DOE is still financing research on the O2 separation technology which would be required before CO2 capture from dirtburners would be feasible. This stuff, in any scale at all, is years away, the stuff of dreams.

The only proven, reliable, responsible and safe means for the US to significantly reduce it's CO2 emissions at any time in the near future is by building nuclear reactors. Period. A hysteriacal wholesale switch to LNG might make a (much smaller) dent at the same price but the liklihood for huge disasters (picture 50,000 tons of natural gas liquid spilled into a city harbour) and exposure to uncertain political agendas in less than stable foreign countries makes advocating it almost comical.

"....of the approximately 100 US nuclear reactors currently in operation, 40 have licenses that will expire by 2015. To date, no licenses have been renewed and...."

NOT true. Of the 103 US reactors, 23 have already received 20-year license renewals, extending their lives to 60 years. 19 more have already submitted their license renewal applications, for which approval is expected in only a year or two. An additional 21 have formally scheduled to submit their applications in the next couple years.

All of these applications are expected to be approved, as the technical case for reactor life-extension is sound, and political resistence is very light. Reactor life-extension is the one thing that virtually all policy-makers (including the Democtratic presidential candidates) agree on. They all realize that extending the lives of existing reactors is both an economic and environmental no-brainer (since they were very expensive to build, but now have very low operational costs, as well as emitting no pollution). License renewal is also completely necessary to have any hope of significantly reducing CO2 emissions, or emissions of other pollutants.

It is expected that virtually all US reactors will have their operating lives extended to 60 years. In fact, many are asking whether there are any fundamental reasons why operation can't be extended almost indefinitely, i.e., 100 years or more (assuming all components are replaced as necessary). When will the Hoover Dam, or the Empire State Building "wear out".

Thus, we won't see any significant retirements until after 2030. Also, capacity factors are increasing, and we are also in the process of granting power uprates to a large number of reactors. Several uprates have been approved, and several more are expected in the next few years. Uprates are expected to add ~10,000 MW of nuclear capacity over the next 10 years or so. Due to these factors, even the Energy Information Administration prediction (which has generally been quite pessimistic on nuclear) is predicting that nuclear generation in 2025 will be measurably higher than it is now.

Many of the scientists who contributed to that report were horrified by the way in which their observations were twisted by political desires, to suggest consensus and certainty, when neither was arrived at in the report itself.

One of the key contributors to the IPCC report was Professor Richard S. Lindzen, a qualified meteorologist. A search in MSN or google or other search engines for his name, returns his critiques of how the IPCC report does NOT say what the politicians say that it says and does NOT provide the science to conclude anything other than that the science is inconclusive.

To base any special, expensive, energy-intensive, and possibly entirely unworkable action such as carbon dioxide sequestration as some means of trying to solve a hypothetical problem, based upon political massaging of a scientific report replete with caution and uncertainty, is unjustified to an extreme degree.

Thank God politicians in Russia and the US seem to have wit enough to recognise that Kyoto is based upon political manipulation; poor science; is unworkable; is unjustified; and is dangerous to the future wellbeing of all society, but especially to them.

Here's a quiz. Given all the benefits Russia would derive from enforcement of the Kyoto accord, (only member state which has already met it's commitments, will garner huge CO2 trading credit benefits, accord would add value to natural gas export, etc.) what can possibly be keeping Russia from ratifying the accord? A desire to bet large stakes on a "less than sure thing"?

One of the additional benefits of the CO2 sequestration approach is that if you're going to trap all the CO2, by definition (I think) I you're going to trap all the other pollutants (NOx, SOx, Hg, soot, etc..). Thus, in additional to potential global warming benefits, you would have very significant public health benefits (estimated by EPA at ~10,000 lives and ~100 billion $ in health costs per year).

However, this approach will make coal measurably more expensive, as will all "clean coal" technologies, such as IGCC. There seems to be an unwritten rule in Washington, which is "thou shalt not do anything to measurably increase the cost of coal generation, or measurably affect its competativeness with other generation technologies". Clean coal technologies that are more expensive to any measurable degree are labeled "not ready yet", or "still too expensive". My feeling (common sense) is that clean coal will always be somewhat more expensive than dirty coal, so it will never be "ready", or used. This makes we wonder why we're even bothering to spend so much money on the research. If development of the clean coal technology is not followed by a requirement to use it, it will just sit on the shelf. If you have any doubts at all that this is how the coal industry will react, just take one look at the whole New Source Review issue, and how they're resisting even the humble request that they meet the pollution standards that were set way back in 1970! To merely use 30 year old state of the art, no less.

