There is some kind of meeting going on in Copenhagen this week. Most of what the Antiplanner might say about it has already been said by others, such as this article or this one.
Aside from these stories, one of the reasons I’ve always been skeptical of anthropogenic climate change is that it is tailor-made for a greedy environmental movement. I spent nearly two decades immersed in that movement, and during that time everyone seemed to be looking for the Ideal Issue that would win them the debate over whatever little piece of earth they were trying to save.
The Ideal Issue is one that appears scientifically valid but is actually scientifically irrefutable. The Ideal Issue represents a major crisis, but — like the end-of-the-world predictions made by religious prophets — not one that will happen soon enough that its failure to take place will prove the issue invalid. For some, the Ideal Issue was a true public good, which meant it could only be solved through massive government interventions.
Climate change fits these criteria to a T. Before climate change, environmentalists used the Endangered Species Act as their Ideal Issue. After all, the law was written to trump all other laws or considerations. Under the law, Americans were required to save all species from extinction no matter what the cost.
To reinforce the urgency of their claims, environmentalists often pointed to a calculation that species were going extinct at the rate of one every half an hour. In fact, even the experts would be hard put to name more than one per year, and in nearly all of those cases they were animals that had been extinct for decades but were just now being recognized as gone. (The one-every-half-hour figure was based on calculations of extinction rates of beetles in the Brazilian rainforest, but no one knew whether those numbers were valid and, in any case, rainforest cutting has since declined.)
It soon became an inside joke that environmentalists used the Endangered Species Act not to save species but to stop projects they didn’t like. Under a primitive form of what is now called the precautionary principle, the very presence of a listed species on a piece of land could be used to prevent virtually anything from happening on that land, at least until various federal agencies had spent years doing studies and writing recovery plans.
The problem with endangered species is that life-or-death for a species is not as powerful as life-or-death for humans. So global warming quickly eclipsed endangered species as the Ideal Issue (though endangered species managed to get into the act with the listing of the polar bear). For one thing, we could show how real people would be impacted by climate change, such as the poor residents of Greenland who would be harmed if all their ice disappeared.
What is ED and does buy cialis online davidfraymusic.com it happen only to older men? Erectile dysfunction causes an inability in men to attain or maintain an erection for a satisfying intercourse. Take the dose on an empty stomach to enjoy the getting viagra in australia proper response. Apart from this medicinal help, an ED patient can also consult levitra no prescription the Doctor to see whether he can prescribe the correct measurement to the ED patients according to their criteria, normalized the body and increased resistance to stress without any noxious effects. If you are willing to indulge in tadalafil vs cialis some fruitful sessions of lovemaking. Droughts, hurricanes, and floods have been around for virtually ever. Yet today, every drought, hurricane, and flood is presented as another example of the effects of climate change. This is like the fundamentalists who claim that every earthquake and volcano is proof that armageddon is just around the corner.
None of these things prove that anthropogenic climate change isn’t happening. But too many activists find it too convenient to latch onto the issue for their own ends.
If anthropogenic climate change is for real, and if we really have to spend trillions of dollars to prevent or minimize its effects, we better spend that money carefully. I don’t see many activists interested in doing that. Instead, too many are full of schadenfreude about the impending end of industrial society.
I remember once giving a lecture to a group of young activists. I pointed out that our environmental impact is not directly proportional to our wealth. Drawing a chart on the board in the shape of an upside-down U, I stated that, as wealth increases, environmental impacts first go up, then down, because people first want food and shelter, but after other basic needs are met people want a clean environment.
A white-haired man in the audience got a big cheer when he said, “I think we should just go back to the left side of the chart before there was any industry at all.” He turned out to be David Brower, former director of the Sierra Club and founder of Friends of the Earth. As the archdruid, Brower was a hero to many, but if we lived in his preindustrial society many of the people in the audience would have died in childbirth or some childhood disease, and almost none could have afforded to go to the university I was lecturing at. Of course, everyone assumes they would be the exceptions.
Environmentalists lack empathy. They say they care about the future of the planet, but they don’t care much about the individual people on the planet. Given a choice between banning DDT and reducing deaths to malaria, they will ban DDT. Given a choice between boosting mobility with cleaner cars and re-engineering society, they set a target of reducing per capita auto driving by two-thirds. Of course, they don’t plan on dying from malaria themselves, and probably don’t plan on reducing the amount they drive much either.
