Black Carbon More Important to Climate & Melting Ice than CO2?

A new and detailed study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres, reveals that black carbon and black soot are far more important to global climate than had been previously admitted by most leading climatologists.

More on the implications of this report from WattsupWithThat and NextBigFuture.

It is likely that black soot and black carbon are far more responsible for melting glaciers and polar ice than is CO2 -- although the largest cause of melting polar ice and glaciers is natural variation in chaotic climate cycles and natural variation of winds and ocean currents.

But if polar bears needed to blame one particular thing for being forced to swim longer distances in a bad year, they should probably blame black soot from China and India.

Other significant anthropogenic influences of climate besides black soot include land use changes, shown in the image above. Over the long run, both land use changes and black soot emissions are likely to have far greater effects on glacial and polar ice than CO2. Why?

For one thing, we can do more about black carbon emissions than we can about CO2 emissions. For another, there are several powerful negative feedback apparati in nature that compensate for anthropogenic CO2 production. That is not nearly the case for black soot production. For yet another, the very wide range of estimated CO2 sensitivity on climate forcing as much as tells you that scientists have not got a precise handle on the actual importance of CO2 on climate.

As you can see from the graphic above, global temperatures have been stuck on a plateau -- at the same time that atmospheric CO2 levels (and climate model temperature predictions) have been rising. The perceived disconnect between atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures may be exaggerated by natural climate cycles, of course.

But if you add the combined anthropogenic climatic effects of CO2, black soot, and land use changes together, you have to wonder what kind of natural cycles would be necessary to bring "global warming" to such a screeching halt?

More on the AGU study:

The study, a four-year, 232-page effort, led by the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) Project, is likely to guide research efforts, climate modeling, and policy for years to come, the authors and other scientists familiar with the paper said.

The report’s best estimate of direct climate influence by black carbon is about a factor of two higher than most previous work. This includes the estimates in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment, which were based on the best available evidence and analysis at that time.

Scientists have spent the years since the last IPCC assessment improving estimates, but the new assessment notes that emissions in some regions are probably higher than estimated. This is consistent with other research that also hinted at significant under-estimates in some regions’ black carbon emissions.

The results indicate that there may be a greater potential to curb warming by reducing black carbon emissions than previously thought. _GCC

Climatology is still just a baby science -- not ready for prime time. And yet the IPCC wants to control the redistribution of $trillions worth of resources from the developed world to the emerging and third worlds. Purely as a humanitarian gesture, no doubt. After all, who would want the hassle of channeling all of those trillions of dollars, if they did not have the best interests of humanity at heart?

A sober reminder about the chaotic underlying nature of climate:

A paper titled "Global Warming: A Geological Perspective," published in Environmental Geosciences, and summarized below in Arizona Geology, should be required reading for all climate scientists. The paper notes that if

"the temperature increase during the past 130 years reflects recovery from the Little Ice Age, it is not unreasonable to expect the temperature to rise another 2 to 2.5 degrees Celsius to a level comparable to that of the Medieval Warm Period about 800 years ago"

and that

"Climatic changes measured during the last 100 years are not unique or even unusual when compared with the frequency, rate, and magnitude of changes that have taken place since the beginning of the Holocene Epoch. Recent fluctuations in temperature, both upward and downward, are well within the limits observed in nature prior to human influence."

Sadly, most climate scientists fail to study or understand the geologic history of climate, which has led to countless false claims that today's climate is unnatural, extreme, unusual, or unprecedented. __ Source __ via __ GWPF

Summary paper PDF with more

Note that the paper referred to above was published in 1999 in Environment Geosciences, at the peak of confidence in catastrophic global warming. If the words were true then, they are triply true now that temperature trends have flattened, and multiple causes of warming unrelated to CO2 have been described and verified.

Popular climate alarmism and CO2 hysteria resemble the mood manipulation one sees in Hollywood blockbusters, where the soundtrack works together with scripting, acting, and clever camera angles to ratchet up audience panic to a fever pitch.

Such mood manipulation on a society-wide scale requires large numbers of useful idiots, gullible clowns, and power control freaks inside government, academia, and media. No surprise here, that is simply how things are managed in a settled regime -- between revolutions.

Innovating an Entire New World of Energy Resources

Every exciting new tool of exploration, discovery, production, and recovery opens up huge new fields of energy which were previously unknown or inaccessible. What was once impossible becomes the routine.

