Ok. I'm ignorant here. Is the EPA estimate being misquoted, misinterpreted, or just absurd? Do you have a source for a better one? Personally I don't have a clue about the 'meaning of uncertainties' so it seems like a valid way to look at it. How should these estimates be handled?

I'm surprised that you would even bother with a trivial aspect of the article. It was to make a point, not to reflect on the economics rising dollar value or the increase of CO2 from the burned marshmallows. Hey, just think of it as an indirect way to pay taxes.

Good question. I would think that your best incentive would be that it offers you a chance to debunk the article piece by piece and in the process, you show people like myself how to interpret such articles in the future and not be misled. That's what BA did with the moon hoax.

The article describing the situation is what is absurd. As it is the only thing we have to go on at the moment, it is all we can assess. I do not know if the EPA is being absurd, but the way it is being reported is quite so. (My suspicion is that the EPA has become someone's lapdog and doesn't blow its nose without a direct instruction to do so.)No.Then I will explain. There is no possible way that anyone can have the least idea what the CO2 content will be 87 years from now! Maybe they can extrapolate trends and come up with an estimate plus or minus 500 ppm that means something. But you can't subtract two estimates like that and come up with 23 ppm and think that number means anything at all. That's perfectly obvious to anyone with the least iota of common sense. (Now, the EPA might actually not have used the subtraction method to come up with the 23 ppm number, but that is how it is described in the article, and I am commenting on the article.)
You are saying that the article was simply given to metaphor, but the problem is, it passes itself off expressly as an economic analysis. So economic metaphors that are not intended to be believed are awkward, to say the least, in the middle of an economic analysis that is. It has the intellectual sophistication of an elementary school student.
The BA doesn't mind wasting his time with articles that prove themselves to be drivel in the first several paragraphs. In my experience, when an article does that, it will continue to do so in the following paragraphs as well. But in the slim hope that perhaps the intellectual level of the analysis is dramatically raised, I shall read on and comment further. Note that I realize the GW skeptics are not responsible for everything in this article, nor would they necessarily choose it to make their case. I would hope not.

I'm even more puzzled. I must be misinterpreting what you are saying. If you think a plus or minus 500 ppm variance is as precise as we can get, why would we be concerned with CO2 since the best reduction we could achieve would be lost in the scatter? Actually, if the actual value is in the -500ppm portion of the variance, we will be at levels that are disastrously low.

Because we don't know the reduction would be lost in the scatter. But at least if the article had tried to make that case, instead of citing a subtraction yielding 23 ppm, it would not be the utter nonsense that it is.

The swindle here is really very obvious, and it really is a swindle. The bill being criticized only affects US contributions to carbon emissions, yet the problem cited includes the total emissions of the whole world! It doesn't take a genius to see that this subterfuge will appear to minimize the impact of US efforts. It is just like saying that if Exxon Mobil were to completely eliminate their own oil spills, it would only reduce the oil spills worldwide by 10%, so is hardly worth doing! What a joke of an argument, yet they equate it to "a bonfire of a trillion dollars" of wasted effort "no matter how you slice it". Dishonest math tricks are not going to win any points with me, sorry-- are these guys out-of-work Enron auditors? I would prefer a little intelligent analysis, but I should not expect that from a Fox news article (isn't that the operation that aired a TV special on the Moon landing "hoax"? Oh yeah, it is.)Perhaps plus or minus 200 ppm would be a more realistic estimate, the number was not carefully selected. The point is, it's a lot more than 23, as any real scientist would know in a heartbeat. But more to the point, it includes the worldwide uncertainties in carbon emissions, whereas the US can only focus on its own contribution. Hence the obviously correct analysis is to restrict to the US's contribution to the problem. Duh.

One point I will agree with-- cap-and-trade makes no sense, it has to be a carbon tax. Cap-and-trade requires too much micromanagement to determine appropriate standards for every Tom-and-Jerry carbon emitter, a blanket tax is the only expedient course. Yes I know, that would whip up the usual anti-tax hysteria from the camp that thinks money disappears when it goes to the government, but is doing its job when it goes to unelected CEOs of corporations like Enron and Blackwater. Objection? Withdrawn.

Is your vituperation towards corporations anti-profit hysteria?

Governments have been and will be inherently less efficient than free enterprise.

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(By the way, I hate it that so many papers in the areas of planetary science and geology are not easily avaiable to the dreaded "non-subscribers". It is like they are screaming at me: "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH". Good, I feel better now.)

