Zed

It's interesting how in MIke's mind nobody's really worried, and it's

your Armageddon theories or that dispute your interpretation of the likely effect of CO2

That's you and me, of course.

Not the scientific consensus, which according to Mike isn't worried at all. Although he has yet to flesh this extraordinary claim out with any references.

Can I have your copy of the report please Zed. Since you have already digested the whole thing, fancy sharing the wealth? It's a tad on the pricey side for one such as myself.

Or a link to a free version would be good.

"Can I have your copy of the report please Zed. Since you have already digested the whole thing, fancy sharing the wealth? It's a tad on the pricey side for one such as myself.
Or a link to a free version would be good."
Nov 9, 2011 at 5:11 PM | Ross H

Christ on a bike. Only here, and with the kind of people that post here, would you get distractions like this. I've linked earlier, I've explained this just a few minutes ago. Is it really that hard to follow a link? Try reading the thread first to avoid duplicating mistakes made by others earlier on.

Zed

Thanks for answering my first question, but there were two others:

Have you read it?
Was it worth the 150 euros?

I suspect you have only read Fiona Harvey's Guardian piece (and I suspect she has only read an IEA press release). Feel free to correct me.

http://tinyurl.com/ct4ogvc

Followed yer link (before I asked the question).....Cannot read the 660 pages of the report. There is nothing on the pages of that website which reflect that report (from what I can see) so what's your problem?

I cannot discuss things which you wish talk about if I cannot read the report.

Is there a specific thing you wish to point me at? Otherwise....calm down and simply state where this FULL report is for me to read....which will not cost me the 120 euros I have stated I cannot afford. Very simple.

Nov 9, 2011 at 5:27 PM | Ross H

Ahhh - so that's your 'avoid discussing it' technique until the attack dogs have been over it and thrown you some pat responses.

Insist that you can't possibly discuss it until you've read the whole thing in full, however unlikely the chances of your doing so, were it free and in your hands right now.

The summaries I've indicated are very good. They have a lot of the data, they summarise the conclusions, there is more than enough to dicuss in that.

A refusal to do so until you have read the entire report is a laughable avoidance technique - tell me what you think of the stuff freely available - there's a lot of it, and it's serious stuff.

Whole report indeed - did you really think that would fool anyone......

Thanks for the link, but unfortunately as others have pointed out the whole thing costs E120.
What there is on the website is rather bullet-pointy and cliched and won't impress the sceptics (eg "The door to 2C is closing"). There are a lot of claims about what is going to happen in 2035 - but what are they based on and how accurate are they likely to be?

Zed

You do know, I assume, that the WEO11 'Low Nuclear Case' clearly states that halving the projected nuclear expansion will lead to higher emissions?

You might also want to look at the parity between investment and generation capacity for nuclear, and the disparity between investment and generation capacity for wind and especially solar.

Glad to see that you are starting to look at the energy literature though. Really.

Zed. On the very few occasions I have interacted with you I have always been polite. I am finding it hard to understand why you think my request is some odd avoidance technique. So fine, sod you. I really couldn't care. I will find the report somewhere, read it and see if your bizarre behavior to people here is warranted. Make up whatever story about this comment that you like. You have my blessing and my sympathy.

And it might be worth helping a discussion in the future, by simply helping people understand your points and aiding their requests, as you have done with me in the past, especially since you started the discussion.

Ross H

The Executive summary of WEO11 is here. It is a small .pdf file.

There's enough in there to get a grip on Zed's reasoning.

As you can see from this exchange, she and I do scrap in comments sometimes. Usually about energy and renewables, since I'm as much a 'warmist' as she is these days. But to be fair, she did post up a link to the IEA website where you can easily find the ExecSum, press presentation, video of the press Q&A etc.

You could have followed that link and found the ExecSum if you had really wanted to.

'World Energy Outlook 2011', 660 pages, €150, PDF €120 (2011) Available as from today.
I am certain that none on this Discussion Board have a copy, let alone have read it. So Zed's continual question as to what we think of this Report is nonsensical in the extreme.

Nov 9, 2011 at 7:51 PM | GW

Lawks a' mercy, talk about banging your head against a brick wall. So this it the 'party line' is it? Despite there being a considerable amount to get your teeth into, everyone will claim an inability to discuss (spurious reason - only the full report will suffice) until some pat dismissals are handed down. At that point, you lot will report on it far more, and the same people who claim it can't be discussed now, will be parroting their given lines from the climate attack dogs, still not having come any closer to having read the whole thing.

Is there any point at which you lot might realise you have become parody?

Will any of you stick your neck out and discuss it now, prior to someone else analysing it on your behalf?

GW

There's a link to the Executive Summary (small .pdf) at Nov 9, 2011 at 7:38 PM. It will suffice as the basis for a constructive discussion. I have to agree with Zed here: this feels like an avoidance tactic.

And I am hardly partisan. Please review this thread to see me disagreeing with Zed sharply on other matters.

Zed, please do tell me which part of this report have you read? Or are your 'armageddon' predictions coming from a third party? and if so, from whom? If this is the case, why are we to believe his/her views? Do they represent the 'gold-standard' of opinion in this area?
I think you're attempting to put the Cart-before-the-horse. And you know what happens when you try to do that? You get nowhere, as you are now finding.

BBD
Yes, I have read the Executive Summary. So am I to base my opinion of this Report based on that?
It's a bit like buying a book based on what you read on the back-cover, you often find the book itself tells a very different story.