Take the Macondo field drilled by BP. Yes, a disaster in the Gulf: but also the deepest well ever drilled. Having developed the technology to drill so deeply we have not only discovered one new oil field – we've also discovered a whole new Earth that we can explore for oil. That part of the entire globe that between 4,000 and 5,000 feet below the surface.

Inventing fracking does not mean just extracting gas from Pennsylvania or oil from the Bakken. It means prospecting the whole planet again for such deposits. New technologies mean we have invented whole new planets to explore for resources.

This does not apply only to peak oil or peak gas. There are those out there who worry about peak copper, peak indium and even peak tellurium (an odd one when we use 125 tonnes a year and there's 120 million tonnes in the crust). None of these are geological problems, they are all plain and simple economic ones. _Tim Worstall -- The Telegraph

Worstall is right that problems with oil, gas, and minerals are not primarily geologic problems. But Worstall is wrong when he says these problems are "all plain and simple economic ones."

The problems are primarily problems of limited human imagination & invention, as well as a key problem of bad human government.

Societies with declining demographics ruled by idiocratic governments drowning in an exponential swell of debt, are likely to experience "peak ingenuity." When that happens, even nominally soluble problems begin to pile up and appear unsolvable.

Such problems often grow to acquire aspects of doom, with large quasi-religious followings.

And sometimes phantom problems of the imagination are blown up into monstrous amorphous catch-all entities, the repositories of all human fear. They can even merit entire agencies under the United Nations and national governments, be taught to schoolchildren as part of the required curricula, and be falsely presented by the news & entertainment media as established scientific fact.

Climatologist Judith Curry Interviewed by Demon Coal

A Canadian Broadcasting Company radio special, "Demon Coal", interviewed Georgia Tech U. climatologist Judith Curry on the topic of IPCC climate models. Here is Dr. Curry (just past the 3 minute mark) in the 3rd segment of CBC Radio's Demon Coal:

Demon Coal Part III / IV


Demon Coal Part IV / IV
Dr. Curry's interview continues in segment 4 of the 4 segment program, above.

Judith Curry is one of the more scrupulous among those climatologists who are well known on the public stage. She has performed the role of "go-between", spanning the chasm between the more sceptical world-class climatologists such as Richard Lindzen and Roger Pielke Sr., and some of the more orthodox alarmist climatologists who have the most to lose should the IPCC's scare tactics fall short.

Extra Bonus: Judity Curry's interview with Oilprice.com (via mining.com), "The IPCC May Have Outlived Its Usefulness"

OilPrice.com: What are your personal beliefs on climate change? The causes and how serious a threat climate change is to the continued existence of society as we know it.

Judith Curry: The climate is always changing. Climate is currently changing because of a combination of natural and human induced effects. The natural effects include variations of the sun, volcanic eruptions, and oscillations of the ocean. The human induced effects include the greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, pollution aerosols, and land use changes. The key scientific issue is determining how much of the climate change is associated with humans. This is not a simple thing to determine. The most recent IPCC assessment report states: “Most [50%] of the warming in the latter half of the 20th century is very likely [>90%] due to the observed increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.” There is certainly some contribution from the greenhouse gases, but whether it is currently a dominant factor or will be a dominant factor in the next century, is a topic under active debate, and I don’t think the high confidence level [>90%] is warranted given the uncertainties.

As I stated in my testimony last year: “Based upon the background knowledge that we have, the threat does not seem to be an existential one on the time scale of the 21st century, even in its most alarming incarnation.”

OilPrice.com: You have said in the past that you were troubled by the lack of cooperation between organizations studying climate change, and that you want to see more transparency with the data collected. How do you suggest we encourage/force transparency and collaboration?

Judith Curry: We are seeing some positive steps in this regard. Government agencies that fund climate research are working to develop better databases. Perhaps of greatest interest is the effort being undertaken by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which is a (mostly) privately funded effort to compile and document a new data base on surface temperatures, in a completely open and transparent way.

OilPrice.com: Do you feel climatologists should be putting more effort into determining the effect of the sun on our climate? As the IPCC primarily focuses on CO2 as the cause of climate change – Is the importance of CO2 overestimated and the importance of the sun is underestimated?

Judith Curry: I absolutely think that more effort is needed in determining the effect of the sun on our climate. The sun is receiving increased attention (and funding), and there is a lively debate underway on interpreting the recent satellite data record, reconstructing past solar variability, and predicting the solar variability over the 21st century. Nearly all of the solar scientists are predicting some solar cooling in the next century, but the magnitude of the possible or likely cooling is hotly debated and highly uncertain.