I like the idea of requiring CO2 sequestration, because then coal will finally, FINALLY be held to the same standards as nuclear is. At that point, coal's situation will be much like nuclear. It will emit NO pollutants into the air or water. Instead, all of its wastes will be completely contained, and thus, it will have a large amount (MUCH larger than nuclear) of confined waste that it will have to sequester from the biosphere for some indeterminite period. Sound familiar? Expectedly enough, these clean coal technologies (like ICGG, even w/o CO2 sequestration) are every bit as expensive as nuclear. If coal is ever held to the same standards, nuclear will probably win on cost.

This raises an interesting question. Will the coal industry be held to the same impeccible standards of proof that the nuclear insdustry is with respect to long-term waste sequestration? How long a period will they have to PROVE that the CO2 will remain confined? What measures or technologies will have to be employed, and how much money will have to be spent to provide "absolute" assurance that the CO2 will ever leak out? Of course, this will not happen. Even w/o any assurances of long-term confinement, it will be so much better than what they used to get away with that people will be overjoyed, and they won't ask anything more of them. As Len points out, we don't even have any inclination of asking anywhere near that much of them. We have no inclination of asking ANYTHING.

I agree with the authors estimate of ~$100 per ton carbon. His estimate is based (I think) on what it would take to make geologic CO2 sequestration economical. Interestingly, the estimate is close to the estimate I came up with for the carbon tax that would be required to significantly reduce emissions. However, my estimate was based on a different principle. It was the level of carbon tax required to make coal-generated electricity clearly more expensive than gas and/or non fossil alternatives (primarily nuclear and wind, and perhaps solar thermal on some places). Such a carbon tax adds at least 2 cents/kW-hr to coal electricity, which should be more than enough. I also believe in taxes on other pollutants, but if you have a sufficient carbon tax, or CO2 emission reduction goal, it is all moot as it would cause dirty power to phased out anyway.

I somewhat disagree with the author on one point though. My get feeling is that any such sequestration scheme would be more expensive than just using the non-fossil sources of generation discussed above. I think if we had this requirement, or had a sufficient CO2 tax to make it more economical to sequester than not, then utilities still wouldn't sequester. They would just close down the coal stations and replace them with gas, nuclear, renewables, or conservation. I could be wrong, but the beauty of a carbon tax approach is that we don't have to figure out which solution is more economic, as a matter of public policy. We can just let industry figure it out, and decide.

Of course, as discussed earlier, this is all precisely why none of this will be done. Global warming (or any other air pollution effects) be damned. Our policy makers (and various powerful interests) are absolute in their position that large-scale coal use in the US will not be allowed to go away!

You are correct in noting that it is still all very political, but at least Illyaronov (?) Russian scientist-politician, is using the science to publicise why Russia is not ratifying, and at least the U.S. is also listening to Lindzen and others bring out the science and show why implementing Kyoto will not do what it is supposed to do. The critics don't get much of a show in either the media or in the European political arena to the same degree.

It will be interesting to watch Europe crumble from within, destroyed by its own unscientific stupidity. Unfortunately, the actions of Russia and the U.S., while being roundly decried, are likely to save them from that fate.

To achieve either objective (no increase or significant reduction) you need to put in place policies that cause non-fossil sources to be chosen over fossil ones. In the case of a carbon tax, you need to make it high enough to make non-fossil sources cheaper than fossil sources, period. It may be an over-simplification, but if the carbon tax is not high enough, NONE of the new capacity will be non-fossil, whereas if it is more than high enough, ALL new capacity will be non-fossil. The necessary level of disincentive is clear, and does not change appreciably, whether you are trying to merely hold emissions flat or if you are going for a major reduction. The simple point is, the non-fossil sources are somewhat more expensive (as of now, at least) than fossil sources, and we need to decide if we want to pay a little more for non-fossil sources.

