UK Researchers: Tax Food to Reduce Climate Change (Get Ready To Be Hungry)

WUWT ^ | 11-19-2016 | Eric Worrall

[blam]

Eric Worrall
November 19, 2016

A group of researchers in Oxford University, England have suggested that imposing a massive tax on carbon intensive foods – specifically protein rich foods like meat and dairy – could help combat climate change.

“ Pricing food according to its climate impacts could save half a million lives and one billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions

Taxing greenhouse gas emissions from food production could save more emissions than are currently generated by global aviation, and lead to half a million fewer deaths from chronic diseases, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change.

The study, conducted by a team of researchers from the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food at the University of Oxford and the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington DC, is the first global analysis to estimate the impacts that levying emissions prices on food could have on greenhouse gas emissions and human health.

The findings show that about one billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions could be avoided in the year 2020 if emissions pricing of foods were to be implemented, more than the total current emissions from global aviation. However, the authors stress that due consideration would need to be given to ensuring such policies did not impact negatively on low income populations.

“Emissions pricing of foods would generate a much needed contribution of the food system to reducing the impacts of global climate change,” said Dr Marco Springmann of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, who led the study. “We hope that’s something policymakers gathering this week at the Marrakech climate conference will take note of.”

(snip)

[palmer]

ppm in the past have been 8000 or better- and again

Simple explanations for those: earth's geography caused lots of warming. Current geography is cold with Antartica being a freezer and Greenland slowly moving northward and becoming more of a freezer. Also the Panama being closed prevents the Pacific from warming the bottom of the Atlantic so we have 32-ish degree water at the bottom of the ocean.

ice core samples prove that CO2 always rises AFTER temps rise- 800 years after- proving that rising temps are what cause rising CO2- not the other way around-

True. But here's some graphs of that relationship http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming-2/ice-core-graph/ Notice that the graphs generally show about 100 ppm rise in CO2 for every 10C rise in temperature. Looking at the graph that is second to the bottom:

there is 280ppm plus or minus of CO2 up to the present. But the CO2 rose past 400 recently. That means there would need to be 12C of warming in the last 800 years to cause the 120 ppm rise.

There was not 12C of warming in the last 800 years, case closed.

man’s production of CO2 amounts to just 3.4% of that 0.04%

Definitely not correct. There is production in nature about 30 times man's. But there's also uptake in nature of 30 times man's. There is no significant manmade uptake. Considering both natural production and uptake, there is far more production from man than nature.

There are estimates that about half of man’s emissions are taken up by nature.

That is not correct either. There is current 400 ppm of CO2. The natural equilibrium is about 280-300, if mankind was not around. The amount of uptake of man's CO2 is about 1/30 of the 100-120ppm of "excess". So nature is taking up about 1/30 of man's CO2, not 1/2.

[palmer]

3) Tectonic causes of warming (and consequent rises in CO2 many years later?)

Yes, that's possible. But volcanoes could have done that in the past too. There's no sign that volcanoes caused spikes to 400 in the ice cores shown in the web page I linked above. There's no evidence that happened in the last 20k years from the ice core data which is pretty decent data (annual resolution).

Another possibility I mentioned was large scale reductions in plant life especially in the ocean where there is a lot of algae taking up CO2. If algae is reduced then CO2 will rise. It would need to be a large reduction to cause a large rise in CO2. Again, no evidence in the ice core data from the last 20k years.

But even if the rise is solely due to man- it’s still so insignificant an amount compared to the 6 quadrillion tons of atmosphere, that it can’t possibly be responsible for causing climate change-

First, do not call it "climate change". That is bogus term to attribute weather changes to global warming. Usually the opposite occurs. There are weather changes and those cause global warming or cooling.

In the other direction the increase in solar activity caused warming from the Little Ice Age though the 20th century and that caused some weather changes. But there is no such thing as "climate change" just natural weather changes.

What happens is with increased CO2 is that the more numerous molecules heat the rest of the atmosphere. There are two pertinent timings in molecular interaction. First the CO2 that is hit with IR of the right frequency is warmed and it transfers that heat to surround O2 and N2 very quickly. Second the surrounding O2 and N2 heat some other (or the same) molecule of CO2 and it radiates that heat by emitting a photon. The first is much fast than the second. That's why the atmosphere warms from CO2 or warms more from more CO2. That is manmade global warming. It is very slow and beneficial.

[Bob434]

[[ppm in the past have been 8000 or better- and again

Simple explanations for those: earth’s geography caused lots of warming. Current geography is cold with Antartica being a freezer and Greenland slowly moving northward and becoming more of a freezer. Also the Panama being closed prevents the Pacific from warming the bottom of the Atlantic so we have 32-ish degree water at the bottom of the ocean.]]

