"President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies plan a major new push for a broad global warming bill... Obama plans to include a call for an energy bill in his Oval Office address about the Gulf on Tuesday night. And the Obama administration has told key senators that 'an energy deal must include some serious effort to price carbon as a way to slow climate change'..."
You see why this is absolutely necessary, don't you? What if nothing is done and global warming... doesn't happen? What a disaster! But if disastrously extreme measures are taken and then global warming doesn't happen? What a great relief! It will be impossible to tell whether the solution worked or whether global warming just wasn't going to happen anyway. Win-win!
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 218 of 218While the back-and-forth in this thread among those with scientific training (MMan and others) about the reliability of climate models is interesting, the policy question is about allocating resources -- what (if anything) to regulate or tax (i.e., raise the price and restrict output), and how much (if at all) to do so. At most climate science can identify the inputs supposedly generating externalized costs that an efficiently functioning economic system should internalize.
To justify the costs from any proposed tax or regulatory scheme, you also need to quantify the marginal benefits that the tax or regulatory scheme will generate. Reducing the parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere is not in itself a benefit (marginal or otherwise), yet that is the metric that many want to use. The reason is not hard to find -- the output of CO2 can be measured with some accuracy. But except for its supposed impact on climate (I have no idea whether it has one or not), CO2 is a harmless and natural by-product of life. From an economic perspective, the question is what benefits will be realized by imposing the tax/regulatory costs that won't come about if teh cost of rising CO2 levels isn't internalized? It turns out that the answer to that question is: almost nothing. What all of the AGW remedies have in common -- reducing the rate of increase in the level of atmospheric CO2 -- does very little in terms of reducing climate change and its impacts. But that is what supposedly justifies the whole thing.
The fundamental reason why schemes like cap-and-trade, or more old-fashioned ideas about command-style regulation limiting the output of CO2 from industrial activity, make very little sense is that none of them generates benefits even remotely offsetting their very large costs. As it happens, reducing the rate of increase in the level of atmospheric CO2 won't avoid the imagined impacts -- rising sea levels, changed weather pattens, etc. (Those schemes also ignore the benefits of rising temperatures, such as longer growing seasons, less morbidity from extreme cold, and others, but put that aside.) The cost of actually reducing atmospheric CO2 is astronomical and would drastically reduce living standards everywnere, but without such substantial reductions, there are no benefits.
There have been many careful analyses of the economic effects of the various proposals to deal with the imagined connection between CO2 generation and climate. (The Stern Report is not one of them.) None of them finds much in the way of economic benefits from the various proposals.
A leading Dem economist (Wm Nordhaus, Yale) provided his analysis in A Question of Balance (2008). His conclusions aren't much different from those of Bjorn Lomborg's Cool It, a more populat take on the same economic issues.
Cap-and-trade and similar proposals should be non-starters from a policy perspective because the economics don't make any sense even if human activity is a contributing factor to climate change. Only a religious approach to these questions -- we need to punish ourselves for contributing to climate change by increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, regardless of costs/benefits -- would lead to a different conclusion.
I rather regard HD as the dog who defecates on my lawn--
You're too generous. I tend to think of him as the defacation from the dog.
I must say I really respect you for saying that.
I wouldn't be too sure Trooper. I would not discount the possibility he's overmedicated from his opium drip or its possible someone stole his password.
Hey you have the give the devil his due. He actually showed some honesty there and I always encourage that.
Who knows, I might even get him to think that Sarah Palin isn't the devil.
You betcha.
If hdhouse and Trooper York agree on something that is proof positive that Hell has frozen over and they are having a snowball fight.
Or the end is truly upon us.
Hey you have the give the devil his due.
I'd just as soon call up Max von Sydow and ask him to dust off his old priest costume from the Exorcist.
What if we spent a gajillion bucks on bogus global warming corrupt kickback schemes only to find out too late that the money would have been better spent on comet impact defense?
Oh don't be silly. Mother Earth has never been struck by comets or asteroids. You've been watching too many movies.
/sarcasm off
Or the real possibity of a massive solar storm that will pretty much wipe out the electrical grid.
Well hell. If HDhouse and Trooper York agree on something, I am going to have to dig those movies up and watch them again. Its been over 30 years since I've seen them.
It's pretty think gruel when all the current President of the United States can do is blame Bush and appoint commissions.
Hope you guys in the gulf like the taste of oil in your food. The President Himself has sprung into action. If you spot a commission member down there gathering facts, be sure you let him or her know how much you appreciate their work to stop the leak.
Day 59 and we're hearing more speeches...........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Late hit on this one. If anyone has solved the Navier Stokes equations in 3D, they should step up and claim their $1million Millennium Prize from the Clay Institute. Its solution is one of the current 7 big problems in math with a monetary reward awaiting solution. Engineers use NS CFD approximations but are well aware that the further in time you run a predictive simulation, the more error creeps in. Solving the NS equations would shed light on predictor/corrector strategies to make the simulation efforts more robust.
All models are wrong, some are useful. -- George Box, statistician
I'm trying to digest the pro-AGW arguments made here.
I think they boil down to "You're all a bunch of poopy-headed idiots who can't recognize your betters!"
'zat about it?
Larry J has it: Computer models on this scale are pure BS. You want a model showing global warming? No problem. I can also get you one that factors in the global warming caused by overpopulation, if you'll give me time to dig through my garage for some old Apple ][ code.