I suppose you could argue that if non-fossil sources are more expensive by a certain, given amount, then the overall cost would be directly proportional to the total amount of non-fossil capacity employed. Even looked at this way, however, simply holding emissions flat is most of the battle. They say that energy use is expected to triple by 2050. Meanwhile, many scientists suggest that an emissions level of ~40% current levels should be under the earth's tolerance threshhold. Thus, to reduce the fossil demand from 3 times current levels to current levels (i.e., to hold emissions flat) requires 2 units of effort (from 3 down to 1). Meeting Kyoto (i.e., going from 3 to 0.8-0.9) would be about 2.1-2.2 units of effort. Reducing emissions to 40% of current levels would require 2.6 units of effort (from 3 down to 0.4). Thus, even under this linear cost assumption, the cost of "going beyond Kyoto enough to make a real difference" would only be ~20% higher (2.6/2.16) than the cost of meeting the requirements of the existing Kyoto protocol. In reality, the additional cost for the last bit of CO2 reductions would probably be even less.

The point is that, since emissions are otherwise expected to exponentiate, Kyoto does indeed take us "most of the way there" in terms of effort required, and going further, to reduce emissions significantly from 1990 levels, is actually not that much more effort. A sea change transition is required in any event, and given that you're doing that (anyway) we may as well move off coal and oil entirely. I'll admit that restrictions on other nations like China and India is a significant issue; a much larger issue than that of the Kyoto requirements for developed nations not being enough (to make a difference).

Concerning costs, I don't agree with the characterization of anyone's economy "imploding" or "crumbling" because of Kyoto. By my estimate, shifting from coal and oil to gas and/or non-fossil sources (more than enough to reduce emissions by 60%) would increase the average US cost of electricity by ~1 cent/kW-hr, at the very most. This isn't even enough to notice for most of us. Based on overall US generation, this equates to a cost of ~50 billion dollars per year for the US, 0.5% of our 10 trillion dollar economy. Heck, last year Bush just up an decided to increase the defense budget by 50 billion dollars, something which also doesn't make any of us any richer, and is just as able to be considered a "waste", or a "loss" to the economy. Just like Kyoto, it is a cost burden being borne by society in the name of "security". The prescription drug benefit is of similar magnitude, and the tax cuts are much larger. Despite all these "blows", I think the US economy will survive.

That's the problem with many people like me. I DONT see the costs of compliance w/ Kyoto as significant. We won't even feel it at all. It would be about ~$20 a month (one night out to dinner) for me personally. This being the "horrible" cost of avoiding what MAY (yes, may) be an extremely significant environmental problem, and future threat. For this reason, we believe that this action is warrented even if there is only a small chance of being a problem. Proof is not required before taking action. Instead, nothing less than proof is required to justify NOT taking action, since the costs involved are so trivially small, and the policies can therefore pretty much be considered "no regrets" policies. And by the way, as I mentioned last post, most air pollution (and all associated health effects) also go away as well, as a mere pleasant side effect.

I share your confusion about Russia's actions. You described the situation precisely right. Russia is one of the few nations (including East Germany) that has a lot of what's known as "hot air". This refers to a nation having emissions far below 1990 levels, not due to any effort or enlightened energy policy, but due to economic collapse since then. These nations would have large amounts of emissions credits to sell, even without making any efforts to reduce emissions themselves. They would simply make a killing.

You are also precisely correct concerning the additional benefit to Russia due to the resulting increase in demand (as well as price) for their gas exports. They would receive (from Western Europe) massive amounts of money for gas, and massive amounts of money for CO2 emissions credits.

Given all this, I am totally flabberghasted by Russia's response. Even if John were right, and was all BS, I can't fathom why Russia (and/or a Russian "politician") would turn down such a sweetheart deal. The net economic effect of Kyoto would basically have been a directive to tranfer massive amounts of wealth from Western Europe directly to Russia. Whatever you feel about the science, this made no sense economically or politically for Russia. This will always remain a great mystery to me. Perhaps Russia has dreams/hopes of massive economic growth in the near-to-mid term, and thinks that it will eventually be a problem; that their emissions will soon grow so much that the flow of payments would actually reverse. For me, it's hard to fathom.

a) Immediate absolute scientific proof that the theories are wrong; or

b) Steps which reduce GHG emissions.

Now lets talk proof. Onus is on you.

Are you seriously demanding that the critics of a "theory" prove a negative?

When contemplating the future of CO2 emissions reductions and the ease of achieving them, we would be wise to ask: "What is the end point?" Reports from Milan last December by Ronald Bailey of Reason identified several groups which have identified an end point for CO2 reductions, through a process of "contraction and convergence", which would require a 96% reduction in US CO2 emissions. That level of reduction will not be achieved at the $20/month cost suggested above.

