[Stoves] We're Actually Using More Fossil Fuels Than Ever

[Philip Lloyd]

Dear Mangolazi

Actually it's not scary. We are repeatedly told that a warmer world will be
a more vicious world, but if you go to the data you find two problems:
1.  You measure change from some baseline, but for most climate indicators
there are no baselines - we don't really know what the "average" climate
should be, not least because it's changing all the time, so the estimate of
"average" has a large error associated with it. How can you tell what is
abnormal if you have no decent measure of what is normal?
2.  The recorded history of extreme events is rarely long enough to give you
a decent estimate of their frequency (and by decent I mean a standard
deviation of less than 10% per century) and totally inadequate to give you
any idea if the rate is changing. 
There is some relief from the first problem.  If you have lots of good data,
sort of 30-40 years of good weekly average data, then you can detect a trend
with some statistical reliability - I say some, not good! But I have
searched in vain for any relief from the second.

The good news is that it has been warming for around 170 years, and if we
still cannot reliably detect climate changes other than temperature, then
the scariness gets much less.

Yours in confidence - and I don't mean confidentially!

Philip

-----Original Message-----
From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of
Mangolazi
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2016 2:28 AM
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Subject: Re: [Stoves] We're Actually Using More Fossil Fuels Than Ever

That's a scary wake-up call less than a year after the Paris climate summit.
Now it's business as usual.

We need to both switch to renewable power fast and also reduce total energy
consumption. The former is relatively easier once governments and
corporations see the money in renewables; the latter is a heck of a lot
harder because it would go against the grain of modern industrial society
and the consumer economy.

Can we live with more localized economies with sustainable, equitable
practices? Will entrenched politics and financial interests allow all that? 

On July 17, 2016 12:06:23 PM GMT+08:00, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu>
wrote:
>To every person on Earth,    (but most do not care)
>
>The Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of 
>Energy published a major report, with some very bad news.  See comments
>
>about it in this article:
>
>https://www.thenation.com/article/bad-news-were-actually-using-more-fos
>sil-fuels-than-ever/
>
>PaulDoc / Dr TLUD / Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD Email:
>psanders at ilstu.edu
>Skype: paultlud Phone: +1-309-452-7072 Website: www.drtlud.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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