Staying within 2 C

Realistically it is not possible to keep within 1.5C of global warming without the use of carbon dioxide removal from our atmosphere on a massive scale. Is it realistic to keep within a 2C limit with no carbon removal technology in face of a growing world energy demand? The mathematics of this is explored.

This is part 1 of a four part series.

Part 2. Equations and assumptions used.

Part 3. Where we were at the end of 2015. 2015 progress report.

Part 4. Applying thisprocedure to hypothetical reports in 2025.

Part1:-Realism.

Whether we stay within the 2 C limit of global world temperatures agreed as targets by the Paris climate conference 2015 (COP21) depends on many factors. Do we have grounds for pessimism or optimism? Certainly I have seen both of these outlooks expressed recently. Our ultimate goal should be staying within the 1.5C limit requiring us to find ways of removing future emissions of CO2 (as I will show in part 2), but here I look at how realistic it is stay within 2C by limiting our emissions.

Figure 1. Alternatives chasing a growing economy. G(e) is the growth rate in total energy per annum, g(a) is the growth rate in alternatives.

In this post I look at what needs to be mathematically done (as opposed to how we may technically achieve this) to achieve decarbonisation as energy demand grows at different possible rates, if it is achievable realistically, and to quantify in terms of temperature reached for different growth pathways that exceed our limits. The growth pathways that are used to estimate the outcome will not directly be the fossil fuel emission pathways but rather the growth in alternatives and the total energy related growth.  These pathways will of course largely determine the fossil fuel pathways but are better to identify in order to evaluate the realism, pessimism or optimism of the situation. Mathematically what action is needed to be to be taken will be clarified indicating that yes it can be done but again mathematically how urgent this needs to be done will be seen.

   

What I present is standard hypothetical pathways to be applied to the situation now or in the future that enable us to evaluate if we are likely to stay within the limit and a plausible temperature anomaly reached if we cannot.

These are not expected to be forecasts of our growth rates and hence not forecasts of the temperature anomaly reached. Rather an approach with simplifying assumptions (explained in the page. A mathematical task) is used so that a realistic estimate can readily be calculated and then a means of comparison in future years can be readily achieved to provide way of tracking progress.  (Temperature locked in will be indicated for different growth pathways).

To achieve what seems an overwhelming hurdle we must identify the scale of the problem and tackle it with hope. Being overly-pessimistic can lead to despair and giving up. Being unrealistically optimistic can equally lead to complacency in the belief that someone will somehow solve the problem and in the meantime we can put it to one side and compartmentalize our thinking to block out the reasoning required to tackle the task in hand.

On the one hand we see the enormous challenge of creating the necessary infra- structure of alternative emission free means of obtaining energy. We also see the need for our energy to grow for the many in dire need. We have more people living in extreme poverty today than the entire global population living in pre-industrial times. We see that for many the energy related growth must increase and hence our task of creating the emission free energy infra structure is increasing as our alternatives chase a growing economy. See figure 1 repeated below. On the other hand we see that it is possible to have exponential growth in technological commodities as has happened in telecommunication systems. We have seen this with the proliferation of say mobile phones based on miniaturisation of electronics systems with advances in semiconductor technology but can this happen with the large needs of power consumption? (Our advances, performance related to cost, in information technology have been somewhere in excess of 50% per annum for over half a century).

Figure 1. Alternatives chasing a growing economy. G(e) is the growth rate in total energy per annum, g(a) is the growth rate in alternatives.

Figure 1 above shows the estimated global energy consumed per year against time and is drawn precisely to scale for the growth rates shown. This is in units of Eo where Eo is the total energy delivered per year at the present time.

The black line, Tx, represents the total energy related growth and starts thus at a value 1. In this hypothetical and hopefully extreme case Tx grows at 3% per annum. The green line, Ax, shows the growth in alternatives and at the present day has a value Ao =0.186 or 18.6% and in this hypothetical case grows at 7% until it catches the total energy growth rate after 44 years. The red line, Fx, represents the fossil fuel consumption as the difference between these (see assumptions) and reaches zero after 44 years when decarbonising is complete.

The blue shaded area shows the amount of carbon related energy (28 years at today’s rate, see calculations) that would ensure we stay within 2C if the climate sensitivity for doubling CO2 is 2.8C.

(The 2C increase would not be observed in 28 years time but would be locked in if concentrations were stabilised, the increase becoming apparent in a few decades after this time). 

