So where do you fit on my newest creation? Jerry and I were arguing Climate Change again and I said that I like the work of Judith Curry. She is an expert who has the blog Climate Etc. My belief is that she believes:
- the use of fossil fuels is warming the climate
- that the science is still immature, especially the forecasting
- other factors may be more significant in the future
- people need low cost energy
- clean energy & cheap energy must be balanced
- people should be preparing for extreme whether events either way
- alarmists abound and are confusing people
So I know that Jerry is a Denier and most of the other commenters are Believers or CAGW'ers... But I was not sure where that leaves folks like Judith and myself. So I created a new continuum for your comments and critiques !!! :-) (click it to zoom)
74 comments:
Insert Reagan quote /here/. It doesn't matter what people "believe," what matters is the objective truth and sensible policy that flows from it. Your scale seems to deny that rationality to both sides AND to the middle. That's a good trick.
Jerry,
It is okay that you are in the minority on this topic.
The younger smarter people who will be impacted by it when you are gone are more aware and concerned.
All,
Here is the NASA site again.
They don't declare Armageddon, however they make it pretty clear the actions of us ~8 Billion humans are having and impact.
I fall in the balanced category and like what Judith Curry has to say. Thanks for sharing, John.
Molly
I see, so we take a poll of those who have been immersed in the CAGW religion for years, and lo and behold, some of them believe it, especially the young who have less experience on which comparisons can be made. We remember the "next ice age" scare of the 70s; our parents remember the hot Dust Bowl days of the 30s, and even the hipster generation SHOULD remember how none of those 700 or so gloomy predictions by the warmists have come to pass in their lifetimes so far.
How about we simply re-label your simple linear scale so it goes from "not fooled" to "fooled"? Or put it another way. If I'm an "8" how can I agree with Dr. Curry? On my scale, she and I would be together at the "not fooled" end.
Jerry,
You do not agree with Judith... You agree with a few of her comments and postings. (ie confirmation bias)
As long as you believe strongly that human activities are not and can not damage God's intelligent design, you are a Science Denier.
And that is fine. We just disagree with you. :-)
I agree with Dr. Curry that human impact will NOT appreciably raise temperatures this century, or at minimum that there are insurmountable uncertainties about that /opinion/.
And I believe strongly in the science. It is the Warmists who don't have a scientific leg to stand on. And let's not conflate all "human activity" with the very specific claim of CAGW. And we need to be very wary of those who conflate Global Warming with =manmade= global warming. Two entirely different things-- one undeniable, the other entirely speculative.
The Science is perfectly clear that jerry is wrong.
There is no spectrum, only the truth. You either see the truth, like the experts, or deny the truth, like jerry.
Moose
Moose,
Do you see yourself as a Believer or a CAGW'er?
Now I believe that human fossil fuel activities are causing the world to warm and that this will create environmental winners and losers. And possible a LOT of global migration that no one is ready for.
However I have little confidence that anyone knows how fast it will occur, how natural factors will speed or resist the change, etc.
And I am not sure which is better for the most humans... "clean expensive limited energy" or "less clean cheap plentiful energy"
If you deny that their is a continuum of options and beliefs, then your head is stuck in the sand just as far as Jerry's.
More from About Climate Etc
Oh, gee, thanks, John. If you don't know how fast, how much is natural, or whether cheap non-polluting energy is better than expensive polluting energy, than I am not the one building my argument on sand. There is a continuum of beliefs, I will grant you that, but like most everything, one side is mostly right about the reality, and the other side is mostly wrong about what reality is or are inventing their own. Sounds like you are somewhere in the middle.
"Do you see yourself as a Believer or a CAGW'er?"
I trust the experts to know better than anyone else.
Moose
moose, what if the "experts" are lying to you? And what about the hundreds and thousands of experts that do not support the fantasy you believe in?
What DO these "experts" know, how do they know it, and can they prove any of it with actual data?
Jerry,
As I always... When driving in the fog, one does not continue speed up...
We know we are creating a problem for our kids, grandkids, etc of some magnitude and your answer is to keep using fossil fuels at an ever accelerating rate. I am happy I am never in the car with you on a foggy night.
Moose,
Please remember that everyone has a reason to perceive the same data differently. Especially if you are a Professor, University or NGO trying to receive huge grants...
As I always try to preach, be careful and pragmatic about what you read and believe.
Yes. The entirety of the scientific community is conspiring against you, jerry.
Sorry. I don't believe in such lunacies.
Moose
We've been over this. You believe in some grand conspiracy theory. (It's no wonder, then, that you support Trump.) I don't abide conspiracy theories.