Zed, "Will any of you stick your neck out and discuss it now, prior to someone else analysing it on your behalf?"

Here's a start...

http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2011/key_graphs.pdf

#2 Global primary energy demand grows by 40% between 2009 & 2035,oil remains the leading fuel though natural gas demand rises the most in absolute terms

#3 Renewables and nuclear power account for more than half of all the new capacity added worldwide through to 2035

Can probably extend this linearly out to 2100.

#9 Without further action, by 2017 all CO2 emissions permitted in the 450 Scenariowill be "locked-in" by existing power plants, factories, buildings, etc

200 years worth of fossil fuels @ likely 2100 levels ==> ~1000 ppm ==> ~3-5 K if for example this is right, and if climate sensitivity is a useful measure etc ad infinitum.

Therefore something has to change for sure. But what?

I've read prior WEO reports; I looked at the summary they have out. All in all, it sounds like happy news - fossil fuel use to continue to grow, growth to be stable and strong enough for people to splurge on 'renewables', India and China cock a snook at Fukushima. The WEA gives the perfunctionary nod to the two-centigrade bulldust (TM - Willis E's grandma).

I especially liked how the Yamal peninsula is (once again) poised to become the point-source of global warming.

Oil production plateaus around 10.5 mb/d before starting a slight decline to 9.7 mb/d in 2035; gas production increases by 35% to 860 billion cubic metres (bcm) in 2035, with the Yamal
peninsula becoming the new anchor of Russian supply.

Paul M is right; what the heck zbd, ...there is not much to 'discuss' here, ...sophisticated marketing trolling at action here.

Or, how about ... I imagine everyone would like to see energy for all? Is so, then this still implies the same energy demand in 2100 i.e. the one that can be satisfied by 200 years worth of fossil fuels. Traditional nuclear with known uranium reserves ==> 5 yrs at these levels, but fast breeder and thorium could stretch this to 100s of years. Maybe BBD knows whether these technologies are ready yet to step up to the crease?

ZedsDeadBed

I'm very sorry to disagree with you, because you often demonstrate that you understand the science better than some folks seem to give you credit for, but Mike Jackson is right - most climate scientists* do not subscribe to the 2 degrees "Dangerous Climate Change" meme (I know I don't). "Dangerous" is a value judgement, and the relationship between any particular level of global mean temperature rise and impacts on society are fraught with uncertainties, including the nature of regional climate responses and the vulnerability/resilience of society. The most solid evidence for something with serious global implications that might happen at 2 degrees is the possible passing of a key threshold for the Greenland ice sheet, but even then that's the lower limit and also would probably take centuries to take full effect. Other impacts like drought and crop failures are massively uncertain, and while severe negative impacts may occur in some regions, positive impacts may occur in others. While the major negative impacts can't be ruled out, their certainty is wildly over-stated (don't get your science from Joe Romm for example!)

While really bad things may happen at 2 degrees, they may very well not happen either - especially in the short term (there may be a committment to longer-term consequences such as ongoing sea level rise that future generations have to deal with, but imminent catastrophe affecting the current generation is far less certain than people make out. We just don't know.

The thing that worries me about the talking-up of doom at 2 degrees is that this could lead to some very bad and expensive decisions in terms of adaptation. It probably is correct that we have about 5 years to achieve a peak and decline of global emissions that give a reasonable probability of staying below 2 degrees, but what happens in 10 years' time when emissions are still rising and we are probably on course for 2 degrees? If the doom scenario is right then it would make sense to prepare to adapt to the massive impacts expected within a few decades, and hence we'd have to start spending billions on new flood defences, water infrastructure and storm shelters, and it would probably also make sense for conservationists to give up on areas of biodiversity that are apparently "committed to extinction" - however all these things do not make sense if the probability of the major impacts is actually quite small.

So while I do agree that climate change is a serious issue and it makes sense to try to avoid committing the planet to long-term changes, creating a sense of urgency by over-stating imminent catastrophe at 2 degrees could paint us into a corner when 2 degrees does become inevitable.

*I prefer to distinguish between "climate scientists" (who are mainly atmospheric physicists) and "climate change scientists" who seem to be just about anyone in science or social science that has decided to see what climate change means for their own particular field of expertise. While many of these folks do have a good grasp of climate science (atmospheric physics) and the uncertainties in attribution of past events and future projections, many sadly do not. "Climate change science" is unfortunately a rather disconnected set of disciplines with some not understanding the others - see the inconsistencies between WG1 and WG2 in IPCC AR4 for example. We are working hard to overcome these barriers but there is a long way to go.

Richard: Thank you very much for that. And congrats on this paper too!

BH: sure

Philip: thanks!

Richard

but imminent catastrophe affecting the current generation is far less certain than people make out. We just don't know.

I can't speak for Zed, but this is not what I am talking about. It's post-2050 and beyond. With a wary eye on the WAIS. Amongst other things.

Richard, thanks for the tip on "unthreaded".

Took a lot of resolve to get here though, but well worth it if just for:-

"*I prefer to distinguish between "climate scientists" (who are mainly atmospheric physicists) and "climate change scientists" who seem to be just about anyone in science or social science that has decided to see what climate change means for their own particular field of expertise."

That really should start to get "the little grey cells" working.

Richard
Thanks for the moral support!
I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops on the main board.