analysis is that the increase in CO2 absorption since 1958, at 57% of emissions, MUST have manifested itself mostly in increased growth of plant material in the seas or on land. Has that been bad for us? If CO2 emissions were reduced, resulting in a lesser absorption of CO2 by the biospheres, would that be good for us? Jeff Harvey, Tim Lambert, Bernard J., BPL, et al. have no answer other than personal vilification of me. Luckily, as well as being no doubt thick, I do also have a thick skin, which is why I still persevere here despite endless insults.
Bernard J: you asked the following questions.
1."Do you believe that warming is in train?" No, the base year data (1850-1900) in both GISS and HADCrut is fatally flawed by excluding tropical Africa,which is a HOT place, and had no measuring stations AT ALL before 1900. There is also a problem with the sudden lapse of records from COLD Siberia after 1990. In truth there was NIL global warming between 1900 and 2000, and according to Arrhenius, it follows that with NIL temp increase arising from 40+% increase in [CO2] since 1900, there will probably be cooling for the next 60% increase in [CO2].
2."D you accept that evapotranspiration changes with warming?" I accept that this increases with warming if any - and the result in higher precipitation. Even the cretinous IPCC admits that water vapour resides in the atmosphere for at most 10 days.
3."Where evapotranspiration changes will occur around the planet, have you determined how they impact upon the locations of future arable agricultural land, and how they will impact upon the health of the planet's ecosystems?' Yes, all over the place, as now, floods in Queensland, droughts in SE Australia. NET effect = positive.
4."Do you understand that altering the input of substrates and nutrients into a biological system alters the trophic dynamics of the system?" Yep, but so what, again, probably no NET or only positive changes globally.
5."How does [sic] the alterations inherent in the scenario in question 4 interact with the impacts in question 3?" NET = ZERO or POSITIVE
6."Have you quantified the pre-industrial productivity of the world's various ecosystems, and compared the data with your projections of productivity for the very same ecosystems under the CO2 concentrations anticipated for the future?" YES. But see Maddison, I rely on his data to 1750 and my own as well as his since then.
7."Have you qualified the pre-industrial trophic fluxes of the world's various ecosystems, and compared the data with your projections of flux for the very same ecosystems under the CO2 concentrations anticipated for the future?" Yep, watch this space!
8."Who, if indeed any, has reviewed and confirmed and/or corrected your work?" My Quadrant piece had 3 peer reviewers, albeit for another journal, but that could not find space until about June, and has little impact in Australia, so given that Garnaut is already dead and buried here, I opted for bigger and more immediate impact. BTW, I have reason to believe that one of the 3 was RG himself or one of his mates as I was never allowed to see his/their review (internal evidence would have given him/them away. I accept peer review anonymity, but not confidentiality of the review itself!). The other 2 refs were more professional and I incorporated all their suggested changes. My forthcoming "CO2 Fertilization" piece has already had 2 favourable peer reviews, one I gather was an IPCC lead author.
9."What are you doing to ensure that you follow through with your complaints of scientific fraud, conspiracy and incompetence that you have directed at the individuals and organisations mentioned above?" I am working on this, I've had previous indirect contacts with Slater & Gordon and their successful (for them, c $30 million pay off) class action against what is now de facto Ross Garnaut's majority owned Ok Tedi mine in PNG. I look forward to equally or better fruitful cooperation. Check the dictionary definitions for fraud. Systematic rejection of any role for biospheric absorption of [CO2], as by K & T & F, Sue's co-authors, is as much a fraud on the people of this planet as anything managed by Bernie Madoff.
10."If you do not intend to follow through with the accusations referred to in the previous question, upon what moral basis do you base your inaction?" I do intend, so watch this space.
Meantime, dear Bernard, what if anything have you ever published in the cause of the advancement of Knowledge. Don't be falsely modest!
Best
Tim
TimC, as I expected, you cheery-picked pieces from the Lloyd and Farquhar article in T. R. Phil. Soc., 2008: Here is their summarizing paragraph:
"Our inability to understand the basis of variations in aboveground carbon stocks for all but the driest Amazon forests (Saatchi et al. 2007) currently limits our understanding of how long any sequestration is likely to continue".
Bingo. I am certain that they repeat this refrain in many ofn their other studies, Moreover, as far as I can see, their studies have failed to examine actual functioning food webs (and the species in them) over variable spatial and temporal scales, as well as the effects on mutulaists and antagonists. This is not surprising, since the branch of ecology they study operates at a different scale than the interacations I study. Without a concrete bridge, we learn little about the ability of a forest to 'adapt' if we do not understand effects of both atmospheric C02 increases and its attendant climate change parameters (e.g. temperature, rainfall) on interacting webs.
Professor Farquhar has clearly done outstanding research on many aspects of plant physiology over many years. He is a leader in the field. But from his long publication list I do not see studies integrating broader ecological communities (e.g trophci interactions). That work is being done by other scientists.
I would seriously caution anyone making grandiose statements about the ability of complex adaptive systems and the species that constitute them to be able to deal with multiple stresses that humans are inflicting on them now. Your final comments was the clincher: that humans can 'adapt'. This reveals an almost brazen inabiity to understand the number of constraints humans are putting on natural systems and the fact that we do not have the technology to replicate the vast majority of ecosystem services that permit us to exist and to persist. We are simplifying natural systems at a rapid rate and there is no guarantee that they will continue to freely deliver these services. You write as if humans are exempt for the laws of nature, and that we have evolved beyond any environmental constraints.
Before I respond to your arguments again, I want to have some evidence that you understand ecological complexity. For starters, you should read Simon Levin's "Fragile Dominion: Compexity and the Commons" which I reviewed for Nature. There's a start. Its accessible to general readers, such as yourself. I also think that Gretchen Daily's seminal "Nature's Services" would be a good read for you. Until I can discuss these issues and not have to reply on you parroting plant physiology studies, then we are getting nowhere.
Tim Curtin said: "No, the base year data (1850-1900) in both GISS and HADCrut (sic) is fatally flawed by excluding tropical Africa,which is a HOT place, and had no measuring stations AT ALL before 1900. There is also a problem with the sudden lapse of records from COLD Siberia after 1990".
If anyone needed any more evidence that Tim Curtin does not have a clue what he is talking about he has presented ample evidence in these few words where he manages to make at least 4 errors which any high school student interested in climate science would recognize.
Firstly, the base period for GISS is not 1850-1900 but is 1951-1980.
Secondly, the base period for HadCRUT is not 1850-1900 but is 1961-1990.
Thirdly, you do not understand what the temperature data presented in these graphs mean. They are temperature anomalies, not actual temperatures. Since the baselines are not prior to 1900 as you claim, omitting tropical stations before that date has no effect on the current GISS and HadCRUT data.
Fourthly, leaving out polar data after 1990 would in fact result in lower temperature anomalies since the polar regions are warming up much faster than the global average.
That you have the arrogance to belittle eminent scientists (when they are correct) and you haven't a clue about their work is pathetic. Keep it up, people like you do more to discredit the AGW deniers by showing how ignorant of the science you really are.
Ian. HAD whatever's global temps series goes back to 1850, GISS' to 1880. I was not referring to the periods on which they base their "anomalies' with the sole aim of deriving graphs appearing to show incredible increases in warmth, when the actual increase from 1900 to 2000 is barely discerible on graph plotting the global meana on the vertical axis with that starting at 0oC (not 14 as you would have it).Thus the GISS anomaly for 1900 relative to 1950-1980 is -10 or actual 13.9oC (using their conversion formula, divide anomaly by 100 and add 14 to get actual); the GISS anomaly for 2000 is 33, for actual 14.33oC, a staggering increase of 43 in the anomaly, wow it must be hot in Hansen's office, but just an increase of 0.43oC in the actual (keep the heating on please). Now that global temp in 1900 is unlikely to include any actual temps measured in say Khartoum, Kinshasa, Kampala, Harare, Lusaka, Ndola, while that for 2000 cannot include the some 800 stations that have dropped out over the last 20 years or so, mostly in the cold north. The Arctic may possibly be "warming" faster than elsewhere, if elsewhere is warming, but I think you will find that it is currently quite cold in Arctic Siberia, Norway, Sweden, and Canada. You need to understand that it is absolute temps that matter for the global mean, not rates of change. You are the one displaying ignorance as you clearly do not know or care what the anomaly is or how it is measured.
Tim Curtin, can you please re-write your comments when you are sober or not stoned so we can have at least a chance of making sense of them?
Ian,
But, but... his only hope is that no one can make sense of them.
TimL - thank you for allowing TimC to post in this thread. I'd forgotten how effectively he discredits himself when he is given a soapbox upon which to stand.
Jeff; thanks for refs. I've checked Levin's book, but finding it has been commended by paul Ehrlich is enough to put one off it. However I persevered. He ends with
âeight commandments of environmental managementâ:
(1) reduce uncertainty, (2) expect
surprise, (3) maintain heterogeneity, (4) sustain modularity, (5) preserve redundancy, (6) tighten
feedback loops, (7) build trust, and (8) Do unto
others as you would have them do unto you." Splendid, but after some 30 years experience as a policy adviser, I can't recall any of my ministers knowing what to do next on the basis of all this. Why does Levin leave out "faith hope and charity"?
Ian. What can you not understand? Do try and follow Levin's 8th.
"..policy adviser.."
Oh sweet Jesus, no...
Tim Curtin.
Ian Forrester has already responded in damning fashion to your answer (1) at #188 about the existence of warming. To this I would add that you did not in any way refute the enormous bodies of data, whether at global or local levels, that indicate that warming has been definitively observed over the last century, whatever baseline is considered. Just how is it that countless scientifically acquired datasets are all incorrect in showing the warming trend, when based on consistently stable 'baselines'?
To my question #2: "Do you accept that evapotranspiration changes with warming?" you replied:
Your observation about 'higher precipitation' is an obfuscation, because it implies that evapotranspirative water loss is returned in short order at the place where it originated. Erm, how are you wrong? Let me count the ways... Can you guess what some of them might be?
I asked at question 3: "Where evapotranspiration changes will occur around the planet, have you determined how they impact upon the locations of future arable agricultural land, and how they will impact upon the health of the planet's ecosystems?"
to which you replied:
Firstly, you are conflating weather events with long-term climate shiftings (in the case, in evapotranspiration).
Secondly, you have made no response to the issue of how altered evapotransirative (ET) regimes will cause arable land locations to shift.
Thirdly, you have made no comment about the impact of ET shifts on global ecosystems, beyond a vague hand-waving "NET effect = positive" with absolutely no evidence provided!
To my fourth question: "Do you understand that altering the input of substrates and nutrients into a biological system alters the trophic dynamics of the system?", you replied:
you again provide not one atom of evidence to demonstrate that you either understand the alterations of trophic dynamics, or to indicate what, in your opinion, these alterations will be, beyond your "probably no NET or only positive changes globally".
Given that there are many solidly-supported examples for negative effects in the scientific literature, at both local and at global levels, you are showing yourself to be profoundly ignorant and/or misinformed.
Similarly, with question 5: "How does [sic] the alterations inherent in the scenario in question 4 interact with the impacts in question 3?"
all you can come up with is "NET = ZERO or POSITIVE". You provide no evidence, and no indication that you even understand the processes alluded to in this question (and in the preceding ones).
All that you have done is present a statement of what you want the answer to be.
For my question 6 I asked:
and you reply "YES. But see Maddison, I rely on his data to 1750 and my own as well as his since then".
Again, you demonstrate no evidence of actual comprehension of the question, nor do you provide any evidence of the data you refer to, or how these data (and especially yours) are relevant to the question.
To my seventh question:
You say only "Yep, watch this space!"
Oh, we'll be watching alright. I wait with eager anticipation you extensive determinations of species-level biomasses, of isotope analyses, of dietary compositions, of food-web constructions, of energy gains and losses, and a host of other processes that underlie the field of trophic analysis.
You're on notice Curtin.
For question 8 I asked "Who, if indeed any, has reviewed and confirmed and/or corrected your work?" and you replied:
First, your Quadrant piece (of...?) does not provide any evidence to refute any of the science that you have been critical of on this thread. It does not prove any evidence to support the 'answers' that you provided to my questions as discussed in this post. Your 'work' is not supported by whatever review occurred of your Quadrant article.
Secondly, Quadrant reviewers (where they actually exist) are not known for their scientific prominence.
Thirdly, three reviewers 'for another [anonymous] journal' do not constitute credible review at all. Without knowing which journal it was, there is no standing implied, and even if there were, one does not publish in a second journal and claim credence because of submission for 'review' to a first journal.
Furthermore, and as an aside, it is poor practice to submit for review to one journal, and then to withdraw and publish in another (rarely reviewed) journal - unless the first journal rejected the piece... Your comment:
makes me wonder about the nature of the review in this 'other journal'.
You still don't understand the difference between a nutrient and a substrate, do you? To where did you submit this 'piece', and upon what evidence do you gather that an IPCC lead author reviewed it?
Arriving at question 9:
your entertaining response was:
From this I can only conclude that you intend to pursue legal action against Crafts-Brandner and Salvucci, Field, Taub et al, Solomon et al, Nature, Science, PNAS, the IPCC - amongst others.
Interesting.
I will 'watch this space' with anticipation, and I am sure that other commenters here will be as interested.
Might I suggest that, if you truly believe the theories that you espouse, you collaborate with a scientist or two? I suggest that you invite Jennifer Marohasy to lend her biologist credentials to support the many paradigm-shifting ideas that you are promoting - in fact, I'll save you the bother and publicly invite her, here and now, to put her scientific credibility, such as it is, behind your ideas.
How about it Jennifer - will you sign your name to Tim Curtin's papers so that he might be more seriously considered for main-stream publication? Will you lend your name to support his critical correspondence and his legal action against the parties mentioned three paragraphs above?
In fact, whilst we're at it, how about you ask Ian Mott, Louis Hissink, Gordon Robertson, Graeme Bird, the litigious Christopher Monckton et al to support you in a class action? And I am sure that Cohenite would be happy to act as your legal representation. Invite them all to join your crusade. They all read Deltoid, or have done so, so you could even offer the invitation here.
Of course, you need publicity too. Why not ask Michael Duffy to give you air-time with which to summarise your rebuttal of the conventional scientific understanding of plant physiology, of ecological structure and function, and of trophic dynamics. Most particularly you can reveal to the audience at large how the world's best scientific practitioners and organisations are conspiring to suppress knowledge of fraud and incompetence. Perhaps you could add your voice to the conspiracy of AGW too.
Invite Andrew Bolt and Miranda Devine to publish your scientific revelations in their columns. Heck, I invite them right now to approach you for contributions.
Put your science up Tim Curtin. Demonstrate your competence to comment. Provide your analyses, lay your evidence on the table, and allow your outrageous pseudoscientific nonsense to be properly scrutinised and tested.
What little faff you have provided here supports your claims not one whit. If you actually have any case you need to provide it clearly and concisely for critical appraisal, or your need to stop with your outrageous and slanderous claims once and for all.
Of course, I strongly doubt that you will ever desist, and all that we could conclude from any continuation of the status quo is that your autumn years are reflecting the autumn of your grasp of reality.
Dear Ian. I had not noticed that the estimable WordPress because it cannot do basic Word or Excel functions had mangled my post such that you had difficulty with it. It is indeed a judgment on the blogosphere that it mostly has to make do with a pre-1970 program. So here I am again, modified to suit idiot WordPress. "HadCRUT's global temps series goes back to 1850, GISS' to 1880. I was not referring to the periods on which they base their 'anomalies' with the sole aim of deriving graphs appearing to show incredible increases in warmth, when the actual increase from 1900 to 2000 is barely discernible on graphs plotting the global mean on the vertical axis with that starting at 0 oC (not 14 oC as you would have it).Thus the GISS anomaly for 1900 relative to 1950-1980 is -10 or actual 13.9oC (using their - the GISS - conversion formula, divide anomaly by 100 and add 14 to get actual); the GISS anomaly for 2000 is 33, giving actual 14.33 oC, a staggering increase of 43 in the anomaly, wow it must be hot in Hansen's office, but just an increase of 0.43 oC in the actual, keep the heating on please. Now since alleged global temp in 1900 is unlikely to include any actual temps measured in say Khartoum, Kinshasa, Kampala, Harare, Lusaka, Ndola, etc, as there were no Met stations in most if not all of those in 1900, while that for 2000 cannot include the some 800 stations that have dropped out over the last 20 years or so, mostly in the cold north, the GISS' increase from 1900 is illusory. The Arctic may possibly be "warming" faster than elsewhere, if elsewhere is warming, but I think you will find that it is currently quite cold in Arctic Siberia, Norway, Sweden, and Canada. You need to understand that it is absolute temps that matter for the global mean, not rates of change. You are the one displaying ignorance as you clearly do not know or care what the anomaly is or how it is measured." Let me spell it out: the "anomaly" is the difference between the actual temperature in any year and the average for an arbitrary base period, in the GISS case, 1950-1980 (conveniently, a relatively cool period world wide). To make that difference seem huge, GISS, like HadCRUT multiplies by 100. Go to NASA-GISS, and they explain that to get back from the anomaly to the actual temp. in any year, divide by 100 and add 14 oC. Why is this so difficult for you? I have never taken drugs in my life. nor whiskey until the sun is over the yard-arm, which it is not even in Canberra, alas, at 1500 hours or so when I posted my last.
Bernard. I am flattered by the attention you give to my thoughts. More briefly, let me respond as follows.
You said I âdid not in any way refute the enormous bodies of data, whether at global or local levels, that indicate that warming has been definitively observed over the last century, whatever baseline is considered. Just how is it that countless scientifically acquired datasets are all incorrect in showing the warming trend, when based on consistently stable 'baselines'?â
Well, just go to GISS, and you will find that from 1900 to 2000, despite all Jim Belsenâs tinkering to make recent years seem hotter, and earlier years colder, all he can come up with is that in 1900 the Global mean temp was 13.9 oC and in 2000 just 14.33 oC, a staggering increase of 0.43 oC. To achieve that he had to use New York temps in 1900 as proxies for Khartoum, Kinshasha, Kampala, Nairobi, Harare, Lusaka etc etc. while in 2000 he probably used all the latter as proxies for Vladivostock etc in 2000, following the collapse of the USSRâs met stations after 1990. Adding insult to injury, Belsen then multiplies all deviations from the average GISS global mean for 1950-1980 by 100 to make them seem much bigger than they are.
To your question #2: "Do you accept that evapotranspiration changes with warming?" I replied:
âI accept that this increases with warming if any - and the result is higher precipitation. Even the cretinous IPCC admits that water vapour resides in the atmosphere for at most 10 daysâ.
You say that âmy observation about 'higher precipitation' is an obfuscation, because it implies that evapotranspirative water loss is returned in short order at the place where it originated.â But I never said that, evaporation here means rain there as often as not.
Bernard asked at question 3: "Where evapotranspiration changes will occur around the planet, have you determined how they impact upon the locations of future arable agricultural land, and how they will impact upon the health of the planet's ecosystems?"
to which I replied:
Yes, all over the place, as now, floods in Queensland, droughts in SE Australia. NET effect = positive.
To which you Bernard have no answer.
Thirdly, Bernard says I âmade no comment about the impact of ET shifts on global ecosystems, beyond a vague hand-waving "NET effect = positive" with absolutely no evidence provided!â Well, just check out IPCC 2007 which shows regional distirubutions quite well (for once).
Bernardâs fourth question was : "Do you understand that altering the input of substrates and nutrients into a biological system alters the trophic dynamics of the system?" I replied:
âYep, but so what, again, probably no NET or only positive changes globallyâ; in other words, I consider his proposition has no substance. What on earth does it mean? I am sure Bernard himsself cannot explain it.
Bernard rants on, with question 5: "How do the alterations inherent in the scenario in question 4 interact with the impacts in question 3?" Goodness knows, what on earth does he mean?
For his question 6 he asked:
âHave [I] quantified the pre-industrial productivity of the world's various ecosystems, and compared the data with your projections of productivity for the very same ecosystems under the CO2 concentrations anticipated for the future?â I replied "YES. But see Maddison, I rely on his data to 1750 and my own as well as his since then". I just received today Maddisonâs article in World Economics Jan 2009 which answers this question for me.
Bernardsâs seventh question:
âHave you qualified the pre-industrial trophic fluxes of the world's various ecosystems, and compared the data with your projections of flux for the very same ecosystems under the CO2 concentrations anticipated for the future?â
I said "Yep, watch this space!". That still holds, but pro tem check out Colin Prentice et al for an account that matches my own, Ecological Applications, 10(6), 2000.
For question 8 Bernard asked "Who, if indeed any, has reviewed and confirmed and/or corrected your work?" and I replied:
âMy Quadrant piece had 3 peer reviewers, albeit for another journal, but that could not find space until about June, and has little impact in Australia, so given that Garnaut is already dead and buried here, I opted for bigger and more immediate impact.â
Bernard; âFirst, your Quadrant piece (Jan-Feb 2009) does not provide any evidence to refute any of the science that you have been critical of on this thread. It does not provide any evidence to support the 'answers' that you provided to my questions as discussed in this post. Your 'work' is not supported by whatever review occurred of your Quadrant article.â Bernard, please check the full online version at either Quadrant Online itself or (updated) at www.lavoiser.com.au.
âFurthermore, and as an aside, it is poor practice to submit for review to one journal, and then to withdraw and publish in another (rarely reviewed) journal - unless the first journal rejected the piece...â It did not reject, I retained copyright.
Arriving at question 9:
No further comment from me.
TimC,
None of the studies you have cited have incorporated trophic interrelationships at smaller scales into their work. They have looked at some large scale emergent processes, but they have not worked at smaller scales and thus far few studies have explored the effects of enhanced atmospheric C02 concentrations and attendant climate change on complex interrelationships involving invertebrtate and vertebrate fauna in the above-ground and soil communities and how this correlates with emergent properties. You clearly cannot see the wood from the trees, and just do not understand the concept of scale. At least that is the way I see it. Ian and Bernard have nailed you. Again, you do not understand important ecological concepts. You rely on cutting and pasting abstracts from a few systemic studies that do not explicitly examine trophic interrelationships. I have science to do, not wasting my precious time on this pedantic discussion.
Tim Curtin.
It seems that your grasp of significant figures, and of graph scales/ranges is sorely lacking. As an apparently professional economist you should be ashamed of this chicanery in the application of data presentation and analysis - it is of a level of non-understanding typical of the worst drudges of Bolt's and Marohasy's uneducated masses.
Do you have any understanding of statistical practice?
Seriously, the logical extention of your 'thought process' would be to graph from around -80C to about +60C, as these are close to the extremes of temperature on Earth. And why stop there - the origin should obviously start at 0 Kelvin.
You are surely Marohasy's darling in your manipulation of graphical representations.
On a different note, you seem to be able to dismiss just about all science that disagrees with your view of the world, and to do so with a cursory word or two about how the authors are fraudulent, incompetent, or both. Given your incisive and encompassing insight into matters biological and climatological, perhaps you would care demonstrate just how penetrating your understanding is, by providing a critical analysis of a paper that spans both climatological matters, and the sensitivity of organisms to changes in their environment as described by Jeff Harvey, myself and others on this and on other threads.
I am interested in reading such a critique from you of "Climate change, coral bleaching and the future of the world's coral reefs" by Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, published in Marine and Freshwater Research: 50(8) pp839-66. One page would do, and following the usual scientific conventions for review. You must surely have the capacity to do this easily, given the manner in which you are able to lambast so many other prominent scientists.
Perhaps Jeff and some of the others here will add a paper or two of their choice to help you to demonstrate just how you are able to dissect so much of the science that you have been so ignominiously not recognised as having expertise in.
Jeff: you said - "None of the studies you have cited have incorporated trophic interrelationships at smaller scales into their work. They have looked at some large scale emergent processes, but they have not worked at smaller scales and thus far few studies have explored the effects of enhanced atmospheric C02 concentrations and attendant climate change on complex interrelationships involving invertebrtate and vertebrate fauna in the above-ground and soil communities and how this correlates with emergent properties." Is that my problem, yours, or theirs? I suggest the latter, write them! Once again, I rely on Graham Farquhar, when you have refuted all he has written, get back to me. Strangely, I never find you referenced in ANY of this debate. Waarom?
Tim,
basically your argument is that if you change the scale so it looks like a small increase, it is. That's moronic.
You may think that a global temp increase of 0.43 is tiny, but frankly who cares what you think? Despite your amazing ability at understanding complex phenomena, it is a relevant increase. Why don;t you check what sort of global temp existed the last time there was no ice at the poles. Still not going to look like a lot... If this is the best argument you have, then you have no argument. All you have is a misunderstanding.
Bernard said I "seem to be able to dismiss just about all science that disagrees with your view of the world, and to do so with a cursory word or two about how the authors are fraudulent, incompetent, or both. Given your incisive and encompassing insight into matters biological and climatological, perhaps you would care [to] demonstrate just how penetrating your understanding is, by providing a critical analysis of a paper that spans both climatological matters, and the sensitivity of organisms to changes in their environment as described by Jeff Harvey, myself and others on this and on other threads. I am interested in reading such a critique of "Climate change, coral bleaching and the future of the world's coral reefs" by Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, published in Marine and Freshwater Research: 50(8) pp839-66. One page would do, and following the usual scientific conventions for review. You must surely have the capacity to do this easily, given the manner in which you are able to lambast so many other prominent scientists.
Perhaps Jeff and some of the others here will add a paper or two of their choice to help you to demonstrate just how you are able to dissect so much of the science that you have been so ignominiously not recognised as having expertise in".
Sadly, Guldberg is a serial liar. He may have heard of Darwin on the subject of formation of coral reefs, but is so stupid he has never grasped anything of Darwin's amazing intuition. Guldberg like De'ath and the lovely Janice Lough of AIMS at Townsville, the Mata Hari of coral reef science, are serial liars. De'ath and Lough are so stoopid they do not realise that if they are right that coral growth rates are declining, that means sealevels are falling not rising per IPCC (Darwin, 1859).
Nathan @#202Tim, said 'basically your argument is that if you change the scale so it looks like a small increase, it is. That's moronic. You may think that a global temp increase of 0.43 is tiny, [YES I DO] but frankly who cares what you think? Despite your amazing ability at understanding complex phenomena, it is a relevant increase. Why don;t you check what sort of global temp existed the last time there was no ice at the poles. Still not going to look like a lot... If this is the best argument you have, then you have no argument. All you have is a misunderstanding. Posted by: Nathan | February 23, 2009 7:11 AM
Oh dear, anyone know of any asylum for Nathan?
Tim, I have perused ome of their articles. I think their research is excellent, but it is still inconclusive. I will write to them both and ask their opinions on our discussions. Professors Farquhar is a plant scientist and Professor Prentice is a paloecologist. They are esteemed researchers, and I like their research articles very much, but, as I said, we need to also examine the effects of anthropogenic processes at smaller, stochastic scales in order to generate any kinds of conclusions about short-medium term prospects. As I have said countless times before, different species will respond differently to changes in abiotic and biotic conditions. Given that humans are imposing a myriad of stresses simultaneously on natural systems, there is no guarantee that vital ecosystem services will be maintained. Most indicators of the helath and vitality of natural systems are in repaid decline - this suggests that a 'business-as-usual' ethic is misguided. Moreover, you erroeneously argued yesterday that humans are not 'managing' nature - but of course we are, or are attempting to. Considering that our species consumes more than 40% of the planet's net primary production, and > 50% of net freshwater flows (leaving less and less for the rest of nature), what else can this be called? If not a benign term like 'management', then how about 'domination'? Humans are dominating nature and are attempting to take over more and more of it. The consequences are likely to be disastrous, given that we are utterly dependent on a range of services and conditions that emerge from variable spatial and temporal scales.
As I said, according to the UN-World Bank Living Planet Index, humans have consumed more than 35% of the capital from the planet's three most important natural ecosystems (coastal green seas, freshwater and forest) since 1970 (and even by 1970 we had greatly simplified the planet). This simply cannot continue. Your remedy appears to be to say, "Increase consumption and waste production, because primary productivity can be offset by putting more carbon into the atmsophere". This is just plain crazy talk. We must take stock of our actions now if future generations are to inherit a planet that is worth inhabiting.
Two weeks ago, we had our annual Dutch ecological meeting, and one of the keynote speakers argued that the main nutrient limiting the productivity of the global ecological commons was not carbon but phosphorus. He presented all kinds of evidence to this effect. Many of his arguments counter the notion that carbon is the major limiting nutrient. Again, it shows that many very senior scientists have very different views as the the nature of the current predicament - and it is exactly that, a predicament.
Lastly, anthropogenic climate change, which as far as I am concerned is happening, is occurring disproportionately over various parts of the planet. As predicted by circulation models, higher latitudes are experieincing much more profound changes than lower latitudes (many of these predictions go back to the 1950s). Thus, parts of the tundra, boreal and even temperate regions have seen mean annual temperature of > 5 C over the past century. This is not trivial, but dramatic warming within the framework of a largely deterministic system. There will also be signifciant effects on communities and ecosystems. These are currently being investigated, and the prognosis for many species is not a good one.
At #201, in response to the fact that he doesn't address profoundly important aspects of trophic inter-relationships, Tim Curtin says:
(Dang. I hate it when I don't preview, and there's a markdown typo)
And, Tim Curtin, and...?
"...all over the place..." in no reasonable way explains how the locations of arable land will shift with changes in evapotranspiration (and with changes in rainfall regimes). And your reply addresses absolutely nothing about the impacts upon planetary ecosystems.
Oh, and I do have an answer Tim Curtin, but it is rather less rosy than the non-scientific one that you are so infatuated with. But that is a distraction â we are discussing the evidence for your disputation of the body of scientific evidence that provides me with my 'answer', and you persist in demonstrating no familiarity at all with this science.
Come on, are you joking?! Describe the impacts Curtin!
No: "in other words" you do not understand the question. And I can 'explain it', but considering your incapacity to grasp even the most basic of ecological principles, I know that neither I nor anyone else could ever 'learn' you about a subject that requires a far greater ability to understand sophisticated system processes than is required for even the simple ones that you are showing yourself to be flummoxed by.
Quad erat demonstrandum.
Your analyses, Tim Curtin? Your data?
Updating at the Lav, huh? I can only say "surely you jest?"
Crikey. The difference between pinning down Tim Curtin on fundamental science and squeezing pimples is that at least one can gain some satisfaction from squeezing pimples...
Jeff. That really is progress, I am so glad you like the work of Graham F and Colin P. But then you get it wrong by saying: âConsidering that our species consumes more than 40% of the planet's net primary production, and > 50% of net freshwater flows (leaving less and less for the rest of nature), what else can this be called?â These are flows both of which are growing - the net primary production grows every year rather faster than the growth rates of both [CO2](0.4% p.a.) and world population (<2% p.a.), and global precipitation is also growing, most spectacularly across northern Australia over the last 100 years, but elsewhere as well. True there are droughts, as in the latte-chardonay belt of Victoria, but I am inclined to believe that is divine retribution for their adherence to the likes of Karoly and Enting. You added: âHumans are dominating nature and are attempting to take over more and more of itâ â we always have sought to and will increasingly succeed (read Darwin again). You keep citing the Living Planet Index, but its authors do not know the difference between income and capital. What have been the changes in mean temp in The Netherlands since 1900 to date? My home village near Bristol has recorded no change over the last 30 years.
Bernard, you said: âAs to your use of Farquhar, you do the man a disservice with your misinterpretations and inappropriate extrapolations of his work. Have you thought to actually write to him and ask if he supports your interpretations of his work?â
Yes, actually I know him and he helped me get it right.
Then I said âDe'ath and the lovely Janice Lough of AIMS at Townsville, the Mata Hari of coral reef science, are serial liarsâ¦. De'ath and Lough are so stoopid they do not realise that if they are right that coral growth rates are declining, that means sealevels are falling not rising [as] per IPCC (Darwin, 1859).
â You responded: â yet again, a slander against an expert, his colleagues, and their institution. I presume that you will be writing to them, and to CSIRO publishing (and to Nature and other journals) to demand apologies for their collective scientific misbehaviour? I assume that they will be included in your Slater and Gordon malpractice suit.â Actually their fatuous paper in Science does not even mention sea levels.
Yes indeed, I have written to both of them, most recently to Janice: âDear Janice, Thanks for those papers, you have been busy, though I would not want to keep company with some of your co-authors! [P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa, T.J. Osborn, M.E. Mann, G.A. Schmidt, C.M. Ammann, all known dissemblers specializing in economy with the truth] Here's your (with De'ath) Abstract in Science:
"...We investigated 328 colonies of massive Porites corals from 69 reefs of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia. Their [sic, as only data from 12 reefs extending beyond 1990 are archived] skeletal records show that throughout the GBR [not true, as the only 12 reefs with post-1990 data are all between 18 and 22oS.], calcification has declined by 14.2% since 1990 [not true for the 69 reefs, because [data for] only 12 reefs extend beyond 1990, predominantly because extension (linear growth) has declined by 13.3%. The data [sic] suggest that such a severe and sudden decline in calcification is unprecedented [sic] in at least the past 400 years [not true, as only one of the 12 archived reefs with post-1990 data has a life extending for 400 years]."
"So yes, your joint paper does state in its Abstract that its results come from 400-year data for 328 colonies in 69 reefs, and it repeats this claim in the text, p.119, final para: "..our data [sic] show that growth and calcification of massive Porites in the GBR are already declining and are doing so at a rate unprecedented in coral records reaching back 400 years". When only one of the archived data sets with data post-1990 does reach back 400 years this is a gross exaggeration.
I really do wonder if scientists now have any basis for being considered to have greater integrity than one finds amongst investment bankers, but I do know from experience that your paper would not pass muster with the ASX as a prospectus for a share issue. That is why I hope you and your co-authors will write to Science correcting these misleading statements, as I would prefer not to.â
Some hope! Has there EVER been a case where AGW pundits admit to an error? No, and none ever will, least of all Lough, De'ath, Jones, Briffa, Osborn, Mann, Schmidt, Ammann. Dear Bernard, keep on squeezing your pimples if that gives you such intellectual satisfaction.
Tim Curtin.
Your attacks on so many eminent scientists staggers me even now, when I had thought that my estimation of your extremeness could not be heightened.
I am curious - in all of the thousands of papers that support the evidence for AGW, for ocean acidification, for habitat loss, alteration and simplification, for ecosystem damage through the introduction of feral/weed species and of pollution, for exaggerated species decline and extinction resulting from human impact, for trophic dynamics that are described in a very different fashion to the extraordinary ignorance of thermodynamics and of closed-system limits that you posted at #298, and for many other scientifically documented phenomena - do you give credence for professional competence and integrity to any of the scientists who have performed these investigations and have written the papers?
If so, can you give examples of these studies, and explain why they are credibile in your opinion, and the papers mentioned above are not?
I will be very interested to hear of Jeff's correspondence with Farquhar, and to learn exactly how it is that he believes that your interpretations of his and other people's work contradicts the accepted wisdom of tens of thousands of the world's best.
In a way it is a shame that you do not have the capacity to write letters, to those with whom you claim to have corresponded, that are sufficiently adult and dispassionate that they are not caught by the nutcase filters that most academics are forced to use. It would truly be entertaining to see how they would respond to your claims and accusations should they actually find your nuttery worth replying to.
I am certainly not qualified to pronounce medically, but it seems increasingly likely to me that there is a new candidate with credentials for Emperor of Antarctica.
"Yes, actually I know him and he helped me get it right".
You, TimC it get it right? Ha! Has Professor Farquhar been reading this thread? I can't believe that your bellicose assertions wouldn't have him scrambling for cover.
"P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa, T.J. Osborn, M.E. Mann, G.A. Schmidt, C.M. Ammann, all known dissemblers specializing in economy with the truth". So says Tim Curtin, renowned scientist and assembler of facts. NOT.
Lastly, Tim, its a bit rich from you arguing that AGW pundits never admit to error. You do not understand basic ecology and you have the gall to say this; since when have you ever admitted to error? Or is this an impossibility in your view?
Bernard, the most important thing I can say in response to Tim's histrionics is this: science has already vanquished most of his pedantic arguments. The vast majority of the scientific community realize that humans are simplifying complex natural systems at an astounding rate and that, as a consequence, their ability to generate a range of critical services that sustein us is being impeded. Page after page of journals like Global Change Biology, Ecosystems, Ecology, Oikos, Journal of Animal Ecology, Ecology Letters, Trend in Ecology and Evolution, Oecologia, Journal of Ecology, Biological Conservation, Conservation Biology, Functional Ecology, Basic and Applied Ecology, not to mention Nature, Science, PNAS and many others are filled with articles showing that a range of human activities are having profoundly deleterious effects on the health and vitality of natural systems and the species and genetically distinct populations that make them up. The fact that between 10 and 40 per cent of well-studied species are currently threatened with extinction or endangered, is unequivocal proof that we are headed in the wrong direction. The fact that this list grows year by year is even more worrying. Songbird declines in North America, where the status of most species is known, are pandemic. Given that extinctions can lag behind habitat loss by decades or even centuries, as discussed by Tilman and May in their seminal 1994 Nature paper, makes one realize that the worst is probably yet to come.
If Tim bothered to get off of his butt and attend some of the major conferences and workshops where these issues are discussed and argued, I would give his arguments more creedence. But I would like to know the last major ecological conference or workshop Tim attended. I won't hold my breath waiting for an answer. It seems to me that, with respect to issues like climate or ecology, everyone thinks that they are an expert. No university study is required, just a good knowledge of satatistics or economics and one can become an 'armchair expert'. Even this isn't always necessary. I've argued global change with people before like junior high school students on blog sites whose comments were actually at grade school level. But they had a lot of sympathizers if their views resonated with the orthodoxical views of those on the libertarian wing of the political right who don't actually give a s@(# about the science, but were using and abusing science to promote their own personal political agendas.
Note that yesterday Tim resorted to the usual smear to dismiss Paul Ehrlich, one of the most esteemed ecologists in the world, winner of the Craaford Prize (given in lieu of the Nobel Prize to fields such as ecology) and the author of more than 300 papers and 30 books. Paul's early work on plant-insect co-evolution with Peter Raven is amongst the most important in our understanding of dietary breath in insects and in driving selection for allelochemical defenses in plants. Paul has been an inspiration to em for many years, and his courage to cross the threshold between academia and the public domain was a very risky venture in the 1960s, when it was not considered proper. Nowadays, it is wonderful to see so many scientists entering the public domain to discuss important and relevant environmental issues. Many of these men and women have invested their careers in unraveling ecological complexity and are the most qualified in being able to argue about the seriousness of the current bottleneck that our species has created for itself. As I said earlier, humans are living off of a one-time in heritance of natural capital and are spending it like there is no tomorrow. As a result, natural systems are in decline. There is very broad consensus on this point. The coencern is, given how little we know about the functioning of natural systems, is how far we can push them before they are unable to sustain themselves, and, ultimately, us. Irrespective of Tim's rants, most ecologists agree on this point: humans are reducing the capacity of the plant to support much of the world's biodiversity. Because biodiversity constitutes the working parts of our planetary life-support systems, there is widespread concern that continued simplification will undermine many critical ecosystem services. This is where we stand at present. There may be a few scientific 'outliers' with respect to this point, but they are very, very few of them; they are a very small minority of the opinion of the community of population ecologists and environmental scientists. This closes the debate, as far as I am concerned.
#219 Bernard. Please explain to me why you think reducing [CO2] from todayâs 385 ppm to Hansenâs 350 ppm would have no negative effects on world food production, or in other words, why reducing last yearâs gross emissions of about 10 GtC to say 2 GtC (the 80% that Garnaut hoped for) would have ZERO effects on the net primary productivity of the globeâs oceanic and terrestrial biospheres, given their net increases in CO2 absorption last year of nearly 6 GtC??? Hint: the formula is in Farquhar 1980, and in Prentice et al 2000 (Ecological Applications, 1553-1573; the simplified form in the latter is the same as that in my Quadrant article). Here it is: dC/dt = Qt â (So + Sb) where C is the atmosheric concentration [CO2], Q is the flux to the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning, So is the oceanic uptake, and Sb is the net C balance (uptake minus release) of the terrestrial biosphere. Now we know that last year [CO2] increased by 1.7 ppm or 3.61 GtC, so that given emissions of c. 10 GtC, the combined oceanic and terrestrial uptake (So + Sb) had to be 6.39 GtC. How does that combined NET new uptake manifest itself other than by increased plant growth and thereby food for all the species including us that should be our primary concern? If Qt is reduced to 2 GtC by 2050, what will then be these net new uptakes? Certainly not 6.39 GtC if the Farquhar-Prentice equation is correct. All I am saying is that a proper cost-benefit analysis should take into account the planned reduction in annual increases of (So + Sb) as well as those in Qt and Ct. Hansen, Gore, Stern Garnaut, the IPCC et all your als have NEVER considered this. You tell me why they do not, and explain why you think they are right not to give a toss about their planned reduction in growth of food supply for all species.
Please explain to me why you think reducing [CO2] from todayâs 385 ppm to Hansenâs 350 ppm would have no negative effects on world food production, or in other words, why reducing last yearâs gross emissions of about 10 GtC to say 2 GtC (the 80% that Garnaut hoped for) would have ZERO effects on the net primary productivity of the globeâs oceanic and terrestrial biospheres, given their net increases in CO2 absorption last year of nearly 6 GtC???
again:
the effect of elevated CO2 on food production is tiny.
other effects on food production are huge.
"food production" is at best (similar to biomass) 2-3% of CO2 uptake.
increased CO2 will increase food production by 20-30% (i am taking the words of those selling CO2 to greenhouses here!!!!) over a century. just look at what food production did over the last century...
Sod, Excellent. You've nailed it. There are mahy other constraints on plant growth besides the levels of C02 Tim is talking about. Many of these are biotic, based on microbial activity in the soil, other soil-borne interactions (e.g. plant-parasitic nematodes, omnivores), and also involve interactions with above-ground antagonists (pathogens and herbivores) and mutualists (pollinators, perdators and parasitoids). Humans are disrupting these interactions through altering abiotic processes (soil chemistry, edaphic factors etc.) and by unraveling food webs that ultimately affect plant growth and fitness. We know that above and below ground interactions can have profound effects upon the production of plant biomass, and that these may dwarf any effects of changes in atmospheric C02 within the range that Tim harps on about.