Environmental leaders used to teach humility, that even a small ecosystem is too complex to understand. Now they claim to have a perfect understanding of the entire planet’s climate — so much so that anything at all, warming or cooling — is taken as proof of their models. I am sorry; I just don’t believe it.
Update: Another environmental activist uses more words and perhaps better logic to express ideas similar to the ones above.
Making fun of the radicals is easy.
These environmentalists should support market-mechanisms that could take care of the environmental problem right now as much as current technology can (hell, it might even accelerate the innovation of new technologies that reduce pollution). Whether there’s global warming or not, people would benefit from cleaner air and water anyway. Everybody wins no matter what they believe in.
Here is more to add to your dis belief of the clowns at the center of the U.N. Climate change Reports:
This is what real scientists say about global warming:
Phil Jones – head of the Climate Research Unit Draft Contributing Author to the Summary for Policy Makers, and Coordinating Lead Author of Ch3 of the 4th UN IPCC report on climate change, AR4 wrote these emails (bold added, (email ID#); [commentes]):
16 Nov 1999: I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to
each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide
the decline. ( 942777075.txt) [Note this is an extremely important admission
since the “decline” he is hiding is the temperature decline since 1961, in the tree ring data. The
existence of this decline suggests that tree ring data can’t be trusted for any period, since it
deviates from measured temperatures in one period (after 1961.) This is crucial as much of
the IPCC case rests on tree rings.]
———————-
Jul 5 15:51:55 2005: The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain
terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only 7 years of data and
it isn’t statistically significant. (1120593115.txt) [in 2009 it is now11 years of cooling.]
——————————-
11 Mar 2003: I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do
with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor. A CRU person is on the
editorial board, but papers get dealt with by the editor assigned by Hans von Storch.
(1047390562.txt)
Kevin Trenberth
Draft Contributing Author for the Summary for Policy Makers,
contributing author to Ch 1, a lead author for Ch 3, and
contributing author to Ch 7 of the 4th UN IPCC report on climate change, AR4.)
12 Oct 2009: …we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on
record. (…) and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. (…) The fact is that
we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we
can’t. (. . .) Our observing system is inadequate. (1255352257.txt)
——————————-
Oct 14, 2009: We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not
account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of
geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a
travesty! (1255523796.txt)
So these top IPCC scientists know it is not warming and that their models don’t work. They don’t
know how climate works. They want to fire editors that publish skeptical papers and destroy
emails subject to FOI requests.
AND our ignorant politicians want to destroy our economy based on this garbage from a bunch of criminal fraud artists at the U.N!
Thanks
JK
Even though most of you are very hate filled people. Have a great Hanukkah!
Obviously false Swift Boat campaigns don’t help the virnmint haydurz. In fact, they reveal the position of the haydurz, which is weak and desperate and without evidence.
Weakness and desperation notwithstanding, linking to known prevaricators and parroting long-ago refuted talking points doesn’t help the cause of the environment exploiters either.
Which is probably why the world has moved on and will some day soon actually start working on adapting to and mitigating man-made climate change. Now if we can just make some more water, distribute food equitably, give women reproductive choices, and figure out what to do about collapsing fisheries we’ll be getting somewhere.
DS
the Antiplanner wrote:
> Aside from these stories, one of the reasons I’ve always been skeptical of anthropogenic climate change is that it is tailor-made
> for a greedy environmental movement. I spent nearly two decades immersed in that movement, and during that time everyone seemed
> to be looking for the Ideal Issue that would win them the debate over whatever little piece of earth they were trying to save.
>
> The Ideal Issue is one that appears scientifically valid but is actually scientifically irrefutable. The Ideal Issue
> represents a major crisis, but — like the end-of-the-world predictions made by religious prophets — not one that will
> happen soon enough that its failure to take place will prove the issue invalid. For some, the Ideal Issue was a true
> public good, which meant it could only be solved through massive government interventions.
More damning is that the “solutions” to global climate change/global warming are exactly the same ones that have been offered by the Smart Growth/environmental dvocacy industry for many years.
