fascinating and concise overview of Welch's work in progress!
Obviously, the feedback arrows between CO2 and economic growth are always going to be fuzzy. IT-led growth means folks have to travel less and purchase less physical goods (DVDs and whatnot). AI-led growth means incredibly energy-intense IT. Unless they use renewables and nuclear to power AI...
My problem with your last, optimistic paragraph: nobody knows how fat the tails are going to be. If, say, the Gulf Stream is weakened after Greenland ice melts, then all bets are off. When you have cascading effects on a global level, then you get risk of ruin. And as us investors know, ruin is the one thing we need to avoid, at all costs.
If Greenland melts no one in West Europe is going to worry about the gulfstream any longer since there will be much greater and immediate problems. But Greenland is hardly meling and expected to rebalance around 2080.
Btw; any study / news item about the gulf stream or the more complicated global oceanic currents is highly speculative. We only have sound data since the turn of the century. While distinguishing with certainty natural strengthening / weakening patters and then adding projected ranges of climate change is still in its infancy.
exactly. That's the precautionary principle. When we don't really know what's going on, but there is a non-negligable risk of ruin, we do what we can to prevent ruin.
I'd say this application of the cautionary principle more resembles classic Christian Eschatology. While the way the energy transition is 'done' especially by Germans, is nuts.
To underwrite that stupidity: just last week, after Norway earlier refused to further connect international electric cables with Germany, the Swedes did the same. Two countries electrically 'in the plus' (hydro and nuclear) refusing e-ties with DE because they fear the elecric imbalances and price effects at home. And they're right about that.
I am convinced that our emotional, unscientific and uneconomic reaction to climate change, which we do not understand very well, can't model very well (clouds aren't in models fgs) while no scientist can say with certainty how much is natural and how much is man-made, is more dangerous than climate change itself.
I'm with you 100% on the stupidity of Germany's energy policy. Nuclear is on balance OK because its risks are local, and don't cascade. To burn coal instead (increasing the global and cascading risks of CO2) is moronic.
Germany's energy 'policies' by progressives and 'conservatives' alike are the perfect example of the religious aspects of environmentalism and climate change fundamentalism.
There must be some need for these emotions in the west: as one problem is solved (water & air pollution for instance) a new danger/fear is found (nuclear). Which has now been replaced by 'a boiling planet'. (Originally it was 'the greenhouse effect' which became 'global warming' which became 'climate change'. While the original Paris' target in 2015 of + 2C max by 2100 was lowered in 2018 to 1.5C).
I'd say Germany's way of relating to nature, which significantly differs from other European countries, seems to be at least a bit 'mystical'. (Though the Germanic tribes do not seem to have had a class of priests i can't help thinking of druids and big oak trees right now).
As western Europe warmed to the enlightenment the Germans came up with Romanticism...
I'm not romantic about the enlightenment though, as it does not seem to protect from fundamentalist thought. While as the west democratized 'ordinary' war became total war - and not just in Germany.
To contrast Germany's longing for remaining in a natural state, the Dutch entirely fabricate their 'natural' state. We create 'nature'. And while were at it we determine the exact time period we want this new piece of 'nature' to reflect: the 1960s, the 1980s or now. And from that moment our ecologists, biologists and local, provincial and national politicians work to keep that piece of 'nature' exactly like that pristine beginning.
And when something changes, say new spieces appear because it gets warmer, these professionals who say they are about making the NL more 'natural' freak out because to them change is not natural if it's a deviation from the early, pristine state. Though in reality it's an aberration from a 100% human induced 'natural' Genesis. It's for a reason new species are called 'invasive species'...
I find ecologists some of the weirdest academics we produce, almost like a luxury our societies can afford. For now.
Nuclear and its totemic powers...
The Guardian a few years ago delivered phenomenal proof:
'The problem is that the underground store will still be contaminated in 300,000 years, and no one can predict what language our descendants will read or speak at that time, or what messages might convince them not to dig into the New Mexico rocks. In the 1990s nuclear security experts proposed symbols, earthworks and mounds of rubble designed to convey an appropriate sense of menace to anyone stumbling on the area.