As I also said yesterday, we had a researcher give a gest lecture at the institute a few weeks ago (he is one of the world's foremost experts on interactions between soil and aboveground subsystems) and he argued that phosporous is probably the most limiting terrestrial nutrient. Humans are disrupting all kinds of nutrient cycles anyway, and we are also interfering in trophic relationships through the intensive use of pesticides and in eliminating habitats. All of these factors will rain on the parade of those who think somehow that plant growth is independent of other factors with the exception of atmospheric C02. Most of Tim's references singularly fail to account for this array of complexity. That's why it's utterly useless to think that an increase in atmospheric C02 is needed to eliminate hunger. It's bad science.
Sod: you used to be more cogent. When you say âthe effect of elevated CO2 on food production is tinyâ, that is nonsense. What is food if not CO2 mixed with H2O and N to produce carbohydrates and protein? I have NEVER said CO2 is the only input. The facts remain that rising [CO2] is associated with rising food production above and beyond what would be expected given new varieties (for which rising [CO2] is a necessary condition) and actual fertilizer consumption. You added: â'food productionâ is at best (similar to biomass) 2-3% of CO2 uptakeâ So what embodies the 98% of uptake? I use the term âfoodâ to encompass the feedstock for all living creatures. Trees in my garden produce feed for some 60 bird species, according to Rosemary, our local birdwatcher.
Finally, you said: âincreased CO2 will increase food production by 20-30% (i am taking the words of those selling CO2 to greenhouses here!!!!) over a century. just look at what food production did over the last century...â That is a falsification: adding CO2 in a greenhouse up to 1000 ppm produces an instantaneous increase of 30%+ in yield which over 100 years adds up to a lot of guilders.
Jeff at #215. You just donât get it and never will. Just produce stats to substantiate your claim that e.g. âWe know that above and below ground interactions can have profound effects upon the production of plant biomass, and that these may dwarf any effects of changes in atmospheric C02 within the range that Tim harps on aboutâ. Data, refs, or just your usual armwaving?. Have you ever produced a verifiable statement of fact at Deltoid? Not to my knowledge. Thus your final comment is simply absurd: âThat's why it's utterly useless to think that an increase in atmospheric C02 is needed to eliminate hunger". I never said that, what I do say is that rising uptakes of [CO2] MUST manifest in increased food for somebody somehere, if only for the zillions of termites in Africa and Australia, and that REDUCING [CO2] will be bad for us and for said termites, et al. Prove me wrong with evidence and citations. You will have a problem, because nobody on the Stern-Garnaut-Solomon-IPCC gravy train has ever or will ever even contemplate this issue.
Further to my last, I notice that neither sod nor Jeff Harvey criticize the Farquhar-Prentice equation that underlies my own work. Using the actuals for 2008, with CO2 emissions of 10 GtC (billion tonnes of carbon) and an increase in the [CO2] of 3.61 GtC, âuptakesâ by global biospheres accounted for 6.39 GtC. Given the Stern-Garnaut reduction target of 80% from 2000, but letâs say from only the 2008 level, we have emissions of just 2 GtC by 2050. Given the equation, that means âuptakesâ cannot exceed 2GtC, but as since 1958 they have averaged 57% of emissions, new NET uptakes from 2050 would probably not exceed 1.14 GtC, as against 6.39 GtC in 2008 (that is because plants, even trees, cannot access [CO2] that is thousands of metres above their maximum height). So what does a reduction in annual increases of uptakes from 6.39 to 1.14 GtC mean for Jeff Harveyâs beloved termites? Will their â and their cognatesâ â numbers expand or decline? Never mind us, as we are expendable to Jeff, Stern, Garnaut, Solomon, and the rest of all those eugenicists in WWF et al.
Tim, there are a number of studies which conclusively show that plant growth and survival, as well as dominance, is affected by the accumulation of soil pathogens. Work by David Wardle, John Klironomos, as well as our recent paper in Nature (Engelkes et al., in which I am a co-author) reveal that invasive and native plants differ in their responses to soil history - meaning that there soil-plant feedbacks are important. A study by Packer and Clay (Nature, 2000) similarly found that the survival of seedlings of Prunus serotina is affected by the proximity of the seedlings to the parent plant, which has accrued high levels of pathogens in its rhizosphere.
So what will enahnced atmospheric C02 levels mean for these kinds of soil-plant feedbacks? And for the status of dominant versus interstitial plants? It is hard to know. But sticking your head in the sand and saying, "Well, we haven't studied this yet, so therefore it isn't a problem", as you appear to be doing, is just pathetic. What we know is that plant growth, survival, and fitness depends on innumerable biotic and abiotic processes in the soil and above-ground domains that you habitually ignore. We know that for insects carbon is not a limiting nutrient but that nitrogen is. Reducing C02 is not necessarily bad for insect herbivores because it means that they have more access to nitrogen in plant tissues. In an increased C02 environment, it is likely that nitrogen and phosphorus will be shunted out of plant tissues to accomodate the increased C02. We can therefore expect insects to compensate by feeding more to accrue the necessary nitrogen to optimize their own growth and fitness. This means more damage to plants growing under higher C02 regimes. Moreover, as I have said many times, increased atmospheric C02 will lead to competitive assymetries amongst soil and above-ground consumers over several trophic levels. Drigo et al. showed in her recent PhD thesis here that in elevated C02 regimes there is increased competitiona amongst soil microbes and mycorrhiza that lead to the exclusion of some species and the dominance of others. This reduces functional redundancy by reducing species diversity - redundancy is important in maintaining the integrity of ecological systems by enabling multiple species to fill similar ecological roles (or functions). By reducing redundancy, a system is pushed closer to its edge.
Basically, its clear to me that you do not understand any of this, so you ignore or downplay it. You focus on simple linear correlations which exclude a wide array of other processes. How many articles do you read in which trophic interactions are explored in plant communities? Again, your pontifications assume that plant growth is free of biotic constraints, and only respond to cycles of carbon. This, of course, is a grade school level of understanding of the ways in which natural systems function. You wrongly correlate increased C02 with increased biomass (which is not a givemn as Sod showed) and assume that increased biomass = increased food, while ignoring qualitiative aspects of this biomass. Even if there were biomass produced under increased C02 regimes, this in no way guarantees that the extra biomass is of the same quality (in terms of multiple nutrient acquisition) as plants with slightly lower levels of biomass. And, as I have said, it ignores effects on plant antagonists and mutualists that are a vital component of terrestrial systems and the way they function. Primary productivity is therefore affected by much, much more than carbon sequestration. Your view of the world is strictly 'bottom-up'. What about trophic cascades, or have you never heard of them?
Its clear that you cannot come up with something better than simple linear correlations which expunge a range of other vitally important parameters. Again, all of your posts reveal an exceedingly poor and simplified view of the natural world.
In post # 186, Tim wrote, regarding the costs of invasive species:
"Just yesterday it was reported (The Australian) that the township worst affected by the Victoria fires, Marysville, (over 100 dead), has just 3 houses still standing, all of which had English (deciduous) trees, and on its oak lined main street just 3 succumbed. Here in Canberra my house is in the direct line of fire, and we have got rid of our native eucalypts, replacing them with oaks and maples etc".
How to dismantle such simplfieid gobbledegook? It is estimated that exotic species cost the global economy perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars per year (Pimentel et al., 2000; Simpson, 2004). It is probably the second biggest driver of species extinction after habitat loss. So what does Tim do? Cite one pithy example where he sees invasives as being beneficial. Unbelieveable.
His example is akin to someone saying that smoking does not harm one's health because they personally know a regular smoker who has lived to 90. Therefore, smoking isn't bad for you. How can I take Tim or his arguments seriously when he cites these kinds of examples?
What is food if not CO2 mixed with H2O and N to produce carbohydrates and protein?
as always Curtin, you are talking about complicated stuff, without understanding the basics. here is a simple experiment for you:
get some orchids. beautiful flowers. they need water. actually we can show, that they prosper better, with more water. so keep adding water. lots of water. after a few days, they will die. but who want orchids anyway. some other plants will take their place. algae, fungi, LOTS of plants. and one day, there will be some orchids again...
So what embodies the 98% of uptake? I use the term âfoodâ to encompass the feedstock for all living creatures. Trees in my garden produce feed for some 60 bird species, according to Rosemary, our local birdwatcher.
you might want to google the term ["algae pest"](http://www.pestalert.org/Detail.CFM?recordID=13).
you are living in a dreamland. changes in the environment benefit certain species more than others. the best thing about nature is variety. many changes made by mankind, remove variety. our livestock and crops don t grow in ADDITION to orchids and wolfs. they live INSTEAD.
the trees in the gardens of many people don t feed any birds at all. because they are foreign plants, that aren t eaten by local birds. or that a prefered by ONE very common bird, and replace trees that were the food of very rare birds.
That is a falsification: adding CO2 in a greenhouse up to 1000 ppm produces an instantaneous increase of 30%+ in yield which over 100 years adds up to a lot of guilders.
i know that you would like to increase CO2 in our atmosphere to 1000 ppm immediately. thank god, this wont happen. instead, it will take about a century (if we don t change things) to levels that are similar to greenhouse environments. that is the century, i was talking about.
using the last century as a guideline, we would do things significantly wrong, if an increase by 30% would be very significant over such a time. and again, this are maximum effects for plants that profit, taking from advertisement. and it is ignoring all other effects that CO" and global warming will have...
Further to my last, I notice that neither sod nor Jeff Harvey criticize the Farquhar-Prentice equation that underlies my own work.
it looks as if i hadn t made a major point clear enough:
i consider EVERYTHING that you ever wrote to be utterly FALSE.
it is so much rubbish, i just can t contradict it all. heavens, obviously the whole Deltoid crowed can t keep up with the nonsense you are writing!
i would kindly ask you to NEVER EVER assume that i agree with you on any point, just because i don t contradict it. i simply most likely don t.
Tim Curtin.
There is unfortunately a bit of a crisis in my family at the moment, so for the foreseeable future I won't have the luxury for taking time to address the perpetual and prodigious stream of nonsense that you manifest on this and on other threads. As much as trying to ensure that your pseudoscience does not gain credibility anywhere at all is a worthy endevour in my eyes, looking out for those dear to me wins hands down.
However, whilst I am away I would like you to consider sloths and koalas, and to tell us why their biology makes a lie of your claims of trophic Eutopia.
And as you gagged at the thought of reviewing Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, perhaps your can review some of the seminal works of Edward O. Wilson, Sylvia Earl, Tom Lovejoy, and Stephen Schneider and explain why you think their conclusions are incorrect, fraudulent, and/or incompetent. These eminent biologists certainly contradict everything you say.
I am sure that Jeff, sod, Ian and others will be on the ball to scrutinise your answer and to keep you on the straight and narrow if I am unable to check in for the next few days.
Happy sciencing.
Oh, and please be sure to keep us all appraised of your correspondence. Given the rate at which you contradict or refute everything that Jeff, sod, Ian and I try to educate you about, you must be busy indeed seeking out the authors of the many thousands of papers, and the dozens of journals that published them, in order to demand retractions and apologies.
And how's the paradigm-busting monograph coming along? It must be a bushel-hidden nut indeed, because nothing that you have produced thus far has anything like the form of a scientific argument about it. Hint: random formulæ and quantities are meaningless without a discussion or their context, of their derivations, of their relationships to relevant information, and a provision of sufficient supporting references that are not misinterpreted. Yes, I know that it takes time, and indeed that a thread such as this might not be the best forum for such detail, but if you have properly worked on the phenomena that you espouse you surely have the material documented in workbooks, in spreadsheets, and in manuscript drafts.
For the umpteenth time, show us your science.
Jeff: To cut your long stories short, please give examples of food for any plant or animal species that is not CO2 dependent (in the form of that being a necessary albeit not sufficient condition). Then show with you own evidence that numbers of any species you care to name will not decrease if first the rate of growth, and then the actual quantum, of its own specialized food source diminishes as proposed by IPCC, Stern et al et al.
Sod. The native birds in my garden, that at times mimic Hitchcock and treat me as a tenant on notice to quit, just love our non-native grapes, and the pods of our japanese elms, etc etc. That is because they have not joined WWF and like all non-human species are opportunist, eating whatever is around and tastes good. Grow up! My point is that it is the IPCC et al. who refuse to admit any countervailing benefits from [CO2}, and the et al include the serially dishonest Stern & Garnaut reports which both claim to do cost-benefit analysis but exclude all benefits of [CO2]. I note that none of Team Garnaut has challenged my critique in Quadrant. They do not because they cannot, I sat next to his lead co-author at an ANU seminar on Tuesday, and he had nothing to say before scuttling off. He like Chris Field and Sue Solomon is on record as claiming that it is emissions of CO2 that determine climate, not [CO2]. So much for science. [CO2] may have side efects, but its costs need to be quantified and set against its benefits. That is beyond you, not to mention Stern and Garnaut, so you are in the good company of those charlatans. Finally, I take it that you consider the Farquhar-Prentice equation that I use is invalid? Do tell saucy Sue, and you could get a job on the next IPCC ramp.
Bernard: sorry about your family crisis. When you have time do let me have the material of your own stellar research âas documented in workbooks, in spreadsheets, and in manuscript draftsâ, you know my address, I will reciprocate when I have yours.
Tim, I asked you: have you heard of trophic cascades? Have you ever heard of the green world hypothesis? This stipulates that top-down (natural enemy control) may be an important determinant of plant biomass, and not only bottom-up (plant- or nutrient-mediated) factors. Recent meta analyses by the likes of Halaj, Wise, Schmitz, Hamback etc. examined the potential for trophic cascades in terrestrial habitats (we know already they are well defined in aquatic habitats) but found evidence for them in terrestrial habitats as well, PARTICULARLY IN SIMPLE HABITATS OR IN PLANT MONOCULTURES. This means that agricultural systems and habitats dominated by one or only a few species are characterized by strong top-down as well as bottom-up pressures. The entire basis of classical biological control hinges on the existence of trophic cascades.
The conclusion is that the production of plant biomass and plant fitness can often depend strongly on the role of natural enemies in suppressing herbivore and pathogen populations. This is very relevant for this discussion, because you totally exempt the second trophic level and higher from your equations. You act as if herbivores and their natural enemies don't exist, and that plant growth and biomass production are not at all affected by more complex biotic processes. Moreover, you also ignore interactions with soil-borne organisms, such as nematodes, earthworms, mites and bacteria, which are vitally important. Some years ago there was an attempt to re-grow confierous trees in a habitat that had been clear cut several months earlier in the US Rocky Mountains. Seedlings were carefully plated, but within a few weeks to months they all began to die. The US forest service and biologists were mystified, but on closer examination it was found that the constant movement of heavy logging eqipment - trucks, bulldozers etc. - had compressed the soil and had seriously harmed the biotic soil community which was essential for the plants. Many mutualists were destroyed.
In all of your posts, you habitually exclude trophic interrelationships. Most of those promulgating the same story as you do so as well. I have yet to see an article expounding the benefits of increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide on plant growth and food productivity take any of these complex biotic interactions into account (please send me any that do). As I have said a million times, Tim, your thinking on this is strictly and simply linear. Thus: Increase parameter 'A' (C02) and this benefits agent 'B' (plant growth). But along the way you completely ignore biotic agents 'C' through 'Z' which play a vital role in system productivity. Without a better understanding of these effects, we are groping blindly in the dark. One cannot extrapolate as you do on the basis of simple permutations.
I am frankly getting tired of having to repeat this refrain. Whether you like it or not, Tim, the vast majority of the scientific community would agree with me on this. They know well enough that such linear extrapolations on complex adaptive systems are not viable, espeically given the fact that humans are dominating and altering vast swathes of the biosphere. You and a few others are very much out on a limb, and, as a consequence your views do not hold much water.
What it all comes down to is the applicability of the precautionary principle. This is the crux. You believe that we need 100% evidence that current human activities are pushing our ecological life-support systems towards the edge, and, lacking that, we ought to do nothing or very little to alter our current course. More importantly, you believe that the current global experiment - for it is precisely that - in which we continue to pump out vast amounts of greenhouse gases, and alter natural systems in a myriad of other ways, should be continued on the basis of very, very fragmentary evidence of either no deleterious consequences or even of benefits. Again, in my view as a scientist, this is utter folly. The broad view amongst environmental scientists is that the consequences of continuing along the same path could be very grave. I therefore believe that there is enough evidence on the declining quality of natural systems as a result of various human activities to take remedial action.
Jeff: you said - "Thus: Increase parameter 'A' (C02) and this benefits agent 'B' (plant growth). But along the way you completely ignore biotic agents 'C' through 'Z' which play a vital role in system productivity". No I do not, I just await your quantifications of C thru Z relative to my A. If the increase of [CO2] by c. 10% since 1980 is associated with increased world food production of 60% after taking into account fertilization usage, temperature, rainfall, and new varieties, DESPITE the negatives of your C thru Z, where are you? Just produce counter-regressions of your variables along with mine against population growth rates of whatever your favourite species is; I suggest termites, as they are doing just fine everywhere. Then get back to me, and not until then.
You then claimed that I "believe that the current global experiment - for it is precisely that - in which we continue to pump out vast amounts of greenhouse gases [actually just increasing at only 2 p.a. since 1997, while the [CO2] grows at only at most 0.5% p.a.], and alter natural systems in a myriad of other ways, should be continued on the basis of very, very fragmentary evidence of either no deleterious consequences or even of benefits." Exactly, until proven otherwise, which you have yet to do.
Have we missed a cite that corroborates this [qualified I notice] statement?
Tim Curtin, Read the last two paragraphs of my last post again. Most scientists would think your position to be untenable at best, and loony at worst.
Hugh nailed it too - the increase in world food production has nix to do with increases in atmospheric C02. You are drawing linear correlations on the basis of a few lab experiments that have left out all or most of the parameters I have discussed ad nauseum in previous posts. The green revolution had everything to do with increases in technology that have not yet been offset by the destruction humans have wrought on nature. The fact that desert expansion is expected to gobble up much of the world's most productive agricultural land by 2050 is alarming. We are draining groundwater supplies at clearly unsustainable levels - the aquifers underlying the China Plain and Oglalla aquifer underlying the US midwest are drying up because we are overusing them. These are vital sources for agriculture. Most of the world's bread baskets are on drylands anyway. Tim, its also time you learned a bit about stoichiometry. Your termite comment is kindergraten level science. You do not understand the concept of trophic cascades. Again, you ignore all of the research showing that natural systems are declining qualitatively and quantitatively. Look beyond the end of your nose, man: the data isn't hard to find. The IUCN is one place; there are many other sources. Get off your butt and do some perusing through the journals I mentioned the other day. Their pages are filled with empirical evidence in support of my perspective, which is broadly the scientific consensus anyway (thank God for that). Since your position is a very small minority, other than to draw frankly absurd correlations, it is up to you to show that (1) plant biomass is unaffected by top-down processes, and (2) that the current human global experiment is having and will continue to have benign consequences on compelx systems. Given that the evidence is that every natural system is in decline, from forests to coastal marine ecosystems to freshwater systems, then it is you who are out on a limb. If your position were more widely ackowledged, then I would be much more on the defensive. But it is not. Most scientists are well aware that humanity is on the wrong path and that we (primarily in the developed world) are gobbling up natural capital at an alarming rate. The solutions to hunger are political and not scientific. We need more social justice and equity in the world, and not frankly absurd notions that the use of fossil fuels has benefits that we never considered before. The global economies are sturctured to look after the privilweged few. Unless this changes I believe there will be a slow road to catastrophe, as pointed out by economist Tom Athanasiou. Meddling with complex natural systems we barely understand as a quick 'fix' in illogical and absurd. There are too many unknowns. You are saying that, because we barely ld on ignorance to get us through the bottleneck we have created for ourselves. Business-as-usual, because the tooth fairy will save us.
I just don't have the time to continue with this frankly absurd debate, as I actually do science and have been trained as a scientist (you have not, and as I've said time and time again, do not understand basic ecology, let alone the complex stuff). Why I am wasting my breath on your absurd views is beyond me, anyway.
As I have a quiet minute from the current turmoil at home...
Tim: how are the reviews and the letters coming along? Have you sorted out those abominable wrinkles in ecology yet?
And have you learned the lesson that koalas and sloths (amongst many others) offer?
Jeff (at the end of #227): I have thought on this myself this frequently over the months, and especially over the life of this thread. The thing that keeps me plugging away is that it appears that folk such as Tim actually believe in their own genius, a la Messrs Dunning and Kruger, and rattle their pots and pans sufficiently loudly that other Denialists, and those predisposed to the Denialist message, take up the false memes.
And it is memes such as these that percolate into the wider community and into the policy frays that cause sufficient inaction to result in significant additional damage over and above what might occur if action was prompt. Even though Quadrant is a sorry rag of a publication these days, it has credibility amongst some and Tim is spinning his appearance there for all he is worth. I shudder to think that he might slip something else out somewhere unchallenged.
Emperor Tim is wearing no clothes. He refuses to look into the mirror, and he refuses to demonstrate that his invisible and diaphenous garments actually have any substance. Nevertheless he insists that he is handsomely and magically attired, and his courtiers are all too ready to agree.
However the rumour of his magnificent wardrobe is hurting the planet, and for this reason I'll keep kicking at his carcass until it pops.
It is interesting (to any critically observant reader) to note that, after more than 200 posts in this thread, he still hasn't responded to my goading, nor to your patient, detailed and referenced explanations, by demonstrating that he has even a rudimentary capacity to incorporate a basic ecophysiological architecture to support his claims and to account for our challenges to the innumerable shortcomings in his (mis)conceptions.
I am reminded of Frank's ironic wont to exhort the "Galileo!" defence. In Tim Curtin's case though, Galileo would be orbiting in his grave.
Tim Curtin.
I have a challenge for you: contact the ecology/ecophysiology department at ANU, and offer to present your CO2 theory in one of the lunchtime (or similar) seminars.
You will have 50 minutes with which to carefully detail your analyses, and I am sure that you will receive constructive feedback, which will probably even be reviewed here.
There is absolutely no reason for you not wanting to spread your message in this manner.
Hi Bernard,
I really appreciate all of your thoughtful posts. I also hope things aren't too tough for you on the home front at the moment. I always look forward to your comments.
As far as Tim is concerned, you've pretty well summed it up perfectly. As I said before, it gets exasperating because it seems like I am speaking to a wall. There's too much simplistic nonsense, in my view, for me to accurately get to all of it. Frankly, I don't have the time. I have a pile of manuscripts to review right now, a few more to write up, a PhD thesis to go through and a grant pre-proposal to get done. The only reason I respond to Tim's musings is because I fear that others who don't know any better might stumble onto this thread, read his posts and somehow derive the opinion that they make sense and are enlightened. Scientists should expend more time crossing the boundry into the public arena and Tim L's excellent site is a good venue for it; hence why I put aside a few minutes each day if I think its worth the trouble.
I have to admit that this thread is wearing a bit thin for me; it might be because there is really nothing more to say. The simple, linear extrapolations that Tim concocts from a few primarily lab-based studies or models just don't give much of a clue how complex adaptive natural systems will respond to the continual human assault, especially as there are so many dimensions on which it is happening. Climate change might just be the final nail in the coffin, particularly since nature has been stressed by man in a multitude of other ways, and that we know that the genetic variability of animal and plant populations, which has already been greatly reduced for many species, is a necessary pre-requisite for their adaptation to further change.
The thrust of my arguments is that humans are tinkering with immensely complex systems and yet, in spite of the efforts expended by countless numbers of ecologists and environmental scientists beavering away all over the world, working at different levels of organization, we still barely understand the rule governing the assembly and function of these systems. In the background we have the pundits telling us that there's nothing to fear, and that the current human experiment is actually likely to produce net benefits for society as opposed to costs. Of course this is madness, given what we do know, and it is in this capacity that I feel that it is imperative to counter the kinds of arguments being produced by Tim Curtin and his ilk. At least I have the practice; I do have to deal with these arguments quite often, usually from lay people and the public, less often from students. But I feel that it is vitally important that scientists expned at least some efforts to counter the Dr. Panglosses of this world.
Hugh,
although I can't read Curtin's dissembling because he is [killfile]d,
looking at your response reminds me that numerous times useful idiots underinformed or willfully misleading ideologues have attempted to assert that world food production has increased as CO2 increased, therefore CO2 is yummy for plants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! heart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
Arguments like this are only worth ridicule. Of course there is no reference, but one should acknowledge your politeness in the face of such a clown-like assertion.
Jus' sayin'.
Best,
D
If the increase of [CO2] by c. 10% since 1980 is associated with increased world food production of 60% after taking into account fertilization usage, temperature, rainfall, and new varieties, DESPITE the negatives of your C thru Z, where are you?
Tim, please stop making up those numbers.
here are those from advertisements of the ["greenhouse CO2 enrichment industry":](http://www.homeharvest.com/carbondioxideenrichment.htm)
BIBB LETTUCE By adding CO2 to the atmosphere around the plant, a 40% crop increase was achieved. Whereas previous crops averaged 22 heads per basket, lettuce grown in the increased CO2 atmosphere (550 ppm) averaged 16 heads of better quality per basket.
less increase with much more CO2. again: please stop making up numbers!!!
The native birds in my garden, that at times mimic Hitchcock and treat me as a tenant on notice to quit, just love our non-native grapes, and the pods of our japanese elms, etc etc. That is because they have not joined WWF and like all non-human species are opportunist, eating whatever is around and tastes good.
look, i thought your knowledge and understanding of climate related stuff is basically one of the lowest level that can be achieved. now you demonstrated, that you know even less about zoology.
not all species are generalists. one of the best know examples is the [koala](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koala#Diet_and_behaviour).
those generalists are most often very common animals already. but yes, cockroach, rat and pigeon are very nice animals as well.
the claim that all non-human species are opportunist, eating whatever is around is simply FALSE.
Bernard said #229: "I have a challenge for you: contact the ecology/ecophysiology department at ANU, and offer to present your CO2 theory in one of the lunchtime (or similar) seminars.
You will have 50 minutes with which to carefully detail your analyses, and I am sure that you will receive constructive feedback, which will probably even be reviewed here."
Well I cannot speak for all departments at ANU, but jost over a year ago I gave a presentation to the Emeritus Faculty of the ANU, whose memberships largely comprises distinguished retired professors like Frank Fenner et al (The Fenner School of Environment & Society is named after him, and he is a frequent attender). With my habitual modesty I mention that my lecture was packed, with both Faculty members and research students there. The slide show is at my website: CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION
- AND MASS STARVATION BY 2050?. Then in October I gave a presentation to the RMAP seminar series at ANU's Research School Asia & Pacific Studies, again packed, and covered by WIN TV, which featured my presentation on that evening's news bulletin, the presentation is at my website: "Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant".
I think the time is not quite ripe for yet another, I'll wait till my "CO2 as fertilizer" appears
Good to have fans like you!
"With my habitual modesty I mention that my lecture was packed, with both Faculty members and research students there".
Says nothing. I gave lectures in Denmark following the Lomborg saga in 2002 and I was told by staff that both lectures at Aarhus and Copenhagen Universities attracted some of the biggest audiences they had ever seen. Theproof of the pudding is one's standing on the international scientific arena. You are firmly at the very back of the queue.
In your case, methinks you overestimate your standing in the field. Where are your peer-reviewed publications? How many times have you been invited to give lectures at Princeton, Stanford, and other US universities? How many reviews have you made for scientific journals on this and related topics? A bit of humility would go a long way, Tim. As it stand, your views are somewhere way out in the distant mists. Given that you ignore ecological realities, and the fact that solving world hunger is a political, not a scientific problem, you are whistling in the wind. I do not place much stock in people arguing that humans should continue conducting a single non-replicatable global experiment on immensely complex systems with all kinds of possible outcomes, because they think they have found what they think is a simple linear positive correlation in one variable (and this is certainly not proven). The worst thing is to exclude all other possible outcomes because they are poorly understood due to the infancy of the field. Yet that is what you are saying.
I would take your message to the developing world. I find it hard to envisage the desperate populations in the developing world begging the west to pump more C02 into the atmosphere to enable them to increase their crop production. The elites in the north and their counterparts in the south know all-too-well what underlies the current predicament. And it ain't a shortage of C02. Its equity and social justice.
I refer the honourable gentlemen to the answer I gave previously.
Jeff: You say your lectures attacking Lomborg were well attended. What happened to your follow up publications, with such an eager audience? I have yet to see in print any coherent and sustained refutation of Lomborg, who has however attracted the participation of some very eminent Nobel winners in his Copenhagen series. I did see the serially dishonest attack on Lomborg by none other than Obama's John Holdren, by Ehrlich our of Schneider, congenitally economical like them with the truth as they admit themselves. Lomborg's books are outstanding and have more common sense economics and ecology than any of the ramblings of Stern the IPCC and Garnaut or dare I say it Jeff. You have never on this blog offered any evdience of anything at all. I like to deal in facts and regressions thereof. Where are yours?
You then said "I find it hard to envisage the desperate populations in the developing world begging the west to pump more C02 into the atmosphere to enable them to increase their crop production." Well let's see. Crops will be withering by 2020 if not before if you have your way. [CO2] is scarce, as Freeman Dyson has repeatedly pointed out, and today's annual food output is not sustainable FOR ANY SPECIES at less than 385 ppm. Hugh, for refs, see my submissions to Garnaut at his website and the papers I have posted on the web at my site, see also, for the fully footnoted version of my Quadrant paper, www.lavoisier.com.au
Tim Curtin,
I debated Lomborg here in 2002, in Holland, and from most of the feedback I got I demolished him. I focused on 3 aspects of his book: his misunderstanding of basic concepts such as 'ecosystem services', his flawed interpretation of extinction rates and models of exponential decay to predict them, and his misquoting of scientists to change the meaning of what they said. The problem was, in my Bjorn didn't appear to understand very well the gist of some of his conclusions. He was given 15 minutes to refute me and did not even try. He could only tell the audience that he would 'look into what I said' - his usual response, giving the audience the idea that he was interested in getting at the facts, which is clear to me he doesn't.
In a subsequent venue, Lomborg withdrew when I was named as joint keynote speaker (2002, Copenhagen) and he later declined a debate with me (Amsterdam, 2002). I have no fear of him or of his alleged 'facts'. I will debate him anywhere, anyplace, if he has the guts.
Lomborg assembled a bunch of neoclassical economists for his Copenhagen shindig. The meeting and the conference flopped, based on follow up comments. That wasn't hard to imagine, given that not a single ecologically minded economist was invited.
As for Freeman Dyson, he can have his views. But he is not an ecologist, but a mathematician and physicist. This does not qualify him as I see it to comment on areas outside of his fields of expertise with any great authority. Read what one blogger had to say about Dyson's views on climate change, and Dyson's response:
http://recursed.blogspot.com/2009/01/blowhard-of-month-freeman-dyson.ht…
And therefore in my opinion its just completely illogical to claim that plants need 385ppm to sustain food production. Most environmental scientists would break out in laughter at this notion - again, its all guesswork, expunging effects of this on a complex array of natural systems. I'll be kind here Tim: you don't have a clue what you are talking about - at least that is the way I see it. Most scientists would agree with me, I am sure.
Speaking of blowhards of the month, Tim, are you putting your name forward for Shallit's award? Here's his definition of the qualifications necessary:
"The hallmark of the blowhard is to spout off in areas outside his competence".
Well?
Jeff: Take it easy, Freeman Dyson is spot on, and it will take more than that idiotic blog to debunk one of the finest minds of the last 60 years. You also said: "therefore in my opinion it's just completely illogical to claim that plants need 385ppm to sustain food production". That encapsulates all that lies between us: you think isues of fact (such as, are there black swans?) are matters for logic, whereas I ask you to prove there are no black swans (as was believed before Cap'n Cook). In my example, let's place bets. How much are you willing to pay if global food production as measured by the FAO is less in say 2015 than now if Bali & Copenhagen targets are achieved? Or in whatever year such targets for absolute reduction in emissions to below the present NET absorption rate of 6 GtC p.a. are achieved? Or just show me your regressions for global food output vis a vis [CO2] when the latter is forced from 385 to 350 ppm as demanded by Hansen.
Tim,
Debate is closed. You lose. Get over it.
Me, I think I'll bask inb the glow and install a killfile for you, as Dano has suggested.
The slide show is at my website: CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION - AND MASS STARVATION BY 2050?.
there are several explanations. did you only invite denialists? did you hide your plainly false thesis behind your usual scientific confusion speeeches?
why don t you start your next slide show (and the invitaion to your speech) with your claim, that coalas will change their diet to what ever grows in your garden?
I have yet to see in print any coherent and sustained refutation of Lomborg,
you don t read a lot, do you? obviously you missed (for a start) the discussion in [scientific american](http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-response-to-lomborgs-re)
today's annual food output is not sustainable FOR ANY SPECIES at less than 385 ppm.
as the advertisement of the CO2 SELLING industry says, an increase to 550ppm would give only 30% extra growth. the effect of 385ppm on growth is TINY. fact.
Curtin, this would be the right moment, to ask yourself how did all that Coal and Oil get under the soil?
an increased uptake does NOT directly transfer into an ever growing LIVING biomass. the "C" out of CO2 can also be moved back into coil and to the bottom of oceans...
Jeff: if you are so sure are right why not take me on in a bet of our own wording but to same effect, that reducing [CO2] to 350 ppm or less will have NO effect on world food production? You seem to be runnign scared?
Sod: I was generalising, Koalas are clearly an exception and certainly are in danger of exticntion, not least because of removal of their habitat in Victoria by Green-instigated fires. Let me "many" species are opportunists and adapt to changed diet availabilities. Bet offer stands re reduction to 350 ppm if secured at Copenhagen and implemented in our respective lifetimes.
BTW, what have you say about Chris Field'repeated stament that it is emissions not [CO2] that determine climate:
JUAN GONZALEZ: A leading member of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is warning the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is rising more rapidly than expected in recent years. The scientist, Chris Field, says the current trajectory of climate change is now much worse than the IPCC had originally projected in part due to China and Indiaâs increasing reliance on coal power.
The research shows carbon emissions have grown sharply since 2000, despite growing concerns about global warming. During the 1990s, carbon emissions grew by less than one percent per year. Since 2000, emissions have grown at a rate of 3.5 percent per year. No part of the world had a decline in emissions from 2000 to 2008". [But the whole world did between 1997 and 1999, see Global Carbon Project, and I bet this year will be similar]
...
Field again: "If we look since 2000, weâve seen a rapid acceleration in CO2 emissions, so that the actual trajectory of emissions has grown more rapidly than in any of the scenarios that were characterized in detail. The reason I say weâre on a trajectory of climate change that we havenât explored is that we have only looked at scenarios where the growth of CO2 was limited to in the range of two to 2.5 percent per year. We genuinely donât know what a climate will look like with the more rapid rate of increase that weâre actually seeing"
Field is the man just appointed to be in charge of the WG2 of next IPCC (AR5) - and doesn't know that there is no one-for-one link between rising emissions and rising [CO2]. Last year (jan 08-Jan 09) the latter went up by just 1.5 ppm or just 0.39%, much less both proportionately and in absolute terms than the emissions.
Sod: I was generalising, Koalas are clearly an exception and certainly are in danger of exticntion,
WRONG. generalists are the exception. Curtin, you know absolutely nothing about biology.
not least because of removal of their habitat in Victoria by Green-instigated fires.
WRONG. please educate us: for how long were GREENS dominating the political scene of the region?
Let me "many" species are opportunists and adapt to changed diet availabilities.
a weak claim. what is "many"? 50? out of millions?
you would obviously want to give a percentage number. so how many species are you wiling to give up? keep 90%? or will 50% do?
and even with this massive change to your moronic claim about "all non-human species are opportunist, eating whatever is around" it would still be false in context.
"MANY native birds will switch from local plants/trees to whatever people grow in their gardens" (again) is simply a false claim. sparrows and pigeons are the birds that you will keep.
Sod: more than your economics. So wattle birds are sparrows are they? According to the latest in PNAS (Smith et al including yet again that inveterate self-confessed liar Steve Schneider) "20-30% of of known plant and animal species are already on their way out", so only 70% left to get rid of, to these authors' and your unbounded joy.
As for the victorian fires, see Rick Houlihan's prophetic paper of July 2008 over at Jen's:
"Over the years since 1997 the Shire [of Upper Yarra] has gradually moved its position on Fire
Prevention Work to its current position where residents can only 'Mow lawns, clean gutters and remove fallen branches and twigs from around their houses'. For all other works, Planning permits are required for any native vegetation
removal or pruning, including native grasses and ground covers.Threats of high fines and criminal charges resulting in court action now apply where permits are not issued to cover the removal of any native vegetation in areas other
than those exempted under clause 22.1. [Residential 1 Zone - metropolitan.]
However if a schedule 15 notice has been issued, then the removal of native vegetation is permitted. Where property owners in bushland areas were previously allowed and encouraged by the Shire, to slash 10 & 20 metre fire breaks around their properties, these activities are now illegal without a Planning permit if any native vegetation or grasses are required to be slashed, unless they are located in a Residential 1 Zone in the metropolitan areas of the Shire. In areas such as Hazeldene, Reefton, East Warburton, Noddles Creek etc, Slashing
of perimeter firebreaks largely consist of slashing native vegetation and regrowth. Other areas in Healesville and the Dandenongs would be similar. For residents in all areas contained within the Rural and Foothill Areas of the Shire,
which includes the Dandenongs, the Upper Yarra Area and Healesville, residents cannot carry out any Fire Prevention works involving the removal or destruction of
native vegetation, native grasses etc, without a Planning permit, which incidentally will cost them at least $96.00,or risk a fine of $550 plus....
What needs to occur: [but did not]
The Shire needs to prepare a detailed and definitive schedule to outline to ratepayers and contractors what Fire Prevention activities can legally be carried out on Private
Property...Firebreaks used to be recomemnded by the Shire, now they are not mentioned...This matter must be resolved as both the Shire and the Councillors run the risk of serious litigation if a serious bushfire were to occur and lives were lost as result of poor Fire preparation within the Shire of Yarra Ranges, which remains one of the most fire prone areas of the world." And the rest as they say is history, with the Shire's remarkable contribution to species elimination within its boundaries. J'accuse.
Back to Smith & Schneider in PNAS 27 Feb 09. Like Field at the US Senate on 25th feb., these authors are of the view that it is emissions and not [CO2] which determines climate, even though absorptions by the global biospheres have kept up with more rapid growth of emissions such that the latest annual growth of [CO2] is exactly the average since 1958, 0.4% p.a. Thus pace Smith et al, the rapid growth of emissions that is the sole occasion of their paper has NOT led to an acceleration in the growth of [CO2]. As there is not a single valid new piece of information in the whole paper, one can only conclude that they are putting their hands up for the next IPCC, AR5 by hoovering up to Solomon and Field.
Tim Curtin.
You are surely at the extreme end of the branch of recalcitrant scientific ignorance.
Yet again I will draw attention to the fact that you demonstrate no understanding of basic ecological concepts, nor are you able to describe any mechanism that supports any of the theories that you espouse and that simultaneously refutes the enormous mass of scientific understanding that puts falsity your ideas.
Seriously - how often have you cracked any of the journals Jeff mentioned above? How many papers from those journals have you reviewed and filed in your library?
You pick a few arbitrary datasets and apply regressions to them, and from this you extrapolate an interpretation of global-scale systems of incomprehensible complexity. This is not how a scientist or a statistician uses a regression.
Regression analyses demonstrate correlation, and not causation, and most especially they do not do so in the case of system-decoupled data. To demonstrate causation one must apply experimental methodology to a system, with a priori hypotheses and analytical methodologies already established. Where empirical experimentation is not possible, one can apply more pure statistical methodologies, that incorporate extensive recursive/back-testing procedures, although these are never as 'good' as real-system experimentation.
You have done neither. You could have easily pulled a other hundred parameters out of your arse, as you have already done, and come up with the correlations you present, but that have no relationship to 'productivity'. And r2 values are not 'proof' - they merely identify how a 'change' in x relates to a change in 'y' - this does not mean that x actually changed y.
You have no science.
You make claims with no backing; you refute whole disciplines of knowledge with no supporting material. You refuse to address fundamental questions repeatedly put to you, that would scupper your claims if you actually considered them.
You say that pre-industrial biospheric productivity was significantly lower than that post-industrialisation. In one to several paragraphs, can you provide a precise that explains the methodology, the data sources and the references to support this claim?
You say that there is are no increased rates of species extinction, counter to thousands of papers that say otherwise. In one to several paragraphs, can you provide a precise that explains the methodology, the data sources and the references to support your claim?
You say that there is no crisis of habitat loss/fragmentation. In one to several paragraphs, can you provide a precise that explains the methodology, the data sources and the references to support this claim, and that refutes the thousands of papers that recognise the dangers of habitat destruction and fragmentation for biodiversity?
You say that growth of human society is not resource-constrained. In one to several paragraphs, can you provide a precise that explains the methodology, the data sources and the references to support this claim, and that refutes the thousands of papers that recognise the constraint, limitations and asymptotes to growth?
Have you submitted yet your critical correspondence to the authors and the journals mentioned repeated in earlier posts?
You have not yet demonstrated that you understood my reference to koalas and to sloths. I notice that you have gone off on an irrelevant tangent about koalas, so I will provide you with a hint: what is particular about the metabolism of these two taxa (and to many besides) that puts paid to your fantasy about a carbon dioxide-driven Utopia? You may have to learn some real physiology to answer this, so perhaps it is beyond you to address.
Can you describe in one to several paragraphs the scientific methodology that supports the empirical basis for being able to propose the bet with Jeff that you did?
Your reference to an emeritus 'seminar' is a red-herring. I have attended such, and the audience is usually silently po-faced when an emeritus has gone 'emeritus'. The classic example I use is one where two Australian chemists claimed that there was actually a solid basis for cold-fusion. At the end of their presentation, there were many cutting questions that were left unanswered, and the audience politely left it unsaid that there had been no answers.
