Sunday, January 15, 2012

Finally Hartwell breaks through to the other side

German spiegel-online reports from a study published in Science by Drew Shindell and many other scientists with a title the authors of the Hartwell paper couldn't have said better:
"Simultaneously mitigating near-term climate change and improving human health and food security."
Well, yes. What's new for Science doesn't have to be new for klimazwiebel authors and readers. But finally, good to hear that other people,too, seem to give up their 2-degree goals and become more pragmatic and realistic!
 Here the abstract:


 Tropospheric ozone and black carbon (BC) contribute to both degraded air quality and global warming. We considered ~400 emission control measures to reduce these pollutants by using current technology and experience. We identified 14 measures targeting methane and BC emissions that reduce projected global mean warming ~0.5°C by 2050. This strategy avoids 0.7 to 4.7 million annual premature deaths from outdoor air pollution and increases annual crop yields by 30 to 135 million metric tons due to ozone reductions in 2030 and beyond. Benefits of methane emissions reductions are valued at $700 to $5000 per metric ton, which is well above typical marginal abatement costs (less than $250). The selected controls target different sources and influence climate on shorter time scales than those of carbon dioxide–reduction measures. Implementing both substantially reduces the risks of crossing the 2°C threshold.



63 comments:

Anonymous said...

@ Werner

Sorry, Werner, but the title is all that might be common with Hartwell.
It's a study about buying some time for further mitigation.

Andreas

Georg Hoffmann said...

@werner
"But finally, good to hear that other people,too, seem to give up their 2-degree goals and become more pragmatic and realistic!"

and

"Implementing both substantially reduces the risks of crossing the 2°C threshold. "

The first is your interpretation of this paper?

The first (to my knowledge) who proposed focusing on CH4 IN ORDER to remain within the 2C bounds was Jim Hansen.

Werner Krauss said...

@Georg #2

Yes, indeed, first quote is mind and doesn't make any sense in the light of the second quote from the article. Shame on me.

@ReinerGrundmann said...

"Buying time" is the wrong expression. As the authors make clear, any CO2 mitigation will only be effective on temperature after 2040. Hence the focus on short term drivers such as black carbon and methane. This will make a difference in the coming years and decades.
It is another matter if one thinks this can be or should be linked to the 2 degree limit. The HArtwell paper is agnostic about this, I guess most of its authors would be skeptical. But this is not the point. The advantage of short term measures is that it that they are compatible with several political strategies.

Georg Hoffmann said...

@Reiner Grundmann

"As the authors make clear, any CO2 mitigation will only be effective on temperature after 2040. "

Any mitigation, not just CO2 mitigation.

"Hence the focus on short term drivers such as black carbon and methane. This will make a difference in the coming years and decades."
You mean a difference concerning climate? What is the evidence? The inertia in the system comes mainly from the ocean and not from the type of radiative forcing.

@ReinerGrundmann said...

Georg,
you are wrong. As the paper explains the different timescales are due to different lifetimes of CO2 and other forcings. Ocean inertia is a separate matter. And we will get warming caused by CO2 despite ocean inertia.

Anonymous said...

In erster Näherung ist für die Temperaturentwicklung die Gesamtmenge an CO2 entscheidend, die in diesem Jahrhundert emittiert wird. Wenn nun geplant ist, einen Klimavertrag erst ab 2020 in Kraft zu setzen, dann ist es realistisch betrachtet vorbei mit einem 2°-Ziel.

Es sei denn, es gelänge, andere Klimatreiber wie Methan oder Ruß zu reduzieren. Das meinte ich mit "geliehener Zeit".

Caveat:
Diese Reduktionen gelingen ebenfalls nur, wenn sie weltweit verbindlich in Kraft treten, man benötigt also auch hier einen "Anti-Hartwell"-Ansatz, top-bottom.

Und jetzt mal ehrlich: Warum sollte bei Methan und Ruß gelingen, was bei CO2 in jahrzehntelangen Verhandlungen nicht geschah? Nur weil die Autoren Vorteile für Gesundheit und Landwirtschaft verheißen? Na ja, ich bin skeptisch, aber die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt.


Ein Gedanke noch zu Hartwell:
Ist das nicht das, was jetzt ohne Klimavertrag nicht sowieso schon abläuft? Insbesondere in den USA kann man doch schöne bottom-up-Ansätze bewundern.
Insofern ist für mich Hartwell etwas für Leute, die die Hoffnung auf einen Klimavertrag aufgegeben haben bzw. gar nicht erst versuchen, einen solchen zu erreichen. Werners kaum verhohlener Jubel mutet daher etwas befremdlich an.

@ Werner
Ja, die Chancen stehen tatsächlich gut, dass Sie mit ihrem Skeptizismus eines 2°-Ziels betreffend Recht behalten werden. Recht zu behalten ist da ganz einfach, meine Bewunderung gilt aber denen, die es wenigstens versuchen - auch wenn sie scheitern.

Andreas

@ReinerGrundmann said...

Andreas
"In erster Näherung ist für die Temperaturentwicklung die Gesamtmenge an CO2 entscheidend, die in diesem Jahrhundert emittiert wird. Wenn nun geplant ist, einen Klimavertrag erst ab 2020 in Kraft zu setzen, dann ist es realistisch betrachtet vorbei mit einem 2°-Ziel."

Ich wuerde dringend empfehlen, erstmal den Artikel von Shindell et al zu lesen. Ganz so einfach koennen Sie das nicht abtun. CO2 ist "in erster Näherung" fuer ca. 50% der Erwaermung verantwortlich.

Naja, Bewunderung fuer das heldenhafte Scheitern hatten wir schon oefter, Don Quichotte kommt einem in den Sinn.

Zur Regulierung von Russ und Methan lassen sich bestehende Gesetze anwenden bzw. politische Projekte schmieden, die wesentlich aussichtsreicher sind als globale Vertraege, weil sie auf nationaler Ebene liegen und breite Koalitionen ermoeglichen (v.a. aufgrund der nicht-klimabezogenen Vorteile, wie Gesundheit). Der Hickhack um die Wissenschaft wird damit vermieden.

Darin liegt die politische Atraktivitaet des Hartwell Ansatzes.

Anonymous said...

I think, Ray Pierrhumbert had some good thougts about it in December 2010 in his article at Realclimate "Loosing time, not buying time":

" Let’s suppose, however, that we decide to go all-out on methane, and not do anything serious about CO2 for another 30 years. To keep the example simple, we’ll think of a world in which methane and CO2 are the only anthropogenic climate forcing agents. Suppose we are outrageously successful, and knock down anthropogenic methane emissions to zero, which would knock back atmospheric methane to a pre-industrial concentration of around 0.8 ppm. This yields a one-time reduction of radiative forcing of about 0.9W/m2. Because we’re dealing with fairly short-term influences which haven’t had time to involve the deep ocean, we translate this into a cooling using the median transient climate sensitivity from Table 3.1 in the NRC Climate Stabilization Targets report, rather than the higher equilibrium sensitivity. This gives us a one-time cooling of 0.4ºC. The notion of “buying time” comes from the idea that by taking out this increment of warming, you can go on emitting CO2 for longer before hitting a 2 degree danger threshold. The problem is that, once you hit that threshold with CO2, you are stuck there essentially forever, since you can’t “unemit” the CO2 with any known scalable economically feasible technology.

