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The Global Warming Juggernaut Might be Showing Some Wear

Filed under: Natural Gas, Energy, Commodities, General — Patrick Reames | March 13, 2007 @ 11:55 am (Views: 821)

Global warming is a topic that is (and should be for a number of reasons) of great concern for those involved in energy. Those in the environmental movement have found a cause that appears to have captured supporters not only in the far left, anti-globalization, anti-industrialization movement, but also in the homes of many everyday Americans. Who doesn’t like a clean planet and who is not concerned about the future welfare of their children? The idea that we are somehow responsible for destroying the planet demands that we do something to stop it, and the way to do that is to limit greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, a by product of burning hydorcarbons.

I always try to avoid topics that might seem to be political and as such, I have been reluctant to address the topic of Global Warming. While it’s a subject that should be relatively easy to discuss openly, a political chasm has opened up between those that believe man has pumped so much CO2 into the atmosphere that we have potentially destroyed the world, and those that believe virtually anything else. The “non-believers” include those that think that the current cycle of warming is just that, a natural cycle, one that has repeated itself since man pulled on his first loin cloth; to those that acknowledge that while CO2 is indeed a green-house gas, any contribution that man has produced through industry is limited and there is not enough scientific evidence to support the notion that crippling industry by shutting off industrial emissions will have any effect in changing a warming trend whose source is not fully understood.

So here is my first “political” statement on this blog…I fall into the non-believers’ camp. Not because I have any deep understanding of atmospheric science, or the interplay of the mechanics that drive global temperatures; no, I doubt the entire view of man-made global warming because of an intellectual journey that began in seventh grade science club. According to my science teacher and a very well produced film shown to my science club, by 2010, we will have so totally screwed up the earth with pollution that we were going to be forced to live underground. The surface of the earth was going to be barren, sterile sand dunes, with temperatures in the mid 100’s and no water. The only fun we were going to have is the occasional social mixer with the other mole people. It scared the hell out of me.

But that changed just a couple of years later when the “scientific community” reported that they had changed their minds and that we were heading into the next ice age. Yep, instead of heat and dust, we were heading toward thousands of years of cold and ice. That consensus lasted about 3 years before Time magazine lost interest and we began to turn back to the hot wasteland theory.

So, over time, I stopped worrying about what the “scientific community” said about the future. I found that scientists did their best work when they concentrated on doing things that improved the “now”, not the future. I think science is best at invention and innovation, not fortune telling. They’re great at inventing or perfecting technologies that bring us things like microwave ovens and cell phones. They have been terrible, at least in my life time, at forecasting what the future would be. When I was a kid in the 60’s and 70’s, they told me when the 21st century hit, we’d all be flying around like George Jetson in little saucers that made funny sputtering sounds, well at least part of the scientists, as the other were telling me I was going to be a mole person. I liked the idea of my own personal flying saucer. I am to this day disappointed that I’m driving a pick-up truck, no too unlike the one I drove in 1977. Sure it gets better gas mileage, has a better radio, and is easier to start on cold days, but it sure as hell doesn’t fly.

I rarely believe tomorrow’s weather forecast, much less the weather forecast for 20 years from now. So, when certain groups start saying things like those that don’t believe in man-made global warming are deniers, equivalent to those that deny the Holocaust ever happened, and they should be sent to re-education camps (really!!), I start getting even more cynical, not to mention more than a little p*ssed off. This whole man-made warming argument has gone from a scientific debate to a political debate to an almost religious debate. Al Gore, like him or not, has been very effective at using what many believe to be questionable scientific evidence to fan the flames of environmentalism to a white hot level that burns anyone who questions this new near-religion. Frankly, it has been getting more than a little scary.

But, I see a ray of hope. The New York Times, generally not a big editorial supporter of industry or business or anything conservative, has just published an article saying that perhaps this environmental juggernaut that has been created should be slowed down. Maybe things are not as absolute as they are being portrayed. Maybe the “scientific consensus” is not really a consensus. Maybe the Al Gore approach is glossing over too many contrary facts.

For anyone that has been more than a little concerned about the direction this has all been heading, this article makes a good read. You can find it here. I don’t expect it to change anything overnight, but perhaps it is a first step toward a more reasoned debate and a slowing down of a movement that has been quickly elevating the energy industry to an even greater pariah status than did three dollar gas.

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6 Comments

Comment by steunenber:
March 15, 2007 @ 2:11 pm
I think you did very well not to touch these political topics.

By the way, here in germany it’s especially some teachers websites that keep the light of non-believing glowing

Cheers!

