He’s got the whoooole woorld in his hands…
This troubling news from the Guardian, UK
“James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.
Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech to the US Congress – in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming – to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the “perfect storm” of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.
Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.”
I suspect he’ll be calling for the jailing of bloggers like myself next. I think Mr. Hansen has lost all sense of reason, and his last shred of credibility.
UPDATE: Apparently Mr. Hansen has made the claims above on live radio on the Dian Rehm show this morning, audio files of the interview will be up shortly here:
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/08/06/23.php#20635
When the audio file is up, I’ll post a direct link.
AUDIO CLIPS NOW AVAILABLE:
Listen to this segment
Joe D’Aleo created this graph this morning:
click for a larger image.
Satellite measured global temperature trend from the University of Alabama, Huntsville show sthat it is cooler now than when he made his testimony in 1988.
UPDATE2: See the reader poll on this issue here
MarkW,
You surprise me. I thought you were a libertarian. I have read your other posts and you seem spot on in most of them. Hopefully, YOU are not lazy so please read The Mystery of Banking by Murray N. Rothbard for free at: http://www.mises.org/Books/mysteryofbanking.pdf
Rothbard is a very famous libertarian. You are a smart guy but you seem to have a blind spot in this area. But it is no surprise, those who profit from the system like to keep it mysterious. A famous quote:
“The few who can understand the system will be either so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favours, that there will be no opposition from that class, while, on the other hand, that great body of people, mentally
incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that Capital derives from the system, will bear its burden without complaint and, perhaps, without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.” – Rothschild Brothers’ of London communique to associates in New York June 25, 1863
John F. Pittman,
I read the abstract and was extremely puzzled by it. The point you raise was one reason.
I’ve flipped through the “supporting material” and seen a number of references to models. I don’t know how much of it relies on models, but I, for one, certainly wouldn’t use a model for “support”.
Now that home, I may get the time to dig a bit deeper.
Jimmy’s “remarks” are available at
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TwentyYearsLater_20080623.pdf
Yes. Hansen does appear to want to fired. This would let him claim (in highly paid speaking engagements) that he was “speaking truth to power” and the evil “warpublicans” fired him. It would let him step aside from his poorly written programs, his questionable manipulation of the past data sets, and the fact that his “theory” has been falsified by the available evidence (it is cooler today than when he started his “the earth is melting” campaign.)
So. Don’t fire him. Ignore him. Let the evidence sweep him into the ranks of grumbling conspiracy theorists.
The real chart shows tropospheric warming–who got the chart here wrong?
There has been some warming since 1979 (which was the pit of the PDO cool phase). This peaked in 1998. Since 1998 there has been a slight cooling trend.
As of 2007, the PDO has flipped to a cool phase, presaged by a strong la Nina. We are all eager to see what becomes of this development.
[…] NASA’s Jim Hansen calls for energy company execs to be put on trial « Watts Up With That? oops. Average global temperature is LOWER 20 years after Hansen first testified. (tags: article humor editorial globalwarming climatechange) […]
[…] poll will gauge reader perception to the issue that Dr. Hansen of NASA has recently raised that I cover in my post here. One vote per computer, and please spread this link to the poll far and wide to get a good mix of […]
McCain has cut directly to the cure for this problem.
Ten years late. Should have been done during GM*s EV-1 era in the early *90s.
Brazil acted. Their sugar ethanol is 7 times more efficient than our corn juice. Brazil had foresight. We had lobbyists.
McCain offers 300 Million$ incentive promise.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/23/campaign.wrap/
All this debate about GW is a an Al Gorical lobby diversion and so much HOT AIR! = TG
I’m late – as usual – but I couldn’t help thinking that given the apocolyptic warnings that the end of the worl is nigh and the evident fact from your graph that the the earth is cooler today than when he made his speech, shouldn’t the authorities consider legal action against Hansen? Isn’t there a law about shouting “Fire” in a crowded theatre?
statepoet,
Just because I think you’re nuts for thinking that fractional banking is recent and the evil, means I’m not a libertarian? Is that your definition of libertarian.
I’ve read Rothbard, he had many usefull insights, but on many areas he went way off the rails. His dislike of bankers in general was one of these areas.
Instead of limiting yourself to Rothbard, why don’t you try reading any other economist.
I’ve been trying to avoid this, because Anthony isn’t running an economics discussion site. This will be my last comment on this topic. (Unless someone says something so outrageous that I can’t contain myself. Self control has never been one of my strengths.)
Fractional banking does not create money.
Let’s create a simple scenario of two people and two banks.