While we are “buying” (or frittering away) time dealing with methane, fossil-fuel CO2 emission rate, and hence cumulative emissions, continue rising at the rate of 3% per year, as they have done since 1900. By 2040, we have put another 573 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, bringing the cumulative fossil fuel total up to 965 gigatonnes. By controlling methane you have indeed kept the warming in 2040 from broaching the 2C limit, but what happens then? In order to keep the cumulative emissions below the 1 trillion tonne limit, you are faced with the daunting task of bringing the emissions rate (which by 2040 has grown to 22 gigatonnes per year) all the way to zero almost immediately. That wasn’t very helpful, was it? At that point, you’d probably like to return the time you bought and get a refund (but sorry, no refunds on sale items). More realistically, by the time you managed to halt emissions growth and bring it down to nearly zero, another half trillion tonnes or so would have accumulated in the atmosphere, committing the Earth to a yet higher level of long-term warming.

PS:
Georg is indeed wrong. Methane and black soot are short-lived GHG, so a reduction of them would create a negative forcing almost at once.

Andreas

Anonymous said...

Here's the link:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/12/losing-time-not-buying-time/

Did I write "loosing" before? Aargh

Anonymous said...

@ Reiner Grundmann

Glauben Sie, man könnte so einfach auf nationaler Ebene mal ein paar Milliarden Menschen in Entwicklungsländern überzeugen, nun nicht mehr primitiv mit Holz zu heizen? Keine Brandrodungen mehr? Umstellung der Landwirtschaft, Stichwort trockener Reisanbau, weniger Kühe?

Ich weiß, die Autoren meinen, man bräuchte dafür keinen top-bottom-Ansatz. Ich erlaube mir dennoch, zu zweifeln.

Und noch ein Gedanke:
Wenn Methan/Ruß-Reduktion wirklich so ein starker Trumpf in unserem Kartenblatt ist, ist es dann klug, diesen Trumpf direkt auszuspielen?
Noch ein oder zwei Jahrzehnte ohne stärkeren Temperaturanstieg, und der politische Druck ist komplett weg, das süße Gift der Selbsttäuschung könnte wirken.

Ich wuerde dringend empfehlen, erstmal den Artikel von Shindell et al zu lesen. Ganz so einfach koennen Sie das nicht abtun. CO2 ist "in erster Näherung" fuer ca. 50% der Erwaermung verantwortlich.
Danke, Reiner. Ich weiß, wo ich mich nicht auskenne (z.B. Arnell 2004 und Klimafolgengedöns), weiß aber auch, wo ich mich gut auskenne. Bei allem Respekt, aber dies hier ist mein Gebiet, nicht ihres.

Andreas

@ReinerGrundmann said...

"Ich weiß, wo ich mich nicht auskenne (z.B. Arnell 2004 und Klimafolgengedöns), weiß aber auch, wo ich mich gut auskenne. Bei allem Respekt, aber dies hier ist mein Gebiet, nicht ihres."

Mag ja sein, dann zeigen Sie es mit Argumenten, nicht mit der Oberlehrerpose.

@ReinerGrundmann said...

There is an excellent article in The New York Times
on the Shindell et al paper, including short comments from the lead author.

To whet your appetite, this is from the beginning:
"This proposal comes from an international team of researchers — in climate modeling, atmospheric chemistry, economics, agriculture and public health — who started off with a question that borders on heresy in some green circles: Could something be done about global warming besides forcing everyone around the world to use less fossil fuel?"

And this is a quote from Shindell at the end:

"But I also worry that carbon dioxide will go up even if we do focus on it,” he says. “We’re at a complete deadlock on carbon dioxide. Dealing with the short-lived pollutants might really be a way to bridge some of the differences, both between the two sides in the United States and between the developed and the developing world."

Anonymous said...

@ Reiner Grundmann

Dasselbe könnte auch mit Methan passieren. Während man bei CO2 recht gut den Anstieg der atmosph. Konzentration verstanden hat, tappt man bei der Entwicklung der Methan-Konzentration größtenteils im Dunkeln.

Es gibt noch einen weiteren Unsicherheitsfaktor: Im AR4 geht man meines Wissens nicht davon aus, dass das Auftauen von Permafrostböden zu zusätzlichen Methanemissionen führt. Man hat dies außer acht gelassen, weil man zu wenig darüber weiß und ähnlich wie beim Meeresspiegel konservativ "unalarmistisch" rechnet.

Heute ist das Auftauen in Sibirien und Kanada Fakt, die Ergebnisse zu Methanausgasungen sind zwar immer noch sehr unsicher, aber es könnte leicht passieren, dass Reduktionen von "anthropogenem" Methan von Steigerungen dort aufgefressen werden oder mehr. Dann wäre auch diese Trumpfkarte weg.

Ich bin nebenbei auch etwas verwirrt, weil ich nicht verstehe, warum manche, für die CO2-Reduktionen fruchtlose Hirngespinste sind, bei Methan und Ruß plötzlich ihren Skeptizismus verlieren.

PS:
Der Oberlehrer war hier zugange:
Ich wuerde dringend empfehlen, erstmal den Artikel von Shindell et al zu lesen. Ganz so einfach koennen Sie das nicht abtun. CO2 ist "in erster Näherung" fuer ca. 50% der Erwaermung verantwortlich. Fand ich deplatziert, aber was soll's, bin mir nicht mal sicher, ob Sie den letzten Satz richtig erfasst haben (von welcher Erwärmung, bis wann? Merken Sie etwas?).
Sie kritisierten den von mir gewählten Begriff von "buying time". Vielleicht, weil Sie nicht verstanden haben, warum Methanreduktion keine CO2-Reduktionen ersetzen können? Egal, gönnen Sie mir die kleine Genugtuung, dass ich diesen Begriff auch bei Pierrehumbert (ich hoffe, der Name sagt Ihnen etwas, einer der ganz Großen) gefunden habe, ich schätze, dieser hat keinen Nachhilfebedarf.

Anonymous said...

Ok, durchführbar oder nicht, aber setzen wir mal voraus, man hat durch Reduktion anderer Treibhausgase und Ruß die Chance, die globale Temperatur ein einziges Mal(!)um einige Zehntelgrad zu senken.

Die interessante Diskussion wäre nun doch, zu welchem Zeitpunkt dies geschehen sollte und ob diese Diskussion jetzt in der Phase allesentscheidender Verhandlungen über CO2-Reduktionen hilfreich oder kontraproduktiv ist.

Diese hochinteressante Diskussion wurde schon vor der jetzt vorliegenden Studien in einigen "AGW-Blogs" geführt. Wenn Interesse besteht, kann ich ein paar Links angeben.

Andreas

Georg Hoffmann said...

@Reiner
"Georg,
you are wrong. As the paper explains the different timescales are due to different lifetimes of CO2 and other forcings."

0.1W/m2 less radiative absorption by Methane in a certain year equals 0.1W/m2 of CO2 in a certain year (to first order since methane is doing also some chemistry). The question is how much it costs to get a specific reduction in a certain year.
What you have in mind is a comparison CH4/C02 per molecule or per $ invested.

Thank you for your hint on the different time scales.
http://primaklima.blogg.de/eintrag.php?id=22

"And we will get warming caused by CO2 despite ocean inertia."
I dont understand what that means or has to do with the discussion.

Georg Hoffmann said...

As I mentioned it is ironic that exactly James Hansen published pretty much the same results now 11 years ago
http://naturalscience.com/ns/letters/ns_let25.html in a PNAS article (though he used much simpler scenarions and models). Is he not the klimazwiebel ideal type of a scientific narrowing politicakl options, focusing on fossil fuel emissions and dominating/manipulating politicians? Reading his 11 year old paper again one find for example

"Science and politics don’t mix. I believe that active researchers should offer objective
assessment of the science problem and leave it to others to extract policy implications. The
complication is that the scenarios for climate forcings and climate change are a function of
people’s actions. Unless we make clear the relation between those actions and climate change,
policy makers will not have the information they need."

Moreover (and this is also ironic since Drew is in his institute) he is not cited in the paper.

@ReinerGrundmann said...

Georg
you seem to project your own groupthink to Klimazwiebel bloggers.
I have no problem with Hansen saying interesting things 11 years ago. Do you?
And what is the observation worth that the new study did not cite him?

