by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past week.
A range of interesting perspectives on the environment and climate change:
IAI News has an interview with Benny Peiser of the GWPF.
Footnote, which focuses on Cultural Climate, has a post How to Fix the Broken Debate on Climate Change.
Matt Ridley has an op-ed in the WSJ: The World’s Resources Aren’t Running Out.
Nigel Lawson of the GWPF has an extensive essay in StandPoint entitled Cool It.
Paul Kingsworth is interviewed in NYTimes: It’s the End of the World as We Know It . . . And He Feels Fine.
Daniel Sarewitz comments on Kingsworth an article at Slate: It’s the End of the World as We Prefer It, and I Feel Stupid. Quote of the week goes to Dan Sarewitz:
Indeed, with climate change being blamed for almost everything these days, the one phenomenon that seems to have escaped the notice of scientists, environmentalists and the media alike is that, perhaps above all, climate change is making us stupid.
National Geographic has a superb new series on Feeding 9 Billion.
And finally, I can’t resist including this one from Psychology Today: Need Better Ideas? Ask More Women.
Perhaps climate scientists need an “Ask Judy” helpline.
More seriously, the findings that groups in which more people were involved in discussions, information was freely shared, no one was dominant, members paid attention to others and asked questions, performed better generally accord with my experience of successful team work. Of course, men can operate this way, although it may well be true that women are more prone to.
In passing, I spent about two years in and around India, and it struck me that the women were much more earthed than the men (not confined to India, but perhaps more so there). Other than being dominated by a male military junta, I found more male-female balance in Burma then elsewhere, and it was the most prosperous nation in the region before the 1962 coup.
Dear Judy,
My major professor humiliated one of my peer graduate students because he said natural cycles might overcome the effect of CO2 and that we don’t really understand all there is to know about it. I am losing sleep over this because I feel the same way, but I do want to get my PhD. What should I do?
Sleepless in Pennsylvania.
Faustino, I turned 65 on Friday. Consequently, I am now in favour of massive government expenditures and hospital beds starring at all Olympic opening ceremonies, as per London.
If you don’t stop writing those awkward letters to the Murdoch Press I am going to have you prosecuted for…I dunno…pensionism? We ageing hippies are essential to the global carbon economy. We eliminate livestock by letting fences fall down and our uncleared acres of rubbish scrub are perfect carbon sinks (well, till they catch fire). We are probably doing all sorts of other good stuff, but I need to bone up on my virtues by reading the Fairfax Press and Skeptical Science.
I’ll let you know when I feel smug enough to lecture you.
moso, I’m nudging 72, but have an altruistic gene which makes me seek the welfare of the many rather than just me and my significant others.
Sleepless,
Donate to Mark Steyn’s legal fund.
Dear Sleepless
Your dilemma is not unique.
I have received letters from many science graduate students with the same problem.
My advice to them, and to you, is to stick with your principles. Continue to be rationally skeptical of all claims that cannot be validated by scientific evidence.
If your professor claims to understand all there is to know about what makes our climate behave the way it does, and that all climate change is anthropogenic, rather than natural, ask him/her to explain to you how our climate has gone through so many changes in the past, which were much more dramatic than those of today, before there were any appreciable human greenhouse gas emissions.
And, if this means you will be refused your PhD in your field of science, switch your major to engineering (chemical, mechanical, electrical or whatever). Good engineers are always needed to solve real problems. And they are allowed (and even encouraged) to think for themselves.
J.
Dear Sleepless,
You have a mortgage and student loans to repay so do like all the others in your situation do; keep your mouth shut unless it’s to parrot the academic party line. So much for academic freedom, eh? It’s perverse.
In the meantime some other things you can do are key your professor’s car, piss in his coffee cup, submit his email address to porn sites, anonymously email his wife telling her he’s banging your sister who’s a student of his, and so on and so forth.
Dear Sleepless,
There may be multiple explanations for the predicament of you and your graduate friend.
1) It maybe that your friend is too easily humiliated. It seems many people too easily see a criticism of somebodies ideas for a personal attack on themselves. Maybe your friend just needs to grow a backbone.
2)It could also be that your friends argument was so crude as to deserve ridicule although within an educational setting it seems constructive criticism would be better. For example I myself am struggling with exactly what “natural cycles might overcome the effect of CO2 ” means. It maybe that ‘natural cycles’ (or variability) has impacted on attribution studies by enhancing (or dampening) the effects of CO2 but difficult to understand how it might “overcome” it. Your friend maybe thinking too black and white on the issue.
3) Of course it could just be the professor is an A-hole. They exist in all walks of life. For example they are particularly over-represented among blog commenters. In that case I recommend your friend seek out other academic staff in the department to have this discussion with. Evidence from climate scientist that blog is that many (from both sides) are willing to engage in constructive dialogue. Your friend may be able to develop their ideas this way.
4) Do not be put off from discussion and debate. Most people are not so evangelical that they can’t engage different ideas.
what a load of bull.
Hey I just got a letter from Nuns who say they’ve been spat on by climate skeptics.
I am really concerned about what we should all take from this incident.
Jim2,
Your professor “might” hava a higher opinion of you if you had supported your argument instead of just saying that natural variation “might” do something.
What you want to do is support your arguments or more precisely, since you are a phd student, is to defend your arguments.
So make the comparison between the strength of natural variations and the strength of the anthropogenic effect.
jim2
Mark Steyn understands your dilemma and is working on a strategy to help restore free enquiry to non-tenured academics. He plans to put Michael Mann on the stand under oath! See: Michael E Mann: Liar, Cheat, Falsifier and Fraud
Steve McIntyre continues to apply his thorough analysis in exposing Mann’s rhetoric. e.g. see the next segment: Mann Misrepresents the EPA – Part 1
The reluctance to feature and openly support the GWPF appears to have fallen away.
What a surprise.
So you find Peiser’s piece unreasonable and lacking a sound basis? Or you just reject it being mentioned on knee-jerk grounds? Do you have a list of organisations/people/sources Judith shouldn’t mention, or is it random?
Faustino | May 10, 2014 at 7:25 pm |
Hey, it’s Dr. Curry who stated she was reluctant to feature the GWPF.
A resolution lasting.. maybe a month since she made it.
If I were listing organisations like the Mafia, the Taliban, and Boko Haram that might not be taken seriously in a discussion of Science, the GWPF would, per its stated objectives and past behaviors, certainly be in the top rank.
If discussing Earth Sciences, I wouldn’t turn to a sociologist specializing in political manipulation.
Why, do you encourage propaganda and politics to obscure and divert evidence-based Science because you argue it’s more inclusive and democratic to include liars, religious zealots and confidence tricksters at the forefront of the discussion, giving them more than thirty times as much space in blogs like Dr. Curry’s as mainstream science is availed?
Ah yes the old linking equals endorsement fallacy.
You reason like the juveniles at rc who refuse to link to people.
Up ur game our side needs you
Bart R,
Re:
That is a vile and disgusting smear via innuendo and false categorization. Your statement is truly loathsome.
Whatever one thinks about GWPF, lumping them in a list with mass murderous, terroristic groups and then pretending you are only comparing them on scientific aspects is despicable.
Bart R
Judy allows you to comment here and some bloggers here are even nuttier than you.
So why should she ban any posts from someone with GWPF affiliation?
Gimme a good reason, if you can.
Max
Skiphil | May 11, 2014 at 12:44 am |
I’m not comparing them on scientific aspects at all, as they have none.
Bart R,
Pitiful evasion and quibbling. Your phrase was, “that might not be taken seriously in a discussion of Science”
If you want to deny that “discussion of science” has anything at all to do with “aspects” of science, I might have used your phrase “discussion of science” and that does not affect my criticism of lumping GWPF in a list with Mafia, Taliban, and Boko Haram.
You have evaded the issue with an irrelevancy.
Skiphil | May 11, 2014 at 1:37 am |
READ HARDER. If they don’t belong in a discussion of Science, they can hardly be compared on a basis of Science.
Deal with it.
BartR is a phuckwad. A nasty, diseased little creature whose passing no one will mourn.
Bart R,
You have not attempted to defend your inclusion of GWPF in a category with Mafia, Boko Haram, and the Taliban.
Instead you blow smoke. Let’s see if you will ever own your words, either to defend them or apologize for them:
[emphasis added to aid your reading comprehension]
That is the list you made, and cavillng about who does or not discuss any science is mere bluster to distract from what you said.
Skiphil | May 11, 2014 at 3:34 am |
You’re demanding who what now?
What’s to apologize for, or defend?
Show me how there is anything dissimilar in the way any of those groups goes about any discussion of climate at all.
Did you want me to toss in the Kremlin? Done. Kremlin belongs in the list.
Pretty much anyone making decrees taken out of any religious tract, too.
It was a list of examples, not intended to be exhaustive.
And if you don’t see the similarities, you’re just not looking hard enough.
Bart. You need to read harder
Week in review is not science in review.
Things that caught my eye are not things I endorse
Or support.
Linking is not endorsing
Read the word range.
Ask yourself what it means
Bart needs to read smarter, not harder. ^_^
Steven Mosher | May 11, 2014 at 11:40 am |
With all due respect, what would a balanced eye take away from Climate Etc. links, in the blogroll, in the selection out of all the climate commentary and news and publications week by week, than one-sidedness and implied — where it isn’t openly stated — support for a cause?
I’m sure I’m guilty — if it is a guilty thing — of the same in the links I choose. But I don’t start by saying I’m reluctant. It’s not like it’s a secret Dr. Curry has more than a little of agenda that isn’t Science invested in Climate Etc., and this isn’t a criticism of that. Everyone’s entitled to politic for their preferences and against what they find inimical.
But even if that’s not the case, even if all Dr. Curry is doing is out of a profound desire for Scientific balance, or other entirely selfless (and being completely sincere, Dr. Curry is a very selfless person by every evidence), still one ought be reminded that at one time, Dr. Curry herself expressed sincere reservations about letting the GWPF and its propaganda into her blog.
If you want to read something into my comment, read into it support for those instincts, for that uncertainty that anything good can come out of a collection of aristocrats and propagandists devoted entirely to politicizing Dr. Curry’s field Science.
Given that I’m not known as a bastion of saying things tactfully, or being nice, is there a problem with that?
Like every single alarmist I’ve seen. Bart is perpetually aggrieved, obnoxiously pious, and so steeped in his own belief system he can’t even conceive of being wrong…
I’ve come to see climate alarmism as a kind of character disorder. There’s no cure for it anymore than their is for narcissism.
pokerguy (aka al neipris) | May 11, 2014 at 12:04 pm |
Kinda makes you a psychology alarmist, then.
As if psychology by itself wasn’t already bad enough.
George Turner | May 11, 2014 at 11:42 am |
Has it been your experience of mistakes in reading that you make more because you aren’t smart enough, or because you didn’t work hard enough at it?
While I thank you for the implication that you believe I have the smarts to more than match the work I put into reading for understanding, it seems you overlook the obvious. If I thought someone else had read hard enough and still failed, “smarter” is the last suggestion that would benefit me or them.
From my experience, those who so lack humility as to approach a reading task as if they’re the smart one seldom put in the requisite work, and so tend to err on strategy of active comprehension, of receptiveness to what is on the page rather susceptible instead to confirmation bias, of lacking goodwill in reading for such senses of what the author may have meant that could be plausible, of empathy and of personal growth through reading.
If you want to read for success, I’d advise read humbly, read happily, and READ HARDER.
Bart
“With all due respect, what would a balanced eye take away from Climate Etc. links, in the blogroll, in the selection out of all the climate commentary and news and publications week by week, than one-sidedness and implied — where it isn’t openly stated — support for a cause?”
HUH, I have no clue what you mean by a balanced eye, how you tell whether an eye was balanced or not, or what difference it would make to the point I was making about your misreading.
Here is a clue. When judith links to a article and tells you what she thinks of it, then and only then do you have any idea about her support. Your notion that linking is support is just the kind of thinking that gets people to shut down debate. I remember your type back in the days of aparthied debates where inviting a speaker to speak against divestment was seen as racist.
Second, what cause? be specific.
################################
I’m sure I’m guilty — if it is a guilty thing — of the same in the links I choose. But I don’t start by saying I’m reluctant. It’s not like it’s a secret Dr. Curry has more than a little of agenda that isn’t Science invested in Climate Etc., and this isn’t a criticism of that. Everyone’s entitled to politic for their preferences and against what they find inimical.
HUH, again HUH? what does this have to do with the argument. Does Curry have and agenda. I dont know, ask her. grow a fricking pair and ask the fricking question. From all my experience with her the only agenda I can see is the agenda of stimulating and supporting open dialog and yes fights. She’s Don King with a better hairstyle
####################
But even if that’s not the case, even if all Dr. Curry is doing is out of a profound desire for Scientific balance, or other entirely selfless (and being completely sincere, Dr. Curry is a very selfless person by every evidence), still one ought be reminded that at one time, Dr. Curry herself expressed sincere reservations about letting the GWPF and its propaganda into her blog.
HUH, again, I’ve not made and argument for her being selfless. Nor have I made a case for her bringing balance. Finally, I dont see her bringing GWPF into her blog.
Here is what caught my eye. A range of positions.
Do you think you will get cooties from a link?
grow the hell up.
##################################
If you want to read something into my comment, read into it support for those instincts, for that uncertainty that anything good can come out of a collection of aristocrats and propagandists devoted entirely to politicizing Dr. Curry’s field Science.
HUH, I dont read anything INTO your comment. I read your comment.
And you cant think. Either that or you cant express yourself and stay on point. Try adderal.
################################
Given that I’m not known as a bastion of saying things tactfully, or being nice, is there a problem with that?
HUH, again, I could give a rats ass about whether you are tactful or nice.
My comment was not about your niceness. Not about your tact. What possess you to run off as you do. knight move thinking much?
Again. Here is what caught my eye. A range of positions.
and links.
with no position taken.
Stick with that. or up your dose
If Dr. Curry is Don King, that makes BartR what, a punch drunk sparring partner for Leon Spinks?
Bart, you just don’t ‘get’ Judith the way Steven has told us that he does.
Maybe he’ll offer a course.
Mas.
====
Bad Andrew | May 12, 2014 at 1:10 pm |
“GOAL of the tax”
You’ve cornered Lefty Bart. Tax is the goal. He just won’t say it.
Andrew
________________________________
Yup, I think that’s the goal. Cynical me believes the goal is to build a bigger government by having to put bureaucrats in place for implementation, etc.
As to the citizens of BC, well guess they’ll get what they voted for.
k scott denison | May 12, 2014 at 2:09 pm |
Guess again.
When BC implemented the Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax, because it cut so much corporate and personal income tax, and piggybacked it on the motor fuel tax and retail tax systems, it actually cut the number of tax collectors, and hired no one for the implementation.
Try checking your facts before making stuff up.
So Bart, are you saying the GOAL of the carbon tax was to cut government employees in BC then? Really? That is/was the stated goal?
Wow, guess you have conservatives running BC then.
Hope it works.
It seems the Whiny Warmist Syndrome is expanding. Whine, f..ing whine.
Where is Dr Lewandowski when you need him? Perhaps he can explain the spread of the whine.
k scott denison | May 12, 2014 at 5:06 pm |
The current government in BC is the most conservative one in its history, and among the most conservative in North America, by any measure; ironic, given their name is the “Liberal Party of BC”.
In the past six years, the BC government has shed 13% of its public service jobs.
That’s its second consecutive round of job cuts a decade ago.
According to the CEI, one in six Americans get their paycheck paid by government in the USA; a similar calculation for BC has one in fourteen.
Does it not begin to dawn on you just how much MORE conservative BC, the people who brought in the Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax as part of the LOW TAX REVOLUTION are than you and your Leftist regime?
What dawns on me, Bart, is how quickly you jump to conclusions and how far you will go to avoid the question: WHAT IS THE GOAL OF THE BC CARBON TAX?
You know why Bart? Because I have a strong belief that the BC government, like all governments, doesn’t really have the best interests of the citizens in mind.
k scott denison | May 12, 2014 at 7:26 pm |
Really? Conspiracy theory much?
Two and a half times fewer public servants per capita than the USA.
Lowest income tax on the whole freaking continent.
Lowest corporate tax on the whole freaking continent.
Dropped the size of their public service by 25% in ten years.
Dropped their tax rate 25% in ten years.
And you think they’re still not conservative enough for you, and wonder if maybe their goals are to higher more public servants and raise taxes, when the goal of the tax is written into the first five paragraphs of the law, and enforceable in court?
READ HARDER.
READ HARDER:
WHAT
IS
THE
GOAL
OF
THE
BC
CARBON
TAX?
“Two and a half times fewer public servants per capita than the USA.
Lowest income tax on the whole freaking continent.
Lowest corporate tax on the whole freaking continent.
Dropped the size of their public service by 25% in ten years.
Dropped their tax rate 25% in ten years.”
Yeah, with all those “lowest” and “dropped” and “fewer” attributes listed you would think it a freaking cheap place to live…. not.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/02/06/vancouver-most-expensive-city-to-live-economist_n_2631806.html
John Carpenter | May 12, 2014 at 8:40 pm |
Vancouver is just one city. Might dawn on you the cost of living there is due to the extremely high demand by people who choose to move there.
Maybe in part that’s because of the low taxes.
k scott denison | May 12, 2014 at 8:20 pm |
Asked and answered. You simply rejected the answer.
The goal is reduced emissions through the democracy of the market.
Get it?
And it’s working, by every measure.
Which isn’t a surprise, because we know Capitalism works.
Well, bartski’s tireless haranguing about the B.C. carbon tax paradise has got me convinced. I followed the links to his unbiased left-looney sources and was properly brainwashed. I am voting for a hefty carbon tax, the first chance I get. You can stop the haranguing now, bartski. Alarmist Troll of the Month honors are yours. Your little plaque is in the mail.Give it a rest.
Bart, reducing emissions is not a goal in and of itself. WHY are they wanting to reduce emissions? WHAT is the VALUE to the citizens of BC?
At this point I figure there really isn’t a goal to this “experiment”.
If it helps you Bart, here are goals that would be of VALUE to the citizens:
Reduce deaths or disease
Improve the economy
“Fix” the climate
Provide better provincial security
etc.
Any of these going to be the RESULT of the BC carbon tax? Are they being measured? How?
Scott, the benefit is that they get to soothe their little green consciences and they get to pretend they are morally and intellectually superior to the rest of us. That’s all of it.
Oh for crying out loud, goalpost moving much?
It’s too bad that high-sounding statement is based on faulty premises.
So Bart, if as you quote: “British Columbians are taking decisive action on climate change.”, then how are they MEASURING the RESULTS of that action. How much “climate change” have they, well, changed? And in which direction?
Honestly, Bart, if the RESULTS aren’t measurable, then, with all due respect, British Columbians are only deluding themselves into thinking they are doing something that has an impact.
Sort of like the emperor’s new clothes.
Please point us to the MEASUREMENTS that show that British Columbians are CHANGING climate.
Thanks in advance.
Measurements?
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/cas/pdfs/2012-Progress-to-Targets.pdf
There you go.
Measured.
Stop moving the freaking goalposts.
Or, oh, you want to see a measurement of results on the temperature, directly attributed the the contribution of British Columbia?
That’s called the Fallacy of Impossible Perfection, demanding a figure not to be available for at least another 16 years (the warming) and attribution of a component from 4.5 million people out of 7 billion of that change in warming.
Simply, we don’t have to show such absurd things as you demand. Your demands are entirely specious.
We only need show that carbon pricing works, does no harm, and achieves its immediate goals of reducing CO2E emission. The rest follows inevitably as the rest of the world is shamed by BC’s example, and moreover is outcompeted by BC’s better game plan.
How are you gonna keep ’em down in the tar, after they’ve seen their neighbors in BC getting thousands of dollars a year from CO2 revenue recycling directly to their pockets?
ROFL… really… great link Bart!
So we’re taxing some, to give to others, so that we can all feel good… but of course, we have NOTHING to show for it.
Take the highest estimate of climate sensitivity you can find, calculate how many tons of CO2 have supposedly been reduced, and convert that into temperature change and you get….. drum roll……..
NADA. ZILCH. ZERO. NONE.
Thanks for the all information. Note to self: don’t move to BC, they’re delusional.
k scott denison | May 13, 2014 at 4:58 pm |
The power of leading by example.
No one needs to move to BC.
Their carbon pricing is coming to the rest of us, albeit to the ones with smarter governments soonest.
Tell me you’re really going to turn down thousands of dollars in your pockets, when your neighbors get it?
Simple electoral math: 70% would walk away with substantially more cash in their pockets from carbon pricing without making a single change in their lives; 20% would need make only minor changes to join the 70%; 10% of the electorate isn’t enough to keep a party in office.. oh, and the tax rate drops, too, and the number of government employees shrinks.
Seriously? You don’t get the central problem with tax and fee?
If it actually worked there would be no carbon emissions and therefore no tax and no fee. Just energy systems evolved under a higher cost structure.
Robert I. Elisson | May 13, 2014 at 9:52 pm |
That’s a tail-ender’s problem, not a leaders’ problem.
The last into the pool face the lowest revenues, while the first maximize their returns.
As BC has foolishly thrown away its lead by holding its price at a paltry $30/ton until the rest of the world catches up — which is just taunting us — we all have a fair shot at being the biggest winners.
Early, middle or late makes no difference. If the BC tax was actually designed to raise the cost to where alternatives became feasible – that would be the price of energy with zilch tax revenue. It is not designed to work and it does exactly that – doesn’t change consumption patterns in ways that are conspicuously different to that of any developed economy.
Never is the more likely scenario. Bizarre confabulations of dreary dissimulation notwithstanding.
Page 7 shows the incredible (small) contribution of wind and solar to world energy supplies.
http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld2013.pdf
..or heck, http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/how-global-warming-may-starve-us-more-carbon-less-nutrition-n99481
You’re qualified to speak to that topic, and it doesn’t need to wait 32 years. (Actually, 16 years, since we’re always within 16 years of the most recent running 32 year period.)
If you try to find the percentage of energy from wind and solar, it is difficult. The amount is alway megawatt-hours, not percentages. Or the growth rate of wind and solar. They don’t want to look at wind and solar compared to fossil.
k scott denison | May 12, 2014 at 1:04 pm |
Straw man and bafflegab. The how it was implemented is a series of laws and regulations running hundreds of pages. The why is the brief statement I quoted. The “value of the goal” is .. WHAT THE FREAK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?
Bad Andrew | May 12, 2014 at 1:10 pm |
Tax REDUCTION was the effect, and a major goal.
Climate politics sink energy bill
Senator “Tyrant” Reid kills bill by refusing to allow votes on amendments.
Amid Pipeline and Climate Debate, Energy-Efficiency Bill Is Derailed
Hoffman, in “How to fix the debate,” seems to be reading from the Big Brother playbook. He is concerned as how to manipulate people so that they will see the light, and embrace the one truth, the CAGW course, with no resistance. More Goebbels than social scientist.
Faustino | May 10, 2014 at 7:34 pm |
The irony, that so many people forget the best way to fight propaganda isn’t with more propaganda. Simply remind people there is no such thing as a climate below 384 months, and the whole false debate around pauses of less than thirty years goes away.
Stop talking about the future as if it’s already happened, but remind people how the Risks are shifting, and people understand that the language of Uncertainty does not favor carbon burning.
Remind people that they could be payed for their share of the carbon cycle, and are being stolen from by those who use more than their share, and they get it. They might boggle at the simplicity of the solution, but when they look at examples like British Columbia, they really do see that it works out.
The mainstay of British Columbia’s economy is raping the land through logging and mining then exporting the products to communist China. Yeah boy. We all want to emulate BC. Not.
Bart R. for some strange reason likes to pepper his posts with his idyllic view of life in British Columbia. He’s quite prepared to overlook the realities of living in this province! Not the least of which are the ludicrous claims of the likes of Ottawa’s Stewart Elgie, whom the BC Auditor General has shown to be considerably less than credible.
Not to mention the antics of BC’s (and the IPCC’s) Green Party go-to-guy, the extremely notable non-Nobellist – and CBC idol – Andrew Weaver!
In life’s jourmey of uncertainty and
enquiry that we human commuters
travel, members of the IPCC
got off the train
at the very
first station.
… Hilary Ostrov post on ‘The View from Here’ links to an url
that shows people voting climate change at the bottom of
their pile of priorities. http://data.myworld2015.org/
.
Propaganda, thy name is Bart R
Hilary Ostrov,
BartR loves the BC carbon tax on fossil fuels. he reckons it will save the planet.
I find it odd that people so committed to data would reject Barts appeal to BC’s policy. It’s a good experiment. You ought to at least look at the data.
Hilary Ostrov (aka hro001) | May 10, 2014 at 9:20 pm |
The Auditor General of BC who was hounded out of his job for inability to exercise control of his own spending?
That’s what you’re relying on?
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/26/b-c-ag-willfully-misinterpreted-information-in-useless-report-on-environmental-tax-plan-leaked-letters/
http://www.timescolonist.com/former-b-c-auditor-general-john-doyle-embroiled-in-dispute-over-his-expenses-1.714321
You’re making up stuff, twisting facts, and apparently are willing to believe anyone at all, so long as they side with you on your pet peeves, even an auditor who can’t be trusted to keep his fingers out of the till.
Which would be fine, if you hadn’t completely jumped the rails into an entirely different set of topics about BC, totally unrelated to carbon pricing.
What did John Doyle choose to do with his ambit as AG? Investigate to see if his accounting skills could find a problem with the selling carbon credits. This has NOTHING to do with the BC Carbon Tax. It’s NOT what I’m talking about, and if you could READ HARDER, you’d know that.
What does Andrew Weaver have to do with carbon pricing? Nothing at all, he wasn’t even a member of a political party in 2007, had no input into the BC Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax Act, and why is he even important enough to mention?
You don’t like the realities of life in BC? Fine, don’t join the huge swell of people who move there every year. I’m sure they’d be just as glad not to have you.
The huge swell of people moving to BC?
Yeah right. They must be attracted to the skyrocketing growth in unemployment since the BC carbon tax was enacted.
http://www.esdc.gc.ca/eng/jobs/lmi/publications/bulletins/bc/bc-emp-201304.jpg
Meanwhile check out unemployment by state in the US:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_unemployment_rate
See how top half of the list, where unemployment is greater than average, is dominated by liberal states and those below average are conservative states? Not that nasty stupid little Barty would ever let facts get in the way of his socialist greed, mind you, I offer the data for those less corrupt individuals who might be persuaded by economic reality.