That explains nothing- the statement was that alarmists are crying about 400 or so being the ‘upper limit’ - the ‘point of no return’

[[There was not 12C of warming in the last 800 years, case closed. ]]

Lol- more like “Mind Closed’ Warming is not the only cause of rising CO2 Nor is man’s production the only cause-

[[man’s production of CO2 amounts to just 3.4% of that 0.04%

Definitely not correct. ]]

No that’s fairly accurate- those figures come from many sources- even pro ‘man-caused’ climate change sources-

[[Definitely not correct. There is production in nature about 30 times man’s.]]

Really? How do you get 30% out of the following?

“2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 percent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.”

[[there is 280ppm plus or minus of CO2 up to the present. But the CO2 rose past 400 recently. That means there would need to be 12C of warming in the last 800 years to cause the 120 ppm rise.

There was not 12C of warming in the last 800 years, case closed. ]]

Case closed huh?

“A recent paper published in Nature Climate Change finds a disconnect between man-made CO2 and atmospheric levels of CO2, demonstrating that despite a sharp 25% increase in man-made CO2 emissions since 2003, the growth rate in atmospheric CO2 has slowed sharply since 2002/2003. The data shows that while the growth rate of man-made emissions was relatively stable from 1990-2003, the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 surged up to the record El Nino of 1997-1998. Conversely, growth in man-made emissions surged ~25% from 2003-2011, but the change in the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 has flatlined since 1999 along with global temperatures.”

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/04/new-paper-demonstrates-temperature.html

And:

“An important new paper published today in Global and Planetary Change finds that changes in CO2 follow rather than lead global air surface temperature and that “CO2 released from use of fossil fuels have little influence on the observed changes in the amount of atmospheric CO2” The paper finds the “overall global temperature change sequence of events appears to be from 1) the ocean surface to 2) the land surface to 3) the lower troposphere,” in other words, the opposite of claims by global warming alarmists that CO2 in the atmosphere drives land and ocean temperatures. Instead, just as in the ice cores, CO2 levels are found to be a lagging effect of ocean warming, not significantly related to man-made emissions, and not the driver of warming. Prior research has shown infrared radiation from greenhouse gases is incapable of warming the oceans, only shortwave radiation from the Sun is capable of penetrating and heating the oceans and thereby driving global surface temperatures. “

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-blockbuster-paper-finds-man-made.html

[[if mankind was not around. The amount of uptake of man’s CO2 is about 1/30 of the 100-120ppm of “excess”.]]

Pretty bold statement when the above scientific research states otherwise

[Bob434]

[[there is 280ppm plus or minus of CO2 up to the present. But the CO2 rose past 400 recently. That means there would need to be 12C of warming in the last 800 years to cause the 120 ppm rise.]]

Zowie- Soooo if rising temps are the only cause of rising CO2 then what kind of temperature rise would be needed for an increase to 8000? Lol- let’s figure it out- we’ll round it up for simplicity sake- 300 ppm to 400 ppm = 12 degree rise needed- so for every 100 ppm you ‘need’ 12 degree rise in temp according to your contention- so going from 300 to 8000 ppm the world would have had to have approximately a 9600 degree Celsius rise in temperature- Phew!

Obviously the world wasn’t 9600 degrees above current ‘normal temperatures’ of the past couple 1000 years- So to contend that man’s release of CO2 into atmosphere is the only way that ppm could rise 100 ppm because there would ‘need to be a 12 c rise in temps’ can’t possibly be a hard fast rule-

[[There was not 12C of warming in the last 800 years, case closed. ]]

To those married to an agenda I suppose it’s ‘settled science’ which is ‘not open for discussion’

The 1-1.4 rise in temps is perfectly within natural variability of +/- 5f range of past 3000 years

In 2010 the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published their findings which showed that glaciation, not warming, occurred when levels of CO2 were 5 times higher than today- woopsie-

The changing solar activity is responsible for a varying solar wind strength. A stronger wind will reduce the flux of cosmic rays reaching Earth, since a larger amount of energy is lost as they propagate up the solar wind. The cosmic rays themselves come from outside the solar system ... . Since cosmic rays dominate the tropospheric ionization, an increased solar activity will translate into a reduced ionization, and empirically ... , also to a reduced low altitude cloud cover. Since low altitude clouds have a net cooling effect (their “whiteness” is more important than their “blanket” effect), increased solar activity implies a warmer climate. [Emphasis added.]