Maybe you should demand that someone prove that is not the level of reduction required to stop Global Climate Change, because if it is we have a very different challenge ahead of us than the Kyoto Accords suggested.

Kyoto is neither a low-cost affordable item, nor even a supposed solution to the issue of alleged human-induced global warming, when you consider how scientifically flawed it is, and also how much of the world is exempted from it. Our society can only afford to waste so much of its wealth chasing phantom risks and red-herring issues before we find ourselves unable to address and afford the essentials for survival in our society - health, education, security, welfare, etc. At that point, your insistence on applying the Precautionary Principle (adopting Kyoto) 'better safe than sorry', but without scientific justification for doing so, has just caused an egregious massive increase in social risks, and what you have caused is 10,000 times worse than what you are trying to guard against. Please do not open the door to this piece of political insanity. Future society will not thank you.

Additionally, why would you try to worry why Russia did not ratify Kyoto. Perhaps they do not like the possibility of Europe dictating their national direction. Perhaps it is because, being major exporters of oil and gas, they can see that subsequent steps following the first unscientific, unjustified and insane step, will be to close down all uses of fossil fuels. Perhaps also they recognize that their economy over the next few years is going to grow massively and they will need all the energy they can muster from whatever source (what other way is there?) sufficient to cause a massive growth over the Kyoto allowances. It's all politics. Who cares? I am interested only in the science and how to limit the ability of politicians, special interest factions and environmentalists from affecting my rational choices, and destroying society before we get into the future we are striving for.

You cannot prove a negative, and nor can I. In any case, Global Climate Change (warming or cooling) is happening even as we write, and as it has been doing for the last few billion years. However, the hard part is to prove to me and others that ANY of it is indeed caused by human activity (the theory) and then furthermore, to rationally convince me that if some of it (and how much) is indeed occurring because of this, that it is undesirable or harmful (the alleged consequence).

The onus is NOT upon me. It is upon YOU and others to prove that your theory of a human induced part of climate change is correct. If you can use scientific arguments and relevant evidence (not allegations or presumed effects) to persuade me or any other skeptic of that, then I will accept it as scientifically plausible. The sum total of scientific evidence to date shows no such thing, despite the religious fervor of most politicians, some climate scientists (with many thousands of exceptions - see OIS web site (Oregon Institute of Science)) - and some environmentalists (but NOT Lomborg it seems). The politicians espouse it as a means of gaining political control over more of our lives, as well as likely to cripple the economies of some other (they hope) states, while their own is likely to thrive (they hope). Some Climate Scientists have government grants that make it difficult to openly admit to weak science, uncertain data, inadequate modeling, overstatement, or error (however, Hansen recanted to some degree). The environmentalists espouse it as means of trying to hamstring big industry, and of limiting our freedom of lifestyle choices.

Science advances painfully and haltingly by the correction of scientific errors and ignorance (the philosophers stone, Galileo, causation of diseases, gravity is a constant, the earth is no more than 10,000 years old, the Upass tree, the Gryphon, cold fusion) and misinterpretations (phlogiston). It does not advance by passing 'laws', enunciating edicts, signing protocols, or enacting stupid regulations to bypass science (outlawing X-ray opera glasses, Pi was set in 1897 by the Indiana House of Representatives to some convenient but incorrect number, zero tolerance of all man-made chemicals (many of which also are found in nature), and now the Kyoto protocol).

I think the present generation is obligated to provide and use good science, and to act according to what is KNOWN, and not to adopt a knee-jerk response according to what is FEARED: the mania of the moment. We best protect the future, by advancing in knowledge, science, and technology as fast and as far as we possibly can today for our own benefit and progress. We cannot second-guess what tomorrow's generations' problems may be, nor can we protect them from any of them without doing massive harm to them and to ourselves. If you need persuading of this, then consider what could have been believed in about 1860, concerning what would face us today (only 140 years later). Society at that time was horse-based (no electricity, no autos, little technology). Extrapolate to today's 6E9 people. The pundits' predictions were surely that we would be struggling neck-deep in horse poop. The future will look as unkindly upon us if we tread that predictive path. Now, what are your predictions for the future again, and how do you suggest we might solve their problems?