Again, if you are able to defend your claims, you will do so in detail in front of a forum of experts in the fields that you are refuting. Let us see you do this.
I seriously doubt that Frank Fenner would have condoned the nonsense that you spout. I myself met Frank a number of years ago, and his scientific understandings are aligned with Jeff's, and not with yours. Of course, if I am wrong, I would invite you to seek confirmation of his concurrence with you - it should be easy if, as you say, he supports your ideas.
And then there is:
Empirical evidence? References?
And what of the fact that EVERY SPECIES, including humans, did just fine and dandy at ~280ppm for millenia? How does that work?
And we've discussed Freeman Dyson several times before. Sadly, he is a not-uncommon example of someone who, although emminent in his own field (or in 'his/her 'time'), can be quite bonkers about matters in which they are not trained, or which they promote in their autumn years. Nobel laureate Cary Mullis of PCR fame is another example, with his increasingly unsupportable notion of the non-HIV model of AIDS.
The only people who might listen to you are those ignorant of the science. If you are trying to attain credibility in the real scientific arena you are failing, simply because you ignore every process, every tenet and just about every fact of science that any half-compenent person is well-aware of.
You might be living happily in the puffed-up belief that you are a hard-hitting player in science, but to anyone who has half a clue you are a sad old troll who is just gumming up the works.
Ad hominem? No, because this is simple fact.
If you disagree, address my points above.
Dear Bernard: once again I am flattered that for every 100 words I offer you respond with about 500. Many thanks.
It is late, I have been watching the cricket at the Wanderers (where I played for my prep. school Pridwin back in 1950 or so, and golf later, beyond the golf course end of the ground).
So I won't respond to all of your diatribe just now. You said "I seriously doubt that Frank Fenner would have condoned the nonsense that you spout... Of course, if I am wrong, I would invite you to seek confirmation of his concurrence with you - it should be easy if, as you say, he supports your ideas." I NEVER said that he did.
You added: "And then there is: [quoting me]'today's annual food output is not sustainable FOR ANY SPECIES at less than 385 ppm' Empirical evidence? References?" Watch this space, but see refs in my Quadrant article for a trailer!
You again: "And what of the fact that EVERY SPECIES, including humans, did just fine and dandy at ~280ppm for millenia?" Really? prove it. Maddison shows GDP per capita in 1750 for <1 billion way below now for >6.5 billion people.
I note that you ignore the systemic dishonesty I noted above of all at IPCC, especially Schneider, Field, Solomon, Joel Smith, Schellnhuber et al et al in asserting over just the last 2 weeks that CO2 emissions equal increase in [CO2]. When you tacitly endorse them I have no problem in discounting everything you say, as I judge people by the company they keep. Those I have just named are no better than the Madoffs of this world, charlatans all, including you unless and until you explicitly admit here and now that a change in emissions does not equal the change in [CO2]. When you admit that, then we can discuss again what form the lower increase in [CO2] vis a vis emissions (measured in GtC) means for ecology.
So are you then saying that you brought up the emeritus seminar, and its distinguished audience, as an implied testing of your ideas, but a testing that did not actually occur after all?
That sounds like unsupportable name-dropping to me. To impute that someone of Fenner's reputation might agree with you, without his actual doing so, is despicable.
Erm, the fact that biodiversity was greater prior to industrialisation, than in any epoch previously, says a lot. As does the fact that the rates of extinction were lower then than when humans started with their profound impacts upon the biosphere.
I note too that you didn't actually rise to the challenge and attempt to prove the converse...
Do you think that using fossil fuels at approximately two hundred thousand times the rate at which they formed might have something to do with this?
As to the last paragraph of your post at #245...
I'm tempted to [killfile] you as many of the emminently more sensible folk here already have, but I am still waiting for you to start justifying to the long list of scientific balderdash that you manufacture. The company that you keep (I note your comfortable habitation Marohasy's) does not deter me: the only thing that might is the ever-growing extraordinarily long time it is taking you to either present some evidence of scientific understanding, or to concede your ignarance and bugger off back to the shade of the rock from which you crawled in the first place (with apologies to all respectable under-rock dwellers of the non-human biosphere).
Bernard: you challenged me to offer a seminar at ANU, I replied that I gave two there last year, one to the Emeritus Faculty; I mentioned that Fenner is a member to indicate that it has some standing. Whether he attended mine or not is immaterial, but in any case I know his views diverge from mine. The main thrust of my Quadrant article was that CO2 is not a pollutant, and I used the carbon budget equation and associated data to show that more than half of all CO2 emissions are absorbed by the biosphere and that this is not harmful - indeed biospheric sequestration is widely applauded as a positive step, except by Smith, Schneider, Field Solomon, et al, who deny it exists, and it seems yourself. Thus it is not off thread for me to point out their dishonesty in suppressing any mention of biospheric absorption in their efforts over the last few weeks to stir up alarmism despite failing to produce any evidence of negative effects of the actual very slow build-up of [CO2] - other than to claim as Smith Schneider et al do in this week's PNAS that Katrina and the Paris heatwave of 2003 are proof of damaging climate change, but that itself is utterly unscientific. Their dishonesty knows no bounds. I am sorry to see you supporting it.
I'm tempted to [killfile] you as many of the emminently more sensible folk here already have, but I am still waiting for you to start justifying to the long list of scientific balderdash that you manufacture.
pppppPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPHHhhhhhhhffffffffffffffttttt! HahahahahahaHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Oh, man, Bernard. I spit out my drinkie on the monitor! You vewy funny guy!
Best,
D
Thanks Dano, I estimate that is the 1,000th time you have made that comment, it is so erudite I wish I could cite you.
Finally, here's a challenge to Jeff, Bernard, sod, et al: how many of the species collected and enumerated by Darwin are no longer at the locations he found them? Not even 70% according to Schneider. Is he right?
It is good to occasionally give Tim Curtin a stage upon which to post. It allows so many of us to take a look, remind ourselves that yep, he really is just as batshit as we remember, and then go on ignoring his ass.
At 249, is Curtin really asserting that "not even" 70% of Darwin's enumerated species are locally extinct, as if that allegation is some kind of support for something he is saying?
Lee, Jeff, Bernard & co: ever read Darwin?
"(iii) Species extinction is usually, though not always, caused by the failure of a species in competition with other species. That is, causes of extinction are generally biological, not physical.
The inhabitants of each successive period in the world's history have beaten their predecessors in the race for life, and are, insofar, higher in the scale of nature.... (p. 345)
... each new variety, and ultimately each new species, is produced and maintained by having some advantage over those with which it comes into competition; and the consequent extinction of the less-favoured forms almost inevitably follows. (p. 320)
(iv) The extinction of species (and larger groups) is closely tied to the process of natural selection and is thus a major component of progressive evolution. (p. 172)
The extinction of species and of whole groups of species, which has played so conspicuous a part in the history of the organic world, almost inevitably follows on the principle of natural selection; for old forms will be supplanted by new and improved forms. (p. 475)
Thus, as it seems to me, the manner in which single species and whole groups of species become extinct accords well with the theory of natural selection. (p. 322)'
What is absolutely certain is that none of Smith, Schneider et al PNAS 27 Feb 09 ever did read Darwin - "That is, causes of extinction are generally biological, not physical". I suspect they are closet creationists. The challenge stands, how many of the species listed by Darwin are no longer with us? The best estimate I have seen is 0.2%.
Sod: more than your economics. So wattle birds are sparrows are they?
wattle birds actually seem to be rather generalist, and still are pretty rare.
garden plants don t make good food for animals, because you can NOT rely on any plant to be there. FACT.
According to the latest in PNAS (Smith et al including yet again that inveterate self-confessed liar Steve Schneider) "20-30% of of known plant and animal species are already on their way out", so only 70% left to get rid of, to these authors' and your unbounded joy.
Curtin, every time you get into a new subject, you expose even more lack of knowledge. please stop doing it.
As for the victorian fires, see Rick Houlihan's prophetic paper of July 2008 over at Jen's:
some how your long answer didn t contain a single word, about the "greens" dominating any governmental body. your claims are simply false.
but let us apply the "Tim Curtin" theory to bushfires:
according to Tim, a significant amount of biomass is a product of the increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere. if we follow this theory, a significant amount of the deal leaves and branches feeding the recent bush fires, are CAUSED by that CO2 increase. just by chance, Tim is blaming the greens anyway....
Sod. You said quoting me "As for the Victorian fires, see Rick Houlihan's prophetic paper of July 2008 over at Jen's:"
The South Yarra Shire Council is dominated by Greens or their fellow travellers, just as the Victoria ALP government is beholden to Green prefs for even being in power. The Greens are to a man/woman eugenicists, indeed, some of my very best friends and tennis partners are fully paid up members, and all without exception think there are too many of us, so for them the bushfire death toll is a wholly welcome culling. Lovelock, Enting, Karoly, Brook, and the whole Stanford gang from Ehrlich to his clones Solomon, Smith, Schneider, Hansen, Chu and Holdren have the same mindset.
So sod, your claim that "the greens [do not] dominate any governmental body" is indeed simply false.
Then you added: "a significant amount of biomass is a product of the increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere. If we follow this theory, a significant amount of the deal [sic] leaves and branches feeding the recent bush fires, are CAUSED by that CO2 increase". Yes, forsooth. That is why establishing in depth firebreaks is more than ever necessary, but is opposed by the cretins of South Yarra. Properly managed, forests create wealth for all species.
The BBC (unusually) yesterday had a report describing how Green-instigated legislation in India has since about 1998 prevented grazing of livestock in forest reserves: result, impoverishment of pastoralists, massive fires, incineration of tigers etc, to the huge delight of Australia's Don and Ken Henry, who will not rest until we are all gone.
I still hope you will admit to resiling from the exceptionally dishonest paper by Smith et al (PNAS, 27 Feb 2009) with its claim that 100% of CO2 emissions add to the atmospheric concentration [CO2].
But I have always been aware that when policy advocates have a particular goal in view, they will not allow truth to stand in their way. That is why Bernard, Jeff, you, et all al here are not prepared to admit that [CO2] grows at only 0.4% pa even when CO2 emissions have grown recently (but not since 2007) by over 3% pa (or in absolute terms, emissions 10 GtC, absorption by biospheres c6 GtC).
Sod, I will gladly give you star billing in my upcoming CO2 as fertilizer paper (my co-author and I hope to send it off next week) if you can show ANY case where elevated [CO2] has detrimental effects. Jeff and Bernard never could or did, that is why they have given up.
So sod, your claim that "the greens [do not] dominate any governmental body" is indeed simply false.
minorities tend not to dominate anything. you are not blaming the mayor of Yarra for all the bush fires in Victoria?
(as all so often, you seem to use a non-standard definition of the term "dominance")
Yes, forsooth. That is why establishing in depth firebreaks is more than ever necessary, but is opposed by the cretins of South Yarra. Properly managed, forests create wealth for all species.
slow again: what species live of those dead branches? (the ones, which according to you, were the reasons for these fires!)
your wild ideas fall apart. even an example that you brought up (australian trees) clearly demonstrates the problem with your with your "more CO2, more biomass, better world" theory.
sod; you said - "the problem with your 'more CO2, more biomass, better world theory'...".
That reminds me of Einstein's riposte to the 100 jerks like Smith, Solomon, Schneider, Schellnhuber, et al ad nauseam, that Hitler lined up against him, "just one fact would have been enough". You, Bernard, Jeff, et all those other als. have yet to produce that single fact. And you never will, any more than dear Adolf and his 100 jerks. More [CO2] is good for you.
At #249.
Ah, another attempt to divert the discussion from the pertinent points.
We're still waiting for your science, Tim Curtin.
Nevertheless... Schneider's claim, as you relate it, is quite plausible at first consideration. I know off the bat that 4 of 15 tortoise species that Darwin 'discovered' are extinct, and when one considers that many of the animals that he identified are restricted, island species; or are tropical forest species from human-impacted areas, it is easy to see that many may have become extinct. Certainly many more are critically endangered - the Galapagos are a basket-case of threatened biodiversity.
Without having a complete list immediately at hand the 70% figure is not something I would give completely unqualified support to, but whether it's 70%, 80%, 90% or 95% of listed species that remain, the difference is still a figure that is far above the natural rate of extinction.
This hardly supports your claim that there is no biodiversity crisis. I'm sure though that this is only tangential to whatever point you were trying to twist from Schneider's statement.
Then, further along at #251, you quote-mine Darwin as if you actually have a clue about ecology and evolution, when you patently don't. Darwin's theories and conclusions themselves evolved in a milieu where human impact had not yet become obvious at many levels. If Darwin lived today he would recognise, as does any competent biologist, that humans are having an impact upon species extinction that goes far beyond the 'typical' natural processes to which he referred.
Volcano, asteroid, Homo sapiens - each can have a catastrophic impact upon species that no amount of evolutionary 'fitness' for the average rough-and-tumble of the biosphere might counter. Your effort is simply ignorance, or mendacity.
Really, what is your point about Schneider's figure? That Schneider is lying? If you bother to re-read this thread you will (perhaps) notice that Jeff, I and others have been speaking of the general depauperisation of taxa across the biosphere â a list of one person's taxonomic discoveries, and what has been lost from this, does not in any way address the fundamental truth of the current global extinction crisis. If you think that it does, then you are even nuttier than you have already presented yourself to be.
Nevertheless, if we use the 0.2% figure that you favour (without substantiation either, I note), this would give, in very crude terms, an extinction rate of 0.1%/century. Assuming a linear loss (which is unlikely â some geometric function is more likely under the current trajectory of environmental degradation) all species on Darwin's 'list' would be extinct within one thousand years. This is very alarming in itself, given that the average 'lifetime' of a species is often quoted to be in the order of two million years.
Really, what point are you trying to prove Curtin?
Nothing, I suspect, because you use the Victorian wildfires as a distraction from the fact that you are still, unsurprisingly, not bringing any real science to the table.
(As an aside, I note that a post I spent two hours typing about a fortnight ago, in response to NaGS' comments on the bushfires, has not appeared on the Open thread where the matter is being discussed. Thinking back, this is probably the fault of an automatic shutdown by Vista on the computer I was using at the time... thank you M$oft. Anyway, I am exceedingly frustrated about this, as I spent considerable time putting paid to the sort of tripe that you posted about the fires above. Perhaps if you ask Tim Lambert nicely he will let you continue comment about the fires on that thread, because I want to keep this thread on its tangential focus of your theories of productivity and ecosystem health as they pertain to the Quadrant article referred in the subject of the thread.)
So, Tim Curtin, when are you going to bring real science to the table? Dano's monitor can probably not tolerate much more of my optimistic appeals for you to demonstrate whatever competence you have in science.
Oh, and
It appears that your faculties for memory have gone emeritus also, because Jeff, I and others have provided numerous references over the last several years that discuss competitive and physiological disadvantages associated with elevated atmospheric CO, and competitive and physiological suboptima that accompany the warming associated with elevated atmospheric CO, to say nothing of the serious damage from ocean acidification that accompanies elevated atmospheric CO.
And we have not 'given up'. I think that we have all given up though on any hope that you might ever, ever support your nonsense with a coherent scientific argument.
Tim Curtin.
As you are being either tardy or unable to inform us of your progress in:
perhaps you would instead (or 'as well'?) care to send copies of your previous and pending material to the relevant departments of every Australian university with a request for critical assessment. Let's find out just what the experts really do think of your work, and also whom amongst them might be a part of the Great Scientific Conspiracy which you have revealed to the world.
Heck, why not go international and pick the world's ten foremost experts in the areas of biology that you are challenging?
If you are being genuinely scientific in your methodology, and if your theories are as groud-breaking as you claim, most of those so approached should jump at the chance to comment. I'm sure that Tim Lambert would be happy to be included as a co-recipient of any reviews supplied, and he could post summaries here to support your case - or perhaps, heaven forefend, the converse...
Show us exactly the colour of your bottle. Show us exactly how your 'science' stands expert scrutiny.
Show us what you really have.
Science had an interesting article about what drives species diversity. There are two models, the Red Queen and the Court Jester. Now some will say that Tim Curtin is the Queen of cross-dressing Court Jesters, but there is a point here.
Oh yes, where did Eli put it. Ah. The Red Queen model refers to her opinion that "it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place" or in other words, it drives marginal physical adaptations such as changing body size, requiring less water, etc. The Court Jester is unpredictable, and the changes are physical sudden global ones that wipe out most of what existed previously.
Our technical civilization is in the latter category.
That reminds me of Einstein's riposte to the 100 jerks like Smith, Solomon, Schneider, Schellnhuber, et al ad nauseam, that Hitler lined up against him, "just one fact would have been enough". You, Bernard, Jeff, et all those other als. have yet to produce that single fact. And you never will, any more than dear Adolf and his 100 jerks. More [CO2] is good for you.
some pretty brilliant people spend their whole life, without ever comparing themselves to Einstein. Curtin constantly does.
Curtin alos constantly assumes, that when he is not getting a reply, it is a sign that everybody agrees with him, or that it is a sign of defeat of those who disagree with him.
pretty wild ego, methinks.
in reality of course, he is using his ignorance in some topics, to cover his false claims under other topics.
people with some knowledge of Bushfires, [disagree](http://www.triplehelix.com.au/documents/ThoughtsontheVictorianBushfires…) with his argument about the causes.
but even following his claims, we get weird results: more plant growth (according to Curtin, mainly caused by increased CO2) don t benefit the environment. they fuel bushfires, that kill species. the CO2 isn t feeding species, feeding another species and so on. it causes trouble while in the air, on the ground, and is back into the air pretty fast. (fire..)
Bernard, for starters in response to your #256 (more later), please recall that "over the last 350 million years CO2 has varied by 10 fold, approximately 250 ppm to 2,500 ppm with an average level of 1,500 ppm. This average level happens to be the optimum level for plants, it seems by
evolutionary design, and is the reason that this level of CO2 is used in greenhouses Since plants and
animals evolved together itâs likely that humans also evolved to function best at some higher level.
However, at 380 ppm we are not far from the lower end of that 10-fold range. Because so many people
benefit from enhanced levels of CO2 [eg those with breathing problems use medical gas in which not only oxygen but also CO2 are present at much larger than ambient proportions], it appears that our present atmosphere is already lower than the minimum to which some people can adapt. Scientific studies and established medical practices leave no doubt that increased levels of CO2 help people with respiratory problems and, some time in our lives, that
will include nearly every one of us". Source: Robert Chouinard http://www.nzcpr.com/soapbox.htm#RobertC
13, see also CDIAC, http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/pns/faq_othr.html:
"The average carbon dioxide content of the 500 ml of exhaled air is thus:
[(150 ml)/(500 ml) x 0.04% CO2] + [(350 ml)/(500 ml) x 5.3% CO2] = 3.7% CO2 by volume, which is equivalent to 5.7% CO2 by weight.
22.4 L of air at standard temperature and pressure has a mass of about 28.5 g (the difference in the average molecular weight of atmospheric and alveolar air is trivial, despite the differences in percent nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and water vapor), so 500 ml of air has a mass of about 0.636 g. The 5.7% of this mass that is carbon dioxide would therefore would weigh about 0.037 g (equivalent to about 0.010 g of carbon)." Given the much higher proportion of CO2 in human exhalation than in the atmosphere, it follows that Obama's Carol Browne's directive to the EPA to ban all emissions of CO2 will have to extend to us, in line with demands of Ehrlich-Holdren-Schneider.
... another drive-by science mangling brought to you by TC the polymath trollbot. Brilliant stuff!
I couldn't resist one reture at the know-nothing.
Darwin: "Species extinction is usually, though not always, caused by the failure of a species in competition with other species. That is, causes of extinction are generally biological, not physical".
That was more than 150 years ago. In case you haven't noticed, Timmy old chap, things have changed a lot since then. Humans have transformed the planet by many factors since Darwin wrote those words. Moreover, I doubt that even Darwin was aware of the mass extinction of flightless birds across the Pacific that occurred as a result of Polynesian colonisation of islands across vast swathes of that ocean. Finally, the science of ecology has advanced by a quantum leap since 1850 - in fact, since the 1970s alone. It was hardly a recognized science before 1960.
Its also certain that species diversity peaked on the planet in recent millenia, before humans started our massive global assault. Note that this occurred with atmospheric levels of C02 at levels well below 300 ppm. Shorter response to Tim: you are speaking utter bollocks, as usual.
Bottom line: I warn you Tim: I will annihalate your arguments in the area of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. You are better off sticking to some of the other areas that you know nothing about, like climate science. At least those areas fall outside of my own area of expertise.
Jeff Harvey - please stick around.
I'm not usually a fan of blood sports but I have so enjoyed watching you skewer Tim.
And Tim - with the final sentence of your last comment here you ascended to a level of inanity rarely seen, even among the transcendentally boneheaded of the denialosphere.
We may never see the likes of you again.
Fingers crossed.
Gaz, the problem is the anti-intellectual crowd see the talking point as trumping Jeff Harvey.
Nonetheless, one of the joys of Deltoid is that some of the commenters know what they are talking about. And we have the visitations from the denialosphere to entertain us.
Best,
D
Hi Jeff, welcome back! You said âItâs also certain that species diversity peaked on the planet in recent millenia, before humans started our massive global assault.â How recent? How many species were there in say 5000 BP, as against in 1859 and now? I like stats. Where are yours? The answers I heard from Lord May last Pres. of Royal Soc. (at UNSW) were that he had no idea how many species there were in 5000 BP or in 1859 or now. So you could be in line for an IgNobel.
Bernard: Iâm glad you have resolved computer and family crises, as I welcome your more measured responses. BUT, your comment re the Darwin listing of taxa is no more than casual empiricism. Tortoises come and go, some that Darwin saw at Galapagos are probably still there, and National Geographic (latest issue) could discern no systemic decline (despite its no doubt best efforts), despite your unsourced claim âthat the Galapagos are a basket-case of threatened biodiversityâ. A friend of mine was there last month and has so far claimed no such thing.
Then you say âIf Darwin lived today he would recognise, as does any competent biologist, that humans are having an impact upon species extinction that goes far beyond the 'typical' natural processes to which he referredâ So now you like Wallace are in touch with Darwinâs spirit, who is your medium? Do tell. The truth is that much of Darwinâs (and Wallaceâs) inspiration came from T.R. Malthus, who posited species' survival on availability of food relative to population growth. You and other denizens of the Deltoid and NAS and AAAS Underworlds deny any connection between [CO2] and food supply. Truly you and all CC authors at NAS and AAAS are at one with Bishop Usher, not merely ignorant but in a state of denial about the availability of [CO2] relative to food supply. Unlike Arrhenius who certainly knew of Malthus, few of Susie Solomon and her 2500 acolytes ever heard of him, and of those few, none understood anything he said. Their serial dishonesty defies belief were it not that between them they control the editorial boards of every single journal in the field, eg Schellnhuber who controls six.
Actually my 0.2% was for 1600 to 1990, from a reputable source in Google. Applying that rate to Darwin was in your favour, so your extrapolation is out by thousand years or so. What is that between friends like us?
Then you said âReally, what is your point about Schneider's figure? That Schneider is lying?â Yes, yet again. Whatever the impact of CO2 is on climate, it is from [CO2], not the absolute level of emssions,as he keeps on saying, most recently in PNAS 27 Feb 09. I realise that very few on this Blog are capable of basic arithmetic, so none of them can grasp that if 100% of emissions of CO2 are absorbed by the global biospheres, there will then be NO impact on global mean temperature, even the so-called science of the IPCC reluctantly admits that, albeit nobody else here, and especially not you, sod, and Jeff. But that does not deter Schneider and his pals from claiming again and again as in their PNAS 27 Feb 2009 that biospheric absorptions of CO2 emissions are NIL. When you guys tacitly endorse such liars, what can one charitably say of you (sod, Bernard, BPL, Jeff, TL, et al.)?
Then you said: âWe're still waiting for your science, Tim Curtinâ. That is my science. Refute it.
Life is short, and the cricket at my old ground The Wanderers beckons so no more for now except that re your claim that I said ânothing of the serious damage from ocean acidification that accompanies elevated atmospheric CO2ââ Even the IPCC (AR4, WG1, can find no evidence for any global change in pH, despite its best efforts. I used mine to find such evidence, to no avail. There is none â some regional variations, but NIL overall.
Best to you all
Tim
Tim Curtin.
You only open your mouth to change feet, don't you?
I've worked with medical gas during my biomedical research years. The high levels of CO2 are there to induce heightened breathing in people who have breathing/gas exchange pathologies, and to assist in oxygen-unloading in the tissues. Even a cursory dip into that infamous know-it-all would give you a precise of the [Bohr effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr_effect).
Concentrations at this level are used medically, and like any medical substance it is not to be administered with abandon. Contrary to your wrong-headed notions, 5% CO2 is not a physiologically benign concentration, and it certainly is not one to which humans are adapted, nor is it a concentration in which they have evolved. Oh, and for many patients receiving 5% CO2, the concentration entering the lungs is less than the nominal 5%, because the face masks that patients wear are not designed to be completely air-tight.
I was so flabbergasted that you believe in the benefits of grossly elevated CO2 that I checked to see how easily one might determine exactly what its effects are. Once again, the obvious place to look quickly points the junior literature reviewer to a summary of [CO2 toxicity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#Toxicity).
You said:
Your illogic is spectacular â not even a first-year philosophy student would say that just because people with respiratory pathologies benefit from manipulation of respiratory gas concentrations, it follows that medical concentrations are appropriate in an every-day context. This fallacious thinking is topologically akin to saying that we should all be continuously dosed on a wide range of pharmaceuticals, or on doses of radiotherapy.
Ironically, this is what was pushed by snake-oil salesmen a century and more ago. Tim Curtin, carbon dioxide is surely your radium water.
Context has never been your thing, has it? As many other nuances of critical thinking have not been, eitherâ¦
I would address the mangled interpretation of Darwin in your latest post also, except that I have a Clydsedale with colic that needs careful attention. I am sure that Jeff will careful dismantle your crap, and I will leave with the observation that once more you provide no science, but rather an accusation of scientific collusion and conspiracy of gargantuan proportions.
It comes to the choice that either tens of thousands of scientists in several completely separate disciplines are all liars, conspirators and incompetents, or you are yourself a liar, a conspiracist, and/or incompetent.
William of Ockham's lex parsimoniae informs my own conclusion on this matter.
Bernard: all very fascinating and I am sorry about your Clydesdales. Re Medical gas, you are decades out of touch when you say "...because the face masks that patients wear are not designed to be completely air-tight". These days emphysema sufferers just like pilots in small planes flying high just have a couple of thingies up their noses in order to breathe in 5% CO2 instead of the normal atmospheric 0.0385%.
And yes, "tens of thousands of scientists in several completely separate disciplines are all liars, conspirators and incompetents" when like you they refuse to accept that on average 57% of CO2 emissions are absorbed by the global biospheres. Name one with the integrity and honesty to issue a press release stating that Smith, Schneider, Field and Solomon and their myriad et als spread deceit when they claim in PNAS and at AAAS that 100% of CO2 emissions remain airborne. You cannot, as there is not a single IPCC AR4 scientist with enough of a shred of integrity to disown those I have named. You yourself think it is immaterial whether 0% or 100% of CO2 emissions remain airborn. Name the Climate journal that is not edited by one of the above or their co-authors that would ever publish a rebuttal of the Smith, Schneider et al claim in PNAS only 3 days ago that 100% of CO2 emssions remain airborne. I tried with PNAS, at your prompting - deathly hush for 2 weeks now. Not a single IPCC AR4 lead or other author has any vestige of truthfulness, and especially not the Australians amongst them like Nicholls and Wigley. Please feel free to pass on these comments to them, I have already published my allegations against them in my Quadrant piece, which is in the public domain. Their lawyers know where to find me. The truth is that truth is at a discount in the great game of climate change activism, as Schneider confessed over 20 years ago.
Tim, the facts are these: there's no doubt that the biological diversity of major vertebrate groups on the planet, such as passerines, for example, are, or were probably higher within the past 5000 years than at any time in the planet's long history. It is difficult to make exact predictions from the fossil record, but it certainly appears that diversity recently peaked before humans commenced the 6th great extinction event (which proably began in earnest about 100 years ago).
For an example of a basket case of annihalated biodiversity, Tim, check out Hawaii: all but 5 of the island's 135 native birds probably won't survive the next 50 years. Many (I think around 30) are already extinct. Most of the others are hanging on by the end of their beaks.
http://www.birdinghawaii.co.uk/AnnotatedListExtinct2.htm
There is no doubt that the situation in the Galapagos is similar; I was there in 2006 and saw for myself the pressures bearing on the island fauna; the Galapagos hawk, for instance, has already been extirpated from a number of islands where it was formerly found, and several island populations of the Galapagos Tortoises are gone. It is simply not true to argue that conditions on the islands are the same as they were before humans arrived there.
Check out also the number of extinct critically endangered species in such places at the Mata Atlantica forests in Brazil: it is exccedingly high, due to the massive clearing of these forests (see Brooks and Balmford, 1997, Nature).
The bottom line is that habitat simplification via fragmentation and loss is by far the biggest driver of the current extinction spasm. There's little empirical evidence that competition drives extinctions at the global scale, except for processes where humans are concerned. This is because competition rapidly leads via frequency dependent selection to co-evolutionary processes and adaptive radiaiton which drives niche specialisation and utlimately co-existence. The exceptions occur when an exotic species is introduced suddenly into a non-native ecosystem. Under these conditions, the plant may leave behind co-evolved enemies (such as herbivores or pathogens) and is able to reallocate limited metabolic energy to functions, such as growth, other than defence (see Keane and Crawly, and the 'enemy-release hypothesis'). Moreover, many exotic plants posses novel secondary metabolities that are toxic to non-adapted herbivores or which are alleopathic (the 'novel weapons hypothesis') and which enable these plants again to become dominant in their new range, excluding other plants leading to associational susceptibility of organisms dependent on the native and a rapid decline in biodiversity, at least locally. By biologically homogenising the biosphere, humans are simplifying complex food webs, a process which makes them more likely to collapse as functional redundancy is reduced.
So the facts are these: humans are the main current drivers of mass extinction. There is virtually 100% consensus on that point amongst scientists. This is because of a suite of anthropogenic procesess: habitat destruction, various types of pollution, invasive species, etc.
An atmospheric concentration of C02 of 385 ppm will not creat a green utopia because it will profoundly interfere with the stoichiometry of plant-consumer interactions. Its utter crap to espouse such complete nonsense given our rudimentary understanding of the way complex adaptive systems assemble and function. Note that Tim has to rely on a few studies mostly by lab-jocks who do not work on natural systems. Find me and ecologist who works on trophic webs and ecosystem functioning who supports this utter drivel. I get sick of reiterating this, but here we go again: carbon, like any nutrient, becoems a pollutant when concentrations become excessively high. Plant stoichiometry studies suggest that there are optimal concentrations of different nutrients in tissues, such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus etc. Current evidence suggests that it it phosphorus, in fact, that may the big limit to primary terrestrial productivity, and not carbon. Again, as carbon increases in plant tissues other nutrients are shunted out. Consumers (e.g. herbivores) will respond. So will their natural enemies. Now, scale up these complex trophic interactions to the level of communities, ecosystems and biomes. We have no idea what the temporal lag effects will be across variable spatial scales, but it is sure to induce constraints that will shake food webs up very profoundly, given such a short evolutionary time frame.
Tim's pedantic arguments also remind me of what someone might have said a hundred years ago when they began putting heavy amounts of fertilizer onto agrcultural lands bordering wetlands and lakes. Many lakes were oligotrophic (with low levels of nutrients), but person living near the lake might have expressed concern at the effects of high nitrogen inputs on the lake ecosystem. The farmer might have replied, "Don't worry, nitrogen is a nutrient, not a pollutant!". This is Tim's silly refrain isn't it? Of course, we know what happens when too much nitrogenous material is pumped into a lake or a wetland: it becomes hypereutrophic, algal mats form and the benthic plants die off, followed by invertebrates and fish up the food chain. As I said above, any element can become a pollutant when concentrations of it become too high.
Tim doesn't get it. He believes that humans have infinite wisdom to tinker with systems of immense compexity we barely understand but which sustain us. He's like someone driving faster and faster with a blindfold on promising the occupants of the car that he knows the road well and that we'll get to the destination faster if we just let him get on with it. How many of us out there would be willing to take this kind of chance? Its essentially a roll of the dice, given our ignorance. An experiment in which the outcome migth be profoundly deleterious for nature and, ultimately, us.
Curtin.
So there is no extinction crisis?
In addition to Jeff's telling detail above, attention should be drawn to Australia's abysmal record in this regard with respect to its own [natives](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauna_of_Australia). A comprehensive listing of [extinct](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_animals_of_Australia) and [threatened](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatened_fauna_of_Australia) Australian natives would be too long to repeat here, but consider a couple of figures...
There are 357 Australian native mammals identified, and 27 have become extinct since the European invasion. There are around 350 endemic birds (ie, not counting about another 450 non-endemics), and of these endemic avians, at least 23 became extinct after European settlement.
There are scores more of these two classes on the threatened list. Of note, Professor Harry Recher, a well-recognised ornithologist, considers that about half of Australia's endemic land bird species will be extinct by the end of the century if urgent action is not taken to curb the habitat destruction that is the main driver of this loss.
Of the slightly more than 200 species of frogs at least 4 are extinct, and these extinctions all occurred in the last two or three decades. The list of threatened amphibians (linked above) is too short by at least a dozen species â the crisis in native anurans is occurring so rapidly that many are disappearing faster than can be documented. Note too that these figures exclude cryptic species: given that some of the extinctions and critical endangerments probably include such taxa, the proportion of Australian frogs lost or on the way out is bound to be greater than is reported.
It goes on and on as one considers the other classes of fauna, and then there are the native plants.
Don't talk to me about the 'naturalness' of extinction â humans, as I have said before and as Jeff also points out, are damned well as catastrophic for biodiversity as are major volcanic events, asteroids, and precipitous changes of climate.
There are no ifs, buts, or maybes.
Bernard,
Another great post. Many thanks. Like I said last week, I have to contend with crappy arguments like 'extinction is natural' all of the time. Sure, it is. But since Tim doesn't apparently read anything relevant on the subject, and what we say bounces off of him like water off a duck's back, its hardly surprising that the real facts don't 'sink in'.
As I said earlier, current extinction rates are at least 100 to 1,000 times higher than the natural 'background' rate. This is a conservative estimate; it may be as high as 10,000 times. This means that species are disappearing at hundreds or thousands of times the rate that new species are evolving to replace them. The reason? Human activities. There is absolutely no disagreement amongst environmental scientists as to this fact. There's thousands of articles published on page after page of the journals I mentioned last week on this thread to back it up. There is no disagreement at all on this, except for a few lay people like Tim and some business economists. That is about it.
Other facts that Tim does not respond to. 1. The loss of genetically distinct populations, estimated to be up to 30,000 per day (Hughes et al., Science, 1997). 2. The number of species on CITES 1, 2 or 3: higher now than ever and rising. This includes 11% of birds, 25% of mammals and as much as 33% of vascular plants. There has been a massive global pandemic of amphibian declines over the past 20 years. Amphibians are excellent examples of the 'miner's canary' because they have semi-permeable membranes and thus are very sensitive to chemical changes in the environment, as well as to other factors like climate change, habitat loss etc.
Basically, Tim is crawling farther and farther out onto a limb if he sticks on this issue. I found it quite funny that he had to cite arguments posed by Charles Darwin when the human impact on the biosphere was < 1% of what it is now to account for changes in the population demographics and decline of species. Were Darwin or Wallace alive today, they would firmly and resolutely agree with my arguments. No exception. The world in 1850 was a very, very different place from what it is today.
The extinction crisis according to Tim Curtin:
"Tortoises come and go..."
Name one with the integrity and honesty to issue a press release stating that Smith, Schneider, Field and Solomon and their myriad et als spread deceit when they claim in PNAS and at AAAS that 100% of CO2 emissions remain airborne. You cannot, as there is not a single IPCC AR4 scientist with enough of a shred of integrity to disown those I have named. You yourself think it is immaterial whether 0% or 100% of CO2 emissions remain airborn. Name the Climate journal that is not edited by one of the above or their co-authors that would ever publish a rebuttal of the Smith, Schneider et al claim in PNAS only 3 days ago that 100% of CO2 emssions remain airborne.
Tim Curtin, just because you keep bringing it up, and to prevent you from any further claim that you are right on a topic once i decided to take a short look at the Soloman paper.
here is what they write:
The rate of global fossil fuel CO2 emission grew at
1%/year from 1980 to 2000 and 3%/year in the period from 2000 to 2005 (page 2, Fig 1)
and
Fig. 1 illustrates how the concentrations of carbon dioxide would be expected to fall off through the coming millennium if manmade emissions were to cease immediately following an illustrative future rate of emission increase of 2% per year [comparable to observations over the past decade (ref. 13)] up
why use 2%, when we know that it was 3% lately? hint hint?!?
This is not intended to be a realistic scenario but rather to represent a test case whose purpose is to probe physical climate system changes. A more gradual reduction of carbon dioxide emission (as is more likely), or a faster or slower adopted rate of emissions in the growth period, would lead to long-term behavior qualitatively similar to that illustrated in Fig. 1
some more hints, about the way this is to be understood.
but perhaps the authors are completely out of touch, and don t know about any uptakes?
Additional carbon cycle feedbacks could reduce the efficiency of the ocean and biosphere to remove the anthropogenic CO2 and thereby increase these CO2 values.
ooops, no they aren t.
ps: Curtin s short trip into medicine was another disaster. i support some treatment with medicine and treatment, at the highest level found to be tolerable for humans. and all at once, please. start the x-ray!
That last post was from me, not the non-existent Gza.
Jeff: âIt is simply not true to argue that conditions on the Galapagos islands are the same as they were before humans arrived there.â Solution? Ban you and the rest of us from living/visiting there? What evidence do you have that the sad loss of some hawks and tortioses in the Galapagos, or of bird species in Hawaii, is due to elevated [CO2], and not to said residents and visitors?
Jeff again: âhumans are the main current drivers of mass extinctionâ. Your preference, us or them? Your solution, back to the caves as GM neanderthals?
Jeff again: âcarbon, like any nutrient, becoems a pollutant when concentrations become excessively highâ. What is excessive, the 1500 ppm in Dutch greenhouses? The present level and growth of [CO2] will take at least 300 years to get to that, if ever.
Bernard: you say: âThere are 357 Australian native mammals identified, and 27 have become extinct since the European invasion. There are around 350 endemic birds (ie, not counting about another 450 non-endemics), and of these endemic avians, at least 23 became extinct after European settlement.â So it was CO2 that caused the European settlement? You went on ââ¦about half of Australia's endemic land bird species will be extinct by the end of the century if urgent action is not taken to curb the habitat destruction that is the main driver of this lossâ. So [CO2] is the driver of the habitat destruction, and rewinding it to 1750âs 280 ppm will reverse the habitat destruction? All the evidence from the links I gave yesterday is that rising [CO2] strengthens the habitat for all of us, except where your fellow lattes prevent proper tree management.
Sod: The fact is that Fig.1 in Solomon et all shows a one-to-one relationship between growth of emissions and increase in [CO2]. CO2 absorption is absent, that Fig.1 (LHS top panel) is a big lie. Yes you are right that at least Solomon admit in their text the existence of absorption only to claim in the face of all contrary evidence that the biospheric capacity to absorb [CO2] is declining when they say âAdditional carbon cycle feedbacks could reduce the efficiency of the ocean and biosphere to remove the anthropogenic CO2 and thereby increase these CO2 values.â. When the actual data available from CDIAC and the GCP show huge and ongoing increases in CO2 absorption since 1958, that weasel word âcouldâ is the sole scientific underpinning for the outrageous deception of the whole Solomon article. If there were a professional body I could lodge a complaint with I would, having predictably failed with NAS itself. The truth is that climate scientists are answerable to none except themselves, and like their close cousins the well-named Weathermen in more ways than one, both having nobbled Obama, are on track thru the EPA to implementing Jeffâs claim that âhumans are the main current drivers of mass extinctionâ â of themselves. See Bendle in this monthâs Quadrant for the still extant ambitions of the Weathermen in this regard.
Tim,
Your first paragraph above is riddled with non sequiturs and false dichotomies. Do you do that consciously, or do you genuinely think you're being rational?
This is a serious question. I find it hard to believe someone could consistently present such unsound arguments without being either deliberately dishonest or just plain thick.
Shorter TC:
Bats\*\*t then, bats\*\*t now, bats\*\*t forever.
Curtin is a master in moving the goal post.
notice how he shifted the goal from human starvation and the agriculture increase
Will agricultural production at todayâs level and growth be sustainable with 60% cuts in emissions from the 1990 level by 2050? ... They will not be sustainable if emissions are cut by that amount, and starvation resulting from the ever rising food prices we are already witnessing will soon be the lot of all our grandchildren. (page 29 of his "emeritus" presentation)
to a talk about "general" benefits of the CO2 increase (or problems with a lack there of) to all species.
now he is doing the same, accepting only CO2 increase as a cause for extinction, when before his claim was, that it is a phenomenon that basically doesn t exist.
his own "CO2 benefits all species" theory would of course predict a completely different effect on extinctions. (basically most species should prosper. extinction would be linked to the few species, with some lower CO2 level preferance)
Gaz; what's your problem? This thread began with TL's attack on my article in Quadrant which argues that CO2 is not a pollutant, and that its huge benefits in terms of enhanced productivity of the global biospheres far outweigh any of the yet to be demonstrated costs of enhanced [CO2]. Jeff in particular believes that elevated [CO2] will lead to mass extinctions, eg. in that para. of mine you have difficulty with, I quote Jeff as saying âcarbon, like any nutrient, becomes a pollutant when concentrations become excessively highâ. I asked, "What is excessive, the 1500 ppm in Dutch greenhouses? The present level and growth of [CO2] will take at least 300 years to get to that [very likely still-sub optimal level], if ever" - and I take the opportunity to add again as I did yesterday that those with emphysema inhale medical gas (95% oxygen, 5% CO2) which contains CO2 at 127 times the present atmospheric level of 0.0385%. It is for you Gaz to explain why that statement of fact is incorrect and does not support Jeff's view that [CO2] is responsible for species extinction rates.