The intended message was: “This place is not a place of honor … No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here … nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.”'
It IS happening, Europe is 2C warmer now than the baseline 1880 (as 'the start of the industrial age this is of course a laughable starting point, and not by accident. Look up the 19th century temp chart: simply the coldest year was chosen. Just like heatwave-charts c.s. typically start in the 1950s or 60s. To avoid 'disturbing' the alarming upward trajectory on the right in the chart by inserting the data from the 1930' heatwaves - still the biggest temp spikes out there...).
'Nuancing' RCP/SSP8.5 down to a proposed RCP/SSP6.5 is ridiculous. RCP/SSP8.5 and 7 are both technically impossible (per the IPCC and Carbon Brief a.o.), while RCP/SSP6.0 is very, very unlikely. It is simply not possible for us to produce the corresponding amount of CO2. There are 7000 fossil power plants on earth right now, we need another 20.000 or so to reach the levels of RCP/SSP8.5. So you can see how a proposed RCP/SSP6.0 is technically unrealistic. Though surely it exists in the nerdie imagination of an economist.
The IPCC expects RCP/SSP4.5 to be the realistic projection for 2100 temps, with a range of about 2.2 to 2.5C. More than half of that we've already pocketed. And don't forget climate change is not global, it mostly plays out - like always, this isn't the first time - on the northern hemisphere (more land than water) while it is particularly Europe and the Arctic that warm.
Climate change has many consequences and modelling them is impossible, hard or unwanted. What would be unwanted, since climate change is an entirely ideological theme by now, would be to model the fact that cold water is what you call a CO2 sink. It's undersaturated with CO2 and thus the Arctic is expected to absorb (more) CO2. This is just one factor.
As for impacts: only a dramatic sea level rise would be a cause for alarm. But the Arctic isn't going to produce that because it's sea ice. There is a little bit of unbalanced summer melt in Greenland (more melts than refreezes in the winter) but it's certainly nor dramatic and under RCP/SSP4.5 studies expect it to rebalance around 2080.
Antarctica ISN'T warming and hasn't for 70 years:
'The Antarctic continent has not warmed in the last seven decades, despite a monotonic increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases'
People tend to not read climate studies let alone IPCC reports but if you want a quick view of what the IPCC detected look up the chart at page 90 of the IPCC latest report AR6, ch 12 'Climate Change Information for Regional Impact and for Risk Assessment'
It's not very impressive. Note however that the columns on the right make predictions that are based on...RCP/SSP8.5. (Open or look for any study you see mentioned in some news headline and search for the models applied. Typically it's the low end RCP/SSP2 and RCPSSP8.5). Now guess which model outcome produced the headline of the article you're reading.
And now think of the T wasted on an ass first energy transition. Who in his right mind builds tens of thousands of wind mills, installs mlns of solar panels and DOESN'T build out the grid? We did.
Destroying energy security is more dangerous than climate change. But what we get are pundits lamenting voters turning right as the European economy declines (and to add it's exactly these voters who are most impacted by wage competition from immigration. But they're simply attributed some deep brown instincts. Apparently only academics look out for their own economic interests. While they concern themselves with saving planets as long as those economc interests are secured).
Dutch progressive newspapers and climate activists broke their heads a few weeks ago when it was measured that the CO2 footrpints of climate change worriors ie the NL middle class was much greater than that of their ideological opponents: mostly working class realists (although they're usually described as dump and influenced by foreign powers). But which idiot could be surprised by such numbers? Well, apparently people who typically - and traditionally - decry OTHER people's 'consumption-based lifestyles' (i.e. working class vulgarians). Then they fly off to their Peruvian eco-lodge holidays.
Here they are once more:
Luxury Beliefs are Status Symbols - The struggle for distinction
Welch is going to be found out. But as an economist he's probably not only used but also immune to that. To see their significant problems with reality just look up Krugman's c.s. articles on 50% of US voters having some kind of economic false conscience. They ought to be celebrating the great state of their finances. But Krugman doesn't know his numbers. While the FED expresses todays employment guestimate as a projection of last year's...And then typically later it's worked over more than a bit.
