Guest essay by David Archibald
In President Obama’s war on coal, and thus the US economy, what would be the cheapest way to start the counter-attack? The most effective allocation of funds would be to achieve what Nebraska set out to do. At the urging of State Senator Beau McCoy in late 2013, the Nebraska Department of Agriculture was tasked with commissioning a report on cyclical climate change. The budget for the exercise was $44,000. That right, for a mere $44,000 Nebraskans would be told what was going to happen to their climate. If the Sun was going to sleep with the consequence that cold air from the Canadians would come south faster and longer, Nebraskans would be forewarned and fore-armed. Alas, the effort was abandoned when promoters of global warming in the state offered to do it for free.
The danger to the promoters of global warming was that the stillborn Nebraskan climate report would have been the first government-sanctioned report on the planet to say that carbon dioxide and the burning of coal are nothing to worry about. A report on cyclical climate change would say that there is something far more serious coming that is going to smack our civilisation like a freight train. That serious thing is one of the cycles that the Nebraskans were going to be told about. One day the science of climate cycles might get out to Nebraska but in the meantime they will be wondering why their winters are getting colder and Spring seems to be delayed and how can they begin planting while their fields are still covered in snow.
It is one thing for books to be published which warn of the severe, solar-driven cooling coming (I’m on my third) and for retired academics to voice concerns over the low standards of US Government-funded climate science, but much more moral authority comes from the imprimatur of government. And any government can do it. Any government with coal mines, or coal-burning power plants, and tens of thousands of jobs at stake could wonder if the EPA view of climate science was all that there was to be known on the subject. Pennsylvania could do it, North Carolina could do it and Texas could do it to name a few. Half the states of the Union could do it and should do it.
As the climate reports come in, the vague, almost-impossible-to-believe notion that the Obama Administration’s war on coal through the EPA is a peculiar form of malicious self-loathing will be seen with crystal clarity. That there is no scientific basis for what the EPA is attempting to do whatsoever. That the degradation and disruption that the EPA is intent upon is a loathing for America as it is, pure and simple. Instead of the loftiest ideals of “thinking of the children” and so on, President Obama and the EPA are driven by the basest of motives – that their fellow Americans be poorer with reduced opportunities.
Now it is up to the states to defend themselves in the war on coal. Nobody else has the power or the interest at the moment. If they wish to defend themselves and their way of life, the first step is to acquire the armament appropriate to the battle. That would be a report on climate that they have commissioned and have ownership of. One government’s report on something like climate is as good as another’s. Thickness doesn’t matter so much. A 40 page report from the State of Pennsylvania that said that carbon dioxide is tuckered out as a greenhouse gas and that we had better prepare for solar-driven cooling would send the EPA into apoplexy. So where is Pennsylvania’s report on climate, and those of all the other states that have so much to lose? Hasten now, so much time has been lost already.
David Archibald, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., is the author of The Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short (Regnery, 2014).
Burning coal still produces more pollution than over forms of energy (not talking about plant food, I am talking about all the impurities found in coal). It also has the greatest impact on the landscape and aquifer when mined (despite the scary stories about fracking). If it remains economical after paying for tighter pollution controls and land reclamation, then use it. Gasification might help separate pollutants from the production of energy, but then you have to dispose of that waste. It isn’t the long term answer. We have lots of reserves but they get progressively more dirty. Pit mining beautiful mountains will never sit well with people that live next to them. I do not agree with the EPA, or Obama, but coal use is going to decline for lots of other reasons, mainly economic.
Gas is a better source of energy and likely to remain competitive for a long time (say 50 to 100 years). But it too eventually goes into decline in the U.S., and I believe we need to achieve energy independence if we want to control our own destiny. So in the next 40-60 years we need to be adding alternative forms of energy production to our mix.
Nuclear energy is the only long term viable answer I see short of new technological breakthroughs. I just do not believe we will ever get much higher than 20%-30% of our total energy needs from wind and solar (and only then if better batteries are produced). I hate and despise wind farms – they “uglify” the landscape. Solar is OK for home use as a way to reduce your electric bill, but we need to stop subsidizing it. It should either compete or go away.
