The C40 Mayors Summit has just finished in Mexico City and incoming Chair of the C40, Mayor of Paris Anne Hildalgo has announced a remarkable policy-four world cities, all known for their sometimes questionable air quality have committed to banning all diesel vehicles in their municipalities by 2025. Following Tokyo’s lead the mayors of Paris, Mexico City, Madrid and Athens stated that they would promote walking and biking, and incentivize the use of other technologies in vehicles.
In Europe where gasoline is expensive, diesel can be a more cost-effective alternative for running vehicles. But with the World Health Organization attributing three million deaths a year to outdoor pollution exposure, diesel engines have been pinpointed as a particular problem.
As the BBC notes: “Diesel engines contribute to the problem in two key ways – through the production of particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). Very fine soot PM can penetrate the lungs and can contribute to cardiovascular illness and death. Nitrogen oxides can help form ground level ozone and this can exacerbate breathing difficulties, even for people without a history of respiratory problems”.
These types of changes will mean that car makers will need to adapt to new regulations, and look for alternative ways to power vehicles. The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is considering expanding an innovative Ultra-Low Emission Zone in London’s centre. And the Mayor of Mexico City states:: “It is no secret that in Mexico City, we grapple with the twin problems of air pollution and traffic”.
The banning of diesel vehicles and the promotion of active transportation and connected transit routes promises to rewrite what a legible city looks and feels like. Paris has already undertaken a regulatory ban on vehicles registered before 1997 from even entering the city, and has embraced the closing of the Champs-Elysee to vehicular traffic one day a month. Price Tags has also written about a three kilometer section of the right bank of the Seine, once a throughway for motor cars becoming a walkers’ paradise, despite the fury of commuting traffic.
Eliminating diesel engine use is a direct approach to addressing the health of the city. Will Metro Vancouver follow?
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A step in the right direction indeed. Will Metrovan follow ?
Rather than banning clean burning gas by 2050 ( http://globalnews.ca/news/2958288/city-of-vancouver-votes-to-ban-natural-gas-by-2050/ ) , Vancouver specifically and MetroVan more generally should follow this lead and eliminate ALL diesel buses from its fleet, and eventually ban diesel trucks and buses altogether in MetroVan. The pollution and noise (a much under-discussed topic, btw) from these beasts is horrendous.
Edmonton, for example, is considering buying 25-40 new electric buses, rather than diesel buses: http://www.metronews.ca/news/edmonton/2016/11/24/edmonton-pushes-for-large-purchase-of-electric-buses.html
The bigger topic – and the very small impact on global warming reduction – is explored here further by my two favourite climate realists, Judith Curry and Bjorn Lomborg https://judithcurry.com/2015/11/09/lomborg-impact-of-current-climate-proposals/
As such, let’s focus our money and energy on making cities clean, green, walkable and pollution free rather than the religious focus on CO2 emission or climate change. The critical issue for humans today is excessive air pollution in cities, excessive noise from loud diesel trucks and diesel buses and lack of walkability in cities. That is where the focus should lie – worldwide but especially here in Vancouver !
Here’s what Source Watch says about the above climate “realists”:
Judith A. Curry is chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She runs a climate blog and has been invited by Republicans on several occasions to testify at climate hearings about uncertainties in climate understanding and predictions. Climate scientists criticize her uncertainty-focused climate outreach communication for containing elementary mistakes and inflammatory assertions unsupported by evidence. Curry is a regular at Anthony Watts’ denier blog, as well as Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit, another denier site. She has further embarrassed herself (and her university) by using refuted denier talking points and defending the Wegman Report, eventually admitting she hadn’t even read it in the first place.[1]
Curry receives ongoing funding from the fossil fuel industry.
