My first post on HuffPost UK blogs. On Climate Sensitivity

Wahey. Today is my first day as a HuffPost UK blogger.  It is a happy day for me.  My first blog on HuffPost UK is over here, but for all those who cannot tear yourself away from the Mabinogogiblog, here it is:

Can Popper Resolve the Global Warming Debate?

While about 97% of climate scientists accept that man-made global warming (AGW) is a real threat to humanity, the public is in two minds as to whether climate change is a real threat. This is the result of a highly effective campaign by the climate change "sceptics", who use mainstream and social media to attack each and every point made by climate scientists. This has caused journalists and broadcasters to bracket climate change as "controversial", and therefore to feel obliged to balance any climate scientist with a speaker for the sceptics. This in turn confuses Joe Public, who tends to think, "Well, the truth must be somewhere in between".

Democratic politicians are nervous of introducing radical measures when there is no overwhelming public enthusiasm, and so the uncertainty in the mind of the public translates into inadequate action from politicians in matters like energy conservation and transition to renewable energy.

This journalistic balancing act struck between science and sceptics would be right and proper if there were an equal balance of scientific evidence for either point of view, but it is not right to balance science with ideologically driven attacks from a point of view which lacks any real scientific basis. Journalists do not feel the need to balance every scientific statement about evolution by giving equal airtime or column inches to creationists.

Are climate sceptics in the same category as creationists? They could be. We are going to have to get technical here - but the only alternative is to take the scientists at their word, and this the sceptics are unwilling to do. Therefore we have to understand the science, starting with what we know.

There is a common misconception that science "proves" things. It does not. The great philosopher of science, Karl Popper, showed that the best status that any scientific statement can achieve is not "proven", but "not yet disproven". Refutation is central to science. If a statement is not capable of refutation, it cannot be a scientific statement.

The central claim of the climate sceptic is that CO2 does not seriously affect the global climate. In scientific terms, this translates into the hypothesis that climate sensitivity is low - that is, the global temperature does not rise significantly when more heat is put into the system.
Let's start from what we know:
· We know from textbook physics that CO2 is a greenhouse gas - that is, it retains heat within the atmosphere.
· We know from measurement that since the industrial revolution (taken as 1750), the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased from 280ppm to 394 ppm.
· We know from radioisotope studies that it is our fossil fuels that are responsible for this increase.
· We know from basic textbook physics that this increase in CO2 alone is sufficient to push up temperatures by about 1ºC.

OK? All straightforward, uncontroversial physics so far - albeit intensely simplified.
Now we come to Climate Sensitivity (CS).

CS is the amount by which the average temperature of the atmosphere will eventually increase from a doubling of CO2. The extra warming comes from positive feedbacks - factors that are affected by the initial warming, which in response will produce further changes.

· Warmer air holds more water vapour, which itself is a greenhouse gas, so further warming takes place. That is a positive feedback.
· Cloudiness will increase, which has a complex effect. High clouds produce cooling, by reflecting incoming solar heat, while lower clouds hold heat in by a blanket effect. The net result is a small net warming.
· Further down the line, as warming takes place, melting ice loss means less reflected heat, another positive feedback.
· Methane, another greenhouse gas that is far more potent than CO2, will escape from unfrozen tundra, which is a long term positive feedback.

All of these factors - and more - have to be entered into computer models to find how they interact.

Climate science has applied a great deal of effort to the question of CS. Multiple lines of evidence - from models, observations of known temperature changes, and proxy records from ice cores - show remarkable convergence towards a value of 3ºC (+/- 1.5º) C for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. In particular, it looks as if a value less than 1.5ºC is very unlikely.

In science, when there is this kind of convergence onto a value from disparate lines of enquiry, the value should be accepted unless very strong evidence is brought against it.

There are a small number of papers by sceptics which claim a low value around 0.5ºC. These have been comprehensively criticised on various grounds by the climate science community - indeed, they would say "refuted" - but because of the technical nature of the argument, and the media-shy nature of scientists generally, this part of the debate rarely emerges into the public domain.

It is time for the CS debate to be brought out into the open in order to show journalists, commentators and opinion formers that the position of the sceptics lacks any scientific credibility. Instead of defending their position against an endless series of attacks by the sceptics, the scientists should take the fight to the sceptics, and will be able to show that their case is disproven.

That way, we will be able to move on from the debate, and will be able to make the changes necessary to ensure that our grandchildren can live secure lives.

George Monbiot calls for nuclear power to be insured.

Wahey. George Monbiot has agreed to join the call for nuclear power to be insured.

He set up a nuclear debate today on the Guardian's Comment is Free site.
Huge response, as you would expect. I asked if he would join the call for nukes to be insured, and he said yes.

Gerry Wolff's excellent Energy Fair site has a link to a study on insurance of nukes. At present they are insured to about 1% or less of a maximum credible accident.  If they were to be fully insured, it would put the cost of nuclear electricity up by a factor of about 17.  In short, unaffordable.

Ironic, isn't it, that with the interminable debate, technical and moral, over nuclear power, it should be money that settles it? It was privatisation that killed nukes under Thatcher, and insurance costs will kill nuclear power post Fukushima.

Mabinogogiblog moves up in the world.

Wahey! The Mabinogogiblog has moved up 2 places in the Total Politics poll of green political blogs. From 11th last year to 9th this year. That only took 295,478,994 words.

Life has meaning after all.

Congratulations to all other Green blogger colleagues who figure, and commiserations to those whose efforts are not recognised in this particular forum.

Needless to say, green bloggers disdain all competitiveness and worldly ambition.

ANNOY A BANKSTER. SUPPORT THE TOBIN TAX.

Wahey! The petition in support of the Tobin tax has 26 signatures already!