http://www.americantraditions.org/Articles/New%20Evidence%20that%20Man-Made%20Carbon%20Dioxide%20(CO2)%20Does%20Not%20Cause%20Global%20Warming.htm

Again- to state that man’s CO2 is the primary cause of climate change (unsusual accordign to agendists)- becasue ‘there woudl have to be a 12c rise in temperature IF it were natural, ignores many many other variables which most likely are them ost propable explanations for current rises-

Correlation does not equal causation, as you must well know- but it seems to be your argument that because temps rise and anthropomorphic CO2 rises too- that anthropomorphic CO2 must be the cause-

[[What happens is with increased CO2 is that the more numerous molecules heat the rest of the atmosphere. There are two pertinent timings in molecular interaction. First the CO2 that is hit with IR of the right frequency is warmed and it transfers that heat to surround O2 and N2 very quickly. Second the surrounding O2 and N2 heat some other (or the same) molecule of CO2 and it radiates that heat by emitting a photon. ]]

I know how it works- I’ve asked several times in the past for specifics- only approx 1% of heat escaping earth’s surface is the ‘right wavelength’ to be absorbed by CO2- all other heat is unaffected by CO2- of that 1% that gets cauterized, and released- what is the weight of this compared to the atmosphere weight? The answer is that it is so small as to be insignificant- it’s a % game-

CO2 only absorbs approx 8% of the heat leavign earth- and only 1% of the heat that leaves the earth is IR- (Nasa claims 40+% but there is no consensus- most apparently claim 1%)

The rest of the 99% being conduction, convection and evaporation

Bottom line? Very Very little heat is even captured by CO2- and even less is actually back radiated ‘in the right direction’ to make it’s way back to earth to ‘warm the globe’

Only 8% of the heat is captured- there is no way 8% of escaping heat can be captured, released in large enough quantities to cause global warming- take a 100 degree room- capture just 8% of it’s ‘escaping heat’, take just a tiny fraction of that amount, and transfer that into a 90 degree room of the same size- I guarantee that the 90 degree room isn’t going to ‘heat up to catastrophic levels’ What do you suppose the 90 degree room will rise to? (Remember, the 90 degree room also loses heat- it’s in a constant battle to maintain 90 degrees, so at times it will be even cooler- the addition of a fraction of captured 8% heat from hotter room, will have a very hard time moving the needle in any direction simply because there isn’t enough for one, and two, it reaches equilibrium very quickly due to being overwhelmed by the sheer mass of the room it’s injected into and the fluctuating temps in there-)

[Bob434]

“Let us look at an explanation of why the global warmers think that CO2 will cool the upper atmosphere, while warming the lower atmosphere. From the National Academies Press, Board of Physics and Astronomy, Atoms, Molecules, and Light: AMO Science Enabling the Future (2002)[18]:

Paradoxically, while CO2 contributes to global warming near Earth’s surface, it causes cooling in the stratosphere. Carbon dioxide molecules generated at ground level can eventually migrate to the upper layers of the atmosphere, where they collide with oxygen atoms. During the collision, the colliding atoms lose energy (i.e., they cool), while the CO2 is transferred to an internal excited state. The excited CO2 then radiates, causing a net cooling of the upper atmosphere. In the stratosphere this cooling contributes to the enhanced formation of polar stratospheric clouds, leading to greater ozone depletion. Models suggest that the doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, as is predicted to occur over the next century, will result in significant amounts of cooling in the upper atmosphere and, in turn, more O3 depletion. [Emphasis added.]

And why do the “warmers” still claim that the same CO2 would warm the lower atmosphere? On the Access Science website is the article, Effects of carbon dioxide on the upper atmosphere,[19] which has the statement:

This is the opposite effect to the response of the lower atmosphere. The reason for this apparent paradox is that CO2 and other multiatom molecules can emit infrared radiation as well as absorb it. In the lower atmosphere, especially in the troposphere (below 15 km), CO2 absorbs radiation coming from the Earth, which excites it to higher vibrational states. Before it can reemit the radiation, it undergoes collisions with other atmospheric gases, transferring the vibrational energy into heat. [Emphasis added.]

The two statements appear contradictory to me. The first statement:” During the collision, the colliding atoms lose energy (i.e., they cool).” The second statement says the collision causes the transferring of energy into heat. To me they don’t make sense. Also, it is stated that the colliding of the CO2 molecule with an oxygen atom is what results in the cooling. There is far more oxygen in the lower atmosphere for the CO2 molecules to collide with. During the early flying during the Second World War, the airplanes did not have pressurized cabins, and the flyers had to use heated suits and oxygen masks so that they could survive the cold and lack of oxygen. By regulation, flyers were supposed to start using their oxygen masks at 10,000 feet altitude.