  The area between the red line, Fx, and the axes represents the carbon related energy. Compared to the blue shaded area which should not be exceeded this comes to an equivalent of 48 years for the arbitrary values shown in fig. 1 at today’s rate of emissions.

Clearly to stay within the limits we can see that for these growth rates we overshoot the budget by a factor of 1.7 (48/28). We need to exceed this massive exponential 7% per annum growth in alternatives or decrease the growth in the energy related economy.

Creating a progress report.

Want I want is a system based on clear and stated assumptions to identify how well we are doing based on essential measurements and indicators keeping these to a minimum (this will help in later estimating uncertainties) and provide a system for future use.

The same system (with the same assumptions) can be applied to future dates (for example in 5 or 10 years time) using data (the updated indicators) when it becomes available in the future, or now for expected new data  based on assuming certain pathways from the present.

I estimate the global increase in temperature reached for various pathways. I identify the indicators needed to do this calculation from information from credible sources like the World Bank, NOAA and the International Energy Agency.

(http://data.worldbank.org/ )  http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/global.html#global_growth

http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld_Statistics_2015.pdf

Knowing our current percentage use of energy from sources that don’t contribute to CO2 building up in the atmosphere, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere today and the rate that CO2 is building up then the temperature anomaly that becomes locked in (that will likely be evidenced in decades to come) can be estimated for different growth scenarios. Initially for simplicity I will assume we can build up all our alternatives exponentially at a constant compound annual percentage increase. Later and more realistically I will consider that for the present time there are many of our alternatives that cannot be expected to rise exponentially but a small base of wind and solar and some other alternatives can hopefully do so.

Progress report 2015.

For a fuller 2015 progress report see part three

For equations and assumptions see part two

Year ending				2015
The indicators
				Total Ao		Wind Solar Others A1		Hydro Nuclear Biomass
Alternatives today /%				18.6		1.2		17.4
CO2 concentration/ppm				400
..rising at/ppm per year				2.13
Consequences                                                                                                           for staying within 2C:- (assuming a climate sensitivity of 2.8C for doubling CO2 concentrations) and ( pre-industrial concentration of CO2 at 280ppm)
1. Years left at today’s rate of emissions				28
2. And for the following growth pathways:-
G(e)	g(a)	year decarbonised	Pulse:- No of years of emissions at today’s rate		Overshoot factor		Possible T anomaly
%	%	year	years/factor		factor		C
2	4	2102	115		4.11		3.36
2	5	2073	59		2.11		2.54
2	6	2059	39		1.41		2.21
2	7	2050	29		1.05		2.03
3	5	2102	180		6.47		4.16
2	5	2073	59		2.11		2.54
1	5	2058	32		1.16		2.08
0.7	5	2055	28		1.02		2.01
0	5	2049	22		0.78		1.89
0	4	2058	27		0.98		1.99
G(e)	g(a)	Ao	A1		g (lin)		T
1	15	18.6	1.2		2% of 0.174		2
2	19	18.6	1.2		2% of 0.174		2

Table.  2015 progress report

It is seen that if our energy related economic growth, G(e), increases at 2% per annum then from 2015 we can decarbonise staying within 2C if we manage to increase on average all our alternatives by at least a massive 7% per annum for the next 35 years! If in 2025 we have not increased the percentage share of alternatives and the CO2 concentration rates increase in a similar manner as in the last ten years then we will need to decarbonise in less than 22 years from 2025 and increase our alternatives by more than 10% per annum to stay within the limit for the same energy related economic growth, G(e). (see part 4)

Alternatively.

If we can only manage to have a growth in alternatives, g(a),  by 5% per annum due to technical difficulties then we would have to limit our total energy related economic growth to 0.7% or less to be sure of staying within the 2C limit. However with this same restriction and no progress until 2025 we would be faced with having to cut world economic growth by 1.5% or more per annum for at least 26 years.

Figure 2. The curves represent the energy from fossil fuels as we decarbonise for different growth rates in Energy related growth from a base in alternatives of 18.6% and if growth in alternatives is limited to 5%. The light blue shaded area represents the energy budget from fossil fuels at todays’rate (2015) of emissions to stay within the 2C limit.

From Figure 2 above we can see how our chances of staying within the 2C target decreases rapidly as the energy related economic growth rate increases. The area underneath the red fossil fuel curve should not exceed the blue area otherwise we are taking a risk, the greater the area the greater the risk.