OilPrice.com: You are well known in climate and energy circles for breaking from the ranks of the IPCC and questioning the current information out there. What do you see as the reasons for the increase in skepticism towards global warming over the last few years.

Judith Curry: Because of the IPCC and its consensus seeking process, the rewards for scientists have been mostly in embellishing the consensus, and this includes government funding. Because of recent criticisms of the IPCC and a growing understanding that the climate system is not easily understood, an increasing number of scientists are becoming emboldened to challenge some of the basic conclusions of the IPCC, and I think this is a healthy thing for the science.

OilPrice.com: What are your views on the idea that CO2 may not be a significant contributor to climate change? How do you think such a revelation, if true, will affect the world economy, and possibly shatter public confidence in scientific institutions that have said we must reduce CO2 emissions in order to save the planet?

Judith Curry: Personally, I think we put the CO2 stabilization policy ‘cart’ way before the scientific horse. The UN treaty on dangerous climate change in 1992 was formulated and signed before we even had ‘discernible’ evidence of warming induced by CO2, as reported in 1995 by the IPCC second assessment report. As a result of this, we have only been considering one policy option (CO2 stabilization), which in my opinion is not a robust policy option given the uncertainties in how much climate is changing in response to CO2.

OilPrice.com: There has been quite a bit of talk recently on geo-engineering with entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates and Richard Branson pushing for a “plan B” which utilizes geo-engineering to manipulate the environment in order to cool the atmosphere.

Geo-engineering could be much cheaper than reducing emissions, and also much quicker to produce results and scientists are lobbying governments and international organizations for funds to experiment with various approaches, such as fertilizing the oceans or spraying reflective particles and chemicals into the upper atmosphere in order to reflect sunlight and heat back into space. What are your thoughts on geo-engineering? Is it a realistic solution to solving climate change or is it a possible red herring?

Judith Curry: With regards to geo-engineering, there are two major concerns. The first is whether the technologies will actually work, in terms of having the anticipated impact on the climate. The second is the possibility of unintended consequences of the geoengineering.

OilPrice.com: You have been noted to criticize the IPCC quite openly in the past on several topics. Even going so far as to say:”It is my sad conclusion that opening your mind on this subject (climate change controversy) sends you down the slippery slope of challenging many aspects of the IPCC consensus.”

Do you believe that the organization as a whole needs to be assessed in order to better serve progress on climate change? What suggestions do you have on how the organization should function?

Judith Curry: The IPCC might have outlived its usefulness. Lets see what the next assessment report comes up with. But we are getting diminishing returns from these assessments, and they take up an enormous amount of scientists’ time.

OilPrice.com: Would renewable energy technologies have received the massive amounts of funding we have seen over the last few years without global warming concerns?

Judith Curry: I think there are other issues that are driving the interest and funding in renewables, including clean air and energy security issues and economics, but I agree that global warming concerns have probably provided a big boost.

OilPrice.com: What do you believe are the best solutions to overcoming/reversing climate change; is a common consensus needed in order to effectively combat climate change?

Judith Curry: The UN approach of seeking a global consensus on the science to support an international treaty on CO2 stabilization simply hasn’t worked, for a variety of reasons. There are a range of possible policy options, and we need to have a real discussion that looks at the costs, benefits and unintended consequences of each. Successful solutions are more likely to be regional in nature than global.

OilPrice.com: I saw an interesting comment on another site regarding climate science that i thought i’d get your opinion on as it raises some very interesting arguments:

Climate science has claimed for 30 years that it affects the safety of hundreds of millions of people, or perhaps the whole planet. If it gets it wrong, equally, millions may suffer from high energy costs, hunger due to biofuels, and lost opportunity from misdirected funds, notwithstanding the projected benefits from as yet impractical renewable energy.

Yet, we have allowed it to dictate global policy and form a trillion dollar green industrial complex – all without applying a single quality system, without a single performance standard for climate models, without a single test laboratory result and without a single national independent auditor or regulator. It all lives only in the well known inbred, fad-driven world of peer review.

Judith Curry: I agree that there is lack of accountability in the whole climate enterprise, and it does not meet the standards that you would find in engineering or regulatory science. I have argued that this needs to change, by implementing data quality and model verification and validation standards.

OilPrice.com: Do you believe that the language used in papers and at conferences is a problem? The public just wants straight answers to questions: Is the climate warming, By how much, and what will the effects be? Scientists need to step out from behind the curtain and engage the public with straight answers and in their own words. Is this achievable, or is climate science too complex to be explained in laymen’s terms? Or is it because even climate scientists can’t agree on the exact answers?