Big industry requires big, reliable energy. But we cannot seem to wrap ourselves around an answer for nuclear waste. Unless you solve that problem, you shouldn’t be building more nuclear power plants. And its mostly a political problem – so science can’t settle it. You can either elect to store nuclear waste, or recycle it. I believe recycling is the correct approach, but no one wants anything to do with it. Storing waste next to power plants is just plain stupid – the risks of accidents (leakage) and terrorism are too high. It needs to be in a long term disposal site that is well guarded and not next to populated areas. By the time to work through the economics of nuclear power and waste handling, it isn’t competitive in todays cheap gas economy.
So back to coal – I am OK with leaving it in the ground if it can’t compete given a fair set of standards it must meet. It will still be there in 50 years if we really need it.
What I am never OK with is an artificial regulatory effort by our government to pick winners and losers. Set some standards and let the players compete. Period.
I suspect I’ve been influenced by reading
“Twilight of Abundance”
The MN 370 flight data recorder “pings”, in the news, is most strange.
1. The BBC is clear that the Chinese ship was searching but not recording.
With all the signal process skills, it would be incredible incompetence
to have the search equipment in the water not record.
2. the “announcement” came from China
cleared by higher authorities? Generated by them?
3. it is far, far away from anything that makes any sense other than as a diversion.
4. it comes on a Friday afternoon so the reporting is muddled and hazy, delayed, etc
It really sounds like there was a strategic plan having to do with this hijack and global players.
This, unfortunately, fits with the book’s conjecture on
a confrontative scenario between China and the US,
to grab/dominate/take the Pacific,
while the current POTUS would dither, draw red lines, etc, and before there is a new Congress that might actually have some backbone.
But the Boeing satellite pings many have thrown a spanner in the works.
to be finessed, next time.
The share of the value of home production (food grown by farmers and households for their own consumption) declined from 17.4 percent in 1940 to 1.6 percent in 2012. How to eliminate a few billion souls – (Hint: Stalin knew, China has the lead).
Government land grab. Control the land, control the food…control the population.
As for coal, the entire demonetization of coal (and all fossil fuel) is an additional attack on humanity. For those wearing their rose colored glasses, think doomed. Turn off the news and read… read ….read….. read……
USA has more coal within its borders than any other country with over 260 billion tons of coal reserves. USA’s 260 billion tons of coal reserves would last 290 years at current consumption rates. Projections by the U.S. Energy Information Administration say that coal will remain the dominant fuel for electricity generation in the U.S. through 2040.
The technology for all energy sources should compete freely. Cheap energy wins.
1)In an Obama administration: “electricity prices will necessarily sky-rocket”
Obama said this.
So, how is this not a plan to reduce the standard of living?
All of you Obama apologists here today, answer that.
2)The 2008 financial crisis was the direct result of the Clinton administration coercing of banks to make mortgage loans to people with poor credit. The threat to coerce being civil prosecution by the Federal government for racist loan tactics. Lenders could be sued simply for the appearance of racism.
So the lenders loaned money to anyone. Their new tactic was to bundle these questionable loans with better loans as mortgage backed securities.
Once financiers became aware of these “toxic” securities nobody would touch them.
Then came the effects. These effects happened under GWB’s administration, but it was not his doing.
You can blame the Iraq war on GW Bush, but not the 2008 crash.
That was all Bill Clinton.
Robert of Texas says:
April 5, 2014 at 9:18 am
So back to coal – I am OK with leaving it in the ground if it can’t compete given a fair set of standards it must meet. It will still be there in 50 years if we really need it.
So, your anti-coal agenda has nothing to do with “carbon”. Good. “Leaving it in the ground” is probably the dumbest idea I’ve seen, and I’ve seen some whoppers.
Maybe try reading up a bit on modern coal-fired power plants would help. But, if you just “don’t like coal” for some unexplained reason, then I suppose it’s no use. Even so, think about our economy. Cheap energy is vital.
