In comments at “In it for the Gold”, David Duff claimed it was now colder than when James Hansen gave his first presentation 20 years ago, basing his claim on data from the UAH MSU.
David Benson responded with
And Roy Spencer’s graph is simply wrong.
So, I wondered what Jim Hansen’s own graph would show:
Click for larger.
GISS hasn’t published the June data, so this graph stops in May.
Care to share your thoughts?
To be fair, its probably not true if you look at daily temperatures today and on the day when Hansen made his remarks (though, if I recall, is was an anomalously hot day). Comparing days to days and months to months is pretty meaningless, other than for rhetorical points. The trend is clearly up, though the interesting question is how the trend in the interim has compared to Hansen’s 1988 prediction.
He was right about the slope, but the magnitude is more debatable. That said, climate science and modeling was certainly a less mature field back in the ’80s.
Zeke–
The trend is up. I included that on the graph. So, this chart shows both ways of looking at the data. One way says it was hotter in may 88, the other says it’s hotter now.
I prefer to go by trends– which means, I’d say the temperature is up since 1988. I’d call the up trend statistically significant (though I’d also wonder if it would be if we used “Gavin error bars” for weather noise.)
What I found odd in the comments at Tobis’s blog is David Benson defended the diagnosis of a warmer ’08 on problems with UAH’s temperature record. In reality, it’s a crap shoot. Some agencies say May 08 was warmer than June 88. Some say it was cooler.
We’ll see how June compares to June when the full records come out.
True that one point does not a trend make, but on the other hand I’d have to believe that Hansen would use an anomalous temperature spike if it suited his purposes.
As far as trends go when do you say that the trend no longer is valid? If at some point in the 21st century the trend is actually flat or declining that will be masked by the large number of points in the 20th century trend that had a steep positive slope. Does the OLS data have a normal distribution still?
This is just an example of the ambiguity of using vague English. Depending on your definitions of “warmer” and “it” your answer can be yes or no.
Whether or not you think that using a linear trend to answer this question is the correct thing to do must surely depend on whether or not you have a physical theory that implies an underlying linear trend plus weather “noise”. Absent a theory, the linear trend is just an arbitrary line on a graph.
I could put forward the theory that warming in the late 70s through to late 90s was primarily due to increased insolation, thanks to the clean air acts passed in the 60s. This increase in insolation tailed off in the 90s, resulting in flat temperatures since then. This theory might require fitting two trend lines. Or I could posit that primary driver was cyclic internal variation with a period of about 40 years, going from peak to peak from the mid 40s to the mid 90s and we could try to fit a sine curve to the data.
Lucia, why not wait till the data is in for June 08?
Right now June 08 seems to be tracking colder:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
I bet for UAH and RSS June could be another cold month
Bob B– It’s a blog. We can always ask the question again when the June averages come out! 🙂
ChrisC– Yes. I think the key is what does “it” mean and what does “warmer” mean.
If “it” was “Was it warmer in Washington DC on June 26, 1988, or June 26, 2008?” we know it was warmer in ’88. There was a hot spell in ’88– lore has it that Hansen picked a hot spell. (Though I’m not sure how much control an invited speaker has. Congress does the inviting.)
The hot spell came too early in 2008, and June 26 was cooler.
Was it warmer in the whole year of 1998 than 2008? We don’t know that yet.
Was it warmer in the twelve months from june 1997-1998 than june 2007-2008? I could calculate that based on other metrics.
But, if we do the simplest sort of averages, based on data using trends, or taking things like lagging 5 years, it’s warmer now. The theory underlying AGW says we should expect that.
Will it continue? I guess we are all waiting for the next El Nino and the full solar cycle, aren’t we? 🙂
The more important question is does the trend track in accordance to the scenario A or B forecasts by Hansen when he gave his testimony in 1988. If Lucia has checked that already, I apologize though it might be worth reposting on this 20th Anniversary of Hansen’s “prophetic” testimony.
Darwin– Back in December when I had no readers, I concluded whether or not Hansen’s projections tracked the data was a cherry pickers dream.
To show good tracking at RC, Gavin rebaseline the forcings which strkes me as odd. Given the need for spin up in models (due to not having a good idea about initial conditions) I think there is some need to rebaseline temperatures. But in that case, the is enough play in rebaselining to let people to decide the results for Scenarios B or C were good or bad, as they prefer. (Everyone agrees Scenario A doesn’t match the data, no way, no how.)
I suspect that doing the comparison using lagged May-May annual averages today, even Scenario C looks too high. I can dig up my spreadsheet and check again and do it a few different ways. It’s worth a look because the whole Hansen story is in the news right now.
