The White House has applauded Portland and fifteen other local governments as “climate action champions” for promising to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps the White House should have waited to see whether any of the communities managed to meet their goals before patting them on the back.
Take Portland, for example. The Northwest city’s modest goal is to reduce Portland and Multnomah County emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. Planners claim that, as of 2010, the city and county had reduced emissions by 6 percent from 1990 levels. However, this claim is full of hot air as all of the reductions are due to causes beyond planners’ control.
Almost two-thirds of the reduction was in the industrial sector, and virtually all of that was due to the closure in 2000 of an aluminum plant that once employed 520 people. The closure of that plant hasn’t led anyone to use less aluminum, so all it did was move emissions elsewhere.
Another 22 percent of the reduction was in residential emissions, and that was due solely to 2010’s “anomalously mild winter” and below-average summer temperatures, as 2009 emissions were greater than those in 1990. Only 7 percent of the reduction was in the transportation sector, for which Portland is famous. But all of that reduction was due to the recession, not the city’s climate plan, as transport-related emissions grew through 2005 and the city didn’t record a reduction until 2009.
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Portland doesn’t have many more large factories that it can put out of business to achieve its climate goals. Nor can the city count on a continued depression to keep people from driving or an anomalously mild climate to keep people from turning on their heat or air conditioning.
The lesson here is that cities and counties are the wrong level to try to reduce emissions of something like greenhouse gases. This is a lesson we should have learned already based on our experience with toxic pollutants such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides.
In 1970, Congress required urban areas with dirty air to write transportation plans that aim to reduce air pollution. Since then, total tons of transport-related air pollution (CO, NOx, SO2, VOCs, lead, and particulates) have declined by 83 percent–and all of that decline came from making cleaner cars. If anything, too many regional transportation plans have made air dirtier by focusing on trying to get people out of their cars and using increased congestion as a tool for doing so. Cars pollute more in traffic congestion, but planners didn’t built that into their models, so they could claim that their plans would work when they actually didn’t.
Despite this failed record of trying to reduce air emissions at the city-county level, the White House is very grateful to Portland and other local governments for writing greenhouse-gas-reduction plans that make promises they won’t be able to keep. They will, however, be able to use those plans to increase congestion, make housing less affordable, and increase other consumer costs. The cities consider these things to be small prices to pay to be declared a climate action champion.
The question about cities being environmentally beneficial are becoming moot because few will be commuting or living in cities in the future. Because of their stubborn congestion, regulation, urban strife, high housing costs, and lack of mobility, people are fleeing cities like rats from a sinking ship.
I’d say let the cities fester in their smart-growth induced socialist hellholes. For example, let’s have a look at the slow-moving disaster that’s taking place in San Fancisco:
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Downtown-traffic-seems-worse-but-studies-show-it-5379797.php
What the troll didn’t include:
So 95% of intersections saw no increase in speeds or saw a decrease in speeds. Meaning speeds in an underwhelming 5% of monitored intersections increased, which would probably be offset by the decrease in 37% of the 95% of intersections.
Those sneaky people. Sneaking into SF. Probably to sneak to a speakeasy/microbrewery and sneak back out.
Well there’s something I can agree with; sounds like the same assholes who live in Seattle. Or any other large, dirty, crowded, expensive, stressful city.
Too many people seem to believe that the mere making of promises (or passing legislation) immediately gives them control over our environment and the natural world. nature doesn’t stop because you tell it to do so. Unless and until actual productive physical actions are taken, laws and promises are just campaign fodder.
The best (worst) example of believing or claiming to believe that mere promises control the weather and nature was the infamous op-ed written by RFK JR, in 2005.
Published by the NY Times, he made the incredible claim that Hurricane Katrina was caused by Bush failing to sign the Kyoto accords. The fact that the Kyoto accords required emissions to be reduced over a period of several years AFTER the hurricane took place did not matter to him at all. You did not sign a piece of paper I wanted, and thus you caused all this death and destruction.
Even though many people on this site disagree on many things, I hope we can all agree that a massive hurricane did not form because someone refused to make promises to take place in the future.