There are perhaps a half dozen different “dark horse” fusion projects (not the multi billion dollar boondoggles such as ITER and NIF) that are in play, with one or more on the verge of delivering economic fusion (as opposed to fission), economically competitive with coal. As one example, General Fusion, Inc. recently made a TED presentation in Vancouver, Ca. Moreover, GF’s project status at this point is that it has resolved almost all their issues including demonstrating stable compression of their plasma spheromak injection, and have one remaining challenge. that remaining challenge is dealing with RM instabilities at the plasma – liquid lead interface.
The point is that the whole energy issue is ready to bow to a paradigm shift from fossil (hated by greeinies) vs green (impractical) vs fission (and its radioactive waste) to fusion powered by an unlimited fuel with no radioactive waste byproduct. Not a pipe dream, not 30 years from now, not a government boondoggle, empty promise.
Toxic Air Report – American Lung Association
A couple of things…
http://www.lung.org/healthy-air/outdoor/resources/toxic-air-report/
“The president shall pass laws to protect the public health.” quoted from the Clean Air Act. The key word is ‘shall’ not ‘can’ as this powerful law actually obliges him to act.
In 2003, Gov. Romney went after a coal plant in Massachusetts for spewing air pollution and announced: “I will not create jobs or hold jobs that kill people. And that plant, that plant kills people.”
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
It is up to the several states now. Our federation is broken, perhaps beyond repair. I trust we will repair it. Further, I note that while the likes of James Burke predict our problems in the coming decades will be due to over abundance, “The Twilight of Abundance” supposes the opposite. I suspect abundance for most will never be a problem, ever.
As the climate reports come in, the vague, almost-impossible-to-believe notion that the Obama Administration’s war on coal through the EPA is a peculiar form of malicious self-loathing will be seen with crystal clarity.
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It is stunning to me that one of the most dangerous enemies of the US is our own president.
I don’t think it’s self-loathing though; I think it’s a loathing of America – of which he does not see himself as a citizen. He stands outside of normal politics and picks away at our way of life.
He has been wildly successful. I weep for my country.
Warren Buffett donated 37 billion to the Gates Foundation, very admirable. The Gates Foundation again very admirable. I look at the foundation work only chipping away at the issues it deals with while not really solving anything. I say use some of that money to the development up to date nuclear energy to give the world abundant cheap energy. Abundant energy as shown in the so called developed world leads to quality of life, abundant food and lower birth rates and democracy. I do realize the UN may have a say in the democracy bit, I am not that naive.
Bill, Melinda, Warren problem solved. Sounds simple and I believe it is.
Question, since Google has untold resources to search the net how come they push CAGW so much? Oh wait, a simple finger held up to check direction of the wind.
Peter Taylor said:
April 5, 2014 at 1:08 am
It is one thing to report (without detail, as the previous comment noted) that a potential report on cyclic climate change was sabotaged by the defenders of the ‘consensus’ but quite another to impugn the motives of Obama and the EPA with rants about them wanting to impoverish America for generations to come.
————
It is worse than that.
I am no fan of Bush, but imagine this having gone on under his presidency. The country would have been brought to a stand-still. There would have been riots in the streets. There would have been investigative commissions and wall-to-wall news coverage (as there should be for this under any administration).
Where is the outcry? Where is the scrutiny?
We are in deep, deep trouble.
The state of Washington would, will NEVER allow such a report to be generated, let alone give approval for such a report. CO2 is evil, the left of liberals here live the lie, preach the agenda and have as their prayer book, the “settled science” new testament.
How about pooling money, buy 30 second spots on National TV / radio, and putting the current science right in the face of these warmists ? And don’t pull any punches !
Bruce,
If you are in the coal business, then NG is a problem. Just like if you were in the buggy building business, cars were a problem. I am all for coal. I like that Germany is building more coal plants. Mr. Obama’s war on coal is contra-reality, and hurts Americans. The two statements are not mutually exclusive. The anger and speed with which more and more posters here attack skeptics who are even slightly nuanced in their views is not a good trend.
