UPDATE 1/28: Full text of Dr. Theon’s letter has been post on the Senate website and below.
This is something I thought I’d never see. This press release today is from the Senate EPW blog of Jame Inhofe. The scientist making the claims in the headline, Dr. John S. Theon, formerly of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Arlington, Virginia, has a paper here in the AMS BAMS that you may also find interesting. Other papers are available here in Google Scholar. He also worked on the report of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident report and according to that document was a significant contributor to weather forecasting improvements:
The Space Shuttle Weather Forecasting Advisory Panel, chaired by Dr. John Theon, was established by NASA Headquarters to review existing weather support capabilities and plans and to recommend a course of action to the NSTS Program. Included on the panel were representatives from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Air Force, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
For those just joining the climate discussion, Dr. James Hansen is the chief climate scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and is the man who originally raised the alarm on global warming in 1988 in an appearance before congress. He is also the keeper of the most often cited climate data.
EPW press release below – Anthony
Washington DC, Jan 27th 2009: NASA warming scientist James Hansen, one of former Vice-President Al Gore’s closest allies in the promotion of man-made global warming fears, is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.
Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears.
“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results,” Theon, the former Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA Headquarters and former Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics & Radiation Branch explained.
“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote. [Note: NASA scientist James Hansen has created worldwide media frenzy with his dire climate warning, his call for trials against those who dissent against man-made global warming fear, and his claims that he was allegedly muzzled by the Bush administration despite doing 1,400 on-the-job media interviews! – See: Don’t Panic Over Predictions of Climate Doom – Get the Facts on James Hansen – UK Register: Veteran climate scientist says ‘lock up the oil men’ – June 23, 2008 & UK Guardian: NASA scientist calls for putting oil firm chiefs on trial for ‘high crimes against humanity’ for spreading doubt about man-made global warming – June 23, 2008 ]
Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.
“As Chief of several of NASA Headquarters’ programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research,” Theon wrote of his career. “This required a thorough understanding of the state of the science. I have kept up with climate science since retiring by reading books and journal articles,” Theon added. (LINK) Theon also co-authored the book “Advances in Remote Sensing Retrieval Methods.” [Note: Theon joins many current and former NASA scientists in dissenting from man-made climate fears. A small sampling includes: Aerospace engineer and physicist Dr. Michael Griffin, the former top administrator of NASA, Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut, Award-Winning NASA Astronaut/Geologist and Moonwalker Jack Schmitt, Award-winning NASA Astronaut and Physicist Walter Cunningham of NASA’s Apollo 7, Chemist and Nuclear Engineer Robert DeFayette was formerly with NASA’s Plum Brook Reactor, Hungarian Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA’s Ames Research Center, Climatologist Dr. John Christy, Climatologist Dr. Roy W. Spencer, Atmospheric Scientist Ross Hays of NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility]
Gore faces a much different scientific climate in 2009 than the one he faced in 2006 when his film “An Inconvenient Truth” was released. According to satellite data, the Earth has cooled since Gore’s film was released, Antarctic sea ice extent has grown to record levels, sea level rise has slowed, ocean temperatures have failed to warm, and more and more scientists have publicly declared their dissent from man-made climate fears as peer-reviewed studies continue to man-made counter warming fears. [See: Peer-Reviewed Study challenges ‘notion that human emissions are responsible for global warming’ & New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears ]
“Vice President Gore and the other promoters of man-made climate fears endless claims that the “debate is over” appear to be ignoring scientific reality,” Senator James Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Environment & Public Works Committee.
A U.S. Senate Minority Report released in December 2008 details over 650 international scientists who are dissenting from man-made global warming fears promoted by the UN and yourself. Many of the scientists profiled are former UN IPCC scientists and former believers in man-made climate change that have reversed their views in recent years. The report continues to grow almost daily. We have just received a request from an Italian scientist, and a Czech scientist to join the 650 dissenting scientists report. A chemist from the U.S. Naval Academy is about to be added, and more Japanese scientists are dissenting. Finally, many more meteorologists will be added and another former UN IPCC scientist is about to be included. These scientists are openly rebelling against the climate orthodoxy promoted by Gore and the UN IPCC.
