This may be perhaps the first time I’ve embraced an article from the Yale Environment 360 forum, the opener reads:
Environmentalists have long sought to use the threat of catastrophic global warming to persuade the public to embrace a low-carbon economy. But recent events, including the tainting of some climate research, have shown the risks of trying to link energy policy to climate science.
Al Gore’s latest book where he had to photoshop in some hurricanes comes to mind.
The NCDC sponsored climate change report where they photoshopped in a flooded house also comes to mind.
And, yes even the snowstorms reportedly caused by global warming this winter are also reminders of how common this bogus linkage to weather is.
From:
Green think tank tells environmentalists: Leave climate change science behind
By Ben Geman
Leaders of a contrarian environmental think tank, The Breakthrough Institute, have a way to get beyond the climate science wars: Break the link between global warming research and the push for low-carbon energy.
Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, in a new essay in Yale Environment 360, [Titled: Freeing Energy Policy From The Climate Change Debate] argue that environmentalists are too eager to link natural disasters and dangerous weather to man-made climate change.
…
They write:
Climate science, even at its most uncontroversial, could never motivate the remaking of the entire global energy economy. Efforts to use climate science to threaten an apocalyptic future should we fail to embrace green proposals, and to characterize present-day natural disasters as terrifying previews of an impending day of reckoning, have only served to undermine the credibility of both climate science and progressive energy policy.
The essay also suggests that climate advocacy and research have become too intertwined, with environmentalists seeking to represent the science as “apocalyptic, imminent, and certain.” The science has been harmed as a result, they argue, stating:
Greens pushed climate scientists to become outspoken advocates of action to address global warming. Captivated by the notion that their voices and expertise were singularly necessary to save the world, some climate scientists attempted to oblige. The result is that the use, and misuse, of climate science by advocates began to wash back into the science itself.
…
The Yale Environment 360 website has a comments section below the articles. Look for a lively response to their new piece.
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Do they still count as a think tank when their conclusion is a decade late and patently obvious?
I’m going to start a real estate think tank and issue a report that states that federally fueled real estate speculation is a bad idea.
This is just more of stage 3 in the grief process (a la Judith Curry); bargaining. They’re essentially saying, “see, we’re willing to throw the greenies under the bus, for mucking things up, so please let us CAGW/CC PNS “scientists” continue, OK?” Well, sorry, but no, it’s not OK. It’s way, way past too late. That ship has sailed and reached another continent. The damage is done, and the “climate wars” will continue. This fight is far from over. The fat lady hasn’t even begun to warm up her pipes.
First of all I agree with those who regard the Yale Environment 360 article positively. For too long here has been a concerted effort to link every environmental ill to climate change. (A recent link was between whaling and CO2 emissions). The downside has been that many urgent dangers, hunting, habitat encroachment, etc. have been ignored. There are also good reasons for the long-term future of the planet to develop safe renewable energy sources. The next ice is due in a few centuries time; imagine trying to survive if we’d all used our fossil fuels for long-haul holidays.
openunatedgirl
My understanding is that for the US or Europe to replace 10% of its petrol with ethanol would require 40% of its agricultural land. If these facts are correct then biofuel can only be a small part of the solution.
If we could just divert all this “greenie” energy into building another set of pyramids out in the desert somewhere… all done with hand labor, all funded by their own pockets with no outside contributions whatsoever, and all workers fed with their own organic gardens, maybe we’d be able to contain the envionmental hysteria gripping the gullible masses for the next 40 years.
Just a fanciful wish.
“toyotawhizguy (21:24:04) :
[…]
Dirk, you’re only half right. Your figure of 500 years is easily off by more than factor of 10 (I initially thought that “500 years” was a typo, but you repeated that figure again in a later post, so I guess not)”
You *could* be right. I was thinking about known reserves here. As soon as some other technology is cheaper it will overtake the market. But it needs to become cheaper first! This is more difficult than it seems to be – as Roger Sowell points out, the guys with the oil wells will try to counter any pretender technology by lowering their prizes. Their technology is proven, they can exploit a huge existing infrastructure and economies of scale.