Judith Curry: I think the biggest failure in communicating climate science to the public has been the reliance on argument from consensus. We haven’t done a good job of explaining all this, particularly in the context of the scientific disagreement

OilPrice.com: What resources would you recommend to people who wish to get a balanced and objective view on climate science and climate change.

Judith Curry: There is no simple way to get a balanced and objective view, since there are so many different perspectives. I think my blog Climate Etc. at judithcurry.com is a good forum for getting a sense of these different perspectives.

Interview by. James Stafford, Editor Oilprice.com _mining.com

MIT Study: Climate Policy Must Destroy the World to Save It

GCC
According to an MIT study, the conversion of coal to liquid fuels via gasification and Fischer Tropsch, has great potential for clean and economical replacement of petroleum fuels, as the price of oil edges higher. Unless, that is, a global climate policy is in place -- which will force additional costs to the technology so as to make it uneconomical.

Coal-to-liquid technology has been in existence since the 1920s and was used extensively in Germany in 1944, producing around 90 percent of the national fuel needs at that time. Since then, the technology has been largely abandoned for the relatively cheaper crude oil of the Middle East. A notable exception is South Africa, where CTL conversion still provides about 30 percent of national transportation fuel.

But will there be a resurgence of CTL technology? To determine the role that CTL conversion would play in the future global fuel mix, researchers examined several crucial factors affecting CTL prospects. Different scenarios were modeled, varying the stringency of future carbon policies, the availability of biofuels and the ability to trade carbon allowances on an international market. Researchers also examined whether CTL-conversion plants would use carbon capture and storage technology, which would lower greenhouse gas emissions but create an added cost.

The study found that, without climate policy, CTL might become economical as early as 2015 in coal-abundant countries like the United States and China. In other regions, CTL could become economical by 2020 or 2025. Carbon capture and storage technologies would not be used, as they would raise costs. In this scenario, CTL has the potential to account for about a third of the global liquid-fuel supply by 2050.

However, the viability of CTL would be highly limited in regions that adopt climate policies, especially if low-carbon biofuels are available. Under scenarios that include stringent future climate policies, the high costs associated with a large carbon footprint would diminish CTL prospects, even with carbon capture and storage technologies. CTL conversion may only be viable in countries with less stringent climate policies or where low-carbon fuel alternatives are not available. _MIT_via_GCC

MIT study PDF 512 KB

In other words, costs for energy are likely to be driven far higher with top-down carbon penalties than with more market-oriented energy policies. Given the rather shaky nature of global economic regimes, the pursuit of expensive carbon penalties is apt to depress global trade and western economies beyond the current troubles.

Climate change science has been forced to backpedal on a number of over-wrought alarmist claims recently, and has had its nose rubbed in some rather unsavoury insider activity as a result of the public release of a number of emails between some rather unscrupulous climate scientists (ClimateGate).

It would be a shame to discover that world economies had been subjected to ruinously expensive carbon policies which were based on nothing more than sham science. And yet, such may well be the case.

More: A single but dramatic example of the destructive impact of Obama's EPA climate regulations on US energy supply These governmental and inter-governmental bureaucrats of the faux environmentalist persuasion do not care how many lives or enterprises they destroy. Still, you cannot claim that Obama did not give fair warning of what he planned to do. The promise of energy starvation is one that he aims to keep, and damn the costs.

What Good is an Atmospheric CO2 Vacuum Cleaner?

Carbon dioxide is commonly used as a raw material for production of various chemicals; as a working material in fire extinguishing systems; for carbonation of soft drinks; for freezing of food products such as poultry, meats, vegetables and fruit; for chilling of meats prior to grinding; for refrigeration and maintenance of ideal atmospheric conditions during transportation of food products to market; for enhancement of oil recovery from oil wells; and for treatment of alkaline water. _CO2

CO2_Vaccuum_Cleaner?
CO2 is a valuable industrial chemical, with many valuable uses. Carbon dioxide is extracted economically from many industrial processes, for purposes of re-use. One important future use of industrial CO2 will be for algae food. Well-fed algae can be used to make chemicals, foods, fuels, and dozens of other products.