Well, we can’t say about June yet.
But yes, it’s colder now than 1988. Even according to Hansen’s own latest data.
GISS May 2008: 0.36
GISS May 1988: 0.37
And if you take the average of GISS, HADCRU, UAH, RSS, you get
May 2008: 0.09
May 1988: 0.19
See climate-skeptic.com and Lubos Motl for other graphs of the failure of Hansen’s predictions.
I clicked Lubos’s graph with all the JH’s on it and found it difficult to understand. Was Lubos just showing Scenario A? I think the graph at Climate Skeptic is a bit fairer since it shows all three scenarios:
There is still the issue of picking a baseline. I can’t tell from the post herehow Climate Sceptic picked the spot to match in 1988. I think I’ll look at this issue today, and see what I get if make all baselines the 10 year average from 1979-1989 the “baseline” period, and then plot the evolution of the anomalies. (I pick the start at 1979 as being the first year when the satellites were operating.)
I agree you can’t cherry pick a particular month to determine long-term trends (although that never seems to stop certain alarmists from cherry picking individual storms for that purpose).
However, for Hansen, here is a guy who has been predicting that disaster is right around the corner for over 20 years. He was back at it again this week yammering on and on about his “tipping point” where this tidal-wave of disaster was going to inundate us. For someone like that, I think it’s fair to say that the disaster prophesied 20 years ago never came to pass. Indeed, the current temps are pretty much right where they were was doom was predicted. That’s not a scientific determination, just a well deserved stick in the eye.
It was a longstanding tradition to hold Clean Air hearings and votes in the summer when Washington gets hot and the still air used to smell and feel ugly. The image of the whole world turning into DC in August would presumably be too terrifying to vote against new Clean Air bills.
In support of the ‘it’s warmer’ hypotheses is the fact that for Washington DC 12 of the 30 days in June have had their record high temperatures set from 1988 onward but only one record low in that period. So Hansen’s original speech is clearly a causal factor.
I suppose the main danger in the coming AGW summers will probably be that the extra sweatiness will help those Exxon execs to slide out of their handcuffs and escape back to secret hideouts in Texas in order to destroy us all, one gallon at a time…
And it’s cooler now using GISS temp with 250km smoothing. Brrr!
http://i26.tinypic.com/2i8itsj.jpg
Clark:
In Jim Hansen’s 1981 Science paper, he ‘predicted’ the approximate trend that ‘would probably’ develop by 1988. In 1988, he was predicting the onset of ‘doom’ by CO2 doubling time, NOT by 2008!
He’s been quite consistent; more on the mark than most ‘deniers’.
He was really very politically conservative, but he has become more ‘shrill’ as the world continues to merrily move along with BAU.
Re 3645
Lucia, wasn’t Scenario A the one where CO2 trends are the same as when the projection was made (i.e., business as usual?). Isn’t that what is the data shows happened? How can the other two scenarios even be considered since they’re “not real”? If the data is below C’s projection then how can anyone say that the model is in anyway valid (i.e., we assume drastically reduced emissions and the model still overstates the warming).
Barry–
Scenario A is that the rate of emissions GHG would continue to grow as it had been growing previously.
Senario B is the rate of emmissions in GHG’s would be constant. So, GHG’s increase linearly. So, if you plotted the concentration over time, you could fit a straight line with a positive slope.
Scenario C assumed drastic reductions in emissions after 1990. That’s discussed in the figure caption in the comment above.
I’m not sure whether B or A was was called “Business as Usual”. I guess it would depend on whether you thought increasing rates of emmission were “usual”.
from the NOAA website: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/
So maybe not A but not B and definitely not C. We don’t know how close Hansen’s rate increase matches the real data, so wouldn’t you say that the only fair comparison would be against the range of values between the A and B scenarios? Based on that, at least from an eyeball perspective, the model is failing badly in the 21st century.
Rapidly increasing emissions would be BAU at the time, but communism’s downfall cut back emissions drastically from the former Soviet states. At the same time, though, Asian industrial development outside of Japan began to take off. From 2002 to 2008, China’s emissions have skyrocketed with an 11% emissions growth rate, according to recent Stanford study. What’s seen on the Mauna Loa chart is a rather constant increase in CO2 level. So, B would seem, to me, the fair one to follow. Any explanation off of B needs some good explanation, and Gavin didn’t provide one.