The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists’ equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. Reports from the conference found that Skeptical scientists overwhelmed the meeting, with ‘2/3 of presenters and question-askers hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC’ ( See full reports here & here ] In addition, a 2008 canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled.” A November 25, 2008, article in Politico noted that a “growing accumulation” of science is challenging warming fears, and added that the “science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.” More evidence that the global warming fear machine is breaking down. Russian scientists “rejected the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming”. An American Physical Society editor conceded that a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists. An International team of scientists countered the UN IPCC, declaring: “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate”. India Issued a report challenging global warming fears. International Scientists demanded the UN IPCC “be called to account and cease its deceptive practices.”
The scientists and peer-reviewed studies countering climate claims are the key reason that the U.S. public has grown ever more skeptical of man-made climate doom predictions. [See: Global warming ranks dead last, 20 out of 20 in new Pew survey. Pew Survey: & Survey finds majority of U.S. Voters – ‘51% – now believe that humans are not the predominant cause of climate change’ – January 20, 2009 – Rasmussen Reports ]
The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grow louder in 2008 as a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real world data and inconvenient developments challenged the UN’s and former Vice President Al Gore’s claims that the “science is settled” and there is a “consensus.”
On a range of issues, 2008 proved to be challenging for the promoters of man-made climate fears. Promoters of anthropogenic warming fears endured the following: Global temperatures failing to warm; Peer-reviewed studies predicting a continued lack of warming; a failed attempt to revive the discredited “Hockey Stick“; inconvenient developments and studies regarding rising CO2; the Spotless Sun; Clouds; Antarctica; the Arctic; Greenland’s ice; Mount Kilimanjaro; Global sea ice; Causes of Hurricanes; Extreme Storms; Extinctions; Floods; Droughts; Ocean Acidification; Polar Bears; Extreme weather deaths; Frogs; lack of atmospheric dust; Malaria; the failure of oceans to warm and rise as predicted.
# # #
ORIGINAL FULL TEXT LETTER SENT VIA EMAILS:
From: Jtheon [mailto:jtheon@XXXXXXX]
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 10:05 PM
To: Morano, Marc (EPW)
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 12:50 PM
To: Morano, Marc (EPW)
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Joel Shore (13:39:38) :
Smokey:
Almost every time you have put up that graph, I have explained patiently to you what is very deceptive about it. You have not even tried to defend it and yet you continue to use it to try to score points. That to me, seems pretty indefensible.
It’s a deliciously obvious example of manipulative cherry-picking though, Joel (and increasingly so with each passing month), so let’s not discourage him! As far as I’m concerned, insofar as these debates are really mostly ‘political’, I’m more than pleased to see risible stuff presented as being the ‘evidence’ from Smokey’s side! 😉
Joel,
I know very well what an “externality” is. Yes, there is a word in economics that precisely describes this type of government intervention. And no, I am not a fundamentalist, only a realist. Do you really believe that all economists support this externality?
The bottom line is more money out of my pocket. My beliefs have absolutely no impact on my desire for the government to stay out of my wallet.
Mike
I agree with Simon that the CO2 argument is political. Because if it were based on real science, the fantastic proposition that a minor trace gas could cause the entire climate to change drastically would have been put to bed long ago.
As Mike Bryant correctly points out, the argument is over money, not science.
If Joel has a problem with the previous graph that he won’t explicitly state, here’s a different graph showing the same thing: click
And I have more graphs that show CO2 rising as temperatures decline, if anyone is interested. The point of these graphs, of course, is that as CO2 increases, global temperatures fall. That pretty effectively falsifies the hypothesis that CO2 leads to runaway global warming, no?