Georg Hoffmann said...

I said "it's ironic" and not "its problematic". And, yes, I think its very ironic that the "science rules the world" Jim Hansen is implicitly celebrated here as finally becoming "pragmatic and realistic". Seems the entire discussion is moving in circles, since Hansen was criticized exactly the same way as Shindell is criticized now (loosing focus on CO2). Read my link above where Hansen is defending himself.

So all in all I call this irony.

Werner Krauss said...

I regret having been polemical in my original post. I just wanted to post the two articles and express my agreement with the general line of arguments. I think the New York Times expresses some of the ideas I had in mind but was too lazy to write down in an appropriate way. The association I had concerning the Hartwell paper as well as to Nordhaus and Schellenberger ("breaks through to the other side"- means: breakthrough, get it?) were appropriate, I think. This does not mean critisizing Jim Hansen or Andreas or whoever. There are many ways to a carbonfree society; and they are not mutually exclusive.

It's worth discussing it and does not mean having to start a controversy. Sorry for that.

@ReinerGrundmann said...

Georg
do you know if Hansen still today holds this position he developed in 2000?

Georg Hoffmann said...

@reiner
"do you know if Hansen still today holds this position he developed in 2000?"

You see. It's interesting. I will find it out. My guess is yes.

Anonymous said...

@ Werner

I'm regretting some things said too, but let's try to reset and concentrate on the main issues.

I am not so sure, if the NYT-article is good. Reading the first page I've got the impression, the author believes reducing non-CO2-forcings could be a substitute to CO2-reductions which is obviously wrong. In the end of page 2 by quoting Shindell the reader gets the right conclusions, I hope, most readers read the article to the end.

One example:
If these strategies became widespread, the researchers calculate, the amount of global warming in 2050 would be reduced by about one degree Fahrenheit, roughly a third of the warming projected if nothing is done.

This quote neglects the effect of rising CO2-forcings beyond 2050. I would prefer another perspective:
If these strategies became widespread, the amount of global warming until 2100 could be reduced by a few tenth °C. This could be important if temperatur will rise by 2-3°C, but is neglectible, if CO2 emissions will continue to rise exponential leading to a warming of 3-6°C.

So let's assume we agree that CO2 reductions are the essential issue:
Is the strategy presented by Shindall helpful or diverting from the really important issue?

Maybe an analysis of the authors assumptions would be helpful, in this case I promise to participate ;-)

Andreas

Anonymous said...

@ Georg, Reiner

"do you know if Hansen still today holds this position he developed in 2000?"

I don't think so. Hansen's alternative scenario was born in times when Hansen thougt, a maximum of 450ppm CO2 could be a tolerable maximum value preventing serious consequence. Later on Hansen became more pessimistic about stronger sea level rise, nowadays he supports for example the 350ppm.org movement.

I've read something about this in his book "storm of my grandchildren", maybe I will find some quotes.

Personally I get a bit nostalgic reading Hansens old paper. How soft the change could have been if we hade done somethings 1-2 decades before. Bad luck, the opportunity of soft solutions seems to be over nowadays.

Andreas

Rob Dekker said...

Werner, the title of your post is Finally Hartwell breaks through to the other side

Now, I appreciate your post 20, but I'm kind of curious of what you had in mind when you wrote the title. Which "other side", other than science, do you propose there is there, really ?

@ReinerGrundmann said...

It may be worth recalling the reasons for an alternative approach to climate policy. One reason is the political deadlock on a global level. There are no signs they will vanish any time soon. With BRICS countries in need of massively more energy in the coming decades they will not accept a cap on their energy consumption. If they don't the US won't either. Those who HOPE that there might be a solution should think again. So far there has not been a zone of compromise which could be explored.

Then there is the reason that economic activity and CO2 emissions are tightly coupled under the given technostructures. The New York Times (above, #13) article has a link to Roger Pielke's blog. Roger, more than anyone else has written on this coupling, also in his book The Climate Fix. He calls it the 'Iron Law of Climate Policy':

"When there’s a conflict between policies promoting economic growth and policies restricting carbon dioxide, economic growth wins every time."

The NYT continues:

"The law holds even in the most ecologically correct countries of Europe, as Dr. Pielke found by looking at carbon reductions from 1990 until 2010."

Have a look here:

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2012/01/eu-decarbonization-1980-to-2010-and-non.html

So far, CO2 reduction efforts have not worked. There is no dent in the Keeling curve. This is why we need policy alternatives. Hartwell proposes a short term strategy focusing on non CO2 drivers, and a long term strategy of developing carbon free energy systems available to all (simply increasing carbon prices would exclude large parts of the world's population from access to energy).

We need a change in vision: from human sinfulness to human dignity.

Hans von Storch said...

Reiner, I fully agree to your analysis. We are in better times now, because new options show up, options which have become mostly invisible because of the unfortunate 2 deg rhetoric (salvation or disaster) and the equating "climate policies = energy policies" (at least in Germany).

Hans

Georg Hoffmann said...

Hans

in my personal view options are not better but we dont have to discuss that. I am more curious why here Werner in the headline or you really seem to identify something new ("NEW options show up", "better times NOW"). Again (I mentioned this above) Hansen published the same idea in PNAS 11 years ago, it was obviously widely discussed in the public at that time (see my link) and you find it in the IPCC (please have a look in WG3 the chapter on agriculture (Chp 8) and waste management (Chp 10) and the correspondant technical summary, both chapter are clearly targeting CH4 and prioritizing methane for the same reasons that were quantified in the Shindell paper).

So I am mainly curious where the "new" comes from in your point of view? Since Nature has a slighlty higher impact than PNAS?

PS Just to mention one point why I believe that this "new" discussion will change as much as the "old " discussion 11 years ago, ie nothing. The fact that open coal fires cost in the order of 100.000 peoples live per year is well established since decades. And now where we (the climate scientists) can add to this perfectly known medical fact the results of computer simulations showing that besides of 100.000 less dead per year the reduction of these open fores will probably slow down global warming by 0.2° until 2050 politicians will take this really seriously? So 100000 lives of their voters today was not enough to act, but 0.2° in the 2050 is? Improbable I would say.

Hans von Storch said...

Georg, I did not want to imply that new options are better, but that more options are better.
That Hansen et al. were discussing these issues is fine, but it did not lead to reverberations in the public debate (at least in Germany); now this takes place - before it did not, see the Schellnhuber interview in Spiegel, August 2010.

You are still in the phase of asking "who is/was right?". That's not the issue - but "how can we efficiently deal with the climate issue?". This door was opened by Hartwell (and Pielke etc.) by pointing our that more options are needed. Maybe there are some who do not think green electricity in Hamburg is efficient, but paying the electricity bill for a family in Africa is?

Georg Hoffmann said...

@Hans
"You are still in the phase of asking "who is/was right?""

Not at all. I just like to see some evidence that something is indeed new. If it is not in Science (I hope that is clear now), if it is not science advice to policymakers (see IPCC above) then as you said it must be the public debate. You say the Shindell paper comes as a big surprice and "new" thing in the public debate in Germany. I know only the Spiegel online ref to the article. Is there much more?
Here are some links on the public debate in the US after Hansens PNAS paper

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/featured_articles/20001003tuesday.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/19/us/study-proposes-new-strategy-to-stem-global-warming.html?pagewanted=all

The fact that today hardly anyone remembers this discussion explains by the way also why I dont expect much from the "new" debate neither.

PS Hartwell changed everything?
Might be I organise a poll who ever heard of the Hartwell paper and, if yes, can give like 2 important points that were raised in it. My guess is that the result is really depressing.

Hans von Storch said...