These I grant, and will stop harping so harsly, if the energy industry infrastructure will assure and convince me they will accept adequately the (relative to useage) responsibility to investigate, support and follow continuing rational and open scientific investigations of the issue to a timely yea or nay resolution with an implied commitment to deal adequately with any problem should the result be yea. Can I depend on that?

See, I may be wrong but in large part my willingness to accept GHG emissions as a problem are intuitive, not scientific. This is likely based on:

a) being under the general impression that a large part of the reason surface temperatures on Venus are disproportionately higher than on Earth relative to their distances from the sun is because the atmosphere of Venus contains larger proportions of GHG's

b) being taught in school that during the carboniferous period the earth was much warmer and atmosphere contained a lot more CO2. Tremendous growths of less evolved plants in these times laid down present coal beds, fixing out a lot of the carbon from CO2, cooling the climate and opening the competetive ecological niche for grasses, e.g. wheat and rice etc. (need less CO2) and on which most of the world now depends for food.

c) being quite convinced that ice core drilling in Greenland confirms that CO2 concentrations trapped in snowfalls over Greenland since the mid 1700's have risen about >100ppm, or 30%. Comparable rises in CO2 levels also preceded by about 150 years the ending of the last ice age, though the source then is a good question.

Beyond that I agree, everything is debatable. Why are Alaska glaciers retreating? Could be many reasons. Why the Ross shelf is breaking up? No direct evidence. I accept that solar cycles could account for much, and we really know very little about them.

However, given:

a) using pure O2 to oxidize coal in coal fired generation eliminates NOx as a polutant and makes it much simpler to capture and hold sulphur polutants I think mandating it should be done now regardless of the fact it then makes CO2 capture possible.

b) implementing an alternative to petroleum as transport fuel just makes good common sense on a lot of grounds aside from GHG emissions, including i) reducing mid-city polution and attendant health problems ii) reducing dependence on foreign petroleum imports therefore altering global political scape, wealth transfers, terrorist excuses etc. etc. iii) leaving a better chemical feedstock supply to future generations. iv) reducing petroleum industry influence on political process? (I know, just replaces it but new ones might be less adept for a while anyway)

If we're going to do b) anyway, which I think we should, it would be foolish IMHO to fail to take this opportunity to also design a replacement which eliminates any concern over the recent rises in atmospheric CO2. I like G. Cowans concept of substituting a closed cycle internal combustion process using pure O2 and boron fuel with ash recycled. Efficient, compact and powerful.

However, that's just my opinion.

In general, once carbon is combined with oxygen and released there is nothing more that can be done but accept whatever might be the consequences.

I may have been overzealous with the statement that the burden of PROOF is on the nay-sayers. As all of us here know, neither side is going to be able to provide absolute proof of their point of view, the only exception being if the GW proponents were right, if we waited, and if some clear, large-scale effect occurred. By then, of course, it would already be too late. The situation that we have (and are going to have) is that neither side can "prove" their case, and there will be some probability that it is a real and significant effect, and some chance that it is not. The question is what to do in the face of uncertainty. As a corrollary, how high should the (roughly estimated) likelihood be before we are moved to act? And how much should we be willing to spend?

What I disagree with is the notion that we should do nothing unless GW theory is PROVEN. The idea that, if we're not sure, or if it is only some (unproven) possibility that there is an effect, than "clearly" we should do nothing, and/or wait until the science in unequivocal. Some probability of a serious unwanted effect should be enough to warrant at least some degree of (economic) effort to ameliorate the effect, especially given that waiting will increase the cost and reduce the effectiveness of any response.

As a nuclear proponent, and am more than sympathetic to tragedy of chasing phantom risks. You complain about taking action w/o proof of an effect, and the demand that nay-sayers prove a negative. This wouldn’t be the first time…. Right now, all nuclear regulations and policy are based upon the Linear No Threshhold (LNT) assumption, something for which (unlike GW) there has never been ANY evidence. The costs to the industry for this is hard to fathom, yet they continue to use it, out of intellectual laziness, and demand that the skeptics do nothing less than prove the negative before they entertain the notion of changing anything. Of course, proving that there is not an immeasurable effect within the statistical noise is impossible. So hey, nuclear has been the victim, how about being the beneficiary for once……. Once again, there is a whole lot more evidence of GW (i.e., at least some) than there ever was for LNT!