Moose
I think all rich countries should be spending much more $ on R and D into clean energy and / or carbon mitigation
Are my hamburgers hurting the planet?
Moose,
No conspiracy required. Have you not learned anything about confirmation bias after all these years? We often see what we expect to see.
Laurie,
What should we stop spending on in order to spend on fixing our uncertain problem???
Please remember that thanks to Trump, the DEMs and the GOPers we are now spending $1 TRILLION more EACH YEAR than what our government has in incoming revenues.
Will we leave our children a cleaner environment and a HUGE DEBT?
Where do you see yourself on the continuum?
I could be a CAGW'er but that is too depressing. So count me as a believer who thinks we could take action that would make a difference. We could raise taxes to fund R and D. I am more concerned for my children about the climate than I am about the debt.
Raise taxes on who?
Again... We are stealing $1 TRILLION per year from our kids as is...
And spending is the thing that is going out of control. (see chart 3)
I think we raise taxes on people who have the most money- upper middle class and above
tax breaks are out of control. Nearly all the growth in the debt is due to GOP tax cuts.
Anonymous Laurie said...
"I think all rich countries should be spending much more $ on R and D into clean energy and / or carbon mitigation"
Laurie, I'll agree with you. While we spend vast sums putting up and operating windmills, we could be putting that money into far more reliable, less costly, and incidentally less CO2-producing energy sources, like MHD waste processing, in-situ coal gasification, pebble-bed coal, thorium reactors, lithium fusion, and on and on. We've let the hype about some largely imaginary manmade CO2-driven climate "emergency" keep us from doing the sensible thing. Do I need to remind anybody of the brilliant Google engineers again?
Laurie,
Did you even look at Chart 3?
Jerry,
If these are such promising options, I am sure the capitalist system will ensure they receive the funding they need. That is what you support... Correct?
Laurie,
To save you the time of actually studying the data...
The last time the deficit was ZERO was in ~2000
Revenues and Spending were ~18% of GDP
Today Revenues are ~17% and increasing and Spending is 20+% and increasing faster.
Spend more and Tax even more can not be the primary solution.
"Jerry,
If these are such promising options, I am sure the capitalist system will ensure they receive the funding they need. That is what you support... Correct?"
Of course not. As usual, your judgment is flawed by what you perceive as my "8-ness." Government MANDATES and SUBSIDIZES wind power, and consumers pay the extra cost. NONE of that money is therefore available to support these many promising alternative energy developments. You can't spend the same dollar twice. And with the government soaking up all of the available capital to drive deficit spending, the free market cannot do the job, either.
But all those wealthy people got their tax cuts.
I am sure they will invest in these promising technologies with all those newly available dollars.
By the way, I am currently reading the Google Engineer piece
"We've let the hype about some largely imaginary manmade CO2-driven climate "emergency" keep us from doing the sensible thing."
The resistance comes from your side of the aisle.
"Have you not learned anything about confirmation bias after all these years?"
It is not confirmation bias to trust the researchers and scientists who are experts.
If you need surgery, do you trust the surgeon or the politician telling you you don't need it? Or if 9 surgeons say it's necessary, do you trust the politician saying it's not?
Moose
Jerry,
Now that was depressing... Maybe I will become a CAGW'er with Moose... :-)
Moose,
But have you ever looked at the details of what scientists are saying, or are you just reading the headlines?
And I always do some self study before having surgery.
As noted above, trade offs have to occur. How do you prioritize if you do not understand the details?
The Google Engineer piece is an excellent read.
"I am sure they will invest in these promising technologies with all those newly available dollars." What "newly available dollars"? This is money the government did not take. Therefore government could not fund basic energy R&D with it. And because it was money these people already would have committed to other things, and because all together there wasn't enough capital available (government eating it all for deficit spending), these projects didn't get funded by private equity, either, just as Google engineers concluded it was a poor investment at this time. That is, the basic R&D funding is simply not there to make these new technologies viable in a reasonable time frame. I would HATE to see government pick another "winner" in this competition, as they already have with wind (and supposedly solar). I even thought of investing in that waste-to-MHD company, but lost track of them and I think they are out of business after just a few successful installations, for lack of capital.
"Maybe I will become a CAGW'er with Moose... :-)"
I am assuming facetiousness. If you don't want to be depressed about our inability to "solve" the "climate emergency" you might be happier closer to the "denier" side of balanced, where you concede the vast uncertainties that Dr. Curry continues to talk about, or even the actual data casting doubt on the whole CAGW religion.
Jerry,
Trump made it very clear that the 2017 Tax Cuts would free up tons of money for companies to expand and innovate. Are you calling him a liar?