Curry’s contrarian-leaning “public outreach” public communication is criticized by prominent climate scientists and other science-aligned climate bloggers for a propensity toward “inflammatory language and over-the-top accusations …with the…absence of any concrete evidence and [with] errors in matters of simple fact.”[
“…Examples of the unreliability of Curry’s blog publications are illustrated by Michael Tobis[16] and James Annan[17], who both showed basic flaws in her understanding of uncertainty and probability, or at least an irresponsible level of sloppiness in expressing herself. Arthur Smith pointed out an under-grad level misunderstanding[18] in her own field’s basic terminology,” said Coby Beck.[10]
Climate scientist James Annan has provided examples (with rebuttals) of assertions made by Curry on topics like no-feedback climate sensitivity, aerosols, climate change detection&attribution, and the IPCC tolerance of challengers; he finds there’s a pattern of “throwing up vague or demonstrably wrong claims, then running away when shown to be wrong”,[19]
“In a 2010 comment[20] she called blogger Deep Climate’s detailed and well-documented investigation into the Wegman Report “one of the most reprehensible attacks on a reputable scientist that I have seen” even as she revealed in her incorrect synopsis of the charges that she had not even read it for herself. … [i.e.] she shows herself ready to publicly criticise someone else in the strongest terms based entirely on second hand information gleaned from places like Climate Audit and Watts Up With That.”[10]
Gavin Schmidt has criticised Curry for “not knowing enough about what she has chosen to talk about[21], for not thinking clearly about the claims she has made with respect to the IPCC[22], and for flinging serious accusations at other scientists without just cause.”[23].
Curry was a member of the partially-Koch-funded Berkeley Earth Project temperature reanalysis project headed by former global warming skeptic Richard Muller, which reanalyzed existing weather station data and found yes, global warming was real. The project FAQ[2] (and a draft paper, which lists Curry among the authors[3]) reported there was no evidence to indicate the rate of global warming had changed in the last decade.
There’s a lot more including many links to factual rebuttals by climate scientists of Curry’s assertions, but you get the picture.
And as previously cited in rebuttal to Thomas’s glowing admiration of climate denier / minimizer Bjorn Lomborg, here again is the clip from Source Watch:
Lomborg is not a climate scientist or economist and has published little or no peer-reviewed research on environmental or climate policy. His extensive and extensively documented[2],[3] errors and misrepresentations, which are aimed at a lay audience, “follow a general pattern”[2] of minimizing the need to cut carbon emissions.
Again, there is much more, but the picture is clear. These folks cannot legitimately be used to counter climate science. They don’t have a scientific leg to stand on.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bjorn_Lomborg
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Judith_Curry
Thanks for shinning the light on the dark forces.
Beyer has already had Curry’s descent into disrepute pointed out to him. He is clearly willing to destroy the credibility of the Price Tags blog and discourage learned debate in favour of fantasies. His interest in truth is non-existent and his grasp of facts suspect. I suspect this will result in the same outcome we saw on Frances Bula’s blog. Jackasses like the anonymous commenter with the handle of ‘Taxpayer’ so pollute the discourse that people go elsewhere, but the trolls follow. Welcome to the Internet I guess.
Why have a blog if everyone agrees and says “Wow – this is wonderful” ? Most topics are far too nuanced to easily be debated in a blog and many topics are highly controversial, especially if they involve money or other people’s money, or the impact humans have on the planet. 8B+ people leave an impact.
Be careful calling others that disagree deplorable as that certainly did not help Hillary Clinton either.
Healthy skepticism is required for progress of society. Not mere yes sayers !
Not every person agrees with political choices yet we share the city and as such have to understand other people’s viewpoints. I do. Do you ?
Beyer:
You claimed freighters in English Bay move at 4 km/h. Offered no mea culpa when challenged on this easily refutable claim. Debate requires that participants at least agree on basics that can be witnessed by one and all, and further, that clear errors are admitted and retracted by those that present them. This is super basic to the enjoyment and elucidation that a debate can deliver.
This appears to be a nuance that both you and Ms Curry aren’t grasping I suppose. That makes you an unreliable witness and frankly, worthless as a contributor to topics that do require an appreciation of nuance and the ability to sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to differing views. It’s about signal to noise ratio. And once you’ve established that you aren’t that interested in accepting realities that are by and large common knowledge and endorsed by many qualified individuals, you’ve claimed the oh-so-cool mantle of the edgy contrarian. With that will come expectations that you prove your opposing views on climate change with something better than Exxon-funded quasi-scientists.
Page 5: Six knots: http://docs.neb-one.gc.ca/ll-eng/llisapi.dll/open/2393619 in Burrard Inlet and 10 knots in more open water from Juan de Fuca Straight http://www.islandtides.com/assets/reprint/oil+gas_11112010b.pdf
Plus two pilots on board, plus various other requirements. Seems pretty safe to me for one tanker a day ! All the hype about 7 fold increase in tanker traffic. Yeah, yo 400 / year which is about 1 a day. Barely noticable among the dozens of other ships. That is why Vancouver exists: we are a port city. But some cannot accept this truth as they sip their organic latte in Yaletown, using their oil based sneakers for a run and their iPhone shipped here by (oil using) boat or (oil using) plane or (oil using) truck. Why is this inconvenient truth, our oil dependency for daily living not a school topic ? Love to have a magic pill to make it all go “poof” electric.