Steven Mosher
Lots of “good experiments” turned out to be silly boondoggles.
We’ll see how this one turns out.
Max
If you’re interested, http://daily.sightline.org/2014/03/11/all-you-need-to-know-about-bcs-carbon-tax-shift-in-five-charts/ isn’t a bad introduction.
The piece is co-authored of friend of Climate Etc., Yoram Bauman.
I find it odd that people so committed to data would reject Barts appeal to BC’s policy. It’s a good experiment. You ought to at least look at the data.
Barts has yet to show the data ( or it has been overlooked) of what the policy has yet to show,such as a decrease in GHG emissions greater then that seen in the ability of the natural sinks to constrain BC emissions.
Maybe Mosher ought to look at the data.
http://www.esdc.gc.ca/eng/jobs/lmi/publications/bulletins/bc/bc-emp-201304.jpg
In 2007 unemployment in BC was 3%. In 2008 the BC carbon tax was passed. Unemployment rose steadily until it was 8% in 2012.
So yeah, please do consider the data. If you want to kill jobs ask your gov’t leaders to enact a carbon tax.
David Springer | May 11, 2014 at 2:36 am |
Perhaps you picked figures you don’t really understand the origins and meaning of, from a source you didn’t really READ HARDER.
http://www.esdc.gc.ca/eng/jobs/lmi/publications/bulletins/bc/apr2013.shtml seems to be the source of your graph. If you show table data for your graph, you see the rate you say was 3% was actually 4.2%, and what you claim was 8% was 5.7%
Canada measures employment rates differently than the USA, so BC’s current unemployment rate in US terms is closer to 5.4%. And BC’s trends on unemployment are far, far better than its near neighbors, Oregon and Washington State.
And sure, BC’s had ups and downs, but if you wanted to chart those compared to, for example, the debacle they had over their retail sales tax, the flight of jobs to Ontario due to adoption of the business-favorable HST, the collapse of their fisheries and lumber industries, you’d find a much better correlation.. And oh, BC is one of Canada’s most conservative governments; “Liberal” in name only, the current party in power has cut BC’s corporate and income taxes to the lowest in Canada, and far lower than most ‘conservative’ US states, too.
If you’re trying to actually understand the differences, http://www.economics.ubc.ca/files/2014/02/Hoffmann-Lemieux-rev1.pdf might be useful for background, in particular figures 1a & 2a. It’s not completely topical, but at least it’ll help you prevent missteps like that last one, a little.
David Springer | May 11, 2014 at 2:12 am |
Dude. You’re from Buffalo, and live in Texas. That’s a fine case of potkettling. And it also only strengthens the case for carbon pricing.
Or have you missed that China intends to price carbon, too?
http://www.rtcc.org/2013/07/19/china-finance-minister-backs-carbon-tax/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/12/china-parliament-carbon-idUSL3N0M92LG20140312
I’m from a small town 60 miles southeast of Buffalo. Buffalo is God-awful you couldn’t pay me enough to live there. Be that as it may last time I lived in NYS was 40 years ago. After a year of military training in South Carolina, Tennessee, and New Jersey I then lived in southern California near Newport and Laguna Beach for 20 years and the most recent 20 years in burbs outside of Austin for a dozen years then in the boonies 10 miles outside of Austin for the past 6 years.
Whatever the actual level of BC unemployment it rose by 5% between 2007 and 2012. Whatever metric is used it more thabn doubled.
Correlation is not causation but it still serves to identify potential causes.
And it remains a fact that BC’s largest export is coal. I think BC owes me some damages for mining and selling coal according to your logic.
“The mainstay of British Columbia’s economy is raping the land through logging and mining then exporting the products to communist China.”
____
Where those natural resources are turned into inexpensive products we can buy at our local Walmart to improve our supposed ‘standard’ of living. This is surely capitalism at its best, eh?
“Simply remind people there is no such thing as a climate below 384 months”
So if we have an impact event like the Clovis comet or a volcanic even like the Lake Toba eruption or the Lava Creek eruption we have to wait 32 years before we stop saying things like
‘This is jolly cold weather Old Chap’
and
‘Did it used to rain acidic molten rocks when you were growing up?’
DocMartyn | May 11, 2014 at 11:57 am |
Pfft.
You can always talk about the weather, as the weather happens.
And sure, it’s entirely possible that AGW makes meaningful impacts on weather in ways we can talk about separate from climate.
For instance, the preponderance of Risk of extreme events as the jet stream shifts can be talked about pretty much any time you look at a satellite image with jet stream information.. that’s perfectly fair game.
Or whether the 20% higher risk of extreme weather reported in a recent study is accurate and credible.. that’s a good topic.
Or why aren’t people who incur such risks on our behalf without our consent paying us compensation.. I’m all for that discussion, on the spot.
No need to wait for those. Why aren’t you talking about them?
Steven Mosher | May 11, 2014 at 12:04 am |
I find it odd that people so committed to data would reject Barts appeal to BC’s policy. It’s a good experiment. You ought to at least look at the data.
____________________
Funny you call this a good experiment. Let’s see: the resulting CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will be the same with or without this experiment. So, as you seem to think this is such a good experiment, please tell us what we will have learned and what the point of the exercise is?
As Bart and many other warmists would have us believe, carbon taxes are about saving the planet. So please, tell me how this helps achieve that goal.
This tax is either the same a all the celebrities Tweeting their opposition to Boco Harum – that is a vain attempt to make themselves feel better – or an attempt by politicians to control the consumption of fuels. To what purpose, I don’t know.
k scott denison | May 11, 2014 at 7:48 pm |
So, according to you, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is predestined?
No matter how much is pumped into the air by people burning fuels, it will not be changed from its predestined course?
Nothing human beings do matters, and there are no consequences to any human actions, ever?
Sounds pretty pointless, this fantasy of yours.
Bart R | May 11, 2014 at 11:05 pm |
k scott denison | May 11, 2014 at 7:48 pm |
So, according to you, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is predestined?
__________________
You don’t read very well, do you Bart?
Let me speak more slowly and clearly then.
What is the goal of this, the British Columbia carbon tax, experiment?
What metric will be used to measure whether or not the goal has been achieved?
What impact will the experiment have on CO2 in the atmosphere? How will we measure it?
Most importantly: what actions will be taken as a result of this experiment if: a) the measured results don’t meet the goal versus b) the measured results meet the goal?
You see, Bart, I was taught that if the action one takes as a result of running an experiment aren’t going to be different than if one doesn’t run the experiment, then there is no point in doing the experiment.
My point is that the BC government is doing this solely to make themselves feel better (optimistic view) and/or to exercise increased control over what their constituents can/cannot do (pessimistic view) and/or to funnel $s to their friends and contributors in order to exert more power and ensure reelection (cynical view).
Even if the BC experiment works precisely as planned, it will have ZERO measurable impact on climate and ZERO measurable impact on CO2 in the atmosphere. So my view leans toward the pessimistic and cynical.
k scott denison | May 12, 2014 at 10:11 am |
Firstly, it was Mosher who styled it an experiment; to the rest of the world, it is leadership by example.
The BC Government is doing this, as they say, not for the reasons Mosher, or SkS, or you allude, but:
— http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/tbs/tp/climate/A1.htm
How is it measured? It’s measured every summer on the anniversary of its implementation, and reported on in the BC Legislature by the Minister of Finance.
Why don’t you go look up what the reports say?
So far, by carbon pricing alone, BC has dropped its per capita emissions in line with its ambitious CO2 goals, and the rest of the world is taking notice and starting to follow suit.
That will make a big difference.
Given the huge uncertainies of climate science, any talk of a carbon tax, price, whatever, is premature.
jim2 | May 12, 2014 at 11:21 am |
The power of Capitalism to resolve the uncertainties is among the least of the reasons to subscribe to carbon pricing.
Yes, Bart, I can read (unlike you apparently), but what you posted doesn’t speak to the GOAL of the tax, rather to what the tax is and HOW it is implemented. Please find the GOAL and tell me what the value of the GOAL is. You can do it!
Oh, and just to head off any misunderstanding Bart, I know that BC is trying to reduce emissions. The question is WHY?
What value to BC citizens is there in paying bureaucrats to push money around in the system so that emissions are reduced.
“GOAL of the tax”
You’ve cornered Lefty Bart. Tax is the goal. He just won’t say it.
Andrew
RE BC’s carbon tax:
As i understand it, it is difficult to “prove” that it has created major problems and just as difficult to “prove” it is responsible for decreasing CO2 emissions. If, I am reading the last chart in the article bart linked to, it appears to be off setting other taxes. If that is true, a major criticism of the policy is not coming to pass – an increased tax burden.
The one criticism I’ve seen that may be accurate is the efficiency of carbon off set programs some of the tax revenue is being sent to. There seems to be a bit of the “who you know” effect in determining who or what gets funds, with little evidence of any real effect. That’s not really a problem with the tax, but with the people implementing that portion of the policy.
Lots of “good experiments” turned out to be silly boondoggles.
We’ll see how this one turns out.
Max
##############
I’d suggest that the wise thing to do is prepare for the worst. That is, prepare for a day when we will have to pay carbon taxes. Part of that preparation is
doing experiments. I see BC as an experiment. I’d like to see more canadian provinces try it. I’d like to see 10 good years of data from a canadian experiment.
Still its funny watching you folks try to take Bart on head on.
“I’d suggest that the wise thing to do is prepare for the worst. That is, prepare for a day when we will have to pay carbon taxes.”
Carbon taxes are by no means the worst we can expect from CAGW mania. England is already importing wood chips from the US by the freighter load to make up for some of the power they have sacrificed on the altar of Bishop Hansen’s religion of decarbonization.
If the EU pols continue to get their way on their idiotic policy, soon all of Europe may have to start importing dung from Africa to heat their homes in the winter.
The worst we can expect from decarbonization is – decarbonization.
Better yet – let’s vote on it. Oh wait – I already have.
I guess most of us think mosh is seriously off the planet – the definitive space cadet.
jim2 | May 10, 2014 at 7:20 pm |
And yet, Dr. Curry’s colleague Dave Rutledge demonstrated that coal reserves will not survive the century in http://judithcurry.com/2014/04/22/coal-and-the-ipcc/ and the cost of producing solar and wind are both in exponential freefall and the case for hydro and geothermal getting steadily better, while the economics of carbon just gets worse and worse.
On page 18 of your own source, we see hydro’s ongoing growth, and note hydro is only 4% to 8% exploited worldwide, with more than enough room for new hydro to displace much of carbon. Note page 24 shows the boom in ‘other’ sources of electricity from 0.6% in 1973 to 4.5% in 2011 while page 29 shows electricity’s preponderance almost doubled from 11.5% to 22% of the energy market.. in less than four decades an EIGHTEEN time increase in the growth of wind and solar, and that’s already three years out of date.
Of course when coal runs out and oil runs out in the next 50-100 years we will have a CO2 problem anymore?? Sort of shoots your argument in the foot
angech | May 10, 2014 at 8:47 pm |
What, you expect ALL THE CARBON IN THE WORLD to just fall out of the sky the day we stop being able to claw it out of the ground?
We have this problem now, and it will last for millennia based on what we have done already.
Speaking of clawing crap out of the ground I wonder if nasty stupid little Barty realizes the top export of British Columbia is coal?
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/economic+stakes+economic+sectors+what+they+bring/8301359/story.html
The economic stakes: Key economic sectors and what they bring to B.C.
Top 5 B.C. origin exports to the world (2012) • Coal 18% of B.C. exports • Lumber 13% • Wood pulp 7% • Copper 6% • Oil & gas 5%
If hypocrisy had a dollar value then it would probably top the list of BC exports instead of coal.
We only have estimates of coal reserves, and these can change over time. Here are some of the educated guesses.
From the articles:
It has been estimated that there are over 861 billion tonnes of proven coal reserves worldwide. This means that there is enough coal to last us around 112 years at current rates of production. In contrast, proven oil and gas reserves are equivalent to around 46 and 54 years at current production levels.
http://www.worldcoal.org/coal/where-is-coal-found/
Worldwide, compared to all other fossil fuels, coal is the most abundant and is widely distributed across the continents. The estimate for the world’s total recoverable reserves of coal as of January 1, 2009 was 948 billion short tons. The resulting ratio of coal reserves to consumption is approximately 129 years, meaning that at current rates of consumption, current coal reserves could last that long.
http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=coal_reserves
Reserves
There are two internationally recognised methods for assessing world coal reserves. The first one is produced by the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) and is used by the IEA as the main source of information about coal reserves. The second one is produced by the World Energy Council (WEC) and is used by the BP Statistical Review of World Energy.
According to BGR there are 1038 billion tonnes of coal reserves left, equivalent to 132 years of global coal output in 2012. Coal reserves reported by WEC are much lower – 861 billion tonnes, equivalent to 109 years of coal output.
http://www.worldcoal.org/resources/coal-statistics/
Wow Bart, if the economics are as you state, then without needing to resort to subsidies, the whole world will move to the energy sources you prefer! Battle over. Good job! Enjoy your retirement.
jim2 | May 10, 2014 at 10:15 pm |
Except the implication from Dr. Rutledge’s comments are that the WEC estimate of 109 years is high, and the change in what is reserves is toward the negative, as the economics of products competing with coal push the number of reserves worth tapping lower and lower. We might not see coal in 70 years, in a fiscally responsible world where coal isn’t subsidized. So in essence all the coal in the world is what can be economically extracted in the next century, and while that’s a lot less than all the coal that exists, it’s still millennia of CO2 in the air.
Bill | May 10, 2014 at 10:39 pm |
Absolutely. End the carbon subsidies, and charge a fair price for carbon dumping, and we’re there. It’s that simple.
Bart R
If we are approaching “peak fossil fuels”, there is no AGW problem.
Even at the optimistic WEC 2010 projection of “total inferred recoverable fossil fuel resources” in 2008 (a much higher estimate than “total proven reserves”), these represented 85% of all the recoverable fossil fuels that were ever on our planet (i.e. we had “used up” 15% of the original total by 2008). They would last us another 200 years at projected future population growth and projected per capita usage.
On this basis, the absolute maximum theoretical CO2 concentration we could ever reach from burning fossil fuels would be around 1000 ppmv, some day in the far distant future, provided no truly economically competitive and environmentally acceptable alternate to fossil fuels is found within the next 200 years (highly doubtful).
I personally think that viable alternates to fossil fuels will be developed long before these run out (nuclear is already competitive for electrical power generation), so that we will never come close to 1000 ppmv CO2 in real life.
Nor will we run out of energy.
Max
Our CO2 problemo is solved! According to our little barty, market forces are way in favor of non-fossil energy. Economics of carbon getting worser and worserer, while the cost of solar and wind are dropping like a rock, due to excess capacity brought on by Chinese piratical mercantilism and the laws of physics being repealed by barty. No worries. Add hydro and geothermal expansion to the mix and we don’t even need to deal with that nuclear power nightmare. The greens win, We all win. Praise the Lord! And pass the pipe, barty. We want some too.
manacker | May 11, 2014 at 1:27 am |
Not to put too fine a point on it, but when have you ever demonstrated the mathematical ability we’d want to see before trusting our future in your hands?
Don Monfort | May 11, 2014 at 1:30 am |
Get the government out of the interfering in the Market business, and we’re all set.
David Springer | May 11, 2014 at 2:46 am |
Huh. And here I thought anyone who read the Vancouver Sun regularly would realize BC’s top export was cannabis.
Because the Vancouver Sun is apparently under the influence.
http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/Files/ddcd246c-69db-4f82-b5a2-5d1b67d191ef/ExportsbyProvinceAnnualData.pdf
Coal is pretty high on BC’s list, but nowhere near as high as the headline.
Lumber exports exceeded coal exports in 2013 by 10%. Wood plus pulp products exceeded all carbon fuels by almost double. Unharmed by putting a price on carbon, BC continues to thrive, and did so through the bank collapse and contraction of 2008.
So what else BC does, how does that affect the fact that pricing carbon works?
Next you’ll object that because BC has mountains, there’s a problem with carbon pricing. Or coastlines. Or skiing. Try to focus on the point at hand.
Let’s make a deal.
You can have your carbon tax, that you so crave.
But, in return, repeal all renewable subsidies and mandates.
Repeal the ethanol mandate (a.k.a burning our food).
Stop the windmill madness.
Deal?
Stop the BS, bartsky. You are not fooling anybody. We all buy energy and we notice the carbon taxes at the petrol pump and on our utility bills. We know that wind and solar are unreliable and uncompetitive. End the government subsidies and mandates and see what happens. We know that the B.C. carbon tax never will have more than an infinitesimal effect on carbon emissions. Whatever carbon that is not burned in B.C. will be burned somewhere else. But if you green clowns in B.C. like your carbon tax, you can keep it.
Jacob | May 11, 2014 at 5:08 am |
I’m completely opposed to all subsidies; while I accept they’re going to happen as a political reality, the sooner they go away the better, along with the corruption of ‘real’ politics.
Which would mean among other things ending buying into the strategic petroleum reserve, ending all uses of eminent domain for any industry (which only means the fossil industries), ending accelerated depletion, ending gifts from government to industry of land and tax holidays, and starting full carbon pricing fixed by the law of supply and demand taken into account in every government purchase decision.
On that basis, unsubsidized windmills would certainly mow down unsubsidized coal by 2020.
Don Monfort | May 11, 2014 at 10:38 am |
Uh, dude, WHAT THE FREAK are you talking about this time?
The BC Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax doesn’t show up on the freaking bills alone; it shows up in the payments to everyone in BC, business and citizen alike, every quarter reducing their business and income taxes.
The BC Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax is the key to the low tax revolution, what drives the lowering of the overall tax rate, and leaves more money in the pockets of consumers to make balanced buying choices, and more money on the accounts of businesses to invest in prosperity.
If you don’t see the recycling of that cash the government collects from carbon burners in your wallet, you don’t have the BC Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax. You just have more tax.
70% of BC citizens are getting so much cut from their taxes they walk away with money in their wallets they wouldn’t have had without the carbon tax.. and that’s _after_ counting the carbon tax. If not for BC’s promise to the BC Business Council to hold the carbon tax level at $30 for the next 5 years, every year that would mean _more_ money in the wallets of everyone who doesn’t use more than their share of the carbon cycle, and everyone who does use more than their share pays. The 30% aren’t subsidized by the 70% any more. Capitalism for the win!
Barty doesn’t live in B.C. He lives in Fantasyland. How many other Canadian provinces have followed B.C.’s lead and adopted the lovely carbon tax, barty? Maybe if you shared your hydropower with your neighbors, you could get some to join in on your feelgood foolishness. Give them some of that good B.C. weed to smoke. That’ll loosen them up.
This is the perspective on the B.C. carbon tax from the people who actually employ people in productive, profit making and tax paying jobs:
http://www.bcchamber.org/advocacy/policy/provincial_gov/finance/bcs_costly_carbon_tax.html
“Bart R
I’m completely opposed to all subsidies”
So you think school children should be forced to pay for their own education and not freeload from the adult taxpayers?
Didn’t think so.
So what about medical research? You want to stop the medical research funding that governments provide that underlays commercialization of new discoveries and inventions?
Didn’t think so.
No. You make sweeping statements that show you lack both depth and nuance.
DocMartyn | May 11, 2014 at 12:05 pm |
Where education or medical research can be shown Scarce, Capitalizable, Rivalrous, Excludable, Administrable and Marketable? I’m absolutely opposed to subsidy.
Subsidy is a Market concept, not one of general civics.
Perhaps its your understanding of the world that doesn’t think, as it takes little nuance or depth to grasp these differences.
Now, if you ask do I want government interference in and spending on education and medical research minimized?
My answer is yes. Waste and mismanagement, political agenda and partisanship, and all other affects that drive up the costs of anything a government ought be doing should be pushed out. Every penny on education or medical research ought be the best spent penny possible.
SCREAM for Capitalism.
Don Monfort | May 11, 2014 at 11:47 am |
Yes. Let’s have a look at the BC Chamber of Commerce’s complaints:
Greenhouse growers continue to complain they’re hurt by the carbon tax, after five years of subsidies and payments to get off carbon to newer, less costly, less carbon-intensive choices. They’re passing up the chance to modernize and become more competitive, even when paid to. How is that a case against carbon pricing? Any business that refuses to up its game in a competitive world needs to get out of business.
Cement? Hey, look at that coincidence. Also receives hefty payments and incentives to convert to lower carbon, which also happens to be cheaper and better for cement, but the industry won’t invest in its own future.
Cross border gas consumption? TOTAL LIE. BC taxes gas crossing the border into BC above a small per trip threshold. What the BC Chamber of Commerce is doing here is selling you a bill of goods.
On public opinion? What a crock. The government that brought in the carbon price got re-elected with an increased majority, and then re-elected again with an even more increased majority after five years of gradual carbon price rises. The Pembina Institute’s own recommendations are entirely the opposite of the Chamber of Commerce’s: http://www.pembina.org/pub/2370
..so who do you believe, the people who did the study, or the people who cherry-picked a few words out of a single line of the study? Oh. Look who I’m asking.
In short, the Chamber of Commerce of BC can scrape together two examples of lazy industries scamming the public instead of investing in new methods, one total lie that’s been disproven many times, and one half-truth completely the opposite of what the source says.
And you rely on that.
Don Monfort | May 11, 2014 at 11:22 am |
I believe people who live there call it ‘Fantasy Gardens’.
How many other Canadian provinces have followed B.C.’s lead?
Quebec has a carbon tax. So does Alberta. And Manitoba. And they’re all talking about increasing them.
Ontario’s been working on one for four years: http://www.eco.on.ca/blog/tag/carbon-tax/
So has Saskatchewan. I don’t even remember whatever the rest of Canada’s provinces are, but go ahead, look them up and you’ll likely see much the same.
Following BC’s lead on carbon pricing is a trending topic globally.
Bart, you are just Humpty-Dumpty, when you use a word it means what you want it to mean and not what other people use it to mean.
You should be happy with the Earth being at thermodynamic equilibrium.
DocMartyn | May 11, 2014 at 1:16 pm |
Why should I coddle the ill usage of the Economics illiterate?
That’s a big 10-4 Buddy. Mountains + lots of rain = hydropower. What’s your solution for everybody else?
Not just hydropower, but potentially pumped-hydro storage. In huge job lots. Hardly makes BC a representative test case for the rest of the world.
AK | May 11, 2014 at 1:41 pm |
High efficiency, high voltage DC can get power from BC’s moist mountains to a quarter of North America price effectively.
Hydrogen-enrichment of renewable fuel stocks can get BC’s excess hydro and geothermal energy to the world.
I don’t see the cause of your complaint.
If all else fails, I haven’t noticed anyone complaining that those mountains are overpopulated: if you need the energy, move there. Stop living places that can’t sustain you and demanding subsidies and gifts for your personal choices.
Did you want to complain about geoducks next?
“On that basis, unsubsidized windmills would certainly mow down unsubsidized coal by 2020.”
Well, they always do, 10 years into the future… windmills are around already some 40 years, always producing tax credits and subsidies.
If only they could produce electricity, on a steady basis…
They are totally useless except as receivers of other people’s money.
jacobress | May 11, 2014 at 4:20 pm |
Now you’re messin’ with Texas?
http://www.awea.org/Resources/state.aspx?ItemNumber=5183
http://aweablog.org/blog/post/fact-check-5-things-bjoern-lomborg-gets-wrong-about-federal-incentives-supporting-wind-power
Now, do I approve of subsidies to wind? No I do not. But I accept the political reality of the situation, and push for the day when there is an actual free market for energy in the country. Which would require the fossil sector taking a much, much bigger hit in loss of their favors from government than the renewables, and which would inevitably lead to enterprising ideas and technology innovation that would ultimately lower costs, because that’s how Capitalism works.
You will have to work harder, bartsky. The pause is killing the cause. I wonder what you think you are accomplishing by haunting this blog. Carry on with your inconsequential flogging.
I’m all for eliminating subsidies. Even if by that you mean tax breaks. But if society should deem it desirable to allow tax breaks to businesses, there is a guideline that would make subsidies work: The Rule of Law.
As long as subsidies are applied equitably, then the effect of subsidies would be fair to all. If society should deem it desirable to subsidize some industries differently than others, then as long as there is a clearly defined set of characteristics that define the class within which a given industry belongs, then this also is a fair and equitable law. So, for example, capital-intensive industries might be allowed to accelerate depreciation in order to keep them financially nimble. On the other hand, a service industry with minimal plant and equipment might qualify for less aggressive tax breaks.
As long as the law is simple, clear and is applied equally to all, including politicians, then it is fair.
jim2 | May 11, 2014 at 11:29 pm |
The tax break that subsidizes all equally is not collecting the tax in the first place.
Which happens if you subsidize no one.
Tax should be for government spending only, and government spending should be for governing only, such as enforcing weights and measures, currency, and laws regarding crime against property. What is scarce, capitalizable, rivalrous, excludable, administrable and marketable can take care of itself by the democracy of a well-governed Market.
Meh, local adaptation. We all got R leedle neeches.
A fine local experiment. Let it not be universally mandated.
==========
kim | May 12, 2014 at 1:32 pm |
At $30/ton, BC pays its lowest tax bracket $135/year (plus half that for each child in a household already getting $270/year). Productive taxpayers get at least that much benefit.
That ‘recycling’ (payment to the owners of the air) of the carbon price means any child who emits less than two tons of CO2, or any adult who emits less than four tons, actually comes out ahead, in a province where it’s possible to emit zero CO2 due to hydroelectricity and offsets.
Compared to BC, every man, woman and child is being robbed of that money.
Compared to what the law of supply and demand would fix the price at, that’s over $2,000 a year stolen from every man woman and child.
So if you’re promoting that theft, shame on you.
Bart,
RE: On that basis, unsubsidized windmills would certainly mow down unsubsidized coal by 2020
Without getting into your philosophies on what constitute subsidies, your statement above is unlikely to come to pass. Wind currently accounts for ~ 4% of US generation capacity. Using the wind industry’s own best case projections, that could reach ~ 20% of current capacity by 2050. That means no load growth in the next 35 years and we might have wind provide 1/5th of the generation. Where is the other 80% going to come from?
timg56 | May 12, 2014 at 5:36 pm |
Supposing they’re right:
Wind 20%
Solar 50%
Geothermal baseline 15%
Hydro baseline 40% + pumped storage
Nuclear – as much as you think you need.