Georg,
I did not say that I expect that we will now get an efficient climate policy. But I think the chances are improving that we get something; not the big solution, but a kind of solution. But, we two are of course allowed to have different opinions of the future.

"Hartwell changed everything" - not sure, but I guess it may have triggered the NOAA gang to repeat their old suggestions, which were forgotten because of "trains of death" rhetoric and similar dramatic performances. If that is so, I would welcome it.

After many years of equating "climate problem = energy problem" and of claiming that we have only one choice (=<2 K: chance for manageable situation, > 2 K in 2100: climate catastrophe), of insisting that climate is the biggest problem, mankind has ever faced, it will take years to repair the damage done to public understanding of the problem and the availability of options.

Georg Hoffmann said...

Hans
"the trains of death" are from "Lets start with Methane" Hansen.

The Shindell paper said that they did this work "in order to find a way to remain below the 2K boundary".

I see rather a Nietzschean eternal return situation. The chances are excellent that 10 years ahead someone has the brillant idea that instead of focussing on CO2 (which unfortunately did not work for another 10 years) one could try something different: CH4 tata!

Anonymous said...

Sehr geehrter Herr von Storch,

bei mir wirft der Artikel hier mehr Fragen auf als beantwortet werden, ich wäre sehr an ihrer Meinung zu manchen Punkten interessiert:

Als Grundvoraussetzung schlage ich vor, dass wir davon ausgehen, dass ohne CO2-Reduktionen die Reduktion anderer Klimatreiber wertlos ist. Stimmen Sie zu?

Falls ja, dann meine Probleme:
Im Unterschied zur kumulativen Anreicherung von CO2 in der Atmosphäre ist es bei Methan oder Ruß nahezu egal, wann diese Reduktionen in Angriff genommen werden, 2020 oder 2030 oder 2040, egal, es bringt ein paar Zehntel °C Milderung.

1. Die Chancen auf einen Klimavertrag mit verpflichtenden CO2-Reduktionen stehen nicht gut, der Patient ist aber auch noch nicht klinisch tot. Wäre es hilfreich, Klimaverhandlungen in den nächsten Jahren mit einem weiteren Thema (Methan, Ruß, FCKW) zu beladen?

2. Woher rührt die Hoffnung, dass Reduktionen bei Methan und Ruß einfacher zu erreichen sind? Ok, man hört Gründe wie keine opponierende Öllobby, unmittelbare positive Wirkung etc., dennoch finde ich diese Sichtweise sehr optimistisch.

"Keine Öllobby" gab's beim FCKW-Verbot zum Schutz der Ozonschicht auch nicht, trotzdem war das ganze eine sehr, sehr schwierige Angelegenheit, zwar erfolgreich, aber bei weitem kein Selbstläufer.

"unmittelbare positive Wirkung"
kann ich nachvollziehen in Ländern, wo ganze Regionen extrem durch Smog etc. belastet sind, z.B. China. Wie aber möchte man Menschen in der 3. Welt überzeugen, nicht mehr mit primitiven Holzöfen zu kochen, wie möchte man sie von Brandrodungen abhalten etc.? Bei Hartwellähnlichen bottom-up-Ansätzen bin ich skeptisch, wie tiefgreifend die Fortschritte sind, von den versprochenen 0,5°C Abkühlung könnte dann deutlich weniger übrig bleiben.

3. Sie schrieben über das öffentliche Empfinden "(=<2 K: chance for manageable situation, > 2 K in 2100: climate catastrophe.

Ist das nicht ein Strohmann? Möglicherweise gibt es bei Laien bzw. in Teilen der Öffentlichkeit dieses übersimplifizierende Denkschema, ich jedenfalls habe das 2°-Ziel anders verstanden.

Wo ist ihre "Schmerzgrenze"? Damit meine ich, wo würden Sie eine Grenze ansetzen, bei deren Überschreitung gefährliche Klimaveränderungen nicht mehr ausgeschlossen werden können? Mit "gefährlich" meine ich z.B., dass das Abschmelzen des grönländischen Eisschildes zu einem nicht mehr rückgängig zu machendem Selbstläufer wird. Ab welcher Veränderung des pH-Werts der Ozeane können wir gravierende Folgen für die Ökosysteme dort nicht mehr ausschließen?

PS:
Besonders die letze Frage finde ich wichtig, um den Wert des Hartwell-Papers einschätzen zu können (ja, Georg, ich hab das mal gelesen und würde als zentrale Punkte "bottom-up" und Förderung von techn. Innovation nennen).
Die Autoren drücken sich nämlich m.E. vor der allesentscheidenden Frage: Welches CO2-Szenario wird mit diesem Ansatz wahrscheinlich?
Sicherlich keines, was zum 2°-Ziel führt, aber werden es damit 3, 4, 5 oder mehr °C? Das ist doch die Frage, die für Gesellschaft und Politik die entscheidende ist.

Andreas

@ReinerGrundmann said...

Georg
I would echo Hans;s point about your focus on the science. It does not matter much if the IPCC made similar statements in their reports -- they are buried somewhere and have not been selected for policy makers and public consumption.

CO2 is the most difficult of the warming drivers but has been selected as the number one priority. This is an issue of framing the issue (not of science).

Anonymous said...

Mir geht noch ein weiterer Punkt ständig durch den Kopf, der eher politischer und soziologischer Natur ist:

Wir haben jetzt ein Jahrzehnt eher stagnierender Temperaturen hinter, bedingt durch Sondereinflüsse, die die Wirkung der CO2-Zunahme maskierten. Etwas ähnliches könnte man ja auch mit Shindells Ansatz erreichen. War dieses Jahrzehnt aber hilfreich zur Einleitung klimapolitischer Maßnahmen oder führte dies nicht eher zu autosuggestiven Haltungen ("Seht her, wird schon nicht schlimm werden") und einer Erschwernis von Klimapolitik?

Es soll jetzt nicht zynisch klingen, aber ist es womöglich so, dass die Politik und die Weltöffentlichkeit erst die unangenehmen Folgen des Klimawandels mit großer Wucht erfahren müssen, damit Änderungen erfolgen können? Braucht man die Erfahrung, dass bussiness-as-usual nicht nur Energie und Wohlstand bringt, sondern einen Preis hat?

Ja, Politik hat auch eine zynische macchiavelistische Komponente, und wenn man die letzten Fragen auch nur teilweise bejaht, könnte man versucht sein, den "Leidensdruck" auf die Politik zu erhöhen, die Wirkung der Methan- und Rußreduktion läuft ja nicht davon.

Böse Gedanken, ich weiß, ich denke halt auch nur in alle Richtungen ;-)

Andreas

Georg Hoffmann said...

Reiner

I am a bit speachless. "Its buried somewhere in the IPCC" (ie two chapters really focusing on that and its at length in the summary of the mitigation part, articles in NY Times) - that doesnt matter. The public didnt get it.

However "Himalayan glaciers will dissapear in 30 years" (one sentence in one chapter) destroys entirely the good confidence the public had until then into science and IPCC.


@Andreas
I think the principal idea with Methane and BC is to gain time and wait for a wonder. The wonder can be a cheap way of sequestration, a new energy technology (fusion whatever), or a big big mistake in the entire climate science thing. Basically it's the same sort of behaviour my kids have when I tell them that they have to order their room, or today or tomorrow. They choose allways tomorrow since one never knows what will happen until then.

Anonymous said...

@ Reiner Grundmann

CO2 is the most difficult of the warming drivers but has been selected as the number one priority. This is an issue of framing the issue (not of science).

Ja, sicherlich, aber übersehen Sie nicht, dass diese Wahl nicht politisch, sondern wissenschaftlich begründet ist?

Ich versuche eine Erklärung:

Ruß wird binnen Tagen von alleiner aus der Atmosphäre ausgewaschen. Konstante antropogene Emissionen von Ruß führen nicht zu einer Anreicherung, sondern zu einem Fließgleichgewicht.