Once again, the question is what to do in the face of uncertainty, of some chance of a significant, negative future effect. Central to this argument is the cost of compliance. On this point, I must disagree with you and Mr. Reid for the most part. The costs of compliance to not exponentiate to infinity as the allowable emissions approach zero. We have non-fossil means to generate energy available, and they are only more expensive by so much. As I said in my last posts, I would estimate power costs from a mostly non-fossil generation portfolio (consisting of nuclear basload, wind and other renewables to the extent practical, hydro, and gas for peaking duty and renewables backup) to be only ~ 1 cent/kW-hr higher than our current approach. Such a system would cut down emissions ~80-90% from what they would otherwise be. The transport sector would be a little harder, but a shift from oil to gas in the short term, and hydrogen and/or electric on the longer term, would do it. That along with a little conservation (e.g., hydrids, etc…). Imagine that! Not only would the costs be minor, but there are several side benefits, such as reduced air pollution and reduced foreign dependence, which alone are worth the price of admission.

Nobody can argue that reducing CO2 emissions by a factor of 3-5 (from what they would otherwise be) is not significant. Even if that does not halt the warming (i.e., allow some sort of equilibrium), it will greatly slow it down to a more manageable level. The reason why some people have argued that Kyoto won’t make much difference (e.g., some have said it will reduce collective emissions by less than 10%) has nothing to do with the emissions reductions goals, or their adequacy. The entire issue is the non-participation of the developing world, such as India and China, nations that are expected to become the dominant emitters in the future.

I agree that this is a problem, and it is the main problem with the current treaty (as opposed to the emissions goals). Due to their expected growth, it would be unfair to hold them to the same emissions goals (vs. 1990) as the developing world. However, applying no controls is just as clearly the wrong answer. We need to have a policy that allows them to grow, but encourages/requires them to use lower emission sources when the develop their infrastructure. I think that they should have limits on carbon intensity, i.e., CO2 emitted per kW-hr generated, or per unit of GNP. I would hold them to a "gas-equivalent" standard (i.e., what it would be if it were all gas). Basically, if you want to use one unit of coal, you have to match it with one unit of non-emitting capacity (nuclear, renewable, hydro).

I share your skepticism of biological carbon sinks. I can't really put it into words, or rigorously justify it, but I have a stong gut feeling that this planting vegetation concept is an area that is absolutely ripe for abuse, of we were ever to try and enforce CO2 limits, but allowed this as an "approach". Not only is the entire concept not rigorously proven, but I just see so much potential for accounting abuses, uncertainties, etc.... On the other hand, if you have a non-fossil power station, you KNOW that it is not contributing to GW.

Also, am I wrong, or would you have to keep increasing the size of your forest, at a fixed rate, to merely make up for the continued operation of a fossil plant? In other words, a forest of a given size does not compensate for a plant. Instead, you need a constant rate of increase in forest size to account for a plant. I'm not sure, but I think the carbon equivalent of all the coal burned in the US over its history may equal a forest that is greater than all US land area. At a minimum, it is the equivalent of all current forest area. Eventually (actually, probably quickly) we would start to have to eat into the land area we currently need for cities and towns, and for food production (farms).

In any event, carbon sequestration, and biomass energy in general, strikes me as a high ecological footprint approach, not a low impact approach, to power production. Let's do ourselves a favor and not go there.

An additional problem with it from my perspective is that the baseline of interest re. atmospheric CO2 burden is (one or two) centuries ago, when all the areas under consideration were already maturely forested or covered with longgrases. The most an excellent and rigoursly enforced system such as this could accomplish would be to restore this particular carbon sink to where it already was two centuries ago, an outcome which I think would not really resolve the issue of digging up megatons of coal and burning it.

On goals, no rational advocate of action to address GHG has advocated such severe reductions as are discussed above. The Convergence theory advocates are proposing a final world equilibrium atmospheric CO2 load somewhere in the range of 40% to 50% above what it was in pre-industrial times. In fact they're not really even doing that, they're suggesting you should choose your own target, and recommending that should be somewhere at or below current levels.

Full Kyoto compliance by current ratifiers won't even achieve a levelling off, in fact just a slight reduction in the rate of acceleration of atmospheric CO2 level increases. Have heart, though. If we could only agree to achieve the Kyoto reductions in a timely fashion, simple economics should take care of the balance. s James pointed out several times, once the new techniques for electricity generation and transport fuel cycles are developed and the R&D already sunk, the resulting systems will/should very nearly justify themselves on simple economic grounds alone, perhaps with aid of a very minor "commons use" tax.

