There’s an eye-opening interview on Grist of Richard A. Muller about the current state of science understanding by presidential candidates, global warming, and alternate energy tech.
Some of the answers are very enlightening. Coming from an avowed environmentalist such as Muller it cements much of what I and many others have been saying for months about Gore’s outright distortion of facts and Hansens selective cherry picking in choosing “his” way to publish the widely cited GISTEMP data set.
Here are a couple of excerpts from the Muller interview:
Hansen I’ve known for many years. He’s a very good climate scientist, but he’s decided to do the politics. I feel that he’s doing some cherry-picking of his own [when it comes to the science]. At that point, he’s not really being a scientist. At that point, you’re being a lawyer. He’s being an effective advocate for his side, but in the process of doing that he’s no longer a neutral party and he’s no longer giving both sides of the issues.
I know you drive a Prius. What else are you doing to reduce your carbon emissions?
My house is lit by compact fluorescent light bulbs. Let me just tell you, though: Suppose I drove an SUV and lit my house with the worst kind of light — I could still be an environmentalist. Al Gore flies around in a jet plane — absolutely fine with me. The important thing is not getting Al Gore out of his jet plane; the important thing is solving the world’s problem. What we really need are policies around the world that address the problem, not feel-good measures.
If [Al Gore] reaches more people and convinces the world that global warming is real, even if he does it through exaggeration and distortion — which he does, but he’s very effective at it — then let him fly any plane he wants.
Truth be damned, but hey, it’s OK, Hansen and Gore are saving the planet right? But don’t take my word for it, read it for yourself on the environmemtal blog, Grist. Here is the link.
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Sobering.
He also said America was the last, best hope of earth.
A bright hope. A good and moral hope. And one to which it has lived up in the generations since.
It is true today. And it will be true for many tomorrows to come.
You remember, say, 1970? Who was predicting how great the world would be today? It was all war, depletion, and environmental destruction. If we could have seen ahead we would never have believed it. Well, the future is like that, too. It will be magnificent beyond all our expectations–you’ll see.
Rhetorically, If science is about facts & data, why are “skeptics” called “deniers” when they are the ones looking at ALL the data
All the data the AGW “scientists” deign to release, anyway!
It has been a tough day/week/month/year for all in many respects. Between AGW buried in the economic plan and lack of economics buried in the economic plan. No energy policy and no sunspots. I continue to work, hopefully.
After 3 tours in Iraq
Thank you for your service. Thank you for bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq.
At least he gives me a good idea of what I have to learn to take him on. If I only had the time. I’d probably lose, anyway.
Leif is an expert authority in his field, did you know? We are honored by his presence.
counters (08:28:00) :
“Even the most dramatic plans of “carbon taxing” rarely extend to the individual. Although it is common (at least from what I’ve seen) for some skeptics to sarcastically predict a future of “carbon audits” akin to IRS tax audits, I have never actually seen anything of the like proposed. Legislation or ideas focused on combating growing carbon emissions – including ideas such as cap’n’trade or outright taxing – almost always focus on industry, and big industry at that. I’m not passing a judgment on this – I merely wish people would recognize that this is the actual field on which AGW-related policy stands, not on some farsical notion that people will have to carry around high-tech cards which accumulate how much carbon dioxide they’ve been emitting into the air while they breathe.”
“… rarely extend to the individual.”
Governor Schwartzenegger and Algore both pay into a “carbon off-set” fund. Is this payment as an individual or as a company?
“…predict a future of “carbon audits” akin to IRS tax audits..”
You are obviously unaware of a proposal by a scientist in Australia to tax an individual for the CO2 exhaled over the course of a year.
“Legislation or ideas focused on combating growing carbon emissions – including ideas such as cap’n’trade or outright taxing – almost always focus on industry, and big industry at that.”
What does industry produce, and big industry at that? Products! Who buys these products? You and me. What happens to the cost of the product if the cost of producing increases? There! You have it. The product costs more.
I recommend that you expand your curriculum to include economics and philosophy, with emphasis on logic, such that you may write a sentence in which you say that you are not passing judgement and then end the sentence by passing judgement.
Breathe easy and try not to exhale CO2, or on the other end, not expel any CH4.
“So with our cooler temperatures have we seen a reduction of Co2 or is Co2 still on a steady rise?”
I would butcher the chemistry to go into any detail but the relationship of CO2 and H2O is a complex one which I’ve only studied as an aquarist of mean ability. There are sites devoted to the aquarist that do the best job I’ve seen in explaining the chemistry.
CO2 readily dissolves in water. In your soft drink, under pressure, it forms carbonic acid in the large quantities present and also does so in the air where H2O is less abundant.
In the oceans, CO2 is the buffering system; in smaller percentages, as currently, stealing hydrogen from water molecules to form a carbonate ion, raising the number of OH groups, raising the pH and making seawater basic. Currently the oceans are roughly at pH 8.2.
As more CO2, SO2 or NO2 dissolves CO2 migrates to the bicarbonate ion as the pH drops (hydrogen ions are more common). As the pH further drops CO2 becomes acidic.