Steve in Seattle,
You may be on to something. A reasoned, well presented message countering the alarmist claptrap of AGW promoters could make a real difference today. Our AGW promoting friends have certainly spared no effort or expense in pushing their fear and hype. A little cool water of reason might quench much of their fire.
Bruce Cobb pegs it – Obama is fighting a war on democracy, and climate alarmism is one of his biggest weapons. If Obama succeeds in destroying the US economy through climate alarmism, and can continue to trample the Constitution at will, he wins his war. No one should be under any illusions about this hate-driven individual’s intention to destroy democracy – and America..
@hunter,
My point is, whatever “problem” NG is for coal, it pales in comparison to the Obama EPA problem. I see coal and NG as fairly equal competitors, with slightly different niches to fill. In the end, that kind of competition can only benefit us all.
New clean-burn coal technologies should be and will be the backbone of the developed world’s power generation until we move into the era after fossil fuels. Yes, we should look at how to support local power initiatives – solar panels, burning waste and wood from well-managed woodlands for power and so on – but in the medium term there will be no substitute for big power providers of the traditional type. I don’t like the nuclear option as it has huge front.end and trailing costs, financially and environmentally – I don’t want to leave the waste behind for future generations to clean up. That’s not fair. So I’m left with what we have. Fossil fuels are the only current answer to the bulk of our energy needs. Coal can be cleaned up, and if you don’t like CO2 emissions, these can be reprocessed via greenhouses that grow crops. Everybody wins. The history of humanity shows that we are not that bad at finding solutions. Even if the doomers are right about our temperature trajectory, I am quite sure we can take it in our stride. We always have. That’s how come we are still here.
John F. Hultquist says:
April 5, 2014 at 8:59 am
In the 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai Stevenson: “Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person.” Stevenson called back “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority.”
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I take your point, however the message to defeat the global warming scare is actually quite simple. You just need to tell people –
“You know how the atmosphere cools the oceans by evaporation? Well global warming believers claim the atmosphere is warming the oceans!”
Seriously, this is the simple truth. Stephan-Boltzmann equations used assuming the ocean to be a “blackbody” give an incorrect temperature of -18C for the oceans without atmospheric cooling or downwelling infrared from radiative gases. The correct figure should be around 80C. The net effect of our atmosphere over the oceans is cooling. And how does our atmosphere cool?
It really is that simple. I understand the message is not popular here at WUWT as it makes the “lukewarmer” position look foolish as well. But when the error it that great, there is little point in trying to engineer a “sciencey” sounding exit from the inanity. Every delay just makes the inevitable backlash from a public well able to understand that our atmosphere cools the oceans that much worse.
It is hard to beat something with nothing yet many of the contrarians (empirical realists ) continue to argue using the same basic approach as the IPCC but just come up with lower numbers for the future warming and reduced climate sensitivity. The realist community needs take on board the fact that the Modeling technique is inherently useless for climate forecasting because models with such a large number of variables simply cannot be computed or indeed even initialized with sufficient precision and accuracy.
The IPCC itself has been quite open about this and In practice the modelers have known for some time that their models have no skill in forecasting and have indeed said so in the WG1 reports. The IPCC AR4 WG1 science section actually acknowledges this fact. Section IPCC AR4 WG1 8.6 deals with forcings, feedbacks and climate sensitivity. The conclusions are in section 8.6.4 which deals with the reliability of the projections. It concludes:
“Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections, consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed”
What could be clearer. The IPCC in 2007 said that we don’t even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability.- i.e. we don’t know what future temperatures will be .
The key factor in making CO2 emission control policy is the climate sensitivity to CO2
. By AR5 – WG1 the IPCC itself is saying: (Section 9.7.3.3)
“The assessed literature suggests that the range of climate sensitivities and transient responses covered by CMIP3/5 cannot be narrowed significantly by constraining the models with observations of the mean climate and variability, consistent with the difficulty of constraining the cloud feedbacks from observations ”
In plain English this means that they have no idea what the climate sensitivity is and that therefore that the politicians have no empirical scientific basis for their economically destructive climate and energy policies. In this case should take the IPCC at their word but for some reason few people do.