“If anthropogenic climate change is for real, and if we really have to spend trillions of dollars to prevent or minimize its effects…”
Any sane Canadian or Siberian will tell you that Glowball Warmening would be a net benefit. Anyone but an AGW alarmist knows you can mitigate the effects of warmth a lot easier than the effect of cold and the resultant glaciation and ocean level drop.
And then there was DS dribbling random lefie buzzphrases like ‘Swift Boat(ing)'(Meaning: Kerry was a liar and was caught. Just like climategate), ‘distribute food equitably’ (Meaning: Give my friends and me free stuff, even though we don’t wanna work or take risks), ‘give women reproductive choices’ (Meaning: Unknown – women can have sex or not, use the pill or not, have abortions or not, as they choose – oh wait, they can only do that in a Western culture, the ones so despised by DS and his commie buddies), and ‘figure out what to do about collapsing fisheries’.(Meaning: who knows, who cares, it’s drivel, and the answer is obvious – get rich enough to avoid being a hunter gatherer, which is also easy – hang all the commies in your culture and get on with it.)
More damning is that the “solutions†to global climate change/global warming are exactly the same ones that have been offered by the Smart Growth/environmental dvocacy industry for many years.
Shorter implicit justification:
“I oppose anything that prevents humans from fouling their nest.”
Which segues into:
Environmentalists lack empathy.
Big fat lie.
Or, it could be a transparent standard inconsistency.
Either way, we see why the ideology has zero play.
DS
Today Andrew Gelman writes “What probability do you assign to the following statement: increasing the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration above 800 ppm will change the global average surface temperature by more than 2.5 degrees C (4.5 F)?
I’d be interested to know everyone’s number here.
I’m a 60%-70%.
I’d be interested to know everyone’s number here.
IIRC the projections from the physics give ~3ºC Charney sensitivity for 550 ppmv CO2. The latest projections for a 2º C sensitivity are depicted here, where 800 ppmv isn’t even on the chart and thus is taken as a given.
So my %age given the current scientific understanding is 95% probability.
DS
I think Dr. George Reisman nailed it best, and beautifully sums up my position on the matter, which is: AGW does indeed appear to be occurring, but the imposition of increasingly onerous regulatory controls into the lives of citizens or the wholesale reduction of human existence to prehistoric squalor are most emphatically not the answer:
“The answer to the question of how best to cope with intolerable global warming caused by Nature is obviously the maintenance of the free market, not its replacement by Socialist central planning. Indeed, the answer is to make the free market freer than it now is—as much freer as is humanly possible. This is because while the primary reason for advocating a free market is the greater prosperity and enjoyment it brings to everyone in the course of his normal, everyday life, a major, secondary reason is to have the greatest possible industrial base available for coping with catastrophic events, whether those events be war, plague, meteors from outer space, intolerable global warming, or a new ice age.” (Emphasis mine.)
Gelman link. First doesn’t seem to work.
Mike, that leads us to the next step (if you want to submit your probability):
What’s the Expected Value of not doing anything?
(Probability of AGW NOT occuring)*(benefits of not doing anything) MINUS (Probability of AGW occuring)*(costs of consequences)
Of course, there is probability related to the benefits and costs as well. Nethier are known. Still, we must try, yes?
You did an [ a /a ] in 8, tg, rather than a [href]. And we see the exercise proffered does work, does it not? Interesting. I like it.
DS
Mike the Objectivist keeps babbling about “the market” will solve GHG and other environmental problems. But HOW?
Last time I checked, no corporation or other private entity owned the sky or ocean; if you’re going to shift to a “polluter pays” principle, you need some sort of collective action in order to enforce the revenue collection, e.g., usually understood as gumm’it.
Mike, if you have an alternative, please give us a practical example.
blacquejacqueshellac:“Any sane Canadian or Siberian will tell you that Glowball Warmening would be a net benefit. Anyone but an AGW alarmist knows you can mitigate the effects of warmth a lot easier than the effect of cold and the resultant glaciation and ocean level drop.”
ws:A shifting climate scenario where the interior of Canada and Siberia would “green up” would benefit them certainly, but it would actually be to the detriment of other populations in the south that are in marginal climate zones that are dependent on seasonal rains where drier and prolonged drought would severely impact their habitation patterns (parts of Mexico and Africa). This is a clear winner and loser scenario you have presented.