And you referenced those guys as brilliant experts. Now you want to deny what they believe to be true...
Let me just write 2 words... Confirmation Bias... :-)
And two more words... Cherry Picking :-)
Moose,
But have you ever looked at the details of what scientists are saying, or are you just reading the headlines?
Whenever I want to understand something, I read about it.
And I always do some self study before having surgery.
That's logical. What happens if you don't believe the doctors after your self study? What if they insist that you are incorrect?
As noted above, trade offs have to occur. How do you prioritize if you do not understand the details?
You seem to be presuming that I don't know the details.
Moose
I would review my assessment along with their comments first.
If I still disagree I would find another doctor.
So you know the optimal trade off between:
1. Adaptation
2. Low cost energy
3. Clean energy
4. Timing
To save the most humans and animals. Please share.
"And you referenced those guys as brilliant experts"
They ARE brilliant experts, and the fact that they BELIEVE in CAGW makes their findings all the more relevant. It is as I keep saying, that IF CAGW were real, "renewable energy" as currently available is NOT a good solution. And it prevents us from seeking good solutions.
Trump's tax cuts seem to offend you,somhow, because they will allow businesses to expand and innovate. It was never intended to let them do the basic research, and having the capital markets starved keeps them from doing the development and deployment to make that basic research pay off in the marketplace. Simple capitalist economics-- what gov't takes, if not used for basic research, cannot be used by private enterprise to "innovate."
How can they be "brilliant" and "gullible fools" at the same time?
They did not say "renewable energy" was "not a good solution".
They said it would fail to solve the problem.
I am sure the world can walk and chew gum at the same time.
- Adapt
- Slow the problem (ie cleaner forms of energy, reduce usage, more trees, etc)
- Research new clean energy options
- Research green house absorption technologies
You really need to make up your mind:
- Were Trump's spending increases and tax cuts good or bad for R&D
- Was his increasing the deficit to ~1+ TRILLION per year good or bad for R&D
He signed all the bills... He owns that mess...
By the way, if he had vetoed them and had that veto over ridden that would be different.
But he did not... He just reached in a stole from our kids to make himself look good. And to make the True Believers happy.
What if the believers and CAGWers are right. How much will doing next to nothing now cost in the next 20,50,100 years.
My guess is spending significant money to combat climate change now is more fiscally responsible. (and morally responsible as well)
Laurie,
The fastest way to slow global warming is to stop having babies. I mean we can blame fossil fuels all we want, but the problem is simply too many people wanting an ever increasing amount of energy, meat, etc
We are currently doing many things:
- Adapt
- Slow the problem (ie cleaner forms of energy, reduce usage, more trees, etc)
- Research new clean energy options
- Research green house absorption technologies
What else do you think we should do?
And please remember that the USA only has 4% of the population and creates 15% of the emissions because of our high energy usage.
What if as the google guys say, it makes little difference?
Thoughts?
So as someone so concerned about spending John, where would you make significant cuts in spending? My guess that most of the increase in spending is related to healthcare- medicare, medicaid, Obamacare. I am not in favor of making cuts to these programs.
Also, back in the 1960's and 1970s I believe the top tax rate was 70%. I think further back it was up to 90% I think we could go back to a top rate of 50% to fund important programs like finding ways to combat climate change.
Maybe we should:
- kill all the cows
- limit families to maximum of 2 children world wide
- stop farming and start growing trees every where
- ration fuel purchases
- set maximum winter heating temperatures
- set minimum cooling temperatures
- other?
I'll give your spending question some thought and start a new post...
Laurie,
Some history info
about taxes "All things considered, this is not a very large change. To put it another way, the average effective tax rate on the 1 percent highest-income households is about 5.6 percentage points lower today than it was in the 1950s."
I think since the Trump tax cut this difference has grown, but either way I think this 5.6 percentage points is a large number in actual dollars that could be raised each year if we went back to the tax rate of the 1950's
The reason they raised rates so high was to pay off WWII.
And Spending was MUCH Lower
One more note... Most of the rest of the world was a big mess, so the USA was dominant. Now the world is incredibly competitive and money can move easily.
Beware using an old solution in a new situation.
"They did not say "renewable energy" was 'not a good solution.'
They said it would fail to solve the problem."
What is the difference? Isn't a good solution one that actually solves the problem? And the Grand Deceit in all of this is that us puny humans can significantly effect the climate, certainly not by simply abandoning fossil fuels. The models prove it, the data proves it, simple math proves it.