I know you are a person who takes his physics seriously, but isn't it said that most great discoveries aren't discovered with "Eureka!" but with, "Hmmm, that's funny." Big Don

Isn't that a large gamble on something we don't know?

It is also only showing only the expense of the US. One has to assume that the rest of the world will be asked to make similar sacrifices for similar gains. Much of the rest of the world can't or won't do so without additional funding from the US.

Yeah, me too. I'm a layperson. The article sounds good to me but as I mentioned earlier, I can't verify or competently analyze the numbers put forth. The value of the BAUT forum is that I can get the opinion of those more informed, who have the background to analyze the numbers, and the patience to explain why or why not the numbers are valid. The explanations so far have been conflicting and unconvincing. Most of the response is composed of barbs toward the source. They may be warranted, but they don't help my understanding.

It whips up mine. The EPA would probably have an input to the distributions of funds and you have expressed concern that it "has become someone's lapdog and doesn't blow its nose without a direct instruction to do so." I cannot envision an entity that would not be tempted to use smoke and mirrors given an incentive of trillions.

The point is, mitigation is a systematic effect, whereas the scatter in the estimates are a random variable. They are apples and oranges. What you do is you consider the range of possible random effects, and look at what happens to that range given a systematic mitigation effort. The article is written to make it sound like the result relies on estimates that are highly uncertain, which they are, but the systematics of mitigation don't rely on those estimates and don't suffer the same uncertainty (they have their own uncertainties, not even developed in the article). The article is simply reporting the process wrong, seemingly intentionally. It is the quintessential example of the strawman logical fallacy.

Says who? One thing's for sure-- they won't do it if the US won't either! The article makes it sound like it is pointless for the US to do anything, that it is a waste of money to do so, on the sole grounds that our impact by itself cannot solve the problem. Again, to that I say, duh. We have to be a leader in this for the process to be effective, but we don't have to do it by ourselves.
Hopefully I've clarified the strawman.
I don't know what more I can do than identify an obvious strawman fallacy. Look at their argument again, it runs exactly like this: " the problem is big, a roughly 300 ppm increase in CO2, possibly. The US might spend trillions (compared to what other things we spend trillions on? Not mentioned of course) and only reduce the problem by maybe 23 ppm. So it's a waste of money."

OK, now compare that to a far more sensible argument built from the same data:
"The problem is big, maybe 300 ppm by 2095. The US contribution to the problem is, perhaps, 50 ppm (I have to guess this, because the article doesn't think it's important enough to report). If we spend X fraction of our GNP (where X is again unreported, apparently because "trillions of dollars" sounds like more of a waste than a useful comparison here to other things we waste money on like building expensive bombs, blowing expensive things up with them, and then expensively rebuilding those things-- I find it so ironic that the "cost" issue is never raised by the same people on that score) on mitigation, we might reduce that by 23 ppm. If the other countries follow our lead, then as a whole the world might reduce the problem by half-- a huge success for humanity. Meanwhile, some of the "cost" that supposedly disappeared in that bonfire was used to generate new energy solutions and less reliance on fossil fuels which has to be done anyway by 2095. "

Interesting how much different that non-strawman argument sounds, using all the same numbers.
Obviously control would have to be returned to scientists rather than yes-men.Neither can I, but I call it "reconstruction". Don't you? This is the point-- the complaints about GW mitigation often center on cost arguments that are reserved solely for that issue, never applied uniformly. For example, 5 years ago when gasoline was $1 a gallon, anyone who suggested that a tax on oil that could be used to stimulate new directions that reduce our reliance on it and encourage conservation of it was ridiculed by those who said "we cannot afford to pay a tax on $1 a gallon gasoline". Well, obviously, our unmitigated reliance on oil now has that at $3 a gallon-- where are those same people now? Strangely moot on the whole issue of energy cost. Non-uniform application of "cost" arguments are not serious, they are apologetics for failed energy policies.

Failed energy policies? Exxon/Mobil just posted the 5th largest corporate profits in the history of the world. I would say Bush and his gang have seen their policies succeed brilliantly.

Sorry for the political input...but nothing will be done about GW until the people currently in power can see a profit in it.

How about we get back to the subject???

I hate the term "global warming". What does it mean?
I prefer "anthropogenic global surface warming", it actually means warming caused by man at the Earth's surface where we can measure it.

While it does seem obvious that the Earth's surface is warming, climatologist's models so far seem a bit lacking for predicting the future. Eventually those models will get better but they will of course never be perfect.