Tim Curtin.
I think that you will find those nasal 'thingies' allow atmospheric air to be respired along with bottled gas, just as a ventilated mask does. This allows the bottled gas to be delivered with negligible loss, and with estimable dilution with atmospheric air.
Where doctors and airforce personnel seek to supply only bottled gas, a fitted mask is used, and mixes other than 5%CO2 in oxygen would be used except in very particular respiratory circumstances. A perusal of a material safety data sheet is revealing:
Whilst is has important (indeed, critical) biological functions and applications, carbon dioxide is not the gaseous manna-from-heaven that you imagine it to be. The extreme levels that you promote from your wagon's tailgate have nothing to do with the concentrations that organisms throughout the biosphere are currently adapted to.
You still haven't gripped the concepts of context and of dose, have you? Nor have you understood the (scientific) importance of gathering real, basic facts.
On the matter of basic science, I note that in your Quadrant piece and in post #274, you use the designation [CO2] to mean atmospheric CO2 (as in "...net absorption of atmospheric CO2, (hereafter [CO2])..." on page 4 of your Garnaut 'review'). Your use of this interpretation is apparent in #274 also, and in both cases it is incorrect. The square brackets are a shorthand for "the concentration of", and not for "atmospheric".
Even if your confabulation is not consistent in all instances wherever you employ the square brackets, it is nevertheless another reflection of your extremely weak grasp on the basics of science.
Tim, I think you must be from another planet. You said, "Jeff in particular believes that elevated [CO2] will lead to mass extinctions".
Where the hell did I say that? You are really beginning to annoy me, you know that? I said that your projected 385 ppm C02 will not help feed the world, and that the resultant climate change associated with such a dramtic increase in C02, in combination with many other anthropogenic factors, will lead to the unraveling of food webs and further exacerbate the loss of biodiversity. W#hen you write such gobbledegook as "What evidence do you have that the sad loss of some hawks and tortioses in the Galapagos, or of bird species in Hawaii, is due to elevated [CO2], and not to said residents and visitors?"
I wonder what is going through your head sometimes. Yesterday you were claiming that the current extinction was mostly generated by competition amongst species, citing Darwin (!!!), which of course is balderdash; its clearly anthropogenic, with habitat loss the main culprit. The somehow you attribute me saying it was due to increased atmospheric C02. I never said that at all!
I think the readers now get a gist of Tim's tactics. This is why I want out of this thread.
Tim, my problem is with the disingenuous and illogical mode of argument you employ.
Let's take as an example the first paragraph of your post #274.
Your first point concerns this comment from Jeff:
"It is simply not true to argue that conditions on the Galapagos islands are the same as they were before humans arrived there.â
You respond with:
"Solution? Ban you and the rest of us from living/visiting there?"
My problem: This distracts from the point Jeff was making, which was that (from #268) it appears that "diversity recently peaked before humans commenced the 6th great extinction event (which proably began in earnest about 100 years ago)."
This line about banning vists to Galapagos is nothing but a red herring that tries to drag the reader away from what Jeff said.
Whether or not banning people from visiting the Galapagos Islands will help the problem of diversity on the islands is irrelevant to whether diversity there has or has not declined. The pleasantness or otherwise of a solution to a problem does not tell us whether the problem exists. However it is obviously is a big motivating factor when it comes to denying the problem exists, which is proesumably why denialists so often concoct these non-existent choices.
Next point.
You wrote:
"What evidence do you have that the sad loss of some hawks and tortioses in the Galapagos, or of bird species in Hawaii, is due to elevated [CO2], and not to said residents and visitors?"
But here is what Jeff said (at #274). "The bottom line is that habitat simplification via fragmentation and loss is by far the biggest driver of the current extinction spasm."
You misstate Jeff's argument, then ask him to provide evidence to support something he didn't say.
Next point.
You say:
"Jeff again: 'humans are the main current drivers of mass extinction'. Your preference, us or them? Your solution, back to the caves as GM neanderthals?"
Another false dichotomy. You implictly claim that the survival of our civilisation depends on mass extinctions of other species, with the only alternative a return to the stone age. What a crock of baloney that argument is.
Another point. You say: "Jeff again: 'carbon, like any nutrient, becoems a pollutant when concentrations become excessively high'. What is excessive, the 1500 ppm in Dutch greenhouses?"
You are implying that what's right for Dutch greenhouses is also right for the Earth's atmosphere. Where's the logic, Tim?
Again: "The present level and growth of [CO2] will take at least 300 years to get to that, if ever."
At this point you have assumed the answer to your preceding rhetorical question is "yes" and that a Dutch greenhouse is indeed the yardstick by which we should measure atmospheric contrations of CO2. Again, no logic.
This was just the first paragraph.
And you wonder why people get annoyed with you.
Oh, and if I could work out which "statement of fact" you were referring to in #278 I'd tell you why it was wrong. Or misleading. Or irrelevant. Or illogical. Or all of the above.
Tim Curtin.
My detailing of the extinction crisis was in reponse to your dismissal of the very fact of the existence of an extinction crisis at all. I did not at any point in my post at #269 claim that human CO2 emissions were responsible for these extinctions, and I did explicitly state that the large number of threatened Australian birds were thus so, as a result of human habitat modification/damage. You are wrong and/or mendacious to claim that I imputed CO2 involvement to date.
It is well-known that the mammal extinctions are predominantly a result of the introduction of feral species, and that the amphibian extinctions result largely from the introduction of chytrid fungus, although in both classes habitat dstruction also plays a role.
However, I emphatically agree with Jeff that the projected increase in global temperature, that is predicted by the best science and that shows signs of having commenced over the last century, will have a profound effect upon species already endangered for other reasons, or which are currently secure but vulnerable to alterations in their climatic milieux.
Your ignorance of ecology and evolution does not change the fact of the current great extinction event, and you have still presented no credible science to contradict the consensus on the reality of AGW.
As sod notes, you persist in moving the goal posts, and in twisting interpretations, in order to shirk any justification of the manifold errors of fact that you put forward.
Which reminds me - are you able to address even a single one of the challenges that I put to you at #244? Have you gathered Marohasy to coauthor your biological claims? Just which authors and organisations have you approached for a response to your interpretations of their work?
And if you truly cannot get a reply from these stuck-up scientists and their old-boys' clubs, how come you haven't approached Today Tonight, A Current Affair, or Sixty Minutes to prepare a piece on the lies, conspiracies and incompetence of the scientific practicioners in ecology and in climate science?
Surely, if you believe your own words, you would be running yourself ragged to reveal to the world what a dreadful conspiracy is being perpetrated? It is no wonder that you might choose to watch cricket instead - watching your own escalating humiliation on this thread must be growing unbearably painful.
Of course, if you should be brave enough to make a public declaration of your insights, complete with all of your analyses, evidence and references, there will be many scientists ready to have their say in reply.
I can't wait for the day where you face the attentions of the public, and the scientific world in general, and justify yourself. When will this day come?
Gaz,
Fantastic! Excellent riposte. I guess I lose my cool when I read Tim's jibberish. You've sensibly dismantled his arguments using his own words. I appreciate your thoughtful reply; let's wait for Tim to wade back in with a torrent of illogic.
My new daughter was born on the weekend, and it is obvious from the replies of BJ, JH and Gaz to TC that my newborn has as much (if not more) grasp on reality/science fundamentals as TC, the new Emperor of Antarctica, does!
Congratulations P!
I empathise with the lack of sleep that you are probably enduring, as our twins were born mid-January. They are a large part of the reason why I am awake late at night responding to Tim Curtin's latest howlers - I'm cradling my daughter even as I type.
If only Curtin's wind problem was as easily solved as theirs.
Bernard said âI note that in your Quadrant piece and in post #274, you use the designation [CO2] to mean atmospheric CO2 (as in "...net absorption of atmospheric CO2, (hereafter [CO2])..." on page 4 of your Garnaut 'review'). Your use of this interpretation is apparent in #274 also, and in both cases it is incorrect. The square brackets are a shorthand for "the concentration of", and not for "atmospheric".
I may have been careless: [CO2] refers to the atmospheric concentration of CO2, and changes in that are the so-called âAirborne Fraction of emissions of CO2â. This is what my paper actually said (in the online versions, âArrhenius took over this formulation in his celebrated paper of 1896 that remains the cornerstone of the anthropogenic global warming (or climate change) movement, by asserting that while atmospheric carbon dioxide (hereafter written [CO2]) âincreases in geometric progression, augmentation of the temperature will increase in nearly arithmetic progressionâ. Clearly âconcentrationâ is to be understood. What is your problem? I see none except hairsplitting. Bernard, you really are getting desperate, and ever more paranoid.
Jeff said: âThen somehow you attribute me saying it was due to increased atmospheric C02. I never said that at all!â So what were you saying? This debate is about the role or not of rising [CO2] in promoting extinctions. You have yet to provide any verifiable data linking rising [CO2] to extinctions. Extinctions happen, as they have done over multiple millennia, and CO2 has risen marginally (just over 37% since 1750). What is dX/dC?
Gaz: at #281 said: âTim, my problem is with the disingenuous and illogical mode of argument you employ.
Let's take as an example the first paragraph of your post #274. Your first point concerns this comment from Jeff:
âIt is simply not true to argue that conditions on the Galapagos islands are the same as they were before humans arrived there.â
You respond with:
âSolution? Ban you and the rest of us from living/visiting there?â
My problem: This distracts from the point Jeff was making, which was that (from #268) it appears that "diversity recently peaked before humans commenced the 6th great extinction event (which proably began in earnest about 100 years ago)."
This line about banning vists to Galapagos is nothing but a red herring that tries to drag the reader away from what Jeff said.â
I canât see that Jeffâs no doubt erudite comments about the â6th great extinction eventâ have anything to do with whether or not elevated [CO2] has promoted enhanced extinction rates. This is what has to be proved by him and you. Only then can you say QED.
Then you say that I asked
"What evidence do you [i.e. Jeff] have that the sad loss of some hawks and tortioses in the Galapagos, or of bird species in Hawaii, is due to elevated [CO2], and not to said residents and visitors?"
But here is what Jeff said (at #274). "The bottom line is that habitat simplification via fragmentation and loss is by far the biggest driver of the current extinction spasm."
Excellent, so at last we are in agreement: elevated [CO2] is not the villain!
You then quote me as saying "Jeff again: 'humans are the main current drivers of mass extinction'. Your preference, us or them? Your solution, back to the caves as GM neanderthals?"
You added; âAnother false dichotomyâ. Yeah? So what is the true dichotomy? In my world view, let us all enjoy the benefits of rising absorption of CO2 emissions by the biospheres without worrying about the witches of Salem propagated by the idiocies of Susan Solomon, who lacks any wisdom on any topic.
You go on: âAnother point when I said quoting Jeff again: 'carbon, like any nutrient, becomes a pollutant when concentrations become excessively high'. What is excessive, the 1500 ppm in Dutch greenhouses?"
You are implying that what's right for Dutch greenhouses is also right for the Earth's atmosphere. Where's the logic, Tim?â
Well, if the Dutch are canny enough to pipe in extra CO2, thereâs a lesson for all of us, in the form of enhanced yields of ALL cultivated and non-cultivated food crops for all of us including the termites if enhanced [CO2] continues despite the best efforts of Obama, EU, and Rudd.
You ended: âOh, and if I could work out which "statement of fact" you were referring to in #278 I'd tell you why it was wrong.â Back to square 1: my fact is that those with emphysema inhale medical gas (95% oxygen, 5% CO2) which contains CO2 at 127 times the present atmospheric level of 0.038%. True or false? That the patient also inhales some ambient air is immaterial when he mainly inhales a mix with 5% CO2.
On a lighter note, I see that the Greens at South Yarra Council have banned any use of fires extinguishers that contain CO2 (FACT: there has been not a single mention in the media here that such extinguishers are a zillion times more effective at putting out burning embers and worse than buckets and garden hoses), and that nationally they are about to demand reinstatement of CFCs in our refrigerators as these now use CO2 as refrigerant, at the behest of Penny Carbon-is-a-Pollutant Wong (all such use of CO2 will be penalised by her ETS) and Obama's Carol Browner. Wong and Browner are also hell bent on banning - or at last taxing - use of CO2 in medical gas. O, brave new world. Huxley and Orwell, we need you.
Bernard: so here we go again!
You claim that my detailing of the extinction crisis was in reponse to my [alleged] dismissal of the very fact of the existence of an extinction crisis at all, and that you did not at any point in your post at #269 claim that human CO2 emissions were responsible for these extinctions, and that you did explicitly state that the large number of threatened Australian birds were thus so, as a result of human habitat modification/damage... "You [TC] are wrong and/or mendacious to claim that I imputed CO2 involvement to date.â But this thread is about the villainy or otherwise of [CO2]. What proportion of the extinctions you enumerate is due to elevated [CO2]?
You added: âHowever, I emphatically agree with Jeff that the projected increase in global temperature, that is predicted by the best science and that shows signs of having commenced over the last century, will have a profound effect upon species already endangered for other reasons, or which are currently secure but vulnerable to alterations in their climatic milieux.â That is what has yet to be proven. For all practical purposes GISS has yet to demonstrate ANY increase in GMST since 1900, since their base line 1900 excludes hot tropical Africa and much of SE Asia, while their 2008 endline excludes much of cold Siberia Scandinavia and northern Canada. Only by those subterfuges can they come up with a measly 0.7oC since 1900, and that is within their measurement errors.There is and has been NO measurable global warming since 1900.
Tim continues with his grade school histrionics. He now apparently assumes that a transfer of 1500 ppm of C02 into the natural world (akin to Dutch greenhouse conditions) wouldn't be a problem at all. No evidence need be procured, because our Tim doesn't have any. The thrust of his view is to take some simple linear extrpolations from primarily lab based research where other factors (e.g. soil and above ground biota, spatial and ecological parameters) are ignored. Then we apply them to complex adaptive systems and from there we cross our fingers, say a prayer to the tooth fairy and hope that it all works out. This seems to be the human malaise - tinker around with systems we understand in only a rudimentary way and hope that all turns out for the best. This isn't science, it's voodoo.
Moreover, Tim argues that its up to the scientific community to prove him wrong. Bullshit. It is up to the reckless sponsers of denial and destruction to prove that their single experiment on the biosphere will not generate potentially catastrophic effects. But they cannot do that. And they do not want to do that. The reason is that the science is against them. That is why Tim has to resort to smears where scientists who are very critical of this approach are deemed 'idiots'. This by Tim who has no formal training in the life sciences. Do you Tim? Please put up your scientific credentials for all of us to see.
In my opinion, underlying all of this apparent concern for the world's starving is an altogether different agenda. That agenda is to maintain business-as-usual and to ensure the maximization of short-term corporate profit. I see it much like I see the so-called "War on Terror", which I also believe does not exist but is being used as a political and economic tool by the rich and powerful states. I have said it before and I will say it again: the major problem in the world today is equity. That is the dilemma. We need to address the political problems underlying the social injustices that plague and divide our world. This is what the starving and destitute of the world need, not more C02 in the atmosphere.
Finally, how is one supposed to provde that dramatic increases in atmospheric C02 and its attendant climate change generat mass extinctions? We know that the latter is true, and that it is correlated with the former. Chris Thomas' Nature (2004) paper addressed this issue comtemporarily. It is a great study. Moreover, to reiterate, given our ignorance of the ways ecosystems and biomes function, combined with the fact that they sustain us, it is up to the Tim's of this world to prove that the experiment they wish to conduct will not have serious environmental consequences. The ball is in their court, and they cannot prove it because they know its a bloody experiment that cannot be replicated.
Again, debate over. You lose, Tim.
[Bernard: will have a profound effect upon species already endangered for other reasons, or which are currently secure but vulnerable to alterations in their climatic milieux] Tim :"That is what has yet to be proven".
Incorrect. The evidence is proven and growing. There are a number of passerines - for instance the Pied Flycatcher - which are declining as a result of climate change and its affects on their primary food supply (caterpillars) due to phenological asynchronies generated by rapidly increasing spring temperatures over much of central Europe. The birds use non-temperature related cues to initiate migration from their African wintering grounds and arrive in Europe when the peak abundance of their food supply has passed. Colleagues in the Netherlands (Both, Visser etc in Nature, Proc. B) have written up some quite elegant papers on the topic.
Post and collegaues have also shown that climate change is affecting interactions between caribou and their food plants in Greenland. A similar story with respect to the flycatchers. He spoke about this part of his research when he visited us last year.
North American passerines such as the Summer Tanager and Yellow-Billed Cuckoo are also showing worrying responses to climate change related parameters. There's no doubt that I can find many more studies to support them in the empirical literature. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, given that the demographics of so few species have been studied. Because Tim doesn't read the journals I mentioned before, his argument that there is 'No proof" hinges on this simple fact. He expects all of us to spend weeks researching the topic, during which I could come up with hundreds of articles. He knows that many of us are very busy and relies on us not spending the time required leafing through the journals to make a complete summary of the volumes of evidence. This is his strategy.
Given that climate change and atmospheric C02 levels are correlated, andf that the link is virtually beyond doubt, its clear that a continuation of the current experiment humanity is conducting on natural systems in various ways will almost certainly have very serious consequences.
[...where we came in...]
Tim Curtin.
Upon what evidence and upon which references did you base your comment at #134:
Similarly, at #252:
upon what evidence and upon which references did you extrapolate Darwin's words from the 19th century to imply that it is only natural selection that is driving current extinction rates?
What do you understand the current rate of species extinction to be? No dissembling.
What do you accept the causes of the current elevated rate of extinction to be, assuming that you accept that the rate is elevated?
If you accept an elevated current extinction rate, how do you reconcile this with the the statements above, and with others not quoted here, that there is no extinction concern?
As to your comment:
This thread is partly about Windshuttle's inability to check facts, and partly about your inability to report real science. You have attempted to play down current rates of extinction, and to imply that there is no extinction crisis, so the challenges to you are entirely legitimate. My Australian examples did not impute the involvement of CO2, and Jeff's examples were similarly explicitly attributed to habitat damage and to feral species. Your attempt to tie these examples to CO2 is a red herring.
Jeff's references to the phenological problem is quite pertinent though, and even if there are no confirmed extinctions attributed to phenological asynchronies (a little difficult yet, what with the 50-year definition), it is (sadly) only a matter of time. At that point, Tim Curtin, what will your response be? Please enlighten us - you could well be the first AGW denialist to comment on this particular phenomenon. And have no doubt: if it has not already happened, there will soon be phenologic asynchrony extinctions.
Millions of scientists, statisticians, politicians and heck, even those bastions of free-market capitalism, insurance companies, see rather a different interpretation to the data. Just what is it that so many, from so many corners of the politico-economic spectrum, do not see that you do? Or to put it another way, how does this disparate body of people read the evidence so differntly to you? What is it that you understand/are trained in that so many better trained/experienced people are missing?
On the matter of [CO2] I call balderdash. Reading your Quadrant piece there are numerous occasions when the appropriate meaning (CO2 concentration) jars syntactically, tautologises, or simply doesn't make sense. Replace it with atmospheric CO2 and the parsing makes grammatical (if not scientific) sense.
So I am inclined to believe your page 4 assignation as it was originally given. If I am splitting hairs, well and good. It has nothing to do with "getting desperate", and absolutely nothing to do with paranoia.
Still waiting for your responses to the questions and challenges at #172, #244 et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,...
Well there's something I didn't expect to see... at the time of posting my last comment, every post in the 'Recent Posts' panel is from this thread.
Makes me wonder - how many of the >1000 readers of Deltoid who have managed to labour this far are persuaded by Curtin's theories, over the understanding of tens of thousands of scientists who are vastly better trained and experienced in their disciplines, than is Curtin?
Anyone?
Re Bernard's question at 290:
I have recently been engaged in argument with one who engages in Christian apologetics. Briefly, the strategy of apologetics begins right after the assumption that a G_d exists, that this G_d has the characteristics he assigns to G_d, and that the bible is the inerrant revealed world of G_d and contains all truth. Apologetics puts faith belief on a rigorous logical footing, by bringing logic to bear on these simple obviously true assumptions, and from them rigorously proving that G_d exists, that He has the characteristics assigned to him, and that the bible is the inerrant revealed word of G_d and contains all truth.
TC's posts so far have convinced me only that he is inventing - or appropriating from the arena of faith belief - the apologetics of denialism.
Congratulations, P.
If I may correct you, IME your daughter has a BETTER grasp of natural sciences than Curtin.
Bernard, I'm not persuaded by Curtin because he is on [killfile]. But that is because he is a prolix fool purveying FUD.
Best,
D
Bernard (and Jeff), it's because you folk, with assists from P. Gaz and Sod are writing interesting stuff. As on the Lancet threads when Dsquared and Robert post.
Congratulations P. on the birth of your daughter. I hope she brings you as much joy as my daughters have brought me.
And I'm sure she'll be a constant reminder of why we have to continue to resist the boneheads, to expose their sleight-of-hand, no matter how tedious.
Thanks to all for your contributions, and congrats to P and Gaz for helping to keep our species going.
Re Jeff at #287: Jeff says âPlease put up your scientific credentials for all of us to seeâ and then launches into economics - a field in which he has no credentials that I am aware of (unlike me): âIn my opinion, underlying all of this apparent concern for the world's starving is an altogether different agendaâ â I spent nearly my whole working life in the 3rd World but never knew that concern was not the real agenda. Jeff on economics again: âThat agenda is to maintain business-as-usual and to ensure the maximization of short-term corporate profitâ. Is it? - and nothing to do with jobs, incomes, crop production, mining and industry?
Jeff sez:âI see it much like I see the so-called "War on Terror", which I also believe does not existâ¦.â What does not exist, the fighting in Afghanistan, or the Terror? Ask the Sri Lankan cricketers, is Jeff so sure that they dreamt what happened yesterday? Jeff: âbut is being used as a political and economic tool by the rich and powerful statesâ, ah so the shooting in Lahore was our âeconomic toolâ, with the gunmen hired by who exactly? âI have said it before and I will say it again: the major problem in the world today is equity. That is the dilemma. We need [eugenicist Jeff Harvey] to tell is to address the political problems underlying the social injustices that plague and divide our world. This is what the starving and destitute of the world need, not more C02 in the atmosphere.â What will their yields be with [CO2] at 350 ppm or less?
Jeff again: âFinally, how is one supposed to prove that dramatic increases in atmospheric C02 and its attendant climate change generate mass extinctions? We know that the latter is true, and that it is correlated with the formerâ. What dramatic increase in [CO2] â c40% since 1750? Annual growth since 1958 of 0.4% p.a.? If that is drama, you must get a kick out of watching grass grow. What attendant climate change? Just give us the temperature record of your current home town since 1850 (adjusted for UHI).
Jeff: â given our ignorance of the ways ecosystems and biomes function,â â what the hell have you been doing all these years if you havenât worked this out yet? â â combined with the fact that they sustain usâ¦â. But they will according to Jeff manage just fine with reducing [CO2]. Jeff, you are the chief scientist not to mention chief economist of The Kingdom of the Netherlands, where is your published analysis of the impact of declining [CO2] on functioning of ecosystems and biomes?
Jeff at #288 (and Bernard at #289): for every paper you cite showing some adverse seasonal effects on migrations, thereâs probably another showing benefits or adaptation, e.g. Climate change and unequal phenological changes across four trophic levels: constraints or adaptations? Christiaan Both, et al. Journal of Animal Ecology 2009.
Summary
1.
Climate change has been shown to affect the phenology of many organisms, but interestingly
these shifts are often unequal across trophic levels, causing a mismatch between the phenology of
organisms and their food.
2.
We consider two alternative hypotheses: consumers are constrained to adjust sufficiently to the
lower trophic level, or prey species react more strongly than their predators to reduce predation. We
discuss both hypotheses with our analyses of changes in phenology across four trophic levels: tree
budburst, peak biomass of herbivorous caterpillars, breeding phenology of four insectivorous bird
species and an avian predator.
3.
In our long-term study, we show that between 1988 and 2005, budburst advanced (not significantly)
with 0·17 d yr â1 , while between 1985 and 2005 both caterpillars (0·75 d year â1 ) and the hatching date
of the passerine species (range for four species: 0·36â0·50 d year â1 ) have advanced, whereas raptor
hatching dates showed no trend.
4.
The caterpillar peak date was closely correlated with budburst date, as were the passerine hatching
dates with the peak caterpillar biomass date. In all these cases, however, the slopes were significantly
less than unity, showing that the response of the consumers is weaker than that of their food. This
was also true for the avian predator, for which hatching dates were not correlated with the peak
availability of fledgling passerines. As a result, the match between food demand and availability
deteriorated over time for both the passerines and the avian predators.
5.
These results could equally well be explained by consumersâ insufficient responses as a consequence
of constraints in adapting to climate change, or by them trying to escape predation from a higher
trophic level, or both. Selection on phenology could thus be both from matches of phenology with
higher and lower levels, and quantifying these can shed new light on why some organisms do adjust
their phenology to climate change, while others do not.
In other words, evolution is on-going along with survival of the fittest. Whatâs new?
Bernard (#289). I still canât see your problems over what I mean by [CO2]. At all times my intention is to use [CO2] to mean the âatmospheric concentration of CO2â; in the published text in Quadrant we used the Garnaut terminology, CO2-e. Both terms as used refer to the atmospheric concentration in ppm of CO2 or CO2-e respectively, where the latter includes non-CO2 greenhouse gases..
Bernard again: âWhat do you understand the current rate of species extinction to be?â Cumulative total of 0.2% from 1600 to 1990. There were then and still are a lot of taxa, in fact we donât even know the total. âWhat do you accept the causes of the current elevated rate of extinction to be, assuming that you accept that the rate is elevated?â I donât believe it is elevated, but I predict it will be if Hansen gets his way and drives down [CO2] to 350 ppm or less. But here is a simple test for you to perform: generate a map of the globe (land and sea) showing the distribution of all known species, see if you can prove that the majority are to be found in the colder latitudes N&S of the respective tropics rather than in the tropics? I know the answer so will not offer a bet. And IF there is warming, will spreads of tropical species to extra-tropics lead to net decline of the population of all species?
Then Bernard quoted my assertion âThere is and has been NO measurable global warming since 1900â and commented âMillions of scientists, statisticians, politicians and heck, even those bastions of free-market capitalism, insurance companies, see rather a different interpretation to the data.â Well, just go to Hansenâs GISS and check the global mean surface temperature in 1900, which was 13.9 oC, and in 2007, which was 14.56 oC, an increase of 0.66 oC. Given the global distribution of Met. Stations in 1900 and 2007 (available from NOAA), that is not a statistically significant increase. If AIG, the worldâs biggest insurer, is âa bastion of free market capitalismâ, gawd help us, it racked up world record losses last year and now exists only by kind favour of the US Treasury. A major factor in AIGâs demise as a bastion was precisely its childlike faith in the sort of twaddle peddled by GISSâ Hansen and the PNAS which is what in part led it to lose its zillions. BTW, if Stanfordâs MBAs canât make money for the shareholders of banks or insurance companies, it is not surprising Stanford also hosts comparable twerps like Stephen Schneider.
Come on Tim, try a bit of logic.
You say: "Jeff at #288 (and Bernard at #289): for every paper you cite showing some adverse seasonal effects on migrations, thereâs probably another showing benefits or adaptation, e.g. Climate change and unequal phenological changes across four trophic levels: constraints or adaptations?"
Then you cut and paste the entire abstract and summarise it as "In other words, evolution is on-going along with survival of the fittest. Whatâs new?"
Are you kidding?
I mean, do you really honestly believe that paper in any way undermines the case made by Jeff and Bernard? Did you even read the abstract?
How does this comment from the paper support your case? "We hypothesize that larger animals that take more time from
the environment of decision making to the environment of
selection will be most vulnerable, because they will have
least flexibility to respond to climate change."
Do you think this is just "business-as-usual" evolution at work?
Do you really think the ability of some species to adapt their behaviour in response to short-term changes in their environment means the mass extinction currently under way is nothing to be concerned about?
Do you think that evolutionary processes that usually take millions of years are going to have a significant impact over the next few hundred years, that somehow, miraculously, thousands of new species will appear to replace all those vulnerable species that have vanished?
Could you explain how a species might evolve if it's extinct?
Honestly, Tim, I have long since given up wondering whether you will contribute anything even remotely sensible to this post.
I am surely not Robinson Crusoe in this regard.
The only reason I respond is because I'd hate to think first-time viewers of this site might be taken in by your inane twaddle.
Oh, and as for your "fact" that emphysema patient are administered medical gas containing 5% CO2 - it's true, I suppose, but irrelevant. Clearly irrelevant. The fact that a gas might be breathable by sick humans says nothing about its effect on the climate or the biosphere. It's just another one of your ridiculous red herrings.
You might as well argue that because people with heart conditions take half an aspirin every day with a glass of water, that mixing millions of tons of aspirin into the ocean in the same concentration would have no adverse effects.
Hmmm. So thousands of ecologists across the world have inventoried biodiversity incorrectly, but you, Tim Curtin, have the true understanding of species turnover.
Come on, are you serious?!
Exactly how have you accomplished this understanding in the face of so many experts who should know better than you?
Do you mean to say that, for hundreds of millions of years prior to the last several centuries, the biosphere managed to not only evolve from non-living elements, and to survive, but to thrive and to create an ever greater biodiversity, and that since industrialisation that's all gone out of the window and life on earth is now dependent upon continued CO2 emissions?
If this is what you are saying you are a complete and utter nutter.
It seems that it was the child-like faith of economists everywhere that contributed to the current financial crisis. Perhaps this has something to do with the widespread habit of many economists to exclude 'externalities' from their models, and (in part) to ignore the limitations and asymptotes of the natural resources of the planet. This is hardly a glowing endorsement of your former profession and the principles upon which much of its theory is based. Many of these theories are untested in the real world except over short periods of time, and in limited-parameter contexts.
It reminds me of the joke my own economics teacher related at the beginning of the course, where a former student visits his old professor as the don is preparing the current year's exams. The student notes that the questions were the same as those he was given ten years earlier, and the professor says "ah, yes, but the answers now are different".
It a bit cute also that you comment freely about subjects beyond your training, and then emphasise Jeff's excursion into your territory. The thing is, having studied many humanities and sciences in my five degrees at university, I can safely say that some are far more involved than others. Of all the subjects I have studies and/or worked in, immunology and ecology are the stand-out hardest to acquire a thorough understanding of. They are, both, riddled with complex relationships and feedbacks, and it is far more difficult to establish a framework of understanding in these areas than it is in other subjects. If I had to compare ecology and economics, I'd happily say that the latter is an easier discipline to learn (and to critique) than is the former.
And then there was:
Curtin, you claim to be an economist. You should understand the wonders of compound interest, even at 'low' rates.
Let's take temperature as an example. If my fingers are all intact, the way I figure it is that at an "annual growth of 0.4%", and assuming a global mean of 15ºC in 1958, the current temperature would be 80 ºC. At the same rate of increase starting from 1750, it would be 537 ºC today.
Strange what happens when the grass grows...
My 'home town' doesn't have temperature records going back to 1850, but there are many, many records of frequent and deep (for this part of the world) snows â up to 30 or 40 centimetres. That is, until about the 60s, since when almost overnight snow became a novelty, and the deepest fall for decades has been about 5 centimetres.
The pome and stone fruit industries here have been hit hard by the significant change in chilling regimes, and many orchards of traditionally heavy-bearing fruit-trees have been ripped up and replaced by new varieties that are better able to produce under current temperatures. If warming continues for another degree or two, along with the increasingly late frosts (resulting from ever-clearer skies) that are killing buds, many of the industries are pretty much economically stuffed, even if the do change varieties.
The salmon farm where my brother-in-law works is desperately trialing new species to cultivate, because the Altantic salmon that are currently raised are surviving at the upper limit of their temperature envelope, and more stock deaths are occurring every year. Twenty years ago they had no problem at all.
As an interesting aside, I have my weather station programmed to collect temperature, pressure, precipitation, wind speed/direction, et cetera every twenty minutes. I live in a rural area 1km from the coast, and 10km south of our state capital. Our maxima are consistently 1-2ºC above the city's... our urban heat island is strangely lacking... Whatever can this mean, Tim Curtin?
You still have no biological clue do you? Nothing new there...
Gaz's answer above says enough.
Junior high school level acknowledgement of the association of species diversity with latitude does not inform us of the response of species, whether tropical, temperature or polar, to changes in their climatic envelopes. I, and the ever-patient Jeff in particular, have spent too much of our time previously explaining why you are wrong at so many levels.
Can you not remember any of your lessons?
Gaz, as I expected, you left out the last para. of the Abtract of Both et al where they say: "These results could equally well be explained by consumersâ insufficient responses as a consequence of constraints in adapting to climate change, or by them trying to escape predation from a higher trophic level, or both. Selection on phenology could thus be both from matches of phenology with
higher and lower levels, and quantifying these can shed new light on why some organisms do adjust their phenology to climate change, while others do not." Why?
Your final comment is reductio ad absurdem, which seldom leads to enlightenment. The issue is if 0.0385% [CO2] is bad for us, why is 5% good medically? The answer is that the former is trivial, and its 40% increase since 1900 has yielded just the pitifully statistically insignificant rise in GISS' world temperature of just 0.66 oC; as Arrhenius and even IPCC admit, that means that a further 60% increase (from base 280 ppm) in [CO2] to 560 ppm will produce an even smaller increment in GISS global temperature, less than 0.66 oC, unless Hansen fiddles the books once again. IPCC can only get its 3 oC (+/- 1.5) by invoking positive feedback from water vapour, but that is looking a very shaky assumption. Spectometrists like Michael Hammer are confirming Lindzen's insight that this feedback is negative, which explains the poor correlation between [CO2] and temperature (after allowing for autocorrelations of both data sets).
Tim,
*Sigh*. You are getting desperate. To reiterate what I said yesterday, there is not a 'war on terror' (a war 'of' terror perhaps, but not the former). In my humble view the US and their proxies are in Iraq and Afghanistan for purely economic and political reasons and terrorism is just a convenient bogey man, just as communism was 20 and more years ago. If you don't realize this (which you apparently don't) then I think you're even more naive than I thought before (and that is saying a lot). If one wants to stop terrorism, they should stop participating in it. As far as economics go, you do not have a monopoly on wisdom. There are far more economists that would think your views are way, way out than scientists who would agree with your views on the means of reducing hunger. I say this with utter confidence.
As for Christian Both's paper, you are being selective, as always. I know Christian personally and have done experiments with him and he would be the first to say that your ideas are compeletely and utterly incorrect, as well as your interpretation. Again, I suggest you peruse through the pages of the journals I mentioend last week. There are thousands - literally - of studies reporting negative effects of climate change and other anthropogenic factors on various species of invertebrates and vertebrates.
And another point which is indisputable is that the number of species threatened with extinction is high and rising. Many factors are responsible; climate change is certainly one of them. Check the IUCN data. Strangely you never address this point. Why is that I wonder?
To all of the other readers of this thread: as a senior scientist, I can assure you that Tim's views are consigned straigh to the waste bin. They are not taken seriously in the scientific community, especially the frankly silly notion of increased C02 levels being needed to feed the hungry.
Um, that should have been four degrees and one postgraduate diploma.
Oops.
Ouch.
Tim 'Radium Water' Curtin...
Jeff has skewered you this time. This is the problem when you presume to tell a senior scientist that he and his fellow experts are wrong, and try to quote (and misinterpret) his scientific colleagues as proof - sooner or later you were bound to twist the words of someone he knows.
This little debacle nicely shows exactly how you take a bit of science and attempt to 'filter' it in order to support yourself. Or perhaps you aren't actually consciously filtering - maybe you are just plain incompetent to critique a complex field of science in which you have no training.
Either way, it is a hit, a palpable hit.
I expect that we will never see any better efforts from you in response to my repeated requests for science... even if this is not a physical exeunt of you from the discussion, your reputation and credibility are certainly bleeding out on the stage.
A palpable hit indeed.
Bernard J (at #297)
Your first comments are all appeals to authority without any data from your pundits to support your own quaint views. Yes, I do believe the continued well being of all living things is dependent on continued growth of [CO2], if only because since 1958 57% of CO2 emissions have annually been absorbed by our biospheres, resulting in population explosions at sea and on land, while only 43% annually has remained airborne, resulting in the statistically insignificant increase in global temperature since 1900 reported by GISS.
Your gibe at economists is well directed if you are referring to Stern & Garnaut, as they ignored the manifest benefits of the enhanced biospheric absorption of CO2 since 1958 Those benefits are indeed an externality, but positive, and far outweigh the chimerical costs of the essentially NIL NET global climate change since 1900, for which they provided not a shred of evidence while rabbiting on about CO2 emissions being a one way street negative externality. Stern built his acdemic career on the Little-Mirrlees model of cost-benefit analysis in which the prices to be used are not those in the market but âshadow pricesâ as determined by L, M, and S to give whatever result they wanted. Garnautâs Report shows no advance, as I explained in Quadrant.
Bernard, I must congratulate you on your 5 degrees, but how did you manage that when you come up with this stuff:
â I'd happily say that [economics] is an easier discipline to learn (and to critique) than is [ecology]â when you âcritiqueâ (ghastly word, you would never have got a single degree from me in my teaching days if you had used it) this comment of mine: âWhat dramatic increase in [CO2] â c40% since 1750? Annual growth since 1958 of 0.4% p.a.? If that is drama, you (Jeff & Bernard] must get a kick out of watching grass grow.â
You responded âCurtin, you claim to be an economist. You should understand the wonders of compound interest, even at 'low' rates. Let's take temperature as an example. If my fingers are all intact, the way I figure it is that at an "annual growth of 0.4%", and assuming a global mean of 15ºC in 1958, the current temperature would be 80 ºC. At the same rate of increase starting from 1750, it would be 537 ºC today.â Yes, but I was referring to CO2, not temperature. Take 1900 temperature in degrees C, and from the total increase since then, derive the growth rate, which is 1.000434% p.a. Then extrapolate as you did, and by 2615 you will still not have achieved even 19 oC, still about 10 below the annual average in Dubai. Using Kelvins is even more fun, as the growth rate from the larger base is even smaller. I think it fair to assume your stellar academic career left out Economics 101.
Radium Water Curtin.
It is easy to see, in your last post, how you play the pea and shells game.
My point was to show how the 0.4% rate that you disparage changes the 'capital' over relatively short periods of time. I chose temperature as an arbitrary example, because its global mean value in Kelvin is similar to the pre-industrial atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.
However, this rate changes the trajectory rather more quickly than it has changed (at least, wrt CO2) historically. The use of temperature was to try to focus your attention on the numbers, rather than the parameters - the rate of temperature change over the last century or two is not relevant to my point about the 0.4% issue.
Oh, and in case you missed it, the calculations were in kelvin, and converted back to celcius.
Shorter point: 0.4% per annum is 'small'; it's cumulative effect is much larger. If your positing of the existence of no greenhouse effect is incorrect (and you have not demonstrated how you are correct in this) then changes in [CO2] at this rate will have discernible climatic effect in the not-too-distant future.
The average annual temperature in Dubai is irrelevant to the discussion, just as the average temperature in my toilet is.
And I topped my class in economics. However it bored me so much that I ditched it at the first opportunity. I would rather watch grass grow.
so many errors, so little time.
i ll try to be brief:
1. main point: those who have a big interest in the CO2 effect (companies selling the gas to greenhouses) give a small effect for it: 30% under best conditions (and a massive increase in the CO2 level).
this tiny number is the most simple proof, that everything that Tim C wrote here is complete nonsense!
2. your own cost-benefit "analysis" contains not a SINGLE negative point. all the scientist that you attack are miles ahead of you!
3. the calculation that bernhard did (though containing a small calculation error 15*1.004^50=18.3) was only supposed to be an EXAMPLE on the effect of small annual increases. that you decided to take it literally, didn t spot the error and used it to come up with an obviously complete false estimate for future temperature is a typical case of the "Curtin approach".
4. the growth (that is the part behind the multiplication in the formula above) is completely independent from the value at the front.
5. everything that you said about extinctions, turned out to be false. did i miss the post, in which you excused yourself for those errors and took that nonsense back?
the major species that managed to adapt well to the human environment has a name: RAT.
6. everything that you brought up about medicine is moronic. the highest dose, used under certain medical circumstances, shouldn t be applied under different conditions. aspirin helps people with clogging blood. why not apply it to a person that is badly bleeding?
Sod & Bernard,
Excellent! Keep it coming.
Tim actually downplays an annaul rate of 0.4% increase in atmospheric C02. As Bernard said correctly, it is the cumulative effect that matters, and within a temporal framework. The trouble with much of Tim's musings is that he assumes that 50 years or 100 years is a long time. This is programmed into the human genome: the climate change sceptics dig up this chestnut all of the time, thus "I stuck my finger to the wind and it seems colder this year than last year, hence AGW is a myth".
Interactions occurring at small scales are largely stochastic, but as one increases the scale (temporal or spatial) processes become more determinisitc. This is basic physics. Humans are altering the workings of largely determinisitc systems in ways that are probably unprecedented in many thousands of years. Given that humans have paved or ploughed over much of the biosphere, we've created impediments - physical barriers - that affect the ability of species to adjust their distributions within their own thermal requirements, and have eliminated much of the habitat they require anyway when they are able to relocate. Habitat/biome generalists will do better than specialists, because the former can occupy different habitats, and there is already evidence that the latter are suffering as a result of AGW.
So what we are doing is creating a better world for species that thrive in disturbed habitats (as Sod says): brown rats, house mice, cattle, many early successional weeds, starlings, cowbirds, as well as polyphagous insects. But these constitute only a small fraction of biodiversity. Consequently, there will many more losers; the latest IUCN data support this completely. The decline of many plants and animals is pandemic, and, as I said before, between 10 and 40% of well studied species (for which we have fairly accurate demographic information) are threatened with extinction. Many songbird populations in North America are in freefall. Given the intractible link between atmospheric C02 levels and global temperature regimes, we can expect to see the number of species pushed over the edge increase, not decrease, in coming years. To be fair, the human created bottleneck is not solely down to climate change, but, as I have said several times on this thread, it is synergized with other anthropogenic processes. Amongst the vast majority of the scientifiic community, this is an acknowledged fact. Amongst professional population ecologists who are doing the actual research, it is virtually unanimous.