Industry is developing better means to grow and separate algae, and to extract algal oil from algae, once the algae have turned the tasty CO2 into oils:

The Diversified Technologies' PEF Pre-Treatment of Algae for Oil Extraction Process applies 10-30 kV/cm electric pulses for 2 to 20 microseconds to an algal slurry which rupture the cell walls to release biodiesel compounds such as methyl hexadecanoate. The firm estimates this low energy process of lysing algae cells would account for about $0.10/gal. of the price of algae-derived biofuel compared to $1.75/gal. for conventional drying.

In-line and fully scalable to high production volumes, the Diversified Technologies' PEF Pre-Treatment of Algae for Oil Extraction Process consists of a chamber where the algal slurry is pumped into and treated along with a rack housing a power supply and pulse modulator. The pulsed electric field process has been proven in food disinfection and wastewater processing, where it has been in commercial use for several years. _Diversified_via_BD

Of course it is more economical to vacuum CO2 out of industrial gas effluent than to extract CO2 from the atmosphere -- which is only 0.04% CO2!

Plants have been extracting CO2 from the atmosphere for hundreds of millions of years, and believe me, they like as much CO2 as they can get! Improved methods for turning plant biomass into fuels is one way humans can indirectly take advantage of atmospheric CO2 -- and re-cycle their own industrial CO2 production.

Carbon hysterics are people who panic at the thought of the least little bit of CO2 in the atmosphere. Despite the best scientific evidence pointing toward natural chaotic cycles of climate occurring for the past billions of years, carbon hysterics worry that CO2 will destroy the planet. Of course if you have become an extremist carbon hysteric -- as many employees of the new NASA have become -- you may go so far as to propose a nuclear war in order to neutralise the effect of 0.04% CO2 in the atmosphere!

A nuclear war to combat "global warming?" With all the famine, disease, death, and revolution which that would bring, perhaps that is what leftist faux environmentalists have been talking about when they discuss the great dieoff.orgy? It may be the only way that the lefty-Luddite predictions of doom can be brought to pass. And I always thought lefty faux enviros where anti-nuclear!

Big Biomass Boost for Drought-Prone Climates

Mike Mickelbart, an assistant professor of horticulture; Mike Hasegawa, a professor of horticulture; and Chal Yul Yoo, a horticulture graduate student, found that a genetic mutation in the research plant Arabidopsis thaliana reduces the number of stomata. But instead of limiting carbon dioxide intake, the gene creates a beneficial equilibrium.

"The plant can only fix so much carbon dioxide. The fewer stomata still allow for the same amount of carbon dioxide intake as a wild type while conserving water," said Mickelbart, whose results were published in the early online version of the journal The Plant Cell. "This shows there is potential to reduce transpiration without a yield penalty. _Cheminfo

Scientists at Purdue University have discovered a mutant plant gene -- GTL1 -- which shows the way for plants to produce significant biomass even in the face of drought conditions.

Mickelbart and Yoo used an infrared gas analyzer to determine the amount of carbon dioxide taken in and water lost in the Arabidopsis mutant.

Analysis showed that the plant, which has a mutant form of the gene GTL1, did not reduce carbon dioxide intake but did have a 20 percent reduction in transpiration. The plant had the same biomass as a wild type of Arabidopsis when its shoot dry weight was measured.

"The decrease in transpiration leads to increased drought tolerance in the mutant plants," Yoo said.

"They will hold more water in their leaves during drought stress."

The results have been published in the online version of the journal The Plant Cell. _NewKerala

Of the 20 genes known to control stomata, SDD1 was highly expressed in the mutant. SDD1 is a gene that is responsible for regulating the number of stomata on leaves. In the mutant, with GTL1 not functioning, SDD1 is highly expressed, which results in the development of fewer stomata.

Mickelbart said the finding is important because it opens the possibility that there is a natural way to improve crop drought tolerance without decreasing biomass or yield. He said the next step in the research is to determine the role of GTL1 in a crop plant.

The National Science Foundation and a Binational Agricultural Research and Development Award funded the research. _ScienceDaily

Change the genes, change the rules. Obviously such mutants occur spontaneously, in reaction to drought conditions. This places recent "research" claims by the high priesthood of global warming catastrophe in doubt. In fact, plants do have ways to amass greater CO2 in conditions of lowered water availability. The mechanism was provided by natural selection a long time ago.

In fact, most life forms on Earth evolved under conditions of far higher CO2 levels -- and highly variable climate conditions of cyclical drought, flood, heat, cold etc. It is time for computer modelers to stop trying to meddle in the global economy, to acquire a bit of much needed humility, and to stop stealing resources from society which would be more productively used in the private sector.