That’s 125%+ of projected US demand, plus as much nuclear as you think you need, with higher baseline support than currently used.
Toss in whatever hydro and wind from Canada with high voltage DC transport.
This is not a hard problem.
Bart,
What makes you think we are capable of getting 50% of base generation from solar? Or that we can obtain a 50% reduction in demand through decentralized use of solar?
Until someone demonstrates the ability to produce a fuel stock driven by PS, such as what Springer has talked about, solar is mostly science fiction. My utility has no plans for it. Companies world wide who produce panels have been dropping like flies.
timg56 | May 13, 2014 at 1:16 pm |
Base generation from solar?
READ HARDER.
Not what I wrote.
Professor Curry,
World leaders and armies of “me-too” scientists have painted themselves in a corner.
They will not accept and cannot defeat precise experimental data that show the Creator and Sustainer of every atom, life and world in the solar system is the Sun’s pulsar core:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Chapter_2.pdf
Thank you for allowing me to post information that is unwelcome to AGW skeptics and believers alike.
In summary, seeds of Climategate were planted in FEAR that Earth’s atmosphere might be accidentally ignited in the chaos of August 1945, when:
1. Allied atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki;
2. Japan exploded an atomic bomb off the east coast of Konan, Korea;
http://tinyurl.com/my5zsty
3. Stalin’s USSR troops captured Japan’s facility and took scientists and technicians to Russia; http://tinyurl.com/n3agdan and
4. A young nuclear geochemist took possession of Japan’s atomic bomb plans* . . .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2170881.stm
FRIGHTENED world leaders into taking total control of humans by:
5. Uniting Nations on 24 Oct 1945; and
6. Hiding the source of energy in cores of heavy atoms, some planets, ordinary stars and galaxies; and
SOWING the seeds of a totalitarian one-world government that would surface in Climategate emails and documents in late November 2009.
*Kuroda apparently later used A-bomb secrets to correctly:
_ a.) Predict (1956) self-sustaining nuclear reactors in nature;
_b.) Predict Pu-244 (1960) in the early history of the Earth; and
_ c.) Design a research project (1960) to reveal NEUTRON REPULSION as the source of energy in cores of heavy atoms, some planets, ordinary stars and galaxies.
Every country with the ability to build nuclear reactors and atomic bombs must now have knowledge of neutron repulsion and the Sun’s pulsar core. Therefore, diplomatic statesmanship is the only viable way to resolve the stand-off over global climate change: It cannot be resolved by a win-lose ending !
Earth is invisibly connected to the Sun’s pulsar – the Creator and Sustainer of every atom, life and world in the solar system – through visible disruptions in the solar photosphere: Sunspots, flares and eruptions.
http://tgrule.com/2014/05/05/the-ipcc-and-proprietary-rights-does-the-law-trump-justice/#comment-27668
The unanswered question is this:
“Could invisible force fields from the Sun’s pulsar core explain the commonality of the human psyche worldwide, as discovered by Carl G. Jung?” [Red Book, published October 7, 2009]
“Indeed, with climate change being blamed for almost everything these days, the one phenomenon that seems to have escaped the notice of scientists, environmentalists and the media alike is that, perhaps above all, climate change is making us stupid.”
Should this be called circling the bandwagons syndrome?
Porcelain Goddess,
Bandwagons circle the bowl;
Twas rum wot dunnit.
==============
“Indeed, with climate change being blamed for almost everything these days, the one phenomenon that seems to have escaped the notice of scientists, environmentalists and the media alike is that, perhaps above all, climate change is making us stupid.” – Dan
Well, i guess this statement – “with climate change being blamed for almost everything these days” – is evidence of the claim.
It’s hard to go past that for hyperbolic stupidity.
“It’s hard to go past that for hyperbolic stupidity”
Don’t underestimate yourself. When it comes to stupidity you da man.
The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. ~Harlan Ellison
Extra points to Judith for including that as her ‘quote of the week’ after linking to this ” How to Fix the Broken Debate on Climate Change”.
Gobsmackingly irony deficient, or expert at talking out both sides of the mouth??
Heh, debate’s broken out all over; the shattered and slain, survivors and sick settle.
===============
The Kingsnorth article is priceless. I quite enjoyed reading about his misery.
Not me. I can’t stand narcissism.
A macedoine of madness, overly, and overtly, spiced.
===========
They have renamed narcissism and it is now called willissism.
Web
Ok, that’s quite funny. Presumably that’s retaliation for him telling you to clear off from one of his recent threads?
tonyb
Its always good for so-called “moderates” to realize that the deep-green romantic attitudes of people like Kingsnorth are not some fantasy cooked up by pro-business shills. These people are the activist base of the green movement, its intellectual and moral backbone, and they are in deadly earnest in wanting to eradicate industrial civilization.
Policy makers play footsie with the greens, using their extremism as a cover to make their various technocratic regulatory schemes appear “moderate,” but in the end implicitly endorse their value system and world view. The happy-talker technocrats of Lovinsian stripe will insist that we can get rid of fossil fuels with market-friendly ease; the scary-talker technocrats of Erlichean stripe will instead suggest radical reductions in individual freedom and democratic accountability in order to keep consumption and population within acceptable “limits.” Both types accept the greens’ dubious factual claim that industrialization is always and everywhere bad for the environment as well as their dubious value claim that “Nature” must take precedence over human prosperity. And both will find plenty of would-be rent seekers happy to divert others’ income into their “pro-environment” biofuel, PV, windmill, etc. business schemes.
OK I’ll bite, after all my wife bought me a little pewter pig 30 years ago in a box labeled MCP.
Showing great social sensitivity I thought, although not at the time.
We function as an effective team most of the time except on topics of global warming [she is a warmist] and politics.
Need better ideas? ask the right woman not more women.
Or ask the right man, not Mann.
I am so glad to be alive today and not in the distant future. The future is hellishly hot and inhospitable filled with legions of the starving multitude; the Malthusian epiphany. I am so glad.
I am so glad that I am alive today as I can see into a future made clear to me as well as to others through the General Circulation Models which provide riches to the few today, and a window of certainty as life unfolds. I am relieved to know the future.
I am so glad I am alive today to have the leadership from our President and those who follow, with such strong swords and determination to cut the Gordian Knot of Climate Change and thrust humanity into the age of sustainability, albeit for the 100 million left.
I am so glad to be alive today as I drive my SUV to the grocery store three miles away instead of walking amongst the comfortably off neighbor’s dog’s poop on the sidewalks. Yes, I am glad to be alive today.
I am so glad to be alive today to be trivial and watch TV and play video games as I plan my next oversea’s excursion to far off desperately impoverished lands.
I am so glad to be alive today that the internet brings me the sound bite news of the day which speaks volumes to the saying: “If it bleeds, it leads.” I am so glad to be alive today.
I am so glad to stand on the Great Lake’s shore and watch the ripple of waves murmur their presence; the wind whisper in my ear; the eagle glide within a stone’s-throw of me as it wings over an island; the setting sun’s rays through distant clouds made of reds, oranges, yellows, purples and blue; the awakening of night’s stars and steady Venus above.
I am so glad to be alive today with all the other things that awaken my senses as I tug my coat zipper up to my chin, for it feels a bit chilly now.
I am so glad to be alive today.
Out of the Cold War
came fear of technology
and Gaia’s revenge
http://iainews.iai.tv/articles/a-new-god-of-chaos-auid-363
.
That is a fine suggestion Judith Curry!
We are blessed this past week with commentaries by three women upon how to avoid the hypocrisy of which Pope Francis warns:
In particular, please allow me to commend to Climate Etc readers the outstanding Vatican Workshop summary talk, given by Naomi Oreskes’, titled Scientific Consensus and the Role and Character of Scientific Dissent.
Thank you for this outstanding (and historic) scientific, historial, economic, humanitarian, and moral summary, Pope Francis and Naomi Oreskes!
Summary The past week has a triumphant *VICTORY* for the role of women scientists in reminding us that denialism originating in willful ignorance and cherry-picking amounts to “the hypocrisy of the priest and the levite”!
Special Thanks Thank you, Judith Curry, for so effectively assisting Climate Etc readers to avoid climate-change hypocrisy that originates in ignorance and cherry-picking!
FOMT,
I’m sure that you would never try to deceive the Climate Etc. audience, and that it is mere carelessness on your part that you included the following NON-scientists in you list of “Good on yah, women scientists!” —
People in FOMT’s list who are not scientists:
(whatever the merits or lack thereof in their work they are not scientists)
Mary Ann Glendon
Edith Brown Weiss
Margaret S. Archer
Naomi Oreskes
Wilfrido Villacorta (to top off FOMT’s self-immolation, Villacorta is a man)
LOL … Climate Etc readers are invited to view Naomi Oreskes’ closing-session lecture Scientific Consensus and the Role and Character of Scientific Dissent — it’s only 18 minutes — and decide for *YOURSELF* whether skiphil’s objections have any scientific, economic, or moral substance whatsoever.
For example, is Naomi Oreskes correct in saying:
As for *you* skiphil … why don’cha just keep on studying those salacious Monica Lewinsky links that Judith so thoughtfully provides?
Fan of Massive Trolling,
You are the one obsessed with Monica Lewinsky.
Why don’t you find some more edifying concerns?
“Climate change is making us stupid.”
Big time, as the kids like to say. Obama for one, seems to have dropped 20 to 30 IQ points. Of course you could argue he wasn’t all that bright to begin with. It’s a frightening thought, but I have it a lot these days. That the guys in charge truly have no clue what they’re doing. Do they not see what’s going on with Europe and their stupid energy policies?
Be nice if at an upcoming press conference, some journalist who hasn’t yet been sapped of his cognitive abilities by all the drowning polar bears,, asks the big “O” why he’s so determined to lead us down the same disastrous path?.
In reference to Luke 10:25-37nbsp;—The Parable of the Good Samaritan — an economic case can be made that the priest and Levite were rational actors, and that compassion made the Samaritan “stupid”.
Question Pope Francis … and Naomi Oreskes … James Hansen all side with the Samiratan … is it right to call Francis, Oreskes, and Hansen “stupid” for so choosing?
The world wonders!
My dear Fan,
You routinely call those who disagree with you, ignorant, amoral, anti-science (whatever that means), denialist,(equally lame) and many more favorite epithets that at the moment mercifully escape me. Your lack of self awaess is at times nothing short of stunning.
As to your question, no, I would not call Hansen stupid. More likely deluded. Naomi on the other hand, is an academic who urges people to close their minds. I’d say dangerous is more apt than “stupid” in her case.
I’m not touching the Pope. I’m sure he’s well meaning, if somewhat beside the point as far as I’m concerned.
Is willful ignorance … when practiced consistently … anti-scientific? denialist? amoral?
Definitely “yes”!
That’s Pope Francis’ point, eh pokerguy?
“The hypocrisy of the priest and the levite” was that they just didn’t want to know about the traveller’s problems.
That’s why it does no harm to augment Judith Curry’s Monica Lewinsky links, with supplemental links to the numerous high-profile presentations by female scientists in Vatican City this week!
Good on `yah, women scientists!
@ pokerguy
“That the guys in charge truly have no clue what they’re doing.”
Of course they do. They are enriching themselves and their friends to the point that Croesus would be envious and acquiring political power that threatens to put Stalin, Castro, and Mao on the back bench.
The old saw is that we should not ascribe to evil that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.
Viewing the performance of our progressive masters over the last half century, particularly the last few years, and the empirical results of the policies which they have implemented, the choice is clearly between benign, monumental incompetence or frighteningly competent malevolence.
Your choice; you know mine.
‘and that compassion made the Samaritan “stupid”’
But if there is no man beaten by robbers, then the Samaritan isn’t compassionate, so much as deceitful, or perhaps delusional. And there remains no grounds for condemning the priest and Levite, for acting uncompassionately in a scenario that doesn’t exist.
The smartest thing I’ve seen is Hansen do is embrace nuclear power, if even for all the wrong reasons.
The Kingsnorth piece put me in mind of something I can best call presenter-mania. When you watch a BBC (especially) doco these days it seems to be mainly about catching the presenter in different lights and postures. The actual subject of the doco floats in the background as we are treated to our presenter’s many hair-flicks, smirks, frowns of concern and so on. If you are lucky you will see the presenter having breakfast. Some stylish Steven Soderbergh-style footage of our presenter viewed through the windshield of his/her car is not out of the question (both profiles).
Kingsnorth would be the perfect narcissist presenter for a doco about…well, about whatever tripe he is on about. The potential for posturing and pouts is endless. He’d crack the posh New York market in a minute with his anti-urban fretting.
And after playing at poverty and primitivism everyone gets to go home to the 21st century and all its safety and amenities. North Face and Patagonia will be more than happy to give some of the dough they make from manufacturing plastic clothes in the third world. And people in the third world would rather work in plastic clothing factories than live away from power grids and supermarkets, as advocated by Kingsnorth. So everybody wins, in a very roundabout way.
Enuff already of
narcissist presenters
posturing and pouting
their anti- urban fretting,
from glass and steel built
domains of the 21st century.
Enuff already of
climate modellers, enclosed
in cloud towers, projecting
probabilistic spaghetti graphs
of fuchure climate catastrophe.
H/t mosomoso
Of course we have our very own version in your neck of the woods Moso.
I’m a long way from Nimbin, Cane Toad. I must say, Bellingen is closer than I’d like.
Nuh, around here the argument is over whether to use the airport for drag races. (I’m in favour.)
While reading how to fix the climate debate I kept hearing “Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
DignityCoco surveyed local families in a remote part of the Philippines and found Sobering Stats:
No mention of global warminog or climate change!
Bjorn Lomborg and the Copenhagen Consensus challenge us to focus on the real needs of most people. See: Preliminary Benefit-Cost Assessment – 11th Session OWG Goals
The good thing about Lomborg is that he supports Tol’s views on having a carbon tax to fund these things. He realizes the importance of saving capital now while we can to tackle future needs. He hasn’t completely dismissed future costs or the need to raise funds somehow, as some have. I agree that a moderate carbon tax is not going to be enough of a deterrent to force mitigation by itself, but can be a part of the economical solution to the problem.
Jim D
Explain how (and by how much) a (direct or indirect) carbon tax is going to change our planet’s future climate.
Max
I somewhat agree with Lomborg and Tol that carbon tax just provides a revenue stream. I might use it for adaptation (sea-level, food, energy, water security measures). Lomborg would send it to bolster ongoing humanitarian third world efforts, not seeing any need for it at home, which is where I partially disagree. Mitigation is a whole different thing, not the purpose of a carbon tax, except through the side effect of it helping more modern energy suppliers.
The danger of a “carbon tax” is it being frittered away at trying to “mitigate climate change” with extreme environmentalists unrealistic wish lists.
The world can easily adapt to slow sea level rise.
The critical transition needed is to provide replacement fuels and transport.
What a boring fellow this Kingsworth fellow is. Couldn’t read the whole thing. By the way, did he mention that immigration should be halted so that the Brits don’t have to keep developing and building and doing those Corporate things which he dislikes or is this idea is anathema to his liberal sensibilities. How come these guys never promote negative population growth.
Steve M. has another article about Mann.
From the article:
…
In today’s post, I will return to my series on false claims in Mann’s lawsuit about supposed “exonerations”. ( For previous articles, see here).
One of the most important misconduct allegations against Mann – the “amputation” of the Briffa reconstruction in IPCC TAR – was discussed recently by Judy Curry, who, in turn, covered Congressional testimony on the incident by John Christy, who had been a Lead Author of the same IPCC TAR chapter and whose recollections of the incident were both first-hand and vivid.
In one of the major graphics in the IPCC 2001 report, declining values of the Briffa reconstruction were deleted (“amputated” is Christy’s apt term), resulting in the figure giving a much greater rhetorical impression of consistency than really existed. This truncation of data had been known (and severely criticized) at Climate Audit long before Climategate.
However, the incident came into an entirely new light with the release of the Climategate emails, which showed that senior IPCC officials had been concerned that the Briffa reconstruction (with its late 20th century decline) would “dilute the message” and that Mann was equally worried that showing the Briffa reconstruction would give “fodder to the skeptics”.
…
http://climateaudit.org/2014/05/09/mann-misrepresents-the-epa-part-1/
I don’t see any evidence that Mann did any amputation of any data he received from Briffa.
Peiser says “The warming of the last 150 years has been very slow and very moderate – 0.8 degrees of warming over 150 years is very, very moderate. Very slow and very gradual, and there’s no cause for alarm.”
OK, he should then have got the question of what he thinks about from 2000-2100 burning four times as much fossil fuel as had been burned in all the time up to 2000, given that we got 0.8 C already. This is the business as usual scenario. Should it be full steam ahead? I know this is not the right question for a social anthropologist whose job it isn’t to think about the future, but it would investigate his own perspective, and make him think more than these softball questions he got.
Jim D
You got off track there.
So far we have seen a bit less than 0.8C warming since the modern record started back in 1850.
This is very slow and very moderate warming, as Peiser says. (So Peiser’s statement is correct).
It is also (assuming the temperature record is anywhere near correct), actually observed warming.
What you are talking about not actually observed (real) warming, but model-projected future (maybe) warming, which has not occurred in real life and most likely will not occur as projected by the models (since they’ve never gotten a projection right so far).
Big difference.
Max
manacker, I am talking about asking him about the wisdom or not of adding four times more CO2, given what he admits has happened already with only the first 20%.
Jim D
You are hypothesizing.
CO2 was 287 ppmv in 1850, when HadCRUT4 began, and is 395 ppmv today
“Four times more” = 4 * (395 – 287) = 432 ppmv added CO2 = a concentration of 827 ppmv CO2.
This is a very high estimate, Jim, but let’s ASS-U-ME that it could occur some day in the far distant future, in the mid 22ndC, for example.
We saw 0.78C warming from 1850 to today. Let’s ASS-U-ME that between 80% and 100% of this was caused by human GHGs, let’s say CO2.
a) 80% = 0.62C GH warming since 1850
b) 100% = 0.78C GH warming since 1850
So, after we have added “four times more” CO2, we will have warming (above today’s temperature) of between:
a) 0.62C * ln (827 / 395) / ln (395 / 287) = 1.4C, and
b) 0.78C * ln (827 / 395) / ln (395 / 287) = 1.8C
Yawn!.
Peiser is right, even with your exaggerated assumption of “four times more” CO2.
Max
And how much of this 0.8C is due to natural processes, since about half occured prior to the 1950, when CO2 levels started to climb?
“It is more because you don’t trust nature any more. And you don’t trust humans either, and that the best way of going through life is not to risk anything, just to keep the status quo, the stability, the order as it is.” – Ben Peiser at the linked article.
Quite a good remark. Some Scientists have lost their faith in Nature.
Step 1) Study god
Step 2) Lose faith in god
Step 3) Study nature
Step 4) Lose faith in nature
Step 5) Study man
Step 6) Lose faith in man
Step 7) ?
Riddles
Q What do you call an eagle in a cage at a golf-green?
A Republican Nature Conservancy.
Q What do you call hipsters discussing Atlas Shrugged over a Dos&Equis?
A Libertarian Peace Corps.
Q Who’s a GWPFer’s economic savior?
A Supply-Side Jesus.
Step 7) Contemplate navel
Step 8) Lose sight of navel.
==================
Kim concludes = hammer -> nail.
Welcome back ter CE, b-t-s.
Fan:
We are all environmentalists now.
I have faith in nature. And almost as importantly, faith in Fan. We got this.
@A fan of *MORE* discourse | May 10, 2014 at 10:46 pm |
Riddles
Q What do you call an eagle in a cage at a golf-green?
A Republican Nature Conservancy.
*****
What do you call an Eagle in a wind farm on concentrated solar facility?
…
Dead.
LOL … the National Review coverage of eagle-related “Green Energy” issues is so willfully ignorant and hatefully partisan that the master-birder members of our Audubon Society — many of them wealthy and politically active — have utterly abandoned any thought of ever supporting a Republican Party that publicly embraces such mindless anti-scientific anti-environmental stupidity.
That’s understandable, isn’t in Jim2? Because Audubon folks *AREN’T* ignorant of wildlife in general, and risks-to-eagles in particular?
So who is National Review writing for?
The world wonders!
Dozens of environmental groups, including the American Bird Conservancy, the Conservation Law Center, and the National Audubon Society, opposed the deal. Under the headline “Interior Dept. Rule Greenlights Eagle Slaughter at Wind Farms,” Audubon issued a statement calling it “a stunningly bad move” and quoting the group’s president and CEO, David Yarnold: “Instead of balancing the need for conservation and renewable energy, Interior wrote the wind industry a blank check.” He called it “outrageous” that “the government is sanctioning the killing of America’s symbol, the Bald Eagle.”
I rarely open FOMBS links anymore. I wonder if he ever does?
The world wonders indeed.
Nice burn, Skippy. Good thing for FOMD he’s got his flame retardant clothing on today instead of his usual retarded flamer outfit.
nice fiasco with your beloved Audubon Society, FOMT!! Read first, then post.
Fan of Massive Trolling just flings countless links and words like balls of poo at the wall, hoping something might stick.
jim2
Classic! Especially to one of Fan’s inane comments.
Climate Etc’s “usual deniers” are frothing ignorantly, yet Audubon speaks plainly:
Do *any* of Climate Etc’s “usual deniers” support the Audubon Green Energy position? Are they even willing to quote Audubon’s policy statements?
Or do Climate Etc’s “usual deniers” prefer the willful ignorance whose hypocrisy Pope Francis condemns?
The world wonders!
Really more the utter hypocrisy from FOMBS. Everyone likes birds. I keep a bird identification book on my table to identify the honeyeaters on the bottle brush outside my window. It is one area where a well organized book beats the internet every time.
There is little doubt that wind farms kill birds and bats in great numbers worldwide. Where is a site without birds or bats? Is Audubon Society position to be in favour of wind farms in principle but not in practice? Certainly not when it means trading off endangered eagles for wind farms.
The larger, more efficient structures appear to kill more birds per turbine than the windmills they’re replacing—between three and eight birds per turbine per year, according to Loss.
There are around 46,000 turbines operating.
Oklahoma State’s Loss, for example, notes that American homes and office buildings are responsible for hundreds of millions of dead birds per year, many times more than windmills. And researchers recently estimated that house cats kill well over a billion birds in the United States annually. “Comparing our numbers to total bird numbers, they might seem small, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t focus on local impacts on specific species, especially long-lived species like raptors or waterbirds,” Loss says. …
So I am all for banning skyscrapers and house cats.
Probably more house cats are killed by eagles than the other way around.
Also, eagles don’t normally fly around cities.
phatboy | May 12, 2014 at 7:36 am |
Again with this eagle red herring.
It is _true_ that birds of prey have had in the past problems with wind farms.
The ratio of birds of prey, including eagles, suffering fatality due to windmill collisions compared to habitat loss, building collisions of other types, loss of prey to invasive species like cats and rats, remains incredibly tiny.
Studies of various solutions to the raptor-windmill problem were largely failures until it was noted that birds of prey almost exclusively fly into peril near windmills when another bird of prey is perched on a windmill within line of sight. To a bird of prey, the instinct to circle another bird of prey is so overwhelming that even the presence of an easily-avoided 50-yard long metal arm swinging its way will not dissuade it.
The simple solution: put spike mats on perches within line of sight of windmills, and raptor mortality falls to zero. At least from windmills.
What to do about the sort of person who sets dogs and cats loose to pillage the local wilderness?
I recommend spaying and neutering. And for their pets, too.
Bart, merely countering the “cats kill more birds than wind farms therefore wind farms aren’t so bad” argument.
We’re speaking about completely different bird populations. I don’t believe a large proportion of songbirds are killed by windfarms either.
But, speaking of songbirds, their numbers have been dwindling sharply in the UK since farmers are no longer allowed to control sparrowhawk numbers, whereas the cat population has remained fairly static.
BTW, good idea about the spike mats.
phatboy | May 14, 2014 at 3:34 am |
Cat populations what?
And why do people so seldom mention dogs?
Dog and cat population numbers have always been poorly tracked, even in the birthplace of Big Brother.. and Animal Farm, for that matter. However, the best trendology suggests that these numbers are growing, and the appearance is that feral and outdoor numbers are increasing more dramatically than overall population numbers.
Spaying and neutering.. including for the dogs and cats.
Interesting article/interview, not just because of the interviewee’s pet project, but because of the many other bits of information about what developments underway:
Cheap nuclear
UC Berkeley’s Per Peterson Pursues Radical New Design with Off-the-Shelf Technologies
http://theenergycollective.com/breakthroughinstitut/376966/cheap-nuclear
Love it when you talk nukes, Pete. Not as aromatic and generally yummy as Sydney Basin Black Coal…but what is?
Imagine the state of European energy now if Messmer hadn’t made that big decision back in 1974. No mucking about waiting for The Market. France built its nukes and went from being a hopeless energy beggar to the world’s biggest retail exporter of electricity.
To think we now hesitate to build advanced nukes in geologically stable locations…with uranium coming out of our ears! Maybe we can get nukes as a trade-off next time our Green Betters block a hydro scheme. Which is every time.
Great article, Peter. I am so tired of hearing that wind and solar are the new space race. They aren’t. Nuclear is.
Modern nuclear via fission is not economic, nor is it safe, and France is not an exemplar for the world. France chose nuclear power rather than high-priced imported oil or relying on other countries for natural gas. France has, in the intervening years, subsidized its power prices, reluctantly privatized a portion of the electric industry, developed nuclear technology that it desperately subsidizes to sell to other countries, exports low-balled subsidized power to neighboring countries in an attempt to maintain high nuclear plant operating rates, and recently was the object of an investigation for anti-trust by the EU related to power prices. Clearly, following France in nuclear is not the way to go.
see Part Eleven in The Truth About Nuclear Power series, at
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-truth-about-nuclear-power-part.html
Fifteen articles are published in the series to date, with another 15 yet to be published.
“France chose nuclear power rather than high-priced imported oil or relying on other countries for natural gas.”