Here’s a list of pipeline benefits incl 6000 products made from oil https://www.aboutpipelines.com/en/blog/6-ways-your-life-would-be-different-without-oil-and-gas/
4 km/h = 2 knots.
It’s not about what kind of coffee people in Yaletown drink or the fact that oil is still in use. This derail is about whether claims are verifiable and believable. And you cited PRWeb. That’s hilarious. Way to double-down on suspect sources providing debatable claims.
“Why have a blog if everyone agrees and says “Wow – this is wonderful?””
You are conflating opinions with facts. Different opinions are great. Having your own personal set of facts, not so much.
Every story has two sides. Much disinformation by biased media out there. Much oppression of scientists who don’t pull the party line. Here is more science / fact correction about
a) irresponsible claims that by merely dialing down CO2 we’re OK and it will somehow cool automagically, and
b) that blocking pipelines is a good thing for the environment ( as they are safer than shipping oil by rail, truck or wheelbarrows)
here http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/12/prweb13888105.htm
As such Curry’s skepticism and pointing out uncertainty is exactly what is required. As to Bjorn Lomborg: He is merely pointing out that numerous issues require funding and that a prioritization of scarce $s have to be made. Where is this debate ?
Every funder has an agenda. Government employed scientists, the UN, the Broadbent Institure, the Pemberton Institute, Uber, cab companies, Tides Canada or universities have an agenda too.
Where is the debate about noise in the media ?
Where is the debate that replacing diesel buses with quieter and cleaner electric buses costs money and that either, or all three of this has to happen to pay for it:
a) higher bus fares
b) lower bus driver salaries & benefits
c) higher property or consumption taxes
There is no free lunch.
You are an ideal audience for Curry and Lomborg, faithfully regurgitating their paid disinformation and couching it in innocent terms like questioning the cost of diverting from business as usual without questioning the cost of sticking to our path back to the 19th Century.
And still you cannot produce a legitimate climate scientist to discuss climate science.
Last I checked, technological advancement was all about finding free lunch.
Electric busses will offset their cap costs based on:
a) Reduced maintenance / depreciation
b) Reduced fuel cost / increased drivetrain efficiency
c) Reduced externalities like healthcare costs due to particulate emissions.
As the battery costs come down, these benefits will essentially be a free lunch. Dogma about economics doesn’t necessarily apply to technological change.
Thomas (and Eric) aren’t just an ideal audience, they represent the designed audience. Well paid lobby groups, and their spokespeople such as Curry, are counting on those who readily drink their Koolaid to spread their message for them.
Thomas:
a) dialling down CO2 doesn’t make it OK. That is a strawman argument. It makes it less bad. Look up the first rule of holes. If the link you find says just dig faster, then you may be on a climate denial site.
b) blocking pipelines doesn’t appear to be happening. Blocking additional pipeline construction, and related increased fossil fuel production, may happen. You are arguing against the latter by saying, essentially, that we do it now therefore we should keep doing it. The plan is to reduce fossil fuel use. When you promote expanding production and export capacity, how do you square that circle?
Yes in an ideal world we can live without fossil fuels. 8B+ people need energy. The enormous progress we have made over the last 100 or so years is a result of cheap energy everywhere.
Food production and food distribution needs energy.
Building a 28 storey tower in Yaletown, Bejing or Kuala Lumpur costs energy.
Going for a 2 week vacation to Mexico for less than $1000 in the winter costs energy !
Oil is in fertilizer and 10,000+ products we use on a daily basis.
Can we use less: yes, of course. Should we use: yes of course. Should we monetize a valuable product the world wants: yes, of course !
The missing portion of the debate is the COST of lower oil production, or the vast difference we get between WCS and WTI paid in Texas, such as:
a) lower wages
b) higher taxes
c) higher food prices
d) higher unemployment rates
e) longer wait times in hospitals
f) larger class sizes in schools
g) more death, due to freezing and lack of funds for the homeless, or longer waitlist in hospitals if funding is cut !
If Canada does not export oil, say to Asia, someone else will. It is this simple Jeff.