The Phiily FED however produces better insight:
'Philly Fed's employment index in the United States moved up nearly 3 points to -7.9 in May 2024, from -10.7 in the previous month. It marks the seventh consecutive month of job shedding, albeit the softest in four months. Two-thirds of the firms reported no change in employment levels this month, while the share of firms reporting decreases (20%) exceeded the share reporting increases (12%). The average workweek index rose 10 points but remained negative at -8.3.'
Meanwhile since covid US full time jobs are being replaced by part time jobs. And most newly created jobs are part time and filled by immigrants. Maybe Krugman should do a Gunter Wallraff in some slaughterhouse for a couple of months.
(The Guardian is so worried about American's economic false conscience (they may vote Trump! And that will be the end of the world! Again...) that they emailed Danielle DiMartino-Booth about it. Who took them apart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w021Ju50q98&t=142s )
Finally, to correctly place 'experts' just read Philip Tetlock's Super-forecasting (i think that corny title was produced by his publisher, it's a serious book)..
'In particular, accelerating clean energy technology could causally reduce worldwide emissions'
Now contrast that with for example this from Lars Schernikau:
'The fact remains that our primary energy in total will increase faster, the more we have wind and solar in our grids... as their net energy efficiency is very low compared to coal, gas, or hashtag#nuclearpower'
If curbing CO2 is the objective how much sense makes doing that by renewables at the moment? And here we're only talking about renewables' inefficiency. If you take in account the CO2 produced making wind mills...
40 mln liters of diesel have been used doing the maintenance of a NL/BE offshore park of 390 wind mills since 2009.
For energy realism people to follow on for instance LinkedIn would be Schernikau, Michael Liebrecht, David Blackmon and Mark P Mills.
fascinating and concise overview of Welch's work in progress!
Obviously, the feedback arrows between CO2 and economic growth are always going to be fuzzy. IT-led growth means folks have to travel less and purchase less physical goods (DVDs and whatnot). AI-led growth means incredibly energy-intense IT. Unless they use renewables and nuclear to power AI...
My problem with your last, optimistic paragraph: nobody knows how fat the tails are going to be. If, say, the Gulf Stream is weakened after Greenland ice melts, then all bets are off. When you have cascading effects on a global level, then you get risk of ruin. And as us investors know, ruin is the one thing we need to avoid, at all costs.
If Greenland melts no one in West Europe is going to worry about the gulfstream any longer since there will be much greater and immediate problems. But Greenland is hardly meling and expected to rebalance around 2080.
Btw; any study / news item about the gulf stream or the more complicated global oceanic currents is highly speculative. We only have sound data since the turn of the century. While distinguishing with certainty natural strengthening / weakening patters and then adding projected ranges of climate change is still in its infancy.
exactly. That's the precautionary principle. When we don't really know what's going on, but there is a non-negligable risk of ruin, we do what we can to prevent ruin.
I'd say this application of the cautionary principle more resembles classic Christian Eschatology. While the way the energy transition is 'done' especially by Germans, is nuts.
To underwrite that stupidity: just last week, after Norway earlier refused to further connect international electric cables with Germany, the Swedes did the same. Two countries electrically 'in the plus' (hydro and nuclear) refusing e-ties with DE because they fear the elecric imbalances and price effects at home. And they're right about that.
I am convinced that our emotional, unscientific and uneconomic reaction to climate change, which we do not understand very well, can't model very well (clouds aren't in models fgs) while no scientist can say with certainty how much is natural and how much is man-made, is more dangerous than climate change itself.
I'm with you 100% on the stupidity of Germany's energy policy. Nuclear is on balance OK because its risks are local, and don't cascade. To burn coal instead (increasing the global and cascading risks of CO2) is moronic.
Germany's energy 'policies' by progressives and 'conservatives' alike are the perfect example of the religious aspects of environmentalism and climate change fundamentalism.
There must be some need for these emotions in the west: as one problem is solved (water & air pollution for instance) a new danger/fear is found (nuclear). Which has now been replaced by 'a boiling planet'. (Originally it was 'the greenhouse effect' which became 'global warming' which became 'climate change'. While the original Paris' target in 2015 of + 2C max by 2100 was lowered in 2018 to 1.5C).