Smokey says:
That graph suffers from at least 2, if not all 2-1/2, of the major problems that the other graph suffered from:
(1) Most importantly, the scales of the CO2 and temperature axes are scaled relative to each other in a ludicrous way…One such that the temperature would have to be rising with CO2 levels at a rate of about 4 X what the IPCC predicts in order to have them align. In fact, on this plot, if you take away that problem alone, you would then see a much better agreement between the temp trend and the CO2 trend (although it would be obvious that the time range is too narrow to determine the temperature trend with much accuracy).
(2) The dataset chosen is cherrypicked to be the one that shows the least warming over this particular period of all 4 of the major datasets (the two surface temp. ones and the two satellite ones).
(3) The start of the time period is cherry-picked. Here the cherry-pick is not nearly so bad as in the previous graph, but it is still too short a time period to determine much. This post puts this sort of thing in perspective: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/stupid-is-as-stupid-does/
You really have no idea about what AGW actually predicts do you? The current underlying trend is expected to be around 0.015 C – 0.02 C per year increase from increases in greenhouse gases with natural climate system variability that can lead to year-to-year changes of about 10X this amount superimposed on top of this.
Do you have any idea of how to study a system that has an underlying trend but also a considerable amount of noise? The answer is clearly that you do not, which is why you can come to conclusions that are so at odds with the scientific community.
Mike Bryant says:
Yes, but your desire to have the government stay out of your wallet seems to have a large impact on your beliefs. (And, by the way, your use of the term “externality” in your reply implies to me that you don’t really understand the term. In general, an “externality” has nothing to do with government intervention, although attempting to correct it can. See here for one discussion of the term: http://tutor2u.net/economics/content/topics/externalities/what_are_externalities.htm )
“Yes, but your desire to have the government stay out of your wallet seems to have a large impact on your beliefs.”
True, I believe I want the government out of my wallet.
“And, by the way, your use of the term “externality” in your reply implies to me that you don’t really understand the term. In general, an “externality” has nothing to do with government intervention…”
You seem to believe that only industry can cause externalities that the government must somehow correct. I believe it is a two way street…
Governments cause the huge externalities in our financial lives.
http://volokh.com/posts/1200276884.shtml
Let me repeat:
“The point of these graphs, of course, is that as CO2 increases, global temperatures fall.” Therefore CO2 does not cause measurable global warming. QED.
Scale has nothing to do with the fact that temperatures fall as CO2 rises. But if scale bothers you so much, it is interesting that you never complain about this scale: click …when this scale should be used: click
And to make this statement…
“You really have no idea about what AGW actually predicts do you? The current underlying trend is expected to be around 0.015 C – 0.02 C per year increase…”
…indicates that you believe that AGW is empirically measurable. It is not. AGW exists in the fevered imaginations of computer programmers who have already reached their desired conclusion.
Climate models can not even predict today’s climate when input with all previously known climate data, yet you presume that AGW “predicts.” No computer model can predict the climate even one year in advance; this year is a case in point.
Aside from always-inaccurate computer models, what proves that AGW is measurable? What is the measurement? The AGW/CO2/climate catastrophe hypothesis is discredited; there is nothing in the real world to back up the AGW model, and there is no way to falsify it. Only charlatans continue to use AGW as a scare tactic.
Mike Bryant says:
To which I can only add Maggie Thatcher’s comment (loosely quoted and an important qualification made):
Smokey says:
Wow! I guess you really don’t understand. Let me explain it by example. There is this not-too-controversial theory that our climate, at in the high latitudes, is strongly controlled by what is called “the seasonal cycle”, whereby it gets colder during the time of year when we are headed from summer to winter and warmer during the time of year when we are headed from winter to summer. Now, today here in Rochester, it got up to about 50deg but tomorrow it is supposed to be much colder (and, if you think that time separation is too close for a significant seasonal effect, I am quite confident that a week or two from now it will also very likely be colder than it was today). Since, during this time of year, the seasonal cycle hypothesis would say that it should be getting warmer, does this constitute falsification of the seasonal cycle hypothesis?