It took 9 days for the No 10 webmaster to put it up, but it's there now.

Please spread the word.

The only people who oppose the Tobin Tax are the banksters.

It is right and just that the casino, money generating economy should pay a tax, and this is a tax that can slow up unhealthy practices, can pay us back for the billions they caused us to have to shell out last year, provide insurance against the next crash, and also help the world's poor.

ANNOY A BANKSTER.
SUPPORT THE TOBIN TAX.

Mabinogogiblog placed 11th in Total Politics Green Blogger Awards

Wahey!

The Mabinogogiblog has been voted to 11th place of the top 25 green bloggers on the TotalPolitics site.

I am humbled and proud. (Chokes back tears). (Gather! Gather!) I want to thank the whole team that made this possible, especially my index fingers, my keyboard, the screen, the computer thingy, the power companies that supply me with electrons, my PV cells that supply electrons on sunny days when I should be outside smiting wood, my supportive chair, my family, Vegger the dog, also Spotty and Stripey, and the brain dead idiocy of the ruling classes without which I would not be a blogger, but instead would have to put up with having a life.

(rushes off stage left, clutching a Green Blogger Award, overcome with emotion).

Libertas candidate quits to support greens

EU hopeful quits party - News - Manchester Evening News:

"NEW party Libertas has been forced to replace its north west candidate for the European Parliament after Benjamin Tallis left the party.
...

'In the north west I'm going to be supporting the Greens campaign because I think they have the best chance of stopping the BNP." "

Hernando de Soto is the Man for sorting the economic mess

Wahey! Page 3 of Observer Business and media has a piece on Hernando de Soto, (Hernando de Soto Polar, to give him his full moniker, so as not to confuse him with the Spanish Conquistador, nor with the Austrian school economist Jesús Huerta de Soto). Our Hernando is a highly regarded 67 year old Peruvian economist who speaks up for the poor and the informal economy.

He believes Gordon Brown's low interest rates and quantitative easing will fail unless he also tames the derivatives.

First, his numbers:
$13 trillion in notes and coins in the world
$170 trillion of credit in bonds and equity
$600-1000 trillion in derivatives (this aligns with the unsubstantiated figure of 1.4 quadrillion which was floating about last year).

13, 170, 1000. Derivatives out-scale physical money by up to two orders of magnitude.

The Observer report continues "What dramatically undermined capitalism since about 2000 was the growth of unregistered assets - derivatives. Now that those have turned toxic, as the loans attached to them have been defaulted on or have come to be regarded as worthless or significantly devalued, we do not even know how big the problem is. We do not know where it is either - mainly because the banks have been reluctant to reveal the truth. Many of the derivatives that have caused the crisis are bearer bonds, and there is no worldwide register of them...

De Soto is used to living in a country which is about 60 per cent a hidden - or shadow - economy; the black market accounts for most trade and most people have no title to their home. His work is about empowering people by recording their entitlement to certain assets (most obviously their homes), thereby, enabling them to borrow, trade, receive letters and conduct other basic commercial transactions through those assets.
The UK and the US have become shadow economies ... through the toxic asset crisis. Both have now started detoxification programmes, but in a rather wobbly fashion. ... It is only when all banks with significant problems sign up, make honest declarations and the toxic assets are taken off the books that they will start lending normally to each other and businesses once more, says de Soto.
"You will end up there," he says. "But it's very frustrating to see this from the outside. The whole source of the debacle is the US and the UK. And it is tough to watch you not getting to the centre of the issue. There is an intellectual lag. But this is a problem that can't be dealt with in terms of traditional monetary policy.
Detoxification is a process we have more experience of than we realise. When East and West Germany reunited in 1990, the East German currency had to be detoxified and de Soto believes that the work of the 300 or so experts involved in that programme would provide useful insights now.
But once detoxification happens, results could be seen quickly: "This [detoxification process] is something that could be done in two or three months. It will be a painful exercise but, once you have found a way to take the detoxification out of the system, you are going to be able to free up credit." [emphases added]
So in a nutshell, Brown has first to register the derivatives, and then to neutralise them, otherwise all the taxpyers' money, and new money that he has thrown at the problem will be wasted.

Regular readers of this blog will be relieved, as indeed am I, that all the obsessing about derivatives that has been going on here since last October has been valid. I am not an economist, thank god, but I have picked up on Willem Buiter, who has been saying the same thing, and wrote to the Treasury on October 13th 2008, urging action on the Toxic Assets (complete ignoral). You do not have to be clever or even smart, you just have to look at the figures for the volume of the derivatives relative to the real economy.

The Green Party, indeed, all sentient beings capable of written communication, should be calling on Alistair Darling to listen to de Soto and Buiter, and demand that the banks register their toxic assets. This is in fact on Darling's agenda. He is proceeding along the time honoured lines: "When all else fails, RTFN"*

Trouble is, people are rabbitised by the headlights of the credit crunch, believing it to be beyond ordinary mortals to understand. It is not.

Why has Darling not done this already? The answer must be that he is still in awe of the banksters, because they have been pushing Governments around for more than 100 years. Wake up Alistair! Banksters are no longer the Masters of the Universe, they are just a lot of Very Naughty Boys.

*read the fine manual.

If Ill, Stay Home and listen to PM on the Radio

Wahey! Listening to PM on the wireless, they discuss colds and flu, and then they read out my email (see "If Ill Stay Home", below) about keeping out of circulation when ill.

Remember, you read it here first.

Maybe they got worried because I have been pitching into the media recently.
It'll take more than that to make me feel benign about the BBC.
Give the Green Party the same percentage of political air time as we got at the last General Election, BBC, or the licence fee gets it.