 

Our present day percentage of alternatives other than nuclear, biomass and waste or hydro is about 1.2%. If it is this component that can only increase exponentially then the situation is more severe. This is discussed more fully in my 2015 progress report. With certain assumptions it may be that if we rely on these renewables and not nuclear we are likely to require global exponential increases in the order of 15% per annum but if we delay action for 10 years we will require these renewables to grow at 26% per year for a 1% rate of growth of energy consumption and at 30% per year!  for a 2% rate of growth of energy consumption. (See part 4)

Conclusions.

 The estimates achieved here are based on mathematical reasoning on the basis that the assumptions are realistic. The reader can thus determine their own opinion on realism. I point out the minimum requirements in terms of growth that are needed to be reasonably sure of  staying within a 2C limit, whether or not that is something to which we can be expected to adapt.

 I consider that we can stay within the 2C limit but this will require changes based on addressing the reasons that are preventing us from taking action. Time is clearly running out but the more we do the less the negative impacts will be. If our action is inadequate we can see the massive expansion of alternatives that future generations will be faced with and the simultaneous problem of finding ways to provide additional energy to remove CO2 from our atmosphere if it is indeed technically feasible.

If we can rely on alternatives other than nuclear, hydro or biomass to grow exponentially we require them to grow at an average of 15% per annum on the assumption that we can limit global energy growth to below 1% per annum. This means at least doubling these renewables every 5 years seven times over.

References:-

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.FEC.RNEW.ZS/countries?display=graph

http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/energy-outlook-2035/energy-outlook-to-2035.html

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/global.html#global_growth

http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld_Statistics_2015.pdf

Who will we blame?

Imagine years from now future generations look back to our times and civilisation has gone through extreme disruption due to climate change; inadequate water, food shortages, a hostile climate and a continuing rise in species extinction.  Who will they blame?

Will we blame the invisible hand of the free market? Clearly not. The idea of the free market is that it has no aims. It assumes that each of us pursuing our own self interest will turn out in the end to be the best for us all but we were guided by no-one and no-one is thus to blame. If we had 500 planets then the ones that happened on the best path would lead the way.

Many will blame the hidden hand; the murky hand of those who deliberately chose the path that would benefit a few in the short term at the expense of the majority but in the end we all suffered. (A clear example of the fallacy of composition).

However most will blame a lack of governance at national and regional level and their lack of cooperation or unwillingness to do so. It is clear as is always the case when we look backwards and things go wrong we will blame those in position of planning. We will blame those who should have used foresight and the best of our knowledge to provide adequate control.

They will also blame an electorate who did not want this.

It should not be a case of free market versus planning and regulation. It should be the best synergetic combination of these political tools at our disposal.

See also Addressing Climate Action Denial.

Denial of political pathways.

This is part four of climate action denial.

Part one...Introduction

Part two....Denial of the science of climate change.

Part three....Denial concerning Technological Solutions.

Different political pathways to decarbonising.

The important point to make at the onset here is that, globally, we have a very urgent need to decarbonise our energy use largely by reducing consumption of the fossil fuels that we heavily depend on. We have known this for considerable time and yet we have not found the will or the political pathways in doing so. Now that the window of opportunity in terms of staying within a carbon budget is much much tighter we cannot rule out any of the methods of reducing carbon emissions. Not only should we consider the range of technological solutions some of which were briefly mentioned in part three but we should also consider the different political pathways.

I will argue that political extremism and the fear of opposing political extremism has been a major problem. In fact it seems a good way of defining political extremism to be one that relies on ideology that narrows or excludes good and effective choices that we allow to solve political problems. One approach is to see both the benefits and downsides of different political systems so that we don’t end up choosing one or the other or even just a compromise of different systems. Good design is not just about a compromise ending up between two extremes but ending up with a solution better than the extremes. Similarly good political governance will reach for maximum benefit with different systems for different locations and for different enterprises depending on many factors such as availability of resources and technological advance.

Of course good successful governments do already use many different approaches but for election purposes they often focus on simplified rhetoric leaning towards one or other political sides or a wishy-washy ineffective compromise. This may partly explain our clearly observed indecisions on effective action on climate change. The more enlightened the electorate is on incorporating different political pathways that complement each other the more likely we will have effective and transparent government.

In the late 18^th century the economist Adam smith extolled the advantages of individuals pursuing their own self interest free from poor regulation or control (Invisible hand) and in the early 19^th Century the economist William Forster Lloyd explained the problems of individuals pursuing their own self-interest without effective regulation (tragedy of the commons). It should be clear today that to solve the problems of climate change we need the benefits of innovation that also requires taking into account the effects that this has on others.