Canada is very wealthy because it is a resource extracting, refining and exporting nation. It is the # 4 or #5 oil producer in the world after USA, Russia and Saudi Arabia (plus Iran & China depending how you count, or if you include gas or coal or not). http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=25112 Much of the enormous salaries & generous benefits we pay civil servants across this great nation comes from oil & gas and its massive taxation it generates. Ditto $s for hospitals, schools, universities, roads, CBC etc Even our very green very socialistic Liberal government can put 2 and 2 together and thus, they approved it.
If you ask people “should we consume less oil?” 90% or more would say “yes” but if you ask “If your life expectancy is 3 years shorter, your likelihood to freeze to death is higher or if your salary was cut by 30% would you support far less oil production?” a lot less people would say yes ! of course, our biased media, all along the state funded CBC dares not to ask these questions.
Pipelines are the safest transportation mechanism to get oil from Alberta and N-BC to Asia. Peak oil likely not until 2040. Let’s make some hay until then so we can develop better alternatives AND provide a healthy life style.
To me the rich folks like David Suzuki, Naomi Klein, Gregor Robertson, Leonardo Decaprio or Al Gore do not square the circle as they jet all over the place and pretend less oil use if for the mere mortals only. At least Gregor bikes. Kudos to him.
Throwing a randomly-tossed dog’s breakfast of politically-charged issues into the air is the antithesis of honest debate and the enemy of clear thinking and a full exploration of an idea. It’s flak. A minutia storm. A cloud meant to obscure the absurdities and flaws in logic. Camouflage that makes honest discourse into a fatality. And it’s also very self-centred.
The dinner table debates must get pretty heated in the Beyer household.
Thomas – you mention “Oil is in fertilizer”. That’s true, but fertilizer has probably caused more harm than good. How did we get along without oil based fertilizer one hundred years ago? Why is it that organic farmers can still produce abundant crops? What about trees? Wilderness?
Seriously, Arno ? We had less people 100 years ago. We have over 7B now. We had less than 1B 200 years ago.
Organic farming cannot feed over 7B people. You need massive improvements in crop yields such as fertilizer.
Some myth about organic farming here https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=organic+farming+myth
Specifically that you need more land for the same crop result and we do not have enough land anymore. We can debate the ideal population size on this planet if you want to.
Well, one can also Google “soil depletion by industrial agriculture” and find some great information.
One important fact is that agribusiness is as addicted to fossil fuels as suburban car traffic, and is therein just as subject to price volatility. Nothing is as important to agriculture as healthy soil. With it you can reduce the outside inputs, like fertilizer which is made from natural gas, and water intake because soil with higher organic content stores it.
The yield from farm practices that emphasise maintaining healthy soil (e.g. organic farms, or non-organic farms that spend time and energy building damaged soil through green manure crops and mulch) is far higher than farms that have depleted their soils down to sand and gravel, such as great swaths of California’s Central Valley where we get most of our produce. The exported products are only as good as their applied chemicals and imported (and greatly depleted) water.
The same principles apply to forestry. High-grading for a century has resulted in winter rain-eroded soils that cannot support a healthy forest any longer. The private forests of Vancouver Island bear witness to that.
Source Watch says;
“Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by professionals with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information. ”
They do represent one side of the argument.
It is worth reviewing what Sourcewatch is. It is an online collaborative effort. A wiki. Use it to learn about a topic, but follow the links yourself to develop an informed opinion based on the source material.
Or, just read Judith Curry’s and Anthony Watts’s non-science sites, and go with that.
In the age of information, ignorance is a choice.
What is probably most valuable about Source Watch are the links to direct rebuttal by people who have much experience and knowledge in the topics at hand. It’s a great BS detector.
Now, about making our cities walkable, clean and green, most of us here will agree with that principle. But it can’t be done without addressing CO2 and our extreme level of dependency on oil. This is not only about climate change but about the laws of physics and energy economics.
“It is no secret that in Mexico City, we grapple with the twin problems of air pollution and traffic” YUP!
I lived in Mexico City 1998-9, Centro Historico. I remember, on several occassions awkening gasping for breath and it probably wasn’t as bad as some of the suburban areas: Nezalquayotl for instance: tightly-nit sprawl auto-dependent, that you could never imagine here!
The little owner operated pisaros were ubiquitos and frequent although most of the time I used the superb Metro.
Come to thinq of it I used the bus on occasion to visit the sprawling, out-of-character new development of Santa Fe, the north west section of DF, on the highway to Toluca.
I mention the latter because, with the beautiful architecture of UNAM, El Museo Anthropologica etc it didn’t take long for the architecture of opportunism to rear its ugly presence!
As for buses, I see from frequent web visits to my old haunts Granville No 9 “!ahora es hablando espanole en la ciudad. Bueno!”