Len, you really are a hoot. Hansen, politically conservative? He was a signer of the Washington Declaration in 1992 and took part in a march demanding immediate action. He was shrill from the moment he looked at Venus’ atmosphere and decided Earth was heading in the same direction. He did once say that going for the low hanging fruit of methane, NOX and SOX before CO2 would make sense and could buy time. And he also pointed out that the dramatic warming claims of 10.8 F that were slipped into the 2001 IPPC Assessement by Robert Watson weren’t warranted. Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, though, isn’t it?
And Lucia, thanks for keeping your cool and being inquisitive. Your site is what the Internet should be about.
The reason he said that is that RC and others have propagated the myth that the 2005 revisions to sattelite temperatures by the RSS team (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1114772v1) invalidated the UAH analysis-as if these corrections weren’t employed (somewhat differently) by the UAH team to slightly revise their analysis:
I’ve never been more disturbed by a reaction in the media than by Ronald Bailey to this story “We are all Global Warmers now”.
http://www.reason.com/links/links081105.shtml
The reality is that UAH and the “green” RSS are in fairly good agreement now, so his claims are without merit. For good reading, you might try “Some convergence on Global Warming estimates” by Roy himself:
http://tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=081105RS
BTW the guy in charge of that data is John Christy so he is wrong in attributing to Roy, though Roy does work with John on it.
Len Ornstein, I know that Hansen tends to use biblical language (he has refered to the “destruction of creation”) but this hardly qualifies him as conservative. The structure of global warming alarm and the policies surrounding it are diametrically opposed to classical liberal (i.e. American Conservative) philosophy, the best definition of which is “Opposition to all forms of political religion”. If you think Hansen is conservative, you cannot possibly know what a conservative even is. Perhaps he is religious-if so, his political tendencies may more resemble the early twentieth century European Right (unfortunately, the connotations prevent me from dropping f-bomb without people misunderstanding, so I hpe you know what I mean). His association with the Hienz Foundation and Open Society Institute clearly points to his totalitarian socialist tendencies. Whether any of this is bad dpends on you.
Instead of looking at the question as asked, I took a slightly different twist.
*Inserts tongue firmly in cheek*
With the help of the Wayback Machine, I shall examine the question, “June 1988: Is it warmer today?”
From the archived datasets labeled “GLOBAL Temperature Anomalies in .01 C base period: 1951-1980” the following datapoints were retrieved:
13Oct99: Jun88 = 52
05Nov99: Jun88 = 52
26Jan01: Jun88 = 52
19May01: Jun88 = 52
22Jun01: Jun88 = 52
01Nov01: Jun88 = 52
05Jan02: Jun88 = 51
11Feb02: Jun88 = 51
16Oct02: Jun88 = 50
31Dec02: Jun88 = 50
19Apr03: Jun88 = 50
26Jun03: Jun88 = 50
01Aug03: Jun88 = 50
11Oct03: Jun88 = 50
06Dec03: Jun88 = 50
13Feb04: Jun88 = 50
27Apr04: Jun88 = 50
03Jun04: Jun88 = 50
07Aug04: Jun88 = 50
30Oct04: Jun88 = 50
13Nov04: Jun88 = 50
11Dec04: Jun88 = 50
24Sep05: Jun88 = 50
13Dec05: Jun88 = 50
10Jan06: Jun88 = 50
17Jan06: Jun88 = 50
09Feb06: Jun88 = 50
21Apr06: Jun88 = 50
23Jun06: Jun88 = 50
23Aug06: Jun88 = 50
06Oct06: Jun88 = 50
11Jan07: Jun88 = 50
13Feb07: Jun88 = 50
13Mar07: Jun88 = 50
12May07: Jun88 = 50
15Jun07: Jun88 = 50
16Jun07: Jun88 = 50
07Aug07: Jun88 = 50
The Data I accessed directly from the GISS site today, gave the following:
27Jun08: Jun88 = 51
So, as we can see from the historic dataset, June 1988 is indeed ever so slightest cooler today than it has been in the past. However, is that 27Jun08 datapoint an outlier, or is it the beginning of a new heating trend?
Oh man, as I was adding the words for the post after grinding out my dataset I noticed you used Land-ocean data in your graph. *sighs*
*Takes a deep breath*
GLOBAL Land-Ocean Temperature Index in .01 C base period: 1951-1980
06Dec00: Jun88 = 43
18Feb01: Jun88 = 43
17Apr01: Jun88 = 43
22Jun01: Jun88 = 43
01Nov01: Jun88 = 43
Prior to this point, the dataset contained data from 1950-current. Afterward, the data was expanded to data from 1880-current.