The entire IPCC output falls into the not even wrong category and provides no basis for serious discussion yet again most bloggers and pundits continue to discuss the IPCC forecasts as though they had some connection to the real world.
A different non model approach must be used for forecasting . Forecasts of the timing and amount of the coming cooling based on the 60 and 1000 year quasi-periodicities in the temperature and using the neutron count and 10Be record as the best proxy for solar activity are presented in several posts at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
What we can do in the social media, the blogosphere ,letters to editors and especially in e mails and letters to politicians, is to put forward the possibility of a coming cooling based on the study of the natural cycles which actually control global climate. Then the logical first step would be to urge legislators to at least call for multiple working hypotheses so that impact studies would be broadened to include a degree or two of cooling as an alternative scenario.
I agree that anything that can be done at the state and local level to produce empirically based studies as a guide for action and to assist States in legal and regulatory actions against the EPA would be very helpful. Thought should also be given to targeting at least one of the MSM propagandist machines to see if it could be turned around – and present the case for cooling to the general public. Surely there must be a TV producer somewhere willing to break ranks from the herd and say the warming emperor has no clothes and winter may be on its way?
re: JM VanWinkle says April 5, 2014 at 10:35 am
There are perhaps a half dozen different “dark horse” fusion projects …
Probably not what you had in mind, but, coming down the pike nonetheless:
. . http://www.google.com/patents/US20130243143
Filed by #9 (for 2013) ranked semiconductor manufacturer (and researcher) STMicroelectronics by their research facility near Milan, Italy.
.
80 deg C translates to 176 deg F. Seems a little warm, maybe?
By transport of warm air masses to the poles; see: Hadley Cell, Mid-latitude cell and polar cell. Loss of sensible heat is via radiation from land surfaces in which the transported or advected air masses are eventually in contact with in the boundary layer. This is basic Meteorology and not generally in contention exc by those unfamiliar with these processes …
.
The whole black body radiation approach is highly questionable as a basis for calculation of the effect of CO2 anyway see
Plancks constant applies only to carbon black. In the real world Black body radiation hardly ever exists that is why the Boltzman equations don’t work for the ocean or for radiative gases.
re: Dr Norman Page says:April 5, 2014 at 7:54 pm
..Plancks constant applies only to carbon black. In the real world Black body radiation hardly ever exists that is why the Boltzman equations don’t work for the ocean or for radiative gases.
Are you (or are others?) still ‘stuck’ on that aspect of the physics? Have you ever investigated IR spectroscopy? EM (Electro-magnetics) coupling/propagation (after radiation), the whole resonant molecule thing are beyond most ppl.
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To Peter Taylor,
You said: ” It is one thing to report (without detail, as the previous comment noted) that a potential report on cyclic climate change was sabotaged by the defenders of the ‘consensus’ but quite another to impugn the motives of Obama and the EPA with rants about them wanting to impoverish America for generations to come.”
He explained how and why it was done. For free and to only publish one thing only.
To your second point: I am not going to walk around on corn flakes afraid to call out my government and their mismanagement or failures, or their pandering for votes by pushing fake science.
Of course, this is the Alynski method: claim the other side is crazy so they back down and walk on cornflakes, shut up and, using your words, stop ranting and impugning.
Looks like you have fallen prey to the Alynski method.
In regards to DDT, PCB, Acid Rain, Lead in Petrol…and lead in paint, CFC, mercury….
we have actual measurements of the cause and effect and actual measurable outcomes when we took action on those items. Science.
c02 anthropomorphic climate change does not. No science.
BTW, we spent 40 years taking mercury out of the environment (measurable and proven) and the c02 anthropomorphic (not measured and not proven) put the mercury back in one year.