So not depending on eg Arabs or Gazprom is the only silly little reason they had? And the French have been very naughty with their power, just like that Captain Renault in Casablanca?
I think you kind of get it, Roger. Kind of.
Mosomoso,
I agree. I support least cost energy. Unless nuclear power is the least cost option I do not support it. The majority of consumers and voters agree. Therefore, if the CAGW-ers want to cut global CO2 emissions they need to advocate to remove the impediments that are preventing the world from having low cost nuclear power.
Jim 2 and Roger Sowell, thank you for your comments. I’ll reply to Roger in a separate comment.
Roger Sowell,
I can’t deal with all of your points in detail here so I’ll first give a top level summary of the advantages of nuclear over renewables. In a separate comment below I’ll provide evidence to support point 2 “Nuclear power is much cheaper than renewables”.
Nuclear power is superior to renewable energy in all the important criteria. Renewable energy cannot be justified, on a rational basis, to be a major component of the electricity system. Here are some reasons why:
1. Nuclear power has proven it can supply over 75% of the electricity in a large modern industrial economy, i.e. France, and has been doing so for over 30 years.
2. Nuclear power is much cheaper than renewables
3. Nuclear power is the safest way to generate electricity; it causes the least fatalities per unit of electricity supplied.
4. Nuclear power is more environmentally benign than renewables.
5. Material requirements per unit of electricity supplied through life for nuclear power are about 1/10th those of renewables
6. Land area required for nuclear power is very much smaller than renewables per unit of electricity supplied through life
7. Nuclear power requires far less expensive transmission (much shorter distances and much smaller capacity in total because the capacity needs to be sufficient for maximum output but intermittent renewables average around 10% to 40% capacity factor whereas nuclear averages around 80% to 90%.
8. Nuclear fuel is effectively unlimited.
9. Nuclear fuel requires a minimal amount of space for storage. Many years of nuclear fuel supply can be stored in a warehouse. This has two major benefits:
• Energy security – it means that countries can store many years or decades of fuel at little cost, so it gives independence from fuel imports. This gives energy security from trade wars and military conflicts
• Reduced transport – nuclear fuel requires 20,000 to 2 million times less ships, trains etc per unit of energy transported. This reduces shipping costs, the quantities of oil used for the transport, and the environmental impacts of the shipping and the fuel used for transport by 4 to 6 orders of magnitude.
There is no rational justification for renewable energy to be mandated and favoured by legislation and regulations.
Nuclear power is much cheaper than renewables
Here I provide evidence from authoritative sources which demonstrate that nuclear power is cheaper then renewable energy. This is an edited version of a comment I posted on ‘The Conversation’ earlier today, hence the focus on Australia, but also uses international figures and compares France, Germany and Denmark.
Below are comparative electricity costs for renewables and nuclear to supply Australia’s electricity in 2050, using the CSIRO ‘MyPower’ calculator which uses the Australian Government’s 2013 figures for LCOE comparisons and projections to 2050. These are authoritative sources.
http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Energy/MyPower.aspx
http://www.bree.gov.au/sites/default/files/files//publications/aeta/AETA-Update-Dec-13.pdf
The above are LCOE only and to understand the assumptions and the exclusions.
The following link includes estimates of the additional transmission and distribution costs and explained the limitations of this simple comparison.
http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf
The key LCOE figures from the above are summarised below (but note that ‘PL 2015’ is not on a comparable basis with the other two):
Scenario: 2030 2050 PL 2015
Default (No nuclear) $105/MW $135/MWh $261/MWh
Nuclear permitted $80/MWh $85/MWh $123/MWh
Another CSIRO calculator, ‘efuture’, shows that, when nuclear is a permitted option, it provides more than 50% of Australia’s electricity by 2040 and 60% by 2050. This demonstrates that nuclear is cheaper than renewables (even in Australia where nuclear power is strongly opposed by the population and we have cheap, high quality coal close to our major demand centres). http://efuture.csiro.au/#scenarios
The CSIRO calculators use data from the same source, the Australian Government Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE) AETA reports (linked above). So, I’ll provide an alternative approach that also demonstrates nuclear is cheaper then renewables. The table below lists renewables, nuclear and total generation in TWh for France, Germany and Denmark in 2011 (latest IEA data). The % renewables and % nuclear are shown and, last, the ranking of these countries by electricity price in the EU27 countries (Denmark highest electricity prices in EU27, Germany 2nd and France 23rd).
Electricity generation in 2011, GWh
Technology France Germany Denmark
Nuclear 442,383 107,971
biofuels 2,941 32,849 3,407
waste 4,420 11,156 1,729
geothermal 19
Solar PV 2,050 19,340 15
Solar thermal
Wind 12,235 48,883 9,774
Tide 534
Total production 561,960 608,665 35,171
Renewables 22,180 112,247 14,925
%Renewables 4% 18% 42%
% nuclear 79% 18% 0%
Price rank in EU27 23 2 1
Sources:
IEA: http://www.iea.org/statistics/statisticssearch/report/?country=DENMARK&product=electricityandheat&year=2011
EUAA attributed to IEA: http://www.euaa.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/FINAL-INTERNATIONAL-PRICE-COMPARISON-FOR-PUBLIC-RELEASE-19-MARCH-2012.pdf
IEA: ‘Energy Prices and Taxes’ (currently not available): http://www.iea.org/statistics/
79% of France’s electricity was generated by nuclear power and 4% by renewables in 2011. Its electricity is nearly the cheapest in Europe.
Compare France with the two countries that are hailed by the renewables advocates as their poster child, Germany and Denmark. Denmark and Germany have the highest electricity prices in Europe.
Clearly nuclear is far cheaper than renewables. This provides evidence form a variety of authoritative sources demonstrating nuclear is cheaper than renewables.
@ Peter Lang, re nuclear power cheaper than renewables:
No, actually, in the US, nuclear power plants are shutting down because they cannot compete with renewable power, nor with natural gas-based power. see http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-truth-about-nuclear-power-part-one.html
I wrote there: ” [Nuclear power plants at] Clinton, Dresden, Quad Cities, Byron all have been losing money due to wind energy and low natural gas prices. It remains to be seen how much longer Exelon [nuclear plant owner] can bleed cash and instead chooses to shut down the plants.
Here, then, is truth number one: nuclear power cannot compete. It is not the most economic choice for power generation. In fact, it is a losing proposition. Nuclear power plants almost always run at 100 percent or close to that, meaning they do not reduce output at night when demand for power is lowest. Their cash operating costs, for items such as labor, fuel, and consumables like water and chemicals, are higher than the price the utility will pay them. The fact that they do not reduce output at night forces them to compete with themselves, putting an unwanted and un-needed product into the market, driving down the prices. ”
You also assert that France’s high nuclear power rate is a good thing. Why, then, if nuclear power is so great, has no other country followed France’s example? Surely Japan should have seen the light, yet they import oil and natural gas (as LNG), with a much smaller nuclear component compared to France. Is Japan totally stupid?
A question for you: if nuclear is a great as you claim, why has the technology garnered only 11 percent of worldwide electricity production after 50 years (or more) of trying to compete in the marketplace? The fact is, nuclear is too expensive, too dangerous, and is only viable due to massive subsidies. France heavily subsidized its nuclear plants, and surrounding EU nations cried foul. The EU Commission investigated France’s power pricing and found they were illegally subsidized. See Part Eleven of my series on The Truth About Nuclear Power at http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-truth-about-nuclear-power-part.html
You also claim that nuclear-based power prices in France are cheaper than other European countries. Well, yes, since France’s power is subsidized. See above. A more telling comparison is France’s prices compared to the US, which gets only 19 percent of power sold from nuclear. France has far higher prices, with its industrial prices nearly double that of the US (11.6 vs 6.7 cents per kWh), and approximately 50 percent more for residential prices (17.5 vs 11.9). When the subsidies are removed, France’s prices will be much greater. Meanwhile, US states with sizable renewable energy in their mix are enjoying below-average prices to all classes of consumer (Iowa, South Dakota, Texas, etc).
I could go on and on, but I highly recommend you read each of the articles in The Truth About Nuclear Power (TANP) series, starting with article One.
Here is the TANP summary: (one) modern nuclear power plants are uneconomic to operate compared to natural gas and wind energy, (two) they produce preposterous pricing if they are the sole power source for a grid, (three) they cost far too much to construct, (four) use far more water for cooling, 4 times as much, than better alternatives, (five) nuclear fuel makes them difficult to shut down and requires very costly safeguards, (six) they are built to huge scale of 1,000 to 1,600 MWe or greater to attempt to reduce costs via economy of scale, (seven) an all-nuclear grid will lose customers to self-generation, (eight) smaller and modular nuclear plants have no benefits due to reverse economy of scale, (nine) large-scale plants have very long construction schedules even without lawsuits that delay construction, (ten) nuclear plants do not reach 50 or 60 years life because they require costly upgrades after 20 to 30 years that do not always perform as designed, (eleven) France has 85 percent of its electricity produced via nuclear power but it is subsidized, is still almost twice as expensive as prices in the US, and is only viable due to exporting power at night rather than throttling back the plants during low demand, (twelve) nuclear plants cannot provide cheap power on small islands, and (thirteen) US nuclear plants are heavily subsidized but still cannot compete. (14) More reasons nuclear power cannot compete. (15) Safety is compromised by routinely relaxing safety standards to allow continued operation. In future articles, (16) the many, many near-misses each year in nuclear power plants will be discussed. (17) The safety issues with short term, and long-term, storage of spent fuel will be a topic. (18) Safety aspects of spent fuel reprocessing will be discussed. (19) The health effects on people and other living things will be discussed. The three major nuclear disasters (to date) will be discussed, (20) Chernobyl, (21) Three Mile Island, and (22) Fukushima. (23) The near-disaster at San Onofre will be discussed, and (24) the looming disaster at St. Lucie. (25) The inherent unsafe characteristics of nuclear power plants required government shielding from liability, or subsidy, for the costs of a nuclear accident via the Price-Anderson Act. (26) Finally, the serious public impacts of evacuation and relocation after a major incident, or “extraordinary nuclear occurrence” in the language used by the Price-Anderson Act, will be the topic of an article. The final 4 articles will discuss nuclear technologies under research (fusion, thorium via molten salt, high temperature gas systems), and a concluding chapter wrapping up the series. There will be 30 articles in total.
Roger Sowell,
Can I suggest you offer Judith a post on nuclear versus rewables as the best way to meet standard electricity system requirements, Plus reduce emissions of electricity intensity by say 90% at the lowest cost.
Then Judith may ask for a rebuttal post from an appropriate person. I’d suggest Professor Barry Brook would be one good option. He is a concerned CAGWer so puts the case for nuclear well for the CAGW side, which is the side that needs to be convinced, not the rationalists.
@Roger Sowell | May 11, 2014 at 11:17 am |
I guess I always assumed nuclear was pushed by governments as part of a combined military/economic strategy. Thus, despite the higher costs, a widespread nuclear power industrial base would better support nuclear military technology. An analogy might be the way, in WWII, the widespread familiarity with automobiles among a large fraction of the American public (especially young male hobbyists) worked to our advantage.
” Nuclear power plants almost always run at 100 percent or close to that, meaning they do not reduce output at night when demand for power is lowest.”
Thank you for sharing that gem. Note that whenever solar and wind power are criticized for their lack of stability the response is always that power from renewable can be stored, over night, via some unspecified technology.
People push solar coupled with molten salt insulated hot thermal storage, as a means to supply electricity, from solar power, at night.
Now you tell us that the nuclear industry, that has been operating commercially for more than 60 years has never managed to come up with a means of storing energy generated at night and using it during peak, daytime, hours.
Pretty much everything on your misinformation site is wrong.
@ Peter Lang on May 11, 2014 at 6:35 pm |
” Plus reduce emissions of electricity intensity by say 90% at the lowest cost.”
I have no idea what that sentence means. Firstly, what, exactly, is the meaning of “electricity intensity?” Secondly, whatever it is, what is the base point (the 100 percent point) that shall be reduced by 90 percent? Thirdly, why would anyone want to reduce “electricity intensity” by 90 percent? What economic or social good will it achieve?
Woops, sorry. That was meant to be GHG emissions intensity.
Woops 2, mmissed the othert tow questions.
2. The base poiknt is the emissions intensity of electricity in 2014 or whatever prior year we want to use as the base year.
3. The reason for 90% is it is close to what the 100% renewables crowd are arguing for, it probably the practical upper limit for even approaching 100% renewables (which is totally impossible), it is the figure that could be achieved with mostly nuclear some gas and some renewables as per this cost comparison of renewables plus gas versus nuclear plus gas: http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf This is based on the 100% renewables scenario paper produced by a team led by Dr Mark Diesendorf. There have been many other similar paper in Australia over the past 5 years while the Labor-Green Government was in power in Australia. There are also many other such reports in EU and USA. So that is the reason for the 90%.
@ DocMartyn | May 11, 2014 at 12:22 pm |
” Note that whenever solar and wind power are criticized for their lack of stability the response is always that power from renewable can be stored, over night, via some unspecified technology.”
You will find that there are many, many means to store energy to provide electricity at a later time. Some are economic today, others are not. Wind energy is used, today, to pump water uphill in pumped storage hydroelectric plants. That is economic. Solar energy is stored, today, via thermal storage systems to produce power after the sun sets. California reports on this daily at their website caiso.com. Stored solar only is used for a few hours after sundown and not overnight or a week or more, but simply because the economics do not justify longer storage. Off-peak power prices begin at around 10:00 pm locally, so it makes little sense to store solar power for use past 10.
Grid-scale energy storage already exists in the US, at approximately 22,000 MW of pumped storage hydroelectric generating capacity, per EIA. An existence proof entirely refutes your assertion.
And there is one very attractive grid-scale energy storage system, patent-pending by MIT researchers, the ocean-floor submerged hollow spheres that act as pumped storage hydroelectric systems.
With deployment of the MIT spheres, placed offshore in appropriate continental shelf locations, renewable energy including wind, solar, and ocean current will easily out-compete any nuclear power system. Unlike nuclear, the combined renewable and storage will provide low-cost, reliable, load-following, absolutely safe and pollution-free energy with zero fuel cost, and will do it forever. There is no need for the government to indemnify the renewable plant owners, like the Price-Anderson Act does for nuclear power plants.
The game has changed. Nuclear has lost. Like a dinosaur that has a fatal head injury, the tail has not yet got the message. Renewables have won the day.
These assertions are disingenuous. 99% of electricity storage is in pumped hydro storage systems. Nothing else goes even close to being commercially viable at the scale required to make wind or solar power a reliable baseload generator [e.g. 100 – 1000 MWh scale per wind turbine]. But pumped hydro is not even close to economic for energy storage when matched with wind or wind and solar in dedicated plants. I’ve explained why in simple arithmetic is some of the comments on this thread: http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/04/05/pumped-hydro-system-cost/
I hope they have proof how long they’ve been working on this option. IIRC I described such a system with some high-level calculations in a comment I created for Climate Etc. a while back. AFAIK I posted that comment (although sometimes I end up not). Everything I say here (and on-line in general) is intended to go into the public domain.
Roger Sorwell,
Not relevant to the point under discussion, which is not about adding a small amount of renewable capacity to an existing electricity grid that has most of the transmission system and back up generation already inplace. The point under discussion is the comparison at a high level of penetration whicjh would be needed to achieve the level of emissions reductions that are being advocated by the CAGW-ers and being analysed by the CSIRO calculators I linked to:
http://efuture.csiro.au/#scenarios
http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Energy/MyPower.aspx
A second reason your comment is not relevant is because the plants being shut down are small old and 5 new GW scale plants are under construction. Gas is cheaper than nuclear generation in the USA at the moment for many reasons but is largely a short run marginal costs not long run marginal costs. Furthermore, the anti-nukes have managed to cause nuclear to be much more expensive than it should be. This will change over time. I expect this may begin when the next US President is elected.
” Wind energy is used, today, to pump water uphill in pumped storage hydroelectric plants.”
Why lie so blatantly?
Pumped storage is possible where you have places with mountains and water. There are not enough sites in the USA to store enough water for 4 hours of base load, using pumped storage.
You are full of excrement.
The history of the Gregory County concept dates back to 1977, when a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study identified the area as the best location on the Missouri River for a pumped storage project. Since that time, there have been several technical and economic studies related to the project.
A pumped storage project works by pumping water from a lower-elevation reservoir to a higher elevation reservoir, where the water is stored. Pumping would occur during low-cost times.
Ever get the impression that wind and solar are being used as decoration and cred for a huge gas and oil promo? Now, as a fan of fossil fuels and smart promotion I can hardly object…I just think that nukes and coal (my personal fave) should start doing the same thing.
If your want to get anywhere these days you need pics of whirlygigs whirling near your product, especially if it’s a fossil fuel. The wind turbine has replaced the cross as a statement of piety and good intentions, so you may as well roll with the times (and grab the subsidies from temple offerings while they last). Boone Pickens and Branson have proven that a little of the right activism can make any product look like a planet-hugger. Germany has shown recently how you can still preach green while digging brown. (Don’t know why they don’t just buy gas from those nice people to their east, but people are funny.)
Footnote gives the usual “many conservatives deny global warming; let’s see why” meme. Unfortunately, he’s correct.
His graph comes from “Americans’ Knowledge of Climate Change“, Yale Project on Climate Change Communication (2010) — Unlike so many of these polls, they asked a question with a clear answer:
Editor
Duh!
Any idjit who has followed the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly” over the past several decades will agree that it has warmed. If this idjit checks the same record of the past 150 years, he/she will see that it is warmer today than it was 150 years ago.
What about the premise that it “may be increasing more in the future”?
Again, any idjit would agree that it “may” (or it “may not”, or it “may” be decreasing in the future). But “may” allows all possibilities, so is a safe bet.
And, if it should do so, it is pretty obvious that this could “change the world’s climate as a result”. Another no-brainer.
Even the idjit can take comfort on the fact that his/her answers are not half as stupid as the questions themselves.
And the beauty is that there really is only one answer to all three questions.
And this comes from Yale?
For shame!
Max
Quizas, quizas, quizas?
@Footnote, which focuses on Cultural Climate, has a post How to Fix the Broken Debate on Climate Change.
*****
These “broker frames” don’t pass the smell test. Instead, they look like attempts at manipulation. The science has to be solid first, then there will be something to communicate. Until then, sociology can take a seat at the back of the bus, where it belongs.
The Footnote piece is the standard nonsense nicely summarized. If you assume that the alarmists are clearly correct, as Hoffman does, then you have to explain skepticism as a mass mistake. It is not of course and that’s the problem with false assumptions. There is no new idea in the entire long article, not that I can see.
Global warming is actually an English expression which refers to any warming of the globe, unless further is specified. Yale does not own the language – and I can see why.
But note just how shamelessly manipulative the proposition is. They say the expression “refers to the idea” that temps are up a bit since the 1860s (well duh); then they say temps MAY increase in the future (well they can only go up or down or stay the same, so one in three is a pretty safe MAY); then they say that the world’s climate MAY change as a result (when climate is nothing but change, and any change in average temp will be a change in climate). And we all know what they’re going to do with that push-poll answer when it comes, don’t we? What a lovely steaming pile of useless stats they’ll get out of this lot.
Purely manipulative. And sloppy, which is worse. Is Yale where the NYT gets its journalists?
I agree with the MAY part. However, the term global warming often refers to AGW, so in that context one can be skeptical of global warming without denying that the globe has warmed. Political rhetoric is like that.
I think you should really keep up with the latest climate science. A great majority of climate scientists would say the climate is already very likely changing from anthropogenic activity (mainly the HCV), and very likely to change dramatically in the next few decades and centuries ahead.
So earth romantic Paul Kingsnorth claims that “You look at every trend that environmentalists like me have been trying to stop for 50 years, and every single thing had gotten worse.”
Just off the top of my head, what about air pollution in European and US cities, acid rain, CFCs and the ozone layer? And whether you like it or not, environmentalists have been pretty successful in curtailing the growth of nuclear power.
I’m wondering if he has an alternative definiton of “gotten worse”. Something like “gotten better, but will surely get worse after the climate apocalypse”.
Benny Peiser said:
“If we were to see signals of significant change or significant deterioration then we would be much more concerned, but people don’t see that.”
—–
Wow. Classic to the core.
Classic yet correct.
Any warming demonstrates significant net improvement for the biome. This has been and will be.
Now, cold, that deteriorates, and people are noticing even before deterioration. Wise critters, them hominids.
===============
RGates
Perhaps Benny left out a few words. It should read
‘If we were to see signals of significant change or significant deterioration WHEN VIEWED IN A HISTORIC CONTEXT, then we would be much more concerned, but people don’t see that.”
Is that better?
tonyb
The kind thing is to simply call Benny Peiser’s statement classic ignorance. Yes, just go with that for now. For the alternative would mean he is in denial of the significant changes going on from the bottom of the ocean to the top of the atmosphere. So let’s just assume he is unaware of most of the research showing the effects of the HCV are being manifested in increasingly significant ways with each successive year.
R gates,
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00162.1
Take this example. Tortured language to quantify problems that really aren’t evident.
Gates, I see some small, mostly beneficial changes but nothing significant, much less deteriorating. What are you talking about? There is no there there. That is Benny’s point. The scare lies solely in the scary scenarios.
RG, the chances of glaciation soon are high enough that any bulking up the biome can do by partaking of the Human Carbon Cornucopia is a bet on the side of the odds. Even if glaciation is not imminent, the increased energy stored by the system as a whole will ameliorate the eventual descent into glaciation with its implied famine, pestilence, war and death. So, let us unhorse this unholy four horse carriage while we can. Let them prance in the pasture rather than haul us all away.
===================
Eh, also, I know it’s inadvertent, but please, no acronymic abbreviation for your glorious phrase ‘Human Carbon Volcano’. Please use it in its full deserved glory, and bask in its radiance. The ugly acronym, ‘HCV’ is sadly susceptible to misunderstanding, and vaccines.
===============
Kim,
Very sorry an acronym bothers you so greatly. They are useful for shorting the time it takes to write, and thus HCV saves me time. I like that and will continue to use it when I feel appropriate. Regarding the Human Carbon Volcano, of course it is an amazingly concise and creative term for what humans have done with their massive transfer of carbon from lithosphere to atmosphere and ocean. It might prove to have even more significance if the HCV turns out to be the trigger to massive methane releases. Though the possibility of this might be low (we actually don’t really know the probability), certainly things are headed in that direction. But should it turn out to be the case, then the HCV will be not be dissimilar to the massive volcanic activity that seems to have been the trigger to the last great release of methane in Earth’s history– an event that sadly wiped out the majority of life on Earth.
Kim said:
“the chances of glaciation soon are high enough..”
____
Please do enlighten us as to what you see the chances to that are, and also of course, please let us know what you mean by soon. In geological terms, 20,000 years is “soon”.
Kim said:
“Any warming demonstrates significant net improvement for the biome.”
____
Sadly, the majority of the species that went extinct during the PETM great extinction event would have to politely disagree. There is a range in which life does well– get to cold, and life struggles, get too warm and life struggles. Nature likes ranges and it usually takes an abrupt change, like the HCV, to disrupt the natural feedbacks that keep the system in that range.
I like this statment from The Slate article (by Daniel Sarewitz)
“On the contrary, everything that goes wrong simply reinforces the conviction that there is just one explanation for all our problems—climate change—and that there is only one thing we can do to keep the world from collapsing—stop burning fossil fuels.”
There are many ills in the world that have been caused by industrialization, one of which is the return of CO2 from the ground into the atmosphere. Other ills which I can think at the moment (not in any particular order) are deforestation, political unrest in countries from which resources are taken, consumerism, unemployment and bacteria that are resistent to current anti-biotics. None of these have anything to do with the climate debate.
Luckily, many groups are working on these problems without the press’s attention. I like this statement from Mr. Kingsworth:
“I’m increasingly attracted by the idea that there can be at least small pockets where life and character and beauty and meaning continue. If I could help protect one of those from destruction, maybe that would be enough “ I think that there are more people than perhaps he thinks.
“I’m increasingly attracted by the idea that there can be at least small pockets where life and character and beauty and meaning continue. …”
Human character probably hasn’t changed as a result of industrialization. The typical depiction of Stone Age man is of wander tribes killing each other. Kind of like tribes in Africa in the not so distant past. He seems to assume some sort of utopia existed at one time, but now that isn’t so. His idealization of the human condition may stir the touchy-feely in some, but the reality is that humans have never been always and throughout noble. In fact, due to industrialization, we are now living in the closest thing to utopia that has ever existed. Every year, fewer people are starving and more are getting those products of industrialization they crave. This is a good thing, not a bad thing.
This econtalk interview with ecologist Daniel Botkin is always a good listen.
http://files.libertyfund.org/econtalk/y2007/Botkinnature.mp3
@Jim2 Many Star Trek stories are based on mankind’s character. One statement stuck in my mind (not exact quote):
“Surely man is a violent species, but he (she) is capable of saying, today I will decide not to fight”
I feel that humans are not prisoners of their animal nature. We have choices. Choices are based on being informed. And there is the problem.
That’s not bad Aaron, but a look at the pollen records from lakes, always change.
“Need Better Ideas? Ask More Women”
Too true. Unfortunately misogyny continues to pervade. From what I have seen whenever a woman dares speaks out on the unfairness of our patriarchal society there’s always a flood of men coming forward to shout abuse at them with some even trying to spin the situation and claim men are the ones discriminated against.
VI. Capture of Three Physics Professors.
H/t Don’t wonder, read Thurber.
============
Does the “stadium wave ” have harmonics? And if not, why not?
Is the “stadium wave” more than curve fitting, and if it is real, is it at all modulated by external forcing such as the highest GH gas levels in 3.2 million years?
A chaotic system, like the earth’s climate, should not have any regular periods that will last more than a couple of cycles. The stadium wave would be a typical temporary quasi-period that can be found in any short-term record. I wouldn’t trust any period that has not been seen for three complete cycles, nor expect any to last that long.
Our hostess writes
@@@@@
Climate sensitivity is definitely not characterized by #1, rather it is characterized by #2 or #4. The lower bound is arguably well defined; the upper bound is not.
and
True to its classic wicked messiness, there is no unambiguous way to separate
natural from anthropogenic climate change, or to separate climate change impacts
from other confounding factors, or to separate the solutions from the broader
issues of population increase, underdevelopment, mismanagement, and corrupt
governments.