When countries race to extract fossil fuels they see the individual benefit to their own economy but the environmental cost is shared across the world.  Each country behaves in their own self interest by extracting fossil fuels as fast as they can because they reap the rewards of the finance gained in the short term from these resources but they don’t pay the full price of the environmental damage. Of course in the long term we all lose out
.

It is the realization of these facts and an attempt to break this deadlock that led world leaders to agree targets at the COP21 meeting in Paris. This is a good example of global cooperation which some political extremists trying to discredit this as an attempt at a world government at the same time as denying the science of human induced climate change with their contradictory viewpoints. Of course we have had previous examples of good global cooperation for example on tackling ozone depletion:- Montreal Protocol   or of making ongoing steps towards tackling world poverty with the millennium development goals. (Goal 8 for example aims for a “global partnership for development”).

Market forces alone will not stop the consumption of fossil fuels or the irresponsible deforestation of the rain forests. Believing that regulation is not required is a dangerous political extreme that sees government only necessary for raising armies to invade or defend or to keep the masses in order. This form of extremism leaves us vulnerable to those that will exploit people and situations within and without their own countries. We become at the mercy of those with the most short-sighted outlook who seek their own profit with no regard to the external costs. Overfishing or over grazing (as in the tragedy of the commons scenario) would become inevitable as does environmental damage without adequate control measures on the irresponsible. The fallacy in this way of thinking (market forces alone will suffice) is an example of a more general fallacy...the fallacy of composition. The fallacy is the belief that everyone following their own self interest will necessary turn out to be the best on average for everyone. This is not the case. Just as in the case of an audience all being able to watch an event better if they don’t follow their own personal self interest of standing up to try and view the event better. The spectator would be able to view the event better if they alone stand up. A country may benefit if they alone continue to burn fossil fuels. Civilized countries know that out of control (unregulated) behaviour is detrimental to us all and do pass necessary regulatory laws, however when it comes to urgent climate change mitigation we seem reluctant or slow to take enough necessary regulatory steps. The point I am making here is that we should be flexible and open to the best combination of market forces, planning and regulation that will change with time and situation. By limiting our political pathways it seems we pander to the political extremist perhaps in the hope that we can bring them on board in agreeing that humans are causing the climate change today but at the expense of delaying action.

It is worthwhile to exemplify this with possible strategies already existing that differ with time and place but also have room for improvement.

Improving efficiency of appliances and buildings.

From the diagram at the top of the post we can see that one way to cut back on emissions is to improve efficiency of appliances or buildings. We can consider the pathways that encourage this to happen. The entrepreneur perhaps motivated initially by carbon taxes and market forces will use the engineer’s scientific knowledge and skill to develop higher standards of appliances or buildings. This in turn creates a higher minimum standard that can become the new regulated target for further entrepreneurs to challenge and thus drive up standards. This can be applied to transport vehicles (for example in minimum mpg per person or for EV’s mpkWhr! per person) and electrical appliance rating plates.

Improving clean energy production and sustainable cities.

The same strategies of market forces and regulation can obviously be applied here but we can also see the importance of planning at a governmental level in the energy supplies and at more regional level in improving the design of cities. A well designed city won’t just happen without overview and planning, leaving it instead to individual businesspeople pursuing their own interest. Today most people live in cities and the future indicates that the population growth will occur in the cities. Cities around the world are expanding. The efficiencies of these cities are about more than the efficiency of the appliances and the individual buildings. Design of clean transport system that is both energy efficient and efficient in moving people with minimum congestion, and design of water, sewage, energy and communication systems are all essential to be planned to the highest standard.

We need the best innovative engineering motivated if necessary by market forces, guided by scientific understanding on environmental and climate issues and by the inspiration of well planned public policies to make our cities truly sustainable.

Planning decarbonisation.