There is a good reason to plot CO2 on a scale large enough to see the details of the trend rather than one that doesn’t allow you to…and it is trivial enough for anyone to read the axis and see that it doesn’t start at zero. There is no known good scientific practice that I know of that requires always having the axis start at zero and, in fact, it is often a horrible practice.
Well, to be honest, if the charlatans are the IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, etc., etc. and the non-charlatans are people like Gerlich and Tscheuschner, William Gray, the Heartland Institute, and yourself, I think I’ll stick to the “charlatan” side!
“Only charlatans continue to use AGW as a scare tactic.”
“Well, to be honest, if the charlatans are the IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society…”
So Joel, I guess this means that you are frightened for mankind. Are you really scared? Don’t be afraid everything will be ok.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/scarewatch/really_cooling.pdf
I hope that this reasoned article will help set your mind at ease.
The constant drumbeat of argumentum ad baculum in the pages of the media and in scientific journals has only set people against AGW. Every bad thing is the result of AGW, and AGW will kill every cute, cuddly and noble thing. The people are smarter than scientists think. Also pedantic commentary from the ivory towers above does little to convince or endear.
If anyone ever has presented the AGW case in a quiet reasonable voice, with clear documentation and without scare tactics, that person has escaped my notice. Is it because the case cannot be made without exaggerations? Without fudging data? Without withholding computer codes? Without computer models? Without talking down to peers? Without belittling those who question sincerely? Without an all-out attempt to frighten people into acceptance?
Is there a man or woman who can convince reasonable people that trillions upon trillions of dollars must be spent now to fight AGW? I have not seen or heard from this person.
I only see the pedantic, the fearmongers, the blowhards and many assorted others who push hard to turn back the tide of disbelief which is quickly advancing against them.
Not one of these people really believes what they say, or they would have already gotten rid of their cars, their ocean front properties and their electric appliances.
Mike Bryant
Joel Shore,
I will retract my charlatan label the minute those organizations take a secret ballot poll of their rank and file, dues paying membership, asking a question like this:
“Do you accept as fact that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide will result in runaway global warming and climate catastrophe, similar to what is predicted by the IPCC, Al Gore and James Hansen?
“Please circle: Yes or No. Return ballot in the unmarked envelope.”
But as Prof. Richard Lindzen and others convincingly argue, by naming names and explaining what’s going on in detail, those organizations will never allow their membership to voice such an opinion.
So until the rank and file are allowed a say in the matter, yes, those organizations are run by charlatans who have managed to game the system at the expense of ordinary scientists and taxpaying citizens.
Prove me wrong. Demand a secret ballot poll on the AGW/CO2 question. Or admit that charlatans have hijacked the process.
Mike Bryant says:
I see how that line of argumentation can be relevant to something like healthcare but I don’t really see how it would be relevant for an externality caused by something like climate change.
Climate change is completely natural.
Deal with it.
Smokey says:
First of all, the phrasing of your question is, in my opinion, poor. For one thing, you group together people who are saying different things…The IPCC is saying one thing. James Hansen has views that are increasingly more severe than what they are saying. And, Al Gore is a politician, not a scientist…and although most scientists in the field seem to believe he has done at least a somewhat reliable job of explaining the science (see http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html ), I do think many would admit that he puts more emphasis on things that might happen that scientists are still uncertain about than, say, the IPCC report does.
You are also using terminology incorrectly…since nobody is talking about “runaway” global warming (except for Hansen in the case where we really go to town burning all conventional and maybe some unconventional sources of fossil fuels). And, the term “catastrophe” is a loaded one that I have almost never heard from anyone except those on the skeptic side.
My phrasing of the question would be something like, “Do you accept that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide will likely lead to significant global warming of the magnitude stated, and with the attendant dangers outlined, in the IPCC reports?” Even a better phrasing would be to ask this in several parts…E.g., you could probe whether they think the IPCC is over- or under-estimating our uncertainties in regards to climate change (and, if underestimating, in the direction towards being too alarming or the direction toward understating the potential dangers).
