Guest post by Thomas Fuller
(Okay. Based on the assumption that overly cryptic titles of blog posts need to be explained early: Old Testament prophets predicting doom gave rise to the term ‘Jeremiahs’ after one prominent example, and their doom-laden screeds even got the term ‘jeremiads.’ Michael Tobis is lamenting the failure of climate activism of late and predicting horrible things will happen–very much like the Jeremiahs of old.
Tobis is a Research Scientist Associate (in practice, mostly a software engineer) who very rarely writes about climate science, preferring to pronounce on the sins and errors of journalists, bloggers and politicians. Instead of writing about what he knows, he writes about what angers him. He may well be an expert on climate science. He is not at all an expert on media criticism.
However, Tobis mostly sits crouched on the lilypad of his own weblog, and his posts are frequently written as if they were being croaked into the night, waiting vainly for a response.
So Three Dog Night was very wise when they wrote that Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog.)
Cap and Trade is dead. So says Joe Romm, so says the NY Times, so says the Atlantic.
Okay, what is next?
The wrong answer is C) Nothing. But thanks for playing our game. What will happen is that we will reframe the problem in a way that may be more acceptable to more people. That’s because restating the problem is much easier than readjusting the solutions so many have been working on. So we will start talking more about adaptation than mitigation, about regional resilience than global mean temperatures, about heat in the oceans rather than CO2 in the atmosphere. (All of which are fine with me.)
The world is not going to walk away from global warming quickly–even if many would like to run. Defeat doesn’t work like that in diplomacy. Cancun will still take place, options will still be floated, proposals bruited, etc.
But the surest sign that the air has gone out of the balloon is the decision to retain Rajendra Pachauri, as some gloomy Banquo’s ghost. If the IPCC had anything that was both new and real to offer, they’d have got a new guy in there.
So the diplomats will not acknowledge the failure of diplomacy. The mainstream media, having spilled more ink than an army of squids promoting the need to change our climate, will have to wait a respectable length of time before dropping the hot potato in favor of Lady Gaga or watching paint dry, whichever is more entertaining.
Domestic politicians won’t let go of their clubs until after the November elections in the USA, although the UK may be moving a bit more quickly. But being on the right side of the climate change issue now means no more than being on the wrong side. Next up–immigration reform?
We diehards on the blogs will still talk about it–we have a lot invested in the subject. I’ve noticed the range of subjects on climate blogs is widening a bit, with Keith Kloor reintroducing anthropology and archaeology, and Michael Tobis getting more local than global.
But despite this all giving discussions the air of a post-game show, it isn’t over. Not the actual changes to the climate, not the politics, not the blame game, and eventually not the policies to deal with it.
We still have climate and it will still change. We may be a bit less arrogant about our ability to predict those changes and assign the causes, but change there still will be.
Those who don’t like the changes will still blame human activities, although if they’re smart they might start reading Roger Pielke Sr. and attributing changes to more than just CO2.
People are still re-fighting the Vietnam War. Heck, there are people still re-fighting the Civil War. We’re not going to let this go any time soon.
Especially because of the twin peaks of Energy As An Issue and The Developing Countries As An Issue. Because we are the way we are, we will think we have to solve both. And because we are the way we are, we will think we have to solve both at the same time with the same tools, even though actions to make progress on one of them will make things more difficult for the other. Conserve energy, make the developing countries suffer. Help the developing countries, make the energy crisis worse.
And when we get frustrated, maybe we’ll pine for the easy days of fighting over climate change.
There are things we can do to protect against further climate change, improve energy security and smooth the path for developing countries. The conservative American Enterprise Institute and The Brookings Institute have teamed up with the Breakthrough Institute to propose a post-partisan solution (PDF), mostly based on research. It’d probably work, too. But the problem with post-partisan proposals is that they would put partisans out of a job, so of course left and right are ganging up on these people.
Their proposals are important, but it probably looks as though their timing stinks. This would have seemed really useful six months ago. But now it seems like they’re showing up with their party gifts just as everybody’s cleaning up and getting ready to go home.
But that’s an illusion. The climate / energy wars will last another generation. This is just a pause of exhaustion. We will change names, politicians, bloggers and the nuances of our positions and get ready for Round Three. This is, after all, the title fight to end all title fights.
But more on that another time. Meanwhile, Joy to the World!
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BTW, I’ll bet most readers didn’t know this:
“Joy to the World” is a song written by Hoyt Axton, and made famous by the band Three Dog Night. – Anthony
Gee, I hate it when I mess up the html.