I'd say Germany's way of relating to nature, which significantly differs from other European countries, seems to be at least a bit 'mystical'. (Though the Germanic tribes do not seem to have had a class of priests i can't help thinking of druids and big oak trees right now).
As western Europe warmed to the enlightenment the Germans came up with Romanticism...
I'm not romantic about the enlightenment though, as it does not seem to protect from fundamentalist thought. While as the west democratized 'ordinary' war became total war - and not just in Germany.
To contrast Germany's longing for remaining in a natural state, the Dutch entirely fabricate their 'natural' state. We create 'nature'. And while were at it we determine the exact time period we want this new piece of 'nature' to reflect: the 1960s, the 1980s or now. And from that moment our ecologists, biologists and local, provincial and national politicians work to keep that piece of 'nature' exactly like that pristine beginning.
And when something changes, say new spieces appear because it gets warmer, these professionals who say they are about making the NL more 'natural' freak out because to them change is not natural if it's a deviation from the early, pristine state. Though in reality it's an aberration from a 100% human induced 'natural' Genesis. It's for a reason new species are called 'invasive species'...
I find ecologists some of the weirdest academics we produce, almost like a luxury our societies can afford. For now.
Nuclear and its totemic powers...
The Guardian a few years ago delivered phenomenal proof:
'The problem is that the underground store will still be contaminated in 300,000 years, and no one can predict what language our descendants will read or speak at that time, or what messages might convince them not to dig into the New Mexico rocks. In the 1990s nuclear security experts proposed symbols, earthworks and mounds of rubble designed to convey an appropriate sense of menace to anyone stumbling on the area.
The intended message was: “This place is not a place of honor … No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here … nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.”'
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/14/poisoned-legacy-why-the-future-of-power-cant-be-nuclear
To start, just read some Pielke jr.
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-could-the-ipcc-make-an-error
And why not read the new head of the scientific working group at the IPCC:
Don't overstate 1.5 degrees C threat, new IPCC head says
https://bit.ly/3Qky3nA
'Climate change will happen'...
It IS happening, Europe is 2C warmer now than the baseline 1880 (as 'the start of the industrial age this is of course a laughable starting point, and not by accident. Look up the 19th century temp chart: simply the coldest year was chosen. Just like heatwave-charts c.s. typically start in the 1950s or 60s. To avoid 'disturbing' the alarming upward trajectory on the right in the chart by inserting the data from the 1930' heatwaves - still the biggest temp spikes out there...).
'Nuancing' RCP/SSP8.5 down to a proposed RCP/SSP6.5 is ridiculous. RCP/SSP8.5 and 7 are both technically impossible (per the IPCC and Carbon Brief a.o.), while RCP/SSP6.0 is very, very unlikely. It is simply not possible for us to produce the corresponding amount of CO2. There are 7000 fossil power plants on earth right now, we need another 20.000 or so to reach the levels of RCP/SSP8.5. So you can see how a proposed RCP/SSP6.0 is technically unrealistic. Though surely it exists in the nerdie imagination of an economist.
The IPCC expects RCP/SSP4.5 to be the realistic projection for 2100 temps, with a range of about 2.2 to 2.5C. More than half of that we've already pocketed. And don't forget climate change is not global, it mostly plays out - like always, this isn't the first time - on the northern hemisphere (more land than water) while it is particularly Europe and the Arctic that warm.
Climate change has many consequences and modelling them is impossible, hard or unwanted. What would be unwanted, since climate change is an entirely ideological theme by now, would be to model the fact that cold water is what you call a CO2 sink. It's undersaturated with CO2 and thus the Arctic is expected to absorb (more) CO2. This is just one factor.
As for impacts: only a dramatic sea level rise would be a cause for alarm. But the Arctic isn't going to produce that because it's sea ice. There is a little bit of unbalanced summer melt in Greenland (more melts than refreezes in the winter) but it's certainly nor dramatic and under RCP/SSP4.5 studies expect it to rebalance around 2080.