Person 1 deposits $100 into bank A. The fractional reserve requirements are 10%. So bank A is able to loans $90 to person 2, who deposits that money into bank B.
Now if you add up the amounts in the bank accounts of persons 1 and 2, it comes to $190. It looks like $90 has been created. It hasn’t. There is still only $100. $10 in the vaults of bank A, and $90 in the vaults of bank B.
If money had been created, then if person 1 asked to withdraw all $100 dollars from his bank account, he wouldn’t get it. He would only get $10, which all that bank A has in it’s vault.
The reason why such failures don’t occur is because each bank has lots of customers, and all of their money is pooled in the vault. If one customer makes a large withdrawl (or writes a large check, which is really the same thing), there is enough money in the vault to cover it. The money is then replaced as loans are paid down.
Rothbard’s mistake, and yours, is thinking that the sum of the bank accounts is money. It’s not. The reason it isn’t, is because it fails to includes debts as well as assets.
Back to my scenario above.
Person 1 has a bank account with $100 in it.
Person 2 has a bank account with $90 in it.
This analysis is incomplete, because Person 2 also has a debt of $90 to bank A.
So:
$100 + $90 -$90 = $100.
When you do complete accounting, and add in the debts owed as well as the bank account balances, the mystery is fully resolved. No money has been created, just a misconception based on incomplete knowledge of how banking works.
Ric Werme (05:19:25) :
Plutonium is used in some reactors as part of our non-proliferation efforts. We have been paying the ruskies to take their nucs apart and we then mix the plutonium in with uranium as fuel. Its reaction is as good as uranium given the proper mixture. And for bitebybyte – wouldn’t you rather have the plutonium being used up for power and being removed from the bomb making pool? Your devotion to ideology in spite of the common good is showing… What do you have against nuclear? Lets have it… Beyond, of course, nuclear = bombs = evil…. That holds no water at all.
MarkW,
Yes, statistically, fractional reserve banking works most of the time for the reasons you point out. But money IS being created even if it is a loan. Person 1 can spend his $100 dollars and Person 2 can spend his $90. But it gets worse, Person 3 can spend $81, Person 4 can spend $72.90, etc. It adds up to 10 times the original $100 for a 10% reserve.
Banks cause inflation when they lend money. When it is repaid, deflation results. This is why we have booms and busts.
I love free market capitalism. The boom-bust cycle gives it a bad name and leads to more socialism. If we end up with more socialism it will be because of the rotten tooth of fractional (read fraudulent) reserve banking. Before central banking was created, bank-runs kept fractional reserve banking in check.
It is based on both FRAUD and THEFT via inflation. How can it not lead to trouble? Read the history of it and you will see its dishonest roots. It is simply a means of cheating by creating and lending out money.
This may seem off topic in this blog but a dishonest money system has allowed the growth of government to the point where it literally takes one’s breath away (CO2 is part of our breath, get it?)
As a libertarian, just the words “government backed cartel” should get your attention. That is why the Fed was created, to head up the banking cartel.
We can drop this topic. Banking is tedious, too bad it requires any attention at all.
Let’s see, I show that loaning money does not create money when it is done the first time. You come back with, yea, well it does the second, or the third, …
The same equation applies no matter how many times the money is loaned.
This banking “cartel” exists only in your imagination.
Banks do not create money, as I demonstrated. The fact that you would prefer to live in your little fantasy world rather than deal with the complexities of reality is your problem. I wash my hands of you.
MarkW,
http://www.lewrockwell.com is the most heavily visited libertarian site. I suggest the articles by Dr. Gary North. http://www.mises.org is also good.
Things are often made unnecessarily complicated to mask simple truths.
Where am Pam?
When she has her say,
there’s room for much play.
May she come back today.
MarkW,
A simple example to ease your confusion. Using your example, Person1 withdraws his $100 and Person2 withdraws his $90. They both go to an auction. They both want the same item. Person2 bids up the price higher than what Person1 would have had to pay if a fractional reserve loan had not been made to Person2. Person1 wins the bid but has to pay a higher price.
Person1 is thus cheated by the inflation caused by fractional reserve banking. When Person2 repays his loan, deflation results which has problems of its own.
Mark W,
Banking could never be reduced to mere numbers.
Banking consists of a minimum of cash on hand and a maximum of 99.9% confidence.
Due to a terrible [im-]balance of trade and petroleum cased inflation in every sector, that 99.9% confidence is slipping badly, however, it has a very long way to go.
Besides, there are dozens of inflation beating devices now in our monetary system that were not there in 1928, so there is not too much to worry about.