A shifting climate scenario where the interior of Canada and Siberia would “green up†would benefit them certainly
No, not certainly.
The soils up there are far less fertile. The proximity to the Arctic and cold air means greater risk for damage. The precip projections don’t favor summer precip. in some northerly areas. There is no guarantee climate migrants will move to these new areas to work the fields (industrial ag is not in many countries).
DS
msetty wrote:
> Mike the Objectivist keeps babbling about “the market†will solve GHG and other environmental problems. But HOW?
>
> Last time I checked, no corporation or other private entity owned the sky or ocean; if you’re going to shift to
> a “polluter pays†principle, you need some sort of collective action in order to enforce the revenue collection,
> e.g., usually understood as gumm’it.
>
> Mike, if you have an alternative, please give us a practical example.
I don’t speak for Mike or for anyone else here, but my take is this:
If we really want to reduce CO2 emissions (and other related substances which may be worse, such as methane), then it is appropriate to identify what gives us the most “bang for the buck” (e.g. lowest per-ton reduction). That means that reductions should strictly be based on price – what costs the least and does the most.
The way I see it, replacing coal-fired electric generation with other, non-emitting sources, be they solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric or nuclear represents the best opportunity to quickly remove a lot of CO2 emissions from the economy at low cost.
Many would say that we can use wind and solar power exclusively, but I do not think that is at all reasonable or workable, because the wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine. For baseload electric generation, nuclear and hydroelectric are the only reasonable options (in my opinion). Note that I am not an electrical engineer and I do not play one on television.
CPZ thus spake:
If we really want to reduce CO2 emissions (and other related substances which may be worse, such as methane), then it is appropriate to identify what gives us the most “bang for the buck†(e.g. lowest per-ton reduction). That means that reductions should strictly be based on price – what costs the least and does the most.
Well, yes. It sounds like we agree on the merits of a gradually increasing carbon tax. The main wrinkle is that I think the amount collected should be rebated back to each adult in an annual check.
Those using more energy would pay more, while those who use less energy would save. The price system in action!
While “gumm’it action” (I suspect the main Objectivist objection (sic)) would be required to implement a carbon tax, something like this direct rebate would leave out the log-rolling rampant under so-called “cap and trade,” which I think is preferred by the politicians and Wall Street because, in the former case, payoffs to special interests abound, and in the latter case, it offers new opportunities for collecting transaction fees and speculation on financial bubble-making.
The only way to make a carbon tax work politically (e.g., avoiding the Christmas Tree effect) is to not to peel off ANY funding for specific purposes, other than a tiny percentage for program administration (someone may have to audit the books of the coal and oil companies, for example).
I also don’t think that a $50 per ton tax is sufficient to solve the problem, unlike The Antiplanner; $200 to $300 per ton is probably more like it to have the major impact the IPCC says we have to have (80%+ reduction by 2050)…
Setty,
Last time I checked, no corporation or other private entity owned the sky or ocean; if you’re going to shift to a “polluter pays†principle, you need some sort of collective action in order to enforce the revenue collection, e.g., usually understood as gumm’it.
Yes, but not through legislation or executive regulation. The instrument you’re looking for is judiciary: the class-action lawsuit.
Keep in mind, the Objectivist position is that a fully-functioning government will include a court system. Usually when someone taking your position looks at my position and says “the MARKET won’t voluntarily fix anything!,” what you/they are thinking in the mind’s eye is anarchy; Somalia. That is a libertarian position, not an Objectivist one, and no, of course it does not work, nor is it moral.
Objectivists don’t hate government, but instead want a strong government that executes its legitimate duties (protecting life, liberty, and property) instead of serving as a wealth-redistribution racket. Objectivists pay no lip service whatever to anarchy, as devolving into anarchy trades a few known large despots for a million small ones, and is not justifiable either on a principled OR practical basis. Why the libertarian camp continues to fantasize about it is a mystery to me — it is part of the reason they are (sometimes rightfully) derided as right-wing hippies.
t g,
Funny you should mention that. I read something recently, though it escapes me as to where, noting that if the consequences of not doing anything about AGW are a broken economy and widespread suffering, and the consequences of FOLLOWING plans like Kyoto and cap-and-trade are a broken economy and widespread suffering, perhaps it’s best we do nothing and take our chances, since we’re looking at the same outcome.