Antarctica ISN'T warming and hasn't for 70 years:
'The Antarctic continent has not warmed in the last seven decades, despite a monotonic increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases'
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-020-00143-w
Climate change and extreme weather:
People tend to not read climate studies let alone IPCC reports but if you want a quick view of what the IPCC detected look up the chart at page 90 of the IPCC latest report AR6, ch 12 'Climate Change Information for Regional Impact and for Risk Assessment'
https://bit.ly/452idBO
It's not very impressive. Note however that the columns on the right make predictions that are based on...RCP/SSP8.5. (Open or look for any study you see mentioned in some news headline and search for the models applied. Typically it's the low end RCP/SSP2 and RCPSSP8.5). Now guess which model outcome produced the headline of the article you're reading.
And now think of the T wasted on an ass first energy transition. Who in his right mind builds tens of thousands of wind mills, installs mlns of solar panels and DOESN'T build out the grid? We did.
Destroying energy security is more dangerous than climate change. But what we get are pundits lamenting voters turning right as the European economy declines (and to add it's exactly these voters who are most impacted by wage competition from immigration. But they're simply attributed some deep brown instincts. Apparently only academics look out for their own economic interests. While they concern themselves with saving planets as long as those economc interests are secured).
Dutch progressive newspapers and climate activists broke their heads a few weeks ago when it was measured that the CO2 footrpints of climate change worriors ie the NL middle class was much greater than that of their ideological opponents: mostly working class realists (although they're usually described as dump and influenced by foreign powers). But which idiot could be surprised by such numbers? Well, apparently people who typically - and traditionally - decry OTHER people's 'consumption-based lifestyles' (i.e. working class vulgarians). Then they fly off to their Peruvian eco-lodge holidays.
Here they are once more:
Luxury Beliefs are Status Symbols - The struggle for distinction
https://bit.ly/464Zbw4
Climate Activism Isn't About the Planet. It's About the Boredom of the Bourgeoisie
https://bit.ly/3iMrE61
Welch is going to be found out. But as an economist he's probably not only used but also immune to that. To see their significant problems with reality just look up Krugman's c.s. articles on 50% of US voters having some kind of economic false conscience. They ought to be celebrating the great state of their finances. But Krugman doesn't know his numbers. While the FED expresses todays employment guestimate as a projection of last year's...And then typically later it's worked over more than a bit.
The Phiily FED however produces better insight:
'Philly Fed's employment index in the United States moved up nearly 3 points to -7.9 in May 2024, from -10.7 in the previous month. It marks the seventh consecutive month of job shedding, albeit the softest in four months. Two-thirds of the firms reported no change in employment levels this month, while the share of firms reporting decreases (20%) exceeded the share reporting increases (12%). The average workweek index rose 10 points but remained negative at -8.3.'
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/philly-fed-employment
Meanwhile since covid US full time jobs are being replaced by part time jobs. And most newly created jobs are part time and filled by immigrants. Maybe Krugman should do a Gunter Wallraff in some slaughterhouse for a couple of months.
(The Guardian is so worried about American's economic false conscience (they may vote Trump! And that will be the end of the world! Again...) that they emailed Danielle DiMartino-Booth about it. Who took them apart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w021Ju50q98&t=142s )
Finally, to correctly place 'experts' just read Philip Tetlock's Super-forecasting (i think that corny title was produced by his publisher, it's a serious book)..
Btw here is a link to the complete studie:
https://tinyurl.com/5c757hw8
With this in the conclusion:
'In particular, accelerating clean energy technology could causally reduce worldwide emissions'
Now contrast that with for example this from Lars Schernikau:
'The fact remains that our primary energy in total will increase faster, the more we have wind and solar in our grids... as their net energy efficiency is very low compared to coal, gas, or hashtag#nuclearpower'
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/larsschernikau_china-coal-wind-activity-7208378336132141057-YHUu?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
If curbing CO2 is the objective how much sense makes doing that by renewables at the moment? And here we're only talking about renewables' inefficiency. If you take in account the CO2 produced making wind mills...
40 mln liters of diesel have been used doing the maintenance of a NL/BE offshore park of 390 wind mills since 2009.
For energy realism people to follow on for instance LinkedIn would be Schernikau, Michael Liebrecht, David Blackmon and Mark P Mills.