That is why I find Tim's musings so incomprehensible. Instead of discussing ways to create a sustainable economy and social justice while not compromising the health of natural systems, or of compromising their ability to provide life-sustaining services, the only answer he can give is "pump more C02 into the atmosphere".
The clincher is this. When I suggested that our understanding of nature is still rudimentary, Tim responded, "What the hell have you been doing all these years if you havenât worked this out yet?". This suggests that by now science ought to understand literally trillions of interactions involving many billions of individuals representing perhaps ten million extant species. I wish it was so simple, but it isn't. We are making headway, given that ecology only grew as a science during the 1960s, but ecology is made that much more complex because it is the mnost non-linear of the sciences. What we can say is that complex adaptive systems function as a sum of their parts. The parts are represented by individuals within populations within communities within ecosystems within biomes within the biosphere as a whole. From all of these interactions conditions emerge which enable us to exist and persist. The real challenge is to determine how these varying levels of organization are connected in maintaining a benign liveable environment. Given the stupendous complexity involved, we are only beginning to make real headway, but, as I said, we do know that as we continue to simplify nature it pushes systems towards a point beyond which they will not be able to maintain themselves (and us). Knowing this, reading the posts from Tim makes me shake my head. He makes it appear as if everything was so simple. It isn't.
I'm amazed. I "go away" for a couple of days and this thread sprouts even more legs, the number of which will soon surpass the Illacme plenipes at this rate.
PS Thanks folks (daughter: Angharad). Appreciated.
Bernard: with a 4.5-year-old as well, sleep can still be an issue, especially at 05:30 ... and sometimes earlier! Sleep is a rarer commodity than sense is in the Emperor of Antarctica (aka T "Radium Water" C).
How some of you guys find the time to answer Timidiocy is beyond me.
Tim (#298):
The additional sentences you quote from the Both et al paper (not the abstract, the actual paper, Tim - you're the one who cut and paste the entire abstract) does nothing to support your position.
Your rhetorical "Why?" seems designed to make some point, but it is not clear what it might be.
That's possibly because nothing in the paper supports your complacency over the pressure climate change is putting on large numbers of species.
In this case a vague "Why?" is probably the best you can do.
Now, about your claim that my final comment (about asipirin) "is reductio ad absurdem (sic), which seldom leads to enlightenment" - well you would know about seldom leading to enlightenment, wouldn't you, but my argument is not reductio ad absurdum. It was a simple analogy to illustrate the silliness of your own argument.
Specifically, you say: "The issue is if 0.0385% [CO2] is bad for us, why is 5% good medically?"
Whether or not 5% CO2 in gas is beneficial to emphysema patients is irrelevant to any discussion of the effect of various concentrations of CO2 on the global ecosystem, just as whether or not a given concentration of soluble aspirin is good for a patient with a heart condition is irrelevant to the desirable oceanic concentration of salycylic acid.
If my hypothetical argument is absurd, then so is yours.
And they both are, quite obviously.
My replies to Responses of 5 March @ 11.40 EST 5/3/09:
Jeff: despite your sighing, you lack credentials to make meaningful statement on global economics and political science, stick to your bugs. You cannot say that NATO + Australia are in Afghanistan for economic reasons, that war has been a considerable drain on their economies, and with Iraq is a major factor in the present depression (the Vietnam war created only economic pain for the USA until well into the 1980s). However engaging a self-declared enemy bent on destruction of all non-Caliphate countries seems a worthwhile political aim, yet you persist in saying that âterrorism is just a convenient bogey manâ. So 9/11 never happened, just a convenient myth? When you hold such views it is not surprising it is not possible to have an intelligent discussion with you.
Bernard. I find your latest comments on compound interest rates even more dishonest than your first dissimulation, even though you are in good company. Garnaut ruthlessly doubled all projected growth rates for CO2-e in the face of all evidence in the IPCC that they are only around 0.5% p.a., and projected declining absorption ratess in the face of all the evidence that they are rising at much the same rate as emissions. At least he admitted that absorption exists, unlike Field at the AAAS and US Senate, and Solomon et al in PNAS (2009, Fig.1), along with Smith, Schneider et al PNAS 27 Feb 09. Is that Science? Or deceit?
I am sorry to see you seem to endorse Jeffâs world view on terrorism etc.
Sod: an ongoing 30% yield increase so long as CO2 injections are sustained is huge with an amazing return relative to the cost of the CO2 input. The CO2 output via respiration is much delayed, and forms part of the overall carbon cycle. My articles focus on the NET increases in yield arising from growing elevation of [CO2].
Gaz: I agree with you about reductios! â but as yet there is no evidence that if [CO2] ever did reach 5% of the atmosphere (i.e. 50000 ppm) not before 2984 at even 0.5% pa, longer at the current 0.4% pa, that it would be harmful re temeperature recalling the logarithmic effect whereby we have already had most of what rising [CO2] would generate. That is because there is evidence that the spectrum where CO2 is absorbed is already at or close to saturation, leading long before 3000 to sideways direct emission to space.
Yesterday I mentioned negative feedbacks from water vapour, studiously ignored by the IPCC and its models. Today courtesy Steve McIntyre I found this: Garth Paltridge, Alan Arking and Michael Pook's report on a re-examination of NCEP reanalysis data on upper tropospheric humidity published online 26 Feb 09 by Theoretical and Applied Climatology: âWater vapor feedback in climate models is positive mainly because of their roughly constant relative humidity (i.e., increasing q) in the mid-to-upper troposphere as the planet warms. Negative trends in q as found in the NCEP data would imply that long-term water vapor feedback is negativeâthat it would reduce rather than amplify the response of the climate system to external forcing such as that from increasing atmospheric CO2â.
Enjoy!
Tim, the saturation argument has been dealt with exhaustively elsewhere. And please don't dredge up that crackpot whose name resembles the letters on an eye-test chart. We'll all just laugh.
And if that paper by Paltridge et al is the best you can do, maybe it's time to give up.
Gaz: how about your favourite crackpot, none other than Stephen Schneider? âWe report here on the first results of a calculation in which separate estimates were made of the effects on global temperature of large increases in the amount of CO2 and dust in the atmosphere. It is found that even an increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2, which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years, will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 deg. K.â Schneider S. & Rasool S., âAtmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols - Effects of Large Increases on Global Climateâ, Science, vol.173, 9 July 1971, p.138-141. He also says in the same article that ââ¦.our calculations suggest a decrease in global temperature by as much as 3.5 °C. â See http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Impacts/CliImpFram…
Hat tip to Ian George
Tim, your point? A paper written in 1971 - "first results of a calculation" - isn't confirmed exactly by subsequent refinement of the science? So what?
What have you got against this Schneider bloke anyway - did he back his ute over your cat or something?
Sod: an ongoing 30% yield increase so long as CO2 injections are sustained is huge with an amazing return relative to the cost of the CO2 input. The CO2 output via respiration is much delayed, and forms part of the overall carbon cycle. My articles focus on the NET increases in yield arising from growing elevation of [CO2].
your article does focus on a point, that is completely IRRELEVANT. the increase of 30% is under optimal conditions and on those plants, that actually show a positive reaction to a CO2 increase. (that is why the results are used in advertisements). those 30% also are the very TOP result that can be reached. (CO2 is cheap for use in greenhouses. if even higher concentrations would lead to serious yield increases, they would use those.
the concentrations used (550 ppm and more) are far from the levels that we have have "achieved" in the atmosphere today.
so the "effect" that you are talking about today is only a fraction of those 30%. it wont starve anyone, if we slow or stop the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere or even remove it to a lower level.
other things have a real and [significant effect](http://books.google.de/books?id=Xfl91KZfw8kC&pg=PA211&lpg=PA211&dq=rice…) on yield increases. of course, yields have increased massively during the 20th century. but simply NOT because of CO2
He also says in the same article that ââ¦.our calculations suggest a decrease in global temperature by as much as 3.5 °C.
most misleading quote ever. you forgot to mention, that this would have been the result IF aerosols had quadrupled...
RW Curtin.
If principle in 1958 = 288 (K, =15C), compounding at 0.4%pa, at 2009 one has 353 (K, = 80C).
Similarly, if principle in 1750 = 288 (K, =15C), compounding at 0.4%pa, at 2009 one has 810 (K, = 537C).
Where is the dishonesty in this?
I note sod's point about starting at 15C in 1958, with a value of 18.38698883 (or near enough) in 2008. I did not use this appraoch though, because celcius is a relative scale, whilst kelvin is an absolute one, and thus is more appropriate for reporting proportionate increases. I only converted back to celcius so that those not familiar with kelvin could appreciate the 'example' in terms of temperature effect.
Surely you were not implying that I should apply interest to values in a relative scale?
You're a dispicable bastard, Curtin, aren't you? Where exactly did I say that I supported Jeff's world view on terrorism? This is just lame strawman shit on your part.
Having said that though, I reckon that Jeff has a much more realist 'world view' than do you, and I would note that you are no more qualified to comment on political matters than is Jeff.
Considering the extraordinary fashion in which you butcher science, I have a very strong suspicion that your capacity for political comment (another area outside of your formal training) is much less than Jeff's.
If you do have formal political science training, then you should be embarrassed at some of the naïve commentary that you have produced.
Tim said, "Iraq is a major factor in the present depression".
Yes, but the neocon dolts who pursued this policy since the day Bush came to office (well before 9/11) didn't figure that the war would cost a fraction of what it ultimately would. They thought that it would be a cakewalk, and that the cherring Iraqis woudl be throwing petals on their soldiers. Of course the agenda is political and economic - I suggest you read over the 1950 State Department Assessment of the importance of the Middle East (1950) which it claled "A source of stupendous strategic power" and The greatest material prize in history". Also, read the comments of influential planners and politicians like Kennan and Brezinski, who have stated that any country controlling the region has "veto power over the global economy" (Kennan) or "critical economic leverage" (Brezinski). The hydrocarbon law forced onto Iraq recently lays out much of the agenda. The key is not access to oil and natural gas, but control. If you believe that 9/11 was somehow a factor for invading Iraq, a country which had nix to do with it, then it is my view that you are in need of serious medical treatment. Clearly methinks your view of international policy in this area is at the level of a kindergarten student.
When you write utter crap such as "However engaging a self-declared enemy bent on destruction of all non-Caliphate countries" the discussion enters into the realm of farce. Please tally up the death toll for me from state terror (the kind practiced by the US and its proxies, which, if nbot terror is actual aggression) and private groups over the past 15 years. I think that there is quite a discrepancy. In whatever form, terrorism is horrific and despicable. But you seem to ignore the fact that western policy has consigned hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, to an early grave, either through sordid economic policies or from high tech warfare and bombing. I think the US would find that forms of terrorism would decrease if they spent more money saving people than on killing them.
Needless to say, I think your views on environmental science are even simpler than your political views, if this is possible. Embarrasing would be a better word.
Gaz: Schneider with Smith et al (PNAS 2009) and in many other papers is guilty of fraud in the same way that Bernie Madoff is, by exaggerating in his case the costs of elevated [CO2] by claiming that the rate of elevation is the same as the rate of emissions of CO2, when in fact emissions from 2000-2007 grew at somewhat over 3% pa while [CO2] grew at 0.5% pa or less. Now I realise that for âscientistsâ like you, whatâs a difference of 2.5% pa? Madoff merely offered his credulous investors a return of only about 2.5% pa over the best of the best of his competitors, but since 2007 about 15%. No doubt you Jeff and Bernard think Madoff is kosher just like you believe everything Schneider and his myriad co-authors say at NPAS. I do find it curious that âscientistsâ like you lot think 100 basis points here or there are immaterial while when the Madoffs, and possibly Allen Stanford, claim that, it is wicked.
Sod: I am afraid I am close to giving up on you. I will try once again. Suppose I have a greenhouse down the road from Jeffâs place. I buy in CO2 and raise my output by 30% from last yearâs. Next year I buy more CO2 and achieve the same 30% above the year before I put in any extra CO2. Why are the Dutch so much more stoopid even than Jeff that they keep on doing this? BTW, the FACE experiments in open fields but without continuous year on year increases in CO2 achieve around 12-15% increases compared with base year. Actually more CO2 generally means less need for H2O and even up to a point N, but do check out the 2000+ papers documenting all this.
Bernard: you wilfully applied the actual historical growth rate of [CO2] that I noted for 1958-2008 (ex CDIAC and GCP) to global mean temperature, which actually grew at only about 0.000021% pa (in Kelvins) between 1900 and 2007. If that is not dishonest, what is?
Then you bleat: âWhere exactly did I say that I supported Jeff's world view on terrorism?â When you said at #301, immediately after Jeff said at #299: âthere is not a 'war on terror'â, âJeff has skewered you this timeâ. I can well imagine from your contributions here that you are both closet Al-Q sympathisers in favour of keeping women in their place and out of school! Then you confirm my guess by saying âI reckon that Jeff has a much more realist 'world view' than do youâ. So you do agree with him that nothing happened in Lahore on Tuesday or on 9/11 by way of terrorism other than some kind of peaceful protest against globalisation and/or Exxon?
(Patiently, as one would deal with a small child...)
My words were:
I explicitly said "as an example" so that you (and thickies like you) would understand that I was attempting to emphasise the significance of apparently 'small' rates of increase(/interest). Specific temperature (or any other) rates of change are not immediately relevant to the matter unless thay are of a similar order of magnitude, and thus of effect.
It appears that even such minor nuance is lost upon one as obtuse as you.
Imagine away as well as you are able to, Curtin, for you are very far off the mark. You are speaking to one who has a very firm philosophy of seeing that his two daughters have a very 21st century perception of their 'place' [sic] and your slander of my being a "closet Al-Q sympathiser" is pure cesspit excrement.
On your bike mate: you are way out of order, even for a pseudoscientific troll such as yourself.
Still, it is apparent that you are smarting enormously from Jeff's gutting of your rubbish; and will I note once again, for the record, that you are still providing no response at all to the accumulating requests for scientific evidence of your non-existent case.
Substantive analysis just ain't your thang, are it?
Jeff: you said âPlease tally up the death toll for me from state terror (the kind practiced by the US and its proxies, which, if not terror is actual aggression) and private groups over the past 15 yearsâ. I donât need to, TL and Lancet have not been able to show that 99% of âexcess deathsâ in Iraq since 2003 have NOT been caused by Shiites v Sunnis or vice versa.
Sod: I am afraid I am close to giving up on you. I will try once again. Suppose I have a greenhouse down the road from Jeffâs place. I buy in CO2 and raise my output by 30% from last yearâs. Next year I buy more CO2 and achieve the same 30% above the year before I put in any extra CO2. Why are the Dutch so much more stoopid even than Jeff that they keep on doing this? BTW, the FACE experiments in open fields but without continuous year on year increases in CO2 achieve around 12-15% increases compared with base year. Actually more CO2 generally means less need for H2O and even up to a point N, but do check out the 2000+ papers documenting all this.
funny, but i am aware of the FACE experiments. a 15% increase is tiny, as most of them use a 550 ppm CO2 level, quite a bit ABOVE of what we have today!
if a CO2 level of 550 ppm gives a mediocre "plant growth increase" of 12-15%, how much would the current 380 ppm give? why do you assume that people would starve, if we brought this back to 320 ppm, or at least stopped increasing it?
I donât need to, TL and Lancet have not been able to show that 99% of âexcess deathsâ in Iraq since 2003 have NOT been caused by Shiites v Sunnis or vice versa.
Curtin, please don t stow your lack of understanding in yet another field. the Lancet paper didn t show that, because it wasn t its purpose!
if you remove the regime running a country,and this starts a civil war, then you inherit those killings! it is called the pottery barn rule!
Thanks, sod. You asked why do I assume âthat people would starve, if we brought this back to 320 ppm, or at least stopped increasing itâ?
When [CO2] first reached 320 ppm at Mauna Loa, it was 1964, and is now 385 ppm at end 2008 . The worldâs population was then 3.26 billion (UNDP). It is now over 6.5 billion. The 1964 level of emissions was 4.5 GtC, it is now over 10 GtC. Given the Mauna Loa figures for [CO2] and the data for emissions, total net absorption of emissions was 3.88 GtC in 1964, and last year was at least 6 GtC.
Now we do know that while [CO2] was stable for millenia at around 280 ppm, so was the worldâs population at around 0.438 billion in 1500 and still only 1 billion by 1820, so growing at only 0.27% pa from 1500 to 1820; from 1950 to 1973 it was growing at 1.93% pa, less since then. Now it is a fact that all living matter depends for food on plants and animals that have absorbed CO2 (however this was denied by Barry Brook, Peter Singer, and Geoff Russell in their Submission to the Garnaut Review, when they refused to measure livestock emissions of GHG net of the antecedent uptakes, which led to Garnaut proposing that Australia should only eat kangaroos in future). If you believe those authors, there is no point in continuing this discussion.
If you are still with me, it is clear that the worldâs present population is eating more than the population as of 1750 â and BTW it is known that the world population of livestock of all kinds has increased at least pari pasu with us, as also fish despite what Taliban reps Harvey and Bernard believe (see data in FAO, passim). Am I wrong to suggest that the growth of emissions has facilitated the absorption of [CO2] by the global biospheres and thereby facilitated the enormous growth of total food consumption by all species since 1750?
If the current growth of the total populations of all species ceased, then stabilising [CO2] at the present level could be viable â but that is a breathtaking experiment in itself, given evident ongoing growth. So what has to be done at Copenhagen is not only ending growth of emissions but also ending all population growth. Malthus takes care of plant and animal deaths in a CO2 starved world, while for us it is a global one-child policy. Any volunteers?
Bernard, Sod, It is clear that TC is dragging this out as far as he can because he has been banned from other threads by TL. We are wasting our time and energy on him. The bottom line is that his arguments will not prevail. They are demolished by science and I think that most of the scientific community would find his views eccentric at best, and plainly crazy at worst.
As for my comments re: US foreign policy above, note how TC failed to address anything I said, but had to resort to a 'black and white' scenario smear in which Bernard and I are accused of being "closet Al-Q sympathisers". What utter bollocks. This is the classic refrain of someone devoid of facts or knowledge. That's because, unlike me, TC does not apparently spend time reading declassified government files (I have read very many of them from US and UK planners) and it appears his primary source of inforamtion are papers like Murdoch's 'The Australian'. It is clear that I can skewer him on this as I can skewer him on science. He makes it too easy for me.
As far as deaths in Iraq, I think that only an imbicile would believe that the US bombing and 'shock and awe' resulted in low numbers of civilian deaths. In Falluja alone its likely that many hundreds at the very least were blown to simthereens by the US-led assault there. And this ignores, of course, the US-UK sanctions regime which killed perhaps 500,000 to a million more between 1991 and 2003 and which were deliberately aimed at undermining the civilian infrastructure. Denis Halliday, the senior UN official and in chanrge of dsitributing aid in Iraq resigned at what he described as 'genocide masquerading as policy'. His successor, Hans von Sponeck, also resigned for the same reason. He wrote a book about his time in Iraq which was published in 2006 to the sound of resounding silence from the corporate MSM. Wrong message. His book conflicts the well-cultivated image of western benevolence and was therefore consigned to the dustbin of history. The song remains the same.
Tim Curtin is still turning over his [magic pudding](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Pudding)...
I see now why you are wont to compare yourself to Einstein. Your brilliance is surely stellar, RW Curtin.
It has indeed - again an incisive Einsteinian insight.
Of course, the fact that this increase has been at the expense of many species, and indeed whole ecological communities, seems to have slipped under your radar.
Oh dear RWTim, you've gone off the rails here, Einstein or no.
Um, does the term "Atlantic cod fisheries" ring any bells? Or "Patagonian toothfish", or "orange roughy", or "xxx-shark", or any number of staggeringly over-exploited other marine resources?
A very well respected oceanographer from Scripps, Prof Jeremy Jackson, published a [telling paper](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/08/08/0802812105.full.pdf) in (gasp!) in PNAS last year that completely smacks down your delusion of a fantastic, bountiful fisheries Nervana.
Nevertheless, if you know better, I am sure that you will show us the evidence - at the same time that you produce the material that supports your long list of other thus-far unsubstantiated claims.
Oh, and your continued use of slanderous claims that Jeff and I have association with extremist groups is a sign of an unsavoury as well as a despicable character.
Unless, of course, you have 'evidence' to prove this as well. Come on RW Tim, produce some substance for once in your life.
Jeff, Bernard
I see that neither of you has contested the data in my reply to sod, which showed what is, if they are not correlated, an amazing coincidence between trends in population growth and availability of CO2. Jeff continues his line there is no terror, unless sponsored by Exxon, or war thereon, except where likewise sponsored by Exxon. Bernard did not surprise me when he invoked yet another dishonest paper published in PNAS, which can no longer be considered a scientific organization in any shape or form when without exception all it has published on climate change in the last 3 years has been serially fraudulent. This time it is Jackson âEcological extinction and evolution in the brave new oceanâ, PNAS, August 12, 2008. His Table 1 could never have passed audit by even the late unlamented Arthur Anderson of Enron fame. Certainly the European Court of Auditors which which I had some dealings in my past life would pick up the gross deceit in his Table 1, where he claims e.g. that 85% of large whales and 59% of small whales are now extinct in âestuaries and coastal seasâ. Tell that to the Tasmanians, overhwelmed in recent weeks by the numbers of such supposedly extinct whales beaching themselves. That is casual empiricism, I agree, but much less so is the obervation that Jacksonâs source (Lotze et al) has zero evidence on the populations of these whales in âpristine timesâ, so their data is nothing less than thumb suck (what is 85% of N/A, not available, data?). When we come to Jacksonâs comments on the state of the GBR, we find he relies on Hoegh-Guldburg, a notorious economiser with facts, himself associated with the ghastly Deâath, Lough et al at AIMS Townsville, who went beyond economy to outright fraud in their recent paper in Science on the GBR (I have checked their archived data which in no way supports their conclusions; if you want the disgraceful details do contact me). All these dreadful people assure us that the GBR is doomed if not gawn already, at odds with experience of those who actually live up there and have no vested interest in claiming the GBR is dead.
Jeff: why not join the CIA if you are not already a member? your comments on the non-existence of real terror as manifested in Lahore, 9/11, and 7/7 and 20/7 in London (I narrowly missed the latter attempt but was fortunately in a pub watching the cricket and had just got off one of the Underground lines targetted in those attempts) are on a par with the CIa's belief in WMD.
I see that neither of you has contested the data in my reply to sod, which showed what is, if they are not correlated, an amazing coincidence between trends in population growth and availability of CO2.
Curtin, your lack of basic understanding is shocking.
there is indeed a certain correlation between human population and (the "availability" of) CO2.
(please notice that Tim is using the terms in a completely wrong way. he doesn t really know what correlation is..)
the human population is PRODUCING the additional CO2!
the question is one of causation, the correlation is a trivial one.
and actually the correlation is mostly in the time, since mankind started the use of fossil fuels.
a test of the Curtin hypothesis is simple: according to him, we would find a strong correlation between the growth of the human population and the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere BEFORE humans started burning fossil fuels. good luck!
on the other hand he failed to explain, how the tiny effect of the increased CO2 on plant growth since 1750 (a fraction of 12 to 15%, using his own numbers) can explain the massive increase of human population. (0.5 to 7 billion)
i will call it the "Tim Curtin" effect!
I'd just momentarily un[killfile]d Mr Radium Water, the seemingly soon to be self-elected next Emperor of Antarctica, the champion selective-quote meister, aka Tim Curtin, "originator" of the Curtin reaction (and extended Curtin reaction), to see what current garbage was emanating from his fingertips. I'm not surprised to see that nothing has changed.
There was one thing in #322 that really caught my attention, being allied to the scientific publication industry myself, namely: "Bernard did not surprise me when he invoked yet another dishonest paper published in PNAS, which can no longer be considered a scientific organization in any shape or form when without exception all it has published on climate change in the last 3 years has been serially fraudulent."
On the face of it this seems defamatory and/or libellous, so I've just this moment passed the quote (and one or two others) on to PNAS via their website contact page for their attention.
My communication to PNAS reads as follows:
To whom it may concern
I occasionally correspond on the Deltoid blog. Recently, a number of comments made there by a commenter by the name of Tim Curtin (in the topic at http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/01/windschuttle_hoaxed.php) have caught my attention as possibly being defamatory and/or libellous to your organisation, its editors and reviewers. You may ultimately find them not worth bothering about (the USA law being a little different to the UK (my home) law situation), but I thought you should at least be made aware of them.
The comment that really caught my attention is in #322, where Tim Curtin (http://www.timcurtin.com/) says:
"Bernard did not surprise me when he invoked yet another dishonest paper published in PNAS, which can no longer be considered a scientific organization in any shape or form when without exception all it has published on climate change in the last 3 years has been serially fraudulent."
There are other instances, such as in comments #87:
"I am however puzzled by your implicit faith that PNAS represents some kind of perfection, when it can easily be shown to be all too ready to publish any old rubbish on climate change and much else. ... Clearly PNASâ peer reviewers have no concept of ensuring consistency either within or between papers. In other fields it is known as âquality controlâ, in PNAS, Science and Nature that term is an oxymoron."
and in #166:
"The PNAS's idiot peer reviewers show they know nothing and care less".
Regards
P. Lewis
Needless to say, TC --> [killfile]
This is why you are not, and never will be, a scientist.
Change your statement to "population growth and the emission of CO2", and you will have a thesis that makes more sense based upon the evidence and the work of hundreds of scientists.
Correlation does not prove causation, and even in cases where there is a relationship, one has to be careful to distinguish the dependent variable from the independent one.
You have reversed the two.
How's the lawsuit going, Tim Curtin? And the exposé of the nefariousness some of the the peak scientific organisations of the world?
A claim like this, if true, would warrant a series of broadsheet investigative essays, probably a book, and certainly a Pulitzer. Get collaborating Tim - your time is here!
Or maybe you're the liar and the fraud... and (dare I suspect it?!) a troll? We've danced this jig before, and you have never justified yourself in a fashion that would convince any but the most credulous of right-wing conspiracy theorists.
Pilot whales and sperm whales are "supposedly extinct", are they? Try again, Curtin - you're spreading untruths: no-one has claimed these species to be extinct.
And Tasmanians haven't been 'overwhelmed'. Saddened - yes. The Parks and Wildlife Services stretched (because any more than a few whales is a huge task for a small team of professionals and their volunteers) - yes. 'Casual empricism' (my emphasis)- not even that, because you have not gathered even a basic collection of facts with which to support your statement.
Oh, and for what it's worth, having most of my family and friends living on a waterway in Tasmania that used to see several orders of magnitude more whales pass each year than have done so for decades, your Tasmanian reference is clumsy and mendacious indeed. Right now I am sitting in the study of a friend whom I am visiting, watching the stars reflecting off these very waters as I type, and I think that I have rather a better idea of the whale population trends down here than do you.
Just about the only things that have been expanding in these waters in recent years are exotic sea stars, urchins and other blow-in marine pests, much to the detriment of the kelp and seagrass communities here.
And in large part it's the warmer waters of the last decade or two that has so affected the marine ecosystems around the Tasmanian coast.
Why do you think this is?
Oh, so you are an expert in population estimations now, on top of all of your other expertises? Do spend some considerable time delving into this subject in greater detail please - this area is a major chunk of my PhD, and of Jeff's work too, and I am sure that we would both benefit from your genius. Don't be embarrassed TimC, put your insight regarding the 'disgraceful details' into the public domain where it belongs.
Tim Curtin, in my personal opinion you are a deluded conspiracy nutter unable to see past your own heavy affliction by the Dunning-Kruger effect. Of course, I may be wrong, but if you persist in not presenting your case in a scientific manner, as you have so far failed to do after more than 300 posts, you leave me and every other reader of this limping thread no choice but to accept this conclusion.
Do you even understand what Jeff, I and the others have been saying when we repeatedly request that you show us your science, that refutes the ever-expanding numbers of scientific disciplines that you claim are entirely fraudulent?
You really don't know how to construct a proper scientific critique, do you?
P. Lewis,
You have done the correct thing. TC files to [killfile]. I think that he is indeed 'losing it'. I have never seen so much childish drivel in my life; no content, just infantile ranting. Like f'rinstance:
"Jeff continues his line there is no terror, unless sponsored by Exxon, or war thereon, except where likewise sponsored by Exxon". Incredible. No comment needed.
Or try this gem: [Bernard] "85% of large whales and 59% of small whales are now extinct in estuaries and coastal seasâ.
[Tim's reply]: "Tell that to the Tasmanians, overhwelmed in recent weeks by the numbers of such supposedly extinct whales beaching themselves". Again, this leaves me with tears of hilarity in my eyes. A total mashing and mangling of science. Abominable.
Supposedly extinct? Most of the whales were pilot whales which are one species that is not globally threatened. Many other species, including just about all baleens, are. Estimates are that populations of baleen whales are now probably less than 2% of what they were two hundred years ago. The blue whale may never recover; its numbers are perhaps < 2,000; ditto for Fins, Right's and Bowheads. Humpbacks number only about 10-15,000 - and yet Japan wants to resume whaling them. Basically, Tim, methinks you are speaking out of your-you-know-what again, but only now more than ever. Your posts are becoming an increasing embarrassment to yourself, if that is possible. Your rants against the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences are, at the very least, a hoot.
As I have said before, the debate is over, or should be. I think that most readers of this thread will know who won easily. It ain't hard.
Tim Curtin.
Your comments about the Victorian bushfires earlier in this thread are rather off-topic, and calculated, I am sure, to distract from your foundering in basic science, and simultaneously to disparage anyone with an ecologically-minded bent. However, your ideas represent potentially dangerous memes, and I reckon that addressing them here is worth the effort.
I strongly urge you to follow sod's link to [Andrew Campbell's piece](http://www.triplehelix.com.au/documents/ThoughtsontheVictorianBushfires…) from 10 February, if you have not already done so. Campbell is in a much better position to comment than you, with his decades of intimate and relevant experience in the subject. His article is a much more cogent summary of the points I made in the huge post I attempted to submit several weeks ago in response to NaGS, but which evaporated into the æther. I heartily endorse everything Campbell says, although some of my emphases would be slightly different.
There are several points I would like to reiterate though, and a few to make that Campbell did not cover.
The first is a bit of salient pedantry â prescription burning is not, as many who are blaming 'greenies' seem to be confused about, back-burning (which is undertaken in front of a wildfire in order to control it); and it is not 'cold' â it is simply usually less hot than a wildfire. The latter point has important biological and fire-management consequences.
A lot of the thinking historically, that prescription burning reduced the incidence of bushfire, occurred at a time when arson was less common. Many of the fires that occurred on 'Black Saturday' would not have occurred at all had the criminal ignition of them not occurred, even with the extreme conditions that were present. It is a logical fallacy to blame the ignition of all of the fires on a lack of prescribed burning, and the intensity of the fires is a far more complex matter than simply blaming a lack of prescription burning.
I grew up in the bush, in an area that was frequently torched by arsonists. I've watched spectacular fires in bush that was burned two or three years previously. And this occurred in much milder conditions that were present in Victoria's February fires.
Several years ago, for three years, I lived in a pole house at the edge of a cliff overlooking coastal bush reserve in the southern suburbs of Newcastle. In the last year before I left, the Parks and Wildlife Service posted notices advising of a prescription burn on certain dates, subject to appropriate conditions. Unfortunately, for months on end the conditions were such that either a fire could not be ignited, or the danger of escape escalated so quickly that the burn had to be rescheduled. Eventually the burn had to be cancelled for the season entirely. This was within 1km of the coast â inland areas would have been even more at risk of prescribed fires breaking control.
At around the same time I recall that a similar fire in Karing-gai National Park did escape control, with damage to property â perhaps the Sydney readers here can inform us whether or not there was any loss of life.
Irrespective of the latter though, these examples demonstrate the difficulty associated with safe and predictable prescription burning.
As I am too disheartened to spend the hours retyping the minutæ of the material I tried to post previously, I will list the essential thrust of each of a number of points:
Prescribed burning is a single fire management tool amongst a number of others. It is not a blanket treatment, and it is certainly not a panacea. It must be employed with informed consideration, and not as a knee-jerk solution to all fire hazard.
Yes, the indigenous populations of Australia employed firestick 'farming' in order to open bushland for favoured prey species, and to promote regeneration of these species' herbaceous food plants. Yes, the Australian 'bush' is adapted to such firing, but this does not mean that it is positioned in the equilibrium state that these ecosystems would attain if humans, whether indigenous or otherwise, were not present.
Without human involvement, the Australian bush would likely become less sclerophyllous over the millennia, and less frequently burned (even with natural litter accumulation), and it would shift to a different biodiversity profile. Under these conditions some currently common species that are favoured by frequent burning would become rarer, but conversely there would be many other species whose numbers would increase. However, it is less likely that there would be extinctions under the human-less scenario, than is currently occurring with the large number of impacts that our species is inflicting upon the country.
How we actually manage fire in Australia in order to attain a balance between a robust and functioning biodiversity, a desirable natural landscape in which to live, and human safety, is a complex and nuanced matter. Broadscale 'preventative' burning of the bush however is not the answer.
Sod: you said at #323 â âa test of the Curtin hypothesis is simple: according to him, we would find a strong correlation between the growth of the human population and the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere BEFORE humans started burning fossil fuelsâ. I never ever said that, and of course there is none as effectively there was barely perceptible population growth until the 18th Century and a stable level of [CO2] at 280 ppm until 1750 as we are always told by IPCC. QED, i.e. since 1750 there has been a striking coincidence between these variables, and one that is much closer than that between temperature and [CO2].
P. Lewis: Thanks for alerting PNAS to its misdemeanours. A good example previously noted is in Solomon et al Irreversible Climate Change due to carbon dioxide emissions, PNAS 10 Feb 09, with its failure to model CO2 absorption by the biospheres, as evident in Fig. 1 and 2, dishonesty worthy of Bernie Madoff no less. Another is NAS policy of publishing anything with Field amongst the authors even if he contributed nothing to the paper, as the actual authors know they get their paper published if he is a co-author (e.g. Zavaleta et al PNAS, June 24, 2003, August 19, 2003; in both Fieldâs name is last on the list, if he had contributed he would have been listed in alphabetic order after the lead author, and no mention is made of respective contributions, unlike in more genuine PNAS papers). Field is a member not only of the NAS but also since 2001 of the Editorial Board of PNAS, but declares no âconflict of interestâ when he appends his name to PNAS papers. In my experience all too many scientists do not know the meaning of that term. I happen to be on the Editorial Board of a journal that informed me when I was invited to join that I would not in future be able to submit papers to it. Not so PNAS and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, âGlobal warming: stop worying, start panicking?â PNAS 23 Sept. 2008, he like Field is on the Editorial Board and âdeclares no conflict of interestâ. Joke! However I am glad to report that Field won Bernardâs Skippy Prize for his Prevention of Global Warming in 2006. Just to remind that Field told the US Senate ten days ago (25 Feb) that emissions growth equals growth in [CO2] â veritably another Madoff. Frankly even the SEC belatedly is now showing some of the integrity one should expect but do not get from NAS. Finally, Smith Schneider et al in PNAS 27 Feb 2009 amongst the rest of their tosh claimed increasing frequency and intensity of hurricans and tropical cyclones. It goes without saying that they mostly cite themselves and fellow cabalists, but pretend not be aware of the work of Ryan Maue in GRL (Northern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclone Activity, 3 March 2009) out just one week later but previously already in the public domain. Ah but Ryan sets out data (see summary in Box), unlike Smith et al who have no need of facts for their pre-ordained gloom and doom. I see that Schneider is a member of the NAS, who know how to look after their own. Sadly he has yet to win Bernardâs Skippy Prize, could it be because his brain canât even match Skippyâs? So dear P. Lewis, the lawyers of PNAS know where to find me, bring âem on.
Previous Basin Activity
BASIN 2005 ACE 2006 ACE 2007 ACE 2008 ACE 1982-2008 AVERAGE
Northern Hemisphere 655 576 383 408 557
North Atlantic 243 83 72 142 104
Western Pacific 301 274 212 167 280
Eastern Pacific 97 204 55 83 156
Southern Hemisphere* 285 182 191 164 229
Bernard (#325): You deserve a Skippy Prize for your own rampant casual empiricism. Population growth or decline requires some form of census at t=0 and another at t=0+n. You have done neither, any more than Jeff H or Jackson of the same ineffable PNAS (2003). Is there anybody at NAS who understands this minimal requirement? Certainly none at Johns Hopkins or The Lancet, it seems to be generic.
Jeff (#326). Have you asked the Japanese for their whale population data? If not, why not?
Bernard (#327). Re bushfires, I did read Davidson, have you read Rick Houlihanâs Submission to the South Yarra Shire Council of July 2008? No, of course not, though it is available at Jen Marohasyâs (drum roll: not PC on CC so off limits?). You and Davidson think only in terms of backburning and the like. There is another way, removal or reduction of native bush material by methods other than burning (not mentioned by Davidson), eg mowing native grass and clearing deadwood adjoining oneâs property (as I have done here on Mt Rogers) but all banned by the SYSC or allowable only with a permit costing up to $10 a throw or a fine of $100,000. Effectively the Council banned all firebreaks created by non-burning methods unless one bought a permit each time one wanted to mow the grass or remove deadwood, and waited a year to get it. One owner (Sheehan) went ahead anyway, cleared trees and was fined $100,000, and his homestead was the only survivor in his locality! Your Skippy brain seems unable to grasp that one can and should establish firebreaks without any burning. It also helps to build with brick walls, not fibreboard â all that remains of so many houses is the brick fireplace and chimney. But I can promise you that Victoriaâs promised changes to its Building Code will never eventuate or will be scuppered by SYSC â and of course fire extinguishers are unmentionable in South Yarra and in Davidson because they contain CO2. I see that the Royal Commission is excluded by its ToR from considering fuel reduction in any form, and especially by non-burning creation of firebreaks, in order to protect the backside of Brumby and his merry South Yarra supporters.
A further response to Sod @323, a summary of Carbon Dioxide and Vegetation by Graham D. Farquhar (SCience 21 Nov 1997) which I only came across last November, but it makes for compelling reading. Please submit your own dissent to Science, this invitation applies also to Bernard.
"What happens to vegetation when greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide) increase in concentration and the temperature goes up? The Framework Convention on Climate Change commits the signatories to avoiding dangerous interference with the climate system, interference that might harm the world's agriculture and natural ecosystems. But just what are the likely responses of vegetation? Much attention is paid to the effects of temperature and other climatic changes. As Street-Perrott et al. report on page 1422 of this issue, there is now evidence that, at an ecosystem level, the direct effects of an increase in carbon dioxide are themselves important (1).
Street-Perrott and her colleagues have studied the paleoenvironmental history of high-altitude lakes and the surrounding vegetation in East Africa. They examined the lake sediments, the pollen and leaf waxes in them, and the carbon isotope composition of bulk organic matter and of specific biomarkers. They conclude that the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since the last glacial period has allowed trees to grow where the vegetation was (before 13,000 years ago) restricted to an almost treeless, grassy heathland.
Street-Perrott et al. found that the increase in CO2 concentration was correlated with a decrease in the amount, measured as d13C, of the heavier stable isotope. This result is consistent with a shift from the photosynthetic pathway common in tropical grasses (denoted C4) to the pathway found in trees (denoted C3). However, a number of factors can influence the composition of sediments, and hence, the importance of the authors' careful work in measuring composition of particular biomarkers to separate terrestrial, aquatic, and bacterial sources. C4 plants utilize a CO2-concentrating mechanism that is advantageous at low concentrations but is more "costly" to the plant than C3 metabolism as CO2 levels increase. The very evolution of C4 was probably in response to low CO2 concentrations, with rapid expansion about 7 million years ago (2).
The findings offer an explanation for a paleoecological puzzle. Previous estimates of the cooling of tropical land areas at the last glacial maximum (LGM) (about 20,000 years ago) were large, so large as to be incompatible with the decrease in sea-surface temperatures (<2oC) deduced from deep-sea cores. The terrestrial estimates had been made by examining changes in the elevation of tree lines and ascribing those changes to temperature alone. Acknowledging that CO2 concentration itself affects the growth of trees enables us to see that the cooling of tropical land was not so great. During the glacial times, the trees were being starved of the substrate for photosynthesis. Along these same lines, Sage has argued (3) that agriculture became viable at several places around the world between 11,000 and 6000 years ago, only when the CO2 concentration became sufficiently large to sustain decent yields for our first farmers.
For the individual plant, water-use efficiency is almost directly proportional to the level of CO2 for a given regime of temperature and humidity (4). So concentrations of 180 parts per million (ppm) (such as occurred during the LGM), being half the current levels, would mean that plants had to transpire twice as much water then as now to achieve the same level of photosynthesis (see figure). Put another way, doubling the CO2 concentration is almost like doubling the rainfall as far as plant water availability is concerned. Further, increased greenhouse forcing also speeds up the global hydrological cycle, and so, on average, the actual rainfall increases with increasing CO2 concentration. Many of the paleorecords indicate arid conditions during the LGM. Much of this was probably caused by drier conditions, whereas some records that rely on the amounts of pollen, for example, could rather be reflecting the physiological aridity caused by low atmospheric CO2 levels. The results help explain the findings (5) that the terrestrial biosphere in the preindustrial era (about 270 ppm) stored about 30% more carbon than it did at the LGM.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The increase of CO2 concentration and temperature from the LGM to the early interglacial led to an increase in the hydrological cycle, the greater growth of trees, which use the C3 pathway of photosynthesis, less reliance on CO2-concentrating mechanisms on land and in the water, and the consequent depletion of 13C (more negative d13C) in the total organic matter (TOC, total organic carbon) found in the lake sediments
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Both photosynthesis and the enhanced greenhouse effect are more sensitive to CO2 levels when the concentrations are low. The translation of increased photosynthesis to increased growth rate is not straightforward, depending on developmental processes (6). The effects of the 180-ppm increase from the LGM to the present 360 ppm should be much greater than the effects of going from 360 to 540 ppm, the latter being twice the preindustrial level (about 270 ppm). The plants of today are much less water- and CO2-limited than they were at the LGM. Nevertheless, one suspects that the direction of change in the near future will be the same as that following the LGM, one of increased "effective rainfall," with the agricultural and ecological consequences that follow. Given that the availability of water for agriculture is already becoming such a problem, this aspect, at least, of atmospheric change is a welcome one."