 A decarbonised energy system will require not just our existing electrical supply to be powered 100% from alternatives, but also our transport system and heating systems that are likely powered by natural gas in many parts of the world. While we should be planning, using R&D, in all these areas, should we start implementation of all these areas now? Is there a preferred order of implementation?  As indicated in the last post on intermittency issues it was suggested that these issues could be reduced by increasing electrical vehicles at the same time as increasing our electrical energy from renewables. This is not the only reason to start implementation of electrical vehicles. Our cities will be much cleaner in terms of air pollution and also the overall energy efficiency will be increased reducing carbon emissions even before the grid is completely supplied from renewables. The motor car powered from an electrical motor is much more efficient than the internal combustion engine and this outweighs the inefficiencies involved in electrical generation from fossil fuels and the energy losses in transmission lines to charge the batteries in the EVs. This is not the case for direct heating of buildings by natural gas. The humble gas boiler of today is extremely efficient and in the order of 90% plus. It seems that using fossil fuels to generate electricity and transmit to homes and factories to provide heat for water and room air will never be as efficient as burning the fossil fuels directly in the building concerned. The conclusions here are obvious:- While any country or region requires the need for fossil fuel in electrical generation it will not only be cheaper to continue with gas boilers for direct heat in the home, offices and factories it will also be better for minimizing carbon emissions. However when the country is free from fossil fuels in electrical generation we have the following dilemma.:- It will be cheaper to use gas boilers for direct heat (if external costs to the environment and subsequent costs in addressing the climatic problems are ignored)  but it will be worse for carbon emissions. We have a conflict here between market forces and regulation and hopefully we will have the sense to regulate being aware of the external costs.

Free market works by failures getting eventually forgotten and the successful providing the next stepping stone. This is a very useful development method when you have many chances at finding the best way forward. When you have but one chance then it is foolhardy to leave the outcome to market forces alone. The important point to make here is that when looking for political ways to combat climate problems we should not fear or apologise for incorporating the use of the concepts of market forces, government planning and regulation. Rather we should use these methods to complement each other for maximum and urgent effect and look for politicians to outwardly and transparently express these ideas.

In terms of what the individual can do, if we, the electorate don’t realize the necessity for different political pathways then the only politicians that will be electable are those that will not take the necessary steps on action.

Next:-

Denial of the need to limit energy demand. (To follow)

Denial concerning Technological Solutions.

This is part three of climate action denial.

Part one...Introduction

Part two....Denial of the science of climate change.

Is there a technological solution to decarbonise energy use?

This is an important worthwhile question to ask but there are different ways this question is used as a form of denial of the need to tackle the problems of greenhouse gas emissions. One way is to deny that there are effective technologies that exist that can replace fossil fuels for energy and another is that we should wait until some new technology appears. Of course both have the same intention...... And that is to prevent action being taken.

Of course there are technologies that exist that could replace fossil fuels and have been shown to be effective but the important questions are how quickly can we do this, how much energy (rate) can we achieve and how can we deal with problems of intermittency if we rely on wind and solar energy? (I will briefly consider some of these issues on intermittency in this post below).

 If the alternatives can’t replace fossil fuels then the logical conclusion is that human civilisation can’t be maintained and the contrarians who express this are expressing not just considerably more alarm but also hopelessness than those who they often derogatively call alarmists. We know ultimately that human civilisation will need to decouple energy usage from net carbon emissions either because of the climate impact or because of the finite nature of fossil fuels which ever we come to realize first. Most climate scientists, and lately supported by the governor of the bank of England (at a world bank seminar), believe that most of the known world reserves are deemed unburnable if we are to stay within the 2C limits agreed at the climate Paris conference 2015.

It is not known whether or not we can achieve this decoupling at a fast enough rate to avoid serious climatic impacts by staying within the 2C limits agreed at the Paris COP 21 talks by political world leaders at the end of 2015. With this uncertainty it is logical that we should take the path to urgently decarbonise as is technologically feasible. The longer we procrastinate the more difficult it will be to decarbonise as world growth and hence world energy use grows. Ultimately this inaction would lead to a time whereby creating the necessary infrastructure (with its energy demands) to maintain human civilisation would become impossible.

It is fair to say that fossil fuels have been a major contributor to the growth in both prosperity and world population. Our understanding on these resources has also, for some considerable time, included the facts that not only are these resources finite but they have serious environmental impacts. Used sensibly with adequate planning and foresight these resources could be (or better still could have been) used as a stepping platform to a sustainable future. Not doing so is a reckless gamble. The gamble becomes more reckless and more difficult to solve the longer we leave it.

Intermittency problems with renewables.

This is a topic that deserves a separate detailed discussion but a very brief overview of how this issue has been used to promote action denial is worth describing. One way is to confuse predictability with the intermittency issue and the other way is to argue that the intermittency issue is unsolvable, or that the intermittency issue will become more problematic when we rely fully on alternatives.