Natually the global temperature data available will cycle with the seasons. Current theory would simply cause the average to keep increasing each year with the accumulation of energy from theorized mechanisims . There seems to be no place for global anomalies (not local anomalies, those average out). We cannot simply ignore data from 1998 or 2007 for the 5 year mean. The extra energy did or did not go somewhere right? Where?

Heat (BTUs) slowly migrate in complex patterns (weather) toward the poles where it can melt ice or be radiated into space. Heat can also be sank into the deep ocean or drawn out of it. The deep ocean comprises a potential energy sink many many times that available at the Earth's surface (anthropogenic global surface warming). These are the only places available for anomalous heat to come from or go to unless you think that the Earth actually absorbed or reflected that much anomalous energy in a given year.

The melting of Arctic sea ice takes a great many BTUs as does the refreezing each winter. The difference in maximum sea ice mass changes from year to year is all that can be considered to be absorbing BTUs from lower latitudes (higher latitudes always lose more heat than they absorb from the sun). While the sea ice is melted however, the uncovered heat in the seas can be radiated to space. This loss of heat from the seas will either lead to increased local freezing in the future (like now?), or induce thermohaline currents (a slow process, that) that carry ever-colder water to the bottom of our already freezing cold seas.

There is still much to learn in climateology. It is worrisome how both sides jump to conclusions concerning new data, especially when it is not understood. The headline: "Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling" is of course unjustified. The heat energy was shuttled somewhere besides the earth's surface, and a lack of concern for where belittles their effort.

All said, there is every reason to attempt to preserve our desired global climate. That is if that effort is not a waste. Current objectives like biofuel and hybred cars are definately a (feel good) waste. What is needed here in the U.S. is a reversal of the spread-out society and the rejection of non-recyclables.

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"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana

Agreed, it all depends on how one counts the "costs" of the "successes". This is very much my point-- along with the issue of what is the environmental impact of GW is a closely connected question: how does the environmental impact get counted in the cost/benefit analysis? The former problem doesn't get solved until the latter one does, no matter what the climatologists have to say.
Yes, it is getting harder and harder to separate the science from the politics, when the two have to work together or nothing happens.

Yes, all terms must be included in a detailed model. The other reservoirs for heat appear in two different ways-- one is by introducing stochastic variations, which we are more or less happy to average out in the 5-year running means, and the other is in a systematic coupling to the areas being measured, which are very important because they can serve to either leverage or blunt the temperature changes depending on whether the feedback is positive or negative.

It seems likely that these are the most difficult terms to account for in global climate models-- but the data accounts for them automatically. The "tipping point" problem is essentially when these couplings make a transition from negative feedback that blunts climate change into positive feedback that encourages it. I don't think the modelers know where these tipping points are, but they are beginning to predict their existence. It seems to me it's a lot like weather modeling-- they can't tell if it will rain Thursday or Friday, but they're much better at knowing "rain is on the way".

I understand the words, but I have no idea what you are getting at. The way I see it is there is an estimate of 23ppm reduction for our efforts regardless of whether it is subtracted from an actual value of 500 or 900 (the 200 plus or minus value you offered). There is also a variation on the 23ppm that was not addressed. Is that what you are concerned about? By the way, the '23' figure was given in the EPA source that the original article linked to. I was unable to determine how they arrived at it.

I'm in the group that you say 'duh' to. Thanks for being so understanding. What I can't get past is, if it costs the US so much for so little, it will be the same for the rest of the nations. Some may or may not see the benefits of each of their '23' reductions for such a huge cost. I contend that most cannot afford it nor do I think the US has the right to demand (or expect) such a commitment of other nations.

Vain hope so far. Honest, I'm not being obstinate.

It may not have been mentioned directly, but it has been alluded to several times. I take issue with the argument that because there is something the government spends money on (or wastes money on) it justifies giving them another project to spend money on. To me, that's a strawman.
I believe asking other countries to spend X fraction of their GNP to come up with a chance to 'reduce the problem by half' is unrealistic. And what is the 'problem' in this case? Is it CO2 in the air, the warming it causes, the sea level changes, the number of people that will have to migrate, etc.?

And how do we find these saintly scientists? More importantly who choses them? My guess it's politicians, appointees, and maybe even a public vote where the ad agencies ultimately have the final say.

I don't understand the question. Please rephrase if the question is more than rhetorical.