22Jan02: Jun88 = 32
14Apr02: Jun88 = 32
03Aug02: Jun88 = 32
01Dec02: Jun88 = 32
12Feb03: Jun88 = 32
15Apr03: Jun88 = 32
22Jun03: Jun88 = 32
01Aug03: Jun88 = 32
11Oct03: Jun88 = 32
04Jan04: Jun88 = 32
13Jan04: Jun88 = 32
03Feb04: Jun88 = 32
05Apr04: Jun88 = 32
16Jun04: Jun88 = 32
03Aug04: Jun88 = 32
09Oct04: Jun88 = 32
12Dec04: Jun88 = 32
05Mar04: Jun88 = 32
27Dec05: Jun88 = 32
06Feb06: Jun88 = 32
23Jun06: Jun88 = 39
27Aug06: Jun88 = 39
10Feb07: Jun88 = 39
01Apr07: Jun88 = 38
17May07: Jun88 = 39
11Jul07: Jun88 = 39
08Aug07: Jun88 = 39
Today
27Jun08: Jun88 = 39
*Exhales slowly*
It would seem that the expansion of the dataset to include the years prior to the baseline period had a drastic cooling effect on the temperature for June of 1988, which held until a slight warming in 2006. As seen in both the datasets, the temperatures for June 1988 are indeed cooler than they had been in the past.
Was the slight increase in today’s Land datum, a response to the Land-Ocean increase in ’06? Is there more heating “in the pipe” in the future for June 1988? Will plates of cookies be wagered over the future temperatures for June 1988? Time will tell.
*Removes tongue from cheek*
Maybe! 🙂
I think I need to plot those.
I was going to give a good 24 hours before I continued in a more serious tone, but I found myself with some spare time this morning.
I see a problem using the GISS dataset for a point to point comparison. Any datum in the dataset is subject to change at anytime. This makes the replication of any particular question subject to unknown (to me) forces.
I’ll do a quick calibrated eyeball sweep over the dataset to find a pair of datapoints which will highlight the problem I see, and ask the question, “How does July 1981 compare with July 1999?”
If I asked this question in Dec 2000, I’d looked at the dataset labelled “GLOBAL Land-Ocean Temperature Index in .01 C base period: 1951-1980”.
I would have pull the following two datapoints:
Jul81: 40
Jul99: 25
Fast forward to Dec 2002. I would have looked at the dataset, and pulled the following datapoints.
Jul81: 19
Jul99: 25
And again for the current dataset:
Jul81: 31
Jul99: 30
I would make some comments, but I think the numbers speak for themselves.
Raphael– Serious isn’t required. But yes, your point about the GISS drift is a good one. That’s one of the reasons I want to plot the data you found on the wayback machine and plot it.
Lucia,
I hadn’t looked at the archived Land-Ocean datasets until yesterday, and then only briefly as I pulled that data for Jun88. I had looked at the archived datasets for Land-Only in the past. (Calibrated Eyeball Method) The mental notes I made at the time were: “Sometimes when there is no change in the yearly average, there are (sometimes significant)changes in the monthly datapoints. Sometimes winters are cooled and Summers are warmed. Sometimes the reverse. The average temperature for any particular month over the entire dataset seems unchanged. But, changes over shorter periods could be significant.”
That mental note went sounded an alarm when I your post. Thus my look at Jun88.
Based on that mental note, I doubt you find the trend for the yearly averages to be affected too much, however the trends for each month could be interesting. (such as for the question, “Has January been getting warmer?”) As I said, I hadn’t looked at the Land-Ocean, so am not sure the same applies. But would be suprised if it didn’t.
Are you suggesting a conspiracy, Raphael?
Anyone care to comment on Hansen’s carbon tax proposal?
I am not sure my observation says anything in regards to motive. I am not even sure if my observation says anything in regards to the datasets. At the time, trying to hold large enough portions of the datasets in my head long enough to visualize a comparison gave me a headache. So, I made the mental note and moved on.
Boris–
Feel free to comment on the proposal. Unlike many bloggers, I’m not strict about staying on topic. I mostly just want people to behave well.
My understanding is he wants to tax carbon emissions and then return the money to the public on some sort of per-person basis. The main difficulty I see with the plan is that taxes are never returned directly to the public. Ever. It doesn’t happen. One might start a system like that, but anytime money passes through the government coffers, legislators will find someway to spend it on something else sooner or later. (They will generally do this sooner.)
But even if the money is returned to the public, I don’t see any obvious fair way. Will my neighbors with 7 kids get more money than me or the neighbor with 1 kid? That is: do Stephanie and John get “9” units counting them and their kids? Or will we all get the same amount– units of “2” for two adults? Or will we decide kids count as some fraction of an adult?