You'll have to adjust the dates forward 20 years, and take out all the starvation parts, but you don't have to tell anyone you did that.
Howdy. Neat Thread.
Dropping the word “Anthropogenic” from a discussion of Global Warming is much like dropping the word “Illegal” from a discussion of Immigration.
This planet along with the others in this solar system seems to be warming right now. Some folks wish to use this observation to extend their control over other folks.
Who remembers how wonderfully ‘scientific’ socialism used to be? Now Russia has a problem with mysticism just because socialism dirtied the word ‘science’. Lucky for us there’s no hard math involved in spotting a bogus religion.
PS. How is it that this thread doesn’t yet have a mention of Hitler or Nazis?
This planet along with the others in this solar system seems to be warming right now. Some folks wish to use this observation to extend their control over other folks.
Actually, no. The warming seems to have stopped maybe a decade ago. But, yes, it was a bit strange that the other planets were warming along with this one, despite not having human beings trying to destroy Gaea through their CO2 emissions.
Conservatives anymore seem to just hate science and to actively undermine it. Take their opposition to stem cell research, to dealing with ozone depletion, against evolution (heh), Bush-Cheney censoring scientific reports on climate change, etc, etc.
Note that AL ignores that the opposition to stem cell research by the Republicans was not to stem cell research itself, but rather, to embryonic stem cell research utilizing lines from newly destroyed embryos. And, guess what? Embryonic stem cell research has been pretty much a dead end, world wide, despite most of the rest of the world not buying into our morality here. Little problems like cancer keep cropping up. What has worked out well has been non-embryonic stem cell research, which, surprisingly, was not opposed by the evil Republicans.
I really don't remember either Bush or Cheney speaking out against evolution. I might see Bush saying something about teaching evolution without also teaching alternate theories, but have a hard time envisioning Cheney doing so - a lot of leftists can't quite understand the difference between southern religious conservatism and western fiscal conservatism. There is a big difference. They do often vote for the same candidates. But that is like assuming that all Democrats, including many Jews, are antisemites just because so many prominent Black Democrats are.
Oh, and, any opposition to "climate change" now appears to be prescient.
Science and "science".
In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson pointed a large Bell Labs radio receiver at the sky to calibrate it at zero signal. They found an annoying hiss that would not go away.
They began a long project of trying to eliminate that hiss as ground interference, atmospheric radiation, bad wiring, old circuits, you name it. Only after trying to rule out every possible earthly cause did they dare announce to the radio astronomy community that they were receiving a faint signal from space, uniform in all directions.
Their discovery led to confirmation and measurement of the Big Bang beginnings of the universe. The hiss is the remaining heat radiation throughout the universe as it has cooled from the time of the Big Bang 15 billion years ago.
That is real science. You criticize your own results in all possible ways before concluding that you have found something significant. Then, everyone else gets their chance to review what you have done.
Compare that to climate "science", where Michael Mann collected data from "proxies" such as old trees in Siberia, selecting them as he wished. Then he adjusted that data in complicated and unrevealed ways, until he produced a graph that would be interesting (if true), and immediately announced that he had represented the earth's temperature history for 400 years. There is no self criticism, no estimate of error, no search for other explanation, and no presentation of all his data and methods to the world. Further, he participated in suppressing publication of criticism in peer reviewed journals as indicated from discovered emails.
That is not science. It is trying to persuade the public by pretending to be science.
Dispelling the Global Warming Myth
Here are some articles about the flawed science supporting Global Warming. They are clear and convincing to me. Maybe they can add to the debate, or add references for pleasant arguments with the believers.
Note that AL ignores that the opposition to stem cell research by the Republicans was not to stem cell research itself, but rather, to embryonic stem cell research utilizing lines from newly destroyed embryos.
Do liberals really ignore obvious points like this? The liberal yells: “You are against Stem Cell Research! Against Progress!!!” The conservative says: “No, actually I’m in favor of adult stem cell research which actually seems useful.” What does the liberal hear? Anything?
If we were having an honest discussion they would update their arguments in light of ours. Doesn’t happen. “You are Against Immigrants!” “No, I’m strongly against illegal immigration. There’s a difference.” “You live expecting a religious apocalypse any day now!” “You have me confused with the current government of Iran.” “Ah, so you hate Islam!” “It’s a simple fact that modern Islam has serious problems with civilization as you & I know it. Like all facts, this one doesn’t care if you believe it or not. Please do believe it, this one’s sorta important.”
Their arguments don’t change. It’s like they don’t hear us. They do, though – listen to talk radio. Often you hear a caller start off saying: “I used to believe X, Y, & Z, but no more...” How many conservatives are ‘seeing the light’ and flipping to liberals? We’re winning, if slowly.
Being a liberal requires no thinking. All it requires is that you feel.
FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELINGS
Compare that to climate "science", where Michael Mann ....
Excellent comparison. Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick Graph when it was first published had an obscure but important statistical error. Mann’s not a statistician. No worries, this is science. A fellow named McIntyre pointed out the trouble.
This is it. Here’s the point where we layman can learn all we need to know about Anthropogenic Global Warming. A scientist says: “Wow, you’re right. I’ll need to redo my math.” A leader of a scary religious cult says: “Blasphemy! Damn you! I’ll make sure you never publish again!”
At first the Hockey Stick Graph had an honest mistake. Now it is nothing but intentional fraud. There’s no hard math involved in spotting a bogus religion.
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