Traditional anthropogenic theory of currently observed global warming states that release of carbon dioxide into atmosphere (partially as a result of utilization of fossil fuels) leads to an increase in atmospheric temperature because the molecules of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) absorb the infrared radiation from the Earth’s surface. This statement is based on the Arrhenius hypothesis, which was never verified (Arrhenius, 1896).

The proponents of this theory take into consideration only one component of heat transfer in atmosphere, i.e., radiation. Yet, in the dense Earth’s troposphere with the pressure pa > 0:2 atm, the heat from the Earth’s surface is mostly transferred by convection (Sorokhtin, 2001a). According to our estimates, convection accounts for 67%, water vapor condensation in troposphere accounts for 25%, and radiation accounts for about 8% of the total heat transfer from the Earth’s surface to troposphere [lower atmosphere].

Thus, convection is the dominant process of heat transfer in troposphere, and all the theories of Earth’s atmospheric heating (or cooling) first of all must consider this process of heat (energy)– mass redistribution in atmosphere (Sorokhtin, 2001a, 2001b; Khilyuk and Chilingar, 2003, 2004). …”

http://www.americantraditions.org/Articles/New%20Evidence%20that%20Man-Made%20Carbon%20Dioxide%20(CO2)%20Does%20Not%20Cause%20Global%20Warming.htm

This is why i asked for specifics- The amount of transfer from CO2 compared to all other means of heat transfer from earth surface to upper levels- is insignificant- it is not driving warming- the amount of molecules warmed compared to the total atmospheric weight is a drop in the bucket- it would be akin to lighting a bic lighter in a stadium and claiming that it’s causing catastrophic warming-

There are studies that show cosmic radiation adds to an aerosol effect which causes clouds which influence warming- just because CO2 rises while temps have gone up doesn’t mean the one caused the other because there are many many variables at play- The cosmic radiation study bears this out-

[palmer]

so going from 300 to 8000 ppm the world would have had to have approximately a 9600 degree Celsius rise in temperature- Phew!

You added a zero. The ratio is about 10 to 1, ppm to temperature. So going to 8000 ppm requies 800C rise. And, your point is still very valid. The CO2 rise was either caused by something else (lots of theories about that) or my ratio is wrong. My ratio comes from fairly simple tests using Henry's Law. Don't argue with me, argue with Henry. There are people who claim solubility is much higher e.g. http://notrickszone.com/2013/10/08/carbon-dioxide-and-the-ocean-temperature-is-driving-co2-and-not-vice-versa/#sthash.KB2rMwzH.dpbs but not well supported.

In any case the graph I linked above shows about a 10 ppm to 1C ratio, and it's hard to imagine such nonlinearity that temperature caused the 8000 ppm in the past. Therefore a different cause, like volcanoes or extinction of plantlife or a combination since volcanoes could conceivably extinguish plant life.

[palmer]

This is why i asked for specifics- The amount of transfer from CO2 compared to all other means of heat transfer from earth surface to upper levels- is insignificant- it is not driving warming- the amount of molecules warmed compared to the total atmospheric weight is a drop in the bucket- it would be akin to lighting a bic lighter in a stadium and claiming that it's causing catastrophic warming-

Your specifics are fine, i.e. 8% of heat captured by CO2. My guess would be even less than that. But there is some capture and immediate distributon of that heat to the O2 and N2. The O2 and N2 then warm other CO2 molecules, or more likely water vapor molecules, which then radiate the energy out into space or back to earth (about 50/50). There is no valid catastrophic warming claim, certainly I have not claimed that. But there is more lower atmosphere warming when there is more CO2.

[cherry]

the poor and the govt takers will get free food or food rebates etc...the workers, again, will be deprived of the rightful and just profits from their hard work...

[Frank_2001]

“We can hunt and gather instead.”

Imagine how difficult hunting will be after they’ve confiscated the guns!!! All part of “THE PLAN” /s

[Eric Blair 2084]

Tax UK researchers to see less concern about climate change.

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Yep. And The elitist social engineering activist government left-wing politicos wonder why they keep losing elections. Bogus study Grant junky “scientists” are going to have to get a real job at Walmart or as an adjunct professor with no benefits when their funding for global cooling or third hand smoke is eliminated.

[Professional Engineer]

Tar. Feather. Repeat.

[Morpheus2009]

Is there even a middle class? Last time I heard, the government was in the process of destroying it, because a Middle Class is a threat to dictatorial regimes for thinking too much.

[Morpheus2009]

The number of animals on farms is the vast majority of animals in the United States. The number of deer is only 35 million. If people only hunted them for meat, they would go extinct in under a year.