@@@@@
I suggest she has this exactly backwards, in the first quote. It is comparatively easy to establish an upper limit for climate sensitrivity; it is very difficult to establish a lower limit.
For an upper limit, one can cherry pick the observed data, and choose a reasonable rime period when both temperature and CO2 levels rose, and the the ratio of the two was at a high level. Then one can assume that all the rise in temperature was caused by the CO2, and you have an assessment of the upper limit.
The second quote makes it clear that this same approach caannot be used to establish a lower limit. So all we have are estimates, including the probability densitiy funcion. So there are no measurements, the numeric values are little more than guesses.
One cannot etablish a lower limit on a guess.
No feedback, so sure, shout loud,
Then I look upon a cloud.
==============
Great to see you back, Kim. Missed you.
Thanks, j2; I’ve been commenting, there’s even a number assigned, but my comments have been disappearing into the ether. I think someone @ the NSA took Mother’s Day off.
================
First of all, the same method may be used to “establish a lower limit”: cherry pick the observed data and choose a reasonable time period when temperature dropped and CO2 levels rose. (Maybe 1945-1970?) Then assume that “all” the drop in temperature was caused rising CO2. This would establish a “most negative” potential value for “sensitivity”.
But there is still a number of problems with this approach, mostly unwarranted, unmentioned assumptions:
– The globe could well be on a strong warming trend since around 1800, such that the actual sensitivity is lower than the figure based on 1945-1970 (or whatever). Or it could have switched to a strong cooling trend around, say, 1900, with the actual sensitivity higher than “the upper limit.” (This possibility has been seriously proposed in response to some of our hostess’ comments.)
– The assumption that “climate sensitivity” is somehow overlaid in a linear fashion on natural variation (at various time-scales), or vice versa, is unwarranted and may well not be correct. Unlike waves in a pond you’ve tossed two pebbles into, the factors involved in the evolution of the state of the “weather” usually interact in a non-linear fashion.
In fact, the global average pCO2, and changes theretoo, don’t have any effect on anything. What has some effect is the pCO2 at any point in the atmosphere on every possible IR transmission vector that passes through it. Differences in pCO2 can have different effects, and just like the underlying “greenhouse” effect at each point, differences in this effect must be integrated over space and time to represent the overall effect. Averages are nothing but an artifact of mental incapacity.
The interaction of the greenhouse effect with all the other factors that influence the evolution of the weather also takes place at each point, and must be integrated over space and time to represent the overall effect. Using averages to predict the outcome of changes to planetary pCO2 is little more than simplistic pseudo-science.
– Pursuant to the previous point, the assumption that there even exists some singular “climate sensitivity” is unwarranted and may well be false. To the extent that this mythical number actually represents a real-world value, it might well have changed dramatically in response to, say, the eruption of Mount St. Helens
In principle, in a hyper-complex non-linear system such as the weather/climate, that arguably demonstrates spatio-temporal chaos, such a change to the boundary conditions that define basin(s) of attraction within which the weather evolve could well have a major effect on the value of any “climate sensitivity”, assuming such a creature exists outside of modern myth. (In fact, in principle, so could cutting down any particular tree.)
Of course, defenders of the existing, obsolete paradigm based on purely linear systems could be expected to indulge in unscientific, dishonest sophistry, perhaps referencing “monkeys flying out of their butts”. My studies have shown (me) that such dialectic is common in disputes over scientific paradigms. (IOW not limited to “Climate Science”.) The reason for such behavior probably has more to do with their fear of the unknown than any real scientific validation of the paradigm they’re attempting to defend.
Good to have Kim back. It’s been oppressive at times, and not from the heat.
Another three months data in, still heading up
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
It will be interesting to watch the OHC of the Pacific basin over the course of the year. Should an El Niño develop there will be short-term hit on OHC. How much of a hit and how quickly it rebuilds to even higher levels than now is a good proxy for the general pace of AGW.
How can it be named Ocean Heat Content when about half of the ocean volume is very sparsely measured and the rest – the deeper part – is essentially not measured at all ((in realistic terms of representation in sampling theory)?
I spent a career sampling and measuring in Earth Science. I say it is anti-science to claim the optimistic uncertainties commonly expressed for ocean heat data.
Another 50 years of measurement and we might have data adequate for the making of decisions on climate adaptation, if needed.
We do not have that ability now. The data are too sparse in time and space and probably, in technology.
Anyone who tries to shoot me down should come armed with data and method, not simple platitudes.
Geoff Sherrington | May 12, 2014 at 4:41 am |
The method would be Isaac Newton’s, and the data would be all the data of the WMO’s 50 Essential Climate Variables.
What explanation with most parsimony of exception, simplicity of assumption and universality of application by inference on all observations to date is most reasonable is held accurate or very nearly true until such time as new observation require amendment.
http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/gcos/index.php?name=EssentialClimateVariables
Mitigation is well past due, and adaptation was long ago a decision demanding an answer.
@Steven Mosher | May 11, 2014 at 12:04 am |
I find it odd that people so committed to data would reject Barts appeal to BC’s policy. It’s a good experiment. You ought to at least look at the data.
*****
It appears the government may have passed a carbon tax simply to shut up the environmentalists. Meantime, they are doing all they can to circumvent it because they need prosperity. Bottom line, it appears all is not well in Carbon Tax Land. As always, do some research before recommending something that will shoot you in the foot.
From the article:
…
The federal situation isn’t helped by the confusing messages that emanate from the provincial government — on the climate file, it’s got a greenhouse gas mitigation agenda complete with a carbon tax but apparently can’t figure out the connection between booming natural gas extraction and increases in methane and carbon dioxide emissions.
And a sly order-in-council exempting prospective sweet natural gas plants and all-season ski resorts from the usual environmental assessments blew up in its face. There may have been sensible arguments for the policy, but it had to be abruptly rescinded when First Nations, which have a direct interest, went ballistic over the failure to consult them about such a high-profile change.
…
In the case of the humpback whales, one leading expert who sits on the prestigious and authoritative Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada says the decision to change the whale’s status from threatened to a species of special concern actually reflects some good news — contrary to what was previously assumed, humpback populations are healthy and growing.
Yet the federal government nevertheless found itself taking flak from critics who accused it of making the decision not because it cares about whales but to placate interests who want to ship bitumen from Alberta to Asia by pipeline and tanker on British Columbia’s north coast.
…
What can government take away from this? First, B.C.’s public wants confirmable assurances that environmental standards are not considered mere irritating inconveniences to be dispensed with at the first opportunity. Second, if development is to take place, the public wants assurance that it be subordinate to public safety and sound environmental security and not the other way around. Third, if government doesn’t want suspicion about its motives, it should invest more effort in becoming transparent, up front and hearing other points of view — and it should stop the sneaky stuff, like trying to quietly change environmental requirements by stealth. Nobody is fooled, public trust erodes and a cynical skepticism is the result. That’s not good for government, business, the public, or democracy.
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Environmental+decisions+need+transparency+honesty/9772923/story.html
Yes, I definitely want to pay more for electicity due to a carbon tax, OF COURSE I DO!!! (NOT)
From the article:
…
B.C. has historically enjoyed low-priced electricity. However, this is changing due to strong upward pressure on domestic power costs coupled with flat or declining costs in U.S. states that are turning to gas-fired electricity to meet a larger share of their energy needs. At the same time, B.C.’s carbon tax — unique in North America — has boosted fossil fuel energy prices relative to other North American jurisdictions, thereby reducing profit margins for energy-intensive industries operating here.
For some resource-based industries, manufacturers, infrastructure providers, and tourism operators, the regulatory environment in B.C. detracts from competitiveness and complicates efforts to pursue new projects. Industry leaders point to lengthy decision-making processes, a lack of clarity around approvals and permitting, rising government-imposed fees as among the problem areas.
…
Read more: http://www.vancourier.com/Opinion+Return+hurt+competitiveness/9682859/story.html#ixzz31PjD97w0
Yep, it’s blindingly obvious the carbon tax has been just the greatest thing ever for BC’s economy. Sure it has.
Be careful what you wish for. It looks to me like a carbon tax would really suck, and I have only been researching for about 15 minutes.
From the article:
…
The federal data shows capital spending in B.C. is poised to decline as well in mining, oil and gas extraction, retail trade, real estate and leasing, health care and chemical manufacturing.
Finlayson told me this week the problem of weak investment — being experienced to some extent across Canada — lifts the curtain on a situation in which B.C., for some time, has been “losing ground on overall competitiveness in a North American context.”
It’s not just the PST. Also working against B.C. are a decline of the metals super cycle; a relatively high carbon tax; other jurisdictions’ aggressive use of incentives to attract business investment; land costs in the Lower Mainland; labour laws prohibiting replacement workers; and cumbersome approval regimes for resource and infrastructure projects.
Back in January, the business council had forecast GDP growth in 2014 of 2.3 per cent for B.C.
Its optimistic-sounding analysis stated that “expansion of … trade flows, the opening of new mines and other natural resource and support-sector activity are also expected to contribute to a healthier economic picture.”
A month later, the B.C. budget forecast a two-per-cent growth rate.
Finlayson says it’s too early to say whether the council will downgrade its forecast in an upcoming July forecast.
…
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Barbara+Yaffe+Business+council+sees+bleak+year+economy/9665217/story.html#ixzz31PkP7ayr
Or, you could read the BC Business Council’s pro-Carbon-Tax submission to the BC government:
http://www.bcbc.com/submissions-presentations/2012/submission-bcbcs-submission-to-the-provincial-carbon-tax-review
Though as the analysis in http://daily.sightline.org/2014/03/11/all-you-need-to-know-about-bcs-carbon-tax-shift-in-five-charts/ shows that the carbon tax rate freeze was actually regressive. It makes little sense if you’re doing the right thing and gaining the benefits to suddenly stop. It’s not the carbon pricing that’s to blame for the downturn in BC; among other things it’s the government losing its nerve and stopping raising the rate it returns revenues to its citizens from those who burn its carbon.
And yes, I’m not defending all of any state for all of its actions: the experiment is carbon pricing; the complications of real life might easily overwhelm any analyst — most especially ones with an agenda in either direction — of the outcomes. But then, we don’t need this analysis in BC, only the example that BC has shown it can be done administrably. We already know Capitalism works for scarce, capitalizable, rivalrous, excludable market goods.
@ Bart R | May 11, 2014 at 10:34 am |
We already know Capitalism works for scarce, capitalizable, rivalrous, excludable market goods.
*****
Do you refer to fossil fuels here, or something else?
jim2 | May 11, 2014 at 10:53 am |
Disposal of wastes from burning carbon is a Scarce resource provided by the carbon cycle.
Investors will put down Capital in enterprises to improve the efficiency of energy production, to lower carbon emissions that use the carbon cycle, to sequester, or otherwise drive lower carbon emission waste disposal costs.
Dumping CO2E into the atmosphere is Rivalrous: because of the long lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere, in effect no one can reuse the capacity someone else has entrained for many human lifespans.
CO2E dumping is Excludable, as its sources in carbon-based fuels, and especially fossil fuels, is already excludable on the Market.
CO2E pricing is Administrable, as the BC case shows.
CO2E reduction is Marketable, as companies will seek alternatives to carbon dumping determined by the law of supply and demand.
Kinda makes you SCREAM for Capitalism, doesn’t it?
What my analysis shows is that carbon taxes don’t work. Governments and their behavior are an integral part of the system, and its behavior. While a low carbon tax rising gently over 2-3 decades to highly punitive might stimulate the desired investments in R&D, process, and plant, almost any economist (or maybe just the smart ones) would insist that the expectations of investors would play a major part in determining their behavior. IMO smart investors would have expected what happened without an example (I did). Now all of them will.
Well, Bart, I suppose you can focus on narrow issues surrounding fossil fuels. But the bottom line is that a carbon tax will degrade our standard of living. It involves interference in free markets by the government, which has undesirable side effects. Such as money for renewable energy going to Obama’s cronies, only to have the companies involved go bankrupt at taxpayer’s expense while enriching the President’s buddies and funders. Government action is rife with unanticipated problems and waste.
That being said, the free market is already imposing its own “tax” on fossil fuels as you can see from the persistent price of oil at about $100 for WTI. IMO, this means there is no need for additional price manipulation by the government. The free market and capitalism is taking care of the shortage problem already.
The above, combined with the huge uncertainties in the effect of CO2 on the climate, make me lean towards no action by the government at this time.
Anyway, there are multiple nuclear technologies in the wings that can make a carbon tax a moot point if the government in the US simply gets out of the way.
So, you see, there really isn’t a need for a carbon tax. Once politicians sense the negative impact on the economy and their supporters, they will undermine it anyway.
jim2 | May 11, 2014 at 11:13 am |
The bottom line is that a carbon price has been shown to do no harm to standard of living, even in a place like BC that ought to be a basket case, looking at the failure of four of five of its major industries, pressure from a highly subsidized oil giant on its flank, hostility from its national government, recovering from decades of mismanagement by Socialist prior governments, coping with the Great Recession (albeit far better than the rest of us), a tax revolt against a tax that _wasn’t_ the carbon tax — and you’d think if someone was willing to take down the government over one tax, they’d take it down on the other if it was a bad thing — and just plain stiff competition on all fronts like everyone else has to deal with, only they get subsidies while BC turned over a billion dollars of subsidy back.
Carbon pricing employs free market mechanisms by the government enforcing the same sort of weights and measures standards on CO2E as it applies to every other good and the same protections against theft and fraud as it applies to every other opportunist seeking to steal something for nothing. Government inaction is rife with easy to anticipate problems and waste.
And if you have a ‘carbon tax’ that lines the pockets of anyone more than everyone else, you don’t have a carbon price, you have a transfer payment from everyone else to a favored few; this is the same problem as not having a carbon price in the first place, except with more government interference. We’re on the same page on government interference being bad. Except, you’re in favor of government interfering to prop up fossil by looking the other way while the pockets of people who own the air are picked.
You can have your own mixed up opinion about the price of fossil fuels all you want; a carbon price isn’t a price on fossil fuel. The equation is:
Fuel plus O2 = Energy plus CO2 waste
CO2 waste disposal is performed by the carbon cycle. That’s a service, and SCREAM applies to it. Where SCREAM applies, it is the government’s job to ensure a fair and stable market, just like it does for any good or service through law enforcement.
The above relies only on the price as fixed by the law of supply and demand. As the carbon price changes, more or less revenue is collected and distributed to every citizen per capita. The point where that revenue is maximized is the right carbon price, just like the price of every good or service on the free market.
If you really want nuclear to succeed, then you want to see carbon pricing, so nuclear can compete on fair footing.. if nuclear can succeed on fair footing.
So you’re only shooting yourself in the foot by buying into the line of politicians and lobbyists yapping on the leash of the fossil industry. Maybe you think they’re snakes?
AK | May 11, 2014 at 11:12 am |
My analysis agrees with your analysis.
Carbon _taxes_ don’t work. Carbon pricing, however, does.
When the users of the carbon cycle pay for their use, and know it, and the owners of the carbon cycle get paid and know it, and that payment continues to move toward fair market price, carbon pricing works to push waste out of the market, and encourage investment in enterprises that are more efficient.
Hardly surprising. We already know Capitalism works.
There’s also this from Neven’s blog:
http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f03a1e37970b01a511b0c63a970c-pi
which is looking like 3-4C warming in about 30-40 years.
It’s of course easy for Benny Peiser to say “hey I haven’t noticed, so therefore it can’t have any effect”
LOL great argument dude.
If the past rate of warming, 0.49 C / century, is any guide; it will be up by about 0.245 C in 50 years. Even if you double that, it’s no big deal.
Peiser has sadly, become either out of touch with the science (assuming he ever was in touch), or falling prey to self-inflicted willful ignorance. In either case. his legacy will be the same.
Let’s see. It is Mother ‘s Day and snowing in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Nebraska and Montana. The trend continues.
Can anyone answer why people still pay any attention to Lord Ridley?
He’s gone bust in every business he’s ever set his hand to, destroyed longstanding financial empires with mismanagement, and has no qualifications whatsoever to back up his opinions.
He’s sort of like me, except for the going bust in business and destroying financial empires and mismanagement.
While I sympathize with His Lordship’s anti-Malthusian ramblings, when I write such things here I’m subject to ad hom attacks by the usual suspects.. am I really that much more personally fascinating than Matt Ridley?
Ridley is technically correct that resources will not run out — they just get scarce enough to become prohibitively expensive to extract.
On the other hand, I will predict that the Ridley sea turtle, Kemp’s variety, will soon become extinct.
Those kind of resources do run out I am afraid.
Getting a comment stuck in moderation is frustrating
Did you call someone a N*a*z*i?
Not at all. I was responding to bart
Rob Starkey | May 11, 2014 at 12:53 pm |
So long as you didn’t call me a Wagathon..
That explains it… did you call him a chicken bone in the neck of the productive?
Lawson notices the anger but it has nothing to do with global warming. Fear of climate change is a symptom. Leftist global warming alarmists have chicken bone stuck in their necks. The Left’s anti-humanist and anti-capitalist agenda should die a quiet death as aspiring modernists in Brazil, Russia, India and China prepare to cast handfuls of dirt on the grave of Eurocommunism. The West had a good economic argument – we won! – the ‘BRIC’ countries read our play book, they copied our moves and they’re in the game, for good.
Bart writes:
“I’m completely opposed to all subsidies; while I accept they’re going to happen as a political reality, the sooner they go away the better, along with the corruption of ‘real’ politics.”
In fact, subsidies can be a cost effective means of promoting sectors of the economy. The key is the efficiency of the subsidy. Good ones are highly efficient and generate a net increase in government revenues and poor ones line the pockets of a special interests at the determent of taxpayers. The use of subsidies need to be monitored to keep updated on how well they are working.
“Which would mean among other things ending buying into the strategic petroleum reserve,”
Factually wrong. The strategic petroleum reserve is not a subsidy but a protection against an interruption in supply to the US and thereby serves to help stabilize worldwide pricing and minimize the motivation of parties to try to temporarily impact that pricing by interrupting supply.
“ending all uses of eminent domain for any industry (which only means the fossil industries)”
Also factually wrong. Eminent domain is used for many purposes by governments at local levels.
“ending accelerated depletion”
Dumb idea economically if the accelerated depreciation in one sector of the economy is driving a broad increase in economic activity. ( didn’t the accelerated depreciation allowed by drilling companies in the USA help to promote the natural gas boom in the US and help reduce CO2 emissions?)
“and starting full carbon pricing fixed by the law of supply and demand taken into account in every government purchase decision”
It is idiotic to write that you want to have full carbon pricing fixed by the law of supply and demand….bla bla bla. It is not supply and demand that applies taxes to goods and services it is government policy. In the US, a case can be made that a substantial CO2 tax is necessary to balance the federal budget, but that is not supply and demand and such a tax would have a minimal impact on the long term worldwide CO2 growth curve.
Rob Starkey | May 11, 2014 at 11:34 am |
Subsidies always appear cost effective, always appear to promote something good, always seem worthwhile, but almost never really are.
At the outset, subsidies require the spending of tax dollars that come from the whole economy, putting a drag on the whole economy, and blunting the advance of the whole economy while shifting the behaviors of the whole economy.
Tax dollars are the hard won treasure of the state, wrested by threat of force from the citizens of the state and the corporations operating there who then pass along the cost of taxes to the citizenry, or reduce the return on investment to their owners.
So a subsidy merely shifts promotion of every sector by the democracy of the Market to promotion of a particular few parts of a failing sector decided by a politburo-style committee of experts.
And then.. how does the subsidy end?
Suppose conditions change; does the same committee go to work to disentangle the state from the subsidized enterprise?
In many cases, no, it does not. Often subsidies are carefully constructed to be hidden, quiet things. They might be built into restructured taxes or infrastructure support or permanent gifts of land or resource rights with too low royalties. The parasite only ever gets fatter on the free ride.
Even when a subsidy seems to be generating twice the investment government has made, or ten times, or a hundred, or a thousand, the higher the return the worse the problem of diverting the democracy of the Market, of slowing the innovation of enterprise, of weakening the incentive of investors to commit to research and development and ongoing training and all those true roots of prosperity while forcing pablum down the throats of consumers at the government’s behest.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a fraud. The idea that the US military needs a salt mine full of all the oil the US government can buy, propping up the oil industry and forcing oil prices ever higher, in case of war is ludicrous. In case of war, the US military would have no problem confiscating whatsoever resource it requires, and would it not be better for the US military to have the intelligence information of where those resources might be found for confiscation, abroad and internally, than for its lazy, slow generals to just sit on top of a salt mine empire building on the backs of taxpayers forever?
Eminent domain used other than for cases of the survival of the state, of its integrity from attack in urgent and dire circumstances, is simply abuse of power. The most recent uses of eminent domain in the USA have been on the Keystone project to take farmland away from families who have worked the land for generations to give to TransCANADA Pipeline Corporation, a company with more Chinese and Russian shareholders than American. How is that a just use of eminent domain?
Accelerated depletion and accelerated depreciation are two completely different things. In the one case, a resource company has bought an unknown stock, taken the risk they can convert a potential resource in the ground to salable raw goods. The only improvement they need make is to take it from below soil to above, and all the value of that translation is figured into the royalties they have paid for the right. SCotUS so ruled in 1911, and as PotUS this was affirmed by both Nixon and Reagan. Accelerated depreciation is just the recognition by the state that wear and tear turns machinery useless over time, because accounting treats equipment as permanent assets if you can’t depreciate their book value, and that doesn’t reflect reality the way a royalty fee does. Anyone confusing depletion with depreciation has been fleeced, or is doing the fleecing.
It is not supply and demand that applies taxes to goods and services it is government policy.
Well, thanks for catching on finally that carbon pricing is different from a carbon tax.
Carbon pricing differs from a tax in two distinct ways: 1.) All the revenue fully returns to the citizens of the nation per capita within the same quarter; 2.) The level of carbon price is set by the maximum revenue collected for the service of disposing of CO2E waste, that price rising until the next new penny would result in so much less CO2E emission that the total revenues of the carbon price would fall in that quarter.
This works because disposal of CO2E waste is Scarce, Capitalizable, Rivalrous, Excludable and Marketable.
See the difference? SCREAM for Capitalism.
I don’t know if this is going to be too OT for a week-in-review thread but icholas Wade, a British-born science reporter and editor for more than 30 years with The New York Times, has been fired due to the release of his latest book
“A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History”
http://www.amazon.com/Troublesome-Inheritance-Genes-Human-History/dp/1594204462
It is reviewed over in Slate by Andrew Gelman, a professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/05/troublesome_inheritance_critique_nicholas_wade_s_dated_assumptions_about.html
The review by the social scientist is a hoot.
Wagathon, that’s what Keynesians say about deficit spending. When the spending does not work, it’s always because not enough was spent, even if trillions were spent already. It’s some sort of logical fallacy.
Freedom of speech is fine these days, as long as you’re hewing to the party line. Essentially what these people want is a world in which everyone’s exercising their right to free speech by saying the same things over and over again. It’s a kind of social and cultural rot now eating away at the very things that made this country great. It won’t end well, unless the process is somehow reversed.
Political speech is fine these days, so long as you aren’t important enough to influence many people.
Some of the book’s intro:
New analyses of the human genome establish that human evolution has been recent, copious and regional. [there are signals that] many genes that have been favoured by natural selection in the recent past. … 14% of the human genome … has changed under this evolutionary pressure. Most of these signals of natural selection date from 30,000 to 5,000 years ago, just an eyeblink in evolution’s 3 billion year timescale … [this period] occurred after the splitting of the three major races .. and so represents selection that has occurred largely independently within each race. The three principal races are Africans (those who live south of the Sahara), East Asians (Chines, Japanese and Koreans) and Caucasians (Europeans and the peoples of the Near East and the Indian subcontinent). In each of these races, a different set of genes has been changed by natural selection …
“The evidence strongly suggests that we are evolving and that our nature is dynamic, not static,” says Yale biologist Stephen Stearns, summarising 14 recent studies that measured evolutionary change in living populations.
Human evolution has not only been recent and extensive, it has also been regional. …
The social scientists’ official view of race is designed to support the political view that genetics cannot possibly be the reason why human societies differ- the answer must lie exclusively in differing human culture and the environment that produced them.
___ That sounds very interesting to me. Evolution is a response to change in circumstances, and there have been enormous changes in the circumstances of humans in the period concerned, massive changes in the last 200 years in terms of nutrition etc. Last year I attended a presentation at the Princess Alexandra Hospital research foundation in which a neurological researcher expressed amazement at the extent of plasticity discovered in the brain recently. I remarked that I’ve long understood that we are very plastic, I was glad that they had caught up.
So I’m not at all surprised at evidence that there has been rapid evolution in recent millennia.
And, unfortunately, I’m not at all surprised that there are those who react adversely to such evidence. Humans are animals. I doubt that such research would cause controversy if it related to non-human animals. If valid, the research is of great interest. If anyone finds the findings inconvenient, then the appropriate response is to further examine them, not to impose a fatwah on those who publicise it.
The group-think conformity and politicisation evident in climate science obviously extends further. For shame. Free speech, anyone?
Free speech, free intellectual enquiry, toujours.
I’ve often wondered why the Chinese seem so willing to follow the leader. It could be genetic, or it could be the leaders just killed off the opposition. Hard to say.
The predictable response is a clone to anything questioning the consensus in climate science. Go figure.
Who knows what ultimately will be the right answer. But we will never know if we stop asking the questions.
More has been learned in the last 15 years about neuroscience than all the accumulated knowledge up till then. How sad to have the questions stop in the 1980s because we had all the answers.
Probably the most comprehensive paper you’ll read this week or even month on AGW effects, ocean warming, and the illusion of “the pause”:
http://www.ocean-sci-discuss.net/11/47/2014/osd-11-47-2014.pdf
A quote from the paper:
“We suggest that far from a lull in global warming, as suggested by atmospheric studies, AGW is proceeding at an alarmingly rapid rate in the oceans as suggested by others…”
Rgates
Yes, it is an interesting paper especially as it references CET, a dataset on which you normally express scepticism. However, most of the paper is highly speculative (I note you didn’t finish the quote as it came from Hansen and we would automatically groan as he is alarmist in chef)
I found this interesting;
“Challenger datasets from 1872–76, about 100 yr after the 10 beginning of the industrial revolution, suggest mean global ocean temperatures rose
over 135 yr by 0.59±0.12 C at the surface, by 0.39±0.18 C below 366m (200 fathoms) and by 0.12±0.07 C at 914m (500 fathoms) (Roemmich et al., 2012). This suggests 2/3 of surface heat reached 366m after about 135 yr. We found 2/3 of surface heat was trapped below 3m in MTCs to 100m in the central north Pacific (Matthews and 15 Matthews, 2013). Thus, the surface ocean warming is on a centennial timescale while the deep ocean is millennial as noted by Rooth (1982).”
