113 comments on A New World Model Including Energy and Climate Change Data
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113 comments on A New World Model Including Energy and Climate Change Data
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I have been waiting for something like this to be produced for years now! Thank you.
Have you had much collaboration with IPCC modeling groups, such as SRES or the various Working Groups? As far as I can tell, the whole IPCC modeling suite is one of perpetual growth in the face of dire consequences that scream "Growth is bad for the planet and the people" and "How is it that growth is happening when Working Group II has some disturbing things to say about Impacts, such as less food, water, forests, etc."
So, any break in the cognitive dissonance of "we will have growth while we also have collapse?"
I dug up this link to Carl Zimmer interviewing Paul Ehrlich about his book "The Dominant Animal"
Worth a listen: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/12309
It is very unlikely that industrial output continues to rise in a post oilpeak world. If oil begins to run downhill in a few years from now several graphs will be useless. High oil prices will destroy the mass-industry and globalisation. If demand destruction will be faster then the supply destruction and oil prices fall, the economic donwturn will not be reversed. Like what is going on now, but then far worse.
This BAU model assumes that when crude oil peaks the world switches to natural gas to continue transportation and home heating. When natural gas production peaks, it assumes we switch to coal to make up for declining crude oil and natural gas. In this way the world being modeled postpones the economic collapse until the peak production of coal.
Yeah, the model really doesn't make sense.
Really, electricity (via plug-in hybrids like the Volt and plug-in Prius, electric trains and heat pumps) will replace oil. The electricity will come from wind and coal, with wind gradually replacing coal, and then solar growing quickly.
I asked around while I was in Zurich, and I learned a bit more about what the modelling groups are up to. I looked a bit more deeply into the SRES, and I wrote an email to several people (including a couple in IIASA) explaining my objections to what I can see they have in their models. The separation between economic growth and the physical reality of what climate change is supposed to be doing to the world is one of my main issues. I didn't get any replies from anybody who could make a difference.
As far as I can tell, the reason they don't take it into account is because... well, it's difficult to estimate. That's on the same level as an engineer discounting the force of the wind when building a bridge because it's difficult to calculate. If you can't estimate it, overengineer it if you must, but don't just ignore it!