And right now, we have difficulties with food supplies. Are we going to hammer farmers with carbon taxes right now, drive them out of business, and just figure that it will all level out in 5 years after the supply drop results in higher food prices?
Out of curiosity: Has Hansen suggested any methods to bring up baseload fast– as in mentioning the “N” word. (Nuclear?)
Lucia,
I agree that governments can find some creative ways to keep money, but the point of this tax would be to try to keep it revenue neutral. The idea is not to make money, but to somehow factor in the real cost of emissions. So as long as a family did not consume more than the average amount of energy, the increased carbon costs would not be felt at all. If they consume less than average they would have more money, and if they consumed more than average, they would pay more.
The advantages of this plan are obvious and immediate. The average family would be income neutral, but they would have even more incentive to save energy since energy prices would rise. In addition, green energy would be more competitive with traditional energy.
Hansen suggests kids count as 1/2 a share.
That does not mean there are no disadvantages. But they seem to be short term disadvantages. Overall, the tax would encourage the market to move toward more energy efficient practices, which is good no matter how bad AGW will be.
Boris, setting a price for carbon rather than a cap with trades makes much more sense. Even with auctions, cap and trade provides too much room for rent seeking (China’s HCFCs). I think Kyoto wrongfooted things and got the trading houses too actively engaged. Everyone was too enamored of markets doing the work without thinking abour how markets actually work. The tax money needs to be rebated, though, not held. Part will have to go as an investment in CCS because there is no way that China and India are giving up coal. A tax may help as it could be structured like the Value Added Tax. Application of a Carbon Added Tax — CAT — on imports and rebate on exports would act as an inducement for energy conservation globally and reward more energy efficient use of carbon resources. It could be ramped up as we learn. These are serious times and people need to take a new look at their standard positions to see how best to accommodate the energy, food and environmental needs of people. As George Carlin noted, the Earth will abide, but we might not. We need accurate measures of where we are and what we’re accomplishing, which is why Lucia’s work is intriguing. Hansen’s rallying the troops through his call to criminalize opposing opinion will tend only to make his detractors more adamant in theirs. His wasn’t the first stone, to be sure, and I’ve lobbed my share. But namecalling has never been an argument. In my old neighborhood, it usually only started nasty fights, it never ended them.
BTW, I haven’t heard Hansen say anything specific on Nuclear. I think it is widely regarded that Nuclear will be part of any solution.
Boris,
The average family would be income neutral, but they would have even more incentive to save energy since energy prices would rise.
Um, no it wouldn’t. There is no incentive as seen in your statement:
So as long as a family did not consume more than the average amount of energy, the increased carbon costs would not be felt at all.
People will not change their spending habits if their income increases at the same rate as their expenses.
Boris–
I’m against any plan that doesn’t include explicit steps to ramp up nuclear so that baseload increases rapidly. “Widely regarded” is an evasion. I think imposing a tax immediately while waiting for the free market to bring up large capital intensive projects that take years to plan and build is a recipe for disaster.
The tax itself is a market manipulation. I’m not always against that. (In fact, as you can see, I wouldn’t mind market manipulations to encourage nuclear to pick up the baseload.)
I do think half-way poorly thought out market manipulations tend to backfire (as the energy cost controls in California did several summers back.)
In this particular case, the proposal is to enact a big market distortion immediately and expect people to adapt quickly. In the current case, many adaptive strategies that might be wonderful are precluded. Even if electric cars were available, large number of the public can’t switch because baseload will be insufficient for their needs. Even if gas were more expensive, large numbers of people can’t get to work without driving. (I telecommute. 🙂 ) Even though heat pumps would reduce energy needs for heat, many individuals do not have the capital to convert from furnaces to heat pumps.
As for the idea of revenue neutrality: When money passes into governmental coffers, revenue neutral neutrality never happens.
Never. So, I simply don’t believe any brand new tax enacted will be revenue neutral.
It’s a tax plan, and would be rolled out over the entire country. I think details are very important when implementing a wide spread tax plan. How will this plan affect the rural poor? Farmers (and the food supply?) Hospitals are very carbon intensive– what happens to medical costs? Can people with large medical need realistically reduce their carbon footprint?
Also, it is inevitable that black markets will popup as people figure out how to evade the tax. I can tell you how former neighbors of mine would get around the carbon issues for heating. They’d drive to the Cascades, fell trees and burn them in their stoves. Then they’d collect their $$ and chuckle as they deposited their checks in the bank. This is tougher to do near Chicago, but there are plenty of trees in Wisconsin, and rest assured, black-market firewood would come on the market!