[Reply: I was going to correct it, but then I thought it might have been intentional… ~dbs]
Well, I knew it was made famous by Three Dog Night. I used to sing along and I think I had the albumn. didn’t know about Hoyt Axton.
Question for Thomas:
Let’s imagine CO2 truly is a problem for the climate. Why not look at all products made today, all materials, and determine a transition to Thorium /batteries?
The problem today is finding a solution to quick fillup/recharge, and cost. For home heating, and many other energy uses, what is wrong with carbon capture for the next 50 years (until everyone realizes CO2 has no relevant role in climate) or until transition to Thorium is complete?
Why are environmental groups picketing and litigating every power plant and refinery in America?
If this is TRULY a scientific issue and warming advocates TRULY beieve CO2 causes harm, why do they impede ALL solutions other than reduced consumption?
And you Thomas, despite the numerous benevolent interventions of yours truly, are not going to let go of the culty construct that there is an energy crisis. If we were ever close one, it was definitely a man-made one with the perrennially unhappy misanthropes that never go away, blocking coal, hydro and nuke plant constructions, lying on the rails to block coal trains, and pushing the foresting of the earth with windmills or carpeting the earth with with solar panels that we may as well not stop the kids from throwing rocks at. I hope you live a long time to see that, after all, economics and engineering will continue to save us from this worry which has never arisen and will not arise. Oh we will have to save the poor greenies hides too, just like we endeavour to do for the unappreciative nile crocodile.
Energy crisis??
You mean the MAN MADE energy crisis??
THERE IS NO ENERGY CRISIS!!!
mods: mispelled perennial and left a word or two.
[REPLY – Te absolvo. ~ Evan]
You forgot to mention the EPA. There are big fights coming. Maybe the EPA will have it authority over CO2 removed.
I am very pleased to learn that Hoyt Axton wrote “Joy to the World.” Always loved Hoyt’s performances and his personality.
Tom for some reason you never seem to learn anything about energy or economics no matter how many times we correct the misinformation you state.
Really?Why? Because you have been raised to falsely believe that central planning works? Every single government led energy policy has been an utter failure and always will be. I take it you are refusing to read this book,
Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future
Alternative Energy proponents apparently not only do not understand economics but also physics,
Five myths about green energy (The Washington Post)
The Real Problem With Renewables (Hint: It’s physics) (Forbes)
For their assault on our reason and society I will be playing whack the whacko for years to come. Think about it ” My honourable opponent is so stupid he/she still believes in Anthropogenic Global Warming caused by CO2″. This is our near political future and each new hysteria will be compared to this fraud for goofiness. A whole generation or two of propanda resistant children are growing up now.Al Gore was good for something after all.
I’m one of those who expects the issue to rise, Nosferatu-like, a few times after it’s presumed dead. I don’t think it’s safe to declare it dead, not by a long shot.
I’ll know it’s really dead when I stop hearing my colleagues regurgitating whatever they heard about
global warmingclimate change on last nights evening news show on the telly, or NPR on the way in to work.I’m with you on this one Thomas, but a single generation? I think not. This is just one chapter in the evolution of alarmism that goes back centuries. To prove this, I built a computer model of alarmism. I was able to hindcast alarmism for thousands of years and accurately correlate it with historical records. I then ran the model into the future with some astounding results. Alarmism is subject to both major and minor cycles. The minor cycles repeat in a decreasing time scale until they bring the major cycle to an abrupt end and begin a new major cycle. I provide the output from my most recent trial run to illustrate the effect:
10,000 BC;
“Ugh. Earth shake and mountain spew fire. Spirits angry. Bring much food and hides to appease spirits. Store in my tent.
5,000 BC;
“King’s dream is warning from spirits. Bring much food and gold. Store in King’s warehouse. I will be warehouse manager.”
1200 AD;
“Do as this book says or your soul will suffer eternal damnation. Since most of you can’t read, you’ll have to come to visit your priest ever 7 days and he will charge you a small amount of gold for absolving your sins. From time to time large armies will be raised to kill people who don’t follow the book. This is the only way we will ever have peace, and you will need to bring large quantities of gold when that time comes.”
1917 AD;
“Centrally planned economies ensure efficiency and fair sharing of resources. All your food, clothing, building materials and weapons will be managed centrally, and you will be informed of how much you can have and when, so that everyone gets the same amount. We, the leaders of the revolution, will be the central planning committee. Capitalism will crumble in the face of our success and will surrender without us firing a shot. Good thing as there are more of these dissident types than we thought, and we’ll need the ammunition to deal with them. When there’s that many who claim contrary positions, there just isn’t enough time to argue with each of them. Instead, with the help of the nation’s teachers, we can identify these subversives at the youngest possible age and deal with them accordingly. Some day we may be able to just press a button on a little grey box, but until then we’ll just have to deal with them the normal way by shooting them.”