The partial pressure of the dissolved CO2 controls its atmospheric abundance in direct relation the the ocean temperature. The daily flux between the oceans and atmosphere seems to be about 80 Gtons of CO2.
However, in the presence of the overwhelming over-abundance of dissolved Ca and Mg at higher temps and lower pressures it precipitates out as carbonates of these metals, e.g., around the Bahamas. At higher pressure and lower temps, on the sea floor, CO2 again dissolves.
No one really knows the lag between reduced heating of the oceans and a subsequent cooling of the oceans sufficient to reduce global atmospheric abundance, but it will eventually occur.
Anthony had a post some months ago pointing out a change, an evident decrease in CO2, in the Mauna Loa graphs but this blip is being erased with adjustments made to the record as each month passes.
Not really. China thinks we should pay for them to make clean coal plants. Leaders of certain islands purported to be in the process of being overwhelmed by catastrophic sea level rise say we should help them. Opportunists aren’t relegated to the “west”.
Pet Rock and the David Suzuki quote
“I’m not an economist but economists like Marc Jaccard of Simon Fraser University say that a carbon tax is the most effective way of influencing behaviour and believe me, having spent over 40 years trying to influence people’s behaviour, I can tell you that is very hard to do.”
As I understand it, an explicit tax is a more efficient than cap and trade, but the politicians can’t call it a tax. They hide the tax as cap and trade and make it worse because of the administrative waste.
I wouldn’t necessarily mind a carbon tax, but only if other taxes are reduced proportionally. Also I suppose one could abolish all other corporate taxes and replace with a carbon tax. The net effect though should at least be no increase in total taxes, and ideally a reduction.
On taxes not being passed to the individual…
The only case where taxes would not be passed on is if the law made them take the tax out of profits and the taxed company was subject to financial audits .
Let’s say that was the case, you would then need to have diligent auditors. And if the auditors weren’t diligent we could always fall back on congressional oversight.
Evan,
You may be correct. I cannot foretell the future of course. And it is quite possible that these anti-democratic forces masquerading in scientific and globally-minded garb may yet find their comeuppance from some source. Yet, as it stands right now, the United Nations and the European Union are among the least democratic and the most unquestioned institutions of the modern age. I am not meaning to say that democracy will be extinguished as a practice, yet it will and has been made increasingly ineffective on a global scale. Take the case of the two above in point. Mention the withdrawl of our membership in the UN, and the average person will start to wonder how we’ll solve any of our global problems even though the UN has never shown itself effective in doing so. Neither has our federal government; however, it and not the UN is our designated voice in the international sphere. Mention the EU to a European and you are almost guaranteed to get a similar reaction, yet they will have the same vagueness about how it operates or why they really need it in the first place. I don’t doubt that it is a truism that democracy gets more difficult as people get dumber and populations get larger. That is precisely my point.
The argument of the Warmists and many of the Internationalist jet-setters is that our problems are global problems. That may be true on the surface. But if it is also true that all politics is local politics, whether the “local” is the family farm or the nation-state, then the idea of ‘global’ problems cannot reach further down than the surface. Global hunger is not a lack of food. Global poverty is not a lack of money or economic demand. Yet time and again what is pointed out is that we need multilateral international alliances to solve these ‘problems’ while the real roots of them go untouched and (perhaps purposefully) ignored.
The Age of Democracy will pass with democracies still in existence. We have passed the Age of Kings by a good space, yet there are still kings of nations on this planet. This delusion about global warming will most probably still pass with robust scientific activity still in existence. Yet on an international and global scale we are led by transnational beauracratic structures that have little if any sympathy for democratic ideals. Their ultimate goal is ‘order’ and ‘structure’ but at the cost of freedom and general prosperity (always excepting themselves on those two, of course).
As just one example, in popular referendums the EU’s original Constitution was rejected in 2 nations, and would probably have been rejected by another two if the referendums were continued. So now, having heard the People, the “colleagues” are intent on passing the Lisbon Treaty (essentially the original Constitution dressed up differently) via national legislatures where control is easier to maintain and the tranzi (transnational) mindset is predominate. The EU even has a parliament, much like the UN has a General Assembly, yet versus the EU Commission/Council of Ministers and the Security Council, respectively, these are relatively powerless and fractured. They ‘represent’ people only in the most abstract sense. This contrasts with our Constitution where, despite the modern emphasis on the president, the Founders always thought the most of the Congress.
When human civilization, even willingly, chooses to divorce itself from reality to achieve some vision regardless of the costs involved, then it is unquestionably in decline. The next round of Kyoto talks, Kyoto II, should illustrate this quite clearly. The difference heretofore is that at least some nations had leaders that would call it like it is. There are still faint signs of resistance such as from the Czech president and the current US administration. Yet, over time, it is doubtful if these will last. Sacrifices are now called for by those with the least to lose. Al Gore is, at present, their primary representative.
It is a mark of the tolerance of our host Anthony that he tolerated Mr Counters up until now. It is Anthony’s site and up to him to decide who contributes comments. Counters seemed to appear from time to time but his latest appearance was just one too many. You have been ‘counted’ out!