I expect the private market and scientific community to adapt as they always do, and to do so at the eleventh hour, just as they always have before. And not everyone will be on the ball, and there will be a few that miss the wagon. Just as the folks who manufactured buggy whips about a century ago.
Mike,
The insurance industry came out of the private sector. Evaluating and preparing for risk is not a “planned economy” trait. My question is merely what is the risk? Probability times cost. So lets talk numbers.
Markets cannot trade in non-rival, non-excludable goods. Thus markets cannot address such issues.
Utterly basic stuff.
But I like the avoidance outcome of the probability question. Well done indeed.
DS
Dan:“No, not certainly.
The soils up there are far less fertile. The proximity to the Arctic and cold air means greater risk for damage. The precip projections don’t favor summer precip. in some northerly areas. There is no guarantee climate migrants will move to these new areas to work the fields (industrial ag is not in many countries).”
ws:Yeah, you’re right my comments are not exactly true or proven. However, your points aren’t certain either. Soil conditions can change drastically with climate alterations. More upper plant growth on soils = more organic material for the soils. I’m not sure why summer precipitation is important. Most of the Western US gets little summer precipitation (NW included) yet has some outstandingly fertile soils and agr. yields.
Mike, class action lawsuits?
An objectivist society would be a lawyer’s dream, by your logic.
Thank God only objectivists take objectivism seriously.
Dan,
You wouldn’t be trading in air, but dealing with a tort: a company’s pollution of the atmosphere interferes with my quiet enjoyment of my property and/or damages my health and/or kills the cows that the Beef Company was raising in order to be able to sell me hamburgers, et cetera. Fugitive resources don’t all have to be owned to give rise to causes of action against those who despoil them, when those fugitive resources are integrated into the use of private property as you’ve pointed out yourself many times they are.
t g,
I couldn’t begin to guesstimate specifically… accounting was never my strong suit. But on the basis of economics, following the consequence chains from the effect of restrictions upon production of wealth all the way down to the effects of constrained production on consumption, even if catastrophe by AGW was ten times worse than societal collapse by “green fiat,” you’d be talking about trading a stomachache for a headache. Either one, sufficiently severe, could be fatal. Better to do as Dr. Reisman notes, and make industries as free as possible to increase technological adaptability.
msetty,
It does not follow that in order to have a functioning court system, we have to have dirtbag ambulance chasers and the various other negative aspects of the present-day American courts. Just because the system is broken, don’t assume we’d preserve every defect if we were to reboot.
In point of fact, in a world that got rid of Nanny State laws like drug possession and consumption prohibitions, etc, the police and courts would have a much better signal to noise ratio in their work and could be many times more effective at a lower cost.
I would just like to state that if the argument is over economics (which it always appears to be here), the Expected Value is the standard for evaluating economic risk. Dollar values and probabilities must be assigned to expected outcomes. Otherwise, there’s only rhetoric.
ws,
There currently is little biotic activity in the northern soils. They are shallow. They are relatively infertile. It takes ~500 years to make an inch of topsoil. Your ‘western yields’ are due to irrigation.
Plus, rice is already grown everywhere it can be grown, at the upper end of its heat tolerance. Philippines are rushing to develop a more heat-tolerant race of rice. Declines in yields are more pressure on other grains at the same time world human population further stresses food systems.. Last, we already see a decrease in graminaceous nutrition in European grain due to increased atm CO2.
Much, much more complexity than simply ‘moving north will be good adaptation strategy for farming’.
Regards,
DS (Aggie alum)
Just to get the numeracy ball rolling:
The Congressional Budget Office has evaluated the economic losses due to emission regulation as 1%-2% annually through 2050 (approximately $ 1 Trillion/yr).
This number does not include any benefits of averting climate change (p4).
Sorry: GDP = $14.2 Trillion.
Order of Magnitude off above on the annual costs. (A trillion here a trillion there)
$142 Billion/year
Katrina has been estimated to have cost about $70 Billion. The loss of New Orleans is an isolated example of one consequence of climate change by rising sea levels.