Bob Lutz, GM*s Volt guru, says ** Global warming is a crock of shit **. [ he*s an ex-marine pilot, owns and flies two surplus fighter jets for fun and collects used cars like Jay Leno. ] , so you just know he*s right. . . eh?
Time to get real guys. As it stands, looks like LG Chem has the winning Lithium battery for the Chevvy Volt, but stay tuned, that could change in favour of production in the USA or Canada . . . I hope.
BTW, you are aware of . . .
Smith electric truck fleets bobbing about London and paying no congestion fees?
About the electric vehicle mail delivery system in France ensuring business as usual regardless of any gas or diesel shortages?
Taxies in Paris running on compressed air?
Taxies in NYCity switching to Ford hybrids?
Taxies in Chicago switching to hybrids with a shove from the mayor?
Safeway, Walmart and others changing to Peterbilt hybrid fleets?
Lots more happening in India, [Tata motors], China, Switzerland, Sweden and the whole EU.
AutoBlogGreen.com
This human industry cures REAL problems like Pollution and inflation.
Volcanoes, meteors and Sun flares have been bouncing global warming up and down since the dawn of time . . . yawn. = TG
i would hint at natural global warming there?
I’ve rarely seen a more pointless discussion over a real subject like this one. The only thing I am seeing here is, I’m sorry to say it, but political agenda.
I believe it’s not fair to condemn the child who has the courage to affirm that the emperor is naked. Likewise, Jim Hansen is not liable for the higher price you are paying at pump. So please give him a hand by cooling yourselves off!
poet,
You admit that you know nothing about how banking works.
You declare that you have no interest in learning because it’s so complicated.
You declare that since Rothbard has declared it’s a fraud, it must be.
Now replace banking with AGW and Rothbard with Hansen.
No difference. Your both mindless robots following the man who says what you want to hear.
As to your example of the auction. Are you honestly going to tell me that you are stupid enough to believe that this is an example of inflation?:??????
poet,
Those who think that everything is simple, are usually guilty of being pretty simple themselves.
TG,
Asset inflation is not general inflation. General inflation is caused when the federal reserve inflats the money supply faster than the economy is growing. And that’s the ONLY cause of inflation.
If you are paying more money for gas, then you have less money with which to buy other things. As a result, you buy less of these other things. The drop in demand for these other things results in a drop in price for them.
Since there are thousands of other things, the drop in price is thousands of times less (on average). It’s easy to see the rise in the one thing (gas), it’s hard to see the drop in everything else.
Is it fair to condemn the child who says the emperor is naked, when in fact the emperor is fully clothed?
Mark, thank you for the reasoned explanation on banking. I am just finishing a biography on Alexander Hamilton. He was a key player in the development of national banking when our Republic was in its infancy. Like it or not, it was the vehicle that led us out of the Revolution on to solvency as a nation. Otherwise, our credit would have been in the tank and industrialization put off for many, many, more decades.
Comment on oil/stock market price as an incentive for development: I don’t think higher prices are an incentive for oil production right now. Oil is a volatile market right now. Currently, price does not stand on dependable reasons. The bubble window of profits is very risky. I would not want to invest in expensive to extract oil if current prices are the result of a bubble. What happens if the bubble breaks (like the stock market bubble did after the Clinton administration), prices fall to more reasonable levels, stocks tank to a level current stock holders will not tolerate, and profits go back to being thin to non-existent for expensive to extract oil?
IMHO: The only way around this is to provide incentives (both positive and negative, and not just on companies) for companies (oil and any other company that wants to break into the field) to start the process of shale oil recovery and refinement, liquid coal production, nuclear energy, solar and wind where it works, synthetic gas and diesel production, improving exhaust scrubbers that don’t decrease fuel efficiency, etc. Forget a trip to Mars or going to war with some piddly ant country. We do, however, need a “going to the moon” or WWII-like national agenda to ration ourselves, sacrifice for the common goal, drop our political agendas and philosophies to a more common level for a while, live on less for a while, and whatever else is needed to get this country to a state of fuel independence. GW is not the real threat to our nation, nor is it the reason for high oil prices as the pump. Depending on outside sources of fuel is.
In a very real way, foreign oil is like King George and British rule of old. We need an American Revolution, fought with or without guns, to gain our independence from King Oil.
Pamela: I agree about the volatility of oil.
My solution would be to remove all penalties and incentives from ALL forms of energy. I would be the true market would decide better than any given alternative.
We have been praciticing “energy policy” for the past 30+ years and, as I see it, it has done far more harm than good.
It’s like cooking rice. The best way to do it is just to let it happen. Opening up the pot is bad enough. Stirring is a total disaster. Just leave it alone!