Second of all, although no surveys are ideal, a few have been done now…and the link above gives one example. And, while this survey may still have its problems (e.g., I think it cast its net pretty wide by not trying to restrict specifically to the climate science field and thus probably is biased in the direction of overstating the amount of skepticism that would exist in the field itself), I think it gives us some rough picture.
Third of all, you are being very naive if you believe that all G8+5 academies of science, all these different scientific societies, and so on and so forth have all been “hijacked” (and without any real rebellion in these organizations). That is pretty much the mother of all conspiracy theories!
Smokey says:
Your views are shared by only a very small minority in the scientific community. Deal with it.
(Actually, some of your views like the one that I outlined above are so extreme that I think even that small minority would have a hard time agreeing with them.)
PaulHClark (02:14:18) : To take action as proposed on an unsubstantiated hypothesis has tremendous known cost and is high risk. Moreover with developing countries being exempt it is highly likely that it will have no effect at all.
We know the present CO2 output for China (more than the U.S.A.) and we know the build rate for coal power plants in China and their planed life span (50+years). We can say with certainty that the proposed restrictions in the developed countries can not decrease atmospheric CO2. It simply will not happen.
You could completely shut down all CO2 production in the U.K, Australia, Canada, and Europe and you would buy yourself a couple of years, at most. So it’s not just ‘highly likely’; it’s a certainty.
The King rides high on a chariot bedecked with gold, a banner on each side proclaiming “He who shouts loudly that the King’s clothes are the finest ever seen will be richly rewarded”.
There is an enormous din, the shrieks of the crowd, forever proclaiming the King’s clothing to be the finest, are overwhelming.
The behaviour to some is unseemly but the King is throwing money at anyone who cheers. The King’s adviser nods wisely – “I told you I would have them in the palm of your hand, sire, all of them. You did not need to worry that they were all fine scientists at one time”.
But there stood a very small boy, very much in the minority, pointing steadfastly at the King shouting – “The Knig is NAKED”. His voice was thus far overwhelmed but he remained transfixed by the spectacle unable to understand why others could not see the reality.
He stood his ground, never moving his gaze and pointed at the facts that were plainly before him….
PaulHClark (11:27:51) : The carbon tax in the UK already adds 16% to UK electric bills that many people can ill afford. We have made significant investments in wind power which produces the power of 1 medium sized coal fired plant at huge economic cost relative to more traditional forms of power generation (some of which are carbon neutral).
Paul, when it gets really cold and dark, and they have taxed petrol to $40/gallon and electricity is un-reliable, consider one of these:
http://www.centralmainediesel.com/order/Vegetable-Oil-Lister-Generator-6600-Watt.asp?page=L09989
You can feed it old ‘chips’ oil with a little filtration, or buy food grade oil that will end up being cheaper than petrol… You can also easily tap the heat from it for combined ‘heat and power’.
Only downside is you will need a garage for it and some sound absorptive wall hangings…
These are mostly made in India, so you ought to be able to get one fairly cheap (i.e. not from the U.S.A site…)
Not involving the developing countries as you suggest is incredibly naive. If you seriously believe we have 4 years to fix the problem then we should exclude no-one. But I suspect the propents know their theory doesn’t stack up and that they could in no way convince those countries to believe.
It is not possible to do anything but have CO2 ‘go up’ for at least 20 years. Period.
China is adding coal plants about 1 every 2 weeks last I looked. They already make more CO2 than we do (even though many of those plants have not yet shown up in the statistics). They have about 5 years worth of this build rate ‘in train’ and are not stopping nor slowing down. Once built, they run for 50+ years. There is no stopping it. And no, China listens to no one but China…
Rail, ships, air, trucking: You can’t even begin to stop the oil use. We depend on international shipping for food globally and for products essential to life, globally. It takes 20+ years to turn over the fleet, IF we had a clue what fuel to turn them over to!