Ähnlich bei Methan, auch hier führen konstante Emissionen nicht zu einer Erhöherung, sondern zu einer gleichbleibenden atm. Methan-Konzentration. Methan wird zwar nicht ausgewaschen, sondern in Jahrzehnten in CO2 umgewandelt. Dieser Zuwachs an CO2 steht aber in keinem Verhältnis zum Zuwachs durch direkte anthr. CO2-Emissionen.

Ganz anders bei CO2:
Der anthropogene Ausstoß verbleibt ungefähr zur Hälfte in der Atmosphäre und führt momentan jährlich zu einem Zuwachs der CO2-Konzentration um 2-2,5ppm. Ein Zuwachs, der jahrhundertelang dort verbleibt, jedes verschwendete Jahr führt zu einer dauerhauften Erhöhung des CO2-Forcings, es ist also geradezu zwingend und logisch, dass CO2 höchste Priorität hat.


Ich empfehle wärmstens diesen Link, in dem alle Fragen ironischerweise schon vor Shindell et al. diskutiert wurden:
http://planet3.org/2011/12/14/1688/
(Heute wird leider dort gestreikt, anti-SOPA)

PS:
Es wäre fatal, wenn in der Öffentlichkeit dieser Unterschied verloren geht und Methan-Reduzierung als Alternative zu unbequemen CO2-Reduzierungen betrachtet wird. Dies ist Hansen damals mit seinem alternativen Szenario passiert, mal schauen, ob es dieses Mal besser laufen wird.

MfG
Andreas

Anonymous said...

@ Georg

I agree, therefore I used the expression "buying time". Later I had to learn, that this expression has been already coined by Ray Pierrehumbert ("Losing time, not buying time") and Bart Verheggen.
And ironic to see, that this topic has been discussed before Shindell et al. in some AGW-blogs, the same people who are supposed here to ignore it.

PS:
What a pity, that you missed to present this exciting and interesting issue in your own blog ;-)

Andreas

@ReinerGrundmann said...

Georg

you are exemplifying the scientistic attitude in your sarcastic comment

"I am a bit speachless. "Its buried somewhere in the IPCC" (ie two chapters really focusing on that and its at length in the summary of the mitigation part, articles in NY Times) - that doesnt matter. The public didnt get it."

Indeed, these issues have not been selected for attention. An IPCC report has thousands of pages and the New York Times is an important but elite newspaper.
Just did a quick check on NexisUK database for all US newspapers over the last 10 years. There are 227 stories mentioning Climate change/global warming and soot or methane in the same article. There are thousands and thousands mentioning carbon dioxide (the cutoff is 3000 stories and you get more than 3000 for the last year alone).

The fact that science has stated this or that does not normally matter for society. There need to be specific translation mechanisms in place (hint: Grundmann/Stehr, Die Macht der Erkenntnis, stw 1990 ;-)).

By the same logic of yours I could say that Arrhenius already calculated the effects for doubling CO2 in the atmosphere, estimating some degrees in temp. increase. So why did we need the IPCC?

Or do I completely miss your point?

Georg Hoffmann said...

@Reiner

"you are exemplifying the scientistic attitude in your sarcastic comment "

I hope so. To christmas I get even a salary supplement for extra sarcastic behaviour.

"There are 227 stories mentioning Climate change/global warming and soot or methane in the same article. There are thousands and thousands mentioning carbon dioxide (the cutoff is 3000 stories and you get more than 3000 for the last year alone)."

As Andreas explained the problem IS a CO2 problem. So for once the media represent a story realistically? Hard to believe.
A BC or Methane problem could be fixed tomorrow. And even this is not fixed though about 100000 people per year could be saved addressing BC and open coal fires. Check on your data base how often the death toll off coal burning has been mentioned. Oouups.


"By the same logic of yours I could say that Arrhenius already calculated the effects for doubling CO2 in the atmosphere, estimating some degrees in temp. increase. So why did we need the IPCC?"

Arrhenius made a number of errors and didnt have the necessary spectral data (see phd thesis of Jean Luis Dufresne).

I am getting lost in this discussion. This is the storyline I understood here:

"Hysteric scientist speaking of death trains and other stuff were monopolizing the public discussion. They reduce the number of options instead of increasing them. Scientist dont behave as honest brokers but as stealth issues adcocate. Luckily now things have changed. A new openess allows to speak about things never heard before."

Is this about right? If yes I dont think it has much do to with reality. The worst stealth issue advocate ever, Hansen himself, proposed the same options presented now 11 years ago. If there is something new now compared to the situation 11 years ago what could it be? At that time the NYT discussed it, now its in Spiegel online. So what? What is new now compared to the situation 11 yrs ago? I really cant see it.

Might be the Hartwell paper? I just launched a poll on my blog asking who ever heard something of the Hartwell paper. Lets assume these are well educated people with a particular interest in climate change. 93 votes in 3 hours. 85 never heard of it, 7 have an association, one read it.
So probably it is not the Hartwell paper that changed the situation.

Scientists made studies on soot and Methane, they published it, they described strategies how to handle them in order to somehow obtain an optimised pathway to a warmer future, they communicated this in newspapers, bloggs and in the holy IPCC report. I have no idea what they could do more. Produce a video with Scarlett Johanson talking about the importance of cutting Methane emissions?

If I am missing really something in the public presentation of climate change then it is the fact that no one who is now paying taxes will notice any consequences of how his government handles the climate change problem. Though this is probably the real reason why it never will be handled in any way.

Anonymous said...

@ Reiner Grundmann

"There are thousands and thousands mentioning carbon dioxide (the cutoff is 3000 stories and you get more than 3000 for the last year alone)."

Maybe I'm wrong, but I hear in this quote a similar idea you mentioned before saying:

CO2 is the most difficult of the warming drivers but has been selected as the number one priority. This is an issue of framing the issue (not of science).

I tried to explain in #37 some reasons why CO2-reductions are a logical way to tackle climate change.

Maybe you are annoyed and ignore me, don't know. Regarding my explanations in #37 I can't understand why you repeat things, that are obviously nonsense in my eyes. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I misunderstood your intentions, it could only be clarified in a statement by yourself. Aren't you interested here in dialogue?

PS:
I forgot, that you are one of the authors of the Hartwell paper. I think, the crucial point is, what will be the maximum CO2-concentration if we follow the Hartwell strategy. I find nothing about this important point in the paper, did the authors discuss that item?

Andreas

Werner Krauss said...

@Georg #28 and Rob #25

As said before, I am not totally happy about the wording of my post. Anyway, just to clarify. Georg, apart from the headline, I wrote that there is NOTHING new in the Science article for klimazwiebel readers.
The headline results from the fact that both Nordhaus and Schellenberger (the guys from the "breakthough" blog) as well as the Hartwell paper came to my mind when reading these articles. They all (with Roger Pielke jr, who is consequently mentioned in the New York Times article) suggested similar strategies.
The headline "breaks through to the other side" results from (the admittedly vague) idea that it indeed is a kind of breakthrough to open up the discussion from exclusively debating CO2. I was not aware that Jim Hansen did so already 11 years ago.

The headline also results from the magic of the words; I guess, it is the title of a song from The Doors. It's poetic. This is something I always liked about the Hartwell paper: it tried at least a little bit to change the climate rhetoric from a purely scientific (and implicitly deterministic) language to a more poetic or human rhetoric. They used words like "dignity", they respect people (instead of turning them into subjects in need of scientific enlightenment or else a stupid bunch of greedy idiots), and they tend to see climate change as a huge challenge instead of a scenario of doom and apocalypse.