For those of us who follow the Academies warnings on climate change (use search terms “academies climate change”) we despair on what both parties positions are. The Democrats are proceeding on changes to reduce global warming gas production with no apparent concept of the cost per tonne of reduction, such as the praise for Portland. The republican position is to ignore the academies position and scientists somehow believing in a conspiracy theory that the academies are making this up.
What we need is realistic legislation that will reduce green house gas production in a cost effective manner with minimal effect on peoples lives.
Sadly it does not appear that either party is capable of this.
What, are you lot still debating that faded old perpetual motion phlogiston hoax of AGW?
It is not happening but if it were, it would be great. It’s cold up here in Canada.
I am going with the Academies scientific analysis. What reputable scientific organizations have positions that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the ensuing climate change and warming are a hoax? Anyone who goes into a planning meeting stating this is a hoax is ignored. Go in a point out that the plan isn’t cost effective at reducing greenhouse gas production and one may be listened to.
Fred_Z: “It’s cold up here in Canada.”
And you can keep your air up there. It was ridiculously cold in Seattle this week, thanks to the air sneaking across the border. If ever a border fence was needed, it’s along the Canada/US border. Keep your cold air out of our country and away from our jobs and women!
paul: “Sadly it does not appear that either party is capable of this.”
Or anything else for that matter, except larceny and coercion and fraud and prostitution.
What “we” need is to get these bozos out of our lives, out of our pocketbooks, and out of power. Rather than allowing the inept to force us to pay more for everything—while they pocket the profits—what “we” need are decentralized solutions based on voluntary collaboration and exchange.
It may be cold in Canada or Seattle but as a Californian who cross country skis I have gradually seen the ski season shorten over the years. Cross country ski areas don’t make snow so we have to wait for it to get cold enough to snow at high elevation. The long term trend is for a shorter and shorter season. See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/sports/skiing/as-snow-fades-california-ski-resorts-face-a-brown-future.html?_r=0 (Search terms “as snow fades California ski high and dry”).
Climate models predicted that the effect of global warming would be seen first at the poles and high elevations and this is happening.
The Antiplanner wrote:
Portland doesn’t have many more large factories that it can put out of business to achieve its climate goals. Nor can the city count on a continued depression to keep people from driving or an anomalously mild climate to keep people from turning on their heat or air conditioning.
A former colleague and engineer (when discussing ways to eliminate highway traffic congestion) quipped “a severe recession will do wonders to reduce traffic.”
The lesson here is that cities and counties are the wrong level to try to reduce emissions of something like greenhouse gases. This is a lesson we should have learned already based on our experience with toxic pollutants such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides.
I agree with the above. If the nation wishes to reduce CO2 emissions (which in my opinion is probably a good idea), it should be done at the lowest-cost price (measured per ton of CO2 emissions eliminated). Converting coal-fired electric generation to gas-fired generation is one method that results in less CO2 being released. Displacing coal-fired electric generation with generation powered by nuclear reactors is a method that brings the amount of CO2 released while generating electricity down close to zero (there is presumably some CO2 released when the used nuclear fuel is reprocessed or prepared for interment).
Wannabe social engineers have little or nothing to contribute to reducing emissions of CO2.
Despite this failed record of trying to reduce air emissions at the city-county level, the White House is very grateful to Portland and other local governments for writing greenhouse-gas-reduction plans that make promises they won’t be able to keep. They will, however, be able to use those plans to increase congestion, make housing less affordable, and increase other consumer costs. The cities consider these things to be small prices to pay to be declared a climate action champion.
Perhaps more to the point, the elected officials (and their planning staffs) of Portland, Portland Metro and Multnomah County are unlikely to be around (at least in their current positions) when when those deadlines come around in 2050.
“Climate models predicted that the effect of global warming would be seen first at the poles and high elevations and this is happening.”
Except it’s not. Because there has been no warming for 18 years according to RSS satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly dataset.
Frank, good comment, true, but a waste of time. AGW is a religion and so based on faith not facts. Where facts contradict faith, the facts must go.
Remember when it was impossible to convince people of the facts of the catastrophes taking place in the old Soviet Union, the starvation, the murders, the constant production failures and poverty? Even the CIA published many annual analyses massively over-stating the economic and military potential of the place. And the New York Times and that gusano Duranty … still unspeakable.