Cars? How will folks do life’s chores? On the non-existent mass transit? Present capacity can’t do it. Lead time for buses and trains? 5 to 20 years. And what will you feed you buses? H or CNG? From what infrastructure? Add 5 years for fuel system build out (minimum if CNG).
The Chinese have made a great poker play – ‘you pay we’ll play – over to you’. Would you like to bet with me that the ‘West (which means the USA) will support them?
And Russia too. They ‘played’ as long as it was a free ride. Former USSR industrial collapse gave them ‘tradable carbon credits’ aka “money for nothing”. They now repudiate the AGW thesis since it would now require real economic changes. So, Russia is not playing in the “Cap and Tirade” game.
So who’s playing? EU, UK, Australia, maybe Canada.
U.S.A. is waffling (but if you want to see a revolution ‘right quick’ tell Joe Sixpack that there will be no tailgate party at the game, no drive to work, and the wife and kids are on the bus 4 hours a day… Oh, and he doesn’t get A/C or heat… and food costs 30% more…)
So no, not only can nothing happen in 4 years in the USA, nothing can happen for 20 years. And with FSU, China & India growing like crazy, you can’t even hope to reduce CO2 globally in 50 years.
So the choice is really:
A) Keep sound economy and industrial capability and adjust as needed, if at all.
B) Destroy economy, collapse industries needed to cope or adjust, and be overrun by China economically & politically with militarily close behind, and still be facing whatever would have happened in A.
I’ll take “A” for a few dozen $Trillion…
Joel Shore (13:34:38) : I suggest looking up “externality” in an economic textbook. […] You do not want to deal with the virtues and limitations of market economics as understood by economists.
Joel, you are wrong.
From the wiki (though wiki is often slighted, I can verify this wiki is correct. I am an Economist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externalities
In economics, an externality is an impact on any party not directly involved in an economic decision. An externality occurs when an economic activity causes external costs or external benefits to third party stakeholders who did not directly affect the economic transaction.
Notice the words I’ve put in bold. Government is in there. In fact, much of economic regulation is de facto an externality. Farm price support causes someone to get less food. An externality. Biofuel mandates cause grain prices to rise and exports to drop. An externality that hits someone in another country. Raise the minimum wage? Someone loses a job (or fails to get one, same thing), while others get more money, and the price of goods rise across the board until a new equilibrium is reached. Lots of externalities.
And economic decisions can be more than money, it includes such things as population dynamics; so a government program to hand out condoms or provide abortions decreases income to hospitals and lowers school demand – more externalities.
And even your assertion that market economies are needed is false. As part of my Econ training I had to have instruction in non-market economies, such as communism and other command economic systems. Notice the careful wording in the wiki? The word ‘market’ does not appear. Command economies have lots of externalities too. The Commissar of Energy tells the Commissar of Mining to mine more coal, and it does. Some poor sot gets moved from his ancestral home – an externality.
But wait, there’s more… You seem to think that all externalities are bad. They are not. Al Gore is planning to benefit greatly from government action to mandate demand for his service (energy indulgences). Though I suppose one could argue that he is involved in the ‘economic decision’ via his political activities… GE is expecting to benefit from demand for wind turbines driven by government mandates. Exxon is expecting to benefit from excess CO2 supply from their rivals (coal plants) to be used in cheaper enhanced oil recovery. The list goes on and on. Most lobby activities can be seen as simply attempts to force a positive externality for yourself from government actions (that might well have negative externalities for someone else) or to try to prevent those negative externalities from falling on yourself.
In many ways, the whole AGW food fight is over who gets whacked with what externalities from a command economy behaviour by our government(s). If left to markets, there would be far fewer externalities involved, since more of the participants would be ‘directly involved in the economic decisions’.
Joel Shore (20:10:52) : And, the term “catastrophe” is a loaded one that I have almost never heard from anyone except those on the skeptic side.