That's undoubtedly because the benefits of different issues aren't uniform. Regardless, comparing diverse issues does little to clarify the issue of reducing CO2. [/quote]

Yes, that is the claim, but it is obviously incorrect. The system involves complex interactions, only a fool would believe that 23 ppm would apply against a backdrop of either a 500 or 900 ppm increase worldwide. So the 23 ppm only applies in one particular scenario, which is already highly uncertain. It is a benchmark, no more. Still, this really isn't the core problem with the article-- it is the comparing of US mitigation efforts against something other than US contributions to the problem to make them seem insignificant. That's either dumb or dishonest.
I don't understand, are you saying that you think it is perfectly reasonable to compare US mitigation efforts to worldwide contributions to the problem, and conclude "it's too small to be worth doing"? The obvious logical fallacy in that position is what I said "duh" to, not the demand to assess the value of the mitigation effort.

But on what basis is this arrived at? Again I say it is just funny math in regard to the issue of "cost". As I said above, a tax is not a "cost", it is a redistribution. The actual things that have real cost are very easy to identify and are quite widespread in the world, as is the people who are bearing that cost and those who benefit from its presence. That is really what "cost" means, not a tax. I hardly think energy generation is an industry that will fail if it is taxed, and I remind you that that was the argument used when gasoline was $1 a gallon. Now it's $3, and it's not due to a tax. How do you account for that "cost"? If someone had suggested a $2 a gallon tax ten years ago, they would have been ridiculed on the basis of your very argument. Now we are paying that same extra cost, only we are getting nothing from it-- whereas the revenue from such a tax could have moved mountains and quite possibly kept us out of the current energy policy morass.

Again, the "strawman" is to say "there's no point in my recycling or conserving energy, there's no point in my picking up litter, and there's no point in curtailing the emissions of my car, because nothing that I personally do will affect the world problem in any measurable way, and nobody else is going to do it just because I am". That is precisely the take of this article, on the national vs. world scale. You really don't think that's a strawman argument? I'm not being obstinate, I'm incredulous. The US does not have to do everything, but it does have to be a leader and a good world citizen. It's a young nation, but it's time to grow up a little.
My point is that governmental waste is only a part of the actual waste, which is private industry waste, where "waste" is defined as creating unaccounted for environmental damage, low wages and poverty, and redistribution of wealth in inefficient ways. When we pay taxes to build expensive weapons and pay salaries and medical costs for soldiers, all so that we have access to far more expensive energy than before, that waste is funneled directly into private industry, it is not "governmental waste" because the government only collects it, it doesn't do the wasting. I realize that focusing on defense spending is a political avenue not directly related to carbon mitigation, but it speaks to the larger context of the "cost" argument, which seems to be the central focus of that article I'm critiquing. I'm saying that with a little intelligent management of "costs", far greater ones could be averted, but the far greater ones are accounted for differently and by different people.
You cannot "spend" a fraction of your GNP, your GNP is what you spend. If carbon mitigation stimulates a new economy, then it will increase the GNP. When General Dynamics builds a warplane, does that not count in the GNP of the US? We don't say we are "spending our GNP on the military industrial complex", we say that that complex is part of our GNP. And the government has always been relied on to produce economic stimulus, that's simple historical fact. The only question is, what will be the tangible result of the effort?

The net human suffering, that's what it all comes down to. But tell me, where does human suffering get counted in the "cost" of any endeavor? Answer: nowhere, if cost is a corporate balance sheet.
But we already do this all the time, from whence comes your conspiracy fears? We use scientists to tell us how clean our water has to be, even though some industrial profits rest on making it cleaner and others on making it dirtier. We use scientists to tell us how safe our cars need to be, though some feel we tolerate way too much death on the highway and others think we should let people kill themselves if they want to. We use scientists to dictate what kinds of chemicals are allowed to be vented into the air and water, and what safeguards need to be in place against oil spills or nuclear meltdowns. And goodness gracious what an awful state we'd be in if we just left it up to unregulated industry-- the historical record is quite clear on that. So why is limiting carbon emissions into the atmosphere something that we suddenly cannot trust those despicable scientists to be responsible about?

On the contrary, what does little to clarify the issue of reducing CO2 is to treat it in a vacuum that is blind to the wider context of both global energy policy, and the process of deciding what gets counted as a "cost" and whose costs get weighted more. That is the real issue on the table, and no amount of climate control can be put into place without first resolving the basic issue of whose world is the one we are trying to improve. That is a political issue, but it is inseparable from the science of doing a cost/benefit analysis-- which is the slant of the article that is claiming to be a scientific assessment of GW mitigation.