No difference here. The AGW lot would cheerfully kill us all to support their lunatic religion. I look forward with some delight to their coming conflict with Islam.
From Frank:
““Climate models predicted that the effect of global warming would be seen first at the poles and high elevations and this is happening.”
Except it’s not. Because there has been no warming for 18 years according to RSS satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly dataset.”
No warming trend in air temperature, no decrease either, but ocean temperature is going up. The Earth is a complected system and warms at uneven rates. With the ocean temperatures going up what is eventually going to happen to air temperature? Also there is no doubt that the ocean is acidifying due to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and this is going to have a dramatic effect on shellfish and the ocean food chain.
Having said that the pretense that city planning is a cost effect way or reducing greenhouse gases needs to be pointed out and get anyone claiming “sustainability” to actually show how their plan really is “sustainable” with actual data. So far in California the plans for higher density development have not resulted in any less global warming gas production, and advocates of these plans have no idea what the cost per carbon dioxide equivalent is. That is reason enough to abandon these plans.
From Fred_Z
“AGW is a religion and so based on faith not facts. Where facts contradict faith, the facts must go.”
I do with all major scientific organizations such as the Academy of Science, American Geophysical Union, even the American Chemical Society. All have looked at the data in detail and do not see any way the Earth can adsorb the projected increase in global warming gases without major climate changes. These are all science organizations not “religions”.
Those who claim this is a religion can never actually find any major science organizations who are not concerned. Yet keep claiming the concern is a “religion” based on carefully selected data from these science organizations without reading what these organizations say.
Anyone can believe and state what they want. But let me repeat, go to a planning meeting and try to tell everyone that all these science organizations are wrong and one will not be listened to and the “smart growth” planning will continue. Go and point out that this “smart growth” planning is not a cost effective way of reducing global warming gases and one has a much better chance of getting the plan stopped.
The appeals to climate authority are not convincing, since all of these authorities are relying on the same weak science. The history of science is replete with periods where entire fields are stubbornly wrong. Look up the history of plate tectonics, or more recently, the fiasco about dietary fat.
Science is a process that converges on truth. Along the way, it may be far from the truth, and the convergence can take a very long time.
The field of climate prediction is especially difficult. The system under study is very complex and very non-linear. Even though the fundamental physical laws are well understood, this does not lead to an easy understanding of the complex system. As a result, climate projection is based on models. These models attempt to replicate physical reality, but they cannot do so. The models simulate weather, which is highly chaotic (the mathematical field of chaos was discovered by a meteorologist). Climate is simply the time integral of weather. Modelers *hope* that the chaos integrates out in the long run, but they cannot prove this.
The record of climate modeling is poor. The current climate pause was not foreseen by any of the models that are cited so confidently by the alarmists.
Climatologists also look to the past for clues to the future – paleoclimatology. This area suffers not only from complexity, but from a paucity of good data. Climategate revolved largely around the undue confidence given to climate proxies that amounted to a few pine trees.
But let’s get back to the “experts.” The 97% figure includes mostly non-climatologists. It also includes virtually all skeptics, because scientific skeptics agree that increased CO2 concentration causes warming, and that mankind is significantly increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere.
The big disagreements are: how much does CO2 affect the average temperature (transient climate sensitivity) and what, if anything, to do about it. The former question has not been well answered. Historical data suggests that the climate sensitivity is about 1.2 degrees C per each *doubling* of CO2 concentration. The only settled science is the one dimensional radiative balance equation for CO2 impact, and it tells us that the sensitivity is dependent on the logarithm of the concentration – the more CO2 you add, the less impact each CO2 increment adds.
So please, let’s get down to earth on this stuff. We *don’t* know the climate sensitivity. The experts don’t know. They cannot even tell you whether cloud cover increases or decreases warming – and they’ve been fussing about that one for a couple of decades.
Odd that SunRail is thinking of expanding their service because of increased ridership. Pretty sure we all agreeed it was just a government boondoggle.
http://www.wmfe.org/fdot-considers-extending-sunrail-service-hours/
“but ocean temperature is going up.”