String up more of that ol’ time trolley-wire while we’re at it. Electric traction would be nice to have on all those suburban hill climbs
The UN tells us what people think is important. Close to 10 million people responded.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/un-poll-climate-dead-last.png
http://data.myworld2015.org
Better transport and Roads, is quite high on the list. Climate Change did’t make the finals.
Thanks Eric. To my point about Björn Lamborg. It’s all relative. Other things are important too. Those that have a lot, and a cushy job like university professors or civil servants in Vancouver have different priorities than an African bushman trying to adapt to life in a big city or a poor immigrant coming to Canada.
“A quarter of Americans surveyed could not correctly answer that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around, according to a report out Friday from the National Science Foundation.”
But hey, I’m sure people will totally ‘get’ the complexities of climate change and be able to discern fact from fantasy.
It’s not elitist to point out that many people lack enough science knowledge to make informed decisions regarding the science of climate change. Mob rule aka ‘what the majority thinks’ isn’t the path to progress.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/14/277058739/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-survey-says
“Mob rule aka ‘what the majority thinks’ isn’t the path to progress.”
Correct. That is why we elect governments AND have trained civil servants AND a (fairly open albeit fairly biased) media AND universities or think tanks to explore issues from multiple angles.
Yet, government is elected to GOVERN, i.e. make decisions such as the controversial one on pipelines, or CO2 taxes, or diesel vs electric buses, or taxes on foreign owned real estate etc
Winston Churchill said this on this topic: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
No wonder excellent academics like Lomborg or Curry, or hundreds of others chose to leave the climate cult as it must be depressing working in these circles who decide your funding and your future academic career if you just mention a word of criticism or disagree with finding X or think finding Y needs more context or finding Z is only true under certain assumptions. I think we used to cal it inquisition.
If you are comparing the accumulated scientific evidence regarding climate change with the methods of the Spanish Inquisition your claimed interest in a fact-based debate is a charade. They are quite simply, apples and oranges. To what goal you aspire I can’t imagine, but it’s definitely not a science-based appraisal of the issues in front of us.
Thanks for shinning the light on the dark force.
Thanks Chris for shinning the light on the dark force.
Thank you for your kind words. It seems that no matter how many times one throws a rope down the Beyer-hole of falsehoods and fantasies, he ignores the calls to climb out and keeps digging. I find willful ignorance difficult to understand. I suspect it comes from profiting from some lucky guesses and proven strategies for wealth creation. A rich fella with an outsized opinion of his own rectitude. Where have I seen that lately?
Eric, with your introduction of the UN chart, you’re conflating action on climate change with improved air quality. You can support the latter without agreeing with the former. I note that ‘Better healthcare’ is #2 on the list….being able to breathe seems like a it would fall into that category.
I’m curious, any particular reason why you’re purposefully trying to conflate the two issues?
If governments operated by always following the will of the majority, we would have
– Slavery
– Women not allowed to vote (probably only men would have been be consulted)
– Motor vehicles not allowed (Due to the opposition in the early 20th century)
– A criminalization of homosexuality
– We would all be Catholic
– Discrimination would be rampant.
Is this the kind of world you want?
Luckily, governments can work toward improving society and do the right thing – even though it is not popular.
–
The idea that the unwashed and uneducated masses do not know what to think has really worked well in the Metro Vancouver transit referendum. The academics and all the prominent doctors, politicians, think-takers and professors were all there telling those that know very little about much how they should vote.
This strategy also worked really well for those in Britain that wanted to stay in Europe. Just about anyone who has any credentials of importance explained to the unwashed which box to tick off to avoid a disastrous and really stupid Brexit.
Then in the US celebrities joined the smart set and the jet setters in thrall to Hillary and the Clinton dynasty. Joined by a starry eyed media from the flagship New York Times to CBS and many others, the little people and those without any college education were clearly told that continuity was to be observed. They should naturally vote for Obama’s successor to continue the great advances, any thinking that the brash entrepreneur and businessman from New York could even think of becoming president was stupid and will never happen.
Then, yesterday, it was our dear friends the Italians that followed the trend of others. Perhaps they don’t either know which way the earth travels. Led by a comedian, Beppi Gillo and his Five Star party, they voted wrong and today the prime minister resigned. As the Guardian quoted Beppi:
“The Five Star leader has since jubilantly drawn connections between American “Trumpismo” and the grassroots populism of his own movement, which stands at 30% in the polls, level pegging with Renzi’s party. “This is mad stuff,” Grillo wrote on his blog. “It’s an apocalypse for the big papers, the intellectuals, the journalists. This is a huge general ‘Fuck off’.”