Andreas #35 and #37, for example, seems to suggest that we need more apocalyptic rhetoric and maybe even real catastrophes in order to convince people and keep them aware of future dangers. I wholeheartedly disagree. Catastrophes don't teach anything, they only bring loss, pain and cause traumas. Even worse, this strategy implies that climate science only partially tells the truth to the people for political-strategical reasons. This is something which was correctly criticized by klimazwiebel, from the very beginning. This is not the way we want politics, be they about climate or something else. Even more, this rhetoric partially seems to blind those who make use of it: they obviously do NOT see all the initiatives already going on worldwide and which are in need of support. We need a new language of climate change!

Finally, I want to admit again that I am not too happy about the wording of my post. Too much in it, not enough explained. And it is a cheap invitation to polarize, which is unnecessary. Both "sides" (if there are any) are much more complex - it is the heat of the debate that makes them partisan.

Georg Hoffmann said...

@Werner
I have another post in your spam I think.

Giving people their dignity back? This is not my job and I am not sure if this is of any help to decide if one should target Methane or CO2 first.
Obviously 100.000 dead per yr was not reason enough to do something about soot and open coal fires. Before we take care of their dignity one might have a look on their lives.

Werner Krauss said...

@Georg
no post in the spam - this blog just eats posts, mine, too. Don't know why.

For your "no dignity" talk you deserve the honorary John Wayne / Humphrey Bogart award!
"Giving people their dignity back? This is not my job" and
"Before we take care of their dignity one might have a look on their lives"
are two real killer lines, cowboy!
The prize is a bottle of Whiskey, for sure!

Rob Dekker said...

@Werner The headline "breaks through to the other side" results from (the admittedly vague) idea that it indeed is a kind of breakthrough to open up the discussion from exclusively debating CO2. I was not aware that Jim Hansen did so already 11 years ago.

Thanks for the clarification, Werner. As Georg pointed out, the IPCC has recognized the importance of methane and black carbon, balanced well in their reports for their importance of climate change. Also, as Reiner pointer out, science in general has allocated research and published findings on non-CO2 sources of climate change forcings, possibly quite balanced w.r.t. their relative importance.

Hartwell is a scientific paper, and thus, in the context of the fact that scientific research has been very well aware for decades of the relative importance of black carbon and methane versus CO2, maybe it would be appropriate to clarify what you mean with "breaks through to the other side" and "new for Science" in a 'update' on the post itself rather than postings in the comments here (which easily get swamped). Just a suggestion.

Georg Hoffmann said...

@Werner
"no post in the spam - this blog just eats posts, mine, too. Don't know why."
It's a pity. It was post with many more punchlines, more Sarah Connor like though.

I think your comment to what Andreas said is a bit unfair. Andreas didnt say anything of needed catastrophes as far as I see. He pointed out that the real problem is and remains CO2 whatever the emissions trajectory is. You cannot say instead of a problem I cannot solve we solve another problem just because we can and then everone feels better and is cured of sinfullness and full of dignity.

This is not about feel good therapy for everybody. If you want this just tell everybody that hardly nobody is touched by climate change during his/her lifetime (perfectly true and IPCC based) and you are done with it.

@ReinerGrundmann said...

Georg
your comment should be visible now, (#40)- saw it in the spam box and set it free.

@ReinerGrundmann said...

Georg,
my emphasis was on "scientistic", not sarcastic. And your subsequent posts affirm what I call "scientistic". The reason why we have such communication problems has probably to do with the fact that we cannot agree on the right policy options and role science plays in this.
CLimate scientists have been very successful indeed of setting a media campaign in motion which is based on CO2 mitigation. There are studies showing how accurate media reflects this message from science. I don't know if you are interested reading such studies.

Rob
the Hartwell paper is not a scientific paper but rather a policy manifesto to re-orient climate policy after the crash of 2009 (as its subtitle says).

Andreas
the HP does not engage in scientific modelling or scenario building and thinks that climate projections as such do not offer useful policy guidance. Giving numbers as you request is politically not effective. It is of interest to scientists engaged in modelling. What HP would say is that the direction of policies should be in the right direction, i.e.a minus rather than plus sign on climate forcings.

Georg Hoffmann said...

@Reiner

yes I am interested. My reading capacities however are controlled by my kids and not by my interests. Please send me the literature.

Scientists present rightly the CO2 as THE actual problem and I dont know how whatever policy options there are could change this scientific fact.

Hans von Storch said...

Georg. The statement "the CO2 as THE actual problem" is your view, but mine is: "the problem is the changing in the statistics of weather, which are mostly caused by the increase of CO2 concentrations, which is caused by people." Do you recognize that my statement is different from yours?

Who has claimed that different policy options would change the assertion that CO2 is the dominant driver behind the change?

You say, the cause of a problem is THE problem. Example: Storm surges - a problem. Sure. Caused mostly by wind. Sure. Is the problem the wind or is it the high water level?

@ReinerGrundmann said...

Georg

the most relevant publication is probably Max Boykoff's
Flogging a dead norm? Newspaper coverage of anthropogenic climate change in the United States and United Kingdom from 2003 to 2006

which you can view here
http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/publications/downloads/Boykoff07-flogging.pdf

In this article Boykoff revises a previous study undertaken by himself (and his brother Jules, published in 2004) in which they showed that the US press was giving too much weight to skeptical voices
Balance as Bias: Global Warming and the US Prestige Press.

The problem is that too many climate scientists want to believe this earlier study as it provides a simple and convenient explanation for the lack of policy action in the US. The problem is that it no longer holds after 2004, as Boykoff in his later study shows.

BTW, I made a similar assumption of "false symmetry" in media reporting in a article which appeared in 2007. In this article I also makes the (naive) assumption that mainly scientists are the important actors in public discourse
http://aston.academia.edu/ReinerGrundmann/Papers/57842/Climate_Change_and_Knowledge_Politics

I have a more recent paper which examines the linguistic level of climate reporting in the media here (based on a very large corpus)
http://cadaad.net/2010_volume_4_issue_2/65-52

Rick, Boykoff and Pielke Jr. have a recent study of seal level rise in the media:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/1/014004

There are of course, many more. But for these are good places to get started.

Anonymous said...

@ Reiner Grundmann

"the HP does not engage in scientific modelling or scenario building and thinks that climate projections as such do not offer useful policy guidance. Giving numbers as you request is politically not effective.

Given that the CO2-concentration IS the crucial point (I hope you can agree now) I can't help, but then the Hartwell strategy misses the most important issue.

Would this strategy lead to emission scenarios similar to those compared with the Kyoto process, a little worse or much worse? Or would it even lead to emissions similar to business-as-usual (BAU) scenarios?
In the first case it would indeed be a further option, in the second case Hartwell is dead.

Without knowledge adapting the Hartwell strategy is like taking a road, noone knows where it leads to, it's just gambling.

Andreas

Werner Krauss said...

@Hans #50:
thanks. well argued.

Anonymous said...

@ Werner Krauß

"Andreas #35 and #37, for example, seems to suggest that we need more apocalyptic rhetoric and maybe even real catastrophes in order to convince people and keep them aware of future dangers. I wholeheartedly disagree."

Jetzt fühle ich mich aber komplett missverstanden (ich schreibe übrigens immer deutsch, wenn ich genau das vermeiden will) und lege Protest ein ;-)

1. Ich bin selbst ein Gegner "apokalyptischer Rhetorik" und empfinde eine solche als kontraprokuktiv. Mein hypothetischer Vorschlag beinhaltete überhaupt keine Rhetorik, sondern nur die real einsetzenden Folgen.