The intermittency issue can be reduced considerably and eventually eliminated by a combination of strategies used in parallel:-

a) Have a combination of different resources depending on location such as on shore wind, off shore wind, solar, geothermal, wave, tidal, geothermal, hydro and biomass.

b) Share energy over larger regions using high voltage direct current transmission lines which considerably reduce transmission costs when transmitting over large distances.

c) Make the grid “smarter” by matching demand with supply where possible.

d). Develop different storage techniques that can then deliver the stored energy almost immediately. Examples here could be pumped hydroelectric, battery storage or synthetic fuels.  

As an aside an example here could be useful, although how new innovative use of technology will eventually pan out often leads in unexpected directions. Further an example can illustrate how relying fully on alternatives in the future can actually help reduce some of the variability problems of supply and demand. Imagine parked cars around the world with many of them connected to the grid. The owners merely state (electronically) the time they might next need to drive the car and the battery is used at the convenience of the grid to store or charge with the owner being paid or charged accordingly. This smart use of storage alone may in many locations solve the intermittency problem.  Even without smart technology cars will generally be charging at times when other demand is low but the supply of wind overnight or peak sunshine during midday is high.

The idea that wind and solar are necessarily more unpredictable than say a large conventional power station is a myth. Unpredictability of energy can be due to weather or plant failure. The unpredictably due to weather will not likely affect the conventional power plant but plant failure is of much greater concern. If a conventional power plant fails then that will represent a much higher proportion of the supply than the failure of a wind turbine say. It can be seen that predicting exactly where rain will fall or clouds cover the sky can be problematic but when we look at average sunshine or wind patterns over an entire region then we see that these are very predictable over many hours with enough time to plan accordingly.

An over reliance on a technological fix.

Finally it is important to address another viewpoint on technological solutions that can prevent enough action being taken that I will come back to on a future post regarding our attitudes to growth. This is the view that there must be a technological fix no matter what energy demands we make globally. Before dealing with this in later posts I will discuss (in the next post) denial of political ways to allow efficient action on climate change by political extremism or ideology.

Next:-

Denial of political pathways.

Denial of the science of climate change.

This is part 2 of addressing climate action denial.   For part 1 see here.

If one’s intent is to stop or hinder action on climate, denying that the problem exists is one obvious way of doing this. Thus the science contrarian may hope to:-

• ·         Rationalize or attempt to justify ones inaction that is based on some other reason for denying the need for action,

Alternatively or additionally to:-

• ·         Persuade others and society to rationalize in this way.

Typically this contrarian is not really interested in the science and if you follow their reasoning you are likely to see that it is quite irrational. This form of denial generally comes from members of the general public and not from climate experts. They are also likely to hold another irrational viewpoint that I will explain in the next post concerning the proposal of using alternatives to fossil fuels for our energy supplies. These issues are independent of each other. For example whether or not alternative energies can replace fossil fuels has no bearing on whether or not the enhanced greenhouse effect due to the use of land and fossil fuel consumption is causing global warming. The contrarian holding both of these viewpoints points to the likelihood that there are other underlying reasons for their denial of the science.

The physics of the greenhouse effect is based on established physics that is used in many many fields of science, for example in the use of spectroscopy that the contrarian doesn’t question or are possibly unaware of. The question that can’t be answered precisely is how fast the changes and impacts of climate change will be. There is no real scientific opposition to these general views and for this reason the contrarian attempting to discredit the science will end up having to present viewpoints that are likely mutually exclusive. (A few examples are given here). Equally you may find groups of contrarians sharing the same platform but with opposing arguments that agree only to the point that they disagree with the current knowledge on climate science. Clearly it is not the science that they agree on.

Once you realize that the contrarian is able to hold mutually exclusive arguments simultaneously and their position is based on other political or economic positions then the next step is to realize that you are extremely unlikely to be able to change their viewpoints using scientific reasoning alone on the factors causing climate change today.

There are many myths on climate science that have been debunked but the perpetrators are not deterred and seem to cycle round them in differing degrees of sophistication. Here is an excellent site that explains nearly every myth that you may come across.

http://skepticalscience.com/argument.php

And also an online course (MOOC) that deals with some of these issues...Making Sense of Climate Science Denial

https://www.edx.org/course/making-sense-climate-science-denial-uqx-denial101x-0

These links provide good examples that serve the purpose of:-

·         Increasing awareness of climate change and the associated impacts.

·         Providing evidence of human induced climate change and addressing the myths associated with denial of the science.

·         Understanding some of the psychology associated with this type of denial.

Important as it is to continually confront this out spoken denial it is equally important that we must deal with other forms of denial that prevent effective decarbonisation.

Next: - Denial that existing technological solutions to startdecarbonisation of our energy can be effective.