It really is popcorn time as those that keep on yakking about science and peer review expert studies are told to shove it.
What a guy!
Beppi
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/27/matteo-renzi-politics-italy-european-union-brexit-trump#img-1
“The idea that the unwashed and uneducated masses do not know what to think”
Peoples’ bathing habits are irrelevant. Nobody is using the epithets you are assigning to your critics’ positions. Your examples are irrelevant IMO unless you are willing to undergo medical treatment based on the hopes and dreams of random strangers from around the world who choose to take part in an online poll. The fact that subject matter experts aren’t whiz-bang masters of marketing a la the transit referendum doesn’t negate the value of public transit investments, although that appears to be the position you take.
But presented with outcomes that don’t reflect best case scenarios, some people will work harder to ensure voters have a better understanding of the issues. Your willingness to sabotage the transmission of good information with clearly questionable sources and erroneous claims on almost every topic certainly leaves one with little choice but to conclude you think it’s OK to deceive to win. That level of cynicism got us in this mess. I feel sorry for you.
Did you duck or did it easily just wash over your head?
When we see that the United Nations and The Guardian are labeled as “clearly questionable sources” we know it’s time to curl up with a good book.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to Eric. Perhaps your digs would be more penetrating if they made sense. Are you sure you are replying to the correct comment?
It is interesting and encouraging to see large cities moving forward like this. We tend to think that emissions controls and climate change initiatives are national issues, but I think we will see more bottom up action in coming years. Vancouver’s Green City plans come under this umbrella as well. There is a parallel here with the California Air Resources Board. When the US government didn’t move fast enough for California on vehicle emissions controls, decades back, California implemented tougher standards on their own and made them the price of admission for automakers who wanted to sell cars in California. For years, there were CARB and 49 state versions of each car, at great expense to automakers. Then other regions joined them, the automakers moved to single versions that met the tougher standards, and the national standards were harmonized with the CARB ones.
Those who want to try and paint this as left and right should look up who created CARB while he was governor of California. Hint: he wasn’t on the left, then or when he later became president.
If areas (such as these four cities) representing sufficient opportunity or revenue change the rules, the market will respond and the tougher rules will become more broadly applied, not necessarily in law but in practice, because it costs manufacturers too much not to do so, either in costs of product development and production, or public reputation.
This is one more demonstration of how action on climate change is and will continue to be fought hardest at the local and regional level, at least on this continent.
Thomas: “The bigger topic – and the very small impact on global warming reduction – is explored here further by my two favourite climate realists, Judith Curry and Bjorn Lomborg”.
Just wondering what you do when your two favourite “realists” disagree with each other. Neither is using science, rather opinion, but if you are going to rely on just these two, this could be problematic.
Curry writes: “In his Outlook essay “Chill Out,” Bjorn Lomborg rightly notes that skepticism about climate change is no longer focused on whether it the earth is getting warmer (it is) or whether humans are contributing to it (we are). The current debate is about whether warming matters, and whether we can afford to do anything about it.
In this debate, Lomborg has positioned himself squarely in the skeptics’ camp. But he has some of his facts wrong — and he fails to appreciate the risks that global warming bring to us all”
And then later, this: “Lomborg seems to have missed it, but a sensible debate has begun on how to best respond to global warming — in national and local governments, universities and the private sector — in the U.S. and around the world. There is no easy solution to this problem; the challenge is how best to develop options that are feasible, efficient, viable and scalable. Lomborg is correct to be concerned about the possibility of bad policy choices. But I have yet to see any option that is worse than ignoring the risk of global warming and doing nothing.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/10/AR2007101002157.html
Here’s an interesting note.
Look who made the pilgrimage to Trump Tower today.
http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/1507/production/_92838350_gettyimages-627821290.jpg
Did he go there to discuss eliminating diesel engines to improve air quality?
Back to the topic posted above –
It’s a trade off, Diesel engines are more efficient than gasoline engines but pollute more, unless they’re fitted with expensive emission control equipment.
Could also have some interesting cost consequences if this catches on substantially.
Increasing share of the world’s oil is heavy, which are more conducive to diesel/kerosene/gasoil production. If demand is largely gasoline & jet fuel going forward, look to more expensive refining processes to increase the refining cut of lighter distillates.