A lot of the shiny new technologies will fall by the wayside.
I (and a lot of other people) place my bet on microcogeneration in individual households, using gas as the fuel (synthesized from wind/solar power if you want or the fossil variant), a fuel cell, producing heat and electricity.
Hydrocarbons are just the best way to carry hydrogene with you.
I’ve commented before on this website, mostly at the very start of Climategate regarding the legal aspects of the FOIL applications. I’ve had 40+ years of interest in climate and technology, but I do not have a professional technical backround, so I read WUWT far more than I comment. But 2 things about this article and the comments. First, the Skeptics have won the debate; CO2 is not proven to be a “climate changer” and it probably is NOT a material climate forcing– this article shows how the AGW true believers are eating their own and using new propaganda. Second, 2 commenters to this article show the stark philosophical difference between Skeptics and AGW true believers– openunated girl and DirkH. ‘Girl’ feels like we should get rid of evil carbon and ‘those evil corporations’ should be forced to do, but since she’s true believer, she assumes no consequences for herself, because in her rainbow and unicorn AGW world, cheap endless wind power will work for her if those evil corporations get out of the way. Total divorce from reality. DirkH on the other hand, looks at the world objectively and clearheadly and offers specific value judgments — he proposes that we should let free people and markets implement an even cleaner world. You can debate details with DirkH, challenge his assumptions, maybe improve on his ideas. You can’t do that with ‘Girl’ –she believes what she believes, and she won’t let reality intrude. DirkH and Girl show the divide between Skeptics and True Believers. There is a third group — the AGW rent seekers. The scientists (Mann, Hansen et al), trading speculators ( Deutsche Bank, ENRON), the politicians (the EU, Obama et al) and propagandists (Gore) who all ride the gravy train of government and foundation funding and who are scamming AGW for profit and political power. They of course are far worse and more dangerous than Girl, and they use people like Girl to further their greed for money and power.
D. King (20:14:04) :
“R. de Haan (19:17:07) :
Good post Ron.”
Thanks for your kind remark, you’re welcome.
When I hear a greenie weenie mention a “low carbon economy” he has fishished convincing me he doesn’t know what he is talking about. even Immelt the Chairman of GE mentioned doing without carbon. If he hangs turbines on tall Sequoia trees, the trees are still made of carbon.
Then they add, “do away with carbon”. Has anyone ever done that? I know of people that move carbon but none that eliminated it.
If they mean a carbon combustion influenced economy, then they are not so bad off. Most of the drive toward electric cars is the theory that electricity generated elswhere by use of carbon to build the plant or build the tower is like the Carbon and CO2 doesn’t exist.
Where are the pictures of the natural gas fired generators to back up the wind turbines?
Now the fetish is for rail transportation. In my area, rail is Amtrak and it stops once a day at 3 in the morning. It means I have to drive my family and luggage 90 miles round trip to a train depot in a gas guzzling Chevy. Of course the urban legendary economists don’t realize travel by rail over a couple hundred miles increases the need for an overnight stay.
Is there a requirement for the “doo gooders” to not think about what they claim solves problems?
toyotawhizguy (21:24:04) :
In less than 50 years, other alternative sources of energy, including solar panels, solar sterling engines, wind turbines, and solid hydrogen will be cheaper than hydrocarbons. If you doubt that, take a look at the price of gasoline, heating oil, diesel fuel, and natural gas vs. the CPI over the past 50 years, the divergence is striking, and it will only continue to worsen. At some point, certainly during the first half of the 21st century, alternative sources of energy will begin to compete with hydrocarbons. (As for shale gas becoming economical, it is only due to the increased price of natural gas as it continues to diverge from the CPI.)