Johan Steunenberg
Comment by preames:
March 15, 2007 @ 2:46 pm
Johan,

I appreciate your comment. While I am probably more opinionated than most, I do try to keep it to myself as much as I can. However, there are times that I think I’ve got to say something or my head will explode, which in turn would probably just create more green-house gases!!

So, in doing some light “venting”, I am doing my part to limit a much larger emission which in turn would just create more global warming! And it’s good to hear that there are some teachers around the world that don’t just “toe the line” on this particular subject!

Thanks again,
Patrick
Comment by steunenber:
March 16, 2007 @ 3:28 am
Patrick,

I will be carefull too, not to start a heated debate.

According to this article: http://www.ftd.de/politik/international/148773.html?p=2
in the german edition of the financial times the “National Science Teachers Association” (NSTA) in your country did not want 55000 free copies of Al Gores film. Some bad brains read from their justification that they did not want to endanger their fund raising - Exxon is a big funder - but that would be bad faith of course. At least you can be happy with your local american teachers too.

I think the question whether the climate change is natural or man-made is after all an artificial question. We’re apes, after all, so our contribution is natural too, and the consequences will be the same too, I guess. Darwin already mentioned that nature knows neither awards nor punishment, but only consequences.

The questions that are important though is whether the climate change is a threat to human society or even human life, and whether humanity can do something about it.

There have been many big climate changes in the past, and some of them had massive consequences to life on earth. Especially the life of bigger animals. And apes are rather big animals. So I accept the claim that a more severe global warming would endanger human society. (But that does not say much, as I also accept the IPCC claim that the climate change is induced by homo sapiens.)

If we accept this claim, then it might be less important to play responsi-ball. We could look at whether mankind can do something about it to keep the threat within boundaries. And there it is interresting what we do with the pride of mankind, intelligence. For me as a consultant the Kyoto Mechanisms are very interresting. You can do lots of nice things, (help to) create wealth in all directions. ut in the same time we created a system that more or less locks us in on our behaviour and deprives us of real incentives for a change. (And yes, I am one of those that favour some real change too.)

A short walkthrough through the german situation: for the second period of allocations Germany promises to reduce the emissions of CO2 from Power Generation and Industrial Plants to 453 Million Tons of CO2/Year. This is actually a real reduction. 20% of the ‘reductions’ can be achieved by means of ‘other Kyoto mechanisms’, meaning Clean Development Mechanism projects and Joint Implementation Projects. This moves the total of certifyable emissions to more then 510 Million Tons, more then the actual emissions. This means that the price of CER-certificates from CDM Projects will determine the price of the allowances in Germany. I bluntly assume that the price here is lower then the price to do something about the emissions of the of course already very clean plants in Germany. Germany would not be Germany if we did not have more laws about the same theme. We have also a renewable energy law (EEG) promoting the installation of renewable capacity by guaranteeing the dispatch of the generated power to a guaranteed price. This emission-free power reduces the price of the certificates, not by merit of the trading mechanism but by merit of some other law. (Where somebody else pays the price.)

It is hard for mankind to use brain power to effectively change something. We have powerfull systems to keep the status quo, the market being one of the most powerfull here. It’s a very interresting challenge.

To quote (in translation) Jeroen van der Veer, CEO of Shell: “For Shell the CO2- and climate debate is over. [..] For us now the only important thing is to join the discussion, the thinking and the work on solutions. The big question for us is: “what are we going to solve it”. You’ll find his Hofstadt Lecture text on the dutch Ernst & Young Site: http://www.ey.nl/?pag=788&nieuws_id=2902
But I’m sorry, it is in dutch.

By the way, I never saw Al Gores fim, nor did I read his book, for the same reason that I liked this quote from the NYT-article: ‘but see them as reasonable for a politician’
Comment by Dr. Gary M. Vasey:
March 16, 2007 @ 4:15 am
I too am a non-believer partly because I did my PhD on microclimate change in the Carboniferous period. Climate change happens with or without us - FACT. Clmate change has so many influencing factors such as continenal drift altering ocean currents, volcanic activity, carbon sinks, sun activity cyclicity and more besides. Do I think that we should not limit pollutants of any type into the atmosphere? Of course not - I think cap and trade markets are a great way to help limit pollution - wether CO2, SO2 or anything else for that matter. The problem is that this topic is no longer open to debate. Accroding to the zealots, the science is proven and should not be queried. Its a political topic now. Shame - because any simple fool can readily browse the internet and understand that the science is far from proven. Additionally, anyone with a background in scence knows that science is about building hypotheses that fit the known facts and then revisiting that hypothesis as more is known - in other words the science is never proven - it is always a hypothesis. That indeed is science.