But I'm glad to see you embracing real solutions-- grow more trees (Nature has already done that on a vast scale), Research new energy options (using money that we're now squandering on bird-beaters, maybe?) and basically, ADAPT. Economists believe we have two choices-- spend $70 trillion trying to "prevent" global warming, or $7 trillion to adapt. Glad to see you in favor of spending less, and on a sure thing.
The problem with all of this "prevention" is that it requires us to know more or less exactly the nature, cause, magnitude and timing of the problem, whereas adaptation only requires us to react IF, when, where and to the degree necessary, regardless of cause. Considering the great (unadmitted) uncertainties inherent in the models, it is the only thing that makes sense (and it is cheaper)!
Yep... Your normal answer...
Keep accelerating and hope the science is wrong...
“The Obama’s administration’s model projects that the amount of global warming that would be saved [by the US] going to ZERO emissions tomorrow … would be 14 hundredths of a degree Celsius,” [over 100 years] I hope the science is right and the alarmists are wrong.
"[T]he skeptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg actually believes the alarmist science from the IPCC, but claims that economics tells us it’s better to live in and adapt to a warmer world until we have more cost-effective substitutes for fossil fuels. For this stance regarding policy, he is labeled a global warming denier despite fully believing in human-caused climate change."
He is not an environmentalist or a scientist, he is Political Scientist...
Just like many of your sources. :-(
Jerry,
Yes it will take changes by all countries to make a difference.
US has 4% of the population and 15% of the emissions.
I don't think anyone expects us to get to zero emissions, but get to 4% of the world's emissions would seem fair.
But if we Get to Zero and it doesn't matter, Then why are we trying so desperately to get to 90% and not accomplishing that? If the rest of the planet follows along and gets to 90% with us, a little napkin math says this draconian shift reduces future temperatures by one fourth of 1°! In the meantime you leave billions of people in poverty and misery. Go ahead, claim the moral high ground on that basis. And based only on your fear of meese.
Paying a little bit extra for power is not going to drive people into "billions of people in poverty and misery"...
When did you become such a drama queen? :-)
If you want to help people escape poverty and misery. Start supporting:
- thorough sex education
- free reliable birth control
- free first trimester abortions
All things that Trump etal have been fighting.
You will reduce the world's energy needs, save poor people a lot of money, ensure that only wanted babies are born, etc...
Yes the religious right is wrong
You are changing the subject. The point is that leaving developing nations energy-poor has real consequences in terms of poverty and suffering, and doing so is almost irrelevant to the climate! The cost-benefit is NEGATIVE, all pain, no gain. Not even the Paris agreement is so foolishly cruel.
You are the one trying to tie clean energy to poverty and misery...
Like a huge coal power plant and massive distribution system is more effective and efficient than distributed wind turbines, solar panels and batteries...
I would argue that keeping them pregnant, poor and hungry is even worse for them. But you have no issue with that.
A bit more reading.
"In developing countries children are needed as a labour force and to provide care for their parents in old age. In these countries, fertility rates are higher due to the lack of access to contraceptives and generally lower levels of female education. The social structure, religious beliefs, economic prosperity and urbanisation within each country are likely to affect birth rates as well as abortion rates, Developed countries tend to have a lower fertility rate due to lifestyle choices associated with economic affluence where mortality rates are low, birth control is easily accessible and children often can become an economic drain caused by housing, education cost and other cost involved in bringing up children. Higher education and professional careers often mean that women have children late in life. This can result in a demographic economic paradox.
You are still off track. The greatest deterrent to "fertility rates" is economic development, as noted above. Insisting people stop burning coal and insisting they use windmills is not the path to economic development. MY point is that all of these bird-beaters will collectively do essentially nothing for the climate. Here is the critical question: where is your conclusive evidence that manmade CO2 will create a climate catastrophe 100 years from now? Until you have that, all of these efforts are a foolish waste of resources that could have better uses.
Apparently economic development makes people not want to have sex... Interesting...
More like it gives them better things to do, and a greater sense of the "cost/benefit"
So why would you want to put obstacles in the way of your desired ends of slowing the population growth? Much of the $70 trillion projected cost of preventing global warming is in the lost "opportunity cost" of economic and human development in developing and Third World countries. In other words, in unnecessarily holding people in poverty and misery, for what in reality is no positive gain for the climate. Negative if you want to count the number of children that they will have for lack of economic development.
Oh, and developed countries are much more able to adapt to a changing climate, if and when and to the degree necessary.
Better things to do than sex... You must be doing it wrong...
The reality is they can now afford birth control and abortions, they have access to both, and someone has trained them sexual health, birth control, etc...
This knowledge and support allows them to control their future. Not hoping that they won't get pregnant every time they have consensual or non-consensual sex.