These sorts of consequences do need to be thought out. So, basically, I need to hear a lot of details before I believe this new tax holds any promise of working or being even remotely fair.
Darwin:
You said it! Hansen’s rhetoric is a huge distraction to discussion of his tax plan. Also, the time lost discussing alligator shoes and trying and convicting CEOs was time he could have spent discussing details of his plan. He wasted an opportunity.
The average family would be income neutral, but they would have even more incentive to save energy since energy prices would rise.
But you know what? I agree that this is the way things should work. It is my belief that personal finance should be a required course in public schools– K-12. Teach everyone how and why to save money and they will save money. (This is also the solution to Social Security. Teach people to save and phase out the antiquated system.)
Lucia,
Huh? An evasion from what? I’m all for more nuclear. I think many environmentalists are turning this way as well.
I think this is a poor excuse for inaction. An alternative could be Gore’s plan to eliminate the payroll tax and replace it with a carbon tax, so there would be no need to have money “pass” through government hands.
Similarly, black market firewood seems a stretch as a problem.
You are right that the details need to be worked out, but I don’t see any major hurtles in your list of objections.
Raphael,
Generally true, except that carbon prices will increase, making that particular choice less attractive (and green energy more competitive). Couple that with the raised awareness of a carbon tax and the desire of above average carbon consumers to lower their energy usage and we will see FF energy use decrease (or at least increase more slowly).
Raphael posts about drift on GISS, Boris raises a strawman about conspiracies but then deftly changes the subject. I wonder why?
Boris,
Generally true, except that carbon prices will increase, making that particular choice less attractive
Listen closely. The higher price will not be less attractive so long as income increases at the same rate. It doesn’t matter how many different ways you phrase it. It ain’t hap’nin’.
Couple that with the raised awareness of a carbon tax and the desire of above average carbon consumers to lower their energy usage and we will see FF energy use decrease (or at least increase more slowly).
This wasn’t part of my concerned correction. That’s what we call a scarecrow ’round these parts (aka strawman). But anyway, I have never seen a breakdown of how many people are what type of users and their income brackets. Without that, I could only speculate on what might happen. (If lower than middle class are the bulk of the low users, you will see the level of their low use increase. (they’d buy stuff with their extra cash which would consume more power) If higher income people suck down the power by the megajoule, they would negotiate a standard of living increase in their wages to pay for their increased costs. etc. etc.)
A rapid ramp up is a bad, bad idea. Once minor accident, one defect found and you can kiss nuclear goodbye. It’s not rational, but that is how the public and certainly the ignorant press will react. The anti nuke crown reacts the same way a medieval peasant might react to an eclipse, with fear and an assumption of the end of the world. If they didn’t we wouldn’t have had the salmonella/tomato scare this year because we would be able to irradiate them and remove any chance of this kind of contamination in our food supply. Ramping up would also mean we would be using present technology. Better we go with pebble bed or some other new technique.
“I’m”? I thought we were discussing Hansen’s plan not yours. 🙂
Hansen’s plan does not say anything about taking direct concrete steps to promote nuclear energy. Even if some can say they think it’s generally agreed it would be required, Hansen has not stated this. But we know that historically, there have been plenty of people blocking nuclear plans. So, in my mind, if the plan for massive carbon taxes does not address this issue directly, and simply says vague things about market forces, then that plan, and the person promoting it, is evading the discussion for the very real need for nuclear energy.
Though I agree that many environmentalists are coming around, I also know some aren’t. Some would wish to get the tax plan enacted first, and then turn around and block the nuclear part. That’s the way politics work.
So, I am very concerned that one prong– taxing carbon– could be implemented and another would be left out. Later, the second prong would be cast aside. And then we would have a one pronged fork! … (See, I can make up metaphors to rival the alligator shoes one! 🙂 )
Who advocated inaction? Are the only two choices a) implement Hansen’s plan or b) do nothing? I hardly think so.
I can think of a alternative actions I’d be willing to support right now. For example, I’d support implementing plans to facilitate the nuclear prong of the plan immediately whether or not we get any sort of carbon tax, cap and trade or anything else. I think this is the single most important thing we can do to lower carbon emissions.