"Again, the possibility of sequestration calls for some qualification to the case for reducing fossil fuel consumption. If the promise of sequestration comes to pass, then, in the case of coal, reduction in carbon emissions becomes an objective to be distinguished from reduction in demand for the fuel itself."

In the radical view, you either sequester your carbon or get no energy at all, your choice. Their preference is "no energy". My position, expressed also by others e.g. John Sutherland, is that there is no reason to restrict our energy use unreasonably as we have technological solutions at hand or very soon developed to resolve problems. In order for the energy industry to avoid more extreme reactions, it needs to demonstrate a defensible attitude to this quite ligitimate issue.

“Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”

Would you agree that our understanding of climate change has greatly advanced since that time? I remember a phrase about nuclear power from the 1950's - "...too cheap to meter." Does this prove that nuclear power is worthless?

Here are a few recent statements by Richard S. Lindzen at http://www.esi-topics.com/fbp/2003/february03-RichardLindzen.html:

"Q. Could you summarize the significance of your paper in layman's terms?

A. The results, thus far, suggest that cloudy-moist regions contract when the surface warms and expand when the surface cools. In each case, the change acts to oppose the surface change, and thus presents a strong negative feedback to climate change. The name "iris" refers to the analogy with the eye's iris which opens and closes in response to light levels. The physical foundation for the effect in the climate system seems to hinge on the fact that precipitation forms more efficiently in warmer cumulus towers, and hence leaves less unprecipitated moisture and ice to form layer clouds outside of the towers. If the mechanism is correct, then the response of the climate to increased anthropogenic greenhouse gases is much reduced. It should be added, that current models fail to replicate the observed behavior of clouds, and this remains true regardless of remaining uncertainties in the iris hypothesis."

From this it appears that Dr. Lindzen accepts the possibility of human induced global warming. He only wishes for a better model of his "iris" theory to show that the warming won't be serious. If I interpret the posts by John K. Sutherland correctly, the lack of a perfect model is a problem only for those who believe that human activity is a significant cause of global warming.

I assume that the "iris" theory applies only to the present era, since there have been many hot and cold periods during the Earth's history. Perhaps the laws of nature are different now.

I recommend the article in the March 2004,Scientific American, "Defusing the Global Warming Time Bomb", by James Hansen. Setting aside the climate models and citing empirical evidence, he argues that the estimates by the IPCC for the rate of global warming may be far too low, and that we are much closer to a climate catastrophe than is generally thought. He also believes that we can avoid it if we act now to stop the increase in greenhouse gases.

Further down, you continue to repeat an alleged statement, obviously taken out of context by the NAS (and maybe the AGU), but then in the second para of your second post you provide some insight into the caution about uncertainty, that is usually evident in some NAS utterances. I don't think you can have it both ways.

Edward Reid's response was devastatingly adequate to show how the consensus changes with the politics. And it will change again I expect. There is still just one fact: Carbon dioxide levels have increased in our atmosphere over the last few decades. I think you should read more Lindzen, Soon, Idso, Singer, Michaels, McKittrick (?) and many other climate scientists, and visit the OIS web site. The facts make better reading than the so called 'consensus', which was not present in the scientific part of the IPCC document, but appeared only after the politicians had massaged it and beaten it into a shape that began to fit their views.

The UCS was once a respected organization, but that was several decades ago.

Also, you do not interpret my posts correctly. I did not say or impugn what you suggest I did.

I remember well the "too cheap to meter" claims for nuclear electricity; they may well come true with the advent of fusion reactors, if we can overcome our irrational fear of nuclear power. These claims are obviously not true today, nor will they be any time in the forseeable future. Nuclear electricity is certainly not worthless. It is relatively inexpensive, but it also is not free.

My concern is that we not "begin vast programs with half-vast ideas". I also rail at the fundamental dishonesty of the presentation of proposed global climate change responses. When the discussions of our first steps onto the slippery slope also include a discussion of the anticipated end-point required to actually "control" the problem, I believe the debate can begin in earnest. So far, the participants in the "consensus" have been very unwilling to "open the kimono" and let the rest of us see what is underneath. I personally would not be surprised to find the younger brother of the Wizard of Oz under there.