Source for your $70 TRILLION claim?
Please remember that a lot of the 3rd world countries are low emitters because they have little power today.
"The reality is they can now afford birth control and abortions..."
ONLY if they have economic development can they "afford" all these things. I don't think abortions on a dirt-floor hut, using the only village machete or a sharp bamboo stick, is going to be popular. Why are you so willing to condemn billions of human beings to that sort of life, just so you can feel good about "saving the planet"?
$70T estimate by economist Bjorn Lomborg. "Worldwide the numbers are gargantuan. Five years ago, a leftist group called the Climate Policy Initiative issued a study which found that “Global investment in climate change” reached $359 billion that year. Then to give you a sense of how money-hungry these planet-saviors are, the CPI moaned that this spending “falls far short of what’s needed” a number estimated at $5 trillion." Let's see, $5T per year over 20 years...
Again "opportunity costs." The opportunity for a better life, lost because somebody thinks those less fortunate should be kept away from cheap energy that would make their lives better. How noble.
That is why US aid used to go to help young women before Trump caved to the Religious Right... Remember... Life is precious to them until it exists the womb. :-)
Let's remember who Bjorn Lomborg is…
Forbes Food for Thought
"The cost of renewable energy has tumbled even further over the past year, to the point where almost every source of green energy can now compete on cost with oil, coal and gas-fired power plants, according to new data released today.
Hydroelectric power is the cheapest source of renewable energy, at an average of $0.05 per kilowatt hour (kWh), but the average cost of developing new power plants based on onshore wind, solar photovoltaic (PV), biomass or geothermal energy is now usually below $0.10/kWh. Not far behind that is offshore wind, which costs close to $0.13/kWh.
These figures are global averages and it is worth noting that the cost of individual projects can vary hugely – the cost of producing electricity from a biomass energy plant, for example, can range from as low as $0.05/kWh to a high of almost $0.25/kWh.
However, all these fuel types are now able to compete with the cost of developing new power plants based on fossil fuels such as oil and gas, which typically range from $0.05/kWh to over $0.15/kWh."
And another
There you go again. I don't CARE who Bjorn Lomborg is, except that he is a highly regarded scientist. And you don't care about who the "Climate Change Initiative" is, when they make a similar forecast. The inescapable truth is that every nickel we spend trying to cut CO2 for the sole sake of cutting CO2 is one nickel less that we have on either adapting to climate change, if, when, where, and to what degree, and/or investing in human and economic development.
And there you go again with "windmills are cheaper" BS. It's simply not possible, since every time somebody puts up a wind farm they have to put up a gas-fired power plant to cover the 70% of the time the wind doesn't blow. If the windmills were FREE, they would be only 30% cheaper than gas. Notice they include hydro as "renewable"? Tell the environmentalists we need more dams and see how worried they are about climate change. Or nuclear power. And every time I see that canard about windmills being cheaper I wonder why our electric bills go UP every time the wind blows? I have to assume that somewhere, some massive cost is being "shoved under the rug" and not considered. And all for WHAT? Cutting CO2 for the sake of cutting CO2... but I repeat myself.
And I cannot believe how callously you believe that "helping young women" includes killing them in the womb. And that keeping them poor and miserable is necessary to "save the planet" from a non-existent "climate emergency."
How can he be a highly regarded scientist with no technical degree?
Of course wind turbines can be cheaper because they use free fuel while they are operating.
Which reduces the amount of natural gas that needs to be used / purchased.
And other than dead birds and flicker for a few people, they create no additional costs like the exhaust from coal plants.
Now I have provided cost sources, do you any recent data.
Does your cost include the financial and environmental cost of building, maintaining, connecting, decommissioning and rebuilding that "free-energy" bird-chopper?
I am going to go look for the analysis that says more CO2 is expelled building a windmill than it ever saves over its operating lifetime. I suspect it is close.
Again, I ask WHY? If the energy were actually cheaper, then why do our electric bills keep going up? Why do we have renewable mandates? Surely, if the energy were actually cheaper to the consumer, we would all happily buy it, no mandate needed?
Maybe your utility bills are going up because you are getting older so you like to keep your home warmer... :-)
Mine went up when I started keeping my garage above 32 degrees.
This is an interesting read on the cost topic.
It seems to me that there are some higher startup costs as new transmission lines and generation systems are installed. And there are some resources stranded as coal plants are closed and dismantled.
However for new countries where people live in rural areas it seems to me that wind / solar generation with batteries or gas powered generations are much cheaper than the old massive smoke spewer.
Not sure why folks are so anti-nuclear.
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