As you may remember I wrote an article on Sea surface temperatures carried here and there was considerable back and forth with the excellent John Kennedy of the Met office which continued privately long after the article.
We have one of those situations where the thinnest of data-SST’s in General and Challenger in particular- is assumed to be of an accuracy and global breadth that can stand comparison with the latest data. It can’t.
So, interesting paper but again one of those based on Historical data of dubious value, allied to speculation.
tonyb
Tony,
I am not skeptical as to the general accuracy of CET data, nor it’s relevance to NH temperature trends– it makes a reasonable proxy. For global trends, the relevancy begins to diminish, as the NH and CET data favors solar over volcanic effects.
Glad you took time to read the paper. Most important to me is they start from an ocean and ice perspective and focus on energy balance and not tropospheric sensible heat. It is simply one more piece of potentially useful research– which is all we honest skeptics want anyway.
Also note Tony, the quote was not from Hansen, but was their own conclusion. They merely used Hansen as an example of other researchers who found similar results.
I like tis quote from the paper better.
“Long timeseries are rare in geophysical sciences and therefore prone to the improper use of statistics (Kinsman, 1957). Kinsman wrote that there are generally data gaps or only short sequences so the temptation to fill gaps according to some unproven hypothesis is great. He noted a related problem was the inherent hazard in filling gaps in data taken for other purposes. Results are often at variance with the underlying physics. Furthermore, he states: ‘The worst of all practices, however, is the artifice of adjusting the data to improve the correlation.’”
No statistics without experimental verification. Imagine if this were applied to climate science in general. Perish the thought.
Gary,
Well done! At least you are reading the research!
Also, it was interesting that you and I came to similar conclusions on the short-term effects of a large El Niño- net loss of energy in the climate system. We are certainly in the minority in that regard, even though we differ greatly on the issue of AGW in general.
R.Gates,
You should try to avoid combining condescension with agreement. It screws up both.
And as far as us being in a minority, that is what I like about the consensus in this debate. The folks I asked at Real Climate did think El Ninos cause a net increase in global heat content due to cloud formation. Your fellow warmist, Pekaa, claims that virtually the entire consensus agrees that El Ninos reduce net global heat content. While fellow tribe member Mosher assures us with his usual humility that it is axiomatic that El Ninos cause no net change.
You all give new meaning to the word “consensus.”
GaryM,
I think they are likely both right, but the language isn’t easy. El Nino increases atmospheric heat content and induces an uptake, but the heat loss doesn’t occur entirely during el Nino, left over heat in the ocean is dispersed toward the arctic and the tropics (and during). That is why the pdo spikes positive.
So, Gates, the heat suddenly was diverted from warming the atmosphere to the oceans. How would you account for that odd behavior?
“So, Gates, the heat suddenly was diverted from warming the atmosphere to the oceans. How would you account for that odd behavior?”
_____
The vast majority of energy in the atmosphere comes from the ocean in the form of sensible and latent heat flux. Thus, heat is never diverted from one to the other. During El Ninos, a greater amount of sensible and latent heat flux goes from ocean to atmosphere and thus we see the large sensible tropospheric heat spike. Some of this energy goes on to space and some goes on to other parts of the climate system. But as a general process, the energy from the sun is never “diverted” from warming the ocean primarily, as the general flow is sun to ocean to atmosphere.
aaron,
“I think they are likely both right, but the language isn’t easy.”
One of us is unclear on the definition of the term ‘net.’
“The folks I asked at Real Climate did think El Ninos cause a net increase in global heat content due to cloud formation.”
As posted by The Chief:
CERES data show that clouds have a net radiative warming influence during La Niña conditions and a net cooling influence during El Niño, but the magnitude of the anomalies varies greatly from one ENSO event to another.’
Putting the horse before the cart, so I say,
The oceans are warming, therefore El Ninos.
The oceans are cooling, therefore La Ninas.
For the most part the oceans seemingly actively participate in regulating their temperatures. The atmosphere sees the results. The GAT has a high component of being the result of what the oceans are doing.
You can’t be an honest skeptic if you talk about ‘the illusion of the pause.’ The data is what it is, regardless of whether you believe it or not. Speculation is no substitute for data.
JamesG | May 12, 2014 at 8:11 am |
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:191/mean:193
That’s what the data shows. Deal with it.
There is no pause in AGW in the climate, yet.
For a pause to form on the data by the time we can graph 2014 would require the steepest sustained decadal drop in temperature in the modern record, a coincidence no one has any evidence could happen.
If the temperature range of the past fifteen years persists, the 30+ year graph will continue to sharply rise as the influence of the cooler years from the fifteen years before that drop off.
If the temperature trend of the past fifteen years persists, then the 30+ year graph will accelerate its rise.
If the predicted influence of the PDO and ENSO and a lull in volcano influences and continued human activities persist, even at the mildest and most conservative estimates of each of these, even at the maximum estimate of solar and other ocean oscillation effects, then the graph will have a spike that makes the last half century look flat by comparison.
That is simply how the math works out.
So if you want to talk about all the little three to eight year long pauses during the most steeply rising period of climate on record, by all means. Just don’t string together the last two and call them one pause of however long, and don’t confuse them for actual climate trend. Because that would not be honest skepticism on the data as it is.
That would be mere hypocrisy.
@ Bart R | May 11, 2014 at 12:30 am |
Except the implication from Dr. Rutledge’s comments are that the WEC estimate of 109 years is high, and the change in what is reserves is toward the negative, as the economics of products competing with coal push the number of reserves worth tapping lower and lower.
*****
Bart, if coal reserves are that short, the price of coal will limit use of it. Again, there is no need for a carbon tax, carbon price, or what the hell else you might want to attempt to rebrand it as.
jim2 | May 11, 2014 at 1:24 pm |
As if the principles of Capitalism ought be abandoned because of the inevitable failure of corporate communism.
Bart – no matter the system, in the end the producers will always hold sway over the politicians. If the politicians get rid of them, the economy collapses, putting the politicians in peril. Communism has proved this. China introduces more and more market freedoms because they realize this. All the above means that there will be Capitalists. No matter what.
“Hold sway” is a little too strong. Businesses, the rich, and politicians – not that there is a red line that delineates them – are the centers of power in any society. Too oftern, they do for the rest of us a bare minimum only to keep us from overthrowing them.
jim2,
“…in the end the producers will always hold sway over the politicians.”
That is simply not true. The Roman Empire lasted far longer than the German fascist empire, or the Soviet Union. Europeans monarchies lasted for centuries. Granted there was a high turn over in which family held political power, but the norm is that merchants/industrialists at best wield influence in totalitarian systems. Power is in the government, and therefore the “politicians,” even in fascism/crony capitalism.
Eras in which “politicians” do not control everything, including the economy, are far and away the exception in history. Despotism is the rule.
GaryM, there is some merit to your argument. But there wasn’t much to big business in Rome, other than trade and slavery. Hence, a lack of power of business due to lack of money.
From the article:
Cato himself was involved with trade, although he himself cautioned against it as it was a risky occupation,[16] perhaps this was part of the reasoning to keep senators excluded from the trade business, as if they had a severe misfortune with trading they could fall below the financial threshold of being a senator, were as comparatively land owning was a far safer investment. Plutarch describes Cato’s involvement in trade in great detail, depicting how he would use a proxy (a freedman by the name of Quintio) to run his business through a group of fifty other men.[17]
The restriction on senators trading was itself passed initially through the tribune of the plebs, a class of people who the restrictions would not apply to. It is suspected that this reform could have been the equites and other wealthy merchants trying to muscle the senators out from the rapidly expanding trade business.
Commercial Classes
The majority of the people of the Roman Empire were living in destitution, with an insignificant part of the population engaged in commerce, being much poorer than the elite. The industrial output was minimal, due to the fact that the majority poor could not pay for the markets for products. Technological advance was severely hampered by this fact. Urbanization in the western part of the empire was also minimal due to the poverty of the region. Slaves accounting for most of the means of industrial output, rather than technology.[18]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_commerce
jim2,
I was responding to your comment re3garding “producers” being the source of power historically.
Of course there was not much industry during the Roman Empire. There was not much industry anywhere before the industrial revolution. The producers before industrialization were the farmers, miners, ship builders and artisans.
As commerce became more common, and efficient, financiers gained wealth and, to a degree, power.
But the real power has always resided in pharoes, emperors, kings, sometimes aristocracies and oligarchies. Producers have often wielded power within the various totalitarian systems that are the norm of human history. But when they have wanted real power, they have joined the system and taken political power.
This is the reason that the current ascendency of progressivism is so dangerous. Centralization of power almost always leads to more centralization of power. Which then attracts those who lust the most for power.
I recently read a fascinating article about George Orwell, who both predicted the ravages of socialist centralization for power, and yet pined away for a pure socialism that would somehow escape this process.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/377477/krystal-not-clear-orwell-charles-c-w-cooke
The problem with socialism, like all political/economic systems, is human nature. Socialism is not evil in itself, it just makes the exercise of human lust for power all too easy.
+ 10, GaryM.
The Romans had assembly lines.
jim2 | May 11, 2014 at 1:40 pm |
Aw look, someone’s disguising the “makers and takers” discourse as “producers and politicians;” isn’t that cute!
From the article:
…
Burning coal to generate electricity produces large amounts of CO2, which is considered a heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere. Most scientists recognize that man-made CO2 emissions contribute to global warming. However, the degree to which it can be blamed for global warming is in dispute among some scientists.
Gov. Matt Mead has called federal efforts to curtail greenhouse emissions a “war on coal” and has said that he’s skeptical about man-made climate change.
This past winter, state lawmakers approved budget wording that sought to stop adoption of the standards.
“Wyoming is certainly unique in having legislators and the governor making comments about perceived impacts on the fossil fuel industry of kids learning climate science, and unique in acting on that one objection to prohibit consideration of the package of standards, of which climate science is a small component,” said John Friedrich, a member of the national organization Climate Parents, which supports the standards.
Friedrich and Colby noted that oil and gas industry giants Exxon Mobile and Chevron support the standards.
Opponents argue the standards incorrectly assert that man-made emissions are the main cause of global warming and shouldn’t be taught in a state that derives much of its school funding from the energy industry.
“I think those concepts should be taught in science; I just think they should be taught as theory and not as scientific fact,” state Rep. Matt Teeters, R-Lingle, said.
…
http://time.com/94504/wyoming-is-first-state-to-reject-science-standards/
From the article:
…
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Silicon Valley recoils at the government’s cyber data-gathering done in the name of national security. It bristles at new potential Internet rules. Its fast-paced ethos doesn’t understand Washington’s gridlock.
Yet, President Barack Obama remains a popular political figure in Silicon Valley, and the wealthy tech entrepreneurs appear willing to part with their money to support the Democratic Party, especially if the president is making the pitch. Obama attended two high-dollar Democratic Party fundraisers Thursday hosted by Silicon Valley executives, drawing attention to the complicated relationship between the president and the high-tech industry.
For Obama, Northern California and the high-tech redoubt around Palo Alto has been a key part of Obama’s campaign money base. And it is especially attractive to politicians because it is continually expanding.
“One of the dynamics that people on the East Coast and particularly in Washington, D.C., may not fully appreciate is that these folks are in a space that is growing,” said California-based Democratic consultant Chris Lehane, a former aide to President Bill Clinton. “That adds an entire pool of fresh donor blood into the mix.”
…
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/obama-taps-tech-world-cash-amid-privacy-debate
W@ jim2
“Yet, President Barack Obama remains a popular political figure in Silicon Valley, and the wealthy tech entrepreneurs appear willing to part with their money to support the Democratic Party, especially if the president is making the pitch. ”
This sounds mysterious and contradictory. To those who have forgotten or are too young to remember the ‘Saga of Bill Gates and Microsoft’.
For those whose memory needs refreshed, the whole thing started with a piece on Gates in the ‘NY Times’. Without digging up the story for a quote, the precept was that Gates and Microsoft were ‘arrogant’. The symptoms of their arrogance: they had–literally–NO lobbyists. They simply made and sold operating systems and software.
Shortly after that and a few scathing followup pieces on Gates’ arrogance is when the Internet Explorer fiasco started. There were stories–daily–about the unfairness of Microsoft’s bundling of Internet Explorer with their operating system (MS Dos at that time?? I don’t remember.)
At any rate, the government investigated. Stories were written. Gates and Microsoft were ‘Alinskyed’. More stories were written. Hearings were held, Gates and Microsoft executives were subpoenaed and forced to testify. Fines were threatened, Hourly news broadcasts kept us informed of the evils of Gates and Microsoft. Ad infinitum. For months. And it promised to continue through the millennium. The third millennium.
Then, Gates and Microsoft established a LARGE lobbying presence, wooing Democratic ‘powers-that-be. Gates and Microsoft began contributing to democratic politicians and democratic causes. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation appeared, contributing even more to Democratic politicians and causes.
Miraculously,Gates’ and Microsoft’s legal problems evaporated, never to be heard from again. Now, both are ‘darlings’ of the media and Washington officialdom. And will likely remain so, as long as their political contributions and cause support, both a matter of public record, continue to flow to the ‘proper’ politicians and causes. Which, since Mr. Gates epiphany, they have.
The poobah’s of Silicon Valley may be many things, but stupid isn’t one of them. One lesson was sufficient. And so, those who you would think to be the strongest supporters of capitalism and entrepreneurism OVERWHELMINGLY support the most implacable and powerful enemies of both. They do so for the same reason that NYC restaurant owners (for example) purchase their supplies from the Mafia. As a form of ‘fire insurance with no written policy’.
The US is no longer a Constitutional Republic; it is a Marxist Thugocracy and the largest money laundering and extortion racket ever devised. Silicon Valley observes the obvious and responds appropriately.
Warning by Bob Ludwick, links by FOMD!
Thank you for assisting Climate Etc readers to a better grasp of common-sense truths, Bob Ludwick!
@Bob Ludwick | May 11, 2014 at 6:46 pm |
+ 10. I do remember all that. But however the liason is facilitated, we the non-politician, non-rich get left under their collective thumb.
Barack Obama dreams of being Putin, like Thomas Friedman envies the Communist Chinese.
With all their power to date, progressives live in dread of the stupid voters finding out what they really mean by “fundamentally transform America.” If only we could do away with elections, they way the EU is trying to.
GaryM
You said;
‘If only we could do away with elections, they way the EU is trying to.’
What did you mean by this?
You could argue that power does not lie with the elected representatives but with the bureaucrats in Brussels, and you could argue that the ‘list;’ system is not fair, and you could argue that the constituencies have little relevance to the electorate (our South West of England seat is bizarrely shared with Gibraltar)
But we do have elections so perhaps you could clarify your comment and also explain what you think Obama is trying to achieve that has parallels over here?
tonyb
tonyb,
What I am referring to is the inexorable march of Europe toward one massive,bureaucratic government. No not in this election. But everything Brussels is doing is designed to transfer more sovereignty away from individual countries, and toward the EU bureaucracy, away from voters and toward politicians. At the same time, they are moving toward ever more decision making by the bureaucracy, and away from the EU Parliament. They are slowly but surely trying to have even the EU parliament elected not by the stupid voters, but by the legislatures of the various members. Voters’ repeated rejection of political union were repeatedly ignored. Finally, and perhaps most pernicious, the parties have almost completely deprive voters of any real choice. The economic, social, environmental, immigration and banking polices of the “conservatives” are increasingly indistinguishable from the progressives.
The European people are like the frogs in a pot of warm water on a stove, being conned by ever greater promises of “security” (economic, not military Heaven forbid), from the state, in return for turning up the heat under the pot. Y’all stand the risk of being cooked before you know what’s happening.
There are a few who see the danger. But they are inevitably labeled crazy, right wing, racist, just as US conservatives are.
Here are a couple who get it, to a degree.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10546394/Europe-is-slowly-strangling-the-life-out-of-national-democracy.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/347828/professor-farage-teaches
Tony, you have elections now, but if you take them for granted, you could lose them. And so could we. Human nature and the lust for power did not disappear from the west in 1945.
GaryM, there are growing right-wing nationalist movements in many of those countries with the same xenophobic fears as you, and often with populist leaders who can stir the fears, so rest assured, they’ll provide the balancing force you want.
Jim D,
Thank you for equating support for democracy with xenophobia. You are a perfect example of progressive myopia.
Actually it was nationalism, but maybe you can’t distinguish this from democracy where people can choose how they want to be governed, which is still the election system in those Euro countries whose ways you so despise.
Jim D,
Actually, it was elections, aka democracy. Don’t make me go all Mosher on you and tell you to read harder.
I read the parts of the article, and it confirms what I said that it is sadly the anti-foreign right wing nationalists who are the alternative sharing these views in many countries.
Jim D,
“GaryM, there are growing right-wing nationalist movements in many of those countries with the same xenophobic fears as you”
“I read the parts of the article, and it confirms what I said”
Oh, so when you accused me of having xenophobic fears you were really referring to someone else. Got it.
Read harder. Write harder. Whatever.
GaryM, you wrote something that looked like you sympathized with the right-wing nationalists, but maybe you didn’t mean to. You need to separate yourself from them better, otherwise that is what you look like.
Jim D,
I wrote exactly what I meant. You just came out with a reflexive charge of racism/xenophobia because you have been drinking the progressive Kool Aid your whole life. it is nothing more than that. As I have said elsewhere, the only ones who hear dog whistles – are the dogs.
GaryM, it is your choice not to distance yourself from those seeming “crazies” you spoke of.
Gary
You said
‘What I am referring to is the inexorable march of Europe toward one massive, bureaucratic government.’
Thanks for clarifying the earlier comment you made.
Yes, you are right, there is an agenda to create one single government. We were deceived by the Uk Prime Minister who took us into the EEC (as it then was) on his own admittance.
We have never asked for one supra government which is not to say that we disagree with the idea of appropriate cooperation and free trade with our European neighbours.
Until recently the UK was the only major government that was against the increasing power of the emerging European Nation state, of which the Euro is one manifestation.
Europe has had a troubled recent past and it is easy to see why the idea of one nation state is superficially attractive. Around 1960 for example it was said by the French that they had seen their capital invaded by the Germans four times in living memory. Other states were occupied and still others split up by new borders but still harbour their desires to become a regional largely self governing country within a larger EU protective framework.
It will be interesting to see what the European elections bring. UKIP for example will draw a protest vote but for others here to portray them as xenophobic is incorrect. They are nationalistic but then again the US puts its own interests first and in that respect your political parties are every bit as ‘nationalistic.’
tonyb
Climate change the root of the Nigerian kidnapping;
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/11/UK-Guardian-climate-change-to-blame-for-Nigerian-girls-kidnapping
@ FOMD
“Thank you for assisting Climate Etc readers to a better grasp of common-sense truths, Bob Ludwick!”
You’re welcome.
The government in the US, typical of government action in general, is putting the population at risk, forcing us to live with old nuclear technology, pressurized water reactors. This is an unintended consequence of regulation, but it is a real consequence. If the government weren’t holding back on approval of new designs and licensing, we could shut down the old nukes and put new nukes of safer designs on the same sites, utilizing the existing generators and other infrastructure.
From the article:
…
In order to make sure that this version of events sticks, little, if any, public mention is ever made of the depression of 1920–1921. And no wonder — that historical experience deflates the ambitions of those who promise us political solutions to the real imbalances at the heart of economic busts.
The conventional wisdom holds that in the absence of government countercyclical policy, whether fiscal or monetary (or both), we cannot expect economic recovery — at least, not without an intolerably long delay. Yet the very opposite policies were followed during the depression of 1920–1921, and recovery was in fact not long in coming.
The economic situation in 1920 was grim. By that year unemployment had jumped from 4 percent to nearly 12 percent, and GNP declined 17 percent. No wonder, then, that Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover — falsely characterized as a supporter of laissez-faire economics — urged President Harding to consider an array of interventions to turn the economy around. Hoover was ignored.
Instead of “fiscal stimulus,” Harding cut the government’s budget nearly in half between 1920 and 1922. The rest of Harding’s approach was equally laissez-faire. Tax rates were slashed for all income groups. The national debt was reduced by one-third.
…
Not surprisingly, many modern economists who have studied the depression of 1920–1921 have been unable to explain how the recovery could have been so swift and sweeping even though the federal government and the Federal Reserve refrained from employing any of the macroeconomic tools — public works spending, government deficits, and inflationary monetary policy — that conventional wisdom now recommends as the solution to economic slowdowns. The Keynesian economist Robert A. Gordon admitted that “government policy to moderate the depression and speed recovery was minimal. The Federal Reserve authorities were largely passive.… Despite the absence of a stimulative government policy, however, recovery was not long delayed.”[5]
Another economic historian briskly conceded that “the economy rebounded quickly from the 1920–1921 depression and entered a period of quite vigorous growth” but chose not to comment further on this development.[6] “This was 1921,” writes the condescending Kenneth Weiher, “long before the concept of countercyclical policy was accepted or even understood.”[7] They may not have “understood” countercyclical policy, but recovery came anyway — and quickly.
…
http://mises.org/daily/3788
I think the unvarnished truth of El Ninos is that no one really understands their net effect on global heat content. As in so many areas of the climate debate, it all depends on what assumptions you build into your analysis.
I think the real reason the consensus fight so hard over the issue is that they for decades sold the global surface temperature reports as “global average temperature.” The rises they showed in their reports were sold as the global warming they were warning us about.
But the reality is that the surface GAT was never more than a proxy of a proxy of a proxy of a proxy. Anomalies are a proxy of average temperature; the temperatures of the climate stations are proxies of the column of air over that portion of the surface of that part of the globe; the global station readings are a proxy of total global surface temperature; and global surface temp is a proxy of total global average heat/eat content. Try explaining that, along with krigging, infilling, teleconnections, UHI effect, etc. to those stupid voters. And then tell them you can calculate GAT by this method to tenths of a degree.
I think the debate over the effects of El Ninos is really about that. Saving surface temps as a reasonable proxy of what they claim is supposed to happen as far as CAGW. Since El Ninos seem to provide virtually all of the increase in the reported “global” temps, they are essential to the whole story line.
Not to mention if they can’t even accurately model El Ninos, and tell us their net effect on the atmosphere and sea temps with any accuracy, why would anyone believe they can model the entire planet’s climate?
I suggested earlier that it is possible that the ’98 super El Nino is where Trenberth’s missing heat went. I have no idea whether this is even possible, let alone true. But no one knows how much heat was actually released from the ocean in ’98; how much of it radiated to space; how much caused heating in other areas of the ocean; or much of anything else abut the effect on ‘global warming,’ because we aren’t capable of measuring any of that with any accuracy or precision..
So maybe El Ninos increase global heat content; maybe they decrease it, maybe they do both depending on unknown aspects of the phenomenon; maybe they have no net effect. But then, maybe Michael Mann will learn to do statistics some day.
Anything is possible, which means we can’t rule anything out.
Quick, somebody post something about the uncertainty principle.
It is a pleasure to answer your question Bart R!
• Climate Etc provides a live-link to Monica Lewinsky’s tell-all.
• Climate Etc *omits* (inexplicably?) High-profile talks by top-rank women scientists.
WUWT? The world wonders.
A fan of *MORE* discourse | May 12, 2014 at 1:13 am |
About as helpful as a soggy four week old tuna sandwich.
Why not instead provide a link to the high profile talks, or y’know, some summary of them or of the participants?
Because the best I can come up with in a brief Google of the topic is http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-sten-odenwald/why-so-few-women-science-_b_5003459.html .. and it’s frankly awful.
More-baffling-than-usual rant by GaryM, informative links by FOMD.
“Planet Gary” is a weird place … that’s getting weirder!
John Oliver on climate change consensus. “You don’t need people’s opinion on a fact”. This is uncensored HBO on some of the language.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/john-oliver-and-bill-nye-mock-climate-skeptics-you-dont-need-people%E2%80%99s-opinion-on-a-fact/
That’s presuming they could recognize a fact in the first place. The fact is that climate is an emergent phenomenon arising from the interactions between powerful sub-systems.
‘The global climate system is composed of a number of subsystems | atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere – each of which has distinct characteristic times, from days and weeks to centuries and millennia. Each subsystem, moreover, has its own internal variability, all other things being constant, over a fairly broad range of time scales. These ranges overlap between one subsystem and another. The interactions between the subsystems thus
give rise to climate variability on all time scales. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.303.1951&rep=rep1&type=pdf
You need to ask yourself what characterizes this emergent behavior – abrupt transitions – multiple equilibria.
What defines a climate change as abrupt? Technically, an abrupt climate change occurs when the climate system is forced to cross some threshold, triggering a transition to a new state at a rate determined by the climate system itself and faster than the cause. Chaotic processes in the climate system may allow the cause of such an abrupt climate change to be undetectably small.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10136&page=14
Quite frankly the human volcano seems more a damp squib. The only risk emerges from the cause of abrupt climate change being undetectably small.
But then what do they insist on do you think? A tax in a Canadian province that is deliberately designed not to work as advertised to reduce carbon emissions but to not alienate the populace by churning the revenue back to payments. Any actual reductions in emissions are comparable or less to other economies without tax and churn. The price is nowhere near high enough to create an economic imperative for substitution. Here we get to the point of design to fail. It is did succeed the revenue would disappear, the budget would be left with the churn and the populace with higher energy costs. Quite frankly the dead horse flogging is very tedious. Let’s not talk anymore about an irrelevant tax in provincial Canada – let’s vote on it. Oh that’s right – I already have.
The alternative is fairly obvious – health and education, development, innovation, conservation and improved agricultural systems. Now that seems mere common sense does it not CE denizens?
The world wonders indeed how they can be so clueless scientifically and economically.
“The only risk emerges from the cause of abrupt climate change being undetectably small.”