Nice try… From a couple of googles:
Results 1 – 10 of about 217,000 for catastrophe Hansen.
Results 1 – 10 of about 798,000 for catastrophe Gore.
With titles like:
Jim Hansen warns of threat of climate catastrophe | Environment …
Jan 18, 2009 … Leading climatologist explains why President Obama’s administration is the last chance to avoid catastrophe.
Netroots Nation or Nation of Sheep: Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore …
The global climate crisis, he goes on, is about to turn into a climate catastrophe. Gore then points out that global warming is of course connected to the …
Could you at least do a tiny little google ‘screen’ on some of your more fantastic claims? A momentary ‘sanity check’ would do wonders for your postings.
E.M. Smith makes valid points about China’s ramping up of their coal fired power plants.
I read an article in the Economist that said China is currently building 1 – 2 coal fired power plants per week, and plans to continue construction at this rate until at least 2024.
The agenda of the AGW/CO2 proponents becomes clear when they turn a blind eye toward China, Russia, Brazil, and a hundred other countries that have no concern for their CO2 emissions. That agenda is designed to hobble the West by jacking up the cost of energy, and substituting schemes such as wind power for truly effective power generation.
When the AGW proponents criticize China and other countries for their CO2 generation at the same frequency that they criticize the U.S., they will have a modicum of credibility. But as we see all the time, it’s the “America
ee-e-vil, UN go-o-o-d” drumbeat that goes on 24/7/365.
If CO2 is bad [it isn’t; plants need more beneficial CO2, not less}, then it’s bad whether China emits it or a G-8 country emits it. Giving a pass to a wealthy country that owns a trillion dollars of U.S. treasury debt is hypocritical, and it reveals the anti-American, anti-West and anti-capitalist agenda of the warmist contingent.
E.M. Smith says:
You make the case against those who council for endless delay better than I can. These are exactly the sort of long-term inertias in our human economic systems that make it necessary for us to delay no longer and to actually get to work on starting to convert our economies away from the reliance on fossil fuels (and/or learn how to sequester the emissions).
However, every journal begins with a single step and it is the agenda of some to delay the first steps from ever happening.
Smokey says:
They / we don’t turn a blind eye towards it…They are in fact very concerned. However, they understand that sometimes it is necessary to lead by example, particularly when you are responsible for most of the problem to date.
Your paranoia about an “anti-American, anti-West and anti-capitalist agenda” is arguably even sillier than your mass conspiracy theory involving all the major scientific organizations of the world, and that’s saying something!
E.M Smith says:
Okay, maybe it is true that articles talking about Hansen’s views have used the term (whether Hansen directly has used the term is a little harder to ascertain from what I looked at…but I guess he hasn’t objected to the use of the term to summarize his views).
I still hold that I personally have heard this term used much more by skeptics than I have by the other side.
You seem to have this habit in your post there of attributing to me things that I did not say. I talked about externalities in the context of market economics but I did not say that they are unique to market economies. (I don’t object to you pointing out the larger context in which the idea applies but when you say that my statement is false just because I mentioned market economies in my post, that is not correct.) I used it in that context because we all know the problems with planned economies but people often believe that market economies automatically get you around all of the problems. And, indeed, I think the market system is great … But my point is that it is not perfect and it is particularly poor in dealing with issues like pollution and climate change unless an attempt is made to internalize the externalized costs.
I said “every journal begins with a single step”.
…Obviously, that should be “journey”!
Thanks E M,
I hope we never have to hear the word “externality” again. It seems obvious that government produces more of them than anyone else.
Mike
PS Just because someone throws a big word around does not mean it makes sense.
Actually, I’m not in the least bit embarrassed by the word ‘catastrophe’. Dying unexpectedly is a catastrophe and I think we can already attribute deaths to anthropogenic climate change.
What is this nonsense about the IPCC projecting a ‘runaway’ state? Is the ‘sceptic’ position reduced to simply making stuff up?