According to the paid propagandist Joe Romm at Climate Progress: Humanity is choosing to destroy a livable climate, warn 18 of the world’s leading climate experts in a new study.
Tom Nelson asks on Twitter: Since when are these 18 some of the world’s leading climate experts?
Of course, there’s a call for a carbon tax to go along with that warning.
Economic efficiency would be improved by a rising carbon fee.
…
A rising carbon fee is the sine qua non for fossil fuel phase out, but
not enough by itself.
Absolute madness. What alternate reality do these 18 people live in? Or maybe it is simply that none of them have ever held a job that didn’t depend on tax revenue?
They are clamoring not only for a carbon tax, but also for green technology. But, real world data they cite suggests they are living in a dream world:
![Figure 14. World energy consumption for indicated fuels, which excludes wood [4]. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0081648.g014](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/hansen_pols_windsolar.jpg?quality=83)
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0081648.g014
An economic analysis indicates that a tax beginning at $15/tCO2 and rising $10/tCO2 each year would reduce emissions in the U.S. by 30% within 10 years [241]. Such a reduction is more than 10 times as great as the carbon content of tar sands oil carried by the proposed Keystone XL pipeline (830,000 barrels/day) [242]. Reduced oil demand would be nearly six times the pipeline capacity [241], thus the carbon fee is far more effective than the proposed pipeline.
I will give them props for calling for more nuclear energy, but the rest of the paper is nothing more than a climate activist’s wet dream.
You can read it here: http://www.plos.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/pone-8-12-hansen.pdf
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Economics is concerned with the optimal use of limited resources. Getting more for less is economical. Getting less for more is the opposite of economical. It is Orwellian double-speak to even imply that artificially raising the cost of a resource through taxation is good for the economy. While it may be good for power seeking elitists, it is always bad for the economy. Sometimes it is very bad. Don’t let them tell you otherwise.
Oddly enough green energy subsidies coincide with green lobbying money. Huh, whodathunkit? I wonder what The Economist thinks of that?
Lost the link:
http://reason.org/files/green_electric_dreams.pdf
On the energy consumption chart, they show no wind or hydropower used in 1800! Waterwheels largely drove the early stages (before 1800) of the industrial revolution and sailing ships carried the freight. Almost like the 18 are historically ignorant.
Beesaman
31,000 excess deaths in the UK last winter alone, the main cause is reckoned to be fuel poverty directly attributed to the green “energy” subsidies added onto UK consumers fuel costs.
http://www.wmpho.org.uk/excesswinterdeathsinEnglandatlas/
The “carbon” tax is typical leftist clap trap – look to the shining, glorious, revolutionary, ecological, sustainable (pick your favourite epithet) future but please ignore the dead and dieing all around you, they are doing their bit for the greater good, now how about you citizen?.
Paternalism rises to a new notch.
Johan Rockström is not a climate expert !.
” Johan Rockström is a Professor in Environmental Science with emphasis on water resources and global sustainability at Stockholm University and the Executive Director of Stockholm Resilience Centre.
He is an internationally recognized scientist on global sustainability issues, where he, e.g., led the recent development of the new Planetary Boundaries framework for human development in the current era of rapid global change.
Prof. Rockström is a leading scientist on global water resources and strategies to build resilience in water scarce regions of the world. He has more than 15 years of experience from applied water research in tropical regions, and has over 100 research publications in fields ranging from applied land and water management to global sustainability.
Johan Rockström serves on several scientific committees and boards, e.g., as the vice-chair of the science advisory board of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact research (PIK) and he chairs the visioning process on global environmental change of ICSU, the International Council for Science.”
http://www.kth.se/om/miljo-hallbar-utveckling/seminarier/beyond-planetary-boundaries-future-directions-for-global-sustainability-with-prof-johan-rockstrom-1.421211
http://www.stockholmresilience.org/contactus/staff/rockstrom.5.aeea46911a3127427980005551.html
Leo Geiger says:
They live in the same reality as The Economist…
I hope you’re not under the illusion The Economist is somehow impartial on climate change. Providing an unbiased economic analysis of the facts. The editorial stance of this once great newspaper has shifted significantly leftwards over the past two decades. It used to analyse free of political bias – sadly that is no longer true. And its judgement suffers. It fervently supported the Iraq war, the European single currency and Obamacare – all for political reasons. How has each one of those worked out so far?
It seems The Economist has gained an unfortunate ability to be on the wrong side of all the big issues over the past decade. And, I won’t be surprised to discover it got climate science wrong too. Around 12 months before Enron collapsed it wrote a glowing piece on the company (another horrendous misjudgement) – ironically the central theme of the article was how the firm was revolutionising energy markets. The conclusion was this would dramatically improve the efficiency and distribution of energy use – feeding private capital into renewables. It turned out Enron was just trying to make a fast buck – as I suspect is The Economist, pandering to its increasingly liberal leaning readership, while selling advertising space. That might be the ‘reality’ of economics but I wouldn’t make the mistake of confusing it with economic analysis.
Hilarious reading!
Hansen’s Rangers write:
However, the recent report by the NRC says:
…It’s really bad when these idiots can’t even agree on which scare-story to use!!