—–
Except we are detecting changes in numerous parts of system as evidenced by hundreds of independent research studies. Your unusual insistence the changes are undetectable would put you in the clear category of denying the validity of volumes of independent research.
Did you ever reach a decision on editing yet? Most of the comments here are of zero merit: Parroting, smears, borderline-lunacy and irrelevance from the usual suspects on either side.
James, there was an extensive discussion on this some months ago. Essentially, the editing task would be enormous. Judith seems to spend a lot of time and effort on the blog, to do more would seriously affect her other activities. The best approach is to to learn who to ignore and what long sub-threads to skip over. I don’t know how long you’ve followed CE, but with most posts being by regulars, the skill in knowing where to skip is soon learned.
I’ve been buying LED lights for the house because I like to reduce maintenance, ie chaning bulbs. These are supposed to last 25 years. I suppose they determined that using models since they haven’t been around 25 years.
At any rate, one of them died after less than a year. I took it apart. After seeing the insides, I don’t see how most of these can be expected to last 25 years. The light emitting diodes probably will … probably. But snuggled down in the base of the bulb is a double-sided PC board stuffed with thru-hole and surface mount devices.
It utilizes a special IC, the SSL2101T. There are example circuits in the datasheet below that are similar to the one in my lamp.
http://www.nxp.com/documents/data_sheet/SSL2101.pdf
Due to the complexity, color me skeptical that these will last 25 years, even on average.
From the article:
…
n the interview, Mr. Rubio also staked out blunt positions on two big potential issues in a 2016 run — climate change, and Hillary Clinton.
More In 2016
…
“I don’t agree with the notion that some are putting out there, including scientists, that somehow there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what’s happening in our climate. Our climate is always changing,” he said.
…
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/05/11/rubio-has-blunt-words-on-climate-change-hillary-clinton/
That Matt Ridley comment about the world´s resources not running out sure is funny. I wonder what he thinks about British North Sea oil and natural gas production disappearing the way it is,
This puts the lie to people who say cheap energy isn’t a competitive advantage. Liars! Cheap energy has advanced the US to the pinnacle of economic prosperity. Cheap energy is key and an absolute necessity. Now if we can just get rid of the Luddites who want to take us back to the 1800s. (The dimowits and environmentalists, and some pubics.) I love it when the real world slings mud on academic models and hypotheses.
From the article:
…
Global manufacturing is shifting. And one key reordering of winners and losers is the narrowing gulf between China and the U.S.
Triggered by changes in wages and energy costs, the difference between China and U.S. in manufacturing costs—before transportation—has narrowed to less than five points, as recently measured by the consulting group in an April report. A decade ago, that gap between the U.S. and China was wider at 14 points, said Sirkin, who led the research.
“It used to be that if you said more or less you wanted a low-cost manufacturer, you go to South America and Asia. If you wanted a high-cost manufacturer you go to Europe and the U.S.,” Sirkin said. “That’s no longer true.”
…
And that growth may be just beginning as manufacturers take advantage of stable wages and lower energy prices in the U.S. For example, the U.S. pays at least 40 percent less than the rest of the world for natural gas and electricity, key ingredients in manufacturing.
That’s in part why the U.S. is on track to become one of the developed world’s top low-cost manufacturers, lapping parts of Europe and Japan, according to research from the Boston Consulting Group.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101646468
And this also illustrates why a carbon tax/price/whatever is such a stupid idea.
jim2 | May 12, 2014 at 12:23 pm | again confusing carbon with energy, and again wrong.
Bart – there is no rationale to implement a carbon tax/price/whatever. None. Climate science is too uncertain. Cheap energy is a good thing.
See, no reason!
jim2 | May 12, 2014 at 12:23 pm |
Cheap energy can be had entirely without fossil carbon burning.
Confusing energy with fossil carbon is a mistake, or an intentional misrepresentation.
Uncertainty is expensive, and can be driven out by avoiding the question, which is a side benefit of choosing the known cheaper forms of energy over fossil carbon burning.
Even if your assertions were true — which they plainly are not — then the facts remain against you.
Cheap energy can come from sources other than fossil, but right now fossil rules.
dimJim is correct. Energy is cheaper when you don’t have to put scrubbers on the emissions and you don’t care about poisoning your citizens. See China.
Interesting aside. You can be prosecuted for collecting ginseng roots on West Virginia land outside of the collecting season. Yet, it is OK to blow off mountaintops, ginseng and all.
Fancy that.
Always amused to read the indignation of those that hold all the power.
jim2 | May 12, 2014 at 2:35 pm |
Fossil subsidies rule. End the fossil subsidy, charge a carbon price by the law of suppy and demand, and fossil will wither, dry up and fade away.
Stuff carbon taxes. There is just one way to create cost effective alternatives and that is through investment in energy innovation. There is no mystery about this. It is merely public investment in positive externalities. Better yet – it is the biggest bang for the buck.
Generalissimo Skippy | May 12, 2014 at 4:33 pm |
There is only one way to promote stable, growing innovation: free up money for investment and remove obstacles to entry.
Removing subsidies on legacy technologies achieves both. So does pricing carbon and paying the revenues entirely to all potential investors in the Market, every citizen per capita.
You can’t regulate innovation by politburo expert committee planning, the only proposal you’ve ever floated.
‘Atmospheric flows exhibit long-range spatiotemporal correlations manifested as the fractal geometry to the global cloud cover pattern concomitant with inverse power law form for power spectra of temporal fluctuations on all spacetime scales ranging from turbulence (centimetres-seconds) to climate (kilometres-years). Long-range spatiotemporal correlations are ubiquitous to dynamical systems in nature and are
identified as signatures of self-organized criticality. Standard models in meteorological theory cannot explain satisfactorily the observed self-organized criticality in atmospheric flows. Mathematical models for simulation and prediction of atmospheric flows are nonlinear and do not possess analytical solutions. Finite precision computer realizations of nonlinear models give unrealistic solutions because of deterministic chaos, a direct consequence of round-off error growth in iterative numerical computations. Recent studies show that round-off error doubles on an average for each iteration of iterative computations. Round-off error propagates to the mainstream computation and gives unrealistic solutions in numerical weather prediction (NWP) and climate models, which incorporate thousands of iterative computations in longterm numerical integration schemes. An alternative non-deterministic cell dynamical system model for atmospheric flows developed by the author predicts the observed self-organized criticality as intrinsic to quantumlike mechanics governing flow dynamics. The model provides universal quantification for self-organized criticality in terms of the statistical normal distribution. Model predictions are in agreement with a majority of observed spectra of time series of several standard climatological data sets representative of disparate climatic regimes. Universal spectrum for natural climate variability rules out linear trends. Man-made greenhouse gas related atmospheric warming would result in intensification of natural climate variability, seen immediately in high frequency fluctuations such as QBO and ENSO and even shorter timescales. Model concepts and results of analyses are discussed with reference to possible prediction of climate change. Model concepts, if correct, rule out unambiguously, linear trends in climate. Climate change will only be manifested as increase or decrease in the natural variability. However, more stringent tests of model concepts and predictions are required before applications to such an important issue as climate change. The cell dynamical system model for atmospheric flows is a general systems theory applicable in general to all dynamical systems in other fields of science, such as, number theory, biology, physics and botany.’
A. M. Selvam – Self-organized criticality: A signature of quantumlike chaos in atmospheric flows
The stadium wave is alive and kicking your little arse all over the shop. Quantumlike criticality suggests that things may be potentially much worse – in as little as 10 years. But retailing fibs, exaggerations, over the top hyperbole and simple minded sciency sounding memes isn’t any help at all. There is quite enough to be going on with.
Your economics are of course nonsense as well. The song and dance attempting to transform a Pigovian tax BC style into a market mechanism is mere piss and wind signifying deception and obfuscation involving smarmy stream of calumny word swill.
‘Identifying causal networks is important for effective policy and management recommendations on climate, epidemiology, financial regulation, and much else. We introduce a method, based on nonlinear state space reconstruction, that can distinguish causality from correlation. It extends to nonseparable weakly connected dynamic systems (cases not covered by the current Granger causality paradigm). The approach is illustrated both by simple models (where, in contrast to the real world, we know the underlying equations/relations and so can check the validity of our method) and by application to real ecological systems, including the controversial sardine-anchovy-temperature problem.’
Detecting Causality in Complex Ecosystems, George Sugihara,2012, Science
Assuming – as I do – that we are changing the environment and the atmosphere – an atmosphere that leaves me with headaches and nausea when I visit a city – with impacts that are indeterminate as yet leaves little doubt as to the need to transition to 21st century energy sources.
Can and should government play a role in this? What is the proper rile of government?
‘There is no reason why in a society which has reached the general level of wealth which ours has attained the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom…there can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody…Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of the assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong….To the same category belongs also the increase of security through the state’s rendering assistance to the victims of such “acts of God” as earthquakes and floods. Whenever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself or make provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken….There is, finally, the supremely important problem of combating general fluctuations of economic activity and the recurrent waves of large-scale unemployment which accompany them…
Nor can certain harmful effects of deforestation, or of some methods of farming, or of the smoke and noise of factories, be confined to the owner of the property in question or to those who are willing to submit to the damage for an agreed compensation. In such instances we must find some substitute for the regulation by the price mechanism. But the fact that we have to resort to the substitution of direct regulation by authority where the conditions for the proper working of competition cannot be created, does not prove that we should suppress competition where it can be made to function.’ F.A. Hayek
There is of course a significant role for government in classic liberal economics. The supremely important role the world has implemented so poorly as much as social welfare and environmental regulation.
We are interested in practical bang for the buck focused investments – through prizes, tax write downs, hard edged competitive contracts – the usual mechanisms by which government procure goods or facilitate positive externalities. We are not remotely interested in pathetic posturing about politburos on the one hand or libertarian laissez faire capitalists on the other.
What we are also interested in is governments anteing up to their commitments and free trade principles to facilitate global progress in health, education and development – facilitating the reduction of population pressures, conservation and restoration of agricultural soils, reduction in black carbon, tropospheric ozone, sulphides and nitous oxide, conservation and restoration of ecosystems and efficient use of water.
Voodoo science and voodoo economics are merely a hindrance to concerted progress.
Generalissimo Skippy | May 12, 2014 at 7:26 pm |
Appeal to authority is a fallacy.
interpreting the authority wrong is just sloppy.
Making excuses for rent seeking is just greedy.
Oh. Look, it’s Robert I. Ellison.
Appealing to a fake authority is a fallacy – bart relying on stuff he pulls out of his arse for instance. Quoting actual science is how synthesis – as in natural philosophy – is done.
‘In experimental philosophy, propositions gathered from phenomena by induction should be considered either exactly or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses, until yet other phenomena make such propositions either more exact or liable to exceptions.’
Or completely overturned I might add by a proposition that makes a whole lot more sense. Climate as an emergent phenomenon – rather than a 30 year average. Although it is mostly just straight quotes above.
The proof is in the. On one hand we have warming. On the other we have non warming for decades hence predicted at least a decade ago. Both can’t be true. The former is dinosaur territory and the latter is mainstream freakin’ climate science they can’t quite get their heads around.
I wonder when free trade and development became rent seeking? That’s just freakin’ imbecilic.
The proof is in the pudding…
What’s a week in review without last week tonight?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cjuGCJJUGsg
Except that most skeptics fall into that 97% space, we just disagree with the kinds of political “solutions” proposed for a problem that might not be that large.
This is the real problem with warmie communication. You guys don’t even seem to understand the nature of that 97% number.
TJA | May 12, 2014 at 3:33 pm |
I keep hearing this line about most skeptics being in the 97%.. which appears to be more a case of you ran out of valid objections to the facts, then you ran out of invalid objections to the facts, and now you’re saying you agree with the facts while still acting exactly the same as you did when you held to assertions that were sharply in contradiction to the facts.
The best estimates are that 20% of the damage we see from extreme weather are due to CO2E emissions. That’s two orders of magnitude larger in cost than the cost of mitigation. Note that doesn’t mention ‘warm’ at all, and isn’t about heat, but about Forcing, which is the real issue.
And the next person who accuses me of not understanding something about numbers as well as they do had better take some special pains to show just how astronomically advanced their understanding of Mathematics is, because the absurdity of that particular assertion is beyond words.
Bart R
You write:
Where did you dredge up this BS?
Even IPCC, the ultimate merchants of GAGW doom, do not make such silly claims.
Come back to planet Earth, Bart.
You are beginning to prove the point by Daniel Sarewitz that “climate change is making us stupid”.
Max
Good youtube – I especially enjoyed the irony, which Bart apparently missed.
(The 97 climatologists had 97 different views on “climate change”).
Oops!
Max
Damage from extreme weather in 2012. for the US
110 billion.
20% = 22Billion.
Cost of mitigation? at 20 bucks a ton.. 90B in the first year.
I will pre-empt little barty. Mosher, the 90B cost of mitigation, would have bought you protection from the CO2 mitigated, in perpetuity. At least, that’s how they calculate it on barty’s planet.
Steven Mosher | May 12, 2014 at 10:44 pm |
Cost of mitigation in BC?
Not measurable. So low it’s impossible to even tell if it was positive or negative.
Why do you guess $20/ton, when the closest thing to a full scale experiment tells us differently?
From the article:
Antarctic sea ice at record levels
GRAHAM LLOYD
The Australian
May 12, 2014 12:00AM
ANTARCTIC sea ice has expanded to record levels for April, increasing by more than 110,000sq km a day last month to nine million square kilometres.
The National Snow and Ice Data Centre said the rapid expansion had continued into May and the seasonal cover was now bigger than the record “by a significant margin’’.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/antarctic-sea-ice-at-record-levels/story-e6frg8y6-1226913708208#
Global sea ice is at above average levels.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
Here’s Arctic, Antarctic, and global. It’s hard to get bent out of shape over this.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NSIDC%20GlobalArcticAntarctic%20SeaIceArea.gif
For a far-fetched proposal requiring bending the whole Atlantic ocean out of shape from North to South, and across the equator (normally a climate no-no): http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7484/abs/nature12945.html seeks to explain Antarctic Sea Ice through a convoluted system of conveyors.
And it’s still less absurd than the Stadium Wave.
Antarctica is losing ice mass and seeing some of the most extreme warming on the planet, but could have triple that warming and still would average below freezing. That the sea around it is inundated with the popcorn overflow of Antarctic continental cold is hardly a surprise.
jim2
When (Arctic) sea ice extent was 2 million square km below it’s “baseline” value, there were screams of alarm: this was the smoking gun evidence for CAGW – and the polar bears were doomed!.
But no one talked about the slowly increasing Antarctic sea ice – even IPCC brushed it off with:
Now that global (Arctic plus Antarctic) sea ice extent is a record 1 million square km above the “baseline” value, there is even more silence among the AGW alarmists like Bart R.
Max.
Would you like a Sea Ice Bloody Mary with that Crow?
What happens when you pour fresh water at 0 C onto seawater at -2 C?
Antarctic sea ice growth is just another smoking gun for AGW.
What’s happening to the Antarctic ice cap? Shrinking or growing?
Is it actually getting colder down there?
“And of course there is the paradox of Antarctic sea ice which is recording record sea ice extent over recent years due to the complex winds, currents and dynamics of melt water.”
http://takvera.blogspot.com/2014/01/antarctic-ice-mass-accelerating.html
Maybe you guys could come up with more analysis than you are currently providing.
Well let’s see Bob… from 60s to 70s the temperature trend since 1979 is down, while from 70s to the pole it’s nearly flat (less than 0.08 degrees per decade. Yup, gonna all melt any day now.
bob droege | May 12, 2014 at 8:57 pm |
What happens when you pour fresh water at 0 C onto seawater at -2 C?
We get ice. Which has some insulating properties.
Now if it were lake ice, we’d get a greenhouse effect from the ice, no really:
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/climate/summaries_and_publications/ice_out_description.html
With ice formation we get a hard phase change. Before, the water can lose heat and water vapor. After, there’s a lot less of that. Is seems to me that few things in nature exhibit such a clear phase shift. In my little lake in Minnesota, it’s the difference between the fish and other animals surviving the winter. The ice. The transition. Each year it exhibits this defensive behavior seemingly on behalf of the life living in it.
Ice feedback occurs only when the ice is shrinking, dontchaknow.
Wow,
K Scott Denison, you can actually look at temperature trends and determine whether or not the icecap is melting. Color me nonplussed.
It actually is melting, whether or not the temperatures show an increase or not.
Steig and O’donnell both show that the continent is warming but you disagree.
What’s so special about 1979?
I can see from a graph here
http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=599
Why you picked 1979.
Scientists Warn of Rising Seas as Antarctic Ice Sheet Melts
By JUSTIN GILLIS and KENNETH CHANG 1:46 PM ET
The collapse of large parts of the ice sheet in West Antarctica is almost certainly unstoppable, with global warming accelerating the pace of the melting, two groups of scientists said.
More NYT BS, mass media masquerading as science.
”
More NYT BS, mass media masquerading as science.
”
NASA and the University of California, actually.
http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/may/nasa-uci-study-indicates-loss-of-west-antarctic-glaciers-appears-unstoppable/
Reverend
Thanks for linking the source of the BS
Max
Reverend
The report on West Antarctic glaciers, which you cited, states:
Hmmm…
1.2 meters over (let’s say) five centuries = 24 cm per century or 2.4 mm/year.
Yawn!
Call in a couple up Dutchmen with some shovels and we can fix that (IF the trend continues for the next 500 years)..
Max
Max, that’s just from the glaciers I can count with one hand.
bob d,
You are doing the wrong arithmatic.
Try multiplying 1.7 mm / yr through the end of the century.
Or 3.3 mm if you prefer.
Now tell me how the answer is alarming.
Timg56
So you have found something linear in nature?
The rates are accelerating, that’s the alarming part.
Actually, I was trying to point out that the increasing sea ice extent around Antarctica was due to anthropogenic factors.
” How to Fix the Broken Debate on Climate Change.”
I was hoping that Andrew Hoffman was talking about the debate about data and scientific results, but alas he means the political debate.
IMHO, first we must have honest and open debate about the science. Without that we’ll never solve the political problem.
When I say that, I mean Richard Feynman rules apply.
All raw data.
All algorithms and data processing algorithms.
All software / code for data processing.
All notes on what worked and what didn’t work.
All notes on what was thought about and discounted.
All notes on what the drawbacks/limitations of the algorithm or method might be.
What might break the algorithm that has not been tried?
Full disclosure. What did I miss?
If climate scientists are not willing to behave in an open / honest way, HOW WILL WE TRUST THEM? Corollary… if we cannot trust the climate science, how can we ever come to a political compromise about what the science is saying? We can’t, because we’ll never trust the science!
And this is where we are today. Climate scientists have brought it upon themselves.
The ball is solidly in the Climate Scientist’s court.
Your turn Dr. Mann. Are you Mann enough?
Walt Allensworth
+100
Walt, quite so. Robert Ellison (Gen Skippy) had a citation above:
“The global climate system is composed of a number of subsystems – atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere – each of which has distinct characteristic times, from days and weeks to centuries and millennia. Each subsystem, moreover, has its own internal variability, all other things being constant, over a fairly broad range of time scales. These ranges overlap between one subsystem and another. The interactions between the subsystems thus
give rise to climate variability on all time scales.”
The authors propose to make sense of this with this by highly complex mathematical and statistical techniques and processes. Offer the general public the above quote and techniques, and they might find it very hard to accept that climate is sufficiently well understood that anyone can make prescriptive proposals which can be accepted as leading to positive outcomes. And, of course, there are then questions of what is positive, the whole gamut of CBA, discount rates etc.
The public in many Western countries seemed to take the CAGW story on trust. Understandably, that trust has waned, few now see it as a priority, the prospect of gaining popular support for costly measures based on belief in CAGW now seems very remote. Anyone supporting such measures must develop a far more soundly-based, understandable and supportable case rather than propagandise as Hoffman proposes.
‘A Mathematical Theory of Climate Sensitivity or, How to Deal With Both Anthropogenic Forcing and Natural Variability?’ Certainly not a simple proposition.
But I can neither confirm nor deny my true identity.
Furthermore, he appeared to link climate scepticism in the general population to scientific illiteracy. In my experience, the reverse is true.
GS @ 2.32, sorry, I don’t want to blow your cover, I’ll use Generalissimo Frisky as a pseudonym. [I have been unable to post for hours]
Walt Allensworth | May 12, 2014 at 3:27 pm |
Could you turn over the Richard Feynman rules you refer to, as I don’t believe he ever said about data processing what you claim?
I’m also dubious Feynman made assertions about needing all of anyone’s notes.
Are you sure you’re not putting words in Feynman’s mouth?
Full disclosure, where would you pull such utter nonsense from that you ascribe to Feynman?
Where are your notes of those exchanges?
Where are your sources notes?
What else are you and your sources trying?
Because if we don’t have those, you have no credibility.
BREAKING NEWS
Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans
As Antarctic Ice Melts
‘There’s nothing to stop it now.’
Question Do James Hansen and his NASA colleagues get to say “We told you so“?
The world wonders!
A fan of “MORE* discourse: “The finding, which had been feared by some scientists for decades, means that a rise in global sea level of at least 10 feet may now be inevitable. The rise may continue to be relatively slow for at least the next century or so, the scientists said, but sometime after that it will probably speed up so sharply as to become a crisis.”
Two “mays” in two sentences. That’s my style. The only “probably” applies to the next century. Is that what James Hansen told us: probably next century? Maybe nothing soon? Has James Hansen been worried that his daughters “may” suffer from events that will “probably” happen next century?
Maybe it will be more useful, at least in this century, to build flood control and irrigation systems instead of solar farms and wind farms. Then we’ll probably be in better shape next century to deal with next century’s probable problems.
Antarctic Sea Ice Extent at record levels. The world wonders what Fan is talking about. But then what is new.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Wonder no longer, ceresco kid!
Conclusion Pope Francis, Naomi Oreskes, James Hansen, and Wendell Berry are entirely correct: willfully ignorant climate-change denialists have “fallen into the hypocrisy of the priest and the Levite whom Jesus described in the parable of the Good Samaritan“
That’s good theology, foresighted economics, sound science, well-grounded morality, and ordinary common sense, eh Climate Etc readers?
Fan
The link you go to talks of natural variability and other causes. NASA are holding a streamed video conference that might have more information. Here is the link
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/m/news/news.php?release=2014-146#.U3Ep3Wt5mK0
Tonyb
Question by Matthew R Marler, concrete answers by FOMD.
Summary Nowadays, pretty much every family farmer, hunter, mountaineer, sailor, gardener, conservationist, religious leader, Quaker congregation, scientist, mathematician, engineer, military strategist, insurance executive, real-estate investor, professional actuary, anthropologist, and ordinary thoughtful citizen agrees with James Hansen.
Your question is excellently thoughtful … thank you, Matthew R Marler!
Maybe they should send the Shokalskiy to investigate it. Have they unstuck it yet?
Fan’s an Antarctic sea ice increase denier. In Fan’s world up is down, black is white, and consensus is double plus good.
It has all ready collapsed and we are all going to die, very, very soon.
Nothing to be done, game over, the world ends.
Fan-
I didn’t know common sense had become such a rarity. How is it that the Antarctic Sea Ice extent can be at record levels and shown on the satellite images to be surrounding the perimeter of the continent save for the small area you have referenced. So 340 degrees is cooling but 20 degrees around the perimeter is warming from CO2. How interesting. I didnt know CO2 had such intelligence to single out just a sliver of land on the Antarctic continent to cause such trouble. If scientists weren’t so enamored with their pet theory and supposition and conjecture they might sit back and wonder how this apparent paradox occurs. Spare the wimpy hypothesis about the winds as an excuse for why the Antarctic Sea Ice extent is at record levels. Real scientists should be seeking the real answers.
a fan of *MORE* discourse: Nowadays, pretty much every family farmer, hunter, mountaineer, sailor, gardener, conservationist, religious leader, Quaker congregation, scientist, mathematician, engineer, military strategist, insurance executive, real-estate investor, professional actuary, anthropologist, and ordinary thoughtful citizen agrees with James Hansen.
A few quotes from particular people expressing agreement with specific quotes of James Hansen would be helpful. “A few” could then perhaps lead to “many”. Every thoughtful citizen knows that James Hansen scatters his predictions and worries about like Jeanne Dixon.
At your link we can read: The global temperature rose 0.2°C between the middle 1960s and 1980, yielding a warming of 0.4°C in the past century. This temperature increase is consistent with the calculated effect due to measured increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Variations of volcanic aerosols and possibly solar luminosity appear to be primary causes of observed fluctuations about the mean trend of increasing temperature. It is shown that the anthropogenic carbon dioxide warming should emerge from the noise level of natural climate variability by the end of the century, and there is a high probability of warming in the 1980s. Potential effects on climate in the 21st century include the creation of drought-prone regions in North America and central Asia as part of a shifting of climatic zones, erosion of the West Antarctic ice sheet with a consequent worldwide rise in sea level, and opening of the fabled Northwest Passage.
It’s a little early for “I told you so” over a “potential erosion” and a “potential” “creation of of drought-prone regions” (Since most regions are “drought prone” now, the creation “might” be hard to demonstrate.) As to the 0.4C per century global warming — the result “is consistent with” a calculated increase due to either CO2 increase or models of background variability, take your pick. Certainly (!) a 0.4C per century global warming may happen yet in the 21st century.
Emo by DocMartyn, CLASH by FOMD!
@ Matthew R. Marler
The quote you provided from Fan’s link included this: ” ….and opening of the fabled Northwest Passage.”
I presume from the context that the quote was using this definition of ‘fabled’:
“mythical; imaginary.
“the fabled kingdom”
synonyms: legendary, mythical, mythic, mythological, fabulous, folkloric, fairy-tale; fictitious, fantastic, imaginary, imagined, made-up
“a fabled god-giant of Finnish myth”
From this:
http://history.howstuffworks.com/north-american-history/northwest-passage.htm
we have this:
“The passage was first successfully navigated by Roald Amundsen, aboard his vessel Gjöa. He entered the passage through Baffin Bay in 1903; passing by way of Franklin’s route, south of Victoria Island, he completed the passage in 1906. The next successful trip was a 28-month journey made from west to east by Henry Larsen in his ship St. Roch , 1940–42; the return trip took 86 days. Afterward, many vessels, including United States submarines, navigated the Northwest Passage.