1975 AD;
“The planet has been cooling for some time and this may indicate the onset of a new ice age. Large segments of the human population will likely be displaced, and many species of plants and animals are likely to become extinct. It is urgent that government fund research to help predict the course of the cooling, and develop mitigation strategies.”
1980 AD;
“The world is running out of oil and we will have none left at all as early as 1995. It is vital that government invest heavily in research of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power like these ones we are demonstrating here.”
1998 AD;
“The planet has been warming for some time and this may indicate the onset of global warming. Large segments of the human population will likely be displaced, and many species of plants and animals are likely to become extinct. It is urgent that government fund research to help predict the course of the warming, and develop mitigation strategies.”
2005 AD
“The world has too much oil and burning it is causing catastrophic global warming. It is vital that government invest heavily in research of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power like these ones we are demonstrating here.”
2010 AD
“We don’t need to debate the science, it is settled. Despite quadrupling their population, polar bears are going extinct, proving catastrophic global warming. Melting of the polar ice caps peaked 3 years ago, and their increase since then proves climate change. The drop in ocean heat content and the record snow falls of last winter show conclusively that climate disruption is upon us. Critics of the science have used discredited techniques such as plagiarism to unsettle the science. Send massive amounts of money so that we can do more research to settle the science that is already settled and explain the temporary pause in warming to show that it is consistent with the science.”
2020 AD
“The planet has been cooling for some time and this is due to the recently discovered negative feedback associated with CO2 which may trigger an ice age. Large segments of the human population will likely be displaced, and many species of plants and animals are likely to become extinct. It is urgent that government fund research to help predict the course of the cooling, and develop mitigation strategies.”
2030 AD
“Madame President, we’ve defaulted on our loan to China. They want California, Alaska, and Texas to call it even.”
“What did my dad say?
“Bill said to go ask your mom.”
“OK, what did mom say”?
“Hillary says your Dad is a schmuck.”
“Great. Do we still have those little alarmist boxes hanging around? The ones with the buttons on them?”
“The what? Alarmist boxes? What are you talking about Chelsea?”
“You know, the boxes with the buttons and the codes. For making things go boom. I called them alarmist boxes because they look like that one in the environmentalist video that they use for exploding little kids that don’t believe in global cooling causing the next ice age.”
“Oh, you mean Launch Control. Right hand side of your desk, secret drawer, remember?”
“Yes! How awful this dull gray. Meant to have these color coordinated with the drapes but… oh never mind, which one is China?”
“Madam President, you can’t be serious.”
“That’s what these are for. You press the button and bad things go away. No more China, no more debt. Which one is China again?”
“Second row, third from the end, but you really can’t be…”
KLICK
“NO! OTHER END! That was Russia!”
KLICK
“NO! NO! NO! That was third row, second from the end. You just nuked Pakistan!”
“Stop yelling, you’re getting me all confused. This one?
KLICK
“AAAAAUGH! What have you done? That was Venezuala!”
“Oh forget it. I’ll just press them all.”
2075 AD
“Ugh. Earth shake and mountain spew fire. Spirits angry. Bring much food and hides to appease spirits. Store in my tent.
The climate / energy wars will last another generation. This is just a pause of exhaustion. We will change names, politicians, bloggers and the nuances of our positions and get ready for Round Three. This is, after all, the title fight to end all title fights.
But more on that another time. Meanwhile, Joy to the World!
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Indeed, climate/energy wars will last beyond the next generation. Heck, there’s an entire generation that needs deprogrammed! You’re right about re-framing, but I don’t think there’s going to be much of a pause. They’ll try water for the next bugaboo for a bit. Not long, though. It’s a non-starter. But they’ll try anyway. Why? Because it isn’t about climate or energy or drinking water. Its about power to control the behavior of the populace. Its funny, looking back. Remember when we worried about the next ice age? Running slightly behind, but in parallel, were the impending food shortages. Same doom and gloom, same whack job mouth pieces. Now consider the spectrum of issues. Food, water, energy all neatly bundled. These are the barest necessities for any society. None are a problem we can’t resolve. Resolution for all 3 of those issues would be fairly simple and cheap, if we had the will to do so. It’s about power.
