[Stoves] Jamaican cooking (Crispin Pemberton-Pigott)

Wed Apr 6 13:20:32 CDT 2011

Dear Xavier

>Sorry, but I strongly disagree with your statement Crispin on global
warming/climate change/climate disruption.

No need to be sorry. You are in good company, as am I. 

>
.what is the real footprint of charcoal over its entire lifetime. 

Agreed.

I agree also that we cannot eradicate it as simply as that. It's not likely
outlawing the entire sector would benefit local economy, on the contrary. In
Benin, many people depend on charcoal supply for their cooking, or simply
because they have a job in the sector. It's not sure either outlawing this
activity would suppress it, nor decrease harmful and warming emissions.

To tack ‘warming emissions’ on any argument about charcoal is opportunistic,
in my view. Charcoal production causes all sorts of problems and like many
industries that cause problems, it provides employment to a large number of
people too. It extracts more than $50m per year from major cities and pumps
it into the rural economies.

>True, global warming is a good marketing argument a growing number of
businesses in the "green energies" sector benefit. So do I. Does it mean it
is not true? 

Saying it does not make it true.

You could reverse the argument: companies of the fossil fuels sector benefit
the idea there's no such thing as climate change.

I never said there is no climate change, and it is interesting to see the
topic move rapidly one to the other. It is common knowlegde that the climate
changes – it is always changing. The debate is whether it changes because of
human CO2 emissions, and if so, how much. There is a movement within the
stoves community to make statements about the ‘contribution of cooking
stoves to climate change. From my vantage point, it is more about finding
additional funding for projects that are otherwise unsustainable. I am not
convinced you can subsidise sustainable progress.

On one side or another, the hidden interests cannot inform us about the
authenticity of the two theories.

There are far more than two theories. 

Fossil fuel companies (which fund the CRU among many things) benefit
enormously from scares about CO2 and fuel. That benefit is in the form of
higher fuel prices, now at record levels in Waterloo where I am sitting at
present.

In the debate of global warming, we hear so many (conspiracy)theories that
it is also easy to go cherry-picking to give credence to one or another.

Exactly. And the places to discuss them are elsewhere. I recommend
WattsUpWithThat which is very open and invites opinion from all comers, and
Dr Judith Curry’s new discussion site which is not as broad in focus and
high level. 

In the Phil Jones graph you sent Crispin, we can see a global cooling, that
is correct, but only for the period of March 2010 to March 2011, so a period
of one year. 

I am not sure about a chart from Phil. The charts I referred to were from
Courtillot. I was of course referring to Phli’s statement about ‘no
significant temperature rise since 1995’ which was made some time ago.  He
uses the term ‘significant’ in the technically correct sense there.

We should be careful not to make Phil Jones say what he never meant. 

Exactly I encourage people to read not only what Phil says but the
temperature charts for their region and the world. Phil said a lot of things
I don’t agree with, too. He has also lied. That doesn’t make him wrong on
everything.

This article quotes an interview of Phil Jones on BBC published saturday
13th of February 2010. Phil Jones, the director of the Climate Research Unit
of the West Anglia university, clearly states that: " The global warming of
(+0.12°C per decade) is the same over three periods (1860-1880, 1910-1940
and 1975-1998), but we notice on the 2002-2009 period a cooling of 0.12°C
per decade. A tendency which is not significative, for the period is too
short".

I am really happy that you include the ‘period is too short’ because every
time there is a hot sport (like Moscow 2010) we are told ‘it is evidence of
warming’ even though it was freezing cold next door in Kazakhstan at the
same time. I again encourage people to investigate for themselves and no
take anything at face value. If we took everything on the basis of yelling,
we would have banned paraffin long ago. And candles (they cause a lot of
fires). And knives.

So you are right, there is a cooling, it has even been going on for longer
than one year, but it doesn't contradict the global warming that has been
occuring for a century and a half (since industrial ages). 

I do agree there has been global warming since 1850. However you did not
also point out that it has been warming for 400 years, not only since 1850.
I feel that is a misrepresentation of the facts. It does not warm evenly and
appears to warm and cool in 30 year cycles.

Actually the graph in the link you sent here
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/04/uah-temperature-update-for-march-2011-co
oler-still-0-10-deg-c/ confirms it, we can easily see the tendency. 

Agreed. It does show global warming. When did this warming begin, according
to that chart? Are there other charts ?

Temperature of March 2011 is warmer than temperature of 1979. And is seems
March 2011 is a "down" of the curve, it is probably there will be a "up"
soon.

That is an assumption based on what, exactly? Accoding to Prof Courtillot,
who presents a very well reasoned case, it is going to go down for
approximately 30 years. He not, by far, the first person to have made this
prediction. As far as I know his work takes into account a realistic GW
forcing for CO2 though I do not know him as a well known ‘modeller’. The
best predictions so far are made by Theodor Landscheidt whose work
encouraged me to start concentrating on space heating stoves.

In this article, a another climatologist explains that the pace of global
warming slowed down, it was anticipated by the climatologists community,
this is what they call "a plateau". Phil Jones said he was "100% sure"
global warming was occuring and it was due to men's actions.

That is his opinion and he has very little to support it, though lots of
supporters, in my view. There are many others around with different
opinions, some of which I have read. Some are better than others. Thereare
hundreds who think that the ‘human signature’ is not only unproven, but
would be undetectable anyway.

Crispin, you are quoting Vincent Courtillot. He is perhaps a good
geophysician, but he is mostly known in France for being at best very wrong
on climate change questions, at worst a liar (he and his colleague Claude
Allègre). His theories have been unanimously destroyed by the scientific
community, especially by the Académie des Sciences:
http://www.lesechos.fr/economie-politique/france/actu/020895911845.htm?xtor=
RSS-2059. Bard and Delaygue have shown that Vincent Courtillot graphs and
deductions he was basing his theories upon were full of mistakes (what he
admitted himself later on). More info here:
http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/home/2008/02/soleil-et-clima.html.
Before that, there was already an affair where the guy forgot in his
calculations Earth's albedo and the fact is was round ...

Perhaps his charts of historical temperatures in North America and Europe
will also be found to be incorrect, and that we are not largely influenced
by Pacific Decadal Oscillation, cosmic ray intensity and Nino events as is
presently supposed by some. As he points out, it is the IPCC models which
have failed to incorporate clouds, albedo and cosmic ray influences well.
Perhaps they also admit to these omissions. I am impressed by scientists who
accept corrections and develop their theories. I hope I am able to do the
same. I was once convinced of many things about stoves which I now know not
to be true. I have not always been successful at communicating my stance.
The proof should be found in the products, of course. Really good stoves do
not come about by accident.

I think we should avoid two misconceptions about stovers :

- there are stovers who do stoves only to limit climate change. It is a
preoccupation of Westerners living in rich countries, often motivated by
economic interests. They do not care about poor locals conditions of living.
They do not make products suitable to this people.

Agreed. Cell phones have been a really big help though.

- there are stovers who are on the field but living in their ivory tower.
They do not see the big picture (global warming). They are only interested
in selling/distributing their stoves to the people, even if they are based
on polluting energies (charcoal).

What do you mean by ‘polluting’ ? Biofuels, especially wood and charcoal,
are CO2 neutral. Forests have to be managed of course, but I think you are
referring to CO2 as ‘pollution’ like mercury in fish and phosphates from
farming in rivers. 

You can both make user-friendly stoves, and which play a role in addressing
climate change issue. 

We should make user-friendly stoves that improve all aspects of the
economic, social, natural, family, cultural and spiritual environments. 

Regards

Crispin

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