2. Denken wir doch mal meinen Vorschlag einer Aufschiebung von Maßnahmen zur Reduzierung von non-CO2-Forcings durch:

a) Die Folgen der kommenden Erwärmung sind doch nicht so schlimm wie befürchtet, die Anpassung funktioniert, wir haben nichts verloren.

b) Die Folgen der kommenden Erwärmung sind so schlimm oder schlimmer wie befürchtet, dann wird es aber schneller einen Konsens zu einer Verschärfung von CO2-Reduktionen geben, der Knoten platzt, und wir haben mit der Reduktion von nicht-Co2-Klimatreibern noch ein Werkzeug in der Hand, um stabilisierend eingreifen zu können (oder will jemand dann geoengineering o.ä.?).

Nun das andere Szenario für Fall 2.b):
Wir reduzieren jetzt Methan und Ruß, Stabilisierung jetzt und nun meine Befürchtung: Einlullende Wirkung, die Bereitschaft für CO2-Reduktionen sinkt, wir haben mehr CO2 als in Szenario 2.b, die eintretenden Wirkungen sind noch heftiger und wir haben nicht einmal mehr die in 2.b) genannte Möglichkeit der Stabilisierung.

Ist das die humane Strategie, Werner? Könnte es nicht am Ende so sein, dass ihr Ansatz zwar gut gemeint, aber verheerende Folgen haben kann?

(Ich gestehe aber, dass ich mich dabei auch nicht ganz wohl fühle, an dieser Stelle bin ich heilfroh, kein Entscheidungsträger zu sein.)

Andreas

Werner Krauss said...

@Andreas #54

Das Beschreiben "real existierender Folgen" kann auch nur in Form von Rhetorik erfolgen. Rhetorik ist die Kunst der Rede, und es gibt nur gute oder schlechte Rhetorik, aber den Gegensatz Fakten / Rhetorik gibt es nicht, da auch Fakten der Rede bedürfen, um mitgeteilt zu werden. "Die Fakten sprechen lassen" ist eine schöne Illusion, aber es ist eben das: eine Illusion.

Ich halte es auch für eine Illusion daran zu glauben, dass "die Politik" etwas beschließen wird, und dann ist das Problem erledigt. Wenn das ginge, hätten wir auch keine Umweltverschmutzung, keinen Hunger und keine Ausbeutung mehr, oder (allesamt übrigens ähnlich komplexe Probleme wie offensichtlich der Klimawndel auch). Politik kann allenfalls Anreize setzen, neue Technologien hervorzubringen, die sich nicht schädlich auf die Atmosphäre oder Biosphäre auswirken, sondern vielmehr produktive Verbindungen zwischen Techno- und Atmosphäre hervorbringen.

Wir denken ja immer noch in den Kategorien des 20. oder gar des 19. Jahrhunderts, wenn wir globale Probleme verhandeln. Als ob da jemand kommt und dann was verbietet und dann ist wieder alles gut. Oder als ob man die Menschen lenken und ihr Verhalten durch (schwarze) Pädagogik nachhaltig verändern könnte ("das sagen wir ihnen lieber nicht, dann machen sie nämlich das und das etc..."). Man muss sich vom Kolonialismus verabschieden,auch wenn man Angst hat, dass einem dann der Himmel auf den Kopf fällt. "Wir" sollen China was verbieten? Oder Indien muss endlich einsehen, dass...? So geht das nicht, das ist einfach unrealistisch.

Es ist allerdings inzwischen etwas ganz anderes passiert, nämlich technologische Revolutionen, neue Biopolitiken und die Globalisierung.
Inzwischen ist auch der "neue Mensch" durch neue Technologien "einfach so" entstanden, ebenso eine "eine Welt" durch neue Formen der Vernetzung. Und durch CO2, zum Beispiel, was uns (unangenehmerweise) ziemlich eint.

Um dieses Problem anzugehen bedarf es Anreize, um diese Vernetzungen von Techno-, Bio- und Atmosphäre positiv herzustellen und, soweit möglich, unfreiwillig entstandene negative Verbindungen zu korrigieren. Diese Aktivitäten müssen, so stelle ich mir das vor, die gleichen Formen der Vernetzung nachvollziehen, die zu dem Problem (unfreiwillig) geführt haben - diese Mischung aus lokaler Produktion mit globalen Folgen. Also an den Orten. wo viel emittiert wird, Lösungen finden, um eine positive globale Bilanz herzustellen. Das geschieht übrigens schon an erstaunlich vielen Orten, und dies sollte unbedingt wahrgenommen, erkannt und gefördert werden.

Ein Verständnis von Globalisierung oder globalen Problemen wie Klimawandel, das auf Lokalitäten, Interaktionen und Vernetzungen basiert, ist dabei sehr hilfreich und lenkt die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Vielfalt der Aktivitäten, Möglichkeiten und Initiativen allerorten, die in diese Richtung gehen (und von Ihnen und Georg anscheinend völlig ignoriert werden). Anstatt negativer globaler Fantasien braucht es lokale Utopien und soziale Netzwerke, die neue Verbindungen schaffen. Man kann das Rad nicht einfach zurückdrehen und sich nach autoritären Verhältnissen sehnen. Es geht vielmehr um intelligenten Widerstand, um produktive Fantasien und Initiativen, um gute Ingenieurskunst und um eine angemessene Rhetorik auf der Höhe der Zeit. Und um den Mut, mit Vielfalt und Komplexität zu arbeiten. Auf der einen Seite die Studentin, die, um das Klima zu retten, Vegetarierin wird, auf der anderen Seite Georg, Hans und andere, die versuchen, einen anständigen Weltklimabericht zu basteln. Alle gleich lächerlich oder gleich heldenhaft, alle vernetzt und Passagiere im gleichen Raumschiff. Alle unter derselben Klimahülle, alle im Netz, alle lokal und gleichzeitig mit den unwahrscheinlichsten Orten und sogar dem Himmel verbunden. Und, Georg, alle mit ihrer eigenen Würde, die es zu respektieren gilt, egal ob man das Klima erforscht oder Politiker ist.

Anonymous said...

@ Hans von Storch (#50)

I've been curiously waiting for Georg's reply, but he seems being offline for the moment. So please allow me to answer.

Yes, I see the difference:
If someone regards the cause CO2 as the problem, he will naturally focus on CO2-reductions.
If someone regards the consequences as the problem, he will have some more options, mitigation and/or adaption.
Have I understood your point?

I think, here it would be more helpful to emphasize the agreement between you and Georg.
Please take the context into regard: Werner wrote about Shindell 2012, a paper about mitigation. Both of you agree, that CO2 is the dominant climate driver, so if we talk about mitigation, CO2 is the main problem.

In the discussion here I've thought several times, that some persons do not agree:
Could reducing of non-CO2-ghg be an alternative to CO2 reductions? Is the fixation on CO2 a political issue, not scientific? This would be strange in the context of Shindell and mitigation.

I quoted to examples in #37, don't know, maybe I misunderstood the author. Maybe a big part of the confusion here arose, because Werner and Reiner mentioned Shindell, but were in fact talking about Hartwell. I thougt, the topic is Shindell, i.e. strategies of mitigation, but it wasn't.


PS:
"the problem is the changing in the statistics of weather, which are mostly caused by the increase of CO2 concentrations, which is caused by people."

I think I can subscribe to this point of view, but only on shorter time scales. If I think in longer time scales, say centuries and more, I'm not sure, if changing weather patterns means a narrowing of the spectrum of consequences.

For example, the PETM event was followed by a mass intinction of species, mainly in the oceans. Of course not because of bad weather, ocean acidification is a broadly discussed candidate. Can we exclude consequences like this on longer time scales? I don't know.

Andreas

Anonymous said...

@ Werner

Das wird ja immer schlimmer für mich, anfänglich war von meiner "apokalyptischen Rhetorik" die Rede, nun werde ich in Verbindung mit "Kolonialismus" und "altmodischem Denken" in Verbindung gebracht.