Oil Supplies Rise, Oil Demand Flattens -> Oil Glut

While ever new supplies of petroleum continue to grow from Iraq, Africa, Central Asia, Canada, Brazil, and elsewhere, oil demand keeps dropping due to the global economic doldrums, and due to many countries cutting their subsidies for oil and gas to consumers.

In a process will almost surely take years and vary significantly from one country to the next, the hydrocarbon-rich countries of the Persian Gulf are slowly but surely moving to phase out heavily subsidized energy prices, starting at the pump. _EnergyTribune

The UAE, the world's third largest oil exporter, cut oil subsidies twice in 2010, and one oil official said petrol prices could rise again this month as the government moves to phase out subsidies that have strained the budget. Abu Dhabi's state oil firm denied that such a move had been decided. _ArabianBusiness

...several countries in the Middle East still experience domestic supply shortfalls due to growing demand in the electric power and industrial sectors. To address this, the Middle East and North African region is now developing various approaches to phasing out price subsidies to align domestic natural gas prices with export prices, the agency in its International Energy Outlook 2010 (IEO), said. _Zawya

Energy pundits continue to predict huge new oil demand from China -- even while China is teetering on the brink of a deflating construction bubble and blowback from massive economic corruption. With the US and Europe struggling with economic slowdowns and institutional mismanagement, China had been the one bright spot for energy commodity optimists.

The only thing holding oil prices above $50 a barrel has been the massive use of energy financial instruments as a "safe haven" for big investors. But big investors can quickly flee a stagnating sector -- as was seen in the summer of 2008 -- causing cascading price collapses.

Miles driven by U.S. motorists have fallen over the last couple of years for the first time since such statistics have been collected, indicating that the American love affair with the automobile could be waning. And gasoline demand in China, the world's largest automotive market, may not skyrocket after all, as the government ramps up its drive to replace internal combustion engines with electric vehicles.

An Israeli economy running on, and exporting, large domestic supplies of natural gas is only the most glaring of the geopolitical game-changers that $50-per-barrel oil would entail. Big growth in Iraq's oil industry would lead that country into discussions, and possible disputes, with Saudi Arabia over OPEC's production quotas. The worldwide gas surplus has already reduced the incentive and ability for Vladimir Putin's Russia to engage in power games with gas importers in Eastern Europe. And, of course, cheaper oil from non-OPEC nations could limit the political focus in the U.S. on foreign oil supplies -- and reduce Congress's urgency to pass a comprehensive clean-energy bill.

More than anything, though, the looming oil surplus calls into question the concept of peak oil, at least in the near future, along with the whole science of forecasting future oil supplies. Adam Brandt, a professor at Stanford's Department of Energy Resources Engineering, released a study last month examining the various models that have been used to predict the future of world oil supplies. "Data do not support assertions that any one model type is most useful for forecasting future oil production," Brandt concludes. "In fact, evidence suggests that existing models have fared poorly in predicting global oil production." _Fortune

Predictions for global oil production along with predictions for global climate change, have been abysmally bad -- perhaps due to the shoddy nature of current computer models being used to preduct these dynamic situations.

Perhaps in 20 or 30 years, newer and better models for predicting oil production and global climate change may give us a better idea what to expect in the future.

Scamming the Nation: Green-Gov -- Industrial Complex

The only way to move smoothly from our present relatively primitive methods of energy production to a higher level of more advanced and sustainable energy, is if the most productive parts of society are working together to find solutions. If the productive parts of society are being parasitised by criminal elements from the government and elsewhere, things are going to become very difficult.

This is a seemingly unlikely story about a very small portion of the green-gov/industrial complex called USCAP - US Climate Action Partnership. It is but one of dozens of ways in which the US ruling class is stripping the nation for salvage, a corrupt cronyist means by which criminals within government, industry, and the faux environmental movement can siphon funds and resources from the productive economy and divert them to their own accounts and to the many factions of the green-gov/industrial complex.

Outside of the Silicon Valley-firm, businesses have teamed up with environmental groups to form the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP). The effort was spearheaded by Immelt and Duke Power CEO Jim Rogers.

Their goal, according to USCAP’s website, is to “call on the federal government to enact legislation requiring significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.” But like it is the case with Doerr and KPCB, the members at USCAP have tried to use climate change and the war against fossil fuels as an excuse to lobby the federal government for policies that directly benefit them financially.