But, you asked what we think if Hansen’s plan. I’m saying
a) As far as I’m aware, he has not enunciated his very specifically. So, in many regards, I don’t know what it is.
b) I can’t say I support a carbon tax plan involving mass redistribution of income and major market distortions until many, may issues related to fairness are worked out. It appears they have not been. I never suggested they cannot be– just that they haven’t been.
c) I cannot and will not support any carbon tax or cap and trade unless it includes specific legislation to facilitate construction and deployment of nuclear generation of electricity. I don’t know if others share my view, but if it’s widely shared, then those who wish to implement carbon taxes should be aware of this: refusing to legislate programs to facilitate ramp up of nuclear energy to a carbon tax will result in delay of the carbon tax.
d) I don’t and will never believe this plan for new taxes, or any plan for new taxes, will or can be revenue neutral. Note that I didn’t say that I would block anything because it was not revenue neutral. But, I think it’s best for people not to delude themselves about this.
For what it’s worth, I would be more likely to support the plan if it didn’t claim to be revenue neutral, because I believe that, in short order, it would not be. This means promoting the plan as revenue neutral is promoting it with a lie. Inevitably, taxes promoted using lies prevent people from facing tough choices which need to be made if we are to develop realistic plans that could possibly help us achieve our goals.
What’s rapid? I’d like to see the process facilitated. When was our most recent new reactor… 1996? And before that 1986?
I’m all for promoting research. I’d like to see reprocessing. But, at some point, we need to build reactors. Obviously, this needs to be done safely, but the whole process needs to be organized so getting reactors on line becomes feasible.
Lucia,
And then we would have a one pronged fork!
Eak. I hate the useless information in my head. When I read that I realized I could actually hold a conversation about one tined forks. It was a thin bladed knife used for eating. Which could be called a fork if you were looking at the historic developement of the fork. Personally I thnk it has a much right to be called a fork as a spork does. Which is to say the matter is open for debate. 🙂
Just curious if Raphael’s “I could make some comments” was in that vein. Apparently it wasn’t. I’m sure CA will have Hansen’s code debugged any time now.
Listen closely. Other energy alternatives will be competitive. They might take a while to come online, but the tax would speed the process.
And I wasn’t creating a strawman, I was pointing out your incomplete analysis.
A tax plan is a tax plan and an energy plan is an energy plan. Hansen didn’t mention wind or solar either, but I’m sure he would not mind adopting those technologies. And a tax plan would help whether more nuclear is adopted or not (just as nuclear would help even without a tax plan). Tying nukes to taxes is just asking for failure because the plan will be attacked from the left and the right.
I didn’t mean to accuse you of promoting inaction.
A tax plan that is promoted as revenue neutral is an energy plan.
I disagree. I think a implementing a tax plan with no nuclear plan would fail to reduce carbon. Many people will find creative ways around it and they would lean on legilators to distort it so quickly it would result in no measurable reduction in CO2, while distorting the market.
That said: Maybe if someone described details, I might believe otherwise. But right now, we have a vague tax plan.
Asking for taxes without nukes is asking for failure.
A tax plan without nukes is asking for failure.
The only path to success is nukes. I’d be willing to accept some taxes if I could be certain nukes were on their way. Otherwise no. Because without nukes, there will be no true CO2 reductions.
Listen closely. Other energy alternatives will be competitive. They might take a while to come online, but the tax would speed the process.
And I wasn’t creating a strawman, I was pointing out your incomplete analysis.
I see you shifted from “less attractive” and “more incentive” to just “competitive”. Regardless of the sudden decrease in the crow population, I’ll bite.
I suppose if I drink enough at the bar, the pretty women will be less attractive and I’ll have more incentive to chase the ugly ones. But that won’t make the ugly ones able to compete, everyone doesn’t drink to excess.
North American Free Trade Agreement allows the importing and exporting of electricity from Mexico and Canada. In the event of a major increase in production costs here in the United States, they will be unable to compete with imports. Corporations will shut down local production, and outsource. There will be no increased competition for Alternative fuels. There will be no increased incentive. There will only be the cold hard fact of corporate cost analysis.
The only way the tax will work is if you tax the people directly. (As per a sales tax) But, why are you taxing them if you plan on giving it back to them anyway? Might as well increase other taxes and offer subsidies to increase the competitiveness of alternative fuels. Oh wait, we do that. How’s that ethanol working out?
Of course, we could always pull out of NAFTA. Now, I don’t know about your state, but the struggling economy in Ohio will collapse. Regardless of what Hillary and Barrack wanted voters to believe here, NAFTA has kept OHIO (barely) out of recession since its introduction. (Ohio was hit hard by the “collapse” of the US Auto Industry.)
People “getting around” a tax on carbon? That’s not going to be a problem.
