Following on from the debacle of the Copenhagen conference, just some thoughts.
1. Both the US and China are sitting on vast coal deposits which can provide energy at a tiny fraction of the cost of all the non-CO2-producing alternatives. So how likely was that, then?
2. There is nothing stable or even particularly significant about the pre-industrial level of CO2 in the atmosphere: what was it, 280 parts per million? Plants like a lot more.
3. I see no proper inventory of the economic advantages vs. disadvantages of x degrees of climate warming across the countries of the world. For the US, Canada, Russia, northern Europe and maybe parts of China, a measure of warming is probably beneficial.
4. The real concern is "runaway climate change" where global mean temperatures might increase 5-10 degrees in a"short period", say 20-50 years. As I understand it, there are a number of technologies including stratospheric aerosol insertion and atmospheric CO2 reclamation which would address this problem, if it were economically beneficial to do so on a time scale faster than the runaway change would take place.
There are other issues such as ocean acidification and a projected rise in sea level (not a fast process if caused by thermal expansion). However, these are also amenable to technology if a business case exists.
5. Such a shame that no economic/technical studies seem to exist which review these possiblities in a rational way. And what about this?
There, not a single wry remark about the recent weather.