If you’re using the government derived numbers for CPI, then you are off by a factor of at least 4.
Let it be clear the Greens have done their job.
We now have a totally infected political establishment that is determined to push through their concept of a centralized World Government.
A new bi-partisan climate/energy bill is prepared by US Senators as we speak and the G7 are on a similar course.
The power of the electorate is undermined on any possible level as are civil rights and individual freedom.
The only way to stop the current course of events is to confront the political establishment.
For this the window of opportunity is closing fast.
That is the reality.
Pressed Rat (04:52:30) :
I was thinking Triumph Bonneville. You’re probably right though as the Triumph engine was better than the Norton.
On the other hand, the Norton frame was better than the Triumph which is why so many put the Triumph engine in the Norton frame to get the Triton.
DaveE.
Kate, I am so with you. Scientists are not the problem here! Politicians twist whatever the current environmental hot topic is to meet their own political agenda.
To address all the comments on hurricane Katrina, I didn’t really mean to open that can of worms and I apologize. But to be clear, I am not defending environmentalists. I am defending scientists. If you have doubts that the severity of the damage done by Katrina was not in part due to the depletion of the wetlands, you need to give your head a shake, and talk to an ecologist. I know a great one if you want some contact info.
Did anyone actually read the article in the Yale Journal? How do you square that with the headline here? Yale said NOTHING to the greens. Two guys, who are generally reviled, wrote an OPINION piece. That’s the kind of misrepresentation Climate Depot does takes to an art form.
And yet, at the end of the article the authors say:
“Climate science can still usefully inform us about the possible trajectories of the global climate and help us prepare for extreme weather and natural disasters, whether climate change ultimately results in their intensification or not. And understood in its proper role, as one of many reasons why we should decarbonize the global economy, climate science can even help contribute to the case for taking such action. “
When knowledge becomes institutionalized it turns into politics. This began more than two thousand years ago when some chose knowledge should be officially transmitted through an intitution, the Church, so it involved power and money making, thus the new church was to choose who were the official sages/saints, the knowledge bearers. Then the two currents divided: gnosticism (today´s climate skeptics, among others) and agnosticism (official scientists, settled science, climate change believers, the Neo-pagan-Club of Rome-Gaia Church).
However real knowledge, understanding, not needing institutions, was the work individuals who strive for knowledge, and institutions like the church, and, after the american and french revolutions, the state/government/politicians, missed it and invented fake knowledge, fake philosophy, fake ethics. Pagan churches were founded, like francmasonry which, btw, recognizes what they call the “verbum dismissum”, the lost word, the lost “logos”, the lost knowledge.
If anybody thinks he/she knows and thinks to institutionalize such a knowledge, then he/she simply does not know, as knowledge is everywhere.
spitthedog
My understanding is that Nuclear produced electricity is the cheapest source of electrical energy, with coal the next cheapest but still a lot more expensive. France has predominantly nuclear produced electricity which is divorced from the world price of hydrocarbons. Why have the rest of the higher technology economies not followed this cheaper energy route? Perhaps the market economy is distorted by polital and environmentalist ideology, but apparently not in France. There can be no economic reason for not going nuclear with electricity production. Coal and oil will find plenty of opportunity in the chemical industry.
Cliff
OT but you have been mentioned int he New York Times Anthony.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/science/earth/30warming.html?hp
I’m still in shock because I can’t figure out the combo environment+yale, after all yale hasn’t produced an intelligent environmentalist for, well, ever, but now suddenly they get it together. It’s prolly a trick.
Pressed Rat and Anthony Allan Evans – nearly right, it was a Norton Domiracer.
Cost me a small fortune to rebuild immediately after I bought it in a very shabby state as the front end had been through a small fire which had cooked the front tyre, the paint and the chrome. Looked and sounded marvellous when it ran, but tended to vomit oil on/in my shoes, but only if I was wearing good ones. The electrics were by Joseph ‘Prince of Darkness’ Lucas, which meant lots of walking/pushing in dark and/or rain, but I still loved it immoderately and have been passionate about bikes ever since.