And we have had a similar increase in [CO2] since 1750 without mass destruction of species from this cause. Reverting to Jeff and Bernard on marine species extinctions, they seem to have forgotten once again (like Jackson and PNAS) to distinguish between species loss due to "climate change" and that due to the tragedy of the Commons (over-fishing and other direct human intervention).
When will they share with us their regressions that do make that distinction?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So TC tells us that increased CO2 caused human population growth.
My response: derisive laughter - thanks Tim - followed by [killfile].
Sod: you said at #323 â âa test of the Curtin hypothesis is simple: according to him, we would find a strong correlation between the growth of the human population and the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere BEFORE humans started burning fossil fuelsâ. I never ever said that, and of course there is none as effectively there was barely perceptible population growth until the 18th Century and a stable level of [CO2] at 280 ppm until 1750 as we are always told by IPCC. QED, i.e. since 1750 there has been a striking coincidence between these variables, and one that is much closer than that between temperature and [CO2].
Curtin, you can t claim that CO2 is the CAUSE of the growth of human population after 1750, but not before. your claims simply don t make any sense.
Sod: I never did say that âCO2 is the CAUSE of the growth of human population after 1750, but not beforeâ. What I do say is that it was (and still is) a necessary condition. Absent rising [CO2], we will quite soon have falling world population because of global famines. Enjoy!
Sod: I never did say that âCO2 is the CAUSE of the growth of human population after 1750, but not beforeâ. What I do say is that it was (and still is) a necessary condition. Absent rising [CO2], we will quite soon have falling world population because of global famines. Enjoy!
if rising CO2 levels are a "necessity" now, why weren t they before 1750?
and you obviously spoke of causation above. you can t simply make up stuff all the time. either CO2 is the cause of population growth, or it isn t.
With the energizer troll in action, this could go on forever. OTOH, the responses are often interesting, so how can the length of this thread be limited.
Eli suggests the conservation of idiocy principle. For every post that Tim Curtin adds from now on, Tim Lambert erases one from the top.
Eli suggests the conservation of idiocy principle. For every post that Tim Curtin adds from now on, Tim Lambert erases one from the top.
[killfile] considerably shortens the thread.
Best,
D
I think Eli might mean "conversation with the idiot" principle.
Then again, two sides of the same coin perhaps...
RW Curtin said:
As sod hinted at, human population growth was well advanced long before 1750. I'm not even going to bother linking to an online source, because there are so many. If one takes some time to look at a detailed graph/table, it is apparent that obvious exponential growth started from a previously almost stable linear (?) growth, somewhere up to 4000-5000 BC.
Note that any atmospheric carbon dioxide increase during this time was largely the result of human population growth, and its attendant cutting down of forests. Not even the cause/effect imbicile that you show yourself to be can deny this, unless you claim that (originally miniscule) increasing atmospheric CO2 permitted humans to cut down forest and thus release more CO2, and causing a positive feedback.
This is an extremely unlikely scenario indeed, given that the blanket productivity sensitivity (that you claim exists) at the ambient levels of atmospheric CO2 (and the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 at these times) would not even be noticeable above other effects such as the improvement of agricultural technologies, and the very simple act of clearing and cultivating more land for agriculture.
The simple fact is that prior to 1750 there is no way to claim that atmospheric CO2 increase 'caused' human population growth, rather than population growth causing CO2 increase, unless one hammers Ockham's razor and smelts it down to an ingot of iron.
So now we have the 'seed' of discernible exponential human population growth, with no evidence that any increase in CO2 is at all responsible...
(As an aside, I recall in primary school being told a story of a craftsman who creates a masterpiece of a chess board for a king, and for payment asks for one grain of rice for the first square, two for the second, and so on until the 64th and last square. The king, not being mathematically inclined, agreed. We were told that the kingdom was emptied of rice, although I had never actually determined what the final number of grains was - I now know that it's 2^63, = 9.22 x 10^18.
Today I took two types of rice into the uni lab and weighed, to the nearest 0.1 mg, five of the smallest of each grain I could find (assuming that grains were smaller 'then' than now), and determined average masses of 24.5 and 27.3 mg for the two varieties. Assuming an average overall mass of 25mg, for evenness and for argument's sake, this would have given the craftsman 2.3 x 10^11 tons of rice for the 64 squares of the chess board!)
So, Radium Water Tim, we have as I said the seed of exponential growth in human numbers long before the Industrial Revolution and its attendant atmospheric CO2 increase. We know that human ingenuity had uncoupled population growth from the usual Malthusian/ecological limits that had maintained a metastable prehistoric/pre-agricultural level, and numbers were galloping over the globe.
Now, enter the 1700s. You would have us believe, on the basis of a 'regression', that population increase commenced with the atmospheric CO2 increase that resulted from human emissions. The thing is, whilst the Industrial Revolution certainly helped to open the Pandora's Box of "how to release fossil carbon", fossil carbon contribution to the atmosphere did not really start to register on the radar until about 1850 ([here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_History_and_Flux_Rev.png), and [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Carbon_Emission_by_Type_to_Y20…)).
Furthermore, the beginning of the spectacular increase in human numbers, which goes beyond the simple exponential model described above, seems to have presaged the Industrial Revolution by at least half a century. This is neatly shown by a plot of [doubling time](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population-doubling.jpg) for human population over the last millennium. Your cause-and-effect inference from your regression would seem to fall down here, just as it does with the pattern of fossil carbon emissions.
I am curious: how did you incorporate improvements in sanitation, and in medical treatment, into your infamous 'regression equation'? How did you account for the impact that industrial mechanisation had on explosive growth in land cleared and prepared for new agricultural production, and in the efficiency of transport of produce? And how did you separate the impact of the 'Green Revolution' from contemporaneous carbon emissions?
You seem to have thrown the scientifically parsimonious baby out with the bathwater of ideological distaste.
Interestingly, the story doesn't end there. The trajectory of [carbon emissions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Carbon_Emission_by_Type_to_Y20…) has, to date, been steepening, and the doubling time for human population growth has simultaneously begun to reverse. Erm, how does this fit with your carbon emissions/productivity, human population growth 'theory'?
Perhaps it's time for an heir of Ockham to reforge a razor from that lump of iron of which you've managed to make such a mess.
On to other matter:
Curtin, you needn't patronise me with discussions of tx. I have tagged/microchipped thousands of animals for mark/recapture calculations, and I know very well how to execute them, whether by hand or with a nifty software package such as Mark. And believe me, there are plenty of scientifically and historically documented data that support my statement about the reduction in whale numbers. In the 'casual empiricism' department alone I have spent hours talking to old-timers down here whose grandfathers and great-grandfathers were whalers, and their stories all confirm the decrease in whale numbers since whaling was an industry here.
Are you saying whale numbers along the Tasmanian coastline have not altered in the last two centuries?
Oh, and a 'census' is very different from a 'survey' or a 'sampling'. In the animal world, a census is a rare thing indeed.
Learn your ecological terminology.
Once again you presume that a discussion of certain things is a denial of others. Read carefully â I said, " There are several points I would like to reiterate though, and a few to make that Campbell did not cover." I did not say that I was going to cover all options for fire control â I was specifically concentrating on the complexity of burning as a control. The measures you refer to are standard fire prevention tactics, and were not immediately relevant to my main point.
I am no stranger to them though. I've spent weeks myself cutting and removing the nicely flammable Gahnia from my 16 acre rural property, having learned the hard way how much it enjoys a good burn to encourage vigorous regrowth. I've also thinned out the scrub and dead wood from around my sheds, and in the process of undertaking this clearing I've seen a significant decline in the incidence of undergrowth-inhabiting birds, mammals and reptiles.
If I were to remove all vegetation to provide a buffer that would protect my infrastructure from burning in a fire of the magnitude of those in Victoria, I would end up clearing about 4 acres of my land. Given that I bought it for its habitat value this is not an option, and if I ever build a house on it I will build it to standards that anticipate the worst. My neighbour and I have already constructed a bunker as a refuge â my house plans incorporate mudbricks and a green roof amongst many other fire-resistant features.
For the umpteenth time, there are many methods to consider in an effective fire management plan. Prescribed burning is not prince amongst these, and the howls from its supporters of it are misplaced. Where management of fire risk was inadequate, this was probably as much from individual ignorance and/or complacency, and from bureaucratic inertia, as from anything else. 'Greenies' do not dictate fire policy, contrary to what you and others seem to think, and not a one of the many that I know would promote a total non-burn approach to fire management.
It was a good opportunity to put the boot into the hippy buggers though, wasn't it?
There's yet more of your blather to address, but I've been up for the whole night with a gripey newborn as I've typed this, and frankly I have had enough of nursing babies. Perhaps one of the others will take the baton for a while â there's more shit leaking from your nappy than I'm prepared to clean up.
Tim is a 'hit and run' blogger: he makes an outrageous assertion (most recently about population declines of whales), then when his assertions are demolished, he reverts back to his 'shrinking corner: "where is the proof that this has anything to do wi'th climate change and/or C02 emissions. It is pathetic, rally.
As I have said before, it is up to the reckless sponsers of business as usual who wish to meddle with complex adaptive systems to prove that this meddling will not have potentially serious consequences, and NOT the other way around. Given what we do know (and all we don't) about the way in which communities and ecosystems function, and the broad view of the scientific community which clearly thinks Tim's reasoning is profoundly illogical, then I wait for Tim to cite controlled ecological experiments in which both above-ground and below-ground trophic interactions are included to see what the effects of elevated atmospheric C02 levels will have. We do have some of those data - for instance, one of our recent PhD students who showed that soil microbial communities were simplified in increased C02 regimes. This means that functional redundancy is reduced, and this often correlates with reduced systemic resilience. Species diversity reinforces systems by facilitating more pathways for nutrients, energy, etc. through the system (see McCann's theoretical work on this). As species diversity is reduced, we push systems closer to the edge. This is basic ecology, but not for the likes of non-ecologists like Tim who don't understand it. I spoke with another colleage the other day who did his PhD on the effects of elevated C02 o the biology of phloem-feeding insects and on plant stoichiometry, and I told him effectively what Tim had been saying here, on this thread. Let me just say that my colleagues'response was one of shock, that anyone could attempt to extrapolate a simple linear trend on the basis of an increase in one variable (atmospheric C02). Although it bouces off of Tim like water off of a ducks back,'the fact is that systems will not respond linearly to increased atmospheric C02 levels. Because this will (and is) affecting other aspects of plant physiology, there are going to be ecological consequences that are difficult to predict but many (most) of which could be nasty ones. I am saying this until I am blue in the face here: we know that mechanisms involving multiple species are changing in response to increased C02, and that competitive asymmetries are leading to a reduction in the diversity of soil and above-ground webs. This is of grave concern because, to reiterate, more species-rich webs often are more stable and resilient than species-poor webs, or, as importantly, those webs where species diversity is rapidly reduced.
Of course, this all goes over Tim's head, because, to be fair, he doesn't understand it. I have provided empirical evidence of mechanisms: there are many studies which show that insects compensatorily feed when nitrogen is shunted from plant tissues in favour of carbon. Plants ahve evolved to respond to various levels of herbivory: some annuals, for instance, are very tolerant, and apparently withold metabolic resources when the risk of early herbivory is high, whereas other plants are intolerant to herbivory and invest more in direct defences such as allelochemicals, trichomes, sticky glands, etc. Resistance and tolerance traits in plants are based on long epriods of co-evolution with antagonists and higher trophic levels. Rapid changes in various ecophysiological factors such as stoichiometry and the risk of or extent of herbivore attack are occurring well beyond the evolutionary time frame of most trophic interactions. Moreover, given that most of the staple crops that feed humanity have been artificially selected to emphasize specific traits (e.g. seed production, vegetative mass) at the expense of others (e.g. resistance), then exposing these plants to even more challenges (e.g. rapid shifts in tissue stiochimotery and herbivore loads) demolishes the simple notion that more atmospheric C02 = more plant growth = alleviation of starvation. It is utter nonsense. I can forgive Tim for what I see as blind ignorance if only because it is clear to me that he does not understand ecophysiology and its correlation with community and ecosystem level processes.
Because of this, he sticks with a simple, discredited linear argument.
Bernard: Thanks for your 1500 word essay, some of which I agree with - but I've been tied up all day and it's late, so I will not respond in depth now, except to say (as also to Jeff), that I think it is necessary to specify the NET proportion of species allegedly extinct - or on the way out - that is unequivocally due to climate change and nothing else, after taking into account the species that have done quite well after whatever CC has occurred (not much - is spring earlier or later this year in Holland?). Decline in North Sea cod stocks has nothing to do with CC. I still think it is incumbent on Bernard to explain to us what becomes of the huge increase in annual absorption of CO2 emissions since records began at Mauna Loa in 1958, from 1.84 GtC (both oceans and land) in 1958/59, to est 5.89 GtC in 2007/08 (GCP or CDIAC) and what will be the effect of reducing that when emissions are reduced to 80% of the current level of c.10 GtC to 2 GtC. Is that too difficult?
I hope you are having a better night!
Tim Curtin.
Unfortunately the colicky twins are a greater strain than the colicky Clydesdale was, and with having 4 hours sleep in two days I am wearying of bashing my head against a brick wall.
As surely I must be doing, because you well know that I never said that cod fisheries were destroyed by climate change. However, if you seek a continuance of extinction discussion over the next day or so, I suggest that you avail yourself of the many folk commenting on this subject at a [thread at Real Climate](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/02/linking-the-clima…). It's been very interesting, and I've been tempted to link to it before, but I didn't think that you'd deign to put forward you interpretations there.
Similarly, there is a thread there discussing the [Victorian bushfires](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/02/bushfires-and-cli…), and another focussing on the [Solomon et al paper](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/02/irreversible-does…), where you could certainly put forward, to a significant audience, both your ideas on carbon dioxide and productivity, and on the fraud and incompetence that you believe is the mainstay of climatology, ecology, and ecophysiology. And perhaps you could explain to them why warming isn't occuring, at the recent [glacier thread](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/a-global-glacier-…).
You have much overdue homework to do, and as this thread is rambling toward 350 posts with no hint yet of a scientifically constructed thesis from you, I cannot see the point of further posting when I have better things to occupy my time, even though 'til now I have taken a perverse interest in trying to determine what the science is that you believe that you have collated. So if you truly stand by what you say, take your claims to the threads linked above and see how they stand the scrutiny of some of the real scientists there.
And a final challenge, after the many others where you have capitulated... Organise an interview with Michael Duffy, who is very sympathetic to notions of your ideological stripe, and broadcast to Australia these very same claims about CO2 and primary productivity, about the lack of scientific integrity across a number of disciplines, and about the non-existence of AGW.
You made your claims here without ever producing any real substance to support them - if you believe in them as you say that you do, put them out to the broader scientific and public communities. Given the profound implications for many stakeholders if you are correct, it would be nigh on criminal negligence not to.
If you are too reluctant to do so, I can only assume that you never had any real basis for your claims at all, and that in the end you really were just a troll and nothing more, albeit a troll with a very convoluted (and deluded) story to tell.
I'm off to try for some long overdue sleep.
TC: "Schneider with Smith et al (PNAS 2009) and in many other papers is guilty of fraud in the same way that Bernie Madoff is, by exaggerating in his case the costs of elevated [CO2] by claiming that the rate of elevation is the same as the rate of emissions of CO2..."
Tim, can you give me the exact place (or places) this claim is supposed to have been made, or provide a direct quote from a paper, please? When you're accusing someone of fraud you ought to be a bit more specific.
Gaz: see below for my response.
I still think it is incumbent on you, Bernard and indeed Nick Stern and Ross Garnaut et al to explain to us what becomes of the huge increase in annual absorption of CO2 emissions since records began at Mauna Loa in 1958, from 1.84 GtC (both oceans and land) in 1958/59, to est 5.89 GtC in 2007/08 (GCP or CDIAC) and what will be the effect of reducing that when emissions are reduced by 80% of the 2000 level of 8.16 GtC let alone by 80% of 2008 level of c.10 GtC, i.e. to 1.63 or 2 GtC respectively.
I amaware of RC, and have followed the links you gave with sardonic amusement, as there are even more nutters there than here. Here is a gem: duBois had reasonably asked âIf the Amazon is âsoaking upâ more CO2 than anticipated, what is soaking up less CO2 than anticipated? Jimâs Response: âGood questions, which are under very active research, and are the subject of the NACP (http://www.nacarbon.org/nacp/meeting), happening as we speak. [Laughter off] Itâs not
necessarily that another sink has been under-estimated: you have to factor emission rates into the equation.-â¦â Ye gods! â but thereâs more âCarbon cycle changes are more commonly incoporated into separate carbon cycle models which are then coupled to GCMs, although maybe some GCMs incorporate them directly, I donât know.â-Jim] What if anything does Jim know? The GCMs assume that biospheric absorption is whatever they need to balance their models, not what it is in real life.
Bernard again: âI suggest that you avail yourself of the many folk commenting on this subject at a thread at Real Climate....There is a thread there discussing the Victorian bushfires [more laughter off], and another focussing on the Solomon et al paper..â. OK here we go, I have already posted the following re the last: âI am amused by the above discussion. Nobody seems to have noticed that Fig 1. and Fig 2. in Solomon et al equate growth of CO2 emissions (over 3% pa from 2000 until early 2008, already falling fast) with growth of the atmospheric concentration of CO2 at the same rate, although the actual growth of the latter has been only 0.4% p.a. over the whole period since 1958, and was slightly below that from Jan 08 to Jan 09. What has been happening since 1958 is that global biospheric absorption of CO2 emissions has grown roughly pro rata with emissions, resulting in the relatively slow growth of [CO2]. In physical terms, the absorption or uptake of emissions was 1.8 GtC in 1958-59, 5.29 GtC in 2006-07, and prelim est. 5.8-6.0 in 2007-2008. I do not know why Solomon et al chose to ignore this data (taken from the GCP which Schneider helped to set up). Any suggestions?â I posted this at Real Climate at about 1600 EST, still not up at 1700. I wonder why? Perhaps you could post for me? Thanks.
Jeff said : âLet me just say that my colleagues'response was one of shock, that anyone could attempt to extrapolate a simple linear trend on the basis of an increase in one variable (atmospheric C02).â
But I never did.
Jeff again: âgiven that most of the staple crops that feed humanity have been artificially selected to emphasize specific traits (e.g. seed production, vegetative mass) at the expense of others (e.g. resistance), then exposing these plants to even more challenges (e.g. rapid shifts in tissue stiochimotery and herbivore loads) demolishes the simple notion that more atmospheric C02 = more plant growth = alleviation of starvation.â⦠Hundreds of papers have done experiments with raising [CO2] in both greenhouse and FACE situations, all find significant increases in yield (cet par.) for C3 plants, which account for 90% of all plants. My own regressions take into account not only CO2, but fertilizer consumption (by type), rainfall, temperature, location.
Jeff: ââ¦Rapid changes in various ecophysiological factors such as stoichiometry and the risk of or extent of herbivore attack are occurring well beyond the evolutionary time frame of most trophic interactions.â This term âstoichiometryâ¦â is here misused, it simply means measurement, and is not an âecophysiological factorâ.
Gaz quoted me: "Schneider with Smith et al (PNAS 2009) and in many other papers is guilty of fraud in the same way that Bernie Madoff is, by exaggerating in his case the costs of elevated [CO2] by claiming that the rate of elevation is the same as the rate of emissions of CO2..." and added âTim, can you give me the exact place (or places) this claim is supposed to have been made, or provide a direct quote from a paper, please? When you're accusing someone of fraud you ought to be a bit more specific.â
Sure. From Smith Schneider et al: â¦. âIPCC AR4
projected a range of 1.1 °C to 6.4 °C increase in GMT from 1990 to 2100 based on 6 IPCC Special Report on Emissions
Scenarios (SRES) nonmitigation scenarios (6). Although uncertainty in the response of the climate system to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations contributes to this very broad spread in projections of increase in GMT, the magnitude of future emissions driven by alternative development pathways plays a comparable role. The assessed ââlikely rangeââ (66â90%) of global temperature increase by 2100 for the lowest emissions scenario (SRES B1) is 1.1 °C to 2.9 °C, whereas the likely range
for the highest scenario (SRES A1FI) is 2.4 °C to 6.4 °C. Since 2000, the trajectory of global emissions is above the highest SRES scenario â¦.â This passage totally ignores the role of accelerating global biospheric absorption of those growing CO2 emissions, and that is tantamount to a company reporting its sales as if they equated to profits, and is a FRAUD. Although noting that âthe UNFCCC also
highlights 3 broad metrics with which decision-makers are to
assess the pace of progress toward this goal: allow ââecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change,ââ ensure that ââfood production is not threatened,ââ and enable ââeconomic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.ââ, these authors also totally fail to address the impact of the reduced emissions they seek in terms of not threatening global food production. What they have to say or corals and extreme weather events is also wholly tendentious... For similar omission of material facts in Solomon et al PNAS 2009 Fig1., see my reply to Bernard above.
Tim Curtin: "This passage totally ignores the role of accelerating global biospheric absorption of those growing CO2 emissions.."
I'm not sure what you're saying here - the passage seems to me to rely on the IPCC projections. Are you saying that by using the IPCC projections you believe to be wrong that Schneider et al are guilty of fraud? Or is there something extra they are doing that you object to?
Gaz (at #343): They rely on the IPCC's SRES projections of EMISSIONS. The SRES ignore absorptions of CO2 emissions. Nobody at IPCC has the foggiest idea that Emissions do NOT equate to INCREASES in [CO2] unless there are ZERO biospheric absorptions. Manifestly that is not the case. SO, I am NOT "saying that by using the IPCC projections you believe to be wrong that Schneider et al are guilty of fraud?" Emissions as projected by IPCC and Schneider are NOT the same as increases in [CO2]. "Or is there something extra they are doing that you object to?" YES, they OMIT all reference to ABSORPTIONS of CO2 emissions by the biosphere. I'm sorry to shout, but how many times do I have to say this? I thought my previous post was perfectly clear, my apologies that clearly I failed miserably. Anyway it is all beyond Gavin at RC, as he has yet to "moderate" (?swallow?)my post re Solomon et al (PNAS 2009) and their equally egregious and DISHONEST refusal to admit there have been, are, and will ALWAYS be absorptions.
Tim, As always, you do not address the points I raised. First of all plant stoichimetry is affected by biotic and abiotic factors. You think you are such a clever clogs, but where do you address my points? Eric Post and others have shown that in enahnced C02 environments plant growth sometimes increases but so does herbivore damage, sometimes well exceeding increases in plant biomass. Herbivores require nitrogen in amounts that are usually suboptimal in plant tissues and more so in elevated C02 regimes. Its common knowledge that they feed more when N is limiting. No suprise there, except in Tim's closed world. Youi expunhge it.
I also discussed how elevated C02 regimes simplify soil microbial communities. This reduces functional redundancy. Tim's repsonse? Blank. As expected. Where do your crappy regressions iinclude trophic complexity? Just because you don't include it does not mean it is not important. By claiming that 'hundreds of papers' show that increased C02 increases plant biomass mean little if real ecological communities are excluded. Those where these effects have been included show very disturbing trends. Compensatory insect damage - often overcompensatory. Whoosh! Swing and miss! Strike one against Tim's simple linear correlations. Microbial communities that are vital for plant productivity in the longer term are simplified, reducing their functional redundancy. Whoosh! Swing and a miss! Strike two. The effects of enhanced atmospheric C02 are likely to lead to competitive asymmetries and, as has already been shown, attendant climate change will have consequences on phenological interactions amongst tightly co-evolved species in complex food webs, resulting in local extinction and unraveling food webs. Whoosh! Strike three Tim! Yer' out! Back to the dugout for you.
As I have said before, I find it amusing that Tim crows on and on and on here on Deltoid but has published nix in any scientific journals and relies on right wing sources like Quadrant. If most scientists read what I see as clear crap, they would bounce it like an Indian rubber ball. Here's your challenge, Tim: let's see how far you get with your 'regressions' in a major scientific journal. How many of the worlds scientists will swoon at your feet with your earth shattering calculations. My advice: dont' hold your breath and wait for the adulation. It ain't forthcoming. You've left out too many vital parameters in your 'forumlations'. Like many of those I have described on this thread. Trait and context dependent parameters, f'rinstance. Hey Tim: do you know what these are and how they work? Bowl me over with your wisdom.
By the way, I admire Susan Solomon and her outstanding research, both in PNAS and in the past. She's an internationally remowned scientist who gives very many keynote lectures at many conferences and workshops. Have you seen the number of papers she has published and her citation record? Outstanding. There is no other word for it. And it is also clear that Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is one of the most outstlanding scientific journals. It is in the top five, for sure. Don't agree? Do a straw poll of scientists and find out for yourself. We all rate it very, very highly.
After I'd decided to yesterday to take a break from Radium Water Tim's persistent refusal to provide credible evidence for his sweeping dismissals of whole disciplines of science, I realised that perhaps I was going about it the wrong way, and that maybe I could more easily discern the workings of his mind if I could see the workings of his 'analysis'.
Just as I had completed my text below I see that Jeff has pipped me at the post. Nevertheless, I shall ask with the expectation that Curtin is well able to anwer them, as surely he must be able to do - after all, he cannot have made any of his claims without having a coherent strategy for his analysis.
----
Tim Curtin.
You have repeatedly spoken of your 'regression analysis' that you employed to 'investigate' the relationship between productivity and atmospheric CO2, temperature, fertiliser, rainfall, temperature, location, (and other?) parameters.
Can you provide a detailed methodology of your analysis? I am particularly keen to know how you incorporated time as a variable into your protocol.
Can you indicate the data sources used?
Most especially, can you describe how you incorporated into your analysis largely non-parametric variables including: evolving cultural practices, political influences, technological innovation, anthropogenic modifications to the living and non-living elements of the biosphere, ecosystems' functions and responses over time, human population trends over time (at greater scales than occurs with respect to fossil carbon emission), natural climatic/astronomic fluctuations and cycles, global stochastic events (such as vulcanism), and all other pertinent variables that I have omitted in the typing of this sentence?
And speaking of variables, what exactly is included in your analysis? Just as interestingly, what variables were excluded from your analysis? What criteria did you employ in their exclusion?
Why have you selected a regression approach to do the analysis? What alternative techniques did you consider, and why did you exclude them?
What are the relative contributions of the tested variables to productivity? How did you test your regression model after deriving your coefficients? How did you test your models again other models in the literature?
So many questions, so little time to ask them. I am sure that others can add to this list, and I know that we all await your elucidation of these questions with keen anticipation.
T "Radium Water" C, erstwhile Emperor of Antarctica, whom the Curtin reaction (and its extended version) is named after, has dipped his toe in the waters over at RC, to which Gavin replied:
Guffaws! I almost dropped the lass when I read it!
Bernard: "Can you provide a detailed methodology of your analysis? I am particularly keen to know how you incorporated time as a variable into your protocol. Can you indicate the data sources used?"
Yes. My dog Tam has intervened by sitting on my lap. He knows better than me that everything you say is utter garbage, bi-bi.
The slightly annoying (unavoidable) thing about [killfile] is that you sometimes get a quick glimpse of the [killed's] contribution before the [kill] kicks in.
However, from a recent quick glimpse it seems Tam may have been doing most of the recent typing! Can't be right, surely. But I'm not going to peek to check.
Bernard,
The last response from TimC just about sums up his entire argument base. Which is to say, bankrupt. When one increases the spatial/temporal scale and invokes complexity by bringing in real ecological variables, he has no response. Your queries are reasonable. What you've done is caught Tim out, big time. He's made a big point about his analyses, but has failed to say exactly what he has incorporated into his models (and, just as importantly, what he has left out) and why he decided that regressions were the best method. You've pinned him and he can't get out of it.
The fact is that he's way, way out on a limb, and he knows it. His arguments would be demolished in any rigidly peer-reviewed journals. I think the thread will fizzle out now, and I believe that the vast majority of readers know who won. As I said before, it isn't hard.
After 350 community postings to this thread, Tim "Roll Up and Gets Yer Radium Water" Curtin has nothing.
Curtin has presented no evidence to support his many contradictions of carefully gathered and carefully analysed data in several disparate fields of science - none of which he has any familiarity of, nor bany expertise in.
Nor has he presented any coherent description or justification of the methodology that he employed to derive the numbers he that claims blows the consensus science out of the water.
He has presented no scientifically constructed critique to support his slanderous accusations of conspiracy, fraud and incompetence that were directed at some of the best scientific minds, organisations and journals in the world; nor has he presented any evidence that he believed in his own libellous claims sufficiently enough to seriously pursue a resolution of these claims in the public and in the scientific domains. To this end I draw attention to the squib of a post that he finally submitted at Real Climate (linked by Gaz at #347), missing as it does the most spectacular of his assertions previously posted above.
Likewise, Tim would not prove that he sufficiently believed in his work that he was prepared to ask Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist with ideological sympathies aligned with his own, to put her name as sponsor/coauthor to any of his results.
Compounding his list of scientific follies, Curtin was not able to demonstrate any basic level of competence or understanding of his own, in the disciplines he presumed to overturn, nor did he show any willingness to meet with, and discuss the science of, experts in these fields.
The best he could manage after ongoing and persistent requests to demonstrate his bona fides is:
Behold the Mighty Tim, Destroyer of Science, Purveyor of the Miraculous Radium Water, Discoverer of Eponymous Effects, and Emeritus Extraordinaire.
Saved by his lapdog.
I add my voice to Jeff's and Gaz' - Tim Curtin's pseudoscientific Titanic has foundered on the iceberg of reason and sunk to the bottom. It will take more ping-pong balls that RW Tim has on him to float his wreck, and I too declare his case to be lost.
If there is one redeeming feature about the painful length of, and repetition in, this thread, it is that if Tim Curtin ever raises his head again to pretend that he can play at science, he first needs to return to the long list of points here and to address them, in order to clear his name.
Ah, glory to the Memory of the Interweb. Bookmark this page folks, and link away should the troll ever emerge from under his bridge again.
Don't forget the other great Curtin discoveries:
Curtin's law of conservation of atmospheric mass
Curtin's equivalence of exponentials and polynomials and
Curtin's law of eternally increasing Carbon uptake.
These are achievements of one of the intellectual giants of our time.
Oh dear, I'd put the first two of Chris' links out of my mind. Rereading them has brought tears to my eyes - whether of mirth or of sorrowful incredulity, or of both, remains to be decided.
The Einstein thread is forever etched in my mind, and wasn't so easily misplaced.
Tim, if you hae the courage to show up here again, can you explain (on top of everything else), how you can make the critical claims that you made against so much of science and of the people who work in it, when your grasp of such basic mathematics and physics is completely absent?
You must have done a lot of self-schooling to progress, in a year and a half, from the early childhood psychological stages of acquisition of conservation and of decentration, to the capacity for postdoctoral-level critique of multiple scientific disciplines.
Jeff @ #345: what is âtrophic complexityâ? how does it affect the biospheric absorption of CO2, and how is it affected by changes in the atmospheric concentration of CO2? So far you have offered no statistical evidence for ANY adverse effects of increasing [CO2] â saying the rising [CO2] is âlikely to lead to competitive asymmetriesâ is a functionally meaningless statement. But then you are an expert in using jargon from your field to spread obfuscation to the general public of whom I am one. All the same feel free to offer your ravings to any economics journal. PNAS no doubt has high standing in many fields, but not in economics, which does not inhibit it from whipping up hysteria on climate change to promote adoption of policies that have major economic implications for world welfare: all its recent papers on climate change especially those by Hansen, Schneider, Solomon et al have been exercises in policy advocacy with minimal scientific content.
Bernard @ #346: ââ¦Can you provide a detailed methodology of your analysis?â Wait for the paper, Iâll provide the link in due course. â I am particularly keen to know how you incorporated time as a variable into your protocol.â What protocol? Actually we doth both annual and seasonal analysis of rainfall, for example. âCan you indicate the data sources used?â - wait for the paper, but a few are mentioned in my Garnaut paper, including Crimp et al of CSIRO and their study commissioned by Garraut. âMost especially, can you describe how you incorporated into your analysis largely non-parametric variables including: evolving cultural practices, political influences, technological innovation, anthropogenic modifications to the living and non-living elements of the biosphere, ecosystems' functions and responses over time, human population trends over time (at greater scales than occurs with respect to fossil carbon emission), natural climatic/astronomic fluctuations and cycles, global stochastic events (such as vulcanism), and all other pertinent variables that I have omitted in the typing of this sentence?â What a load of rubbish. If you are so smart and such a veritable polymath, write your own paper incorporating that tosh. And do stop being so modest about your own no doubt stellar publication record.
Tim, You once asked to see my algorithms. Given that communities and ecosystems are immensely complex, and that they function as a 'sum of their parts', I'd like to see how you have integrated this complexity into your calculations. Let's see your maths, where you include the effects of C02 not only on plant responses, but on soil and above-ground food webs. Given that primary productivity critically depends on interactions with these biota, I will expect that you have factored these in to your calculations.
If not, why not? I think we all the know the reason why, but I would like to hear it from you.
As for PNAS, I reiterate, great journal! One of the very best. Glad to see the outstanding paper by Solomon et. al. made it in there. It must have been seen by at least 4 peer-reviewers. Perhaps even an economist too - not a dinosaur neoclassical one, perhaps, who believes that there is no limit to material growth and consumption, but perhaps someone like John Gowdy, Geoffrey Heal, or Herman Daly. In other words, one who is enlightened onto the reality that our economic systems are a tiny subset of the environment, and not vice-versa. One who realizes that economic activity must be reconciled with the health and vitality of the biosphere, and is aware that natural systems generate a range of conditions that permit humans to exist and to persist.
Thnaks Jeff. Actually by criticising Solomon et al I should have won some brownie points from you lot, for contesting her claim that "the climate change that takes place due to increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop. Following cessation of emissions, removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide decreases radiative forcing, but is largely compensated by slower loss of heat to the ocean, so that atmospheric temperatures do not drop significantly for at least 1,000 years." In other words, there is absolutely no point in cutting emissions by even 80% (a target unlikely to be adopted at Copenhagen), as even 100% will achieve nothing. But I have another problem with Solomon et al: nowhere can I see where her paper accepts "that communities and ecosystems are immensely complex, and that they function as a 'sum of their parts'", or where she "has integrated this complexity into [her] calculations." Nor do I see her maths, where [she should] include the effects of C02 not only on plant responses, but on soil and above-ground food webs. Given that primary productivity critically depends on interactions with these biota, [you] will expect that [Sue Solomon] has factored these in to [her] calculations". In short, why do you and Bernard set such exacting standards for me while Sue almost literally gets away with murder, and certainly fails to offer any evidence at all for her "irreversibility" - my model unlike hers is grounded in observations. For example, the main modelling in Solomon et al comes from Joos et al (GBC 2001), and they explicitly assume ZERO CO2 fertilization after 2000 in the scenarios taken up by Sue. I see that Joos et al also fail to consider your "trophic complexity" etc etc. One law for them and another for me? Anyway I fully intend to ease up on Sue, as she has so perfectly articulated the case for doing nothing about emissions.
Tim, Let's get off the Solomon article. I just would like to know where you have factored the effects of increasing atmsopheric C02 concentrations and regional temperatures on ecological food webs and networks, including biological activities in both soil and above-ground webs, into your calculations. I want to know how you have predicted the effects on context and trait dependent parameters that mediate the structure and function of food webs. I want to know what results you have generated with respect to rapid atmospheric increases in C02 on complex trophic interactions in habitat patches that vary in size and heterogeneity. To come back to an earlier point, what about the consequences of dramatic shifts in C:N:P ratios in plant tissues? What will be the consequences of these shifts on ecological communities? Given that cultivated plants are derived from wild ancestors whose phenotypes represent selection from a myriad of factors, why do you somehow appear to suggest that changes in the physical, chemical and biological environment as a result of humanity's great atmospheric experiment are going to alleviate hunger? *Most importantly, I want you to tell me with confidence how your calculations play out with respect to ecosystem functioning in the mid term*.
This seems like a Herculean task, but not if we want to be able to reliably believe the kinds of linear assumptions you are making. Virtually all of the studies you have mentioned in support of your arguments have not addressed any of the points I made above, but you somehow have unbridled confidence in them. Please explain. The ball's in your court.
Jeff: you said first, "Let's get off the Solomon article." Why? It manifestly does not deal with the issues you think I should address. You added: "Please explain. The ball's in your court." No it's not, you raise issues, you deal with them, in a peer reviewed journal but I am not holding my breath. My position is quite simple and has yet to be refuted by you or anybody else here. That is, observations show an amazing three-fold (220%) growth of global biospheric absorption of CO2 emissions since 1958. Nobody, least of all you and Bernard, has demonstrated this has done anybody (or animal fish or plant) any harm, or that stopping that growth by emission reduction by 100% as proposed by Solomon et al and you will have NO adverse effects either on the ecology of the planet or on its economics. Solomon's failure to address this issue is much more a crime against humanity than that of Hansen's coal train drivers, who have merely fuelled economic growth across the globe, and whose attributable CO2 emissions have contributed to the wholly beneficial greening of the planet over the last 50 years and more.
Radium Water Tim, the Hydra of Denialist Canards.
I asked (amongst dozens of other unanswered questions):
All that you could manage was:
No, it is not a load of rubbish.
Each of these factors affects human population growth, or primary productivity, or both. How can you comment on the relationship between CO2 emissions, productivity, and how productivity affects human population growth, without including these factors into an analysis?
You can't.
Then you quoted Solomon et al:
and responded with:
RW, I will try to use little words, because it is obvious that you don't understand big words. You certainly don't understand even relatively simple concepts.
The fact that there is a huge lag in the loss of temperature is a big reason for cutting emissions as quickly as possible, so that the delay in oceanic/atmospheric response is minimised.
Further, the delay in the (downward) temperature response to cutting emissions, similarly reflects the delay in the (upward) temperature reponse to increasing emissions, and in turn indicates how much momentum is already in the system.
Finally, even if cutting emissions results in a delay in temperature response, not cutting them at all will simply result in even greater (and much more serious) warming than would occur if cuts were made.
Why is this so hard for you to understand?
Aside: your raising of the issue of forcings would seem to be a tacit implied (oops, little words...) recognition of the existence of AGW. So you finally acknowledge that emissions result in forcing? Good to see Tim.
This is not the central point of her paper: why then should she focus on these issues?
And if she or any other researcher were considering the inclusion of ecosystem complexity into a paper of this nature, it would be more of a monograph than a mere paper. Which leads to the point - how could you possibly have omitted left out such complexity from your 'analysis' finger and toe counting, if you are going to claim that such complexity is not worthy of consideration in the context of climate change trajectories outcomes?
We expect only the same standards from you that the PNAS reviewers would have expected (and seen) in Solomon's work.
Tim Curtin, your model is a completely and utterly unexplained mystery to the readers of this thread. You have been wholey unable to clarify any of your scientific bases, and you have vaguely waved your hands about a forthcoming 'paper'.
You're just not batting in the same league as those whom you disparage. You're not batting in any league at all, when it comes to it... you're not even connecting with the ball.
Tim 'Darth Evader' Curtin,
No, I reiterate. Get it through your head this time if you can. It is up to you to prove that continuing the global experiment that humans are conducting will not have deleterious consequences on a vast array of terrestrial, freshwater and marine communities and ecosystems.
You see, I think it is clear that the reason you cannot answer the queries I raised is because you don't have a clue how to answer them. You have been pinned down and you're stuck. All you can suggest is that a large proporation of increased atmospheric C02 is being absorbed by many biomes across of the biosphere. You fail to say why the levels still keep rising rapidly (within a geological time frame) and you appear unable to discuss what the possible ecological consequences of this 'experiment' are likely to be.
Global cycles of carbon, nutrogen and phosphorus are very deterministic, meaning it takes a major forcing to push them out of equilibrium. There are certainly going to be ecological consequences of continuing with the current experiment humans are conducting on the atmosphere, as well as on both wet and dry ecosystems. You've continually evaded relevant points made by Bernard, Sod and me. Its no use looking at relatively short-term trends on a few parameters while ritually avoiding many others, especially those occurring at smaller scales (e.g. via mechanistic studies) where we DO have huge amounts of data. Given that systems function as a sum of their parts, (the parts meaning species and genetically distinct populations), we cannot ignore these effects as they will, in time, ripple up and influence processes occurring at much larger scales. The time frame you are envisaging may seem long to you but to nature its a small drop in the bucket.
I raised the point of the the 'extinction debt' last week, and I think your response was, "prove that this is linked to C02 levels". As usual you missed my point, which was that it can take a very long time for human-induced changes to manifest themselves over large scales. In the case of habitat loss and the elimination of top-level predators in North America, Tilman and May suggested decades or even centuries. The same is true with respect to the way we are meddling with the chemical composition of the air and water. There is nothing to suggest that there will not be nasty surprises down the road. And there is no guarantee that vegetation will continually soak it up.
So to repeat: if food webs and communities at small scales are showing worrying trends with response to elevated C02 levels, what is this going to mean down the road for large scale systems? Think for once.
Radium Water Tim.
I shake my head in sheer incredulity at your ongoing lck of response to Jeff Harvey's attempts to enlighten you.
Any forward thinking undergraduate would take the many points and explanations that Jeff has provided to you, and read extensively in these areas - by doing so they would very quickly begin to acquire the basic structure of a working background in some of the more important areas of applied ecology.
Given that you are demonstrably unable to assimilate the many points that Jeff has offered to you for your enlightenment, I am however not surprised that you have been unable to learn for yourself why my reference to koalas and to sloths is such a fly in your CO2 nirvana ointment.