Tom Nelson rightly asks
“Since when are these 18 some of the world’s leading climate experts?”
Perhaps it’s a case of X = Sanity index (an unknown quantity)
and spurt = a drip under pressure.
I wish I was a famous nobody like 17 of these 18 ‘experts’. I too could then write stories and have them published in Science and other novels. Then I could apply for funding and do TV talks and, and, and. I’m serious!!!!
regards from the BatCave.
I wonder if they don’t know about wood:
http://paironworks.rootsweb.ancestry.com/clahelen.html
Scroll down for a photo of the furnace. The first b/w photo is about the way it looked in 1949/50.
It is they who are like the cuckoo chicks in the nest. Clamouring to be fed before everyone else but contributing nothing.
If AGW was not an “official” cause, there would be a lot more Bernie Madoffs in prison right now.
What needs to be kept in mind about carbon taxes is they are one of the better policy options available. Yes, most people reading a blog like this would rather nothing happens. That’s a given. But getting past that, the general sentiment should be the one oil sands executives in Alberta have adopted: if it has to be something, let it be a carbon tax.
business.financialpost.com/2013/02/01/why-the-oil-sands-industry-wants-the-carbon-tax-harper-hates/
If you don’t want to listen to Hansen et al, or The Economist, listen to them.
Well, no. For a start, this only works if it covers all economic activity on the globe. Otherwise the economic activity gets transferred to the location without the taxes, and economic activity in the taxed location falls. There is no decrease in emissions, and possibly an increase as activity is transferred to a location with higher emissions intensity and lower environmental controls.
The other point is that efficient taxation schemes can exist, but they never do. A carbon tax never gets to a floor without carve outs, special deals, redistributions and all the other pork and cruft that goes with it. The revenue neutral aspect also fails to consider no churn and no giveaways to junket-fests like the UN.
This is not theoretical. Australia is currently lumbered with a carbon tax until the new government can secure the passage of legislation to remove it. This has seen emissions drop – through industry closure and relocation. It also is/was a grab-bag of handouts to favoured industries, and absurdly actually costs the government $4billion a year in the first years because it gives away more than it collects in the hope of becoming a popular policy. It wasn’t, it isn’t and it destroyed the government that brought it in.
So what we can safely say about Carbon taxes is that only a perpetually stupid government with a n electoral death wish would bring one in now. The tide has turned, and governments will now get into power by promising to remove green taxes and regulations rather than imposing them.
Leo Geiger says:
December 4, 2013 at 4:48 am
What needs to be kept in mind about carbon taxes is they are one of the better policy options available.
No, no, and hell no. It’s a false choice between (supposedly) the lesser of two evils. The fact that they are a “solution” to a non-problem remains.
Carbon Taxes are the mill stone around the neck of any economy.
In fact it is the most effective way to strangle it, together with what remains of your freedoms, and your ability to make money.
Leo Geiger says:
December 4, 2013 at 4:48 am
… Brian Ferguson, chief executive officer of Calgary-based oil-sands producer Cenovus, said last year that a carbon tax is “probably the most effective means of regulating and addressing the cost of carbon.”
If you don’t want to listen to Hansen et al, or The Economist, listen to them.
————————————————————————————————————–
Since the “cost of carbon” is a work of fiction, listening to either is a waste of time.
This is not theoretical. The province of British Columbia has had a revenue neutral carbon tax for 5 years. The fear mongering about economic damage has not come to pass there. “Successful” and “popular” (polls have shown an increase in support for it since it was implemented) are adjectives that tend to be used to describe it.
Policies can certainly be implemented badly. An argument that ‘we might do a carbon tax wrong so we shouldn’t even try’ leaves a vacuum that might be filled by more cumbersome policies.
But again, as I said at the top, those who reject the science that says there is a problem to begin with think everything is a waste of time.
[ Pippen Kool says:
December 3, 2013 at 5:33 pm ]
…..”have”……
Leo Geiger says:
“those who reject the science that says there is a problem to begin with think everything is a waste of time.”
What science says there’s a problem with global climate readily distinguishable w/o statistical machinations from natural variation of anthropogenic origin that can be resolved through carbon taxes?
“Tom Nelson asks on Twitter: Since when are these 18 some of the world’s leading climate experts?”
And we need to remember, that according to Cook, only 97% of them believe that man’s responsible.
Beesaman says: ” I wonder how many more folk will die because of the cold and high fuel costs this Winter? ”
Very few because leftists have that covered in the form of FUEL ASSISTANCE. Because they are gun-shy about raising income and capital gains taxes much higher than they are now they’re busy finding other ways to suck money from the working class to expand a culture of dependency on federal government for the NON working class representing the bulk of democrat voters. Taxing carbon is a no-brainer.
“Very few because leftists have that covered in the form of FUEL ASSISTANCE.”
True there are programs. But, many of them in the US are run at the state level, not the federal level. And with many states still cash-strapped because of the non-rebounding economy, lots of that money has been stripped away. In my northeast state the projection for this winter for fuel assistance is equivalent of one tank of heating oil.