...Last summer, USCAP welcomed what it saw at the time as its first major legislative victory – the passage of cap and trade legislation in the House. Indeed, the CEOs of the member companies of USCAP had a very significant influence on the legislation, known as Waxman-Markey. They even claim responsibility for helping draft certain provisions in the bill.

At that time, USCAP was comprised of high-profile members like General Motors, Chrysler, Deere & Co., Caterpillar, BP, Lehman Brothers, and AIG. According to Myron Ebell, director of Energy and Global Warming Policy at the Competitive Energy Institute, their lobbying efforts on behalf of Waxman-Markey were purely for financial reasons. “Rogers [CEO of Duke Power] knew he could make a lot of money if cap and trade was institutionalized,” Ebell said in an interview with TheDC.

The irony is, however, that, for most, membership in USCAP was downright counterproductive and the financial profits never materialized.

Take Deere, for example. Just last week it was announced that the company gave up its membership in USCAP. “We came to the conclusion that Deere had other opportunities to be involved in climate change initiatives,” the company’s spokesman, Ken Golden said in a press release.
What is significant about Deere’s membership in the first place — and Caterpillar’s too, for that matter — was that it was essentially lobbying for legislation — cap and trade — that would not only hurt its business, but legislation that its shareholders did not want.

Before Deere left USCAP, other members had been dropping like flies. First, Lehman Brothers, AIG, and BP all left the organization for various reasons. Caterpillar and Xerox followed next, then Deere. Which begs the question, why were these companies members of USCAP in the first place?

According to Tom Borelli at the Free Enterprise Project, there are only two reasons why a company like Deere and Caterpillar would join USCAP, and neither have anything to do with creating a better product for consumers or being held accountable to shareholders.

The first is that lobbying for climate-change legislation was part of a larger public-relations strategy. But the second, and most important, is that these companies decided it would be better to join forces with those pushing for cap and trade so they wouldn’t be targeted by any future legislation and would instead receive some of the expected major cash flow. In other words, it was an ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’ strategy.

“Everyone wanted a seat at the table,” Borelli told TheDC. “And yes, it’s good to have a seat, but not if you’re dessert.”

Hence the reason Deere and Caterpillar got out of USCAP, said Ebell. “It’s very likely they realized Waxman-Markey was harmful to their business.”

“Businesses joining USCAP was the politically fashionable thing to do,” said Ebell. “Some of them never even did any economic analysis or cost-benefit study… it was all about transferring wealth from the consumer to big business and big government.”

For example, General Motors, which has been a member of USCAP since May 2007, received $50 billion in government investment (i.e. taxpayer money) in 2009. Then, they turned around and used it to lobby for climate change legislation and promote cap and trade in the hopes of reaping major profits.

Likewise, Chrysler received $15 billion in bailout money from the federal government last year, after being a dues-paying member of the USCAP since 2007. Chrysler too, then lobbied for Waxman-Markey.

But these companies were following GE’s Immelt, who like Doerr, has been instrumental in weaving the web of the green industrial complex.

...The union was short-lived, however, when Lane and Mulva realized the downfalls of cap and trade and pulled out of USCAP. The same thing applies to Caterpillar CEO Jim Owens, who sits on Obama’s economic advisory board. Owens lobbied for the legislation, and then withdrew his company’s support once the bill’s consequences became known.
“These boards of directors are like a club,” said Borelli. “Lane and Mulva greatly contributed to passing Waxman-Markey. So Immelt goes laughing to the government bank, Lane is now retired and rich and Mulva is close to retiring. Nobody is going to hold them accountable for their actions.”

“Waxman-Markey absolutely would never have passed the House if it wasn’t for big business,” said Ebell.

“The CEOs didn’t do their homework,” said Borelli. “They thought they could just ride this short-term wave.”

Though some say climate-change legislation is not going to happen anytime soon, there is still a concern with the upcoming lame-duck session. There is a real worry that Congress might push through some kind of energy-oil cleanup bill during the lame-duck and merge it with the Waxman-Markey bill in the House.

But such are the policy consequences when big business gets cozy with big government. CEOs make bank and escape any kind of accountability, while unpopular legislation like cap and trade gets passed. In the case of USCAP though, a lot of the CEOs did not even know what exactly they were lobbying for and the billions in profits never materialized. _DailyCaller

This is just the beginning of the stripping -- the dismantling -- of the productive sector to benefit the ruling classes. It has happened elsewhere in the western world, and is always an ongoing problem whenever people allow their governments to grow too large for them to control.