Nevertheless, I have yet another piece of homework for you - can you explain to us why the old (and certainly simplistic) notion of r and k strategy might also be a confounder to your idea of global CO2-driven productivity bliss?
Hi possums!
First Bernard (#361) as Jeff has yet to answer my #358. What are âr and k?â. Look, both of you like TL et al ad nauseam have no clue about the carbon cycle or elementary cost-benefit analysis based on that. I admit you are in good company, as none of Stern, Garnaut and the IPCC are any better. For the nth time, we know from the carbon budget that the destinations of CO2 emissions are either (1) the so-called Airborne Fraction, that has averaged 43% p.a. since 1958, and is represented by the increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (i.e. [CO2]) as measured at Mauna Loa which has been growing at all of 0.4% p.a. since 1958 up to February 2009, or (2) the global oceanic and biospheric absorptions of CO2 emissions that have accounted for 57% of emissions since 1958. Now Stern Garnaut & co completely failed to do cost-benefit analysis of (1) against (2), since although they and IPCC claim that (1) leads to global warming and its alleged costs, none of which have been proven to have manifested from 1958 until now, they never even thought of evaluating the benefits of (2). I have repeatedly claimed that (2), increased absorption, has benefits. You guys say no. What is your evidence?
Here are the numbers in GtC:
Total Emissions 1958-2008 341.31
Total Absorptions 1958-2008191.65
Increase in [CO2] 1958-2008 149.69
A priori, given that cumulative Absorptions are hugely larger than the cumulative increase in [CO2], one might expect its positive benefits to esxceed the costs if any of the net difference between emissions and absorptions which shows up at Mauna Loa as the increase in [CO2]. But that is a priori. If Jeff can show that the additional Absorptions have been demonstrably harmful, be my guest, and I will cancel my upcoming paper.
You and Jeff deny my claim that the increased Absorption has been beneficial (and Garnautâs Crimp projecting forwards shows the benefit for Australiaâs wheat yields of rising emissions of CO2) without offering a shred of factual quantitative evidence here. Show me the colour of your money not with armwaving but statistics.
Jeff said: âAnd there is no guarantee that vegetation will continually soak it up.â Or that it wonât, when ALL the evidence to date is that since records began in 1958, 57% has been soaked up. He added: âSo to repeat: if food webs and communities at small scales are showing worrying trends with response to elevated C02 levels, â¦â Show me your data for these âworrying trendsâ, in terms of falling population per species due ONLY to alleged rising temperature (and not to over-fishing and the like). Remember there is NO evidence of any rising global temperature since 1900 given the absence of ANY met. data from tropical Africa in 1900, as even with that lacuna GISS can only manage 0.6 oC up to 2008.
In all the good answers to the dross posted in this thread, little mention seems to have been made with specific regard to the acidification effects of seawater (or declining alkalinity if one prefers) arising from continued anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
McNeil and Matear's 450 ppm tipping point in T "Radium Water" C's favourite journal PNAS should concentrate minds, as should Feely et al's Science paper and Cicerone et al's The ocean in a high CO2 world (among many others).
The likely effects on the food web will likely be very bad (which is code for "probably beneficial" according to T "Radium Water" C).
Tim 'Darth Evader' writes, "Remember there is NO evidence of any rising global temperature since 1900".
Oh, so we are back to that jibberish, are we? This is b@$#%*. I should not even dignify this comment with a response. Science has already deconstructed this sceario. But I will say this: a mean global 0.60 C rise since 1980 (and not sinece 1900 - this is a clear obfuscation of science) represents a dramatic change for an effectively deterministic system. Regionally it is much, much more of course (away from the lower latitudies, exactly as predicted back in the 1960s). Perhaps not in the life span of a 'Darth Evader', for example, but in a real geological sense, yes. And we know who the primary culprit is. We are.
As for food web effects, I have presented evidence. Results from microbial studies, as I have discussed. Effects on herbivorous insects. Eric Post's work in Greenland. There's tons more. You can't get off your lazy butt to peruse the journals I have mentioned before. Unlike you, Tim, I am a scientist and I have research to do, and I should not have to do your work for you. Log into web of science and type in the relevant keywords. How many damned times do I also have to repeat that if mechanistic studies report effects, then these will ripple up through food chains.
One final thing: I can't wait for evader's upcoming paper. I am literally shaking in my boots, knowing that it will knock science off its foundations.
NOT.
Tim Curtin.
I find it extraordinary that you can have your nose rubbed in your scientific ignorance as repeatedly as has been done on this and on other threads, and still have the gall to tell Jeff Harvey his work, and especially to insinuate that he is wrong.
And all the time you do this without presenting any countering evidence. Just as you have similarly not provided a coherent basis for the slurs, the slanders and the libel that you have directed at some of the best scientists and scientific journals in the world.
I am once again morbidly curious â can you compile, in report/paper form, and using supportable data reviewed by independent experts, justification for any of these pearlers from yourself:
At post #33::
"...preferably not Science and Nature, as they publish any old rubbish so long as it is currently PC,..."
At post #60:
"Howver [sic] it is true that there is a pro forma issued by PNAS, Nature, and Science which contains the following words to be included in the final sentence whatever the paper actually shows, as in the Crafts-Brandner & Salvucci paper: xyz "should be considered in predicting [abcd] in response to global climate changes"; similar wording is also mandatory in the abstract. The body of the paper as in this case need have no bearing at all on the pro forma."
At post #87:
"Clearly PNASâ peer reviewers have no concept of ensuring consistency either within or between papers. In other fields it is known as âquality controlâ, in PNAS, Science and Nature that term is an oxymoron."
At post #141:
"...they [Solomon et al] are as stoopid and ignorant as Field"
At post #145:
"...insinuated by Susie Sollie in her wholly fraudulent Fig.1,"
At post #157:
"Solomon['s] et al PNAS 2009 of lack of due diligence"
"The truth is that the NAS is nothing more than a branch of the Democratic Party with no scientific credentials whatsoever in this field, or in any other,"
"The truths are either (1) that PNAS employs NO peer reviewers, or that (2) the NAS is nothing but a front for fellow travelling Marxist environmentalists for whom the truth counts for zero."
"This is pure persiflage."
"This reveals the cretinous stupidity that will destroy the Obama government if it follows the advice of the NAS/Stanford mafia it has recruited to be its climate policy mentors."
At post #159:
"The truth is that PNAS' POLICY in this area under the leadership of Field Schellnhuber et al is to deny both (1) the existence of carbon sinks (or to claim that they are saturated)and that (2) there could be any adverse consequences from reducing ending emisisons and reducing [CO2]."
At post #163:
"This paper is a monstrous perversion of the truth."
"The sad truth is that NAS editors like Field and Schellenhuber are completely innocent of any knowledge of the concept of rates of growth."
"Such simple arithmetic is beyond the mental compass of your editors like Field and Schellenhuber, and I fully accept that NAS has no editors any better equipped to grasp such simple arithmetic."
"If correctly reported, Dr Field is guilty of severe economy with the truth."
"Fieldâs exaggeration (by over 700 percent) of the rate of increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide relative to the growth of emissions, combined with his wilful disregard of the positive side of the annual global carbon budget through his focus only on emissions, amounts to gross academic and scientific misconduct."
At post #166:
"The PNAS's idiot peer reviewers show they know nothing and care less."
At post #177:
"Not a single fact or observation sullies their pristine pages."
"They state they were âinspiredâ by Friedlingstein (2006), the true legatee of Beatrice Potter and Enid Blyton as a purveyor of pure fiction."
"...proof positive that Silly Sue, Plattner, Knutti, and Friedlingstein are idiots emerges in this quote from P & K..."
At post #209:
"I would not want to keep company with some of your co-authors! [P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa, T.J. Osborn, M.E. Mann, G.A. Schmidt, C.M. Ammann, all known dissemblers specializing in economy with the truth]"
At post #217:
"...we are expendable to Jeff, Stern, Garnaut, Solomon, and the rest of all those eugenicists in WWF et al."
At post #245:
"I note that you ignore the systemic dishonesty I noted above of all at IPCC, especially Schneider, Field, Solomon, Joel Smith, Schellnhuber et al et al in asserting over just the last 2 weeks that CO2 emissions equal increase in [CO2]."
At post #255:
"That reminds me of Einstein's riposte to the 100 jerks like Smith, Solomon, Schneider, Schellnhuber, et al ad nauseam, that Hitler lined up against him, "just one fact would have been enough"."
At post #267:
"...that Smith, Schneider, Field and Solomon and their myriad et als spread deceit when they claim in PNAS and at AAAS that 100% of CO2 emissions remain airborne."
At post #274:
"CO2 absorption is absent, that Fig.1 (LHS top panel) is a big lie."
"...the outrageous deception of the whole Solomon article."
At post #286:
"In my world view, let us all enjoy the benefits of rising absorption of CO2 emissions by the biospheres without worrying about the witches of Salem propagated by the idiocies of Susan Solomon, who lacks any wisdom on any topic."
At post #328:
"...unlike Smith et al who have no need of facts for their pre-ordained gloom and doom."
At post #344:
"Anyway it is all beyond Gavin at RC, as he has yet to "moderate" (?swallow?)my post re Solomon et al (PNAS 2009) and their equally egregious and DISHONEST refusal to admit there have been, are, and will ALWAYS be absorptions."
At post #354:
"...all its recent papers on climate change especially those by Hansen, Schneider, Solomon et al have been exercises in policy advocacy with minimal scientific content."
Given your disparagement of such worthies, I am sure that you would have similar things to say about Will Steffen of the Climate Change Institute at your old stomping ground, ANU. After all, he is currently in Copenhagen helping to promote the idea that the models predicting temperature increase due to GHG are apparently conservative, and that sea level rise is now considered to be heading toward 1 metre+ by 2100.
He must be a few streets and a couple of corridors away from your former haunts â why don't you knock on his office door next week when he returns, and set him straight?
More on your lack of capacity for science later â for now I am entertaining myself by seeing how many of the current questions, that have been posed to you, you will continue to avoid.
A hint though..., you may need to tighten up your logical bases, and your understanding of chemical equilibria and of carbonate chemistry, because your faff at post #362 has holes large enough to swim a humpback through. On this matter I'm tempted to wait until after you submit for publication, because the reviewers (if such are present in the processes employed by whatever forum you intend to employ) will surely get a jolly laugh from your current torturing of science.
I wonder if Keith Windschuttle's reading this?
1.Jeff: Have you seen âAn alternative to climate change for explaining species loss in Thoreau's woodsâ by McDonald et al in the latest PNAS (in an area not subject to Field and Schellnhuber). Their abstract: âWillis et al. (1) concluded that climate change significantly contributed to plant species decline in the Concord, MA, area. An alternative explanation is that herbivory by white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) may have been responsible for many of the decreases in species abundance that they observed, and this is a more powerful and parsimonious explanation than increased local temperatures. â¦â Willis responded denying this claim; you be the judge!
Jeff, have you also seen âCan behavior douse the fire of climate warming? by Huey et al., again in latest PNAS, Field must have been out of the office âRising air temperatures around the globe are affecting organismal abundance, distribution, and evolution. Not surprisingly, biologists are endeavoring to assess and anticipate further impacts of warming. What is usually overlooked in these efforts is the fact that mobile organisms are not prisoners of climate warming: they can use behavioral adjustments (âbehavioral thermoregulationâ) either to buffer the impact of warming air temperatures or sometimes even to take advantage of them. However, an evaluation of behavior's roles in modifying organismal responses to climate warming has never been attempted, at least on a large spatial scale. A new study in this issue of PNAS (6) develops a biophysically (heat transfer)-based approach (7â9) that does just that. Kearny et al. (6) quantify whether a diurnal ectotherm's use of behavioral adjustments (e.g., use of shade or burrows) alters the ecological impact of climate warming, and they do so on local, continental, and global scales. For us the key take-home lesson is that behavioral flexibility is critical for organismal survival in a warming world; behavior can buffer the negative consequences of warming, or it can enhance the benefits of warming! The outcome depends on an organism's physiology, availability of shade, and local microclimates, all of which vary with latitude. Many temperate-zone ectotherms live in environments that are considerably cooler than their optimum, and so becoming warmer is now their highest thermoregulatory priority. Warming will be beneficial to them, especially if they can use basking to take advantage of warming temperatures. In contrast, the priority for many tropical and continental-desert ectotherms is staying cool. Climate warming will place them at risk, especially if shade is scant. â
The last especially supports some of my claims above, eg when it says "behavior can buffer the negative consequences of warming, or it can enhance the benefits of warming!" and refutes many more of yours. I await your correction of Huey et al in PNAS, please keep me posted.
What's the point you're making here Tim Curtin?
You seem to believe that global warming is nothing to worry about because some animals may respond to it by modifying their behaviour.
Please send us a postcard from Fantasyland.
Lewis (#363). Thanks for those interesting refs. First the relatively good paper, that by Feely et al, Science, 13 June 2008. At least we have real time measurements, but no time series, so this paper only offers anecdotal evidence in regard to trends. Itâs a pity the paper does not offer its data, as they would have enabled more rigorous analysis of the data underlying its Fig. 2. It speaks of âtheâ pH, but as Fig.2 shows, that varies with oceanic depth and latitude. The âGlobalâ oceanic pH is a meaningless statistic, and the claim it has fallen by 0.1 since 1750 is not confirmed by Feely or the IPCCâs AR4.
Next, McNeill and Matear in PNAS 2 December 2008 (18860-18864). I note that the paper is all of 5 pages long. Truly PNAS is the Readers Digest of Science (remember its condensation of War & Peace to just 4 pages?). Articles that make such large claims and demand huge policy shifts are hardly to be trusted on the basis of 5 pages, especially when 6 of its Refs are to themselves, and the first (Caldeira & Wickett in Nature) has just one page. Be that as it may, McNeil and Matear display, like those of its Refs that I have opened, that they do not understand the difference between increase in emissions (as in IPCCâs IS92a Scenario, their main source) and increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2, i.e. [CO2]. Under IS92a, the [CO2] reaches 788 ppmv by 2100, thanks to a neat doubling at 0.79% p.a. of the actual rate of growth of [CO2] since 1958, whereas from today at the actual growth between 1958 and now of 0.4% p.a. yields only 555 ppmv by 2100. The complete ignorance of the carbon budget shown by McNeil and Matear is captured by their final sentence (p.18864): âwe find that aragonite undersaturation is likely to begin once atmospheric CO2 reaches c. 450 ppm, and the year at which this is reached will depend entirely (sic) on future anthropogenic CO2 emission trajectoriesâ. But d[CO2] = E â A, where E is emissions and A is Absorption by oceans and the terrestrial biosphere. Absorption is not invariant with E, and since 1958 has accounted for 57% of E. Forget the Science, just get the Math right.
A main Ref. by McNeil is to Orr et al., Nature, 2005, whose best estimate is that [CO2] will reach 560 ppm by 2055, an implicit growth rate of 0.79% p.a. from now, again double the observed historical rate from 1958. So far as I can see, neither McNeil nor Orr offer any data on actual pH anywhere.
So thanks to Lewis we have discovered another pair of Madoffs-with-our-money. Really, Lewis, do some basic due diligence of your own before you cite papers with bogus growth rates. These articlesâ conclusions are fictional.
Tim, Isn't this the same PNAS you've beenb nagging about being so appalling bad? Pretty choosy, aren't you, for a non-scientist.
The Huey paper is but one. There are dozens in the pages of the journals I have told you to peruse but which you haven't (I assume that you do not have access online so this is your excuse) which show very opposite trends. I agree with you that many species are genetically programmed to be able to adjust to changes in their abiotic environment. But there are two major concerns here: 1. That the rate of temperature change, especially in temperate latitudes, is well beyond the 'norm' temperally, and is beyond the ability of many, perhaps most species, in particular specialist herbivores, to adjust (they must track their food plants), and 2. Humans have simplified the biosphere and have put many huge barriers in the way of species that would otherwise be able to adjust. Huge agricultural and urban expanses are barriers that pose a major impediament in this capacity. When Thomas et al. (2004) published their seminal paper on climate-change associated extinction projections, they took this into account. There will many more losers than winners. And as we showed in our Nature paper las December (Engelkes et al., 2008), another problem is that there are lags between the ability of above- and below ground biota to respond spatially to change. This means that communities will have to rapidly reassemble themselves, and, given the time span involved, it is certain that the new communties will be ecologically simplified. Again, the prognosis is a bad one. I have said this so many times but I will say it again: climate change is but major probelm in the human assault. All of the problems are synergized.
Jeff: Congrats on your article with Tim Engelkes et al in Nature last December. Well done! I can't see anything there about effects of rising [CO2], and I note that the concluding sentence of the Abstract includes two "mays", indicating no evidence of any actual adverse effects from range expansion due to whatever climate change may have occurred locally (and even then probably only temporarily). Keep up the good work! BTW, I have revised my opinion about Nature, I think it is an honest journal, unlike Science and PNAS whenever they publish on CC in areas governed by the likes of Field and Schellnhuber.
Tim Curtin.
In response to Huey et al:
you say:
Can you explain to us (with hat-tippings to the principles of thermodynamics, and to permutations of Liebig's Law of the Minimum) why these organisms do not, in practice, already live at their 'thermal optima'?
I have gone through the Huey article (which is actually a commentary, as far as I can see, on the Kearney article). The paper is nicely written. However, they exclude several major parameters from their permutations: the ability of species to behaviorally to adjust in fragmented landscapes; the effects on tightly co-evolved interrelationships (the authors appear to focus on physiology but mostly igore ecological interactions with mutualists and antagonists that are key drivers in selection; they focus on thermoregulating ectotherms; they ignore the nutritional ecology of species (this links with my second point) and thus exclude the interactions between consumers and the trophic level beneath them that are vital for species survival.
These are all critical factors in gauging how species will adapt to a rapidly chaging climate. I am actually not that concerned about behavioral thermoregulatory adjustment, except with respect to habitat availability. In this scenario its no use for a forest-inhabiting organism to move northwards if its habitat has been converted to an agricultural or urban landscape. Moreover, I am also very worried how phenological relationships will pan out.
So the paper you've cited Tim allays very few of my concerns, speaking as a population ecologist. There's still an element of "let's cross our fingers and hope for the best in all of this" these kinds of articles. They do provide some very helpful beaseline information on one aspect of phenotypic variation, but in ignoring other aspects they tell us very little. Camille Parmesan's outstanding 2006 review on climate change and biodiversity concluded with the following: "Observed genetic shifts modulate local effects of climate change, but there is little evidence that they will mitigate negative effects at the species level". This is very a very relevant point with respect to the Huey commentary. Sure, many species will adapt in some ways, but perhaps not in others. And we humans have made it much more difficult for species to adapt because we have changed the face of the Earth in many other ways.
Bernard â you (#373) asked me to explain to you, in response to my quote from Huey et al: (â... Many temperate-zone ectotherms live in environments that are considerably cooler than their optimum, and so becoming warmer is now their highest thermoregulatory priority....â) âwhy these organisms do not, in practice, already live at their 'thermal optima'?â I will but only after you explain both to me and to Huey et al why your âthermal optimumâ is superior to mine in Canberra or Hueyâs or that of those who choose to live in Singapore or Dubai instead of Aberdeen or Helsinki. Hint: think "trade-offs".
Benrard, I've just seen your attack on me at Real Climate, here's my response, "awaiting moderation" as ever: "Solomon et al did indeed slightly reduce the growth rate they used to derive peak [CO2] of 1200 ppm by 2100, from 2% p.a for âemissions over the last decadeâ to 1.2434% p.a. But that rate is 3 times larger than the observed rate between 1958 and 2008, and it results in an increase in [CO2] of 4.78 ppm or 10.1626 GtC in 2009 (if the base was 385 ppm in 2008). The actual increase in ppm at Mauna Loa from Dec 07 to Dec 08 was 1.7 ppm, and the actual increase in emissions in 2008 was 10.2 GtC (prelim.). In effect Solomon et al even if they did not eliminate absorption by oceans and biospheres, severely restricted them to below their actual level in 2008 of over 6 GtC and their actual growth rate of 1.5% p.a. from 1999.5 to 2008.5 (GCP). That procedure is symptomatic of a general failure of the Bern and other GCM models adequatelt to model absorption of emissions, in effect that variable is frozen at what it was many years ago. The result is the wilful exaggeration as in Solomon et al and so many other papers of the impact of short term rapid growth in emissions [relative to] the observed much slower growth of the atmospheric CO2 concentration".
Tim Curtin, some advice: when you accuse others of *'wilful exaggeration'* there is more than an element of hypocrisy in your words. As I, Bernard, Sod and others have amply demonstrated, your arguments ignore a huge range of complex variables, as I said above, which makes me think that, like many contrarians, you are using science in a specific way to promote what is in effect a political agenda. I think thatv you 'wilfully ignore' these aspects because they shed profound doubts as to the strnegth of the conclusions you wish to derive. You slate the work of Solomon, Schneider etc., and you suggest that their studies are 'fatally flowed' (this coming from someone who has no formal qualifications in a relevant field of research) but are more than happy to cite studies that tell only a very small part of the story (see my last response to your Huey citation). I am sure that my response, which I think most readers here will find quite convincing, reveals that 'behaviorial adjustments' of species to changing climate regimes represents only one component that is necessary to respond to a changing environment. But I am sure you will dispense with what I say *because it does not fit in with your world view*. Like Bjorn Lomborg, you cite those studies that do and either ignore or castigate those (which are many more in number) that do not. Check Lomborg's chapter on biodiversity in his book. Its a cherry-picking heaven. Ignored are numerous studies in journals like Nature, PNAS and manyb others that not only undermine most of his arguments, they demolish them.
But why take my word for it? I am only a population ecologist with 85 peer-reviewed papers thus far in my career. I was only trained in this field of science; why should we not let the lay people decide what is good science and what isn't?
Jeff: there's no need to brag about your publishing record, it is very good in its own right, unlike Bernard's or sod's or P. Jones'. But do stick to your own last. I have not been an academic economist since 1970, but I do know a bit about cost-benefit analysis, rates of return, and the parameters of financial fraud. As I noted above, the Solomon paper in your favourite rag, PNAS, is indeed worthy of Madoff, by tripling the rate of growth of [CO2] from the actual 0.4% p.a. to 1.24% p.a. and claiming equally that from 2008 the rate of growth of absorption of emissions will be far BELOW the observed rate since 1958, without a shred of evidence to that effect. If this is not Madoffian malfeasance, what would be? Sure, they are not soliciting investment moneys - but they are soliciting extra research funding from their mates Chu and Holdren, on the basis of the hysteria they are whipping up, and the latter are now well able to gratify their every desire. And the Ponzi that is the ETS of Holdren-Obama will leave Bernie M in the shade. Was their paper peer reviewed by anyone other than their mates and sometime co-authors? If FOI applied, we would know who, and I bet it was not Richard Lindzen of MIT - or Roy Spencer et al. Admit it Jeff that you know darn well most if not all of your papers were "peer-reviewed" by mates and/or colleagues and former co-authors, given the narrowness of your speciality.
Tim Curtin.
I asked:
and you replied with:
Red herring.
TimC, as humans, we are the only species that can significantly modify the environment to suit our own needs and desires. "[T]rade-offs" for us are for us a luxury of choice resulting from our ability to manipulate our surroundings.
For the rest of the biosphere though, tradings-off are a consequence of adaptation to evolutionary pressure, and as such they operate in a very different fashion for species other than our own.
So I will ask you once again, why do 'these' organisms not, in practice, already live at their 'thermal optima'?
Perhaps you might consider cracking a first year ecology text. Or try google - even the most ordinary of the undergrads that I have had to struggle with could have done better than:
RW Curtin.
Yikes, it never ends...
About Solomon et al:
... placing a number of other issues aside for the moment, how is your understanding of carbonate chemistry and of chemical equilibria coming along?
Bernard: you said "we are the only species that can significantly modify the environment to suit our own needs and desires" - but most species can and do shift environments when appropriate and optimal. My "understanding of carbonate chemistry and of chemical equilibria" is coming along a whole lot better than yours of the carbon budget, when you defend Solomon et al's fraudulent version thereof. In that regard you sailed close to the wind at Real Climate. Take care.
"Solomon et al did indeed slightly reduce the growth rate they used to derive peak [CO2] of 1200 ppm by 2100, from 2% p.a for âemissions over the last decadeâ to 1.2434% p.a. But that rate is 3 times larger than the observed rate between 1958 and 2008
as i posted [before](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/01/windschuttle_hoaxed.php#comment…), the Solomon paper has noticed that the latest increase in CO2 emissions (2000-2005) was 3%.
they reduced that number to 2%, and the derived 1.2% for their calculations.
your arguments are falling apart. quickly. always.
claiming equally that from 2008 the rate of growth of absorption of emissions will be far BELOW the observed rate since 1958, without a shred of evidence to that effect.
the truth, of course, is the exact opposite of what you claim:
there is [evidence](http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1023-carbon.html) of a lower absorbation rate, for example in the oceans.
the only person, with a serious lack of evidence supporting their claims, is you...
Tim, methinks you underestimate 'my speciality'. I was taught population biology by one of the best in this discipline (Mike Begon) and also Evolutionary Ecology by one of the best, (Geoff Parker). Our institute researches all kinds of ecology covering massive variation in spatial and temporal scales, and I am involved in these discussions; I frequently meet up with colleagues to discuss each other's work. I also used to be an Editor for the journal Nature, a job I got I think because I had quite strong 'general knowledge'in ecology.
Its therefore a bit rich for a retired economist who probably can't tell a mole cricket from a giraffe to critize my broad knowledge of population ecology. You are firmly out of your depth when you take suggest that humans pose minimal threats to natural systems and that climate change and rapidly increasing C02 levels will benfit, rather than harm biodiversity. You know a fraction of what I do about population biology, yet you persist. And when I catch you out, as I do repeatedly, you come back not with empirical evidence (which you don't have) or knowledge (ditto), but you have to resort to downplaying my qualifications or by simply igmoring the points I make (see Bernard's post earlier which demonstrates just that). Just because someone specializes in an area, incidentally a pre-requisite for scientists, does not mean that they do not have broad grounding in other related disciplines.
Moreover, how many conferences have you attended where the relevant environmental issues are debated by scientists - for instance the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, for example? Or the importance of functional redundancy in maintaining system resilience and stability? What on Earth do you know about the connection between the biology and physiology of individual organisms, rules governing community assembly and emergent processes occurring at larger scales such as productivity and resilience and the maintenance of hydrological and biogeochemical cycles? Its my view that you know diddly squat about any of this, so you pontificate and make a lot of noise. Hollow noise.
Basically, every time I trump one of your frankly dumb arguments, like your 'species will adapt' rhetoric, while lacking a basic understanding of the complexity of the field, you come back with some childish jibe.
What I think is that you are clinging top a life on this thread because you've been banned from other threads on Deltoid. To be honest, I find it easier to debate a high school student than you. If you cannot come upo with much better than this then I am out of here.
Sod (#383). Thanks for the link to the Schuster and Watson "evidence". Perhaps you can explain to me (1) why they interpret increasing pCO2 at seasurface as âdecliningâ oceanic uptake of CO2? And (2) why if a positive obtained when subtracting sea pCO2 from atms pCO2 to get ÎpCO2 depicts âan uptake of CO2 by the ocean surfaceâ, their actual data show more rapid increase of pCO2 at sea surface (4.4 μatm p.a.) than in the atmosphere, 1.8 μatm p.a., from mid-1990s to early 2000s, suggesting the opposite.
Sod at #382. You still fail to distinguish between Solomonâs growth rate of CO2 emissions (2% pa in Fig 1) and the resulting implied growth rate (1.2434% p.a.) of the atmospheric concentration of CO2 if that reaches 1200 ppmv by 2100 as in Fig.1. The observed rate since 1958 for the latter is only 0.4% p.a. which happens also to be the actual rate from Feb 08 to Feb 09. Why is it increased threefold by Solomon et al. without any attempt at justification? If that is not Madoff what is?
Bernard J: good to hear you referring to me if only on another thread from which I am proscribed! You said "And they [temps on your property] are, almost without exception, 2-4°C below the city's maxima. Heat island indeed".
Perhaps you got that the wrong way round? What of wind, location of your weather station vis a vis buildings etc? Certainly all similar anecdotal experience indicates towns tend to have higher mean temps than rural stations, which is why GISS/NOAA go to some lengths to use rural rather than urban stations, but then they went electronic and had to scrimp on cable length, so most stations ended up in car parks etc, hence most US "rural" stations are now urban, in part also because most Americans are too fat and lazy to walk to a measuring station in a field rather than wait for feed from an electronic station. I suspect your station fits that category.
Meantime I await your rebuttal of my demonstration that Solomon et al in their Fig 1. applied a 2% p.a. growth rate to emissions from now to 2100, which means (1) that they imply that the increase in [CO2] this year will be 4.8 ppm instead of the actual 1.9 in 2007-08, and (2) that their claim that [CO2] grows at over 1.2% p.a. instead of the observed 0.4% from 1958 to 2008 to reach 1200 ppmv in 2100, resulting in negative terrestrial uptake (with fixed oceanic as they allege)for the next 20 years. The truth is (1) that Solomon et all and their associates are perpetrating a giant fraud worthy of Bernie Madoff et al. and (2) that you are an accessory to this fraud.
*The truth is (1) that Solomon et all and their associates are perpetrating a giant fraud worthy of Bernie Madoff et al. and (2) that you are an accessory to this fraud*.
This is not even worthy of a reply. To be ignored.
To sod et al: As Gavin Schmidt has yet to post my last at Real Climate (see my #376 above), I have just made another attempt, as follows: "Whatâs up Gavin? I see you have still not posted my last. Look, Solomon et al are in clear breach of fiduciary duty when they raise the rate of accumulation of atmospheric CO2 from the observed rate of 0.4% p.a. from 1958 to 2009 to over 1.2% p.a. in order to reach their 'target' of 1200 ppm by 2100 (as in their Fig.1). They and you do not realise that growth of total emissions (including LUC etc) at 2% p.a. is from a much smaller base (c 10 GtC) than is the existing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, over 818 GtC, to which they apply their 1.2% p.a." I added that Solomon et al 2009, (plus Canadell et al 2007, Smith, Schneider et al 2009, all at PNAS), could well have been written by Bernie Madoff, as they all deploy his methods.
Jeff: if the cap fits, wear it, my post was addressed to a strangely silent Bernard. But since you raise the issue, please confirm whether or not you are aware that there is some connection between the supply of atmospheric CO2 and world food supply. For the record, the atmospheric volume of CO2 was 316 ppm in 1959, or 670 billion tonnes of carbon (GtC), while the total recorded level of CO2 emissions was 3.87 GtC in that year. In 2008 the total atmospheric volume was 385 ppmv, or 818 GtC, and CO2 emissions were at least 10.2 GtC. The total oceanic and biospheric absorption was 1.84 GtC in 1959, and 6.2 GtC in 2008. Can you please explain to me why the increase in global food supply for all living matter on this planet associated with that increase in absorption has been bad for all living matter? You can rave on about your undoubtedly fantastic credentials, but until you can give a straight answer to that question, "pak jou goed en trek verlere" (i.e. get lost, with apologies for any mispelling in my rusty Afrikaans).
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Tim Curtin.
Considering that it is a weekend and that some of us actually have lives, I think that you are being a little bit cute with your "strangely silent Bernard" jibe. Still, love and war and all that...
So, you have a problem with the way Solomon et al are presenting data? Perhaps you might have benefited from [Gavin's advice](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/02/irreversible-does…) to "try reading the paper". If you have done so carefully you would have noted what P. Lewis at #148, and sod at #272, repeated for you â namely, that:
Do you understand what "illustrative" means?
Continuing, Solomon et al say:
Do you understand what "not intended to be a realistic scenario" means?
As sod noted, Solomon et al do seem to have a passing acquaintance with the idea of sinks and feedings-back:
I must admit that for a while I couldn't understand why you assumed that Solomon et al confabulated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration increase with carbon dioxide emissions increase. Then it occurred to me that you don't appear to have read the supplementary material as advised in the text of the paper exactly where the first figure is discussed:
The very first graphic in the [supporting information](http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2009/01/28/0812721106.DCSupplemental/…) shows the trajectorie of 0.5% pa growth in atmospheric CO2 (black) and of 2% pa growth in atmospheric CO2 (red), with their respective peaks (which, for 0.5% pa to1200ppm, occurs in 2237).
See, to me when I first read all of this material, it was as plain as the nose on my face when Solomon et al were referring to an increase in CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, and when they were referring to an increase in actual CO2 emissions in the atmosphere.
I guess if one were not being especially careful in reading a paper one might miss such nuances, and confabulate the two CO2 parameters.
In their paper (and accompanying supplementation) Solomon et al establish the trajectories for a range of atmospheric CO2 peaks occurring at rates that are likely to occur with current usage, to possible rates of future usage should control not be instigated. This seems to be a perfectly reasonable covering of contingencies to me. Where is the problem with this?
Further, I note that you have not disputed that the trajectories are qualitatively comparable irrespective of the rate of CO2 increase. Nor have you disputed the trajectories after the peaks, which are at loggerheads with you own claims of plummeting CO2 should human emissions be eliminated. I am very interested in what you might have to say in your tke compared with their analyses, in light of the obvious conclusion that:
The only point that I can see that you have Tim Curtin is that you do not read science well enough to pick the nuances of a paper: but then, you've consistently displayed this incapacity in the many other ill-advised criticisms of science that you are prone to.
Hi Bernard, how are you going with your temps being cooler than in your nearby city?
Re the Follies of Solomon, you have put up a sterling defence. But the facts remain (1) that their Figs.â Growth paths of Emissions leading to 1200 ppm of [CO2] by 2100 do not depict absorptions, and they are only to be inferred from the very gradual declines in [CO2] after emissions cease, and (2) that their implicit growth rate of [CO2] with respect to emissions growth at 2% pa from until 2100 is 1.23% pa, over double the observed rate from 1958 to 2009. Why?
Then they said: âThis [1200 ppm by 2100] is not intended to be a realistic scenario but rather to represent a test case whose purpose is to probe physical climate system changes.â That is a lie, their actual purpose is to generate alarm sufficient to generate more funding, as their paper nowhere discusses âphysical climate system changeâ with respect to [CO2] growth at 3 times the observed rate.
Well, if their paper is not intended to be ârealisticâ, what do they mean by their titleâs âirreversible climate changeâ? Their paper is of course not merely unrealistic but fatuous, as even Gavin Schmidt dimly realises when he attempts to show that âirreversibleâ does not mean what it says, and that âunstoppableâ is somehow different.
Then you say: âSolomon et al do seem to have a passing acquaintance with the idea of sinks and feedings-backâ and quote Solomon et al âAdditional carbon cycle feedbacks could reduce the efficiency of the ocean and biosphere to remove the anthropogenic CO2 and thereby increase these CO2 valuesâ. Note their âcouldâ â why then do their Figs. assume that this is already happening, as their model produces 40 years of absorptions from now at less than the current rate. âReduced efficiencyâ is something to be proved when the evidence is for remarkle increased efficiency of absorption since 1958.
Time to walk the dog, will revert.
do not depict absorptions, and they are only to be inferred from the very gradual declines in [CO2] after emissions cease, and (2) that their implicit growth rate of [CO2] with respect to emissions growth at 2% pa from until 2100 is 1.23% pa, over double the observed rate from 1958 to 2009. Why?
you prefer to ignore it, but the latest number of CO2 emission growth given in the paper is 3%.
THREE. do you get it?
That is a lie, their actual purpose is to generate alarm sufficient to generate more funding, as their paper nowhere discusses âphysical climate system changeâ with respect to [CO2] growth at 3 times the observed rate.
As Bernhard pointed out, their purpose is: how long will it take to reduce CO2 back to former level.
they come to a very different conclusion, than you do.
âReduced efficiencyâ is something to be proved when the evidence is for remarkle increased efficiency of absorption since 1958.
let me be try to be polite:
i have given you the numbers from the "additional CO2 for greenhouses companies" multiple times now.
even a massive increase in CO2, only will be followed by a (below) 30% increase in yield. this does NOT FIT into your assumptions about unlimited uptake. not at all!
First Bernard #391 (sod later): what I still find amazing is that you keep on defending Solomonâs folly when the policy implication is that nothing can be done to reverse the climate change we have already incurred! Here am I on the other hand knocking her back for the fraud in her paper, even though I agree with the policy implications, i.e. do nothing. There's you defending her while hating her conclusion!
For the inherent fraud, letâs look at Newsweekâs interview with foolish Solly (2nd March 2009:
Newsweek: âIs there any way to halt the process before it goes too far?â
âNo, says Susan Solomon, a climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado. In a recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, she found [sic, she found nothing, there is NO original research finding in Sollyâs paper] that most of the carbon we've already released into the atmosphere will hang around for another 1,000 years [Nonsense: it recycles every 12 years]. Even if world leaders somehow managed to persuade everybody to stop driving cars and heating their homesâbringing carbon emissions down to zero immediatelyâthe Earth would continue to warm for centuries [so why bother?]. The effect of rising temperatures on rainfall patterns is also irreversible, says Solomon. Parts of the world that tend to be dry (Mexico, north Africa, southern Europe and the western parts of Australia and the United States) will continue to get drier, while wet areas (the South Pacific islands, the horn of Africa) will keep getting wetter [zero evidence, there is NONE for any of this, least of all in the horn of Africa, home of endemic drought, I know having been there done that].â You have to think of it as being like a dial that can only turn one way," she says. "We've cranked up the dial, and we don't get to crank it back." [Hooray Henry, or rather Susie]".
Back to Bernard, who sez; âSee, to me when I first read all of this material, it was as plain as the nose on my face when Solomon et al were referring to an increase in CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, and when they were referring to an increase in actual CO2 emissions in the atmosphere.â Yet their Figs. both in the paper and in the SI at no point display the changes in the sinks which account for the differences between emissions and [CO2] trajectories. The Fig S1B shows the same rates of decline of [CO2] after cessation of emissions at any level. Why, when it is known to all except Solly and her 2500 Nobel pals that there is a relationship between [CO2] and the rate of Absorption? Why are the rates of absorption expunged from all her Figleaves? Because they are whatever foolish Solly needs to validate her trajectories â the sinks have never been modelled since Wigley (1990) claimed they donât have to be, they are whatever is implied by his and all later modelling of emissions and [CO2]. That is not science, more like Houdini.
Bernard again: âNor have you disputed the trajectories after the peaks, which are at loggerheads with your own claims of plummeting CO2 should human emissions be eliminated.â Ok, I do now: (1) they are opaque and specified nowhere in Solomon et al., PNAS 2009. (2) Solly assumes they are invariant with the level of [CO2] at any time, see all her Figs (or figleaves) including S1 and S2, where Solly makes it clear that âthe range of CO2 decay is based upon calculations with the Bern2.5CC carbon cycleâclimate model for the 2%/year rate of increase cases shown in Fig. 1 of the main text covering a broad range of cases in which CO2 concentrations increase from current concentrations to peak values of 450-1200ppmv and then emissions are haltedâ. Bern does not model absorptions. Biospheric absorption, whatâs that? Solomon et al (PNAS 2009) do not even know what that is, but even if they ever did, they have abolished it.
But, dear Bernard, do keep up your brave defence of Solomon et al., I intend to use it to defeat ETS everywhere.
Sod. #393: (1) Read Fig 1 in the Follies of Solomon et al PNAS 2009: their projected growth of emissions is 2% p.a. from now until 2100.
(2) you said: âhow long will it take to reduce CO2 back to former level. they come to a very different conclusion, than you doâ. Their Fig. 1 says not before 2200 if emissions stop about now or 2020 at latest. Solly et al have zero comprehension of the dynamics, mainly because they expunge all consideration of terrestrial absorption (their Fig.1 implies it is negative from now for 40 years).
(3) You have yet to rebut the evidence (in GCP and CDIAC) that terrestrial absorption has been rising continuously since 1958. Please copy me with your communication to them showing the errors of their ways. Meantime I stand by my demonstration of the apparent correlation between observed growth of that absorption and observed growth of global food consumption by all living matter, including trees, food crops, fish, sheep etc, and us.
Sod. #393: (1) Read Fig 1 in the Follies of Solomon et al PNAS 2009: their projected growth of emissions is 2% p.a. from now until 2100.
yes. but they (in contrast to you) realise, that latests emissions were growing by 3%:
3%/year in the period from 2000 to 2005
it is in their text! they are using a very CONSERVATIVE number for the annual emission increase!
and they don t ignore all uptakes, as you claimed at the beginning of this discussion. instead, they use a 1.2%
accumulation in the atmosphere.
their numbers are all reasonable. it is yours, that are not!
Sod: you said "instead, they [Solly et pals] use a 1.2% accumulation in the atmosphere.their numbers are all reasonable. it is yours, that are not!" So 1.2% p.a. when the observed is 0.4% is reasonable? That is pure Madoff. The truth is that Fig.1 in Solomon et al (PNAS 2009) does not disclose the absorption of CO2, and the paper as a whole hardly refers to it, in fact, it shows no appreciation that increases in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 are the outcome of two processes, (1) emissions from fossil fuel burning, (actually there are many others including our own exhalation but that is usually ignored, and if accounted for would by the accounting identity which is the Carbon Budget result in higher Absorption given [CO2]), and (2) the processes involved in oceanic and biospheric absorption. The latter are NOT a residual in the real world, the actual residual is the atmospheric "sink", i.e. [CO2]. Solomon et al pervert Science by treating Absorptions as a mere residual arising from their modelling. Check the models and get back to me if you can find the terrestrial biopsheric process by which CO2 is absorbed - you will see it is always a residual and never modelled(check Global Carbon Project).
The great Curtin shows us another of his wonderful discoveries, i.e. that we don't need to concern ourselves with the actual input values fed to a logarithm function to determine its change in value for a change in input. We only need to know the change in input. Thus the great Curtin showed that the logarithm function is actually linear. A brilliant discovery by one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists of all time.
I see Chris O'Neill fails to disclose on this thread that he is himself the author of the quote he gives:"Doubling the input causes the same increase in output for any original input, i.e. increasing the input from 2 units to 4 units causes the same increase in output as increasing the input from 1 unit to 2 units. Increasing the input from 4 units to 8 units causes the same increase in output again etc."
