There was a nice turnout for my lecture last night at UC-Berkeley (in Giannini Hall, above) as part of the 2009 Breakthrough Seminar Series. Lots of good discussion as well. At the talk I met Tom Fuller, who has posted up some comments about the talk. And I understand that a streaming video will be online before long. Meantime, you can download my slides here in PDF. Comments welcomed.
UPDATE 7/3: More form Tom Fuller here. And here. And even more here.
2 comments:
Thanks for the excellent presentation - now saved to my desktop. Clearly you understand better than almost anyone the problems with the current thinking on climate policy. Unfortunately, you don't sufficiently acknowledge the politicisation and lack of objectivity of the UN IPCC. Twisted scientific reports give rise to twisted policy. Balance the science and we're then much more likely to get a balanced climate policy.
Currently unjustified and unverifiable climate alarmism via the demonisation of CO2 is resulting in unachievable targets that actually seriously damage our ability to develop new technology.
Excellent presentation on how difficult it would be to reduce our collective carbon emissions but I must echo Paul Biggs' concern about the "science" prduced by the IPCC. Their mandate is as follows:
"Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they need to deal objectively with policy relevant scientific, technical and socio economic factors."
The important part is " risk of human-induced climate change". Nowhere is there any thought to understand natural causes. Clearly, with an extremely narrow viewpoint on the Solar effects, they have discounted the Sun as an insignificant effect. The literature is full of excellent evidence that the Sun drives our climate. Piers Corbyn predicts weather up to a year in advance based on other worldly cycles and relations.
Several have shown that the inverse logarithmic relation of CO2 concentration to temperature rise makes further warming unlikely from anthropogenic emissions.
If the solar physicists are correct, we are headed towards an extended period of cold climate where cheap(not heavily taxed), plentiful energy will be a necessity. Without it, and I mean worldwide, millions could freeze to death.
You mention wind power to replace coal. At the current cost of windmills, a somewhat derogatory reference,the bill would be $1250 trillion to replace coal energy. That is not doable. And to top it off, they say the winds are dying.
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