These big government associated grifters will steal anything that they can, from whomever they can. If the productive classes and ordinary citizens do not stand up for themselves, they will be stripped clean.

This story reveals how far political agencies are willing to go to silence scientists who disagree with them. Okay, yes, they would go farther than that if they felt it was necessary. Almost every government aqency puts a little bit aside for "black ops."

Splitting CO2 for Fuel and Climate?

* 700 square kilometers (270 square miles) of this system would extract the excess CO2 within ten years
_NextBigFuture

A team of scientists at George Washington University and Howard University have devised a theoretical means of splitting CO2, turning the demon gas into either solid carbon or into carbon monoxide, CO. The CO could be used to generate hydrocarbon fuels with the aid of hydrogen -- a by-product of their theoretical process "STEP" (Solar Thermal Electrochemical Photo).

By using the sun's visible light and heat to power an electrolysis cell that captures and converts carbon dioxide from the air, a new technique could impressively clean the atmosphere and produce fuel feedstock at the same time. The key advantage of the new solar carbon capture process is that it simultaneously uses the solar visible and solar thermal components, whereas the latter is usually regarded as detrimental due to the degradation that heat causes to photovoltaic materials. However, the new method uses the sun’s heat to convert more solar energy into carbon than either photovoltaic or solar thermal processes alone.

...the process uses visible sunlight to power an electrolysis cell for splitting carbon dioxide, and also uses solar thermal energy to heat the cell in order to decrease the energy required for this conversion process. The electrolysis cell splits carbon dioxide into either solid carbon (when the reaction occurs at temperatures between 750°C and 850°C) or carbon monoxide (when the reaction occurs at temperatures above 950°C). These kinds of temperatures are much higher than those typically used for carbon-splitting electrolysis reactions (e.g., 25°C), but the advantage of reactions at higher temperatures is that they require less energy to power the reaction than at lower temperatures.

... The experiments in this study showed that the technique could capture carbon dioxide and convert it into carbon with a solar efficiency from 34% to 50%, depending on the thermal component. While carbon could be stored, the production of carbon monoxide could later be used to synthesize jet, kerosene, and diesel fuels, with the help of hydrogen generated by STEP water splitting._Physorg_via_BrianWang

If humans develop the ability to control the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere through technological means, there would be little reason for the widespread hysteria which is seen in the UN, the EU, and in the Obama Pelosi regime. Likewise, as humans develop better technological methods of weather control -- controlling solar insolation, cloud formation, and precipitation -- the modern over-hyped concern about the use of fossil fuels should eventually subside.

The topmost graphic demonstrates the historically very-low levels of atmospheric CO2 found in our current atmosphere. Clearly the biosphere of Earth evolved under generally much higher levels of CO2. Modern high-tech greenhouses use expensive CO2 generators to boost the levels of CO2 to up to 3 X atmospheric levels -- for more optimal growth of a wide variety of plant life.

The modern obsession with "pre-industrial levels of CO2" displays a profound ignorance of this planet's atmospheric and biological history, as the graphic above demonstrates. Closer inspection of the motives of the leaders of the carbon hysteria orthodoxy demonstrates monetary payoffs via carbon trading, international carbon ransom payments, and other economic maneuvers of questionable legality and wisdom.

It is a good idea to develop the means to control basic atmospheric parameters, in order to provide for rapid recovery from unanticipated geologic or extraterrestrial events. Anyone who has looked at the details of Earth's carbon cycle intelligently and critically will not be alarmed at anthropogenic use of carbon. But the universe holds many surprises for a young race of slightly evolved apes, and it does not hurt to be prepared for as many of those surprises as we can anticipate -- if the results are potentially severe.

Previously published at Al Fin

More: We need all the fossil fuels we have in order to transition into a cleaner, more abundant, and more sustainable energy future. If we cut ourselves off at the neck now (via Obama Pelosi style energy starvation) we will not be able to develop the advanced technologies that will allow us to spread the miracle of Earth's ecosystems through the solar system and beyond. If we follow the political scams that are making the faux environmental movement wealthy and powerful, we may as well call it quits as a species and a planet. Because sooner or later something devastating is going to happen to this planet -- either via innate geological processes, or via an extraterrestrial event. If we follow the witless way of Greenpeace, WWF, Sierra Club, etc. that will be the end, because we will have abandoned technology and space in order to "save the planet." But what we will have actually done, is to allow the only known source of life and intelligence in the universe to die without a struggle. That is not only stupid, but it is cowardly. Do we really want to teach our children to be stupid cowards?