Seveal years ao I wrote an IssueAlert on global warming - go to the archives to find it on the UtiliPoint site… it was balanced - a commentary of sorts. I got death threats for daring to write it. Nice!
Comment by preames:
March 16, 2007 @ 9:25 am
I had not heard the controversy surrounding the offer of the free dvd’s to the NSTA, so after some very brief googling, I discovered that in fact the issue was raised by Laurie David, one of Hollywood’s most active supporters of Al Gore and his efforts in this arena. Ms David’s entire thesis, as you pointed out, is that the organization had declined because Exxon Mobil would be unhappy and would pull their funding from the NSTA. In fact the organization’s position was that the film did not present a balanced view of the science and therefore was a polemic and not appropriate class room material. They were, however, willing to help distribute the program by providing mailing lists and other information to the film’s producers to assist them in directing the copies to their members. What they were unwilling to do was to endorse the film and the controversy, and that is what upset Ms. David and her associates.

In her opinion piece published in the Washington Post, Ms. David summed up her feeling about Exxon Mobil (and other energy companies that provide similar funding) by saying “like a tobacco company using cartoons to peddle cigarettes, Exxon Mobil is going after our kids”. She then accused them of using “junk science” to influence the debate. She also noted that other industries supported the group and were trying to unduly influence our kids, quoting one of her followers, that at a recent NSTA conference “Along with propaganda challenging global warming from Exxon Mobil, the curricular offerings (by industries supporting the NSTA) included lessons on forestry provided by Weyerhaeuser and International Pap…and the benefits of genetic engineering courtesy of biotech giant Monsanto.” Ms. David apparently believes that all industry is evil and is out to destroy the world, even as her lifestyle demands that she purchase products either directly or indirectly from these peddlers of doom.

When Ms. David makes the commitment to stop consuming any products offered by these industries - when she stops eating anything not grown in her own garden, outside of her mud hut that has no running water or electricity, and travels everywhere on foot, wearing clothing woven from cotton plants grown next to her vegetable garden and fertilized by her own waste - that’s the day she will stop being a hypocrite and can be an example for all of mankind as to the value of turning back the clock. However, I suppose we can visit some of the poorer peoples in Africa for a similar example, but I doubt that they would offer a high opinion of the lifestyle. In fact, they would probably give up all of their meager possessions not to have to suffer from the malnutrition and disease caused by not having access to the objects of Ms. David’s ire. Watching your children suffer is not romantic.

I may have gone too far…back to the subject at hand…

Again, I agree with Johan, in that we should do all we can to limit our impacts on our planet. It just makes good sense. Mankind has played a role in changing the climate, common sense shouts that. It should be a legitimate question to ask “how big of an impact?” though. To me that is the key. If, despite decades of man-made CO2 production, we can not say that our impact has been more than minimal, it stands to reason that the success of attempting to reduce CO2 emissions by limiting our activities will be equally minimal. And I am not saying that we should pollute with abandon. We should always attempt to do all that is possible (weighing all factors, including the appropriate economic calculations) to limit our impact.

In Oct of 2000, the Department of Energy published statistics that show manmade CO2 accounts for about 3.24% of all CO2 present in the atmosphere. This level has developed over hundreds of years. Additionally, the DOE’s numbers don't include the most common green-house gas which is water vapor, which accounts for about 95% of the green-house effect. If you include water vapor and all other green-house gases in the equation, mankind’s contribution (those not naturally occurring) to green-house gas is .28%. Yes, about one quarter of one percent. Given these facts, I do not think it’s in our power to affect the path of climate change. If we were to reduce man’s contribution to zero by depopulating and living as wild animals, it's hard to see how we can reduce global warming to any appreciable degree.

Again, though, we should be doing all we can to limit all pollution, but always weighing the cost versus the benefit. If I have to pay 5% more on my electric bill to make sure the power plant supplying that power has an efficient CO2 scrubber installed, I’m more than willing to do it. I’m not, however, willing to live without reliable electricity.

The market based mechanisms for allocating the costs of reducing pollution are the most economically efficient. With these tools we can incentivize industry to be the best corporate and global citizens possible.
Comment by Dr. Gary M. Vasey:
March 22, 2007 @ 5:32 am
You might want to check out this video o a Channel 4 UK TV production that finally dares to speak out against man made global warming….

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4520665474899458831&hl=en

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The Global Warming Juggernaut Might be Showing Some Wear

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