We’ve been spending about $10 Billion/year in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars for regional stability. Anyone care to estimate the cost of providing regional stability when the developing world can’t afford to eat?
Anyone care to estimate the cost of providing regional stability when the developing world can’t afford to eat?
Are you going to ask to assign probabilities, so folk can avoid the issue like the probability avoidance upthread starting at #8?
😉
DS
t g,
A concrete analysis of dollar amounts would certainly help, but can it even be done?
For example, arguendo, I’m willing to stipulate that your Katrina figure is perfectly valid as-is. However, given four straight “quiet” hurricane seasons since then, are we safe in characterizing Katrina as a consequence of AGW? One would think that if Katrina were really caused by AGW, there would have been more Supercanes since then; instead, Katrina looks more like an outlier. (And you’re hearing this from a guy who DOES think AGW is happening, so I’m not coming from a skeptic’s position scientifically.)
And I’m not one to quibble over every single line item; I’m just bringing this up to illustrate the difficulty in even counting the actual dollar amounts we’re considering here. You might have identified a very necessary analysis that might be impossible to accomplish in practice, because of the staggering difficulty of figuring out exactly what counts and what doesn’t, and how it can be counted.
Hide the decline
“CRU did indeed truncate tree ring data, so that the decline is not shown in the IPCC report as shown in the red line above.”
I’ll start recording everyone’s number.
This brings up an interesting issue. How far out do we take the timeline?
Mike, thanks for the benefit of the doubt, but no need to include Katrina. I’d go 10% that Katrina was caused by AGW. It’s a 1 in 400 storm. Not too crazy. I’m using that to show the cost of losing a coastal city. New Orleans would easily be lost to rising sea levels.
I agree. The accounting is ridiculous. I’d be interested to see if we could hammer out some acceptable figures among us. On the cost side, everyone seems to agree to 1% to 2% of GDP out to 2050.
On the consequences side…IF AGW occurs, Mike, what’s the worst damage that would happen? In your opinion. Hold off on monetary valuation.
The time scale is very important, as illustrated here, as the more rapid the rate of increase, the greater the ecosystem stress and resultant loss of economic and social resilience.
DS
Here is what Phil Jones – head of the Climate Research Unit, Draft Contributing Author to the Summary for Policy Makers, and Coordinating Lead Author of Ch3 of the 4th UN IPCC report on climate change, AR4) said:
Jul 5 15:51:55 2005: The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only 7 years of data and it isn’t statistically significant. (1120593115.txt) [ Note: in 2009, it is now11 years of cooling.]
Here is what Kevin Trenberth, Draft Contributing Author for the Summary for Policy Makers,
contributing author to Ch 1, a lead author for Ch 3, and contributing author to Ch 7 of the 4th UN IPCC report on climate change, AR4.) Said:
12 Oct 2009: … we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. (…) and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. (…) The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. (. . .) Our observing system is inadequate. (1255352257.txt)
——————————-
Oct 14, 2009: We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty! (1255523796.txt)
Why are we even discussing “solutions†to global warming when the key advocates are admitting that the earth hasn’t warmed in 11 years, they don’t know why and they don’t have adequate observing systems. The warmers are fools following the fools, idiots and liars at the CRU/UN.
Thanks
JK
I’ll put Karlock down for Probability of AGW = 0%.
Which in the world of statistics qualifies you to matriculate to third grade math.
Mike:“In point of fact, in a world that got rid of Nanny State laws like drug possession and consumption prohibitions, etc, the police and courts would have a much better signal to noise ratio in their work and could be many times more effective at a lower cost.”
ws:So the people enacting the lawsuits in court (i.e. the government) is different from government regulation how? In fact, lawsuits are based off of gov’t regulation/law violations. How can you have a lawsuit in court if one does not have a framework for what is pollution? The framework for the criteria of pollution is regulation and laws, which is what our court system is based off of.
Dan:“There currently is little biotic activity in the northern soils. They are shallow. They are relatively infertile. It takes ~500 years to make an inch of topsoil. Your ‘western yields’ are due to irrigation.”
ws:500 years is mere blip on the radar in context of 4.5 billion years that the planet is. I agree, “just move north” is an absolute simplistic “solution” to deal with climate change. It might not be feasible by any means, and you’re right in that regard. My simple comment is landscapes are made and remade. It may be that warming of the planet could have benefits for some regions. We can’t assume this, but we cannot disregard it either. That is, in no way, a support for the occurrence of AGW to happen like some “greening of the earth” AGW is good movements (which are oddly supported by Exxon dollars).