Mike Haseler says:
October 16, 2010 at 5:04 pm
The people I really feel sorry for are those guys like Anthony Watts who have worked so hard to dispel the global warming myth and who are destined to be the experts in a subject which most of the public couldn’t care less about.
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We all will have gained much knowledge about a discipline in science that no one will regard. Don’t worry about Anthony and Steve Mac and the like. This was simply a challenge they rose to. The GW myth didn’t create those guys. They were exceptional before then and will continue to be afterward. Personally, as I stated above, I don’t believe anyone is going quietly into the night. Tom is correct, they will re-frame and restructure the concerns and arguments, but they’re not giving up on societal domination. And we’ll need these very same blogs for the world to hear our voices.
hmmm…Three Dog Night also helped to usher in the environmental movement with their anthem song, “Out In The Country”….
Before the breathin’ air is gone
Before the sun is just a bright spot in the nighttime
Out where the rivers like to run
I stand alone and take back somethin’ worth rememberin’
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I know plenty of old, grey hippies who still think this way, even though the environment has seen massive improvements since the early 1960’s!
Don’t expect too much change, folks…..the science may not be settled, but the US policies are.
From the linked Post-Partisan Power proposal, page 9:
It would be naive to think that the small taxes being proposed above will remain small. It would also be naive to think that these taxes would actually be used for their intended purpose. Are Social Security taxes being used to fund Social Security? Really? Or take California, where I would guess that the legislature may have stolen as much as $15 billion (maybe more) of gas tax money to plug holes in the general fund by “borrowing” monies that are never repaid and will never be repaid. The deteriorating highway infrastructure in California could certainly use this money, if it hadn’t been misappropriated. The federal highway money has turned into a periodic piñata for lawmakers trying to grab as much as possible for it for their home states. No need to read any further. This is just an attempt to collect taxes to fund whatever disguised as energy reform.
There is one thing that can reduce our energy expenditure dramatically, reduce our dependence on foreign oil AND reduce more CO2 emissions than any other scheme I have heard of to date: conversion of most of our transportation fleet to clean diesel over the next generation or so. It will actually lower costs overall and reduce CO2 emissions. Maybe there is another idea out there that accomplishes both, but I can’t think of it. Also, there is no need to develop the technology or create infrastructure (think recharging EVs and hydrogen), as these already exist. At present our refineries produce an excess of diesel, which is being exported to Europe principally and future investments over the next generation or so will allow refinery output to match the market demand as European refineries are already doing.
Unfortunately, conversion to clean diesel faces a myriad of barriers: some bureaucratic, some political. I do not understand, when there is such a great opportunity to lower energy consumption, lower cost and reduce CO2 emissions, with known cost structures using existing technology, why there is almost no support for it. In fact, the linked Post-Partisan Power proposal returned no hits on searches for both diesel and distillate.
You know I’ve always been a dreamer
(spent my life running ’round)
And it’s so hard to change
(can’t seem to settle down)
But the dreams I’ve seen lately
Keep on turning out and burning out
And turning out the same
So put me on a highway
And show me a sign (O’s face is on a lot of Tea Party billboards)
And take it to the limit one more time
You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time
If it all fell to pieces tomorrow
Would you still be mine?
And when you’re looking for your freedom
(nobody seems to care)
And you can’t find the door
(can’t find it anywhere)
When there’s nothing to believe in
Still you’re coming back, you’re running back
You’re coming back for more
So put me on a highway
And show me a sign (O’s face is on a lot of billboards in Texas)
And take it to the limit one more time
Take it to the limit
Take it to the limit
Take it to the limit one more time
The coffers for the coming elections were filled. To understand what I’m getting at, you have to research back to the Whig Party to who created the politically powerful caste of rich aristocrats and their too big to fail institutions. Tea Party massively disappointed?
davidmhoffer says:
October 16, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Good one.
I found a video of Hoyt singing his song with Arlo Guthrie’s kid’s band
There are things we can do to protect against further climate change
I would have prefered “adapt” to protect
Energy crisis?
Well, it depends what crisis you are talking about.
If you live in the UK and know that (a) all but one nuclear plant will have to shut down in the next five years and (b) almost all coal fired plant (in any case beyond its design life) will have to shut down (after a brief reprieve permitted by Europe) by 2019 and that our “government” plans to rely primarily on wind turbines with a bit of help from solar, then you certainly have an impending mega energy crisis.
Not because there isn’t plenty of reliable and affordable energy to be had – just because the warmist cretins won’t permit it to be utilised.