To Ric Werme
May those kidney stones pass
into memory.
Ouch.
I read Muller’s book last month. In my opinion, if he had omitted the chapter about global/warming climate change, his book would have been perfectly useful for science-informed policies.
His discussion about global warming was somewhat hedged, but not sufficiently, to steer energy policy. This insistance of attributing everything about climate change to CO2 is going to get us all into more trouble than we’d like to have.
It may be that it’s nothing more complicated than the fact that Muller’s still working and wants to continue.
I think Roger Pielke Sr.’s book (with co-author William Cotton) “Human Impacts on Weather and Climate” provides a far better view of climate change, probable causes and how to deal with it. Pielke still seems to have widespread respect in the climatology community even though his views are more comprehensive than IPCC-types.
LOL. Thanks Jeff.
I realise my response was not very nuanced…
By Cultural virus I mean an actual belief that is transmitted by various media from one individual to another.
An opportunist can exploit another persons belief for their own gain without sharing that belief – hence not infected.
My criteria for China being infected with the AGW virus would be for the Chinese Government to bring in and implement actual policies and programs to limit CO2 production based on and stated belief that man made CO2 emissions posed a direct threat of causing catastrophic climate change. Since that is not happening – not infected.
By the above definition (in my part of the world) Australia is infected, and New Zealand is definently infected…
While guys I am about to Lose it, look at this crap seven days before the election in Canada.
http://site.climateletter.org/
Sorry about spelling I am pissed!!
Al Gore IS Elmer Gantry
Gary Gulrod
No one really knows the lag between reduced heating of the oceans and a subsequent cooling of the oceans sufficient to reduce global atmospheric abundance, but it will eventually occur.
I once made a complete SWAG of 60 years, right hereon WUWT.
@ur momisugly Jeff Alberts:
The Opportunists are not necessarily believers. The believers are infected with the cultural AGW virus. For them the science is irrelevant – the debate is over. Guilt (i.e. original sin for being a rich westerner) has overcome rationality. The opportunists in many cases are not beleivers (like the ones you mention) – they simply see opportunilty.
Ed
Spot on. ALL taxes are felt by the individual. To anyone making or doing anything, the tax on them becomes a part of their cost. Any increase in their cost is reflected in the end user cost. Duh! Essentially all the money governments have period comes from taxes that the consumer absorbs in one way or another.
I agree that the idea of a Carbon Tax on your breathing is hardly far fetched either. It could be a simple line item on a return, or a transparent cost against standard deductions etc. Like you point out, it’s already being discussed. Anyone who thinks that is far fetched is very naieve about government.
You are spot on too in your point that corporations make things, the sale of which drives our economy. Why overtax them for doing so? This new fallacy that corporations are doing something wrong by making profits is absurd. They’re demonizing the American way. Bigger profits translate to bigger dividends in our 401Ks and pensions. Who wants to give that to the government? What would our government prefer drive our economy if not companies making the things we need at a competitive cost?
It’s absurd how poorly the hysteria holds up to scrutiny. Yet more devout followers drink the kool-aid every day. You obviously don’t go so willingly. Cheers..
In 2004 the United Nations University – World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), published a study into possible scenarios for implementing a global tax. It states: “How can we find an extra US$50 billion for development funding? Our focus is on flows of resources from high-income to developing countries… Any foreseeable global tax will be introduced, not by a unitary world government, but as the result of concerted action by nation states… The taxation of environmental externalities is an obvious potential source of revenue. … Does this mean that the global tax should be levied at the same rate on all countries? To the extent that emissions impose environmental damage wherever they occur, the corrective tax should be the same. However, this needs to be moderated to take account of the unequal distribution of world income. Considerations of global justice point to poor countries bearing less of the cost burden, and may justify the tax being levied only on high-income or middle-income countries. … We are presupposing that the tax is indeed levied on individuals and firms in the form of a carbon levy… Suppose, however, that we have subsidiarity, where the burden on national governments is determined by their carbon emissions, but the national governments are free to decide how to raise the revenue. As noted above, they may for political or other reasons choose another taxbase.”
In other words, the real concern is not CO2, but money.
Jeff Alberts,
Yes, exactly. There is nobody who will not stick their bowl out when the soup truck of other people’s tax dollars comes around to hand out free lunches via these august international agencies and meetings. Thank goodness we have such wise people handling our monies that they can tell when somebody is trying to get over on them by taking advantage of a perceived situation.
Bill Marsh (12:57:00) : “. . . . . roughly a 22% ‘hidden’ tax component . . . . . ”
i can not get my head around this. Am I too stupid to be here?
This reminds me of Marie Antionette’s comments during the French Revoulition. While the people of Paris were starving she said “Let them eat cake”. How insesitive and arrogant an attitude
What would happen if we just flat-out mined the carbonates from the sea floor? They’re stable when dry, and would thus cause a massive sink in that particular portion of the carbon cycle. Limestone is pretty soft, especially when waterlogged.