The discovery of oil in 1968 on Alaska’s North Slope resulted the following year in the United States oil tanker Manhattan becoming the first commercial vessel to make the voyage through the passage. The trip was made to test the feasibility of shipping oil by that route. The possibility of using the passage for shipping touched off a dispute between the United States and Canada—the United States claiming the passage to be an international waterway, Canada claiming sovereignty over much of the route. The dispute remained unresolved through the 1990’s.”
The Northwest Passage may be a bit short of ‘routinely useful’ but it it is considerably beyond ‘fabled’, as it has been navigated multiple times by vessels unaccompanied by icebreakers, at least twice by sailing vessels. Nevertheless, if you are searching for something really scary, to be avoided at all costs, including ceasing the use of fossil fuels, you can’t get much scarier than the prospect of ships being able to navigate the Northwest Passage every now and then.
I liked Nigel Lawson’s essay: This essay is based on the text of a speech given to the Institute for Sustainable Energy and the Environment at the University of Bath.
Thank you for the link.
“The rise may continue to be relatively slow for at least the next century or so, the scientists said, but sometime after that it will probably speed up so sharply as to become a crisis.”
Fanny –
In deep announcer voice “We can’t say when, or how, but some day, more than a century from now, we’re all doomed!”
Bwahahahahahahaha! Really?
That is some of the most science-free drivel that I’ve seen posted here in quite some time.
Thanks for the laugh.
I was feeling poorly today, and the pick-me-up really helped. :-)
For some perspective, from CIRES: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UatUDnFmNTY
Judith Curry
Daniel Sarewitz writes:
A case in point: Newsmax.com had this to say about the Obama Administration’s latest NCA report on climate change:
Well, the NCA and the “300 scientists” that helped them write this report may have dumbed down, but it sounds like there are at least are a number of knowledgeable scientists and meteorologists who have not become stupid as a result of climate change.
Max
Newsmack?? Is that where you get your news from. If so, I feel sorry for you.
Joseph
Is any part of the report and direct quotations inaccurate?
Please point out any false quotations or any other specific problems you have with the report (assuming you have something specific to criticize, rather than just adding your personal viewpoint, which carries very little weight without specifics)..
Max
Max
To your point. Some have pointed to Miami as one of the areas facing the greatest threat from sea level rise. A Regional Climate Compact has projected that the sea level rise could be 2 feet in Miami by 2060. No one, however, has stopped to look at the data for the last 80 years indicating a rate of 9 inches per century and in order to hit the 2 feet mark in 46 years, the rate of rise would have to increase by nearly 600%. Starting tomorrow.
One of the problems created by the climate imbroglio is that it splits families in ways that no other did, that I can remember. My own family is split to the extent that when I enter their respective homes, I am forbidden to use the word climate. They don’t even know that I support many of the ideas of the IPCC. It is evident that many good ideas have been twisted by economists and politicians and polarised by the media to the extent that we can no longer have a civilised debate.
This is a sad situation and should be cleared up as soon as possible by leading scientists on both sides. I suspect that much of the problem is in the difference of nineteenth century science and twentieth century.
From the article:
…
But quite frankly, the challenges we now face from government interference in the electric business are far more intrusive and disruptive, and I believe far more significant to our industry’s future, and to your future. That’s because whether it impacts our traditional regulated business or our competitive operations, government policy is now aimed at stifling the growth and use of electricity – and picking winners and losers in the competitive marketplace.
To help put this in perspective, consider the following questions:
Would you want to compete in a market in which the government can and does suppress the demand for your product?
Or, would you want to compete in a market in which the government subsidizes your competitor?
Or, would you think it is fair to face competition from a supplier who can be indifferent to price… since all of its costs, including a return on investment, are guaranteed?
These questions summarize, in part, the conditions we face in today’s electric business.
…
In the electric utility industry, energy efficiency, renewable power, distributed generation, micro grids, roof-top solar and demand reduction are examples of what “sounds good” – and while they may all play some role in meeting the energy needs of customers, they are not substitutes for what has worked to sustain a reliable, affordable and environmentally responsible electric system. And, the mandates and subsidies needed to force their use have far-reaching consequences for our customers and our economy.
Consider the fact that you can no longer buy a 100-watt incandescent light bulb in the United States, but you can purchase a 500-horsepower vehicle.
Or that electric customers are being forced to pay additional costs for subsidized, unneeded generation.
Or that these policies and others – designed to achieve a social agenda that has little, if anything, to do with maintaining electric service – are shifting the fixed costs of the system to customers who can least afford it… and are undermining our nation’s competitive position.
…
As a result of these mandates, Germany’s electricity prices have more than doubled – and are now more than 37 cents per kilowatt-hour. In comparison, the average electricity price in the U.S. is about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour.
The fact is, Germany’s electricity policies are not only hindering economic growth, but they are creating a class of energy-poor customers. This isn’t just the case in Germany – Spain, Italy and other countries that have pursued this path are seeing the same impacts.
But here in the United States, enthusiasm for renewable mandates and subsidies persists. And that means the electric system is relying more on intermittent sources of generation, such as wind and solar. These resources only produce electricity about 30 percent of the time, at best, and require back-up generation and substantial investments in transmission to maintain reliability.
…
Many businesses are now considering whether they can continue to interrupt their ability to manufacture the product they sell in order to accommodate the changes being made in the electric system. If they change their minds, all customers could be left with inadequate power supplies.
…
Quite frankly, I believe state and federal policymakers are manipulating the supply and demand, and distorting markets for electricity, to further advance the “war on coal.” And, the convergence of government policies, laws and regulations aimed at coal use – both directly, through EPA rules, and indirectly, through subsidies, preferences and mandates – will lead to higher prices and less reliable service over the long term.
…
Whether you agree or disagree with the need to control carbon emissions, the simple fact is, without nuclear energy, it will be difficult to meet any carbon objective – and if we turn our backs on coal, it may prove impossible to sustain the reliability and affordability of the electric service we now enjoy.
…
While we expect natural gas to play an increased role in electricity production, substantial changes will be needed in the natural gas pipeline and storage infrastructure to make it match the just-in-time nature of the electric system. Unfortunately, as we learned during the Polar Vortex in January, that infrastructure is a long way from being able to assure reliable electric service.
…
The link:
https://www.firstenergycorp.com/content/fecorp/newsroom/featured_stories/AJA-Chamber-Speech.html
More from the article:
Thomas Sowell, a noted economist and commentator at Stanford, summarized a broader trend, now playing out in our nation’s energy policy, when he said, quote: “Much of the social history of the western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.”
Bart R | May 12, 2014 at 10:24 am |
Reply to Geoff Sherrington | May 12, 2014 at 4:41 am | who claimed sampling density of oceans did not allow appellation of Ocean Heat Content as it was too sparsely measured.
Bart R,
Sorry, but your response is as relevant as the flowers that bloom in the Spring.
How about a scientific response, if you know how to write one?
Geoff Sherrington | May 12, 2014 at 10:03 pm |
Ahhhh. I had wondered what the cause of your confusion was. Clearly, it’s organic.
If consilience of evidence does not address sufficiently the very weak claim of sparse measurement, if the Principia is not sufficiently scientific, then you appeal to the fallacy of impossible perfection.
We cannot get what level of measurement you demand for the past. Would that we could. We make due with what we do have: all the observations known to us, and the most reasonable inference from that data.
How about addressing what was actually written. If you can figure out what that was, or how to do it with a valid response?
We cannot get what level of measurement you demand for the past.
hence it is a large inverse problem.
http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-wittgenstein-s-ruler-unless-you-have-confidence-in-the-ruler-s-reliability-if-you-use-a-ruler-to-nassim-nicholas-taleb-271218.jpg
More the fallacy of adequacy.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/OceanHeatCoverage_zps6cb294af.png.html?sort=3&o=84
And if serious about consilience – http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch3s3-4-4-1.html
‘Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system.’
Two independent sets of data (planetary and tropical) consistent with OHC – but it can’t be real because of some dodgy North American cloud observations?
The height of space cadet logic this.
Bart R | May 12, 2014 at 6:22 pm |
k scott denison | May 12, 2014 at 5:06 pm |
That was the dumbest thing I have ever seen you write WOW JUST WOW !!!
lorne50 | May 12, 2014 at 10:30 pm |
It’s not entirely clear from the context whether you mean me, both of us, or k scott denison, but my bet is you just mean me.
To which I say you haven’t seen very much of what I write. I’m sure I’ve done far better today alone, several times.
However, as I often overlook things, and seldom read what I write, could I trouble you to be a bit more specific?
If it was a particularly epic, I’d like to know so I can self-plagiarize sometime when I’m not feeling creative or particularly anti-intellectual.
If I am mistaken in my assumptions.. well, at least I’ll have exceeded your expectations twice in one day.
Talk about the rich and powerful gaming the government.
From the article:
…
Bill Ackman, the activist investor, last week predicted that the case would go all the way to the US Supreme Court. Given its recent record, that should be little comfort to American taxpayers. But the hedge funds’ real game is to stop Congress from passing legislation that would wind down the two behemoths and share part of their vast mortgage risk with the private market. As long as Fannie and Freddie stay alive, there is hope for the speculators.
Last week the hedge funds notched up a big success: the Fannie/Freddie reform bill ground to halt in the US Senate and is now highly unlikely to pass in 2014. The fact that they lobbied Congress heavily is one reason why the bill is stalling. There is nothing to stop them spending more. The return on lobbying in Washington is astronomic. If they win, the speculators will get $33bn in taxpayers’ money. If they lose, their outlay was a drop in the bucket. Last year, overall lobbyist spending in Washington was just $3.2bn – a minute sum given the returns available.
(end of clip)
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Showtime’s “Years of Living Dangerously” this week was mostly about politics. It contrasted New Jersey’s governor with Washington’s governor. Gov. Christie doesn’t really want to account for climate change in rebuilding after Sandy, or even do anything for natural coastal resilience. Gov. Inslee was elected with climate change as part of his platform, but battles a Republican state senate house, who are stopping him from measures he wants to use to curb emissions. The state Republicans brought some guy called Don Easterbrook into a panel hearing who was denying that even warming was happening in the temperature record. His university disowned anything he said. However, one victory there was a local township election where they got the people in that would stop the building of a new coal terminal. New Jersey was also contrasted with New York, who are doing things including taking advice from the Netherlands on how to allow for sea-level rise, something lacking in New Jersey’s planning. Next week’s episode seems to include one of the leaders from Heartland being questioned.
Wow, what a lineup. Isn’t Showtime a venue for fiction? I don’t subscribe to it, but IIRC, it shows movies?
HBO, also known for movies, has Bill Maher and now John Oliver who did this on Sunday’s show (in case you missed it when I posted it here yesterday).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/05/12/john-oliver-on-climate-change-skeptics-you-dont-need-peoples-opinions-on-a-fact/
I’ve wondered where liberals go for science news. Now I know.
I tried to post a link at 11:11pm which is still in moderation. It will probably show up later. Meanwhile you can Google -John Oliver climate change- to find the views he had on the difference between scientific consensus and public polls on his show on HBO this Sunday.
“Some guy called Don Easterbrook.” From Wiki:
Don J. Easterbrook (born January 29, 1935, in Sumas, Washington) is a geology professor emeritus at Western Washington University. Dr. Easterbrook holds that global warming is primarily caused by natural processes. He edited Evidence-Based Climate Science (2011) a book which contends that increased CO2 emissions aren’t the cause of climate change. He predicted lower global temperatures than the IPCC temperature projections.[1] He appeared on the Headline News program Glenn Beck[2] and has been interviewed for the New York Times.[3] Other members of the geology department at WWU, however, have criticized, and attempted to distance themselves from, his views after Easterbrook testified before the Washington State Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee that carbon dioxide could not cause global warming.
Easterbrook gave a speech at the 2006 Geological Society of America annual meeting, in which he stated:
“If the cycles continue as in the past, the current warm cycle should end soon and global temperatures should cool slightly until about 2035, then warm about 0.5°C from ~2035 to ~2065, and cool slightly until 2100. The total increase in global warming for the century should be ~0.3 °C, rather than the catastrophic warming of 3-6°C (4-11°F) predicted by the IPCC.”[1]
While IPCC was predicting global warming, Easterbrook (2001) predicted three decades of cooling due to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) shifting from its warm to cool phase.[5] He correlated PDO with climatic changes over the last 500 years.[6]
“The IPCC has predicted a global temperature increase of 0.6°C (1°F) by 2011 and 1.2°C (2°F) by 2038, whereas Easterbrook (2001) predicted the beginning of global cooling by 2007 (± 3 yrs) and cooling of about 0.3–0.5°C by 2040.”
He presented his research on “Glacier fluctuations, global climate change, and ocean temperature changes.”[7] at the International Conference on Climate Change NY, 2009.[8] In a summary of this work,[9] Easterbrook wrote: “We are entering a solar cycle of much reduced sunspots, very similar to that which accompanied the change from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age, which virtually all scientists agree was caused by solar variation. Thus, we seem to be headed for cooler temperatures as a result of reduced solar irradiance.”
— In 2001, Easterbrook predicted three decades of cooling while the IPCC predicted continuing warming. Hmmm. Who has been more accurate to date, I wonder?
I began following this issue 6 years ago somewhat of an agnostic. After trying to learn as much as I could and trying to be as objective about the evidence as I could, my conclusion is that the skeptics seem to have an edge on credibility of their case. There may be new developments in the future that can change all that, but right now there are too many holes in the CAGW narrative and too many failed predictions to accept all the gloom and doom. This does not mean CO2 should be dismissed but there are many unknown unknowns that don’t give Mother Earth all the credit due her for all the homeostatic mechanisms she may be able to muster. For the billions of years the relative equilibrium is amazing.
Governor Inslee talks of carbon pollution. If one wants a quick and easy designator for knowing when a person doesn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground on science and climate, this is one of the best. It has zero scientific or technical meaning. For all one knows, it could be referring to people, as we are carbon based life forms. In fact listening to comments of environmentalists and the carrying capacity crowd, human beings are exactly the sort of carbon pollution they are interested in reducing.
Just for fun, I thought some of you might enjoy this if you have not seen it already:
Spurious correlations:
http://www.tylervigen.com
The melting Antarctic is getting big play in the major papers. The headlines from the big papers are also shown on CNBC. Busy people will see that, believe it, and will be too busy to follow up to find it’s a crock.
From the article:
(Reuters) – China’s campaign against pollution and greenhouse gases is hitting early resistance in Guangdong province, where more than 60 manufacturers are holding back from a carbon market launched last year, saying the scheme is unfair and too costly.
…
But setbacks like the one now underway in Guangdong are likely to become more common as China turns from its “growth at all costs” model and seeks greater control over its dirtiest industries, with companies squeezed by a slowing economy pushing back against rising pollution and emissions costs.
“There is no reason for companies to pay millions of yuan a year (for carbon permits) when environment and energy regulators already charge us other pollution fees,” said an official at provincial government-owned iron and steel producer SGIS Songshan, which has not bought any carbon permits.
The official, who wanted to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak to media, said pollution costs were already weighing heavily on the company as it must also pay fees for sulphur dioxide emissions, waste water and solid waste, and adhere to strict efficiency standards.
…
Only one of China’s other six pilot markets, in Hubei province, auctions a share of the permits, but there is no minimum requirement and the minimum price is set at 20 yuan.
The remaining four pilot schemes – in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tianjin – issue carbon permits for free, while in the rest of China, companies do not now face any carbon costs.
The country’s large- and medium-sized steel mills lost 2.3 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2014, according to CISA, at least in part due to rising pollution costs.
“Now, air quality is so bad and the central government is determined to make improvements, so they do not care whether steel mills are happy or unhappy,” said Xu Zhongbo, head of Beijing Metal Consulting, who works with steel mills on technology issues.
SGIS Songshan, one of the holdouts in Guangdong, increased steel production by 12 percent last year, and iron production by 11 percent, but still saw its revenue drop as China’s economic slowdown hurt sales.
…
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/05/12/uk-china-carbon-idINKBN0DS1JM20140512
The Lewis sensitivity of 1.35 C works out to be almost 0.1 C per decade since 1979. This is clearly rather short of the observed 0.16 C per decade or land’s 0.3 C per decade, or Arctic’s recent 1 C per decade. Why does he claim his is better when it is so far off for any observed trend?
oops, re-posted at correct thread.
Lennart Bengtsson Leaves the advisory board of the GWPF
http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/lennart-bengtsson-leaves-advisory-board.html
What evah Nona wants.
========
My comment on WUWT re this disgraceful situation:
I’ve been warning of possible violence in this increasingly lunatic atmosphere for a couple of years now. I can easily see some misguided crazy deciding to take a pot shot at a climate denier in order to “save the planet.”
It’s not just climate. The intolerance from the left, and the gradual erosion of our right to free speech becomes more shocking by the day.
Sorry. This will not end well.
Pokerguy
I think any of us who have been involved with the individuals and organisations at the forefront of the Global warming industry will not be surprised by this.
I know of people within both the UK environment Agency and the Met Office who do not subscribe to the theory but dare not speak out. Shameful really. Is this sort of persecution and refusal to look at the broader picture indicative of science in general or just climate science specifically?
tonyb
Hey Tony,
Funny thing is I identified myself as a progressive most of my life, mostly wrt to social issues. I think it’s fair to say I’m doubly shocked at what’s going on , since these were up until a short time ago, my people. I’m sickened by what’s going on.
I really can’t put my finger on what the disease actually is at root, much less suggest a cure. But in part I blame Obama. He’s become the most divisive President I can think of , including George W., because he’s made a virtue out of it.The barely disguised anger, and taunting arrogance I see coming from the man who ran on a promise to unite is appalling.
President’s….leaders I should say…are not supposed to act this way.
Pokerguy
This intolerance is a worldwide characteristic it would seem of parts of the climate science community. I’m not sure therefore whether Obama can be blamed as the US is only one of the players and not necessarily the main one due to their holding off from Kyoto. The McCarthy element follows in the grand tradition of the Spanish inquisition so again not sure the US is wholly to blame.
I hope some of our warmist friends here will comment on this matter.
tonyb
His co-authors have more backbone than he does.
His “co-authors” are more worried about their careers than he his. This would indicate something of a lack of backbone. Probably a bunch of remoras:
This type of remora likely attaches to people with authority over large amounts of grant money, and perhaps real scientists capable of producing actual productive research.
“Is this sort of persecution and refusal to look at the broader picture indicative of science in general or just climate science specifically?”
“This intolerance is a worldwide characteristic it would seem of parts of the climate science community.”
Yes it’s a global phenomenon. No, it’s not just characteristic of the “climate science community.” It is an intentional tool of progressivism. Not from the types of default progressives who post here, they are just imitating what they see coming out of academia, the media, etc.
And it is more than a little ironic to see those bemoaning this use the example of “McCarthyism” as their example. Their acceptance of historical revisionism with no skepticism whatsoever is just an example why the tactic is so wide spread. It works.
Oh, not that McCarthy demonized those he sought to investigate. It was progressives who ignored facts and attacked McCarthy and other anti-communists who succeeded.
You see, Joe McCarthy was exorcised that there were agents of the Soviet Union in the US, including the State Department. Defending these poor souls is what gave rise to the demonization of Joe McCarthy and anti-0communists in general. The fact that most of these were in fact communist agents was confirmed in the Venona documents. If you’re a progressive, don;t be surprised if you have never even heard of them.
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article2539.html
Oh wait, that’s a conservative, it must be all lies.
Let’s try this one:
” By 1948 the accumulating evidence from other decoded Venona cables showed that the Soviets had recruited spies in virtually every major American government agency of military or diplomatic importance.
…
The deciphered Venona messages also showed that a disturbing number of high-ranking U.S. government officials consciously maintained a clandestine relationship with Soviet intelligence agencies and had passed extraordinarily sensitive information to the Soviet Union that had seriously damaged American interests.
…
And then there were the atomic spies. From within the Manhattan Project two physicists, Klaus Fuchs and Theodore Hall, and one technician, David Greenglass, transmitted the complex formula for extracting bomb-grade uranium from ordinary uranium, the technical plans for production facilities, and the engineering principles for the “implosion” technique.
…
Of the 349 Americans the deciphered Venona cables revealed as having covert ties to Soviet intelligence agencies, less than half could be identified by their real names and nearly two hundred remained hidden behind cover names.”
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/haynes-venona.html
Why do progressives try so hard to demonize their opponents, and silence opposition? Because it works.
If you doubt it, just read the comments above regarding “McCarthyism” from one of the highly intelligent, and one of the most reasonable, commenters here at Climate Etc.
“Denialsim,” it’s the new “McCartyism.”
Typical American, Tony, overblowing our importance in it.:-) I agree with much of what you say, and yet I continue to think Obama has seriously fanned the flames on a local basis anyway. Whether he’s a symptom of a worldwide pathology, or a contributor is impossible to say. Probably both.
As to warmists weighing in, they seem for the most part curiously unruffled by things we skeptics see as patently intolerable.
GaryM
Lets hope that Judith introduces this either as a main article, or in one of the ‘week in review’ topics, as this thread has become somewhat sporadic and the topic warrants wider discussion.
If scientists become demonised it is hardly surprising many wait until they retire before they voice their opinions.
I think perhaps McCarthyism has acquired a different level of meaning over here than in the States as it really would be interchangeable with the phrase ‘witch hunt’. In the same way defenders of the Spanish inquisition might argue that its effects have been unfairly demonised and perhaps it has been
So lets use the word ‘witch hunt’ shall we? Highly appropriate as many witches were associated with causing bad weather and poor crops,.
tonyb
.
His co-authors have more backbone than he does. He quit. Have you ever been in a fight? No Mas. Lol. In your weird little world Roberto has more backbone that Sugar Ray. No.
So who are his recent co-authors?
One of them is Stephen E. Schwartz (this guy is very good and writes whatever he wants).
Uki Waza
Tomoe Nage
Who’s he fighting? What’s he fighting for? Where does the GWPF and membership in its board fit into his tactics/strategy?
Venona wonts? Whatever.
======
All the McCarthy love is hilarious –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_Scare
Need a new dogwhistle, this one calls the flea-bitten, mange ridden culled curs. But I love Yo Mama.
===========
Gary,
Once again I’m struck by your refusal…or to be fair…your apparent refusal to see your conservative fellows as flawed human beings subject to many of the same excesses that progressives fall prey to. All well and good to defend McCarthy if you feel impelled to do so given your understanding and knowledge of history, but you’d be much more credible if you’d also conceded that the authoritarian communist witch hunts of that era, are a stain on our national conscience.
You’ve got an agile mind and a ready pen, but your rigid, paradigmatic thinking is obvious to a even humble student of human nature like myself. Your apparent conviction that conservatives are somehow better people than liberals is to my way of thinking, wildly incorrect. But this is old ground between us.
At long last, Sir, have you no narrative?
=========
pokerguy,
The difficulty you have with me is that you refuse to accept my definition of conservative, as a recognizable group of principles and people.
But as to your mistaken belief in the historical revisionism you were taught, McCarthy was not engaged in a witch hunt. There were Soviet Agents everywhere he claimed. This debate was lost by the left about a decade ago. You probably do not recognize that because the debate did not take place in any of the media you frequented then.
“Once again I’m struck by your refusal…or to be fair…your apparent refusal to see your conservative fellows as flawed human beings subject to many of the same excesses that progressives fall prey to.”
Glad you ised the term “apparent.”
See, if you understood what I meant by conservatism, rather than what you learned as a progressive, you would know that conservatives start from the assumption that all men are imperfect, make mistakes and are subject to temptation.
That is why we adhere, and believe in, objective standards, quaintly referred to as morality by some, to which everyone should be held.
Let me say it again, since it has been a while.
Conservatives as people lie.
Conservatism rejects lying as legitimate (except in extremis- eg. war).
Progressivism advocate lying because the end justifies the means.
Conservatives as people engage in the suppression of speech.
Conservatism insists on free speech except in limited circumstances.
Progressivism insists on the censoring of speech, and advocates ignoring
the Constitution to the extent it would prevent them from doing so.
Conservatives as people do all sorts of evil things.
Conservatism requires acceptance, and demands adherence to, objective
legal and moral principles.
Progressivism advocates and engages in situational ethics – “fairness” and
“social justice” masquerade as principles but mean whatever the
speaker wants them to mean.
Conservatives at times lust for power and do evil things to attain it.
Conservatism requires adherence to the written Constitution and laws of
the land.
Progressivism seeks power for its own sake. The Constitution is a “living
document,” meaning it is no impediment at all to what those in power
want to do, as long as they are progressives.
As an example, there have been many evil Roman Catholics over the ages, some of them Popes. Everything evil they have done was contrary to Catholic dogma.
The history of progressivism is one of virtually unrestrained accumulation and exercise of power. The slaughter of tens of millions by the Soviets and Comunist Chinese were, and still sometimes are, defended by “modern” progressives. Castro, Che Guevara, Daniel Ortega, Mao Tse Tung are still lionized by most progressives. Nothing they have done is anathema to progressivism.
The current press spokesman for the president of the United States has Soviet propaganda posters on his wall. Willful support of totalitarianism, or mindless, callous ignorance of history? Who’s to tell?
Your refusal to see progressivism for what it really is, is not a product of my starry eyed ignorance of the nature of my fellow conservatives.
Kim
Here’s our friend The Stoat saying exactly what you would expect him to.
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2014/05/14/ha-ha-lennart-bengtsson-leaves-advisory-board-of-gwpf/
Come on William, turn up here and justify your position. A witch hunt from either ‘side’ is surely lamentable?
Tonyb
Nor will any of his bitter commenters show up here in support. Nonetheless, they are very persuasive. Think of the effect they could have.
===========
Scroat gloat. I don’t go there.
This use of ‘McCarthy’ by Europeans and many Americans fills this episode, and the whole climate caper, with an immense and expanding irony.
==========
From the CAGW is dead department:
“The objective of the United Nations Environment Programme over the period from 2014 to 2017 is to catalyse a transition towards low-carbon, low-emission, resource-efficient and equitable development based on the protection and sustainable use of ecosystem services, coherent and improved environmental governance and the reduction of environmental risks.”
http://www.foxnews.com/world/interactive/2014/05/13/un-proposed-strategic-framework-for-period-2016-2017/