SSTs are high because average sea surface wind speeds are at an all-time low. Good luck pinning that on CO2.
“also there is no doubt that the ocean is acidifying”
It’s not. The ocean is still basic, with a pH of less than 7. Perhaps it is becoming less basic, but it is not acidic, nor is it becoming more acidic because it was not acidic to begin with and it is still not acidic. It is still basic.
“Odd that SunRail is thinking of expanding their service because of increased ridership.”
Increased ridership based on Black Friday numbers? Please. The consumer-based economy, dependent on credit and Chinese goods, is not sustainable NOR is it a basis for extending LRT service for more than one day.
Oh. Wait. You Keynesians-slash-Marxists believe debt-based consumption, rather than production and savings, drives economic “growth”.
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/sunrails-spike-ridership-black-friday-makes-good-a/njHWZ/
Acidifying means getting less basic. So agreed, the ocean is getting less basic.
If you take Global Warming science seriously, then holding emissions in the USA at 1990 levels, even by 2020, is entirely worthless. First that level is way too high and only slows the speed of increase in CO2, not reduce it. Secondly China and India would wipe out any benefit in a week. Third, all the “scientists” said that unless emissions globally were drastically cut, not a slower increase, and immediately like 2010, then the world would be dooomed. Doooomed.
Take the “science” seriously or quit calling it “science”.
“Acidifying means getting less basic.”
Except that it doesn’t:
acidify: to make or become acid; convert into an acid.
And there’s no evidence that the ocean has been acidic in the last half billion years, even when atmospheric CO2 levels were ten times higher.
Up until a couple of weeks ago 2014 was only CA’s third driest water year. 1924 was by far the worst:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/22/worst-drought-in-california-history-not-really/
Re: high altitude precipitation, a look at precipitation records for the Colorado Plateau shows drought conditions from 1942 to 1977. The last 23 were the wettest years of the century:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2002/fs119-02/figs23.html
Uh oh, Frank is onto us. Black Friday is a Marxist conspiracy to destroy capitalism by forcing the masses to take the train to the mall.
gilfoil, when confronted with the fact that expanding service based on ONE day makes no sense, can only respond with inanities.
BTW, debt-based financing—enabled by Keynesian central planners and the Fed’s monetary manipulations—and encouraged binging on Chinese goods is not capitalism.
Science has also established a huge number of truths in the fields of chemistry, medical science, etc. Many of these truths were not originally accepted, especially by the population at large. The fact that smoking is bad for human health is an example. For many years people smoked themselves to a premature death all the while being told by the tobacco industry that the science was not exact, that models were not complete, etc.
Can we afford to not take sensible, but not drastic steps, now to develop technologies for reducing greenhouse gas production? Or do we wait and see and leave a worse problem for our grandchildren?
What major science organizations support this view?
So by picking specific data showing what appears to be a climate change, does that mean we ignore major science academies recommendations and do nothing? As the tobacco industry wanted us to do when smoking science was “inexact”?
“Science has also established a huge number of truths”
You have conflated religion, which deals with “truth,” with science, which deals with hypothesis, theory, and fact, all subject to revision; “truth” is immutable.
“Can we afford to not take sensible, but not drastic steps…”
What might those steps be? Who pays for them? What if others don’t agree with your definition of “sensible, but not drastic”?
This just in: more evidence not only that there has been no warming for nearly two decades, but also that Mann is a charlatan, and his hockey stick graph is a fraud.
Oh, and you were saying something about California’s drought?
Causes of Calif. drought natural, not man-made: NOAA
Natural weather patterns, not man-made global warming, are causing the historic drought parching California, says a study out Monday from federal scientists.
“It’s important to note that California’s drought, while extreme, is not an uncommon occurrence for the state,” said Richard Seager, the report’s lead author and professor with Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. The report was sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report did not appear in a peer-reviewed journal but was reviewed by other NOAA scientists.
“In fact, multiyear droughts appear regularly in the state’s climate record, and it’s a safe bet that a similar event will happen again,” he said.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/12/08/california-drought-cause-noaa/20095869/