I took his statement at face value and first took the observed increase in the "input", 100 ppm of [CO2] from 1900 to 2000, and the resulting increase in "output", a rise of 0.7 oC in global mean temperature over that period (GISS). Then Chris left out the next bits from my post, showing how the first doubling (i.e by 100 ppm) raises temps again but just by 0.7 oC, in accordance with his statement, and the next doubling, by 200 ppm to 400 total, for another 0.7 oC, and likewise for the doubling by 400 ppm to 800 ppm for another 0.7 oC, bringing the increase in temp since 1900 to 16.8 oC from 14 oC in 1900, and so on. To get to the IPCC's rise of 3.5 in T "for a doubling in [CO2] from 280 ppm in 1900 to 560 ppm" we need to have another doubling by 800 pm to a total of 1600 + 280 - 1880 ppm. That is exactly in line with what O'Neill stated to be the logarithimic effect. His failure to give the full quote of my response to him is telling - and highly significant as it shows how equally lacking in honesty the IPCC is in claiming that a single doubling of the increment of 100 ppm since 1900 which brought us to 380 ppm in 2000 will more than double the observed increase in T of 0.7 oC since 1900. When scientists are not involved in political advocacy their case speaks for itself without any need to deny the logarithmic effect shown here and the resulting massaging of projections for the IPCC's political ends (and those of its most enthusiastic sponsors, Obama, Brown the EU, and Rudd). O'Neill's inability to be straight tells you all you need to know about the whole IPCC fantasy.
"Doubling the input causes the same increase in output for any original input"
The great Curtin:
Here the great Curtin demonstrates his principle of confusion of words in definitions. Thus he shows how to confuse the word "input" from one part of a definition with the word "increase" from another part of the definition. Only the great Curtin has been able to demonstrate this principle. Thank heaven the great Curtin knows that he is right when the rest of the world is wrong.
Chris: just show us your numbers using the actuals for increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration (100 ppm) and increase in global mean temperature (0.7 oC, at most, given zero tropical Africa records in 1900) for the period 1900-2000, using your text "Doubling the input causes the same increase in output for any original input, i.e. increasing the input from 2 units to 4 units causes the same increase in output as increasing the input from 1 unit to 2 units. Increasing the input from 4 units to 8 units causes the same increase in output again etc."
Tim,
You ask too many dumb questions and provide too few real answers. Given your feeble performance thus far on this exasperatingly long thread, I would love to see you debate Susan Solomon. I think she'd eat you alive.
Prove to me that (1) plant productivity in natural systems is independent of other biotic and abiotic and biotic constraints and interactions including foliar levels of N and P as well as C, (2) that plants in natural systems can adapt to rapidly increasing atmospheric levels of C02 (e.g. that there isn't a ceiling beyond which they suffer fitness reduction because they have co-evolved under lower C02 regimes) and (3) that your calculations therefore do not exclude a huge range of potentially important parameters (we all know that they do).
Second, its little use parroting the global mean temperature increase since 1980 (and not, as you always say, since 1900) of 0.6-0.7 C because this ignores much higher regional changes. Some high latitude biomes have seen temperature rises of 5 C or more in only three decades. What are likely to be the effects on systems if this rate continues? What about the effects on invasive species? Let us see your 'numbers'. For example: The effects on biodiversity. On ecosystem functioning. On vital ecocystem services. On pollinators and seed dispersers. On pest control agents. On nutrient cycling. On herbivore nutritional ecology. All of these data are vital is we are to understand what effects pumping more carbon into the atmosphere will be on the biosphere.
I have a few minutes today, so here's the summary of one study by Briones et al. in Soil Biology and Biochemistry on the effects of climate change on the soil community:
Accordingly, our findings suggest that increasing temperatures associated to climate change will have a profound effect on the rhizosphere in terms of root extension and heterotrophic community's structure. This will result in new species assemblages (as a result of species losses and increasing dominance of more resilient species), altered functional and trophic structure towards a fungal driven food web and changed vertical stratification, which could led to increased soil respiration and N mineralisation, less incorporation of C rich materials at the surface layers but acceleration of soil organic matter turnover in deeper layers and in turn, could profoundly alter ecosystem carbon function (Fig. 3).
Adaptations in the longer-term can also not be discounted and therefore, the magnitude of the response to induced warming will highly depend upon the ecological flexibility of soil biodiversity and species adaptability. It can be concluded that soil decomposer communities do not exhibit constant biomass in all compartments as some models assume (Hunt et al., 1987). The results of this study provide further evidence for the use of dynamic rather static models for predicting community and carbon responses to climate change (Mcgeoch et al., 2006). From our study it is also obvious that it is *not possible to make generalisations regarding soil community responses to climate change* [emphasis mine] and that soil biology needs to be properly incorporated in C models to make better predictions of the fate of SOC under warmer scenarios.
Now the summary of a paper by Hedhly et al. in Trends in Plant Science:
The sexual reproductive phase in plants might be particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming. The direct effect of temperature changes on the reproductive process has been documented previously, and recent *data from other physiological processes that are affected by rising temperatures seem to reinforce the susceptibility of the reproductive process to a changing climate* [emphasis mine]. But the reproductive phase also provides the plant with an opportunity to adapt to environmental changes. Understanding phenotypic plasticity and gametophyte selection for prevailing temperatures, along with possible epigenetic changes during this process, could provide new insights into plant evolution under a global-warming scenario.
Another study by Mattson et al. in Global Change Biology:
For example, when confronted with typical CO2-induced diminished plant N content, and increased allelochemical content, mammals may more readily, and more broadly than insects, seek alternative, more palatable food sources, at least until their options are exhausted. Insect larvae, being less mobile, may be obliged to directly cope in situ with the consequences by exercising some local microselection opportunities, increasing consumption rates, or dispersing, resulting in prolonged developmental times, and perhaps even short term developmental stasis. After food ingestion under no choice circumstances, both may be similarly physiologically challenged by the altered food stoichiometry, and secondary chemistry, causing heightened metabolism due to diet-induced thermogenesis, and elevated detoxication.
All of this points to complex nonlinear effects of increased atmospheric C02 levels and temperature. This is just a sample from thousands of such studies which have reported all kinds of effects on primary and secondary plant chemistry and on associated consumer behavior and development. One coudl write many volumes on the subject but not be able to extrapolate general conclusions. We just do not know enough to assert that increased C02 leveles in the atmosphere is the answer to eradicating hunger. For me, it is a little bit like saying burning our house down is a good way of keeping warm. Natural systems will (and are) responding non-linearly to both increased atmospheric C and to warming of the biosphere.
I see that Engelkes Harvey et al 2008 do not provide data on the impact of rising [CO2]. Why not? That is a serious deriliction! My preliminary response to your citations is to asky why Solomon et al do not refer to them? Pending my direct comments on them, which Iâm working on, Iâd like your own comments on the following papers, all of which are cited in my upcoming paper. Note expecially from Levy et al at 7. below this comment: âAs CO2 is the dominating influence on the vegetation, the scenarios with high fossil fuel emissions,and thus the highest CO2 concentrations (A1F & A2) generate the largest net terrestrial sink for carbon.â True or false?
Meantime the Bern Model used by Solomon et al. has only this to say on the Terrestrial biosphere âA potential fertilization by elevated atmospheric CO2 is taken into account by a logarithmic dependence of net primary production [which is not supported by any evidence] and Land surface processes are poorly represented.â
1. from GLOBAL BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLES, VOL. 15, NO. 1, PAGES 183â206, 2001
Carbon Balance of the Terrestrial Biosphere in the Twentieth Century: Analyses of CO2, Climate and Land Use Effects With Four Process-Based Ecosystem Models, A. D. McGuire et al.
Abstract
The concurrent effects of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration, climate variability, and cropland establishment and abandonment on terrestrial carbon storage between 1920 and 1992 were assessed using a standard simulation protocol with four process-based terrestrial biosphere models. Over the long-term(1920â1992), the simulations yielded a time history of terrestrial uptake that is consistent (within the uncertainty) with a long-term analysis based on ice core and atmospheric CO2 data. Up to 1958, three of four analyses indicated a net release of carbon from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere caused by cropland establishment. After 1958, all analyses indicate a net uptake of carbon by terrestrial ecosystems, primarily because of the physiological effects of rapidly rising atmospheric CO2. During the 1980s the simulations indicate that terrestrial ecosystems stored between 0.3 and 1.5 Pg C yrâ1, which is within the uncertainty of analysis based on CO2 and O2 budgets⦠Simulated interannual variability from 1958 generally reproduced the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-scale variability in the atmospheric CO2 increase, but there were substantial differences in the magnitude of interannual variability simulated by the models. The analysis of the ability of the models to simulate the changing amplitude of the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO2 suggested that the observed trend may be a consequence of CO2 effects, climate variability, land use changes, or a combination of these effects. The next steps for improving the process-based simulation of historical terrestrial carbon include (1) the transfer of insight gained from stand-level process studies to improve the sensitivity of simulated carbon storage responses to changes in CO2 and climate, (2) improvements in the data sets used to drive the models so that they incorporate the timing, extent, and types of major disturbances, (3) the enhancement of the models so that they consider major crop types and management schemes, (4) development of data sets that identify the spatial extent of major crop types and management schemes through time, and (5) the consideration of the effects of anthropogenic nitrogen depositionâ¦
I hope you will agree that this paper confirms my own position; my co-author and I are addressing their point (3). The same applies to the next papers:
2. Evaluating ecosystem responses to rising atmospheric CO and global warming in a multi-factor world. Richard J. Norby and Yiqi Luo
Summary
Analyses of ecosystem responses to global change must embrace the reality of multiple,
interacting environmental factors. Ecosystem models demonstrate the importance
of examining the combined effects of the gradually rising concentration of
atmospheric CO2 and the climatic change that attends it. Models to forecast future
changes need data support to be useful, and dataâmodel fusion has become essential
in global change research. There is a wealth of information on plant responses
to CO2 and temperature, but there have been few ecosystem-scale experiments
investigating the combined or interactive effects of CO2 enrichment and warming.
Factorial experiments to investigate interactions can be difficult to design, conduct,
and interpret, and their results may not support predictions at the ecosystem scale
â in the context of global change they will always be case studies. An alternative
approach is to gain a thorough understanding of the modes of action of single
factors, and rely on our understanding (as represented in models) to inform us
of the probable interactions. Multifactor (CO2 temperature) experiments remain
important, however, for testing concepts, demonstrating the reality of multiplefactor
influences, and reminding us that surprises can be expected.
New Phytologist © New Phytologist (2004) 162: 281â293 www.newphytologist.org
3. Persistent stimulation of photosynthesis by elevated CO2 in a sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) forest stand. Johnna D. Sholtis et al.
Summary
⢠The photosynthetic response of trees to rising CO2 concentrations ([CO2]) can be
affected by plant sourceâsink relations, in addition to seasonal changes in environmental
conditions. Characterization of biochemical and morphological feedbacks is important
for understanding ecosystem responses to elevated atmospheric [CO2]. The seasonal responses of leaf gas exchange and related biochemical parameters were measured during 3 yrs of exposure on established plantation sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua ) trees at a Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) facility in eastern Tennessee, USAâ¦.These results suggest that established L. styraciflua
trees in closed-canopy forests might exhibit a long-term positive response to elevated [CO2] without reductions in photosynthetic capacity.
New Phytologist (2004) 162: 343â354
4. Nature: 403, 11 October 2001 ........................................
Acclimatization of soil respiration to
warming in a tall grass prairie
Yiqi Luo, Shiqiang Wan, Dafeng Hui & Linda L. Wallace
Department of Botany and Microbiology, University of Oklahoma, Norman,
Oklahoma 73019, USA
.............................................................................................................................................
The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) predicts a 1.4±5.8 8C average increase in the global
surface temperature over the period 1990 to 2100 (ref. 1). These
estimates of future warming are greater than earlier projections,
which is partly due to incorporation of a positive feedback. This
feedback results from further release of greenhouse gases from
terrestrial ecosystems in response to climatic warming. The
feedback mechanism is usually based on the assumption that
observed sensitivity of soil respiration to temperature under
current climate conditions would hold in a warmer climate5.
However, this assumption has not been carefully examined. We
have therefore conducted an experiment in a tall grass prairie
ecosystem in the US Great Plains to study the response of soil
respiration (the sum of root and heterotrophic respiration) to
artificial warming of about 2 8C. Our observations indicate that
the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration decreases or
acclimatizes under warming and that the acclimatization is
greater at high temperatures. This acclimatization of soil respiration
to warming may therefore weaken the positive feedback between the terrestrial carbon cycle and climate.
5 How do elevated CO2 and O3 affect the interception and
utilization of radiation by a soybean canopy?
ORLA DERMODY, STEPHEN P. LONG, et al.
Abstract
Net productivity of vegetation is determined by the product of the efficiencies with
which it intercepts light («i) and converts that intercepted energy into biomass («c).
Elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) increases photosynthesis and leaf area index (LAI) of
soybeans and thus may increase «i and «c; elevated O3 may have the opposite effect.
Knowing if elevated CO2 and O3 differentially affect physiological more than structural
components of the ecosystem may reveal how these elements of global change will
ultimately alter productivity. The effects of elevated CO2 and O3 on an intact soybean
ecosystem were examined with Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment (SoyFACE)
technology where large field plots (20-m diameter) were exposed to elevated CO2
(_550 lmol mol_1) and elevated O3 (1.2_ambient) in a factorial design. Aboveground
biomass, LAI and light interception were measured during the growing seasons of 2002,
2003 and 2004 to calculate «i and «c. A 15% increase in yield (averaged over 3 years) under
elevated CO2 was caused primarily by a 12% stimulation in «c, as «i increased by only
3%. Though accelerated canopy senescence under elevated O3 caused a 3% decrease in «i,
the primary effect of O3 on biomass was through an 11% reduction in «c. When CO2 and
O3 were elevated in combination, CO2 partially reduced the negative effects of elevated
O3. Knowing that changes in productivity in elevated CO2 and O3 were influenced
strongly by the efficiency of conversion of light energy into energy in plant biomass will
aid in optimizing soybean yields in the future. Future modeling efforts that rely on «c for
calculating regional and global plant productivity will need to accommodate the effects of global change on this important ecosystem attribute. Global Change Biology (2008) 14, 556â564, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2007.01502.x
Can improved photosynthesis increase crop yields?
S. P. Long
et al.
6. Can improvement in photosynthesis increase crop yields? STEPHEN P. LONG et al.
ABSTRACT The yield potential (Yp) of a grain crop is the seed mass per
unit ground area obtained under optimum growing conditions without weeds, pests and diseases. It is determined by the product of the available light energy and by the genetically determined properties: efficiency of light capture (ei), the efficiency of conversion of the intercepted light into biomass (ec) and the proportion of biomass partitioned into grain (h). Plant breeding brings h and ei close to their theoretical maxima, leaving ec , primarily determined by photosynthesis, as the only remaining major prospect for improving Ypâ¦. Plant, Cell and Environment
(2006) 29 , 315â330 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3040.2005.01493.x
7 Modelling the impact of future changes in climate, CO2 concentration
and land use on natural ecosystems and the terrestrial carbon sink
P.E. Levy*,M.G.R. Cannell,A.D. Friend
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Bush Estate, Penicuik, Midlothian EH26 0QB, UK
Abstract
We used a global vegetation model,âHyLandâ, to simulate the effects of changes in climate,CO 2 concentration and land use on natural ecosystems. Changes were prescribed by four SRES scenarios: A1f,A2, B1 and B2. Under all SRES scenarios simulated, the terrestrial biosphere is predicted to be a net sink for carbon over practically all of the 21st century. This sink peaks around 2050 and
then diminishes rapidly towards the end of the century as a result of climate change. Averaged over the period 1990â2100,the net sink varies between scenarios,from B2 to 6 PgCyr_1. Differences are largely the result of differences in CO2 concentrations. Effects of climate change are substantially less,and counteract the effect of elevated CO2. Land use change results in a loss of
carbon to the atmosphere in the B2B scenario,in which the increase in cropland area continues. In the other scenarios, there is a decrease in croplands and grassland,with a corresponding increase in natural vegetation,resulting in a net sink to the biosphere. The credibility of these results depends on the accuracy of the predictions of land use change in the SRES scenarios,and these are highly
uncertain. As CO2 is the dominating influence on the vegetation,the scenarios with high fossil fuel emissions,and thus the highest CO2 concentrations (A1F & A2) generate the largest net terrestrial sink for carbon. This conclusion would change if these scenarios assumed continued deforestation and cropland expansion. Without the beneficial effects of elevated CO2,the effects of climate
change are much more severe. This is of concern,as the long-term and large-scale effects of elevated CO2 are still open to questionâ¦.
Global Environmental Change 14 (2004) 21â30
Great Tim, you can read. That's a start. But all you are doing is citing research that for the most part EXCLUDES interactions with soil and above ground biota. And for every one of these studies, I can find an equal number or more of others that provide different or very uncertain results. How many of the critical studies are you going to cite in your 'paper'? Or are you going to do a classic Lomborg and make your paper 'cherry picking heaven'?
Note also the closing remarks from the last paper that you cited:
"The credibility of these results depends on the accuracy of the predictions of land use change in the SRES scenarios,and these are highly uncertain... This conclusion would change if these scenarios assumed continued deforestation and cropland expansion. Without the beneficial effects of elevated CO2, the effects of climate change are much more severe. This is of concern,as the long-term and large-scale effects of elevated CO2 are still open to questionâ¦"
Note that deforestation and agricultural expansion have not stopped. We have already lost something like 50% of tropical wet forests worldwide in the pasdt 100 years and the projection is that more will go over the coming years.
I want to know if the studies I cited in my last post, as well as the following will end up in your earth shattering article:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7073/abs/nature04420.html
http://www.optimumpopulation.org/blog/?p=397
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/rainforest-raze…
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0314-amazon.html
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/acidification.shtml
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v430/n7002/abs/nature02808.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7089/abs/nature04539.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v416/n6879/abs/416389a.html
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2641830
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VR3-4KF6XV2-…
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118993325/abstract
This is just a small sample. There are hundreds of studies which illustrate similar uncertainties. I'd be shocked if I heard any scientist (economists do not count) claim with complete certainty that it is a good thing to continue pumping carbon into the atmosphere, given all of the nasty surprises that are likely to be in store. You are advocating policy based on highly fragmented information on complex adaptive systems. I want to reiterate: how many of your ideas are politically (rather than scientifically) driven? This is vitally important, a point that is usually ignored by the msm.
One thing you are also ignoring is the capacity of vegetation to soak up C02 (while also ignoring the fact that humans are continuing to fell forests and convert them to grasslands over much of the world as I said above). I spoke with a colleague in Germany recently who said that forests will absord C02 until some threshold is reached, then they will either start becoming net emitters of it or, even more worryingly, many will die because they do not have the capacity to maintain an optimal C:N:P balance. Its all a crap shoot. The evidence, as you well know, paints a very worrying picture, and especially if other biotic factors are included.
Where do you intend to submit this opus of yours? Mad Magazine perhaps? Have you published any related articles in the peer-reviewed literature? If not, why not? Where did you obtain your formal training in plant physiology and environmental science? What can you tell me about the effects of global change on context and trait dependent parameters amongst species in food webs? I have asked you this a zillion times and I never get a response. To conclude, also for the zillionth time: plant productivity depends on an array of biotic and abiotic processes, including multiple interactions with soil and above-ground biota. How will these interactions be affected by multiple aspects of global change? Will this discussion appear in your 'article'? I want to know.
Dear Jeff. Thanks for all those refs. I will respond when I have had time to digest them.
Meantime I note that you say "deforestation and agricultural expansion have not stopped. We have already lost something like 50% of tropical wet forests worldwide in the past 100 years and the projection is that more will go over the coming years". Here you display the neo-racism of so many environmentalists, especially in Holland with its colonial hangups. Brown people are not quite as stupid as you and the Dutch believe. When Indonesians and Malaysians replace moribund old growth forest with oil palm trees and the like, those trees actually soak up more CO2 annually than the clapped out stuff they replace, and generate a commensurate higher income to all involved, to the chagrin of taxpayer funded intellectuals like yourself so well shielded from the real world of having to find a living not funded by the well-heeled burghers of The Netherlands. The process of switching from senescent old forest to vibrant oil palm not only helps to feed the world but also very largely explains why such a high proportion (57%) of ever growing CO2 emissions is still soaked up by the terrestrial biosphere.
BTW, have you ever come across "A History of Atmospheric CO2 and its Effects on Plants, Animals and Ecosystems", Ehleringer, Cerling, Dearing, Springer 2005? That is when I bought my extensively annotated copy, which is the basis of my own views. Apart from the offering by serially truth-challenged Ian Enting, all chapters are seminal, I particularly draw your attention to J. Ward in Part 2 devoted to "Biotic responses to long term changes in atmospheric CO2", and to my sometime compatriot N.J van der Merwe, "CO2, grasses and human evolution".
But when you had nothing to offer in response to my previous listings in my last post, I shall not lose any sleep in expectation of a coherent response to that book from you.
I wince that my absence for the last day or so has seen the number of points, to which I would respond, outstrip the time that I currently have in which to answer them.
In response to Jeff's question though:
I would note that Curtin already seems to have provided an answer when he comments:
And a few queries...
Radium Water Tim, who is your co-author? to which journal are you submitting? When are you submitting, and do you intend to make your reviews available, given their relevance to this thread?
Bernard: you asked: "who is your co-author?" after the threats I received aftr posting at Barry Brook's, I choose not to reveal at this point (I have proof of these threats).
"to which journal are you submitting?" same reply, the editor of the journal I first submitted to, received similar threats, hence my switch to Quadrant, Keith had more bottle.
"When are you submitting?" asap, but actual appearance is not my decision.
"and do you intend to make your reviews available, given their relevance to this thread?" Yes.
Tim, if anyone is neocolonialist, it is you. I find it takes remarkable hubris - or downright ignorance - for you to write these utterly pathetic words:
*Here you display the neo-racism of so many environmentalists, especially in Holland with its colonial hangups. Brown people are not quite as stupid as you and the Dutch believe. When Indonesians and Malaysians replace moribund old growth forest with oil palm trees and the like, those trees actually soak up more CO2 annually than the clapped out stuff they replace, and generate a commensurate higher income to all involved, to the chagrin of taxpayer funded intellectuals like yourself so well shielded from the real world of having to find a living not funded by the well-heeled burghers of The Netherlands*.
You have lost it big time when you to resort to this kind of garbage. Of all people I am well aware that every country in the developed world fosters an enormous ecological deficit. This includes all of the developed countries in the 'qaud'. Government and corporate planners in the rich countries are well aware that there isn't enough capital to go around equitably. This is why the rules of trade are stacked against the poor. The deficit is not shrinking either; it is growing. The rich countries need to be able to reach beyond their borders and effectively take (= loot) natrual capital and resources from the underdeveloped countries. The Netherlands is no exception as I am well aware. The US and the Netherl;ands have the biggest per capita ecological deficits in the world and remain rich because they are the beneficiaries of a neoliberal economic system (which is neither new nor liberal) based around the 'Washington Consensus' that concentrates wealth among commercial elites. To be honest, our countries do not give a jot about eradicating hunger and poverty, at least where this compromises profit margins amongst the powerful transnational corporate elite and the governments that are beholden to them who run things. Our planners know all too well that if everyone on Earth lived like the average European or American, we'd need an additional 3 or more 'Earth like planets' to sustain ourselves. This explains why the US and China in particular are in a mad grab to secure vital resources from other nations; it explains why we routinely cozy up to vile regimes and explains why the US strategy towards Latin America shifted from 'hemispheric defence' to 'internal security' 45 years ago. That policy had immediate and horrific consequences for all of those fighting to free themselves from poverty and inequality. But it is clear to me that you do not know the half of it Tim.
Dmitri Simes a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote commented on the three ways in which he thought the United States could take advantage of the end of the cold war and remain the pre-eminent world superpower. One of the ways he argued was that the US would no longer be 'manipulated by the poor countries of the south'. the United States can end âthe manipulation of America by third world nations.â The manipulation of the rich by the undeserving poor has always been a serious concern, particularly acute with regard to Latin America, which in the preceding five years had transferred some $150 billion to the industrial West in addition to $100 billion of capital flight, amounting to twenty-five times the total value of the Alliance for Progress and fifteen times the Marshall Plan.
Even before the United States entered the second world war, high-level planners and analysts concluded that in the postwar world the United States should seek âto hold unquestioned power,â acting to ensure the âlimitation of any exercise of sovereigntyâ by states that might interfere with its global designs. They recognized further that âthe foremost requirementâ to secure these ends was âthe rapid fulfillment of a program of complete rearmament,â then as now a central component of âan integrated policy to achieve military and economic supremacy for the United States.â Iam sure the world's poor has never been at the top of the agenda of western planners.
As far as suggesting that oil palms would soak up carbon, you have really lost it here. And what about the teeming biodiversity of tropical forests? What would happen to it under such a conversion? Oil palm plantations are ostensibly biological deserts, like banana plantations and the like. They harbor rats, cockroaches, and little else. The consequences of converting mature tropical forests to oil palm plantations on a large scale would be catastophic not just for biodiversity but for us as well. For the entire biosphere. It would almost certainly lead to a massive shift in climatic patterns, altering evapotranspiration regimes; it would also alter soil chemistry, and in no time would turn much of the tropical world into a desert. Vital ecosystem services would be lost forever. What little credibility you had in my eyes washed away in a second when you wrote this utter nonsense. If this is the kind of sober sense you are bringing to your 'article' I cannot wait to see it. It will be a belly laugh out of all proportions.
When Indonesians and Malaysians replace moribund old growth forest with oil palm trees and the like, those trees actually soak up more CO2 annually than the clapped out stuff they replace, and generate a commensurate higher income to all involved,
i have serious doubts about those numbers. what was your source again?
they did factor in that the palm oil gets burned, didn t they?
WHAT! So it's f#ck the poor old orang utan then (not that it isn't heading that way already)!?
They're priceless, as in beyond price.
But then so is the self-appointed new Emperor of Antarctica's view on replacing old-growth forest with oil palm priceless, though in the meaning of worthless, mindless and absurd in his case!
Dim Tim just gets dimmer.
Sod, P. Lewis,
Tim appears to be one of those guys who believes that we could cut down every forest on Earth and replace all of the temperate forests with birch or maple and the tropical forests with oil palm and then we'd all live happily ever after. This kind of simplistic drivel sums up the views of many contrarians: divorced from the real world.
I recall right wing economist Peter Huber in his book 'Hard Green' a few years back saying that 'Humanity can survive just fine in a planet-covering crypt of concrete and computers'. I don't know if he actually believed this silly claptrap for a second, but of course if this was the case humanity would be staring extinction squarely in the face.
Clearly Tim has some kind of in-built mental wall to exclude all relevant scientific data that does not fit in snugly with his world view. But when he made his oil palm remark, to say I was dumbfounded would be the understatement of the month. After all I have written on this thread, after all of the volumes and volumes of articles which have been written that demolish this kind of simple crap, out comes this. But then, it is not necessarily surprising. Tim has shown his lack of scientific acumen here once more. I don't know of a single scientist who would ever make such a rash remark, because they would be fully aware of the horrific environmental consequences that would emerge from it. To reiterate, oil plam plantations are biological deserts. Hardly anything, apart from rats and cockroaches, lives in them. There is virtually no understory. No shrub layer.
The Malaysian government was cunning when it included oil palms in its national data set for forest cover, because it is fully aware that these forests are ostensibly the 'living dead'. When I was in Malaysia in 1996 I drove with my brother from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore and I saw mile after mile of terrain that had lost their primary forests and had been replaced by west African oil palms. I can assure you that I would have been lucky to see half a dozen bird species in them the entire day had I searched.
If the equatorial regions were to convert old growth tropical forests to oil palms, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. Certainly 95% of the species inhabiting the forests would vanish. They wopuld take with them an array of vital services they perform as part of larger communities and ecosystems. Hydrological cycles would be annihalated. As Jugudush Shukla has shown, South American rainfall is endlessly recycled after convecting over the Andes. A single emergent rainforest tree can recycle up to a million gallons of water in a single year. Moisture passes along a west-east gradient, nourishing the Mata Atlantica forests of eastern Brazil. Already there is concern that widespread deforestation of Amazonia may interrupt this vital cycle, which would lead to rapid changes in the Mata Atlantica, some of the most biodiverse regions on Earth.
A poll taken a few years ago amongst Brazilians showed that more than 90% of the people of that country believed that their forests should get more, not less protection, and that cutting the forests down would not make the country or the people better off. A survey at about the same time in Brazil revealed that people living in forested regions were much better off than those living where the forests had been clear cut. Deforestation and poverty go hand in hand. Moreover, the 'development model' proposed by many who espouse the benefits of neoliberal economics rarely alleviate poverty, because the proceeds from development are primarily appropriated by the rich.
Radium Water Tim.
At #408 you reveal to us the violent predilections of the Global Conspiracy of Scientists:
OK, so that would be scary stuff. I'd be tres curious to know the nature of these 'threats', but really, they are neither here nor there, because my primary concern at the moment is the inconsistency of this claim with the first reason that you gave, at #188, for publishing in Quadrant; namely:
So, which is it? Were you in fear of your safety, or were you after an expedited publication?
As to your outrageous
I second sod's call for your numbers, because they are way out of line. Just how long do you think that carbon fixed by plantation palms stays 'fixed'?
And in addition to the task above, can you add a precise of comparative species analyses for forest versus plantation, with justification for the decimation of biodiversity that follows plantation, and in particular can you explain why extensive plantation of palms should not be of concern for the orang utans that are being displaced?
Finally, Tim Lambert, if you are following this thread down to the dungeon level where we are currently bogged, might I suggest that we commence a new thread for the benefit of Curtin's tardy justification of his Quadrant pseudoscience? You could leave a link at the bottom of this page, and at the top of the new one, and then shut this bugger down. Your tolerance of the lack of evidence and of scrutinisable science on Curtin's behalf is amazing, but I am growing a bit fed up downloading and scrolling through the whole bleedin' thing in order to follow it!
Bernard,
I second your request to Tim Lambert. Scrolling down this page is a pain in the butt and I feel like I am halfway to China...
With respect to threats, after Stuart Pimm and I critically reviewed Lomborg's book for Nature, I received all kinds of nasty emails. I was also called everything under the sun by some of the think tank brigade, so I am used to that kind of thing.
OK, new thread [here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/03/tim_curtin_thread.php).
Bi: I did not claim Arrhenius "borrowed from" Malthus, but it remains highly plausible he was aware of Malthus' formulation, it is after all his most well known statement, and Arrhenius in any case found it convenient to use it almost word for word in the wholly different context of CO2 and temps. Nothing wrong with that. The real points at issue are, was Malthus right? was Arrhenius right?
Bernard, taking your points in turn: (1)most serious plant physiologists and ecologists understand that there is a relationship between atmospheric CO concentration and photosynthesis.YES OF COURSE, BUT DO HANSEN, GORE, STERN, GARNAUT, IPCC? THEY ALL INFER THAT REDUCING [CO2] WILL HAVE NO IMPACT ON PHOTOSYNTHESIS.
(2) However, most such scientists also understand that this relationship is not monotonically increasing, WHERE DO THEY SO SAY GIVEN ALL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY? and that it is dependent upon a host of cofactors, whether such factors are limiting or are feeding back, and in the latter it is necessary to include AGW. OF COURSE, MY FORTHCOMING PAPER DEALS WITH THIS.
(3) Of course, you seem to perceive no credibility in the AGW paradigm, [NOT TRUE, THE ISSUE IS HOW MUCH THAT JUSTIFIES DRACONIAN POLICIES PROPOSED BY OBAMA ET AL]so perhaps you could explain how it is possible to 'accept' the science behind the photosynthetic efficacy of CO in the context of global food production whilst not similarly accepting the science of GHG warming. AGAIN THE ISSUE IS RELATIVITIES. USING MY DATA ABOVE, THE RATIO BETWEEN % INCREASES IN CEREALS AND EMISSIONS INDICES(1961-2007) IS 1.09, THAT BETWEEN TEMPS AND EMISSIONS IS O.42, BOTH CET. PAR. OF COURSE AND THEREFORE SIMPLISTIC, BUT ARGUABLY SIGNIFICANT, GIVEN THAT FOOD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN TEMPERATURE FOR MOST OF HUMANITY.
Alternatively, perhaps you can explain why not a one of your fellow Denialists has published a peer reviewed paper published in Science or Nature that increased [CO2] has zero, zilch, nil, impact on global climate. MANY SCEPTICS HAVE PUBLISHED PEER REVIEWED STUFF ACCEPTING THE IR EFFECT BUT QUERYING ITS EXTENT AND RELATIVE SIGNIFICANCE. THE OBSERVED dT SINCE 1900 (0.73oC) RELATIVE TO OBSERVED d[CO2] OF 40% DOES NOT CONFIRM THE ARRHENIUS FORMULATION WHEREVER HE GOT IT FROM.
Bernard said I "seem to be able to dismiss just about all science that disagrees with your view of the world, and to do so with a cursory word or two about how the authors are fraudulent, incompetent, or both. Given your incisive and encompassing insight into matters biological and climatological, perhaps you would care [to] demonstrate just how penetrating your understanding is, by providing a critical analysis of a paper that spans both climatological matters, and the sensitivity of organisms to changes in their environment as described by Jeff Harvey, myself and others on this and on other threads. I am interested in reading such a critique of "Climate change, coral bleaching and the future of the world's coral reefs" by Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, published in Marine and Freshwater Research: 50(8) pp839-66. One page would do, and following the usual scientific conventions for review. You must surely have the capacity to do this easily, given the manner in which you are able to lambast so many other prominent scientists.
Perhaps Jeff and some of the others here will add a paper or two of their choice to help you to demonstrate just how you are able to dissect so much of the science that you have been so ignominiously not recognised as having expertise in".
Sadly, Guldberg is a serial liar. He may have heard of Darwin on the subject of formation of coral reefs, but is so stupid he has never grasped anything of Darwin's amazing intuition. Guldberg like De'ath and the lovely Janice Lough of AIMS at Townsville, the Mata Hari of coral reef science, are serial liars. De'ath and Lough are so stoopid they do not realise that if they are right that coral growth rates are declining, that means sealevels are falling not rising per IPCC (Darwin, 1859).
Bi: I did not claim Arrhenius "borrowed from" Malthus, but it remains highly plausible he was aware of Malthus' formulation, it is after all his most well known statement, and Arrhenius in any case found it convenient to use it almost word for word in the wholly different context of CO2 and temps. Nothing wrong with that. The real points at issue are, was Malthus right? was Arrhenius right?
Bernard, taking your points in turn: (1)most serious plant physiologists and ecologists understand that there is a relationship between atmospheric CO concentration and photosynthesis.YES OF COURSE, BUT DO HANSEN, GORE, STERN, GARNAUT, IPCC? THEY ALL INFER THAT REDUCING [CO2] WILL HAVE NO IMPACT ON PHOTOSYNTHESIS.
(2) However, most such scientists also understand that this relationship is not monotonically increasing, WHERE DO THEY SO SAY GIVEN ALL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY? and that it is dependent upon a host of cofactors, whether such factors are limiting or are feeding back, and in the latter it is necessary to include AGW. OF COURSE, MY FORTHCOMING PAPER DEALS WITH THIS.
(3) Of course, you seem to perceive no credibility in the AGW paradigm, [NOT TRUE, THE ISSUE IS HOW MUCH THAT JUSTIFIES DRACONIAN POLICIES PROPOSED BY OBAMA ET AL]so perhaps you could explain how it is possible to 'accept' the science behind the photosynthetic efficacy of CO in the context of global food production whilst not similarly accepting the science of GHG warming. AGAIN THE ISSUE IS RELATIVITIES. USING MY DATA ABOVE, THE RATIO BETWEEN % INCREASES IN CEREALS AND EMISSIONS INDICES(1961-2007) IS 1.09, THAT BETWEEN TEMPS AND EMISSIONS IS O.42, BOTH CET. PAR. OF COURSE AND THEREFORE SIMPLISTIC, BUT ARGUABLY SIGNIFICANT, GIVEN THAT FOOD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN TEMPERATURE FOR MOST OF HUMANITY.
Alternatively, perhaps you can explain why not a one of your fellow Denialists has published a peer reviewed paper published in Science or Nature that increased [CO2] has zero, zilch, nil, impact on global climate. MANY SCEPTICS HAVE PUBLISHED PEER REVIEWED STUFF ACCEPTING THE IR EFFECT BUT QUERYING ITS EXTENT AND RELATIVE SIGNIFICANCE. THE OBSERVED dT SINCE 1900 (0.73oC) RELATIVE TO OBSERVED d[CO2] OF 40% DOES NOT CONFIRM THE ARRHENIUS FORMULATION WHEREVER HE GOT IT FROM.
Bernard said I "seem to be able to dismiss just about all science that disagrees with your view of the world, and to do so with a cursory word or two about how the authors are fraudulent, incompetent, or both. Given your incisive and encompassing insight into matters biological and climatological, perhaps you would care [to] demonstrate just how penetrating your understanding is, by providing a critical analysis of a paper that spans both climatological matters, and the sensitivity of organisms to changes in their environment as described by Jeff Harvey, myself and others on this and on other threads. I am interested in reading such a critique of "Climate change, coral bleaching and the future of the world's coral reefs" by Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, published in Marine and Freshwater Research: 50(8) pp839-66. One page would do, and following the usual scientific conventions for review. You must surely have the capacity to do this easily, given the manner in which you are able to lambast so many other prominent scientists.
Perhaps Jeff and some of the others here will add a paper or two of their choice to help you to demonstrate just how you are able to dissect so much of the science that you have been so ignominiously not recognised as having expertise in".
Sadly, Guldberg is a serial liar. He may have heard of Darwin on the subject of formation of coral reefs, but is so stupid he has never grasped anything of Darwin's amazing intuition. Guldberg like De'ath and the lovely Janice Lough of AIMS at Townsville, the Mata Hari of coral reef science, are serial liars. De'ath and Lough are so stoopid they do not realise that if they are right that coral growth rates are declining, that means sealevels are falling not rising per IPCC (Darwin, 1859).
Bi: I did not claim Arrhenius "borrowed from" Malthus, but it remains highly plausible he was aware of Malthus' formulation, it is after all his most well known statement, and Arrhenius in any case found it convenient to use it almost word for word in the wholly different context of CO2 and temps. Nothing wrong with that. The real points at issue are, was Malthus right? was Arrhenius right?
Bernard, taking your points in turn: (1)most serious plant physiologists and ecologists understand that there is a relationship between atmospheric CO concentration and photosynthesis.YES OF COURSE, BUT DO HANSEN, GORE, STERN, GARNAUT, IPCC? THEY ALL INFER THAT REDUCING [CO2] WILL HAVE NO IMPACT ON PHOTOSYNTHESIS.
(2) However, most such scientists also understand that this relationship is not monotonically increasing, WHERE DO THEY SO SAY GIVEN ALL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY? and that it is dependent upon a host of cofactors, whether such factors are limiting or are feeding back, and in the latter it is necessary to include AGW. OF COURSE, MY FORTHCOMING PAPER DEALS WITH THIS.
(3) Of course, you seem to perceive no credibility in the AGW paradigm, [NOT TRUE, THE ISSUE IS HOW MUCH THAT JUSTIFIES DRACONIAN POLICIES PROPOSED BY OBAMA ET AL]so perhaps you could explain how it is possible to 'accept' the science behind the photosynthetic efficacy of CO in the context of global food production whilst not similarly accepting the science of GHG warming. AGAIN THE ISSUE IS RELATIVITIES. USING MY DATA ABOVE, THE RATIO BETWEEN % INCREASES IN CEREALS AND EMISSIONS INDICES(1961-2007) IS 1.09, THAT BETWEEN TEMPS AND EMISSIONS IS O.42, BOTH CET. PAR. OF COURSE AND THEREFORE SIMPLISTIC, BUT ARGUABLY SIGNIFICANT, GIVEN THAT FOOD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN TEMPERATURE FOR MOST OF HUMANITY.
Alternatively, perhaps you can explain why not a one of your fellow Denialists has published a peer reviewed paper published in Science or Nature that increased [CO2] has zero, zilch, nil, impact on global climate. MANY SCEPTICS HAVE PUBLISHED PEER REVIEWED STUFF ACCEPTING THE IR EFFECT BUT QUERYING ITS EXTENT AND RELATIVE SIGNIFICANCE. THE OBSERVED dT SINCE 1900 (0.73oC) RELATIVE TO OBSERVED d[CO2] OF 40% DOES NOT CONFIRM THE ARRHENIUS FORMULATION WHEREVER HE GOT IT FROM.
Bernard said I "seem to be able to dismiss just about all science that disagrees with your view of the world, and to do so with a cursory word or two about how the authors are fraudulent, incompetent, or both. Given your incisive and encompassing insight into matters biological and climatological, perhaps you would care [to] demonstrate just how penetrating your understanding is, by providing a critical analysis of a paper that spans both climatological matters, and the sensitivity of organisms to changes in their environment as described by Jeff Harvey, myself and others on this and on other threads. I am interested in reading such a critique of "Climate change, coral bleaching and the future of the world's coral reefs" by Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, published in Marine and Freshwater Research: 50(8) pp839-66. One page would do, and following the usual scientific conventions for review. You must surely have the capacity to do this easily, given the manner in which you are able to lambast so many other prominent scientists.
Perhaps Jeff and some of the others here will add a paper or two of their choice to help you to demonstrate just how you are able to dissect so much of the science that you have been so ignominiously not recognised as having expertise in".
Sadly, Guldberg is a serial liar. He may have heard of Darwin on the subject of formation of coral reefs, but is so stupid he has never grasped anything of Darwin's amazing intuition. Guldberg like De'ath and the lovely Janice Lough of AIMS at Townsville, the Mata Hari of coral reef science, are serial liars. De'ath and Lough are so stoopid they do not realise that if they are right that coral growth rates are declining, that means sealevels are falling not rising per IPCC (Darwin, 1859).