Mal ganz abgesehen davon, dass es in Durban gerade viele Ex-Kolonialländer als heutige Entwicklungsländer waren, die am stärksten auf schärfere Mitigation drängten, setze ich doch gerade darauf, dass nicht gegen bestimmte Länder entschieden wird, sondern dass bei allen Ländern die Einsicht wächst, freiwillig sich selbst Beschränkungen aufzuerlegen. Kolonialismus??

Abgesehen davon kann ich nur ihre Sicherheit bewundern, mit der Sie davon ausgehen, dass ihre präferierten "modernen" Strategien erfolgreich sind und alle Folgen des Klimawandels beherrschbar sind. Ich habe diese Sicherheit nicht.

Und falls mein Denken wirklich altmodisch ist, kann ich damit leben. Dann denke ich einfach mal ein Jahrzehnt zurück, als der Neoliberalismus seinen Zenit erklomm und der starke Staat, Sozialstaat etc. schon als Auslaufmodelle galten. So lange, bis die Finanzkrise alle "modernen Denker" plötzlich ganz alt aussehen ließ.

Moden und Ansichten ändern sich durch Konfrontation mit der Realität. Darauf setze ich: Ganz ohne Rhetorik, still schweigend die nächsten Jahrzehnte ausharren und beide Ansätze mit der Realität des Klimawandels konfrontieren. Und es wäre sehr schön, falls die Realität nicht meine, sondern ihre Ansichten hinwegfegt, wenn wir dann noch einen Trumpf in der Hand hätten: Reduzierung von Methan und Ruß als Beispiel

Bis dann
Andreas

Rob Dekker said...

Reiner said Rob, the Hartwell paper is not a scientific paper but rather a policy manifesto to re-orient climate policy after the crash of 2009 (as its subtitle says).

Thank you. I messed up. I meant to say 'Shindell' instead of Hartwell, in my post 45.

In re-reading Werner's comments on his own article (post 20 and 42) I understand that he drew an association with the Hartwell paper and Nordhaus/Schellenberger when he read the Science article, and I still would recommend such clarifications by the author in an 'update' on the post itself rather than embedded in the comments.

Also, Werner, I'm really sorry, but I'm still confused about what you mean with "the other side" in your title, even after reading your post 20 and 42. Did you mean "science" or "scientists" (who came to realize the complexity of policy making) or Shindell personally or something completely different ?

Rob Dekker said...

I'm sorry, but the time-zone difference (I'm in California) makes it hard to quickly reply. So forgive me for elaborating a bit more.

My issue is that I'm still trying to understand what this post is about. For the moment I assume that you meant to say that scientific papers now seem to start to be sensitive to political policy issues, at least in the titles of their articles.

If that's true, then are you arguing that that is a good thing ?
Or do you argue that Shindell should have called his article something more directly related to his research, like "relative cost of black-carbon and methane emissions on human health effects and climate forcing", which would probably not have given him as much 'bang for the buck' in the popular media ?

Werner Krauss said...

@Andreas #57

Wie? Was? Ich habe ein neoliberales statement gemacht? Echt? Ach herrjeh, wie konnte mir das passieren! Ich denke sofort drüber nach, danke für den Hinweis.

Ihr Insistieren auf den starken (Sozial-) Staat in allen Ehren, aber andererseits gilt doch auch, dass alle dauerhaften Veränderungen eher von der Technologie ausgingen, vom Buchdruck über die Dampfmaschine zum Computer. Das widerspricht sich ja nicht. Aber da das linke Projekt doch arg gerupft im 21. Jahrhundert angekommen ist, kann man ja mal drüber nachdenken, ob der starke Staat überhaupt in der Lage ist, in dieser globalen Welt so weitreichende Maßnahmen durchzusetzen, oder ob die guten Ansätze nicht von woanders kommen und auf die der Staat dann reagieren kann.

Darüber nachzudenken, dazu eignet sich ja der Klimawandel. Auffallend allerdings, dass man gerade auf diesem Gebiet eigentlich nie aufregende Gesellschaftstheorie zu hören bekommt, sondern meist nur Depression oder Calvinismus oder Autoritätsfantasien.

Was mir z. B. bei Nordhaus und Schellenberger immer gut gefällt (neben vielen anderen Dingen, wo sie enorm nerven), ist der Vorwärtsdrang - Klimawandel nicht als Anlass für Restriktionen, sondern für Innovationen. Auch wenn das als blasphemisch gilt (oft sogar im Wortsinn).

("apokalyptisch" oder "kolonial" etc. ist übrigens nicht persönlich gemeint, wie immer, sondern an den Sparringspartner gerichtet, der Sie ja auch sind - in diesem Übungsraum für Klima- und Gesellschaftstheorie namens klimazwiebel).

Werner Krauss said...

@Rob # 58 and #59

Rob, the answer is: "Yes". I appreciate your considerations. "the other side" fits well, maybe, even though I am unable to pin it down. All of that what you mention matters and happens simultaneously. I bet Hans would call this the postnormal situation.

Thanks for reminding me repeatedly to post an update on the original post - I think this is not necessary. Every clarification only complicates the situation; maybe it's worth for some following the discussions, others will graze on more interesting fields.

Georg Hoffmann said...

@Hans
I have absolutely nothing against adaptation (if this is your point). I am fine with putting half of the available money into this (or more). However at the end of the day one must reduce CO2 emissions.

Should adaptation be more apparent in the public discussion? Probably yes.

Should it be an important part of international negociations? Probably not. Why should Germany discuss with argentine if they should better protect themselves agains flooding of the Rio De La Plata? For the moment adaptation is a national or regional problem at best. No need to discuss this in Kyoto.
CO2 Emission however are an Allmende problem and that definitely needs international negociations.

@Werner

"Es geht vielmehr um intelligenten Widerstand, um produktive Fantasien und Initiativen, um gute Ingenieurskunst und um eine angemessene Rhetorik auf der Höhe der Zeit. Und um den Mut, mit Vielfalt und Komplexität zu arbeiten."

Bin vielleicht zu alt fuer sowas. Mein Esoterikmeter springt bei den Zeilen glatt auf die 10.

Anonymous said...

@ Werner

Wieder ein Missverständnis: Ich habe weder Sie mit neoliberalen Ideen in Verbindung gebracht noch mich selbst als Anhänger eines linken Staatsmodells geoutet, es war nur ein Beispiel dafür, dass Etikettierung wie "modern" oder "altmodisch" manchmal sehr kurzlebig sind.

Aber da das linke Projekt doch arg gerupft im 21. Jahrhundert angekommen ist, kann man ja mal drüber nachdenken, ob der starke Staat überhaupt in der Lage ist, in dieser globalen Welt so weitreichende Maßnahmen durchzusetzen, oder ob die guten Ansätze nicht von woanders kommen und auf die der Staat dann reagieren kann.

Im Grunde interessiert mich Sozialpolitik etc. nicht besonders, der Klimapolitik gilt mein Interesse, in ihrem Zitat tut sich nun aber eine interessante Verbindung auf:

Ja, Globalisierung bzw. globale Probleme können von einem Staat alleine nicht gelöst werden, wir haben in der Tat eine Erosion des starken Staates feststellen können.

Prinzipiell gibt es nun zwei Strategien:

Die eine untersucht, wie schwache Staaten trotz ihrer Schwäche etwas zustande bringen können, die andere präferiert, dass globale Zusammenarbeit und Kooperation den staatlichen Einfluss sichern bzw. stärken können.

Ich schätze, dass ist genau der Punkt, in dem sich die Hartwell-Autoren und die Anhänger des jetzigen top-bottom-Ansatzes unterscheiden.

PS:
Wir zwei scheinen ein ernstes Kommunikationsproblem zu haben, es scheint langsam die Regel zu werden, dass einer den anderen grundsätzlich falsch versteht. Woran liegt's?

Andreas