JK:“12 Oct 2009: … we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. (…) and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. (…) The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. (. . .) Our observing system is inadequate. (1255352257.txt)”
ws:Oh noes!! Some scientist is really talking about the two coldest days on record. Yep, two cold days isn’t even an indication of a weekly weather pattern, let alone a climate pattern. Geez Jim, it was 108 in the Portland suburbs one day this year in summer, one of the hottest on record. It’s also freezing cold out right now, one of the coldest we’ve had since 1998 earlier this week (ironically 1998 was the hottest globally on record).
Do those two incidents we’ve had this summer and this fall have anything to do with a climate trend? Nope.
The mopes are still doing the GLOBUL COOLIN bit? Mon dieu. What a joke.
ws, what is important to remember is scale; 3º of warming by 2100 isn’t enough time to make topsoil. The scale doesn’t match. That lessens resilience and increases the cost of solutions/adaptation. Surely there will be a %age of area that will benefit. Most findings however state that % will be dwarfed by adverse impacts. Net negative, and we need to increase arable land and efficiency to feed 8.5B people. Monumental challenge with decreasing groundwater and not enough latent arable land in reach of irrigation.
DS
Every time an environmentalist says that Hurricane Katrina was caused, or is an example of, global warming, it is another example of the stupidity of their argument.
Much of New Orleans is under sea level because it was under sea level when it was built and the land subsided up to 8 feet.
So please explain how global warming is going to cause the land to sink around the world.
Andy, no one here claimed Katrina was from AGW. In fact, I put 90% odds that it wasn’t. Think before ya jump, grasshopper.
Katrina has nothing more to do with climate change than -2F temp this morning.
ws: Oh noes!! Some scientist is really talking about the two coldest days on record
JK: First that was not just some scientist – it was one of the world’s leading climate scientists: Kevin Trenberth is a Draft Contributing Author for the Summary for Policy Makers, contributing author to Ch 1, a lead author for Ch 3, and contributing author to Ch 7 of the 4th UN IPCC report on climate change, AR4.
Second, as usual, you ignore the rest of the posting:
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. (. . .) Our observing system is inadequate.
And you ignore his other email:
We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration ofgeoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!
(1255523796.txt)
I assume you know that if you cannot balance the energy budget, you DO NOT know what is going on in the climate. That one statement makes all of the predictions coming from these guys pure crap. They don’t know what they are doing and he just admitted it. And you still blindly follow them. They fooled you therefore you are a fool. Again.
Thanks
JK
Hey t g: Read comment #29 before you comment again. Then you can post your apology.
Oh yes. The AGW movement is political.
But many of the proponents are not necessarily political-agenda based.
It’s a case of greenism & feel-good stuff.
They don’t realize how much freedom & wealth they will have to forgoe.
Moreover, the rising temps are vastly exaggerated, so it’s effort for nothing.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/11/hacking.emails.climate.skeptics/
I’d like to know where the money is coming from?
This whole pursuit of less emissions is such a false trail.
AGW is a big hoax.
You (individually) have self interest?
That’s how capitalism & laissez-faire operate.
(Still, rules/laws, to prevent cheating & harming others)
Well, that is separate from emissions & externalities, but this false path, leads to less.
Pay full cost? Voters say tax others.
Full cost for energy? Pay carbon tax. ????
Give plants less food. ?????
Eliminate more animals (CO2 exhaling) & everybody be vegetarian (meat: emissions), is part of the solution to this alarmism.
Be a gatherer (no hunts), only, in a hut? (Density is very low, w/that land capacity.)
Agree?
Hell NO!
High-man,
I’d like to know, why are are foolish & are unknowledgeable & bring up irrelevant facts?
Are you in a hospital/institute?
Money? There’s so much that is proAGW.
Many scientists/PhD Holders (…..), know that AGW is a hoax.
Hey, frikin leftist, business is for all.
Bless you.
(Even though there’s no god.)