Being one of those “not most readers” I did know that Joy to the World was written by Hoyt Axton as well as his mother Mae’s contribution to writing Heartbreak Hotel. But still wanting to get my two bits or two bob in I’ll add that Hoyt wrote a few other songs made famous by others including Never Been to Spain (Three Dog Night), The Pusher (Steppenwolf) and the No No Song (Ringo Starr). It’s really quite amazing all the hit songs he wrote that other’s made famous especially when you consider that towards the end of his career he was best known for doing commercials for FTD Florists.
Fuller, I think it is strange that you have an argumentation that seems quite reasonable, and yet there are statements in between that seems contradictory?
Like…. Energy Crisis? What energy Crisis? It seems you have some opinions deep inside that is so typical “Gullible Liberal”, and yet you are trying to shake it off?
Trying to be objective when looking at the data, and cannot quite cope?
Like there is a liberal hiding deep inside, and an excorsist is trying to get him out, but ….no.
Very interesting post, and I agree with the need for a larger view to get some perspective on where we have been and where we are going. However I feel that before we declare round two over and begin to regroup and speculate about round three, we need to look more carefully into the origins of this debate.
There are those of us who worry about exactly where the meme of global warming came from in the first place. Wasn’t “global cooling” the leading theory not so long ago? I was in the Smithsonian just four years ago, and right in the middle of the natural history museum there was a display saying that the long-term global climate trend was towards cooling–I wouldn’t be surprised if the display is still there as it already looked quite old when I saw it. The first voices pointing to a warming trend must have been few and far between, with no public credibility. And we all recall the media actions by the oil Goliaths to prevent the warming meme from gaining traction.
So how did we ever manage to arrive at Copenhagen? How did those few voices expand to become such a large majority? Unless you really have faith in the “scientific method” independently of faith in the human beings who claim to exercise it–and who does nowadays, besides scientists themselves–then at bottom this is a question about research funding. And there are those of us who wonder if the idea of “AGW” originated with think-tanks funded by private wealth that saw a big opportunity for the expansion of their banking profits (via cap & trade) as well as an increase in their power via expansion of Orwellian global government. Nothing like a global crisis to create a global opportunity–and all proposals are taken seriously in a crisis, whether or not they are real solutions.
This may sound paranoid, and there may not be enough evidence (yet) to justify it. Call it a hypothesis–one which calls for investigation. To say it again: where did the meme of AGW come from and how did it manage to spread so powerfully?
I think a deeper understanding of this question will help us know better if round two is really over and what round three might look like.
u.k.(us) says:
October 16, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Three Dog Night
It refers to being cold. Often when ranchers or cowboys were out on the range they would have to sleep with their dogs to keep warm. A one dog night was a night when he had to share body heat with one dog, two dog night was two dogs and a three dog night was an extremely cold night where he would have to share body heat with three dogs. “how cold was it on your trip?” “It was a three dog night”.
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I have 4 Large dogs..its so cold in aus right now, I managed to get 4 around me:-) not much room to move, but it sure is safer and more cuddly than an electric blanket.
and to the topic, well what puzzles me , a lot is the Huge kerfuffle in the 70s over pollution in America, the clean air and water laws, the lakes recovered and things got better,
so?
why did it all get so crappy again IF? the EPA etc was doing its job?
your rivers lakes and oceans are almost as bad as before.
they do not need new laws, they need to enforce the Laws they already have!
ditto the gulf oil example. if the regs were followed correctly it wouldnt have been able to happen.
WHY? is that never mentioned nowdays..
is it because faking carbon makes more money for a select cluster of greedy people? I suspect so.
At any moment in the US there are about 15-25% that follow the hard Left/Greenies. Of these there are about 5% that constantly churn out catch phrases to mask the current set of propaganda points used to dupe anywhere from 20 to 30% of the causual left, “moderates” and “independents”. Eventually, what “sticks” lasts only for a few years then it’s off on another propaganda exercise. Thus global warming morphed into climate change that has morphed into CO2 pollution. The search is on for the next long-term deceit starting with the Obama Czar’s “global climate disruption”. Which, obtw, proves the point. They continue even when their morphology sounds ridiculous. 2017 will see the 100th anniversary of this method of political method.
What is truly amazing is how accurate and honest Thomas Fuller is in describing the next morph-to-come as well as the success and longevity of the method used. Abe Lincoln summed it all up with his insight of there being perpetual fools eager to be fooled. (for the history challenged “you can fool some of the people all the time, you can fool all the the people…”)
At least we’ve got to the point where only a very, very, very few will actually go buy that bridge or send money to Nigeria.
Phil:
Yeah, if it wouldn’t be such a silly goal you’ve deceitfully been told to accept.