Cancun: waiting for the addict to run into trouble...

I feel a bit bad at ignoring what is going on, or rather, not going on, at Cancun. I have really given up hoping that Governments are going to do anything rational and realistic about the biggest problem that humanity has ever faced in its entire history. Not at the moment, not until a rapid acceleration in global warming takes place over the next decade, and not until a succession of adverse events, compatible with global warming, take place.

The fact is that the economy is addicted to oil, and it is very difficult to separate an addict from the object of his desires by persuasion alone. It can be done, but generally you have to wait for the addict to undergo an adverse experience connected with his addiction.

Stuff is happening now, consistent with AGW, but it is going to take more.

This is all very sad.

However, the good people at FEASTA are engaging their minds with the problem, and have a useful notion in Cap and Share, that attacks the problem at the upstream end - addressing the mining companies who put carbon into the economy, rather than the many processes that squirt CO2 into the air. Worth a look at their site.

Here is a video. The acting is a bit clunky in parts, but stay with it.

Cold UK weather does not disprove Man-Made Global Warming

Just as the Daily Telegraph letters page reliably has an April entry from someone who has heard the first cuckoo of Spring, so also we should shortly expect letters happily claiming that the current cold weather disproves man-made global warming.

The fact is that despite the abnormally cold weather in parts of the Northern Hemisphere last winter (and now), global data suggests that 2010 is likely to be warmer than 1998, the previous record. Obviously, the full data is not yet in, and a volcano (causing cooling) could cause 2010 to lose out.

The current cold weather in the UK is balanced by abnormal warmth in North America.

[thanks to the Met Office for the graph]

We see a band of abnormal cold blue across Northern Europe and Russia, with warm reds counterbalancing it in other areas.

The Met Office does not mention the Northern Polar Jet Stream, but it is well south of its normal position, north of Scotland. In fact, it is today shooting across the Bay of Biscay. This downward displacement may be due to low solar activity in the last few years, because higher solar activity (and long term global warming) tends to push the jet stream northwards.

Here's the current position of the jet stream.

It is winding down eastwards north of Scotland (easterly jet streams are a bit unusual) then looping back over France.  The blues and yellows denote the jet stream.

So that's why it is cold.


Which illustrates the distinction between weather and global climate. Weather is what is experienced in any specified part of the planet. Global climate is the sum total of temperatures measured all over the planet.

Take a look here at what happened last year: abnormal cold in normally temperate areas, and abnormal warmth in normally cold areas.

Economist needs lesson in energy economics

Over on the Economist, there is an account of the $312 billion global subsidy (mostly in Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran) given to fossil fuels, as compared to the $57 billion subsidy to renewables. They choose to compare the subsidy on the amount of power provided by each form.

Some reports suggest that cutting these fossil subsidies  would produce a 6% decrease in global annual CO2 emissions.


My 2p of comment:


In dismissing the comparison between subsidies to renewables and fossil fuels, you ignore the obvious point that new technologies need pump-priming. I should not have to remind the Economist that all new ventures need capitalisation to cover start-up costs.

You also ignore the historic subsidies over the years that have accrued to fossil fuels.

Renewables are a form of energy income, whereas with fossils, as    E F Schumacher pointed out many years ago, burning fossil fuel is equivalent to using capital as a form of revenue. He proposed a tax on all capital fuels to subsidise the transition to renewables. Again, it is remarkable that an non-economist should be having to point this out to economists.

Also, with renewables, the fuel itself comes free of cost.

Not only do renewables fight climate change, they also mitigate Peak Oil and Peak Gas, and increase our energy security and independence.


They are also diverse and decentralised, leaving us less open to blackmail by groups who can shut down large sections of our energy supply.

To anticipate commentators who will raise the intermittency problem, this will be met with HVDC supergrids and emergent storage solutions.

The case for renewables is overwhelmingly strong. The fact that this is not universally recognised, and that fossils are still receiving subsidies, can only be ascribed to the lobbying power of the fossil lobby.