If something is more competitive it is more attractive, and the old alternative is less attractive. I’m not interested in playing word games with you.
Boris–
I think it’s going to be easy to work around the much of the tax and still use lots of CO2. I can think of lots of strategies already to get around the tax on my heating– which is a large chunk of my household needs. Though, maybe you can identify my strategies and explain the specific provisions in Hansen’s plan that will prevent them. 🙂
Seriously, given how vaguely enunciated “Hansen’s” plan is, with no specific details on precisely how the tax will be levied and on what, why do you think it’s going to be difficult to get around? We import loads of stuff– how is the tax going to be levied on that? If China doesn’t have one, how do we figure out the carbon tax on manufactured items imported from China? Plastics manufactured in china? Aluminum stock?
Will they refund the tax on exports so our goods can be competitive in countries that don’t impose a carbon tax?
Surely Lucia, you are missing the point. The very fact that you need to discuss wether the global average temperature
is any warmer than it was 20 years ago is a FACT in itself. 20 years little or no warming.
I’ve been thinking about a carbon tax and whether it would make being “greener” look more attractive. I will research the numbers for the analysis portion as I write. So once I am past the introduction, I don’t know where the numbers will lead.
For this post I’ll look at the consumption of gasoline.
While I was researching Carbon-Tax, I ran across http://www.carbontax.org. In their FAQs, I found, ” From our literature review, CTC believes a “price-elasticity” of 40% (or negative 0.4, in the jargon) is an appropriate assumption for gasoline demand …” My fuzzy memory of my economic classes tells me that makes gasoline inelastic. Because that statement began with the phrase, “From our literature review,” I also did a little researching to see how much merit the number had. From all the numbers stored in my head, I found that number to be true back in the 60’s and early 70’s. But, I found it is not true for the recent past, where the elasticity was approximately (.05).
Yikes! That tells me you’d have to have a very substantial tax to reduce the demand for gasoline.
But. How would that apply to me?
I thought about my personal consumption. I know I wouldn’t drive less. However, I may consider a car with better fuel economy, which would certainly reduce my personal demand. I took a look at MPG for cars on the market these days. I don’t drive much and have a sub-compact from the 90’s for when I do. I must say that it’s a shame about emission standards being determined on a per gallon basis these days, as there just isn’t much out there that will beat its MPG. So, that really excludes what I would do personally.
For automobiles it seems that hybrids are all the rage for being the green thing to do. But, there can be a subjective aspect to any comparisons. What do I compare? A Hummer with a Prius? Fortunately, Honda makes a sedan version of the Civic in both conventional and hybrid models. I’ll use these for a direct comparison, with the help of a hypothetical consumer, Mr Honda Civic lover.
The Honda website, says:
2008 Civic sedan starts at $15,010 with a MPG of 25city/36hwy (automatic transmission)
2008 Civic Sedan Hybrid at $22,600 with a MPG of 40city/45hwy
To keep this as simple as possible, I need to assume a few things. First I’ll assume Mr Lover didn’t pay interest on the price of the car. Second I’ll assume he plans to keep the car for 5 years. Third, I’ll assume that Mr. Lover is unable to reduce the number of miles he drives.
This means that before Mr. Lover should choose the hybrid over the conventional sedan, he would need to see a fuel savings of more than $1,518 per year.
I was a bit perplexed about what figures to use for annual city and highway driving. Fortunately, http://www.fueleconomy.gov has a annual consumption calculator built into their model comparisons. The defaults on the calculator are 45% highway driving and 55% city driving over 15000 miles/year. Those numbers seem as good as any other for Mr Honda Civic lover.
My atropied math skills tell me that when the difference in annual consumption for the two cars equals $1518, the price of a gallon of gas would be $9.4286. Rounding up to the nearest “gas price unit” we have $9.429.
Now, the national average for price of regular unleaded is $4.079 a gallon. This means that an additional 5.35 per gallon increase before my hypothetical civic lover should choose the hybrid and reduce his consumption.
Ouch.
Now what does this mean for the Carbon tax? If the emissions from a gallon of Gas are 8.8 kg/gallon, the carbon tax would need to be a hair over $607.45 per metric ton of CO2. If all 6 billion tons of CO2 emitted in the US are taxed at this rate, 26.55% of the GDP would be collected for the tax.
Conclusion: If Mr. Honda Civic Lover is a typical consumer, you won’t be seeing a decrease in CO2 emissions from gasoline before the economy crashes.
Lucia, I posted up June 2008 satellite data today. Got to get up early to stay ahead.