“”” Ed Shearon (07:55:03) :
Did anyone actually read the article in the Yale Journal? How do you square that with the headline here? Yale said NOTHING to the greens. Two guys, who are generally reviled, wrote an OPINION piece. That’s the kind of misrepresentation Climate Depot does takes to an art form. “””
I believe that Anthony’s citation was to the Yale Environment-360 forum article; not to the Yale Journal article. So I read what the 360 forum article said; and that is what I commented on.
I’ll leave it to the Yale Journal to demand a retraction from those two authors, if they have misrepresented the Journal paper; they are the ones who know what they meant in their forum article.
“”” Ed Shearon (07:55:03) :
Did anyone actually read the article in the Yale Journal? How do you square that with the headline here? Yale said NOTHING to the greens. Two guys, who are generally reviled, wrote an OPINION piece. That’s the kind of misrepresentation Climate Depot does takes to an art form. “””
Let’s see; so we start at about 1kWatt/m^2 maximum, and we go down from there via conversion efficiency (think of the Carnot efficiency of a wind turbine).
I don’t think you can even cover the ground with Saran wrap for the cost you have to have for an economical green energy plant.
“”” Claude Harvey (06:01:45) :
All the talk about wind and solar replacing conventional sources because economy of scale will make those technologies’ economically viable in the future is pure fantasy. The numbers cannot possibly EVER pencil out because of horrendous capital cost that can never be brought to heel due to: “””
If you substitute Claude Harvey for Ed Shearon above; you might end up with a combination that makes sense; If you can figure out what I did wrong; please keep it to yourself; it’s embarrassing enough, as it is.
“”” Big Al (22:21:43) :
“Not Completely Off Topic” – from UNIVERSITY of EAST ANGLIA
Breakthrough Producing Hydrogen from Water + Sunlight
Sunday, March 07, 2010
solar hydrogen breakthrough image Image: Angewandte Chemie, Wiley Sunlight + Water = Hydrogen Gas Scientists at the UNIVERSITY of EAST ANGLIA, led by Dr. Thomas Nann, report a breakthrough in the production of hydrogen from water using the energy of sunlight. Amidst all the hype about a potential hydrogen economy, which would rely upon the highly energetic and clean burning hydrogen atom, one of the big questions has been whether sufficient hydrogen…Read the full story on TreeHugger “””
Simply wunnerful ! So now we are back to about 1 kW/m^2 max; not counting conversion efficiency. So what makes this better than any other solar clean green free renewable energy scheme.
I bet you can use solar energy to get carbon out of carbon dioxide too; that would give us an endless supply of clean carbon energy so we don’t have to use dirty fossil carbon.
Good article.
Carbon offset traders, environmental CAGW advocates and climate scientists:
Three Little Lambs Who Have Lost Their Way
http://www.whiffenpoofs.com/music/
Cliff (08:50:02) : you have been badly mis-informed on the price of nuclear-based electric power. It is the most expensive of coal, gas, nuclear, geothermal, and hydroelectric, and is more expensive than some forms of solar and wind.
see http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/nuclear-nuts.html
There are so many reasons to become better stewards of our beautiful earth. Picking global warming and pointing fingers only served to push people who are not being over the top recyclers further toward a fringe. Hence comments I have seen on here before that say forget the environment, I will let my hummer idol all day, I left my lights on during earth hour for the fun of it. When you ask the same people if they think we should be more energy independent, they agree. When given the option that lowers their monthly bills by 15%, they agree. I just purchased an energy efficient washer not because I buy into global warming, but because it saves energy, it uses less water, and frankly, it lowers my drying time. Doing these things is logical for me personally. FYI, newegg.com has a sale on “green” energy savers. I might just buy a solar panel for my house that would run my fridge and another 2 outlets during a power outage.